Fierce Martial City

[Anchoring to reality...]

[Anchoring complete. Reality Channel 0375 established.]

[Ash Zone opened.]

The same three lines as when he had first entered the Ash Zone.

Reality 0375 seemed to refer to the planet Xia Lin had transmigrated to.

Or perhaps... this plane?

He couldn't figure it out...

[Ash Zone Walker, welcome back to the Ash Zone.]

[Current Ash Zone: S-rank, Fierce Martial City, large-scale, comprehensive type.]

[Note: Equipment and items not obtained from an Ash Zone cannot be brought into an Ash Zone.]

[You have been identified as the Indeterminate Shadow. You have one minute to adjust your skill slots.]

Xia Lin had nothing he wanted to change.

The three skills in his constant skill slots were Backstab, A Thousand Li Apart at Parting, and Rapid Nourishment.

All three skills were useful. There was no need to mutate them further.

He waited for a minute, and a bright light suddenly flashed before Xia Lin's eyes.

When he opened them again, he found himself in a shabby studio apartment.

The apartment was small, only about twenty square meters. A bathroom, a bed, a wardrobe, a refrigerator, an old color TV, and Xia Lin himself were all it contained.

After a quick look around, Xia Lin fixed his gaze on the color TV, its screen full of static.

The static swirled rapidly, forming lines of conspicuous text!

[Welcome to Fierce Martial City!]

[Nuclear war did not destroy this world. Instead, it freed the world from its shackles and gave it new life.]

[Huaxin Technology, Aoluosi Pharmaceuticals, and the Suzuki Consortium divided up the old world's power and established a new order.]

[The three parties signed an agreement, deciding to settle disputes and divide their interests through martial arts.]

[Thus, the Fierce Martial Bout Arena was born!]

[This is a reality where martial arts and technology have fused perfectly. Martial artists who have surpassed human limits and humanoid monsters altered by technology and warped by genetics compete in the Fierce Martial Bout Arena for the title of Fierce Martial King!]

[There is power, wealth, strength, countless powerful fighters, and hot blood.]

[But the question is, who do you fight for?]

[Ash Zone duration: one month.]

[Sequence 43 authorization detected. Ash Zone duration extended to: three months!]

[The current Ash Zone's main quest has been issued.]

[Main quest: Fierce Martial Bout Arena!]

[Fierce Martial Bout Arena: Enter the Fierce Martial Bout Arena and complete three Savage Martial Arena matches of any level.]

[Quest reward: 200 Ash Zone Points.]

[Failure penalty: all attributes -1.]

[Note: After completing the main quest, you may choose to return at any time, or remain in the Ash Zone and continue exploring until its duration ends.]

[Clearance quest: not triggered.]

[Side quest: not triggered.]

[Your spirit attribute has reached or exceeded the level-one limit. Advancement quest issued.]

[Advancement quest: Kill any creature with a single attribute exceeding 10 points.]

[Quest reward: Advancement to level two, attribute cap unlocked, second skill slot unlocked.]

The notifications ended there. Xia Lin considered them carefully and grinned.

"Good news and bad news."

The good news was that the advancement quest was very simple...

From Xia Lin's inquiries, he had also learned that none of the advancement quests for an Ash Zone Walker's first five levels were difficult. They were practically freebies.

Whether they were freebies wasn't the issue.

The issue was attributes.

To receive an advancement quest, one had to have an attribute reach its limit.

Apart from limit-breaking skills, attributes could also be purchased with Ash Zone Points, but they couldn't be raised beyond the limit that way.

And in the Ash Zone Shop, one attribute point cost 500 points!

That was the bad news Xia Lin had mentioned.

The rewards for Ash Zone main quests were as stingy as ever.

The first Ash Zone's main quest had given him 100 points, and this one gave him 200.

The rewards from both Ash Zones combined weren't enough to buy a single attribute point...

As for the Portable Space Xia Lin had been longing for—the means by which Li Peipei, Xie Xiaotian, and the others produced weapons and equipment out of thin air—it cost 1,000 points, even further beyond his means.

To earn more Ash Zone Points, or obtain important items or high-level skills, he would need to uncover side quests or even attempt to clear an Ash Zone.

The former had unknown risks and rewards, while the latter offered tremendous rewards but was unimaginably difficult!

If an Ash Zone Walker managed to clear an Ash Zone of any level, it was something he could brag about for the rest of his life.

"Forget it. I'll stop thinking about that for now."

Xia Lin scratched his head and made a request in his mind.

"I'd like to spend 50 Ash Zone Points to purchase currency for this Ash Zone."

Before each Ash Zone began, an Ash Zone Walker could spend Ash Zone Points from their reserves to buy necessary supplies.

For example, local currency, or even a starting identity in the Ash Zone.

The latter was extremely expensive. At the very least, the current Xia Lin couldn't afford it.

And the exchange only went one way. There was no exchanging an Ash Zone's local currency for Ash Zone Points.

But starting capital was essential.

A system notification sounded.

[Request successful. You have received 500,000 credits.]

[Note: The average monthly salary in Fierce Martial City is 3,000 credits.]

Xia Lin sighed in satisfaction.

The purchasing power of Ash Zone Points was nothing to scoff at.

He got up and looked through the miscellaneous items in the apartment.

Xia Lin soon took an ID card out of his pocket.

[Name: Xia Lin. Citizen number: XXXX...]

It served as both an ID card and a bank card in Fierce Martial City, and it was also the starting identity the Ash Zone System had arranged for Xia Lin.

An unemployed drifter who had just lost his job and had no savings.

But now Xia Lin had 500,000 in savings.

So he took out his phone, opened the map, and entered a search.

[Martial arts schools]

An intelligent voice spoke from the phone.

[4,031 martial arts schools detected in Fierce Martial City. The closest to you is...]

"No, no, no."

The smile on Xia Lin's face grew increasingly perverse.

"I want the locations of every martial arts school in the city."

"Every single one!"

Thanks to the influence of the Fierce Martial Bout Arena, martial arts flourished in the Fierce Martial Metropolis Ash Zone, and there were a staggering number of martial arts schools.

They ranged from sanda classes to advanced competition classes and then to top-tier martial arts schools aimed at the Fierce Martial Bout Arena. The top-tier schools were further divided into different branches, including traditional martial arts, new martial arts, and Mechanical Martial Arts.

Though Xia Lin wanted the locations of every school, he still had to be selective.

Ordinary fighting classes didn't catch Xia Lin's eye.

His targets were the top-tier martial arts schools!

Most of these schools had financial conglomerates backing them, and their heads were also likely to be famous figures who had successfully walked away from the Fierce Martial Bout Arena.

And these martial arts schools served one important purpose: supplying Fierce Martial Arts fighters to their backers.

Fierce Martial Arts fighters were martial artists whose goal was to enter the Fierce Martial Bout Arena.

They received the schools' true teachings and all-around support from the conglomerates, so they inevitably had to give something in return.

What they gave was their fighting strength, and even their lives.

Flying cars shuttled ceaselessly through the cityscape of towering buildings.

Xia Lin sat on a bus, watching the screen of its onboard TV.

On the screen, two Fierce Martial Arts fighters fought a desperate battle to the death, spraying blood in a display of violent aesthetics.

Their punches and kicks were fast and heavy; their strength, agility, and constitution attributes were all at least above 10.

Yet in the Fierce Martial Bout Arena as a whole, fighters of this caliber were just nobodies, beneath notice.

They were fighting in the lowest tier of Savage Martial Arena matches, too.

The fight ended with one dead and the other crippled.

The North Wind Martial Arts School won, and the North Wind Consortium gained mining rights to Mine No. 351 in the West District for the next three years.

This was the Savage Martial Arena.

Its mortality rate was over fifty percent.

These were the rules established by the three major consortiums.

The distribution of interests was decided by victory or defeat in the Savage Martial Arena.

These were Fierce Martial Arts fighters.

They fought and died for the conglomerates behind them.

This was Fierce Martial City!