Not Worth Mentioning

I'm way more Laozi than him!

Murong Qing suddenly glanced sideways and said, "You wouldn't happen to envy Ying Zhou, would you?"

"How could that be! I wouldn't even look at those vulgar women; they only bring trouble upon themselves. Beauty friendship is about getting to know each other, not this kind of unattainable worship." Si Ming wouldn't stumble over something like that.

At that moment, another away team entered the field, and surprisingly, there was an acquaintance among them.

"Could that short girl be Nie Wanzhi? She actually participated in the Martial Arts School Tournament. Is an internal power struggle about to begin?"

Chapter 738 Not Worth Mentioning

The battles at the Martial Arts School Tournament were spectacular, completely different from the style of the Youth Martial Dao League. The various tactics employed were dazzling. Although a battle was often decided within ten minutes, every move contained combat wisdom. Even Si Ming watched with great interest, almost forgetting his mission.

The Youth Martial Dao League is an elimination system. Many opponents will be eliminated before you even encounter them, so studying them is not very useful. If you focus on collecting intelligence on all enemies, more than 90% of it will be useless. Therefore, so-called tactics are often impromptu or applied to your own routines, rather than being a calculated strategy against the enemy.

Since tactics play a minimal role, the competition relies more on brute force and skill. Furthermore, most young people disdain using tricks and prefer to prove themselves through fair and square battles. As a result, the matches in the Youth Martial Dao League are very positive and exciting to watch. Also, due to age limitations, the skill gap between the two sides is not very large, resulting in a variety of evenly matched and exciting battles.

In contrast, the Martial Arts School Tournament uses a points system, where each team has to play against each other twice a year, once at home and once away. This makes intelligence gathering very meaningful, and teams usually employ various restrictive tactics against their opponents. Some well-established martial arts teams even send out martial Cultivation Body with skills that counter the opponent's attributes.

With Si Ming's current martial arts Dao Realm, no change in the battle can escape his eyes. He can even predict the next move of both sides through the circulation of Qi.

In the same battle, he could see far more than the average viewer. Many viewers could only understand the meaning of the various moves used by the athletes through post-match expert analysis, but Si Ming saw it even more clearly than the experts. He found the dual game of skill and tactics very interesting and thought that he could watch the corresponding TV broadcasts in the future, after all, one can learn from others' experiences.

Ying Zhou was scheduled to fight in the third match, which indirectly proves his ace status in the team. Whether it's a one-shot strategy or a defensive strategy, the third battle is of paramount importance, playing a crucial role in laying the foundation for victory or turning the tide of the battle.

Most teams typically schedule their ace player for the third match, which is a common practice. However, some teams do the opposite, deliberately placing their weakest player in the third match to use a strategy similar to the story of Tian Ji's horse racing to eliminate the opponent's strongest piece. However, this is usually done by weaker teams, as it is tantamount to admitting that their ace player is inferior to the opponent's, which is very damaging to the team's morale and is a double-edged sword.

The internal strife that Si Ming feared did not materialize. Although Nie Wanzhi's strength was not bad, it was not enough to be her trump card. Perhaps half a year ago, her cultivation was similar to Ying Zhou's, and they could have fought each other. However, Ying Zhou went to the Northern Continent and his strength improved by leaps and bounds. The gap between them had widened, and they were no longer opponents of the same level, at least in the eyes of others. Therefore, the away team did not send Nie Wanzhi to face Ying Zhou. After all, Nie Wanzhi's strength was not weak, and it would be a pity to use her as a pawn.

The first match was won by the home team Tange Martial Arts Hall Alliance, which drew a wave of applause from the audience. In the second match, Nie Wanzhi took to the field, teaming up with another teammate for a doubles match.

Judging by her appearance and figure alone, Nie Wanzhi could easily be mistaken for an underage girl, which is why her appearance surprised many people.

It was already surprising that the Tange Martial Arts Hall Alliance had a newly adult Ying Zhou, but it was unexpected that the other side also had a young genius. Moreover, female martial artists are rare to begin with, and these two factors combined make Nie Wanzhi even more rare than Ying Zhou.

Women are naturally more likely to win favor, let alone seemingly delicate young girls. Some spectators even shouted for the home team's players to go easy on them, not to be too ruthless, and to show some tenderness, which elicited teasing whistles from a group of people.

These viewers were quickly proven wrong.

At the start of the match, Nie Wanzhi pressed forward relentlessly with her Whirlwind Leg Technique, combining her Swift Thunder Palm with her Lightning Tribulation Finger strikes to launch a series of lightning-fast attacks. Each move was accompanied by Blink of lightning and the sound of air being torn apart; her offensive was so fierce that it was overwhelming and dazzling to behold.

Nie Wanzhi's opponent was clearly caught off guard and fell into a disadvantageous position, retreating steadily. His teammates tried to help, but were tightly entangled by Nie Wanzhi's teammates and could not break free for a while.

In less than a minute, Nie Wanzhi unleashed a full three hundred moves, forcing her opponent to a corner of the ring, where he was about to fall off.

Seeing that the situation was hopeless and irreversible, her opponent roared and abandoned defense, launching a full-scale attack in an attempt to inflict heavy casualties on both sides and prevent his teammate from being caught in a pincer movement.

However, a golden light flashed across Nie Wanzhi's body, and a protective aura appeared, slightly slowing down her opponent's attack. Although it was quickly broken, the time she gained was enough. She swiftly struck out with both palms, solidly imprinting them on her opponent's chest. Instantly, lightning flashed and thunder roared, blasting the opponent far away, landing towards the audience seats, causing screams. Fortunately, the referee caught him midway.

After defeating her opponent, Nie Wanzhi did not immediately turn around to attack the remaining opponent. Instead, she chose to stay in place to recuperate. Although it was only a short minute, she had used all her strength in every move, which had consumed a lot of energy. She lost nearly half of her True Qi. In addition, the continuous clashes had also put a great burden on her body, so she had to relax her muscles.

The remaining player on the home team knew he had to hurry and defeat one person to avoid a two-on-one situation. However, Nie Wanzhi's teammates were the type who were good at defense. They used various methods of using softness to overcome hardness, borrowing force to deflect force, and drawing force into the ground to neutralize the attack. If the opponent tried to abandon him to ambush Nie Wanzhi, they would immediately stick to her like glue.

Arrange for a martial artist skilled in quick attacks and another skilled in close combat, with the former quickly defeating the weaker opponent and then joining forces to attack the remaining one. This is a very common tactic in two-person combat.

The best way to counter this tactic is to have your two warriors stick close together or use a combined attack, preventing the opponent from picking you off one by one.

But it's too late to say all this now. Tactics in this world are inherently mutually restraining. The same tactics can be invincible in the hands of some people, but they are just empty talk for another group of people.

Once Nie Wanzhi recovered, the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt. Not to mention that two fists can't fight four hands, even if there were experts in the main team who could fight two against one, they would only be arranged to fight one-on-one, and would not be wasted in a two-on-one battle.

However, the home team's players were quite resilient, holding out for five minutes under the combined attack of two players before their momentum was broken and they were forced to leave the field, eliciting a sigh of regret from the audience, but also encouraging applause.

After watching the entire match, Si Ming commented, "Nie Wanzhi's practical combat skills have improved considerably. It seems she's participated in quite a few similar arena battles recently. However, this has also made her somewhat more formulaic; she's been limited by so-called tactics."

No matter how much the organizers of martial arts competitions claim that they are close to real combat, they are ultimately very different from real combat. Real combat is not limited by time, location, or number of participants. Even though arena competitions solve the location problem by randomly selecting terrain, there are still two major variables: timing and the number of participants.

Ultimately, the foundation of a tournament is fairness. It's impossible for one team to send two players while the other sends three, nor is it permissible for one side to launch a sneak attack while the other is eating or resting. In real combat, one often needs to create favorable conditions for oneself, and poisoning, setting up formations, and ganging up are common tactics. Fairness is not even considered. The two are fundamentally at odds and are destined to be different.

People who frequently participate in ring battles often fail to perform at their normal level in actual combat, and their adaptability is also generally poor. This is because they are used to preparing mentally before a battle and listening to the coach's tactical analysis. Once these two things are lost, they are prone to panic and make mistakes. This is especially serious for martial artists who frequently participate in two-person battles, because they are used to cooperating with their teammates and are easily put into trouble when fighting alone.

Of course, most people don't need to consider this issue. If you're not good at real combat, so be it. Anyway, most people won't encounter a critical real combat situation. If the strength of the two sides is significantly different, this impact will be insignificant.

But Si Ming couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Nie Wanzhi. It was as if she could have become an actress, but instead became an idol star.

Murong Qing said, "You've forgotten, haven't you? Her family owes a lot of money, she must have participated in the Martial Arts School Tournament to pay off her debts."

"I almost forgot about that," Si Ming recalled. "I think it was 80 million. If you include all my royalties so far, that should be enough."

Murong Qing her head and said, "She won't ask you for it. Precisely because she knows you will do everything in your power to help, she's even less likely to ask."

Si Ming could understand this idea. Any martial artist with dignity would make the same decision unless they were unable to pay off their debts on their own and had to bow down for the sake of their family. But now that Nie Wanzhi was capable of paying off her debts on her own, she wouldn't ask others for help.

Martial artists earn similar incomes to, or even slightly more than, those of football players on Earth. With Nie Wanzhi's current level, while she may not receive the treatment of a superstar, earning several million a year is not a problem. Once her strength improves and she becomes the team's ace, working for two or three years will be enough to pay off all her debts.

Murong Qing continued, "Actually, this matter is also a kind of tempering for Nie Wanzhi. The experience of struggling to survive under the heavy burden of debt will become a valuable asset in her life. When she pays off her debts, her character will likely have undergone a breakthrough."

Before Si Ming could agree, Hongdou blinked and asked curiously, "Is 80 million a lot?"

Si Ming was speechless, looking at the girl beside him. He almost forgot that she was a billionaire. Although she didn't sell a single painting for tens of millions of dollars, her annual income was easily over a hundred million. This was because in the art world, works by living people are always cheaper than those by dead people.

Perhaps she could act as a go-between. Nie Wanzhi refused to borrow money from Si Ming and the others because she felt they couldn't afford it, and even if they managed to scrape together the money, it would be a huge burden. She didn't want to drag her companions down with her.

But if the money issue is just a small favor in the eyes of a friend, Nie Wanzhi would probably be willing to accept such help. It's just a matter of changing the debtor, not much difference, but the meaning is completely different. At least she wouldn't have to calculate how much money she still needs to pay before going to bed every day.

However, this defeats the purpose of the training, depriving him of the opportunity to break through his mental barriers. For a moment, Si Ming was caught in a dilemma, unsure whether he should help.

Just as they were hesitating, a burst of enthusiastic cheers erupted in the stadium. It was the start of the third match, and Ying Zhou was making his official entrance.