Super Archer

After waiting a few more minutes, the five of them had already shot three rounds of arrows and finally started to feel tired.

Four of them stepped away from their positions and sat down to rest.

Seeing this, the staff stationed at the training range brought over prepared drinks. The four of them and the newcomer all got one, except Lan Mu.

"Tch..."

Lan Mu was about to say something, but suddenly shut his mouth.

Even though he had not asked, the staff member deliberately reminded him, "Sorry, since you're not a member, you don't get a special drink. Please understand."

Fuck! I knew it! I didn't even ask, yet you had to say it out loud. You clearly want me to buy a membership! I refuse!

Lan Mu pretended not to hear, but he was embarrassed as hell.

Seeing this, the newcomer smiled faintly and pushed his drink toward Lan Mu. Then he said, "Please bring me another one."

The staff member froze for a moment, then had no choice but to prepare another, since this man was a Senior VIP with unlimited drinks and snacks.

Lan Mu glanced sideways at him through his sunglasses. The man was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, dressed in branded casual wear. Judging by his bearing, he was either a well-bred rich man or a highly paid white-collar professional, like a lawyer or professional manager.

"Thanks, but I don't need it." With that, Lan Mu picked up the Shark recurve bow he had selected earlier and walked straight toward the shooting line.

"Haha." The young man laughed and followed, stopping beside Lan Mu. As he took out his own bow, he said, "This is a drink specially made by Forest Club. It's not only delicious, but it also quickly restores stamina. It's exclusively for members. Archery practice consumes a lot of energy, so this drink is very useful."

Lan Mu smiled as well. He nocked an arrow, drew the bow, and fired in one fluid motion. With a whoosh, the arrow struck the center of the elevated target fifty meters away.

This bow really was pretty good. With an elf's talent, he found the feel for it in an instant.

Only then did Lan Mu say, "If you hold your bow forever without shooting and keep dawdling, of course it burns stamina."

The young man froze, then clapped and laughed. "So you're the practical type..."

"The practical type?" Lan Mu was startled.

The young man explained, "Since competitions are divided into exhibition events and competitive events, most members who come here learn exhibition archery. They pursue the ultimate archery posture, aiming for beauty and rhythm. These friends are here to train endurance. With compound bows, it's easy to hit the bullseye on fixed targets at this range, so no one in the small training range chases scores. As long as people focus, they can easily get high scores."

"So you were training endurance!" Lan Mu understood at last, realizing he had misunderstood.

Then he asked, "What about competitive events?"

"Competitive events are much stricter. There's a time limit for each shot, and an arrow can take no more than twenty seconds. The distances are fifty and seventy meters. A friend of mine is a professional club archer, and he competes in seventy-meter ranking events. Such archers pursue accuracy. Their targets are far away, so aiming within twenty seconds is very difficult. On top of that, they have to account for wind direction outdoors. To shoot accurately, they need a lot of practice."

After hearing the explanation, Lan Mu was dumbfounded. Was seventy meters really that far?

He assessed it silently. The fixed target fifty meters away was suspended high near the ceiling, so its actual distance from him was probably nearly sixty meters. He had just fired in one smooth motion and instantly hit the bullseye. It had not felt difficult at all.

"By the way, you said I'm the practical type. Isn't that a competition category?"

The young man said, "Bows and arrows were originally created for hunting and war. The practical type naturally pursues usefulness, not putting on a show for others or earning points from judges. It pursues results and lethality. Fast, accurate, and ruthless—that's the goal of practical archery."

"There aren't any official competitions for that at the club. But when outdoor hunting events are organized, plenty of practical archers participate. Their usual training methods involve moving targets, balloons, clay discs, and the like."

Lan Mu nodded. He understood now. Most people practiced various shooting techniques and postures, playing at elegance.

Competitive archers trained for precision, shooting at fifty and seventy meters.

Practical archers, meanwhile, hunted. Their posture did not necessarily have to be standard or beautiful, but they had to be fast, accurate, and ruthless. They simply did not play with fixed targets like these.

"That's right. I'm the practical type!"

After saying that, Lan Mu drew another arrow, pulled the bow to full draw, and fired. It hit the bullseye again.

Seeing Lan Mu hit the fifty-meter bullseye once more, the others applauded.

One shot could be dismissed as luck or an exceptional performance, but hitting the bullseye twice in a row was skill.

The young man said as well, "Impressive. You could absolutely enter the fifty-meter elimination event."

Lan Mu smiled. "I'm not done yet."

As he spoke, his hands did not stop. He drew another arrow and fired it at incredible speed. Bullseye again! Still at fifty meters.

The young man froze and said nothing.

Everyone watched Lan Mu. His hands never paused as one arrow followed another, every single one worth ten points.

And he became faster and faster. At first, drawing an arrow took quite some time, but by the fifth arrow, he was already familiar with the quiver.

From drawing the arrow to nocking it, drawing to full draw, aiming, firing, and striking the bullseye, the entire sequence took only two seconds!

The people who had been leisurely sipping drinks while resting all stood up to watch him. Even the person at position one, who had been slowly preparing his breathing, lowered his bow and stared.

The young man was right beside him, watching Lan Mu's right hand move at terrifying speed—and the speed was still increasing!

"So fast! Too fast!"

"Yeah! He isn't resting at all. Every arrow is faster than the last!"

"Could this be the legendary Chain Shot?"

"Of course not. In a Chain Shot, the next arrow is fired while the previous one is still in flight."

"Oh, then this is pretty close!"

"Yeah! Fast and accurate! Those are elevated fifty-meter targets! Could he be one of the club's top archers?"

"No, the staff didn't even give him a drink earlier. He isn't even a member!"

No one else kept practicing. They all watched him alone. Not only did he ignore professional posture while shooting, he became more and more relaxed.

At first, Lan Mu merely swayed while shooting. Later, he simply started walking as he shot!

He fired at an angle! He shot while moving sideways! He even shot while walking backward!

Lan Mu had already reached the chairs in the resting area. He deliberately backed up another three meters, creating three extra meters of difficulty for himself.

He did not just shoot his own target—he shot other people's targets too, completely ignoring the rules.

Yet without exception, every shot hit a fifty-meter target!

To Lan Mu, fifty meters was at least somewhat interesting. Anything closer was child's play, so easy that he had no desire to even aim.

Several exhibition-style members felt ashamed. Before this practical archer, whose rapid fire was almost a Chain Shot, even the smooth motion of drawing and nocking had a unique beauty—far more beautiful than their own slow, carefully posed shooting.

However, that fluid shooting soon came to a stop, because Lan Mu's quiver was empty.

The young man was the first to applaud, his eyes shining as he stared at Lan Mu.

Twenty arrows had been fired in half a minute, and every one had hit the bullseye.

He had never seen anyone in the entire club achieve such skill. Lan Mu could be called a master archer.

"Another quiver!" Lan Mu was still unsatisfied. He had emptied a quiver of arrows and was forced to stop, yet he had not had enough fun.

The young man and the exhibition archers all came over and handed him their quivers.

Lan Mu hung quivers from his waist and back, took a deep breath, and began another barrage of super-fast shots!

This time, his speed remained steady at one arrow every two seconds, while he constantly changed his direction.

Every arrow struck an arrow shaft, snapping all the arrows he had previously embedded in the targets.

The spectators were dumbfounded. Even the staff members were stunned. They did not care about the arrows being ruined one after another; they simply watched Lan Mu's astonishing performance with shining eyes.

Thus, a group of people stood beside him, holding quivers and feeding Lan Mu arrows.

As Lan Mu rapidly shot the arrow shafts, the sound rang out: "Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!"

"Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack..."

A series of arrow shafts breaking at a steady rhythm echoed out. Each sound meant Lan Mu had snapped another arrow.

After shooting every arrow from the targets, Lan Mu began trying different tricks.

The more he practiced, the more excited he became. With hundreds of arrows for him to play with, he could experiment with all kinds of arrow techniques that had previously existed only in his imagination.

"Let's try Natural Power!"

Suddenly, an arrow flew from Lan Mu's hand. From the moment it left the bow, it felt different from all the others.

It was as if the arrow had pierced through air resistance, its speed surpassing every arrow Lan Mu had fired before.

Before the previous arrow even reached the target, it caught up and struck its fletching dead-on.

Bang! The arrow ahead exploded from the impact.

The latter arrow passed through the splintered wood and struck the bullseye.

It sank more than a foot into the bullseye, clearly piercing straight through the target!

"Gasp!"

The spectators stared at Lan Mu as if they were witnessing a myth. This was a true Chain Shot from start to finish!

And it was one arrow catching another and blasting it apart... Explosive Consecutive Arrows!

Was this really archery?

These members had been shooting arrows for so long, yet they had never seen such a monstrous archer!

The young man was even more shocked. As a Senior VIP, he had participated in quite a few outdoor activities with the club's archers.

He had seen true practical archers. They were indeed impressive, but even when shooting moving targets or hunting prey, they were not this monstrous!

He had seen fast archers! But their accuracy was poor, and none were as fast as Lan Mu. One arrow catching another, both fired at full draw—how was that possible?

He had also seen accurate archers, but they lacked speed. They usually needed time to aim and had to account for things like wind direction.

But none of them could possibly be as accurate as Lan Mu. And Lan Mu had been shooting while moving earlier. Moving himself was much harder than having the target move, since he also had to calculate the effects of arm tremors and body sway.

"A Super Archer! If this guy competed in the Olympics, he'd definitely sweep every gold medal!"

The young man could not calm his racing thoughts for a long time. He had never expected to encounter such a godlike figure in this small training range just because he had come by to kill time.

Seeing their reactions, Lan Mu knew he had gone a little too far. By accident, he had displayed even legendary archery techniques.

No, I need to leave now!

While they were still in shock, Lan Mu hurriedly grabbed his bow, ran out of the training range, and headed to the front desk.

"Sir, are you done trying it out? How did it feel?"

There was not much business at the counter. The clerk had been playing on her phone, but she quickly put it away when she saw Lan Mu emerge.

Lan Mu directly took out his bank card. "I'll take it—the set. Also, I want three quivers and sixty arrows in total."

"Uh! All right!" The clerk happily prepared the Shark set for him.

But at that moment, the young man had recovered from his shock. He rushed out of the training range after Lan Mu, with the other five following behind him.

"Miss, let's get acquainted?"

"My name is Du Yu. You're amazing. Can we be friends?"

The young man was brimming with enthusiasm, completely failing to notice Lan Mu's dark expression or the clerk's strange look.

He continued talking to himself.

"This is my phone number, 133..."