The smile on the fat man's face froze instantly.
Xu Ziming was so fast, it was as if he himself had become the sword.
What a fierce attack speed! What a ferocious aura!
He had no time to think. He hurriedly raised the long saber in his hands, ready to block.
Xu Ziming had already reached him from above. He suddenly raised the longsword in his hands, gathering all his strength into a single point, then thrust it downward at the fat man's heart in the simplest possible way.
"Pfft!"
The sound of the blade piercing his heart rang out, followed by a spray of steaming blood.
"Basic Sword Method?"
The fat man managed only a single groan. The next second, his entire body turned into a mass of data and vanished from the space.
A one-hit kill!
Xu Ziming sheathed his sword and stood where he was, his martial arts uniform fluttering in the breeze.
[Ranked victory, overall rating: S, rank points +100, current rank: Black Iron II, 0 points, please keep up the good work]
Thanks to Xu Ziming's near-overwhelming offense, his first match had earned him a great many points. He had advanced straight through a minor tier and reached Black Iron II.
But he didn't linger. He quickly started matchmaking for the next match.
In the second match, his opponent was a burly man who wielded a staff. His overall strength was far greater than that of the fat man, but he was too clumsy. Xu Ziming's nimble attacks left him full of openings, and he was sent packing in about two minutes.
This time, though, he gained only 45 points. It seemed he would need many more battles to reach the next tier.
The next opponent was a fighter who specialized in leg techniques. He leaped around the arena, moving with great agility, but during one clash, Xu Ziming cut through his Achilles tendons as well, and he naturally went down in defeat.
He gained 53 ranked points.
The third match was also against a swordsman. Halfway through the fight, the man's sword suddenly turned traitor, as though surrendering, and stabbed its own master.
He gained 42 ranked points, officially reaching Black Iron I.
The [Natural Sword Bone] was incredible. It could actually make the swords in other people's hands obey him temporarily during battle. That was downright terrifying.
"Looks like I should make a point of practicing with all the common weapons. Once I permanently lock in these traits, who could possibly beat me?"
Thinking this, he pressed the button to start matchmaking again.
The fourth match began, and his opponent's figure appeared before him.
Xu Ziming suddenly realized that something seemed different.
The man stood nine feet tall, and with that beard, he didn't look like he was from the Xia Kingdom. His entire left arm was a heavy mechanized gun.
Violet flames continually spewed around the heavy machine gun, and its parts occasionally turned with a clacking sound.
"Is this guy cheating? Why are there firearms in here?"
More importantly, the Life Energy Level above his head no longer began with a 3. It read 4.6.
He had the strength to stand among the Five Great Spirit Academies, yet he looked like a middle-aged man.
"Looks like the opponents were weak earlier only because my rank was low. At this rate, I'll probably need Martial Artist-level strength to reach the next rank."
"A Xia Kingdomer? Come on, let's see if I can blast you to death with a storm of bullets!"
The burly man's face was alight with excitement. The system had automatically translated his words into Chinese, but from the shape of his mouth, he seemed to be from the Eagle Kingdom.
As soon as the battle began, Xu Ziming charged forward with his longsword, hoping to seize the initiative with his speed, just as he had in the previous matches.
But things didn't go as he wished. His opponent unleashed a deluge of bullets almost at the same time. In the real world, firing bullets meant worrying about collateral damage.
Here, all he had to consider was whether they hit.
And so the heavy machine gun's barrage barely let up. It spewed violet flames as it fired furiously at the advancing Xu Ziming.
"Clang, clang, clang!" Xu Ziming kept swinging his sword as he pressed through the hail of bullets, but his speed slowed considerably.
Seeing this, he had no choice but to change his tactics. He stopped charging headlong and instead circled the man from the Eagle Kingdom like a cool-headed hunter.
The instant the heavy machine gun ran out of ammunition, before his opponent could even reload, Xu Ziming bared his fangs and sprang forward like a lion sighting its prey on the grassland.
His longsword pointed straight at the burly man.
As soon as he got close, Xu Ziming thrust his longsword directly toward the man's chest. But just as the blade was about to pierce him, a huge bomb suddenly appeared on his chest.
The man from the Eagle Kingdom grinned, then placed both hands on the bomb and gave it a gentle twist.
"Boom!"
A massive explosion erupted. Xu Ziming's entire arm was blown to pieces, and he landed dozens of meters away, coughing up blood.
The hundred-percent pain almost swallowed his will. Just lying there, he felt as if he were suffocating.
At the center of the explosion, the burly man's flesh had been completely destroyed, yet a huge mechanical frame still stood in the distance.
"Hahaha, looks like I win!"
Even with his mouth in tatters, he could still speak. But he hadn't noticed that fragments of the sword were lodged beside his heavy machine gun and bones.
"Wrong. You lost."
Xu Ziming used the last of his strength. At a thought from him, the fragments tore through the Eagle Kingdom man's skin and plunged straight into his head, churning his brains to mush.
"Ahhh!"
After a violent howl, the outcome was finally decided.
[Victory, ranked points +43, current rank: Black Iron I (promotion imminent, confirm entry into the promotion match?)]
"Continue!"
Xu Ziming's body had completely recovered. Riding the determination his recent victory had given him, he started another ranked match.
But this time, he lost—and lost completely!
His opponent's ID was "Angry Haki-mi." As soon as they entered the arena, Xu Ziming could see the Life Energy Level displayed above his head: "4.9."
And after his Life Energy Level came his rank. The rank field clearly read Silver.
"So the promotion match requires me to defeat a Silver Rank opponent?"
Xu Ziming cursed under his breath, then raised his sword and faced his opponent seriously.
"Hm? Black Iron? This is your promotion match, isn't it?"
Angry Haki-mi regarded Xu Ziming with interest, his spear already raised.
After saying this, he didn't attack. He simply stood there, waiting for Xu Ziming to make the first move, as if there were no need to exert himself against a Black Iron opponent.
"No, I have to beat him."
Xu Ziming thought it over, then immediately moved in beside Angry Haki-mi.
But no matter how skilled Xu Ziming was with the Basic Sword Method, he couldn't break through his opponent's near-perfect defense. Instead, his strength gave out, and the man seized his chance to knock him flying.
If the Eagle Kingdom man had caught him off guard when he was sent flying earlier, this time Xu Ziming had truly been outmatched.
He had lost in martial technique. His opponent had clearly reached a realm beyond Martial Force!
That knock into the air turned offense and defense on their heads. Haki-mi, who had been purely defending, swept his spear into an attack and charged in, giving Xu Ziming no chance to catch his breath.
By the time the spear pierced his virtual body, he hadn't managed to land a single effective attack.
"Phew—I can't keep fighting."
He withdrew, and a line of text appeared before him.
[Would you like to view the replay of your defeat?]