The morning sun slowly rose, rays of light spilling into the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
Inside the martial arts hall's lounge.
Before Lin Qi could even sit up from his bed, ten neatly lined-up figures were already standing by the bedside. Ten heads surrounded the bed, twenty eyes staring fixedly at Lin Qi. No one spoke. Their exhausted, bloodshot eyes were filled with excitement and anticipation.
"Are you... trying to play doctor or something?" Lin Qi looked at the ten heads in his field of vision and suddenly felt that all the insomnia he had suffered these past few days had been completely cured.
"Dojo Master, the task you assigned has been completed." Fang Zhen looked at the awake Lin Qi, his face full of urgency. "Now we're just waiting for your inspection."
"Alright, you seven newcomers can report your own numbers." Lin Qi got up and swept his gaze over the seven newcomers drenched in sweat. Clearly, they still had not adapted to this kind of high-intensity underground work.
"We report our own numbers?" Outlander Gunslinger was somewhat surprised. "Is that okay?"
Although everything they had done was surely under the system's surveillance, and normally no one could escape an NPC's control, he had heard Twilight of the Gods say before that this NPC was a little foolish.
If someone falsely reported their cleared area and the NPC actually believed it, then all their hard work from the night would have been for nothing.
The temptation of the two martial arts manuals Lin Qi had produced this time was simply too great. Originally, everyone had agreed to slack off together and fool Lin Qi, but that plan had been completely discarded. The ten of them had split directly into three teams, and each team had its own ideas.
In particular, the other four newcomers had formed one team. All four were ordinary players who had previously played different virtual games. They had only preordered High Martial Descent because it claimed to be 100% virtual, and they had been lucky enough to get selected.
Originally, these people had planned to coast along with the professional players. But once the martial arts manuals appeared, their thoughts changed. They believed that even if the Mecha Squad and Pilgrimage Squad obtained the manuals, they would not be willing to let them learn them anytime soon. Not to mention that both teams had experts, and their progress in High Martial Descent was rapid. By then, they would be even harder to catch up to.
So the four joined forces. With one more person, they had a strong chance of taking first place. Then they could learn martial arts one step ahead of those two teams.
Because of this, the competition between the three teams had been incredibly fierce. They had not rested at all for twelve hours. Whenever their stamina could no longer keep up, they simply died and revived. That instantly restored their stamina to full—a downright bug-like tactic, though it cost quite a bit of money.
Over the course of one night, the three members of the Mecha Squad had each died at least ten times. Even for professional players like them, that was no small burden.
If they failed to get a martial arts manual in the end, then they would have been eating this month's steamed buns for nothing.
"There's nothing wrong with that. If your numbers are false, at worst you'll be expelled from the martial arts hall." Lin Qi merely smiled at the worried Outlander Gunslinger. "Alright, you seven newcomers, report your numbers."
Checking the amount of energy land these players had cleared would take far too much time. Besides, no one knew better than the players themselves exactly how much they had cleared.
All he needed to do was wield his authority. He believed no player would be so hard-headed as to choose to miss the express lane into the world of high martial arts.
And just as Lin Qi had expected, when the ten people present heard the word "expelled," their expressions grew much more serious, especially the seven newcomers who had just arrived.
Before entering High Martial Descent, they had only thought it was, at most, a game with a somewhat higher degree of virtual realism.
But after truly entering it, they finally understood.
This was a god-tier masterpiece! It would definitely explode across the globe in the future!
And High Martial Descent was currently undergoing its trial test. There had been no mention of a data wipe for this test, which meant that everything they accumulated in High Martial Descent would remain. This was the best possible chance to get ahead of other players. Only a fool would let it slip away.
The group immediately began reporting their numbers.
"73 square meters!"
"1 square meter!"
"1 square meter!"
"1 square meter!"
The members of the four-person team each proudly reported their numbers. In particular, the young man at the lead, One Leaf Floating Cloud, possessed an imposing bearing and an air of nobility. He looked even younger than Twilight of the Gods, no more than eighteen at most, yet he had become the center of the four-person team.
"You cleared that much in one night?" Lin Qi clicked his tongue in amazement.
Setting aside the issue of how the underground energy map was distributed, it should have been impossible for four people to dig out seventy-six square meters in one night under normal circumstances. Fang Zhen and the others had dug like mad before and only managed twelve or thirteen square meters in one night. Yet these four were complete newcomers, and each had dug nineteen square meters in one night. It was practically inhuman.
As for the other three newcomers reporting one square meter each, they were probably worried that failing to complete the task would bring punishment, so they had used one square meter to brush it off. Otherwise, the other three would definitely have given all their results to one person.
"Damn! How many times did they die?" Twilight of the Gods looked at the four-person team and felt that these people were ridiculously wealthy.
The only way for newcomers to average nineteen square meters of energy land each in one night was to die whenever they got tired. They had probably died at least twenty or thirty times over the night. Altogether, the four of them had died more than a hundred times, equivalent to spending more than a hundred 648s.
"So this is the power of money?"
The moment Lin Qi heard Twilight of the Gods' words, he understood. His heart filled with shock.
This four-person team had actually used money to exploit the system's bug. In some ways, players like them were even more powerful than professional players like Fang Zhen.
"Not bad. No wonder you four disdained joining forces with us after achieving results like that." Luo Wu Shang smiled. "Unfortunately, we'll be the ones who win this competition!"
Zhang Qingwei nodded as well and stated directly, "78 square meters!"
"How is that possible?" One Leaf Floating Cloud looked at Zhang Qingwei in disbelief.
To make absolutely certain that they obtained a martial arts manual, he had made the four of them revive over and over. In a sense, that was already the limit of what the four could clear in one night.
The Pilgrimage Squad only had three people. Even with experts overseeing it, they should not have been able to surpass them.
"You spent quite a bit of time hauling dirt, didn't you?" Twilight of the Gods could not help but say with a grin.
"You... could it be..." One Leaf Floating Cloud instantly understood.
The most troublesome part of underground clearing was hauling dirt. At least one person had to carry it away at all times, sometimes even two. Otherwise, digging was pointless.
"Unfortunately, you came later than us. When I was digging a tunnel before, I found a huge crack deep underground. We practically don't need to haul dirt to the surface." Twilight of the Gods explained.
"My defeat was no injustice." One Leaf Floating Cloud could not help but admire Twilight of the Gods. As expected of the man who could exploit bugs in an NPC like Lin Qi.
"And you?" Lin Qi looked toward Fang Zhen's group.
Although the result had already been decided, as an NPC, he still had to ask.
"I'm no good. I only have one square meter." Peerless One Shot waved a hand and smiled.
"I have 84 square meters." Outlander Gunslinger revealed a smug smile.
"84 square meters? How did you manage that?" Twilight of the Gods looked at Outlander Gunslinger in surprise.
Although Outlander Gunslinger's group had Fang Zhen, an old hand at clearing, leading them, there was no way they could have dug faster than his own group. As for that enormous crack, he had not told anyone else about it.
"It was nothing, just good luck. While digging, I accidentally broke into a small tunnel. That tunnel wasn't contaminated, and its energy was dense. It was about forty-two square meters." Outlander Gunslinger said with a smile. "That tunnel doesn't count as cheating on my part. I dug into it myself, and the rules never said I had to dig everything by hand. They only said to clear energy land."
"Damn! You actually ran into something like that?" Twilight of the Gods was left speechless.
They had not lost to money. They had lost to luck. There was nothing to argue about, since the rules truly had not said the land had to be dug out personally.
"Alright, the rankings are settled. Choose one of these two martial arts manuals." Lin Qi was in an excellent mood. They had cleared over two hundred square meters of energy land in one night. That efficiency was far faster than planting out in the wilderness.
"Then I'll choose..." Outlander Gunslinger looked at the two martial arts manuals in Lin Qi's hands and reached for Crushing Stone Fist.
For a man, nothing was more alluring than increasing his strength.
"Gunslinger, don't choose that one! Choose Leopard Shadow Steps!" Fang Zhen saw Outlander Gunslinger reaching for Crushing Stone Fist and immediately shouted anxiously.
"Leopard Shadow Steps?" Outlander Gunslinger looked at Fang Zhen in confusion, unable to understand what he meant.
"Are you stupid?" Fang Zhen said irritably. "What do you think is the most troublesome part of clearing land?"
After digging dirt for an entire night, Outlander Gunslinger almost instinctively answered, "Hauling dirt?"
"Exactly. Once we learn Leopard Shadow Steps, our speed will soar by a huge margin. Not only will it increase the efficiency of hauling dirt, we can also use it to train Leopard Shadow Steps. Killing two birds with one arrow—don't be foolish." Fang Zhen nodded, wearing the expression of a teacher pleased that his pupil could be taught.
"That's right, how did I not think of that?" Outlander Gunslinger suddenly saw the light. He directly chose Leopard Shadow Steps without even glancing at Crushing Stone Fist.
Meanwhile, Lin Qi was left stunned by what he had heard.
Fang Zhen's words were simply thunderous and ear-splitting!
They cleared his head and sharpened his mind!
He had to admit, Fang Zhen had truly figured out how to play this game.
Before you continue