Martial Artists' Office

What could you do after graduating from Martial Arts Junior College?

Give massages, work as a bodyguard, take a factory security job, or go to the Martial Artists' Office.

The Martial Artists' Office was an intermediary platform where Martial Warriors accepted jobs.

It was a nationwide chain, with a branch in every city.

Its work was simple: post jobs, match them with Martial Warriors, and take a commission from the payout.

The jobs came in all varieties, but the most common was clearing out Demonic Beasts.

A hundred years ago, spiritual energy had revived in this world. A mass of mutated creatures had emerged in the mountains and wilderness, collectively known as Demonic Beasts.

Low-level Demonic Beasts were about as dangerous as wild dogs. High-level ones could topple an entire building.

The government and military handled the big ones, while the smaller ones were outsourced to civilian Martial Warriors.

Payment was by the job. The more you worked, the more you earned.

Li Zhengyang arrived at the East City Office branch at ten-thirty in the morning.

The place was more professional than he had imagined: a three-story commercial building with a glass curtain wall. A sign reading "Great Xia Martial Artists' Office · East City Branch" hung outside. Plenty of people came and went, dressed in all kinds of clothes, though most carried a certain roughness about them.

The first floor was a lobby, laid out much like a bank. A row of ticket machines stood to the left, while an electronic screen on the right scrolled through various job listings.

Li Zhengyang stood before the screen and looked through them.

The jobs were categorized by Demonic Beast rank, arranged from low to high.

At the bottom were jobs to clear First Rank Demonic Beasts, with rewards ranging from a few thousand to ten or twenty thousand.

Further up, rewards for Second Rank and Third-Rank Martial Artist jobs rose sharply, but the listed danger ratings climbed with them.

His eyes stopped on one job.

[Job ID: E001]

[Target: Kill 5 First Rank Demonic Beasts, Earth-Toothed Rats, equivalent to human Martial Warriors]

[Location: East Suburbs Abandoned Mining Area]

[Reward: ¥10,000]

[Danger Rating: E]

[Note: Earth-Toothed Rats are adept at burrowing and underground ambushes. Teaming up is recommended.]

Ten thousand.

A hundred points of Blood Qi was not much, but even a mosquito leg was meat.

It was his first time taking a Demonic Beast extermination job, so he did not dare accept anything too difficult. He would test the waters first.

More importantly, this thing could be farmed repeatedly.

Earth-Toothed Rats were the lowest-level First Rank Demonic Beasts. To a Martial Master, killing them was no different from stepping on ants.

Three or four jobs a day meant forty or fifty thousand.

More respectable than taking out a loan shark's loan.

Li Zhengyang took a number and waited in line for ten minutes before it was his turn.

The receptionist was a woman around twenty-five or twenty-six, with a ponytail and a uniform blouse. A name badge pinned to her chest read "Liu Ting."

She looked decent enough, except she did not raise her eyelids very high.

"Hello. Please show your Martial Warrior Qualification Certificate and strength certification to accept a job."

Li Zhengyang handed over his ID card.

Liu Ting glanced at it. "Where's your Martial Warrior Qualification Certificate?"

"I don't have one."

"Strength certification?"

"Don't have that either."

Liu Ting's hand stopped.

She looked up at him. He was young, probably fresh out of school.

"Sir, you can't accept jobs without strength certification. Those are the rules."

"I know there's such a rule. Where do I get certified?"

"Right here, at the Testing Center on the second floor." Liu Ting pointed toward the stairs beside her. "Just take your ID upstairs. The test costs five thousand."

"How much?"

"Five thousand."

Li Zhengyang fell silent.

He touched his pocket. Inside was a crumpled fifty-yuan bill and a few coins.

He had bought a bottle of water on the way over and spent two yuan.

Five thousand. He was short by more than four thousand nine hundred and forty.

"Can I put it on credit?"

"No."

"Installments? Or facial recognition payment?"

"This is an office, not a mortgage company." Liu Ting's tone was strictly businesslike. "The testing fee is five thousand, payable on the spot. No form of deferred payment is accepted."

Li Zhengyang leaned against the counter, his mind racing.

This was the vicious cycle of the poor: to make money, you needed jobs; to take jobs, you needed certification; certification cost money; and because you had no money, you wanted to make money.

"Is there any other way?"

Liu Ting had been about to call the next person, but seeing him still standing there, she thought for a moment. "There is one. You can join someone else's team and participate as a team member. As long as the captain has certification, you can follow them without getting certified separately."

"What about the reward?"

"The team distributes it internally. The office doesn't interfere. Usually it's split equally by headcount, or according to contribution."

Li Zhengyang nodded. This route would work.

"That area on the right side of the job hall." Liu Ting pointed to her right. "Some teams recruit there. Go ask around yourself."

"Thanks."

There was an open area on the right side of the lobby, with around ten tables and small groups of people sitting around them.

Some looked at their phones, some chatted, and some had cardboard signs on their tables reading things like "Recruiting."

Li Zhengyang walked up to the first table.

There were three people, two men and a woman, fully equipped with bulging backpacks.

A cardboard sign stood on the table: [Clearing First Rank Demonic Beast Ironback Centipedes, need one more person. Martial Master or above, certification required.]

"Bro, need another person?"

The leader looked up at him. "Got certification?"

"No certification, but I'm strong enough."

"No certification, no deal. If something happens, who's responsible? Move along."

At the second table, a lean man in sunglasses sat alone. His sign read [Hunting First Rank Demonic Beast Sand Scorpions, four need one.]

"Hey, man, take me with you?"

The man lowered his sunglasses slightly and sized him up.

"Certification?"

"No."

The man pushed his sunglasses back up, lowered his head, and continued scrolling on his phone. He could not even be bothered to say another word.

The third table, the fourth, the fifth.

The result was the same. No certification, no discussion.

The rules in this line of work were more rigid than Li Zhengyang had expected.

Certification was like a pass. Without it, you could not even get through the door.

The logic was easy to understand. Hunting Demonic Beasts in the wilderness was life-threatening work. Who would want to team up with a stranger who did not even have official certification? Anyone could claim they were strong.

After being rejected five times in a row, Li Zhengyang stood in the middle of the lobby, wondering whether he should use his fifty yuan to buy a lottery ticket and try his luck.

"Hey! You!"

A voice came from the corner.

Li Zhengyang turned and saw two people seated at the innermost table.

A man and a woman.

The man was the one calling to him. He was in his thirties, with a square face, a full beard, and a camouflage tank top. There was a scar on his arm.

He was built like a tank, clearly the sort who had spent years running jobs outdoors.

The girl beside him was younger, barely in her twenties, with short hair and neat athletic clothes. A Short Blade hung at her waist.

"You looking for a team?" the bearded man asked.

"Yes."

"Got certification?"

"No."

The bearded man frowned, but did not immediately chase him away.

He looked at the girl beside him, and she shrugged.

"What's your strength?" the bearded man asked.

"Enough."

"I asked what your strength is, not whether it's enough."

"Rank-Eight Martial Warrior," Li Zhengyang said.

He had no intention of revealing his strength as a Martial Master.

Showing your hand in a place full of every kind of person was something only an idiot would do. Especially when he was broke, because if he ran into someone with bad ideas, trouble would never end.

The bearded man looked at the girl again.

The girl spoke, her voice crisp. "Old Zhao, time won't wait. That bastard we arranged to meet stood us up. If we keep waiting, it'll be dark."

The bearded man rubbed his face, as though making a decision he did not particularly want to make.

"What's your name?"

"Li Zhengyang."

"I'm Zhao Hu." He pointed beside him. "She's Shen Wei. We took a First Rank Demonic Beast job, Earth-Toothed Rats, at the East Suburbs mining area. There were supposed to be three of us, but the third guy bailed at the last minute."

Earth-Toothed Rats.

It was the exact job Li Zhengyang had been eyeing.

"How do we split the reward?" Li Zhengyang asked.

Zhao Hu held up three fingers. "I get forty percent, she gets thirty, you get thirty."

Thirty percent of ten thousand was three thousand.

Shen Wei added from the side, "You don't have certification. Letting you tag along is already doing you a favor, so don't haggle."

A drop in the bucket.

But Li Zhengyang did not bargain. It was not that three thousand satisfied him. He was already thinking about something else.

"Fine. When do we leave?"

Zhao Hu stood and brushed dust off his pants. "Now."

The three registered their team information at the front desk.

Because Zhao Hu had First-Grade Martial Master certification and Shen Wei had Rank-Nine Martial Warrior certification, and both were experienced hands with good credit records, the procedure for bringing along an uncertified member did not get held up for long.

When Liu Ting entered Li Zhengyang's information, she gave him another look. She probably remembered the broke guy who had just tried to put the testing fee on credit.

After leaving the office, Zhao Hu drove out in a beat-up pickup truck, and all three squeezed into the front seats.

"The East Suburbs mining area is a forty-minute drive." Zhao Hu started the engine. "Once we get there, listen to my commands. Earth-Toothed Rats aren't hard to deal with, but they like ambushing from underground. Watch where you step."

"Got it."

"Did you bring a weapon?"

"No."

Zhao Hu glanced at him through the rearview mirror. Shen Wei turned to look at him too.

"My fists," Li Zhengyang said.

The car fell silent for two seconds.

Zhao Hu shook his head, pulled a Mountain-Cleaving Blade from beneath his seat, and tossed it into Li Zhengyang's arms. "Use this. Don't try to act tough."

Li Zhengyang caught the blade and weighed it in his hand.

It was quite heavy, at least ten pounds.

Holding the blade, he watched the city buildings race backward beyond the window. What filled his mind was not what Earth-Toothed Rats looked like.

It was how to get all ten thousand yuan into his own pocket.