The Internet Crashed and the Trending Charts Were Swept! I'm Just a Freshman Watching the Drama!

On the outskirts of Jinghai City lay a deserted development of unfinished buildings.

The air rippled in midair, and a figure appeared out of nowhere, landing steadily on the weed-covered concrete.

Lin Bei pulled the black mask off his face and let out a long, stale breath.

The Qi Refining Third Layer really was different.

He had just raced along at Mach 3. Back at the Qi Refining Second Layer, his dantian would have been bone-dry by now.

Now, not only was his spiritual power abundant, but his sight and hearing had also grown considerably sharper.

He could even hear two crickets fighting in the grass a hundred meters away.

Glancing down at his black hoodie outfit, Lin Bei flipped his wrist and stuffed it straight into his storage ring.

Then he took out the gray T-shirt and shorts he had worn before leaving and slipped them on in a few quick motions.

That outfit was officially going into permanent storage.

Every netizen these days was a Leeuwenhoek. If they even dug up the fibers from his clothes, things would get really interesting.

Patting the dust off his trouser legs, Lin Bei strolled toward Jinghai University.

By the time he wandered back to campus, it was already past two in the afternoon.

Normally, with the late-summer heat still scorching at this hour, there should hardly have been anyone around.

But today, all of Jinghai University was like a hornet's nest that had exploded.

From the campus gates to the tree-lined paths and the grounds below the dormitories, students clustered everywhere in groups of three or five.

Every one of them held a phone, shouting with flushed faces and bulging necks.

"Holy shit! Did yours load yet? Why does my crappy connection keep spinning?"

"Connection, my ass! The servers crashed! I just checked the trending searches, and all ten top spots were fucking exploding!"

"That short-video app is lagging like crazy too! The video of that sword immortal pouring water has over a hundred million views! I can't even get into the comments!"

Lin Bei ambled past them, the corners of his mouth twitching as he fought back a laugh.

He had barely taken another couple of steps when the phone in his pocket started vibrating like it had gone berserk.

He took it out. Fatty Wang was calling.

The moment he answered, Fatty's piercing duck-like voice nearly blasted through his eardrums.

"Brother Bei! Where are you? Check your phone! Something huge happened!"

Lin Bei held the phone farther away and picked at his ear. "Check what? I just finished taking care of something outside. I'm heading back to the dorm."

"Taking care of something, my ass! The sky's falling, you know!" Fatty panted excitedly on the other end. "The World Trade Center caught fire! A sword immortal descended on a flying sword and dumped a hundred tons of water on it to put it out! The whole internet's exploded! Hurry up and watch the livestream replay on Weibo!"

"Oh, really?" Lin Bei replied, playing along. "That badass, huh?"

"Badass doesn't even cover it! He practically pried open Newton's coffin and took a shit inside! Gotta go. I need to argue with those science students on the forums. They insist it was a hologram. Pah!"

The call ended in a frantic hurry.

Amused, Lin Bei tapped open Weibo.

The screen stayed white for a full half minute, the loading icon spinning endlessly.

It had crashed.

When he finally managed to struggle his way in, the top ten trending searches were completely occupied by a row of glaring dark-red "Exploding" labels.

A clean sweep. An absolutely total sweep.

#JinghaiWorldTradeCenterFire#

#SwordImmortalDescends#

#CatchingAFallingManBarehanded#

#AHundredTonsOfRiverWaterFromTheSky#

#NewtonBoughtAStandingTicketAndFledOvernight#

#NationalSecurityBureauDeploysArmedHelicopter#

Lin Bei tapped a trending topic at random.

Inside were HD videos shot from all different angles.

They showed everything from him flying his sword through the thick smoke to catch the falling man, to pulling out dozens of trapped people with the levitation formation disk, and finally the heavenly river pouring down, a hundred tons of river water washing over the building.

The platform's cumulative view count had already exceeded two hundred million.

The bullet comments were so dense they nearly obscured the figures on-screen.

"Everyone rise! Welcome the sword immortal to the mortal world!"

"Mom asked why I was kneeling while looking at my phone. Because I've seen a real god!"

"That water pressure! That volume! Even the Dragon King would have to offer him a Chunghwa cigarette!"

"Please bless me so I pass this year's postgraduate entrance exams, Sword Immortal! This faithful woman vows to eat vegetarian for three years!"

"Stop dreaming, commenter above! Sword Immortal is mine! That all-black outfit was so hot it made me ovulate! There's definitely a face of peerless divine beauty under that mask!"

Reading that bullet comment, Lin Bei touched his face.

The netizens this time around really did have sharp eyes.

He tucked his phone back into his pocket and continued toward the dorm.

Passing the women's dormitory, he happened upon several sophomore girls in carefully applied makeup gathered together, passionately holding forth.

"Did you see that salute the sword immortal gave the helicopter at the end? That roguish charm! It's killing me!"

"Exactly! And he didn't even give the national team the time of day. He just sped off at Mach 3! I love that personality!"

"I'd gladly give up ten years of my life if I could marry a man like that!"

As Lin Bei passed them, his steps paused, and he turned to glance at the older girls.

They looked decent, though their foundation was a little thick.

He looked away, slipped his hands into his pockets, and concealed his deeds and fame.

That feeling of the whole world frantically searching for him while he stood right there in the crowd, watching the drama alongside them...

It felt so good it shot straight to the crown of his head.

This was the ultimate essence of hidden-identity novels: everyone else was drunk, and he alone was sober.

Still, satisfying as it was, he couldn't forget the important business.

Rather than returning straight to his dorm, Lin Bei took a turn and wandered into a secluded grove on the hill behind campus.

With the whole university's attention focused on the sword immortal online, there wasn't so much as a ghost on the back hill.

Lin Bei found a clean rock, sat down, and pulled the red cord out from under his shirt.

The dark-green Black Tortoise Jade Pendant rested quietly against his chest.

It looked utterly ordinary, even a little like the shoddy souvenirs sold three for ten yuan at tourist attractions.

Only by wearing it against his skin could he feel the cool aura that continuously nourished his body.

"It can withstand a full-power strike from mid Foundation Establishment? Is it really that miraculous?"

Holding the pendant, Lin Bei felt an itch to try it.

He was at the Qi Refining Third Layer now, after all.

The system had forcibly infused him with power and upgraded him in the sky earlier, and he hadn't yet had a chance to properly feel out his current strength.

Lin Bei stood and loosened up his limbs.

The azure spiritual power within him was a full three times thicker than at the Qi Refining Second Layer, flowing ceaselessly through his extraordinary meridians like a rushing stream.

He drew a deep breath and abruptly clenched his right fist.

Without using any spell, Lin Bei simply poured spiritual power into his fist and smashed it hard into a landscaping rock beside him that stood half a person tall.

Bang!

A muffled impact rang out.

The hard granite landscaping rock burst apart down the middle, scattering broken chunks all over the ground.

Lin Bei looked at his fist. Not even the skin had broken.

"With this strength, killing an elephant with one punch wouldn't be an exaggeration," Lin Bei marveled.

If the Qi Refining Third Layer had this kind of destructive power, wouldn't a full-power strike from mid Foundation Establishment flatten an entire building?

Could this pendant really block that?

Had to test it.

Lin Bei stepped back twice. With a thought, the iron sword reappeared in his hand.

He drew a deep breath, mobilized every bit of spiritual power in his dantian, and poured it all into the iron sword without holding anything back.

The blade hummed under the unbearable burden, its azure radiance too dazzling to look at.

Lin Bei turned his wrist and drove the iron sword straight toward his own thigh!

If the pendant failed to trigger, he would probably spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

At the very instant the sword tip came within less than a centimeter of his thigh...

The Black Tortoise Jade Pendant against his chest suddenly shuddered!

A beast's roar that seemed to come from ancient times exploded inside Lin Bei's mind.

Immediately afterward, a dark-green barrier sprang out of nowhere, instantly enclosing Lin Bei in its protection.

Faint images of an entwined tortoise and snake flowed across its surface, exuding a weighty sense of invulnerability to all arts.

Clang!

The iron sword slammed into the dark-green barrier.

There were no sparks, no shock waves.

The violent spiritual power, enough to pulverize the landscaping rock, struck the barrier without raising even a ripple and was dispersed without a trace.

Instead, the iron sword in Lin Bei's hand gave a sharp crack.

It snapped cleanly in two.

The broken blade fell onto the grass, leaving nothing but a bare hilt in Lin Bei's hand.

The barrier flickered twice, then slowly faded into the void.

The pendant against his chest returned to its unremarkable, gently lustrous appearance.

Lin Bei stood frozen, looking at the hilt in his hand before lowering his gaze to the pendant on his chest.

A full five seconds passed.

"Holy shit..."

Lin Bei couldn't hold back the curse.

This wasn't just fucking badass. This was absurdity's mother opening the door for absurdity-absurdity had come home!

He had just used a hundred percent of his Qi Refining Third Layer strength, yet he hadn't even broken the pendant's defense. Even the recoil had been perfectly absorbed.

With this thing, even if someone tried to blow his head off with a sniper rifle from hiding, he could stand still and let them shoot until they ran out of bullets.

True absolute defense!

A true life-saving piece of god-tier gear!

Lin Bei casually put the iron sword away into his storage space, his grin nearly reaching his ears.

Today's job had been well worth it.

Not only had his cultivation risen a layer and earned him ten high-grade spirit stones, but he had also snagged such a heaven-defying magical treasure for free.

Lin Bei dusted off his hands, in an excellent mood.

Humming a nameless tune, he strolled out of the grove and headed toward the men's dormitory.