Bursting onto the Scene
In the East City Wilderness, every spectator's gaze was fixed on Luo Feng, who stood in the sky atop the Silver Dragon, proud and imposing as a mountain.
"Luo Feng!"
"Luo Feng!"
The spectators all began shouting at the top of their lungs, every one of them thrilled beyond measure. In the O'Brien Empire, renowned throughout the world, it was not the emperor or the nobles they admired, but the strong. As long as you were strong enough, they admired you and respected you from the bottom of their hearts.
All of this excited the spectators. After the battle, countless people came to worship Luo Feng. At around twenty years old, he had defeated Cass, the imperial capital's acclaimed genius, and had won a complete, crushing victory. How could they not be excited? How could they not worship him?
His age of just over twenty, his extraordinary talent, his formidable strength, and his handsome appearance all added to Luo Feng's air of mystery.
Paying no attention to what the spectators below thought, Luo Feng sat cross-legged on the dragon's back and sent a voice transmission to the Silver Dragon Wa'ersi. "All right, ignore them. Let's go. Fly slowly; I need to restore my Battle-qi." With that, he closed his eyes. As he replenished the Battle-qi he had used, he slowly reviewed the battle, correcting the flaws in his fighting.
In every battle, victory was not what mattered. What mattered was learning from it, correcting the flaws in his fighting, and gradually refining and perfecting his fighting methods. Often, breakthroughs came from insights gained in battle.
Spread by word of mouth among hundreds of thousands of people, news of the battle in the wilderness east of the imperial capital traveled at an astonishing speed. For a time, Luo Feng's fame was at its height, and his name became the most dazzling on the entire Yulan Continent!
At just over twenty, he had crushed Cass, the imperial capital's genius. Saint Domain experts rarely fought these days, and even when they did, they did not do so publicly. After all, once they reached the Saint Domain, their reputation mattered a great deal. As a result, most people regarded Warriors of the Ninth Rank as the strongest fighters they had ever seen. Countless people went their whole lives without seeing a Saint Domain expert, and Luo Feng and Cass's battle had undoubtedly shown everyone the power of Warriors of the Ninth Rank in combat.
Respect? In this world, strength is still what you need to earn respect. As long as you have strength, people will respect you. Luo Feng knew that without even thinking about it or looking at the worshipful gazes of those people.
Without a doubt, Luo Feng's name had spread rapidly throughout the imperial capital, and many people began paying attention to this expert who had appeared out of nowhere. In the days that followed, Luo Feng continued to keep to himself as usual, spending all day cultivating, completely unaffected by his newfound fame.
Of course, Luo Feng did go out sometimes. He was not a Saint Domain expert, after all, so he still had to eat. When he went downstairs for a meal, for example, the hotel was almost always full. Many people who knew Luo Feng was staying there had flocked to the hotel themselves. Luo Feng did not know that he had indirectly boosted the hotel's business, leaving its owner constantly grinning from ear to ear.
"Look, it's Luo Feng! That's the lord who defeated Cass. He's so young! When will I have Lord Luo Feng's strength?"
"That's right. I was watching their battle last time. Lord Luo Feng won a crushing victory. He and Lord Cass aren't even in the same league."
"What I admire most about Lord Luo Feng is that his magical beast companion is a Silver Dragon, a magical beast at the peak of the ninth rank, and a pure-blooded dragon! How could he possibly have earned the Silver Dragon's recognition without strength?"
He completely ignored those who could only stand to the side, envying and blindly worshipping him. They did not see his hard work and effort, only his moments of glory. That was why some people could accomplish something while others could only drift through life achieving nothing.
If you had a heart unwilling to settle for an ordinary life, you should pursue the dreams in your heart. Blindly worshipping others was too foolish. So Luo Feng mostly ignored them and went back upstairs after eating. These days, he spent most of his time in his room, unless an expert caught his interest, in which case he would take the initiative to issue a challenge.
A gentle breeze came through the window and stirred the ends of Luo Feng's hair. He sat quietly on the bed with his eyes closed, cultivating in seclusion, his mind in complete harmony with the breeze.
"Whoosh, whoosh." Luo Feng sensed the changes in the wind's speed in the sky. High above, the wind was swift, but inside the hotel in the imperial capital, it was much gentler. Every change in the wind was reflected in Luo Feng's mind.
Luo Feng enjoyed cultivating. Every insight and every breakthrough was an elevation of the soul, a transformation of the heart!
The feeling was enough to make one's heart tremble.
A year had passed, and Luo Feng had seldom gone out. Every day, he cultivated in seclusion, honing his Battle-qi. Unfortunately, the Battle-qi within him was still stuck at the peak of the eighth rank, unable to break through to the ninth rank. Luo Feng was not discouraged. Since his Battle-qi cultivation had reached a bottleneck, he would use his Battle-qi to temper his body. He fought with his fists in every battle, so his body had to be tough.
Over that year, Luo Feng had fought three challenges in the imperial capital. The first came when several nominal disciples of the War God Sect heard that Cass had been soundly defeated by Luo Feng and wanted to avenge the humiliation. Four or five experts at the peak of the ninth rank had come to challenge him. They were all a little stronger than Cass and had been stuck at the peak of the ninth rank for decades. The Battle-qi they had accumulated alone was beyond anything Cass could match.
Luo Feng paid no heed to the fact that they were the War God's nominal disciples and told all five to come at him together. In Luo Feng's view, they had not even grasped Wielding Something Heavy as Though It Were Light, much less Force. No wonder they had spent their lives stuck at the peak of the ninth rank, unable to advance. What use was merely accumulating Battle-qi? Without question, all five were defeated in a single battle, once again shaking the world.
The second time, Luo Feng took the initiative to issue a challenge. His opponent was the ancestor of an ancient family in the imperial capital, an expert at the Saint Domain Initial Stage. This was Luo Feng's first time directly challenging a Saint Domain expert. He had completely lost interest in anyone below the Saint Domain and could not muster the slightest desire to fight them. This time, Luo Feng was soundly defeated and finally witnessed the strength of a Saint Domain expert. No wonder people said Saint Domain experts and Warriors of the Ninth Rank were as different as heaven and earth. Under the Saint Domain expert's attacks, Luo Feng could only rely on his speed to dodge, while his own attacks could not do much damage to his opponent. In the end, the battle could only come to a close, though he and the Saint Domain expert became close friends despite their difference in age. The battle gave Luo Feng a profound understanding of Saint Domain experts.
The third time, after three months of secluded cultivation, Luo Feng challenged that same Saint Domain Initial Stage expert again. This time, Luo Feng was able to inflict real damage on him. There was no other reason than that Luo Feng had begun to touch upon the threshold of Force. Even the Saint Domain expert could suffer real damage from Luo Feng if he let his guard down. The result of this battle, however, was that Luo Feng spent three months recuperating.
In the span of a year, Luo Feng's fame had reached its height. An unparalleled genius, he had crushed a Warrior of the Ninth Rank as an Eighth-level Warrior and could even injure a Saint Domain expert. Without a doubt, that year had firmly established Luo Feng's standing.