Having just registered as a fighter, Huan Yue strode into the Sky Arena, filled with ambition.
Previously, he was just an ordinary homebody.
But under the influence of Zh Meng, after starting to exercise day after day, his physical condition and mental outlook rapidly changed.
Finally, in the global survival competition of [Chaotic Era], he verified the results of his months of hard work—
Traveling thousands of miles alone, chasing Xu Meng, hunting giant beasts!
He ultimately succeeded in obtaining the title of [Hunting Master].
For him, the greatest gain from this challenge was not the 200,000 Xu Meng rewarded, nor was it the exposure at the awards ceremony.
Rather, it was a tremendous boost to his confidence!
—Being the ultimate victor in a competition involving millions of participants and tens of thousands of direct competitors is incredibly confidence-boosting.
Walking off the stage amidst applause, Huan Yue held his head high, utterly convinced that he possessed talent in gaming.
Influenced by this confidence, when Xu Meng announced that the first player to reach the 100th floor would be rewarded with a [Holographic Display Device], he unhesitatingly declared boldly:
“The Sky Arena's 100th floor is easily within my grasp!”
If he hadn't had some semblance of rationality left, he would have almost said, “I won't stop streaming until I reach the 100th floor.”
Although he didn't say that, under the encouragement of the moderators and viewers, he set a goal of “reaching the 100th floor in 7 days.”
With this confidence, he stepped onto the arena on the second floor.
—Although the Sky Arena looks like a tower from the outside, the interior space is very spacious. When Huan Yue first walked in, he almost thought it was a comprehensive shopping mall.
Various snacks, souvenirs, sports equipment, and martial artist merchandise were dazzling.
After registering his identity at the service point and obtaining his ID card and map, he discovered that there were even restaurants, medical facilities, clothing stores, accommodations, martial arts gyms… and so on.
It could be said that everything was available.
However, the first wave of players who came were not here to go shopping.
Huan Yue also didn't linger and quickly ran to the second floor.
Starting from the second floor, the environment was similar to a colosseum.
Circles of step-like viewing platforms rose nine levels from low to high, surrounding the arena in the center.
Above the arena, eight large screens formed a circle, displaying real-time match footage.
Huan Yue took out his ID card and selected [Enter Battle].
The system instantly matched him with an opponent.
He looked at the 1-minute countdown and quickly ran down from the viewing platform and jumped onto the arena.
His opponent also appeared quickly.
The referee looked at the two fighters, confirmed that there were no problems, and immediately waved his arm: “Match start!”
Below the 10th floor, it's all just noobs fighting each other.
The referee didn't allocate much computing power, and the behavioral logic was very simple.
After the match started, Huan Yue and his opponent looked left and right, neither of them making a move.
They were both waiting for the “Gameplay Tutorial” to pop up.
But after waiting for a full minute, the tutorial didn't pop up, but the referee spoke first—
“Passive play.”
“If passive play continues after a 10-second countdown, both sides will be eliminated.”
“10, 9, 8…”
“?! ” Huan Yue immediately became nervous and ran towards his opponent with a stiff face.
The opponent was about the same.
Huan Yue had no fighting experience in reality and could only recall the scenes he had seen in movies, raising his arms and holding them in front of his chest for defense.
But his fighting stance was very non-standard, and the defensive effect was worrying.
Not to mention, his opponent didn't follow any martial ethics—
After a series of attacks, Huan Yue's character was continuously stunned, and his health dropped sharply—at the same time, his body hurt a lot!
With almost no ability to resist, he was knocked down on the arena.
He was still stunned when the referee announced the victory.
After being pushed off the arena by the referee, the opponent hurriedly ran over to apologize:
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, are you okay?”
In addition to apologizing, he also complained a bit: “I thought you were very strong…”
“I didn't expect you to be so fragile.”
“? ? ? ”
Huan Yue was originally rubbing the area where he was beaten, but he immediately stopped and looked at this guy with a face full of question marks.
—Although the stimulation of the somatosensory suit wasn't enough to cause injury, it would still hurt.
He suspected that this guy was mocking him!
Unfortunately, he was still streaming, so he could only say magnanimously: “It's okay, it's a match, I'm willing to accept defeat.”
But the other party's next sentence completely made him unable to hold back: “Can I take a photo with you? I'm a big fan of yours!”
Huan Yue was speechless for a long time, but he sighed and said, “Forget it, come on, come on.”
…
This match heralded the beginning of Huan Yue's suffering.
He learned shooting in [Purgatory on Earth] and melee combat with cold weapons in [Chaotic Era].
—Whether it's really useful in actual combat is another matter, at least he knows how to use them, and he won't panic when fighting.
But hand-to-hand combat…
It's completely another matter!
It's almost starting from scratch.
The only good news is that most of his opponents are also starting from scratch.
Except for people like Long Chengfei Jiang, who have rich real-world melee experience and are very skilled in posture, reaction, and distance control, they quickly stood out and passed the bottom level.
Most players fight like street brawlers, purely a chaotic mess.
The somatosensory suit also smoothed out the differences in players' physical qualities, which allowed Huan Yue to basically achieve a 50-50 win rate.
It's just that wearing the somatosensory suit makes it more and more painful as he fights.
He was in so much pain later that he grimaced.
He had to switch the operating mode and try tactile glove operation and PC operation.
As a result, it was even more outrageous when he fought—
Tactile glove movement requires the use of one hand, which greatly reduces operational flexibility, making it not worth the loss.
PC flexibility is maximized, but the operation is very cumbersome.
[Attack] has four angles: up, down, left, and right, corresponding to four combination keys; [Defense] also has four angles: up, down, left, and right, also four combination keys.
What's even more outrageous is that these actions are fixed actions.
It's okay to face tactile glove players and PC players, but against somatosensory suit players, it's completely impossible to block.
—The somatosensory suit tracks the player's body movements. After being familiar with the PC defensive movements, you can completely pass through the gaps in the defense and hit the opponent's body.
You can even squat down and attack the opponent's lower body.
When Huan Yue tried PC operation, he was grabbed by the legs by a fan and flipped to the ground.
Then came a flurry of kicks.
Of course, PC can also squat, but [squat] + [attack] + [attack direction] is really a bit cumbersome to operate.
It's also very difficult to control the attack distance.
Sometimes you feel like you can hit, but you're just a little bit short.
And this little bit of distance is often the dividing line between victory and defeat.
After trying a few matches, Huan Yue switched back to the somatosensory suit and continued to fight.
At the same time, more and more fans were queuing up to beat him up, and more and more fans were watching him get beaten up from the stands.
This made him feel that the atmosphere became more lively with each floor he went up.
The feeling of social awkwardness was also stronger.
—Being beaten up in the live broadcast room and being beaten up under the “eyes” of so many people are different feelings after all!
Fortunately, Zh Meng still has a little bit of humanistic care:
Winning allows you to go up a floor, but losing won't reduce your floor.
Relying on this mechanism, although Huan Yue's wins and losses were about half and half, the floors went up one by one.
This gave him a little hope.
Until he reached the 50th floor.
The rules changed—
Above the 50th floor, losing will reduce your floor!
And when he reached the 50th floor, it seemed that he had entered a larger player pool, and the number of fans he could match was greatly reduced.
But this wasn't good news.
Because the new opponents he encountered were even more unscrupulous than the previous fans!
The first opponent he matched with came up with a groin kick!
Huan Yue was directly kicked into a daze.
It wasn't because of the pain—Xu Meng had noticed this detail.
But the feeling of “being kicked” was still there!
Coupled with the realistic visual aids, it still gave him a clear phantom pain. Before his brain could react, his hand reached down to protect himself.
As a result, his head was defenseless and was kicked by the opponent!
He was KO'd on the spot!
After the match ended, the viewers in the stands laughed non-stop.
Huan Yue felt psychologically traumatized.
He persisted in fighting for more than twenty matches, with wins and losses, but the floor always stayed on the fifty-first or second floor.
The goal of “reaching the 100th floor in 7 days” was getting further and further away.
Although the viewers gloated, when they saw that he was really starting to feel frustrated and depressed, they all gave him ideas—
“Learn some dirty tricks! Kick the crotch, poke the eyes!”
“Don't give up, streamer! If you don't rush up in one breath now, it will be even more impossible in a while!”
“Why don't you go and see how the experts fight and learn some ideas?”
…
Huan Yue looked at the viewers' comments and suddenly felt that it made a lot of sense.
Plus, he was really tired, so he went with the flow and went to the 72nd floor to watch higher-level duels.
When he took the elevator to the 72nd floor, the viewers were already waiting at the door.
“Come on, come on! Long Chengfei Jiang is fighting an NPC fighter! Long Chengfei Jiang has times the odds, a guaranteed profit!” Orange Juice was also here and invited Huan Yue to bet.
“? ? ? ”
“You can bet?”
Huan Yue had been fighting on the arena and was completely unaware of this mechanism.
“That's right! It's almost too late! Take out your ID card, hurry up!”
Huan Yue found a seat and took out his ID card as instructed.
This ID card was like a small panel.
Not only did it have [Fight], [Accept Fight], and [Challenge] options, but also [Personal Information], [Wallet], and [Items].
Besides the numerical ID, the most crucial parts of the Personal Information were [Current Tier] and [Historical Highest Tier].
Huan Yue's [Current Tier] was 50, and [Historical Highest Tier] was 57.
Opening the wallet, the balance was only 500.
“I only have 500 points, enough to bet on Dragon City Flying General?” he asked Orange Juice.
“500 points, did you buy something?”
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“No,” Huan Yue said, puzzled. “Why do you say that?”
“If you haven't bought anything, you should have 3000 points after exchanging all your allowances!”
“Allowances?” Huan Yue was even more confused.
Huan Yue's reaction made Orange Juice realize that he hadn't paid any attention to this.
So, he quickly explained it to him:
The common currency of Sprout City is [Credit Points].
In this virtual city, besides free transportation, most goods and services require Credit Points to purchase.
Everyone starts with 0 Credit Points when they first arrive in Sprout City.
However, Dream Weavers has opened cash recharge channels, as well as exchange channels for 《Frosty Snow Project》 gold coins and 《War of Kings》 bonds.
However, all three methods have allowance limits—
Each month, each channel can provide 1000 points.
Refunds are possible, but reverse exchanges to cash are not.
《Frosty Snow Project》 gold coins are the easiest to obtain, and the exchange rate is the most exaggerated—
[1000 : 1]
Exchanging for 1000 Credit Points requires 1 million gold coins.
It seems like a lot, but in reality, 《Frosty Snow Project》 provides generous benefits.
Unless you just drew a new character and need to level them up, veteran players can easily accumulate tens of millions of gold coins in their bags.
New players who can't accumulate that much can still scrape enough together by farming gold coin dungeons for four or five days.
It's actually the easiest one.
The exchange rate for 《War of Kings》 is [100 : 1].
100,000 bonds is neither too much nor too little.
If you don't play cards, it's roughly the income of winning 20 hands or losing 40 hands.
Finally, there's the top-up channel, [10 : 1].
Using up the 1000-point allowance requires 100 yuan.
In terms of cost-effectiveness, it's really not that high.
Everyone speculates that Xu Meng created this top-up channel not to earn money from players.
Because players can exchange game currency for Credit Points.
Only casual netizens who haven't played Dream Weavers games before and are simply here to join the fun need to top up to buy Credit Points.
After the virtual city opened, there were many such netizens.
The cost of the server had to be considered.
So, Xu Meng set up this special Credit Point exchange method.
This way, if netizens who are just joining the fun want to spend money, they only have two options: either top up, or play 《Frosty Snow Project》 or 《War of Kings》, and become Dream Weavers players.
This way, the server money won't be spent in vain.
Betting on the Sky Arena is the fourth way to earn Credit Points—
For matches above the 50th floor, viewers can bet on the contestants.
If the contestant loses, the bet is lost completely.
If the contestant wins, the payout is based on the odds.
If you have good judgment and luck, getting rich overnight is not a dream!
—Of course, no matter how many Credit Points you have, you can't exchange them for real money, and the God of Gamblers can only be glorious in Sprout City.
Orange Juice finally summarized: “So, hurry up and bet on Dragon City Flying General! His win rate is super high!”
“He had a winning streak in the first 50 tiers, jumping directly from tier 20 to tier 36! After tier 50, he stopped jumping tiers.”
“This time, his opponent is an NPC, it's a guaranteed win!”
Huan Yue checked his wallet history and also discovered the source of the 500 points—
The Sky Arena gives 100 points every 10 tiers before tier 50.
After lamenting how stingy it was, he quickly exchanged the full 3000-point allowance.
Afterward, instead of betting all of it on Dragon City Flying General as Orange Juice said, he placed a small bet of 200 points to join the fun.
—
The countdown ended, and the match began.
Dragon City Flying General's opponent was a female NPC.
The female NPC stretched her palms forward, one facing inward and one facing outward, and shifted her feet, adopting the classic [Single Palm Change] starting stance.
Huan Yue tilted his head, his expression immediately changing.
“What the heck is this?”
“Bagua Zhang???”
“Can this thing really be used in the arena???”
A large wave of discussion also arose in the audience, clearly sharing similar thoughts with Huan Yue.
Soon, this NPC girl proved one thing to everyone with her actions—
Whether it can be used in the arena in reality is unknown.
But in the game, it definitely can!
Dragon City Flying General's fighting style clearly showed the path of Sanda, very realistic.
His offense, defense, advance, and retreat were all well-measured, and his distance control was also quite precise.
But the NPC opponent's strength was no less than his, and her footwork was even faster!
She gracefully circled Dragon City Flying General, spinning and attacking!
In less than half a minute, Dragon City Flying General spun himself a little dizzy, and a violently distorted punch successfully knocked off his VR glasses.
In his live broadcast room, the audience simultaneously heard a loud “crack”!
The result of losing sight need not be said.
—Dragon City Flying General dropped back to tier 71 just like that.
He also lost a VR headset.
However, as a team commander, he had already prepared for unexpected situations and immediately put on a spare VR headset to continue fighting fiercely.
Huan Yue followed down to tier 71 to continue learning from experience.
Orange Juice wailed that his 2800 Credit Points had been cleared, returning to square one.
The whole person was on the verge of tears.
… …
In the next few matches, Dragon City Flying General's opponents were all those that Huan Yue could understand—either skilled players or NPCs practicing modern combat.
Huan Yue only watched a few matches and discovered:
The battles on tier 70 and below were completely different concepts!
Below tier 50, whether players or NPCs, were all at the level of street brawls.
Only those close to tier 50 barely reached the level of combat sports enthusiasts.
When fighting, it easily turned into exchanging wild punches.
But when he reached around tier 70, Huan Yue watched several matches and found that both sides fought with great skill, and the viewing experience was greatly improved.
—Even better than real-life combat competitions!
Huan Yue carefully watched for a long time and discovered the secret inside—
[Speed]!
Dream Weavers slowed down the fighters and NPCs!
In real-life top-tier fighting competitions, the punch speed of the fighters when attacking is astonishing, requiring high-speed cameras to capture and then release in slow motion so that the audience can see the details clearly.
This causes the moment of attack to always be swift and deadly.
By the time the audience reacts, the battle is over.
It is extremely difficult to create the kind of exciting scene in movies where you come and I go, and punches are thrown for a long time.
But Dream Weavers limited the maximum movement speed of the models.
Whether it was Dragon City Flying General's full-strength punch or the female NPC's dazzling Bagua Zhang, the actual speed was a little slower than in reality.
This slight slowness allowed both sides of the battle to react and better block or dodge.
In addition, after being hit, the character would only “lose health” and “stagger,” greatly reducing the probability of being knocked out in one hit.
Under the influence of these multiple factors, the viewing experience of the battle was greatly improved!
After understanding this, Huan Yue immediately became excited:
“I understand!”
“?” Orange Juice was still heartbroken about his Credit Points, and asked, “What do you understand?”
“Cultivation secret manual!!” Huan Yue stood up, “I know how to become stronger, improve my win rate, and rush to tier 100!”
“What secret manual?” Orange Juice asked again.
“Don't rely on intuition to fight randomly! Don't be afraid of attacks! Keep your eyes wide open and see the opponent's moves clearly!”
“Everyone's attack speed has been slowed down, as long as you calm down, you can react!”
“Mentality is the key!”
Afterward, ignoring Orange Juice's confused gaze, he quickly returned to tier 50 and restarted matching for a match.
When he walked towards the arena again after matching with an opponent, Huan Yue coolly said to the viewers:
“I completely understand!”
… …
Thirty minutes later, Huan Yue was punched in the stomach by his opponent, and his abdominal muscles suddenly contracted under the stimulation of the electric current.
It hurt so much that he bared his teeth!
His health points were emptied, and he was defeated again.
This finally made him unable to help but curse: “Playing your mom!”
“I'm not playing anymore!!”
His thinking was correct.
But his body couldn't keep up.
He had never felt so deeply that—
Understanding with the brain and understanding with the body are two completely different things!
