Huan Yue wasn't there, so it was hard to understand where the sharpshooter's confidence came from.
Plus, it was too noisy on his end. After a few more words of persuasion, he hung up the phone.
After waiting for 15 minutes on the first floor of the Sky Arena, he finally saw the specially invited players who would be familiarizing themselves with the equipment and virtual combat.
At the top of the leading character's head, the words [Hou Cong] were particularly noticeable.
From this, it wasn't hard to guess that those characters using their real names were either employees of Zhumeng or players invited to participate in the [Floor-Climbing Grand Prix].
Huan Yue quickly memorized a few IDs:
[Woz Morgan], [Xu Tong], [Scarlett Simmons], [Sheng Yingyi], [Chen Weiguo]...
Then, he quickly ran up to the second floor, sat in the audience, and prepared to watch the battles.
At the same time, he asked the viewers in his livestream to keep an eye out. If they saw these names in different instances, they should immediately invite him to join their team and cross over to spectate.
Each floor only has one arena, so it's impossible for thousands of players to queue up one by one.
That would take forever.
Mirror servers are an indispensable mechanism.
Huan Yue's approach was very clever.
In less than 3 minutes, a viewer invited him to join a team and pulled him into another instance.
There, he saw Hou Cong's first match.
This former Asian boxing champion was clearly not used to fighting in a full-body haptic suit.
He stood in place, throwing punches into thin air.
Each time he finished, he would look down at his hands, very unaccustomed to the sudden slowdown in his punching speed.
In order to adapt as quickly as possible, he only defended and didn't attack in the first few minutes.
He kept moving and swaying on the arena, adapting to the rhythm.
His opponent's ID was [Bujidao's Lenny], a struggling streamer with only 288 followers and a daily livestream audience of only a dozen or so.
Because of the recent review storm, he felt uncertain about the future of his game streaming.
That's why, on the advice of his fans, he came to Zhumeng, which was said to have a "backstage that's as tough as nails" and "doesn't care about reviews at all."
He also spent a "huge sum" to go to the experience center to livestream.
The official Zhumeng game experience center isn't expensive, but for a streamer with only 288 followers, everything is a "huge sum."
In short, today was his first time in Mansheng Metropolis, his first time entering the Sky Arena, and his first time fighting a match.
Then, he met the former Asian boxing champion, Hou Cong.
He was truly out of luck!
After throwing a flurry of wild punches, he didn't even touch a hair on his opponent's head.
Bujidao's Lenny's original nervousness and apprehension quickly subsided, replaced by anger!
"You son of a bitch!"
He strode towards Hou Cong.
But Hou Cong easily dodged with a few flexible changes of direction.
He also gently pushed Bujidao's Lenny's shoulder when he changed direction—thankfully, the safety rope kept him from losing his balance and falling.
This made him lose his composure on the spot.
Standing on the arena, he shouted, "If you're a man, don't run away!"
"Fight me head-on!"
So Hou Cong stopped.
Bujidao's Lenny was overjoyed and threw a heavy punch.
Hou Cong dodged to the side and threw a cross-counter punch, hitting his opponent hard in the face!
Bujidao's Lenny only saw a fist in front of him.
The next second, his perspective flew out.
Hou Cong touched his fist in disbelief, surprised by the realistic impact he felt.
Then, he couldn't help but worry about his opponent: "Are you okay?"
"I..." Bujidao's Lenny was humiliated and wanted to admit defeat on the spot.
But before admitting defeat, he glanced at the livestream.
He was shocked to find that his livestream, which usually only had a dozen or so people, now had 600... 800... No, more than 1000 people!
And people were still joining!
Bujidao's Lenny didn't know what was happening, but the thought of admitting defeat immediately vanished!
His character had already gotten up.
But Bujidao's Lenny, despite not being able to touch his opponent at all, persisted in fighting, and his will was recognized by the audience.
In the end, Hou Cong couldn't bear to dodge anymore, stood in place and exchanged punches with him, hammering him to death.
Polite applause sounded on the scene.
Huan Yue went up to the third floor, intending to watch another match—although Bujidao's Lenny played terribly, Hou Cong's movements to dodge a series of wild punches without taking damage were very pleasing to the eye.
But he didn't see Hou Cong on the third floor.
His viewers didn't see him either.
By the time the audience found Hou Cong again, he had already finished his second match.
Moreover, he didn't go to the third floor at all!
Several minutes of completely damage-free combat, coupled with a 100% win rate, had raised his hidden score to the sky.
This led him to directly ascend to the 30th floor!
After Hou Cong, Huan Yue watched several matches of other specially invited players.
He found that these people almost all had an overwhelming advantage over ordinary players.
Even those "brick-smashing masters" who had been questioned all along performed well in the arena—at least in the lower levels, a pair of iron fists could always knock their opponents silly.
After watching these matches, Huan Yue didn't want to run into these people at all...
"I don't want to meet Hou Cong and be made a fool of in the arena."
"You guys should go find Longcheng Feijiang to beat up the specially invited players... He's already on the 90th floor, right?"
As he spoke, he opened Longcheng Feijiang's livestream.
But to his surprise, the livestream wasn't showing the Sky Arena, but the battlefield of [Purgatory on Earth]!
"What's going on?"
"He's about to reach the 100th floor. At this crucial moment, he's not pushing for it?"
Huan Yue was stunned.
After a few more seconds, he realized:
Longcheng Feijiang was a well-known commander in "War of Kings!"
Now that the global competition qualifiers had fully started, he had returned to lead his team in the competition!
Many netizens in the livestream, like Huan Yue, couldn't understand:
"You've already reached the 93rd floor. Why don't you go for the 100th floor in one fell swoop?"
"Commanding a team may not guarantee you a spot, but reaching the 100th floor might get you a holographic display device!"
"Someone has already offered 800,000 for that device!"
"Truly treating money like dirt."
Did Longcheng Feijiang not care about money?
Of course, he cared.
But more than a hundred people in the group were waiting for him. They had long agreed to compete in the global competition together.
A man's word is his bond!
So, to these comments, Longcheng Feijiang only had one answer:
"My team needs me."
As a result, this delay lasted until the official start of the [Floor-Climbing Grand Prix].
December 28th, 6 PM.
Because of the turmoil brought about by the gaming circle's big review, the number of Zhumeng users had reached a new level.
Even though they hadn't done anything.
This unwavering attitude easily attracted the trust of a large number of players.
Bujidao's Lenny was just a microcosm.
Behind him were a large number of new users who had migrated to Zhumeng!
These new users were at the peak of their enthusiasm for the activities held by Zhumeng.
In addition, in the past few days, specially invited players had arrived in Ningzhou, entered the Sky Arena to familiarize themselves with the competition environment, and created many famous scenes.
This led to an astonishingly high level of attention for this Floor-Climbing Grand Prix!
Zhumeng's official livestreams on major global livestream platforms had a total of over 12 million viewers!
If you include the rebroadcasts of various streamers, the number of viewers could very well exceed 15 million!
Amidst the attention of these tens of millions of people, Xu Meng appeared outside the Sky Arena to kick off the competition.
"Welcome, everyone! Come and watch Mansheng Metropolis's special New Year's Eve program—"
"The 2025 Floor-Climbing Grand Prix!"
"The rules have already been announced before. To avoid new viewers not knowing, I will briefly repeat them here."
"The only rule of the Floor-Climbing Grand Prix is—use any means possible to climb to the highest floor of the Sky Arena!"
"Other than that, there are no rules!"
"This is a completely unrestricted fight!"
"There are no parts of the body that cannot be hit!"
"There are no moves that cannot be used!"
"If you can drive a truck into the arena, then you are welcome to use it!"
"The only rule—"
"Within 30 days, climb to the highest floor possible!"
"All players—whether invited players or ordinary players—who reach the highest floor will receive a prize of 8 million Xia Yuan!"
"They will also receive the [Honorary Player] status, a special fighter title, a commemorative holographic display device, and a limited-edition holographic gold belt!"
"Zhumeng will also customize an ultra-high precision character model for you!"
"If you are willing, we will also create a fighter NPC based on you, becoming a permanent NPC in the Sky Arena, forever preserved in Mansheng Metropolis!"
"In addition, the top 5 overall fighters and the top 3 non-invited players will receive a reward one level lower."
"Finally! Even if you don't achieve any results, if you put on an exciting and memorable match, you will also receive a surprise reward!"
At this opening ceremony, Xu Meng suddenly added this series of extra rewards on top of the 8 million prize money.
I don't know how many players who originally had no hope and simply planned to watch the fun were once again inspired to participate!
After achieving his goal, Xu Meng announced without hesitation:
"Then! Fighters!"
"The Sky Arena Floor-Climbing Grand Prix officially begins!"
"Go and start your fighter careers!!"
