Master of the Stars

Chapter 395: Stirring Anger

Translator: Strivon

He had been set up!

Only now did Luo Nan understand that Xue Lei’s thoughts on sanshou boxing training never faded away. This bro endured half an afternoon and half a night to finally use the battle invitation of the Ten Days in the Wilderness game and throw Luo Nan into the ditch.

Of course, Luo Nan could act as if he didn’t hear Xue Lei. He could switch to a Fantasy type or Mutant type to avoid direct combat, but even though Xue Lei had pushed him into this ditch, there were good intentions behind his actions. It wouldn’t be good of Luo Nan to waste his time..

Luo Nan’s following moments were filled with pain.

This combat training in the ring was quite simple. Both people had chosen human heroes. They possessed systems containing built-in actions, and everything was supported and restricted by reality technology, but Luo Nan was tortured quite badly when facing off against Xue Lei, a true monster of physical enhancement.

Luo Nan lost what was most effective for him, long-range sensing. His soul strength was absolutely useless, leaving him to rely purely on the reactions of his body. He had nearly no experience in this, so Xue Lei was able to toy with Luo Nan as he saw fit….

Luo Nan was easily defeated ten times in five minutes. The losses were so much that he wanted to vomit.

None of their friends in the circle expected the two to play this sort of game mode. Each one of them had eyes bulging wide like dogs. Especially when Luo Nan died in the tenth battle through strangulation. Messages of the group began streaming down screens.

Mo Han: Nanster, I have a whole new level of respect for you. And Xue Lei, I can’t even look straight at him!

Mo Peng: Don’t cry Nanster. Stand up and rub it! I mean rub your neck.

Tian Si: Is this safe?

Ruan Zihui: I’m already in the Uncanny Valley. The two handsome fellows don’t need to show me a horror movie, thank-you very much.

Tong Hui: You’re clearly very excited…. I’m talking about my wife.

Luo Biyao: A love so pure that they kill each other!

The others left messages as well, including Yue Qin and Turner. They just took the tenth showdown to be tonight’s special show.

Xue Lei secretly rolled his eyes, but he still did his best to avoid being affected as he taught Luo Nan seriously. He was a sincere person. He was trying to teach Luo Nan, not just showing off a variety of killing techniques. He was using live-combat to break through Luo Nan’s shortcomings and heighten his experience.

He felt that things were sufficient after ten matches. A lot of time was wasted whenever a match ended, time spent on entering and leaving the match. It was simply better to set the room into an unlimited practice mode. He used the established movements of the system to accompany Luo Nan in practicing moves.

“This system of movement is quite reliable. The rhythm of traction is good as well. We can first follow these movements. Actually, whether it’s sanshou boxing or the sequence of movements, its very important to grasp opportunity in battle. In other words, one must first have a good eye. It’s okay to have strong eyes but weak hands for now. These words I can only say to you.”

“It’s – it’s the gym master’s words, right?” Luo Nan gasped.

Mo Peng and the others’ disturbance affected Luo Nan, who was far more disadvantaged than Xue Lei. However, his current state of concentration was definitely worthy of praise.

Though he had intentions of half-assing it in the beginning, his emotions changed after being easily defeated ten times and suffering from the pain over and over again. He normally wasn’t even able to touch the edge of Xue Lei’s clothes. The exception was when Xue Lei deliberately gave him opening to strike back for the sake of demonstration. This sort of result, no matter how natural and trivial, would make one angry when accumulated over and over again.

It was under this drive of emotion that, though Luo Nan’s body grew more and more tired, his attention grew more and more focused. Not only was he was effective in blocking off external disturbances, his perception was clearer toward his surrounding environment…

“Fucker!” Luo Nan had been knocked down by a leg-sweep. He fell down in the ring, confused. He was confirming more and more the differences between the maglev cabin of the VIP room with this six-degrees-of-freedom simulator.

The maglev cabin he used in the past should be focused for Burners, ability users — these special characters. The cabin was meticulously made for the sensations of the human body, reaching deep into the level of the nervous system. It was able to create observational influences down to the finest detail toward the operation of million upon millions of nerves.

Once started, the maglev cabain could truly form a corresponding template within the virtual world, approaching the functionality of the HexaEar. Activity in the virtual world was primarily consciousness-driven, but the stimulations and effects were still plenty. They were all fed back to the body.

The six-degrees-of-freedom simulator he was using was far too lacking when it came to precision. There was one exception. The traction applied to the body was quite outstanding. It was probably like the common saying, “The precision wasn’t enough, but the power was abundant.” Like the so-called iron-instructor who didn’t recognize weak things such as emotions.

This was especially true because of what Xue Lei requested. He had raised the ‘guide’ to the maximum. Thanks to the traction and control of the simulator, one had to punch out in the reality battlefield to have their hero punch out. One had to kick to have their hero kick. And the scope of movement required was quite high. One mistake and the game character’s entire body would freeze. One would leave themselves open to become a punching bag.

The simulator also applied a ‘penalty stimulation’. The simulated sensation of being struck was unrestrained. Heavy strikes, falls, tears, chokes, and so on. They were all differentiated quite well.

Luo Nan focused on these properties, constantly adjusting his own movements. Xue Lei constantly adjusted his teaching techniques as well. From universal pointers to taking great pains at focusing on a set of movements, he drilled it in.

“Foresight. You need to have foresight. You must understand the movement, judge the movement, and grasp the rhythm between the forces of you and your opponent. The rhythm of the two sides contend with each other, but they must also fuse together. A perfect situation is when your crest meets my trough… good!”

Luo Nan’s frontal kick was blocked by Xue Lei. The system judged that the attack was effective. The power forced Xue Lei’s hero to take a step back, and Luo Nan seized the opportunity. He was just about to launch another attack when a yellow light lit up in the simulator. This was a warning given by the system; the operator had used up too much of their body’s energy.

“Let’s stop for now.” Xue Lei raised his hand to stop. He had been constantly watching the state of Luo Nan’s body. It wasn’t worth squeezing Luo Nan completely dry for the sake of practice.

Then came a system notification, asking Luo Nan if he wanted to get out the simulator or not.

This was a soft warning. After all, Luo Nan had only caused a yellow indication. If it was a red indication, then the system would simply shut down the machine due to the risk of excessive stimulation.

Xue Lei become more and more in the habit of being a teacher. He was really becoming one. “Don’t worry. Take a breather. Let’s strike the iron while it’s hot and come back to basic practice.”

“Wouldn’t the order be messed up if we practice the basics now?”

“It’s fine. You’ve done your internal refinement technique quite well. Your nine orifices and six roots will certainly be sharp in the future, and you won’t need to worry about your body control. You just need to keep a close eye on them and not be scared of falling into bad outcomes. Learning from setbacks is one of the best things you can do…in any case, this was what the gym master says.”

“So no matter what, I’m going to be beaten bad!”

Luo Nan made a wry grunt, but he was still quite obedient. He would follow Xue Lei’s idea to request practice mode from the system and get a virtual instructor to begin solidifying his foundation.

A message suddenly popped up during Luo Nan’s casual behavior. “Hello, since you’re a rookie you should be going to area B or C to play basic training. Doing basic training here is a joke!”

This message was only the beginning. Soon there was another message, “My god, some people really do try to pretend to be awesome!”

“You are all rookies, no doubt about it, but it’s quite embarrassing to be acting like this in front of everyone else.”

“The audience wants to change channels. If the channel can’t be changed, then change the people!”

These messages were completely different from the messages of kind teasing from Mo Peng and the others. With this flood of messages, Luo Nan and Xue Lei felt a bit guilty. Those in their circle felt the same.

In the end it was Mo Peng who responded quickly, “You’re set in public mode…that’s not right. Who is bored enough to look up your small battlefield?”

Luo Biyao sent a message, “Hehe!”

The messages came in like a waterfall, and the matter soon grew clear. It wasn’t really that complicated.

It was partially Xue Lei and Luo Nan’s mistake. Neither of them were reality veteran. They hadn’t set up the battlefield to be in secret mode, so their battle was broadcasted to the public. All one needed was to request to watch and they would see.

On the other hand, Luo Biyao had helped court disaster. It was this dude who edited videos of Xue Lei dominating Luo Nan and sent them to the internal forum of Frost River Reality. The title, “Mutual Love. Mutual Murder.”

The video content was quite good. It was quite moving when viewed through Xue Lei’s perspective, but since the interfaces shown in the video wasn’t properly cleaned up, the technological whizes were able to find out where the video came from quite quickly. They called upon many people to observe.

But the following scene made all the excited observers become greatly disappointed.

The combat training Luo Nan and Xue Lei were engaged in was boring. The entire process wasn’t worth holding it in to avoid going to the bathroom, and right now they were going to go do basic training. It was too much of a taunt toward the players who tried snatching those spots in the hero seats hundreds of times to no avail. No wonder some people had popped out.

“Damn this group of people.”

Xue Lei just barely got Luo Nan into a routine and was about to reach an enjoyable stage in teaching. He wouldn’t give up teaching that easily. He heard the words about going to area B or C and disregarded them. The degree of realism in the simulators over there were far too lacking from area A’s. It would ruin their training. He would never agree based on this alone.

But this was the internet; when crowds surged, there were quite a few people who had no clue in what they were talking about. Xue Lei got angry looking at these messages and simply returned a reply to those in the public channel, “We managed to snatch seats. Why would we listen to you guys about how to play?”

Based on pure physical power, Xue Lei could annihilate a hundred enemies by himself, but he was far too lacking when it came to a battle of words. The opposition simply criticized, “Cheating trash. Let’s do a spot-battle!”

The so-called spot-battle was similar to arcade battle. Winner stays on and the loser was kicked off, but the problem was, this mode had to be supported by the system. Otherwise, it was a stupid action that only served to harm one’s self.

Xue Lei chuckled, “You also need a machine for this to work.”

His voice fell, and words of bloody war already blotted the sky, shaking the ring back and forth. In the hero area, where war ran in turmoil and chaos, it was hard for there to be good people.

Luo Nan shook his head, “Don’t think about it.”

Sure enough, they were soon bombarded by messages. More importantly, a blood red war challenge smashed down. It’s shaking effect was simply explosively annoying.

Luo Nan wanted to set their room to private mode, but then Papercut, who had been silently watching all this time, popped out. “What are you hiding for? Attack back.”

“Can’t win.”

Luo Nan had a clear understanding of his own level. Just based on his exchanges with Xue Lei, he knew that he would be beaten bloody by his opponent

He really wasn’t a masochist, so why should he try?

Papercut was happy to talk level with him. Luo Nan’s current state of distress and torment was really in line with his taste. Luo Nan was acting like a normal sixteen-year-old boy.

Right now Papercut just wanted to watch the world burn. He donned the persona of a senior and able person. “I’m not talking about engaging purely in a battle of words. You guys are youngsters. You don’t have enough experience; doing this training; rushing to get started without a clear goal in mind. It’s hard to avoid putting in twice the effort for half the result.”

It was very rare to hear Papercut talk in a way that showed his pride in his age and experience. In any case, Xue Lei and Luo Nan were happy to listen to the advice of a veteran ability user.

“Leister just said that he wanted Nanster to practice his strength of vision, and that it’s fine to have strong eyes and weak hands for a time. Am I right?”

Luo Nan acted as witness, “He did say this.”

Xue Lei did not object.

“All right. If you take strength of vision to be the number one priority, then you’ll be distracted in doing these movement exercises and basic exercises. He’s probably exhausted from this.”

“Dual cultivation is what should be done.” Xue Lei tried to maintain his authority as instructor.

“Don’t you need to pay attention to efficiency? In terms of efficiency, it’s better to let Nanster learn long-range heroes. Nothing else matters. What’s next should be aiming at moving targets and interrupting the opponent’s rhythm. Adjust long-range and close-range step by step and setup a few different situations to try. This makes sure that the eyes are trained strong but the hands are weak…no wait, you’ll have superb strength of vision. Try combining it with live practice when that happens and see if there are results.”

Xue Lei was a bit shaken, “Know yourself and know your enemy. Seems reasonable.”

But Luo Nan saw through everything, “Brother Papercut! You clearly want our team to fight with them!”

Papercut didn’t hide it at all, “Nonsense! Toward a bunch of babies who don’t know depth, there’s nothing to talk about. We shouldn’t just take it, we should slaughter them….am I right!?”

This was a blunt and clumsy provocation, but it was able to let the youngsters within their circle clamor in response.

“Attack them! Crush them!”

“Attack, attack, attack! Crush, crush, crush!”

These bad friends. Whether its attacking, crushing, or being crushed, they just want to watch a lively show. Soon large amounts of messages flooded the screen.

Xue Lei let out a long sigh. He knew that regardless of the effects of Papercut’s proposal, he could expect that his sanshou boxing training would no longer have the possibility of continuing. Since the situation was so, what was there to get in a bind about? In any case, he had already been angry long ago!

“Fuck! Attack!”

Xue Lei moved swiftly the moment he let out these words. He simply chose a public battlefield and selected spot-battle mode.

The storm they set off had grown too big. There were at least thirty people who responded. The system sensed the information and automatically matched them with an ‘infinite slaughter environment’ and sent requests for every party to confirm.

“Fuck, the system’s been promoted to super admin?”

“Greed over two peaches may result in three people killed…no, thirty killed!”

“Exploding, it’s exploding!”

In the ‘infinite slaughter environment’, all combatants must kill their opponents or survive for the next half an hour for the match to finish.

Looking at similar cases, Xue Lei and Luo Nan would need to get rid of at least twenty or so people. The onlookers would then become the fisherman that catches both the sandpiper and clam when the sandpiper and clam wages war. The probability of snatching a spot was explosively high!

The shamelessness of the system exceeded the expectations of most of the parties, but this matter was soon becoming a public event. Under full public view, there were very few people who would cower.

In the end, only three people chose to run away with their tails between their legs. The remaining thirty-two people were swept into the battlefield, taking up a third of the space in the hero area.

The onlookers around the hero area, and even in the entirety of area A, were about to explode. They cursed the system in righteous indignation as they stuck close to the buttons that would allow them to snatch seats. They stared fixed at the live stream. They would start snatching like mad once someone fell in battle.

“Come. Fight! Get completely destroyed!”