"Road to the Arena" didn't look much different from his picture. He obviously didn't use any beauty products or Photoshop skills. Lou Cheng felt a kind of happiness, as if he'd bumped into an acquaintance. Feigning ignorance, he posted in the livestream using an emoji with a blank stare. "I just finished an exam and saw this post. 'Master Road' and 'Invincible' are raising our forums prestige in Yanling! That Amateur Fourth Pin opposite him, what's his story?"
"Invincible Punch" apparently was watching the match at the same time, taking pictures and recording video while scrolling through the forum. After twenty or thirty seconds, he replied to Lou Cheng, "Oh, I'd thought you'd gone missing Tiger, but it turns out it's only exam season! Why would Master Road need to find out any information about an Amateur Fourth Pin athlete? Anyway, there's no real threat."
"Hmm, a little bit arrogant..." Lou Cheng whispered. Without leaving his seat, he could see "Invincible Punch" next to the arena. Everyone online wasn't too familiar with each other, so talking in person would surely be awkward, and furthermore, he had entered the Warrior Sage Challenge Tournament. It would be hard to avoid being compared with the rest of the competition. Given the circumstances where the disparity in ranks was relatively large, this kind of thing could be avoided.
So he merely answered in a joking tone, "So Master Road is still chugging along despite his age?" He still holds the position of Number One Expert on the forum, and won't give us young people a chance!"
"You're talking as if Master Road's in his 70's or 80's." "Beautiful World" sent an emoji covering its mouth in laughter. "As for you Tiger, wait 10 years and it's likely that you still won't be Master Road's opponent, and still won't have the forum's Number One Expert title."
"I'm not saying that, I'm just joking. Why should I even have a rebuttal..." The corner of Lou Cheng's mouth twitched as he responded, "No, no, no, I'm helping 'Invincible' speak. He's got a plot to usurp the throne!"
"All of you wicked people want to cause trouble for me! If Master Road pops my cherry, what's to be done?!" "Invincible Punch" sent a terrified sticker.
"Okamoto's Fan" used a comical emoji. "Shouldn't you be happy to get your cherry popped on a date?"
Following along the same line of conversation, the moderator "Pig-Riding Knight", "A Plumber Eating Mushrooms", "Brahman" and others conversed excitedly, mischievously talking about the difference between condoms and contraception.
I couldn't even imagine junior high students being this filthy... Lou Cheng snickered and once again directed his gaze towards the match.
With impressive legwork, fast punches and elegant movements, "Road to the Arena" made other people as if they were looking straight at a tornado and that he was able to suppress his opponent so impressively, but Lou Cheng was a different person today than he'd been in the past. With one glance he could tell that his posture was awkward, and the force of his hits wasn't sufficient.
In the past, Lou Cheng mainly watched the top tier Professional Martial Arts Competitions and the Top 5 Title Matches. Containing near physical invulnerability and the highest level of Danqi state, these battles were already at an inhuman level. Using the famous He Xiaowei's description, the physical invulnerability of every Mighty One was nearly equivalent to that of a battle tank. So high was this honor that there was no need for the military, who mostly would prefer for the martial artists to destroy each other as they were considered a danger towards the country's security.
It was for this very reason that, before entering the Martial Arts Club, Lou Cheng didn't watch many "Dan Stage" and "Body Refining Stage" matches. He barely had any knowledge and what knowledge he did have wasn't that deep, but by observing the twenty or thirty matches throughout the National University Martial Arts Competitions Partition Contest over the past two days, in addition to the combat experience he had gained, his insight into these fights had become much sharper.
"Road to the Arena" looked rusty. His footwork and stance seemed like he'd been out of practice, causing his hitting power to be insufficient. If the opposition put in a little more effort, he wouldn't be able to relax so much. However, in recent years he'd been so busy with business and yet hadn't abandoned his training. His physical strength, power, and agility had all been maintained well. After going through two or three matches, he should be able to regain about 70-80% of what he had at his peak. Lou Cheng analyzed the situation with all his might, but got caught up in second thoughts. "If he and I fight hand to hand, how would I react, how to break his maneuvers..."
Using this thought, his constructed an image of the match in his mind. The Amateur Fourth Pin competitor had been replaced by himself, so he could watch and analyze Road to the Arena's every move, deducing how to employ which method. Unbeknownst to Lou Cheng, while simulating this fight, "Road to the Arena" had used his foot to kick his opponent out of the ring, ending the match.
"A Punch's Journey" instantly took a photo of his victory pose and uploaded it into a post on the live broadcast.
"Master Road defeated his opponent in three minutes!"
Lou Cheng discontinued the simulation in his mind and glanced at the photo. He could only see that Road to the Arena's forehead was sweating, sliding down his cheeks.
"He still had a big problem with his physical strength, which can't quite recover in a short period..." Lou Cheng nodded his head slightly as he watched the two opponents leave. He got up and headed towards the service desk and asked for a fighting sheet, looking for the information on the match that had just happened so that he could find out "Road to the Arena's" real name.
"Number 173, Zhou Yuanning, 29 years old, Professional Ninth Pin, from Heishan Province, is skilled at the Heavenly Wind Incantation's Wuthering Eight Movements. So "Road to the Arena" was nearly 30! It seemed to be true that he used to have a well-known ex-fighter Master. Heh, all of his big talk before looked like it had been made up. At best, it's been exaggerated by quite a bit." Lou Cheng thought as he asked for Road to the Arena's detailed information.
Heavenly Wind Incantation wasn't typically known amongst the people by that name, but rather was commonly called "Way of the Wind." The "Wuthering Eight Movements" of "Road to the Arena" had been passed down through generations. Even if he'd never officially become a master's apprentice, he must have received direction from a famous fighter.
Receiving the information, Lou Cheng went to a different arena to watch another match. A group of girls at the service desk waited for him to get far away, and then started to whisper in each other's ears.
"I checked. He won again! Looks like he is an expert."
"Mmm, most likely he thinks it's beneath him to join an Amateur Ranking Event."
"This is my favorite kind of man. I don't know what kind of opponent he'll encounter tomorrow. What do you think, should we recommend his matches to the audience?"
"Better wait and see, so we don't waste our energy."
Several girls in the forum were ecstatic. This way of exploring an expert was much more intimate and interesting than simply looking at official publicity.
...
Looking at one match after the other, Lou Cheng's mind gradually became crammed full with all kinds of styles, deducing how he would react. He did this until 4 o'clock, when he finally got out of his seat and headed out of the martial arts arena. He returned to his hotel room to put his coat inside and then went to a small park nearby. He then began to drill, going through all of the expected moves as if there was an imaginary opponent in front of him.
He disassembled the three sets of 24 Blizzard Strikes' Brutal Blizzard and Mega Avalanche, throwing them in random order and constantly reorganizing them. Lou Cheng practiced until he felt a kind of intoxication and icy coldness in the depths of his eyes. Although his calmness was nearly frightening, his hands and feet whizzed by with the ferocity of a madman.
As he changed his posture, he didn't limit himself only according to these three sets grouping, and instead threw all 24 hits indiscriminately, anticipating the moves from his imaginary opponent and adjusting accordingly. From all of the sloppiness of a novice in the beginning, he'd developed into this perfect image of a fighter.
The 24 Blizzard Strikes' style was aimed at beginner students, so it was easy to grasp quickly. At its core, there were three ideas: Brutal Blizzard, Biting Chill, and Mega Avalanche. Treating these as the foundation, it was possible for one to combine them into 24 possible hits within every attack.
Chops, elbows, swooping kicks, fast palms and sticking close to the body, a chain of all these hits, echoing out like a blowing wind, made it feel like there was a sudden explosion like an avalanche, vast and mighty, burying everything.
"Phew!" Lou Cheng withdrew his boxing stance and adopted his final stance with firing out a sharp breath of air.
The joy on his face was obvious. Under his abdomen, the Jindan warmly flowed with its ice and fire, healing his exhaustion.
Having mastered the 24 Blizzard Strikes at long last and reaching a higher level brought no small amount of pride.
Lou Cheng chose a random place nearby to eat and went back to the hotel. The very first thing he did was to turn on the computer, connect his phone, and save the voice message that Yan Zheke had sent earlier onto the hard drive so he could avoid losing it if his phone got damaged.
This was worth a lifetime's collection of memories!
After finishing this, he opened QQ and told Yan Zheke about how rewarding the training he'd just done had been, and Yan Zheke also shared with him how her afternoon training had gone with the moves handed down in her family.
Despite sitting in a shabby hotel room, being surrounded by an unfamiliar city, and hearing dialects that he couldn't understand in the park, Lou Cheng smiled and felt a serene comfort.
...
The next day at dawn, the man in the leather jacket had opted for a black down jacket. Dragging two similarly aged companions along, they all arrived in front of the big screen.
"I'm telling you, I noticed a very impressive expert, and he still doesn't have any rank..." the man in the leather jacket said, explaining the two past days' events. He lifted his head and looked towards the roster which was constantly refreshing itself. "Number 656, Lou Cheng..."
...
The couple from yesterday had brought with a few classmates. They all chatted nonstop as they approached the big screen.
"Yesterday I knew that expert, that No Rank Expert!" The boy from the couple pointed to the roster. "Ah, Number 656, Lou Cheng..."
...
Liu Yinglong, along with other disciples that had been eliminated, arrived at the martial arts arena and gazed at the big screen.
"Number 656, Lou Cheng..." he said silently to himself, waiting for the roster to flip to a new page.
Suddenly, he gazed his eyes and said with a smile.
"Interesting ..."
...
Lou Cheng had wrapped a down jacket over his martial arts suit, and followed the crowd of people arriving at the nearby big screen. For the third time, he looked for his own name.
"Second arena, tenth match. Number 819, Jin Tao, 19 years old, Amateur First Pin. Number 656, Lou Cheng, 18 years old, no rank."
Seeing this information, Lou Cheng wasn't at all surprised. In the third round, the arenas had been reduced to five. Encountering an Amateur First, Second or Third Pin Expert was highly probable.
It's just that he was a little bit unlucky that it wasn't an Amateur Third Pin...
"Well, even if it's just so you can thoroughly measure your abilities, there is nothing to be afraid of. Even losing could have its fair share of rewards!" As he headed to the service desk and comforted himself, he informed Yan Zheke about the results of the drawing on QQ. He used a laughing emoji to say, "Fine with me!"
In a time like this, you couldn't say that one's character could protect you from any problem, so you had to pretend like nothing was wrong.
Waiting for Yan Zheke's reply, he went to the end of the line in front of the service desk and flipped through the forums. Under the live broadcast post, he could see that 'Road to the Arena' had posted something.
"Little Fist has good luck today! Got a guy with no rank, some guy called Lou Cheng!"
"Eh?" Lou Cheng was dumbfounded.