“All right, Miss Su, go back and eat your lunch. And from now on, no wandering into a man’s room as you please.” Ye Tianxie picked up the lunchbox.
“Fine.” Su Feifei didn’t press him, agreeing with a grin, and added, “Someone like you who hates going out is obviously holed up at home playing games all day… Mm, I won’t disturb you then. I’ll reach Level 10 soon myself.”
Su Feifei gave a little pump of her fist, stood, and left.
“So long as you don’t leave this place, not even an assassin could touch you. So eat and sleep with an easy mind.” Ye Tianxie said, head down, his voice low.
Su Feifei’s steps paused. She glanced back at him, smiled to herself, and only then walked away.
That lunch from Su Feifei was without question the most delicious meal Ye Tianxie had eaten in a very long time. Even he — a man with no appetite for food, one might even say utterly indifferent to it — found himself lingering over the aftertaste, and faintly entertaining the notion that eating a proper meal wasn’t so bad after all. Having dealt with his stomach, he then spent considerable effort coaxing a lollipop-stuffed Guoguo to sleep, and without bothering about whatever the newly-moved-in Miss Su was up to, lay down on the bed, closed his eyes, and entered the World of Fate.
No sooner had he entered the game world than the familiar female system prompt sounded in his ears — a prompt that stirred no small commotion across the entire Huaxia Region.
“Ding… As of now, the number of players in the Huaxia Region who have successfully completed their first class advancement has surpassed one million. The battle zone Level Rankings and Renown Rankings are now open.”
“Ding… You have taken first place on the Renown Rankings. If you wish to protect your privacy, you may choose to hide your name. Would you like to hide your name?”
The rankings that appear in nearly every virtual game world had opened on schedule — but these boards were far from a simple listing of names. In the Huaxia Region above all, anyone who could break into them out of a player base numbering in the hundreds of millions — whether by level, by renown, or by the wealth rankings that would surely open later — was without exception a powerhouse among powerhouses, standing at a true summit that ordinary players could only gaze up at.
“Don’t ask such a stupid question again… I’d have to be out of my mind to hide my name.” Ye Tianxie snorted. First place on the Renown Rankings didn’t surprise him in the least. Renown was extraordinarily hard to accumulate in the early game; an ordinary player doing well to have more than ten points. And Ye Tianxie — setting everything else aside — had the 100 Renown attached to the Hero’s Badge and the 100 Renown awarded for clearing the Abyss trial, more than enough to place him far above everyone else with ease.
The system prompt gave no reply…
Ye Tianxie waited two seconds in silence, and when no further prompt came, his expression twitched. He looked up and asked, “…Don’t tell me I’m not on the Level Rankings?”
The system had announced only a first place on the Renown Rankings — it hadn’t mentioned the Level Rankings at all.
The central plaza of the City of Heaven’s Stars was by now packed with players. Though one million class advancements was only a small fraction of Huaxia’s enormous population, that figure by no means meant only a million had reached Level 10… far more Level 10 players remained in the novice villages, challenging the higher-difficulty trials again and again, striving for a starting point above the ordinary.
Not far from the central plaza’s revival point, two enormous magic screens had been raised — the Huaxia battle zone’s Level Rankings and Renown Rankings. Each board listed first through tenth place, and players could also summon the boards with a thought to view the rankings from first to one-thousandth… But one should never underestimate that thousandth place; anyone who made the top thousand was likewise a powerhouse among powerhouses, far beyond an ordinary player’s reach. To appear on the plaza screens displaying the top ten, however, was an unmistakable symbol of formidable strength and an immense honor.
Renown Rankings — First Place: Xietian. Renown: 220.
Xietian’s name hung high atop the Renown Rankings, and the “220” behind it was especially conspicuous… because on this board symbolizing the highest Renown values in all Huaxia, his was the only figure that struck the eye as it did… three digits.
Ye Tianxie gave the Renown Rankings only a cursory glance before shifting his gaze to the Level Rankings — and upon seeing the name in first place, his brow snapped into a frown.
Level Rankings — First Place: Tian Moxie. Level 11. Class: Marksman.
Tian Moxie?!
A surge of killing intent churned violently through Ye Tianxie’s chest. He stared hard at that name… the name that had once been his own, and the corner of his mouth slowly hooked into something sinister… Matters seem more interesting than I imagined. Whoever has the nerve to use that name does have some real ability after all.
Is this a provocation? A show of force aimed at me?
Heh…
First place on the Level Rankings… Heh. In any world where I exist, so long as I don’t wish it, no one else may be first!
The rage at being so nakedly challenged flashed through him and was gone, replaced by a desire to mercilessly ravage and trample this challenger. As he himself had said, he was a man who could not afford to lose… and at the same time, the blood in his veins ran with a pride ordinary people could not comprehend. Even the slightest provocation was tantamount to striking the inverted scale on a dragon’s throat.
His mind settling, he turned — that cold smile still unerased — to look at second place on the Level Rankings, and his brow stirred once more.
The name Tian Moxie was unfamiliar to almost no player, and to those powerhouses standing at Huaxia’s summit, indeed the world’s, it was more familiar still. Because it was one of Huaxia’s legends — a true undefeated legend that had never once known defeat. His name had at last appeared in the World of Fate for the first time, and to any player, seeing it in first place on the Level Rankings seemed entirely a matter of course.
But apart from Ye Tianxie and this present “Tian Moxie,” no one knew that today’s “Tian Moxie” was not the Tian Moxie of old — not the man who had once shaken the heavens and made all who heard his name tremble — but an impostor who plainly possessed formidable strength of his own.
Level rankings could not truly serve as a ranking of strength, but they reflected it fairly directly to a considerable degree. And whether in Skyholder or Slaying Gods, the Level Rankings had been dominated by those peak powerhouses of Huaxia’s virtual gaming world, with few new names ever forcing their way in… And in both of those virtual worlds, the top three had been the exact same three people, never once changing: Tian Moxie, Sha Wujin, Bloodfiend Moon.
Before Fate opened, countless players had wondered whether the legend of these three would continue.
(End of Chapter 81)