The Favored Son of Heaven

The same smile was shared between two people.

Qin Fen quickly realized that this man had also calculated today’s date to have a high probability of passing.

Not a hint of sweat could be seen on Zhang Xiangyang’s forehead, nor were there any computers or paper besides him. His appearance told Qin Fen that he had finished his calculations much earlier in a skillful and easy manner.

That’s way too fast! Qin Fen’s eyes lit up. He never believed himself to be genius, but he had confidence in his mental calculations. Then there was the training he has been receiving from Gun King these days, pushing his mental calculation ability to a level unreachable before. However, he had just been outdone by a comrade who continued to hide his talent.

Possessing this kind of speed in mentally calculating probabilities was a guarantee to get into the officer school channel of the military! Qin Fen was shocked in his heart. This person ought to be someone the military region requested in secret, right? In any case, it was a bit ridiculous to have placed Zhang Xiangyang and Du Peng in the same company, let alone the same squad, right?

“Have you decided when you’re going to go do the sect challenge?” Zhang Xiangyang’s smiled. Clearly, he already knew the answer. He was letting Qin Fen understand that he had his own secrets he needed to maintain.

Taking one’s own secret and telling it to someone else who had secrets of their own was a sort of secret exchange as well.

Qin Fen wasn’t a talkative person, but his brain was not stupid. He naturally understood this sort of exchange that Zhang Xiangyang was secretly trying to convey.

“Probably today.” Qin Fen picked up his helmet and spoke to everyone. “I’m going to start the application to open a sect first.”

Qin Fen entered the main environment of the Sky Battle Net once more and stood in the virtual high-tech city. He quickly walked to the application office to open a sect, according to the introduction on the web page,

Qin Fen got an application form and looked at the first item of note on the form, which was the requirement to pay a hundred dollars as an application fee. His heart ached when he saw it.

It wasn’t that Qin Fen was stingy, it was just that he didn’t like to spend money in this completely virtual world. From his perspective, this place should be making him money, not the other way around.

It’s just this one time! I’ll spend money just this one time! 

Qin Fen nailed a new principle in his mind, and he repeated over and over to himself to convince himself that this was a necessary investment to make even more money.

He quickly filled out the fields in the form until he reached the field that asked for the sect’s name. Only then did Qin Fen realize that he never thought about the name for his sect. He gazed at the field for the sect’s name and was stupefied for a time.

A system created virtual young lady arrived before Qin Fen. Her synthesized voice was beautiful and soft as she asked, “Excuse me, do you need any help?”

Compared to the harsh synthesized voices of the sub-channels, the main channel’s synthesized voices were much more pleasant to the ears.

Though she was a virtual person, Qin Fen maintained a polite smile. “Here. I’m having some difficulties with this.”

“Do you want to look at the names of the sects founded by other martial artists?” The virtual lady asked.

“Sure.” Qin Fen gave a hurried nod. Having a reference was always better than not having a reference.

The virtual lady raised a hand, and a projection screen appeared before Qin Fen. Large quantities of sect names scrolled quickly down the projection screen.

Soaring Dragon Pavilion, Instant Kill Sect, Heaven Revolving Gate, Great River Union, Beneath the Heavens Assembly, Beauty and the Dragon Sect, Loli School, Apple Pie, Broken River….

Qin Fen looked at the dazzling names. He could feel the general thoughts of the sects’ creators just from their names.

Sects with names such as Loli School, Apple Pie, Beauty and the Dragon Sect, and so on should be sects founded by playful martial artists to create fun and trouble.

As for Soaring Dragon Pavilion and Heaven Revolving Gate, these sounded like very formal names. They should be martial artists who were announcing their dreams a bit, wishing to make a name for themselves in the Sky Battle Net.

Qin Fen looked at the names of over a hundred sects before he began to understand something. Founding a sect didn’t require it to be called a ‘something something’ sect or a ‘something something’ gate. There was a large degree of freedom when it came to the founded sect’s name.

After some thinking, Qin Fen quickly filled the sect name field with a name of his own decision—Dragon Hall.

Qin Fen finished filling out the form and submitted it.

The virtual beauty asked him, “Excuse me, what time did you choose for the sect’s founding?”

“Right now.” Qin Fen made his answer very decisively.

“Then please pay the application fee.”

The virtual beauty opened the payment system for Qin Fen and waited for him to transfer the application fee of a hundred dollars from his account.

Qin Fen firmly transfered the hundred dollars out of his account, his heart aching a bit, but he had not a hint of regret or hesitation.

One must not hesitate when doing things. One must make decisive decisions. It was intolerable to have even a sliver of hesitation on the battlefield. Half a second of hesitation was the distance between life or death.

Gun King, Squadron Leader Trash, Butcher, and the other drill instructors constantly instilled this concept into Qin Fen. Right now it was deeply imprinted within Qin Fen’s mind. Even in his day-to-day life, the concept had begun to imperceptibly influence his actions and behavior.

“The payment is successful. May I ask if you choose to pay a fee to be exempt from the test or do you choose to take the combat test.”

“Combat. I’ll take the test.”

Qin Fen answered very decisively. A man should courageously face challenges and tests. If a man didn’t even believe in himself, could he still expect others to believe in him?

“That’s good. Please enter the first test.”

As her voice rang through the air, the scene around Qin Fen’s body changed dramatically. He arrived at a place he was extremely familiar with.

The ring!

It was an expansive square ring, and its surroundings were greatly similar to the place where he had his first fight.

When Qin Fen accepted a challenge these days, he would always accommodate the challenger, choosing an environment that was more suited for his opponent. The sudden change to a fair environment made him a bit uncomfortable for a time.

He had to fight three rounds, and he couldn’t get money from any of them. Alas!

As Qin Fen felt the misfortune of losing three chances to make money, he waited for the tester to appear.

A person’s shadow swayed twice in the corner of the ring, and a man wielding a Heaven Scorcher Halberd and wearing virtual guard-tech combat clothes soon appeared.

Qin Fen had learned about these combat clothes from the lessons with his drill instructors. Wearing it allowed the user to easily endure two hundred kilograms of force without being harmed at all. These clothes were quite popular when they first came out, but then certain close combat weapons, like the expensive and luxurious power fist, appeared in the fighting scene, and these combat clothes were no longer as popular as before.

“Are you the one who has come to take the challenge for opening a sect?”

The man who wielded a Heaven Scorcher Halberd studied Qin Fen as if he was interrogating a prisoner. The man had never seen anyone who looked to be so unprepared yet wanted to undertake this challenge.

“Thirty-Six Hours? Huh? You’re that degenerate martial artist from the two-star and three-star area?” The man wielding a Heaven Scorcher Halberd had looked up Qin Fen’s profile before the fight. His words were overflowing with disdain as he said, “The Dragon Elephant Prajna Art? The Shaolin Arhat Fist? These are your martial arts? Three-star and two-star martial artists have really degraded these days. They actually let you seize the laurel of War God?”

Qin Fen was a bit surprised. He never thought that he had a bit of fame among the four-star martial artists.

This test was regulated, though. The tested and the tester had strength on the same level.

Of course, the Sky Battle Net was a place with a large degree of freedom. The use of weapons wasn’t prohibited here. For example, swords, spears, blades, halberds, and the like could all be used.

Firearms could be used anytime besides when opening a sect or challenging a sect. However, in these two special cases, the usage of firearms was forbidden.

Qin Fen wasn’t surprised to be facing a man wielding a halberd. Sometimes the tester was a virtual character created by the system, and sometimes the tester was a real martial artist.

The martial artists who volunteered to become testers for opening a sect would receive something for each time they tested someone. The system would give them a fixed reward.

Of course, the tester had to defeat the test taker, who wanted to open a sect, in order to get the reward. If he tester lost, then the reward would be transfered to the test taker. This was a special incentive.

The rewards for the victor didn’t consist of virtual items, but rather a certain number of what was known as battle points.

In the Sky Battle Net, one could exchange real life money for battle points, then convert said points into virtual goods. Of course, one could also use battle points to buy virtual goods and sell the goods to other martial artists for actual money.

Such conversions via battle points resulted in a depreciation of value by around twenty percent.

The tester in this case would receive a hundred battle points for defeating a newcomer in opening a sect. A hundred battle points converted to about eighty dollars.

One could apply to the system if one wanted to become a sect-open tester. The system would automatically notify the tester once a tester was needed.

Qin Fen opened up his opponent’s profile at this time: Leafsky, Sect Master of the Certain Victory Sect. Uses a self-created martial arts halberd technique, Lu Bu’s Snake Halberd. Cultivates in the internal paleo art, the Sole Energy of Time Immemorial. Height….

The master of the Certain Victory Sect? Qin Fen was a bit stunned. Squad Leader Hao had taught him psychology. Based on analysis according to his teachings, calling a sect something like ‘Certain Victory, ‘Forever Victory’, ‘Unparalleled’, and so on might sound menacing and prestigious as a name, but often they weren’t all that amazing.

And a self-created martial art? Qin Fen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Quite a few people these days liked to immediately create their own martial arts when they started learning martial arts. But this was like drawing a tiger using a cat as a model; the self-created martial art was often an uninspired imitation. With the creator having an insufficient foundation, the created martial art could only scare people at most. Most self-created martial arts were bad.

The more a person didn’t know one’s self, the more likely they’d deal with creating a personal martial art.

Leafsky saw that Qin Fen was silent. Standing quietly made it seem like Qin Fen had been scared silly, and Leafsky felt quite smug in his heart. It looked like today his look was quite decent. This fat little sheep should only take a moment to be done with.

Leafsky moved gently with his feet, approaching Qin Fen bit by bit. He planned on using his unparalleled halberd arts to teach this extremely popular Thirty-Six Hours, at least among three-stars and two-stars, a lesson. He would let Thirty-Six Hours know that the four-star level was different from the two-star and three-star levels! When one entered the four-star level, one entered the cruel world of the strong. This was a place where Thirty-Six Hours wouldn’t be able to fit in.

As Leafsky continued to move slowly, Qin Fen’s eyes suddenly lit up. Qin Fen had felt Leafsky enter his attack range.