Chapter 19 – Monster

Most of the spectators in the arena were shocked when they saw the footwork Wu Lingling executed. The only exceptions were Qin Wuchen and the other students who had fought alongside Wu Lingling in the Withered Ruins. Their expressions remained calm throughout the entire process.

Meanwhile, after seeing Wu Lingling’s performance, Qin Wuchen’s friend from high school enviously said to him, “So this is why you decided to follow a newbie instructor, Wuchen! I didn’t know you had such a strong class rep! Her footwork is simply amazing! With her taking the lead, your class will be blessed when competing for school resources in the future!”

The God’s Domain Academy might have abundant resources, it didn’t mean that it could afford to waste them. Not to mention, the Academy’s goal was to produce expert players. Thus, rather than treating all students equally, the Academy distributed its resources based on the students’ performances. While this might seem like a harsh method of education, the world of experts in God’s Domain was cruel.

Meanwhile, if students of the Academy wished to obtain more resources, apart from choosing a good instructor and working hard, they could also pray for capable classmates. This was because the Academy would hold monthly class competitions for resource distribution.

In these monthly competitions, students from the classes ranked within the top three would each receive a bottle of A-rank Nutrient Fluid. They would also receive free access to the school’s simulation training room for three days, allowing them to spar against simulated experts. Although the Academy’s simulation training room was inferior to that of first-rate Guilds, it was still significantly better than the simulation training room of most large Guilds.

However, as operating a simulation training room consumed High-level Energy, even first-rate Guilds’ experts had few opportunities to use it. Moreover, these experts typically had to pay a huge price to use their Guilds’ simulation training rooms. Yet, the God’s Domain Academy was offering this opportunity to its students for free.

Thus, the Academy’s monthly class competitions were extraordinarily intense. Meanwhile, having capable students like Wu Lingling in a class was sure to increase the class’s chances of ranking within the monthly competition’s top three.

“Amazing footwork?” Qin Wuchen couldn’t help but look at his friend strangely. “The class rep is simply evading Gu Tong and Lieyun’s joint assault normally. I don’t know what those two are thinking. Why are they using such predictable attacks? They’re not even comparable to the Half-orc Fighters. Or are they probing the class rep?”

Hearing Qin Wuchen’s comments, Xiao Yuheng, another one of Shi Feng’s students, nodded in agreement and said, “That’s probably the case. The class rep is the only freshman who rivals Gu Tong, so Gu Tong must be checking to see if the class rep is qualified for him to get serious. But isn’t this too simple of a probe? It feels like he is looking down on the class rep.”

Xiao Yuheng considered Wu Lingling’s current performance to be standard. Wu Lingling was neither underperforming nor overperforming. After fighting in the Withered Ruins for over a dozen hours, Wu Lingling had already become capable of holding her ground against three Demonized Half-orc Fighters. As for the other students in Shi Feng’s class, while they couldn’t match Wu Lingling’s performance, they could still withstand the joint assault of two Half-orc Fighters.

Meanwhile, the Half-orc Fighters’ attack patterns were varied and constantly changing. It was especially true when they worked together. If one was not careful when going up against multiple Half-orc Fighters, one would quickly find themselves overwhelmed.

However, Gu Tong and Lieyun’s joint assault was nothing like that.

While Gu Tong and Lieyun might seem to have good coordination with each other, their attack patterns were simple and predictable. So long as one grasped the timing of their attacks, it wouldn’t be difficult to dodge their joint assault. In Xiao Yuheng’s opinion, at least half of Shi Feng’s class could dodge this joint assault, let alone Wu Lingling, the class’s top student.

As for the afterimages Wu Lingling created, that was merely the byproduct of an evasive maneuver, which was part of the aerobic exercise Shi Feng had taught them previously. The evasive maneuver required them to exert the muscles in their entire body during the moment of evasion, going from static to top speed instantly. Not only could the instantaneous burst of speed prevent their opponents from predicting the trajectory of their evasion and launching follow-up attacks, but it could also fool their opponents’ vision, making their opponents see an afterimage of themselves.

During the training session in the Withered Ruins, Shi Feng had already explained the theory behind this evasive maneuver to them. Meanwhile, the faster one could go from static to top speed, the more realistic one’s afterimage.

However, the fact that Wu Lingling had managed to create a realistic afterimage with her evasive maneuver shouldn’t be regarded as anything amazing. On the contrary, the afterimage should be considered an unwanted byproduct instead.

When a truly powerful expert executed an evasive maneuver, they wouldn’t create any visual afterimages at all. Instead, they would vanish from their opponent’s field of vision completely, their evasive technique making it so that their opponent’s brain became unaware of their presence. To be precise, the evasive technique created visual signals so complex that the human brain couldn’t process them. Thus, the brain would actively ignore such signals, thereby erasing the technique user’s presence completely.

“Indeed. At least half of our class can dodge such a simple probing attempt. I honestly don’t know what’s going through Gu Tong’s and Lieyun’s minds,” Qin Wuchen said, nodding in agreement with Xiao Yuheng’s comment.

However, as soon as Qin Wuchen finished speaking, his high school classmate and the freshmen from other classes sitting nearby were immediately rendered speechless.

Simple probing attempt?

At least half the class could dodge it?

Were they even speaking the same language?

It should be known that Wu Lingling’s current performance had amazed even the many Guild executives present. Yet, Qin Wuchen and Xiao Yuheng regarded Wu Lingling’s performance as nothing special! Did these two think everyone else was an idiot?

...

While everyone was talking about Wu Lingling’s footwork, Gu Tong had used the Tier 3 Lifesaving Skill Shadowless Step to forcibly enter Stealth. Then, he used the 0.5-second invulnerability period the Skill provided to tank Lieyun’s attack, allowing him to avoid the awkward situation of getting heavily injured due to friendly fire.

However, after using up his Lifesaving Skill, Gu Tong fell into the predicament of having no means of escaping Wu Lingling’s follow-up attacks.

The Assassin class wasn’t designed for frontal combat. The class shined most when executing surprise attacks and dexterous combat methods. In contrast, not only was Wu Lingling’s Swordsman class adept at frontal combat, but Wu Lingling herself was also known for her agile combat style.

Because of these factors, Gu Tong continuously lost HP when he clashed blades with Wu Lingling. And although Lieyun was frantically trying to attack Wu Lingling from behind, Wu Lingling seemingly had eyes growing on the back of her head as she could always evade Lieyun’s attacks at the very last moment. In this situation, Lieyun might as well not exist as his attacks were hardly doing anything to affect Wu Lingling’s fight with Gu Tong.

Dammit! How is she so strong?! Has she been hiding her strength all this time?!

Feelings of frustration and confusion filled Gu Tong’s heart as he desperately tried to defend against Wu Lingling’s attacks. Lieyun and Bingshou also experienced the same feelings when they saw Wu Lingling evade every one of their attacks with little effort.

After the clash continued for around 20 seconds, Wu Lingling successfully whittled Gu Tong to death. As for Lieyun and Bingshou, they didn’t even last 20 seconds against Wu Lingling after losing their team’s core...

When the administrative system announced the end of the match, silence filled the arena’s spectator stands as everyone turned to watch Wu Lingling climb out of her virtual gaming cabin, their eyes looking at Wu Lingling as if they were looking at a monster.