Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Xiao Lin feigned a move and forcibly canceled the retraction process of the Slashing’s power, but he successfully found Cheng Ming in a vulnerable state. It went without saying that he was not going to spare Cheng Ming any courtesy. He delivered several quick stabs with his longsword, and Cheng Ming’s health dropped by nearly half on the health bar displayed on the wall. In that state, Cheng Ming had no way to block or mount a counterattack, so he could only endure those stabs as they came.
Xiao Lin did not enjoy the battle. After succeeding in the attack, he quickly backed away and distanced himself. Cheng Ming was stronger than he had imagined, and although the open attack earlier had allowed him to succeed, he originally expected it to decrease Cheng Ming’s health by at least two-thirds. It was Cheng Ming’s quick response that forced him to step back and temporarily avoid an attack.
The voices cheering for Cheng Ming outside the room kept coming, but the tutor sighed silently. She had already seen that Cheng Ming might not be a match for Xiao Lin at all.
Although the current strength levels of the two were close and Cheng Ming’s strength even edged out Xiao Lin’s, their experience gap was so large that it completely surpassed the tutor’s expectations.
The battle continued.
After Xiao Lin distanced himself, he raised the longsword high up again and a silver light flashed along the blade’s edge. It was clearly a sign that he was beginning to gather strength after activating his Slashing. Surprisingly, he was actually planning to use the same technique again.
“Xiao Lin, the same moves are useless against me!”
“You’re not Saint Seiya!” Xiao Lin could not help but taunt.
“Huh? Saint Seiya?”
Cheng Ming did not understand Xiao Lin’s taunt, but he would not be fooled for the second time. Direct as he was, he preferred a straightforward face off. In addition to his relatively large stature and low agility, his dodging technique was not that good. He thought for less than half a second and stepped forward, raising his épée above his head as it glowed while powering-up.
‘Slashing vs Slashing!’
The instructor snorted coldly, and could not help but burst out saying, “Idiot!”
The students watching the battle looked a little confused and immediately asked, “Tutor, who are you calling an idiot?”
“Both of them!” It was a rare instance where she explained something. “When it comes to real combat, Slashing is a very tasteless skill. All you have to do is avoid the attack in time during the power-up stage. Cheng Ming avoids non-confrontational fights, and that penchant of his will be his downfall. Xiao Lin is also an idiot for having the guts to confront Cheng Ming with Slashing. Their simultaneous attack now becomes a pure contest of strength, and Cheng Ming has an overwhelming advantage! The outcome is all but decided. Xiao Lin may excel in terms of experience, but his own foundation is still too poor!”
Cheng Ming’s Slashing proficiency had reached the highest level due to the bonus of his Swordheart talent, but with the addition of his own strength, the power of that slash would certainly be immense.
The power-up process lasted only three or four seconds and the two training swords collided with a piercing sharp light. Although the training swords were not made of iron and had almost no lethality, the onlookers’ eyes twitched seeing the burst of impact from those two rushing out with all their strength.
“Miracle!”
Xiao Lin was not so stupid to confront Cheng Ming directly. His Miracle skill had been quietly activated, converting no more than 50% of his attributes into other attributes. He converted his agility, physique and intelligence into strength. A total of 15 points were converted, bringing the total value of power to 25 points.
There was still a slight gap between himself and Cheng Ming, but his Basic Swordsmanship was one level higher than that of his opponent, which barely made up for that shortcoming.
It was not the first time he has used the attribute conversion skill. He has used it many times in The Final Land, but it was the first time he had used it without the help of the Lightstream Jade.
Xiao Lin felt his footsteps become heavier, evidently due to the decline in agility and physical fitness. The fatigue in his brain had also increased inexplicably: the result of low intelligence and low mental strength.
In the same way however, he felt his arms flood with power.
The forces generated by the two slashes collided, and the powerful energy sent Xiao Lin and Cheng Ming back several steps. If they were using real swords, they would have both suffered huge injuries.
Beep, beep, beep!
The battle system issued a notification that the battle had ended. Everyone suddenly turned to look at the health bar monitor and exclaimed. Cheng Ming’s health bar had dropped to zero, and even those who did not understand the battle earlier finally understood that the winner was Xiao Lin.
The most important aspect of that simulated battle system was undoubtedly its accurate and intuitive reflection of a battle’s outcome through a digitized health bar, rather than having both sides fight to the death.
The noisy cheers came to an abrupt end. Everyone looked at each other with incredulous looks. Although it was just a trivial exercise, many of them looked forward to seeing Cheng Ming put Xiao Lin in his place.
The result put almost everyone at a loss for words, especially the other monitors, who looked like they had seen a ghost. As members of the same Basic Swordsmanship class, they knew how strong Cheng Ming was. It was not as though they never made that comparison before. Even though they did not use the battle system, they were well aware that they could not defeat Cheng Ming because his Swordheart talent practically made him born to use swords.
Despite all that, Cheng Ming was defeated by Xiao Lin in a very short battle that lasted no more than two minutes.
A crowd of strange gazes fell on the tutor again. She had just said that Xiao Lin would lose, yet the outcome had slapped her in the face within a few seconds. Her face turned pale, after which she yelled angrily, “Don’t you all need to train? I’ll deduct the credits of anyone who slacks off!”
The onlookers still had much to say, but they dispersed immediately after her shout. Everyone felt incredibly dejected from Cheng Na’s harshness.
“It’s over?” Cheng Ming was a little dazed.
Xiao Lin curled his lips and rubbed his numb wrist, then raised his head and glanced at his own health bar. He was also overcome with emotion. In fact, he did not really care about the outcome of that match. The more important point was that Cheng Ming proved to be a good opponent to experiment with.
The goal of the experiment was naturally to convert his own attributes, which was the Miracle skill in other words. It was a useful skill indeed, allowing Xiao Lin to match Cheng Ming, even in a head-on confrontation.
As it stood, his basic attribute value was still a bit low, and although the slash earlier was a resounding victory, only half of his health remained. If that was actual combat, Xiao Lin would have suffered a serious injury.
“Hahaha! You’re really strong! Looks like I’ve not been training hard enough!” Cheng Ming walked over and hugged Xiao Lin without any complaints. Although that easygoing man was very dispirited when his health drained to zero, he quickly set those feelings aside.