After the first day of familiarization, Lin Huang headed straight to the training tower right after breakfast the next morning. To him, the accumulation of points nothing as he was not lacking equipment or combat skills. At most, he would need a minimal amount of points to get some food but most importantly, he only had one goal when he entered the training tower - obtaining more Life Power.
The training tower was a giant tower located in the middle of a small foothold. Aside from the office of the scarred man on the top floor, there was a total of 12 floors with training areas beneath it. The first to third floor contained monsters from iron-level rank-1 to rank-3. The fourth to sixth floor contained monsters from bronze-level rank-1 to rank-3. The seventh to ninth floor contained monsters from silver-level rank-1 to rank-3 while the 10th to 12th floor contained monsters from gold-level rank-1 to rank-3.
Lin Huang got up to the sixth floor using the stairs and looked for a room that was unoccupied. He chose the sixth floor because accumulating Life Power by killing bronze-level monsters was not much different from killing silver-level monsters. At the same time, Lin Huang could focus on his training as well. With Bai’s ability, he could totally go straight to the ninth or tenth floor but to Lin Huang, the monsters on the ninth and tenth floor would be too strong for him to handle alone and all he would be able to do was watch Bai do all the killing.
There were 300 doors on each floor, each of them leading to a training room. If the training room was occupied, there would be a red light above the entrance. If it was vacant, there would be a green light above the entrance. They would have to scan their identity tags before entering. It took Lin Huang awhile to find a door with a green light and he entered it immediately after scanning his identity code.
Once he stepped in through the door, he was teleported into the wild. In his field of vision, there were groups of bronze-level rank-3 monsters of all forms. He was stunned.
"Is this real life or virtual reality?" Lin Huang thought but he could not tell at that moment. He had never seen so many monsters at once in any of the wild zones in the safe zones. As he summoned Bai, the Blood Spirit wings sliced the first monster’s head and Life Light was transferred from the monster to his Life Wheel, he realized that this was real life.
"Where is this place?" he wondered. Without a moment's hesitation, Lin Huang and Bai began killing. Participants would usually stay in the training room for two to three hours as their Life Power would be drained from such intense battles. However, since Lin Huang’s Life Wheel was connected to Bai’s, his Life Power was replenished continuously so he would be able to stay there for extended periods of time - easily up to eight hours.
Lin Huang got out of the training space at five in the evening. Within eight hours, Bai and himself managed to kill up approximately 1,000 monsters. He leveled up from bronze-level rank-1 to rank-3 and the Life Power had filled up the sixth circle in his Life Wheel. He was close to filling up his Life Wheels. For the next couple of days, he spent most of his time in the training tower. Three days later, the three Life Wheels in his body were all filled up. Lin Huang and Bai managed to kill almost 4,000 bronze-level rank-3 monsters, allowing him to accumulate more than 160,000 points within three days.
The accumulated points would reset every 100 days. With the points he had accumulated, he would be able to rank top 10 on the leaderboard. However, he only managed to make it to No.297 on the leaderboard. He had garnered attention from many for the number of points he managed to accumulate in such short period of time. Ever since he completely filled up his Life Wheels, he stopped going to the training tower. He stayed in his room to practice his Life Skills as well as stabilize his Life Power. He hardly left his room after that.
His ranking had been dropping during the next couple of days but he did not care at all. On the third day he stopped going to the training tower, he had planned to take a breather outside after breakfast before practicing his Life Skills. However, just when he stepped out of the residential area, he was stopped by a young man with blonde hair.
"Are you Lin Huang?"
"Can I help you?" Lin Huang had no idea who he was.
"I want to challenge you!" the man shouted. Lin Huang thought the man was being absurd.
"Not interested," Lin Huang said and turned away. He could tell that the man was bronze-level rank-2 and fighting him would be a waste of time.
"I think you meant you don’t have the guts to challenge me?" The man instigated.
"Whatever," Lin Huang replied. He did not bother and walked towards the residential area.
"If that’s the case, I shall start a deathmatch then," the man yelled at Lin Huang.
A notification box popped up before Lin Huang from his Emperor’s Heart Ring.
"Li Zihao has requested to carry out a deathmatch with you."
"Deathmatch will start in 10, 9, 8…"
"What the hell?" Lin Huang thought. Could the man be really that ridiculous?
"You forced me to do this. If you accepted my challenge, the most I would get was half of your points. Now that you have forced me to initiate a deathmatch, the only thing I can do is to kill you and take all your points," the man shouted at Lin Huang while transforming two equipment rings into two short blades.
Lin Huang finally understood what was happening. He was quiet as he took out his bronze-level battle sword. A crowd had surrounded them to watch the show. Once the countdown was over, the man ran towards Lin Huang. He moved amazingly fast and he was before Lin Huang in an instant. His blades were aimed at Lin Huang's throat and his heart. Many cheered for his tactics.
However, with a slight evasive move, the man missed his hit. Nobody saw Lin Huang’s attack but there was a cut that was more than 40 centimeters long on the man’s chest, extending from the side left of his waist to his upper chest.
"You lose," Lin Huang said as he now stood two steps behind the man. The man fell on the ground, blood pouring out of the wound on his chest. It was too late when he realized that his abilities were far beneath Lin Huang's.
Lin Huang did not care and attempted to leave. A boy who looked 13 or 14 came to him and said, "Hey, you must kill him to end the battle. That’s the rule of the battle."
"Rules are made by people, and I will not conform to this barbaric behaviour," Lin Huang glared at him and walked away.
The boy walked pass Lin Huang and stood next to the blond haired man. He then grabbed his head and snapped his neck. The young man fell to the ground, in his own blood and guts.
"I've killed him for you, you don’t need to thank me. Since you’re new here, I will forgive you for not knowing the rule. However, I hate people who don't follow the rules. I won't let you go next time!" The boy shouted at Lin Huang. A notification popped out after the battle ended, Lin Huang obtained 43,000 points. He turned around to glare at the boy and left with the crowd.
"How dare he offend Gong Sunning!" People exclaimed around him. The crowd discussed the incident among themselves. Lin Huang had no idea who that boy was. He walked straight to his room to continue with his practice.
Xiao Mo saw Lin Huang was back, and he asked nervously, "Did you offend Gong Sunying?"
"That guy is Gong Sunying?" Lin Huang was surprised. He had heard of the name before but he had never met the guy. Now he knew who the guy was after Xiao Mo mentioned it. Gong Sunying was ranked second on the leaderboard. He was silver-level rank-3 - one of the strongest in the training camp.
"He’s not a boy. His growth was stunted for some reason. He is actually 21 years old," Xiao Mo explained. "How did you offend him?" He continued.
"Nothing, I just bumped into him but, the news travelled so fast that even you already heard about it," Lin Huang said. He was speechless and how fast gossip traveled around here.
"I saw it on the forums," Xiao Mo said.
Although the network connection on the Heart Network was blocked, there was a forum on the division network for discussions. The latest gossip was usually posted there. Gong Sunying was one of the strongest in the training camp. Anything that was related to him would naturally be posted on the forum as soon as possible. The news about Lin Huang offending him was posted too.
"What’s with the deathmatch? Why didn't I find this in the rule book?" Lin Huang asked Xiao Mo.
"The deathmatch was not created by the training camp. It was started by participants in the training camp. Initially it was a bet where the management staff would be the judges. The one who won would take all the points in the bet while the one who lost would lose their points. It created a gambling trend so it had to stop," Xiao Mo explained.
"Later on it became a battle where the one who won could take the loser’s points right away, but only up to 50% of his points. After that, it became a deathmatch where the winner would have to kill the loser to end the battle. The winner could take all of the loser's points. It was not in the rules because it is an unspoken rule. The management realized that this would benefit them in finding superior participants so it was allowed," Xiao Mo concluded.
Lin Huang finally understood why such things existed in the training camp after Xiao Mo’s explanation.
"How many points have you accumulated now?" Lin Huang asked.
"Better than before but it’s still not good enough," Xiao Mo replied with an awkward smile. "From what you said, I should have killed monsters until all my Life Power got drained before getting to a safe place where I can replenish my Life Power with Life Crystals. If I could stay for eight hours in the training room within these couple of days, I'd take exactly two and a half hours to kill the monsters," he continued.
"Take it one step at a time. With your pace, it’s very possible to be out of the last three places on the leaderboard. Do you still have Life Crystals?" Lin Huang asked.
"I still have enough for tomorrow," Xiao Mo nodded. "Thank you for all your help. I will return these Life Crystals three times over... No, 10 times over to you!"
"We will talk about money when we are out of here. Just focus on killing monsters now," Lin Huang said and patted his shoulder.