Chapter 532: Could This Be a Noob?

Previously, Shopkeeper Fang had taught the cultivators and warriors of the Jiuhua City shop about the "Shadow Step," so those from places like Lingzhou and the Deserted Sea Realm who had never heard of it naturally had to find the patrons of the Jiuhua City shop who had to catch up on the chapters they missed.

It was naturally impossible for Fang Qi to recount it word for word like a novel; as he narrated, he also casually explained the underlying principles of some of these skills to them.

Of course, these were actually things reconstructed by the system version; because the two games were similar, they happened to be explanatory, such as what a grapple skill was, which likewise existed in the system version of Dungeon and Fighter as a special technique of exerting force or spellcraft.

However, it was more complex than the original version of Dungeon and Fighter, including the Gunner's Punisher and the Asura's Spirit Crescent Wave, all of which possessed dedicated, matching methods of grappling or neutralizing force before activation.

Although time was short, Shopkeeper Fang merely picked up from the end of the last session, speaking of the Double Ghost Phantom Rhapsody, and then moved on to the Screen Cannon tactic used against Jiang You before calling it a day.

A Ghost Boundary was something that inherently implied drawing a prison on the ground; who would be foolish enough to stand inside someone else's formation during actual combat? This required considerable awareness and coordination; if the opponents were all masters (meaning real-world masters, not merely in-game experts), the coefficient of difficulty would only increase exponentially, so when they heard of someone coordinating two classes possessing Ghost Boundary skills to keep the opponent within a formation at every single moment...

It sounded incredibly formidable.

"Boss... is that great god Ye Xiu really that amazing?!"

"Even with his level restricting his strength, he can still display such perfect..." Several people were still familiarizing themselves with these new terms, "...such perfect mechanics?"

"And that internet cafe owner, she runs an internet cafe after all, so how could she lack even this much insight, failing to recognize a great god right before her eyes?!" After all, in the eyes of these people from an alternate world, those capable of opening an internet cafe were probably not much different from hidden, supreme masters.

While many people on Shopkeeper Fang's side were asking this and that, a burst of startled exclamations was heard once again from around the group of people from the Western Dwellings Realm.

Inside the screen, Xiah held a purple greatsword, reinforced to plus eight and shimmering with demonic light, with a reverse grip as she stood upon the martial arts field; this martial arts field of Master Pungjin was likewise in Dungeon Mode, but the difference was that players did not kill monsters here, but were matched against different players to battle each other.

At the same time, a certain balancing mechanism existed within the martial arts field.

(Similar to the earliest matchmaking balance system of Dungeon and Fighter, the skills were not like the original version's various restrictions purely for balance in the arena, but rather because their own systems were more complete, resulting in a lack of issues requiring restriction.)

The attributes of the players would be drawn to a much closer tier.

Of course, this was only a partial adjustment; wishing to be on the same tier when one's equipment was an entire tier inferior to the opponent's was naturally impossible, as better equipment and higher levels still carried an advantage, it just was not as massive as before.

Although the gap had narrowed slightly, it did not affect a certain small minority of people, such as Xiah, who at this moment already wore several pieces of reinforced purple equipment, possessed a plus-eight weapon, and was clad entirely in avatar items.

Her level was close to thirty, which was considered extremely high within the shop as well.

In this era where the general public wore common blue and white equipment, she truly exceeded ordinary players by far too much, a gap that was simply not something the balancing system could bridge.

Inside the martial arts field was a giant arena stage, and standing opposite her was a male Fighter.

Although this male Fighter was likewise level twenty-seven, he was clearly being suppressed quite miserably, with many places on his body already bearing wounds.

"Hah!" With a delicate shout, Xiah instantly swung out a succession of sharp sword qi from the greatsword in her hand; right when the opponent was exhausted from evading, she was seen taking rapid strides to sprint forward, lowering her center of gravity like a leopard preparing to pounce on its prey.

"Swift Shadow Slash!" Her entire being had already transformed into an afterimage as she shot forth, and the greatsword in her hand could only be seen as a residual image of sword light!

As mentioned previously, the swordsmanship of the Sword Master placed extreme emphasis on explosive offensive power; after the first awakening, a Sword Master could be called a Sword Empress, renowned precisely for powerful swordsmanship, and this move, Swift Shadow Slash, was exactly so.

An afterimage pierced through the body at an unimaginable speed; only after the person had already sheathed the sword did one see that Fighter fly backward as if struck by some immense impact, the armor upon his body completely dented inward!

As that Fighter flew along with the impact, the retracted greatsword suddenly turned, striking out once more: "Light and Shadow Slash!"

Light and Shadow Slash, also known as the Instant Shadow Triple Slash, gathered power capable of instantly slashing out three giant sword qi ahead; its weakness lay in a extremely brief charging time when unleashing the move, but once the sword was swung, its power was absolutely peerless!

The massive sword qi pierced through the body almost in the blink of an eye; following a miserable cry from that Fighter, there remained only military boots, black hair fluttering (hairstyles and hair colors could be changed in the item shop), and the Sword Master girl holding a greatsword in a reverse grip as she stood proudly in the center of the screen, where the word Victory had already appeared.

"Too strong!"

"The opponent simply had no power to fight back!" several people from the Western Dwellings Realm exclaimed.

"With this equipment and such powerful swordsmanship, who could possibly stop her?!"

The corners of the mouth of that Sword Master girl on the screen turned up slightly; Xiah had won many matches in a row today, and was clearly a bit proud of herself.

...

"Boss!" Several people from Lingzhou had clearly only heard of these mechanics described by Shopkeeper Fang and had not witnessed many of them; having listened with excitement just now, they did not expect Shopkeeper Fang to stop talking on the pretext of a dry throat.

At this time, they thought of another idea: "Boss, since you've talked so much, isn't it time to stretch your muscles? We haven't seen you enter the martial arts field either, so why don't you try a match too?"

Speaking of which, listening to the player versus player battles against various experts in "The King's Avatar" just now had made their blood boil with excitement upon hearing the brilliant parts.

Tang Yu's eyes lit up: "This really is an excellent suggestion!"

"I should try?" Shopkeeper Fang scratched his head; speaking of which, he spent most of his time running dungeons and had indeed rarely engaged in player versus player battles recently.

"Alright then, let's test the feel of it." Shopkeeper Fang quickly arrived at the martial arts field.

During this period in the martial arts field, there were two kinds of matchmaking mechanisms: one was Quick Start, and the other was manually joining someone else's room to compete.

Shopkeeper Fang casually clicked into the first room on the first page.

Under the system's mechanism, the more matches played and the higher the win rate, the further forward the room's number would be positioned; the first room on the first page would absolutely not have a low win rate.

Focusing his gaze, he took a look: "Oh, it's actually a Sword Empress?"

On the other side, a group of warriors from the Western Dwellings Realm stared at the screen, only to see a prompt on the upper left of the screen: Player "One Bullet Eliminates One Comrade" has joined the room.

"Hahahahaha, One Bullet Eliminates One Comrade?! What kind of trash name is this? I'm dying of laughter!"

"..." Even Xiah almost let out a laugh; how could someone choose this kind of name?

"Could it be a noob?" One had to know that because of the mechanism allowing friendly fire, within the dungeons, rookies frequently caused hilarious accidents (maliciously killing teammates carried punishments, so it was very rare).

"He doesn't even have avatar items!"

"A whole set of blue and white common equipment! Perhaps he really is a little rookie?"

"This name is just too funny, hahaha!"

This name looked very festive; could he perhaps be here just to be funny?

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Postscript: Isn't it quite normal for a system-version name to be this long...

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