Chapter 224 - Chapter 224: 185, Share a room!_2
Chapter 224: 185, Share a room!_2
“So what were you doing, Master?” Qing Chen wondered.
“I went to pick out a car for you,” Uncle Li Dong said, “It can’t be too flashy, but it still needs good performance; it’s not easy to choose. I’m quite old now, and it’s actually my first time buying a car personally.”
Qing Chen was puzzled, “What did those Time Travelers tell you, Master? Did they also say what a father needs to do?”
“Oh,” Uncle Li Dong thought for a moment before replying, “They said quite a bit, and many people’s opinions were different. Besides the majority saying a father needs to buy his son a house, some mentioned buying phones, some said cars.”
Qing Chen nodded, “That does fit with the current state of the Outer World.”
Uncle Li Dong gave him a look, “There’s also the one who said a father needs to thrash his son; he said you have an old saying in the Outer World, ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’”
Qing Chen: “???”
Who the heck told Uncle Li Dong that?!
After contemplating for a moment, Qing Chen asked, “This Time Traveler… what’s his name?”
Uncle Li Dong was silent for a while, “Are you planning on going back to the Outer World to kill him?”
“It’s not out of the question.”
“Right,” Uncle Li Dong said, “it’s been confirmed Liu Dezhu has become an Awakener. Can you be sure he’s loyal to you? If not, then I would instruct Lin Xiaoxiao and Ye Wan to take care of him as soon as possible. After all, the overall level in the Outer World is still very low, and such an Awakener could backlash against you.”
“There’s no need to take care of him; he’s already loyal,” Qing Chen shook his head, “Master, even if he wasn’t loyal, I couldn’t kill him just because of that.”
“Being kind is of course good, but being too kind is not necessarily a good thing,” Uncle Li Dong said.
“Master, what level did Liu Dezhu achieve after awakening?” Qing Chen asked.
“C-Class?” Qing Chen was astonished, “He reached C-Class just like that? Why could he directly skip over F, E, D, three levels?”
“The ranking of Awakeners is inherently leapfrogging,” Qing Chen thought aloud, “Cultivators release their potential in a targeted, slow manner, but their path is more stable and longer. Awakeners are different, they may awaken as a C-Class, and stay C-Class till death because they don’t have a stable way to grow. To continue advancing, they don’t even know how to do it.”
Qing Chen mused that it seemed about right; he could directly cultivate to advance, then with enough skills and experience, face the next life-and-death challenge.
But Liu Dezhu was different; he couldn’t possibly take risks again, carrying the weight of his mother on his shoulders.
“Will Liu Dezhu stop at C-Class?” Qing Chen asked.
“Unless he encounters an extremely significant emotional upheaval, his potential will indeed stop at C-Class,” Uncle Li Dong explained, “C-Class isn’t bad either, Lin Xiaoxiao and Ye Wan are both only at B-Class.”
“Has any Awakener found a stable way to advance?” Qing Chen inquired.
“There are,” Uncle Li Dong sighed, “There’s a clan that’s exceedingly brutal. When they noticed something unique about their youngest child at birth, they thought for sure he could become an extremely ferocious Transcendent. So, they devised a plan and hired an assassin to kill a clan member at regular intervals. The young child knew nothing of this and harboured hatred as he searched for the killer. As his relatives died one after the other, he ascended to B-Class within a mere three years. When he finally found the assassin and learned the truth, he couldn’t accept reality and advanced to A-Class.”
Qing Chen silently turned to look at Uncle Li Dong.
Uncle Li Dong said, “Why are you looking at me! Don’t suddenly look at me when I talk about these things… Should we go through the ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child’ process then?!”
“Cough, Master, don’t get the wrong idea, I wasn’t thinking that far. Speaking of which, that method of advancement is rather costly in terms of friends and family,” Qing Chen said, “Are there any with particularly good talents?”
“There are,” Uncle Li Dong remarked with emotion, “I’ve seen some with exceptional talents who achieved A-Class right after awakening.”
“Then, in the history of the Federation, which Awakener had the strongest talent, or rather, I want to know how powerful an Awakener can become?” Qing Chen queried.
“There is a documented record of the fastest awakening in the history of the Transcendents. One individual leapt from D-Class to S-Class within a single day, entering the realm of Demigod,” Uncle Li Dong shared.
“An Awakener can actually step into the realm of Demigods?” Qing Chen was astonished.
“Strictly speaking, it’s two steps,” Uncle Li Dong nodded, “but in history, there’s only been that one person, named Chen Wudi.”
Qing Chen discreetly absorbed this information, then suddenly asked, “Master, you want me to go to school, is it because you hope I can enjoy a few more carefree years?”
“Yeah,” Uncle Li Dong replied indifferently, “I’m afraid that if you’re always tense, you won’t be able to enjoy the pleasures of life. When I was your age, I never did anything serious, but looking back, that was the happiest time.”
Qing Chen shook his head, “Master, I only go to school for half a day. If you don’t let me do things, I’ll go crazy from boredom. Besides, I can’t be carefree anymore.”
Uncle Li Dong said, “Young people should not set too many goals for themselves. When I was your age, I used to fight with people in the city every day. My brother, a knight, had just survived his second life-and-death challenge, and I had just survived my first. After returning to the city from the green mountain cliffs, he insisted on testing my physical fitness, so we ended up giving the Black Dragon Society’s Crown Prince a thrashing in the dark. That led us to be chased by the Black Dragon Society for over seventy miles, all the way from the Ninth District to the Seventh District.”
The cities of the Inner World are quite large because of the high concentration of population, each city is like a super city of the Outer World.
And city number 18 and city number 10 are even larger because they are the Federation’s Gemini Star.
Qing Chen thought back to those days, it seems that even his master had such humiliating moments in the city.
He asked, “Why did you attack the Black Dragon Society’s Crown Prince?”
“Back then, master sent us to the black market to fight in illegal boxing matches to gain real combat experience. Turned out, the Black Dragon Society’s boxer poured plaster into his gloves. He hit my brother so hard that he was howling in pain,” Uncle Li Dong reminisced with emotion.
Qing Chen, taken aback, “Can Transcendents participate in the underground boxing matches of the black market? Your senior brother had just gone through his second Awakening; he must have been E-Class then, right? And he still couldn’t beat the others?”
For some reason, stories of these bigshots getting beat up and being unreliable in their youth always intrigued him immensely.
Such a master had the air of Fireworks.
“Of course, they can participate. It’s more thrilling when Transcendents enter the boxing ring, and the prize money and betting stakes are even higher. There are even D-Class fighters who join,” Uncle Li Dong continued to explain, “The fights are categorized by level. If you’re E-Class, you will encounter E-Class.”
The highest boxing level is the Land Cruise Grade, which corresponds to Transcendent D-Class.
The next level down is Tiger Grade, corresponding to Transcendent E-Class.
Below that are Middleweight Level, Lightweight Level, and Featherweight Level.
Here, the ranking is not about weight but rather about strength and combat record.
However, there’s one thing: freelance fighters must start from the lowest level and work their way up. Wherever they lose, they stay at that level just for one night.
The prize money for each level is worlds apart; a Featherweight fighter might only get a few hundred dollars for showing up, without any share of the betting pool, while a Middleweight Level fighter’s appearance fee can be tens of thousands, plus a share of the betting pool.
Of course, the cost of losing once could be death.
Having said this.
Uncle Li Dong stood up from the sofa and said, “Come on, I’ll take you somewhere, to see the real nightlife of City Number 18.”
Qing Chen followed his master, suddenly feeling as if his master had taken him on a trip to the green mountain cliffs, and now was about to take him to experience the nightlife at the black market boxing matches.
Actually, all this seemed more like the other party retracing the route he himself had taken when he was young. Walking along this path, the master’s mindset could not help but become much younger.
…
…
Below, Yingying, who had been hiding quietly, watched Uncle Li Dong and Qing Chen leave.
Only then did she silently slip into the Luo Shen Building, heading straight for the 132nd floor.
Knock, knock, knock, Yingying knocked on the door of the silver-haired girl Zheng Yi’s room.
Inside was Zheng Yi, who was just about to leave for tutoring. Seeing Yingying, she was startled, “Yingying, what are you doing here?”
As she spoke, she glanced over Yingying’s shoulder at the closed door behind her.
Yingying smiled and said, “Let’s be roommates!”