Chapter 51: Duels When Climbing the Tower
The most popular place in the Star Web would always be the Star Tower. At the Star Tower’s vicinity, one would be able to feel how prosperous the Star Web was as the Radiance Federation’s second world.
After reaching the Star Tower’s entrance, Lin Yuan was amazed by the things he saw and heard along the way. He saw all sorts of feys. They were all copied and uploaded data in the Star Web, but the high-grade feys retained their genuine prowess, giving off a pressure that blasted one right in the face.
In order to climb the Star Tower, one would need to register first. Of course, it wasn’t necessary to register every time before climbing the tower. Everyone would only have to register their information for the first time they climbed the tower.
The most important objective for registering their information was to enter the spirit qi professionals’ rank and the contracted feys’ strength.
Subsequently, the information would produce the data, and when challenging the tower, the data would produce a virtual image.
In the real world, it was very difficult for spirit qi professionals to fight without any restraint. An all-out fight might result in one of the parties getting injured, or it might actually result in both parties being injured.
When high-ranked spirit qi professionals were fighting at their full strength, they might not be able to control the damage their feys caused and might even result in casualties.
The Star Web just so happened to compensate for this factor.
A fight in the Star Web was the same as recording all the spirit qi professionals’ information and the feys. During combat, the sense of pain, touch, and everything else would be the same as in the real world.
Even if there were any casualties in the Star Web during combat, the spirit qi professionals and their feys in the real world wouldn’t receive physical damage.
The significance of climbing the Star Tower brought glory to the people at the high rankings and enabled spirit qi professional and their feys to work on their teamwork. It also gave them the chance to try combat techniques.
For the first 100 floors of the Star Tower, challengers would be randomly picked on the same floor for combat. The winner would rise up by one floor, while the loser would drop down by one floor.
After reaching the 100th floor, one would need to go through the Celestial Stairway Tribulation, which was also known as the promotion duels.
During the promotion duel, three challengers that were partic.i.p.ating in the promotion would be randomly picked to conduct three duels.
After two consecutive duels, the third duel could be skipped, and the challenger would promote to the Celestial Stairway.
If the challenger lost one duel, the promotion to the Celestial Stairway would fail. If the challenger lost two duels, the challenger wouldn’t even be able to stay on the 100th floor and would drop down to the 99th floor.
If the challenger lost three duels, they would drop directly to the 98th floor and would need to climb back up to the 100th floor before being able to challenge for the promotion duels again.
The rules to climb the tower were very simple. However, when climbing the tower, it was possible to be paired up with an unlucky spirit qi professional who was actually very formidable but was stuck on the lower floors.
Such people were also known as the Star Tower’s goalkeepers.
Everyone who climbed the Star Tower would be targeting the Celestial Stairway. Only people who were promoted to the Celestial Stairway were considered as the Star Tower’s formidable individuals. Such people were known as the G.o.d Cla.s.s.
As this was the first time Lin Yuan was climbing the Star Tower, he had no choice but to register himself obediently.
The ident.i.ty information required to register for the Star Tower was different from others. The Star Web Card bound the Star Tower’s ident.i.ty information. It also meant that each Radiance Federation citizen would only be able to use their true ident.i.ty to partic.i.p.ate in the Star Tower’s Star Tower.
The Radiance Federation had plenty of unions, and most of them had huge amounts of resources and high salaries to attract the spirit qi professionals. All of the unions would form teams to partic.i.p.ate in some large-scale tournaments.
The higher-ranked duelists with potential would normally become recruitment targets for the unions.
When entering the Star Tower’s newcomer registration room, Lin Yuan noticed that it was extremely quiet.
There was a young man flipping and browsing through a book that was related to feys. When he saw Lin Yuan entering, he immediately said, “New climber, hurry up and come over to fill up the form! After filling up the form, I will bring you inside to input the information.”
The young man then swiftly placed the form on the table for Lin Yuan. He then looked at Genius and Chimey standing on Lin Yuan’s shoulders and said with an intrigued tone, “Your two feys look rather good! I didn’t think that there would be spirit beasts that I cannot recognize.”
Lin Yuan let out a smile in response. Genius had evolved from a Hundred Questions Beast, while Chimey had evolved from a Sound Bird.
Genius was already a Bronze Thousand Questions Beast, while Chimey was a Bronze Streamcloud Azure Bird.
No one had ever evolved the Hundred Questions Beast and the Sound Bird to bronze-grade. Therefore, they were unique in this world, and it was natural that no one could recognize them.
Lin Yuan swiftly handed over the form with his personal information.
The young man received it and took a glance. Seeing that there was no problem, he stood up and walked in front of Lin Yuan. “Follow me then. It might be rather troublesome to input the information for the first time, but you will have proof of registration on the Star Web after the first input. The next time your occupation rank increases or you have new feys or newly evolved feys, you could enter the information by yourself in the Star Web system.”
The young man informed Lin Yuan of the important matters. After completing his job role, he took out that same book he was reading earlier. He was carefully flipping through it while walking and seemed to be memorizing it.
Lin Yuan saw the name of the book, and it was one of the books that was related to the primary rank Fey Observer. He then asked, “By the looks of your book, are you going to partic.i.p.ate in the primary rank Fey Observer’s exam?”
The young man was surprised. He didn’t expect the young Lin Yuan to actually be so clear about the examinable topics for primary rank Fey Observers.
He looked at Lin with surprise and said, “Yes, I am going to pa.s.s the exam for the primary rank Fey Observer and prepare for the Creation Master exam next month.”
The young man had an extremely prideful expression, and his tone was filled with confidence and the desire to flaunt.
After the young man explained the necessary processes and completed Lin Yuan’s registration, Lin Yuan left. To the young man, the thing he had to do right now was to memorize more knowledge on the Fey Observer occupation. Lin Yuan wasn’t going to continue disrupting him.
For anyone with the talent to take on the Creation Master exam and pa.s.s it, it would be the same as leaping through the dragon gate. Even a Cla.s.s 1 Creation Master was a person that would receive respect and admiration, no matter where they went.
Lin Yuan had already inputted the information for Morbius, Genius, and Chimey. As for Red Thorn, it was still a Normal fey and wasn’t qualified to partic.i.p.ate in the Star Tower’s combat format. Thus, Lin Yuan didn’t input Red Thorn’s information.
After registering in the Star Tower’s list, an ident.i.ty card that contained information on Lin Yuan was produced.
Name: Lin Yuan
Gender: Male
Height: 178cm
Weight: 61kg
Star Tower Floor: 0th Floor
Spirit Qi Occupation: Healing-Type Professional
Occupation Rank: D-Rank
Contracted fey:
Morbius (Elite 7/10, Epic)
Thousand Questions Beast (Bronze 1/10, Normal)
Streamcloud Azure Bird (Bronze 1/10, Normal)
Duel Record:
Duels: 0, Wins: 0, Losses: 0, Highest Floor: 0
After seeing the ident.i.ty card, Lin Yuan immediately chose to conceal all the information apart from the duel record and spirit qi occupation.
The Star Web was the Radiance Federation’s second world, and in terms of the a.s.surance of privacy, it was even better than the real world.
Now that Lin Yuan had inputted all the information, he immediately chose to enter the Star Tower.
Lin Yuan had not partic.i.p.ated in any duel in the Star Tower and was only a person among the innumerable bottom feeders. After choosing the option to match with an opponent, Lin Yuan was quickly matched with a duelist that was also on the Star Tower’s bottom floor.
When Lin Yuan saw the opponent’s information, he was rather shocked. The opponent had already partic.i.p.ated in 471 duels and the highest floor recorded was the 3rd floor.
It meant that he had been pinned down in almost all of the 471 duels. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be at the Star Tower’s bottom floor.
The duel record couldn’t be hidden, and before the duel, both parties would be able to see each other’s records.
The opponent was an old man that was roughly over 80 years of age and half his hair was already white. But after seeing Lin Yuan’s duel record, he immediately laughed heartily. “An old man like me is actually able to encounter a newcomer! After I win this duel and climb to the 1st floor, I will not climb the tower anymore! This way, I will be able to stay on the 1st floor for one month, and I will be able to flaunt it to that Old Liu next door for one month.”
The Star Tower was a testing ground where all spirit qi professionals in the Radiance Federation would partic.i.p.ate. Certain rules and countermeasures were taken to prevent any spirit qi professionals from maintaining their floor record by not partic.i.p.ating in any duels after climbing to a certain floor with luck.
Any duelist that was climbing the tower would need to partic.i.p.ate in one duel per month. It was also because of this rule that uber lucky individuals were unable to maintain their incorrect standard.
Lin Yuan noticed that the old man on the other side had summoned a Normal Gray Beetle, which was charging at him. Lin Yuan didn’t know what to do for a moment. He originally wanted to greet his opponent, but it seemed like there wasn’t a need to greet, and the battle would end soon.
Lin Yuan didn’t ask Chimey to activate its ability. Instead, he asked Genius to charge forward. With a swing of the three tails, the Gray Beetle was knocked over.
The old man evidently had only one contracted fey, so he immediately lost the duel.
After losing the duel, the old man looked at Lin Yuan and put on a show. He lay down on the ground and bawled, “Aiyo, my poor old waist. The youngsters nowadays are truly merciless!”
Lin Yuan looked at the dramatic old man and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. This old uncle should partic.i.p.ate in the Birth of An Actor[1]**.
Sensing that the old man wasn’t going to end his show anytime soon, Lin Yuan said, “Uncle, this is the Star Web. Even if you break your waist here, it will be fine.”
The old man jumped up in response and rolled his eyes at Lin Yuan. “I shall give you the win today. Back then, I was an expert that was able to execute the Angry Crow Takes Flight and Tornado Desecrates Trailer Park[2]! Forget it, forget it! This old man is going home to eat my medicine!”
Lin Yuan’s current Star Tower’s record already displayed that he was on the 1st floor of the Star Tower.
Lin Yuan felt that the duel at the bottom floor was surprisingly easy, but the old man’s performance was amusing too. Lin Yuan’s momentum increased as he continued to partic.i.p.ate in more duels and quickly reached the 9th floor.
Now that Lin Yuan reached the 9th floor, he finally and painstakingly encountered an opponent who used Elite feys.
As soon as the duel started, the two opposing Elite Yellow-Spotted Hound and the Tusked Digging Boar were defeated by Chimey’s Sound Thrust.
Lin Yuan continued to climb the tower, and when he reached the 22nd floor, he met an opponent that actually used Bronze feys like him.
However, the opposition’s Bronze feys seemed rather powerful.
[1] A variety show in China
[2] These are all moves by Hak-Foo from Jackie Chan Adventures