On the arena’s central screen, the names and numbers of countless participants began to scroll by like a cascading waterfall.
A massive and efficient random drawing, involving millions of participants, had officially begun.
Qin Feng sat in the stands, his heart calm as he watched his participant number, "K-4-9527," flash past in the torrent of data.
’For him, the outcome of this match was already a foregone conclusion.’
’He had only one purpose for coming here—the ten thousand Contribution Points, an amount sufficient to fund the next stage of his training path.’
Soon, the first-round matchups were finalized.
[First Round, Battle Platform 72]
[Contestants: K-4-9527 (Qin Feng) vs. K-4-883412 (Li Mo)]
Qin Feng’s figure slowly vanished. The next moment, he had already appeared on the designated battle platform.
His opponent was a young freshman who looked to be only seventeen or eighteen years old, just as Qin Feng himself had once been.
The freshman, Li Mo, had a face flushed with the nervousness and excitement of attending such a grand event for the first time. His eyes filled with fighting spirit as he looked at Qin Feng, who stood opposite him with an unremarkable aura, appearing to be just an ordinary senior.
He was clearly a freshman who had enrolled in the last few years. He had never heard the name "Qin Feng," which had been silent on the forums for decades, and had no idea what kind of being he was about to face.
[Begin Match!]
As the referee’s announcement sounded, the freshman let out a roar. Pushing his life force to its absolute limit and wielding a Battle Saber, he lunged toward Qin Feng.
In his eyes, however, Qin Feng simply seemed to take a gentle step forward.
And then, he vanished.
"Huh?"
The thought had barely crossed Li Mo’s mind.
An irresistible force slammed into the back of his neck.
His vision went black. It felt as if he’d been struck by a high-speed maglev train as his body was sent flying uncontrollably off the platform. He crashed hard onto the cushioning force field below and instantly lost consciousness.
From start to finish, he hadn’t managed to catch even the slightest trace of Qin Feng’s movements.
[K-4-9527 (Qin Feng), Victor!]
The battle was over in a single second.
Qin Feng’s figure returned to the stands. The seat he had left was still warm.
The second round began moments later.
His opponent was an "older" freshman with a life force index of over three hundred, considered one of the best among the new students.
This freshman had clearly done his homework. Knowing that Qin Feng had won his first round with an instant kill, he adopted his strongest defensive stance the moment the match began.
But it was meaningless.
In the face of absolute speed and power, all techniques and defenses were pale and useless.
Once again, a blurry afterimage flashed past.
The freshman felt his defensive stance shatter as if it were made of paper, pierced in an instant by an unstoppable force. Then, his vision went black, and he followed in his predecessor’s footsteps.
Again, a one-shot instant victory.
In the third round, the opponent’s strength rose again. This time it was a top-tier freshman with a life force index of 450, just one step away from advancing to the fifth level.
But the result was no different.
An instant victory.
A clean and decisive one-shot.
Qin Feng hadn’t even used a single proper combat technique, yet it was enough to crush any opponent at this level.
The total time for all three of his battles did not exceed one second.
It was over so quickly that it hardly drew any attention from the live audience.
However, on the Subspace Network—in virtual forums where information flowed far faster than in the real world—some sharp-eyed upperclassmen with exceptional memories had already recognized the familiar yet distant figure within that blur of motion.
A new undercurrent began to quietly swell in an obscure corner of the forums.
At first, there were only one or two uncertain posts.
[[Question] That instant-win guy on Platform 72 just now? I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before.]
[To the poster above, you’re not seeing things! I saw it too! That ID is K-4-9527! I went and checked the historical data, and that number belongs to an Uncrowned King from forty years ago—Qin Feng! His nickname is Qin Beast!]
This news was like a stone thrown into a calm lake, instantly causing massive ripples.
More and more upperclassmen, drawn in by the news, began flooding the relevant discussion threads.
New threads began to pop up at an astonishing rate, and their popularity skyrocketed.
[It’s him! It’s really him! The former Uncrowned King, the monster ’Qin Beast’! He’s back!]
[Hiss—Hasn’t this guy been missing for almost thirty years? I thought he’d hit a bottleneck or died on a mission! He’s really back?]
[I wonder what his strength is like now. His opponents in these first three rounds were too weak to tell anything. It was all one-shots, like he was just playing around.]
[Hard to say. This isn’t even a question of his current strength. Twelve years ago, when his life force was just over 500, one-shotting opponents of this caliber was as easy as drinking water for him. His power is definitely greater now; it’s impossible to gauge how deep it runs.]
As the discussion deepened, a dreadful suspicion that made many of the upperclassmen uneasy began to surface in everyone’s mind.
[Holy shit, guys, I’ve got a bad feeling about this... Don’t tell me that monster, Qin Beast, is planning on becoming the next Zhou Run?]