"At that point, with a single thought, you can rise into the air, your physical body taking flight. That is a Sixth-Level Soaring Martial Artist."
His words flowed like water from a spring, clear and easy to understand.
He had dissected the entire path from the Fifth Level Qi Meridian to a Sixth-Level Soaring Martial Artist, laying bare every obstacle and milestone for Qin Feng with perfect clarity.
The last wisp of confusion and uncertainty in Qin Feng’s heart, born from facing a brand new realm, vanished without a trace.
Before him now lay a clear, straight path to greater power.
"Thank you for your guidance, Master! I understand now!"
Seeing Qin Feng’s sincere gratitude, a faint, gratified smile appeared on Yu Han’s face.
He waved his hand, signaling that there was no need for such formality.
"Sit."
He pointed to the stone stool opposite him.
After Qin Feng sat, Master Yu Han continued with a smile. This time, however, his words held less of a strict lesson and more of a word of advice from someone with experience.
"You won the Newcomer’s Cup this time and were rewarded with Ten Thousand Contribution Points."
Yu Han’s tone shifted, and he spoke with deep meaning:
"For someone like you, about to step into the fifth level, that amount of Contribution Points is actually... not a lot."
"So, once you enter the fifth level, your focus must shift completely from ’competitions’ to ’missions.’ You can continue participating in the Newcomer’s Cup, but the rewards from various fifth-level tournaments will no longer be enough to support your higher-level cultivation expenses. Your primary way of acquiring Contribution Points in the future will be to undertake the high-difficulty, high-reward missions issued by the Empire."
"And once you have Contribution Points, the first thing you should do is not exchange them for flashy, impractical items. Instead, you should buy as many life-saving items as you can—things that can save you in a critical moment."
Yu Han’s gaze sharpened.
"Remember, in interstellar missions, survival is more important than anything. Sometimes, to ensure you can complete the mission and return alive, it’s worth it even if you have to spend ninety percent of your earnings. It’s even worth it to purchase the one-time use of a powerful Planet Orbit Cannon bombardment in advance. As long as you end up with a net gain in Contribution Points, the transaction is not a loss."
"This is because as your own strength grows, the difficulty of the missions you can accept will also increase exponentially. Gradually, you will start to see some... special missions on the list, marked with a bright red ’Failure Count’."
"Failure Count?"
Qin Feng’s eyebrow twitched slightly as he repeated the unfamiliar term.
A trace of doubt showed in his eyes.
In the missions he had undertaken in the past, whether issued by the academy or accepted through the Empire’s mission system, there had only ever been two outcomes: success or failure. He had never seen a mission marked with such a strange attribute as a "Failure Count."
"Mm."
Master Yu Han nodded, as if he had expected Qin Feng to ask this question.
His expression grew more solemn than ever before, reflecting the profound understanding of the cosmos’s cruel laws that only a battle-hardened Martial Artist could possess.
"As your Martial Artist level continues to rise, your access privileges within the Empire’s mission system will also increase accordingly. You will see a mission database countless times larger than the one you see now. The missions within will be more varied and offer richer rewards, but by the same token, they will also be far more difficult."
As he spoke, Yu Han raised his hand, and a massive Subspace Network panel silently unfolded before him.
On the panel, countless streams of information flowed past like a waterfall, its complexity far exceeding any interface Qin Feng had ever seen.
Yu Han’s fingers swiped across the light screen a few times, seemingly at random, as he filtered through the data.
Soon, from that vast, ocean-like database of missions, he precisely located a single task and magnified it for Qin Feng to see.
With a single glance, Qin Feng’s pupils contracted sharply.
The mission was marked in a deep, dark red font that seemed to devour light.
[Imperial S-Class Warrant: Fidon]
[Mission Objective: Kill the Imperial traitor and Khorne’s Chosen—Fidon]
[Minimum Requirement: Star System-level Martial Artist]
[Current Number of Martial Artists Who Have Accepted This Mission: 19,736,548,211]
[Current Failure Count: 122,273]
[Detailed Mission Information, Intel Shared by Martial Artist Teams, Latest Target Coordinate Updates, Witness Intelligence Updates Below: ...]
Looking at this series of shocking numbers, a tempest raged in Qin Feng’s heart.
A single mission had been accepted by a staggering number of people—nearly twenty billion!
Among them were terrifying powerhouses like Master Yu Han, who already stood at the pinnacle of the Star System level, and even more formidable Black Hole-level Martial Artists!
But what made his heart pound even harder was that glaring, blood-red number—122,273!
This number coldly and cruelly told a single truth.
At least one hundred and twenty thousand Star System-level Powerhouses had already declared failure in their pursuit of the traitor named Fidon!
And in a mission of this level, failure often meant death!
"Do you see?"
Yu Han’s voice pulled Qin Feng back from his shock.
He pointed to the light screen, his tone calm, yet tinged with a grand, cosmic desolation.
"The most peculiar thing about the cosmos is that on a macroscopic scale, it is awe-inspiringly vast. Countless civilizations, countless races, countless lives are born, multiply, clash, and perish in this Star Sea. Their numbers and prosperity are beyond anything you can currently imagine. From this perspective, the cosmos is bustling and crowded."
"But," Yu Han’s tone shifted, "on a non-macroscopic scale, between the fundamental units that constitute this prosperity, the cosmos is also despairingly empty."
"The distance between one star and another is extremely vast. Between one galaxy and the next lies a cold, dead void of at least several million light-years..."
"This leads to a very practical problem. For those powerhouses wanted by the Empire, especially traitors and heretics whose strength has reached the planetary level or above, finding them becomes an extremely difficult, time-consuming, and energy-draining task if they are determined to hide and flee."
"They can easily hide on a barren planet with no signs of life and lie low for centuries. They can also assume another identity and blend into some remote, technologically isolated native civilization. Some powerhouses who have mastered special Secret Techniques can even carve out temporary hiding places within the turbulent currents of Subspace."
"Of those nearly twenty billion who accepted the mission, ninety-nine percent of them might not even come face to face with Fidon for centuries."
Yu Han paused for a moment before continuing:
"And finding the target is just the first step. Martial Artists who can cultivate to higher levels have far more trump cards than you can imagine, and they are far more vicious. The mission’s difficulty naturally skyrockets as a result."
"It’s like this: if you, a Level 4 Martial Artist, were to wipe out a level-four Green-skinned Tribe, the mission would be very simple. You could leverage more advanced weaponry, greater physical potential, and more refined team tactics to gain an overwhelming advantage against those lesser green-skins who have nothing but ’WAAAGH!’ in their heads."
"However, for a Star System-level Powerhouse to wipe out a Green-skinned Warband of the same level, the difficulty is on a completely different scale. A Green-skinned Warlord that has grown to the Star System level is, in itself, a monster of war that has emerged victorious from the bloodiest and most brutal slaughter among hundreds of millions of its kind! Its cunning, its madness, and its combat instincts have all been honed to the absolute peak."
"Even if you are a prodigy who has also risen from hundreds of millions of humans, the difficulty of killing it and wiping out its warband remains immense, and the failure rate is extremely high."
After listening to Master Yu Han’s explanation, Qin Feng fell into a long silence.
He finally understood the profound and cruel reality represented by each of those cold "Failure Count" numbers.
"I understand."
After a long while, Qin Feng nodded slightly, his tone grave.
No living being that survives to a high level, whether human or from an Alien Race, is a pushover.
Every single one of them is a top Predator who has clawed their way out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
"Good, as long as you understand."
Yu Han nodded in approval.
"So, remember my words. In the future, spend more of your Contribution Points on means of survival."
"And especially for those missions on the list that show a ’Failure Count’—do not, under any circumstances, accept one until you have at least one trump card that can forcibly get you out of a situation of certain death."