On the fighting stage, a Star River swirled.
[Matching you with an opponent...]
[Match found!]
This time, the system matched him with an opponent whose information panel was clearly displayed.
[ID]: Iron Wall-079
[Rank]: First Rank
[Points]: 5
The opponent was a Heavy Armor Warrior wielding a tower shield and a short spear. His fighting style was steady, focusing on defensive counterattacks.
The battle began.
Unlike in his fight against Zhou Yu, Qin Feng didn’t focus on control and suppression.
He chose a more direct and aggressive style of combat.
The Long Spear in his hand transformed into a flurry of deadly silver flashes, raining down upon his opponent’s defenses like a torrential storm.
Thrust, flick, sweep, cleave...
Every strike contained the deeper understanding of the Thousand Army Spear he had just gained during his epiphany.
Under Qin Feng’s fierce and precise assault, the Martial Artist with the ID "Iron Wall-079" lasted less than a minute. His vaunted tower shield defense was shattered by a powerful downward cleave, leaving him wide open. Qin Feng immediately followed up with a spear through the throat, ending the battle.
[Victory!]
[You have gained 11 points.]
[Through practical combat, you have summarized your experience in spear techniques. Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +1.]
Qin Feng withdrew his spear and, without a moment’s pause, started the next match.
Opponent: First Rank, 12 points.
Battle duration: two minutes and fifteen seconds.
Victory.
[You have gained 10 points.]
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +1.]
Third match. Opponent: First Rank, 23 points.
Victory.
[You have gained 10 points.]
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +1.]
...
In the time that followed, Qin Feng became a tireless fighting machine.
He fought match after match, constantly digesting, verifying, and integrating all the insights he had gained from his placement matches and his recent epiphany in these high-intensity battles.
His spear technique grew increasingly refined and seasoned.
From his initial precise control to his current fluid mastery, his grasp of battle rhythm had reached a whole new level.
He encountered all sorts of bizarre opponents.
Some specialized in fighting speed with speed.
Some had unpredictable Body Techniques and elusive footwork.
Some wielded giant axes with immense strength.
And some used unorthodox weapons with treacherous techniques...
Every battle was a new lesson and a new test.
Victory, defeat, victory again, defeat again.
On Qin Feng’s personal panel, his points steadily ticked upward.
11, 21, 31, 40, 32, 42, 53, 64, 73, 65, 75...
A win granted about 10 points.
A loss would deduct about 8 points.
After more than twenty incredibly intense duels,
Qin Feng’s personal panel finally settled on these numbers:
[ID]: Qin
[Rank]: First Rank
[Ranked Record]: 16 Wins, 7 Losses
[Points]: 105
Twenty-three battles: sixteen wins and seven losses.
His win rate was nearly seventy percent.
This was a terrifying figure, proving that he was a dominant force at this point bracket.
However, once his points broke the one-hundred mark, the situation began to subtly change.
Twenty-fourth match.
Opponent: First Rank, 108 points.
He was a Martial Artist wielding a Longbow, with superb archery and Body Technique.
Qin Feng paid a heavy price. Even using the Dragon Body Technique, he still took three of the opponent’s arrows head-on before he managed to break through to close range and take him down with a single spear thrust.
By the end of the fight, his own injuries were severe.
It could only be described as a pyrrhic victory.
Twenty-fifth match.
Opponent: First Rank, 112 points.
He was a Martial Artist who had cultivated the Thunderbolt Saber Technique to the Minor Success Realm.
The opponent didn’t use a saber. Instead, wearing light armor, he fought with his fists and palms. His strikes were as fast as lightning and as forceful as a charging steed, each blow carrying an indomitable, domineering aura.
His Body Technique was even more absurd; he easily bypassed Qin Feng’s Long Spear to engage in close-quarters combat, every move like a flash of lightning.
Qin Feng was utterly crushed, unable to fight back at all.
[Defeat!]
[You have lost 8 points.]
[In the fierce exchange, you discovered the shortcomings of your spear and Body Techniques when facing fast attacks from an opponent of the same level. Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +2.]
His points dropped back to 97.
Twenty-sixth match. Opponent: First Rank, 99 points.
Victory.
Points: 107.
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +1.]
Twenty-seventh match. Opponent: First Rank, 115 points.
Defeat.
Points: 99.
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +2.]
Twenty-eighth match. Opponent: First Rank, 118 points.
Defeat.
Points: 91.
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +2.]
Twenty-ninth match. Opponent: First Rank, 121 points.
Defeat.
Points: 83.
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +3.]
Thirtieth match. Opponent: First Rank, 125 points.
Defeat.
Points: 75.
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +3.]
A painful four-match losing streak.
Except for the first loss, which was a narrow one, he was defeated by a significant margin in the following three matches.
Without exception, these opponents with over 110 points were all experts who had cultivated a killing technique to the Minor Success Realm and had no weaknesses in their combat experience or awareness.
Although Qin Feng’s spear technique had also reached the Minor Success Realm, his overall combat aptitude revealed a hint of immaturity compared to these "old vets" who had spent years immersed in the arena.
Not until the thirty-first match.
He was matched with an opponent whose points had also dropped to around 80.
The two fought a bitter battle for nearly ten minutes. In the end, Qin Feng seized on an opponent’s mistake and narrowly secured the victory.
[Victory!]
[You have gained 9 points.]
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +2.]
His points returned to 84.
Qin Feng looked at his latest record and points, then exited the matchmaking queue.
He knew very well that this was more or less his current limit.
The 100-point mark was a watershed.
At his current strength, he would just fluctuate within this point range. Without a new breakthrough or improvement, his win rate would gradually be pulled back down to around fifty percent, turning into a long, slow grind to gain points through sheer volume of matches and minor progress.
He didn’t continue fighting. Instead, he opened the recording of his last defeat.
It was the spearman with 125 points.
The opponent was using the Formation Breaker Spear, a technique also derived from the military and remarkably similar to the Thousand Army Spear.
During the battle, the two had engaged in several spectacular spear-versus-spear clashes.
Qin Feng froze the playback at the moment just before his defeat.
At that moment, he had seized an opening in his opponent’s defense and unleashed a Thousand Soldiers’ Evasion sweep. However, his opponent countered with an even more refined and focused spear technique, using a single point to break the wide attack. He instantly shattered the momentum of the spear and counterattacked, ending the match with a single thrust.
"What a shame..."
Qin Feng stared at the opponent’s spear tip in the recording—fast as a stream of light, focused like a needle—and muttered to himself.
"If I hadn’t chosen to use Thousand Soldiers’ Evasion then... if instead, I had tried to focus all my power into a single point, pursuing ultimate penetration and speed... maybe, in that instant, I could have grasped the True Intent of Flowing Light Chasing Shadow."
He watched and analyzed that momentary exchange over and over.
After a long while, he let out a long breath, internalizing all his insights and regrets.
[Through review and reflection, your understanding of spear techniques has deepened. Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +5.]
He glanced at his final proficiency score.
[Killing Technique: Thousand Army Spear (Minor Success)]
[Proficiency: 489/1000]
The continuous battles and reviews had once again increased his proficiency by a fair amount.
Having done all this, Qin Feng lingered no longer and chose to exit the Imperial Arena.
His consciousness returned to his body. He slowly opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the now-bright lights of the public Martial Arts Room.
Without him realizing it, the time had already reached eight in the evening.
Inside the Martial Arts Room, Qian Duoduo and Shi Potian had just finished their Body Refining Technique practice. They were sitting to the side, sipping water and waiting quietly for him.