Inside the cafeteria, Qin Feng quickly finished his C-grade nutritional meal.
The impact of his battle with Sun He was far more intense than any ranked match he had ever experienced.
It was an all-encompassing, suffocating disparity.
He didn’t return to his dorm to rest. Instead, he turned around and went straight to the A-Class Martial Arts Chamber, his consciousness entering the private domain within the Imperial Arena.
He planned to devote his entire afternoon to battling within the private domain.
Without the slightest hesitation, he clicked [Start Matchmaking].
Light and shadow shifted, and a new opponent materialized before him.
It was a burly upperclassman wielding a giant axe, with a life force index of 16.5.
The moment the battle began, his opponent made no attempt to test the waters. He took a single step forward, and the ground seemed to tremble. Like an out-of-control semi-truck, he charged with unstoppable momentum, bringing his axe down in a devastating overhead chop.
Qin Feng’s pupils contracted. Pushing his Wandering Dragon Body Technique to its absolute limit, he slid sideways just in the nick of time.
However, the intense wind pressure from the axe blade still scraped against his armor, causing it to let out a piercing shriek.
He tried to use his speed to maneuver and find an opening.
But in the face of absolute power and a significantly higher life force index, all his techniques seemed feeble and useless.
The opponent’s axe style was grand and sweeping, yet utterly flawless. Every swing sealed off all of Qin Feng’s escape routes.
Eight seconds later, Qin Feng was struck by a sweeping blow from the axe. He was sent flying like a kite with its string cut and lost the match.
[Battle Over]
[Points -1]
Undiscouraged, he immediately began the second match.
His opponent this time was a female student with an uncanny Body Technique who wielded dual blades. Her life force index was 15.9, and her Slaughter Realm was also at the Great Accomplishment stage.
Her attacks were like quicksilver, pervasive and relentless. The advantages of Qin Feng’s Long Spear were completely nullified, and he found himself suppressed at every turn in the close-quarters struggle.
He lasted nineteen seconds before the dual blades slashed his throat, leading to another defeat.
[Battle Over]
[Points -1]
The third match, the fourth, the fifth...
For the entire afternoon, Qin Feng was like a piece of stubborn iron tossed into a forge, enduring a frenzied, all-encompassing beating that pushed him far beyond his limits.
The opponents he faced were almost exclusively second-year upperclassmen. The lowest of their life force indices was 15.0, while the highest was nearly 20.0.
In terms of Slaughter Realm, Great Accomplishment was just the starting point. He even encountered a monster who had cultivated the Wind Shock Fist Technique to the Perfection realm.
Before that senior, Qin Feng felt as if he were facing an insurmountable wall.
The senior’s fist technique had achieved a state of effortless perfection. Each and every move was in harmony with profound principles, devoid of any superfluous motion.
His prized Flowing Light Chasing Shadow and Thousand Soldiers’ Evasion simply disintegrated before the senior’s seemingly unremarkable punch.
He was killed in an instant in that fight.
Of course, he wasn’t entirely without victories.
After a dozen consecutive, brutal defeats, the system finally seemed to take "pity" on him and matched him against Shi Potian.
Shi Potian had also been training hard, but alas, there was still a considerable gap between him and Qin Feng.
Qin Feng used a single Thousand Soldiers’ Evasion to parry Shi Potian’s Long Saber, then his spear shot out like a dragon, tapping his opponent on the chest and ending the fight in an instant.
[Victory]
[+3 Points]
He was subsequently matched against two other freshmen, both of whom he defeated with ease.
But whenever he was matched against an upperclassman, Qin Feng would be utterly crushed.
Over the course of the afternoon, he fought a total of forty-three high-intensity duels.
His record was a dismal 3 wins and 40 losses.
His private domain score dropped to negative 31 points.
Those three victories, without exception, were all against freshmen who, like him, had just been promoted.
Against the upperclassmen, however, he remained winless.
But in stark contrast to his dismal record was the frantic surge in his slaughter art proficiency.
[Thousand Army Spear Proficiency +215]
The number shocked even him.
This was more proficiency than he would gain from an entire day of ranked matches in the Imperial Arena!
Qin Feng quickly understood the reason why.
For the sake of fairness, ranked matches in the Imperial Arena locked the life force indices of both combatants at the same level.
The opponents he was matched with also had combat art levels that were more or less on par with his own.
It felt like a meeting of worthy adversaries, like two equally skilled chess masters facing off over a board. While it was possible to improve through such contests, the pressure was always manageable.
The only time you could experience the extreme pressure of being completely crushed was when you ran into one of those "smurfs" whose rank was a severe mismatch for their actual strength.
But the private domain of Qiming First High School was different.
Here, it was a completely unforgiving Dark Forest where the law of the jungle reigned supreme.
With no lock on life force indices, there were massive gulfs in all fundamental physical attributes: strength, speed, defense, reflexes...
The disparities in combat art levels were even more vast.
Qin Feng had to face one opponent after another who completely surpassed him in strength, speed, and technique.
He could no longer afford to calmly strategize, test his opponents, and search for openings as he did in ranked matches.
All he could do was push his mind to its breaking point, wracking his brain to predict his opponents’ attacks. He had to figure out how to counter with minimal cost, how to redirect the force of their blows, and how to use his Wandering Dragon Body Technique to find that one sliver of hope amidst a torrential onslaught.
Qin Feng was no longer chasing victory.
Instead, he fought to survive against these powerful upperclassmen for just one, two, or even three seconds longer.
Every successful parry, every last-ditch evasion, every counterattacking opportunity carved out of a desperate situation—each was like a brand, seared deep into his combat instincts.
Only under immense pressure could he achieve such rapid improvement.
Of course, this improvement came at the cost of immense exertion.
When Qin Feng logged out of the Subspace Network, he was hit by a wave of dizziness that made the world spin.
His body wasn’t tired, but his mind was overwhelmed by an unprecedented feeling of weakness, as if it had been completely hollowed out.
This was more exhausting than playing ranked matches for twenty-four standard hours straight.
’Oh, right.’
’The Subordinate Spiritual Energy Recovery Potion.’
Qin Feng remembered that his C-grade contract included a Subordinate Spiritual Energy Recovery Potion. Master Gu Yue had told him he could use it to restore his mind after high-intensity ranked matches in the Imperial Arena.
’Isn’t this the perfect time to use it?’
Qin Feng returned to his dorm, took out a Subordinate Spiritual Energy Recovery Potion, and quietly drank it.
A cool stream flowed into his mind, soothing his weary consciousness.
Soon, Qin Feng felt completely refreshed and clear-headed.
’This should last for about half a month.’
Qin Feng’s eyes lit up.
’In that case, I can go all out and fight like crazy in the private domain.’
He received one Potion per month. He hadn’t used last month’s, so after using one now, he still had another left.
’I have to push myself. I’ll aim to break into the top 10,000 of the second-year private domain rankings within a month!’
’Let’s do this!’
Qin Feng calculated his rate of improvement and figured that breaking into the top 10,000 within a month was highly possible.
Even with the upcoming Qiming School-Level League, it wouldn’t interfere with his practical combat training in the private domain.
「...」