How Do We Play If This Boss Isn't Nerfed?

Chapter 377: Chapter 187: Spreading Across the Web, Completely Gone Viral

Lin Ye opened his eyes.

Of course, he had no idea that at this very moment, in distant Yanjing, a streamer was clutching his head and wailing.

In another stream, seven hundred thousand viewers felt like they had been edged, cut off right at the peak of their excitement. The agonizing limbo left them wanting to tear their hair out.

He had logged off simply because his time was up.

Right now, there were less than three days left before the training camp ended.

While completing the online combat challenge was important to him, there were still many things waiting for him in the real world.

First, there was the Candlelight Illuminating the Nine Netherworld Map.

This Spirit Observation Skill was incredibly profound, and he was far from fully comprehending it. He had to seize the remaining time to continue imprinting it in the dark room of the Meditation Hall.

Second, the spear and Body Technique personally taught to him by Nie Cang also had immense room for improvement.

The opponents in virtual battles were, after all, just data simulations. Sparring with a true master in reality was a completely different experience.

Besides, he had two perfect "experience farms."

He absolutely couldn’t stop farming attribute affinity from Dongfang Zhen and Zhang Daoxuan.

The attribute affinity he farmed from these two was far more abundant than what he could get from his online opponents.

Especially Dongfang Zhen. That guy was practically a walking super-charger.

Every single day, like clockwork, he would reliably contribute fifty to sixty points of Thunder Attribute Affinity to Lin Ye, an absurdly high rate of efficiency.

Finally, there was the most practical matter of all.

Dongfang Zhen had reminded him yesterday that he had accumulated a massive amount of academic credits that he couldn’t possibly spend.

These credits would become worthless once the training camp ended.

He had to go to the resource exchange center and convert this huge sum into tangible resources before he left.

Lin Ye stretched his body and then walked straight to the Meditation Hall.

...

「One day later.」

Lin Ye walked out of the dark room in the Meditation Hall.

His eyes were tightly shut. Within his Sea of Consciousness, an ancient and intricate scroll was slowly unfurling, every detail on it clearer than ever before.

[Ding! Your conceptual understanding of the Spirit Observation Skill: Candlelight Illuminating the Nine Netherworld Map has reached the peak of the second realm!]

[Ding! You have completely imprinted all details of the Candlelight Illuminating the Nine Netherworld Map into your Sea of Consciousness!]

The two crisp notifications made Lin Ye feel that his day of intense grinding had been worth it.

From now on, he no longer needed to enter the dark room to observe it; he could visualize the entire scroll anytime, anywhere.

It was only a matter of time before he completely mastered this Observation Skill.

Lin Ye had just left the dark room.

"Mr. Lin!"

"Sparring! Let’s spar! Quick!"

An impatient voice rang out.

Dongfang Zhen’s face, etched with excitement, was shoved right in front of his.

Beside him was Zhang Daoxuan, who had a calm aura but whose eyes also held a hint of anticipation.

Lin Ye couldn’t help but smile as he looked at these two "power banks" who had shown up right on schedule.

’They’re so eager to run over and offer up their attribute affinity every day, and Zhang Daoxuan even throws in his Sword Control Skill as a bonus. They’re truly great guys.’

"Let’s go."

The three of them walked together toward the Martial Arts Hall on the mountainside.

On the mountain’s stone path, Dongfang Zhen was scrolling on his phone with one hand, constantly shouting in excitement.

"Daoxuan! Mr. Lin! Did you guys know? Some monster has appeared on Martial Arts Peak recently, and he’s shot straight to the top of the internet’s trending topics!"

Aside from his quiet cultivation, Zhang Daoxuan rarely ever surfed the internet.

But hearing about a monster on Martial Arts Peak piqued his curiosity, and he leaned over to take a look.

"What monster?"

Walking beside them, Lin Ye’s heart suddenly skipped a beat as a bad feeling washed over him.

’It couldn’t be...’

"Look at this video!"

Dongfang Zhen fiddled with his device and projected a video into the air, playing it holographically.

In the next second, Lin Ye’s premonition came true.

Who else could the figure on the screen be but his Martial Arts Peak avatar, "Goblin Soldier"?

However, this wasn’t a raw match recording, but a carefully edited montage.

The driving beat of an energetic electronic track kicked in.

On screen, his virtual avatar faced one opponent after another, simply throwing a single punch.

"POW!"

The moment the opponent exploded into a mist of blood was perfectly synced to the most explosive beat of the music.

Then, the scene cut rapidly.

Every punch, every instant kill, coincided perfectly with the rhythm of the music.

The editor had also added exaggerated special effects to each heavy punch, maxing out the visual impact.

The video wasn’t long, only a minute.

The final scene was a long, low-angle shot of his virtual avatar, combined with an increasingly intense BGM that amplified the terrifying sense of pressure to the absolute extreme.

Even Lin Ye himself felt his face grow a little hot watching it.

He had to admit, the video was extremely well-made.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the stats below the screen.

Video Title: "One-Punch Man"

Uploader: Commentator Dongchen

Views: 24.31 million.

Likes and Saves: Innumerable.

Lin Ye: "..."

’Over twenty million views?’

’And that’s just on one platform.’

He didn’t dare to imagine what a terrifying number the video’s total views across the entire internet would be after being reposted everywhere.

"This is the guy!"

"He utterly crushed a celebrity named Ye Qingxuan before and got a little famous for it."

"Now he’s popped up again out of nowhere, and he’s one-punching everyone he meets, not even Martial Artists in the Gang Condensation Realm are an exception!"

"Right now, the trending topics are full of people guessing who he is. It’s practically become a phenomenon!"

Dongfang Zhen was so worked up he was practically spitting on the screen; it was obvious he was chronically online.

Watching the clean, decisive, and overwhelmingly powerful punches in the video, Zhang Daoxuan’s expression also showed a hint of being moved.

"Such pure power."

Zhang Daoxuan praised sincerely, "To achieve this effect with just physical strength, without relying on Gang Sha... This person’s realm must have reached a terrifying level."

"Is he in the Divine Realm?"

He thought for a moment, then speculated, "Could he be a secret prodigy hidden away by one of the top martial arts families in the Imperial Capital or Modu?"

Lin Ye remained silent at the side, guiltily touching his nose.

Just then, Dongfang Zhen suddenly made a sound of surprise.

As if he’d discovered something, he paused the video, freezing the frame at the exact moment Lin Ye drew the Star-Piercing Spear and instantly killed an opponent ranked around 1,300.

Dongfang Zhen zoomed in on the image, scrutinizing the spear.

The more he looked, the tighter his brows furrowed.

He snapped his head around, his gaze shifting back and forth between Lin Ye and the screen, his eyes filled with suspicion.

"Mr. Lin..."

Dongfang Zhen’s voice was tinged with uncertainty.

"This level of power... and the style of this spear... Why do I feel like it looks so much like the Star-Piercing Spear you use?"

Hearing this, Zhang Daoxuan also froze. His gaze shot back to the screen, then turned to Lin Ye.

The air seemed to freeze at that moment.

Dongfang Zhen stared at Lin Ye, his eyes growing wider and wider as an absurd, yet seemingly plausible, idea grew wildly in his mind.

He pointed a finger at the Goblin Soldier on the screen, then at the expressionless Lin Ye, and asked.

"This Goblin Soldier... it’s not you, is it?!"

Faced with Dongfang Zhen’s expression, which screamed ’I’ll keep suspecting you if you deny it,’ and Zhang Daoxuan’s probing gaze from the side...

Lin Ye thought for a moment.

He decided there was no point in hiding it.

So, he gave a calm nod.

"Yeah, that’s me."

The air fell silent for a second.

The next second, Dongfang Zhen shot up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, letting out a shriek of utter delight.

"Holy shit! Mr. Lin, it really is you!"

He grabbed Lin Ye’s shoulders and shook him excitedly.

"I knew that spear looked familiar! And that absurd, absolute physical strength is exactly like yours!"

"Come on, quick, add me as a friend! After the training camp is over, we can spar online too!"

Lin Ye felt a bit helpless. He could only open his CR watch and pull up the "Martial Arts Peak" application.

Soon, two friend requests came in.

Lin Ye accepted Zhang Daoxuan’s first.

[WantingGrace]

Next to the ID was a conspicuous rank: 812.

When Dongfang Zhen saw this ID, he burst out laughing and sidled up to Zhang Daoxuan, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Daoxuan, nice ID. Fess up, who’s Grace?"

A rare blush crept onto Zhang Daoxuan’s perpetually cool and aloof face. He turned his head away, pretending to admire the scenery, and muttered a quiet defense.

"...Shut up."

His flustered appearance only made Dongfang Zhen laugh harder.

Lin Ye also accepted Dongfang Zhen’s friend request.

The moment he saw the other party’s ID, his expression turned a little strange.

[Dongfang Bubai]

Rank: 512.

Well now.

’Good thing the entertainment industry in this world developed along a different path,’ Lin Ye thought, ’and that household-name wuxia novel doesn’t exist here.’

’Otherwise, if Dongfang Zhen knew the full story behind the character his ID is based on, I wonder how he’d react.’

"Sigh, I haven’t played much this month, so my rank dropped below 500."

Dongfang Zhen pouted, clearly dissatisfied with his ranking.

"I may not have played many matches, but I did manage to climb to the 300s!"

Lin Ye glanced at Dongfang Zhen’s match history and saw that after entering the New Star Sequence, he had only played forty to fifty matches.

His win rate was also frighteningly high.

’His true strength is likely even higher than rank 300.’

But this also sent a ripple through Lin Ye’s heart.

With the strength Dongfang Zhen had when he first joined the camp, he was only ranked in the 300s in the New Star Sequence, a place teeming with crouching tigers and hidden dragons.

It seemed this generation of top young geniuses in Great Xia was truly full of hidden talent!

「One hour later.」

Inside the Martial Arts Hall, the sparring session ended.

Dongfang Zhen and Zhang Daoxuan were both drenched in sweat, sitting on the ground and gasping for breath.

Lin Ye, in contrast, was still breathing steadily, his energy and spirit completely intact.

He had gained a lot from this sparring session; his Thunder and Metal Attribute Affinities had both risen another notch.

His control over Crystalization and Sword Control had also become more skillful.

Suddenly, Dongfang Zhen seemed to remember something and looked up at Lin Ye.

"Oh, right! Mr. Lin, do you have any idea how many people online are waiting for you to log on and break that record!"

"The all-time greatest winning streak in Martial Arts Peak was set by the Martial Saint, Senior Ling Canglan, when he was young—166 matches!"

"You’re at 165 right now! You’re only one match away from tying the record, and two wins away from setting a new one!"

Dongfang Zhen’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

"I’ve also seen a ton of other proud and arrogant geniuses from other provinces calling you out online! They’re all spoiling for a fight, saying they’ll be the one to personally end your legendary winning streak!"

"So? What do you say? Want to log on right now and crush them? Daoxuan and I can be your live audience and witness firsthand whether you make history or if your streak ends here!"

Dongfang Zhen’s words successfully ignited the fighting spirit in Lin Ye’s heart.

’I really should finish this mission.’

’At the very least, I should break the record first. I’ll see how long of a winning streak I can get after that.’

’It shouldn’t be too difficult for now.’

’At least, none of the opponents I’ve been matched with so far have been able to force me to actually use my Gang Sha.’

The three of them then left the Martial Arts Hall and returned to their own quarters.

After returning to his room, Lin Ye logged into the game without a moment’s hesitation.

He didn’t know that after he had completely blown up and become the focus of the entire internet,

the number of people who had set special notifications for him was far more than just Dong Dongchen.

The instant he came online, notifications popped up on countless people’s devices.