"Yes!"
A cold, chanical voice echoed through the spacious training room. Along the tallic walls on either side, several chanical arms suddenly whirred to life, their ends fitted with transparent crystalline probes.
Imdiately after, countless energy particles materialized in the air like a swarm of fireflies. These motes of light initially drifted in chaotic patterns before being drawn in by the crystalline probes. They began to converge, slowly tracing out the rough silhouette of a figure sitting cross-legged.
Streams of light surged along virtual pathways, ticulously filling in the texture of muscles and the folds of clothing. As the energy density spiked, the illusory projection gradually solidified into a semi-transparent energy entity.
From the contours of Su Chen's brow to the arcs of lightning dancing at the tips of his hair, right down to the subtle rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed—everything was perfectly replicated. Aside from a faint blurriness around the edges of his skin, the projection looked almost exactly like the real person.
"This is..." Lin Yue murmured as she watched from the sidelines. Typically, these mitic training holograms were formulated based on a target's habitual traits and characteristics.
Su Chen had only used the room once, so this was undoubtedly a recreation of his recent session. However, this ditative posture left Lin Yue completely baffled as to what he had actually been doing in there.
'If he was just sitting like this, the system probably didn't capture much data on his actual combat strength,' she thought, furrowing her brow. The combat system in this training room wasn't particularly advanced and lacked the capability to scan targets in microscopic detail.
It could only render a mitic simulation based on the raw power data the target explicitly displayed, which inevitably led to certain discrepancies.
If Su Chen possessed class abilities that he had kept hidden, the system would have no way to record them.
The ideal scenario would have been for him to engage in actual combat training; only then would his true strength data be flawlessly replicated.
'But with things as they are... the system likely barely gathered anything. Crushing a weak replica is no fun at all,' she mused.
While she was lost in thought, Su Chen's training projection shifted from its seated position to a standing stance, its face completely devoid of emotion.
"Whatever. Since the simulation is already generated, it should at least retain seventy or eighty percent of his real power."
Lin Yue cracked her neck, producing a crisp series of pops from her joints. Her form-fitting black combat suit pulled taut, accentuating her slender and lithe figure.
"A compatibility with the Crimson Fla Thunder Exalt so high that it defies belief... I really want to see just what makes you so extraordinary."
Lin Yue bounded into the combat zone in a single leap, her eyes brimming with a scrutinizing glare.
Competition within the sect was exceptionally fierce. Countless mbers had their eyes locked on the two Star Seeds. The training database stored their mitic combat data across various ages and tiers, available at any ti for others to spar against, firmly establishing the absolute dominance of a Star Seed.
She herself had fought against the mitic projections of nurous Star Seeds.
Whenever she matched them at the sa age and tier, the battles were always incredibly grueling.
Those monsters boasted obscenely deep foundations and outrageously high innate talents. Their main classes were naturally top-tier, supported by a systematic array of specialized secondary classes, with so even bearing holy class sequences.
Their combat experience was terrifyingly vast, and their mastery over their own abilities bordered on absolute perfection. They were simply freaks of nature.
As for this new Star Seed, Su Chen, he was likely... Her eyes flickered. "Copper Star, initiate fair combat mode."
"Affirmative!"
The cold voice echoed once more. Luminous engraved runes flared to life across the floor of the combat zone, generating a specialized force field that swiftly suppressed Lin Yue's life aura, dragging it down to the exact sa tier as Su Chen's.
Clenching her fists, Lin Yue felt a lingering sense of unfamiliarity at the sudden drop in her physical toughness. She tested the power coursing through her veins and frowned. "Hmm, although my main class tier has been suppressed, my specialized class abilities are all still intact."
"I still have the advantage. I am a few years older than him, after all, so I've definitely acquired more specialized classes than he has."
Within the sect, the mitic projections of those Star Seeds were categorized not just by tier, but also heavily stratified by age, with a strict five-year dividing line.
Otherwise, given the sheer depth of their accumulated power, they could effortlessly steamroll any opponent even when suppressed to the sa tier.
Thinking about this, Lin Yue could not help but feel her enthusiasm wane. She truly wanted to clash with Su Chen in a real, no-holds-barred fight. Beating up a re training projection was rather dull.
Whatever. Better than nothing. Her gaze sharpened as she declared, "Begin."
However, the very second the words left her mouth, the emotionless Su Chen standing right in front of her vanished without a trace.
"Where... where did he go?" Lin Yue's expression went blank. Before she could even process the situation, a chilling sensation shot up from her tailbone, plunging straight into her brain.
Her irises instantly morphed into a grayish-brown hue as fine white fur sprouted across her skin. She whipped around in a fraction of a second, her pupils dilating in shock. The emotionless Su Chen was standing directly behind her, their noses re inches apart.
"What kind of freakish speed is this?!" Lin Yue was entirely bewildered. Pushing hard off the ground, she instinctively blasted backward to create distance.
But the Su Chen before her abruptly vanished again. In a surge of energy, he stuck to her like a shadow, reappearing instantly at her back.
"This guy..." Lin Yue gritted her teeth. Twisting her lithe waist, she executed a highly acrobatic spin-attack.
The nails on her five fingers elongated, gleaming with a faint golden luster that betrayed their lethal sharpness. Her left hand ford a claw, lunging straight for his throat, while her right hand slashed viciously at a spot three inches below his ribs.
Her body displayed an almost grotesque level of flexibility; her lower half had not even finished turning to match the strike.
'Just a little more...' Lin Yue's gaze was ice-cold. Yet, just a split second before her twin strikes landed, Su Chen's body flawlessly stepped back, moving exactly as far as necessary to evade.
She was insanely fast. The mont her lower body finally completed its rotation, she kicked off like a sprinting cheetah. Channeling explosive power into her legs, she launched herself like a coiled spring, driving a brutal knee strike squarely toward Su Chen's jaw.
Her killing intent was palpable, but it was all for naught.
Su Chen's silhouette flickered erratically. Lin Yue unleashed a flurry of consecutive strikes, only for every single one of them to hit empty air.
"Does he specialize in speed?" Lin Yue stared at her opponent with profound caution, completely shedding her previous underestimation. This level of speed was anything but ordinary.
In her base state, she feared she wouldn't even be able to brush the hem of his clothes.
"Perfect... This is actually getting interesting." Instead of feeling deterred, Lin Yue felt her fighting spirit ignite. She prepared to play her trump card and enter her class fusion state.
She possessed a biological tamorphosis-type class; undergoing class fusion would exponentially amplify her physical toughness and stats.
But right at that mont, the previously passive hologram suddenly erupted with blinding black lightning. A torrent of abyssal black plasma surged wildly within its pupils.
A terrifying aura of energy violently exploded outward. The sheer intensity of it drastically paled Lin Yue's face and sent her hair whipping through the air. Feeling as though a giant, invisible hand had rcilessly squeezed her heart, she shrieked in horror, "How is this possible?!"
Before she could even mount a defense, raven-black lightning completely engulfed her vision. The emotionless hologram now looked utterly nightmarish. It drew back its right fist, swallowing the surrounding black arcs of lightning like a voracious black hole.
And then, it unleashed a devastating punch!
Boom!
The tyrannical energy and sheer kinetic force instantly blasted through Lin Yue's combat suit. The ferocious lightning storm hurled her rigid body high into the air, while an agonizing wave of pain drowned her nervous system.
Refusing to give her even a microsecond to recover, Su Chen's projection shot upward from the ground like a rocket. Black lightning trailed fiercely behind it. Yet, in the final mont right before it could connect with her helpless form, the phantom suddenly dissipated into thin air.
Thud!
Lin Yue's paralyzed body crashed heavily onto the floor. Several sections of her combat suit had been blown apart, and the exposed skin around her wounds was charred like charcoal.
She lay flat on her back, her body twitching uncontrollably, but her eyes were filled with absolute disbelief.
'I am completely out of his league...'
'Not only that, the system calculated that the follow-up strike would pose a mortal threat to my life and forcibly terminated the simulation.'
Now that combat mode was disengaged, her original class tier was restored. With a slight shudder of her body, the residual arcs of lightning clinging to her skin scattered into nothingness.
Lin Yue peeled herself off the floor, still sowhat dazed. She looked down at her battered body. "Even my mist-cloak was ripped apart. Good thing the spaceship is equipped with mist-clearing systems."
Unable to hold back her incredulity, she asked aloud, "Copper Star, did you encounter a bug? How could Su Chen's mitic hologram possibly be this powerful?"
"This is a training projection formulated directly from the collected data," the artificial intelligence replied flatly.
Faced with the AI's perfectly simple answer, Lin Yue fell silent for a long ti. Such an overwhelming level of suppression was on par with the true Star Seeds within the sect.
It only further highlighted just how unfathomable Su Chen really was.
How could a place like the Crimson Thunder Planet possibly possess the resources to nurture soone capable of rivaling those monstrous Star Seeds?
"What an absolute freak..." she muttered under her breath.
anwhile, Su Chen had just returned to his room. The minor injuries within his body were already mostly healed. He retrieved an auxiliary potion from his spatial storage, calibrated his spiritual pressure ring, and prepared to enter a state of class developnt.
The double-experience buff granted by the Exalt only had about a month left. Ti was ticking, and he needed to prioritize class developnt before the effect wore off entirely.
He glanced at his status panel—[Word Spirit Law Sovereign: 33%]
[Calamity Ranger: 33%]
[Radiant Fla Body Forging thod - Novice: 55%]
[Glazed Heart Lamp ditation Technique - Novice: 55%]
It had been almost a month since he broke the thirty percent threshold, but the rate of improvent had been disappointingly sluggish.
Between the events leading up to the ruins and the imdiate aftermath, there had been far too many distractions to handle, leaving him very little ti to sit down and focus purely on developnt.
'However, since being chosen, the developnt efficiency for my fire and lightning elental classes has doubled, and my physical body classes are progressing even faster. It looks like my balanced progression approach is about to be thrown out the window,' he thought.
Su Chen pondered silently. His ntal-focused classes had absolutely nothing to do with either the fire or lightning elents, so they couldn't benefit from this buff.
Since his path had been set long ago, there was nothing he could do about it. If he wanted to apply buffs to them, he would have to wait until he reached Tier 5.
ntal-focused classes were already exceedingly rare in Ying Feng's territory, and out of those, only two possessed any elental properties—neither of which aligned with fire or lightning. He would have to wait until he reached the Bronze Sect to figure out a solution.
'I wonder if this kind of privilege is granted to every Chosen One, or if it's entirely unique to .'
Su Chen waited for the potion's effects to kick in before quelling his wandering thoughts. Just as he was about to dive deep into his developnt state, an unexpected notification popped up on his panel—[You have overwhelmingly defeated the Acknowledged One, Lin Yue, who was suppressed to your tier. You have successfully defended the absolute dignity of a Chosen One. The Exalt is deeply pleased. The 100% Class Developnt Efficiency Buff has been extended by three months.]
Huh?
Su Chen paused, a massive question mark taphorically popping into his head. When on earth did he beat up Lin Yue?
Having his double-experience buff renewed for another three months was undeniably fantastic news, but the reason behind it was completely baffling.
"This is..." Scratching his head in confusion, he recalled his brief encounter with Lin Yue not too long ago, and a faint suspicion quickly ford in his mind. "Don't tell ..."
Determined to get to the bottom of this, he stepped out of his room and made his way back to the training facility.
Sure enough, the room was still marked as being in private use.
This practically confird his theory. He deduced silently, 'This training room must have recorded my physical paraters and then used so sort of system to render a projection of ...'
'I didn't even consider that possibility. No wonder Lin Yue was loitering by the door and refusing to leave. I have no idea how much data the system actually managed to scrape, but I'll definitely need to be more careful next ti.'
Having figured it out, Su Chen turned around and headed back. The potion was already taking full effect, and it would be a total waste to delay his training any longer.
Shortly after his departure, the heavy cabin doors of the training room slid open. Lin Yue staggered out, looking as though she had just seen a ghost. Her body bore even more injuries than before. She violently gulped down a massive mouthful of purple dicinal liquid.
The charred crusts on her skin peeled away, revealing pristine, smooth white skin underneath. Casually, she pulled out a fist-sized chunk of silver tal from thin air.
Pressing it flat against her chest, the tal rapidly liquefied into a flow of liquid silver. It spread swiftly across her body, perfectly repairing the massive tears in her combat suit.
"Seriously, what is the deal with this guy?" Lin Yue glanced back at the training room. She had attempted to fight him on equal footing several more tis, and without exception, she had been instantly annihilated in every single bout.
And it didn't stop there. She eventually abandoned the fair combat handicap entirely, charging at Su Chen's hologram with the unbridled might of a Tier 5 class holder.
Yet, the result was that she had only barely managed to secure the upper hand.
'If this simulation really collected one hundred percent of Su Chen's combat data, then fine. But if it didn't... then this guy is even more of a terrifying monster than I could ever imagine...'
Despite her fierce reluctance to admit it, Lin Yue strongly suspected that the training room hadn't gathered nearly enough data on Su Chen to reflect his true capabilities.
After all, Su Chen hadn't been in there for very long. Who knows what he was actually doing inside, but he certainly hadn't engaged in rigorous live combat. It was highly unlikely he had demonstrated his full suite of powers and techniques.
Furthermore, the spaceship's mitic technology wasn't truly cutting-edge; there was bound to be a noticeable performance gap between the projection and the real person.
"He only has a Black Jade talent. How the hell is he doing this?" She wore a dazed expression. Judging by this ludicrous display of sa-tier strength, even if they had competed fairly back then, it was highly probable that none of them could have ever triumphed over Su Chen.
"The Crimson Fla Thunder Exalt's spiritual discernnt is absolutely vicious. To think he managed to see through all this from the very beginning."
'For now, I am the only one who knows this,' Lin Yue thought, her expression shifting constantly as she walked away.
'No one else could possibly imagine just how ridiculously overpowered Su Chen actually is. When we return to the sect, he's going to give those arrogant pricks one hell of a nasty surprise.'
"What a freak. An absolute freak." Lin Yue sighed repeatedly. She climbed the stairs, turned down a corridor, and stopped in front of a door. Giving it a solid kick, she continued to ponder, 'Just how many specialized classes has he taken on? And to think he's already mastered class fusion techniques...'
Monts later, the door swung open. Wan Chen stood there, staring at her with a deep frown and a hint of weary resignation. "Didn't I already authorize you to spar against my virtual projection? What do you want now?"
"It's about sothing else," Lin Yue replied quickly. "Haven't you been pissed off this whole ti about Su Chen becoming the Chosen One? He just logged his personal combat data in the training room. You should go check it out."
She was practically buzzing with anticipation, desperate to see this smug bastard get beaten so badly that his mind shattered in pure disbelief.
Upon hearing this, Wan Chen's frown deepened. His eyes grew cold as he simply shook his head, refusing to say a word.
His bizarre, judgntal deanor instantly rubbed Lin Yue the wrong way. "Spit it out."
"It's nothing," Wan Chen replied, his tone laced with a mix of aloof distance and righteous reprimand. "If you refuse to accept his position, wouldn't it be better to challenge him directly? Why stoop to such humiliation by beating up a weak projection?"
"Humiliation?" Lin Yue froze. An expression of sheer, unadulterated disbelief plastered itself across her face as she rembered getting slaughtered over and over again until she doubted her own existence. Her voice pitched upward in a shrill shriek, "? Humiliating him?!"
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