The Highest Bounty

Another opponent appeared in front of Gu Ding. This time, it was a woman.

The upper half of the woman’s face was obscured by a golden mask. Only her lips were seen. Her attire was extremely revealing. Her upper torso only had a leather strap covering her chests, and the rest of the body was kept bare. The lower half of her body was covered by an extremely short leather miniskirt. On her feet, she wore a pair of twenty-centimeter tall sky-high stilettos encrusted with no less than ten jewels of different colors that glimmered under the bright lights of the ring. “I was spectating your matches earlier, little boy. They were very interesting.”

“Thank you for your praise.” Gu Ding looked at his opponent’s information with some curiosity. Her alias, battle experience, number of battles won, ranking… all those statistics were displayed in question marks. “Why is your information all in question marks?”

“That’s because Big Sis here deliberately hid it.” The masked woman smiled with one corner of her lips. She looked like she was not in a hurry to fight him. “Why, are you interested in my true identity?”

“No, it’s just that I haven’t seen this before. Just asking.” Gu Ding shook his head. It looked like this woman was no one ordinary, and he would rather not rile her.

The woman continued her questioning calmly. “Your Big Sis here has seen someone practicing that set of martial arts before. It looks a little different when you use it. My hands are itching now. How about let’s spar, and we’ll stop before someone gets hurt. What do you think?”

Gu Ding was carefully observing her as she spoke. He could only come up with one conclusion: This woman was extremely dangerous. Even though she looked like she was casually standing there, he could not find a single flaw in her stance. He could not even discern her power level from her aura. There could only be one explanation for this: The woman was on a different level than him. Even when their Cell Indices were normalized in the Arena, she was still obviously the martial arts practitioner with more training.

“Alright.” Gu Ding resolutely answered after estimating his opponent’s strength.

The masked woman unsheathed the black whip that was slung to her waist. As she smiled at Gu Ding, her wrist shook and the whip stretched out. A shadow danced in the air like black lightning. Gu Ding took a Silent Step and dodged it. He turned to retaliate, but the black shadow looked like it was alive and chased after him. Gu Ding was surprised by this. He remembered that the opponent had only struck once, but the whip changed direction in mid-air. He took another Silent Step again. Something strange happened, the black shadow was still pursuing him as though he did not change direction at all. The tail of the whip followed him as his steps changed direction as if his movements were restricted to the proximity of the whip.

“Huh?” Gu Ding was starting to understand the woman’s power level. He took six Silent Steps in a row and pushed all the six stances of the first level of Silent Step to their limits. The end of the whip was following him like a maggot on his bones and he was unable to shake it off. He suddenly had an epiphany. “Now that my Cell Index is 100, I can use this opportunity to practice some skills that I’m still not able to perform in real life. This way, my body won’t break down.”

After thinking of that, he accessed the book of Ultimate Arts in his memory and performed the seventh stance of the Silent Step. This was his first time using it, and his movements were slightly choppy. In that instant, his flaw was exploited by the opponent and the whip struck him on the back with a loud crack. At the same time, Gu Ding defensively erected the Righteous Body stance. The whip tore through his defenses and struck his body, sending him flying.

Gu Ding’s body slammed on to the forcefield around the ring with a loud boom. There was a long, red streak on Gu Ding’s back. Gu Ding was sweating now, that whip had nearly knocked him out in one strike.

“Looks like I was a little too heavy-handed…” The masked woman mumbled to herself. It seemed like she did not mean to hit him so hard.

Gu Ding slowly pushed himself to his feet. He realized that the opponent could have killed him with just one blow. Fortunately, the whip landed on his back where the defenses were stronger. If it had landed on a weak point, he would have been standing outside of the ring by now. Even so, he would not be able to withstand two or three more attacks of this strength, even if they did not strike his weak points. He would be shattered into pieces and teleported out of the ring.

“Do you still want to continue, little boy? You seem hurt.” The masked woman asked with her lips curled upward. Gu Ding could not discern the hidden meaning behind those words and that smile.

Gu Ding smirked. “Of course. There are so many more techniques that I haven’t used.”

Gu Ding was not about to let this opponent go so easily. It was hard for him to find such a formidable opponent. Fortunately for him, the opponent had no malicious intent, but even if she did, he was not going to easily let go of the chance for him to push his skills to the limit.

As he finished speaking, he channeled energy into both of his legs. He successfully pulled off the seventh stance of the Silent Step this time. Gu Ding had to take the offensive against an opponent with long-range attacks. He had a chance to win as long as he could draw near to the opponent.

‘What incredible skills of cognition! His movements were choppy when he used the stance for the first time. The second time, there are no flaws.’ The masked woman was silently surprised. Her hand did not remain idle, and with a flick of her wrist she sent her whip out again. This time, she controlled her strength.

Gu Ding saw the shadow of the whip coming toward him and immediately assumed the eighth stance. He got it perfectly right the first time. Following that, he assumed the ninth and tenth stances without any problems. On the eleventh stance, his movements became choppy again. Seeing that the tail of the whip was about to catch up to him, he raised his fist and aimed a punch at the whip’s shadow.

‘Boom!’ The fist met with the whip. Gu Ding was pushed back a few steps and a bright red streak was seen on his knuckles. It did not crack open like the streak on his back. He glanced at his fist with peripheral vision and knew that the opponent was exercising much more control over her strength.

Now that Gu Ding knew this, he was not going to hold back. He knew that he was still a new practitioner of martial arts, and he was not going to let go of this perfect chance to hone his techniques. Raising his fists again, he stepped forward.

He was struck by the whip again and again, and he stepped backward again and again. The two people fought for more than two hours continuously. Gu Ding was already panting. He had not managed to land a punch on his opponent yet, though his improvement was immense.

He was already on the fifteenth stance of the Silent Step, the fourteenth stance of Steel Fist, the twelfth stance of Phantom Kick, and the ninth stance of both Lightning Elbow and Fiery Knee. Even Righteous Body, the hardest technique to master, was already on the second stance.

“You’ve expended too much Spirit. There’s no point in continuing with this fight.” The masked woman understood that even though one did not expend any physical strength in the Virtual Arena, a two-hour-long battle was very taxing on one’s Spirit. In these two hours, she had already discerned that this boy’s Gene Level was no greater than 2. She was able to estimate his Spirit from there.

Gu Ding knew that the opponent was not lying. He had reached a bottleneck in his pursuit of improvement. That was not because his Cognition was lacking, but rather his Spirit was reaching a limit. If he continued, he would be forcibly kicked out of the Arena by the system. Still, he did not want to surrender just like that.

The masked woman seemed to have discerned this from his gaze. The ends of her lips curled upward again. “It seems you don’t want to surrender, little boy. How about this. If you let me kiss you, I’ll yield. Also, I’ll give you a present.”

“I think she’s proposing a good deal.” Neptune had been silent all this while.

Gu Ding was silent for a moment. He was not too happy to be taken advantage of by this woman. “I yie-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Gu Ding realized that he could not move a muscle. He could not even make a sound. The corners of the masked woman’s lips curled upward. She slowly walked in front of Gu Ding and placed a flawlessly manicured finger on his lips.

“You’d rather yield than let Big Sis kiss you?” The masked woman lowered her head and whispered into his ear. “Not only do I want to kiss you, but I also…”

While the masked woman spoke, she pressed her lips on Gu Ding’s cheek and left a red lipstick mark there. She straightened her waist and flashed a curious smile at Gu Ding. Then, pressing on the back of Gu Ding’s skull, she brought her arms forward and Gu Ding’s face sunk into the masked woman’s voluptuous breasts.

“Wow…” At the same time, all the male spectators in the Arena cried with surprise and drooled with envy.