Star Monk

"Junior Sister Li, are you not chasing after your ranking today?"

Zhong Yi was somewhat surprised to see Li Moran sitting in the spectator seats as well.

It would be fine for others, but Li Moran was currently the highest-ranked person in the Lingxiao Sect.

Despite being repeatedly targeted, she still held the third-place position.

The rest didn't need to push their rankings, but Li Moran was different.

Her every move affected the final ranking situation.

Missing a single day of matches could result in others widening the gap.

"It doesn't matter."

Li Moran shook her head.

She didn't care about the others teaming up to suppress her.

From start to finish, Li Moran never considered those despicable people as her opponents.

The only person worth catching up to was Lu Ze.

So upon hearing the news of Lu Ze participating, she gave up today's match opportunity without a second thought and joined the spectator queue instead.

She was quite curious about what kind of surprise Lu Ze would bring her in a formal setting like this competition.

At this moment, the match was in the loading phase, and the disciples of the Lingxiao Sect began to grow curious:

"True Legend Lu only has five hundred thousand in funds... How do you think he'll choose to gear up?"

"Do you even need to think about it? He's definitely doing a knife run! Otherwise, why wouldn't he match with teammates?"

"Since when was True Legend Lu so kind?"

"Shh... The illusion realm isn't a lawless place, especially here..."

...

Such discussions existed among the elders and true legend disciples as well.

"Old Zhong, Junior Sister Li... How do you think Junior Brother Lu will play?"

Zhou Yue leaned in and asked curiously.

"I think... Junior Brother Lu should be doing a knife run, right?"

Zhong Yi thought for a moment and rejected the possibility of him gearing up for a fierce assault.

"With five hundred thousand in assets, after deducting the cost of spirit bullets, he can't even afford a decent gun..."

"Nowadays, people easily enter the map with a net worth of millions. If Junior Brother Lu fights with his life on the line, he will definitely be at a massive disadvantage!"

"I'm guessing he probably went in without a weapon, planning to fill his chest rig and extract."

Zhong Yi evaluated.

Though he also couldn't figure out why Lu Ze chose the Red Wolf to enter the map.

"Junior Sister Li, what do you think?"

Zhou Yue turned his head to look at Li Moran.

"I think..."

Li Moran closed her eyes, recalling the few times Lu Ze had casually shown off his skills, and the corners of her mouth curled up slightly.

"He'll go in without a helmet or armor, using the Heavenly Soldier 14."

"No helmet or armor, and the Heavenly Soldier 14? Impossible! How could he survive?"

Zhou Yue immediately expressed his disbelief.

"Kill one, and then strip the helmet and armor off them."

Li Moran added another sentence.

"That won't really work... Five hundred thousand spirit stones, minus the spirit bullets, leaves 400,000 at most... That's not enough for a fully modified one!"

Zhong Yi also felt it was unlikely.

The Heavenly Soldier 14 was a modified gun he had personally developed.

Even fully modified, its recoil was quite massive, and the price of full modification was extremely high. It simply wasn't something five hundred thousand could buy.

If it was only half-modified...

How could anyone in this world possibly control its recoil?

To Zhong Yi and Zhou Yue's doubts, Li Moran said nothing, simply watching the projected screen of the arena with a calm expression.

Others didn't understand Lu Ze's strength very well, but Li Moran was different.

She and Lu Ze had actually duo-queued quite a few times.

When she first came into contact with Operation Immortal Abyss Continent and hadn't yet grasped it, Lu Ze had shown off a few moves in front of her to maintain her interest in the illusion realm.

Half a magazine of spirit bullets, killing a squad without taking any damage.

In terms of skill, he absolutely stood at the very peak.

With this kind of start, if it were her, she would definitely go in without a helmet or armor and only bring a good gun. High risk, high reward. Only then would there be a chance to advance.

What if it was him?

What would he do?

Li Moran's heart grew increasingly curious.

She had never seen Lu Ze look serious before.

Under such disadvantageous circumstances, Li Moran couldn't help but look forward to seeing how Lu Ze would respond.

Just then, the arena's projection finally entered the match.

The scenes in the eyes of the audience were different.

On the Lingxiao Sect's side, everyone's perspective was fixed on Lu Ze.

As Lu Ze's figure appeared, the Lingxiao Sect spectator area instantly erupted in waves of exclamations.

"Is that the Red Wolf?"

"Wow! What a handsome skin!!"

"I finally know why True Legend Lu participated... He's here to promote the skin, right!"

"Wait... What equipment is he wearing?"

"The Zi Rat 18? He only brought a secondary weapon??"

"What's going on!?"

"Did he bring the wrong equipment???"

...

The audience could freely switch perspectives and also see the supplies and equipment carried by the contestants.

Anyone who opened Lu Ze's details interface would feel astonished.

No helmet or armor, no chest rig, no backpack.

The medicines he carried were the relatively cheap kind, sitting alone in his pockets and Samsara Mark.

His only piece of equipment was a pistol.

A Zi Rat 18 fully loaded with attachments.

"Old Zhong, what kind of strategy is Junior Brother Lu using?"

Zhou Yue looked a bit dumbfounded.

As a brute, he always asked Zhong Yi for gun modification plans and had never studied them himself.

"This... Perhaps he's just meeting the combat readiness requirement?"

Zhong Yi's face was full of suspicion.

This Zi Rat 18 was worth 120,000, just slightly exceeding the entry threshold for the Dam.

But he couldn't figure out for the life of him why, since it was a knife run, he didn't invest the 120,000 into a chest rig and backpack to carry more supplies?

"He couldn't possibly be relying on a pistol to kill everyone, right? Haha, hahaha... Old Zhou, why are you looking at me like that!?"

As a secondary weapon, a pistol's power and range were both very mediocre.

It could only be used to clear out small mobs, so absolutely no one would use it.

Using a pistol to kill people?

Li Moran slightly closed her eyes.

In her mind, a scene naturally surfaced of Lu Ze holding a pistol, casually dodging golden bullets, and effortlessly taking out fully-geared opponents.

It seemed...

Quite interesting?

Li Moran smiled.

Although it was incredible, Li Moran felt that he could do it.

Just when everyone was curious about Lu Ze's intentions, a prompt suddenly appeared on the match screen:

[Star Players of this Match: Realm Master Lu Ze, Qinghe, Shanhe Po]

The top three players in comprehensive statistics during a match would be marked as "Star Cultivators" and announced at the start of the game.

The dog tags of Star Cultivators were worth 200,000 spirit stones.

If a Star Cultivator successfully extracted, the assets they brought out would gain an extra 10% boost.

This feature often increased the bloodiness of the matches, so it was widely praised.

Although Lu Ze was treated as a "Star Cultivator" right upon arrival, no one felt anything was amiss.

In fact, everyone wished they could publicly reveal Lu Ze's identity information in every match.

That would make things interesting to watch.

Zhong Yi saw the information on the star players, and he immediately frowned.

"How could those two... be here!?"

Zhong Yi shook his head in disbelief.

Li Moran asked in surprise, "What do you mean? Is there a problem with them?"

"Those two have assets around thirty million... Logically speaking, they shouldn't have been matched with Junior Brother Lu."

Zhong Yi pointed at the two IDs behind Lu Ze's name and said.

There was also a matching mechanism in the first stage of the competition.

Kill statistics and stash assets were both key indicators.

Lu Ze had just joined the competition. With zero kills and zero assets, he should have logically been placed in the beginner player pool at the one-million tier.

However, [Qinghe] and [Shanhe Po] both boasted assets in the tens of millions. They shouldn't have been able to match with Lu Ze at all.

Zhong Yi hastily switched his viewing perspective to the team containing [Qinghe] and [Shanhe Po], pulling up their asset profiles.

"Just as I thought...!"

Seeing the numbers on their accounts, Zhong Yi took a deep breath.

"Their assets plummeted below the ten million mark overnight!"

"They must have found out about Junior Brother Lu entering the competition last night and intentionally threw away their assets overnight..."

"They are coming for Junior Brother Lu!"

Zhong Yi's expression grew increasingly solemn.

"Junior Brother Lu..."

"Is in deep trouble!"