Sophie is a typical "moonlight clan" member—she spends money without restraint. She and Dylan share an apartment, but every time rent is due, she always runs out of money. Whenever the kind-hearted Dylan covers the rent for her, Sophie always swears that once she lands a big contract in the future, she’ll definitely buy a luxury house and take care of Dylan for life.

In order to fulfill this promise, Sophie works tirelessly in the world of martial arts games. With every new game release, new gaming legends are born, and Sophie hopes she’ll be the next one. After a five-win streak, this nineteen-year-old girl is filled with hope for life, and her ambition begins to show.

There are many generous special rewards in "Martial Arts World," such as first dungeon clear, first wild BOSS kill, and being the first in the server to achieve ten consecutive wins in the Sword Duel Arena—all of which come with enviable prizes. At this stage, no one has achieved the first ten-win streak yet, and Sophie can’t help but feel excited. If she becomes the first on the server to get ten consecutive wins, the reward is secondary; the main thing is the fame that will shake the entire server.

Such fame would be enough for her to join a top-tier team, and maybe even a prestigious club would extend an olive branch to her.

After calming herself, Sophie began her sixth Sword Duel match.

Although the Sword Duel Arena claims to match opponents randomly, it actually matches based on win rate. Usually, you’ll face a lot of newbies in the first three rounds, but by the fourth round, you’ll be up against other players with three consecutive wins. And anyone who can get three wins in a row is usually no pushover. Sophie has outstanding talent and solid fundamentals, with a kiting success rate of over 85%. She won the first three rounds easily, but hit a tough opponent in the fourth. The fifth match was a hard-fought victory—she’d bet that the person she faced in the fifth round was definitely a pro player.

In the sixth round, her opponent’s ID: Qianli Rikong Fu.

Seeing this ID, Sophie secretly breathed a sigh of relief. These days, advertising value is important, and many pro players’ IDs usually have their club’s prefix. For example, Sophie’s own ID is [Xingluo·Xiaoxiao], as required by her club contract—she must use the Xingluo prefix.

Qianli Rikong Fu—just from the name, you could tell this was a solo player. Sophie didn’t take her opponent seriously.

Looking at the opponent’s avatar: short, chubby, rough-looking, dark-skinned, with a lecherous gaze... Just one glance at that black, fat guy, and Sophie almost felt sorry for him.

The game has a 50% appearance correction feature—most players make themselves look better, and many with slanted eyebrows and crooked mouths become handsome or beautiful after correction. But even after the correction, the black fat guy still looked ugly. How bad must he look in real life?

The black fat guy was full of energy and charged at her as soon as the match started.

Sophie smiled silently, just waiting for the fat guy to use up his moves so she could hit him hard. As expected, the fat guy swung a punch at her face, used up his moves, and leaned forward, entering a brief state of stiffness.

This is the chance!

Sophie is very good at seizing opportunities. Taking advantage of the fat guy’s stiffness—about 0.25 seconds—she mercilessly chopped at his wrist with a knifehand strike. In the early stages of the game, there are no vital point attacks, so hitting the wrist or the heart does the same damage.

Just as Sophie’s knifehand was only 0.01 meters from the fat guy’s wrist, something unexpected happened.

The fat guy’s dark hand suddenly became slippery like an eel and quickly pulled back.

It was a trap!

Sophie realized something was wrong. After all, she’s a semi-pro player—she’s seen enough to know what’s up. In that instant, Sophie understood that the fat guy’s stiffness was faked—he wasn’t stiff at all!

The black fat guy didn’t care about Sophie’s feelings. The moment he pulled his hand back, he launched his signature groin kick, landing it squarely between the girl’s legs, just below her abdomen.

“—6...”

This damage showed that the fat guy, like Sophie, had also achieved a five-win streak. With the initial 1 point of internal energy, he now had 6 points. The corresponding stats, calculated by growth rate, were: Attack 6, Agility 6, HP 6×5=30 points.

That whole attack sequence was calculated from start to finish. He subtly moved half a step to cancel the attack’s wind-up, then pretended to be stiff to lure Sophie into using up her moves. This trick is common in martial arts novels. In many stories, you’ll see these four words: “selling a flaw”...

What makes a pro player high-level is often that they know how to “sell a flaw.”

What top players show is not just flashy technique, but more importantly, the use of psychological warfare in real combat.

Bastard!

Sophie cursed inwardly, so angry she could spit blood.

She never expected that her reputation would be ruined by this seemingly honest but actually sleazy fat guy.

“—6...”

Furious, Sophie decided to go all in, fighting head-to-head while kiting.

With the same kiting technique, she could hit the fat guy, and he could hit her.

But she miscalculated again.

In this exchange, the damn fat guy did kick her, but her punch missed him by a hair.