National destiny: Global tower climbing skills have decreased by 10,000 times.

Chapter 113 Diligent Study and Improvement

Five days have passed since the start of the "Dragon Slayer Ranking" event.

After five days, the overall situation of the competition has basically settled down.

Many players have been eliminated and withdrawn from the competition after completing the challenges. The remaining players can be broadly divided into two categories:

One type is the ordinary players who are struggling at lower levels. Their main goal is to avoid being eliminated as much as possible and play a few more rounds.

Those who were destined to be eliminated have already been eliminated, and those who haven't climbed the ranks will likely find it difficult to do so again. The fate of this group is already sealed; they are unlikely to see any further improvement.

Another category consists of a small number of top players and professional gamers who are still climbing the leaderboards. They are fiercely competing in the advanced tracks, and people are being eliminated every moment.

Some people stopped, some people broke through, but the overall pattern has basically solidified. And among them, only a very few are able to step over others to stand out and reach the pinnacle of advancement.

Now, the "Dragon Slayer Ranking" has become a game for a select few, and its popularity has faded, disappearing from people's conversations and attention.

Most players and professional athletes have returned to their normal lives or are busy preparing for next year's National Games.

Let's rewind to two days ago, to the night Ye Fei was alone in his office, trying to break through the Dragon Slayer Ranking.

He was busy with the new organization all day long, and only in the evening did he finally have time to play.

He opened the matchmaking option and tried A10 again. This time, the waiting circle spun several times before he finally matched successfully. Opponent information popped up:

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Opponent ID: 'Afterimage'

Nationality: China Role: Silent Hunter Ye Fei frowned slightly as he looked at the name. He was somewhat surprised that his first A10 opponent was from China.

In his memory, there were very few people in China who could reach A10, and almost none who could reach A10 using the Hunter class.

This ID was also unfamiliar; just by looking at the name, he couldn't tell who it belonged to.

But he didn't think much of it and clicked confirm.

Games start.

In A9, all monsters become more aggressive, making survival extremely difficult and challenging. It has always been known as the "impossible difficulty" in this world.

A10, the final two bosses, represent another significant leap forward for them.

Based on the experience of a very small number of top players, they believe that only with an exceptionally lucky seed, perfect execution, and no mistakes throughout the game, is there even a slight chance of winning.

Ye Fei had seen this on an e-sports forum before, and now he recalled it.

However, before the first level was even finished, the opponent died halfway through.

He died in front of the boss, his health bar emptied, resulting in an immediate loss. Ye Fei didn't even enter the PvP phase; he had already declared victory.

Upon seeing this message, he frowned again. But the game wasn't over yet, so he continued to complete the remaining levels.

Meanwhile, in another part of the Dragon Kingdom, inside an equally luxurious residence.

The curtains were drawn tightly shut, with only the light from the computer screen reflecting off the wall.

Wuhen sat at the table, the screen displaying the 'Defeat' page of the Dragon Slayer Ranking.

—The ID is 'Afterimage'.

He didn't close the page; he leaned back in his gaming chair, staring at the ceiling, lost in thought.

It turns out that he had been in seclusion since the "First Cut" incident, to complete a "major task".

He recalled that live stream, where he had used a "false impression" to inspire the people of China. Everyone thought he genuinely knew how to play the Hunter class and had used his skill to expose the cheater's true colors.

Only he knew that the truth was something else entirely—he didn't know how to play the hunter at all, and this was like an unfulfilled "lie."

But he knew very well what would happen if this "lie" continued and the false expectations persisted when the national championship came.

The hunter track in China was originally vacant. Although it has improved after the reform, it is only just starting out and cannot support such high expectations.

He was the one who told this "lie," and the expectations of the entire nation arose because of him.

So he made up his mind to make this "lie" a reality!

He believed that he should, he was capable of, and only he was capable of shouldering this mission!

So he took advantage of the "Dragon Slayer Ranking" to create a hunter account and train himself.

He has been in seclusion during this period, cutting off all contact with the outside world. He has also insisted to the media and the e-sports community that he did not participate in the "Dragon Slayer Ranking" competition.

Because his ID was unrelated to his real name and difficult to associate with, and his character was not the malfunctioning robot he was known for, the outside media and the e-sports circle never discovered that he was participating in the competition.

Initially, he managed to reach A5 by relying on existing information about hunters in China, along with his own understanding and development.

But he got stuck there. He struggled for a long time, unable to break through this iron wall of A5.

Until Hanada was defeated and announced his retirement.

The esports organization where Hanada worked was in turmoil, with many colleagues leaving for other jobs, and a large amount of Hanada's knife-style materials and videos from his time as an esports player being sold privately.

Wuhen had a friend in the country of cherry blossoms who happened to be a staff member of the organization where Hanada worked. The day after Hanada fell from power, he jumped out.

That's why Wuhen was able to buy a whole set of resources from him at a high price, which was a practical video of "Hanada no Knife Style".

He was naturally gifted, had a strong foundation, and learned much faster than ordinary people.

By studying the small knife style of the flower field, Wuhen finally broke through the bottleneck of A5, and within a few days he broke through A6, A7 and A8, and continued to move upward.

Later, he had a stroke of good luck, and the seeds from A8 and A9 gave him a lot of knife cards, allowing his "Flower Field Knife Style" to quickly take shape.

In both of those matches, his opponents were eliminated midway through the game. He, on the other hand, relied on a perfect, fully-fledged draw to advance all the way to the end.

Given his existing game understanding from completing A9, he managed to get to A10.

That's how we ended up encountering "Sakura's Second Slash" in this match.

Wuhen was no stranger to this ID.

He had heard from his friend from the cherry blossom country that it was this ID that defeated Hanada, which gave him the opportunity to buy those resources.

He wasn't surprised to lose to the second player. He had researched the player's past achievements and what those achievements represented.

But he felt immense pressure.

The existence of someone like "Sakura's Second Slash" is enough to show that the skill ceiling of hunters in the Sakura Country has developed to a level far beyond just one flower field.

He couldn't see how far away it was. All he knew was that, as the representative of the Dragon Kingdom, he could only stare at the leftovers left by his defeated opponent, Hanada, and painstakingly imitate them.

Even so, we could only barely keep up with a little of their pace.

Wuhen closed the settlement page, lay back down in his gaming chair, and sighed helplessly.

"The road ahead is still long," he sighed to himself.

As expected, Ye Fei successfully completed the remaining part of A10.

The settlement page popped up, and Ye Fei checked his points; they had already increased to over four thousand.

The number of players killed was countless, including IDs from various countries, totaling more than a dozen.

And so far, he hasn't lost a single game.

"Could it be that there are really no experts in this world?" Ye Fei sighed and closed the settlement page.

As soon as he turned it off, a tri-colored key slowly emerged from the bottom of the screen, hovering in the center of the page, emitting a faint glow.

Then, a system notification popped up:

Hidden difficulty level unlocked!

Ye Fei was taken aback, slightly startled.

"Is there a hidden difficulty level?"

Immediately, the page closed. He reopened the game start page, and in the advanced section, a new option had appeared:

'A?'

Ye Fei was curious and immediately clicked on it.

However, this time there was no matchmaking, no opponent; he went straight into the game.

"Single?" he muttered to himself.

The screen went dark and then lit up again, revealing the enormous blue whale slowly emerging from the darkness, once again presenting the familiar three-option option.

But this time, the game content has quietly changed.

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