Chapter 1 Xukingming Enters the Fourth Floor

Xu Jingming looked at the quiet mountain valley before him, surrounded by jagged peaks from which the occasional ape's roar echoed.

"This is the fourth floor of the Starry Sky Tower?" Xu Jingming held his spear, carefully observing his surroundings.

Whoosh.

In the distance, a figure leaped from a mountain peak, drawing a large arc before landing on a large tree in the valley. It stood on the tree's thick branches, staring at Xu Jingming.

"Is that... an ape?" Xu Jingming wasn't sure.

Standing on the tree was a rather thin ape with brownish-black fur, holding a dark stick in one hand. Its eyes were cold as it glared at Xu Jingming with hostility.

It certainly looked like an ape, but Xu Jingming was hesitant because looking at it felt like looking at an intelligent life form.

"Its eyes are too intelligent, not like a beast, but like a sapient being," Xu Jingming thought, watching it.

"Roar!"

The ape suddenly let out a low roar and shot off the tree trunk like lightning.

"Its speed rivals Lei Yunfang's," Xu Jingming immediately became more cautious. "I can't compete with it in terms of speed."

They were only a few dozen meters apart, and in just half a second, the ape had reached Xu Jingming. Xu Jingming abruptly dodged, and his spear flashed out like lightning.

"Bang." A shadow of the stick struck Xu Jingming's spear. Xu Jingming felt an immense force. He immediately rotated his spear to dissipate the force and tried to thrust again, but the stick shadow, after the impact, immediately followed up with a thrust of its own! The end of the stick aimed at Xu Jingming...

Xu Jingming instinctively swept his spear in an arc, barely intercepting the blow, still taking a step back to dissipate the force.

"Its strength is slightly greater than mine, but its speed is much faster. And it has a formidable set of stick techniques. This is the first time I've encountered an opponent using weapons since entering the Starry Sky Tower," Xu Jingming felt the pressure.

The first three floors had been wolves, bears, and tigers, whose actions were more bestial, relying on their physical advantages.

The ape he encountered on the fourth floor not only had a weapon but also knew stick techniques.

"Bang, bang, bang."

The stick mainly employed techniques such as hacking, sweeping, and thrusting. It was originally at a disadvantage compared to a spear, since a spear could execute all the moves of a stick, and it was much better at piercing. But the ape used its stick techniques to suppress Xu Jingming.

Because the ape was too agile and fast, even though its strength was only slightly greater than Xu Jingming's, its stick techniques came one after another, its stick strikes were much faster than Xu Jingming's, forcing Xu Jingming to focus on defense.

"Bang, bang, bang."

Xu Jingming and the ape moved and fought constantly. The sound of their weapons colliding echoed through the valley, and some of the trees were affected, breaking apart from the impact.

These movements attracted the attention of other apes in the surrounding mountains.

They heard roars and howls, and one after another, ape figures leaped out of the surrounding peaks, drawing arcs as they landed in the valley. Some landed on trees, others on the grass, but every ape was carrying a dark stick.

The apes varied in size. Some were thin, while others were extremely burly.

There was also an ape with slightly reddish fur, surrounded by the other apes, clearly their leader.

"The first three floors were against wolf packs, bear packs, and tiger packs. So this time, I'm fighting a group too?" Xu Jingming realized. His master, Liu Hai, and the others had never passed the fourth floor. Xu Jingming was just trying it out to see the reality of the fourth floor and didn't care about failing.

Even though he was distracted, Xu Jingming's mind was detached as he controlled the entire battlefield. His spear techniques were still extremely fast, one move after another, with extremely quick changes. He withstood the ape's aggressive attacks for a full five minutes.

"Roar." One of the many watching apes suddenly became impatient and rushed into the battlefield with its stick. Its sudden charge brought a stick shadow that tore through the air, greatly increasing the pressure on Xu Jingming.

Bang, bang, bang!!! All that could be seen was a continuous, overwhelming barrage of stick shadows!

Xu Jingming barely blocked a few blows before being struck on the head by a stick, turning him into nothingness and dissipating him in the valley.

"I was suppressed by one ape, I can't possibly defeat two," Xu Jingming glanced at the reddish-furred ape king as he turned to nothingness. "That ape king must be terrifyingly strong. I have no hope of passing the fourth floor in the short term."

...

While Xu Jingming was trying to pass the fourth floor of the Starry Sky Tower, the outside world had completely erupted.

If other countries were paying close attention to the newly appeared name on the Starry Sky Rankings, frantically digging up all the information about this Xia country's Xu Jingming, then... Xia country's own media had completely fallen into a frenzy.

It should be known that during the Tinder Cup Competition, the appearance of the world's seventh-ranked player led more than half of Xia country's countless live broadcast rooms and media outlets to discuss it.

Now that the competition was over! The world's eighth-ranked player was born, and he was from Xia country. The degree of frenzy within Xia country was unimaginable.

"Just now, just now! The eighth name has appeared on the Starry Sky Rankings, world number eight: Xu Jingming (Xia country)..."

"Xia country accounts for three of the top eight in the world! This is the strength of Xia country!"

"If Liu Hai and Lei Yunfang are older generation martial artists, then Xu Jingming, at only 29 years old, is definitely considered a younger generation. Our Xia country's younger generation of experts can also rank among the top ten in the world."

On the virtual world viewing platform, countless live broadcast rooms were excitedly discussing this topic.

And in Li Miaomiao's live broadcast room, which originally had only a few hundred thousand viewers, the number of viewers suddenly increased rapidly.

Two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, one million...

The rate of increase was becoming more and more exaggerated!

"What's going on?" Li Miaomiao was still a bit confused. She only saw the number of viewers in the live broadcast room increasing sharply and immediately looked at the countless floating comments.

"Brother-in-law is the world's eighth!"

"World number eight!"

"Xu Jingming, world number eight!"

"Brother-in-law, world number eight on the Starry Sky Rankings!"

"Miaomiao... brother-in-law is too awesome!"

The comments were completely crazy.

Li Miaomiao blinked and looked at the comments, her heart racing, her face flushed.

"Jingming finally passed the third floor of the Starry Sky Tower?" Li Miaomiao thought. Although Xu Jingming had said earlier that he could pass it within three days, Li Miaomiao still felt extremely excited and proud of Xu Jingming when that moment arrived.

Li Miaomiao gently tapped the friend list with her right hand and looked at Xu Jingming, who was ranked first. Xu Jingming's status was 'Fighting in the Starry Sky Tower', which made Li Miaomiao suppress the idea of going offline. She wouldn't be able to see Xu Jingming even if she went offline now.

Li Miaomiao then opened the viewing platform and looked at other live broadcast rooms.

Other live broadcast rooms had screenshots of the 'Starry Sky Rankings', which clearly showed the newly appeared name of Xu Jingming.

"I see everyone's comments." Li Miaomiao said in the live broadcast room, her eyes slightly red, smiling, "I am also very happy for Jingming."

"Brother-in-law is awesome!!! (Voice cracking--)"

"Brother-in-law, too awesome."

"Miaomiao, you must reward your brother-in-law well."

The comments continued to scroll, and the number of viewers continued to skyrocket, already heading straight for ten million online viewers. For a personal live broadcast room, this was an incredible number.

There were also viewers who couldn't suppress their excitement and began to donate.

Li Miaomiao watched the comments, chatting while paying close attention to her friend's status.

The moment she discovered that Xu Jingming had left the Starry Sky Tower.

"Your brother-in-law is looking for me, I'm going offline first." Li Miaomiao said and immediately left, even carelessly forgetting to close the live broadcast room. Only leaving the tens of millions of viewers in the live broadcast room, facing an empty live broadcast scene.

...

Xu Jingming had just failed and returned to his personal space.

He discovered that Li Miaomiao had arrived outside the courtyard gate and was knocking.

According to his settings, only Li Miaomiao could come to his personal space without an invitation.

"Miaomiao." Xu Jingming went to open the courtyard gate. There was snow on the ground outside the courtyard gate, and Li Miaomiao was standing there in a single layer of clothing, but she didn't feel cold at all. She was full of excitement.

"Jingming." At the same time as Xu Jingming opened the courtyard gate, Li Miaomiao excitedly jumped up and leaped onto Xu Jingming.

Xu Jingming quickly hugged his girlfriend.

"The entire internet is going crazy now," Li Miaomiao said, "My live broadcast room is also crazy. Just now, there were over ten million people, all because of you."

"Okay, okay, I know, get down from me first," Xu Jingming said with a smile.

"No, carry me inside," Li Miaomiao shook her head.

"Alright."

Xu Jingming could only carry his girlfriend back into the house.