"Yes! It's you."
"Today, I'm going to knock you arrogant people from Jidi Academy down a peg or two."
Xu Rou put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin proudly.
She wore a loose martial arts uniform, which concealed her fine figure.
Perhaps due to the match just finished, her delicate face had a flush to it, and a few stray strands of hair clung to her forehead. Sweat had inadvertently dampened her clothes, faintly revealing her graceful curves.
Looking at Xu Rou on the ring, Qin Chen had no intention of engaging.
He was in a rush to head back to school and enter a dungeon to level up; he had no interest in fighting others.
Besides, fighting had no perks, so why bother?
He turned around directly and prepared to leave.
Seeing that Qin Chen was ignoring her, Xu Rou grew somewhat anxious—she still needed to teach someone from Jidi Academy a lesson.
"Hey! Stop right there, are you scared?!"
Seeing Qin Chen turn to leave, Xu Rou hurried to call out.
Hearing her voice, Qin Chen felt a trace of helplessness and walked even faster. Only a fool would fall for such childish reverse psychology.
Seeing this, Xu Rou stamped her foot in anger and shouted out loud.
"If you win against me, I'll give you double the reward—a bonus of two hundred thousand!"
Qin Chen's footsteps instantly came to a halt.
"Ahem!"
It wasn't that he cared about the bonus or anything, but rather that he enjoyed sparring with others so he could rapidly accumulate combat experience.
Qin Chen turned around to look at Xu Rou on the stage and asked cautiously,
"Is there really a twenty-thousand bonus?"
Hearing Qin Chen's words, Xu Rou couldn't help a look of disdain.
What a money-grubber! The moment he heard about a double bonus for beating her, he stopped dead in his tracks—she had almost thought he was really going to leave.
Fearing that Qin Chen might change his mind again, she quickly agreed.
Only then did Qin Chen nod happily, stepping onto the ring of his own accord to prepare for the match.
"You're a Mage?"
Xu Rou looked Qin Chen up and down with a hint of skepticism.
"Yeah, what about it?" Qin Chen asked in puzzlement.
"Where's your staff?"
"Oh, hold on a second."
Qin Chen patted his forehead and hurriedly retrieved his staff from his storage space.
It was just an Intern Staff, the kind used for studying.
Xu Rou curled her lip upon seeing this; she had a nagging feeling that Qin Chen was a bit strange.
What kind of Mage forgets to take out their staff when going into battle?
Still, cutting Jidi Academy down to size was the top priority, so Xu Rou immediately pushed the thought out of her mind.
With both sides ready, the match on the ring officially began.
Xu Rou let out a sharp cry as a powerful aura suddenly burst from her body, and she sprinted straight toward Qin Chen.
Qin Chen was a Mage, and when fighting a ranged class like a Mage, the key was to close the distance for hand-to-hand combat.
Although Mages had formidable ranged attacks, their physical defense was usually very weak.
Xu Rou was confident that as long as she could close the distance, she could end the fight in a single round.
Moving with extreme speed, Xu Rou left a blur of afterimages on the ring and closed in on the front of Qin Chen in the space of a single breath.
A flash of cunning crossed her eyes.
She had won!
Without hesitation, she raised her fist and drove it hard toward Qin Chen's abdomen.
*Thud~*
A dull sound of flesh colliding echoed out.
It drew a gasp of astonishment from the onlookers.
They hadn't expected Xu Rou to be this strong; the opposing Mage hadn't even managed to cast a spell before being closed in on.
Once a Mage was caught in close quarters, they were nothing more than lambs to the slaughter, completely devoid of defensive capability.
This male Mage lacked combat experience; he should have put distance between them right from the start.
As the crowd muttered in amazement, they suddenly witnessed an unbelievable sight and widened their eyes in shock.
Clearly, Xu Rou's fist had struck Qin Chen's body.
Yet the result was utterly bizarre: Xu Rou was sent flying backward, tumbling onto the floor of the ring.
Meanwhile, Qin Chen stood right where he was, looking completely unfazed and wearing an innocent expression.
Wh... what just happened?
Shouldn't Qin Chen have been sent flying off the ring by a single punch? How did things turn out the exact opposite?
The jaws of the onlookers dropped to the floor.
Recovering quickly, Xu Rou scrambled up from the ground with a roll, staring at the Qin Chen opposite her in utter shock. Her fist was still throbbing with pain.
Her previous strike had felt like hitting a solid steel plate.
It hurt!
It hurt so much!
Meeting Xu Rou's suspicious and hesitant gaze, Qin Chen silently glanced at his stamina stat, which sat at a lofty 50 points, before closing his attribute panel.
He was a Mage, so having high stamina was perfectly normal, right?
Convinced that what just happened was merely a fluke, Xu Rou felt no discouragement. She quickly changed her tactics, intending to try a traditional martial arts grappling technique.
She strode toward Qin Chen once more, her body executing a smooth, sideward bend. Before Qin Chen could react, she wrapped both arms around his waist, slid her palms upward along his torso, and locked right onto his shoulder blades.
At the same time, her legs whipped out with great flexibility to entwine around his waist.
The corners of Xu Rou's mouth curved upward into a smug little smile of victory.
Without hesitation, she twisted her entire body with all her might, hoping to throw Qin Chen straight to the ground.
To her surprise, the force she exerted was like a stone sinking into the sea—Qin Chen's body didn't budge an inch.
Xu Rou froze, then tried again, increasing her strength by a few notches.
Yet Qin Chen's body remained as unyielding as a heavy mountain, completely motionless.
Xu Rou stood there in a daze, subconsciously maintaining her embrace around Qin Chen.
And Qin Chen, looking at the Xu Rou clinging to him like an octopus, couldn't help but freeze as well.
Hang on, a spar was just a spar.
Why was she suddenly hugging him?
At this moment, their posture was extremely ambiguous, their bodies pressed tightly together.
Qin Chen could even feel the smooth texture and softness of Xu Rou's body.
A faint, delicate fragrance drifted into his nostrils from time to time.
Feeling the masculine aura emanating from his body, Xu Rou finally snapped back to reality. She hurriedly released Qin Chen and quickly put some distance between them.
Her face was already flushed red, and her fair neck was dyed with a bright crimson hue.
"Pervert!!!"
Xu Rou declared indignantly.
Qin Chen spread his hands with an innocent look.
He had been standing nicely right where he was, and she was the one who had inexplicably rushed over and hugged him.
Burning with frustration, Xu Rou charged at Qin Chen once more. Changing tactics yet again, she launched straight into a flying shoulder strike.
Her body struck with formidable momentum. Driven by stubborn pride, she poured every ounce of her strength into the attack, determined to slam Qin Chen right off the ring.
Yet just as she was about to crash into him,
Qin Chen suddenly stepped to the side, dodging her charge entirely.
Unforeseeing Qin Chen's sudden evasion, Xu Rou lost control of her momentum and plunged right past the edge of the ring, tumbling to the ground outside.
Seeing this, Qin Chen smiled.
"You lost, and the twenty-thousand bonus isn't refundable."
He hadn't expected that stopping by to watch the commotion would net him twenty thousand just like that.
"Hmph~"
Seething with anger, Xu Rou scrambled up from the floor, wanting to strike again.
She had actually lost just like that—and to an utterly unremarkable Mage class at that.
Seeing that Xu Rou intended to keep fighting, Qin Chen hurriedly took a few steps back.
"What are you doing? Don't tell me you want to renege on your debt after losing? Are you a sore loser?"
Hearing Qin Chen's words, Xu Rou finally halted her movements, crossing her arms over her chest, though the look in her eyes suggested she wanted to devour Qin Chen alive.
"Fine, twenty thousand is twenty thousand. It's just a month's allowance anyway."
With that, she transferred twenty thousand Huaxia coins straight to Qin Chen.
Looking at the transfer notification on his data panel, Qin Chen wore a hint of joy.
Twenty thousand easily secured.
"I'm not convinced! I want another match!"
Reluctant to accept such a defeat, Xu Rou protested with lingering dissatisfaction.
"Next time, I have to get back to school!"
Seeing that the money was already in hand, Qin Chen waved dismissively.
In the blink of an eye, he slipped away without a trace.
Staring at Qin Chen's vanishing back, Xu Rou stamped her foot in vexation, never expecting him to run off just like that.
Even so, she wasn't discouraged; her burning gaze remained fixed on the spot where Qin Chen had disappeared.
Because she had already caught the name tag information on Qin Chen's school uniform.
Jidi Academy, Senior Year, Class 1, Qin Chen.
"Qin Chen, is it? Next time, she was definitely going to settle the score!"
......