Chapter 1 The Hater

[Your title has been updated to – Hater]

This was the first voice prompt Feng Bujue heard upon returning to the login space…

“Why did it turn out like this…” Feng Bujue squinted at his new title, his mouth twitching, feeling extremely depressed. “I just figured out how to use high-level data… and immediately lost my title ability. Without [Demon Descent]… even if I leveled up to max, I might not be able to reach that realm…” He thought for a moment, “Moreover… without [Demon Descent], I’m in danger in the finals…”

He immediately opened the menu to check the new title ability.

[Name: Cauldron of Hatred]

[Special Ability Type: Passive]

[Effect: Each attack you suffer will restore a certain amount of Stamina and reduce the cooldown time of all your skills (the benefits are proportional to the severity of the injury; the attacker must harbor hostility towards you; natural disasters, accidental injuries, or self-harm cannot trigger the skill)]

[Note: Being targeted means you have strength, or you’re just annoying…]

“This…” Feng Bujue thought, “For players with many active skills, this title ability is indeed a godsend.” He glanced at the skill bar, “But… I only use four skills frequently in combat. Among them, [Ling Shi Gathering Technique] is a continuous consumption skill, while [Moon Step] and [Storm Leg] have no cooldown to begin with. Therefore, only [Nanto Flying Dragon Fist] can benefit…”

While Brother Jue was pondering these things, he was standing in front of the touchscreen, his peripheral vision fixed on the mailbox, eyeing the soaring number of emails… He didn’t even need to click to see that his blacklist would undergo a massive expansion…

At this moment, a communication request window popped up. Feng Bujue connected, saying, “You’re done too?”

The voice that came from the other end was naturally Wang Tanzhi’s: “Actually, when you and Xu Huishang were striking poses in the arena, I was already in the mall…”

“Heh… so you saw this daddy’s invincible performance.” Feng Bujue said shamelessly.

“Where were you invincible…” Xiao Tan retorted, “You almost got killed, didn’t you? And you kept getting slapped in the face, okay? You said you’d finish it in thirty seconds but failed, you said you’d tear someone apart but couldn’t, and in the end, you only won because of Kojiro. It feels like you only won by ‘a tiny bit’!”

“Hmph…” Brother Jue snorted, “You wouldn’t understand taking down Qisha with style points.”

“I’ve never heard of that weird stat…”

“You don’t even know that… it seems you, as a riajuu (person successful in real life), are still too ignorant. You’ll have many regrets when you’re confessing your life on the pyre….”

“Why did the topic suddenly turn to me! And it’s completely meaningless! It’s just a curse and mockery, isn’t it!”

“Stop talking nonsense! It’s expected that there would be a budget shortage after a lengthy and continuous battle scene.” Feng Bujue replied with a righteous tone. “Whenever this happens, the main characters have to shoulder the responsibility of filling up the transitional chapter content.”

“Budget shortage is what reason! This isn’t an anime!” Xiao Tan shouted.

“Inspiration is also a kind of budget, you idiot! Don’t underestimate the author! You think it’s easy to write battle scenes? Describing them word by word, imagining the scenes with exhaustive effort, frantically searching for information; dividing fifteen thousand words of content into three chapters instead of six or seven to maintain the pace, and still being considered too slow with updates.” Feng Bujue said, “If it were up to me, battles would usually be condensed into a single sentence… like ‘A smashed B’s head with an ashtray’; and war scenes would usually be summarized with a sentence filled with summary and vicissitudes like ‘Millions of iron cavalry trampled across the nine provinces, three thousand urban management officers leveled the world.’ How could an amateur like you understand how difficult it is to create complex violent scenes with imagination!”

“Are you blatantly speaking up for the author because you’re worried about something…” Xiao Tan said, “Speaking of which, this nonsense has been going on for two hundred words, it should be enough…”

“Eh~ right, how was your match?” Feng Bujue’s tone changed, asking casually, “You finished so quickly, you weren’t instantly killed, were you?”

“Your shift is a little too fast…” Xiao Tan was stunned for a moment, then replied, “Um… actually, I instantly killed someone else.” He paused for a moment, “Let’s not talk about my stuff… do you know what situation you’re in right now…”

“What situation?” Feng Bujue actually replied with a rather smug tone, “It’s nothing more than the popularity of the ID [Mad Determination] reaching new heights, adding fuel to the fire…”

“No, no, no… that’s two different things.” Xiao Tan interrupted, “If you hadn’t said some unnecessary things during the battle, maybe it would be like that, but now… the fuel for your fire isn’t oil, but something like biogas…”

“Oh, so everyone sees me as a ‘bad guy’?” Feng Bujue continued.

“Calling you a ‘Great Demon King’ would be more accurate…” Xiao Tan said.

“Hehe… these days, many demon kings are gods and older sisters.” Feng Bujue laughed.

“Well… but you’re definitely the most traditional kind, like Baal (one of the three demon heads of Diablo, the Evil God of Destruction, cruel, cold, powerful, not handsome, not moe)…” Xiao Tan replied.

“Oh, is that so…” Feng Bujue was still speaking in a very calm tone, “Heh… it doesn’t matter, I roughly guessed this outcome before the match, so during the match, I simply played the role of the villain to the end, recklessly doing whatever I wanted.”

“If you had kept silent from the first second of the match…” Xiao Tan continued.

“Ha! What would be the point then?” Feng Bujue interrupted him.

“Yeah…” Xiao Tan also laughed, “For you, that would be worse than losing…”

…………

While Brother Jue and Xiao Tan were chatting idly, the official website of Dream Inc. had quietly announced the rules for the [Peak Tournament] finals…

The time for the finals was set for 1:00 AM on May 30th.

Fifty players who emerged from the [Butterfly War] will be teleported into the same script at the same time.

The script is naturally a special script for the Peak Tournament. So far, the maximum number of players that any script in the game can accommodate at the same time is six. This is the first time that fifty players have been placed in the same script.

And the mode of confrontation for this final is actually…