Is It Wrong to Bully the Novice Village for System Rewards?

Chapter 244: Isn’t This the Legendary Clash of the Weaklings?

Wu Hengshan’s spectacular run had set an impossibly high bar. Compared to his first-place finish, the subsequent trials were painfully mundane. Four or five unlucky bastards even got themselves ripped to shreds by the tower spirits, their cultivation and lives snuffed out in front of the massive crowd.

Thanks to the preliminary screening, the casualty rate wasn’t absolute. Roughly half the surviving trial-takers dragged themselves to the ninety-ninth floor, securing their glorious promotions to Legacy Disciples of the Demonic Sect.

Most of them didn’t stick around to test their luck. The moment they hit the ninety-ninth floor, they smashed their teleportation tokens, choosing survival over meaningless grandstanding. Only a handful of try-hards gunning for the top ten pushed onward, fighting until their bodies gave out before reluctantly bowing out.

Finally, the twenty-sixth candidate finished their run. The Internal Affairs Hall Master glanced at his parchment, his voice ringing out with practiced apathy.

“Next. Number twenty-seven. Outer Sect Disciple of Blood Refining Peak, Big Qi.”

As the sole Outer Sect Disciple in the entire roster—and the subject of a rumor regarding an absurdly massive betting pool—Qi Yuan had a target painted squarely on his back. He was easily the most scrutinized participant in the plaza.

Naturally, the gossip mill had dug up his various “heroic exploits” from the Outer Sect. The sheer speed at which these unhinged rumors spread bordered on the supernatural, rippling through the crowd and drawing sharp gasps of shock.

“Present.”

Ignoring the thousands of burning stares, Qi Yuan strolled forward with infuriating nonchalance. He offered a polite, picture-perfect bow toward the Hall Master, then sauntered through the Moluo God-Slaughtering Tower’s massive bronze doors.

His unflappable composure earned a few approving nods from the upper echelon of the Demonic Sect. Regardless of whether he died a dog’s death in five minutes, the kid at least knew how to walk to his grave with style.

High above on her throne, Sect Leader Shen Honglian watched Qi Yuan’s retreating back with genuine amusement. A dangerous flicker of anticipation danced in her eyes.

“Xuan’er,” she drawled lazily. “I heard you’ve crossed paths with this Big Qi. What is your assessment?”

Shen Xingxuan jolted out of her brooding trance. Swallowing her lingering bitterness, she bowed her head. “Reporting to Master. Your disciple does not know him well. I only know he has carved out a notorious, blood-soaked reputation in the Outer Sect. He appears to be a reckless, unrestrained madman.”

She paused, perfectly playing the part of a concerned subordinate. “I humbly suggest that if you intend to recruit him, he must be ruthlessly broken first. Left unchecked, a rabid dog like him will only bite his masters.”

As Shen Honglian’s prized pupil, she knew her Master wanted to groom the boy. Asked directly, she naturally took the chance to drag his name through the mud. If she couldn’t beat him, she could at least make his life miserable.

Shen Honglian’s lips curled into a faint, mocking smirk. “In The Saint Sect, audacity is never a flaw. Cowardice and incompetence are the only true sins.”

“He slaughtered his way through the Outer Sect the moment he arrived, yet here he stands, fully intact. He is the sole Outer Sect Disciple to qualify for this trial. That alone speaks volumes.”

She traced the carved dragon scales of her armrest with a slender, jade-like finger. “Xuan’er, you are young. You let petty grievances and fleeting emotions cloud your judgment.”

“To be a true ruler, the first thing you must do is cut out your heart and dissect the world with absolute, unfeeling logic.” Shen Honglian’s eyes narrowed. “To me, there are only two types of people in this world: weapons to be wielded, and trash to be discarded. Do you understand?”

Shen Xingxuan stiffened. She lowered her eyes, burying her resentment behind a mask of perfect submission. “Thank you for the lesson, Master. I will carve it into my memory.”

It wasn’t an outright scolding, but the warning was crystal clear: Stop throwing a tantrum over a bruised ego.

Humiliation burned in her chest, but she couldn’t exactly confess that the “reckless madman” had casually terrorized her. She swallowed her pride and stayed quiet.

It took her several long minutes to smooth her ruffled feathers. Begrudgingly, she lifted her gaze back to the massive projection mirror hovering over the plaza.

Inside the Moluo God-Slaughtering Tower.

The moment Qi Yuan crossed the threshold, he slammed the brakes on his cultivation base. He smothered his spiritual energy completely, locking himself into the state of a squishy, defenseless mortal.

Heaven only knew what spaghetti code ran the Moluo God-Slaughtering Tower’s matchmaking system. To avoid triggering some hidden hard-mode algorithm, it was better to play it safe and enter as a level-one scrub.

He casually yanked the Abyssal Condensation Sword from his spatial ring. Giving the bloodthirsty blade a stern mental warning to keep its mouth shut, he leaned against the wall and waited for the mob to spawn.

Floor One. The tutorial zone. Even so, the weakest tower spirit in this meat grinder was supposedly tuned to match a late Foundation Building cultivator.

Whoosh!

Shadows coalesced in the center of the room, solidifying into a hulking, dark-skinned brute of a tower spirit.

“Roar…”

The creature let out a pathetic, asthmatic wheeze of a battle cry. It shambled toward Qi Yuan, half-heartedly swiping its claws like a zombie clocking in for a minimum-wage shift.

It looked utterly starved. Its speed was laughable, its attack animations sluggish and lazy, entirely stripped of the oppressive might a Foundation Building entity was supposed to exude.

Bingo. The system had swallowed the bait. The [Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing] talent worked perfectly against the tower’s scaling mechanics!

A grin spread across Qi Yuan’s face. He gave his sword a lazy flick, effortlessly decapitating the first-floor spirit without breaking a sweat. Whistling a cheerful tune, he trotted up the stairs to the second floor.

Meanwhile, out in the plaza.

The spectators staring at Qi Yuan’s projection mirror started squinting. Confusion rippled through the sea of Demonic Cultivators.

“Hey, is it just me, or do the tower spirits look… anemic? Did the Moluo God-Slaughtering Tower break?”

“Right? That first-floor spirit was a joke! My crippled grandmother could have slapped it to death. What the hell is going on?”

“But Big Qi is a late Foundation Building cultivator! Even if the tower scales down to match the challenger, it shouldn’t drop to the level of a street thug!”

“Tsk, tsk… Look at his form. He’s just blindly hacking with that sword. It’s literally a bar fight! Zero technique, zero immortal grace. My eyes are bleeding just watching this trash!”

“Hahaha! Isn’t this the legendary clash of the weaklings? I swear on my Dao heart, this scrub won’t make it past the fiftieth floor. He’ll die of exhaustion from swinging that sword before the spirits even touch him.”

“Fiftieth? You’re too generous! He’ll be coughing up blood by the thirtieth…”

The jeers and mocking laughter echoed across the plaza—until they didn’t.

Gradually, the sneers melted off their faces. The chatter died, replaced by the collective sound of thousands of jaws hitting the floor.

Because inside the projection, that “crude,” “grace-lacking” figure was casually speedrunning the tower. One lazy sword swing, one dead spirit.

In less than ten minutes, Big Qi had already carved a bloody path straight to the three-hundredth floor.