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Chapter 3: New Background

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The first thing Tyler did was check Pei Rong’s body condition, and the result was very bad.

Pei Rong’s entire nervous system was on the brink of collapsing, he was only alive because of the nutrition cabin. He had stayed in the virtual network for almost a month. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go offline, but if he did, his body might go into shock.

This illness has already progressed to the late stages, and the only way to thoroughly eradicate it was to switch bodies.

The technology from the Vermilion Empire allowed humanity to be able to move consciousness. In short, it means using cloning technology to make a brand new body as the last resort to break free of their disease.

However, that method was very expensive. If you did this operation in Chaoyang Union then it costs around sixty million. If you did it at the Vermillion Empire, which would be more secure, it would cost even more.

Pei Rong’s current bank balance: Around three hundred thousand remaining.

No matter what kind of celebrity one is, it was impossible to only have this much savings left when they have already hit the well-known stage.

Tyler very naturally continued to check why and found clues in the account.

Pei Rong has a younger sister named Pei Ying. Before she was married, she was raised by Pei Rong and he pretty much spent half of all his earnings on her. Five years ago, she married. Pei Rong was worried so he prepared an extremely expensive dowry and wedding to give her a foundation so that she wouldn’t suffer later.

Then two years ago, something bad had happened to his younger sister’s husband, Ji Sixian’s transport company and was dragged into something illegal. In order to secure their accounts and wash clean from suspicion, she went to ask Pei Rong for help. Pei Rong always doted on Pei Ying and treated her as his responsibility. Especially after they lost their parents. After Pei Ying cried to him twice, he finally waded into the muddy waters and used a lot of effort and money to settle the situation.

He didn’t expect that a new traitor quickly popped back up in the company and took insider info to a hostile company. Not even a month later, Ji Sixian was once again back in jail.

For the huge bail on his younger sister’s husband, Pei Rong signed two more contracts. But the result was that something unexpected happened during an advertisement shoot and he suffered internal bleeding.

In the end, he could only fade from the entertainment circle and attempted to switch to the virtual network. After all, there is no fatal diseases on the internet.

But unfortunately for him, Pei Rong did not have the talent to play competitively so his switch was not successful at all. So much so, that his situation became poorer and poorer and his innate disease damaged his body until he became a husk of his former self and ended with no other paths out.

To put it simply, besides the name of “once a great star”, Pei Long left behind a terrible mess for him to deal with.

If he didn’t want to follow after him to death, Tyler still needs to find a way to collect around sixty million and buy a new body.

Tyler thought for a bit and opened the contact list. He stared at “his younger sister” Pei Ying’s name for a while before finally opening the chat to look at the history. Then sending a message imitating Pei Rong’s tone, he texted: “Big Brother recently didn’t have time to visit you, Xiao Ying, how are you?”

After a dozen minutes, Pei Ying replied: “Big Brother, I am really busy, I really don’t have time to waste chatting with you. Sixian is being bullied really badly in jail, his hand was almost broken and we don’t have money to heal it. I am now working three jobs a day and always need to count my money carefully when I want to eat something nice for dinner. Things that we can sell at home are already sold, I really don’t know how we are going to live like this…”

Tyler raised an eyebrow and shut down the chat without any further thought.

He hadn’t even said anything and this sister was already crying to him about being poor.

Was she really poor, or was she so busy trying to have big brother know “I don’t have money to lend to you”?

Tyler took one more look at Pei Rong’s contact list. He only has Pei Ying as a relative, the others were all collaborators or colleagues.

Tyler deleted everyone on the contact, not even the younger sister was left on it.

Pei Rong already died. Besides a name, he didn’t leave anything for Tyler. Tyler decided that besides Pei Rong’s name, he will not take anything else that was his. He didn’t even touch the three hundred thousand left in the bank.

Unrelated matters should be kept separated. Tyler took Pei Rong as a corpse that he has passed by^[1], he will not make himself suffer and live a life for another person.

His new life was a reward from the Gods. As for his new body, he will use sixty million to get one… their business are settled.

Tyler naturally did not have the duty to raise Pei Rong’s younger sister and settle her problems.

Using his motto to explain: I am always unwilling to owe anyone, and so I naturally will not give anyone a chance to owe me.

After clearing up the traces of Pei Rong as much as he could, Tyler cheerfully started his new life.

Within his empty mailbox, the first thing it received was the semi-final qualification proof from the E-Sport League.

He knows now that this was not some sacrificial ceremony for the God of Slaughter, this was purely a virtual “game”. Players could learn from each other and compete without any morality or laws being called into question. They would even be able to win a great amount of honor.

It really is a nice world.

Tyler looked at the prize pool for the semifinals and finals and confirmed his participation in the competition without hesitation after taking one look at the “five million”.

He was a man that needs to earn sixty million.

Following that, he went on the official website to look at the competition rules. Because he was first place for the free-for-all, he could directly participate in the thirty-two to eight elimination rounds.^[2] The first round list was already announced: Player 419 (Tyler) vs Player 213.

He clicked on the name “Player 419”, and it automatically pulled up a profile page: 【Player Number: 419

Source of competition qualification: Free-for-all

GNA comprehensive rating: B-list

PVE Grade: Unknown

PVP Grade: B

PVN Grade: B

GNA Evaluation: An Assassin-type character with unknown potential. His only public match is currently the free-for-all. The Player has displayed an extremely high ability in concealment, assassination technique, and has a considerable skill in killing on the battlefield. He also has an astonishing strength in PVP. But because not only were his performances short, they were few, he is temporarily evaluated as a B level player.】 At the bottom of the web page were also two gifs.

The first one: He was silently sweeping by another player and his dagger quickly drew a line of blood, taking the last bit of the player’s health. His dark golden eyes flashed by the camera and it brought upon the illusion of a cold light.

The second one: He appeared unexpectedly and stabbed a small hole through the mage’s forehead. Then he flipped and dropped to the ground. The scene stopped at the split-second he landed, where his lapel had risen, revealing his kneeling posture from under the cloak. This scene was very dynamic, one could almost feel the rushing air at that moment.

Below the images was a constantly updating comment section.

“Hubby! This year’s E-Sport League, my hubby will be him!”

“The model of sexy legs.”

“My screen is a bit salty… tsk tsk tsk!”

“My one thousandth time, I can’t leave anymore!”

Tyler: “……”

The great assassin master from another world had a face full of confusion, he was unable to understand any of the comments so he silently closed the page.

Sometimes you can learn about all the world’s knowledge from books… besides the culture of the internet.

Tyler was probably going to be an internet antique for a good while.

 ……

A week later, Tyler soaked up the knowledge of this world like a sponge and slowly blended into the virtual network society.

To prepare himself for the “games” he was unfamiliar with, he watched some videos of famous experts and more or less grasped an understanding of the E-Sport competition style.

In this time period, the Earth region’s E-Sport League semifinals has already started. The opening ceremony was very lively and he even heard how they would offer free boarding and traveling expenses for players to go watch the opening ceremony in person.

Tyler was not interested in it and continued his hermit-like life until the first competition.

In his first semifinals battle, Tyler’s opponent was Player 213. He was also an expert that walked out from a free-for-all. His class was Arcane Mage.

Tyler had watched his opponent’s free-for-all competition and his evaluation was: A stupid X that has more damage than an area of control spells.

Thirty minutes before the start of the fight, the two players are separated with fifty meters in between them. They waited for the countdown while facing each other.

The Mage’s face was dignified, and was calmly staring at Tyler.

Tyler indifferently looked at him while deciding what to do: Be more high-profile, settle this within ten seconds… or be low-profile, settle this within twelve seconds?

To create a more intense atmosphere, the main screen alternated between the two players. One can very easily see the difference between the two player’s expression: One full of spirit for battle.

The other, dead fish eyes.

 ……

Audience: YAAAAAAAHHH Player 419 is so cool!”

Nowadays, people with cooler images are always more popular… no matter their expression.

Tyler had a pair of eyes that inherited the ancient elven royal family bloodline. His golden eyes would become more and more light as he aged until they finally turn into a translucent, platinum, gold color. This color is considered to be very beautiful in other people’s eyes.

If he was still in his original hybrid body, his appearance would be so attractive that it can be likened to a magic spell and be classified as a type of supernatural force.

What was very strange was despite his virtual body, in this world absent of the supernatural, his eyes still have the power to attract and mesmerize people.

Perhaps this kind of attraction can only be explained by his demeanor.

But let us return to the current situation.

There was still fifteen seconds until the competition officially starts.

After the host said a whole spew of commentary in the background, he finally said, “So this fight will be a machine cannon-type mage player vs a head reaping-type assassin player! Generally speaking, the latter would have the superiority, but our Sir Mage is famous for his auto targeting type magic. In other words, if at the beginning the mage sets up his machine cannon… I mean, if he sets up his guided Arcane Storm, then Player 419 would have already lost—”

Before he could finish speaking, the countdown ended the competition immediately started.

The Mage started without hesitation, he made an action for magic right on the spot and started his Arcane Storm in 0.5 seconds.

In a split second, blue arrows covering the sky appeared behind him one by one.

And the current Tyler also jumped back without hesitation, dodging past the first surge of missiles.

Exploding sounds came from where he originally stood as the missiles bounced everywhere. The mage was still shooting a steady flow of new Arcane Missiles, covering the sky as they headed for Tyler.

No wonder he was called “Machine Cannon-type player.”

“This is bad—!” the host now started to speak, “The huge volume of Arcane Storm has just started, our Player 419 is already in a crisis!”

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Footnotes:

[1]Considers Pei Rong’s situation unfortunate but has nothing to do with him overall

[2]Cutting down from 32 players to 8

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