7: Chapter 7: The Proof Fight Against the Boxing Champion

Chapter 7: The Proving Battle With The Boxing Champion

Sunlight filtered through the glass window, shining into the room and forming a bright, whitish area.

[Writing up to this point, I hope readers can remember our domain name. The Taiwan novel Divine Artifact is super easy to use.]

Dust motes drifted gently in the air, resembling countless dancing elves.

A bead of sweat rolled down his jawline, dripping onto the worn red pine wooden floor.

Fang Cheng raised his left hand and wiped his sweat-drenched face.

Then, the muscles in his thighs and lower abdomen tightened, he bent his knees to Squat down, and continued with his training.

"..."

"71."

"72."

"73."

"74."

When he counted to 74, Fang Cheng's eyes burned with fervor, and he let out a low shout from his parched throat:

"It's done——"

The panel before his eyes lit up, displaying a series of prompt messages.

[You practiced the Squat with all your might, reaching a certain level and gaining a deep understanding of it.]

[Unlocked Skill: Squat Lv0 (0/100)]

[You challenged your limits, and your body activated its self-protection mechanism.]

[Potential Activation cooldown has ended, usage conditions met.]

The light screen flickered continuously.

A sharp, pinprick-like pain extended downward to his calves and wrapped upward around his waist and hips.

Soreness, stiffness, and rapid breathing.

Made his entire body feel like an empty shell, almost losing connection with his brain.

Just as his legs turned weak and he was about to fall.

Slap!

Fang Cheng braced his palms against the ground and steadied his heels.

Then he straightened his back, lifted his head back up from the squatting position, and slowly stood up.

"Potential Activation" was taking effect rapidly.

A familiar feeling surged forth like a tide, instantly restoring his stamina to full capacity.

The gold-medal technician was back online, sweeping away all the negative factors generated by the previous exercise.

In particular, the popping sounds in his elbow and shoulder joints caused by long-term practice of the Push-up were completely eliminated.

From head to toe, every single part of his body felt comfortable.

Such an effect was just like a rejuvenation buff in a game.

Describing it as "miraculous" was slightly inferior; it could completely be used as a life-saving trump card.

Fang Cheng felt the long-lost "extraordinary power".

Suddenly, he recalled a piece of footage from the disc he watched last night.

A certain Boxing champion was asked by reporters before a match how many sets of training he did every day to maintain his punching power and footwork agility.

The Boxing champion replied, "I never calculate how many I can do. I only start counting when I feel my muscles sore, because that's when the real training begins."

Fang Cheng deeply experienced and overwhelmingly agreed with this sentence.

Even though today was a rest day and he didn't have to go to work.

He still woke up at five in the morning, started Boxing, and did warm-up exercises.

Then he practiced 10 sets of standard Push-ups.

Next, he did 74 Squats in one breath, pushing himself to exhaustion.

The training volume, which exceeded an ordinary person's endurance level, also allowed him to successfully unlock a new skill once again.

"Then..."

"Next, let's prove the training results with my fists."

Fang Cheng took a deep breath.

Staring at the display on the skill bar.

[Boxing Lv0 (67/100)]

That's right.

He prepared to use Shadow Boxing practice to achieve a Breakthrough past the experience upper limit in one go.

Completing another long-awaited combat skill upgrade.

"Focus, activate!"

With a silent thought, all the ambient noise and clamor around him were blocked out of his ears.

Fang Cheng stared straight ahead, as if entering a corner of space that belonged solely to him.

No.

It seemed there was also a shadow!

A dark-skinned, blurry-faced figure was standing at the entryway at this moment.

Standing 1.9 meters tall, the figure almost touched the ceiling.

Its thigh muscles were as solid as stone pillars, and its gloved hands were like two iron hammers.

As it shook its shoulders, its latissimus dorsi and trapezius muscles bulged slightly amidst the interlacing light and shadow, appearing even more three-dimensional.

One could vaguely feel an invisible force surging in the air.

There was no trace of cowardice in Fang Cheng's eyes.

He raised both fists and assumed a high guard posture.

His right foot suddenly kicked off, and his left foot leaped out swiftly, instantly closing the distance between them.

Swoosh!

Accompanied by the sharp sound of shoe soles rubbing against the floor, a dash straight punch quickly struck the dark figure's abdomen.

Slap!

With what looked like a feather-light slap, the dark figure neutralized Fang Cheng's accelerated momentum from running.

Immediately following that.

Its right arm, charged with power for a long time, bent like a hook, aiming at Fang Cheng's chin.

After throwing out its lead hand, it whipped back again with the sound of breaking air.

Swish, swish, swish—using those hammer-like fists to throw three lightning-fast jabs.

Parrying block, rear-hand hook feint, lead-hand jab combo!

In less than half a second.

A set of combination skills erupted instantly, leaving the opponent no room for reaction whatsoever.

This profoundly interpreted what it meant to be as still as a virgin and as swift as a fleeing rabbit.

However.

Fang Cheng's reaction was also shockingly fast.

As he leaned back to dodge the hook, seeing that he had exposed a flaw, he decisively turned his waist sideways and slid a large step rapidly to the right rear.

Intending to use this to break away from the jab's effective attack range.

Only.

His brain had already turned, but his body hadn't had time to complete the movement.

Swish!

A tangible fist brushed past his earlobe, ringing with a buzz.

Fang Cheng's footsteps twisted, and he stumbled and collapsed onto the floor.

The high-difficulty dodging technique he made in an emergency almost strained his oblique muscles.

If it were a real battle, he probably would have been knocked into shock by this heavy blow.

Fang Cheng propped himself up with his hands and quickly climbed back to his feet.

Then he panted slightly, raised his fists again, and used his arms to protect his chin and ribs.

His eyes were blazing bright, like dark red flames burning.

Staring intently at the powerful opponent in front of him who was like a nightmare.

"Come again!"

Two figures, one tall and one short, one large and one small, fought endlessly.

Side-stepping, colliding, back-stepping, falling.

The dark figure was tall and strong, and its arms were much longer.

To defeat it, the only way was to brave the risk of being KO'd, rush into the inner circle, and disrupt its attack range.

Although the train of thought was correct, the gap in strength was very difficult to make up for with skills and tactics alone.

Moreover, the dark figure's technique was exquisite to the extreme, and its punches were so fast that only afterimages remained.

Every single move was flawless!

It was like a fast-moving stone wall, yet at the same time as flexible as a dancing bee.

It could instantly close the distance and launch a fatal blow from any incredible angle.

However.

Fang Cheng was not entirely without advantages of his own.

His mental attribute as high as 18 points made his nerve reaction speed far exceed that of the vast majority of people.

Even the world Boxing champion famous for "Butterfly Dance, Bee Sting" might not be able to compare.

Suffering repeated defeats, he adjusted his mindset.

Fang Cheng simply gave up attacking altogether, focused on the defensive level, and tempered his dodging technique.

Even his shoulders kept shaking slightly, and his footwork interleaved and switched as he began to imitate the opponent's famous unique skill, the "Butterfly Step".

Da, da-da, da-da-da.

As if an impassioned dance music played, inside the cramped room, two intertwined figures of reality and illusion fluttered up, rapidly spinning and chasing each other.

...

"Hoo——"

A puff of steaming white vapor spewed out from his mouth and nostrils.

Fang Cheng's eyes flickered slightly, and he also broke away from the "nightmare" where he was constantly being KO'd.

The white sportswear he wore had been soaked through by sweat at some unknown point.

His thermal underwear clung tightly to his skin, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

He glanced at the alarm clock on the table: 9:25.

Nearly an hour and a half had passed.

A long string of prompt messages also flowed past his eyes like a waterfall.

[You practiced Shadow Boxing, gained some insights, Boxing experience +1]

[You practiced Shadow Boxing, gained some insights, Boxing experience +1]

[You practiced Shadow Boxing, gained some insights, Boxing experience +1]

...

Looking back at the skill bar.

[Boxing Lv0 (91/100)]

The efficiency of practicing Shadow Boxing was indeed very high, and it also consumed a lot of physical strength and mental energy.

But seeing the surging experience points, no matter how exhausted his body and mind were, it became a trivial matter.

A "masochistic" smile appeared at the corner of Fang Cheng's mouth.

Recalling the two hours of disc content he watched last night, combined with the simulated actual combat experience just now, he had many realizations in his heart.

The Boxing champion truly lived up to his name.

When fighting him, he was basically in a state of being beaten up, completely devoid of the ability to fight back.

Fortunately, this was just an imaginary opponent, lacking pain and real damage.

It was most suitable for practicing the technique of taking hits and defense.

Thinking of this, while Fang Cheng felt happy, he couldn't help but develop some doubts.

He always felt that his imagination seemed exceptionally vigorous, and the imaginary enemy set up for practicing Shadow Boxing was too realistic.

That breathing sound, the oppressive feeling brought by the exchange of blows, seemed not like an illusion, but as if it truly existed.

Fang Cheng guessed that this should have an inseparable connection with his high mental attribute.

On second thought, he felt something was wrong again.

If the higher the mental attribute, the more realistic the hallucinations.

Then, if it finally improved to the point where he couldn't tell reality apart, wouldn't he likely become a psychiatric patient?

Shaking his head with a smile, Fang Cheng temporarily dismissed this somewhat groundless worry.

He slowly walked around the room, kicked his legs, swung his arms, and did relaxation exercises learned from the Boxing class.

Rest for half an hour, wait for his mental and physical strength to recover slightly, and turn on the Focus Skill again.

"This time's opponent is Coach Hu!"

Watching the familiar figure gradually emerging in his field of vision, Fang Cheng raised his fists, and his gaze calmed down once again.

With a snap.

His left foot stepped forward, taking a skip step to launch a tentative jab attack...

Perhaps because there was the previous Boxing champion as a reference.

In the fight with Coach Hu, Fang Cheng suddenly felt the pressure decrease and became much more relaxed.

At the very beginning, he also focused on defense, continuously practicing technical movements like back-stepping, slipping, side-stepping, gliding, and circling steps.

After gradually adapting to the opponent's rhythm, he seized some counterattack opportunities and decisively punched the opponent heavily in the face and abdomen a few times.

His confidence was greatly boosted, and his body also began to relax.

Slowly, his punches became more relaxed and coordinated, and even his newly learned Butterfly Step under his feet became increasingly proficient.

Consequently, he simply used all the various moves he remembered from watching the disc last night.

Both sides went back and forth, and it didn't present the one-sided, disparate situation as before.

If calculated by points, Fang Cheng only lost by a slight margin.

This was the benefit of battling top experts.

Not only was the speed of progress flying fast, but his horizon was also completely different from ordinary students.

"Hoo——hoo——"

Amidst his self-forgetful practice, the panel before his eyes lit up, as if something was glowing and enlarging rapidly.

Fang Cheng immediately breathed heavily and stopped his offensive pace.

The phantom immediately vanished from his sight and faded away.

Several brand-new prompt messages subsequently emerged.

[You practiced Boxing diligently, your skills thoroughly integrated, and you have advanced from Entry-Level to Expert level.]

[Boxing Lv1 (0/250)]

[Congratulations on obtaining a skill enhancement reward. Please make a choice between the two enhancement directions in time.]