Bai Lei on the other side heard what Cong Shuang said too.
He didn’t deny it. He just shrugged and said, “Zhao Xuan is my little brother. He lost to you in the Hundred Cities League. Since that’s the case, now that you’ve come to the Tianfu Society, of course I need to take good care of you.”
Bai Lei grinned viciously, putting heavy emphasis on the words “take good care of.”
Lu Ran just looked at Bai Lei calmly.
He wasn’t in a hurry.
Because the paperwork wasn’t finished yet, Lu Ran wasn’t officially a member of the Tianfu Society and wasn’t in the rankings yet.
At the same time, Lu Ran didn’t yet have the right to challenge Bai Lei.
But Shen Man had already arranged for someone to register Lu Ran. It should be done soon.
So until then, he could let Bai Lei jump around a little longer.
So—
Lu Ran asked casually and comfortably, “Since you know Zhao Xuan lost to me, you must have heard about my combat abilities from him. And yet you still dare to go against me? You really are quite bold.”
“Haha… Arrogant, so arrogant! Just a mere necromancer, and yet this arrogant? I really didn’t expect it. Yes, Zhao Xuan did tell me he lost. He said you were very strong. That’s quite rare, actually. For a necromancer to make a Qimen heavenly master like Zhao Xuan praise you—that’s definitely a form of acknowledgment. But unfortunately, a necromancer is still a necromancer. No matter how strong, still a necromancer!” Bai Lei said smoothly.
He looked much more relaxed and at ease.
Lu Ran curled his lip and looked at Shen Man, asking, “Is my paperwork not done yet?”
Shen Man said, “Very soon. A few minutes. Just wait a moment. But are you sure you want to challenge Bai Lei? Bai Lei became number one in the Tianfu Society—his combat power is unquestionable.”
“I’m sure I want to challenge,” Lu Ran said calmly.
“Alright, then let me introduce you two first. Bai Lei is a hidden class—” Shen Man started to say instinctively.
But before she could finish, Lu Ran raised his hand and cut her off.
“Not important. I don’t care about his class,” Lu Ran said casually.
Uh…
Shen Man was a bit stunned.
Setting aside how confident Lu Ran’s behavior was, the insult level was absolutely maxed out.
This was the first person in the Tianfu Society to face Bai Lei and completely not care about his class. The contempt and provocation that couldn’t be hidden in his words made Bai Lei’s expression turn ugly. He was clearly furious.
“Good! Good! Good! You’re the first one who dares to look down on me like this. I’ll tell you what—if you’ve got the guts, come fight me in a martial duel. A literary duel would be too boring. And in a martial duel, death or injury is not accounted for!” Bai Lei looked at Lu Ran with threatening eyes, his provocation equally obvious.
Lu Ran was stunned for a moment.
Death or injury not accounted for?
The members of the Tianfu Society challenged each other with stakes this high?
“Death or injury not accounted for? What does that mean exactly?” Lu Ran looked at Shen Man and asked.
No wonder Cong Shuang had warned him like that earlier.
So people really could die!
This wasn’t some arena match with rules and restrictions where health points stopped dropping after reaching a certain level.
This was for real—people could die!
“Indeed, death or injury is not accounted for, because there are no rules or restrictions at all. It’s just a fight. But normally, when Tianfu Society members challenge each other, they don’t take each other’s lives. Once health drops to one-tenth, they stop,” Shen Man explained.
Put simply—no rules or restrictions at all!
Just fight directly!
Even killing was fine!
As for the one-tenth health thing being some kind of unwritten rule—Lu Ran didn’t care at all.
Bai Lei was jumping around this much. Not killing him would be way too unsatisfying!
“That’s right, death or injury not accounted for. Don’t tell me you’re scared already this easily? I’ll tell you straight—if we really fight, and I get the chance, I will definitely kill you!” Bai Lei raised his eyebrows and grinned viciously.
He thought Lu Ran was asking Shen Man to confirm the death-or-injury rule because Lu Ran was scared.
After all, for any new professional, the idea of dying during a fight was terrifying in itself.
And he’d be facing the number one in the Tianfu Society, Bai Lei.
So—
At this moment, Bai Lei was doing everything he could to show off, provoke, mock, and even insult.
This made Bai Lei feel incredibly satisfied, as if he had completely dominated Lu Ran in every way.
But what he didn’t know was—
In Lu Ran’s eyes right now, Bai Lei was already a dead man!
“Also, one more thing. What did you mean earlier by literary duel and martial duel?” Lu Ran continued asking.
New terms—naturally he needed to understand them clearly.
Shen Man explained:
“There are indeed two types—martial duel and literary duel—agreed upon by both sides.”
“A literary duel is the safest. The two sides don’t face each other directly. Instead, they each attack a training dummy for five minutes, and their damage is calculated.”
“The one with higher damage wins. Because it’s relatively peaceful and there’s no personal danger, literary duels are highly promoted in the Tianfu Society.”
“A martial duel is what we just talked about—the two sides fight each other.”
…
It was actually quite simple.
One type was about dealing damage—whoever dealt more damage won. The two sides never actually fought each other, so naturally there was no danger.
This also made some members, as soon as they felt they’d improved a little, eager to challenge higher-ranked members.
No danger anyway—if they lost, they lost. And if they won, they could improve their ranking and their status and benefits in the Tianfu Society. Why not?
Even though the frequency was very high and many people challenged, the Tianfu Society highly promoted this method.
The purpose was to motivate Tianfu Society members to grow quickly through competition.
Competition breeds motivation!
As for martial duels, because both sides had to go up and fight directly, blades had no eyes, and skills once released couldn’t be taken back, accidents were easy to happen.
In the history of the Tianfu Society, there had been quite a few cases of people dying in these fights.
There was no helping it.
The Tianfu Society couldn’t establish arena rules like the Hundred Cities League.
Of course, the Tianfu Society also didn’t like seeing members die from accidents during sparring, so this kind of duel wasn’t highly promoted, and not many people participated.
“Understood all that? You’re not thinking of doing a literary duel with me, are you? Forgive me for saying so—you’d still lose, but it would be so boring. Unless you’re really that spineless, then go ahead and pick a literary duel. But I guarantee your days after that won’t be easy,” Bai Lei threatened.
From the way he looked—
It seemed he was genuinely worried Lu Ran would choose a literary duel, and then he wouldn’t be able to happily avenge Zhao Xuan.
Wouldn’t be able to properly show off.
“Don’t worry, I won’t pick a literary duel. It does sound pretty boring. Let’s go with a martial duel. But there’s one small problem,” Lu Ran called out to Bai Lei.
“What problem?” Bai Lei asked instinctively.
“Since death or injury isn’t accounted for, and you explicitly said you’d kill me if you got the chance, then for fairness, let’s make the rules a bit clearer. How about that?” Lu Ran asked.
“Clearer? I don’t understand what you mean. How clear?” Bai Lei continued asking.
“Simple. A deathmatch contract. We sign the contract, then we start. Life or death, no matter what. But one side will definitely die. You up for it?” Lu Ran asked with a raised eyebrow.
Now—
It was Lu Ran’s turn to use the provocation tactic.
And Bai Lei was being pushed into a corner.
If he didn’t agree, all the momentum he’d built up this whole time would vanish completely.
If he was too afraid of death to sign, then even if he kept his number one ranking, even if he won, it would be meaningless.
Cong Shuang, watching from the side, couldn’t help but sigh.
This Bai Lei was really going to get himself killed.
