Chapter 21: Brother Lang, you’re Famous!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“Damn, isn’t that Brother Lang?” Someone recognized Chen Yilang’s retreating figure. “Damn, I didn’t realize that Brother Lang was that adept at fighting!”

At this moment.

The surrounding crowd seemed to have pieced together what was going on.

Judging by the current situation, “Brother Lang” was probably fighting in an outnumbered scenario, and it seemed as if he had won the fight.

Although it sounded ridiculous, such a situation had only arose due to a lack of skill on the delinquents’ end.

“No way? Am I seeing things? I heard that the buff figure is the tyrant of our neighborhood. Most of the hooligans in our school acknowledge him as their boss, or at the very least, someone that they could not stand up against!”

“I’m not too sure either, but that really does look like the boss! I’ll post it on the school forum tonight and ask around…”

…

On the other side.

Chen Yilang, who had not gone far, was happily calculating the rewards from the battle earlier.

He had more than 3,000 gold coins from that battle alone!

A large wave of gold coins was scattered all across the ground. Using the system’s pick-up ability, Yilang then spent a few minutes to pick up all of them.

[ Unscrupulous Leader ] was indeed a foe worthy of the large mob class. His health bar was very thick, and he could take quite a beating. As such, hitting him felt extremely enjoyable to Chen Yilang.

Chen Yilang realized that the more resilient a monster was, the more gold coins and experience points he could farm from them.

Small monsters that could be reduced to ashes with a single punch were not worth paying attention to.

Upon this thought, a tinge of annoyance welled up within Chen Yilang.

Damn it!

The [ Unscrupulous Leader ] ran too quickly!

Had I known that it would flee, I would’ve chased after him and continue to beat down on him. I would’ve ground him to paste and looted him to the bone!

“Argghhhh! Forget it!”

“I still have to act normally once in a while.”

Chen Yilang comforted himself as he walked back home.

However…

Along the way, he realized something was not quite right.

The [ Reputation ] value on his system interface was gradually climbing.

Upon returning home, Chen Yilang noticed that his Reputation had already risen to 500.

His title had also changed to [ Ignorant Beginner ]

[ Reminder: You are no longer the snot-nosed noob from before. Instead, you are now a beginner who has finally left the tutorial zone. ]

…

“What’s Going On?”

Chen Yilang was a little puzzled.

Aren’t I just walking back home? Why did my Reputation points suddenly increase by this much?

It was not until after he had gotten home, ate his fill, and sat down to continue his revision that Chen Yilang seemed to realize the problem.

“Brother Lang! Quick, look at our school forum!”

“You’ve done it now, Brother Lang! You’re famous!”

“Brother Lang is awesome! Cheers for Brother Lang!”

He interacted with his phone and realized that his WeChat had exploded.

Chen Yilang was too lazy to catch up on the messages, and as such, he had simply chosen to turn on his computer, log in into Tieba, and look for his school’s forum. 

Upon accessing the school forum, he was immediately greeted by a thread with extremely high upvotes at the top of the forum.

Title: [ I finally saw Chen Yilang in person today! Not only is he good at studying, he seems to excel in fighting too! He fended off and defeated ten assailants all by himself! ]

He clicked on the thread to take a look.

The number of replies at the bottom of the thread had already exceeded 100 in a matter of minutes…

From a quick skim of its contents, it seemed that almost all of them were spamming “Brother Lang 666”.

Chen Yilang was finally enlightened.

He had a headache.

No wonder my Reputation was constantly increasing. Someone posted my scuffle on Tieba…

However, Chen Yilang felt that the Reputation metric was rather flawed. After all, he had managed to increase his Reputation point just by causing trouble. In that case, if a player were to stray down the wrong path, would they not be further incentivized to walk down that path as a result of how the Reputation system was set up?

What the hell are these people doing?

What if one of the teachers or the principal were to notice this post?

“Ding!”

At this moment, a notification chime rang out from Chen Yilang’s phone.

Xiong Yuwei: “I didn’t know you had it in you! :P” 

Chen Yilang: “…”

Damn it.

Chen Yilang was at a loss.

It seems that I’ll need to be more careful in the future.

One had to know that when matters such as brawling outside of school grounds got out of hand, severe punishments would likely ensue.

Regardless of everything that had happened, Chen Yilang still wished to graduate.

“Screw it.”

“Studying takes more importance.”

“Studying truly brings joy to my life.”

Chen Yilang turned off his computer, threw his phone aside, and began to enter a mental state that was conducive for studying.

Although he was unsure why, ever since everything had been gamified, everything became much more interesting to Chen Yilang.

Chen Yilang had watched a video on game theory before, and essentially, what he had learned was that games were addictive as they provided users with a strong positive feedback loop. 

By killing mobs, one could earn money.

By killing other players, one could earn bounty rewards.

Heck, even the way that game interfaces were designed were meant to fill a user with a great sense of achievement and satisfaction.

However, these positive feedback mechanisms did not exist when it came to studying and working.

Individuals could pour in a mountain of effort and energy into these two tasks, and yet, they would scarcely receive any rewards for it in the short term.

This was probably the reason why games made people feel happier…

Even if this happiness was only brief and transient in nature.

As such, Chen Yilang was extremely grateful for becoming a [ Player ].

At the very least, working and studying had become somewhat enjoyable now.

Just like that.

The days of Chen Yilang getting addicted to studying had come and gone without him realizing it.

The third and final mock exam of Beijiang City’s high school seniors had arrived.

Once again, Beijiang No. 1 High School was highly efficient. Two days after the exam, the results were announced.

During the self-study session in the evening, the form teacher, Mo Li, typed out a PowerPoint of the rankings and displayed it on a screen.

As Chen Yilang had expected, this time, his ranking had improved slightly.

39th place.

He had improved another 10 places.

This number, compared to the hundreds of places that Chen Yilang had blitzed past before, might not seem very big.

However…

In a place like Beijiang No. 1 High School, where the studious and the cream of the crop studied in, once one made it into the top 100, advancing even one place was almost impossible without a miracle.

Not to mention, Chen Yilang’s improvement this time had taken place within the top 50 students.

This was a nigh insurmountable task for the average person.

Nevertheless, this had come as no shock to Chen Yilang,

Learning had now become as natural as breathing to Chen Yilang.

When you have truly digested and mastered something, all you need to do is to answer normally in an exam, and you would do good regardless of effort.

This was something that Chen Yilang did not understand in the past, but he had finally come to terms with this realization.

However, somewhat disappointingly, the rankings this time did not seem to inflict much mental damage to either the [ Top Students ] or the [ Underachievers ] within his class…

It was probably because everyone had already gotten used to his sudden advancements, and thus, they had already steeled themselves in advance.

Chen Yilang started to worry that even if he were to get first place one day, no one would react…

You think I care about the rankings?

Heck no, what I want is the system’s reward!

Chen Yilang was a little depressed.

At this moment…

Something above Chen Jiahui’s head had caught his attention…

1. A Chinese Internet slang indicating that someone is cool, awesome, or amazing..