Translators Notes: My only excuse is that Ive been forced to get out a lot during the weekends and did not have as much time as I like to translate. Im really sorry!

Chapter 80: Strength Classification

"Is that Zhao Yan the one you told me before; the person who almost killed you in a cutscene?" Yin asked.

"Yes, he is."

"Is he very strong?"

"Mm."

"How strong is he?"

Yue Qiang pondered and did not answer immediately.

He only had a rough concept of the classification of strength belonging to the characters in this game world.

If this was a normal Xuanhuan world, then the division in strength might be Tiandi Xuanhuang, the first line of the Thousand Character Classic; or Nascent Souls or Gold Cores cultivators rising in power through overcoming calamities. Maybe it could even be something like Battle Monarchs, Sects, Supreme, Saint or Emperors? In general, the division in strength was obvious at first glance, but it was obviously not the case in this game.

The problem was that the strength division in this game wasn't carried out by levels; something like level 5 would roll right over a level 1 character, or be rolled by a level 10 character. It was because this game did not have levels at all in the first place.

At the beginning, he thought that the crucial factors that determined a person's strength was the two attributes Strength and Constitution.

For example, he himself had once wracked his brain and attempted all kinds of methods to complete hidden quests and obtain additional freely distributed stat points. Now, both his attributes Strength and Constitution had reached 15 points, and his combat attribute 'Cockroach' had also reached 14 points. His overall strength could be considered pretty good already.

Moreover, he could defeat Zhao Soldiers who had stronger stats than him through the combination of skills and better controls.

Therefore, on the surface the comparison of strength in this game was similar to the real world. One could not find out the outcome between two dueling combatants beforehand through the analysis of certain data.

This situation was slightly similar to conjecturing a duel between Bruce Lee and Mike Tyson. Since they were not born in the same era and had never met each other, one could only guess the outcome of a duel between the duo through conjecture.

If we were to compare the stats between the duo, Bruce Lee weighed only 60 kg whereas Mike Tyson weighed as heavy as 100 kg. Height wise, Mike Tyson was ten centimeters taller than him. If we account the rest of the factors such as strength, endurance, match experiences etc, Mike Tyson also held quite the advantage. Just based on statistics alone, there was almost no chance Bruce Lee could defeat Mike Tyson.

However, as a fellow compatriot, Yue Qiang had always assumed or rather wishfully thought that anything could happen in actual combat. What if Bruce Lee could awaken his inner power? What if he could use all kinds of dirty tactics such as stabbing the eyes, crushing the balls or throwing sand in a fight without rules? Bruce Lee might not necessarily have no chance of winning at all.

Therefore, the reason Yue Qiang likened this example was because he thought his current situation was slightly similar to a fight between Bruce Lee and Mike Tyson.

Through the information on the bamboo scroll, he knew that he engage Zhao Yan in a battle and be killed with a blow to the head.

Looking at statistics alone, Zhao Yan was the one and only super boss he had encountered in this game. Stat wise, Zhao Yan undoubtedly had overwhelming advantage. It was as advantage so huge that even Yue Qiang himself thought that it was logical for him to be killed in a cutscene.

But still, there was the possibility of an upset.

The basis of his confidence was the near real combat system.

Yue Qiang's skill, stats, gauges and abilities had great synergy with each other. It greatly improved his hidden strength. His true combat power was a lot higher than the 15 points of Strength and Constitution displayed on the stats screen. Besides that, he had excellent control, and the fact that his skills would not be interrupted by pain was also added merit in combat.

WIth so many merits, he could say somewhat confidently that he could beat an opponent at the blacksmith Tan Xiong's level. You must understand that the blacksmith Tan Xiong had 27 points of Strength, and he had a couple of good skills and stats as well.

As long as the enemy hadn't exceeded human limits, he would more or less be able to contend against them.

Therefore, the most crucial problem right now was that Zhao Yan's Strength attribute had obviously exceeded human limits.

By how much, was the question.

This was also the question Yin had asked at the beginning, that was how should Zhao Yan's strength, or rather, how should the rank of strength in this game world be described.

He recalled that Luqiu Duanyi once told him that the moment a certain attribute had exceeded 40 points, it would be the equivalent of passing through a threshold. There was an immeasurably wide chasm between exceeding 40 points, and not exceeding 40 points. On the stat screen, 41 and 39 might only be 2 points apart, but there was absolutely certain factors that restricted that 39 from ever reaching 41, and as a result prevented it from ever beating 41.

Perhaps he would be able to utilise various factors to his advantage and contend against enemies that were below 40 points of stats in combat. But if he wished to beat Zhao Yan, who had over 40 Strength points he would have to think of another way.

"Do you have any good suggestions?" he asked Yin. This girl was very smart, and she had a very thorough mind. Perhaps she had some other ideas.

She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. The she said something unrelated to the topic, "I also have Progress Points."

Yue Qiang was confused. They had been deliberating about strength all this time, so how did Progress Points come into the equation?

Yin explained to him, "Just now, I used the skill 'Gaze' to change the trajectory of the giant crossbow bolt. I have also obtained 0.5 Progress Points as a result of that. I think that you have also obtained some Progress Points while you jabbed a few spiders along the way and took out that mechanical fist, am I right?"

Yue Qiang checked for a bit, and he discovered that he obtained 2 Progress Points from taking out the mechanical fist, and 0.2 Progress Points from jabbing two spiders to death along the way. So his remaining Progress Points from before had increased up to 10.2 Progress Points.

"This is it." Yin said, "According to your words, Progress Points is a somewhat common reward that had appeared after the introduction of the first cutscene. Moreover, it could be used to exchange for certain things with the old watchman at Green Cow Market. Do you remember? Attributes and skills are not the only thing that can be exchanged there. The very first line of the things can be exchanged is 'Information (Inquiries)'!"

"What does this have to do with estimating Zhao Yan's strength and increasing my own strength?" Yue Qiang asked in puzzlement.

The mission back then was rather rushed, so he did not pay too close attention to the options inside it. The options provided were extremely complicated, and just skills and items alone had too many items to read. He only remembered the name of the first option, but he did not expect that Yin would remember it so clearly.

"Mm, it is very much related." Yin explained, "Information (Inquiries) actually works both ways! What does this mean? This means that not only can we use Progress Points to exchange what we want from the old watchman, we can also use some important items, or even information, to exchange for Progress Points from him!"

Exchange for Progress Points? After Yue Qiang thought over it for a moment, he asked, "This doesn't seem likely, does it?"

"It is very likely, or this system should be called a Progress Point Conversion System, and not a Progress Point Trading System."

Yue Qiang still did not quite get Yin's meaning, but the girl's speech gradually picked up in speed, "You may not yet realise how important this is. It is extremely important to obtain Progress Points in this game, so any method that can be used to obtain Progress Points is extremely important!"

Yin held up the 'A Complete Solution to the Two Schema Makeup of a Mechanism Power System' drawing and gestured, "Do you still remember the 'Design' option in that trading system? All of the design type items in that system are extremely expensive, but they are obviously not as good as the design blueprint I'm holding right now. What if I exchanged this design blueprint for Progress Points?"

Yue Qiang slowly turned serious. He was starting to get what Yin was trying to say.

It was very difficult to obtain Progress Points through the normal way, but it was relatively easier to obtain Progres Points through this method instead.

And it so happens that Progress Points was an important method in increasing one's strength.

"It so happens that Progress Points is an important method in increasing one's strength!" Yin said swiftly, "With enough Progress Points, we will be able to meticulously arrange the skills we need to learn and increase our strength. We will be able to approach quickly that so-called 'human limits'. More importantly, we will be able to trade for information from the trading system!"

She continued to speak, "How strong is Zhao Yan? How powerful is power beyond 'human limits'? This is the only way we can earn a sufficient amount of Progress Points to measure Zhao Yan's strength and increase your own."

Yue Qiang roughly understood her meaning.

If they looked at the bidirectional principle of the trading system, then the amount of content that he could use to exchange for Progress Points in any combat had increased by more than twice it initially appeared to be! This was extremely important in a case where Progress Points was so hard to obtain. Moreover, designs were in fact a type of intellectual value, so they totally could copy the content of the design one time and acquire a huge influx of Progress Points for free.

This was the most important point!

"The importance of this Progress Point Trading System may exceed even my initial expectations." Yin said while pointing at Luqiu Ning in the coffin, "She must have an internal reason for purposely investigating and seeking out a main quest to issue to you."

"Therefore, what we need to do right now is to seek out that old watchman. He must have a way to help us survive this crisis!"