Writing Novels Will Make You Invincible

Chapter 41 : Hope for the Tournament

Hope for the Tournament

After seeing Qin Ling off, Chu Tianxing headed back to his bedroom and fired up his computer. As usual, he logged into the author dashboard first to check his novel's subscription numbers.

The subscriptions kept climbing. Although the book had only gone premium for a little over two days, his peak subscriptions were already pushing five thousand, and his average subscriptions were about to break four thousand.

"Not bad at all. I'll be breaking Huan Kong Net's previous e-subscription record pretty soon."

Chu Tianxing nodded with satisfaction.

"Wonder what kind of reward they'll give me for breaking the record..."

Huan Kong Net was the first platform to trial paid e-book reading about a year ago. In the year since, their highest subscription record reached just over 5,400, the highest e-subscription record across the entire web.

Chu Tianxing would probably shatter that record in just a few days.

After checking the subscription stats, he opened up his novel's page as usual to enjoy the show his fans were putting on in the comments section.

His readers were as enthusiastic as ever. Led by fans like "Old Glutton of the Book Sea," "Jinyiwei Under Heaven," "Of Course I Forgive Her," and "Audacious Bald Donkey How Dare You Snatch The Daoist Master From This Poor Nun," they were actively discussing plot points and characters in the comments.

The small faction of haters represented by "Eunuch Li" continued to display their incredible fighting spirit. So long as there is life, the nitpicking never stops.

"Xiao Hu 2215," who had just gotten home not long ago also jumped into the fray with a few of his buddies, giving Eunuch Li verbal beatdowns and the other haters with a barrage of counterattacks.

All in all, the comment section was thriving and bustling, giving Chu Tianxing endless entertainment.

After browsing the comments, he checked his messages but didn't see anything from his editor, so he got ready to start writing.

But today's writing session hit a snag right off the bat.

His keyboard had died...

On second thought, it was only natural that it broke.

Since starting the book, Chu Tianxing had been cranking out an average of 60,000 characters per day, totaling over 800,000 characters. He was almost done with the entire million-plus-character Legend of the Condor Heroes.

With the force he put behind his typing, it was actually impressive that this half-worn keyboard had held out until today. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty.

Since the keyboard was busted and he couldn't write, and he didn't feel like going out to buy a new one tonight, he figured he'd skip writing for the evening.

"Whatever. I've got plenty of time to finish the last hundred thousand words or so before the tournament starts. No need to rush. I'll spend tonight's time entirely on cultivation!"

The time was perfect too.

He just got so many Body-Strengthening Pills recently and wanted to test his “drug-resistant” body on them.

The Inner Force Realm martial artists from the Eastern Depot could only take one spiritual pill per week; any more would be wasted since their bodies couldn't absorb it. But he could handle two per day without any problems.

"With my absorption efficiency, I should be able to open all Twelve Principal Meridians by the time I make it to the national tournament... If that actually happens, winning the whole thing might not be out of reach!"

Having all Twelve Principal Meridians open was basically where Qin Ling and Xiao Hu were at right now.

After the Twelve Principal Meridians came the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

Once you opened all the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, you still had to keep building up and purifying your internal energy until your cultivation reached perfection, then attempt to condense a seed of True Qi.

So, within the Inner Force Realm, having all Twelve Principal Meridians open only counted as Lesser Completion.

Opening all Eight Extraordinary Meridians could be called Great Completion.

But Great Completion wasn't the ceiling for the Inner Force Realm.

After opening all the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, you still needed to continuously accumulate and purify your internal energy, making it deeper and more refined. Only after reaching the level of projecting internal energy externally and harming enemies from a distance could you claim to have reached the Grand Completion of the Inner Force Realm.

After that, you could attempt to condense a True Qi seed and advance toward becoming a True Qi Realm grandmaster.

Right now, Chu Tianxing had only opened four meridians. In terms of realm alone, he was just a rookie in the Inner Force Realm.

But real combat wasn't just about cultivation level.

The quality of your internal energy, differences in physical constitution, and performance under pressure all have huge impacts on your actual fighting ability.

Take Chu Tianxing, for example. His Inner Force Realm was low, but when fighting the fish monsters, he'd been a pillar of strength and even managed to kill that giant fish monster without taking a scratch.

He could achieve results like that for several reasons. First, his physique was incredibly tough. After repeated cleansing and tempering, his muscle and bone strength were on par with Xiao Hu, who had natural talent and god-given strength.

Second, he cultivated the Xiantian Art. Even when he'd just opened a few meridians, he could vaguely sense the existence of Spiritual Qi, making his internal energy quality far superior to that of ordinary martial artists.

Third, he had Intuition and the psychological quality to get calmer the more dangerous things became.

He could perform at 100%, or even beyond 100%, of his capabilities in battle.

He could instantly catch any opening in his enemies' defenses.

He could even forcibly create an opening where none existed.

And whatever martial arts technique ended up in his hands, he could turn them into treasure, unleashing extraordinary power.

So his real combat ability wasn't just on par with Qin Ling and Xiao Hu, who far surpassed him in realm; he could even hold his own against the security captain who had opened all Eight Extraordinary Meridians and Great Completion in the Inner Force Realm.

Even if the national tournament brought together martial arts elites from across the country - a real gathering of hidden dragons and crouching tigers, with genius martial artists and combat experts coming out of the woodwork—a place of crouching tigers and hidden dragons, teeming with genius martial artists and combat experts—Chu Tianxing was confident that as long as he could catch up in his realm, he'd still have a shot at taking the championship.

That night, Chu Tianxing popped two Body-Strengthening Pills.

Maybe it was because he'd been through real combat and unlocked greater potential in those life-and-death moments, by the next morning, Chu Tianxing had absorbed the last trace of the pills' medicinal power and opened another meridian.

Now five of his Twelve Principal Meridians were open.

He also got another gift package for breaking 5,000 peak subscriptions.

This package contained the One Yang Finger technique.

Of course, getting One Yang Finger this late in the game was pure luck. It wasn't to say that the One Yang Finger was superior to the other martial arts of the Five Great.

In fact, among the martial arts of the Five Great, Chu Tianxing's favorite was the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms.

The reason was simple.

Xiao Feng and Guo Jing, two incredibly powerful and popular protagonists, used the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms.

Plus, the special effects for the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms in the TV shows were way cooler than the other techniques. The Six Meridians Divine Sword, which was touted as being even more powerful than the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms, just had special effects of a few thin beams of light shooting out like a little water pistol.

But the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms could summon dragons all over the sky with a single palm strike, creating explosive chaos that carried the whole scene. That spectacle was infinitely more impressive than the Six Meridian Divine Sword.

So Chu Tianxing's favorite had always been the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms.

Too bad his cheat system seemed to understand this mentality and was deliberately teasing him.

All the other techniques, except for the Nine Yin Manual, came as complete sets.

Only the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms came out one palm technique at a time.

Even now, he still hadn't collected all eighteen palm techniques...

Although he wasn't particularly thrilled about One Yang Finger, it was still a Five Great-level ultimate technique.

Toad Style looked ridiculous, but Chu Tianxing had learned it anyway, right? He'd practiced it with such enthusiasm that the neighbors complained...

So he definitely learned One Yang Finger without hesitation.

With this, he had now learned the complete set of both the Finger Flicking Divine Skill and the One Yang Finger.

His already formidable finger strength reached even greater heights. He was definitely going to need a sturdier keyboard.

Over the next two days, Chu Tianxing bought a new keyboard and maintained his average pace of 60,000 characters daily, finishing the entire Legend of the Condor Heroes before the Martial Arts Tournament began.

The Editor-in-Chief from the Imperial Publishing House also messaged him through DangDang, saying they'd received his publishing contract and that the physical book publication was already in motion. They printed 200,000 copies for the first run and would pay him 50% of the royalties for those 200,000 copies upfront, as specified in the contract.

The physical book would be divided into five volumes, with the first paying 7% royalties.

Each book was priced at 20 yuan, so with 7% royalties, Chu Tianxing would earn 1.4 yuan per book sold.

With a first printing of 200,000 copies, his pre-tax royalties would total 280,000 yuan.

The 50% advance meant he'd earn 140,000 yuan in pre-tax royalties right off the bat.

Compared to that three-million-yuan reward he'd turned down, 140,000 in royalties wasn't much at all.

But Chu Tianxing was actually pretty happy about it. He even started calculating the tax he'd have to pay, the amount he'd actually take home, and what he could do with that money.

"Hmm, I could actually do quite a bit with this. At least I won't have to worry my parents about tuition anymore. If only I could contact them and tell them to come home right away...”

"And Ling'er too. I won't have to mooch off her anymore, and actually buy her a decent birthday present this year..."

The royalty payment hadn't arrived yet, but July 15th came first.

That morning, Chu Tianxing and Qin Ling headed to the city sports center together to participate in the main martial arts tournament.