Lin Shu walked forward, his calm steps drawing notice almost at once.
"Hey, you're new, aren't you?" a gruff voice barked. "I'd suggest you turn around and leave. This is no place for a child."
Before Lin Shu could answer, another man cut in with a mocking sneer. "Will you shut your mouth, old bastard? You're just trying to scare the boy off so your fighters don't get their asses handed to them by a child."
"The hell did you just say to me, you inbred rat?" the first man roared, spittle flying.
The two erupted into insults, their voices echoing through the stone hall. Lin Shu, not understanding what they meant by "fighters," nor caring, simply turned his back on the noise. Their squabbling was meaningless to him.
He made his way to a row of windows where arena workers stood behind iron bars, handling requests. When the clerk glanced at him, Lin Shu spoke flatly.
"I would like a rulebook and an introduction to the Valor Arena."
The man behind the window gave him a long, tired look, then jerked his thumb toward the center of the hall. A massive stone monolith loomed there, etched with countless lines of script.
"The rules are there," the worker said. "If you don't find something you want to know, don't bother asking. You'll learn the rest from the other fighters."
Lin Shu frowned inwardly at the inefficiency—why not simply write everything down in one place? But he said nothing. He had no power to change it, so he left the window and approached the monolith.
The towering stone bore an introduction carved deep into its face. It spoke of the Arena of Valor, its founding purpose, and its hunger: to gather warriors from every corner of the land, to pit them against one another, and to find the strongest among them.
Beneath that came the rules.
There were three types of matches: Normal, Special, and Death Matches.
Normal matches were one-on-one, straightforward contests.
Special matches were fought under unique conditions—restrictions, environments, or unusual victory requirements—and stood as the second most famous events in the arena.
Death matches were the last and most infamous kind. Two opponents entered, and only one would leave. There was no surrender. No turning back. Once the gates closed, the fight would not end until one lay dead. These matches were less frequent than the others, yet they were the arena's greatest spectacle—the kind of blood-soaked entertainment that drew roaring crowds.
Lin Shu's eyes lingered on the rest of the rules. Fighting outside the arena grounds was forbidden. Cheating by smuggling in pills or elixirs was strictly banned. Yet poison—reviled by many—was still permitted, classified as a technique in its own right. Many had called for its ban, but the decision never changed. It was said the Ironblood Sect constantly protested against poison use, condemning the VenomHeart cultivators as cowards who couldn't win a fair fight.
Another line struck him: bribery was strictly forbidden.
One cannot buy their way into Valor—you must earn it.
Finally, his gaze settled on the requirements for entry. To join, a fighter had to prove themselves in a test match. Only those at mid-stage Rank were allowed to participate; anyone weaker was turned away. Once accepted, a fighter could continue competing in normal matches, hoping for a chance to be selected for a special match that could boost their recognition… or they could secure a contractor—an agent.
Lin Shu paused on that word. Agent. He did not yet understand its weight.
So he decided to leave and go into the mistveil serpents to buy some information and while he could've just asked anyone he wanted everything there is know about the arena, when he asked the Mistveil Serpents about it, the answer surprised him.
An agent was not merely a middleman—they were a gatekeeper. It was almost impossible to secure valuable matches without one. Fighters who had no agents were seen as nobodies, while those under an agent's wing received priority. Why? Because agents were not random men—they were former arena fighters themselves, carrying their own fanbases and investors. Their fame attracted attention, and by extension, lifted the fighters they represented.
Without such backing, a newcomer meant nothing. Run fast? A dozen others could do the same. Break a boulder with your bare hand? A dozen more had already done it. Only with an agent's reputation could a fighter's worth be displayed on the stage of Valor.
But there were rare occasions when a man's fighting style or sheer personality alone would captivate the crowd, granting him a swift rise to the higher stages without the need for an agent.
Lin Shu pressed further, asking about the meaning behind the copper, silver, gold, and aether rankings. He was told that newcomers—weaklings in the eyes of the crowd—were always placed in the copper rank. There, they only fought opponents of the same level, most of whom were cultivators stuck in the middle stage of Rank 1.
The silver rank stood above it, reserved for the more seasoned fighters. Those who reached it were usually high-stage Rank 1 cultivators. To step into silver, one needed not only a string of victories but also the courage to challenge a silver-ranked fighter directly and seize his position.
Beyond that lay the gold rank. Here resided the true elites of the arena—cultivators at the very peak of Rank 1. To reach this level, one had to carve a path through the silver ranks, win a set number of victories, and on top of that, triumph in at least three special matches.
The final rank was the Aether stage, ruled solely by Rank 2 cultivators. To even dream of stepping onto that platform, one needed five death-match victories in total—across any rank—while still meeting the requirement of three special matches. Only then could a fighter issue a challenge to someone within the Aether rank, choosing whether it would be a regular duel or a death match. But even then, acceptance was not guaranteed. In the case of a death match, it was left entirely to the will of the one being challenged.
Lin Shu had a question in his mind—what if someone simply refused challenges and kept on refusing them? He was assured that Kuang Baotu would never accept cowards who failed to prove themselves worthy of their rank. Fighters were required to take part in at least two matches every two weeks, and they had to accept at least one challenge from someone seeking to rank up.
Lin Shu was satisfied with this answer, but he still wondered if it would truly be enough to stop people from denying challenges. He was then told that fighters could never escape challenges, because doing so would destroy their reputation. Agents might abandon them, enemies would take the chance to humiliate them, and if they still tried to avoid it, Kuang Baotu himself would likely force them into a fight just to strip their rank away. In the end, there was no choice in the matter.
Lin Shu, satisfied, decided to prepare himself, yet one last problem lingered in his mind.
"My strength without Ivory Dominion is enough to kill mid-stage cultivators and stand against them, but I would probably lose against high-stage ones. If I use Ivory Dominion, however, I can even fight peak-stage cultivators—at least from my estimation. That difference alone could mean staying trapped at the Copper Rank or having the chance to climb as high as Gold. But the problem is the empire. They are still hunting me because of what Lu Heng did, and I remain suspected of being his accomplice.
"Even if Gloomvale is the city where the empire's influence is weakest, their strength here is still more than enough to capture me if I am exposed. Worse, they know of my techniques. They know I can create bone armor and weapons. Such a technique is unheard of in these lands, which makes it only a matter of time before someone connects the dots. So I'll need to find a way to conceal Ivory Dominion—to change the way my bones appear, their color, even the very material they seem to be made from."
Lin Shu, standing within the Floor of Information, asked the Mistveil agent one last question.
"Is there a place where I can place a commission for a material or a technique?"
The man gave a slight nod before answering.
"You can put such a request at an auction and set the price you're willing to pay for that technique or material. Another option is to hire professionals to track it down for you, or at least gather information on what you're looking for. But I'm afraid I can't help you with that personally. To access such services, you'd need to descend to a deeper floor. Perhaps the Floor of Secrets might hold what you seek—but whether they'll take your commission depends entirely on the value of what you're asking about."