Outside the internet café.
Fang Ping's expression was firm, his eyes filled with determination.
And he had to be—there was no other choice.
After more than an hour of browsing and searching, Fang Ping finally pieced things together.
For example—what exactly was a Martial Artist?
Compared to the martial heroes of wuxia novels and kung fu movies from his past life, there wasn't much difference.
Only now, instead of a fantastical backdrop, martial artists stood proudly in the modern world.
If it were only about the appearance of a high-powered profession like martial artists, Fang Ping might have been curious—might have even dreamed of it—but he wouldn't necessarily have been desperate to become one.
But in today's society, being a martial artist wasn't just about power. It meant authority. It meant status.
The law of the jungle—the eternal truth.
In his previous life, the differences weren't so stark. After all, everyone was just an ordinary person who could be taken out with a single bullet.
But in a world brimming with martial powerhouses, the divide couldn't have been sharper.
Take what Fang Ping told Yang Jian earlier: in politics you couldn't rise past the city level, in business you couldn't expand beyond a city. Back then, he hadn't fully grasped it. Now he understood completely.
Ordinary people still made up the majority, and technically, there were no restrictions on what industries they could enter.
But according to the law—yes, codified in actual legislation—
For a company to expand beyond city limits, its registered legal representative must be a martial artist, rank irrelevant.
To expand across provinces? Then the requirement was stricter: the legal representative had to be at least a Fourth Rank martial artist.
According to the information Fang Ping dug up, the Martial Path was divided into nine ranks. First Rank was the lowest, Ninth Rank the peak.
Those below Fourth Rank were called Low-Stage Martial Artists. From Seventh Rank upward—those were High-Stage Martial Artists, also known as Grandmasters.
So, to create a business that spanned provinces, your legal representative had to be at least Fourth Rank.
And if you wanted to grow into an international conglomerate? While the law didn't explicitly state it, Fang Ping's research showed one thing clearly: not a single multinational existed without a Seventh Rank martial artist in charge.
Even if your product was excellent, even if your market demand was massive, expanding into another country without that level of strength was no different from marching to your death.
Even with a Seventh Rank guardian, you still had to prove your strength.
Take Ma Huaten, for example.
Penguin Corp's products were similar to Fang Ping's past life—instant messaging at the core. QQ remained the most popular chat tool in China.
But it was limited strictly to China.
Penguin couldn't even break into the rest of Asia. Why? Because although Ma Huaten had reached Seventh Rank, Google had already launched its own instant messaging platform. The guardian overseeing Google's Asian expansion was an Eighth Rank martial artist.
Until Ma Huaten proved his own strength, proved he could fight for a share of the market, expansion was impossible.
Outside the borders, your team might simply vanish overnight.
Only by demonstrating the power to compete could you expand with confidence.
That was why, the moment Ma Huaten broke into Eighth Rank, he immediately challenged Taim.
The outcome of the battle wasn't the most important thing. What mattered was that the world would know: Ma Huaten was now an Eighth Rank powerhouse, qualified to fight for a seat at the table.
That was the rule of commerce. And in other fields, it was the same.
The stronger the resources, the more support the government would pour into cultivating martial artists.
Rumors had spread earlier that the Governor of Nanjiang was about to break through. Yang Jian's excitement made sense now—because if a Governor ascended to Grandmaster, the entire province of Nanjiang would gain access to far more resources.
Politics, commerce, the military—every sphere followed this same law.
Even entertainment wasn't exempt.
The most famous pop stars and actors weren't just talented and good-looking. They also needed strong martial cultivation.
Because if you lacked strength, no matter how much wealth you earned, you couldn't keep it.
Unless, of course, you had powerful martial parents backing you.
That's why the children of the wealthy and powerful were almost universally called the same thing—Wu'er Dai (second-generation martial heirs).
Because the wealthy and powerful were martial artists.
Ordinary people could sometimes rise to high positions, but without exception, every one of them had a powerful martial backer.
And they themselves had to prove they offered overwhelming value—ten times, a hundred times the worth demanded of a martial artist.
Fail to become a martial artist, and you'd forever remain unrelated to the elites and the powerful.
That stark divide fueled the desperate yearning among ordinary people: everyone dreamed of becoming a martial artist.
Even the weakest martial artist could hang their name on some minor company's roster and easily make over a million a year.
But in truth, those who became true martial powerhouses were almost always the elites of society.
Unless they bent the knee to stronger figures, they rarely wasted their names as "advisors." Most simply started their own enterprises.
Compared to ordinary people, the advantages were overwhelming.
"If you can't become a martial artist, no matter how many golden ideas you have, you're just setting the table for someone else."
Fang Ping muttered under his breath. That was the brutal truth.
He'd just checked online: aside from the martial-related details, everything else matched his past world.
Meaning—if he wanted to start a business, he had plenty of product ideas and strategies.
But without power to protect himself, at best he'd scrape together a small profit. Want to grow bigger? That was nothing more than a fool's dream.
The moment he crossed the line, the likeliest outcome was his industry being taken from him.
Thanks to China's still-strong legal system and countless martial guardians in government, they wouldn't necessarily take his life.
But his hard-earned company? That would almost certainly end up in someone else's pocket.
For instance, right now, there was no WeChat in this world.
If Fang Ping invented it, there were only two possible endings:
First, it would be taken by someone else.
Second, it might circulate locally as a niche product—but trying to expand beyond one city? Forget it.
The profits wouldn't belong to him. Who got them would depend entirely on who pulled the strings.
For ordinary people, the only real path was honest work: grinding jobs, maybe a small business limited to their own city.
Even then, safety wasn't guaranteed.
That constant sense of insecurity, that precarious life—it was even more restrictive than his past world.
If Fang Ping didn't want to be a complete salted fish, then becoming a martial artist wasn't just a choice—it was inevitable.
Even if he did want to be a salted fish, at least he wanted to be a salted fish who lived in comfort and security.
Fortunately, the majority of the world's population was still ordinary. Society hadn't completely abandoned them or cut off their hopes of rising.
The Gaokao—the National College Entrance Examination—remained the greatest chance for ordinary people to rise in a single leap, to transform from carp to dragon.
Now, many elite universities had established Martial Arts Departments specifically to train martial artists, keeping the door of hope open.
There were also specialized martial universities recruiting through the exam.
But as the saying went: "Poor in the literary path, rich in the martial path."
Martial artists demanded immense resources, far more than ordinary students. The cost of cultivating one martial artist was astronomical.
That meant—unless you were a heaven-blessed genius, you had no chance.
Every year, the Martial Exam was harder than getting into a top university in Fang Ping's previous life.
In 2007, nine million students sat for the Gaokao.
Out of all the universities across the nation, the total number of Martial Arts recruits was under twenty thousand. That was the combined quota of every school.
Back in his old world, even the top schools like Tsinghua and Peking University only admitted a few thousand per year.
But add all the 985 universities together and they took in over a hundred thousand students annually.
Now? Across more than a hundred universities with Martial Arts programs, only twenty thousand spots.
One in five hundred.
And that ratio only held in major cities. In smaller cities, the odds were ten times worse.
That was why Chen Fan and the others were already half in despair.
And that wasn't even the only hurdle.
The ten-thousand-yuan application fee Chen Fan had mentioned earlier? That was just the minimum requirement.
Now Fang Ping truly felt the headache.
The Martial Exam registration opened next week. Miss the deadline, and you couldn't apply even if you had the money later.
"One ten thousand yuan application fee…"
Just when his heart had been burning with ambition, that figure had poured cold water on him.
And that was just the first step. There would be countless more expenses after.
This world's strong weren't created by "sudden epiphanies" like in novels. They were forged out of resources, out of wealth.
Why else did martial powerhouses all run businesses or embed themselves in government?
Those so-called experts in TV dramas—effortlessly soaring in strength, fasting and meditating their way to breakthroughs—Fang Ping would have scoffed at it before.
Now? He knew it was pure nonsense.
Even the weakest First Rank martial artist required resources worth over a million yuan to cultivate.
And First Rank was the lowest tier.
To climb higher? The cost multiplied into astronomical sums. Without industries to back them, it was impossible.
Could any ordinary household afford that?
Of course not.
That was why the Martial Arts Departments of universities were so sought after: the state paid for most of the resources.
Even if the support wasn't complete, once you got in, banks opened their doors for loans.
Big corporations too were eager to sign contracts with martial students, investing in them as future assets.
But all of that depended on one thing first—getting into a Martial Arts program.
To think you could become a martial artist without spending money? Dream on.
Fang Ping sighed again. He'd lost count of how many times he'd sighed today.
Of all the people who got reborn into modern society, how many had it this rough?
(End of Chapter)