Chapter Twenty-Seven: System Patch

By the seaside lodge next to Yangcheng Industrial University.

One-thirty in the afternoon.

Wen Xiuting kept refreshing her phone without pause.

"Shen Ye, look. Your fan forum is up."

"My fan forum is up?" Shen Ye could not help but stare, leaning over to look. But the weather was hot, and Shen Ye was rather tall; when he leaned in, he caught sight of a stretch of pale, tender whiteness. What was more, Shen Ye's physical attributes had risen to several times those of an ordinary person, and his blood surged wildly.

This brought a slight reaction below.

Even Shen Ye felt a little embarrassed.

At first Wen Xiuting had been busily scrolling through the forum and had thought nothing of it, but she quickly felt his gaze; her pretty face reddened faintly, and she shifted her angle a little.

Shen Ye straightened up and said, "The official Fist-Chop Hero website. Not a bad name—simple and direct."

Soon he had reached the third board, the local tyrant board. Seeing the several incidents of bullying recorded there, his eyes lit up, and he could not help thinking to himself that these people had really delivered excellent material to him. Then he looked at the second forum, at his own fans. Among them were many people he had once helped.

A surge of heroic spirit rose in his heart.

Since childhood he had loved martial arts novels, loved the great heroes within them: upholding justice, standing against oppression, drawing the blade for the wronged, cutting down bullies.

At last, one day, it had been his turn. That feeling was truly delightful.

As he kept refreshing, a voice suddenly sounded in his mind: "The system has discovered a way to fix a loophole. Upgrading now. The system needs to shut down for three days. During these three days, it will not respond to any questions from the host."

Shen Ye could not help being stunned. What exactly was his hero profession system up to by suddenly doing this? Did the system itself have a loophole? How had he never noticed it? At that moment, his mood was rather complicated. After all, although his current strength was quite good, there were still martial arts masters stronger than him.

If he wanted to keep improving in the future, he would still have to rely on this system.

He wondered what it would become after the upgrade.

But very quickly, Shen Ye relaxed.

Over the next few days, Shen Ye ran his shop as usual, reading novels when he had nothing to do and listening to songs, living a thoroughly carefree life.

At last, three days had passed.

For some reason, as the moment drew near, Shen Ye found himself growing nervous again. It was as though he were back in school, waiting for the instant the teacher handed out the test papers.

The time on his phone continued to tick forward second by second.

Suddenly, a voice appeared in his mind: "The Hero Profession System has finished upgrading. It is now the Hero Profession System version 1.1."

"Version 1.1?" Shen Ye could not help covering his forehead. Why did that sound so crude and knockoff?

"Please find a safe, undisturbed place within five minutes so that you may enter the system." The system's voice sounded again.

To put it plainly, when Shen Ye's consciousness entered the system, his body outside would have no thought at all, like a dead man—though the body would not grow cold. This state required a safe place where no one would disturb him.

"Sister Xiuting, I'm going to take a nap. If anything comes up, don't look for me for now." Shen Ye instructed her, then went straight into the private sleeping room in his seaside lodge and lay down, looking as though he had fallen asleep. At the exact five-minute mark, he entered the system.

The system spirit was still that adorable little girl, sucking on a lollipop, her big eyes fixed on Shen Ye.

"What exactly has the system upgraded into? And the flaws it mentioned before—what were they?" Shen Ye asked in confusion.

"This profession system originally had no flaw. At first, all professions could go to other planets and kill phantom beasts to level up. But after returning to this barbaric era called the twenty-first century, it could no longer go to other planets. That meant the hosts of the profession system could no longer level up."

"Fortunately, you chose the hero profession, which can level up by killing villains. If it were any other profession, you would be stuck at level one forever."

"That is the loophole."

"The past three days of the system's upgrade were spent patching that loophole." The adorable little girl sucked on her lollipop, and what she was about to say should have been the crucial part. Yet she was in no hurry at all, and kept chewing on the lollipop for a while longer.

Shen Ye really could not hold back anymore. "Then after the upgrade, how is that loophole fixed?"

"The profession system feels that your leveling speed is too slow if you rely only on killing those villains for experience. Progress is too difficult. So it found a second path to gain experience: the fan support system. The system will help you identify what a true fan is. Such fans must have extremely, extremely high loyalty."

"And when your fan count reaches one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, one million, five million, ten million, thirty million, sixty million, and one hundred million, the system will give you certain special rewards. These may include experience points, of course. Naturally, the maximum is one hundred million fans. There cannot be any more than that. After all, there are only a little over seven billion humans on Earth."

"Also, the more fans you have, the better the rewards later on."

"That can work?" Shen Ye asked. "How many fans do I have right now?"

"Eleven thousand two hundred," said the adorable little system spirit girl.

"That doesn't seem right. I've been active under the name of Fist-Chop Hero for more than a year now, haven't I? I've become rather famous too. I don't know how many people follow the forum at Sea Horizon. Looking at my own forum, it took only three days for the registered users to exceed one hundred thousand. And my fan count is only this much?" Shen Ye was somewhat puzzled.

"Just saying you're a fan of someone with your mouth doesn't make you a fan count. To determine whether someone is a true loyal fan requires a complicated formula. Just like the formula used by the Eye of Justice to calculate justice and evil. Of course, the exact formula cannot be told to you." The system spirit girl rolled her eyes at Shen Ye, as though to say he was really foolish.

"I see." Shen Ye nodded, but quickly came to his senses. "I currently have eleven thousand two hundred fans. You just said that at one hundred, one thousand, and ten thousand fans, I would receive special rewards. In other words, I can get three different rewards."

"Yes." The system spirit girl nodded while sucking on her lollipop.

"Three rewards." Shen Ye wanted to reach for a cigarette, only then remembering that he was inside the system and could not smoke.

The reward he had obtained before, the pair of gauntlets bearing the logo of the year 2999, had already been ridiculously powerful.

And now there were three of them.

More importantly, each one would be better than the last.

The third update is complete, and a new week begins! Rolling on the ground and begging for recommendation votes! I want votes!