Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 853: Sixteen Seconds to Silence

That entire fight left the schadenfreude crowd bitterly disappointed, the kind of disappointment that lingered in the air like a bad aftertaste. They had come hoping to see Ethan stumble, to watch the so-called rising star finally get humbled, and instead they were sent packing with nothing but frustration and a few clipped replays burned into their retinas.

Ethan’s fans, on the other hand, were practically vibrating with excitement, buzzing like they had mainlined adrenaline straight into their veins. Chat windows flooded with breathless commentary, replay counters ticked upward, and the same stunned observations were repeated again and again as if saying them often enough might make them even more unbelievable.

Sixteen and a half seconds of uninterrupted chain crowd control.

Maximum burst output, timed with ruthless precision. Every single strike landing cleanly on a weak point.

Even a fifty-thousand HP tank would have crumpled under that kind of pressure, let alone Skyblade.

Honestly, that was the real tragedy for them. Skyblade had gone down too fast. They wished he had held on just a little longer, just enough to let Ethan reveal more of the Druid God’s toolkit. What other control skills was he hiding? How deep did the lockdown chain really go? What was the theoretical ceiling of that suffocating control loop? That final Typhoon could not possibly have been the end. It was a universal skill, usable in any form. Ethan had not needed to shift into Owl Form to cast it. He had done so deliberately, and that meant there had to be something else queued up afterward, some follow-up that never got the chance to see the light of day.

Instead, the fight ended too cleanly, too efficiently. To them, it felt less like a duel and more like watching a flawlessly executed macro, or worse, a beautifully disguised hack that left no room for error and no space for spectacle.

"Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating," a man growled, slamming his fist into his open palm as if Skyblade’s avatar might somehow feel it retroactively.

"What’s got you so worked up, buddy?" someone beside him asked, half amused.

"Skyblade!" the man snapped, teeth clenched. "He wasn’t durable enough. No staying power at all."

His companion stared at him for a moment, then rolled his eyes so hard it looked like it hurt. "Did you already forget about the first guy who went up? The one who didn’t even last three seconds?"

The complainer froze mid-rant, his mouth hanging open. "Uh..."

As his voice died out, several nearby spectators turned to look, curiosity sharpening into recognition. Someone squinted, then snapped their fingers. "Hey, wait a second. Aren’t you that Two-Second Man from earlier?"

Dozens of gazes snapped toward him at once. The loudest critic of Skyblade’s masculinity and endurance was, in fact, the very first Berserker Ethan had dismantled in under three seconds flat.

Realization hit him like a truck. His shoulders slumped, his posture collapsing inward as if he could physically shrink away from the attention. A second later, his avatar began to fade, transparency creeping up from his feet to his head.

He logged out of the spectator arena without another word.

Back in the dueling ring, Ethan glanced at Leo and offered him a faint, knowing smile. Leo could only shrug helplessly in return, a mixture of resignation and admiration written all over his avatar’s face. Almost in perfect sync, both of their figures began to dissolve as well.

A system message flashed across the field of view for everyone still watching.

Ding!

[The room owner has left. This room will be disbanded by the system in 3 minutes.]

A quick look at the in-game clock confirmed it. The official Ethereal servers had just gone live. Without any further chatter or ceremony, the remaining spectators logged out one after another, the arena emptying in a matter of seconds.

Several enterprising players had already moved faster than the rest, recording both of Ethan’s duels and uploading them to the official Ethereal forums. Within minutes, those clips ignited yet another firestorm of discussion, speculation, and heated debate.

Ethan did not bother to check any of it. What mattered to him was the unexpected bonus he had gained. The duels had proven to be a surprisingly effective tool for sharpening his combat instincts. Even if most challengers were mediocre at best, repeated live combat helped refine his timing and reinforce muscle memory for his newly acquired skills. No one understood this better than he did. In Ethereal, abilities were not just lines of code. They were directly tied to real-world capability and perception. He was not like other Energy Users. Ethereal had forged him, shaped him, and honed him into what he was.

When he logged back in, he spawned on the familiar hill overlooking his fortress. The massive stronghold sprawled before him, all four gates thrown wide open, streams of players flowing in and out without pause. The sheer traffic alone rivaled the main gates of Harmony City, and that was no exaggeration.

The fortress’s location was the real prize. Positioned due south of the city, it sat squarely within prime level forty-five to sixty monster-spawning territory, the current sweet spot for the upper echelon of the player base. A fortress lived or died by its location. Proximity to efficient grind zones meant everything.

In a game where your free Hearthstone came with a brutal twelve-hour cooldown, time wasted traveling back to a capital city for supplies was a silent killer. Even Guild Hall hearthstones shared that same limitation. For most players, the first hour of every session vanished into tedious queues at overpriced NPC vendors during peak hours. Without consumables and repairs, you simply could not function. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Owning a fortress right next to your grind zone changed all of that. No more marathon runs back to town, no more bleeding time for basic necessities.

As Ethan passed through his own front gate, his gaze swept across the open land just inside the walls. It was already bustling with activity. Players had set up makeshift stalls wherever there was space, while others shouted recruitment messages, forming and reforming parties on the fly.

’Perfect.’

The chaotic, vibrant scene drew a genuine smile from him. This was exactly how he remembered it, and exactly how he had instructed Celia to manage the area.

In his previous life, after his fall from grace, he had been one of those regular players, huddled behind a sad little stall near a fortress gate or desperately scraping together pickup groups. That golden period had not lasted long. Eventually, fortress gates were declared no-vending zones, replaced by rows of rented boutique shops that squeezed out independent sellers and funneled profits upward.

That was why he had been firm with Celia from the very beginning. The land immediately inside their gates was never to be leased. Any proper shop had to be at least a kilometer away.

Watching the thriving community at the entrance, Ethan felt a familiar tug of nostalgia mixed with solidarity. He had been one of them once, worse off than most. He knew exactly how thin the margins were. In this life, he might not be able to fix everything, but he refused to become the kind of greedy landlord who stole away the last scraps of opportunity.

He moved deeper into the fortress, walking the full kilometer along the main road. Gradually, permanent structures began to appear, clean and well-organized, lining the thoroughfare.

The first set of buildings came into view, two on each side of the road.

On the left stood All-You-Need Potions and All-You-Need Engineering.

On the right were All-You-Need Blacksmithing and All-You-Need Tailoring.

Ethan slowed to a stop, staring at the two shops on the right. Since when did we have a blacksmith and a tailor?

That Mad engineer was really expanding the empire. Was he planning to monopolize every profession shop in the fortress?

Ethan rubbed the bridge of his nose, equal parts amused and exasperated. Being an absentee owner certainly had its advantages. He did not even know his own franchise was growing this fast. Still, he had to admit it. NoPaperOnTheBigOne was competent, and more importantly, reliable.

’Zachary’s eye for talent was always sharp,’ he thought with a smug curl of his lips. Shame I grabbed him this time.

Feeling rather pleased with himself, Ethan paused outside the tailoring shop. Tailoring was a goldmine in Ethereal. It was not just about stat gear. Tailors controlled cosmetics, glamours, transmogs, pure fashion. Beautiful and exclusive outfits were addictive, and they attracted a very specific, very lucrative demographic.

As if on cue, a couple swept past him and entered the shop. Their actual armor was completely hidden beneath lavish, perfectly coordinated ensembles that screamed disposable income.

"Welcome to All-You-Need Tailoring!" two young greeters chirped in unison from either side of the door, bowing slightly.

One of the girls smoothly stepped forward to intercept the glamorous couple, her smile bright and practiced. The other greeter lagged half a step behind, pouting for a split second before her attention slid past Ethan to the player entering behind him.

"Welcome to All-You-Need Tailoring, sir! What kind of look are you going for today?" she said brightly, already ushering the other customer inside. "We truly have everything, just like the name says. Let me show you around."

Ethan was left standing alone in the doorway.

He looked down at himself and muttered, "Do I really look that broke?"

His avatar displayed his equipped gear exactly as it was, a mismatched patchwork of Bronze, Silver, and a few scattered glints of Gold. To an untrained eye, it might have looked chaotic or unimpressive. To a trained one, it was obvious mid-tier gear with limited resale value. The greeter had taken one look and made her judgment.

Ethan’s expression darkened. ’What the hell is Mad Engineer thinking, hiring staff with attitudes like this?’

Judging customers by appearance was Retail 101 for how to fail. If this was the standard on the front line, then management clearly needed a serious correction. Possibly even a purge.