《Starting from Zero》 Chapter Book 1 - 1 – Bloodfight Book 1, Chapter 1 Bloodfight --------------------------------- "For God''s sake! I''ve been waiting for too long!" A young manined. "You know what? I didn''t even have any breakfast. You at least ate a hamburger!" Wayne murmured. Wayne Reno, my sidekick plus roommate. We''ve known each other since childhood. Same ss in middle school, same high school, same ss in college AND got assigned to the same dormitory room. We started ying games together since middle school. The game room at Wayne''s house was our favorite hang-out spot! Now we''ve gotten into university, we live in a twin room. That''s because I''m quite a loner, I don''t have many friends besides Wayne! Now we are freshmen, and there''s plenty of free time before our courses begin. It would be a good idea to y games in the dorm! Wayne''s family is pretty rich, they do real estate business. I don''t know exactly how rich but definitely no richer than mine. He got his own game room beside his bedroom, with several tens of gaming machines and consoles in it, all from his family! My family however, is a bit moreplicated. My father runs a multinational corporation called the Dragon Fate Corporation. The corp doesn''t have any focused business. We do anything that is profitable. In fact, our biggest source of ie are specialized military projects. Um? You don''t know what "specialized military project" is? It means producing special weapons, for example biological weapons, electronic weapons, space weapons and so on. Weapons that require highly advanced technologies and are notrgely used. If I''m not the young master of the family, I wouldn''t know that Dragon Fate produces these stuff! My grandpa gave the corporation to my father, and it''s now the secondrgest group in the whole world. My father owns 51% of the shares. I don''t know exactly how much those stock worth... But it should be more thanst year''s Gross National Product of our country. My mom is the president of the Zhong Hua Company. Not like dad, she established her career from scratch on her own, thus she holds 78% of the shares. Zhong Hua Company is not a big one, but her share should be somewhere more than hundreds of millions. Compared with Dragon Fate, though, that''s like a drop in the ocean! Because of the rich family, I didn''t get to experience an ordinary childhood. Wherever I go, there would be hundreds of bodyguards following behind. Even when I''m in the toilet, a small group would have to form a circle around me (with their backs against me of course!) My parents are always busy with their affairs, on my tenth birthday, they each reached a business contract with someone! Because of the guards I couldn''t make friends, plus the fact that most people who tried to talk to me were mostly drawn by the money, I don''t easily trust friends. As a result, Wayne is my only friend now (Actually my parents hope I can be happier this way), and my family started to try to make me feel normal, without getting bothered by all the superior perks. So my identity is now hidden, father found some connections to help change my records and information. Now most people wouldn''t know whether my father have a child or not, let alone who I am. The best thing is my hundreds of stalker guards are now several hidden guards, and I can attend school like everyone else. (My primary school years were held by a teacher exclusively employed by Wayne''s family, we studied together) This strange childhood caused my solitary personality! There''s another reason that made it hard for me to make friends: my appearance and voice. I don''t look horrible. It''s the opposite, I''m beautiful. Yes you heard it right, beautiful. I would win several rewards if I''m to participate beauty contests around the world. But the problem is, I, a pure-blooded male, got a body shape nowhere like a man. I''m not transsexual mind you, from biological perspective, I''m 100% male, I have everything a man is supposed to have and I don''t have anything I shouldn''t, even my sexual preference is totally normal. But! 99.99% people will get it wrong if they try to guess my gender when they haven''t known in advance! (Gah!) Every time there''s a guest visiting my home, the firstment would be: Mr President, your daughter is absolutely stunning! Yes, most people''s first impression on me is a super pretty little girl, and for some reason it seems I never went through a voice mutation, I sound like a child which makes it even harder to distinguish my gender! Just imagine, a bunch of guys staring at me and drool on the ground, how do I make friends like that?! For my face, I never experienced a stable school life. Now there were more than 200 cases when I scared groups of boys out of men''s toilet! Thus, Wayne is the only who has been considering me as a buddy, a best friend. (He doesn''t get attracted by my beauty is probably because he grew up with me, he didn''t feel anything when he''s little and now he got used to it. Wayne loves pretty women too, heined that he won''t find a girlfriend easily because of me---I raised his standard! Well I''m pretty sure he gets all "tensed up" when he meets a woman, any kind of woman.) Today we''re queuing up for the newest online game, [Zero]. It''s the release day, the first 10 thousand yers who im their ount can receive special gift. The gift is the VR Helmet specially designed for [Zero], plus random hidden in-game reward. The helmet is no big deal, it''s 2062 now, it only costs like 300 Yuan, not that expensive. Actually it''s the random hidden reward that is tempting. In fact, [Zero] is a cooperated product between my father''s corporation and world''srgestpany, the European Union Countertrade Association. My mother''s Zhong Huapany will be running the game. But father said I shouldn''t use my privilege, I have to wait in the queue myself if I want an ount. So here we are! Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Sairin, from New Nanjing City. I think you may need to know about this "New Nanjing". In 2012, there was a major military conflict between China and Japan, over ocean boundary issues. It developed into arge-scale war. During the war, Japanunched 37 heavy Fuel Air Explosive Missiles towards us, 36 of which were intercepted by the Space Directed Energy Interception System (This system is Dragon Fate''s very first sessful military deal, when my grandfather was still the president), but thest one hit Nanjing City and burned the entire ce to the ground. The death toll was more than 4 times the total number of victims during the Nanjing Massacre in WW2, 1.35 million. As a revenge, we detonated a Crust Bomb at Honshu Ind, sending it beneath the Pacific Ocean (Today Japan only has three main inds left). The resulting tsunami severely damaged neighboring nations, for this, China paid about 5.22 trillion Yuan to South and North Korea. This "New Nanjing" was built upon the ruins of the original Nanjing City. "Look, they opened the doors!" Wayne dragged me out of my thoughts. Now we need to strain every muscle to push forward. Dang it. The orderly queue is no more the very moment they saw the door open. The crowd pushed me into the release hall without letting me touch the ground at all. It''s even more chaotic inside the hall. It''s not big, and there are already about three thousand people stuffed in here. I guess there are at least another ten thousand on the outside trying to get in. Wayne was behind me but is now nowhere to be found. Must have been carried away to somewhere. The ount sales booth ahead already started selling, now I also have to squeeze forward with all I got. The security is trying their best to keep order....to no avail. "Help..." I heard a faint call for help, it came from...under me? I tried to lower my head, and saw someone down on the ground being stepped over, and obviously cannot get up. This poor soul will definitely die if it goes on. I tried to push the surrounding crowd away. And using my shoulder to keep them froming back, stretching out one hand and pulled the downed man over. And now I''m stunned. The one I just saved is a girl beautiful like a descended angel! More beautiful than me! I haven''t met many girls this pretty and few ones are willing to walk alongside me -- I took all the spotlight! She looks miserable with all the footprints on her, but that doesn''t cover her absolute beauty. "Thank you so much, sis!" Although the voice is pleasant to hear, I still feel like crap. Another one! Misunderstood! "It''s ok. I can''t just watch you die from trampling can I? Need me to take you out of the hall?" I instantly regretted after saying that. If I really send her out, I don''t know if I can get back again and seize the top-10,000 ount. Besides, the game is being released around the world at the same time, even if the main publishingpany is here in New Nanjing, we could probably have 3 to 5 hundred ounts at most. "No! I want an ount!" That''s a relief. "Alright then, follow me close!" We continued to fight our way towards the booth, and I''m able to make a way. Exhausted, I finally swam to the booth. Yes, swam. My feet never touched the ground. "An ount please!" I shouted to the salesdy. "An ount here too!" The girl also made it to the booth. The salesdy quickly passed two helmets to us. "The ount is affixed inside the helmet. Read the instructions if got any questions." There''s no other way, we have to push through the crowd again, to the exit. We finally got out. Looking at the dense mass of a crowd outside, I don''t even know how I got in there before. I heard panting from behind, and looked back at the girl. "Thank you! The name is Lica, Lica Lin. If not for you, big sis, I''d probably died in there! Let alone the ount!" She reached out with her hand. I shook that ck-ish (it should be white) hand, and I don''t want to exin for now. We probably won''t see each other again anyway. "You''re wee. Since we both got the ount, let me remember yours and I''ll send you message when I''m in the game." "Sure!" Lica wrote down her ount from the helmet and gave it to me. "I''ll go now. Let''s talkter!" "Alright!" Watching her leave, I nced back at the crowd. It looks impossible to find Wayne, so I started heading back to the dorm. *********************** I finally arrived at our room, but Wayne is not back. I started eating the breakfast I grabbed along the way while reading the instruction. The game server officially opens at 8 pm tonight. There''s not much instructions, only 17 pages in total. It seems the 10 thousand ounts are associated with helmets, the actual ount isn''t important, it''s the helmet that matters. The first time the helmet logs into the game, the system will consider the used ount as a gifted ount and initialize rewarding procedure. Of course each ount can only ept the reward once, using two helmets and log into the same ount twice will not work. The system only recognizes the first reward. The second will be ignored. The instruction also mentioned that each individual can only use one ount. When logging in the first time, the helmet will scan user''s brain wave and iris then bind them. Once bound, no one else will be able to use the ount. This methodpletely prevented powerleveling and ount hacking. Each individual''s identity will also bind with the ount. No one can register a second one. The other instructions are all omitted. It only says that you can ask the system NPC once inside the game. Wayne is back when I just finished reading. "How was it?" Depression is written all over Wayne''s face:"Forget it. I got pushed out from the beginning. I didn''t even see the helmet! You got one?!" Wayne saw my helmet. "Well no big deal. I''m no professional. A normal ount is fine." "No worries. When I leveled up I''ll help you, it would be faster than others." Iforted him. "Deal! Don''t forget it!" I ate lunch early and caught some sleep to get ready to work all night. I woke up at 7, had dinner, and waited for the game tounch. After a painful wait (less than half an hour actually), it''s 8 pm! Chapter Book 1 - 2 – Character Creation (Part 1) Book 1, Chapter 2 Character Creation (Part 1) ---------------------- Note: There will be a lot of term inconsistencies from now on, like magic/spell, mage/wizard/caster, physical attack/physic attack, so on. These are fatal mistakes in technical trantions but I don''t think they are a big issue as long as readers know what I mean. Oh the "SP" is not a mistake, the original author used "SP". I''m pretty sure he will switch to "MP"ter. ---------------------- I activated the helmet, everything went ck. Then I found myself in a light-blue colored room. Then there is a mechanical voice: "Iris locked, essing brain wave." Two seconds pause. "ess sessful, body scan sessful, identity locked, configurationpleted. Wee to the system. The Mother Brain will guide you from now on!" Another two second pause, then a female voice came to. It''s doesn''t sound charming, but pleasant enough. "Greetings! Wee to the realm of [Zero]. Your ount is a gifted one, please draw your reward item now." A giant wheel suddenly appeared inside the room. I asked, confused:"Can you exin this reward item thing?" "The number of rewards each ount will receive is random, it is decided upon the result of your drawing. The max is four, while the minimum is zero." "Wait what? Zero? Zero means the ount would be apletely ordinary one right?" What''s the matter with this system? People broke several bones to get the gift ount, and they can get no reward at all? "Please begin your drawing." The system urged. Fine. Five numbers, I got only 20 percent chance to get a zero. I walked over and rotated the wheel with full force, it started spinning fast. Watching it slowing down, I''m getting nervous. The pin is now pointed at Three, it''s still going but will probably stop soon. I prayed, no not zero, please not zero. Wheel is still moving, now it''s One. I kept praying. One is fine too! The pin reached Zero, the wheel didn''t freeze but it looks like it will not leave the area. I closed my eyes, this is hopeless. *Ding* there is a clear sound, and then a system notice. "Congrattions! You hit the biggest number, Four!" "Huh?!" I can''t believe my eyes, I''m pretty sure that pin stopped right at the middle line between Zero and Four. But the system is always more urate than human eyes, that''s for sure. The system confirmed for me:"You indeed reached a Four. Please check your character, your ount is allowed to create two characters, do you wish to assign rewards to different characters, or put them on the same one?" Your kidding! No doubt on this one! "The same one!" You only need a main char in a game. Spreading on two is waste! "Please create a character first. The reward will be applied to this character." "Okay, but how do I do that?" "Please call out the name of your character first. The name will be permanent, you will not be able to change it once character is created, unless you delete and re-create one. It is rmended to use Chinese characters only." "Ziri!" I''ve always been using this cool name in every game. "Character: Ziri, is now created. Initializing rewarding procedure." Two seconds passed. "You first reward item is determined. You will be able to choose hidden race. Please now choose the race of your character." "Race? What are the races I can choose from?" After a bright sh, two rows of characters appeared in front of me. The second row is floating in mid-air for a better view. Upon closer inspection, these guys look quite familiar. Wait a second. These are...me? They all look like myself! The system seems to noticed my question. "These race models are configured upon your own appearance, you need to choose a race, then modify the character whose appearance differentiation cannot go beyond 10% of your own. The bottom row contains races that are avable to anyone, the top row are the ones only avable to those with hidden race reward. There are 12 normal races: Orc, Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Fire Elemental, Water Elemental, Earth Elemental, Undead, Air Elemental, Fairy, Monster. And 7 hidden races: Angel, Demon, Half Elf, Spirit Elemental, Half Orc, Half Angel, Divine Demon." Well it''s obvious the hidden ones are the better ones. "Can you introduce the features of those races in the top row?" The system instantly removed the bottom row, and the remaining ones flew closer to me. "You can watch and check their outer appearance, now I''m exining their attributes. First, the Angels. Their trait: with the same attribute points, angels have higher Attack and Defense, with higher HP as well. They are born with the self-healing magic "Holy". Second, the Demons. Demons have high Defense and Magical Attack power, and regenerate HP faster. Third, the Half Elves. This race possesses the same high-level dexterity and night vision ability as other Elves, but at the same time they have higher HP than Elves, usually simr to the level of Humans. Fourth, the Spirit Elementals. They are born mages, all spells cast by them will have a +5% attack bonus, and they regenerate SP faster. Fifth, the Half Orcs. They have the same high Attack and Defense as other Orcs, but also possesses the Dexterity and Intelligence of Humans. Orcs will never be mages, but Half Orcs can. Sixth, the Half Angels. Their Attack and Defense are simr to Angels but usually a bit lower. They can learn attacking spells which other Angels cannot, and they have higher resistance to Dark magicspared to Angels. Lastly, the Divine Demons. A peculiar race. Divine Demons are the children between Angels and Demons, they possess high Physical and Magical Attack. They don''t have the 50% resistance to Light magic like the Angels, nor the 50% resistance to Dark magic like the Demons. But Angels and Demons have absolutely zero defense against the opposite magic, while Divine Demons don''t. In a word, it''s a race between Angels and Demons. Also, the system will restrict the number of Divine Demons, after ten ounts have chosen this race, the following yers will only see six hidden races." Ha! Now I get it. But I still don''t know which one to choose. They''re all so good! "Can you remove the race when I say so?" "Exclusive method? Of course!" Woah! This system... They got some real artificial intelligence here! That aside. Let''s start picking. "Not the Spirit Elemental. They look terrible!" The Elemental up front turned into blinks of stars and disappeared. Six left. "Half Orc looks too violent. Pass." Blink. Five to go. "The perks for Half Angel and Half Elf is not that obvious. Not them!" Last three! Oh how do I choose... "My name is Ziri (the Purple Sun), not a proper name for an Angel. So pass!" Two left! The Demon is obviously a caster ss, I prefer warriors and knights. "It''s decided, I choose the Divine Demon!" The system instantly responded:"Race: Divine Demon, has been chosen. Congrattions, you''re the first one to choose Divine Demon, the system will grant you one Base Attribute Point. Now please set your character''s appearance." There''s only the Divine Demon in front of me now. I took a closer look. The height is same as me, about 172cm, looks like they don''t have any body height bonus. Bnced limbs, the face is a bit wicked, and a pair of ck feather wings stretching out behind the back. Apart from these, we''re almost identical. "Can I remove the wings?" "Sorry, you can''t! The pair of wings is one of the main features of Divine Demons. Just like you can''t create a dwarf above 160cm. But do not worry, you can fold the wings, no one can see them if you don''t want them to." "That''s good! Modify the lines on my face, a little more straight, there are too many curves. Nose bridge, more angr, oh and my eyes, sharper!" The character is changing in front of me, pretty good too. "You modification has reached the limit. Do you want to use this appearance?" I tried to make the character more manly, but no matter how I look, he still look like a female! Sigh. Never mind, I''ll go with this. "I will use this appearance!" "Appearance confirmed! Character generated!" Chapter Book 1 - 3 – Character Creation (Part 2) Book 1, Chapter 3 Character Creation (Part 2) ---------------------- The system notice sounded again. "Nowmencing procedure for the second reward." Two seconds pause. "The second reward is an extra Main ss and an extra Side ss. A normal character can have one Main ss and two Side sses, so you will be able to have two Main sses and Three Side sses. Please now choose your Main ss. You are a Divine Demon, so you can only choose part of the sses. You can choose from: Warrior, Spellsword, Dark Spellsword, Dark Fighter, Tamer, Assassin. Tamer is hidden ss, it''s only avable to limited yers." "Can you exin them?" I continued to be careful. I''ll listen before making decisions. "Warriors are pure physical damage dealers, they enjoy bonus to Attack, Defense and HP regeneration speed. Warriors cantely be Knights, then Holy Knights, and Dragon Knights atst. Spellswords can wield both Physical and Magical attacks, they have bonus to Attack, Defense, Magical Attack, Magical Defense, HP regen, SP regen. But the bonuses are not obvious. Spellswords canter be Spell Lute, then God Warrior, and Half God, atst stage. Dark Spellswords have bonuses simr to Spellswords, theyter be Dark Musicians, then Evil Warrior, and Grand Devil as thest stage. The attributes of Dark Fighters are simr to Warriors, they can advance into Dark Knights, followed by Ghost Knights, and then Dark Sanctuary Knights. Tamers rely on Companions and Servants for fighting. They can wield magical attacks, and have bonus on Magical Attack, Magical Defense, SP regen speed, number of Companion slots and Servant slots. They will be Beast Wielders, then Beast Spirits, and finally Beast Masters. Assassins are also physical damage dealers, they have bonus on Attack, Dexterity, number of Servant slots. Assassinster be Killers, then Hitmen, and finally, Champion Hitmen. That''s all the brief introductions about these sses. Have you decided which one to choose?" My name is Ziri (the Purple Sun), I should choose something rted to Dark. So Warrior or Spellsword is no-go. Dark Spellsword can learn both magic and physics...but is strong in neither, so pass. Assassin, the sneaky type, not my way, pass. "Excuse me, I can choose two Main sses right?" I feel that I shouldn''t mess with the system so I began to try to be polite. "That''s right!" "Then I''ll choose Dark Fighter and Tamer." "Main sses confirmed. Now please choose your Side sses. The avable options are: cksmith, Pharmacist, Appraiser, Breeder, Stonemason, Carrier, Mailman. Breeder is a hidden ss. Now which three would you choose?" Same, let''s listen first. "Can you tell me about the features?" "cksmiths can use gathering skill to collect special items. They''ll be Forgers. Pharmacists can gather medicines and produce potions, they can be Alchemists. Appraisers are able to identify items and monsters on their own, they be Appraisal Specialists. Breeders can catch Companions and Servants on their own, gain a bonus to Companion and Servant slots. Theyter be Monster Experts. Stonemasons can build houses, collect gems. They turn into Architects. Carriers have no speciality, but they will have higher HP and Endurance, they can be Strongmen. Mailmen do not have any speciality either, but they enjoy Endurance and Dexterity bonus. Theyter be Intelligence Agents. That''s all about their features and characteristics. Have you decided which ones to pick?" "I''m using exclusive method again." "Of course." "Stonemason makes houses but I don''t think that will be needed often. Pass." "Six sses left, you need to remove three more!" "Pharmacist makes potions, but I don''t have time to wander about in the mountains and forests to look for stuff. Pass." "Five left!" "Carrier and Mailman...Their bonuses don''t look they will be that much, no use for them. Pass." "Only cksmith, Appraiser and Breeder left. Are you certain you want to choose these three?" "Right! Confirm!" "sses confirmed, nowmencing the third rewarding procedure." Two second pause again. "The third reward is determined. You will gain four random Attribute Point bonuses." "What is random point bonus?" "It means these four points will be randomly added to your character when you''ve finished assigning attribute points, you will not be able to know which attribute will get the bonus beforehand." "What? So I have to take it as ''no bonus'' when assigning points right? Fine. Better than nothing." "Then please distribute attribute points for you character!" A status window suddenly appeared before me. "You have to assign points to the following attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma, Spirit, Constitution. Six in total. Standard character have 30 basic points. Divine Demons have 3 more points as bonus, your have an extra one point bonus for choosing Diving Demon as the first yer. So you can assign a total of 34 points. Also please note: Your basic attribute points will be affecting your attribute growth in the future, and you will not be able to change it. Inter games, attribute points will be automatically added ording to current ratio without asking the yer. Have you decided how to assign your points?" "What do you mean by ording to current ratio?" "Upon each level up, you will gain another 34 points, and these points will be immediately added to your attributes ording to your current assignment. For example, if you add 30 Strength now, then each time you level up, your Strength will get 30 points. Or if you added no points to Strength, then your Strength will zero in the future regardless of how many levels you gain." "I understand now! Can you tell me how do these attributes affect the character? What are the calctions? " "Sorry! The detailed calction forms are for the yers to experiment, thepany is only allowed to tell them how these points will affect your status in general." "Tell me the effects then!" "Strength affects your Carry Weight, Physical Attack, Physical Defense, Endurance. Dexterity affects your Movement Speed, Spell Speed, Physical Defense, Magical Defense, Physical uracy and Magical uracy. Intelligence affects your max Mana points and what kind of magic you can learn. Every magic has Intelligence requirement, your need to reach it to learn the magic. Charisma affects your number of Companion and Servant slots, and how NPCs will react to you. Character with high charisma can sometimes ept special hidden quests from NPCs. A side note: Charisma is one-shot investment. Further charisma increase will only affect your rtionship with NPCs. Your number of Companion and Servant slots, and your appearance, are based on your initial Charisma, and will no longer be affected in the future. Spirit affects your Magical Attack, Mana regeneration speed, Physical uracy and Magical uracy. Constitution affects your HP point, HP regeneration speed, Endurance when moving, and Mana points." "Oww this is too much! God, give me some time!" I started to do calctions in my brain. 20 minutester. "It''s decided. I have 34 points to use right?" "That''s right. 30 as basic, plus 4 as reward, that''s 34 in total." "I''ll add 2 Charisma first. It doesn''t look much of use." "You still have 32 basic points." "I''m not nning to y caster. 3 to Spirit should be enough." "You still have 29 basic points." "As a warrior ss, I need good attack power and HP. I add 13 to Strength and 8 to Constitution." "You have 8 basic points left. You still haven''t added points to Dexterity and Intelligence." "A low Dex may cause a lot of misses. I add 6 to Dexterity. And the rest to Intelligence." "Attribute assignmentpleted. Now distributing random attribute point reward." The status bar shed, and the system notice sounded again. "Randomization result: Charisma." "Huh? Well shoot! I got the bonus on the most useless attribute?" But it''s still eptable. I get it for free anyway. "Do I have anything else to set?" "Creation for your character has beenpleted. You status are disyed as follows." Strength: 13 Dexterity: 6 Intelligence: 2 Charisma: 6 Spirit: 3 Constitution: 8 ---- Attack: 11-16 Defense: 11 Speed: 7 HP: 230 Mana: 30 Companion Slot: 3 Servant Slot: 4 "Not bad! Not very superior but looks above average." When reading the numbers, the system notice came again. "Now recalcting statuses ording to your Main sses and Side sses. Status after calction is as follows." Another sh. Now I''m getting dizzy! I opened my eyes. Now this character looks nothing ordinary. It''s beyond badass! The first statuses are: Attack: 16-26 Defense: 14 Speed: 9 HP: 275 Mana: 40 But thest two ones are bing scary. The Companion slot is now 7, and the Servant slot is 10. Now I''m worrying if the system has a mistake. "Excuse me, am I supposed to have so many Companion and Servant slots? Is it a mistake?" "There is no mistake! You have 6 Charisma, Companions slot is equal to 50% of your Charisma which makes it 3. Your Main ss Tamer has a bonus of 1, your Side ss Breeder has another bonus of 1. You are Divine Demon, you have two initial slots. Thus your actual Companion slot now is 7. As for Servant, it is calcted by multiplying your Companion slot with 150% then remove the fraction, which results in 10. Additionally, Companions will level up through battles, but Servants will remain at their level when they''re captured. Once decided, a Companion can no longer be changed, please be careful with it. But you can release and change for new Servants freely." "Thanks! I get it now. Can I start the game?" "Please wait, you still have one reward not yet imed. Now processing thest reward." This time it took half a minute. I thought the system crashed! "Yourst reward is 5 bonus points to the hidden attribute, Luck." "5 Luck?" "That''s right. "You cannot see this attribute in your status window. But Luck will affect every calction that involves probability. Each Luck point increases positive probability by 10%, for example, you have 50% more chance than others to discover equipments, you have 50% less chance of losing your equipment upon death, your physical attacks are more likely to use the max damage tier(*) for calction and critical hits which cause double damage will appear more often. If you hold a shield, then you will have higher chance to block enemy attacks." "Hell yeah! Brilliant! Among all the randoms, this one is the best! Ahahaha!" ------------- (*) Damage tier: I don''t know if there is a correct word for this. For example someone''s base attack "2-10", when attacking, the system will randomly choose a number from 2 to 10 as the base attack calction factor, sorta like throwing a dice when ying DnD. Chapter Book 1 - 4 – Class Registration Book 1, Chapter 4 ss Registration -------------------- After a white sh, I''m teleported to an antique vige, while stillughing like a lunatic. Shit! There are people everywhere, and they''re staring at me like they have seen an idiot. I quickly rushed to another street, and called out the clock. It''s almost 10 pm now. I nearly spent two hours to create my character! But they say "sharpening your axe will not dy your job of cutting wood", worth it! Because I spent so much time, the rookie vige is full of people now. The system considers anyone under level 20 as rookie. Rookies cannot leave the rookie vige and the training area within 5 kilos around the vige. From quick guess, I think this not-so-big area is popted with at least five thousand yers. I don''t like crowds, so I decided to find somewhere quiet to level up. I''m thinking about getting familiar with the ce first. I called up the item window (in [Zero], yers only need to "think" about these actions and the system will catch it.) , there are only x topwear and x pants, with 2 defense in total. And a "Rookie Sword", a one-handed long sword with an attack of 1-1! These should be the equipment for rookies! They suck, but since everyone on the street is wearing the same thing, I don''t feel too bad. Now, I need to beat some mobs and level up first. I ran for about 10 minutes to reach the training area outside. Rookies got low Dexterity and Speed so this can''t be helped! And when I got out, I realized things aren''t good. Outside the vige, there are full of scenes where 3 to 5 yers beating up a poor deer, or a group of 10 yers chasing behind a boar! The monsters are respawning fast, but there are even several times more yers! Joining them certainly isn''t a good idea now, and besides, I hate crowds! In [Zero], the rookies will not appear on the ranking list, so I have no idea how many levels the fastest yer has already reached. But I can still take a vague guess, I think someone should already reached level 16 or 17. This isn''t good! I can''t fall behind now. I never fall behind, be it in game or in real world! I need to catch up with leveling up. I ran further from the vige, there are still much yers but everyone can at least face one monster on their own now. Good! A small deer ran close. Sword drawn, with a sh. Then came the system notice:"You killed a deer. Gained experience point 200." Crap! One hit! I''m this strong?! My character is OP, but it''s all about the pet slot. My attack power isn''t supposed to be much of a surprise. I saw a "60" over the deer''s head, that should be the damage I dealt. Was it a critical hit? Likely! I found another deer, and shed. A red "30" appeared. The deer is still running. Yes, a critical hit for sure. I hit the injured deer again, and got a 35. The deer copsed and disappeared. It seems the deer has around 50 HP, maybe less. Another three deer down, I reached level 2. Now my statuses are: Attack: 24-32 Defense: 20 Speed: 10 HP: 290 Mana: 41 (With equipment on) A normal attack should kill a deer now. I ughtered deer for half an hour and reached level 12, now my statuses are: Attack: 68-98 Defense: 65 Speed: 20 HP: 440 Mana: 51 There are still plenty of people around killing deer, and getting crowded. From experience, I should go somewhere else. I ran for quite some time and reached the border of the training area. I can see through the border but cannot walk over it. There''s an invisible wall blocking me. There''s no other choice, I have to keep looking for monsters. And I found something new soon enough -- A boar. Rushed over n sh, one hit KO. I added more Strength to my character, and it will only get crazily high on higher levels, so my current Attack is pretty overpowered. Later I heard that 44-70 Attack is pretty good for an ordinary level-12 yer. A Warrior at level 20 will probably have an Attack of 60-90. I was lucky to find a boar cave. Boars spawn faster here, basically faster than my killing speed. It''s good that boars return attacks when provoked, but they don''t initiate. I maimed them for about a quarter and reached level 18. Called up the ranking list, I saw more than 30 people on it. This means they have gotten beyond level 20. This is no joke, if i don''t go there soon I basically am hopeless. Level 20 is not only a dividing line between rookies and formal yers. The first skill for all sses bes avable at level 20 too. Skills would raise your level up speed ten fold! The top yer on the list is now level 25. They need more experience points to level up, but they have skills, plus that the outside world has fewer people and you don''t have to fight over other yers for monsters! I need to be fast. I kept working for 20 minutes, and finally heard the blessed system notice sound. "Congrattions, yer Ziri, you have reached level 20. You''re the 79th yer to breach the rookie barrier. You''ve be a true fighter now. Please proceed to the upation Institution to register, and obtain your ss Skill." The scenery around me shifted, and suddenly I''m standing in a teleport array of a giant za. I opened the map and saw that the city is called the Cold Jadeite. This giant za is the teleportation point plus resurrection point of Cold Jadeite. It''s empty, looks like the previous arrivers have gone leveling up somewhere. Even if they''re all here, it wouldn''t be much people! I''m the 79th to leave rookie vige, that''s to say there are a total of 79 yers scattered around the world of [Zero] outside the vige. The world map of [Zero] is designed based upon the real world map, and the rookie vige is located in an alternative space, only those below level 20 will appear there. They get teleported out once they reach the level. As for the other city maps, they just changed the names and then built the city in ancient style. So there are only 79 people in this vast world now. Maybe I''m the only one in this city! Never mind those, I followed the map and rushed into the upation Institution. The big hall is decorated with marble tiles as the floor, it feels much like the hall of a bank. There are 30 or so marble counters aligned along the wall, each with a bronze sign on it. The ones in the middle are "Main ss Registration", while the side ones are "Side ss Registration". Let''s do the main registration and get my skill first. I went to one the the middle counters. "Hello! I want to register my Main ss." The beautiful Elfdy behind the counter admitted me politely. "Greetings sir!" She knew I''m male! Finally someone recognized it. "Wee to upation Registration. Which upation are you going to register?" "I have two main ones. Dark Fighter, and Tamer." "Oh! A gifted yer! You need 1 Gold to register Dark Fighter, and 2 for Tamer. That''s 3 Gold, payment first please." "Huh? That''s expensive!" I opened my item window, just 307 copper pieces in there! (Conversion: 1 Crystal Piece = 10 Yuan = 10 Gold Piece = 100 Silver Piece = 1000 Copper Piece) After paying I got only 7 copper left! I''m broke! The Elfdy is quick on her work, she said:"Congrattions, you have be a Dark Fighter and Tamer. The skill books for main sses are sold in stores, but the number is limited. The real good ones are for the yers to discover on their own, please try your best." "Wait what? On my own? Oh shucks!" I turned and prepared to leave. The registration cost all my money, forget about buying skills! I''ll put the Side sses forter too, I need to make some money first! The Elfdy called for me, however. "Please wait a moment!" "Anything else?" I''m starting to worry. Don''t tell me they need more money! "You''re the first to register as Tamer in the game, ording to the rules, you will receive a reward." "Reward?" Ha, jackpot! Pity it''s only Tamer. Looks like someone else got the Dark Fighter one first! I think I''m bing greedy! Heh heh! It makes sense though, Tamer is a hidden ss, there won''t be many Tamers, it''s about right that I''m the first one. But reward is always weed. I asked:"What is the reward please?" "It is random,e here and I''ll help you draw it." I walked to the counter and the Elf started drawing prize for me. I reached my hand into a ck hole that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and grasped a red paper. The Elfdy took it and looked at it. "Congrattions, your reward is special equipment: Cor of Protection. You can control seven Companions, so you will be receiving seven cors." "Cors? Why do I need cors? There''s only one neck, I''m not a Hydra or something! How do I wear seven?" Is the system making jokes?! "Pfff!" The Elfughed while trying to cover her mouth. "The cors are not for you to wear. They''re for your Companions." "Companion? Mypanions can wear equipment in this game?" Now that''s awesome! The Elf immediately exined: "Not like that. Normally Companions cannot equip items, but with the exception of some special items. This Cor of Protection is one such item." "So what does this cor do?" "These cors can link your life with your Companion''s lives. For example, you have only 3 HP left and you take 7 damage, then you will only lose 2 HP, the remaining 5 HP will be drained from a random Companion of yours whose HP is beyond 5. Note that the protection is one-way, when a Companion is dying they will not drain HP from you." "That''s amazing! So as long as my Companions got health, I''ll not die?" "Basically. Unless every one of your Companion''s HP is not enough to deduct the damage, you will die then." "YES! That''s quite a neat trait. Looks like I got to find Companions with a lot of HP. Ha! Ahahaha!" The Elf interrupted me. "You can''t capture Companions at free will. Remember once you decide on a Companion, you can never change it." "Oh! I see now! Thank you!" I reached out my hand and asked for the cors. Then the Elfdy looked at me with a strange look. After some staring, I asked:"The cors. Give them to me alright?" "Ah!" Then she knew what I meant. "I will not issue the cors to you. Once you capture a Companion and tamed it, the cor will automatically appear on its neck." "So that''s how it goes! Ok then, thanks. I''m leaving. Bye." The Elfdy waved me goodbye too. Chapter Book 1 - 5 – Side Classes Book 1, Chapter 5 Side sses ------------------ Walking out of the Institution, I began to consider how to level. First I walked into a store called the "Cloud Hill", and bought a small health potion using 6 copper. Ah, the pain! Ouch. Just one copper left in the wallet. There''s no other way. Go kill mobs and collect money! I ran for about 20 minutes to leave Cold Jadeite. This grand city is just so different from the rookie vige. It''s freaking huge! Outside the city is grasnd, there are many yaks here. I remember from the official introduction, yaks are level 27, and they''re passive offensive. Best targets for new yers. I found a yak at the outside of the herd, rushed over and shed it. A red "200" appeared. The angered yak hoed at the ground and charged at me. I side stepped and avoided it, then shed at the yak''s back legs. *Ding* "Leg of Yak injured. Actions slowed by 3 points." Huh. Attacking different body parts can have various effects, it seems. Looks like I''ll have to do some experiment about it. It''s good there are plenty of targets here. Let''s finish this one in front of me first. The yak quickly turned around and charged back, I dodged again. And then swiped at the yak''s side part. 500 damage. I see, in [Zero], you get different results by attacking monsters in different areas. I made another normal attack which caused 150 damage, the yak copsed. I continued with 4 to 5 yaks and estimated that yaks have around 1k HP. I guess they are the squishy type with a lot of HP. Since I found out the rules, I started grinding. And reached 24 with less than an hour. I looked at the rankings, and shit these guys are crazy! Now the one on the top is a Warrior called "Big de More Killz", now 32. Following him is a level 31 Warrior, then 2-3 people at each level. It''s the beginning and the situation is already intense. It would only get even worse in the future! I got no idea how these guys leveled so fast, I can use my OP attack power as advantage, but how did they manage it? This isn''t good! I need to get past them. I need some way to do it. Right! I should get into the forest, maybe I can run into a high-leveled boss or something. That would level me up quickly! I checked my inventory. One small HP potion. This won''t do, I need to buy some more. I''ve collected 79 Copper on me. Sigh, maybe this is enough to register my Side sses. I decided to go try my luck. When I''m back at the Institution, I''ve reached 25. This time I went to the Side ss counter. Another pretty elf girl behind it. "Hello, I''m here to register my side sses." "Of course. Which side sses are you going to register?" "I''m bing cksmith, Breeder, Appraiser." "Ah! You are a gifted yer! The registration for cksmith will cost 20 Copper, 30 for Breeder, and 30 for Appraiser." "Eh? That''s expensive!" I took out the only 79 copper pieces I have on me. Red faced. The young master of the corporation, nowcking 1 single copper coin! "I only have 79! Can I register two sses for now?" The elf cover her mouth and giggled. "You''re funny. 79 will do!" "What? You mean, I can just pay 79 Copper?" "That''s right!" Her giggle turned intoughter. I passed her the pieces. She wrote down several papers and put them up. The system noticed:"yer Ziri has be cksmith and obtained skills: Gather, Forge, Reinforce. yer Ziri has be Breeder and obtained skills: Capture, Breed. yer Ziri has be Appraiser and obtained skills: Identify, Secret Knowledge." "New skills! Haha, I wonder what they do!" The elf girl saw my mind and exined to me: "cksmith''s Gather skill lets your see minerals avable for collecting when you fight or travel, or directly find materials from monsters for forging stuff. Forge skill lets you craft weapons or armors from raw materials, but your skill is now level 0, so you will have a poor sess rate. When forging, if you fail, the equipment and materials will disappear. It is rmended to find something cheap to grind your skill level first. Reinforce allows you to upgrade your equipment. When you find gems or other special materials, you can use them to reinforce your equipment to raise its attributes. But please mind that if failed, you will lose all the materials, AND the equipment will have random attributes lowered. Sometimes the equipment will even break apart. Breeder''s Capture skill is used for acquiring Companions. Tamers are not able to catchpanions themselves, they rely onpanions to fight but they have to buy them, unless they are Breeders just like you. You can''t use Capture skill freely. In theory, all monsters in [Zero] can be your Companion, but if their level is too high, you will only get yourself attacked and killed. A side note, a monster after capturing is apanion. The Servant of a Tamer means the soul of thepanion after they die, not thepanion itself. If you want a Servant, you will have to kill yourpanion and use Capture skill. But you need to be fast, for thepanion will disappear after 30 seconds of death, you cannot capture it as servant after that. Breed skill is long-term, it leverages food and training to make yourpanions stronger. The Identify skill of a Appraiser is very practical, yers with this skill can directly identify a equipment''s attributes. You can also use this skill on monsters and other yers, there is a chance you will able to get their names and attributes. Secret Knowledge is a particr skill, it raises the power of your weapon. For instance, a weapon has a hidden skill which doubles its Attack, then yers with Secret Knowledge skill will enjoy this double attack bonus, those without the skill will not. Okay, that''s all I need to exin. You cane ask me if you got any other questionster." "Thanks! I''lle again. And I''ll bring you some perfumes next time." The smile on her face gotrger. "Really? You''d better remember it!" I left the hall. That elf girl was obviously over-passionate, was that the effect of a high Charisma? Good! I got to put all these skills to good use. Let''s get into the mountains and dig for treasures. Chapter Book 2 - 1 – Golden Dragon Book 2, Chapter 1 Golden Dragon ------------------ Note: The dragon''s species appeared three times in the title/main story, and each time they''re very different. I don''t know how to amend that. I''ll just convert what the author originally wrote. ------------------ My goodness! Why is this happening to me?! I''ve been wandering around this god forsaken forest for a whole day! I finished my side ss registration yesterday, and decided toe to this forest to dig some minerals. Then I realized I didn''t bring any town portal scrolls. Now I either find my way back, or find a monster and get killed to get back. But in [Zero], death will result in a level penalty. You lose 1 level for each death. And I definitely don''t want that! In my thoughts, the trees ahead are getting fewer, which usually means the edge is near. Looks like I found the way out! I rushed outside in joy, I''m saved! BAM! The instant I''m out of the forest, I bumped into something head-on. In [Zero], before something reaches lethal level, the feeling of pain will only reflect 50% of the real deal. But I still feel like I was rammed by a container truck! Ah, I see stars around me... And why is the ground sloped? I fell down again when I tried to get up! *Whoosh!* A noise like when a lotive is releasing steam dragged me out of my dizziness. I shook my head, and saw I''m facing the forest again. I''m in the wrong direction because of what just happened. I turned around, drew my sword and decided to punish whatever just hit me. ng! Ah you don''t have to wonder, that was my Rookie Sword dropped on the ground. Do you know why I, a true fighter, dropped my sword? Have a look at what is in front of me. Really. "DRAGON!" I stumbled back while screaming. The thing ahead of me is at least the size of a bus, it''s blue-white toned scales glimmering with light like the water wave when it moves. "Don--don''t youe closer! I--I''m a warrior, I--I''m not afraid o ya!" I tried to convince myself with something I barely believed while picking up my rookie sword, though this stuff seems useless against a dragon. *Whine* This thing made a sound like when a puppy is scared. I stepped back to the edge of the forest until I''m backed against a tree. This thing didn''t attack me, it just looked at me and kept grunting. Slowly, my mind is able to think again. I remembered, there are like billions of different monsters in [Zero], but they actually introduced some of the most powerful ones, and I''ve seen some about dragons. I tried to recall it. Dragon is the strongest species in [Zero], and the only level-1000 boss. An adult dragon is usually more than 100 meters in length, it can use humannguage and other monsternguages at ease. Every one is able to use all spells that belong to the same element of the dragon itself, plus all other non-ultimate spells of other categories. The Physical Attack of an adult dragon would usually exceed 10k, and they ignore Defense with a 75% chance. Even a new born whelp would have a physical attack beyond 300! With these in thought, I''m both happy and sad. I''m happy about the fact the the 10 meter one in front of me is obviously a child. The sad part is, even if it can''t use magic, it probably have 300+ normal attack power. Even a level-100 tank warrior wearing the best gear wouldn''t need several hits from this thing before he gets killed, without a chance to heal up! I''m dead meat! Sigh. Such a bad day. The top guy on the ranking list has reached level 54, I was nning to catch up, now I''ve lost my way and will get killed. It''s hopeless! Never mind. I need to die to get back anyway, it doesn''t matter what kills me. With this in mind, I''m not scared anymore. "Hey Mr dragon, I don''t have anything on me. I have two Lightning Beasts here (level 18 minion), I was going to snack on them tonight (you won''t starve in [Zero], but eating will grant you HP & MP regen speed for a while, can be considered as potions). Here, you can have them. But promise me to make it quick! Don''t chomp me in half or something and let me hurt!" I threw the beasts over, and the dragon swallowed them in one go. I closed my eyes, waiting for my demise. But why am I feeling something cold on my face? I looked. It''s licking at my face. Ha ha, this guy isn''t going to kill me is it? Maybe I can ask it to lead me out of here! While I''m thinking, the dragon''s head twitched, and let out a "CHOOOOWWW!" My sight went blurry. My body is pushed flying by a strong force and hit against a tree, and I think several of my bones aren''t in the right positions. That thing sneezed at me! What kind of genius wrote the program? Oww ow ow my waist!! Crap, my HP is 930 and I''m left with 3! How strong was that thing? A sneeze almost one-shot me, dragons are powerful but they are THIS powerful?! I tried to get up, but found myself frozen. Oh god please no! I waited for seven full seconds to get free. I wonder what this dragonling will be like when it grows up! If only I could keep one aspanion... And it came to me. I have nothing else to do about it anyway, why not just try to capture it? Ha! I slowly walked up to this "little guy". "Good boy!" And quickly used my Breeder skill: Capture. The dragon jumped and stepped back, then stared me with hostility. The elf girl was right. Trying to capture a high level monster will only provoke it! Well I''m not nning to live anyway, I used Capture again when I still have the chance. *Ding* I heard the system notice. "yer Ziri has sessfully captured boss monster, Ice-blood Dragon Lord! yer Ziri is the first yer to capture apanion, and will receive a random treasure as reward." Ching! I saw a ring fall on the ground. It''s ckish, the status only reads one word [Ring], it looks a lot like that ring from the Lord of the Rings. The system prompted again. "yer Ziri has be the first yer to defeat a level-1000 boss monster. Receives 5 skill points and a treasure." Ching. Another ring dropped down. This one looks a bit strange, a ck bat standing on top of a ck gem. The eye sockets of the bat are embedded with red gems, shining with a feeling of temptation. This skill point is nice stuff. Attribute point raises your basic attack and defense, but skill point is used to level up your skills. Normally, a yer needs to use the skill often and gain experience to level it up. In this way, each skill can reach level 100. Plus, after level 20, a character can obtain 1 skill point for every 10 levels. Each point can raise a skill by one level. And now I just got 5 points. I''m blessed! They''re hard toe by. I decided to save themter for those hard-to-grind skills. The system notice is stilling. "yer Ziri''s Capture skill has reached level 2, yer Ziri''s Capture skill has reached level 3, yer Ziri......" "......has reached level 13." Hell yeah! Woohoo! Top prize! During my insaneughter I realized my dear dragon disappeared. I searched anxiously and finally found a white colored ball. Wait, is this a dragon egg? I examined the egg for quite a while and found nothing to do about it. I gave up, and put it into my inventory. Now I can''t just sit here, I started to check my surroundings. This is an open area, a cliff is behind. I ran over and saw a big cave on the cliff. This must be a dragon cave! Ha! Dragons collect treasures right? Just maybe...! I rushed to the depth to the cave like a maniac. Bingo! There really are something here. ...The heck is all these stuff?! They are all junk. Not much better than my rookie equipment. I guess the game didn''t run for much time and they haven''t umted much here! I dug around for a while, and found a Common one-handed heavy sword with an attack of 5-10; A darksteel armor, 9 defense, also Common; A Superior Leg Guard of Glory, 4 defense, with a bonus 5% movement speed; A pair of leather boots, 1 defense and 1 speed, not bad; A pair of gauntlet, 2 defense, increases attack speed by 5%; A buckler, 7 defense, block rate 25%. (In [Zero], the rarity of equipments from low to high are: Common, Superior, Golden, Elite, Sacred, Artifact) They are not good, but at this moment when almost everyone is wearing starter gear, they''ll suffice. When I left the dragon cave, I remembered there is a "Help" function in the system. I opened the chat window to find it being the first option. I heard the sound like when you''re making a phone call after I chose it. "Hello! This is customer service system, Operator 2237 at your service!" "Hi there, I want to ask, I just captured a monster, but it disappeared!" "Did you see a white egg around you?" "Egg? Ah Yes! I found a white ball where it happened!" "That''s the pet egg! In this game,panions will be level 0 and turn into an egg when captured. yers need to drop their blood on the egg to im mastership. Of course, you can choose to sell it too. The egg will hatch when mastership is determined, and it will be level 1. Later, yers can fight alongside theirpanion to level it up, until it reaches its peak level. Everypanion has different peak level. Somepanions have a chance to over-evolve which allows them to exceed their peak level, but the chance is slim and dependent on yers'' Luck. Please keep it in mind, once mastership is decided, apanion''s master will never change. yers cannot just find a temporarypanion and change for a better one as they like. Companions will resurrect upon death, but you cannot summon them again within 20 minutes. Also, they''ll lose a level as well." "Got it. Many thanks!" Now I know this white ball is an unimed pet egg. I can either sell it or use it myself. But there is no doubt on this one! To sell is a one-off, done, over. But if I keep it to help with my grinding, I''ll get tons of gold! "I''m iming it to be my Companion." I cut my finger using my sword and dripped my blood on the egg. The system immediately said: "yer Ziri confirmed mastership towardpanion. Please give it a name." "A name?" Now I think about it, this guy brought my a lot of good fortune. One heck of a lucky star! "Lucky. I''ll call it Lucky!" I do hope it can bring me even more surprises inter days. "Confirmed. yer Ziri is now the master of Companion, Dark Dragon Lord, Lucky." Crack! The egg cracked open, a ckish little creature crawled out of it. It climbed onto my body and started rubbing against my face. YES! I''m going to attract a lot of oohs and ahhs if I carry a dragon around! Ha! Aaahahaha! I just can''t help feeling overjoyed. But wait a second. ck? Wasn''t it a blue dragon when I bumped into it? Is it because of my ss is "dark"? Nothing to worry about though. A ck dragon is cool! Oh right, I haven''t checked Lucky''s status. I brought up its status window. Physical Attack 100-200 Defense 150 Speed 200 HP 1500 Mana ¡Þ There are other notes below. Ignore Defense, HP regen + 10/s, attacks have a 25% chance of freezing the target for 7 seconds, Magic Resistance 75%. Holy mother of Jesus. I got lucky to catch this one, if I met another dragon in the future I better run fast! Insane attacks, resist magic, fast heal. I need to put this into my mind: Dragons = Dangerous = Death = Drop level and equipment. However I just can''t believe that status belongs to Lucky, who is barely one feet in length! I discovered that there are actually inventory slots on Lucky. It can wear equipment too? I called:"Lucky''s equip and item window." Bingo. A window popped up. I saw Lucky wearing a headwear and a cor. That cor is my reward, the Cor of Protection. The headpiece is called the Headwear of Dragon Lord, there''s only one attribute: Attack and Defense are doubled when battling against dragons. Holy--Lucky is a dragon lord? Below, I saw Lucky got 300 inventory slots and without weight limit. But I got only 120 slots myself! Haha! Lucky can be my mobile storage from now on! I also obtained two rewarded rings back there. I took one out. The ck ring is just an iron hoop, there is no design nor decorations. I spammed Identify on it until my Mana is empty. I got the skill to level 4 but the ring remained unidentified. Defeated, I asked Lucky to bring me out of the forest. It got tiny but it''s still intelligent, it seems. I waited for my Mana to recover while walking. I tried to Identify the ring whenever I got enough MP. Finally I was able to identify the ring when we left the forest. The ring turned from ck into dark red. It''s called the Hermit''s Ring, Luck +1, plus two additional bonuses. One is a special skill called "Hindsight", it belongs to the equipment so the skill cannot level up. The effect is EXP obtained +5%. Nice! (My eyes turned into dor marks) The other bonus is to erase a yer''s name from the level ranking list, the yer''s weapon from the weapon ranking list, and thepanion, from thepanion ranking list. Now I see why it''s called the Hermit''s Ring. That''s some nice hiding. Lastly, as long as you have this ring on, other yers will not be able to Identify your status regardless of how many levels their skill is at. This ring doesn''t have ss or level restriction. Anyone can wear it. Ha haha! Now I feel like someone living in the legend! Pity, I never managed to Identify the other ring. Chapter Book 2 - 2 – The Forgotten City Book 2, Chapter 2 The Forgotten City ------------------ I felt like I just survived an apocalypse when I left the forest. I took several deep breaths, and decided to return to Cold Jadeite and get some potion supply. But wait! What is this?! Where is Cold Jadeite?! What is in front of me is not the vast grasnd outside Cold Jadeite, but a mass grave, more than 10 kilos long from the looks of it. The sky is dark gray, there are broken tombs and messy weed everywhere. Where the hell am I?! To some relief, there is...something ahead. I don''t know whether I should call it a city, or a fortress. It''s too big for a fortress. I can''t get the full view of it, but from a vague observation I suppose it takes at least 3 times more space than that of Cold Jadeite. But I don''t think a city would be built upon an ind in the middle of a giantke, with a 3-kilo long stone bridge as the only connection to the outside. I shook my head to get rid of the thoughts, collected some courage and started walking towards the "city". Whatever it is, I just need to take a look myself! The gravend is HUGE, if there are real corpses buried underground, I''d guess the number would exceed a million. Good thing that you don''t need to sleep in this game, and the view is wide, I won''t lose my way again. Along the way I can see bones of whatever creatures near those broken tombstones. Sometimes human skulls. The whole area reminds me of the Necropolis from the game Might and Magic. What is Zhong Huapany trying to do here, creating such a big graveyard?! I finally made it to the bridge when I realized that it looked shorter from a distance, but it''s actually more than 5 kilometers. And theke, something is wrong about theke as well. The surface of the massiveke is calm, actually the water looks a bit gluey. It''s pitch ck, asionally some bubbles would burst on it. There is no weird smell, though. As I''m considering whether I should cross the bridge, Lucky flew out of my arms and snorted at theke. I think it tried to breath fire but is still too small to learn that skill. Shifting my view from Lucky to theke, I saw some big bubblesing out of the water, followed by a giant fin with membrane and sharp spikes grown all over it. That fin stood 20 meters above the water. And I think I know what kind of horrible creature would be lurking under the surface. From it''s direction, it isn''ting for me. That''s good. There is a even bigger fin appeared not far. Looks like the two monsters are going to fight. And yes, the two fins started to rush towards each other. With a BOOM, a water pir exploded above theke bringing all kinds of stuff and junk into the mid air. I covered my head and ran in panic. In the chaos, I tripped over something and fell to the ground face-first. The moment I raised my head, a long sword stabbed right into my arm. I scream. Blood burst out. With great effort I pulled the sword out. The wound is still bleeding and my HP is dropping like mad. I quickly gulped down my only health potion. After a red sh, the wound is sealed. Oh damn this bad luck! I was just watching monsters fight why would something hit me from the sky?! I stood up. ng! A heavy shield dropped on my head right on the mark, I almost fall again. Shit! Is this a prank?? I immediately picked up the shield, raised it over my head and ran towards the woods. Ding! Thung! nk! Unknown objects kept hitting the shield. My arms almost went numb. I''ve almost reached the woods when I realized I''m covered by a big shadow. What''s going on?? I poked my head carefully from under the shield and looked upwards. And I nearly wet my pants. A huge eel, which must have been above a hundred meters long, is falling. Unfortunately I am standing exactly at where it willnd. Out of instinct, I dropped to the ground and pointed my sword upwards. I only felt a weight on my arm and then my mind went ck. ************ The coldness on my face woke me up. Looks like Lucky is licking at me again. I checked my body. Nothing serious. I tried to look around, it seems I''m buried. Obviously that thing above my head must be the damn eel. My sword is stuck on the ground, with the pointy end keeping the eel above me, creating a small space. I was thinking about how to get out when the eel disappeared in a white sh. With another "ng", my newly obtained sword broke into two pieces. Then I heard the system notice: "yer Ziri has reached level 25. yer Ziri has reached level 26. yer Ziri has reached level 27. yer Ziri has reached level 28. yer Ziri has reached level 29." "Huh? That worked?" This system is funny! But free EXP is always weed. It''s a pity this eel is only a high level monster, not a boss. Or else I would be receiving reward again. My happiness came to an end when I picked up my sword, or the remains of my sword. Argh! It broke in half! It''s not anything valuable, but how do I level with my only weapon gone?! Why did I throw away my Rookie Sword in the first ce?! Then I felt something cold with my hand. Isn''t this the sword which stabbed into my arm earlier? Ha! There is always a way out! However, my mood instantly fell again, because I just found out that I cannot equip this sword. My attributes are: Level 29, Strength 377, Dexterity 174, Intelligence 58, Spirit 87, Constitution 232. The requirement of this sword is: Level 30, Strength 300, Dexterity 160, Constitution 150. Ergh! Why is this happening?! Why can''t I equip it?! I searched on the ground, the eel dropped something like a bead, or a fish eye. But I can''t Identify it. There are also 17 gold pieces. And some equipments flushed onto the shore now scattered around. Most of them are broken, I only found three usable pieces. One is the shield which hit my head, I Identified it as "Wall Shield", a Large Shield, I can use it alright. Defense 75, block rate 35% and 10% chance of reflecting damage. A leg guard called "Dark Protection". Defense 80, 10% Lightning resistance, 10% Dark resistance, 5% movement speed. Level requirement 37, can''t use yet. Thest one is that shitty sword I can''t use! I put everything I can''t use into the inventory. I can sell them to exchange for something else anyway. Knowing there is a scary monster in theke, I crouched over the bridge and moved forward, keeping my head low. Maybe that thing can leap out of the water and kill me! I reached the end of the bridge in fear, ahead of me now is the gate of the city. The grand gate is made of heavy stone, 18 meters tall and 7 meters wide. Above the gate are two big words "Forgotten City". I got goosebumps just by looking at it! I''m even more scared once inside the city. It''s deserted. I''m not saying the city is ruined, it''s the opposite: the buildings in the whole city look magnificent. All of them are built with ckish stone blocks, they look really sturdy. But all these ck buildings under the dark sky really creep me out! "He-hello?" I shouted. But my voice is trembling with fear. Shiing! Two ck long swords appeared at my neck. "This is the city of the dead, the living ones are not weed! Leave now!" The speaker is a knight fully covered in ck armor, and four followers, in ck armors as well. Even their mounts are enclosed in full ck armor. The speaker is obviously their leader, because a red plume is decorated on his helmet. There are already yers with such cool equipment? I used Identify and almost had a heart attack. The leader is a Mythal Legion Knight Centurion, level 250 Dark Knight, my Identify can''t reveal anything else. His followers are Mythal Legion Knights, level 200, their skills are Group Charge and Intimidate, and I can''t see their further information either! They are NPCs. Now I know why they look so strong! Because I didn''t give any reaction, one of the knight decided to sh at me. I closed my eyes but nothing hit me. When I opened my eyes I saw Lucky hovering in front of me, shrieking at the knights. What I didn''t expect is that all five knights got off their horses. Their leader spoke: "I didn''t know this is the ck Dragon Lord. I apologize!" Lucky is still fluttering its wings and shouting at the knights, but they just answered with obedience: "Yes! At yourmand!" And then they jumped onto their horses and rushed into the city. Lucky turned around and called at me in delight. I petted it to show my gratitude. With the five knights gone, I started to stride into the city. Looks like Lucky is well respected here! ------------------- Ugh. Got some nasty work here. Sorry but can''t update anything during weekend. Chapter Book 2 - 3 – Official Announcement Book 2, Chapter 3 Official Announcement ------------------ I wandered around the city for three full hours without buying a single pill or piece of equipment. It''s not like I can''t find any store, the problem is, they''re all closed! I was unable to find a single soul ever since that group of knights left. The city is huge, I mean, HUGE, there are countless roads and streets and I''m not really good at remembering directions. Now I''m totally confused. I lost patience. I found a small alley and logged off. Took off my helm, I saw Wayne sitting in front of theputer. "What you looking at?" Wayne called me over with excitement. "Look over here. The official site of [Zero]!" "Hmm? What''s in it?" "There are some game rankings and announcement and such." Wayne exined while strolling though the menus. "Anything worth noticing?" "Hold a sec. I think I saw some. Ah, here!" I stood up to Wayne''s side and began to read the announcement he just pointed out. "ording to Zhong Hua Company, there are a total of 10,100 ounts issued today. These yers will be the Public Beta yers. All these ounts will have a chance to draw a number of rewards, 4 is most while 0 is minimum." Wayne turned around and looked at me in shock. "You can get no reward at all? I thought everyone would at least get something! So how many did you get?" I made a V-sign and smiled. "Your awesome boss here is born lucky who just got a FOUR! Hahaha! Now what do you say?" "Nice! Right, when I get my ount I''m totally depending on you!" I scowled. "I''ll try." Sensing something amiss, Wayne asked: "What''s wrong? Someone killed you?" "Well that would be better!" I dropped on the bed. "The system must hate me. I encountered two NPC monsters fighting each other. One of them got knocked over my head, I used my sword to block it and now my sword is broken!" "Huh? Don''t tell me you broke your only Rookie Sword?" "Ugh! You know what? I found a Common sword in the forest, it isn''t good but at least is better than the rookie one, which cost only 1 copper even if I sell it, so I just threw the Rookie Sword away. And now I''m stuck with no weapon to use!" "Boss! Then how are you gonna level up like this?" "I''m thinking about it. I got into a city and tried to buy a weapon first, but none of the stores in that city was in business! Never mind. Nothing serious. I just need to spend more time to look for a shop!" Wayne shifted back to the webpage and continued reading. "You''re really lucky boss! It says 5,307 yers got zero reward, so the number of actual gifted ounts is only 4,793." "Really? So many people got a Zero?" "Right. Thepany said the sess rate is configured based on ratio, zero has the biggest chance and higher numbers are harder to hit!" "Did they tell us how many yers got the other numbers?" "They did! 3,797 yers got One. 792 got Two. 203 got Three. And Four is---wait what the fuck?! You''re the only one who hit Four! Omg boss, in the whole world, you''re the one and only who got all the reward! Now I''m beginning to worship you! You''re my god!" "Is that true?!" I''m surprised too. I thought at least hundreds of people will get four rewards. "Anything else on it?" Wayne continued reading. "Now the top yer in the game is level 68, a Warrior named...Big de More Killz." Then Wayne paused. "What''s wrong?" "Oh I saw something interesting." "What?" "The number two, is a female yer called ''Red Moon'', a Dark Wizard, she is level 67 now! I wonder how she managed it. Aren''t casters supposed to be slower when ites to grinding?" Sigh, now I''m bing more and more unconfident seeing these guys. "Geez. I''m only 29, and they''re already beyond 60. That''s more than double my level! How do I catch up?!" "Come on you will make it!" Wayneforted me while looking for anything else interesting or useful. "It says here that there are a total of 7 Companions appeared in the game so far! The top one is thepanion of that female wizard, called ''Mist''. It was a level-800 boss monster ''Mutated Night Spirit Lord'', and now it''s level 38. Now I know how she did it. She got a really nice pet!" Strange. Lucky is level 1000 boss and it isn''t top 1? It is only level 1 now but still... Oh, is it because of that Hermit''s Ring? "What about the other ones?" "The other ones?" Wayne read through the list. "The rest are all junk. Number two is only a level 80 boss, something called the wild horse leader, level 21." The ring definitely worked! I told Wayne, "Go on!" Wayne continued . "The game now has officially entered auto-management mode, all controls and operations are done by the system, anything about quest generations, event urrences, NPC action patterns...Thepany will not interfere, everything will be handled by Zhong Hua Company''s supeputer, Neb. They will not appoint any game masters and such personnel in the game. It''s gone full-auto." "For God''s sake! That''s crazy! What are they trying to do?" "It says this is for testing purposes, they want to see how well the AI system handles emergencies." "That makes sense." While listening to Wayne, I grabbed some fast food from the fridge and began to munch. "Anything else important?" "They will issue another 100,000 ounts at 8 am tomorrow, and then lift the restriction after tomorrow. When that happens yers will not need to register, their ID number will be their ount." (Now people in the world use universal ID system. The first three numbers represent country, the rest are determined ording to reach country''s own rules. Wherever you go, you''ll be fine as long as you bring your ID with you, it is bound to your bank credit card. Although the ID number is pretty long and can be troublesome under certain circumstances.) "That''s all. They say they will update anything new on the page, and at the same time publish them in-game." "Alright. Now excuse me. I need to rest for a bit!" Chapter Book 2 - 4 – NPC Friend Book 2, Chapter 4 NPC Friend ------------------ I woke up from my sleep at exactly 0 o''clock midnight. I ate something, done business in the toilet, then got online. I appeared in the same alley after a white sh. Weird. Why is it so noisy around here? I looked around, and oh you must be kidding me! Guess what I''m looking at! "Ghost!!!" A gentle-looking old man withplete white hair is ahead of me. But his body is transparent, and he has no legs. There is something like cloud under his waist part. "Oh? How did you get here kiddo?" The old man, I mean old ghost, floated toward me. I shook my head clear. This is a game, and ghosts are totally ordinary here. With that in mind I''m no longer scared. "I lost my way. I arrived in the morning but saw nothing here so I logged off. And now I just got on." The old man stopped in front of me. "A rare guest indeed! It has been such a long time since thest time someone alive visited us!" The old man seems kind, I''m even more relieved. "Why is no oneing?" "Sigh..." The old man told, "You see, I''m dead, you should have already known what is this ce by now right?" "This is where the souls of the dead rest?" I tried. "Not true, but near!" The old man dragged me out of the alleyway. The street outside is now full of people. I mean ghosts. It looks like a real busy city now. "This is where the dead gather, but not where they rest. You saw the name at the city gate, no?" "The Lost City!" "Yes. This is the ce for those souls who refuse to rest in peace for various reasons. We''ve all lost souls!" The old man looks really sad. Iforted, "Cheer up, it doesn''t seem like a bad ce!" The old man changed his expression. "Sigh. Let''s forget these sad things. Now follow me." The old man flew towards something, I followed. While his age is enough to be my grandpa but man he flies fast! I rushed all the way and almost got a side stitch. The old man stopped at arge za. He flew onto a tform and called me there. When I climbed onto the tform, he shouted: "Everyone gather around! We got a live friend here!" Crap, he''s over-passionate! What makes it worse is that all kinds of demons and ghosts immediately gathered around me. I spammed several Identify and WOW, there are level 130 dead soul, level 200 phantom, level 320 evil spirit, level 210 death knight, level 150 undead fighter, level 350 necromancer...All kinds of monsters, this is a freaking monster paradise! Besides I saw some dark creaturesing this way. I already saw several cerberuses and devils! The old man shouted: "As you can see, beside me is a living friend. We haven''t weed any living ones for a long time, let''s celebrate!" "Yeah!" "Wee!" "Weeeelcoooomeee." Damn! These creatures got some hospitality! That''s not how I remembered about monsters! Looking at all those dancing monsters down there, I don''t know what to do! Just when I''m dumbfounded, a giant-looking warrior with ck armor came to me. "Hello! I''m rk, a cksmith running the weapon shop around here. Come do business with me if you need any equipment!" "But aren''t the stores here closed? I ran around the city in the morning and no one is open for business." "Heh heh heh heh." The warriorughed with roughness. "Of course no one is here in the daylight! This is the Lost City, there are no one other than the guards between 8 and 18 in daytime!" "Ow why didn''t I think about that. You guys can''t touch the sunlight right?" "We can. It''s just that we hate sunlight. Look at the tower over there." Someone high and slim wearing ck robe walked behind me. Woah this guy is tall! I''m 170 centimeters, a middlebrow, and I barely reached his shoulders! I looked at the direction he pointed out. There is indeed a tall tower. It''s a square tower simr to an obelisk. It''s not ck colored but it looks really dark. From a vague estimate the tower is at least 300 meters high. None of the buildings around it stands above 100 meter so the tower really stands out. There is a diamond shaped frame at the tip of the tower, and a red eye pupil inside it, it feels...really overwhelming. The pupil is now a vertical line, I suppose it is closed now. I don''t want to know what will happen when that eye opens. "That''s the Dark Tower of the Lost City, and the Eye of Underworld. The eye will open when this city is under attack, or is attacking a nearby city. Once the eye opens, the dark creatures in the city will no longer follow the day and night routine. And, all dark creatures will get a 50% bonus to their Attack and Defense." "Really? That''s awesome! You''re unbeatable!" The robed man let out an evil chuckle. "Not exactly unbeatable. But quite powerful indeed. I haven''t introduced myself. I run the Chemist Shop in the city, you can call me the King Chemist!" "The dead ones need medicine?" This system is so weird. Every race will need to use medicine? "Why not? Let me tell you. My meds are specially made and can''t be acquired anywhere else within the whole continent. They are effective AND cheap! 20% off for you if youe!" It''s not long before I''m surrounded by all kinds of NPCs, mostly shop owners, and they all offered 20% off for me to visit their ce. I can''t do anything else but to start visiting the stores one after one. I first got dragged into rk''s weapon shop. We reached his shop just past several streets. I came here before in the morning, of course it was closed. "How about it? Nice ce huh?" rk boasted. I looked around. The weapon shop is big, with wooden walls and floor. Several NPCs are buying and selling stuff at the counter. It feels quite like a big store. "Nice! Your shop is pretty cool!" rk''s smile got bigger. "So what about you? Anything you want to buy?" "Absolutely! I broke my weapon yesterday, and none of the stuff on me is usable so I need a really good one!" rk saw my expression and said: "Oh don''t worry, you can just leave an IOU if you don''t get the money at the moment." "Well I can''t just do that! Let me see." I dropped everything in my inventory out. "You take these. I got another 3 gold. I''ll owe you a debt if this is not enough. I promise I''ll return the money." rk checked over my stuff and said: "These should be around 13 gold, that''s 16 in total. Here,e with me!" Chapter Book 2 - 5 – Shopping Book 2, Chapter 5 Shopping ------------------ I followed rk to the second floor. It happens to be a small quest room. He asked me to sit down and went into another room. Soon he came running back with a blood-red long sword in his hands. He put it in front of me. "This is a sword I forged when I just finished my apprenticeship. See if you can use it." I lifted the sword and started checking it. It''s a very ordinary long sword, without any decorations, everything looks standard. But for some reason the de is emitting a red glow. I looked at the attributes. Long sword: Soul Guardian of life steal, Attack 25-40, Attack Speed--Fast, 15% Life Steal, Dexterity +1, 1% chance of knockback. Good stuff! Especially the attack speed and life steal feature. In [Zero], a weapon''s Attack Speed has 5 levels: Very Fast, Fast, Normal, Slow and Very Slow. Most short weapons are Normal, long ones are Slow. A Fast weapon is really rare, let alone Very Fast weapons! This sword is Fast and can absorb HP, the absorb rate is good too. A really precious weapon for a warrior type! Out of fear that I may not be able to use it, I quickly looked at the attribute requirement. Level 29, Strength 370, Dexterity 170. Ha! I just hit the mark. Now I''m level 29 with Strength: 13 x 29 = 377, Dexterity: 6 x 29 = 174. All barely above the line. I''m so lucky! Seeing no reactions, rk thought I couldn''t use it and started tofort me. "Hey Ziri, mate, don''t get depressed! I made this one out of an ident. It''s good but the Strength requirement is too high. Low level people can''t use it while high level people got better weapons so this sword is somewhat useless. I just kept it as a momento of my works. It''s my first product after all!" (With my high Charisma we soon became good friends and he started to call me "mate".) Then I realized I haven''t answered rk''s question, "Oh right! No that''s not it. I can use it, it''s perfect! How much does it cost?" Hearing these, rk told me with excitement: "Well it ain''t useful for me anyway. I''ll just charge you the base cost, 7 gold. Here you can take the other 6 gold back." I didn''t decline. For I don''t have much on me either, I need to buy some potionster! Besides, rk isn''t someone to haggle over such kind of matters. I just need to help with his business in the future. I equipped the sword, took out the shield I picked up outside the city and looked at myself. I''m wearing all kinds of stuff, a total mess actually. But at least I managed to cover myself up. When I''m just feeling good about it, rk interrupted: "Oh dear what is all these junk?! This ck, white and that--red thingy, you look hideous!" "Why? I think it''s good! At least I''m fully armored!" "You call that fully armored? Where is your helmet? Shoulder armor? Gauntlet? And belt, tasset, and what about cape? You can wear six rings but you only have one!"(In [Zero], a yer can wear ten rings in theory. But only the ones on your index, middle and ring fingers will have effect. Other ones are considered decorations!) I interrupted: "I have another one here but I haven''t identified it!" "Right. That makes it two rings. You need another four! And you don''t have amulet, no bracelets either. Two bracelets can bring you lot of buffs! And head essory? None?" Damn! I thought my set-up was decent, but after what he said I feel like a beggar! "Alright. Today I''m gonna dress you up even if it means I need to throw money in it. If other undead citizens saw you walking out of my shop like this, my reputation will be ruined! Come, take off everything and lemme see how to improve it!" And then rk began to help me undress. I ran away. "No, nononono! I can''t take free stuff from you again. I''ll just level up ande back for some better equipmentter!" rk thought about it and nodded. "True. You will be leveling fast, you need to change your gear pretty soon anyway. How about this, Tell me your base attributes, I''ll prepare a level-200 Dark Knight set for you. The highest level is 1000 but once you reach 200 your grinding will be nice and slow. Work hard till then!" "Thank you!" I thanked him while jotting down my points and handed it over to rk. The instant I left rk''s shop, King Chemist snatched me away in a blink of an eye. He seems to have been hiding there for a while now. He''s slim but he''s strong! When we reached his shop I realized that it''s not too far from rk''s. Only several storefronts apart. King Chemist came to me with a bunch of meds and an evil smile on his face. "Hee hee. Let me introduce you about these medicine." He took out a ck-ish pill. "This is called the Wraith Pill. It''s all ck but it''s effective!" "What does it do?" "The main effect is health recover. Each pill gives you 500 HP, with twice recovery speedpared to those red potions you bought from other cities. How about it? Neat stuff eh?" "Is it expensive?" Nothing goodes cheap. I''m sure of it. "Expensive? Of course not! I told you we''re ''effective AND cheap'' and I meant it! The pilles in packs, each pack cost a gold." "What? That''s rip off!" I quickly jumped to the exit. And the King Chemist dragged me back even quicker. "Calm down! Just listen until I finish. You will know this is actually cheap!" "Go ahead then!" "Right. First, each pack contains 10 pills. Which means a silver for each pill. A normal big health potion in other shops costs one silver, and they only recovers 300 HP, besides their effect is slower than my pill. Now tell me, is it cheap or not?" Now I think about it, yes this is quite a bargain! "The price is good!" King Chemist got more excited upon hearing my approval. He quickly brought out a pile of Wraith Pills and said: "If you buy 10 packs now you get another for free. Whaddya say?" "I only have 9 gold on me!" "That''s no problem. I said I''ll give you a 20%-off. 11 packs for only 8 gold!" "Thank you very much!" I jumped out of excitement! Chapter Book 2 - 6 – Grinding! Book 2, Chapter 6 Grinding! ------------------ Ugh. That name list looks terrible. But dunno how to fix that. ------------------ I carried what I got from King Chemist, satisfied, and rushed outside the city. Here Ie my dear monsters! I checked over the ranking board. There are some changes, several new entries popped up. Rank Name Race Gender Level ss Pet 1 Big de More Killz Half Orc Male 71 Warrior Level 11 Wild Horse Leader 2 Merciless Autumn Wind Angel Male 70 Warrior None 3 Red Moon Divine Demon Female 70 Dark Wizard Level 38 Night Spirit Lord 4 I Luv Money Demon Female 69 Priestess None 5 Sky Fire Human Male 69 Spellsword None 6 No Dating Gnome Male 69 Rogue+ck Mage None 7 Descended God Angel Male 69 Warrior None 8 Sunshine Half Elf Male 68 Archer None 9 Tender Heart Half Elf Female 68 Archer None 10 T-Rex Half Orc Male 68 Warrior None Look at all that. I''m only 29. This is embarrassing! I took out the grinding map King Chemist gave me. Now this is something really useful! This is no ordinary map. Apart from thendscape around Lost City, there are detailed information about the levels and characteristics about the monsters at various grinding sites. Following the route on the map, I came to a valley behind the city. I searched for a whole morning in order to find its entrance, during which I cursed the designers of this city plus their families over and over! The city got only ONE exit, ON THE LAKE, I came out from there and ran half a circle around theke to reach where I am. I''m so asking my mother to find that designer and give him a mouthful when I get back! ording to the map, this is called the Dark Valley. It is said those evil souls who refuse to live in the Lost City would stay here. The chemist said that monster here spawn really fast, besides their levels will get higher as I go deeper. Their level patterns are clearly divided here so it is a perfect ce to level up. I tried walking into the valley and didn''t encounter anything for half a mile! Don''t tell me that King Chemist guy is trolling me! I kept on walking and finally saw a figure ahead. As I got closer I made out its identity. A zombie, its body is highly corroded and is giving out a serious stink which makes me want to puke right away. Why in the world would they imnt so much reality into the game?! With the ethic of being a professional gamer, however, I still charged forward against the terrible odor. This may look strange to people but personally I love grinding. Many people hate it when they need to spend time leveling in an online game, but to me, the whole process is something worth enjoying. I shed at the zombie. Oneshot kill. So weak! Another zombie wandered closer, I used Identify first. It seeded in one go. My Identify skill is now level 4 after all. It reads Rotten Zombie, level 30 monster, whose normal attacks have a chance to poison the target. Slow movement, head is weakpoint. Only level 30. No wonder they''re so easy. I have pretty insane Attack now, killing something at the same level in one hit is totally normal. I cut at the neer zombie. It stumbled but didn''t fall. I quickly finished it with another hit. Looks like I can''t guarantee one-hit KOs! I found a third zombie pretty fast. Just as the chemist''s map said, there are a good number of monsters here and they usuallye in groups with only one kind stuffed together, good ce for grinding. If you don''t mind the smell, that is. Most zombies went down with one hit. About 1 or 2 out of 10 would need a second finisher. 2 hours passed and I already reached level 35. Damn this is fast! Knowing that my Attack is high, I started to march deeper into the valley, killing zombies along the way. Another zombie appeared. Nothing new. I cut--wait it didn''t die. I hit it again. It''s still running! Realizing that this is no ordinary Rotten Zombie, I used Identify. Not surprised, there''s something different about this one. The name is Zombie (without "Rotten"). Level 40 monster, its ws carry potent poison. Slow movement, head is weakpoint. Ohh something stronger. No wonder two hits won''t kill it. I stepped to its backside and made another sh. And then kept chopping around it while watching it turn around in slow-motion. It finally died after 7 or 8 attacks! Cling! Two silver pieces dropped on the ground. Aha! Now that''s a lot richer than those rotten ones! After I traveled further into it I got a bit tired. So I found a stone wall and logged off while leaning of it. I checked the time after removing my helmet. 3 pm. Wayne is not here. I got some quick snack, toilet, then continued my game. When I appeared I found myself surrounded by a group of zombies. Somewhere more than 30 of them! But I''m facing their backs. I zigzagged outside the monsters through the gaps. Man they''re so slow. I recalled that I should level up my Lucky as well. I need it to help me grind or PvP in the future! After amand in my mind, Lucky appeared in front of me. It flew into my arms and began to rub against my chest. "Hey Lucky! Now you need to train hard! No one''s going to bully you if you got high levels! Now try yourself on those ugly ones!" It seems to have understood what I said. Lucky stepped onto my shoulder, began to cast something using its tiny ws. Then a small fireball flew towards one of the zombies. Poof. Now a charred zombie is standing in front of me. But looks like it didn''t take much damage. Seeing the fireball ineffective, Lucky dropped its head. I patted its tiny head. "No worries, they look terrible but they are level 40! Even if you''re dragon you are level 1, of course your fire won''t do much to them." Hearing my encouragement Lucky lit up. Again, at the same zombie, Lucky shot another---wait, not one, but an array of fireballs! Oh for the love of--- How fast can dragons cast spells?? There are almost no intervals between Lucky''s fireballs which makes it like a machine gun. That unfortunate zombie took at least 20 shots within 10 seconds, then turned into ash and disappeared, leaving three silver coins behind. Seeing the zombie went down, Lucky hopped on my shoulder joyfully. A system notice followed up: "Congrattions! Your Companion has reached level 5!" Before I can react I just felt my shoulders suddenly gained a weight. Lucky became a lotrger. It was barely a feet in length including the tail, now it''s almost one full meter! My goodness at this rate he''s gonna get bigger as a small hill! As I''m thinking, another zombie approached me. Lucky went up and smashed the zombie with one w swipe! The system notice sounded again. "Congrattions! Your Companion has reached level 8!" Now Lucky is one and a half meter! When I''m standing dumbfounded, Lucky has began to disying its super speed. It just dashed up and down in the zombie crowd, while I hear countless "Congrattions" from the system. When I recovered from my shock I immediately shouted: "Stop! Lucky! Come back!" Lucky spread its now 5-meter-long wings and appeared in front of me with one leap. Then it began to pose and disy its huge body to me as if trying to ask forpliment. Oh good heavens. Lucky is already level 36 now after such a short fight. Because I share the experience, I''m now 36 as well. The Lucky in front of me has reach the size when we first met, like a bus, its body covered with shiny ck scales! "You''re awesome!" I patted Lucky''s head. "With your help my level''s gonna skyrocket. But I got to keep you a secret! If anyone knows about such a nicepanion they''ll try to take you!" (In [Zero], apanion who already has a master can be captured too. Butpanion with a Loyalty above 80 will only have a sess rate of less than 0.01%. While the ones with 95 or higher Loyalty are totally impossible to capture.) Hearing this, Lucky immediately grasped me with its front ws and whined. "Ooouch! Let go! You are killing me!" Lucky quickly released me. I sat on the ground and breathed hard. "Well your strength is just as big as your body! Don''t do that again alright?" Lucky nodded its head rapidly. Chapter Book 2 - 7 – Catching Up Book 2, Chapter 7 Catching Up ------------------ I led Lucky towards the depth of the valley, as usual, Lucky just cleared everything we came across along the way. But for some reason its leveling speed is bing slower, almost the same pace as me. We finally saw something new, a zombie with long fangs and erged sharp ws. Identified as "Mutated Zombie", level 60, whose attacks can paralyze the target while carrying a deadly poison. Movement is somewhat fast and is resistant to attacks, vulnerable to fire. Heart is weakpoint. I approached it quickly, asking Lucky to deal with targets around us while fighting it one-on-one myself. I''m 38, could try it. Just when I tried to sh this thing, I found its ws already in front of my face. I jerked my de back in mid-air and jumped backwards. Damn that was close, my face was almost ruined! I tried to move to the back and attacked, but the monster turned quickly and parried my sword with one w, then swiped with the other one in an instant. Ow! I took a direct hit and lost 600 HP. Man that hurts, if I eat several more hits like this I''m a goner! Just when I''m trying to back out I took another w hit on my back. Turing around, I saw another Mutated Zombie just spawned behind me. I got no other choice but to make some distance with a side-roll. But the two zombies leaped towards me while waving their big ws. This isn''t good, they''re too fast! When I''m about to give up, a serial of fireballs sted the two mobs away. I sprung myself up and got ready to dodge further attacks. But then I realized the two zombies are burning. No wonder it said they are weak to fire! I recalled that my second ss, Tamer, can use some magic too, so I started to throw small fire bullets. However with my low Intelligence they barely did much damage. Fortunately, Lucky''s fireballs are quite effective. After dealing with the Mutated Zombies, we came to a hollowed-out part on a cliff, just enough for us to hide inside. We stand at the cave exit while Lucky blocks the whole entrance, I stood on its back. (Now Lucky is above 15 meters. Of course it can''t stay on my shoulder anymore!) And spam some fireballs here and there. The spawning rate here is very fast, we can''t clear the area even with our full speed! Because we''re killing something that is way beyond our own level, we rose fast. I reached 58 at around 8 pm, and Lucky is 58 too, just like me. During our grind I found out that the level of your Companion in [Zero] is limited by its master''s level, it will never exceed master level no matter how much exp it earns. Lucky just obtain one level every time right after I level up myself. Despite the time (the time in [Zero] is consistent with the real world), the ce is still pretty bright due to our endless fireballs. Zombies outside kept trying to rush in while waving their shimmering green eyes and ws but they never seeded. I felt hungry so I recalled Lucky and logged off. I removed my helm and saw Wayne readying food on the table. "Aha! A perfect time toe out!" "Pffff! Forget it. This is mine. No share for you!" I dropped my face and pretended to be considering. "Sighhh. I finally found a nice secret spot to grind. I was nning to bring someone along, but now..." "Boss you''re the best! I''m always admiring your coolness, oh please help me level up and show that magnificent and selflessness image of yours for everyone to see! Here this dinner is my gift to show my loyalty to you! Enjoy!" Wayne immediately ran over and started to tter. "Haha. Now that''s what I''m expecting. But seriously, are you going for an ount tomorrow morning?" "You bet I am!" Wayne passed me a bowl of food. "So what''s your level now?" "58." "What the-- Weren''t ya only like 29 yesterday?" "Heehehe! It''s a secret! Tell you what, the spot I mentioned is really good. A heaven for new yers to train up. Only problem is the terrible air condition. Do you have thetest system news?" Wayne put down his food and went carry hisptop to me. "Not much. Only two important ones. One is the female yer Red Moon I told you yesterday, she got a Sacred equipment from a system reward. The other one is the system is now in auto mode, all NPCs will run ording to their AI! From now on Zhong Hua Company will not manipte anything in the system and will guarantee absolute fairness." "Sacred equipment? What is it?" "Rea fa ya felf!" Wayne mumbled with his mouth full. Then I saw it on the web page. The yer has obtained a Dark Bracelet, Magic Attack + 20-30, Luck +1, and can control a monster whose level is more than 100 below the wearer, but can only control one at a time. Looks nice but not that useful at the moment. My Hermit''s Ring is way better! I rested after finishing my meal, and woke up at 5 am. Dang it I overslept! I checked Wayne''s bed, he''s already gone to join the queue. I ate something, satisfied my toilet needs and entered the game again. I appeared in the cave. It''s totally dark, I didn''t see any zombie eyes which would otherwise look like green light bulbs in here. I called Lucky, it came out with a thunderous dragon roar which probably traveled really far. Now I know what a monster king looks like! The roar was imposing but its only result seems to have been attracted a horde of zombies. I saw countless green dotsing this way! We''re surrounded not long after that. Lucky filled the ce with fireballs because it got infinite Mana points. I just stood on its back, bored. I could throw some small fireballs for fun at the beginning, but my miserable mana pool became depleted pretty fast. Considering that wasting Mana like this is meaningless, I remembered I still have an unidentified ring on me, so I took it out and started to Identify. I never knew what the ring is, I didn''t sess after using Identify for somewhere like hundreds of times. The skill is now level 7, it should have pretty decent sess rate by now, but I just couldn''t get the ring identified. Lucky, however, is working really fast. The dawn is about to break and both of us have reached level 67. I checked the rankings. The order didn''t change but the guy on the top of the list is now 74! Man he''s good! Because of our level, the level 60 Mutated Zombies around here have begun to yield less and less exp to us. So we started to move deeper into the valley. ------------- Um. Can''t update during weekend. Just saying. Chapter Book 2 - 8 – They are after me! Book 2, Chapter 8 They are after me! ------------------ We marched deeper while clearing those Mutated Zombies on the way. Then I felt a decrease in their numbers. Looks like we''re near the next monster zone. And just as expected, we saw something ahead, almost 2 meters tall. Its body is fully covered in ck armor, without any part exposed. I used Identify from afar. Undead Fighter, level 100, attacks will absorb HP, high Defense, adept at usingbo skills, 20% resistant to Dark magic. No particr weakpoint. Ohh this thing looks strong! I ordered Lucky to stay guard. I''ll try this loner out on myself. Lucky started to protect the surrounding area while I charged at the Undead Fighter. He spotted me soon, with a shift in hand, a jagged ck sword appeared in his grasp. I rushed to his face and shed downwards. The fighter dodged it with a neat side-step. Using my great Strength, I forcefully jerked my sword from downward sh to a horizontal sweep. A hit. ng! A really big recoil pushed me back three steps. Jesus that''s some hard defense. The hit only dealt 113 damage! Just as my attack has finished the Undead Fighter charged toward me. He''s fast. He reached me in an instant and I don''t have time to evade. I kept stepping back but he still hit me spot-on with a sweep. I felt my body shook and blood came out of my throat. That was like getting run over by a truck. But the attack didn''t end. The Undead Knight used the recoil force and spun in a circle, shing from the other direction, then followed by a fast third sweep. Now I''m totally crashed, I took three hit! My HP is down to 19. Shit he almost finished me with just onebo! Anyone else in my shoes would have been dead by now. But I got pretty high HP. Plus I''m no ordinary people, I have the Cor of Protection! I didn''t get the chance to finish my thoughts before the fighter charged again. Damn it, there''s no breather! "Lucky! Help!" Hearing this, Lucky immediately reached us with a powerful gust, which caused the Undead Fighter to lose his bnce and started spinning funny. I took the chance and cut him several times. I may not kill him but at least that felt good! Realizing it''s not good idea to mess with Lucky, the Undead Fighter started to flee without hesitation. But those two legs have no chance against Lucky''s wings. Lucky quickly caught him in a w swipe, sending him crashing into a cliff, then he disappeared in a white sh. I ran over, ah I''m rich! There are two gold coins on the ground! Ah hahaha! It''s not surprising that high level monsters carry more money. Pity he didn''t drop his equipment. If I can get my hands on such cool armor set I''ll be the center of the crowd! While I''m daydreaming, I heard noiseing from the valley. It felt like the footsteps when an army is marching. And it didn''t take long before I saw what it is. A row of eight Undead Fighters appeared around the corner ahead, running towards me in an orderly formation. What''s worse is that there are more arraysing behind them and not stopping. Well all I did is killing one of the outer guards, do they have to send a freaking army on me?! Lucky deserves to be a top-sspanion, it reacts fast -- Lucky just grabbed me and started to escape without a second thought. God knows how many tens of thousands of Undead Fighters are after me, I sit on Lucky''s back and can''t even make out where this crowd ends! Lucky is fast but it''s only level 67, and couldn''t fly very fast with me sitting on its back. I watched the undead force getting closer, and threw some magic missiles now and then, to no avail at all. But my actions inspired Lucky. It turned its head around and started to shoot explosive fireballs. Totally different from my pathetic spells, each of Lucky''s fireball can crumble a small mess of them with ease. Frankly speaking, this could have been a nice way to grind up only if we''re not being chased like scared puppies. Those undead fighters ran after us all the way the the valley entrance. When we exited the valley, I looked back, praying that those undead would stop their pursuit. Because they''re already out of bounds! Unfortunately the God didn''t hear my prayer. (I''m a Dark Fighter, maybe I''m praying to the wrong god? Lemme try Satan next time!) The valley exit didn''t stop the huge army any bit, they just rushed towards us without stopping. We turned and started running right away. I patted Lucky''s back and ordered it to fly into the Lost City. The valley faces the backside of the city and the city gate is on the other side. Let''s see if you can just jump into theke and chase me, the monster in theke will definitely do something! We dropped t on the ground as soon as we''re past the city wall. Lucky is down out of exhaustion while I''m too scared to stand! Man those guys are terrifying. I''d better avoid them in the future! But we reached level 70 after all this run-and-st. Aha! Level 100 monsters got nice exp reward. It''s a pity I couldn''t pick all those gold coins back! While I''m panting I hear a familiar voice above me. "Ziri? Hey mate, what happened to you?" rk stared at the cracks on my armor and asked. I saw rk and answered: "Just my luck! I went to train in the Dark Valley and met those Undead Fighter or something. I killed one of them and a whole damn legion is on my tail now. They chased me all the way here!" "You...killed an Undead Fighter in the Dark Valley?" rk raised his voice. "Yeah. Did I do something wrong?" "Well aren''t ya a brave one!" "So...what happened?" rk justughed: "I sure can''t tell you the whole thing,e with me now, I''ll find you someone who''ll exin to you." I followed rk into an Appraisal Shop. Then rk introduced me to the shop owner, who is the guild master of the Appraiser Guild in Lost City. Hearing that I killed a fighter in the Dark Valley that old manughed hard and almost choked himself to death. Oh wait, he doesn''t need to breath! "What''s this all about?" I''m starting to get annoyed because they justugh. Seeing I''m getting angry, the old man tried to hold back hisughter. Hard. "So...you really don''t know?" "Know what?" "You took the wrong turn in the Dark Valley and encountered the guards of Dark Pce. You''re lucky it''s just one of the outer minions!" "Huh? Minion? That was level 100 Undead Fighter! And thousands of them! Those were just minions?" The old man chuckled: "The Dark Pce is a forbidden realm for us denizens of the dark. All of us vowed to protect the ce with all we have." "That serious?" "Of course. The ce is the source of dark powers. Legend says that the Star of Genesis which created the world split into two halves, one of them is dropped inside the forbidden area, bing the source of darkness!" "Is there a reward for taking that dark source? Any quest for it?" "Take??" Guild master and rk stared at me, agape. The guild master imed: " It''s impossible to take the dark source! There are way too many guards! What you saw today is the outer most part of the forbidden area. There are endless level-250 Undead Guardian Knights behind those fighters, and level-350 Dark Sorcerer Formations. Suppose you can sneak past these ones and reach inside the forbidden area, you won''t get the source either. Rumor says there are eight identical Hidden Pces, each with 7 floors, and each floor is protected by countless guards ranging from level 400 to 800. Now do you still think you can do it?" I''m not convinced. "I have Lucky, I can raise it to level 800. What kind of monster can fight against a top leveled dragonpanion?" "Let''s not ask whether you can reach level 800 at all. You won''t do anything even if you are 900. Thest two guardians of the dark source, are two level-1000 Dark Fiend Dragons!" "Ugh. That looks hopeless." ---------------- P.S. That reminds me. The author is going to tease various gods and deities of different culture and religion in the future, too. Again, please don''t take it serious. P.S.2 Ohh someone put my list onto novelupdates Well thank you! Chapter Book 2 - 9 – The Ring of Stars Book 2, Chapter 9 The Ring of Stars ------------------ "Of course it''s hopeless!" The guild master teased, "Or do you think you can just find some connections with the Dark Pce and waltzing in?" "Ugh. I''m just a little starter warrior, when can I make a name for myself?" Then I took out the ring I never managed to identify. "My Luck is supposed to be high, but I''ve tried this ring hundreds of times without sess!" "Wha--wait!" The guild master suddenly gazed at the ring with his eyes glittering. "Where did you get this?" "This ring?" I raised it in front of my face. "I got it from a system reward. No idea what it is, I can''t Identify it. Oh right, You are an Appraiser! A little bit help ok?" He picked up the ring carefully. "Appraisal fee is 10,000 gold!" "What the fu--" Did I hear what I hear?! "I''ll identify it for 10 thousand gold. Now don''t think it as expensive, believe me, as long as you got this ring everything will turn into your favor!" "Really?" Well now I really want it but...I checked over my pockets and only found 32 gold in there. "I don''t have that much money!" rk suggested: "Now just help him out! I''ll pay the bill." I thanked rk gratefully. "That''s too nice of you. Consider the money as my debt, I''ll pay you back when I can!" The guild master carefully moved a painting on the wall away. There''s a safe hiding behind it. This old man took out three keys from three different parts on his body to open the safe, revealing a nicely-crafted metal box. "Now this is my secret treasure. There''s nothing in the world it can''t identify!" Then he ced the ring on the table, and opened the box lid while aiming at the ring. A golden ray leaked out from the gap and shined upon the ring, after a colorful sh, the whole ring turn ck. The decorative bat on the ring disappeared, leaving a big ruby behind. The guild master put back his box and returned the ring to me. "The ring can trigger a quest for you. Since ur good friend with this hammer guy, (this is how guild master calls rk. While rk calls him "scammer guy".) I''ll just tell you. Take this ring to the Sanctuary of the Earth Mother, located at the Eternal Neutral Land, Oskar, to get the quest. I dunno what you will get from it, but this ring is special-grade Artifact, it will definitely give you something nice! But the ring is pretty high leveled stuff, you''d better try the quest when you''ve reached level 500 or more!" I just kept nodding. But when I checked the ring''s attribute I froze. rk asked in a hurry, "Come on, what is it? I was a big help here and you can''t just keep me hanging!" I swallowed and said: "The ring is called the Ring of Stars, it takes your highest base attribute, and modifies every other attribute to that level. Magic Attack +20%, Magic Speed +20%, grants you the knowledge of all Dark spells, +20% resistance against all spells, Mana +20%, converts 20% of the damage you take into your Mana, all skills +2, Luck +7." "Maaate!! Now that''s something beyond terrific. I never know there are such overpowered Artifact out there! With those base attribute buffs you''re going to be superman! So now all your base attributes are 13 right?" I equipped the ring, and yes, they are all 13 now! I''m starting to regret. Why didn''t I put all my points into one single attribute? "Yeah, all 13!" "Huh?" The old man asked with disbelief. "Howe you have such high base attributes? Even if you chose a main one to add up, 13 is still too high!" I scratched my head, "Oh sorry I didn''t tell, I''m that only one yer who got 4 rewards from the start. Then I chose Divine Demon as my Race. It got more points then others!" "What?" He''s even more shocked. "Well people sure can''t judge a book by the cover! It''s nice knowing ya, hahaha! But on the other hand..." The old man paused. "You''d better keep it to yourself. Nothing good wille if too many know about this." "Yeah. I know." Too bad my Companion Slot is determined from the start. Otherwise I can have dozens of them with such high Charisma! "What''s your level now?" rk asked all of a sudden. "70. Why?" "Still long way to go. Work harder! You should have done better with the help of Dark Dragon Lord!" "Of course I will!" After some other chit-chat with the old man, I departed again for more grinding. This time I bought 4 packs of Wreath Pills from King Chemist''s shop. I ate all my stock fromst time! Before I left, I sold all the equipment I picked up before and bought three Town Portal Scrolls for Lost City. (Every city got its own portal scrolls. They teleport the user to the specified city, rather than the nearest city.) (*) When I left the gate I started to consider about where to go next. Definitely not Dark Valley, those low level zombies can''t give me much exp now, and there''s no way I can deal with those high level Undead Fighters who juste at me as human waves! I found a ce called the Monster Forest on the map, it says the ce is suitable for level 50-150 yers, a lot of monsters there are good at piercing defenses. I decided on my destination. Now Lucky is big enough to be my transport outside the city. We reached the forest pretty soon. It looks creepy. Outside the edge I can see white mist flowing among the trees and I can''t make out what''s in there. But ording to the map the ce isn''t that dangerous, so I collected my courage and entered the forest. The ground is slippery with tree roots covered with green moss crossing the path everywhere. I marched forward awkwardly with hands and feet. Now I remember, that Ring of Stars can teach me all Dark spells right? I searched around the skill list and only found something called Dark Mist, which can reduce the humid air around and makes me feel a bit better. Everything else is useless! There are more than 300 Dark spells, with only two healing ones, several support spells, and a dozen half attacking half protection ones like the Dark Mist I just used, all the rest are attacking spells! Now I know why Dark Mages are powerful. There are barely any Dark spells which aren''t meant for causing damage! While I''mining, Lucky sent me an alert. I quickly got into fighting stance. Our first target is about to appear! ---------------- (*) Town Portal Scroll, the author used "»Ø³Ç¾í", which probably came from a traditional Korean game. It teleports the yer back to the nearest city. I''ll call it "town portal scroll" here. This item in Diablo allows you to travel back to the dungeon as well, but it''s only a one-way return in this case. Chapter Book 2 - 10 – Phantom Book 2, Chapter 10 Phantom ------------------ I looked around nervously and saw nothing. But suddenly my right hand raised up on its own, and moved my sword towards my neck. I quickly used my left hand to grasp the de, panicked. Of course they''re both my own hands. From a third person''s view I must look like to be performing some sort of weird dance. Lucky sensed something nearby but couldn''t see it. He(*) angrily broke a tree in half with a tail sweep. The broken tree must have disturbed the assant, the force on my right hand disappeared and I regained control. Looks like its hiding in the trees. I looked at Lucky. "Clear the whole area!" With a dragon roar, leaves began to fall like snow. After a powerful tail swipe, those waist-wide trees around us all fell to the ground. With the trees gone, a ck figure shed in the air, then vanished. The area is very quiet now, I can almost hear my own heartbeat. Lucky is panting heavily beside me. That move drained him(*) a lot since Lucky is still considered a child. It would be better if Lucky is level 200 and can use dragon fire! Obviously the enemy is still nearby cause I can feel the killing intent. But whoever it is he/she must be good at hiding. I started to gather magic power and use a very practical support type dark spell -- Intimidate. This spell intimidate the enemy with pure imposing aura, causing enemies around the caster to lose some Attack, Movement Speed and HP & Mana regen speed. But the mental pressure is also a good way to flush enemies out of hiding. One important feature of such support spells is that they don''t need a target and they affect a huge area. My level-2 Intimate spell (the ring gave me skill levels) worked, the leaves around Lucky''s feet moved. Lucky instantly threw a lightning and burned the spot smoking, but it didn''t hit. A miniature ck twister appeared in front of me and then vanished quickly. It showed itself for just less than two seconds. Then there''s a white, half transparent...thing, left behind the twister. Out of instinct, I shed it with my sword but it didn''t hit anything. The white figure rushed at me, and then disappeared into my body, like water gets absorbed into sponge. Then my hands lost control again. I charged at Lucky with my sword raised. I tried hard but couldn''t control myself, so I could only shout at Lucky: "Get away! This thing controlled my body!" With a wing p, Lucky wisely chose to fly into the air. I can''t reach him on the ground! Just as I''m feeling good about how Lucky got out of danger, the thing moved my body and bashed against a tree. With a THUMP, my head mmed into it. That hurts! I''m seeing stars all around me! It didn''t stop, and ordered me to slit my own throat again. Out of desperation, I shouted at Lucky: "Quick! Lightning! Stun! Knock me out!" Lucky immediately cast a lightning straight at my head. I can feel that Lucky tried to limit the power, though. The electricity caused my whole body to go numb and I feel like vomiting. I definitely will try to avoid getting shocked again. As I''m hit by the lightning, a white figure covered in electric arcs emerged from my body. Ignoring the dumbness, I tried to move my already stiff tongue and shouted at Lucky again: "Do it! Lightning! It''s weak to electricity!" Lucky didn''t fail to qualify as a top-leveled boss monster, a serial of lightnings went down without stopping. I''d like to help but there''s no way I can move a finger now. The white mist is shocked rolling on the ground (actually it doesn''t have a fixed shape at all), then it disappeared in another of those mini twister. I quickly ordered: "Keep it up! It''s escaping!" A giant chain lightning fell onto the spot where the figure disappeared. I thought it missed when the attack fell on the ground, but then there''s electric arc, with a lump of "air" trapped inside. The air turned into the white figure again, with visible electricity moving all over it. Looks like it took quite a beating. Just as I''m feeling victorious, the electric arc parted towards me. Pzzzzzt! Not expecting the shock, all the hairs on my body stood up. I kinda lost my mind from all the shocks, and roared at Lucky: "Shock it! Use your most powerful lightning move! Don''t stop! Shock it till it''s dead!!" Lucky thought I just wanted to take my anger out, so he cast another really big lightning at the still-covered-in-arcs figure, and struck it jumping into the air. "Wait! Wait!! I lost! I surrender!! Stop shocking me!" The while figure started talking all of a sudden. Lucky nced at me. I ordered, with a devilish tone: "Don''t spare it. Strike!" Then more lightnings went pouring down like raindrops. The white figure ran about in panic and shouted: "Wait! Please wait!! Stop shoc--I can--Ouch! I can--can be yourpanion! Ow! P-Please! Yarrrr!" It''s voice is now trembling due to all the electric shocks! "Hold it!" I raised my hand and stopped Lucky''s attacks. The white figure slumped on the ground like a puddle. Its edge is still shivering. "You will be mypanion?" "Yes!" It answered while panting heavily. "Just...what are you?" "I''m a mutated monster." "Mutated? So you''re the only one who can control others like that?" I was worrying about encountering more of these guys. That ability was really scary! "There''s none! I''m the only one. Others in my n can only go invisible but they can''t do what I just did!" The figure seems rested now. Lucky prepared another giant lightning nearby, to prevent it from trying to escape. "So what''s the level of your n?" "They are 177. But I''m now 600 after the mutation." "You''re 600? You didn''t look that strong!" Well he was quite powerful, but that was nowhere like level 600! "600 is my rank level(**). I''m only level 197 now, far from reaching my final state. Like that Mr dragon over there, he''s a level 1000 monster but haven''t reached level 100 at the moment right?" "How did you know that?" "I ate hundreds of those lightnings and am still alive! A level 200 dragon is enough to finish me in one shot but you guys took so long!" "That makes sense. But I want to make sure you''re worthy enough to be mypanion! You know I can''t changepanion once I determined one right?" "Of course! My main abilities are Merge and Blink!" The figure began to disy the skills. With three blinks he immediately appeared behind my back. "That is quite nice trick! But what good will it do to me?" "Of course it''ll do good! If I Merge with you, you will learn my skills. In other words you will be able to Blink too! And Blink is my instinct skill, it doesn''t cost MP!" "That sounds nice!" I''m starting to get convinced. "Lucky?" Lucky nodded towards me, looks like he agreed. I got manypanion slots left anyway! "Ok then!" I started to use Capture on the white figure, and seeded after a dozen tries, the figure turned into a whitepanion egg and fell on the ground. A system notification followed up: "Congrattions, yer Ziri has be the first yer to capture the level 600 boss monster, the Spirit Mutant. Receiving 3 Skill Points." "Oh? The Spirit Mutant? And he''s a boss! But why didn''t the system give me equipment as reward?" I performed the mastership ritual, named him "Phantom", then the egg cracked open. Some white fluid came out, and instantly disappeared when it reached my body. A voice came alive inside my brain, it feels like I''m talking with myself. "Master, this is Phantom! Now I''ll show you how to use my skills! Please look at a spot 1 meter away, and imagine yourself moved there." "One meter?" "Yeah. I''m only level 1, can''t manage long distances yet." "How far can you do it when you reach your final form?" "When that happens I''ll be able to blink within an area of 10 kilos, and almost without intervals. But now you need to wait for 30 secs between each blink!" "Fine. You''re mypanion now, there''s no refund anyway!" I started to stare at a ce a meter from me. When I finished my thought, I felt a whirlwind and then I''m standing at where I looked at. Yes this coulde in handy! "Master! Now I''ll tell you how to Hide. After I Merge with you, you just need to think about "Hide" to conceal yourself!" I followed his words. With a thought in the mind, I blended into the air. Phantom eximed with excitement, "That''s a sess! But remember, you can''t Hide forever (***), with my level now I can only let your hide for a minute, any attack or movement will break the effect. Plus you need to wait for 15 sec before using Hide again! Also, Hide is ineffective against yers and monster who are 50 or more levels above you, oh and, you can be detected with Detection spell!" "That''s so inconvenient!" I''m starting to doubt that Phantom was just exaggerating his abilities! "That''s because of my low level. It will be better with higher levels. Hide ability when I reach ultimate level can stay for 12 hours, and you will be able to move slowly as long as you don''t do anything too obvious. Ultimate Hide has no cooldown. You can just hide again if discovered. And it will fool enemies up to 100 levels above you, and has lower chance to get caught by Detection spell." "That''s what I''m saying. Do you have any other skills?" I want to squeeze out thest bit of his capabilities. He upied one of my slot after all! "I can absorb some damage. 1% for the moment, but to a maximum of 50% in the future! How about that! Just think about it, others will only deal half of the normal damage to you! Isn''t that awesome??" Phantom is beginning to lose himself into bragging! "Oh! There''s more! I can perform mind control. The effect will depend on the level difference between me and the target." "The skill you used to control me into bumping a tree and cutting myself?" That was horrible. I''m still terrified of it! "Yes. Master is level 70 while I was 197, that was why the control was so smooth, almost total control! Even if I can''t control the target, I can still easily dampen their movement! This move is best when battling against ranged sses, like those archers who got high Dexterity!" "Good against archers? Really?" I absolutely hate archers when ying other games! "Of course! Now imagine, what''s the most important for an archer? To hit the target! With me messing with their body how the heck do they aim?? And those mages, I just wait for them to drop their guard and let them throw a big spell at nowhere and drain their MP empty! " Even I am bingcent listening to Phantom''s ideas. I think his biggest ability is ttering, he''s so good at it! ------------------- (*)I''m really not good at dealing with details like "he" "she" "it" when ites to describing something non-human. So forgive me if something looks out of ce. Like this one. Yes, Lucky should be a gentleman dragon (spoiler?). The author haven''t emphasized this but I don''t think I should keep calling Lucky "it". (**)Please consider this as "maximum level". yers can reach 1000 but monsters got different level limits. (***)Why does this sound so familiar?? Chapter Book 2 - 11 – Swamp Book 2, Chapter 11 Swamp ------------------ After I got Phantom I started to grind in the monster forest. With the help of a "native", I found a crowd of Killer Trees soon enough. Identify reads that they''re level 100 monsters, they attack their targets using mutated tree vines. Extremely high defense, cannot move, only weakpoint is fire. They don''t look much different from ordinary trees, the only problem is that they got several really long vines, and will immediately attack if you get close. It''s a good thing they can''t move at all. Same practice. Lucky clears the way while Phantom gets inside me and cause fire everywhere. Because of the Ring of Stars my Intelligence now is 13, so my Magic Attack is quite good now. The wild fire tactic is super effective. I just need a small ember to turn these rotten roots and branches into a mess forest fire. Then my exp bar began to fill up like a water meter running full speed! Lucky''s fire is way more powerful than mine, so I stopped and began to check my Gather skill from my cksmith ss. I used Gather at a copsed Killer Tree, and quickly got a pile of lumber. Why do I need lumber in this game? Since every tree I Gathered on can give me this lumber, it probably means this thing doesn''t have much value. So I kept 10 units of lumber on me and discarded all the rest on the ground. During my boring practice I acquired a block of ck wood from a Killer Tree. It looks like burned charcoal. I checked the item, it''s called "Darksteel Wood". That looks worth something, no idea what it does so I just put it away. As I said I enjoy grinding. The clock reached 11:30 a.m before I noticed it. I checked my level. 78. Lucky is same as me. Phantom has already reached 66 now. Seems low leveledpanion really goes up faster. Through some more grinding, I noticed that those bigger Killer Trees with stronger attacks tend to give me more of those Darksteel Wood. I don''t know what it is, but rare drop means valuable drop, so I put any piece I can find into my inventory. I got a total of 50+ Darksteel Wood by 2 pm. I felt a bit hungry, called Lucky and Phantom back, and logged off. I saw Wayne on the bed with a helm on. Looks like my buddy has started his game! I went downstairs and bought a bunch of food, filled my belly, stored some in the fridge, and readied myself to y again. Before I put on my helm Wayne called me. "You got out?" "I yed through the whole morning, of course I need to eat. The problem is you. Just reach 20 as soon as possible so I can help you!" "I just created my character and looked around. Then I''m here to eat too. I haven''t had anything since I got up in the morning!" "So you have your character now?" "Yeah. Name is Soulless, Undead. Dark Mage, plus Mailman and Pharmacist." (The author used "Alchemist" here, mistake?) "What is that name? Soulless? Terrible taste." "You don''t know the art of names! It took me quite some time toe up with it!" "Oh, So what''s your level now?" "Three! Now you mentioned it, the game is so f**king hard to level! There are people everywhere. I can find a good number of monsters but even more yers. Then I tried somewhere high-leveled, and those monsters one-shot me twice. Thank god a rookie doesn''t lose level when killed!" "Really? Well I ughtered myself a way just like that and I didn''t have much trouble. And that Boar Cave! Haha! That cave is a heaven to grind." "Boar Cave? A boar killed me with one hit! Nevermind. You can''t find me anyway. I''ll just try to reach 20 and you can drag me out of this hell! Yeah right, find something to wear for me! I only got these initial gear which all look like beggar rags!" "Forget it! I can help you grind all right, but not the equipment. I haven''t filled up my slots yet! Maybe I can give your some shoes and robes and such, but not the other ones." "That will do!" "Ok. I''ll log out for food at 8 pm, try to get to 20 till then, I''ll go find you something to wear. Now off I go!" "Roger that!" I entered the game and called Lucky & Phantom. "Hey Phantom. Do you know any ce around here where I find Dark Mage equipment? The Killer Trees here got nothing other than money." "Male or Female?" "Is there a difference?" "Of course there is! You haven''t known? Apart from essory, weapon and shield, all other equipments are gender-specific. But you don''t have to worry too much, the cksmiths in the cities can change the gender of your gear. You will need to pay though, and the price is quite high if I remember correctly." "I need male ones!" "I see. I know somewhere not far that can give you those, not guaranteed though. The ce drops male mage equipment more but it''s not 100%!" "Ok!" Phantom took over the control and started to move deeper into the forest, while Lucky stay guard in the air. We reached the edge of the forest not long after. There were some singled out monsters on the way but they were all picked out by Lucky''s air-to-ground assaults It''s a giant swamp outside the forest, there are bubbling water pits everywhere, and I think I saw will-o''-the-wisp (ghost fire) burning on the water! "We''re here. This is the Death Swamp, popted by Poisonous Swamp Flies and Tailless Crocodiles. Watch out for those pits. If you fall in you die! Those crocs will drop the equipment you asked for." I saw a crocodile crawling out of a pit and used Identify. "Tailless Swamp Crocodile", level 125, slow movement, high Attack and Defense, poor Magic Resistance. 125! That''s quite high. Me and Lucky are only 83 now. And Phantom is 80. This can be troublesome. Lucky flew over and wed at one of the crocodiles, 100 damage. It countered Lucky with a bite and caused 50 damage. Damn the high Defense part is no joke, a dragon w didn''t have much effect! Phantom said: "Forget about physical attacks, they''re too hard. Spam your magic!" I cast a Dark me at the crocodile, then a series of "20"s began to emerge above its head. Lucky also got into the air and started to drop lightning. We killed the ugly creature in several rounds and it dropped a pile of copper pieces here and there. Damn it can you at least put them all together? My back hurts after trying to pick up money all over the ce! After we finished this one, groups of crocodiles started to emerge from the pits. I began to set fire while Blinking about, and the whole area is burning. It looks like the mes of dark magic can''t be put out with water, actually those water pits are on fire now! With the attacks from both me and Lucky, crocodiles died in waves, leaving piles of equipment on the ground.(*) I started picking stuff. All useless ones went down into the pits. Ha, good haul! The money I got summed up to around 17 Crystal pieces. I found Wayne a staff, Attack 2-7, Magic attack +10%, all spell level +1. A robe, Dexterity +3, Luck +1, and a Rattan Mail with 13 Defense. Man this guy is lucky. My own armor only got 9 Defense! But I got myself something too. I found a shoulder armor piece. Wyvern Shoulder Pad, Defense 5 Dexterity 1. And a bracelet which gives 1 Attack Speed. It''s junk but I equipped it anyway. better than nothing. The time reads 5 pm. Not a very good ce to train so I decided to move. After some walking I came to another forest. This time it''s no ordinary forest. It''s pitch dark in there, I can''t see anything. Phantom exined: "This is Death Forest, the boundary of Lost City. The whole city is surrounded by this forest. If you go through it you will reach the world of the living ones!" "I''m checking it out then!" Then I entered the woods. ----------------------- (*) There''s a badly made poem here and I''m not gonna try tranting it. Same in the future. Most of them are meaningless anyway. P.S. The novel will get TONs of various concepts and the author will begin to confuse himself up sometimes. You will notice the errors if he managed to confuse me as well, ha! Chapter Book 2 - 12 – Across the Death Barrier Book 2, Chapter 12 Across the Death Barrier ------------------ From now on I''ll use "[ ]" to highlight skills/spells etc. Buuuut you don''t have to remember all of them. The author tends to create one-use names pretty often. ------------------ The forest is dark, I mean real dark. I can''t even see my own feet. We can only rely on Lucky''s [Illuminate] spell to find our way. "Hey Phantom? You said the forest surrounds the whole Lost City no?" "That''s right!" "But I didn''t go through such a forest on my way in!" "Did you go pass any forest at all?" "I did." "Then that''s the one. The Death Forest isn''t entirely dark, several routes are rtively bright. The other ones like this one is dark though and there are full of monsters! But there is a monster here which is a perfect grinding target." "Where is it? And what is it?" "Just ahead, we''re about to reach them. They are Death Skeletons, level 90, they appear in groups! Their Attack and Defense are just so-so, easy target!" "Then what are we waiting for?!" I rushed at the direction while using [Blink] to help me go faster. Now Phantom''s Blink can go a little more than 2 meters each time, it''s quicker too, the cooldown is now 20 seconds. A pretty good way to travel faster! As expected, we saw a horde of Death Skeletons piled together, wandering aimlessly. I said "piled" because the number is really big! "Lucky! Use something with wide effect area!" I used [Hellfire]. This spell burns a huge area and at the same time itsts long. The problem is the damage is too poor. Luckily, the skeletons are obviously weak to magic and they move really slow. Lucky''s [Thunderfire Hell] on the other hand, is just OP. The skeletons went down like a wheat field getting run over by a farm tractor. As Phantom said, the ce is really nice to level up. Level 90 skeletons don''t yield much experience, but with our massive ughtering the actual reward is quite decent. We maimed our way through the skeletons like going through a snow pile. Their number is beyond countless, no, they literally filled up every tiny space of the forest. We at least got 100k kills along the way we just cleared out. We got out the forest after dusk. The stars are already out, but it still feel a lot brighter than in the forest. Looked at the levels, me and Lucky are at 90 now, Phantom just reached 89, and will probably catch up with us during the next grinding. I think I may have surpassed those guys on the ranking after all the crazy ordeals, so I opened the list to check. Bingo. The Ranking Board now looks like this: Rank Name Race Gender Level ss Pet 1 Big de More Killz Half Orc Male 87 Warrior Level 80 Wild Horse Leader 2 Red Moon Divine Demon Female 87 Dark Wizard Level 85 Night Spirit Lord 3 Merciless Autumn Wind Angel Male 86 Warrior None 4 Sky Fire Human Male 85 Spellsword None 5 No Dating Gnome Male 84 Rogue+ck Mage None 6 T-Rex Half Orc Male 82 Warrior None 7 Descended God Angel Male 79 Warrior None 8 Sunshine Half Elf Male 79 Archer None 9 Tender Heart Half Elf Female 78 Archer None 10 I Luv Money Demon Female 76 Priestess None No obvious change, but man I''m really the number one now. Oh right, Wayne is still waiting for me to help him! It''s already 8:20 pm now! Quickly, I logged off. "You finally came out! I thought you ditched me!" Wayne is sitting at the table, eating dinner. "Sorry about that! Yeah I truly forgot the time. But I remembered now! Next time you can just press the Call button." (Call button is located on the forehead of the helmet, it sends the in-game yer a notice, like a door bell, telling them that someone is asking them toe out. If you press and hold it for 5 seconds the game will shut off by force.) "Well I didn''t want to disrupt you of anything." "You reached 20 yet?" "I did! I''m 21 now. But I don''t have the money to register my sses! Can I borrow some? Shoot. ording to the rules by Zhong Huapany, exchanging game currency using real money is not allowed in the first six months (but you can do the opposite), otherwise I''d already get myself several thousands of Crystals coins! (*) Now I''m too broke to buy a red potion! Oh right, boss," Wayne looked at me with stars in his eyes, "Did you get me anything?" "Aha!" I chuckled, "Boy ur just lucky, I found a little nice staff for you. Attack 2-7, Magic Attack + 10%, all spell levels +1. How about it?" "Hahaha! Boss I love you! Your light points us to our bright future! So...bright..." Wayne lost himself in happiness. "That''s not all. I got a robe, 3 Dex 1 Luck, and a Rattan Mail, 13 Defense. Now, isn''t your boss nice to you?" "Nice! You''re so nice!" Wayne''s jaw is breaking apart, he''s smile is too big! "But seriously. Where are you now? When rookies leave the vige they spawn randomly. How do I give you stuff if I can''t find you?" "...You have a point! Boss, eat your meal and get into the game, let''s try to find each other using /Tell channel!" (**) "Alright!" I wolfed down my food and started the game with Wayne. I toggled Chat and send a /Tell to Wayne, a portrait immediately showed up. I saw Wayne''s image floating in the air. "Boss! I''m sending you the cords of Flowing Cloud City. Where are you now?" I sent my own coordinate over and said: "For crying out loud! That''s too far!" "No worries! Boss, find the nearest city and use the teleport station. You can use it once you reach level 90 and pay some money!" "Ok. You just grind some more near the city, I''m on my way! I''ll send you a /Tell when I arrive!" I cut the chat and called Lucky and Phantom. "Phantom, How to get to the nearest city?" "This way!" I let Phantom take control and my body started running to the city. I bumped into some buffaloes on the way, but these things now can''t do anything to me. I just ignored them and sprinted to a city in a straight line. The city is called "Destiny City", bigger than Cold Jadeite but obviously smaller than Lost City. Once I entered the city I began to look for the teleport station. But there are not a single soul besides NPCs. The NPCs will not care about anything other than their own quests so I can''t even ask for directions! I wandered for half an hour before I finally found that god-forsaken station. The responsible NPC told me each teleport costs 2 Crystals, fixed price, regardless of where you want to go. I paid the fee (my heart hurts!) and heard a system notice: "Congrattions. yer Ziri is the first yer to use teleportation in the game. Receiving an Artifact: Ring of Teleportation! Now where would you like to go?" There''s a reward for this?? And, Ring of Teleportation? Lucky! I realized I still need to tell the system my destination. "Flowing Cloud City!" I appeared in the city after a white sh. That was fast! While walking out of the station, I checked the ring I just got. It looks ordinary, with a ck gem embedded on it. When I look closer I can see a neb slowing spinning inside. The ring is already identified, that saves some effort. I checked the attributes: Can teleport to any teleport stations in any cities & towns (No limit). Can teleport to specified coordinates (Limited three times per day). "Awesome! It''s my lucky day! Now I can save my traffic expense when going between cities, and I don''t need to buy portal scrolls anymore!" I nearly forgot about Wayne from the sudden bliss. I quickly sent him a /Tell. "Wayne I''m here. Meet me at the teleport station!" -------------- (*) Yes the game has a built-in RMT system which is used to convert game currency and real money (and probably sell items for real money inter stages). Now don''t be surprised, this is amon practice in China. (**) /Tell, /Whisper, /Private... However you call it. I may confuse it in the future. Chapter Book 2 - 13 – Wayne is Dead! Book 2, Chapter 13 Wayne is Dead! ------------------ "Boss! Here!" Wayne rushed all the way in front of me. "Woah boss you''re fast!" "Fast?" I wondered. "I lost my way. It took so long to find that damn station!" "Boss boss, gimme the equipment!" Impatience is written all over Wayne''s face. I traded the equipment to Wayne and followed him to the upation Institution. The registration took me another two Crystals. Of course Wayne is now jumping with happiness. He didn''t need to pay the bill! "Come on, let''s go level up! It will be free registration the next morning, and low level areas will surely fill up with people. Get higher now so you don''t need to fight over others!" "True! Let''s go then!" Wayne dragged me out of the city. There are no street torches, we can barely make out the surroundings under the starlight. "Boss, let''s kill these oxes! The won''t kill me easily!" "Oxes? That will take forever! Come, follow me!" "Hey wait up!" I led Wayne and ran over a small hill pretty far away. There are lots of level 50 Frenzied Ox here, their eyes are emitting a red light in the dark night. Wayne went hiding the instant he saw them. He''s a squishy caster ss, these things are 20 more levels above him and can instakill Wayne easily. I decided to show off a bit in front of Wayne so I walked to an open area. Then raised my sword, pointing at the sky: "O Dragon Lord from the Underworld, heed my call and show yourself!" Of course those chantings were totally unnecessary. I just need a flicker of my mind to call Lucky. However Lucky decided to y along. A ck hole appeared above me, covered with electric arcs. Slowly, Lucky squeezed his head out of the hole, then ws, then finally those now 10-meter-long wings, and soared into the sky. It truly looks like Lucky just crawled out of infernond. I nced at Wayne. Yes, he''s sitting there, jaw on the ground. I think I broke him. Same practice. With a bellow which sounds even more loud than the whistle of a steamship, Lucky caused all the oxes lose their bnce. I pointed at the ox herd. "Smash them!" Without a word, Lucky charged into the crowd. (Dragons began to speak after level 200, so he can''t say a word anyway.) Now it looks like a pack of wolves just got into a chicken farm. Lucky is now using everything he can use to ughter the oxes. Waves of corpses were knocked flying by his ws and tail. Another mess disappeared when he opened his mouth. The scene looks awesome but it basically is useless to me. These level 50 oxes won''t give me much exp. I guess Wayne is growing really fast, though. Somehow Wayne managed to collect himself. "Boss! Is-is-is-is that your Companion?" "Yeah. Cool right?" "Tell me the truth! Did your mother gave it to you?" "What--nonsense! The game is running on itself for Christ''s sake, no one can cheat!" "But but, you are THAT lucky?? Seriously, new yer got a dragon aspanion? Well how will the othersplete with you?" "You know, you have a good point. Even you, are doubting me. If other people know about this they will report me for cheating!" "No worries! We know you didn''t do anything wrong right? That''s enough!" "I personally don''t care but, it isn''t a good idea if just anyone tries to use me." I tried to think. "How about this?" Wayne suggested again. "You just kill every single witness who saw your dragon!" I knocked his head. "You nuts?? Dead yers respawn at the city. This is not real life! Nevermind, I decided! When I grind I find somewhere safe and do it myself. I don''t call Lucky in other asions." "But...That''s a pity." "It''s settled! Nothing pity. I don''t like crowds anyway. We used to level up where there''s no other people around when we y other games remember?" "Alright then! But boss you gotta help me level more tonight!" "That''s no problem. What''s your level now?" "I forgot to check. Gimme a moment." Then Wayne froze. "Boss! I''m 37!" "Are you still doubting me and Lucky?" "Nononono! Boss you''re the best!" I chatted with Wayne while we ran away from the city. Normally monster levels go up the farther you go from a city. After we are done with oxes, we began to kill Steel Sabrelions. These guys are level 100. Wayne stuck to me like a tail along the way, worrying about getting mauled by a lion. Good for him, the lions mostly regard me and Lucky as their target cause Wayne didn''t attack at all. The Steel Sabrelions are higher leveled than us so we can''t mess-kill them very fast like we did to the oxes. At first, Lucky will face several lions while I fight only one. As we got higher however, I started to insta kill them one after one. But just as I hit 100, something bad happened. I don''t know if he was just too bored, or just felt embarrassed being carried all the time, Wayne threw a fireball at one of the lions, you know the result. A swift leap, the lion dropped in front of Wayne and sent him back to the city with one bite. When I noticed it I just saw a white sh! "Boss!" "Oops, Wayne! Sorry about that, I forgot about you with all the fightings!" "Don''t worry. I pulled that one myself. I''m 53 now! I wouldn''t even dream of going this fast if not for you!" "So you were 54 just now?" "Yeah. That death dragged me down a level." "Where are you now then? I''ll go fetch you!" "Huh? Boss stop teasing me! I''m here, in front of your face!" "Wait what? In front? I don''t see anything. You''re using /Tell with me right?" I looked around, still nothing. "If you are there, try poke me with your staff!" "Ok!" Then Wayne eximed: "Hey boss! I went right through your body!" "Uh, you''re a ghost now? Try use some magic!" Wayne panicked again. "I can''t! The system says I can''t attack when I''m a ghost!" "Oh seriously?! So you turn into a ghost when died, but don''t go back to the city? What should we do now?" "How about call the Game Service for help?" Wayne suggested. "Ok. Wait here, I''ll do it." Then I called the service. "Hello! This is customer service system, Operator 1701 at your service. What can I do for you?" "Hi there, My friend just got killed by a monster, but he didn''t return to the city and now he''s a ghost. What happened? Back in the Rookie Vige, we usually get sent back when we die right?" "This is normal! yers above level 20 will be a ghost upon death and they will not respawn back in the city." "What do we do now? Now my friend is invisible, he can see me but I can''t see him. Oh it seems monsters can''t see him either! He can''t attack or use any magic now. How should he keep ying?" "Please do not worry, this is totally normal situation! Your friend just needs to go back to the city, find a Resurrection Wizard at the Wizard''s Guild toe back. But there is a price. You can also find a yer with Resurrection Wizard as a ss. Do you understand now?" "I get it! Thank you!" I hang up and told Wayne about the situation. Now we had no choice but to go back! Chapter Book 2 - 14 – Strange Quest Book 2, Chapter 14 Strange Quest ------------------ When we''re back we directly went to the Wizard''s Guild. The guild in Flowing Cloud city isn''t hard to find, which just sits at the center. Actually the guild building is even higher than Eiffel Tower. I don''t think anyone is going to miss it. We came to the gate. Man it looks gorgeous, the stone gate is as big as the city gate! We saw an old wizard standing at the gate. "Young adventurer, what is it that you need?" "Oh yes!" I quickly go to him. "A monster killed my friend, can you please revive him?" "I''m afraid I can''t do that for you." The wizard pitied. "I''m just abat wizard. Go in there and find the oracle wizard , he will help you!" (*) "Thank you!" I dragged Wayne in. (TL Note: but but, you can''t see him right??) The interior decoration is as beautiful as the outside. Marble sculptures, crystal chandelier, giant woollen carpet...Everything reads "luxury"! "Is there anything you need?" An old wizard wearing white beard appeared in front of us. That beard looks more than a meter. "I''m looking for the oracle wizard!" He looked beside me. "Oh. A ghost! You want me to revive him right?" "Yes." "It''s easy!" The wizard reached out his left hand, obviously asking for payment. "I know! How much is it?" "Oh, not much! 55 Crystals!" "Whaaat?!" I jumped. "You might as well go rob a bank!" "Well I''d like to try that! But I''m nobat wizard, I can''t!" Wait a second here, he actually is considering it?? "How about you youngsters help me? I can see your level is pretty high now, go rob someone for me alright?" "Wait-what-why--are you an NPC or a yer?" My jaw is dropping now! "Robbery?? Are you serious?! Forget it! Here''s the money. Get my friend back now. We don''t want to see your crazy face for another second!" "Calm down will ya?" Old geezer started exining while stuffing the payment into his porch. "Now how about this: I have several quests here which are used to switch into hidden sses. You go snatch something for me and I''ll sell them to you, deal?" "That can wait! Revive my friend first!" "Sure." He waved his hand and Wayne suddenly appeared beside me. "Can we talk now?" Wayne questioned, "At least tell us what they are and what they can do! We can''t decide without knowing these!" Seeing that he caught our interest, the old man dragged us into a side room. The room is not big, there''s a big workbench in the middle, and a circle of bookshelves. But nothing to sit on! "I''ll tell you how to get the target first." He took out a scroll from one of the bookshelves and spread it on the table. We leaned on the table to look. It appears to be a map. "This is the map of the surrounding area of Flowing Cloud city. Look here!" He pointed at something on the map. "There is a valley here, the entrance is narrow, only like three people can pass through at a time. Every month, there will be a shipment of tribute goods going through. And there will be one of them tomorrow morning at 8 o''clock. What you have to do is to raid the transport team. If you can get the goods for me, I''ll give you all the hidden ss quests I have, plus 50k Crystals for each of you. What do you say?" "That''s...a lot of money. But can you tell us about the hidden sses? We don''t want to risk ourselves for something not worth it!" "Of course they''re worth it!" The old fellow became excited. "I have 5 hidden Main sses and 7 Side ones. The main sses are: Demonized Fighter, Spectral Mage, Soul Maniptor (**), Divine Punisher, Fallen Angel. The side ones: Inventor, Soul Sorcerer, God Mind, Requiem Wizard, Frostfire Wizard." (***) "So what''s the deal with the main sses?" "Patience! Demonized Fighter is an alternative ss of Dark Fighter, a warrior type. All attribute bonuses are focused on Attack and Defense. If you turn into one of them I guarantee you will knock out anyone the same level as you within a minute! But there are requirements for this ss: One, you must be a Dark Fighter; Two, you''re above level 200; And three, you need to have at least two dark-typepanions. Spectral Mage is a stronger version of Dark Mage. All bonus goes to Magic, and they have a 50% buff to their Magic Attack and Magic Defense too. The requirement is high. One. yer must be above 150; Two, all skills are max leveled; Three, your race must be Undead. Soul Maniptor is a scary one! You know what, they can have another two extrapanion slots! Their ultimate skill can let them drain experience points. When you PvP with someone you absorb 1% of your opponent''s Exp every 20 seconds! I mean only the Exp for current level. Of course you can''t drain them back to level 0 just in 2000 sec." "Say what? Two slots?" I thought it over. Now I have 7 slots already. That will make it 9. Geez, maybe I can just stand there and chill out and grind at the same time if the future! "Now don''t you interrupt me! The requirement is...peculiar though. It needs the yer to have more than 10 Charisma, and they must be a Divine Demon too! I wonder what kind of fool would waste their points on 10 Charisma?! Buuuut it''s reasonable. The ss is highly unbnced, they''d better not let too many yers get it! Next, the Divine Punisher. They will learn all non-advanced Light spells by nature, and they have special kill [Fist of Punishment]. This skill will ignore Defense, and cause double damage to Dark affinity yers and monsters. Requirement is yer must be a Holy Priest, and above 200 level. Thest one, the Fallen Angel. This ss got triple HP & MP regen speed, and +10% to their Attack and Magic Attack! There''s only one rule, you must be an Angel! How was that? Good enough right?" "How about the side sses?" Wayne is hyper excited now, as if he already got these sses. "Those ones? They''re secret for now! How about you finish my quest and check them for yourselves? So are you in or not?" The old timer must''ve known that we will ept, because, well, we''re drooling. "I have ast question!" My instinct tells me that safetyes first. "If we finish this quest will us get into any trouble?" "Trouble?" The old man didn''t understand. "Yes. Trouble. You want us to rob someone''s goods, what if we be wanted criminals? Well then every city guard will kill us on sight! Money is useless if we can''t stay in the city!" "Oh you don''t have to worry about that!" He grinned wickedly. "I''ve already talked to the escorts. You only need to act like a bandit and make a show, like, shouting something. Then the guards will just run away. You just gather those crates with "TRIBUTE" written on them and pull them away!" "Ohhh, inside job!" Wayne put on the same creepy grin as the old man. "Wait for the good news then!" Then Wayne dragged me outside. I don''t know if it''s for the 50k crystals or the hidden sses but he''s hyperactive anyway! He just kept running, my HP began to drop! (In [Zero], running costs Stamina, if you don''t have Stamina it will drain your HP instead.) "Hey, Wayne! We there yet? Let''s rest for a bit!" But Wayne just sprinted without slowing down. I never seen this guy so energetic. He just run while gulping down his HP potions. "We can''t stop now! It''s 4 am now, if we miss it we''ll have to wait for the next month when whole lot of other yers will bepeting for it!" "...You are right! Let''s keep going then!" I had to ate a pill too. Ouch! I didn''t even use my pills when grinding, now I wasted them for a freaking marathon! After some exhausting running, we finally reached the valley entrance at 6 am, panting like dogs. The thick weed on the ground indicates that the transport hasn''t passed yet, or the grass would be ttened by now. We hid in a concealed spot. We felt tired but didn''t afford to log out and rest. We just sit in the grass, waiting for our prey. A transport convoy appeared at the entrance at 7:50. The old man''s schedule was pretty spot-on! -------------- (*) And the author used a different name again. I will not fix these errors cause it may bring even more trouble. (**)This ss'' name sounds a lot like the "Dementor" from Harry Potter. I decided not to use it though. (***)No I didn''t miss anything here. He only mentioned 5 instead of 7. Chapter Book 2 - 15 – Looted Artifacts Book 2, Chapter 15 Looted Artifacts ------------------ "Freeze!" Wayne jumped out, and I followed. "Hold-up! Guys on the left women on the right the rest in the middle crouch on the ground hands behind your head!!" I tumbled on my feet hearing Wayne''s ridiculous words. Obviously those escorts didn''t understand any of the deal because they just stared at us with nk faces. Crap. I have to do this myself. "Attention now! This is robbery! Now you all leave the ce as fast as you can! We only want the money, not your lives!" It seems they understood me better. But their reaction is...a bit off, ording to what we expected from the old man''s words. The leading warrior in golden armor drew his sword, lowered his helmet mask and charged at us, with all of his followers running behind. Wayne is stuttering now: "Bo-Boss! What should we do?" "We hit the road!" I quickly grasped Wayne and turned tail, while spamming some [Identify] towards the pursuers. The leader is Escort Captain, level 300 boss, adept at closebat and have high Attack & Defense, can use group healing skills. On his side are Escort Members and Wizard Guards. The members are level 200 humanoid monsters, low Defense, but can use union attack skills. The wizards are level 250, good at all kinds of basic spells, especially lightning. Damn it that old f**ker set us up! I heard a scream beside me. A lightning hit Wayne and killed him instant. With Wayne gone, I can run more freely. But the situation is still not good. There must be something wrong with these guards! I''ve run so far but they''re still after me! Seriously, if we got more people we can just lure these idiots everywhere and take the goods. I ran for a while and realized something''s not right. The group is no where to be found, only the leader is still chasing me now. Probably because their Speed is different so the rest can''t keep up? However that''s not my concern now. The leader is alone! Hehehee... I called Lucky & Phantom, merged with Phantom and jumped onto Lucky''s back. I ordered Lucky to control his speed and keep a certain distance with the target. I started to try out various spells. First, I threw a [st Fireball]. Boom! The leader is charred ck. Oh, not bad! I tried [Light Bullet] next. A tiny ball immediately hit the leader. Bam! Another explosion. His golden armor lost some pieces and is now ragged! We just kept the hit-n-run going. I nearly tried every spell I can use, in the meantime I even set some Quick Command for several useful ones. When I''m just enjoying it, Wayne sent me a chat. "What''s the matter?" "Where are you boss?" "Where?" I looked, trees everywhere, not a single waypoint in my view. "Well I don''t know! I only know they chased me really far!" "Impressive! You survived? What are those guys doing now?" "Their leader is still hot on my ass, I''m riding Lucky and harming him! I think it won''t be long before I kill him. I don''t know about those minions though! What about you?" "At the old man''s ce. He says he doesn''t know about the leader today, they must have been switched duty for some reason. He apologized and revived me for free, and agreed to just give us those hidden sses. So...still worth it!" "Not! I''m still running like a loser here, I can''t just let it pass! Since you''re revived help me with something!" "What is it?" "Run to that entrance now. If what I think is right, all of the escorts should be out chasing me now, the shipment must be unguarded. You go there, line them up and pull them back to the city." "You sure about that? Alright. I''m on it. Be careful!" "Ok!" I cut the chat and returned my focus to dealing with that leader. I chose the best single-target spell I have and spammed it on him. With Phantom my MP recovers fast, don''t have to worry about MP issue. After a while I figured he''s almost done for, so I jumped down from Lucky and engaged him in meleebat. Lucky stayed in the air using lightnings to paralyze the leader while Phantom used mind control to restrict his movement. Now most of his attacks would sway off their marks and hit the air. I just kept using my most powerful skills. After cutting him several times he managed to hit me once, bringing down more than half of my HP & MP bar. I jumped away in scare and quickly swallowed a pill. Oh shit, he is still a level 300 boss and I''m only level 100, of course this would happen. I would have been dead if not for my Ring of Stars which can convert some damage into my MP. Anyone else fighting against something 200 levels above them would probably get squished like a bug. As I''m thinking nonsense he charged and made another sh. I closed my eyes, waiting for game over. That pill I ate hasn''t brought my HP to half yet. This one is gonna finish me off for sure! Then I heard a shrilling dragon scream. Lucky lost bnce and crashed on the ground, with about 1/3 HP gone. I, on the other hand, is now at 1 HP. But I was the one who got hit... ? Right, the Cor of Protection! The cor must have transferred the damage to Lucky, which was...lucky. Because Lucky got tank-level HP too. If it was Phantom who took that damage we''re probably done for. I didn''t dare to stand idle anymore, and performed a quick triple-sh at the leader. Lucky seems pissed off by that damage, he rushed over and gave him a powerful tail swipe too. The poor leader died soon under our attacks, dropping lot of stuff on the ground. I checked over, most are potions, plus 23 Crystals. (which is a lot of money!) After we killed the leader, me and Phantom are at 102 but Lucky stopped at 101. I guess the exp I got when I was riding on his back didn''t count as his. When I finished sweeping the ground the other pursuers arrived. They are only level 200 but the number is too big, we certainly can''t use the paralyze & mind control to deal with them again. So we wisely chose to flee. I jumped onto Lucky''s back and started going for a branch. After we shook them off I returned towards the valley entrance. When I arrived Wayne had already attached all the carts together. But those escorts took most horses away in order to chase us, now we don''t have enough horses to pull them. "Boss! You''re back! That was amazing! But we got too many stuff here we can''t take all of them!" "Let''s do this then: Open all the crates, find and take the valuable items but leave everything else!" "That''s such a waste but...I guess no other choice." Wayne started pushing all the crates down, various items scattered on the floor. We picked. The first is money. Money will take space when stored in containers but they don''t use up your slots or weight limit when carried in inventory. So we cleaned them up. When we''re finished I took nearly 3 million Crystals, same for Wayne. Seriously, money reallyes faster if you just go robbing people. We would make quite a fortune if we keep hijacking NPCs like this. But obviously this quest is unique, so that''s a no-go. Next is equipment. I looked for a while but found nothing worth noticing. Until I saw a strange-looking crossbow. The body is longer than ordinary crossbows, overall it looks like an eagle, its two wings being the two bow arms. I checked its attributes. The "Revenger", a sniping crossbow. The next line made me jump. It''s an Artifact! Attack 650-800, Attack Speed 1 per 4 seconds (increases with yer''s level), Durability ¡Þ, Damage +100%, ignore Defense, uracy +300%, Curse (yers who got killed with this weapon will lose two levels instead of one), Target will bleed, losing 20 HP per second for 1000 seconds, Reduces target''s Speed by 20%,sts 100 seconds, 75% chance of causing double damage, Reduces target''s Luck by 3 until target logs off, Carries two [Soul Chaser] bolts, which will recover by 1 every 3600 seconds. [Soul Chaser]: Attack 200-200, Explode on impact, damage radius is (yer level / 10) meters, explosion attack is 150 and will ignore Defense while stunning targets for 5 seconds. Requirement: Base Strength 11, Current Dexterity 2000+. OP! I mean real OP! But the Dexterity limit is a bit high. 2000 divided by my Base Dexterity, 13, which means I need to reach level 154 to use it. And that''s me. I don''t think many other yer will have more than 9 Base Dex, it will take them forever! "Boss! I found nice stuff!" Wayne carried a mage robe to me with excitement and won''t stop disying it in front of my face. "Look! A high ss mage robe! Guess, what rank is it?" "Don''t tell me it''s Artifact?" I guessed without believing myself. But Wayne shouted: "You got it! It IS Artifact!! This thing can convert 75% of the damage to your MP, plus 10% damage reflection! From now on I can exchange blows face-to-face with a freaking warrior! I got 1k+ MP, no one can insta kill me this time! Ahh hahaha!!" Wayne isughing like a pervert. He must be dreaming about how he can closebat with a warrior. Then he saw the crossbow in my hand. "Oh? What is this, boss?" I passed him the crossbow. "My f**cking goodness! Damn it this thing''s numbers brokemon sense! Now this is the perfect weapon to murder, ughter, or stab someone in the ass! If I had known about such thing I would choose to be an Assassin!" "Why is that?" "You don''t know? Assassins have a +5% buff to their Attack when using crossbows and daggers!" "Why don''t you just choose Archer then?" "But Archer''s bonus is uracy! Shoot. Why can''t I find such nice weapon?!" "Duh. This thing shoots like a machinegun. One is enough to break the game!" "Figured." Wanye passed the crossbow back to me. "Hey boss, apart from these two the rest are all garbage." "Don''t worry about them then! If they''re garbage we can just prepare to move now. The main group will be back here any minute." I grasped Wayne and activated my Ring of Teleportation. The ring is so convenient, we returned to the city in a sh. I was worrying about whether this thing can only teleport myself or not. "Let''s go ckmail that old timer!" We came to the Wizard''s Guild but soon realized something''s gone wrong. The old man came to us, he still look like before but...somewhat different. "You two follow me!" He led us towards a secret room. Then he closed the door, and looked at us with a serious expression. Now I know why I felt something different. This old man no longer wears that filthy grin, he looks...solemn. "So you must have noticed I''m different." "Yeah. What happened?" "Truth is, I''m not the oracle wizard you met before." "Huh?!" We both yelled. "What you met was the system NPC ''oracle wizard''. But I am, the manager of Zhong Hua Company technical issue department. You already know that all NPCs are controlled by AIs. But have you noticed that some NPCs are either dumb or slow while the others are cunning as old foxes?" "Right! That leader I fought this morning was a total idiot! But this old wizard was way smarter then he looked!" "These all have a reason. Our corporation is testing a new AI system. The old system is stable but, every NPC is like, brain dead, dull, without any characteristics. The new AI system will give NPCs real intelligence, emotion, and different personal temperament, like this wizard who appears to be a money lover. But there was a bug with this wizard, that''s why he exposed much confidential information to you. Good thing that it was you who acquired the info. I heard that you are the young master of Zhong Hua Company right? I thought you were ady though!" "Eh? Oh! But--but--" "Well the bug wasn''t your fault so you can keep the reward. But we will need to recover the money you got, you can keep the equipment, and we will convert your main sses into those hidden ones. How about it? This is already special treatment! If it''s anyone else we would just reverse all the data!" "Ok! We still got something great anyway. By the way, I met a bunch of NPCs in Lost City who just lent money to me. Were those bugs too?" "No, those were normal. They lent you money because of your high Charisma. I''ll tell you this: the Lost City is one of our AI experiment sites, all NPCs there have their own mind and behavior, like humans. Ok then back to business, which sses would you like to be?" "Spectral Mage!" Wayne jumped first. "Here. This is your quest scroll. Start the quest after you reached the requirement, finish the quest to change your ss." "But I have two main sses." I''m worrying about that he might only give me one. "I know. Pick as you like." "Then I''ll take the Demonized Fighter, and Soul Maniptor." "Here. Your scrolls." The manager continued: "I''ll take my leave here. From now on the old wizard at the gate will take over the reviving duty, and yers will begin to choose Resurrection Wizard as a side ss too so you don''t have to always look for an NPC. But remember: You lose one level when dead, NPC revival has a 10% chance of causing another level loss. yers have even higher fail rate due to their level, but once they learn [Advanced Resurrection], they will have a chance to return 50% lost exp to you. Which means you will only lose half a level if killed." "Oof, that sounds dangerous! Thank god I didn''t hit that 10% mark." Wayne thought about his two deaths within the past hours, and shivered. Chapter Book 2 - 16 – Selling Charcoal to Get Rich! Book 2, Chapter 16 Selling Charcoal to Get Rich! ------------------ We left the Wizard''s Guild and logged off. It''s near noon now, we''ve been ying sincest night! We rested until 8 pm. The rm clock woke us right on schedule. We ate something and started the game again. Soon as we appeared in the city we noticed something different: there are so many people! We remembered that ount registration has bepletely free for everyone in this morning. After a day most people should have reached level 20. I must say, the popted streets looks fun! When we''re trying to get familiar with the new environment, we heard a sweet, almost annoying, female voice: "Hey handsome, your gear looks really cool! Is that your girlfriend? Hey you almost got a full set! Can you carry me for a bit? Pretty please?" "No problem!" Wayne just agreed before I even tried to correct the "girlfriend" part. The yer looks like a standard beauty. I think Wayne is about to drool. "You just reached 20 right? Don''t worry, I got you. We won''t need much time to level up!" "Thank you very much!" The girl wears a seductive smile. "Then you won''t mind bringing an extra yer right? Come here darling!" A big, muscr man appeared in front of us. "Oh! You guys can help us grind? My thanks!" I never felt attracted to women, because...well, I''m always staring at myself in the mirror in the morning so, you know. "Not ''you guys''! Only him! I have something to do I''ll leave here." I didn''t wait for any objections, activated my ring and disappeared which caused people to shout in awe. That girl asked Wayne, eyes wide open: "Is is is that your friend? He can teleport?!" A crowd of new yers came to Wayne, demanding answers. ******************* This time I directly went back to Lost City. After stepping out of the teleport station I headed towards rk''s weapon shop. rk is enthusiastic as ever: "Oi mate! Where have you been? I was looking for you!" "You look for me?" Wasn''t expecting that. What would an NPC want me with? "I came at the right time then. I happen to have something to tell you too!" "Let''s chat at the quest room!" We went upstairs. "I''m hoping to talk business with you!" "Business? But I''m no merchant! I do have a cksmith job but never actually used it." "That''s not what I mean. I want your help to bring some materials and transport them!" rk exined, a little bit excitedly. "Materials? What materials?" "The stuff used to craft equipment. Their origin is a bitplicated, my own gathering team can''t get them! You''re pretty high leveled now it should be easy for you though." "Just tell me, I''ll help if I can. So what are you looking for?" "Here''s the list!" He passed me a paper. "If you help with this I''ll give you an Artifact. Plus you will not need to pay the money you owe me." "Well we can get past the money alright, but I''ll not take the Artifact. I''m in too much debt to you!" "Ha ha! I''m the one feeling indebted here." He scratched his head, "This is the Artifact!" rk gave me a bracelet. Space Bracelet, a inventory without space and weight limit. Able to fetch items within a range of 20 meters. Not upgradeable. "I give you this thing to help me carry stuff. Or it will be too much materials for you to hold!" "Oh, ha! I''ll take it then!" "By the way, you wanted to tell me something right?" "Oh! Almost forgot!" I took out the Darksteel Wood I got earlier. "Can you tell me what this thing is?" rk carefully picked it up, then his eyes went wide. "Where did you get this thing?" "Those Killer Trees dropped them! Is it valuable?" I knew this thing would have some value but didn''t expect such a big reaction from rk. "Valuable? Beyond valuable!!" "Really?" I took another one out and checked over it, hoping to understand what''s so good about it. "Ya got another one?" rk saw the second piece and jumped. "Yeah. What''s wrong? I have like 50 more pieces here." "WHAT?!" Bang. rk dropped on the floor. I pulled him up. "Well you don''t have to be THAT surprised! Just tell me, what is it? What''s the use of this ck ''n'' dark stuff?" "Don''t underestimate this ck ''n'' dark stuff! It''s super grade fuel!" "Fuel? That''s why it looks like charcoal?" I didn''t expect it to be something used for burning. "If you burn this wood you get Hellfire, equipments forged with Hellfire will all carry its effect, and weapons will have a 50% life steal attribute! Besides your craft sess rate +20% when using Hellfire!" "That''s awesome!" Didn''t know this thing worth so much. Looks like those rotten branches got some uses. Maybe I should go there more often! "Will it use up fast? How many pieces do you need to forge one equipment?" "Well, the consumption is quite fast. If you only use Darksteel Wood, your will need 10 pieces toplete one equip. But usually we only use one piece, mixed withmon wood. The oue would be less effective but it still got higher sess rate than normal forge fire, and a bit of a chance to add some additional attribute too. Of course not as good as using full Hellfire though." "Are you buying it? Should I go and get some more?" I would make a fortune if I sell this thing! "Buy? Of course I''ll buy it! The market price is usually 2k gold per piece but no one''s ever selling it!" "Seriously? That''s overpriced! I have 53 on me, you can buy them all!" "Wait wait wait! I don''t have enough funds for that!" rk looks really troubled. "Duh, we''re friends, of course I won''t ask for the market price." I do want the money but surely I can''t take it from rk! "How about this, I''ll give them to you for 1k gold per piece only. How many can you take at the moment?" "You meant it??" I see rk''s eyes glowing! "I''ll buy 40!" I considered. "Listen: I give you all 53, you pay me 40k gold and help me improve my equipment. How about it?" "Not a problem! Here''s the money! From now on all my merchandise are half price, only for you!" rk is the straightforward type, he immediately called helpers to carry the wood into his storage. "Come, buddy. Lemme see what I can do with that outfit. What''s your level?" "Just reached 100!" "That was fast! But not surprising. Your dragon friend is quite the damager. You wait here, I''ll go pick something for you." It didn''t take long before he rushed back with a pile of equipment in his arms. "Try these. They are the best level 100 gear I got in my shop!" ---------------- Happy new year''s eve! And Chinese Spring Festival ising soon, too. I don''t think I will be updating during those periods cause I gonna go out and enjoy myself! Chapter Book 2 - 17 – Cape Quest Book 2, Chapter 17 Cape Quest ------------------ I threw my current crap to the side and started fitting. rk handed me a pair of metal boots. "I picked them ording to your numbers. Don''t worry about the requirement. This is Wind Boots, Defense 20, Dexterity +1, Movement Speed +10%, +20% dodge rate against projectile weapons." "Nice!" I put them on. Umhmm,fy. I walked around, and felt like floating! "Wind Legguard, Defense 35, Movement Speed +10%, +5% dodge rate." "Wind tasset, Defense 33, 5% chance of countering your attacker with a lightning strike." "Wind Armor, Defense 45, +10% Lightning resistance, reduce Poison damage by half, 5% rate damage reflecting." "Wind Armguard, Defense 20, +15% Attack Speed, +5% damage absorb." "Wind Shoulder Guard, Defense 25, Dexterity +3, 5% rate damage reflecting." "Wind Heavy Gauntlets, Defense 20, Attack +5%, Strength +3, +20% Attack & Spell Speed, 5-6 Poison Attack,sts 10 seconds, 3-7 Fire Attack." "Wind Helmet, Defense 30, +10% Spell Speed, all spell level +1." "Wind Shield, Defense 100, Block Rate 37%, 15% rate damage reflecting, 25% rate to paralyze attacker for two seconds." "That''s all of them! Your sword is probably the best at this level, I''ll not change that. If ya need quiver, cape, belt and essories you will need to go to the other stores!" I put on all of them and stood in front of the mirror. They look real cool, plus now I appear more "manly", at least. "They look awesome! And I think I can see some golden shimmering!" "Of course! I took my best level 100 equipment set I have!" rk seems satisfied with the result, too. "Then I''ll leave you to your business now, and see if I can fill the other slots. After that I''ll go look for those materials you need." "Off you go then! You''d better be quick with it, I''ll need them soon!" "Got it!" That answer came from the outside. Instead of walking downstairs, I [Blink]''d out of the shop. I asked several NPCs how to find the clothing store, surprisingly they all know me somehow. I finally found the ce at a corner, and saw a female NPC about the age of 30 sewing cloth. She dropped her work when she saw me. "Isn''t this Ziri! What can I do for you?" "You know me?" "Well that old man kinda introduced you to the whole city that day." "Now I remember it. I was wondering why everyone knows my name." "So what will it be?" "Cape and belt!" "Oh the belt is easy. Your level?" "100!" "Just one moment." She ran inside and came back with a shiny belt. "Try it! This is the Spring Belt, Defense 10, HP regen speed +20%, money reward from monsters +20%. How is it? Quite nice attribute!" "Sounds good!" I checked the belt and yes, a real nice one. "How much?" "200 gold!" "Not bad. Here''s the money!" I''m pretty rich now and don''t need to count my coins anymore! Ha-hahaha! "But, you...don''t have capes?" She answered apologetically: "Capes are special equipment, I can''t craft them now. You can go and defeat the Hidden Pce Knight Captain at the Dark Valley, he will drop a cape. You can use the cape yourself, if you''re not satisfied with the attribute you can bring it to me and I can help you make it something better. But whatever you get, I hope you can let me see it anyway so I can learn something!" "Not Dark Valley again! Those Undead Fighter almost buried me alivest time!" "Ah you don''t have to be afraid! I have something here that will help you get past those fighters, and challenge the captain directly. That shouldn''t be too hard!" "That...sounds better. But the captain won''t be a push-over! I don''t even know his level! "He is level 600! How about it? Not that dangerous right?" She said that with a innocent smile but I''m not foolish! "600?!" I gasped. "Ah, my beautiful youngdy, I''m positive many kind warriors will be willing to take over your honorable mission, but I''m a mere nameless peasant, forgive my ipetence and let me go!" I turned and left. Only fools would ept that quest! (Sometimeter) I''m well on my way towards the Dark Valley. Two days ago I bumped into rk when I left the clothing shop. Then I was told the mistress was rk''s lover. rk decided to turn coat after some "affectionate persuade". I logged off for two days only to consider the situation, and now I just decided to step on this path of no return after I finally submitted myself to rk''s friendship, and the potential profit behind all this. Still, I kept mumblingint, with a Demon''s Eye in my hand. It''s just a purple crystal. [Identify] reads "Demon''s Eye", can be used to trigger a series of quests, only needs to be in the inventory to take effect. But why would the owner of a clothing shop give me such stuff? While on Lucky''s back, I figured people''s level would have gone up while I was gone for two days, so I opened the rankings. Rank Name Race Gender Level ss Pet 1 Big de More Killz Half Orc Male 112 Warrior Level 80 Wild Horse Leader 2 Red Moon Divine Demon Female 110 Dark Wizard Level 109 Night Spirit Lord 3 Merciless Autumn Wind Angel Male 108 Warrior None 4 Sunshine Half Elf Male 107 Archer None 5 No Dating Gnome Male 107 Rogue+ck Mage None 6 Cloud Fairy Half Elf Female 107 Priestess None 7 Descended God Angel Male 100 Warrior None 8 Skyfire Human Male 97 Spellsword None 9 Tender Heart Half Elf Female 96 Archer None 10 Am Number One Demon Male 96 Dark Fighter None No big change in my eyes. Someone came up, someone went off. But man they level fast! It''s only two days and they are way above me. "Master! Enemy ahead!" Phantom alerted me. I looked, several zombies are wandering. I''m not looking for these things. I''m level 100 now and they''re just a waste of time. I ordered Lucky to fly above them. Lucky is fast, plus we ignored minions this time, we arrived at where we were chased off pretty soon. The ce is just as creepy as before, several Undead Fighters are patrolling. I was terrified ofst time, I just felt like running away when I see them. But I need to finish rk and his lover''s request, so I collected my courage and walked towards them. The two fighters spotted me soon. "Freeze!" "Sorry! I mean no trouble, I wish to talk to your boss!" Better avoid any fighting. I don''t want them to pile up on me again! "You want to meet our captain?" One of them came to me. "That''s right!" Looks like I actually got a chance, so I nodded quickly. The fighter considered for a bit. "Do you have anything to prove you''re worth it?" "I do!" I took out the Demon''s Eye. The Undead Fighters went down on one knee immediately. "We do not know the Demon Marshal has arrived. I will lead your highness to our captain right away!" So they don''t even need to go in and notify their boss or something? This is convenient. ----------------- Ugh. How do I make that name list look more "straight"? Even if I try to fix it in editing mode they stille out jagged after I save. Edit: Thanks to @Asvsaol for reminding me how to make the list look better! I should really learn some basic coding... But I''m toozy! Chapter Book 2 - 18 – Cape of Invisibility Book 2, Chapter 18 Cape of Invisibility ------------------ I followed the Undead Fighter towards the depth of the valley. What I saw along the road proved that it was a wise choice not to force my way in. Inside their patrolling perimeter there are groups of Undead Fighters standing in square formations. All of them stay in a pit beside the valley. From the looks of it the pit is man-made, and I can''t see the bottom of it. From my experience ofst time I would guess there were above 100k of them. But ording to what I am told in the future, the actual number is more than 10 million. Across the area of Undead Fighter, is the territory of Undead Knights. My "guide" handed his duty (me) over to one of the Knights, exined something and left. Then I had to follow this Undead Knight towards deeper inside. I saw another simr pit, but this time there are all knights riding skeleton horses down there. I used [Identify] on the knight walking ahead of me. He is level 150! Then they switched to another inner guard, a level 200 Dark Warrior. From then it just kept going like this. I met level 300 Dark Knights, level 400 Shadow Warriors, level 500 Phantom Knights, level 600 Dark Sanctuary Warriors, level 700 Dark Sanctuary Knights. I finally came to that Dark Sanctuary Knight Captain (*) the manager mentioned. And I think she trolled me yet again. This dude is level 750. I knew something was wrong when I saw those Dark Sanctuary Warriors. The minions are level 600 already, how can their captain be that level as well?? "You are the one who wanted to see me?" He asked loud and clear. The intimidating captain is wearing full ckbat armor, sitting on fully ck armored phantom horse. "Eh? Ah, oh! Yes! It''s me?" I can''t even speak normally! "What is your business? You brought a message from the Demon Marshal?" "Huh? What? Message?" I got no messages! Is he talking about that Demon''s Eye? "That purple crystal." "Oh. It''s from the clothing store manager in Lost City. She asked me toe to you and bring a cape to her so she can learn how to make those." "Is she alright?" The captain''s voice is shaking now, like, crying. But his mask covered the entire face. I wouldn''t see it even without the mask though, cause I have no idea if the dead can cry! "She is fine! She seems happy to be with rk, the owner of the weapon shop!" "You don''t say? Marshal rk? (**) So they went together!" The captain seems excited for some reason, I can obviously see he''s trembling now. After a while he straightened his thoughts. "Ha-hahaha! Well those lovers do deserve to be! rk gave up his position as a Marshal just for her. At least that''s something I can''t do! But I don''t think I''m fit to sit as a Marshal either!" The captain suddenly looked at me. "Young man, how did you know them?" "I''m close friend with rk, and I just knew about the manager. But now you mentioned it, I should call her sister-inw!" "They sent you means they trusted you. And the Marshal always have a keen eye! I''ll give you something. Use it well to achieve something great!" He snapped his finger towards someone. A Dark Sanctuary Knight carefully brought a chest. The captain passed it to me, "This is one of Marshal''s most favored item. He won''t need it anymore though, it''s yours now!" "Don''t mind if I do!" Free treasure is always weed! I took the chest but didn''t open it. It would be bad manners if I appear too eager to see the gift! (***) "I''ll take my leave!" But the captain stopped me before I can turn around. "You didn''t refuse my gift proves you''re not hypocritical, but you didn''t open it right away means you''re not obsessed with wealth. So that''s why the Marshal trusted you. May I have the honor and be sworn brother with you?" "Of course! That''s all I could wish for!" This means I can call a level 750 boss as...my boss! No one dares to stop me now! Later I knew that his name is Domergor. He agreed to send his men to help me whenever anyone dares to "bully" his brother. I fully trusted that. They say monkeys can defeat a tiger when in big numbers. And surely these men are not monkeys! When we''re done talking, I rushed straight out of the Dark Valley with the chest in my arms. But I realized something is off when I saw the Lost City. This is not right! I was sent to look for a cape. But instead I got a gift box and a brother, without doing my job! Geez! Greed causes troubles. But I already left, of course I can''t just return and ask for it! Sigh. I can go without cape anyway. It''s just a few points of Defense. I found a safe ce and opened the chest. Wow looky here! It appears to be some sort of clothes, ck, made with something like fabric. I touched it. It feels good, soft and shiny, definitely high-ss material. I spread it open and stood froze. Isn''t this just a cape?! The cape is total ck, with golden linings, with a strange magic symbol sewed in the center. I looked at the attributes and I froze again. Phantom Cape, Artifact, durability 1000/1000, Defense grows with wearer''s level (current is 120), movement speed + 20%, 50% chance to paralyze attacker for 3 seconds, wearer bes totally invisible when standing still, and partially transparent when moving. Attributes change with wearer''s level and attribute. There is only one requirement: Your ss must be Dark affinity. Another Artifact! I have a whole lot of them now! I didn''t quite understand the "partially transparent" part, so I tried it on. Ohh, I look badass! The ck cape drifts with the wind and feels really cool! The cape appears to be the big type, not those smaller ordinary cloth. It looks simr to those western wizard robes, with two braces on the shoulders which expand it even wider. There are buckles at the front, once buckled it will hide your entire body, no one will see what you are wearing inside. And there''s even a hood attached to it. It reminds me of the robes worn by those scythe-wielding reapers. But this one looks brand new, instead of ragged and tattered. I tried for a while but didn''t figure out how the invisibility works, because I can''t see myself anyway. So I decided to run back to Lost City with the robe on. I came straight into the clothing shop, and rk happened to be here too. Upon seeing my cape, rk was obviously a bit shocked. Looks like he is really the "Demon Marshal" Domergor told me about. (He doesn''t look like that type, though.) But he made noment, so I chose not to reveal this matter either, if that''s what he wants. Still, I asked rk to wear the cape so I can see the effect. Once worn, as long as rk stays still I won''t see any trace of him, even if he disappears right in front of my eyes. But when he moves I will see a transparent shape, which looks like when those Predators go invisible mode in those movies. I asked rk to run back and forth in front of me, and I can only notice some small warp and twist in the light. Goddamit this skill is terrifying, I can just be an assassin in the future! When we''re done with the experiment, I left the cape with the mistress as we agreed. She will keep it for one day and learn to copy it. She didn''t take back the Demon''s Eye though, saying that I can keep it as reward. I need to take the cape before logging off at night, so I chose to grind up a bit near the forest outside the city. It soon became dark, and I''ve reached 103 with Lucky and Phantom just the same as me. I went to the mistress and logged off with my cape back. I saw Wayne still in the game, so I didn''t call him out, ate dinner and rested. The next morning, Wayne is still ying when I woke up. I wonder did he woke earlier, or didn''t sleep at all? The clock reads 9 am. Ugh, looks like I''m thete one. With some random snack down the throat, I entered the game too. Time for further levels! I feel extremely good when battling with monsters. It''s not because I''m violent or something though, but fighting will make me feel more like a man! Which...is quite luxurious, due to my nature. (****) ---------------- (*) I confused "Dark Sanctuary" and "Hidden Pce" in previous sections. I will use the former from now on. But again, I don''t think this concept will appear often in the novel. (**) I used "Chief" before, which was, wrong... (***) Um, different culture I guess? (****) Remember how the protagonist looks like a girl? Oh and, don''t worry too much about those bnce-breaking minor attributes from his gear, like the paralyze one. The author will probably stop mentioning them inter battles. Chapter Book 3 - 1 – PvP Book 3, Chapter 1 PvP ------------------ When I''m just enjoying myself with my grinding, Wayne sent me a chat. "Boss! Got time?" "What''s the matter?" I ordered Phantom to take over my body and focused on the chatting. I came up with this idea not long ago. Now I can grind AND chat without having to worry about meeting any surprises. "Someone killed me. The wizard robe we got from the raid, I dropped it!" "Say whaaat? Your level is pretty high now and that robe got some nice defense, who killed you that easily?" "It was a warrior called Big de More Killz, he finished me off with just two hits!" "Huh? That number one on the ranking list? How did you get on his nerves?" "I didn''t. His wife wanted my robe for his brother, so that guy helped her rob it from me. Talk about bad luck. I only died once, and that robe is gone!" (*) "Where are you now? I''ll meet you at the teleport station!" "I''m not in the city cause I can''t go back there! There are his men everywhere and they imed to kill me until I drop back to level 0! You can go to Flowing Cloud City and bring me some potions!" "Right. Wait for me! And be careful!" I cut the chat, called back Lucky and activated my ring to the Lost City. I rushed into King Chemist''s shop and bought several dozen packs of Wraith Pills. I got the money and no inventory limit, so there''s no problem about it. I contacted Wayne again. "Your coords?" "X is 1379, Y is 25680 and Z 364!" (TL note: I made it up) I used my ring to directly transport to Wayne''s location and appeared in front of his face, causing him to jump. He''s wearing tattered cloth, and full of dust and dirt on his face. "What happened to you?" "They killed me three times before I finally escaped!" "Are you dumb? You could just keep as a ghost withouting alive!" Wayne gave me a sad face. "Of course I knew that! But they got Resurrection Wizard, they can just revive me without me epting it and kill me again! Theirst [resurrection] failed, that''s when I had a chance to run!" He''s still terrified of it! "Well you may not know it. But getting killed really hurts!" "What''s your level now?" "I was 73, I lost three from deaths, and the failed revive took another two levels. Now I''m only 68!" "That...sounds real bad. But don''t worry, I''m here! This is your medicine, now tell me where they are and your boss gonna revenge for you!" *Cry* "Booooss! You''re the best! They were killing a boss monster at the Fountain Forest. I was the one with the target but they just took over by force, and my robe!" "Come, point them out for me!" Wayne led me towards the forest. It''s not far. It''s only a small woods, with a small fountain in the middle and a spring in the center of it. I saw a group of people hitting a brown bear from afar. Seven people, the leading one is that Big de More Killz, his name is yellow (**), and the foxy looking woman beside him must be his wife. There are two Warriors, a ck Mage and two Priestesses. I raised my hood. It hid my face well. I held Wayne, who is still trembling, towards them. I didn''t n to ambush them yet so I left the invisible skill off. His wife, an Elven White Mage, saw us first. "Huh, Look whos here! That loser came back! He called a helper too!" The other people have finished off that bear, and gathered up. I stood in front of Wayne. "Hey friends! My buddy here got a straight temper, I''m sorry if he took your monster. But it won''t be nice if you just take his gear. How about this, We''re all grown people, you lowered his 5 levels already, how about returning his stuff?" "Why would we listen to you?" An Angel Warrior called "Am Great" spoke aggressively. "If you want it back, kill us and get it!" Then theyugh. They don''t appear the friendly type, seems negotiation isn''t an option now. I handed a portal scroll of the Lost City to Wayne. "Use this to get back. If anyone stops you, tell them Ziri sent you. Wait for me at the city weapon shop. I''lle backter." After Wayne disappeared in a blue light, I turned around, facing Big de. (Death is white light, Town Portal is Blue light, while my teleportation is...ck.) "So do we do it one-on-one or all of youe at me together?" Big deughed: "That''s big words. Have you ever checked the rankings at all? I''m the top! Do I even need help, to kill you? Come, let''s do it! Two cuts and you''re down!" "So be it!" I summoned Phantom while talking. This time I didn''t let anyone see him. All of my attributes raised by arge scale. Big de seems experienced, he came to me with a single leap sh. I didn''t react fast enough, but Phantom used [blink] and helped me avoid it. "Nice one! Someone dodged my leap strike!" He immediately made another horizontal sweep. I quickly gained some distance with several skillful backflips. The other people just stared at me like looking at a monster. Woosh, my father forced me to learn a little bit of kung-fu when I was young, now they actually worked! "Nice move kid, but do you only know how to escape?" I didn''t argue, and appeared behind his back with another [blink]. A surprised scream prevented me from back-stabbing him, but my quick drew isn''t easy to avoid, either. He moved sideways, but my sword still broke his arm. He rolled in agony while screamed like when a pig is getting ughtered. I was just feeling victorious when a [Hell Fireball] hit me in the back, almost knocking me to the ground. System: "yer [Let''s Solo it] attacked you!" Then I hear that ck Mage shouted, "Damn this guy''s Magic Defense is huge! That one only did 1 damage!" Oh idiot. I''m a Divine Demon, a Dark-affinity ss plus my Ring of Stars. And you try to hit me with a Dark spell? Soon, that warrior called "Am Great" rushed and smashed me, making me a bit dazed. "No worries, physical hits will hurt him. But man his hard, that was only 300 damage. Come on guys let''s kill him!" I''m not nning to be a target dummy, so I switched my sword to my left hand and took out my [Revenger], then shot at Big de''s wife. That was a Soul Chaser bolt enchanted with Curse effect. Ha, you wanted my brother''s stuff, and now you''re gonna pay! The crossbow has uracy bonus. My bolt hit his wife dead in the middle of her brows, and pierced her head too. The tip went through. Now I know this b**ch''s name. The system notified me that I killed yer [I WANT IT], if I kill another yer within two hours I will be red named. Seeing the scene, the two Priestesses started to scream, and one of them fainted. Pity, I was never the type to go easy on women. I always hated how some females leverage "gender equality" but actually y males around. (But I''m still a gentleman!) My rule: You treat me with respect and I''ll treat you even better. You offend me, I''ll give you hell. I dodged the Warriors and a fireball from their mage, then rushed in front of the two beautiful girls. "I''m sorry my deardies. Would you go back to the city on your own, or may I help you with it?" One of them quickly used her scroll. I guess she just got into the team and doesn''t have much connection with these guys. The other one is even quicker, she held up her staff and brought it toward me, without hesitation. I said I don''t go easy on women and I meant it. One sh, a pretty head flew into the air. I found it just recently: No matter what their Defense is, if you hit their vitals you kill them instant. When I finished off the Priestess, Big de is already at me, and cut my back. But some electric arcs followed his de and hit him. He flew backwards, while screaming like a pig, again. "Oh, I wasn''t expecting the lightning to be so powerful. Man you''re unfortunate, that was only 5% and you hit it!" Big de is still not convinced and charged at me again. I [blink]''d to his back again, aimed at his heart, and pierced his body. Take that! With a white sh, Big de went ghost. The two warriors were just standing there, shocked. And I don''t me them, because the top yer in the game just kicked the bucket real fast. Am Great shouted to the others: "Run. This guy is strong!" Run? Forget it! I [blink]''d again behind that dazed warrior and cut his neck. He went down. The other two guys have already activated their scrolls. Out of panic I threw my sword like a dart, which hit "Let''s Solo It" ''s chest. He''s a squishy mage, it didn''t hit his weakpoint but still killed him. The scroll in Am Great''s hand is shining now. My [blink] is on cooldown so I can''t make it. Even if I get there it won''t help. I don''t have my sword! Then I realized I have another Soul Chaser bolt! I shoot. Toote. The bolt stuck into the tree behind Am Great. On the other side, Am Great is sweating hard at the teleport station. He watched that bolting straight at his eye before he managed to get away, and his heart is still racing. "I gotta turn that Reality Setting lower when I PvP next time. Or I''ll get a heart stroke!" I''m still feeling disappointed at the battlefield. Oh why it didn''t hit him... But only one of them got away. Still a victory. I looked at the ground. A staff is stuck near my sword, guess it''s from that poor ck Mage. The attributes are good, Wayne could use it. The other are junk. And the robe didn''t drop! I opened the chat. "Wayne! My bad! They didn''t drop that robe!" "Don''t worry! You killed them, that''s enough!" But Wayne''s voice sounds sad. "Wayne, you go and level up for the moment. I will find him, kill him until I get your robe!" Wayne sounds worried now: "Hey boss, keep it calm! If any-" I cut the chat before he can finish. We are brothers for years, of course I would help him this time! I looked around, no one''s here, so I called Lucky and flew towards the city gate. I reached the city and called back Lucky in advance so no one would see him. Since Big de was leveling here, he must have been revived in the nearest city. I may find him in the Wizard''s Guild in Flowing Cloud! They died in big numbers, it would take a while for them toe back. Maybe I can bump into them in the city. With the n set in mind, I ran towards the city. When I''m about 500 meters from the gate, a feather arrow stuck into my leg. Ooooouch!! System: "yer Zirimenced yer kill and is now red named. City Guard Archers will attack." Damn it I forgot. I killed several people and I was the one making the first move, of course I''m a red name now! I looked at my HP. 5. Close! When I''m reacting, another arrow came. Ohhh no. I [blink]''d backwards, the arrow hit right at where I was. That archer is good! Then I heard talking. Some passerby yers saw the city guard attacking me, and they''re looking at my red name now. I guess I''m the first yer in the game to get attacked by city guards! They began to close up on me. No doubt, they nned to kill-and-take. There is still an arrow on my leg, from the city guard. They should know I can''t have much HP left. ---------------------- (*) (**) PvP punishment system, a popr mechanism in some online games. yer A initiates attack towards yer B, yer B will have the right to kill A without getting punished, for the current battle. yer A kills B, then yer A will have a "yellow name" as an alert. But it will have no actual effect. If yer A kills someone else while yellow named, he will be red named, aka a criminal. NPC guards will attack a red named yer on sight. And they are strong, too. Other yers can attack the red named yer without getting punished. yers will lose their item randomly when killed, with a low chance. But red named yers will lose more stuff. A seriously red named yer (who massacred a lot of people) may even drop his inventory clean upon death. The "criminal gauge" will slowly drop when you''re online. It raises faster and faster the more innocent people you kill. Chapter Book 3 - 2 – Im Red! Book 3, Chapter 2 I''m Red! ------------------ Will enclose yer names in "< >" where necessary. Some of the names look better if left open, some of them don''t. ------------------ I swallowed two Wraith Pills, pulled the arrow from my leg and tried to stand up. The surrounding yers must have seen my intentions. Someone shouted: "Kill the red name and get his stuff!" Then they all rushed at me. I quickly [blink]''d for some distance, activated my Phantom Cape''s invisibility skill and ran away from the city. Several yers noticed the abnormality in the air but no one knew it was me. When I''m far enough I kept still. Now no one can see me. Those yers searched for a while without finding anything, then they believed I must have used a portal scroll to get away. (In [Zero], a red name can still use teleport or town portal scrolls, but they will appear at a random ce within 500 meters around the city, not inside the city). After that, they just scattered away. As I''m trying to think what I should do, I saw a group of people marching outside the city gate. Their leader is just Big de. Aha! I''m waiting for you! I began to slowly move towards them. When I move I will cause a slight shift in the light, and it bes more obvious when I move faster. If I make it slow it will be hard to notice though. I stopped when I''m about 500 meters from the gate, for fear that the archer would shoot me again. God knows if the skill is effective against NPC guards or not. Big de came towards me while chatting with his wife. I can already hear what they''re speaking. "Darling! You must bring more people, and kill him! Revenge! I lost three levels you know!" Ha! Serves you right. "I will! He just got luckyst time! Don''t worry, we know his name now. I''ll hunt him down until he has to delete character and create a new one with a different name!" came up too. "Hey boss, you must help me kill him too. He got my staff! That weapon''s important to us!" "Easy. Aren''t we looking for him now?" When they''re talking I already sneaked near them. I slowly drew my sword and prepared to strike. Big de suddenly nced at my direction, I instantly froze in ce. But soon he shifted his view back again. Sigh, thank god I''m not spotted. Then he walked towards my location. I tightened my grasp on the sword, ready to kill him in one shot. But the second I''m about to cut loose, Big de shed at me first. I tried to evade yet he still hit me. My HP dropped madly. Gulp, another two pills went down my throat. Damn it how did he see me?? But I have no time to think over that question as Big de is already charging again, leaving me no choice but to dodge around, which caused my invisibility to break, allowing his followers to attack me together. Seriously, apart from ''s spells, the other people can hardly hit me. But those non-stop attacks from them still kept me busy. I finally gained some distance from the crowd but my HP is at brink again! I stood still, and they lost target. But Big de came straight at me and began to attack, he mostly used big moves, obviously trying to force me to show myself in order to allow other people to attack. Looks like keeping still is not an option now so I just had to dodge again, which caused the whole group to lock up on me. This time I''m in real trouble. Big de brought a full team of 8 Warriors, of course I can''t hold myself against all of them. My HP is empty again soon, further damage all got transported to Lucky and Phantom. I feel sorry for mypanions but I don''t know what else to do! That Angel Warrior noticed something''s wrong. "Boss, this guy must have something to hold his HP. We should have chopped down several thousands of HP now, even the best tank in the game would be dead!" Then Big de said something which really angered me. "Oh that''s even better. Kill him and let''s get it!" "YOU CAN KILL UR MOTHER''S FU---" Beeep! I didn''t get to finish my insult before the system muted me. With several embarrassing dog-rolls, I made it out of the circle. It''s a good thing that no one can see my figure clearly at the moment. If that move goes onto the web I''d be aughing stock. I jumped and ran towards . Big de shouted at her: "Run away dear! The guy''sing at your way! Go to the city, the guards will take care of him!" As expected. Big de must have something that can detect me. began to run. Again, I threw my sword like a throwing knife at her. I think I''m getting used to this move. Bulls eye! I''m a genius. The sword insta killed her again. Well she''s a caster type anyway. They should always remember not to stand too close to a warrior type. Big de rushed at me, enraged. I rolled sideways to get away from him, and swallowed another three pills. My HP is near empty, Phantom is too. Lucky still got like 1k HP left, and that''s thanks to his dragon''s natural regenerate speed. Desperate, I ordered Phantom toe out of merging status and jumped into ''s body. He abruptly threw a super wide fire effect around him. Big de and his team yelled: "What the fuc Solo?! Why you quit the team and what''s about this fire? Cut it out! My HP is dropping!" "I-- I don''t know! I can''t control myself!" answered, while dancing. Without Phantom my Attack and Defense went down for good. Now I need to be more careful! Big de just ignored the fire and came straight at me. I turned and began to flee without a thought, kiting him around the fire. He is higher leveled than me, but our Attack & Defense is about the same, plus his speed is definitely slower! The other Warriors recovered from their shock and closed up on me. With useless, Phantom controlled him into using a portal scroll (yes he can do that). The guy has no idea what''s happening, and got teleported back to the city while still cursing the system. Haha! Take that! Big de has been unaffected by my invisibility from the start. There must be something wrong on him. I ordered Phantom to go into Big de silently but didn''t do anything to him yet. I nned to strike him when he''s least expecting it. I stopped my escape and turned to face him. Big de thought I was going to make ast stand, and charged at me faster. As we contacted, he suddenly felt something restraining his movement. His well-prepared attack swayed sideways, while my sword pierced his shoulder easily. But he''s still an experienced PvPer. He quickly halted his action and tried to back-sh me. Yet his move went wrong again. He tripped over his left feet and crashed t on the ground. Then his left hand began to strangle his own neck, while he used his right hand to pull it away, panicked. I already got ready to attack though. I stabbed at the still-lying-on-the-ground Big de. The poor guy went into ghost mode in a white sh. I saw a robe on the ground. This must be Wayne''s. There''s another loot which is glowing red and I put in into my bracelet inventory. The other yers arrived at where Big de died, but can''t find anything as I''m standing still. Ha, looks like Big de is the only one who can see though my cape. walked around while swaying his sword randomly, hoping to force me out. Sadly his direction is totally off the course. When close enough, I chopped his head off with a swift cut. Ahhh vital strikes feel so good! He dropped something again, I took it and ran. When they saw my figure they started to chase. I intentionally waited for them to get close, then used [blink] and disappeared in front of them. I didn''t go far (and I can''t go far anyway), I just appeared behind their backs. The idiots then backed against each other and formed a circle, all of them looks terrified, which looks quite a funny sight. I don''t have all day though. I ran towards the nearest one and shed at his neck. He is fast. He crouched and dodged my attack. But I''m faster. My knee went into his face with a THUMP. If this is in real life I believe his face would sink in. Well that failed, I activated my ring of teleportation without another thought. Destination is Flowing Cloud city. With a sh, I appeared somewhere outside the city, and those guys are just standing around 300 meters from me. Shoot, I forgot. Red names can''t go into cities. It seems my ring can''t help with it either. Those guys didn''t notice my teleportation, and are still looking around. I don''t have time for these minions either, so I decided to go back to Wayne first. I activated my chat. "Wayne!" "Boss! Are you alright? Don''t do anything stupid!" "Ha-har! Since when would your boss do stupid things? I got your robe! And a staff too, it''s quite good. Go to the bridge outside Lost City, I''m red now and I can''t go inside!" "Oh, Roger that! Boss you''re so good!" Wayne sounds over excited! "Don''t forget to bring me some pills!" "Got it!" I activated my ring, target is Lost City. With a ck sh I appear in the city. Wait, this is...the teleport station? But I''m red now. How did I get here? Never mind. I ran towards rk''s shop while chatting to Wayne. "Wayne, don''t go outside now. Come back to the weapon shop, I''m inside the city!" "What? But aren''t you red named?" "No idea. But I''m in here anyway. Come now!" We both arrived at the shop. We went upstairs. rk already prepared some drink for us. I sipped some tea and took out the robe and staff I got. Wayne put on his robe excitedly, then looked at the staff. "Nice one! You got his weapon? You''re so awesome!" "Ha ha! Don''t know if I''m too lucky or that guy was just out of luck." I dragged rk over, "Speaking of which, why am I teleported into the city while red named?" "Duh. This is the Lost City, where the exiled gather. It is meant for red named ones." "Huh?!" Me and Wayne both yelled. "So the Lost City is just like, the criminal vige?" (*) "No, not quite." rk exined slowly, "There are three ways to get to the Lost City: One, like what you did, walk here by force. But there are numerous high leveled monsters along the way. And the Dark Forest is like a natural maze, most people would simply get lost in there forever. You were just lucky to get out. Two, is like what your friend just did: use the city''s portal scroll, or use that ring of yours. Three is to kill people. Your Evilness increases by 100 for each innocent one you kill; It decreases by 100 each time you die. If your Evilness exceeds 25100, it will return to 25000 when you die. If anyone''s post-death Evilness is at 25000 AND they happens to be near Lost City, their soul will be teleported here when they die." "Can''t you just teleport here using teleport stations?" Wayne questioned. "No. The Lost City uses its own teleport system. There are no nodes in other cites. By the way, the Lost City is not exclusive. There are three in this nation." "You mean there are three criminal viges?" "Ugh, you still don''t get it?" rk lost patience. "Ordinary red yers will get teleported to their nearest criminal vige upon death. Only the most serious red yers wille here!" "Ah, I get it now!" Wayne yelled. "So it''s like, a ce for REAL criminals!" I quickly checked my status window, my "Evilness" reads 400. I killed several people back there, some of them attacked me first so those didn''t count as crimes. "Hey rk. How do I get rid of my red name?" "Normally you just wait. It goes down by 2 for every online hour you spend, until it hits 0. Another method is doing quests. When red, NPCs outside the cities will give you red name quests,plete them to erase your Evilness by a portion. How much depends on the difficulty of the quest. Thest way is to kill monsters. Each kill reduces Evilness by [Monster Level/500]. I''ll tell you a secret too: When your Evilness is 0, it will turn into Righteousness if you stay online for 20 hours withoutmitting crime. It raises by 1 for every 20 hours. But when you kill an innocent yer, it will immediately be Evilness 100 no matter how much Righteousness you got." "Any rewards for having Righteousness?" "Should be, but I don''t know exactly what it is!" "Well that''s not my concern now. I need to erase my red name first!" I stood up and grasped Wayne. "Come, let''s level up while I wash my name!" "Ok!" -------------------- (*) Games with red name system tend to have spots meant for red named yers to stay. They''re usually rtively safepared with staying outside, people can just afk there and wait out their penalty. But different games got different rules. For example these spots in some games will still allow yers to kill each other, but without losing item. Chapter Book 3 - 3 – Steel Beast Book 3, Chapter 3 Steel Beast ------------------ We ran outside the Lost City and found a spot suitable for us to grind, ording to King Chemist''s map. It''s a vast grasnd, with strange creatures everywhere. The mostmon monster is something looks like a rat, called the Thunder Mouse. They are fast and can use some lightning spells. Level 120, a bit higher than me, perfect target. The highest leveled monster here is called Iron Beast. They look like those armored dinosaurs, but smaller. (*) It''s level 200. Weapon can''t get through their armor, spells don''t do much damage, and their HP is huge! Fortunately they''re really slow, not any faster than a snail. They won''t move more than 20 meters even if given 10 minutes. And they can only use physical attacks, you''re totally safe as long as you are more than 3m from them. Their number is small too. We just need to be careful not to wander too close. I summoned Lucky. He must be bored for not getting out for a while. Once he''s free he began to wreck havoc on the entire grasnd, causing all the creatures to run wild. I sat on a stone and began to check my loot obtained from Big de and his cohorts. First is an equip from . It''s an ordinary legguard, worse than mine. I just threw it away. Then a red ring from Big de. Holy mother of sacred cheeseburgers-- It''s an Artifact, Star Gaze. Ignores any invisibility and camouge effect, can detect the coordinates of specified yer, gains Super Sight. Oh shit. So that''s why I was mauled big time back there. I tried it on. And wow this feels good, my surroundings look really clear now. I tried looking farther. I can even see the Eye of Underworld high above Lost City, and I think we identally looked at each other for a moment. The eye is closed but it must know I was looking at it. It slowly turned towards me, opened a slit, then closed up and turned to its original direction. That was terrifying. Luckily that eye didn''t seem to mind my gaze at all. I turned and looked at Wayne. His name is disyed above him (Soulless), gray, followed by a blue number "68", must be his level. Below his name is a red bar and a blue bar, obviously his HP and MP. Woah this feels like cheating! An option window appeared beside me, with a system notice: "You used Star Gaze for the first time, pleaseplete the initial settings. You can change themter. Would you like to use the default settings or customize on your own?" "Customize!" "First, Name Disy. Do you wish the yer names to disy all the time, or only after you specify?" Well it won''t look fun if every single yer got a name above their head. "After I specify it!" "Second, Super Sight effect. Do you wish the Super Sight effect to be effective all the time, or only where you focus at, or never activate?" It''s useful but it feels awful if I keep it on. "Only where I focus." "Third, Level Disy. Do you wish the yer levels to always appear, or only after you specify?" "After specify." "Fourth, HP & MP Disy. Do you wish HP & MP to disy all the time, or only when you engage the target in battle, or never disy?" "When engaged!" "Thank you. The settings are nowpleted." I looked at Wayne. Now nothing is over him. I think about the name in my mind, Wayne''s name immediately appeared. It vanished after 15 seconds. Level is the same deal. "Hey Wayne, stand still, I gonna try something out." I walked over and gave him a punch. His HP and MP bar appeared above his head. Aha, this coulde in handy. "You know, I took this ring from Big de. It lets me see people''s HP bar!" "What? That''s like cheating!" (**) "You bet it is! I took quite a beating just because of this ring. Now he lost it to me, Big de is going to cry! Yeah just imagining his face now makes me want tough! Oh right, this ring can tell me a yer''s position too. Lemme try find Big de." I selected Find on the ring, entered . A voice came beside my ears. "Target location is Mountain City, coordinate..." Ha! Good stuff! "Wayne, once I get my name clean let''s go into the city and kill him again." "Uh, no. We already revenged, let''s not take it too far." "Alright then! I''ll leave him be as long as he doesn''t offend us again! Let''s get on with the grinding!" I charged at a Thunder Mouse nearby and chopped at it. I continued to train after logging off and took a small rest at noon. Maybe feeling too bored, Wayne asked me to help catch a Companion for him, just for fun. "How many Companions and Servants can you hold?" "One each." "Well let''s save it forter then! You can''t change Companion once you imed one. You got only one slot, if you wasted it on low leveled Companion you will have a hard time in the future. How about getting a Servant instead?" "Let''s do it then!" Wayne is disappointed, but he understood. Unlike me, I can take one or two Companions "just for fun". "Help me catch an Iron Beast as a Servant!" "Understood." I called Lucky, jumped onto his back and dragged Wayne up here. Me and my two Companions are level 113 now. It isn''t hard for Lucky to support two people. We flew high and found several Iron Beasts packed together not far from us. I ordered Lucky to charge. Me and Wayne cleared some minions around us, then focused on the big one. There are three Iron Beasts here, obviously bigger than the rest. Are these mutated monsters again? With the help of Star Gaze my [Identify] has be more powerful too. I quickly got its information. Steel Beast, level 230, evolved from Iron Beast. Near absolute defense against both Physical and Magical attacks. Slightly faster than Iron Beasts. Weakpoint is its soft belly. Belly? The monster''s legs are hardly taller than the couchgrass on the ground, its belly is almost sweeping against the floor. How the heck do I attack its belly? Without any options, I charged and [leap sh]''d at the beast. ng! I was pushed back several steps by the backforce, and my hands are numb. I only did 47 damage, its HP appeared and read above 3k. That''s almost as high as Lucky. "Um, Wayne? How about we find something else? This guy is so freaking solid!" "Solid means good! It will help me more in the future!" With that, Wayne threw an ice cone at it, which was even worse than my sword. 15 damage. Lucky charged and wed at the beast, which caused a noise like when you hammer at an iron te, with sparks. That was only 65 damage. Now none of us can deal more than 100 damage to this thing! The beast bit Lucky when he''s not noticing. Well Lucky''s scaled body is no worse than this beast''s defense, he only took 18 damage. But that bite totally pissed Lucky off. He quickly began to gain altitude, and started to dive toward us. Lucky sped up with his wings folded, when he reached us he abruptly spread his wings and swept against the grass. The current he caused pushed me and Wayne rolling on the ground. When we got onto our feet we only saw two Steel Beasts. I looked up and saw Lucky holding something flying upwards. Using Star Gaze, I checked Lucky''s ws, and finally made out the figure of a Steel Beast. Now I see Lucky turn around and started to dive down with that beast. Plus he is pping his wings to gain speed. I dragged Wayne. "RUN!" We didn''t stumble far before Lucky came down like a bomber jet. When he reached the ground he released the beast, and began to fly up again. The poor Steel Beast flew towards his two friends on the ground like a missile. The two guys on the ground saw iting and began to get away, but surely they won''t make it with that slow movement. The falling beast precisely hit in the middle of the two Steel Beasts. With a loud explosion, I felt the ground shake. Then debris and dirt began to wash down upon us. My armor was hit over and over while giving out metal noises but I''m mostly fine. However Wayne''s cloth robe didn''t provide much protection. "Ooof!" "Aeyy!" "Yawwch!!!" When the dust cleared up, the three beasts are already dead. I quickly started to use [Capture]. My skill level is pretty high now so it didn''t take much effort for me to capture them as Servants. Three white dots came out of the three corpses and turned into white crystals in my hand. I can see the figure of a Steel Beast inside the crystal. "Here. Drop your blood on it and it will be your Servant. Take the rest too. If your Servant dies you can just summon another." (***) Wayne took the crystals with excitement, and brushed one of them against his face. The poor dude''s face is bleeding due to those debris. The crystal vanished once it touched blood. Wayne quickly summoned his Steel Beast. Woah this thing became a lot bigger as a Servant. We checked over its status. Its Defense surpasses mine by a lot! The only problem is it''s too slow. But that''s not an issue, for Wayne is a Wizard, he only needs it to stand there acting like a shield. The beast got super high Defense and HP. It''s born to be a shield anyway. Wayne took his new friend and charged intobat. Now I''m actually considering if I should catch one or two of these things to use as shield, too. With the new Servant, Wayne has lost himself in his grinding andpletely forgot about me. So I left him be and went leveling myself. I''m feeling too tired by 10pm so I urged Wayne to log off, by which me, Lucky and Phantom have reached 118. Wayne on the other hand, is 93 now. ----------------- (*) The author is probably talking about Ankylosaurus (**) There was a game which dominated Chinese yers before (or around?) 2000. In that game people can''t see each others'' HP bar, in other words you won''t know when someone is about to get KO''d. But there was a cheating program you could use which allowed you to see it. (***) Did the author mention that Servant death is permanent? Chapter Book 3 - 4 – Ground Cave Book 3, Chapter 4 Ground Cave ------------------ I started my leveling campaign in the early morning. I''m nning to reach 140 today. Wayne said he got other business so I''m on my own. I worked through the whole morning, only logging off to eat something when I was starved at noon. When I''m just enjoying myself I saw something glittering on the ground. I quickly ran over and check. It might be some valuable loot. When I got close, it turned out to be a disappointment, though -- just a silver iron hoop. I tried to pick it up, and found out there are a series of hoops connected to it, forming an iron chain. I pulled, and the chain became longer and longer. Finally I just started to run while pulling the chain. Until I ran for about 30 meters, the chain suddenly tightened, which caused me (still running full speed) to fall on the ground. I crawled up and gave it another pull. Nope, can''t get it any further. Looks like something is on the other end of the chain. I waved at Lucky, who is ughtering monsters not far from me, and called him over. I tied the chain around Lucky''s body and asked him to pull. Lucky began to move using all four ws. The chain began to produce a crackling noise and the dirt around the other end is shifting. I pulled on the chain too. But seems the two of us still can''t get it done. "Lucky, stop for now." Whatever it is must be buried pretty deep under. I began to lead Lucky around the grasnd looking for Steel Beasts. Using what we learned yesterday we easily captured ten beasts and I turned all of them into my Servants. (I spilled a lot of blood for that!) Then we found five giant trees in the Dark Forest, made them into wood logs, and carried them back to the grasnd. They''re huge so Lucky could only carry one each time. When we''re done it''s already getting dark. I lined the logs on the ground, tied the chain around them, summoned my Steel Beasts and ordered them to pull the logs two-on-one. Lucky stayed at the front. Now this is a makeshift towing team. Heeding my signal, eleven monsters began to pull. With a crunching sound a whole stone block whose size is about 3 cube meters came out of the ground, bringing smoke of dust and dirt with it. The stone appeared to be exactly 3 meters in its dimensions, below the stone is a tunnel 45 degree to the ground. The stone shut the entrance entirely, with tons of dirt on it. That''s why it was so hard to pull. I un-summoned Lucky, called Phantom and began to walk in. It''s dark, the light outside can only illuminate a small distance, after which no one can see a thing. But that''s no problem for me, cause Star Gaze ring can provide me Night Vision ability, I can see my surroundings no matter how dark it is. After walking for some distance I began to feel the ground getting steeper. After about 10 minutes I''m already crawling on the ground to keep bnce. The wall is getting stranger too. It turned from stone wall to metal wall, then crystal wall, now it''s ice! Just as I''m inspecting the ice wall, my hands and feet suddenly slipped and I started to slide down. Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhh ....ahhh.... My screaming died down as I went farther. First I tried to get my hold onto something. But the slope just kept going down, and there''s only ice everywhere. So I gave up. I just lie t and "go with the slope". Whoever designed this damn pit must have something wrong with their brain. I''ve slid for 20 minutes now and I''m yet to see the bottom. I was nning to ask my mother to fire that designer when the ice wall around me began to light up. The light grew slowly so it didn''t blind me. But I just kept going down for another 20 minutes. This hole got no fu*king end at all! Ice. Slide. It''s getting really boring. I was preparing to just teleport away when I suddenly heard some sort of voice shouting. It sounded likeing from deeper. Then the voice got louder, and it doesn''t sound like someone''s shouting but...a lot of people shouting. Then the ice wall above me cracked open, an object fell down from it, hitting me in the stomach. "Ahhhhhhh----" Before I canin, a sharp voice started to pierce my eardrums. I tried to cover its mouth. "Shh. Shush! Shut it! Shut up I say!!" Whatever it is, it took me some effort to finally turn it down. Finally it turned out to be a...girl. The girl has long ck hair, a pretty face, and a pair of big eyes which are blinking at me, who is still stunned. But those eyes showed a sense of maturity. Ohh, no guys can resist this! And her skin is perfect! Her body is white, with a little pink to the touch. I thought I was immune to women but I''m beginning to doubt that! As I was about to ask her questions, the wall nearby broke open as well. A pile of people stumbled onto the slope. For various reasons our speed is different, causing someone to fall faster while the others got left behind. I quickly reached back and graped two people slower than us, and shouted to the front: "Hold onto each other and let''s not get split up! There may be monsters down there, we''re doomed if left alone!" People soon understood me and began to form up a human. We stabilized our formation after some effort. An Elf Archer in green armor spoke first: "Hello! I''m Spring Bringer, level 93 Elf Archer. Let''s introduce each other so we can team up better, in case we run into trouble!" Then everyone began to announce their level, ss and name. Only me and the girl beside me left now. "Red Moon, level 119 Dark Wizard!" Simple and clear. "Red Moon?" I stared at the pretty girl in awe. "You are that No.2 yer on the rankings?" The girl obviously received a lot of surprised nces from those people, and some doubtful ones as well. But I mostly believed her. If she wanted to give a fake identity she didn''t need to use such a conspicuous name. "Hello. I''m Ziri, Dark Mage." (*) Well I can use all the Dark spells and I''m wearing a long robe now so I do look like a caster. I don''t want to reveal my secret. "Nice meeting you!" "Likewise!" People were greeting each other when a fork suddenly appeared in the slope, the major group went down the left one, while a small number including me, went the other way. I sent a chat to Spring Bringer who went left. "Spring Bringer, this is Ziri. You alright over there?" "No problem, just a little surprised! Oh wait, something''s ahead, the slope is getting horizontal here. I''ll talk to youter!" When I cut the chat our route is bing t too, which allowed us to slow down. When we finally stopped I received another chat. "Ziri! This is Spring Bringer! We reached a wall with a ''Die'' written on it, then the cave came down and buried all of us. We''re at the reviving point now. Looks like your end is the ''Live'' one. Go without us. Geez it wasted so much time!" "Ok!" I just said OK because I don''t know what else to say. We''re at the bottom too, as expected, there is a stone gate with the word "Live" on it. I told everyone the situation, people are surprised but also feel relieved foring this way. I checked around. We got only 5 people here, including me. They''re Red Moon (level 119 Dark Wizard), Am Ugly (level 97 Dark Mage), Nobody Loves Me (level 102 Dark Figher), Mossback (level 99 Divine Chanter, hidden ss). I took the lead to walk to the heavy-looking stone gate and gave it a push. It opened slowly. Well at least that wasn''t embarrassing. When the gate swung open a bright light blinded all of us. Then we all got quiet when we saw what''s in there. It''s a giant hall,pletely empty of anything. The hall is about several thousands square meters in size, with ayer of white mist on the floor so we can''t make out if anything is on the ground. Am Ugly ran into the hall first. "Woah! This ce is hug--AAHHHhhhhhh--" His body fell down and his voice just went distant. I ran forward to check but Red Moon stopped me. "Wait!" She tapped the ground using her staff, took one step forward, and tapped again. This time there is no contact--the staff went through the mist and hit nothing. "There''s no floor!" Red Moon tried the floor at other directions and told us the result. "Seriously?" Mossback took out his staff too. "Man, yeah there''s no footing under us." I looked around and saw three doors at the other side of the hall. But no one''s gonna walk there for sure. Then Red Moon took position. "[Gale]!" Why didn''t I think about that?! But nothing happened after Red Moon''s call. Not even a small breeze. "No spell allowed?" Red Moon muttered. Then a light bullet came out nearby. "Not really, I can still use my [Holy Bullet]. Maybe only Wind spells are blocked?" Mossback said and began to try through the mist again. The rest of us all started to slowly move forward using our weapons. After some trials we somehow made out the situation. There is a semi-circle tform in front of the door, then its empty. But some other tforms are scattered not far from each other, without any patterns though. Maybe it''s meant for us to jump through these hidden tforms. After some discussion we decided to try it anyway. It would be a total waste if we just return. Losing a level is no big deal here. This time took the lead. He said it won''t be proper to let casters charge ahead of warriors. We told him to take care and added friends with him. He seems the generous kind. Using a wizard staff we estimated the distance to the next tform. took some steps backward and charged, he hit the tform with a good leap. But before we can congratte him he went down the other end because he didn''t stop himself in time. Then we heard his chat in our team channel. "Shoot. I went too far! You guys be careful from there! Because you three are all casters! I''m dead and back to the city so I''ll leave now. Let''s yter!" Then he quit the team. This time I jumped first. I didn''t run, but just leaped while standing still. I sessfully forced myself to a halt as I touched the ground. "Wait, I''ll make out this tform too!" I touched around for a while. It appears to be a round tform about 1 meter in radius, and I stood in the center. "Red Moon, you first. I''ll catch you!" She blushed a little but recovered quickly. "Ready!" She made it through with a beautiful somersault, and maintained perfect bnce when she touched down. Impressive! She''s gymnast maybe? Then me and Red Moon stood on the tform and got ready to stop anyone from going too far. "Ok, jump! And don''t make it too hard or you will bring us down too!" "I know I know! I''m not stupid!" Mossback stepped back and began to run. That looked good, but when he reached the edge he just disappeared. "AHHHHhhhhh...." He ran down the pit before he can jump! Yeah he''s not stupid. He''s more than stupid. Red Moon and I nced at each other, andughed. That guy was funny! Red Moon tried to hold back herughter, only for her face to turn red. Mossback''s voice came alive in the team channel: "Sorry about that! I think I ''took off'' at the wrong time!" That only caused us tough harder. We finally calmed ourselves down and began to aim for the next tform. Now we got experience, it went smoothly. We jumped over a dozen more tforms without trouble. They are all close to each other and are pretty big, we only need to be a bit careful. Our first victims died just because we were too confused. --------------- (*) Don''t worry too much about the difference between Dark Mage and Dark Wizard and such stuff in the future. The author used different names anyway. They''re not important, I bet Mr. Thunderstorm didn''t even know what''s the difference either. Chapter Book 3 - 5 – Quest of the Cave Book 3, Chapter 5 Quest of the Cave ------------------ After some hopping around we''re not far from the doors. "Which one do we choose?" "Can I see your face?" Well that surprised me. Still, I put down my hood. Red Moon smiled. "Go right then!" ...Strange woman. I didn''t put my hood back on. There are only the two of us anyway. "So let''s jump to the ones more to the right if we have to choose." "Yeah I know. But sis, you look good! Why did you hide your face?" (*) Red Moon asked while poking at the next tform. Now that made me want to just jump and kill myself. It''s not a problem if girls don''t notice you, but it IS a problem if they don''t even consider you a man! "I''m not--" "Hey sis, you don''t have to tell me, I understand!" She turned and looked at me. "Every beauty got their own problem right? Guys are annoying like flies! And even worse in a game! Where did you get your cape, sis? I don''t see any shops selling them." My face is getting ck! "Ok now, I''ll tell you something: First! I''m not a ''sis''! Call me Ziri. If you don''t like that name you can call be bro or something, whatever you call me do, not, use, sis! And second, my cape isn''t used to hide face and even I hid mine just now it wasn''t because what you are thinking, cause I''m male! I don''t need to worry about getting harassed by other guys!" "Huh?!" Red Moon is surprised by what I just said so she stepped backwards, and almost fell over the edge. Of course I shouldn''t let that happen. I hopped forward and pulled her back. But I used too much force, and dragged her into my arms. Our lips were only few centimeters away. After several seconds I did something which I regretted for days. Red Moon struggled to get away. I forgot where we were standing, and pushed her away in order to clear the misunderstanding, but... System: "yer Ziri killed yer Red Moon, Evilness increased by 100." I pushed her into the pit! It took some time for me to get my name clean but now it''s red again! I quickly sent a chat to her. "Sorry! I''m sorry! That''s wasn''t on purpose!" "I don''t me you. You''re on your own now, just take care. Share whatever you find with me to make it even!" Then she cut the chat. I looked at the nowpletely empty hall. I''m alone again! Am I born to be with myself?? No, that sounds foolish. I calmed myself and went forward. I don''t have any staff on me so I have to use my sword to try the ground. I didn''t use my weapon because I wanted to hide my identity, but now I realized my sword is shorter than the other tools and I can only estimate the next distance. There was no problem for the next five or six tforms. But as I touched another one, the tform below me suddenly sank. My heart skipped a beat. Looks like this is it for me. But in the end the tform didn''t keep sinking. The one I''m standing on only went down for several centimeters and it just stopped. Then the mist around the hall began to sink too. After a while the room is sucked clean, revealing an array of stone pirs. Those "tforms" were just the tip of these pirs. I looked down, only to see an endless darkness. At least I can''t see the bottom. The mist is gone, but instead I''m feeling a bit too scared to keep jumping. Look at the height, my legs are trembling! As I''m fighting over my own mind, I heard a loud bang behind me. I turned around to check, then instantly regretted my decision. The stone pirs began to copse, and each one would lean on the next and bring it down too, creating a freaking domino effect, towards where I''m standing. Alright, now I just HAVE to jump. I''m dead for sure if I don''t move. I checked the next distance using mere visualization, and jumped, eyes closed. After some Mario-style jumps, I made it through! I looked back, crap! The copsing is near, and the stone gate is just ahead of me. But there is nothing tond on under the door, besides I''m about 1.5 meter from it. If I jump and the door is still shut, I''m done for! Right, my sword! I ran at my full speed, and jumped just before the pir below me went down. I stabbed my sword into the wall, it worked! The whole de went in, leaving the hilt outside for me to hold myself. My position is a bit above the door. I started to kick at the door, but what I was worrying about still happened. The door won''t budge an inch! I kicked it several times more. There is not a tiny movement, instead, a red bar appeared above it. Oh shit, the door got an HP bar! And there''s 100k HP! It would take years for me to get it open! And misfortune alwayse in doubles. I see another bad news: my sword is losing its Durability fast, only 3 points left now. Yet the door got really hard defense, every kick will only cause like 10 damage to it. I kicked harder, to no avail. With a snap, my sword broke in half. I fell with only the sword hilt in my hand. I''m really out of luck today. Wait. Out of luck?? "Lucky! Help!!" With a ck sh, Lucky dived down and caught me. "I''m so d you can fly!!" "Rawr." We ascended to the door again and I began to spam all kinds of spells at the door. Every hit can only deal 30 or so damage, faster than kicking but still won''t do it. Finally Lucky helped again. He locked himself onto the wall using his ws and started to smash at the door with his tail. There''s an arrow-shaped structure at the tip of his tail, and it''s like a god damn door ram! The hard stone gate went down after several hits. I gotta find out what else Lucky can do in the future. We entered the stone gate and came to another hallway. But this time the ceiling is low, just a little above my head. So Lucky had to return to my pet space. I walked for about half a mile and the way got wider. Then I entered another giant hall. When I saw what''s in the hall I just copsed on the ground. And I bet anyone would do the same. The hall is round, which radius must exceeds a hundred meters. The wall is made out of natural stone, there is no trace of artificial work. But the wall is filled with doors. It took me about 10 minutes to count. Not including the one I just went through, there are three, hundred, and thirty two, DOORS, in here! Forget it! I should just go back and keep my grinding up, instead of wasting my time in this crazy cave! I activated my Ring of Teleportation. After a blue sh, nothing happened. What the hell? I used it again. Nope! I chose another destination, still not working! Then I took out a portal scroll of the Lost City and spread it open. *Ding* "Teleport rted items are prohibited in this location." Prohibi--what?? You''ve got to be kidding me! I opened the chat and contacted Wayne, but it can''t get through! I tried Red Moon, same result. I can''t chat with anyone. Defeated, I contacted Customer Service instead. The answer is I''m in the middle of a special quest. I could still use my scrolls if I didn''t enter this hall. But once I''m in, even if I die here I''ll be immediately revived at this hall, until I went back to level 20. The only way to get out is to finish the quest. Oh you''d better not tell me what kind of idiot designed this quest OR I WILL (content censored) (TL note: No, the author wrote "this is censored" here. I didn''t do it.) I looked back. My entrance door is now blocked by a giant rock. They said I can''t get out that way so the rock must be invulnerable to any attacks. As I''mining, the center of the hall went ck. It feels like something just absorbed the surrounding light, the spot ispletely dark now. I walked over carefully to check, but as I went near, someone suddenly bounced out of the darkness and fell into me. "Ouch! What the??" I kicked whoever just fell on me flying backwards. "How dare ya kick an NPC!" The figure suddenly stopped. "Brother, is that you?" "Huh?" I stood up, he is...! The NPC I just kicked away is the Dark Sanctuary Knight Captain of Dark Valley, Domergor, my sworn brother! "Why are you here, brother??" I asked. (**) "Oh! I actually shouldn''t be here, but that old geezer who is responsible went out hunting for treasures and agreed to share with me if I can look after this ce for a while. This hall is meant for people above level 500 anyway, who knows you came so fast!" "So...You''re the NPC responsible for this quest now?" I think I see hope! "Only temporary. This quest is one-time only, if someone gets it done it will disappear. So...yeah, I am." "Uh, please don''t tell me my quest is to defeat you." I made a sad face. "You''re level 750! You''d crush me like a bug!" "Calm down. Your quest is not fighting me. If it''s that hard I wouldn''t have told you all these nonsense." "Then tell me what it is! I can''t level up in here, I need to get out!" "The quest is...pretty long. First you need to find the correct path among these doors. And the paths behind these doors are not one-way, there can be forks too. Lots of them. I''ll be waiting for you at the end of the correct route. If you make it I''ll tell you the next step." "Wait seriously? 300 doors! With forks! It would take years! Brother! Give me some hints will you?" Domergor put his hand on my shoulder, solemnly. "Look, I want to help you. But frankly, I don''t even remember which is the correct one myself. They all look the same! No one can remember it. Apart from that crazy old pervert! But take it easy, I can tell you some advices to help you get it over with." "Advices?" Now that''s what I''m talking about! He ran towards a door, marked it, and to another one and made another mark. "You see, including these two, and all the doors in between, there are a total of 27 of them. That''s the best I can remember--the correct one is among these ones. So you can forget all the rest. How about it? A lot easier now right?" "But that''s still a lot! And don''t forget about the forks!" "Patience! I got more!" He took out several crystals. "Look closely. There are three crystals here, with different shapes. Take them. At each fork there will be crystals used asnterns. If they''re the same shape as these, that means the path is fake! "What about the rest?" "The rest? You have to try them yourself!" Looks like that''s all the help Domergor can give me. "You be careful! The monsters here are pretty strong, don''t get killed!" "Wait there are monsters in here??" "Duh! Of course a quest will need monsters!" "Uh, there''s something else. Brother! Can you find me a weapon?" "What for?" "My only sword is broken when I got in here. I don''t have anything to use now!" He looked at me for a moment, and finally said: "Wait here. Geez you''re a handful!" He ran back after a while, and dropped two objects on the ground. "This is part of the quest reward, I''ll lend it to you for now. If you finish the quest I''ll give you the rest. If you can''t, you''ll have to give it back!" Then he disappeared before I can say anything else. I quickly picked them up. It''s...a pair of gauntlets. The shape is like two dragon heads. My hand goes in from the back, and reaches out from the mouth. There is a triangr spike at the elbow part, pointing backwards. The outer is sharp de. When I put them on, three long des stretched out. The middle one is a bit longer than the other two. The des look like three stabbers lined together, their tips are super sharp, and there are reversed barbs on the back of the de. They would work better if they are a bit longer though. As I thought about the idea in my mind, the des suddenly stretched another foot. I tried several times and found out there are three modes for the des: Withdrawn, Short de, and Long de. The top of the gauntlet is the dragon''s forehead. It stretches outwards, forming a tiny shield. I looked at the attributes: [Laceration of the Dark Dragon Lord], triple ded ws, growth equipment, Durability 1000/1000, *Attack 150-150, Attack Speed-Very Fast, *Defense 500, Block Rate 75%, 50% Life Steal, *Additional Lightning damage 100, *Additional Ice damage 100, 25% chance to freeze the target for 3 seconds, Piercing (ignores defense), 50% chance to cause Laceration, Attack Speed +50%, 15% chance of dealing super critical damage (triple damage). (Attributes with "*" will grow with wearer''s level) Oh my god oh my god oh my god--- The Attack is not that high but a Very Fast speed totally amended that. And 50% life steal!! If I attack fast enough my HP won''t drop at all! Besides, it''s not a weapon, but gauntlets! Which means I can still hold other weapons! Hahahaha!! ---------------- (*) Sis: Chinese youths sometimes call their fellow friends ¸ç¸ç (brother) or ½ã½ã (sister). In this case these words got nothing to do with family or bloodline, just a friendly way of addressing each other. I believe this doesn''t only happen in China, though. (**) There are more ways in Chinese to call a sworn brother and sworn little brother, but I don''t know how to do that in English... Chapter Book 3 - 6 – Quest of the Cave (Part 2) Book 3, Chapter 6 Quest of the Cave (Part 2) ------------------ The time is gettingte so I logged off. Wayne came back too. I told him about what I got myself into, he just said "oh you found a secret quest? Nice!" Nice??? I entered the game early the next morning and started trying through the doors. First, the leftmost door with the mark. When I opened the door I froze. Is this path even meant for humans?? A few meters from the door, there are crowds of monsters snuggled up close to each other, without a visible end. Did they just spawn monsters without having to worry about breaking the system? I gulped, and closed the door. This is too much! But, I didn''t know how powerful those monsters are. Suppose they are really weak, then the number won''t be a problem. I pushed open the door again. All of the monsters stared at me. I cast a fireball over, and received the monster''s data. Demonized Rat, level 130, HP 300, fast and stay in crowds. Weakpoint is their low Defense and HP. Upon seeing me, all of them stood up. The countless pairs of red eyes are really creepy! I''m level 137 now, these things are even lower than me. Shouldn''t be a problem. As Ifort myself, the monsters suddenly rushed at me as a whole. "Aww!! My ears! Ah my nose!! Ouuch! No not that part!! Oof--get out of my mouth!!" I rolled and crawled back to the hall. The rats didn''t pursue, seems they can''t get through the door. Shit that was close. Their attack would only cause less than 10 damage to me, but every one bit me a dozen times back there. If not for my high HP I would have been torn to pieces! What the hell should I do?? Right, put something to draw their attention. I summoned one of my Steel Beast and ordered it to go ahead. The beast is level 230 and high HP and Def are its talent. Moreover, this guy is just the same size as the tunnel, he can squeeze through the ce while blocking it. Even if several rats slip by I can easily kill them. We marched forward. The rats still swarmed up on us, but due to the level gap they can only nip down the beast''s HP slowly, and only those rats at the front can actually attack. If my beast is low on HP I can just recall it and summon another. I have ten of them anyway. I just have to follow behind and pick out any leftovers. This would have been a good ce to train if I can still chat with other people. They don''t yield much EXP but the number is huge, so the ie is still decent. We walked and ughtered until 10 pm, by which all the rats just disappeared. A little bit ahead I reached the first fork. Three caves line up before me. Ipared using the crystals I got early. And damn it, they''re all fake! Which means this door is wrong. That''s a whole day for no good! It''s not aplete waste though. I''ve reached level 142. For the next few days I spent all my time on these doors, in the end my leveling just nearly stopped. I''m 188 now and killing rats has be meaningless. In [Zero], level 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 are "gaps". People will notice that going from 200 to 201 is way easier than from 199 to 200. Sometimes even leveling from 600 to 601 is faster than from 199 to 200! I''ve asked mother before. She refused to tell me anything at first, but eventually hinted me that they did set these gaps on purpose. She said if the game is too hard it will scare off yers, and being too easy wouldn''t give them the sense of achievement. It would be best to let them feel "up and down". So the time you need to go from 199 to 200, is about the same time you will need for a level around 640 or so. And that''s what I''m feeling right now. Level 188, I''m already having a hard time to get it up! The military training in our college has begun and of course I skipped it. My family provided several millions of funds to the ce anyway, so the management just gave me all the green lights without any trouble. (*) The training session is meant tost a month. I utilized the valuable time to "find my way" plus leveling up. September 17th, a memorable day! I came out! Now I''m level 199 plus a 13% EXP bar. I crawled and dug through the damn tunnel for 13 days and finally made it! I almost cried when I saw Domergor''s face! All this time the only thing I would see are rats. RATS! I don''t know how many millions of them I''ve killed. "Brother! Finally! You took so long. I thought you''d nevere out!" Then he passed me a ss of red liquid. "To celebrate! Now this is something in my drink collection. I guarantee you''d love it!" I took the ss and swigged it in one go, which caused Domergor''s face to twitch a little. (**) The foul smelling liquor went down my throat like a stinking fish. It tasted awful, even traditional medicine feels like sugarpared to this! (***) But still, the drink left me invigorated! System: "yer Ziri has consumed [Thousandth Blood Wine], level increased by 1." My level became 200 (empty bar)! The stuff tasted terrible but turned out to be quite useful. So that''s why they say good meds are bitter to the mouth. "Um, can I have some more, brother?" It would be great if I can get several more sses to use in the future. Domergor reached back and took out a small bottle. I raised it to my mouth but he quickly pinned my hands. "There''s only the amount of six serves left in here. You need to drink one serve if you want to level up, any less and it will be wasted. I suggest you keep it for now and drink it at level 399, 599 and 799. Use the rest after you''ve reached level 900 and feel too hard to keep going." "Alright. Thank you brother!" I put the wine into my bracelet. Then Domergor began to exin my following missions. "You cleared the first stage so you could get one part of the Dark Dragon Lord set. You don''t have weapon so I gave you that gauntlet in advance, which would help you most. And now I can''t give you anything, or I would piss off the system! Your next task is that hallway over there. Get past it and you will receive another two parts." I looked at the hallway. "It''s just a straight walkway a bit more than a kilo." "That''s no ordinary walkway, it''s full of traps ''n'' tricks. Don''t let your guard down. If you get killed by the traps you will respawn at this end." "Any hints?" "The only hint is be careful!" Then he ran off. ...He must be unfamiliar with the traps too. Looks like I''ll have to deal with it step by step. I carefully stood at the entrance. The way is straight to an extent that I can directly see the other end. There''s one thing for sure, it looks really safe on the surface, at least. Nah forget it. Standing here won''t help me with anything. I should just move. I began to walk forward. I had to keep cautious so I can only shift my steps slowly. I haven''t moved for more than ten steps before a loud BANG scared me back. Then a giant axe swung in front of my face, cutting my front hair clean. I stumbled and sat on the ground. My heart stopped for a moment! If I made one more step or didn''t back away I''d be dead! I sat and took a moment to calm down, then began to check the axe. It moves back and forth like a traditional clock pendulum. The de is wide so it reaches a wide area. Fortunately it''s not fast. I tried to calcte for a while. The interval between each two times the "pendulum" would go through the center is about 1.5 second. If I keep to one side of the wall, it will take about 3 seconds for the axe to leave the wall ande back. That should be enough time for me to pass. As nned, I leaned on the wall. When the axe left the wall towards the other side I immediately dashed forward. When I''m over it''s still on the other side. Ha, nailed it. The joy didn''tst, two more identical axes came down at me at the same time. I instantly jumped back to where the first axe can''t hit me. But there is about a meter''s free space between each two axes. Now the three deadly des just swung there, causing the air to buzz. I''m trying to calcte their speed again when another three axes dropped down. This time though, they swung in a vertical direction with the first three. Ok, now six axes are flying in front of me in a perfect pattern, without touching each other at all, and I totally cannot figure out a way to get past them. Just looking at them would make me feel dazed! I came out with an easy but cruel idea: Summon a Steel Beast and let it block those axes, that will definitely make it easier for me to get by. But...my moral tells me not to do that. I fought with my inner devil for a while and finally gave up the idea. The three longitudinal axes will always hit when the horizontal ones can''t, there''s no safe point! But...since the axes don''t hit each other, that means the axe itself is safe! I prepared myself. I waited for the nearest longitudinal axe to get near, then jumped and clung myself onto its arm. Then I waited for it to get to the other side and jumped down. I turned and looked at the axes behind me. Now they don''t look that hard! I continued forward. This time I''m even more careful, the ce is no joke. After several steps the floor below my foot suddenly sunk. Countless small holes appeared on the nearby walls and bolts began toe out of them. I quickly ran back. I reacted fast but still came out like a hedgehog. My Cor of Protection kept me alive again. That caused about 2k HP damage to me. Some of the damage got transferred to Lucky and my Ring of Stars can convert 20% damage to my MP too. That''s why I didn''t die. I began to check the trap while using my bracelet to pick up those bolts from faraway. I still haven''t bought any ammunition for my [Revenger] crossbow, I can''t just rely on those two Soul Chaser bolts. Now there are bolts all over the ground. I can''t just leave them wasted can I? I tried several more times and realized the trap got nothing to do with that floor part. As long as I reach the spot, bolts wille out, no matter how I get there. And I never understood how the trap was made too. There are almost 10k bolts in my bracelet now and the trap is still shooting! I decided to see how many bolts it can hold. So I just throw a bolt over, trigger the trap, recover the drops, repeat. I did this until I logged off in the evening, by which I gathered above 500k bolts in my bracelet, and they''re stilling out. Conclusion: it is infinite. After a day''s work I''m afraid I''d never need to buy any bolts in the future. The amount I got now is enough to support a freaking city siege war. The next morning I tried to get past using the most boring method--rush. I put three Wraith Pills in my mouth and dashed forward. I have 1k+ HP, Lucky has 3k+ and Phantom 800, that makes it almost 6k in total. I think I can make it. I jumped from the starting point and avoided the hardest area. But I was still shot all over when Inded on the ground, causing my HP to hit the bottom. I swallowed the pills and ran. I flipped through the 200-meter long tunnel, when I stopped the whole world is spinning. Then I fell down, but hey I survived! I looked at the status. Me and Phantom are empty HP''d, while Lucky still got 500 left. That was...close. God knows what else awaits ahead. I replenished our HP, and cast a [Lava Impact] into the tunnel to clear the way. The name sounds cool but it''s just a giant, rolling burning rock which explodes when hitting anything. It''s big so I can use it to trigger any potential traps. If the rock can get through without a problem, it''s definitely safe for me. Still, an even bigger rock fell from the roof and smashed myva stone into pieces. Thank god that wasn''t me. The stone blocked the way so I had to squeeze through the gap on the side. Then I used the spell again. It got worse this time. A wooden spike shot out of the wall and pinned the rock onto the other side. Man that looks scary. Then it''s mess. Bouncing nks, flying spikes, rolling stones, fire walls,sso, killer puppet...anything you can consider a trap, I''ve seen it here. The worst part is where two walls dropped down and trapped me inside, then it began to flood. Before I was drowned I summoned Lucky and all ten Steel Beasts to bust the ce open in order to save myself! When I got out of the tunnel I''m almost naked. The outfit rk gave me already lost their Durability and broke. essories and cape don''t have Durability so they''re fine, my dragon gauntlets lost a good amount of dura as well but won''t be a problem for now. So...From a third-person perspective, I''m wearing a cape, a pair of gauntlets, some jewel. That''s it, nothing else. Naked. I''m cksmith too but I have neither the tools nor the materials to repair anything! -------------------- (*) Most Chinese universities have a "military training" for new join-ins, which usuallysts one or two months, to "get students back into shape". The name may look serious but it''s actually no big deal, just stand, march, shout, listen to simple orders. (Under a 30+ Celsius weather in some cities) Most students hated it, of course. And no, we don''t learn how to fight, apart from some showy minor techniques. Bigger ces sometimes let the students shoot a real rifle (which is quite luxurious experience for Chinese resident), but that won''t actually teach us anything either. (**) Um, traditional Chinese liquor is meant to sip slowly. If someone without experience "gulp" something with 60%+ alcohol, they will faint, or go into shock if unlucky. Don''t try that. (***) Ever tried decocted Chinese-style herb? Ugh. I don''t want to experience that again. Chapter Book 3 - 7 – Quest of the Cave (Part 3) Book 3, Chapter 7 Quest of the Cave (Part 3) ------------------ I made it out of the tunnel and entered a round room. Brother is already waiting. "I never doubted my choice, brother! You passed the traps in one attempt!" Then he peeked into the tunnel, which is now totally ruined. I didn''t know how to solve most of them so...I had to choose the "hard way". "Forget that tunnel! Any longer and I''ll go insane!" I snatched the bottle in Domergor''s hand and drank. He''s holding it, it must be good! And ohhh, it tasted like champagne! "Don''t--" He tried to stop me but is toote. Then he stared at me, agape. "Do you even know what that was?" "What?" I saw himself drinking it back there, there should be no problem. "That''s the water from the Spring of Evil!" "Spring water? So that''s why it tasted sweet." "But, drinking it means you vow to join the dark force, never to go back!" "What''s wrong with that?" Well I am a DARK fighter now, right? He sat on a stone stool and exined: "After drinking from the Spring of Evil, your red name will be fixed, which means you earn 100 Evilness for every person you kill in the future." "But I will get that if I kill people anyway. What''s the difference?" "You Evilness will not drop! From now on, no matter how many monsters you kill, what kind of quest you finish or how long you stay online, your Evilness will, NOT, decrease!" "Say whaaaaat?!" That''s a bolt out of the blue!! "You mean I''ll be a red name forever??" "That''s right!" "So I can never go into cities??" "Not really. If you''re strong enough to fight those guards, you''re free to go in. Or yers can create guilds and build their own city. Then your own guards won''t mind your red name." He considered and added: "Oh and, from now on, you can go into AAA-ss dark force controlled areas at your will, like the Lost City." "Why would this happen to me?? Brother, why in the world did you bring such stuff in front of me??" I might as well just ckmail him for some stuff! "But you took it by yourself!" "I don''t care! You brought this on me!!" Acting like a spoiled kid always works! "Ugh. Fine!!" He gave up, "Here!" Domergor took out four purple crystals. "What are these?" "Check those dragon''s eyes on your gauntlets." I looked at them. There are no eyes, only four empty holes. I didn''t notice that until now. "Why are there holes?" "They''re called ''sockets'', stupid!" Then he inserted the crystals into them. "Check again!" I called the equipment status window. Two new functions showed up---[Tridimensional Map], [Evilness Pollution]. Evilness Pollution will cause your enemies to consume their HP and MP faster. I tried the map as well. Ohh nice, it will disy a holograpic map above your arm, showing your surrounding terrain, your position, and some red dots which are probably monsters. Domergor waited for me to finish, and continued. "You''ve passed the second stage. ording to the rules you will get another two parts of the Dark Dragon Lord set. You''re supposed to draw them randomly but I''ll just give you a backdoor. Go and pick''em. So which ones do you need most?" "Thanks brother! But what parts are in the set? I need to know them before I can pick!" "The set includes a helmet, a mask, a heavy armor, pair of shoulder armors, gauntlets, pair of gloves, a breast mirror(*), a tasset, pair of legguards, steelbat boots, two shields, two dragon tooth swords (single-handed but longer and heavier than ordinary sword), a dragonnce, two dragon sinew wires, a pair of wing des. So that''s a total of 15 types, 23 items. You got the gauntlets, and the wing des must be issued at thest stage, so you can pick two from the remaining 13. After next stage you get another three. And then it''s thest stage, you will get all of them and leave this ce." "Wow, that''s a lot! But I still don''t know which ones are good. Hey brother, how about you decide for me? Just give me something which I''ll need in the next stage!" "Aren''t you azybum!" Heined but still carried out two items. "Take these then. I think they''ll help for now." I checked. [Embrace of the Dark Dragon Lord] ''dragon sinew wire'' Durability ¡Þ, Growth equipment, *Attack 250-250, Attack Speed-Fast, 20% Life Steal, *Additional Lightning damage 300, Paralyze target for one second when hit, 100% weakpoint strike, Ignore defense, Skill [Sling Hook]. (Attributes with "*" will grow with wearer''s level) Another Artifact. This whole set is an Artifact set maybe? I''m gonna get real rich! It looks like a long silver wire, with an arrow head attached to it. Domergor helped me install them into my gauntlets. I can hide them in there when not using. I only need to give themand in my mind, and swing my arm, then the arrow head will fly outwards, bringing the string with it. I began to wave the string inside the room, causing Domergor to cover his head and run madly. I ruined the entire room, the wire cut the tables and stools into slices like aser. After some instructions from Domergor, I learned that I can use the wire like a rope hook. I can shoot the arrow into the ceiling and swing around like those agents in the movies, and I can just "order" the arrow toe off if I wish. There is a device inside the gauntlet which will recover the string like a tape, too. When I''m done ying the string, I check my second gain. [Bearing of the Dark Dragon Lord], metal heavybat boots, Durability 1000/1000, Growth equipment, *Defense 750, +200% Movement Speed, Passive skill [Cursing Ground], hostile yers within 10 meters of the wearer will lose 10% Attack & Defense & Speed, Skill [Attach], able to clung onto walls or ceilings like a suction cup. (Attributes with "*" will grow with wearer''s level) Artifact!! I think I was right. The whole set is a freaking Artifact. The boots can protect up to my knees, they''re made of several big diamond-shape structures and look really cool. I''m beginning to imagine what the entire set looks like, it''s Artifact so it must be good! After some research I noticed that there are des at the heel part. They will work like a machete if I "chop" my foot downwards. And there are spikes at the tip. Whoever designed this must be good, the boots are both artistic AND deadly. With the additional equipment, I look even more ridiculous now. A pair of ck shiny boots, a giant ck cape, two ck gauntlets worn on my bare arms, plus a non-destroyable, non-unequipable underpants. Funny. Domergor is an intelligentized NPC but looks like he doesn''t have much sense of a taste, so he didn''tment on my terrible style. "Ok now, You got your reward, time to move on." He waved and created a portal. "Get in!" I was shocked when I entered the portal. Across the portal is a big grasnd. The ground is fresh green, the vast blue sky is filled with white clouds... It looks like heaven! Domergor nudged me. "Hey wake up. Now, the mission:" He pointed to a vige ahead. "Your mission is in that vige. Go! I''lle get you when you''re done." Then he just disappeared! Sigh. He''s not leaving me any chance to ask for hints. My mood got brighter. This has to be the most beautiful scene I''ve ever witnessed in my life! The air is filled with the damp sweetness of the grass, too. In such a ce I''m no longer worried about the quest. I began to stroll forward slowly, while humming a song. Before I enjoyed enough I''m already at the entrance of that vige. When I entered it a prettydy ran to me at once. I tried to put on my hood at first, but realized there are only NPCs in here, there''s no need. She grasped my arm. "Oh brave warrior, please help me!" "What''s the matter?" She must be the quest NPC! ------------------ (*) A small, t item which is ced in front of your chest to protect your heart. They usually appear as mirrors in Chinese Wuxia novels. Chapter Book 3 - 8 – Quest of the Cave (Part 4) Book 3, Chapter 8 Quest of the Cave (Part 4) ------------------ "Monster! Monster attacked me!" "Don''t worry! Where is it? I''ll take care of it!" "Who dares to get in my way?? That''s MY woman!" A giant monster about 3 meters tall appeared near the vige. "So you are the little trouble huh? I suggest you leave this matter, or else! Ha!" The monster waved his big axe and unleashed a de wave, breaking a thick tree nearby. I gulp. I calmed my mind and walked towards the monster, then stopped at about 10 meters away from it. The thing looks like a toad, with human-like limbs. It can walk, but that giant toad head looks really creepy! "Hey you! Monster! How could you attack such a beautifuldy?" But the answer is quite unexpected. "Ha-hahaha! Don''t make meugh! You''re nothing better yourself, and you try to act hero? You''re funny you know that?" "Nothing better??" Now that made me furious! "I smell strong demon blood on you, and part angel too. But the demon aurapletely covered your angel blood, so I guess you''re an evil force? Besides, that evilness...is a lot worse than mine! Actually this is the first time I met something emitting such strong evilness! Those monsters living in the Hell Swamp are saintspared to you!" Listening to our words, the woman who hid behind me looked at me in doubt and began to crawl backwards. The monster continued, "You only look like a human. That scent though, only poor humans are unable to sense that terrible scent of you!" The woman got up on her feet and fled like a rabbit. Crap, what just happened?! My "Hero and Beauty" plot turned into "Beauty and Beast"! "Shut your mouth!" I looked at the monster. With a swing of my arms, I shoot my two dragon wires at it. The monster tried to block using his axe. But after a sh, the top half of the axe came off, leaving a perfect and clean cut which shines with a metallic luster. Ohh, these wires are handy! The broken half flew away while spinning, and stuck into a nearby rock. The monster on the other hand, just stared at his broken axe, dumbfounded. "Hey! Toad!" I''m wasting time here! "How long are you nning to stand there?" "Master!!" The monster suddenly dumped his axe and rushed over. I quickly parried it using my ws. Jesus! What is going on here?? I didn''t save the beauty back there but surely I don''t want to save a giant toad instead! The monster just leaned on me and cried, spilling tears and snot all over me. Ew! "Master!! You got to help me!!" "Stop!" "Stop!!" "Halt!" "Hold it!!" "Cut!" "Stop now or I''ll kick you!" "Still not stopping??" (Bruce Lee style) "AH-TAA!!" Finally, I kicked the monster away. Now I''m covered in gluey stuff. Ughhhh. It crawled back up, I quickly got intobat stance to prevent it from harassing me again. Good thing is it didn''t this time. "What''s that all about? You were aggressive. But now you look like a coward!" The monster is still running tears and nose. "Help me master!" "Stop crying, tell me what''s going on! How do I help if you don''t say anything?" "O-Okay, here''s the problem:" It wiped its face clean and prepared to tell story. But why am I getting a bad feeling about this? (Four hourster) Now I knew why I felt bad! This damn toad is even more wordy than a mumbling monk. It spoke nonsense for full four hours before he finally began to exin what''s important! I figured out the situation after another terrible two hours. Let me give a summarize about what he talked about in these six hours: The toad was once a handsome, he identally wandered into the Hell Swamp and got cursed, thus turned into a monster. The only way to lift the curse is to defeat the monster living in the swamp. But this guy is in love with thatdy back there. He couldn''t get rid of the curse so he just decided to take her by force! Then he bumped into me. "Stop crying again! Take me to that swamp!" "Huh what?" The monster didn''t catch with me all of a sudden. "Lead the way already!" "Oh! Thank you master!" He tried to hug me again but I kicked him flying. I don''t think he will be any better even if he returned human! I followed him for a while and finally reached that so-called Hell Swamp. There is a lone hill standing far away, and this guy won''t move an inch forward. So I decided to go in and check myself, asking the toad to wait outside. I walked for a while, and came in front of a cave, with a wooden sign nearby: They even got a house number! Never mind. I entered the cave, and it sure is dangerous. The road ended soon. A giant pit lies before me, I can see there is a tunnel on the other side, but the pit is huge, with bubblingva at the bottom of it. I remembered my dragon wires. So that''s why brother gave it to me for this stage! I shot the two arrows into the ceiling on the other end, pulled to see if it''s safe, and swung over. Easy peasy! After three "Lava Pits", I arrived at somewhere t. But I didn''t get to feel relieved before the ground began to shake, something is booming behind me. I turned around and instantly freaked out. The smolderingva began to flow towards me like water. Run I gotta run! And now I know why brother gave me the boots too. Without the speed bonus I''d already be part of the floor. I stumbled and rolled to the end of the tunnel. The path suddenly got wider, a burningvake appeared in front of me. I quickly dodged sideways, theva poured down into theke. Safe! My legs almost gave out! But my terrible fate hasn''t decided to leave me alone. A huge vortex appeared on the surface of theke, and the temperature began to rise. Obviously, some Boss ising out. As expected, the vortex grew, and formed an empty area at its center. A bird''s head emerged from it, then the neck, followed by the entire body. "A...Crow? So the Boss is a crow?" I said that out loud. The Boss was giving out some impressive poses. But upon hearing my words it fell back into theva. Then it went out again faster than I can imagine, while bringing out someva drops, one of whichnded on my head. "AHHHHHHHHHHH--" I covered my now smoking head and dashed around at a speed I''d probably never reach in the future. "Heehehehe!" A mildughter stopped me. I looked around searching for its source, then realized it was that ckish crow who isughing. But I thought crow cries are harsh and annoying. What I''m hearing right now though, is like when a little girl is giggling. "Hey! That crow!" "What did you say??" The "crow" pped its wings, ayer of ck me suddenly appeared around it, and I can feel the temperature going up. Weird, something smells good. Like barbecue. Oh! I smell like barbecue!! "AHHHHHHHHH" "Hothothothothothothot--" The crow put out the ck me. "Ha! Don''t you dare call me crow again!" Ugh. It sounded like a girl but now it feels like a girl too. "I give up! I surrender!!" Wise man knows when to quit! "So I can''t call you crow, what is your name then?" The Boss got insane damage, and highly intelligent too. I''ll have to talk it over! "Stop saying ''crow'' already! I''m such a beautiful one, do I look like crow to you??" Well that makes sense. She is ck bodied, but she definitely doesn''t look as boring as a crow. There are nine, colorful plume feathers on her head, and she has a long tail, also with several long silk-like lines of feathers. A peafowl maybe? No it can''t be. Only male peafowls have such fancy tail! "I''ll tell you. Now listen! This youngdy here is a mix blood! My father is a pure blood Fire Phoenix, my mother is the child of Aurora Heaven Bird and Inferno Eagle, so I inherited my father''s shape and my mother''s color!" She seems a bit sad though. I tried tofort her. I don''t want her to have another mood swing and roast me! "It''s alright! Your ck feathers aren''t that shiny, but overall you look good! You don''t appear as soft as a phoenix, instead you look glorious with that strong and mighty feeling of you! And attractive too!" I meant it! "Really?" She circled around out of joy. Sigh. Girls, they''re all the same. "Excuse me!" "What?" "You haven''t told me who you are!" "Me? I''m an Inferno Phoenix! Do I not look like one?" Then she prepared to disy that deadly ck me again! "Stop! Stop!! I believe you!!" She withdrew her me under my screaming. "Phew! I''m saved! You almost turned me into human barbecue!" "What is human barbecue? Is it fun?" "It''s not!" You must be kidding me! If she believes it''s fun, I''m finished! "Um, sorry but, did you turn a human into a toad recently?" "Now you mentioned it, I did! Why?" "Actually that man asked me toe here to lift the curse! But now I don''t know if I should ask you to do that." Ugh. That toad...ughhhh. "About that..." Phiona (She gave herself that name) considered. "I...could do that for you, but..." "But?" "You gonna do me a favor." "What if I refuse?" I tried. Then it just got hotter again and my skin started to burn. I immediately changed my idea. "Sure!! Tell me what you need!!" "That''s more like it." She lowered the temp. "I will take off the curse on that guy, but you have to take me outside for fun!" "Can''t you just go out on your own?" "No silly! I''m the guardian NPC of this quest, the system won''t allow me to run about!" "What can I do? I can''t just tell the system to release you!" "But you''re a yer!" "What''s wrong with a yer?" "yers can take monsters as Companions right? If you take me, I''ll be able to follow you outside!" (*) Ha! Fortune fell from the sky! Still, I pretended to be reluctant about it. "But I got two Companions already! You may already know, that we have limited chances, if I take you with me I''ll need to use one of them! That''s not fair for me!" I peeked at Phiona. She''s considering it, which means I actually got a chance. Then it seems she just made a hard decision. "Okay! Do you need a mount? I''ll introduce my friend to you! He''s fast mind you. I never managed to beat him in any races!" My heart is already bumping with delight on the inside, but I still kept a stern face. "A mount is nice but that will take up another of my slot! I''ll agree if you can juuust give me something else!" "Sure. Wait here, I''ll be back!" Then she dived into theva. ...I feel like I''m trying to trick a little girl into giving me her candies. She came out not long after, and is now holding a bunch of stuff in her ws. "This is all I have! If they''re still not enough then I can''t do anything about it!" She feels a little depressed. I checked over the goods. Most of them are junk, but I still managed to dig out a single outstanding piece. It''s a gem which is meant to be inserted into equipments. [Ultimate Fire Gem], 75% Fire resistance, skill [Summon me Hos], summoned amount = yer level x2. Ah, I''m level 200 now so I can summon 400 hos. They are only level 100 but that amount is enough to scare off people! It''s a pity none of my current equipment got any gem slot, though. "Alright! Stand--I mean stay still, I''ll capture!" "Sure thing!" ----------- (*) ?Gotta catch''em all? Chapter Book 3 - 9 – Quest of the Cave (Part 5) Book 3, Chapter 9 Quest of the Cave (Part 5) ------------------ I tried [Capture] more than 300 times before I finally turned Phiona into an egg. Now my throat hurts! (You need to say the skill name to cast it) With a blood drop, she reappeared. And wow you really shouldn''t judge people, I mean birds, by the looks! Phiona looked pretty innocent back there, but she is actually a level 999 boss, the Inferno Phoenix. And she got some serious properties. Current level: 0 Attack 100-180, Defense 100, Speed 230, HP 800, MP 1500, 75% chance to ignore defense, Attacks will carry Pyro Poison damage (20), Able to use all Fire spells, Invulnerable to magic, Special skill [Reincarnation]: Revives after 10 seconds of death (only once per day). And those are the attributes at level 0! What will they look like when she levels up? My status window popped up on its own. This usually happens when I level up. I saw that "reincarnation" property disyed along my own attributes! Then I found out all of my Companions can revive once in every day too. However only Phiona is a plete revive". The rest of us can only regain 10% of our HP. But this is good enough! A double safe! "Hey Phiona. So where is your friend?" Am I appearing too greedy on the looks? Phiona performed a shiny dance move, turned into a pure white, long tailed cockatoo parrot, andnded on me. "This way!" "So you can transform into a little white beauty? Then why did you appear all ckish?" Now the Phiona on my shoulder is truly a gorgeous creation of the nature. "This shape looks nice but I can''t fight in it! When I go intobat I''ll return to my original ck phoenix appearance. I can only do this when resting. I heard this is what my grandfather looked like, so I suppose this is the body of an Aurora Heaven Bird? Since I''m with you now I don''t need to be in my battle form all the time! Oh and, we arrived!" "Already?" Phiona flew ahead and disappeared. This seems the other end of the cave, and full of trees too. Looks like a forest stands over this side of the cave. But why is every forest so dark?? When I''m looking around, Phiona came back, followed by a...um... A unicorn? But that''s not really urate. From all kinds of stories I heard that unicorns are supposed to be creatures of pureness and kindness, usually have white body, and a beautiful horn. (*) But this thing...is pitch ck from top to bottom. The only thing that aren''t ck are its blood-red eyes, which only made it look even more horrible. And that horn...is long, sharp, sharper than any spikes or drills I''ve ever seen, with a tint of metallic shimmering on it. The only thing I can use to describe this creature is "deadly". "Greetings. I''m the guardian of this forest, Fallen Unicorn." It got some manners! Then it should be easier than talking to Phiona. "Hello, I am--" "There''s no need. I''ve known everything. Make it quick." ...The cool and non-talktive type? Since he asked, I''ll just start to do the job as quick as I can. He turned out to be even more of a trouble than Phiona, though. 500 attempts this time. My arms almost gave out! Is the system trying to help me train my skill or something?? The good thing is this guy''s powers are quite good. He is a level 800 Boss too. (Nightmare) Current level: 0 Attack 50-60, Defense 40, Speed 300, HP 600, MP 600, Attacks will sleep the target (20% chance), Invulnerable to Dark, Light and Lightning spells, Able to use all Lightning spells. Talent spell: [Thunder of Punishment], base damage 70, paralyze target. Attack is quite low but that speed is over the board! Being able to sleep and paralyze target is OP too. I tried it on a random monster, his attack sessfully put it into sleep and it won''t wake up as long as it doesn''t receive any attacks. So this is what a Nightmare looks like! He can be a real nice mount, the problem is he need to reach level 150 before I can ride on him. Plus, I don''t have [Ride] skill. I can sit on him without the skill alright, but that will cost tons of Stamina and I won''t enjoy any mount bonuses. I have pretty long stamina bar and insane Attack though, so there''s no need to worry about it too soon. Then I remembered I''m a permanent red name now. How the heck do I go to the guild and learn that skill?! Forget it. Wasting brain on it won''t help anyway. After I finished my thoughts, that toad showed up. "Master!! Awesome, you tamed the ck phoenix?" "Not really, I was just lucky!" Phiona is still on my shoulder now and I surely don''t want to say anything that would annoy her. "Phiona, remove the curse would you?" "Alrighty." She called Night Shade (Nightmare''s name): "Night Shade, use [Thunder of Punishment]!" A ball lightning appeared in the sky andnded on the toad, turning him into a roasted toad. Then his charred ck shell shattered open, a handsome young man fell out. "Done!" Phiona fluttered back to me. "Wait what? That''s how you get rid of the curse?" Good thing I wasn''t the one with the curse! Domergor suddenly appeared beside me. "Oi little brother! " "Hey bro. Why are you here? Did I finish the quest?" "That''s right! Mission aplished!" But he seems a bit unhappy, "Why can''t you take a bit longer?" "...Why would I do that?" I looked at him with an innocent face. "So you don''t want me to make it quick?" "No I don''t! I was confessing my love to the Iceberg Goddess. I was about to give her the ring when the system told me you finished the job and dragged me back! You could either finish it sooner, orter, but you did it at the perfect point and ruined my entire n!" "Huh? Oh I''m so sorry! If I knew you were busy with your ''business'', I''d just live here for a week or two!" I ttered. "Forget it! I missed it anyway. You juste quickly and go to the next quest, so I can go exin to the goddess!" "At once! Good luck with it brother!" He didn''t exin anything this time, just teleported me into the a huge hall, with doors all around it. Shoot, a maze again? "This is yourst quest." "So which door is a correct one this time?" He nced at me. "There are a total of one thousand doors here, each with a Boss and a group of minions in it. You need to try them out one by one. Your final goal is the ultimate beast, five-wed golden dragon. (**) Defeat or capture is your own choice. He will tell you how to get out." Domergor already summoned a portal and prepared to leave. I quickly grasped him. "Wait! Um, what happens if I enter the wrong door?" "In that case you will have to clear all the monsters in it, after which that room will disappear and you will be teleported back to this hall. By the way, apart from your goal, all other Bosses and monsters will not give you any EXP or items." My mouth dropped open. No EXP, and no items?? When he finished he turned to leave. I dragged him back again. "What now??" "Oh uh, you didn''t give me my reward forst stage!" "Oh. I forgot. Here!" He threw out a pair of legguards, a tasset and a heavy armor. "Come here." He put his hand on me. After a white sh all my equipments recovered full Durability. "Ok now, work hard! I''m off to my business!" I made sure he''s gone before Iined: "Yeah right. With a woman, he forgot how to treat his brother." Still, I got work to do. I checked my reward first. [Protection of the Dark Dragon Lord] (Artifact), Heavy Armor Durability 1000/1000, Growth equipment, *Defense 1500, 15% damage absorb, +10% max HP, Resistant to piercing damage, Ignores freeze effect, Passive [Impact Aura]: Damage attackers, damage level dependent on wearer''s level. [Cover of the Dark Dragon Lord] (Artifact), Tasset Durability 1000/1000, Growth equipment, *Defense 700, +50% max Weight Load, 20% Fire absorb, Skill [Dark Realm]: Creates a 20-yard wide dark area, enemies inside the area will lose 80% uracy. [Swiftness of the Dark Dragon Lord] (Artifact), Leg Guards Durability 1000/1000, Growth equipment, *Defense 750, *Movement Speed +50%, 50% chance to perform a second attack, (***) +20% Evasion. (Attributes with "*" will grow with wearer''s level) Another three Artifacts! Artifacts are the top-tier gear you could hope for in this game. Those off-scale numbers definitely proved that. And every part of the set follows the same style--showy to the eyes! I stillck several parts, but at least I don''t look like a joke now. Better than that underpants+capebination anyway. ...Underpants and cape? Sounds like Superman. Just looking at the one thousand doors makes me feel faint. I''ll log off for now. "Wayne?" No answer. Maybe still in the game. Sigh. Gotta look for something to eat. I''m starving. -------------- (*) In some folklores, unicorns are just as wild and cruel as other beasts, who won''t hesitate to kill people, with the exception of a virgin. (**) Here it goes again, the difference between a western and eastern dragon. I won''t call it "lung" or "loong" or whatever cause it doesn''t sound right. (***) The author didn''t make it clear what this means. But again, don''t have to take it serious. Chapter Book 3 - 10 – Strange Package Book 3, Chapter 10 Strange Package ------------------ I found nothing in the room. Then Wayne came back from outside. "Boss! You''re out?" "Yep." I''m still looking for snacks. "Where were you off to?" "Military drill of course! Nobody just lies in the dorm from day to night like you, at this time! I haven''t yed for days, I wander how many levels people have got beyond me." Wayneined, "Hey Boss, what about you?" "Me? I''m only 220." (The EXP reward from recruiting Phiona and Night Shade pushed me there.) "That''s...not what I expected from you. What are you doing all these days?" Wayne must have noticed my slow progress. "Just...don''t ask. You know what I got myself into? Remember that quest I told your before?" "I do. Why? Wait, you''re still trapped in there?" "Bingo! I''m still in that ce. I got some pretty awesome gear andpanions, but that ce won''t allow me to level much. The worst part is that I''vee into another big problem. A hall, with a thousand doors, each with a bunch of monsters in it. Aside from my final target they won''t drop ANY stuff, or EXP!" "Man this quest is insane." He drew a cross in front of his chest and said, "God bless you, my poor child." "Oh screw you." I kicked him out of the room. "I gonna go eat. Youing with me?" "Sure. Someone is paying so why not?" "No no I''m not paying for you." We walked outside while chitchatting. "We go dutch." "Ohe on! You''re richer than the whole nation and you''re being stingy on a meal?" "Don''t give me that. You''re not any less yourself!" "Well I may have a lot but that''s like totally nothingpared to you! Why don''t you donate that endless pocket money of you and treat me something?" "Forget it!" We "quarrel" ''d all the way to the college dining hall. I came here on purpose. Since Wayne wants me to treat, I chose here -- the worst ce you cane up with. Otherwise I was nning to eat out actually! "Ok this ce is good enough. Fill yourself up! It''s on me!" I grinned at Wayne. Wayne gave me an offended face. "Fill up?? I feel bloated just by smelling what''s in here! Come on, let''s go to the Fortune Grand Hotel!" Atst we started towards the hotel anyway. The main reason is that I can''t stand the school dining hall either! But when we reached the gate I saw two men in ck suits walking over me. "Young master." I know the one walking in front. That''s one of the chief manager in my father''spany, and his trusted man too. "Mr. Wang. Why are you here?" "Got some work to do around, and the president asked me to give you something along the way." Then he took over a silver case from his follower. I instantly realized this is a lockbox produced by ourpany. I pressed my finger on a small screen and the case clicked open. The case is pretty big but there''s only a watch in it. I took the watch and checked around it, without noticing anything special about it. So I looked at Mr. Wang. "This is...?" "That''s a key. You have another delivery tomorrow noon, I don''t know what exactly either. But the president mentioned that it will be something you''ve been waiting for a while. Okay then, I''ll take my leave. Mr President is still expecting me." Then he left in a sh, just like how he appeared. A man of actions. Wayne snatched the watch from me. "It looks familiar! I''ve seen it somewhere!" I grabbed it back. "Just stop. There''s no way you''d have seen it." "How do you know that?" I showed him the "00000" steel imprint on the back of the watch. "It''s a prototype product fresh out of theb. Someone''s gonna be seriously damned if you really saw it before." We went over the meal with jokes and shoutings as usual. Then we returned to the room and rested. I got up early the next morning, and decided to go to the training and get to know my ssmates. I am the loner type but at least I should meet them for once. Besides, I don''t think I can concentrate on my game while waiting for my father''s "surprise". So I dragged Wayne to the training site. While he kept asking me if I feel ill. Dang it. Though I must admit, this is something rare for me. When the session started, the students around me just kept ncing at me with various expressions, causing me to goose bump. Even the instructor stared me for a while. Then he walked to me. "Are you Sairin?" "Yes sir!" "You, um," He looked me up and down. "Did you took the wrong form by any chance?" "Form?" No idea what he''s saying. He passed me a roster, with information of the ss written on it, like name, gender, age... I found my entry and checked, everything is fine. With no response from me, the instructor asked: "Are you sure you''re ''Male''?" ...Shit. "Sir! I''m certain, male from the moment I was born, and not gonna change in the future!" Wayne spoke on the side: "Sir! I have known Sairin since childhood. I guarantee his maleness. He''d go at any hot girls too, just like other dudes!" If I can kill people with mere eyesight I''d already done that on Wayne. Is that supposed to be helping me?? Somehow my killing intent affected the instructor as well. "Oh don''t worry about it. I''m just making sure." Then he walked away quickly, while mumbling: "Male? For real?" (*) Wayne isughing his tears off now. He patted my back: "You''re as fun as ever! Hahahaha! Oh my stomach-- How many times this happened again?" I grasped his cor and lifted him off ground, then aimed my right hand at where his "little member" is supposed to be. "Stillughing?" Since he grew up with me he must know how my father raised me while supporting me with various special treatment. My muscle power is already beyond ordinary people. I don''t look big, but my body can produce some serious force. My right punch can easily exceed 300 kilograms. It will kill anyone with a head-on hit, and let''s not imagine what would happen if I hit "there". (**) "Nooooo! Boss! Don''t! I won''tugh next time!" His terrible screaming drew the attention of the instructor. And the instructor obviously flinched upon seeing the scene. He can''t understand how someone with my body build can lift Wayne (about 70 kilograms) with just one arm. He wouldn''t guarantee he could do that himself. "Stop it!" The instructor tried to press my arm down, to see how strong I am. And totally out of his expectations, my arm didn''t move an inch. But I still let Wayne go. "Since the instructor ordered. Make fun of me again and I''ll make sure you won''t ''sweat it'' anymore in the future!" The guys all understood what I meant and began tough. That helped rify my gender as well. After putting the students under order, we started training. This is no real military training. All we did was just turning around, walking and so on. This is meant to train students'' mind rather than their body anyway. It''s noon break. There are too many people so I didn''t get to leave soon. Somehow the crowd began to move backwards. A big truck moved into the training ground. The five-wed golden dragon emblem instantly gave out its identity as Dragon Fate Corporation''s porter truck. It stopped in the middle of the area, two men dressed as expressmen jumped off. One of them told something to a nearby instructor, who in turn pointed at my direction. Then they ran to us. One asked our instructor: "Excuse me, is this toon Two, Seventh Squad?" The instructor nodded. "Have you done training? We have a package for Sairin." "Oh. No problem. We''re finished, just waiting for the crowd to clear." Then he called me: "Sairin!" "Yes sir!" "Stand out! Go get your package! The rest of you, attention! At ease! Dismissed!" I asked the delivery: "What kind of stuff did you bring in such a big vehicle? Furniture?" "We don''t know. It''s from thepany HQ, a really big container. You can just open it here. We''re wondering what''s inside as well." Wayne caught up with me. "What''s that thing? Is that what they mentioned yesterday?" "No idea. Maybe?" Wayne is not the only one following me though. The whole ss gathered, all curious about the fuss. The delivery crawled back into the cab and opened the trunk. Threeyers of safes slowly drew open, revealing a big container. What''s the deal with all these tight wrap-ups? "Our duty ends here. You need a special key to open that thing, they said you already got it yesterday." "Key? Oh. Yeah I got it. Almost forgot it''s a key." I moved up my sleeve and revealed the strange watch. "But, where''s the key hole?" We circled around the container for a while, not finding anything. Some ssmates helped searching but came up with no result either. Someone even suggested try climbing on top of it. Is that even possible?? Who in their right mind would put key holes up there? I still climbed just in case. It''s in t, nothing. Finally Wayne reminded us. "Try checking the watch for a button or something. Maybe it''s remote?" Good idea. I should have thought about that earlier. I fiddled around the watch. It''s not like I can''t find any buttons, the problem is, there are too many buttons! I don''t know which one is the correct one, it''s even possible that I will need to press abination of them. I was nning to give up when I received a call from my father. His face appeared on the screen with a terrible grin. "Hey dad!" "You got the delivery?" "Yeah. But--" "But you can''t open it?" ...I smell a set-up. "Come on! Just tell me!" "Hold your horses. Take a guess what''s in there. I''ll tell you how to open once you get the answer." -------------------- (*) Just a note, most instructors are other students from military coges, usually the same age as the trainees. (**) This is strong but not superhuman, ording to some records of pro boxers. Q: Is the MC being too harsh on Wayne? A: No. That''s their daily ystyle. No one''s offended. --------------------- By the way I saw another website with my trantions on it, without referring to this forum. Should I be worried? Chapter Book 3 - 11 – Campus Incident Book 3, Chapter 11 Campus Incident ------------------ "Well I can only think of you stuffing a whole car into such a big box." Iined. I did ask father for a car from long ago but he never agreed. Safety issues, as he said. Apparently he finally gave me a car, but isn''t telling me it straightforwardly. "Aren''t you a smart one! That''s my child." "Are you praising yourself?" Then I heard phone rings from my dad''s end. He said: "I got incident to deal with, so I''ll make this quick. Flip the dial open, there is a keyboard inside, the password is your birthday." He hang up. A keyboard? I never found that out! I touched around the edge of the watch and reached a hidden button. The dial bounced open, revealing a small dial pad, with the number 1~9 on it, there is no "0". For real! I entered my birthday (four "1"s). Something shed, then the dial closed on its own. Several secondster the lid above the container on the truck opened up. "So this thing got no side doors, but a ceiling door instead?" Someone wondered. We soon understood the design. A ck shape got lifted up from the container. It looks like a UFO at the first sight! "GT8000?!" Someone shouted. Then people gasped all around us. "It''s the SEVEN Series! Seven!! Somebody, help me, my heart can''t hold it anymore!" "GT8000? But they haven''t published it on the market right?" I stared at the maglev vehicle in shock. No one else can understand how excited I am now! This is ourpany''s new model which is scheduled to be released at the end of this year, but father got me one in advance! I feel at top of the world!! Those instructors and students around all began to wonder who I am. It is an advanced era now but a private maglev car is still a rare sight. They''re usually avable to the military, some high ss hospitals and certain offshore rescuing units, plus police force in big cities. The number owned by individuals is less than 10. Most vehicles at this age are still relying on wheels. "Boss!" Wayne jumped to me. "The car! Heh heh heh... Lemme try it!" "Off with you." I nudged him away. "Not before I try it myself!" The car floated beside me, I jumped into it. The gull-wing doors looks fancy. The seats arergely tilted, typical sport car style. Wayne jumped onto the copilot seat. "Let''s drive!" "Of course!" I tried to recall those driving skills I learned before, and controlled the car to levitate until it''s 20 meters off ground. This is the highest it can reach. It''s a car, not a ne anyway. I slowly pressed the elerator pad. The car rushed out in a sh, causing Wayne to scream. "Nice. The elerating is a little too powerful though!" "That''s what you call a race car!" Wayne is almost drooling now, "You can give me if ur not satisfied. I can pay!" "Forget it! Not for sale!" I interrupted his daydreaming. "Let''s see how fast this boy can go!" Wayne screamed harder. I kept the pad down at the bottom. The car charged like a missile, while I am pressed against the seat by the giant force. Even breathing is bing harder! From the panels I can see the speed is still skyrocketing. It''s above 300 km/h now. "Impressive. It took less than two sec to reach 300 kilos." Waynemented. (*) After another five seconds of elerating, the car became stabled at 600. From the looks of it this is far from its best though. There must be a safe or something. But Wayne''s yelling dragged me back into reality. "I think I saw police in the rearview!" "Huh? I don''t see any." "Well duh, those police are not racers, of course they can''t keep following you like this!" I quickly slowed down and parked at the side. Five police cars arrived after Wayne came back with two cups of coffee from a nearby store. They gave us a serious mouthful plus a huge fine before letting us go. And this is thanks to us being students, plus a good attitude. As the leading officer said: "The fine is to ensure you of remembering the lesson. Even if you''re not cautious enough, you still need to consider other people''s safety!" When we returned to the college we saw a group of people standing at the gate, most of them boys. Somehow they''re all from my ss. When we got off the car, Wayne received a good amount of murderous stares from the people. He closed up on me: "What''s the deal? They feel dangerous." "Correction. They feel dangerous to YOU. They seem fine to me." As we''re discussing, one of the girls ran to us. I can remember her as my ssmate but I don''t know the name. She told the surrounding people: "Get in line and do it one after one. Give me your letters and go back n wait for a response!" Me and Wayne are still trying to work this out when all of the people passed something to the girl in front of me. I asked her about the situation after the crowd has cleared. "What are you doing?" The girl didn''t answer right away. She just dropped a big pile of letters into my arms. "Here, for you. Take your time! Geez." "I--" "Ha you''re a shiny one aren''t you?" Another girl came over and stretch out a hand. "Hello, I''m Sonia, monitor of the ss!" I shook her hand. Getting to know the monitor always helps. "I--" "I''m Ling, leader of the Art & Literaturemittee!" Then a third girl came. "I''m--" "Stop!!" I yelled. "Can I say something?" "Well go ahead." A male student said that. I remember him, the manager of our PE ss. "Can someone exin what''s going on? And what is this pile of stuff?" Sonia gave me the answer. "You attracted a lot of attention back at the training ground. Almost every freshman saw you back there. As a result, all the guys are now officially attracted by your charm. They believed you are the daughter of some rich family when they saw that GT8000. So...now this. I guess those are all love letters." "Whaaat??" That was from Wayne, not me. "So, they looked at me like that, was because they saw me as Boss'' ''boyfriend'', aka their rival??" "Very likely. You''d better be careful from now on. I highly suggest you hire some bodyguards." Wayne rushed to me and tried to take my watch. "What the fu*k?" "Lend me the car!" "For what?" "I need to get to the TV station and make an announcement, that I''m, NOT, YOUR, BF!" "You looking for trouble?!" I knocked his head. "Stop this nonsense!" It took some time to dispose of the pile (well, garbage ssification) before I joined the afternoon training session. When it ended another crowd was blocking me at the gate! We escaped back to our dorm. If they were pretty girls I''d actually enjoy this. But... It''s settled. I''m not going to the training anymore. I''ll just nerd in the dorm from now on, no one''s catching me! At least not the guys! ------------------ (*) In real life, such eleration will cause serious injury to ordinary human beings without proper training. ------------------ Spring Festival is on. Progress will halt for about, well, 10 days or so? Chapter Book 3 - 12 – Im, fu*king, BACK!! Book 3, Chapter 12 I''m, fu*king, BACK!! ------------------ I continued my path finding campaign. It''s November 11th now, I''ve spent almost two months in thisst stage. The one thousand doors are no joke. Every one is filled with monsters, every room felt worse than a bus in rush hours! (*) After all the work I''ve done so far, there are only 233 of them left. Those I already entered all disappeared. Frommon sense I should be finding the right one any time now. But I still haven''t. Without EXP reward my level stayed where it was. But something changed at least: The teamwork between my Companions greatly improved. Another good news is that Lucky has reached level 200 before, which means he can talk now. Plus his dragon breath is the best skill I can hope for cleaning monsters. Upon entering each new door he only needs to give it one shot, and a major half of the weaker minions would be all dead. It is my birthday, I woke up early and decided to fight for a result. I really want to get out of this quest now. The No.1 on the ranking list is upied by Big de again. He dropped from there because I killed him back then but he made it back pretty quick. Man he''s really something. He is level 399, while I''m...220. It won''t be easy to kill him now. I cleared another 4 rooms the whole morning. 229 left. Sigh, tough luck. Then I ate my lunch and went online again. When I appeared I saw brother Domergor standing there. "Brother? What''s the matter?" Somehow he looks full of joy. "Heh hehehe! You just got a sister-inw! Finally someone can apany me watching the stars!" "Congrattions brother! That said, I''m in some trouble here. What am I gonna do about this quest? It''s been several months now, will it ever end?" "Alright then! I will make it easier for you." He waved around, a good number of doors vanished. I checked. Three doors left. "So...One of them is the correct one?" "Nope. They are all correct." "Wait what?" "There are three correct answers among the thousand doors. Somehow you missed all of them. You got the worst luck I''ve ever seen!" "I think my luck all went to finding equipment andpanions. As for finding ways, every way I choose is just the wrong one!" "That...is quite true, from what I''ve seen from you. I can tell you something about the Boss too. Its main attack is to lower your status. If you can seal its spells from the start it will be easy!" "Hey brother, is what you''re doing now called ''treachery''?" "Screw you. Just be quick. I''m waiting to spend honeymoon with my wife!" "Okay okay!" I pushed open the middle door. The other two just disappeared. Figures. Then the door shut close behind me. "The one who will inherit my unfulfilled ambition, you''ve finallye!" The voice is a bit too loud, causing my ears to ring. "Who is it? And where are you?" I looked around the empty room. The room is square, about 500 meters in length. There is not a single object in sight. "I''m here!" "Huh? Where?" I saw nothing. "... I''ve waited for so long, only to witness such a foolish being?" ''Someone'' mumbled. "Hey! Boy! Look up! Above you!" "Above...?" I raised my head, only to see a dragon-shapedmp hanging on the ceiling. "I only see a strangemp here, where are you anyway?" The mp" suddenly moved, its head reached in front of my face. "Who did you call amp?? I''m Ao Guang, patron of the East China Sea, lord of all beasts!" "Ao Guang? I''m not Nezha, why are you being all angry at me?" (**) "Who is this Nezha?... Ah don''t you interrupt me! Your arrival means you''re a hero who is seeking my dragon power to unite the whole world. Now I shall test you and see if you have what it takes!" The old fellow then got ready to attack. "Wait!" I yelled. "My brother told me the remaining items are here. I''m in pretty bad shape now, how about giving me those stuff before we fight?" The dragon considered. "You do look in rags (low durability). If we fight like this they will say I''m just bullying a young man so...fine. But mind you, I will take them back if you can''t win!" "Thank you!" Now that''s an advantage! The dragon shifted his body, and my surroundings changed. I appeared on a vast in. I can''t see the border of it. A pile of equipment is stuffed beside me, I hurriedly put them on. [Intelligence of the Dark Dragon Lord], Helmet Growth equipment, Durability 1000/1000, *Defense 900, +50% Spell Speed, 5% chance of interrupting nearby spells, MP +20%, +50% resistance against Mind spells, Talent Skill [Mind Drop]--Lower target''s Luck for a certain period of time. [Veil of the Dark Dragon Lord], Mask Growth equipment, Durability 800/800, *Defense 200, Ignores poison effect, Night Vision range + 3 yard. [Shoulder of the Dark Dragon Lord], Shoulder Armor Growth equipment, Durability 1000/1000, *Defense 600, 10% damage reflection, +20% Attack Speed, 5% damage absorb. [Grasp of the Dark Dragon Lord], Heavy Gloves Growth equipment, Durability 1000/1000, *Defense 600, +10% damage, +20% Attack Speed, Talent Skill [Sacrilege]--Cause target to bleed, until death or purified by holy spells. [Grit of the Dark Dragon Lord], Breast Armor Durability 200/200, Bes immune to weakpoint strikes and critical attacks. [Resistance of the Dark Dragon Lord], Shield Growth equipment, Durability 2000/2000, *Defense 1800, *35% block rate, 20% damage reflection, Counters attackers with lightning, damage dependent on wearer''s level. (Defense attribute only effective when sessfully blocking attacks) [Collection of the Dark Dragon Lord], Belt Durability 300/300, Adds 20 item shortcut slots, Talent Skill [Collect]--auto picks up items dropped by monsters (defined by the wearer) [Fang of the Dark Dragon Lord], Duo Swords Growth equipment, Durability 1200/1200, *Attack 200-220, Attack Speed-Very Fast, *+5% damage, 25% chance to causeceration, 1¡ë chance of performing Crushing Attack. Equipment hit by this attack instantly breaks apart, and cannot be repaired. Freezes target, Ignores Defense, Additional 20 Poison damage,sts 100 seconds, 25% life steal. [Tail Spike of the Dark Dragon Lord], Lance Growth equipment, Durability 1000/1000, *Attack 280-330, Attack Speed-Fast, Ignores Defense, 20% chance of causing target to take amplified damage, Manaburn, Cause continuous lightning damage, 20% life steal, Talent Skill [Heart Piercer]--Rapid 5bo strike, if the first one hit, each following hit will deal 5% more damage and will never miss. (Attributes with "*" will grow with wearer''s level) I''m visibly trembling looking at all these gear. As expected, it''s a full Artifact set. Their numbers are insane and they can level up too! The only problem is I was looking forward to the figure of a typical knight--with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. But now I got two shields and two swords. The shields are installed on the upper part of my gauntlets, I can put them behind my back too but there''s no way to hold them using hands. The two swords hang on both sides of my tasset. And thence sits diagonal behind my back too. I look all weird! However the helm and mask go well with the previous set-up. They are really cool. Though I really need to be careful not to attract too many girls from now on. Or I will build too many enemies. When Ipleted my outfit a visible dark aura spread from me. The terrible disy of power even shook the dragon a bit. "Alright boy, I''ve given you everything except thest wing de piece, and restored all your dura. Shall we begin?" "Okay. Let''s do this!" I''m still overjoyed, and gave the answer without thinking. "Careful now, this ce is called the God''s Field. You will respawn right where you died. And don''t count on your potions and meds, you won''t be using them here. Even your own regeneration will be stopped." I looked at my empty belt. "Potions and meds huh? I''ve been stuck here for two months. Not a single bottle left on me!" "Good then! By the way, once we start, you either defeat me to get out, or I defeat you until you drop back to level 20 and get kicked back to the rookie vige!" "What?? A death match? So I''ll definitely die?" "Don''t worry, I won''t be regaining HP either. You can get full HP upon respawn but I won''t get any." "That doesn''t make it very fair. You''re level 1000 for god''s sake, I got only three people who can fight and our levels added up is only like, half of yours!" I started acting shamelessly. It makes sense though. The dragon is 1000, I''m 220, Lucky and Phantom level 200, everyone else zero. Those Steel Beasts probably cannot endure a single hit so they can be ignored. With all the powerful equipment I can maybe fight like a level 300. That''s still pretty far from level 1000! "Hmm. Alright, I can allow something else." Ohh, dragon deity of ancient Chinese, such generosity! "You don''t have to defeat me then. You can pass this test if you can get rid of half of my HP." "Half?" I thought about my odds. "How much is half of your HP?" "I have 200k in total, so it means 100k. Not that much." You kidding?? "A hundred thousand? You call that ''not much''?? Suppose you stay there and just let me hit you, plus every hit is critical, I''ll probably need a whole day to cause that much damage! I''d tire myself out long before that happens!" "Oh, uhh, how about another half-off, 50 thousand?" "20 thousand!" "Not a chance! The system won''t allow it! 40 thousand then!" "25 thousand!" "30 thousand!!" "Deal! Let''s make it 30 thousand. And that''s more than the total HP of all my team! Still pretty hard!" Though I''m already super happy on the inside. "That''s settled. Now ready yourself boy. [Seal of five elements]!" With a body swing, the dragon cast a giant Yin & Yang circle at me. (TL note: will this symbol ? disy for everyone?) Of course I''m not dumb, I immediately turned and run, but was still a bit slow. The circle is too big. Its edge managed to get me. "Oof!" I crawled back on my feet with only 10% HP left. Seems that move killed me in one shot, but Phiona''s skill saved me. Then I saw a big dragon head charging at me! "HALP!!" A wise man knows when to flee, so I just run like mad! ----------------------- (*) I once experienced such a bus in Beijing. My feet didn''t get to touch the bus'' floor for the whole 2 hours. (**) See Dragon Kings of the Four Seas ording to Chinese mythology story, Nezha ughtered Ao Bing, Ao Guang''s third son. Chapter Book 3 - 13 – It Finally Ended Book 3, Chapter 13 It Finally Ended ------------------ I summoned Phantom to merge with me while running. When the head almost reached me, I used [Blink] to dodge the head attack. Ouch! The dragon tail smashed me into the ground. When I got out my HP is full. And my level is 219! I haven''t even done anything yet! Lucky is now ying hide and seek with the dragon in the air. Lucky''s 100 meter body length looks like a childpared to the eastern dragon, who is almost a thousand meter long. p! Ao Guang''s tail hit Lucky right on the mark and caused Lucky to drop to the ground, which in turn sent me flying. "Phantom, possess him and restraint his moves." Phantom floated towards the dragon. But a bubble-likeyer appeared and bounced him back. "I can''t! " "Come back then!" Lucky spit a fireball at the dragon. But our opponent spit a bigger lightning ball at us, which tore us into pieces! No this isn''t good! I already died twice, Lucky and Phantom once. But the dragon didn''t lose a single point yet. While I''m trying toe up with a strategy, Lucky charged towards the dragon again. This time he just bit him using those teeth. The dragon roared and curled up his long body like a snake, then squeezed Lucky to death. The level gap is just too big! Right, I got a crossbow! I took it out and shot and the dragon. I used a Soul Chaser, cause I don''t think anything else would have any effect. It did work, but...not much. The bolt hit the dragon, then he turned and gazed at me. That was 31 damage. Completely negligiblepared to our goal! For the following period, the whole room is filled with our shrieks and Ao Guang''s howling. Our attacks were like tickling him. We did cause some flesh wounds on his body but those were just around 500 HP! On the contrary, we ourselves are in pretty bad shape. Lucky is now down to level 77, me and Phantom are 82. Those Steels Beasts are already turned to dust. I tried summoning Phiona and Night Shade for help. They are level 0 so death isn''t a problem, but they won''t do any damage either! We can''t go on like this! If this continues I will really drop back to level 20! Then a creative idea popped up in my mind. "Phantom, blink into his head." "What??" Phantom didn''t get what I meant. "Blink inside his head and stuck me in there, then boom!" This time he understood. Usually, when a yer blinks or teleports inside obstacles he or she will be jammed inside and explode. This always means death. "Master, prepare yourself. I''m doing it!" We intentionally charged at the dragon''s giant head. When we''re close enough Phantom used [Blink]. The dragon was taken aback a bit when we vanished. But the following surge of agony caused him to begin bumping the ground with his head. Ao Guang held his head with his w and struggled. The exceeding pain made his whole body to convulse. Lucky already received my order and kept some distance, but was still involved inside the mess and lost another level. The dragon''s writhing got wilder and wilder. He even began to lose control of his own power. At the same time, the whole Dark Forest, which sits atop of the dragon cave, started to tremble. The Dark Forest is near the center of the China game region, with a dense poption in the area. There are many major cites around it, so this time nearly 100 million yers experienced the "earthquake". Regarding the earthquake, many hot discussions and quarrels appeared on the forum. Among all the discussions, a particr topic sits there without drawing much attention. But the poster swore that he''s telling the truth. No one believed it because his story was just too bizzare. The title is "Earthquake, cause by a descended demon!" The content is as follows: Y''all know there was a big earthquake in the Dark Forest several days ago. I was grinding at one of the sites in the forest. It suddenly started to shake, monsters around me stopped their attacks and started to flee. I was in too much shock to do anything by then. As I was considering whether I should run, a huge crater the size of the football field appeared on the ground. The trees were all broken so I can see things clear. The ground first rose up, then fell downwards, creating a big pit. The earthquake stopped when the pit appeared. The dust in the air blocked my sight. When it cleared up I saw someone wearing ck armor, with ck wings, standing in the center of the pit. He looked badass! The flowing crimson cape, the broken swords in his hands, and thend covered in blood...I''d never forget the sight! You can go check the site for yourself! Coordinate is xxx,xxx. There is really the giant hole there. At least someone believed the post. Because that someone was also there. Her name is Charon. Her in-game character is called "Crimson Rose". She was standing at the mentioned site that day. Even closer to the center than the storyteller. In fact she not only witnessed the whole story, she even interacted with the story''s hero. Back to our main line. I was stuck inside the dragon''s head. That pain is not much different from what the giant fellow was having. The non-stop torture caused me to faint several times, before woke me up again. I think I''d never forget that experience for the rest of my life. When I thought I can''t take it anymore, a big explosion which is powerful enough to make my heart jump, shook me clear. Then the pain is gone, leaving me with a refreshing feeling instead, like the best thing one can expect for being alive. I got less than 10% HP left (some rock and debris did it to me). That explosion was when the dragon''s head and my body got blown up. I looked at myself: the Revenger is nowhere to be found. Two broken halves of the dragon fang swords in both of my hands. The stretching w des got cut off entirely. My Phantom Cape got holes all over it, as well as most of the equipment on my body. I''m covered in blood, which is now flowing everywhere on the ground. But I guess most of it belongs to the dragon. Lucky lies not far from me, dying, his body obviously smaller. The rest of mypanions are in simr conditions. I felt something odd on my face and touched it. Only a part of my mask is still intact, there is a big empty hole near my left eye! I tried to use my ring to get back to the Lost City. But I feel like my body just got ran over by a road roller, I can''t lift a finger! I called up my status window in my mind and looked. Then I froze. Well, mind froze anyway. My level is...81. Phantom didn''t die as many times as me but is still restricted to 81 because of the system. Lucky was acting as our front all the time, and he is only level 76 now! I then checked my gear. Apart from those non-destroyable ones, all of them are close to break now! I recalled Lucky and others back to the pet space to rest. I suffered real heavy loss this time. The most devastating news is that I can''t find my Revenger crossbow anymore. I stood there for a while. Not to act strong but, I don''t even have the strength to sit down. I collected enough will to move around. Not going back to Lost City yet, I need to find my precious Revenger. I leaned on a rock and tried to regain some strength. Hope there are no monsters around. "Do you...need help?" A gentle voice appeared near my ears. I quickly turned around in alert, resulting me tearing my wounds open again. Aww that hurts! I looked at the girl in front of me who is wearing cheap line robe and a broken wooden stick. I can''t make out her body shape due to that robe, but those shiny eyes, pretty nose and clean white skin showed enough of her beauty. "Who?!" That''s all I could say when I''m trying to stand against all the soreness. "I-I am just a yer!" She''s trembling a bit, probably because I sounded really aggressive. "I know that NPCs sometimes fight each other. But don''t worry, I won''t, like, take advantage because you''re hurt!" What''s that all about? It''s not surprising that she saw me as an NPC, but that "take advantage" part...Hey miss, you gonna raise a lot of misunderstandings. "Got any red potions?" "Yes!" She smiled brightly. For some reason my heart skipped a beat. She fished inside her bag for quite a while before taking out a bottle. Looks like a new yer. I didn''t hesitate to gulp down the potion. Now that felt better! "Can I ask something?" She hesitated. "Go on. I''ll help you if I can." This girl gave me a somewhatfortable feeling. There wouldn''t be more than 3 girls who could give me such feeling, and she is the best of them yet. "You are NPC, so you must be familiar with this ce right?" "Not really familiar. But it''s no problem if you just need directions or something." I already noticed this ce as the Dark Forest. I''ve spent quite some time here, not to mention Phantom is a native! "Wonderful! Can you please tell me what kind of monsters are good aspanions around here?" "What''s your level?" "207. Is it too low?" She continued without leaving me any chances to answer. "I knew it! Like they said, I''m too weak to catch anypanions!" Then she just sat beside me, defeat. A strange idea suddenly shed in my mind. "You helped me, how about I be yourpanion?" "What??" She looked at me with disbelief. "You''re serious? You look like a really powerful Boss. If you can be mypanion then I no longer have to hide like this!" "Hide? What are you hiding from?" "Those annoying guys! They just stick to me like flies! I came into the forest to get rid of them!" "I see. I''ll tell you something first. I''m not a catchable NPC, so you can''t [Capture] me. But you can team up with me and keep us connected. When you need me, just call my name in your Chat. My name is Ziri, tell me your location and I''ll arrive immediately, anytime besides when I need to deal with my personal matters. As long as I''m not busy I''lle to you. I''m different from normalpanions so I can''t guarantee toe every time. But the good side is I won''t take up your slot. You can go find otherpanions in the future." This is just an excuse to be with her, I can "work slowly" from now on. "Ok ok!!" She nodded madly while staring at me with a terrible expression which shouldn''t belong to such a girl. "Do we need to make any contract or something?" "Nope. Just send a team request and it''s all done." "Ok!" She sent the request and asked: "But why do you look so much like a yer?" Duh, I AM a yer. But of course I can''t tell her that. "I''m...a humanoid NPC so I appear like a yer!" "I see!" Silly girl. "So where are you heading to?" I asked her. "I''m going off the game! What will you do?" "Don''t worry about me, I''ll take care of myself. You just remember to call me when you get online." "Alright. See you!" Then she''s off. I feel much much better now so I started looking for my Revenger. I searched for some time without finding anything though. Strange. Don''t tell me it got emptied Dura and broke? As I''m checking the ground I suddenly heard a gruff voice. "Boy! I see you got quite some potential!" I looked at the source, and slumped onto the ground. Chapter Book 3 - 14 – Im Broke! Book 3, Chapter 14 I''m Broke! ------------------ ¡°You-you-you-you''re not dead??¡± I looked at the Ao Guang who is now floating in the sky. I''m done. That suicide attack didn''t finish him. Looks like I''ll need to start over from the rookie vige. "Dead? You don''t just kill a sacred dragon like that!" I stood up. "I may die but I''ll not surrender! Do it! Send me back to rookie as you willed!" The dragon however, lowered down to me. "Fear not! You''ve passed the mission." "Huh? You''re not joking right?" "I don''t joke! Your suicide explosion did cut my HP in half. You''ve gone beyond your goal." "So that''s how it went. Thank you for your trial! So what''s my reward?" "Patience!" He tossed a pair of strange-looking metal wings at me. "That is thest part of the Dark Dragon Lord set, wing des. Put it on and you will be able to fly. It acts as an effective shield too." I checked. [Wings of the Dark Dragon Lord], Wing des, Durability 1200/1200, Growth equipment, *Defense 800, *Block Rate 35%, Special Skill [Fly], Talent Skill [Absolute Barrier]: Enjoys absolute defense for 20 seconds (once per day). Good stuff! However... "Hey big guy! The item is awesome but what should I do after I lost all these levels? The highest yer out there is 399, the average level should be somewhere like 270 or so, how do I survive?" "I said patience!" The dragon yelled. "That entire outfit you''re wearing is your reward, you just received them beforehand, don''t you forget that! Besides," He threw a ck metal round-shaped object over. "What''s this metal ball?" "Ball--THAT''S MY DAUGHTER YOU LITTLE BRAT!" The dragon pped at the ground in anger and shook me into the air. "You can give it back if you wish! I was never sure if I should present my precious daughter to you anyway." "I''m sorry!! I was blind, please forgive me, your highness!" The daughter of a deadly Boss is sure to be quite powerful too! "Forget my level! I can get it up in no time!" "Now that''s a good answer. So this is it. This old bone of mine needs to get back and report my mission." The dragon turned to leave, but then came back. "I forgot to give you this as well." A...marble ball? I waited for the dragon to exin but he just disappeared before I realized it. "Curse you old snake!!" I shouted at the sky. Then a big pir of lightning stroke where I''m standing and blew me high up. It''s a good thing that I got wings now or I''d probably break another leg. (My character race already have pair of wings but those are decorations, they don''t have any effect.) System: "yer Ziri is attacked by thunder of divine punishment!" ...The old thing got pretty good ears. That behind, I should hatch my new "egg" first. After some effort, the egg cracked open. A ckish snake crawled out of it. The hell? It''s a trick?? Should have known. A golden dragon should produce a golden egg or something. Not a dark, shot-put ball! He must have given me a fake reward. But upon closer examination I started to believe that "she" may be a real dragon. Cause I saw two small tips on her head. Maybe I should wait for her to grow up. The sad part is I never found my Revenger, maybe it disappearedpletely. Ouch. It''ste now so I teleported back to the Lost City and logged off. I got a whole Saturday tomorrow, no need to stay upte. I enjoyed a night''s rest, ate breakfast and went into game. My level is just too low. I should at least get to level 200 before I try to do anything else. I went to rk to repair my gear. Though obtaining a whole Artifact set isn''t all about good news, as provedter. "Man you''re truly something." rk stared at the pile of stuff I just unequipped, and mumbled. I boasted: "I spent two full months to get these. Of course it''s something!" "That''s not what I meant. You''re something because you could break legendary equipment into such a condition?? Just watch, they look nothing like Artifacts now! I thought you were showered by a meteor rain or something!" "I didn''t want it to end like this either. But I got no choice! Do you know how crazy that old dragon was? Even when I''m in these equip he still one-shot me!" "Let''s not talk about how you broke them. I got some problem if I''m to repair these things." "Problem?" "These are what I''ll need to repair this Artifact set: Upper-grade Blessed Iron, 2.5 kilograms. 35 Crystal pieces per kilo. I got 3 kilos in stock so I can use those. Blessing Silver, 531 grams, 100 Crystals per gram. You can buy it from those Death Mages in the Wizard''s Tower. All about money so that''s not a problem either. Upper-grade Magic Crystal Powder, 300 grams. You can grind your Crystal pieces to get powder. But each piece can only produce 0.5 gram, not including any unintended loss for various reasons, like sneezing. Dragon Crystal Thread, 182 centimeters, 5 Crystals per centi. My wife should have some. And 3 Shinryuu teeth, you don''t find them easily. What should we do?" I summoned Loong''er (name I just gave to my new dragonpanion), and Lucky (with his current level he won''t bust the house now). (*) "Shinryuu teeth? Her teeth, or his teeth?" "Shinryuu!!" rk bowed before Loong''er. "You have a Shinryuu descendent with you? But...she''s too young. She hasn''t grown any teeth yet!" "That''s easy. I''ll just bring her to level up a bit." "So that''s our teeth. We also need two Bifang feathers. You got that?" (**) I summoned Phiona. "Will phoenix feathers work?" "A ck phoenix? Brilliant! I meant to mention phoenix feather but they''re too scarce to find. Now we have a real phoenix here so we don''t have to worry! Next, 300 grams of Thousand Blood. What about it?" "What is this Thousand Blood?" "It''s justmon blood, but mixed up with the blood of a thousand different creatures. An Artifact needs life essence as well. And such blood is a good material to provide that. It gives your Artifact life." "What kind of creatures should I go for?" "There''s no limit for that, as long as you get 1000 different ones." "I''ll see to it. Shouldn''t be too hard!" "Thest one, your armor will need a Dragon Soul." "Loong''er''s life? No! Forget the armor, I can give it up." Now that''s something I''d never agree. rk exined: "I said Dragon Soul, this dragon." He pointed at Lucky. "Not a chance either! He''s been fighting along me for months. I''d rather go fight naked!" Lucky whined something, probably thanking me. But he can''t speak due to the level loss. I summoned Phantom to help trante. "Master, Lucky said he can take us to the Dragon''s Canyon. It''s a graveyard for dragons so we should be able to find souls there." "Really? That''s my Lucky!" "Alright then! That''s all we need. I''ll take care of the Blessed Iron, Silver, Crystal Powder and Thread. Let''s work out the cost when we''re finished. You will need to find those feather, teeth, blood and soul on your own." "Got it!" I departed, but ran back again. "Um, can I borrow some ordinary equipment to use for the moment? I can''t go outside like this." "Go inside and pick for yourself. Just take anything ya can use." So I went to the back and equipped myself with some ordinary gear. I let mypanions fight most of time anyway, this won''t be a problem. Looks like my next mission will be hunting for materials. This is my n: Follow Lucky to the Dragon''s Canyon, while killing monsters for levels and blood along the way. When we get there Loong''er should be big enough to grow teeth. Then ask Phiona for two feathers. Problem solved. Before I can leave, rk came to me. "I''ll make this clear: I won''t charge you the repair fee but I can''t give you those mats for free, not to mention I have to buy some of them from the others. So I''ll tell you the estimated money you need to pay, just to make sure." "Of course brother!" "I''ve already done the ounting work. Aside from those rare mats we will needmon materials. But thesemon ones are needed in great amounts so the price won''t be cheap. About...You go prepare 150k Crystal pieces, that should be enough." (***) Thud! "Mate? What''s wrong? Don''t faint already!" When I''m well on my way I feel there''s no tomorrow! 150 thousand Crystals! Where the hell do I get that kind of money? All my cash added up is 2364 Crystals. That''s pretty rich for the moment but only a tip of an icebergpared to what I need! The real money and game currency trading system is now opened. However I promised my father not to throw any money into the game. Money! MONEY!! How do I get the money!? Sigh, let''s take one step at a time. There will be a way. I''ll just go collect the materials first. -------------------- (*) When there''s no way to avoid the eastern and western issue I''ll just use "Shinryuu" instead. It means the long, snake-like creature, like the one you see in Dragon Ball series. As for the new pet''s name...Loong''er will sound really strange. But I really don''t know how to convert "СÁúÅ®" (A beautiful female transformed from a Shinryuu) into English style. Any suggestions? (**)Bifang, another beautiful bird in Chinese mythology. (***) 1 Crystal piece = 10 RMB. With today''s exchange rate, that should be...around $218,000. Chapter Book 3 - 15 – My Personal Nurse Book 3, Chapter 15 My Personal Nurse ------------------ When I''ve walked for quite some distance, rk caught up. "Here." "My cape?" I took the cape from rk. "It may be dangerous. My wife repaired the cape using her crystal threads first and asked me to take it to you." "Many thanks! Trust me, I will bring the other materials." We marched for three days while grinding on the way, during which we all reached level 193. When we came to the foot of a mountain I asked Lucky and was told that we have to climb past the mountain to reach our destination. I scouted a bit. Themon monsters here are something called Snow Wolf, level 280, no special abilities. Which means good training target. And there are a lot of them. I summoned my whole team then went into the fray myself. Our levels are 100 below the wolves but mypanions are all superior beings, so we managed to hold our ground. The only problem is my stock of meds went down fast. Seems buying a lot of them was a good choice after all. After another two days'' effort, we reached 212. When I decided to move on, my private chat suddenly popped up. "Ziri..." A timid voice went over. "Rose?" I recognized her as Crimson Rose. I was wondering why she hasn''t contacted me in all these days. "Need my help?" "Yep! I met some problems." "Position?" "xxx,xxx" "I''ll be right there!" From Rose''s viewpoint, she heard "I''ll be right" from the chat but "there" in front of her. Everyone around the site, including Rose, looked at this sudden neer in shock. I realized there are actually a lot of people there. 13 people formed up a circle around us. "You seven, keep her pet busy. The rest of you, on her. Split them up!" Someone, probably their leader, ordered. I''m quite certain that there''s no way I can win a 1 Vs 13 fight. Plus my level is lower. So I just grabbed Crimson Rose and teleported. We re-appeared at where I was grinding. I aimed for a tree so now we''re standing on a branch. "You alright?" Rose struggled a bit to get out of my arms. Yes I did that on purpose. "I-I-I''m fine..." This innocent girl looks somewhere near 18. Maybe even younger. "Why were they attacking you?" "I kinda, killed their leader in one hit!" "What??" Yep, her name is red. "What''s your ss? You said you were like level 200 or something, you can one-shot people already?" "210 now. I''m Half Angel, a full-time Resurrection Wizard." "Resurrection Wizard is...a side ss right? How did you...?" "My case is different. My Resurrection Wizard is not side ss, but a ''Unique'' ss. I don''t have side ss or main ss. This is my only one. The system told me it''s a hidden ss. Apart from reviving yers, I gotbat skills too." "That sounds neat. Can I see your skills?" "Sure!" Rose turned her skill bar visible to teammates. She got Resurrection Wizard''smon skills, like [Revive] and [Life Link]. But she has something else too. One of them is called [Life Burn], damaging the target by igniting their life force. The skill ignores Defense, if my understanding is correct, this skill can burn anything to death, given enough time. I saw another skill too, [Praise of Life]: Heal multiple targets in a wide area, and fast! But I didn''t find any skill that can insta kill people. There are many handy support skills, however. I got to keep her around. She can help me in so much situations! "How on earth did you kill him? I don''t see any useful skills for that." Rose''s face flushed hard, and answered: "That man kept telling me...dirty words. So I...stabbed him...in his...there, with this." She took out a green dagger. Now I got it. The dagger only has one special characteristic -- [Corrode]. Imagine, that thing got stabbed, and corrode...I don''t believe any male buddy can survive that. Let''s mourn for that poor bastard. "You''re not NPC right?" She suddenly asked. "You''re not silly right?" I dodged the question. "Well I did get confused for a moment. But I figured it out when I logged off. That''s why I didn''t ask you for anything till now." "So why are you needing me now?" "I don''t have a choice. I can''t beat so many people!" "It must be fate." "Fate?" Rose asked. "What fate?" "I just remembered I''ve seen you somewhere in real life." "You...seen me outside?" "Umhmm." I smile but didn''t exin. "Lemme see your face!" She literally lunged at me. "I have a strong memory when I see something. If it''s true then I definitely know your face!" "For real?" I questioned while trying to block her attempts. "Of course! I finished all my coge courses in one year just because of this talent!" She still tries to lift my hood. "I can show you... On one condition!" "Tell me!" She finally gave up on achieving her goal using violent measures, and sat back on the branch. "We''ll stick together and level up from now on. Those support skills of yours are just so good. If you had any powerful attacking one you would have gone above 400 already." "Deal! It''s such a pain to grind alone anyway. And those annoying dudes...I hate them!" I put a hand on my hood. "Technically, I am a ''dude'' too." "You? You''re like an apple in a box of rotten apples. Started to rot but is still eatable!" "What is that supposed to mean??" "Are you going to show me or not?" She looks tempted to go violent again. She''s like a totally different personpared to that timid girl just now! "Sit! I''ll do it." I put my hood down. "Ahhhh!! Big sis!!" "Ouch! No don''t--" "Oof!" "Argh!" "Ohgodohgodohgod" "Help!" "Ugh!" "Aww... Why the hell did you jump at me?" I rubbed my back and tried to turn my body, causing my bones to crack. "You trying to murder me?? It''s fine if you can''t recognize me but you don''t have to kill people!" When she saw my face she flung herself at me. She used too much force and knocked both of us down from the tree. It''s a good thing that we didn''t climb high. However a very unfortunate Snow Wolf got crushed into a pie. I dragged Rose back onto the tree. Too many wolves areing and I don''t dare to chit-chat amongst them. "Be careful alright? A girl needs to watch her manners! You don''t have to be so excited when you see a handsome face!" "Hahahaha! Sis you''re funny! Oh right, sis, where did you get your cape? If I have one of these I can hide from those guys!" "Hold it!" I interrupted her. "Do you recognize me as you said? I altered my appearance, just you know." "Of course I remember. There are minor changes but I won''t forget the face of such a pretty sister!" Her face is full of delight now. "I didn''t lie when I said I got camera-eye. You are that big sis who saved me on the day of gameunch right?" "Oh, nice memory indeed. But your eyesight is a little...off." "Um, huh? Eyesight?" "Now pay very close attention, I hereby announce to you: I''m male. Male! A guy!" I said that while solemnly holding her shoulders. She nodded hard. "But sis? You look nowhere like a man...?" Oh I''m gonna lose it!! "Again! I, AM, MALE! Call me brother or something but not sis!" "But sis--" "Brother!" "Um ok. Brother! ...You really are a man right?" If this goes on I would really like to "show" her my gender. "This is thest time, I''m male! Call me sister again and I''ll make you regret it!" I spent the whole morning rifying my issue with her. In the end I even nned to-- But thank god she finally admitted the fact. Why would I need to deal with such problem every time?! After that, we set up schedules to level up together. I have to admit that bringing a super nurse around is really convenient. We simply rushed to the mountain top, which is popted with level 300 Yetis. These things don''t have any brains. They got muscles but they all attack us from afar, by throwing snowballs. The snowballs are pretty deadly, however they would never hit their mark, unless we stand still. I wouldmand my team ofpanions to charge ahead with me, while Rose sits at a vantage point, casting healing spells at whoever got hurt, or several enhancement spells now and then. With Rose''s help I attained 10 levels in the afternoon. Night Shade got enough levels for me to ride now. I nned to try that out to satisfy my long-waited cowboy wish, but gave up in the end, since I can''t go horse-riding on top of the terrible slopes on a snow mountain, obviously. Rose imed (with excitement) that she reached 219. Plus she never leveled so fast before. As she said, her skills can make a level 200 yer fight like a 225, but can''t do anything on herself. She could only fight monsters 20 or 30 levels below, that''s why she never managed to get higher. "Will you continue after dinner?" I asked. She considered. "I may keep this up till 0 at midnight." "Good. Wait for me here when you get online. We can try to break for level 225 today!" "So you''re off for now? I''m going too then." "Later!" ------------------- Only 1 chap, or best 2 chaps, for this week. I still got a job you know : / Chapter Book 3 - 16 – Leaving the Snow Mountain Book 3, Chapter 16 Leaving the Snow Mountain ------------------ "Hey Ziri, why are you always draining their blood?" We traveled for a week now, Rose finally decided to ask me about it after watching me collecting blood everyday. "Materials for repairing my equipment. Mine are all broken and I need these blood." I didn''t stop my work while giving the answer. I kept it going until the Snow Bear in front me is sucked dry. Rose watched curiously as I turned to the corpse of an Ice Fox. "There are more bears not far. Surely they got more blood than this tiny fox?" "The material I need is called ''Thousand Blood''. I need to collect from a thousand different creatures. Even if I get several buckets of blood from the bears, it will be no use!" "That sounds really strange." Rose rushed away somewhere, and ran back with a weird looking animal in her hand. "Snow Hamster. A new one!" I took it with a smile. The little thing didn''t take much time. "Let''s go!" "How many you got again?" I checked my inventory. "473. And once we left the snow mountain there should be more creatures which means I can finish it faster. I''m doing it now just to save some effort though." "What are you trying to repair? I''ve done it before and I think you need different stuff to repair different equip. Look at this wand!" She held up her weapon. "This is my precious treasure, [Wand of Life]. It doesn''t look like much but it is useful! You know how I became unique resurrection wizard? By using this! It was originally a quest trigger, when I finished the quest it became my reward." "This is a wand?" I took the weapon and looked it over. "I thought you''re carrying a walking stick so you don''t fall on this snow." Rose''s face turned red. "You-- Ugh!" She snatched it back. "This is a really rare support type weapon. My reviving sess rate is higher than those NPCs just because of it. And it helped with my leveling too. I can''t fight much, but I earned a lot of money with my reviving skill so I can buy tons of potions, and survive by drinking them." Rose is a bit agitated from myment so I tried to distract the topic. "That sounds nice. How did you earn money with your skills?" "You don''t get it?" Rose looked at me with the expression like you-are-a-real-idiot. "I revive people and they give me money, simple as that!" "Why don''t they just go to NPCs?" "NPCs ask for 1 gold for each revive. I ask the same price but my chance of sess is higher. If anyone doesn''t want to risk it he will have to find me. Besides NPCs are all inside cities, while I can just stay near their grinding site. So they either wait for two minutes and get teleported back to the city, or juste to me and get instantly revived with a better chance, while paying the same money." "Wait wait wait! How much for revive again?" "One gold. Why?" "It''s not 55 crystals?" Something is VERY wrong here. Rose is surprised. "55 --you''re joking right? Do you think an ordinary newbie who just died can pay that much money? 1 gold is already overpriced. A good number of yers cannot even pay that. So they have to wait for 12 hours to get revived by the system! (real time) Monsters in this game don''t drop much spoils, especially money." "Ahhhhrgh! I was tricked!!" I held my head and yelled, which made Rose jump. "What happened?" "When my friend died back there, we found a revival NPC who asked us 55 crystals!" "And you paid?" "I did! Well I didn''t know the price back then! Or there''s no way I would pay that money!" Rose held her stomach andughed. "You, you got scammed by an NPC? Ha-haha! Funniest story I''ve ever heard!" "So that''s why they said the NPC was bugged. He did more than robbing a transport!" "Aren''t you a rich guy. 55 crystals I say! You handed it over like its nothing?" "I happened to be carrying it at that time. Plus that old man felt really spooky, I wanted to get out there fast so I didn''t think too much." "Stop thinking about it then." The little girl is now actually patting my back tofort me. "I noticed that we get a lot more drops with you around. We won''t need much time to make some money." "Of course!" This is where I take a lot of pride. "I got a base Luck bonus when creating character, and I have a ring which adds 7 more Luck." "That''s...a lot. What ring? Let me see it!" I showed my finger with the Ring of Stars on it and enabled information disy to her. "You like it?" Rose didn''t answer. In fact she''spletely frozen. Besides she lost every bit of her dy image" again, with all the salivaing out of her mouth. "Where the heck did you get this thing? This is ridiculous!" "But it''s legit." I pulled my hand back so she can finally wipe her face. "It''s a reward from defeating a level 1000 Boss." I pointed at Lucky. "He was that Boss but I somehow managed to capture him, that''s when the system gave me this." "Lucky is a level 1000 dragon boss? He''s not a drake? And that...Loong''er, is she a dragon too?" "You can say that." I called all mypanions over. "This is Lucky, level 1000 Dark Dragon Lord. Loong''er, level 1000 Shinryuu. Phiona, level 999 Inferno Phoenix. Night Shade, level 800 Nightmare. And Phantom, level 600 Spirit Mutant." "The fu-- are you a game master?" Rose''s eyes are now big as baseballs. "That''s not what I expected when I saw them. I thought Lucky is level 200 Drake, Loong''er is level 230 Mutated Horn Python, Phiona a me Crow, and Night Shade...a level 80 ck horse! And this Phantom, I never saw it before! Why don''t you call him out?" Before I can exin Phantom yelled first: "Of course I''m out. Actually I have the longest appearance here! My skill is to merge with master, it''s only natural if you can''t see me." "He can talk??" Rose reached towards Phantom but touched nothing. "Cut it. Phantom is a spiritual creature, he doesn''t have a body." "And it''s wonderful too!" Phantom bloated. "Physical attacks don''t hit me, if a Warriore across me I can basically choose how to y with him! ...But therees the problem that I don''t have any physical attacking abilities myself." "How do you fight then?" "It''splicated. I usually control my enemies and let them cut themselves. Oh right, I can manipte their actions." "Ahhh!" Rose suddenly screamed. She began to walk towards me while slowly unbuttoning her cheap wizard robe. "What am I---" Rose is going to drop naked. I can already see herps. Something really bad will happen if it goes on. "Stop! Leave her alone." "Alriiight." Phantom left her body, somewhat reluctantly. I never knew he is into such things. Though I don''t know if he is technically a "he". Rose regained control of herself and hurriedly tightened her clothes. "Phantom!! What was that for??" "I...was demonstrating, so you understand better! Now you see how I can order someone to attack their own teammates, when they have no one left I can just make him use a town portal scroll. Heheeheeehehe..." I can see Rose getting goose bumps. "You''re more devilish than a devil!" "Come on I''m not!" Phantom isn''t satisfied with Rose''sment. "And watch out!" Rose''s body moved on itself again and rolled sidewards, causing a sneaking Snow Leopard to miss its mark. "Now you see what else I can do!" Phantom jumped out again and started to control the leopard to spin in circles. I finished the beast off and collected its blood. "Now we should get moving. We aren''t out camping, I got a mission to do!" "Mission?" Rose knocked some snow off her clothes. "About repairing your equipment?" "Eeyup." I went ahead. I''m positive Rose is going to discuss till the end of the day if I just stand here. "What kind of stuff needs blood to repair? My robe only needs threads, my wand needs some quicksilver and wood, plus some silver and iron for my other armors. I never heard of anything needing blood. And so much of it!" "I''m repairing Artifacts!" "You got Artifact gear?" "Duh, that ring, you saw it right? An Artifact." "Well I didn''t pay attention to its grade. Now you think about it, that totally exins the ring''s crazy bonuses." "There''s the mountain top!" I stopped to look at the broad grasnd in the distance. It looks like a giant green carpet from here. The edge between the grass and the trees at the foot of the mountain serves as the carpet''s trimming. I can somehow make out several beast herds moving slowly on the grasnd too. They might be running though, it''s too far to judge. Rose caught up. "This is beautiful! I never knew I can ever witness such a sight in my life." Phantom cut in: "But my homnd is even better than this." Lucky became pretty excited too, and roared happily, which caused something really bad to happen. Guess what? Chapter Book 3 - 17 – How The Devil Was Tempered Book 3, Chapter 17 How The Devil Was Tempered ------------------ Normally, Lucky''s roars would travel for dozens of miles and carry a lot of momentum. It felt more so when done at the top of a mountain. Through the whole week we killed a great number of monsters in the snow mountain, after which me and my team all reach level 272. Now Lucky''s roaring sounds even more imposing. It did not only shake all the creatures, even the mountain itself began to tremble. "What''s happening? Why is it shaking?" Rose grasped me to keep bnce. "Shit. Avnche!!" I saw a giant wave of snow pouring down from another mountain tip not far from us. "RUN!" Rose tried to drag me running. "No! We will never make it!" I un-summoned Night Shade, Loong''er and Phantom. "Lucky! Drag me up. Phiona, take Rose with you!" I skillfully crawled onto Lucky''s back, while Phiona just grabbed Rose''s shoulders and went upward. But we were still too slow. Lucky is too big to make a swift lift-off. The avnche arrived as soon as we just left the ground. We were engulfed inside the white torrent and flushed downhill at a high speed. Phiona is fast but she never actually practiced to carry someone. She rose high enough, however the snow still managed to catch Rose''s legs and drag her down, which caused Phiona to lose her bnce. With the disrupted air current, Phiona finally fell into the mess as well. I only felt myself being pushed around by the snow, threw into the air by a giant force then mmed into the wave again. I already lost track of the positions of Phiona and Rose, Lucky is no where to be found as well. Looks like I''m dead meat for sure this time. What I didn''t know is that Lucky actually managed to pull himself out of the crisis, thanks to his brute dragon strength. Unlike Phiona''s slim body, Lucky''s wide and strong wings cannot be easily affected by the air. He fell mostly because he was surprised by the sudden disaster. After Lucky got into the air, he started to glide near the surface, looking for us. The first one who got saved was Phiona--her ck and shiny feathers stand out too much in these pure white waves. Lucky skillfully dragged Phiona out using his front ws, allowing her to regain her posture. Next is Rose. The snow pushed her towards a small cliff shaped like a jumping board and sent her flying. Phiona caught her with a swift dive. The poor me is leftst. After countless spins and flips the whole world is circling around me. I can see stars now. Pitiful. When the avnche reached the bottom I''m pretty much dead. Myst memory is that I crashed into something, and went unconscious. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª "Boss! You''re awake!" ...Why is Rose speaking like that? I opened my eyes to see Wayne''s face. "Wayne? Why are you here?" "That''s my question! Why were you at the reviving point of Lost City?" "Huh? I''m in Lost City?" "Yes you are. I was grinding just outside Lost City and came back here to check for any scrolls I can buy. Then I saw your soul in the reviving hall. The resurrection wizard revived you. Oh and, it failed, so you lost 2 levels! You were just lying there so I carried you back here." "Where exactly am I?" I look at the room. Nope, I don''t know this ce. "Inside an inn of Lost City. I rented a room. Did you get killed by someone? Weren''t you doing a quest? It failed?" "I finished it long ago. I was leveling with a pretty girl back there, and there was an avnche!" "Holy crackers! YOU caused that avnche at noon? I was wondering why your name turned soooo red. It''s almost ck! And blinking too!" "What??" I immediately checked my status. "FUUUUUUCK!" My Evilness is...126,322 !? And my gauntlets, armor, helmet and tasset which I borrowed from rk, all gone! Only the rings and bracelets are still on me. "So how much point did you get? Or rather, how many people did you kill? You''re now redder than dark blood!" "I killed people?" "You don''t know?" "Know what?" "...Just calm it. Listen." Wayne cleared his throat, as if some philology professor is going to give a long lecture. "ording to reliable sources, a great avnche came down the snow mountain near the grinding spot outside Flowing Cloud City, at approximately 11 am. At that time a great number of yers were gathered near the spot at the foot of the mountain. Due to the abruptness of the crisis, plus the fact that most yers never witnessed such a situation before, they all forgot to use recall or teleportation scrolls, resulting the death of massive yer groups who got buried alive under the snow." "...Seriously? How many yers did it get?" Before Wayne tried to answer I covered his mouth. Cause I''m hearing a system notice. "Attention to all yers. Attention to all yers. This is a system announcement. Regarding the top1 evil yer, Ziri, whose Evilness just exceeded one hundred thousand. A wanted order has been officially issued within the game region of China, to hunt down this yer. Any yer who is able to eliminate Ziri will obtain a random reward from the system, 1,000 Reputation points, and a bounty reward which shall be donated by other yers." And it was yed for five times. Son of a biscuit! Now I''m a public enemy!! "Woah boss. Impressive! That''s my boss, even when you do evil stuff you do it like no one ever could! Regards man!" When I''m trying to think it over, my private chat came up. "Hey Ziri! Where are you?" It''s Crimson Rose. "The Lost City!" "Did you get red named?" "Red name? Oh hoho no. I''d call it ck name now!" I joked at myself. "Then how did you get into a city? My name is red too! The NPCs in cities now attack me when they see me, and there are a lot of yers after me too!" "Where are you now? Tell me you position!" I used my teleport to reach her. And yes I''m seeing a lot of pursuers, so I quickly brought her back to Wayne''s room. Wayne greeted her with much enthusiasm: "You must be my sister-inw! My name is Soulless. But you can just call me Wayne, sister! I''m close friend with my boss here from very young ages. Um, If you got any...avable besties, be sure to introduce them to me!" Rose however is dazed by Wayne''s absurd lines. And the "sister-inw" part must have embarrassed her much, because her face is red again. "Hello, I''m Crimson Rose, just call me Rose. I''m not, I mean, I don''t--we''re not that kind of rtion!" "No exnation needed! I already see what my boss means. So I''ll leave the world to you two,ters!" He ran out without giving us much chance to say anything. And I''m not in the mood to y with Wayne now so I asked Rose to sit down. "Your name is pretty shiny too I see. How much Evilness?" "30k plus!" "Only thing I can remember is I was buried by the snow. How did I be the number 1 evil when I woke up?" "I think it''s because the avnche was caused by Lucky, so the dead yers were all counted as his kills, then you''re Lucky''s master so...Besides we were in a party, I got some bonuses too." "I can''t believe it!" "It should be that way. I got five levels in the process, which must have been from the monsters and yers that were killed. That also exins why we''re red." "I understand now. Oh right, speaking of which, why were you near the Flowing Cloud City? I got sent back to the Lost City when I died." "The Lost City?" "Yep. You can see it as a criminal vige. Only for those serious criminals though. With our Evilness we would be sent here for sure." "I see. But I didn''t die." "Huh? You survived that?" "I was saved!" She told me how Phiona saved her. "...then Phiona just disappeared in mid-air, probably because you died. But the avnche was almost done do I lived to the end." "You were really lucky." I suddenly lowered my head. "I''m sorry! It was me who made you a red name!" "Don''t worry. You didn''t create that avnche on purpose right? By the way I should say sorry as well." "For what?" "Do you remember my name when we first met?" "Lica Lin right? I remember." "That was a lie. My real name is Charon." "You nned to keep it a secret I guess? Why are you telling me now?" "Because we''ve been together long enough for me to appreciate you. As my granny said, people on the Inte show their true selves without having to obey all kinds of regtions andws. Whoever appears to be educated and polite in real life may turn into a true jerk in here. For example, what kind of character do you think I am?" "You are...lively, smile much, and helpful to people? Oh and, you must be good at business too. You have a sense of a trader." "Out there I''m a quiet girl. Most friends of mine would see me as a well-behaved good girl. But this one is my true self! You know why I call myself Crimson Rose? To let off my ambition to resist. I want to get rid of the image of a weak girl. I canugh however I like, fight however I like. No one knows who I am. It''s not likely to run into anyone close with me in real life here, so I don''t have to be responsible for whatever actions I may take. This is what I call freedom!" I looked at the girl in front of me and realized she can be one of the many best friends I may encounter in my life, that I definitely shouldn''t miss. Chapter Book 3 - 18 – A New Decision Book 3, Chapter 18 A New Decision ------------------ "I can understand. My entire childhood is surrounded by a group of people (bodyguards), they only made me feel lonely. Being alone does not mean lonely. It''s when there are people around but none of them can speak their minds with me." I switched my chatterbox mode on and began to speak my feelings freely. But what Rose said next almost choked me. "So you had a poor life too! Did you grow up in an orphanage? An orphanage means children who don''t speak to each other. Truly awful!" "That''s not--" But I didn''t get to exin. Rose hugged me and began to cry. "Hold still! I need to rest a bit. Just a bit." I gave up my attempt to push her away. "My family isn''t really a happy one. My mother died long ago. Dad found a stepmother, and they both were cruel to me. It got worse when that woman had a kid! My grandma was my only friend. But she passed away several years ago. Still, I think that''s better then what you have gone through as orphan. I at least had a loving grandmother." The heck is this all about?! When did I be an orphan? The girl got some crazy imaginations! And no, this is not important. We were discussing about our red names, how did it suddenly turn into aint interview?? I shook Rose awake. She just fell asleep! "Now hold on a minute! We''re far off topic here. Don''t we need ideas about our red names?" "Um, good point. Weird. Why are we speaking something like this?" "Nevermind that. What are you going to do? Your name won''t get clean any time soon, any ns?" "As usual, grind or do quests with you while cleaning it. That''s how we spent the past days right?" "It''s different now. We were mostly traveling through deserted areas. But my destination is the Dragon''s Canyon, we will need to go past several popted cities now. Two yers with super-red names above their heads can''t just go wandering among the crowds. Thousands of people will try to hunt us down!" "Really?" Rose is not convinced. "Why would they kill us if we don''t do anything to them first?" "Well, there can be lot of reasons. First, our names mean we killed innocent people. Thus some ''heroes of justice'' will try to take us down. Second, we buried thousands of people outside Flowing Cloud city. They will certainly NOT forgive us. And it''s very likely that their friends will all be our enemies too. Third, red named yers drop more items when killed. They will at least drop one of two equipment if I remembered right. Besides yers are easier to deal with than monsters (normally), which means they are great targets for farming. Lastly, killing red names gives you Reputation instead of Evilness. That''s about it. Do you still think people will be nice to you? By the way, you heard the announcement. I''m now a public target admitted by the system, with rewards and bounty on my head. I''m sure some bounty hunters are already investigating on how to find me right at this moment!" "What do we do then? This is terrible! And because of you! I was nning to be an angel respected by other yers using my skills, now you made me into an evil witch first!" I stared at Rose until she felt uneasy enough to scratch her head. "What you looking at? Something on my face?" "Nope. I was just thinking maybe you should go trim your demon horns. They look too long!" "Why you--!" I dodged a flying water pot. "This is murder! You will get Evilness!" "Screw that! You''re red name too! Kill you and I can clean myself!" "Why don''t you just suicide?!" We started a pillow fight. The door was suddenly pushed open, with Wayne outside. At this moment Rose is well on top of me, pinning me down (tickling). But our position looks... "Ouch. You two seem busy! I didn''t see nothing. Carry on." He shut the door and left. "Come back here!" I quickly got on my feet and rushed after him. While Rose tidied herself with a red face. When I caught Wayne I was told he came to deliver some information. "I checked the forum just now and the top topic is about that avnche you caused. Your pictures got exposed!" "What?? Who did it? And how did they get our pictures?" "It''s from a screenshot. Someone also recorded the whole mess." "They did?" Rose opened her in-game forum browser and disyed it to us, our photos instantly fell into our sight. There is only one picture with me in it, where I''m stuck upside-down in the snow with half of my body covered. The only thing that stands our is my cape which is spread wide on the snow. I don''t think anyone can recognize me with this. There are more pics for Rose though, actually the pictures are captured in one session which can bebined into an animation. Rose is recorded when falling down from the sky. It looks blurred too, probably because the high falling speed plus whoever did it failed to adjust his focus in time. "Bah-haha! You look funny!" She pointed at my stuck-in-the-snow picture. "I didn''t have much of a choice! You won''t do any better if you crashnding in an avnche. No one can ever tell up from down after being thrown about like that." "You have a teleport ring right?" Wayne asked. "Why don''t you just teleport to the Dragon''s Canyon?" "Of course I thought about that!" Iined. "First, Lucky won''t understand what is a ''coordinate'', he can only remember the way. Second, as he said, the area ispletely isted from any magic effect. You can''t use any spells in there, no teleport, no recall and such." "That sounds like a graveyard for level 1000 bosses alright." "Then how do we get past cities?" Rose asked. "How about you try to estimate yournding point and teleport across the city, as long as you can avoid the yer crowds?" Wayne suggested. "That might work." I made my decision. "It''s settled. Let''s first try to force our way through. But before that we need to level up and make it safer. I''m not in a hurry, the canyon won''t run by itself." After discussion, we canceled the room and got ready to grind. Wayne said something about "being the third wheel" and ran off somewhere. Which means me and Rose again. "Where are we heading to? You''re familiar with the ce so you decide!" True. The Lost City is a new ce to her, I definitely should take the lead. "Follow me then. Let''s go shopping!" "Shopping? Are you feeling OK?" "Oh yes I am!" I shook Rose''s hand off my forehead. "It''s worth it to spend some time getting prepared. Look at what you''re wearing! I know you don''t have much money to gear up. But other people will just see you as a beggar or something!" Rose looked at her wheat colored line robe. "What''s wrong with this? This is pretty good where I came from. Most people can''t even afford this robe, especially us casters who need tons of MP. You know why most mages are yed by females? Because they burn a lot of money. A caster usually needs support from several warriors!" "Did you happen to spawn somewhere poor, or is the whole game like this?" I never thought it so hard to farm for equipment. (Says you.) Well I was in some money crisis at the start of the game but it sure got better soon. And I was never short on potions. "Not everyone has that insane Luck like you who just find loot in piles!" Rose feels unfair. "We usually had to clear half of a mountain area only to find a dozen random drops, most of which we couldn''t even use! There are so many different races and sses, its hard to find something suitable. And they even got gender requirement! You can change that at the cksmith NPC but it costs money! Do you actually think you can just pick up something and put it on? Everything got a strict requirement besides rings, bracelets, nes and breast pieces plus those weapons!" "Really? But there aren''t any race restrictions on my equipment." That''s what I remembered about my Dark Dragon Lord set. Nothing about race, gender, ss, there aren''t even limits for your base Strength and such. Any yer can use them! "That''s impossible! You must have mislooked. There can''t be anything THAT convenient." "Well let''s go check it then!" I dragged Rose towards rk''s ce. Rose yelled, "Aren''t we going to buy some gear?" "It''s the same ce!" Rose looked around when we''re walking. "The buildings here are awesome! That city I was in looked like a vigepared to this! But why is everyone closed?" "To keep the sunlight out!" The weapon shop is not far from the inn. I pushed Rose inside and closed the door. She checked the empty room with curiosity. "Can we juste in like this?" "No prob. I know the owner well." I took Rose to the workshop upstairs. As expected, rk is repairing my outfit in here. He stood up. "You''re back? Who might this be?" "Crimson Rose!" Rose stretched her hand. Instead of shaking it, rk grabbed a sword and gently tapped it at the ground. A knight''s salute! I never saw him do that to me. "The name is rk, owner of the shop. Ziri is my brother here, if little''o sis need anything, just ask!" That''s not what I expected from an NPC. "Nevermind those. I got something to ask you." I took a number of ice cubes from my bracelet. "You asked me to collect materials before right? I farmed on the snow mountain for some days and got these stuff." (*) I dropped the ice cubes onto a nearby workbench. "I''ve done the identification. They are called [ck Ice Core]. They should be on your collection list so I brought them to you." rk picked one up and is obviously smiling. "Nice! These are the real thing, no doubt about it. Now I won''t fail when forging equipment." "Won''t fail?" Rose took a cube as well. "I know someone who can repair equipment. From what he said, the process of repairing and forging are easily botched. Even if you''re a professional you can''t possibly guarantee a perfect work right?" "That''s when this babyes in! ck Ice Cores are used to immediately halt a forging process when something goes wrong. If any equipment piece is about to break in the forging fire, you throw an ice cube in there and the whole furnace will freeze up. Then you un-freeze the whole thing slowly and take out whatever you were working on unharmed and try it again. As long as you got enough of these cores, you will always sess after several attempts. So how many did you manage to get?" I pointed at the workbench: "That''s all, about a dozen?" rk seems disappointed. "That''s it huh. A bit more would be good." "That''s the best I can do. They are from those level 370 Blizzard Lich, 200 levels above myself! I had to carefully kite each one of them for some time to kill it, and that''s thanks to Rose''s healing skills! Otherwise I''d just avoid them at all cost." "Ow, sorry I sounded like that. These materials are really valuable though, just try to get more if you have the chance! I''ll pay you 500 crystals for each of these." "You bet I will. No one hates money!" "Wait, you, but--This is too much!" Rose''s mouth has been hanging open for quite a while now. Though her cherry lips won''t go very wide even if she tries to. "Thats..five or six thousand crystals! Just gone??" (**) "Why not? I still owe him 150k crystals you know." -------------------- (*) This is mentioned in b2c16. (**) Somewhere around $8,000. Chapter Book 3 - 19 – A New Problem Book 3, Chapter 19 A New Problem ------------------ Rose looked at me with doubt in her eyes. "Do you gamble?" I shook my head. "E-drugs?" (It''s a newly developed program which injects a certain signal into your brain to give pleasure. Too much dose may cause brain death.) "Come on who do you think I am? Some random losers?" I tried to exin. "I owe him money for repairing my equipment I mentioned earlier." "What?" Rose jumped. "How many of them are you repairing?" "A whole set!" "Just a whole set!?" She raised her voice higher. "150 thousand crystals, just to repair one set? That''s enough to buy a whole lot of them! You''re kidding right?" rk helped: "He''s not kidding, miss. I already asked for a friendly price, and that doesn''t include the pay for my work, it''s only for the materials. Plus he''s going to prepare most valuable ones by himself. For anyone else I''d ask for a 100k repair fee first. As for the mats, I guess 200k won''t even cover it, maybe 300k?" "How rich are you?" She won''t believe our prices. I understand though, normally that doesn''t sound like the price for just one set. "Is that the equipment without any requirement you mentioned?" "That''s right. I''ve been farming for mats in these day just to repair it." "Lemme see it!" Rose is wiggling with curiosity. "I want to know what kind of monster will need thousands just to repair." "You sure? Then gimme a moment." rk ran to his furnace and started picking out the pieces one by one. "...Dear me. I didn''t notice it before, but since you''re here I''ll have to ask something else. There''s another problem now." rk ced the pieces onto a mannequin using his plier and positioned them into a human shape. "Oh wow, this looks awesome!" Rose approached the armors and is about to touch them. I quickly pulled her back. "It burns! " "Oh... I was too shocked to notice that. It looks tattered but I can feel the immense power. And I never seen such perfect design! That Zhong Hua Company deserves their reputation!" "Zhong Hua doesn''t have such kind of talent. This is the work of Dragon Fate." Both of them raised their eyebrows. "An Artifact is created by the gods. Who is this Zhong...Hua and Dragon Fate?" Well that''s a typicalment from an NPC. I realized I shouldn''t have said that. The world only knows that [Zero] is a group released product by the EU Countertrade Association, Dragon Fate Specialized Industry Corporation and Zhong Hua Cultural Information Company. But its development process has nothing to do with Zhong Hua. They are just the publishing agent. Rose must have noticed something but she kept silent. "What problem was it again?" I tried to change the topic. "Look at the armor. It''s been in the furnace for a week, and nothing''s happening, still all ck." Then he took out three spoon-like objects. He pointed at the red, bubbling liquid in the first spoon. "This [Magma Steel] is the best heat-resistant material for armors I can find. Just look at it. Only two days, all liquefied!" I can see the liquid moving like water when he moved the spoon. A bit gluey though. He pointed at the second spoon, with a silver-grey object which carries a tint of brown color on it, like overcooked sesame paste. "This is Magma Steel which stayed in there for a day. Soft like mud!" Then he pointed at a burning red metal block in the third spoon. "It''s in the furnace for 30 minutes. Completely red now. And check those ck ones near the wall. Those are Magma Steel in its normal state. Do you see the problem now?" "I get it. Can you just raise the heat?" "Look at the cracks on the furnace! And this broken spoon. My tools cannot manage that kind of heat. And your armor, it''s nowhere even near melting. It''s totally unaffected! I''d say it''s immune to fire!" "Have you tried bending and hammering without heating it up?" I checked the cracks on the armor. rk passed me a bent iron handle and a half wooden stick. "That''s what''s left after I tried to do that. The thing is harder than any of my tools. I''m out of options!" "You mean there''s no way to fix it?" Rose seems even more worried than me. "I sure want to. I almost broke my furnace which still didn''t work. Oh and, there''s another problem!" rk took the helmet using his plier, then knocked at its interior to prove that he actually touched it with his hand, which of course surprised us a lot. Then he sshed some water onto the helmet. Fizzzz! The water drops instantly disappeared. "See that? The whole set is like this. No matter how long I heat it the inside wouldn''t get any hotter. The outer part is easily heated but it won''t melt!" "I never thought this would be soplicated." Rose seems to have just recalled something. "Have you heard about stories about dragons?" "Lucky, or Loong''er? I''ve heard both." "I meant Lucky, lizards with wings." "Let''s see. They''re usually strong and evil, like to sleep on a pile of treasure. They breath fire, sometimes snatch some princess and finally get killed by a hero? Wait a second. I have an idea!" "We''re on the same track. Go on." "You are thinking about Lucky''s fire right?" "Aren''t you a worthy young man!" Rose tried to show the fake image of a wise old man. "Will it work?" I asked rk. "The dark dragon lord?" "Yep. I don''t know what kind of heat Lucky can produce. He''s above level 200 now. But I never actually used him as a burner!" I considered my options. "Don''t worry. We can try it out." "It''s settled then!" I prepared to summon Lucky but rk stopped me. "Not here! I don''t know about the armor, but I''m sure he can burn my house down!" "Let''s leave the city then." I dragged rk towards outside. He stopped me again. "Hold your horses! I need to bring something to experiment on." He collected some random objects and threw them into my bracelet. Then we finally started heading out. Rose was deeply attracted by the constructions she saw along the way, especially that giant bridge outside the city gate. She didn''t get to see it before because she was teleported inside. "What''s under the bridge?" Rose poked her head out of the safety bars and looked down. rk jumped, and yanked her back to the center of the bridge with a lunge. Then we saw a big, terrible head rushed out of the water towards where Rose was standing. It was barred by a invisible wall which gave out a huge electricity wave, scaring the monster back into to water. Man, the bridge sure isn''t peaceful as it looks. Rose on the other hand was shocked speechless. She just sat there like stone, until I gave her a shake, by which I sessfully reminded her how to cry. rk exined: "Thatke under us is an extremely dangerous existence as you can see. Be careful from now on. The bridge got barriers, so you''re safe as long as you don''t get any part of your body outside the bounds. In other words you''re probably doomed if you don''t follow that rule." "*Sob* I-I won''t do it again!" Rose is crying like a baby girl. I can understand, no one needs to hide anything in a game. Even a girl can be free to cry orugh to her heart''s content. Nobody will mind that. I also begin to understand what she meant by "freedom" earlier. "That''s was scary..." Rose nced at the monster, which is still swimming near the surface while giving us a stare now and then. "Don''t worry too much. Just stay inside the bars alright?" I hugged her shoulders and tried to calm her down. Well, I admit that''s not the only purpose. "Ok. Let''s do it here!" We crossed the bridge and reached the mass graveyard outside. rk took out a bar of Magma Steel and ced it on the ground. "Let''s see if Lucky''s breath is hot enough. Some magical me may be deadly but they actually don''t burn." I ordered Lucky to breath fire at the steel bar. Lucky stepped back a bit, took a deep breath and began to shoot a focused fire beam at the target. "Good! Stop!" I gave my signal with a shout. That fire burned a small hole out of the ground. Being the professional, rk only needed several seconds of poking inside the hole to get a result. "That heat was impressive I''d say!" "So do we try it on the Artifact?" I asked. "Let''s do it!" He ce a "spoon" on the ground. "If he can melt this thing down then there''s nothing to worry about." "Alright. Lucky! Burn that spoon!" "Right away." (He can speak after reaching lvl 200) Lucky tried his fire at the spoon but it didn''t went so well this time. Instead of melting, the spoon broke into pieces. "Um, let me try another type of fire." "Your call." Lucky asked us to keep some more distance. Then he breathed a special fire at the spoon. It''s the strongest fire dragons can use only when they''re fighting for their lives, as he said. The fire this time is not red but blue, and it''s even more concentrated. Itsted for only two seconds. As for the spoon, it already vaporized to nothingness, leaving a big crater behind. Before we can make anyment though, Lucky fainted on the ground. I hurriedly summoned Phantom to check what''s wrong. "Don''t worry master. That purple me skill is thest defense of dragons, it causes a brief side-effect when used. You just need to wait for a while. This is why you don''t see dragons use this move unless absolutely necessary." Phantom sent that exnation via telepathy to all of us. With that cleared up, I un-summoned Lucky to let him rest. "What do we do now, rk? Do we just forge the armor here?" "No. When you got all the materials I''ll go find some Space Wizards and ask them to fix the pieces in mid-air. We won''t find any furnace or other supports that can stand such kind of temperature." "Please do. I''ll just go collect materials first." ------------------ I sawments who said this novel looks really boring. I gotta admit. As I said it''s too long for me to reach the interesting parts very soon. And, I really wonder how many people are reading this, about which I gotpletely no idea. Too few readers would...be a problem. Chapter Book 3 - 20 – We Got Trouble! Book 3, Chapter 20 We Got Trouble! ------------------ After we solved the problem about the forging fire yesterday, I took Rose and started heading to the Dragon''s Canyon. We bought a lot of stuff before we left the Lost City, and of course I was the one who paid the bills. I already got some serious debt on my ass anyway, spending a bit more won''t be so much of an issue. I meant to be generous, but Rose refused to buy anything of good quality because "Ziri is broke now". In the end I bought an ordinary female wizard battle armor for her. She won''t ept anything with higher price. The set is called [Wizard''s Might], light armor, with really in stats. But taking the fact that most wizards out there are still wearing cloth robes, this thing can be pretty luxury now. Ites will several nice additional attributes too. When we are traveling in some woods, Rose suddenly pointed forward. "What''s that?" I followed her direction and noticed someone, or something, are fighting. It''s not far but the mist among the woods made it really hard to make it out. "I can''t see it clearly. Should we check it out?" "Me first then!" Rose hopped ahead, ignoring my warnings and protests. The girl is getting naughtier by the hour! "AHHHH--" Her screaming dragged me back from my thoughts. I pointed forward. "Lucky! Go!" We''ve been working together long enough for Lucky to understand my order through a simple gesture. Lucky charged at where I was pointing while leaving a strong current and some broken woods behind. I just felt my view getting better with most obstacles gone. Lucky''s always destroying whatever is around the battlefield, no exceptions. "What''s wrong?? Rose?" After pulling my hood up, I dashed out of the open path Lucky just created. I saw Rose sitting on a fallen tree, rubbing her feet. "Bad day! I was jumping over a log when some vines caught my feet. I nearly ttened my face on the ground!" I helped her with her ankles. "Nothing serious. As long as you don''t tten that part. Haa-ha!" "What-- You! Bad!" I massaged her feet while enduring her attacks, by which I mean she is punching my shoulders using her tiny fists. "Ouch! That hurt! Forgive me mydy!" "Who the hell are you two?" A very impolite voice interrupted our "romantic hour" which of course put me in a bad mood. I raised my head slowly to look at the intruder wearing knight armors. His silver full metal heavy armor and the big two-handed bastard sword made him look like a real deal. (Actually that is very impressive gear. But our MC here hasn''t seen much of the outside world.) A group of at least 20 people are following behind. I''m not nning to give him any responses. I don''t like him, and I meant to show him that. So I just summoned Night Shade without a word. The nightmare stallion emerged out of thin air under their shocked stares. I lifted Rose onto Night Shade''s back, hopped on myself, wrapped an arm around Rose, then gave Night Shade a pat on the neck. He caught what I meant and started cantering away slowly in a rxed manner. We walked for a while before I realized Lucky is not following us. I whistled with my finger which reminded Lucky to nce at our direction. It seems he just noticed that we have left. Lucky mmed at a giant bear monster into the ground, picked it up with his mouth and trotted towards us, while passing in front of the group. He identally brought down another tree with his tail, which almost fell onto that knight. After we''re well gone, someone behind that knight in green wizard robe finally spoke. "Captain! That dragon carried our quest NPC away!" "What?? Then why are you all standing here? Go get them!" Only then did the whole group remember to go after us. When we traveled for some distance I ordered Night Shade to start galloping towards another direction at full speed. I also un-summoned Lucky in order not to leave any traces behind. Well, that won''t be just "traces". Anyone with eyes will easily notice the mess where he went. Before going back, Luckyined that he was nning to enjoy the bear meat. So I asked him to try pick out several slices as fast as he can. He did. That giant bear was torn into pieces within 5 seconds. Lucky stored some of the best parts into his own inventory and went back into the pet space. I noticed something left behind on the ground, so I quickly picked it up and ordered Night Shade to run. Now''s not the time to take it easy. Rose asked while leaning against my chest: "Why are you in such a hurry?" "I checked. Their knight leader is level 399, his followers are at least 380. I was just using Lucky as a bluff. If they decided to chase us we will be in big trouble! Don''t ever think we two can take on a whole group of high level yers. I''m not THAT good." "Pfff. But I thought you were good. Can I see that thing you just picked up?" I''m pretty curious too. I took it out and disyed its attribute to us. [Guild Badge]. Used to establish a guild. Non-destructable. Passive skill [Commander]: Subordinates will recover from pain faster. Effect dependent onmander''s level. Tip: A yer who wears this badge will be the guild leader, after which he/she will be able to recruit guild members and assign positions to them. The leader can set the appearance of the badge as the guild emblem (only once). Once emblem is set, all members will obtain a guild membership badge (reimed when leaving the guild). Guild members will enjoy 1% more EXP when teamed up with each other. "This coulde in handy. Hey Ziri, put it on! Then make me the vice-leader. We can get more experience points!" "I don''t have time for that. Managing a lot of people is such a pain." "No one said a guild needs lot of people. Two of us are enough!" Rose waved her arms out of excitement. "What do you say? Two of us! We can be the number one mafia guild in [Zero]! Haha! I''ll be a gangster mistress!" I''m beat by her crazy imaginations! But yeah I''ll do it. It''s 1% more EXP, and there is no cost, so why not? "Alright. Wait a second." I equipped the badge. The system immediately told me to confirm the guild name, emblem and g. "Um, Rose? What should call our guild?" "There must be ''Rose'' in there! And it should make people frightened!" "Is that so?..." I thought about it. "How about just calling it ''Crimson Rose''?" "No. Using my name doesn''t sound right. Try another!" "Rose of Death?" "Awful!" "Bloody Rose?" "Worse!" "Vampire Rose?" "Not good!" "Bloodshed Rose?" "No no no! This won''t do!" "Oh I got a good one. How about ''Blizzard Rose''?" "That...sounds nice. It''s settled!" She finally nodded. "What about the emblem?" "You decide!" I tried to draw a picture of the emblem and the g in my mind. The system asked if I would decide to use them. I confirmed my idea, and the badge turned into the shape of a rose with a beautiful red color. As for the g, there are two swords crossed with each other, with a red rose in the center point. Thorned vines twined up on the des. "That will do. Now send me an application and I''ll make you a member." "Yes!" The application process is pretty simple which only took several seconds. Once this is done, two small rose marks appeared on her shoulder and in front of her chest. I appointed Rose as the vice leader. "Done. We''re in the same guild now." "Do we invite Wayne too?" "I suppose not. You forgot I''m a public enemy and you''re also a red criminal? We can create a small guild for fun alright, but Wayne is still innocent, what will happen to him if he joins our guild?" "I see your point. But this is not fair! I''m called the vice leader, and you will always be my direct boss right?" "No no I won''t try to be the actual boss. Aren''t you the one giving me orders?" "That''s more like it. Remember to listen to me! This vice leader thingy is just a cover. You hear that?" "Yes ma''am!" Jesus! This is not the Rose I remembered before! Don''t tell me it''s because of love. That''s not what I wanted. We ran for some time to make sure they won''t catch up before we stopped. Riding on Night Shade doesn''t mean we can rx, it costs Stamina. After we slowed down, Rose leaned into my arm to rest. Both of us kept silent. This feels pretty good. Maybe. "Hey Rose?" "Mmm?" Rose raised her head. "I-- I!" I clenched my teeth. "I- Can you be my girlfriend?" I feel my face burning and my heart is beating off the course. The embarrassment is causing me to sweat like mad. "May I?" I lifted her face to look at her. Her eyes are emitting someplexed emotions. I never thought human eyes can express so much information, so fast. She threw herself into my embrace and started crying, which left me dumbfounded. However I can understand she''s just excited. I gently pushed her away and wiped those tears off her face. "I, I love you!" I tried to approach her face. But just before our lips can make contact, her body froze, then she disappeared. With Rose gone, I instantly lost my bnce and fell off from Night Shade''s back, crashing on the ground like a turned turtle. "Rose? Rose!" I stood up and called her name. I opened my private chat without finding her. The system shows that the yer is now offline. What happened? Did I push it too far? It can''t be! It''s not likely my fault. Does she hate me? I don''t think so. She wouldn''t act like that if she just nned to refuse me. So why is she suddenly offline? What is going on? (Guess, my dear readers!) ------------------- The author is terrible at writing romantic scenes and I''m even worse. Good thing that there won''t be too many of them. Chapter Book 3 - 21 – Seeking Help Book 3, Chapter 21 Seeking Help ------------------ There''s no point in staying in the game so I just logged off where I was. I spent the next three days in worry, expecting Rose toe up. She never did. My patience gave out at noon on the fourth day. I must do something! I left a note on the table, telling Wayne to check for Rose''s status every half an hour, and call me if she appears. I left our dorm without having lunch. I came to the HQ building of Zhong Hua Company, then wandered in front of the 178-story construction for a full minute to decide whether I should go in. I entered eventually. 40+ elevator lobbies are located on the ground floor, besides the reception desk and a security room. The actual working area starts from the second floor. "Good afternoon. How can I help you?" The receptiondy greeted me with her routine smile. "Is president Ludwig avable?" She looked at me in shock. Well anyone would be if someone just ask for the top guy out of blue. But she still checked herputer. "I''m sorry, the president is currently out on a business trip." "Is his special assistant Yanken here then?" She answered without checking her record this time. "Sorry, they went away together." "What about the executive, Cloudia?" There''s got to be someone I can find! "Sorry but--" That''s what I feared most. I stopped her from giving me exnations. Sorry ma''am, but I have to ask in another way! "Just tell me, is there any management above the 170th floor, that I can talk to right now?" Her attitude obviously changed. "Sir, may I ask that what is your business? Only the most senior higher-ups of ourpany work in that area, forgive me but I cannot assist you without you giving me an appropriate reason." Sigh. She''s one responsible receptionist. I''d really appreciate it if not for the situation I''m in. "Ok ok! Ast question--" "Sairin! What brought you here?" I turned to see aunt Cloudia walking into the hall with a bunch of bodyguards. "Your mother told me you should be attending college now." "Auntie Cloudia! So nice to see you. Take me up there, I need your help!" "Oww, I thought you were here to pay me a visit!" Then she spoke to that receptionist, who is now standing there like a statue. "Tell the secretaries to cancel all of my schedule for the afternoon." I followed her into her office, then hinted her to give us some private. Aunt caught my intentions and asked the guards to leave, locked the door and finally asked: "Can you tell me now? Whatever made you so...secretive?" I double-checked the door to make sure no one woulde in before I sat down on a sofa. "Well, don''t tell my mom." "I promise." "Alright. Here''s what happened: I met a girl, a college student like me." "Oh? What is her name? Her age? How did you know each other?" She seems over enthusiastic! Women all love gossip. "Let me finish first!" I stopped her from asking anything else. "We met on the inte, a game, where we yed together. The game is that [Zero] you guys are now running." "I didn''t expect [Zero] can help people find lovers! Hmm. I smell business!" She''s off topic again! "Should I go on?" "Oh, yes. Continue." "Her character name is ''Crimson Rose'', I''ve met her in real life too, when she told me her name is Lica Lin. Butter in the game she said that name was a made-up, she didn''t tell me her true name when we first met." "Has she told you her real name then?" "She said it is Charon. But now I don''t know which is real anymore, or if there is a real one at all." "So what kind of help do you need from me? A proposal to her family? You should ask your mother for that." She started joking again. I didn''t smile at the joke, I just continued. "Everything about us went fine. Then something happened. We ran from some pursuers. We were in a pretty good condition so I took the chance and confessed." "She said no?" "That would have been simple oue. She hugged me andughed and cried, I told her that magic word I-Love-U, then I was ready to kiss her. She chose to face me so I thought she epted it!" "I didn''t know you''re so practiced. Did your father train you about how to get a girl?" "Let''s not talk about the train or what. She disappeared and dropped offline just before the kissing part! I''ve waited for 3 days now and she never went back on!" "She...just, disappeared?" "Yes! She''s gone from inside my arms. I even crashed down from my horse." "That wasn''t her own choice, which I can assure you." Couldia leaned on the sofa and exined. "I have an ount too. I don''t y much but I went in there to check several times. I also know something about how certain functions work, including how someone can log off. Normally when someone choose to log off, their body will fade slowly and finally vanish. The process often takes 3-5 seconds, definitely not ''just disappear''. There''s only one situation when someone can disappear very quickly, which is disconnection by abnormal means when the yer is still in normal conditions." "Um, abnormal...in normal what now?" "It refers to the sudden disconnection with the yer''s brainwave when the yer should be free to log off on his or her own. There are many incidents that may cause such disconnection. For example, her helmet suddenly lost connection with thework. This is a rare situation, actually we haven''t heard of any confirmed cases. Another possibility is sudden brain death, usually caused by certain health conditions like cerebral thrombus. But our helmets have monitoring mechanism regarding such cases. The helmet will give out rm and shut off the game if it detects abnormal blood flow inside yer''s head. Besides I don''t think your young girl friend would have such a condition. Thest and most possible scenario, is someone suddenly took off that yer''s helmet. Of course they will go offline because the helmet lost connection with the brain. I said most possible, but that''s probably shouldn''t be the case. Taking off someone''s helmet by force in the middle of their game is like waking someone up by shouting loudly into their ears, it will irritate their brains and may cause certain syndromes. There is a Call button on the helmet, you can drag yer out safely by holding it down for 10 seconds(*). I don''t think anyone would pull helmet just to save a couple of seconds. Unless they meant harm. She is a colleger, so she should be ying in her dormitory, where there are only her ssmates and teachers right?" "I get it now. But I don''t know her situation and I''m worried!" "This could be a problem. You are not even sure about her real name." "What should I do?" "I suggest you tell your parents about this. I believe they''ll give you support. Who knows, maybe your father will even allow you some funds in order to get a grandson! There''s nothing to worry about if you can get help from your father." "No! I won''t tell them!" You''re kidding me. I won''t be pursuing a girlfriend if I need to report it to my parents every time. "I refuse!" "You can''t refuse. Your mother is just hunting for a daughter-inw these days and you just got her one. We''ve got to tell her." "No no no! I will, not, tell them, whatever happens! You promised!" "I promised what?" She gave me a sly smile which really crept me out. "But you said--" "Did I say what EXECTLY I promised? What I meant is that I will help you, but not keep it secret from your parents. You misunderstood and that is not my fault." Gah! Cloudia sure has been in the trading society for years now. That trick was basic. No wonder they say that traders are all trickers. "You just lied!" That didn''t work. Aunt sent an internal call to mom. "Reya, are you there?" Yep, I heard my mother''s voice. "You''d bettere over for a bit. Your precious son is with me and he got something to tell you!" She finished that call while smiling at me, who could only wave around funnily cause I can''t protest out loud now. My mother barged into the room with a BAM! within 20 seconds. "Ziri! What''s the matter? Did someone hurt you?" "Hurt me?" I pointed at my face. "Whoever would hurt such a face? Besides, do you think anyone can just hurt me and get away alive?" "Then?..." She must have noticed my bad mood and began to ask my aunt about it. Unsurprisingly, their conversation went like nned. My "honorable deed" got exposed faster than I expected. What''s worse is that mother called my dad without any hesitation. "Get to my ce NOW! Big news!" He didn''t understand at first. "What happened? I''m discussing a very crucial business in Europe!" Mother raised her voice. "Our son is more important than any business! Get back now unless you can guarantee a billion profit out of it! Your son is in love!" "He WHAT??" I can see my father trying to squeeze his face out of the screen. "You don''t say? Now that''s some big news! You wait. I''m on my way!" Damn it. This is getting out of control. I mean, really out of control. My father appeared on the helipad on top of the building before 6 pm. "Hey dear! You weren''t joking right?" "Of course not. I won''t make fun of such things. But things are a littleplicated." "What''s wrong? She refused? Her family refused? Tell me who they are, I can go buy everyone over. Getting a girl is just like doing business. You win enough people and you win the war! Just look, I got a wholepany for free by marrying your mother. That''s more profit than anything else!" Mother knocked him on the head. "Cut the nonsense!" Next, the three of them held a "special session" whichsted for two hours. Aunt Cloudia announced their final decision: First, auntie will ask the resources from thepany to investigate about Rose''s detailed profile. All of it. Next, mother will lecture me about the key points of how to keep a girl, as well as some feminist psychology. Lastly, father will be responsible of providing any asset I may need when going after Rose. The private mercenaries from thepany may even set up some plots like "hero saves beauty" or "hero Vs viin" to improve my personal image! -------------------- (*) It was 5 seconds before, ording to previous chapters. It''s kinda a tradition in China for parents to overreact about their children''s love affairs. No biggie. Chapter Book 3 - 22 – Investigation Book 3, Chapter 22 Investigation ------------------ I don''t really like these options but I epted anyway, for I don''t have much choices now. However I specifically turned down that "hero show" n. Getting admired by Rose is a good thing alright, but I don''t feel like achieving that one by cheating her. Aunt Cloudia assembled a whole group of people the next morning, who will be looking into Rose''s identity. We first collected all data of female college students in New Nanjing City. The job is simple but tiring. The group entered all the information into aputer and started filtering them out ording to their photos. I said Rose is astonishingly beautiful. But Cloudia said something about "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and asked to pick out any girl that "looks okay". It took almost a day. Now I''m looking at the pile of files in front of me. "What are these?" "These are files of all female undergraduates recorded in New Nanjing City, who have outstanding appearance." "Hold on a minute." I checked over several papers. "This is too many! You''ve done the filtering work haven''t you?" Aunt Cloudia exined: "There are more than fifty universities of various types in this city, and several best known ones across the world. 16 of them are superrge entities with over 100 thousand students in each of them. The total number of undergraduates is above 4 million if we count all colleges in, and above 2 million after we removed all males. Yep, there are more female collegers than males these years. We don''t know her name so we could only try to search for anyone with a good look. We tried to find people with those two names as well. Now the files on your left are the people who go by the two specified names, including those with simr pronunciations, 2373 people in total. On your right are all students with other names whose looks are above average. About 400 thousand of them." "That''s still...a lot." "That''s the best we can do. We already excluded those we can confirm as non-match. You''d probably just give up if you see the original files." "Alright then. Give me some time to go over them." I reached for the 2373 files cause they''re obviously easier to deal with. But I instantly noticed something wrong. Is this...a foreign girl? "Hey auntie? You guys even considered someone with blond hair and blue eyes?" "Oh. I...forgot to tell them to look for Asians only. I''ll go ask them do it again." "No nevermind. I don''t feel like waiting anymore, will just get to it." The profiles are pretty simple, as one sheet of paper is enough to cover everything about someone. But... 2373 of them still look like a freaking medical dictionary printed inrge size. My eyes are crossed when I''ve read the 1700th file. "Auntie! Help!!" I slumped on the sofa and rubbed my temples. "Ow my eyes...and my head!" "Well I can''t do anything about that. You''re the only one who knows her face right?" She stuffed more papers into my arms. "Do it. You mother is itching to see what her daughter-inw looks like and she asked you to work faster." "My mother got too much free time." Iined while going through more files. "I GET IT! Aunt! Bingo!" I picked out my target. "Haha! Finally." "Lemme see it!" Cloudia rushed over and snatched it from me. "Charon. Female. Birth date 11/11/2045. Wait, you two have the same birthday? Even the same year? Aren''t you a genius girlfriend hunter." "She never told me that. This is pure coincidence." "She''s studying at...Neo-Dragon Academy, which is a subordinate organization of Dragon Fate...isn''t that the same college you''re attending? You never met her in there?" I took the file and read it. "I study advanced AI technology in sector 6. While she is in advanced enterprise management department in sector 9. That''s pretty far for us to just run into each other. Hey auntie, I''m going to her dorm now. Come with me would you?" "That''s your girl. Why would you need me?" I scratched my head. "Well I can''t just walk into thedy''s living area! I''ll need your help for that." "It''s no use. The school got nothing to do with Zhong Hua Company, I don''t have privileges there. Ask your father." This is embarrassing. But I need to find Rose. I made a call. "Hey dad!" "You found her?" He pushed his face against the screen again. "How was it? Have you talked to each other?" "I just found her file. We''re in the same college! Now I''m going to her ce." "Then what are you waiting for?" "They won''t let me go into girl''s dorm right?" I can feel my face burning. "Can you find someone and get me through the guards?" "Which sector does she live in?" "Nine. Why?" "That''s should be simple. You go to the gate of that sector and wait. I''ll send someone. And try your best, son!" What''s he nning? Sigh. "I''m on my way, auntie!" "Alright, I''ll leave it to you, be careful with your driving!" I left the building and raced all the way to the gate of sector 9. The sectors are all connected with each other but each one got their own exits. It''s the most lively hour. I can see a great number of student pairs going in and out. I can also see something which is most disharmonious with the environment--a ck old-school minivan-shaped maglev car, parked near the za outside the gate. The reflective color and the texture of the hull made it clear that it''s military-grade vehicle. A good one. I pulled my car beside the armored vehicle. The dragon symbol on the door is enough to tell me who they are. Two people got out of the car as I left mine, a male and a female. The male is...big, strong, with lot of muscles and looks badass, which meanspletely opposite from me. The female has really impressive looks too. I''d say she''d have a ce in any beauty contests. "Master Sairin?" She asked. "Yes." I nodded. "My father sent you?" "That''s right." She reached out her hand in a casual manner and shook mine. "Call me Butterfly. He is Big K. I already noticed you when I saw your car. I was just wondering why master Sairin turned intody Sairin." I forced a smile. "Let''s take my car." I drove us towards the gate. When we''re near, the guards obviously turned to us. As expected, seven or eight of them stopped us in front of the gate. "Excuse--" Big K covered his entire face with just one hand before the guard can say anything else. Then he swiped a card on a device on the gate. Beep! "Dragon Fate Corporation, security clearance level S, identity: confidential. Thanks for your visit and we''re looking forward to serving you again." The gate split sideways and gave us enough space to get our car through. Big K released the guard so we can head towards women''s dormitory. Butterflyined: "Can''t you talk to them like everyone else? Don''t just go push or grab people. You''ve made enough enemies!" Big K just smirk. "Say something!" Butterfly seems irritated. "I--" "Yes! Go on! Speak!" Is she...encouraging him? I observed the strange pair from the rear mirror without understanding what they''re doing. But there''s one thing I''m sure: Big K can''t speak, or at least can''t do it like ordinary people. We reached the dormitory area soon. An electrical rail school bus blocked us. They deployed there things because they are safe and don''t need drivers, plus the campus is just too big. We can only walk from here because of the student crowds. Sector 9 belongs to the art andmercial departments. 20 buildings out of 27 are women''s dormitories. I see what my father meant by "simple"--there are no guards at the dorm gates. Instead, four adorable robot dogs are sitting there like statues. They look like pet dogs, but I know their bodies are made from advanced synthetic materials under those artificial fur. I don''t think any living creatures out there can take on one of these things. Well, dinosaurs maybe. The dog is actually a newly developed product--the Home Guardian 3K. Itsputerized brain can register the appearance details and smells of all individuals inside their responsible perimeter. They will rm any strangers to go away, ormence attacks (to a certain extent, based on how strong the target is) if anyone chooses to ignore the rm. To tell the truth I''m pretty terrified of these things. I spectated one of the experiments regarding the attacking capabilities of Home Guardian 2K. The subject tore a whole car into tiny metal pieces. We stood at the yellow line outside the gate. The dogs stared at us without moving. Big K stepped over the yellow line, upon which all the dogs stood up in a unified formation and bared their teeth. Ouch, that look like military knives. Big K took out his card again. One of the dogs walked over, and...something came out of its mouth. Is that a card reader? With the identification part done, the dogs went back to their positions and started acting as statues again. "Big K, stay here and wait for us." We know he will be scaring the hell out of everyone if he goes in there. He didn''t say anything (again), just nodded and went over to those dogs to...y with them? I stared at the strange scene of one really big guy ying happily with several robotic guard dogs. Butterfly noticed my curiosity and exined: "Big K is half-werewolf. Canine rtionship I guess. He grew up in thebs so he doesn''t know how to speak well. Now you''ve seen it." I nodded in understanding and headed for the dormitory building. ording to the files, Rose lives on...9th floor of the 11th building. It took us some time to find it. And the antique look of it kinda told me Rose isn''t living a rich life. It''s a building specially meant for poor students. Only those in real poverty will choose to live in a room with 11 other roommates. Ordinary people live in quad dorms, and rich ones duo rooms. There are no single rooms. To prevent istion, as the school exined. We climbed onto the 9th floor by the stairs. We both got superior physical builds but our breaths still became heavier. We tried at the elevator button for a while before, when a passing-by girl told us: "Give up. It''s broken for years." There are actually buildings without elevators at such an age huh. At least my appearance became an advantage this time. Girls walked by without properly dressed while no one paid any attention to me. This would be a total different scene if they know I''m a guy. We reached Rose''s room. Crap! It facing the toilet. They''re even using public restrooms here? I tidied my clothes a bit and pressed the doorbell. 1 minuted passed, nothing. Butterfly leaned on the wallzily and knocked at the door. "Elevator is not working, do you expect the doorbell would?" Aw foolish me. Chapter Book 3 - 23 – Action Book 3, Chapter 23 Action ------------------ A short chapter. 1k7 word count. And from the looks of it, the next one may contain something offensive to Japan. ------------------ "Who is it? Forgot your key?" A high pitched female voice came from within. The door opened before I can make any response. It''s a girl wearing wool inner wear, with some pimples on her face. "Who are you?" "I''m looking for Charon." "You''re...? Oh!!" Bam. She shut the door which nearly ttened my nose. Then I heard something messy going on in there. The door opened again after two minutes. This time the girl put her jacket on, and her hair is obviously groomed. Not much better, though. "Hello! I''m Charon''s roommate, name is Lean. You are that Ziri right?" "How did you know that?" "Well there shouldn''t be another ''pretty boy'' so it must be you! Don''t stand there, get in." Butterfly shook her hand. "I''m Butterfly, his friend. Several days ago Charon logged out of the game and we never got contacted since then. Is she here?" "You should havee earlier! Charon is in trouble these days!" "What happened to her?" I''m even more worried now. "She was ying that game on that day, then her parents suddenly rushed into our room, follow by the housemaster. Her father saw her ying and just pulled her helmet off. Her step-mother pped her face and dragged her away. Something like ''We send you to college for you to y games? We''ve been too generous!'' Then we called her and was told that her parents nned to get her back in the first ce. Her stepmother found some guy and is forcing Charon to marry him. Her father said something terrible too. Like ''women shouldn''t be reading in college, just marry some rich guy and help the family''. I was wondering why they decided to visit Charon. It turned out to be their n all along." I''m losing control here. The cup in my hand is already squeezed into the shape of an apple core. "Where is she now? Her home?" "She called in the morning when she''s still in New Nanjing City. Her family nned to take her on a flight to Japan this evening. That ''spouse'' seems to be the son of a rich merchant in Japan." "Which airport?" "I don''t know!" "Thank you very much! We WILL get her back!" I dashed out of the room while connecting to my father''s private line. "Dad! Don''t ask! Just listen. Rose is going to be kidnapped to Japan this evening. Help me look for all flight registrations of those who are going from New Nanjing to Japan, NOW!" "On it!" Without any dy, father asked relevant resources from the corporation to start going though the data of various airports. I''m not assured though. If I can''t get to her today I probably never would. Dragon Fate is a powerful organization, but it doesn''t have much connections in Japan. Especially Japan. "What do we do now?" Butterfly caught up with me. "We go to the major airports. There are only three international ones in the whole city right?" "Roger!" We took my car and raced to the 1st International Airport. This ce mainly holds flights towards other Asian countries. It''s the most possible one. We made it before 7pm by jumping through god-knows-how-many red signals and blocked crossroads. Butterfly stayed behind to deal with any police that maye up, while I ran into the airport hall on my own. I scouted in the airport aimlessly. There are too many people, besides I don''t even know if this is the right ce! I searched around to no avail until almost 7:30pm. As I''m about to lose hope, my phone came up. "We found it son. First International Airport, seven-thirty, flight 31945, ne model Avian 300 medium size, to Tokyo, Japan." "Got it!" I checked the time, 29! I rushed to the airport window to look at the runway. It''s dark and far but I still noticed that "Avian 300" ne, which is now moving slowly and ready to take off! My heart dropped as the ne left the ground. Its over! Butterfly ran to me. "What''s the deal?" I pointed at the leaving airne in defeat. "She''s up there?" She asked, eyes wide. I nodded weakly. "How did ite to this... We''re so close." Butterfly witnessed the deaths of herrades in her battalion before. I guess she can understand how it feels to lose a lover. Chapter Book 3 - 24 – Retrieval Book 3, Chapter 24 Retrieval ------------------ "Son! How did it go?" Father asked the second he picked up my call. "The ne took off!" "You didn''t stop her?" "I was toote!" "In that case..." Father paused for a second. "Don''t worry. Go to the reserve runway and wait there!" On the ne, Rose''s family are looking out from the window, except Rose, weeping. A handsome looking middle-aged man and a showy woman are sitting beside her--Rose''s father and stepmother. "Darling! How much will that old man give us?" Asked the woman. The male gave her a stern look. "We aren''t selling our daughter! Why don''t we just go live with her? We''re her parents, of course we can stay!" "Yes you''re right! Now you mentioned it, we could just live with our dear daughter. The old man will surely treat his rtives-inw nicely, right?" But the pilot''s announcement interrupted their shameless discussion. "Attention, dear passengers. The ground services just notified us that there may be a potential technical issue on the ne. To ensure your safety, we have decided to return to the airport andmence a full check over the ne. Afternding, please follow the attendants and transfer to another ne we''ve prepared for you. We''re sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused, and we sincerely hope that you have a smooth travel. " "What?? Return?" The manined, "We will bete!" One of the attendantsforted him politely: "Please do not worry. We will be using ourtest model, which is faster than the current one. You may even arrive about 10 minutes earlier." "Really? Wonderful then!" ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª On the other hand, I''m already waiting at the departure gate of the reserve runway. This runway also provides services for medium and small sized private charter flights, it got some nice equipment. I looked through the huge anti-shock windows which also serve as telescopes and watched as the ne made a U-turn and headed back towards the airport. When the passengers are moving out, I anxiously searched for Rose among the crowd. And soon I saw her, almost getting dragged by a pair of middle aged couple. "Rose!" I shouted out loud. "Ziri?" All three of them looked at me in shock. Then Rose managed to shake herself free from the grips and ran towards me. Of course, I opened my arms and epted her in. "I thought we''d never see each other!" I tried to hug her tight to give her morefort. She just cried, and trembled. She doesn''t need to say anything, I can understand all. Butterfly gave us a warm smile upon seeing such a scene. Rose''s parents, on the other hand, were not impressed. Her father recovered and stormed towards us. "So you''re that Ziri?" He pulled Rose away and punched at me. "You looking for trouble?" Of course he didn''t hit me, because Big K already stepped in. Big K may not be smart, but that muscle and reflexes of him are way beyond any human standard. I''ve received special treatment and supplement from very young but I''m sure that''s still no match for Big K--we''re limited by our human gene, he isn''t. Big K caught the gentleman''s fist and gave it a "light" squeeze, then Rose''s father knelt down out of pain, who released his other hand on Rose and tried to pry open Big K''s vice-grip. "Arrhhhhh! Do-do you know who I am??" He bluffed while still trembling out of pain. "I''m an official Japanese resident!" He tried to take out his Japanese passport he just bought from the authorities. Big K really wouldn''t care about that. The only thing he knows is that Rose''s father is an enemy. He squeezed harder. Rose''s father just fainted. "I know you''re orphans, you all have a poor life right? Leave us alone, I can give you money!" Rose''s stepmother tried to persuade us. "What do you say?" Well money is the least of my concerns. As for Butterfly and Big K...no one would ever pay them better than my dad, I guess. It''s funny how she actually believes we''re orphans. That must be from Rose. Obviously Rose told them about what she knew about me. Too bad those information was no where even near urate. If they had known who I am, they would not set up this n at all. If things didn''t end like this, I may have decided to just pay them a sum to free Rose (though it doesn''t look good in some way). Now I''m not going to give them any chance since they''ve gone too far. I signaled Big K to release Rose''s father, walked up myself, then lifted him off the ground by the cor with only one hand. "I''ll only warn you once: I''m taking Rose with me and you''d better not do anything stupid. That Japan passport you just bought won''t help you, any passport won''t help you for that matter. Even if you a the president of some ce I can still make you disappear from this world anytime I like, you hear me?" I threw him out towards a row of seats, knocking them over. "Now beat it! Don''t let me see your face again within thisnd!" I picked up Rose in a princess embrace and walked towards the exit (she''s still trying to take in the situation). I made that scene on purpose, for this is what my father told me--The best way to prevent someone from revenging on yourself is topletely destroy his courage in the first ce. Rose still didn''t recover from her shock when our car left the airport. "Are you ok? Or, are you scared? I was violent. You won''t mind what I did to your father right?" She shook her head. "I loved it! You know what, I always thought you are a strange guy. You looked...girl-like. I never thought you had that in you! That was awesome!" "You don''t say?" Iugh. "Awesome, I love that word." "Oh right, where did you steal this car?" "*Cough--*" I nearly crashed my car into the median block, if not for theputer which helped me correct my course. "Steal?? This is MY car." "Huh really?" I see disbelief all over her face. "I know the government provides orphans with necessities for studying and living. But I never heard they provide cars too. You look no older than me. I don''t think you have the money to buy this stuff." "...Bah-hahahaha! I can''t hold it anymore!" Butterfly, who is sitting at the back, broke out herughter. "Since when did the young master of Sai Family became an orphan? Hey Sairin, did you create that lie just to win her sympathy?" "Sai family?" Rosed looked back at Butterfly. "Which Sai family?" "Well you don''t see this family name very often do you? The one that runs Dragon Fate Corporation, you know it right?" "Dragon Fate? That very number tworgest corporation in the world?" "Of course. Dragon Fate is registered trademark. It''s illegal to use a duplicate anyway." "But--You--You''re--You''re--" She pointed at me and stuttered. "Calm it alright?" "You lied to me? If my parents had known this they would never send me to Japan." "I didn''t lie. You said that orphan part first." "Why didn''t you exin then?" "Well I couldn''t! You were like a talking machinegun!" Rose didn''t protest, which means she knew how she really looked back there. "Where are we going to now?" "My mother''s mansion. My parents want to see you. Badly." "Don''t tell me-- Stop the car!" "For what?" "I can''t just go like this! Give me some time to prepare!" "Don''t worry, it''s not a beauty contest. They just need to have a meeting with you in person, really." "But-but this is embarrassing!" "No sweat. I got you. You gonna meet your future parents sooner orter. Besides you look good!" "Wait! I didn''t say I''m actually marrying you." I slowed down the car. "You''re not? Then let me send you back." "You-- Ugh!" Rose humphed. I drove into mother''s mansion yard whileughing. "Juste with me, dear Rose!" "Young master, we''ve done our work, so we''ll leave here." Butterfly dragged Big K away while bidding farewell. "Alright. Use my car. Just park it in front of sector 9 when you''re done. See you twoter!" We both entered the mansion. Rose hid behind my back and looked around the ce nervously. Chapter Book 3 - 25 – Conclusion Book 3, Chapter 25 Conclusion ------------------ "Are you Charon?" Mom quickly pulled Rose to the side. "No worries dear, I''m Sairin''s mother and your future mother-inw. I''m not going to do anything harsh. I''m pretty open-minded you know. The only thing I need you to do is to take good care of my Sairin. Got it?" "Hey mom!" I pulled Rose back. "Is that supposed to be an introduction?" My father came too. "Hello, I''m Sairin''s father. You may already know what our family looks like. Now I''m going to reveal something to you that may make you feel ufortable. This may sound embarrassing for our first meeting but still, I hope you can remember it." "Dad! Stop scaring her!" He just hinted me to keep silent. "Sairin is my only child. In other words, the only inheritor of my business. Both Dragon Fate and Zhong Hua Company will fall under his name sooner orter. We have a reserved emergency asset too, 10% share of the EU Countertrade Association. No one else knows about this. The true value of these assets of my family, and what you can do with them, are beyond theprehension of any ordinary men. Let me tell you this: they will allow us to manipte an entire country or even a region. And of course, any sane being will more or less get attracted by such a fortune. There will be all kinds of individuals that will try to usurp what we have. If you truly wish to stay with Sairin, you will have to be prepared to withstand what wille with your decision." Rose looked at my father and didn''t say anything. She slightly nodded her head, then nuzzled into my arms, refusing to get out. "Son, you also need to know this: Once you two get married, your life will change and you will never be able to return to where you were. You will be center of the spotlight soon, anything you do will probably be revealed to the public by some reporters." "I understand!" I stopped my mother from adding anything further. "I know what will happen. But I also know I can''t leave Rose." "Then we have nothing more to say. I can arrange your wedding. Before you two are officially married, make sure you don''t fall out of the lines." "What lines?" Rose asked, with the look of innocence. "It''s, well... that, action." Father tried to exin what he meant without actually mentioning that word. But Rose won''t understand, so he turned to me. "You know what I''m talking about right?" I nodded, blushing. Father added: "If you two really want it, do it in the game. You two are always together anyway." "Wait, you can do that in [Zero]?" I''m surprised. "You can. Anything that may happen in real life, can be reproduced inside the game." I thought about it. Well doing that business in the game can be a good idea. The problem is I''m not sure if my own body will have any reaction outside. It''ll be really embarrassing if I...mess up my bed. So I asked my father (whispering): "Um, will my body actually, ahem, if I...try it in the game?" Fatherughed. "Don''t worry! No one would y our game if we can''t even solve that problem. Did your body dance around when you''re killing monsters?" "I think not." "That''s it. To put it simple, our helmets are brain wave interceptors. Human movements and reactions are controlled by neural signals, the helmet will halt these signals and forward them to the game instead, while keeping the signals from reaching other parts of your body. In short, you body ''disconnects'' with your brain once you''re in the game. Anything apart from those necessary to keep you alive, like breathing and heart beat, will be jammed. Other sensations like hunger, are also forwarded by the helmet to your brain. Or you will not feel a thing until you''re starved to death." "That sounds good!" I snickered. Mother dragged father away. It seems she can''t take it anymore. "Now don''t you spoil our son already, you old pervert. And you, Rose is such a good girl, don''t you do anything beyond the border! Alright it''ste now. To your beds!" Rose didn''t understand what we were talking about in the whole process. She knew it''s something to do with her, but just couldn''t make it out. Not surprisingly, mother asked us to sleep in separate rooms. But that''s no problem. Rose, you''re mine anyway! Hahahaha! "Ow!" Someone knocked hard on my head. "Sleep already. Why are youughing like an idiot?" Ohe on mom. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª It took some effort to get into sleep, which didn''tst long. Crap. One night, and now I got panda eyes. "Son! We''ll leave now. You take Rose to the college." Mother showed up in front of my bedroom. "Got it!" When they''ve left, I entered Rose''s room. She still asleep. Therge nket is in the form of a tent. She covered her entire body so I can''t see her face. I carefully flipped it open. "Umff--" I pinched my nose. That was close! I felt blooding out of my nose! I never noticed that Rose got such a slim figure. Looks like that wizard armor I bought her was a terrible choice. I can see through those half-transparent silk pajamas she''s wearing. She looks like an angel with all the sunlight! She must have modified her looks towards the opposite end when creating her character. I feel faint looking at her exposed pink corsage. Did mother do this on purpose? I think this is the same set-up my mother wore when she was trying to "seduce" my dad. I''m still a functional male being on the biological level. Now I''m trying very hard to control myself! Oh well. It will happen some time or other. Here''s my chance, I''ll just make her...mine! I nearly tore my pajamas off. Any normal guy would be a predator under such a circumstance. But before I can make my move-- "Ziri... Help me, I don''t want to go to Japan!" A drop of tear slid down from her cheek. And I instantly suppressed my primal urge. My desire disappeared as fast as it came. I gently wiped her tears off, kissed her on the forehead and ran back to my room to get dressed. What I didn''t know is that Rose opened her eyes when I left. "Good, he still have conscience! They really saw me like some innocent girl? My granny was right. Tears beat all men, especially a man in love." Her naughty expression turned soft. "Don''t worry Ziri, I will be yours. Just, give me some time to prepare." She touched where she was kissed, smiling. Oh the other hand, I''m still in my own room cursing myself. What kind of beast am I?? Did I actually n to do that? I woke up Rose (who is pretending to be asleep), we decided to take a tour around the shopping center. Neither of us really care about our college courses. Rose has already finished hers thanks to her extraordinary memory, while I just came here to get my papers. What they taught doesn''t matter. For some reason Rose decided to hold my hand and then snuggle into my side along the way. It''s really a pity that all we received from the passers-by are weird looks as if they just saw some lesbians. One of the young men evenined loudly: "Such beautiful girls. What a pity." Rose made it even worse by intentionally shouting out loud :"Honey! Where are we going to y today?" This caused theining young man to bump head-on into amp post. That must hurt a lot, cause it sounded like someone just knocked at an ancient bell. Mother''s mansion is not far from the downtowns ("this is convenient!"). We soon reached our destination. She stopped for a moment in front of Sky Crown building, then dragged me away. "You''re not going in? This is the most luxurious ce for shopping in the city you know. Don''t women like to buy clothes?" Rose just smiled. "You know how my family looked like. If not for the tuition-free offer I got, they would never allow me to go to college. Even that woman won''t dare to shop at such a ce." I looked at Rose straight in the eyes. "Listen Rose, remember, you are not that poor girl anymore. Anything you will need from now on is what will make you feel happy, don''t worry about anything else. Now follow me, I was nning to dress you like the topdy in the world!" Roseplied after some minor protests. No female being is able to resist the urge to shop for free. She''s not an exception. But the moment I read the shopping tour guide at the entrance, I felt like going mad. Stores for men''s clothes end at second floor, while those for women attires start off from 3rd floor, all the way to the 30th! The situation changed faster than I expected--now Rose is the one leading. We first entered an ordinary store. Rose is already admiring everything she sees but none of the models met my standard. I just asked her to go straight to the 20th floor. That''s where the good stuff will be. I managed to push Rose through all the disys, all of which would attract her for quite a while. Start from the 20th floor there will only be special-grade shops which only sell famous brands or customizing services. Of course Rose never saw something like these with her own eyes. I pushed her into a ce called "The Snow Specialties". I don''t know much about women''s dress but I remember my mother likes to wear this brand. What she likes must be the right choices. A guide quickly noticed us. "Wee! What do you need today,dies?" Oh crap. Not another one! Forget it. I don''t want to exin anymore. Rose picked up a random dress and checked the price tag. She just gasped when seeing those zeros on it. "Um, Sairin?" I know what she''s going to ask. "My girlfriend here wants something pretty, from evening dress to casuals, everything she may need. I don''t know how to pick, could you help her?" The guidedy looked at us in surprise, obviously because of that "girlfriend" part. But she soon recovered and took Rose away to try things on. A rich customer is always weed. Rose is overjoyed while trying different outfits that would only appear in her wildest dreams. She also tried to put on different personas to go with them--a cute little child, a gorgeous madam, the most seductive woman... Even the other workers and customers in the store stopped what they are doing and stared at her. We stayed for almost an hour, after which Rose has picked out a small pile of clothes. I noticed the guidedy is frowning. She must be worrying that we are just trying things out without actually buying them. I picked another standard gentlewomen wear, asked Rose to put it on and tossed what Rose didn''t want over to the guide. "Take this away. And, pack up everything we have tried, except the one she''s wearing. Send them to this address." I gave her my ID card (which is bound to my bank ount). The frown on her face instantly turned upside down. Actually that smile looks as if its going to split her head. Of course, she''s gonna receive one hell of a bonus today. ---------------------------- Don''t worry, there won''t be such chapters very often in the future. This is not one of those harem novels anyway. Chapter Book 3 - 26 – The Alpha Wolf Book 3, Chapter 26 The Alpha Wolf ------------------ It''s already evening when we''re finishing with shopping. Ow my waist hurts! I never knew buying stuff can be so tiring. I apanied Rose back to her dorm. Our orders have already arrived, which caused much surprises to her roommates. Lean asked the moment she saw us: "Did you two just rob a bank? Where did an orphan get so much money?" She took out an overall from the bags. "Oh dear. Snow Specialties, memorial edition! And--woooah!" She was pushed aside by the other girls in the room. I said goodbye to Rose when the others are fighting over the clothes. "You can stay in this dorm for now. I''ll try to find a house for you as soon as I can. And don''t worry about your parents, I''ve modified the database, those dogs downstairs won''t let them in again." When I''m back at my own room we entered the game at the exact same time. Rose hugged me. "How did you know I''m online?" "Well you won''t wait to get in here again. So here I am, to keep yourpany." "I like your attitude!" Rose returned to her "evil girl" mode. "You know, I understood what uncle said that night. So how about...now?" Crap! That''s too straightforward! "Uh, Rose? Well, that day I--" Rose pinned me on the ground. "I know what you were thinking. I was awake the whole time." "Then why--" "Well I wanted to see if you are a true man, or just another pervert!" I topped Rose over. "Your conclusion?" "Pervert! You''re a beast!" Rose joked. "You know what, you found my secret. Rawwroo!" I tried to mimic wolf howl and started to kiss Rose--got to finish what I started on that day. But what happened next is totally out of our expectations. As I "howled" once or twice, several more realistic ones came up from nearby. And that creepiness is definitely not imitated by humans. Did I just attract real wolves? Arooooo-- It''s getting closer. Too bad, my assumption was right. I summoned my team in a hurry. Lucky appeared first and began to clear away the surrounding bushes, because hiding ces can be deadly when dealing with wolves. Getting an open ground will improve our chances. Night Shade and Phiona are next. Their fast movement should be good against wolf packs. Phantom is a must-have. I didn''t call Loong''er though. She mainly attacks by using spell matrix, which can be too slow in this situation. The wolves appeared not long after we got ourselves prepared. Tworge ck monstrous wolves leaped onto a fallen tree trunk with great speed. They scouted around for a bit and locked their gazes at us. Before I can feel confident that we can deal with just two wolves, seven or eight more showed up on the tree. Shoot. Looks like there are a lot of them. Another snow-white wolf jumped from behind them, probably their alpha. I became sure when I noticed its abnormallyrge size and that cross-shape scar between its eyes. The white wolf stared at us for a second before jumping in front of me in a blink. I immediately dragged Rose and ran. This thing''s size is enough to tell me that it''s deadly! The wolves didn''t scare Lucky, who just rushed towards the white wolf and swiped at it, which dodged the attack with a quick side-leap. Night Shade prepared a follow-up attack but was surrounded by the other wolves before he can reach his target. Phiona tried to provide support. One of the bigger wolves crouched and jumped up, almost catching her tail. Looks like flying isn''t an advantage now. Lucky is straight-minded though. After his w missed, he tried another swipe using his tail. The white wolf dodged again, then jumped on top of Lucky''s back and began to bite at Lucky. Lucky breathed a fireball in anger out of pain, which burned down another group of wolves. Night Shade charged out of his surrounding enemies and lunged onto Lucky''s back, ramming the white wolf away. He got faster speed. I told Rose to climb onto a tree and support us using her healing and support spells, while I grabbed an ordinary sword and joined the fray. Lucky is already engaged with the alpha wolf so I can read its stats. It doesn''t look good. [Demonized Wolf (Light aspect)], level 750 Boss, Speed 230 which is the same level with Phiona, Attack is standard, but that HP bar is beyond any tank type I''ve ever seen. Lucky''s ultimate level is 1000 but is still having a hard time because his current level is too low. Night Shade is faster but not really a damage dealer so he can''t do anything. Phiona is trying to keep the rest of the wolves busy. I''ll have to do this on my own. "Lucky! Restrict its movement!" We''ve practiced before. This means Lucky will cast two fire spells which form up a circle to trap the target inside. We can then attack freely from the outside using ranged skills. The fire circle was a sess but the wolf simply jumped out of it. Man that was high! I made a hard brake as the monsternded right in front of my face. I can almost feel its breath! The wolf bent down and got ready to lunge at me. A well-timed ck me wall appeared and separated us. Yup. That was from Phiona. However the wolf still jumped over the fire wall. "Oof!" It knocked me flying with just one w swipe, depleting my HP. That damage is expected from a boss monster who''s 500 levels above me. Rose used her healing spell in time. A warm feelingforted me. I ordered Lucky to set the entire area ame. That should hinder its movement. It didn''t go as nned though. The alpha charged straight at me,pletely unaffected by the surrounding fire. It was just trying to jump over the mes out of instinct. But now it noticed that these low-level spells don''t cause much damage at all so it simply decided to run through them! There''s no way I can avoid such a fast attack. I was knocked outside the ming field and crashed into a tree, breaking it. I heard shrieking from Lucky and Phiona, the cors transferred my damage to them, keeping me alive. Another attack from one of the wolves managed to finish off Phiona. She can revive, though. I don''t really have anything to deal with the situation now. I jumped onto a nearby tree and used [Capture] three times at the alpha -- whichpletely pissed it off. The wolf opened its jaw. A white, crescent shaped object flew towards me. No idea what it is but obviously something I''d better avoid. I [Blink]''d away from my spot. Snap! The tree broke in half from where I was standing, with the cut clean as if shed by a sharp de. Phantom exined: "That''s a typical skill used by beast type monsters, [Pressure st], an advanced version of wind de." "So it''s dangerous?" "They are dangerous enough without the skill!" I looked at Rose who is still standing on her tree, then shouted:" Rose! Decamping tactic!" Rose was confused by my unusual choice of word, but she soon realized what I meant when she saw me de-summoning mypanions. She jumped from the tree and fell onto my arms. I threw another [Capture] at the alpha and turned tail. I never expected it to work. Never hurts to try, though. I activated my ring and teleported us to some random ins. Then Iy on the ground to take a breather. That was some awful experience! But I heard a system notice. "Congrattions, yer Ziri sessfully captured level 750 Boss monster." "Huh?" I saw a white pet egg in my inventory. "That was...unexpected." I checked the egg. Yup, it''s from that alpha wolf. Rose moved closer. "What''s this?" "Apanion egg. All mypanions are hatched from eggs I captured like this one. They can help you fight, or you can y with them just like normal pets if you wish to. Though I don''t think I can do that with these big guys of mine." "I see now! I never saw one of these eggs before. No one had any from where I came for that matter." I took Rose''s hand and put the egg on it. "Yours now!" "You don''t need it?" "I have fivepanions and you have none. Take it to protect yourself. This thing''s fast. Should be a goodpanion for a wizard like you." "Thank you thank you!" She gave me an abrupt kiss on the face and, ugh. I can''t control my smiling now. "Are you still going to call me Ziri from now on?" "Honey!'''' Man she''s...open. "Sounds good to me." "How do I hatch it?" Rose turned the egg around without figuring out anything. I took her hand again and made a small cut on it, dropping her blood on the egg. She froze. Must bemunicating with the system. The process didn''t take much time. The egg burst open in her hands, leaving a small, white furball behind. But I thought it was a wolf? The little thing stretched itself soon. It surely is the wolf before, just...tiny, and looks like a ball with all that long hair covering its body. "Aww it''s so cute!" Rose won''t stop rubbing the creature against her face. "It looks beautiful! I love the pure white color. And that cross mark between the eyebrows is such a nice touch!" I tried to exin like a professional: "Don''t get confident just yet. It''s level 0 now, you need to bring it to at least level 100 before it can help you fight off anything." "Don''t worry. As long as it''s cute!" Now I''m worried Rose may identally pluck off some of the fur from the little pup. "Good day my friends!" Someone with full blue wizard robe showed up near us. Appears to be a yer. "Nice bumping into you two here!" He stretched out one hand. I can feel something is off with this guy but can''t really tell what it is. However Rose didn''t give it much thought and shook his hand. The moment they contacted with each other, a strange shaped ring came off his hand and locked itself onto Rose''s. Before we can react, Rose disappeared after a sh! "What did you do??" I drew my sword and pointed it at him. "Ziri! I got you now! Just surrender!" The wizard looked at me with an "I already won" attitude. "What have you done to her?" I prepared to cut his head off the instant he gives me an answer. "Oh nothing really. I just sent her to the prison." "Prison?" "Yes! I''m a bounty hunter." "What do you mean?" "Wait, you don''t know?" He looked at me in shock. "yers like us ept these quests from various bounty hunter agencies located in different cities. We get certain reward by finishing the quest, based on its difficulty and how much Evilness the target has. Each quest has a time limit of three weeks. If we can kill or arrest the target within that limit, we get the reward, with no Evilness penalty on ourselves. But we will need to pay 1% of the bounty reward as apensation if we fail it." "How did you find us?" "Bounty hunters have the right to acquire target location once per day. I happened to notice that you teleported near my city so here I am. Give up now! Surrender and you won''t lose anything. You can''t beat me anyway. Be a good boy and go to prison with me, or do you want to lose a level first?" I chuckled. "So Rose is in that city nearby?" "That''s right. I''d just go there and keep herpany if I were you. That ce sucks!" He approached me. Chapter Book 3 - 27 – Switching Class Book 3, Chapter 27 Switching ss ------------------ "Sorry friend, I don''t want to sit jail, because I''d probably never get out with how many people I''ve killed. So..." I tossed a lightning ball at the wizard which sted him pretty far away. Since I''m dressed like a warrior, the poor guy was never prepared to take a spell to the face instead. Without his shield his HP bar was reduced by more than half. I finished him off with a quick follow-up stab before he can react. He looked like a high level wizard, but he''s fragile nheless. I quickly tried to contact Rose, only to be told that I cannot private chat with a yer who''s in jail. Damn it. I was hoping to spend a good day with Rose. I called Wayne. "Wayne! Got time?" "Boss? What is it?" "A little help!" "Speak it. " "I ran into a bounty hunter!" "You weren''t caught right? Your level is low but it shouldn''t be that easy to catch you. Your teleport should be enough to deal with anyone, no?" "I wasn''t caught. But your dear sister is! Someone ambushed us." "I see. Tell me. What do I need to do? Just in case, don''t ask me to break a jail. I may be a super powerful hidden mage ss but I can''t take on all the guards! Maybe I can survive for just a couple of seconds." "That''s not what I meant. Assaulting the ce is my own job anyway, I need you to locate Rose for me. I don''t know which room or block she''s in, it''ll be embarrassing if I get lost. And I can''t scout myself since I can''t go into cities!" "Easy then. Tell me which city." "Duh, I won''t be asking you if I know it. " "You mean you want me to search through cities one by one? There are lot of them, it will take months! And I''m broke, you give me the teleport fees!" "Right. As long as you give me the result!" "Alright. Just wait. Oh and, tell me where it happened! She should be in a city not far from you." I went back to the Lost City after telling Wayne everything. He just reminded me that I still have two hidden sses that I need to figure out. I didn''t have enough levels before, it should be good now. Plus I need the extra power to save Rose! The question is, where do I go? I searched in my bracelet for quite some time before I took out the two scrolls. Ever since I got this super inventory I never bothered to organize it because it will never get full. Now I''m facing the consequences. First, I spread the Demonized Fighter scroll. Crap. Only the first one or two lines are introductions, the rest are all instruction. Looks like this is one of the NPC-less quests, they usually got such kind ofplex directions. Ok, I just need to follow the steps. "First, find some ce wide and safe." Wide and safe? I looked at the streets. It''s pretty safe in here but hardly wide. Yes, the grasnd outside. It''s big and there aren''t many monsters. I rushed until I''m far enough from the city. This ce looks big enough. "Step 2: Summon two dark-affinitypanions." Dark-affinity huh. Mypanions are all somewhat ckened when I got them. They are all Dark. There is a note: "A Demonized Fighter can have many possible final forms, which is dependent on thepanions you choose." What does that mean? Will I turn into a dark monster myself? Whatever. I''ll do it. I considered for a moment and decided to summon Loong''er and Phiona. Nothing bad would happen with thisbination. (*) "Step 3: Drop you own blood on the scroll and speak the prayer following behind." Here goes nothing. I cut my finger and did as told. The scroll started to burn, and some strange words appeared inside my mind. "I embrace the darkness root. I abandon the way of good. I call upon the power of dark with my soul, I leave the beckoning of light unheard. I vow to be the speaker of the underworld. Grant me the power of destruction, the power to murder!" A ck ring began to spin around me faster and faster. It expanded, with more and more cracks showed up on its surface, before it finally exploded to countless shreds. The broken pieces all went to Loong''er and Phiona instead of flying away. Then two ck orbs reappeared from their bodies and flew inside me. "Congrattions, yer Ziri has sessfully transferred into Demonized D&P Rider. Please designate your mount. You cannot choose the twopanions used in the ritual, select one other than these two." (**) "Night Shade!" "You have selected Night Shade as your mount. You have acquired skills: [Rider Charge], [Pole Pick], [Heavy Smash], [Weapon Parry], [Pierce], [Intimidate]. Because of your current ss, your Servants will be limited to Rider-type only." Rider? I checked the help texts. It means I can only capture humanoid, rider-ss NPCs as my servants from now on. Shite! Rider NPCs are usually high-level knights and are highly organized. If you ran into any you will be dealing with arge group of them, in which case the best choice would be running away. Even if someone is higher leveled, a group charge performed by hundreds of those knights can still kill him easily. Wait a second... My sworn brother! Domergor got a bunch of underlings right? He''s the leader of the dark legion for god''s sake. It won''t be hard to ask for several helpers from him. Ahhaha! I''m a genius! I summoned Night Shade and told him to travel towards brother''s territory, while I checked how to use the other scroll. After some reading I only figured out one thing: The process for switching into a Soul Maniptor requires the yer to go to a certain NPC in a ce called the Dragon State. And it''s considered a city too, which means I''ll put it aside for now. Wayne called me when I just entered the valley range. "Hey boss, I got it! I visited the prison in Bright City and saw Rose in there. The gate is always open but red yers can''t get out once they''re in. I talked with Rose and she told you to note. Everything is fine in there except you can''t go outside. And your Evilness drops faster." "Alright. Tell me the coordinate of the city gate. Oh and tell Rose I won''t leave her alone." I cut the chat and told Night Shade to ran faster. The guards even remembered me. They are not as courteous asst time when I brought rk''s message, but at least they didn''t chop at me on the spot. "Excuse me, can I see my brother Domergor?" "Wait here!" He ran inside. Then returned soon, with an obviously better attitude. "Follow me please." I followed the guard for a long way again to where Domergor stays. "Hello brother." "What brought you here? That old snake told me he broke your Dragon Lord set into pieces. Aren''t you going to repair it?" "I have something to discuss with you." "What is it? Anything I can help." I love his frankness! I told him how Rose was captured. "I''m going to save her now, but you know the city guards are all above level 800. yers out there are usually below 500 for now, and I haven''t even reached 300. I don''t have any chance against the guards." "That sounds terrible alright. But how can I help you with that? We''re regted by thews. We are not allowed to help you attack a city." "That''s not what I meant. I just became a Demonized D&P Rider and it restricted me to recruit Riders as servants only, can you appoint several men for me?" "Is that so?..." He signaled his soldiers to leave the room. Domergor made sure no one can hear us before he whispered: "I happen to have several...subordinate under mymand. They are a little troublesome though. It''ll be nice of you if you can take them away, actually." "Trouble? Is their level too low to help me?" ----------------- (*) See Áú·ï³ÊÏé. (**) The original ss name would be something like "Demoninzed Dragon & Phoenix Rider", which is awkward however I put it. But again, they won''t appear often in the future. Chapter Book 3 - 28 – Phantom Knights Book 3, Chapter 28 Phantom Knights ------------------ "They''re Phantom Knights, and their level is even higher than myself. They fell under mymand because these guys don''t have Commander skills. Still, they''re too good to be willing to listen to me. Giving them orders is like wasting my breath, the bastards just won''t follow. They will also affect the teamwork of the entire battalion, so they didn''t add up our strength at all, it''s the opposite!" "How many?" "Ten. Is that too many for you?" "Just right. I can summon exactly 10 Servants." "Perfect. They''re just a handful to me. They will surely take a hundred or two years off my lifespan if I keep up with them. Now follow me." Domergor led me around the camp and headed to the backside. They don''t even live inside the camp area? We walked for a good distance before I finally saw a row of tents lined up near a cave. Brother walked to the middle of the tents and shouted: "Fall in!" Then he ran back towards me. I heard noises like metal piercing the air, then I saw a series of spears nailed themselves into the ground, along the path Domergor just ran through. The arms of the deadly weapons are still shaking. Ten figures wearing full ck heavy metal armors walked out of the tents. Each one of them is carrying two spears behind their backs, crossed. A bastard sword hangs on the waist. I can see thick shields attached to their arms too. Typical knight design. They came and picked up their own spears (they carry three of them). One of them that looks like their leader, spoke to Domergor: "What do you want?" "I came to introduce someone to you today. Come here buddy." He dragged me in front of him. "This one here is my sworn brother. Now I officially assign you as his Servants." "Not a chance." That leader refused very tly. "Now don''t give me that. I''m the boss of this ce after all!" "Boss? You, huh? You can''t even defeat us. Listen, if you can even best one of us, we''re all yours. Otherwise go back to wherever you came." "You heard the man." Another knight cut in. "We don''t listen to weaklings." "Tell me the rules then." I walked up, angered. They''re too arrogant! "Oh, nice one. You got guts, I''ll give you that. I''ll try to make it fair for you. The weakest one of us, shall have a 1-on-1 duel with you, without using his horse. You can use yourpanions and skills and items all you like. You win the fight if you can chip off half of his HP. Don''t get cocky. I''d bet you will be knocked out in one hit." "Alright!" It doesn''t really look good since they made it a lot easier for me. But I''m pretty sure I''d be dead in a blink of an eye if they didn''t. Brother took us to an open ground. He even gave me his armor to prevent me from getting one-shot easily. It got some impressive defense, just a tad too heavy so it may slow me down. I chose to wear it though. As they said, their "weakest one" stood in front of me. However I can feel his actual strength is still out of my reach. I summoned all of mypanions at the very first moment, which surprised my opponent a little bit. Looks like he wasn''t expecting to face so many targets. Since there''s only one enemy I didn''t ask Phantom to Merge, but ordered him to disturb the knight instead. The charging knight suddenly fell onto the ground face-first. Ouch. Lucky took the free chance and swiped his tail downward at the enemy''s head. The knight rolled aside, dodging it. I shed at where the knight is about to end up, without sess -- he bounced up right before he''s about to reach my sword and cut at me. I immediately ducked while Phantom interfered and made his sword stray upward a bit. Shoosh! Some of my hair went off. I stepped back to avoid his following assault while Lucky charged at him. Lucky should be able to hold himself in up-front conflict. Loong''erpleted her spell matrix from nearby. A giant eight-diagram appeared below the knight''s feet. I wonder if ancient Chinese spell would work against a western knight. The oue isforting enough. Our enemy stumbled and almost fell down again. He stood up soon, however. Loong''er exined: "This is a Gravity Matrix I learned from my father. He is now ced under double gravity and will be slowed. Attack him using your speed advantage!" Slowed huh? Aha! He won''t be hitting me if he can''t even catch up! "Phiona! Use your fire and don''t stop!" She cast her signature dark mes around the knight. No matter how much defense he got, he''ll be dead sooner orter. "Night Shade! Lightnings!" That''s two magic damagers plus Lucky''s physical attacks. Should be enough. Before I can feel assured though, the knight drew one of his spears and threw it at Loong''er like a javelin. It hit Loong''er right in the center despite of Phantom''s interference. With a painful howl, Loong''er died and revived where she was. Shoot, that damage is no joke! Her Gravity Matrix broke without her support and she no longer has the time to prepare again so she began to use Skill Counter Matrix, which will reflect 25% of the enemy''s skill damage back to himself. It doesn''t work against normal attacks but is enough to make sure he doesn''t use his deadly skills very often. "Watch out!" That was from Phiona. I ducked my head in time, another spear pierced my hair again. "Phiona! Switch to focused fire!" "On it!" A giant me pir erupted from under the knight. He hopped around to avoid it but the pir kept following. It''s a special skill only known to Phoenixes, which is quite powerful and easy to hit. The only problem is the caster cannot move or use other skills during the process, or it will be interrupted. The knight rushed here and there without breaking out of our encirclement. He soon realized he needs to take me out first and ran straight at me, ignoring everyone else. Well of course I''m not standing here and let you hit me! I hopped onto Night Shade. There''s no way you can outrun a Nightmare. He didn''t. He just threw hisst spear at us. It didn''t hit me but skillfully pierced Night Shade, killing him. Now it''s my turn to crash onto the ground headlong. I heard the sound of wind as I crawled back up. I turned to see the knight getting knocked flying by Lucky''s timely tail swipe. He maneuvered his body in mid-air and performed a perfectnding, before charging at me again. I jumped onto Night Shade again (who just revived). Gotta RUN! Phiona gave up her me pir and swooped down. The knight dodged her ws with a nicend slide, and jumped out of Lucky''s ws with another front-flip. Loong''er joined them trying to stop him as well, but didn''t hold very long before she was finished off, with her low HP after revival. I won''t be summoning her any time soon. I jumped down from Night Shade and ordered Phantom to merge. Which means the knight will recover his full speed and dexterity. But at least I can [Blink] away from his attacks now. I performed a jump sh and instantly [Blink]''d to his back to avoid his attack. Yet he didn''t hesitate one bit before he wielded his sword in a half circle, aimed at me. This is not good. He''ll definitely kill me if I keep dodging around. Oh right, I can go invisible! I [Blink]''d behind him again and activated my cloak''s effect. Ha, let''s see how you hit something you can''t even see. Losing his target, the knight looked around for a while and stood still. Night Shade charged and headbutted at him, forcing him to give up his n to hear my location out using his senses. When I go invisible, other yers can still see my red name. But an NPC cannot. Now I''ll just get away from his assault and let mypanions finish the job. Lucky is the only one who can engage in closebat without getting maimed. His level is too low though, after all the fight his HP bar is almost empty. The good side is Phiona and Night Shade''s supportive attacks are pretty effective. Since I''m safe myself, I asked Phantom to disturb his movement again. Now this is my favorite tactic when I want to annoy someone. The fight continued on for another 20 minutes without any notable result. The enemy suddenly roared, and his armor scattered on the ground. A ck bat creature fluttered out of the armor, circled around and then charged at me. Oh crap. Bats locate their enemies with their ultrasonic. My cloak won''t work now! But knowing that fact will not help with my situation. Lucky came fast behind and bit at the bat, who just swiftly avoided Lucky''s maw, but was still scratched by a following w attack. Itnded on the ground and turned into a wicked looking woman who''s wearing a loose robe. Wait, woman?? I''m still confused at this "batwoman" when she cut me using her dagger. Arrrgh! That damage is no lower than the bastard sword, it emptied my HP bar again! Seeing me getting attacked, Lucky and Phiona quickly arrived. Almost at the same time as I was hurt, Lucky managed to sink his fangs into the woman''s body. Phiona''s me hit her too, just one secondter. With my team''s current health I''m sure we''re a wipe. She didn''t finish me off though, she just turned back into a bat and flew away instead. "I lost." "Huh?" Now I''m more confused. "My health is below half now. You won." Without saying anything else, she moved back to collect her armor. "What was with that bat just now?" I asked her. -------------------- I think I confused "knight" "rider" and "cavalry", since they can be represented with the same Chinese word. The phantom knights are just a group wearing heavy knight armors who ride horses intobat. So I guess Knight would be good enough. Chapter Book 3 - 29 – Dinner Feast Book 3, Chapter 29 Dinner Feast ------------------ "Do you know how us Phantom Knights came into being?" Their leader asked me. "Powered up from Dark Fighter?" "Oh ho, of course not. We were originally Pdins. But wereter killed by vampires and turned ourselves. This, however, did not hinder our strength and abilities as knights, so we chose to be Dark Knights, then promoted to Dark Sanctuary Knights. As vampires, the only branch we can choose next is Phantom Knight. Turning into a bat is our instinct. But doing that will make out bodies vulnerable so we usually don''t use that skill." "I see now!" "We five were Senior Guard Captains of the Holy Sanctuary, the other five over there were Praetorians of the Lady Priestess. You were fighting with one of thedy''s guards. You would be dead already if you chose one of the captains." "I need to defeat someone first and capture the soul as my Servant, what should I do now?" "Don''t worry. Vampires are living dead. You can summon us as is." "Oh. Let''s do it then!" The sess rate of capturing these guys with full HP is lower than I expected. It took the whole night to finally recruit them under my name. I contacted Rose after logging out. She''s still in the game. Don''t tell me she''s actually enjoying the jail? I asked her roommate to wake her. "Rose? You alright?" "I''m fine! Just a bit bored. Ah yes, I just made a friend in here, an interesting one!" "A friend?" That doesn''t feel good. You know, a man and a woman in jail... Nothing good wille out of it. "Yes! There''s only one other people in here. And she knows a lot about boys!" "Knows about boys? Your friend is a ''She''?" "Well duh. The male block is across the passway. We can see them but we can''t get close!" "Oh." I feel embarrassed. Man that was stupid of me. "Wayne told you that I will go rescue you right? Why didn''t you log off? It won''t feel good to stay in the jail." " I stayed in here just because you said that. I want to wait for my prince like a good girl! Rosy told me men are all liars and I wanted to prove her she''s wrong!" "Rosy?" "Rosy is that friend I mentioned. I know we can be good friends when I saw her name." "You sure you''re noting off? You can just get in there again when I''m prepared. " "Nope! Imma wait here! It feels good to wait for you too." ...What kind of idea is that? "So be it then. I''ll be quick. Bute downstairs for now, let''s go eat something." I can''t rely on instant food anymore since I have a wife with me. "Okay. I''ll be right there!" I drove in front of her dorm area and saw her wearing...a full red sexy costume! I recalled there was one of these in my order, but why didn''t I notice it earlier? Red heels, red jeans, red vest and a red dust coat. Ahh my nose! Where''s my tissue?! That innocent face of hers can kill any male creature on sight now! It seems she never wore such high heels before so she is now walking in a subtle catwalk manner. All the males along her path are obviously blushing, some even turned around to hide their "lower embarrassment". "Where are we going?" She jumped into the car and asked, "How about the small diner just outside? I already wanted to go there but that ce is expensive. I''m tired of those cheap meals meant for us poor students." "A small restaurant?" Well isn''t she easily satisfied. I thought women be all picky when ites to eating. Now I love her even more! "We''re going to the Fortune Grand Hotel''s revolving restaurant on the top floor, and try their valentine offer." "Ok--huh? But, that ce is--oof!" I silenced her with a kiss. I was just giving her a brief peck on the lip but for some reason, I didn''t let go. We separated ourselves until we felt the need to catch some breath. "Like I told you. As my partner, only think about enjoying your life from now on. Don''t concern yourself with anything such as how to save money." We picked a seat with the best view on the dining floor. A waitress approached us but was dragged aside by the hall manager. "You see thatdy over there?" The waitress looked at our direction. "The red one or the ck one?" "The one wearing ck is a mister, stupid! Even if it''s a ''she'', she is trying to y as a male anyway. Make sure you satisfy their needs on all aspects. Address the one in ck as ''mister'' when you go there. And tell them that thedy looks really nice. But don''t stare at her! Also, tell them they look good together!" Then the manager stuffed another menu into her hand. "Use this one!" "But why the valentine--" "Just go! Don''t keep them waiting!" The waitress walked to us in quick paces. They''re not allowed to run in front of customers. "Greetings, how would you like your meal today?" She handed over two menu books. Ohhh, the valentine servings are listed right on the cover. "Your female friend here looks splendid!" That truly made me happier. Of course a man would be if someone praises their girlfriend like that. On a side note, you should always praise a woman''s outfit if you want to make her happy too. "This one!" Me and Rose pointed at the same dish together. "Wonderful. A couple with united mind and heart. You two must be the happiest pair out there!" "You don''t say! Hehhehhehe!" Iughed out loudly. While Rose lowered her head, blushing. With all the ttering, I ordered more food than I nned. It''s toote when I noticed the now overloaded table. There''s no way we can eat so much. However it turned out to be a wise move. Because...god please tell me where on earth did Rose put all that meat to, with her slim body?? She was first trying to nip away her helpings with much grace, but soon switched into wolf mode! The dinner took about an hour. I even gave some tip to the waitress when I paid the bill. (*) "So what will you do tonight?" I asked her. "Go back and rest. I ate too much! You?" "I''ll try to figure out how to get you out." "Be quick you hear me?" "Of course ma''am!" I drove Rose back to her ce and went back myself, to continue with my jailbreak n. It seems I still got a lot of preparations to do. I need to work harder. For the next step, I should go acquire that Soul Maniptor ss. I searched in my bracelet for a while (again) and picked out that damned scroll. There''s a map and a coordinate appended to it. My destination is quite far, and surely I don''t have enough power to walk into the Dragon State city without getting harmed. Ok, I''ll go ask rk for some better gear. ------------------ (*) Tipping is not amon practice in China. Someone may even consider it a weirdo act. Chapter Book 3 - 30 – Revived Dark Dragon Lord Set Book 3, Chapter 30 Revived Dark Dragon Lord Set ------------------ I ran to rk''s shop with much enthusiasm, only to find the guy is not home. Where did he wander off to in the busiest night hours? I went to the clothes shop instead. He got to be there. And yes I did find him. The dude is having a good time with his wife! When he saw me, he pushed me out of the door while looking really embarrassed. "Why are you here?" "I got business, obviously! Someone kidnapped my wife! Can I borrow some useful equipment? I gonna infiltrate a city." "You mad??" rk shouted in shock. "Do you even know how powerful the city guards are?" "They are above 800 right? That''s why I came to you." rk considered for a moment. "Fine. I do have something that will allow you to regain full strength of your Artifact armors, temporarily. You can only use it once per day, and itsts for only 10 minutes. You MUST take your gear off before that time limit, or your armors will break beyond repair. The worst part is it costs 10 levels to use, whether you follow that time limit or not. You sure about that?" "10 levels in 10 minutes? That''s sounds harsh. But I got no choice. I''m quick at grinding anyway, I can get 10 levels within a day!" I can''t let Rose wait in there for too long, that''s for sure! "Tell me how to do it!" "Follow me then." rk led me back to his shop and collected my armors. "How is your Thousand Blood going?" I took out my note. "783 for now, 217 more to go." "Wait a sec." He hunted in a closet and took out a bottle and another note. "I collected some for you. Check if there are any repetitions." "You did? Thanks mate!" I browsed through the two papers. "79 rep. That means you got 210 of them. still 7 more to go!" I mixed up the two bottles. "What next?" "A moment." rk took out a knife which is giving out a blue shimmering. "Lucky you. This undead blood of mine values a ton on the market! It makes stuff resistant to dark." He cut his finger and dripped some blood into the bottle, then he handed the knife to me. "Your Divine Demon blood can reduce the weight of forged product, increasing your speed. With these rare materials, maybe I can repair your outfit earlier than nned." "Do you mean the blood of rare creatures are all valuable?" "That''s right. Look at yourpanions. Phoenix''s blood is fused with reviving energy, it makes your gear repair itself as long as it''s not totally broken. Dragon blood makes it exceptionally sturdy. Shinryuu blood is resistant to spells and increases your own spell power. The blood essence of your spirit mutant will make it resonate with other pieces, you can easily retrieve your lost piece unless you lose all of them. Finally, a Nightmare''s blood may sometimes stun the enemy." "That''s brilliant! Why didn''t you tell me earlier? I''ll mix their blood too." "Huh, you didn''t? I thought you would take their blood first!" "Well I didn''t know they can be of so much help. I wouldn''t cut mypanions just for less than 10 types of blood." I called mypanions up. That makes it exactly a thousand. Aha, all done! Then I followed rk out of the city to dig holes. The reason is simple: we need Lucky''s sma me to forge the armors. rk''s furnace will break apart for sure, while burning several holes in the ground won''t be too much of an issue. And I discovered Lucky''s new ability too. He digs way faster than an excavator! After only 10 minutes, we already have a 3-meter-deep swimming pool shaped crater in front of us. rk began to prepare his tools and cooling waters while I collected the rest of the materials off mypanions--dragon tooth, phoenix feathers and stuff. We threw everything into the pit once we''re done. Lucky stood beside the pit, drew a deep breath, and unleashed his signature purple sma fire. I think I can electric arcs moving around the area. But it''s too bright to see what''s going on inside. Lucky kept on for a full minute before the me began to shrink, then gave out, after which Lucky just fainted again. I un-summoned him to let him rest. Sorry friend. However rk gave me the bad news. "This isn''t good. We don''t have enough heat! The materials are gonna be wasted!" "What??" Now I''m the one feeling faint! I ran to the edge of the pit and saw my Dark Dragon Lord set emitting a weak red color. They started to melt but this isn''t enough! Before I gave up hope, Phiona jumped into the pit. "Inferno RAAAGE!" A giant purple fireball appeared under us. rk eximed: "Ahh the mes of a Phoenix! I almost forgot that." Different from Lucky, Phiona''s me is hardly bright. Though the dim me is just as powerful. I can feel it. That said, I noticed Phiona is panting pretty hard. This move is too draining! Night Shade moved to the edge, stood up on his hind legs and summoned a white lightning ball into the pit, causing a lot of shes. He''s trying to heat up the pit using electricity. Now it looks enough to me! Phiona recovered her spirit as well. She loves heat. "Just a little more power!" rk shouted to us. Loong''er floated above the area and started deploying her matrix. A big magic ring appeared around the edge. Then she raised her head towards the sky and roared. "Thunder of the seventh heaven!" ck clouds gathered, making the dark perimeter around the Lost City even darker. A lightning pir the same thickness as the pit dropped itself into the ground, while stimting all the mes to erupt a dozen meters higher, scaring me and rk away. After two minutes, I un-summoned Night Shade, who copsed first. Phiona left the area after another minute. That''s the best she can hold even with the extra help. Loong''er got more stamina than I expected. It doesn''t look like she''s going to cut her heating spell any time soon. "We''re good!" rk finally gave the signal to stop. The disappearance of the final flicker of fire revealed a now bottomless pit. The wall has been erged by several times, and I think it''s at least 50 meters deep, from where I''m standing. I peaked over the edge. Nope, there''s onlyva in my sight. Phiona dived into theva pool. When she came out she''s holding something in her talons. She brought some immense heat with her too. My face burns! rk asked Phiona to drop the pieces onto the tform he ced and search for the remaining ones. Now it''s time for the professional cksmith to start his show. He wrapped some damp towels around his head, hands, with only his eyes and nose exposed, and began his work. I copied him and covered myself up as well. This looks like taking a sauna but I must say it feels way better. Phiona have already fished out all the parts. Now she''s back into theva, bathing. Ouch. I''m a little envious of her for some reason. The repairing went on into the midnight, during which I assisted rk like an apprentice. It proved to be rewardful though. When we''re finished, the system told me my cksmith ss has leveled up to max (10) because I just helped repairing Artifact! I even got a reward out of it--a big diamond called [Heart of the Creator]. But it won''t show me any information even if I [Identify]''d it. Huh, weird. This diamond, however, reminded me that Phiona gave me a fire gem when we first met. So I handed it to rk. "Can you get this thing onto my gear too?" "For the-- How did you-- This is one of the rarest fire gems in the world, only a Phoenix--" Then he nced at Phiona, who just enjoyed herva shower. "...Yeah right. ''Kay, which piece do I get it into?" "Helmet!" I pointed at the helm between the eyebrows. "The gem is pretty shiny so I gotta make it stick out right? I''m not the type to hide my wealth." "Well it''s yours, so be it then." While rk went to continue his work, I considered about the gem''s effect. It allows me to summon me Hos. I''m level 263 (got two levels for killing that high level bounty hunter), which means I can summon 526 of them. The hos are only level 100 creatures but...that number alone is enough to scare off people! When I''m still daydreaming about how I can order the hos to sting people, rk yelled: "All good. Do you try it on now?" "You bet I will!" I began to suit up myself with some help from rk. It took quite a while. There are too many parts! "Alright. Move around and see if there''s any problem." rk stepped back a bit and instructed. "Got it!" With much excitement, I tried to draw my sword, only to find I can''t lift my arm. Then I tried to bend down, nope, I can''t. I tried walking. Argh! my legs feel like they''re stuck in solid concrete! "Um, rk? I can''t move!" "Try harder!" I used up all my strength and sessfully moved...for one step. "Phew! Ca..rk!... This...huff... Ar..Armor! Why...so heavy!" "So, it didn''t work." rk sighed. "What do you mean? Didn''t we seed? The system told me I got promoted for finishing the job!" "We only repaired the Artifact''s body. As I said before, Artifacts have their own souls. We can repair the body all we want, but it''s useless once the soul is annihted." "What should we do?" I panicked. "The set isn''t going to be broken forever right?" "Of course...We can fix that." Chapter Book 3 - 31 – Equivalent Exchange Book 3, Chapter 31 Equivalent Exchange ------------------ "What do I do?" I asked rk in panic. I spilled tears and blood to get my Artifact outfit, of course I''ll panic should it go waste! "Remember I told you to find a dragon soul in the Dragon''s Canyon?" "Yup." "That''s what you''ll need to drive your Dark Dragon Lord set. We didn''t have it when repairing, and this is what you see. An Artifact armor without its soul is just a pile of overweight metals." "So I just need to put a soul in there to make it work?" I see hope! "That should be it. But we got some problems. First, you haven''t find that canyon, no? And, you don''t know how to inject a soul, I assume? I''m just a cksmith, I know how to drill holes or plug gems but I know nothing about souls." "What can I do then?" "You still need to find the dragon soul. But that can wait. Let''s go to the trading center for now and restore your armor temporarily. Bear in mind that there''s no escaping losing some levels." "Trading center? You said I can use my armor for 10 minutes, we can do it at the trading center?" "Yup." "That ce is for selling stuff right?" "The trading center in this city sells wishes. You can wish for anything as long as you can pay the price!" "...I got a bad feeling. I''m not going to sell my soul to some random devils eh?" "Well, no. They don''t need your soul. They charge exp points. Different wishes will cost you certain exp. To get a soul-less armor running for a short period will only need several levels...I think." "Let''s get to it then!" rk led me towards the center (while I pushed him behind), which is not far from the city gate. And sweet lord this ce is HUGE! Most constructions in the Lost City looks big and grand, but this Greek style temple-like building still shocked me. There are 18 thick stone pirs at the front. A giant scale shaped embossment is ced in the middle of the 3-meter-high door. The door opened on itself when we walked up the stairs. The interior is surprisingly bright, which is quite the contrary to the overall style of the city. The moment we went in, dozens of pairs of eyesights locked onto myself, as if I just interrupted someone''s important speech. I can also see someone holding a pile of papers standing in the middle of hallway, not moving. rk walked in front of me, trying to break the ice. "A friend. He came to trade!" That was like throwing a rock into silentke water. The whole center hall went nuts. Everyone began to run and scream, as if the world is about to end for good. The once clean and orderly trade center turned into something like a suburban farmer market! The turmoilsted for some minutes before an old man wearing really long beard jumped onto a small tform in the middle and yelled: "STOOOOP! Document department, collect your files at once! Receptions, prepare some meals. The trading department shall establish some ns now! And execution team, get yourselves ready!" The staff calmed down under his orders. They formed up two lines at both sides in front of the entrance and shouted: "Wee!" I looked at rk, hoping for an exnation. Though it seems this is his first time as well. The old man than turned to me. "Come here, young man. I shall be your guide today!" The ce doesn''t feel right but this old man seems good enough. I walked over and asked: "Can I trade for a wish?" "Of course, of course!" His grin grew so wide as if he just won the top lottery prize. "This is my job! Tell me your wish, I will give you the price in turn. See if you can pay it. We can negotiate over the price too if you find it too much, the deal is still A-going as long as we can work it out." "That''s it?" Frankly speaking, I don''t really believe it. That sounds too simple! I took out my Dark Dragon Lord outfit from my bracelet. "This is my equipment." The old man simply gave it a brief nce. "Artifact? The soul is lost. You want us to restore it?" Wowee. He sure deserves that beard. "That''s right. What''s the price?" "Wait a moment, if you would." He''s no longer carrying that grin. He looks...solemn. The old man waved at someone. Several wizard-like workers gathered. They ran off after some head-to-head, after which the old man turned to me again. "We...discussed your matter. It is a bitplicated. Usually no ordinary yer is able to afford the cost to repair an Artifact. However, since yours is already physically repaired and onlycks a soul...it will be different." He paused, and that grin before instantly returned. "Now I strongly rmend you to purchase our Diamond VIP Card. With this, you enjoy a 50% off! Besides!" He took out a red crystal, "You can use the card to participate our prize draws to win this rare fire gem!" I interrupted him while pointing at the gem in the helmet. "Already got one." "That''s not a problem! More treasure is always better!" He won''t stop. "You can also introduce other customers for us. Each invitation will give you some points, which you can use to exchange for wonderful prizes!" I''m feeling a headache. I stroke a "pause" gesture under his nose. "How much is the card?" He stretched five fingers. "Five crystals pieces?" He shook his head. "We don''t take money! Five levels. At your current level, your pay 5 levels to receive our diamond card!" "Forget it! That means ALL mypanions will drop 5 levels along. Well that''s genius of you!" "You...havepanions?" He asked, shocked. "Well shoot! Why would I even mention it if I don''t??" "You should told me earlier, my friend!" He tried to exin. "You didn''t bring any with you so I didn''t know!" "They''re all too big for me to summon in the city!" "In that case, we can consider yourpanions'' exp too. But their exp only serves as 10% of your own. So it takes 10 times of required levels." "Let me think." I tried toe up with the best possible n. A yer''s level raises way slower thanpanion. But I rely on mypanions to fight most of the time, it''ll be a disaster if they got nerfed too much. "Fivepanions. I pay two levels, take the remaining exp equally among them. How''s that sound?" "Not a problem! We don''t mind how you pay it as long as the number is correct." He quickly handed me a transparent crystal card. "This is your Diamond VIP Card. You can''t discard it nor trade it. Oh and, remember to show this card first before you make any trades!" I ignored him and looked at my level. Yup, two down, 261 now. "What will happen to my armor?" "Based on our prices...You need to pay 40 levels to repair it back to its full state. 20 levels since you have that card. We can repair it now if you agree." "What the-- I don''t need you to totally repair it. Two chances to use it will be fine. I''ll go find a dragon soul afterwards and repair it myself." (Yes, twice. I need another chance to go into the city where I need to get my hidden ss) "Is that so?" He pondered. "That is actually not very cost-efficient. But since you''re in a hurry... 4 levels per charge. Two charges will cost you 4 levels." Before I agree, rk ran up and dragged me back. "Just let them fully repair it. Those levels shouldn''t be a problem for someone like you. You probably won''t know how to use the dragon soul even if you find one anyway, let''s just finish the job once and for all. You got a full team ofpanions, won''t be too hard on yourself." That...makes a lot of sense. "Okay then. 20 levels right? 10 levels off me. The rest on mypanions." "Deal!" The old man carried my armors to somewhere in the back while wearing his signature grinning. How did that old bone manage to hold something so heavy? I looked my level (251) and mypanion''s levels (even lower). Ouch. I don''t think I will be visiting this ce often. It will just drain me up! "Done! It''s done!" He ran back with the armors, even faster than before. "The best quality! Try it on,e on!" That lifted my spirit. Finally, my precious! When I fully equipped myself. A strange feeling went through my veins. The old man and rk stepped back a little. I moved in front of a mirror someone just prepared for me and noticed why they kept distance. Something looks like...ck mist, shaped like a Shinryuu, is floating around me. I first thought Loong''er wandered out on her own, but then realized that Loong''er should be way bigger than this. Besides, this ck shape looks, well, scary. --------------------- A small holiday ising. So...I''ll pause for a week. Though I think I already overdid the work this week : / Also, I''m starting to consider to ce my work onto one of the ReadNovelFull sites, to help attract more readers. Chapter Book 3 - 32 – The Revenger Returns Book 3, Chapter 32 The Revenger Returns ------------------ "What the hell is this?" I questioned the old man. "I''m sorry! We must have confused something up in the process. I think we identally summoned the soul of an eastern ryu rather than a western dragon. But that will make do. They''re not that different." "Make do??" I pressed my nose against the old man''s face. "Now how do you exin your technical mistake, sir?" He stuttered: "Calm down friend, it''s actually better than nned. A ryu''s soul is usually more violent than a dragon''s. Your Artifact even acquired an additional skill out of it!" "Seriously?" True. I noticed a new attribute in my status bar. [Shinryuu''s Deterrence]: Advanced version of [Intimidate]. Greatly reduces the Reaction Speed and uracy of enemies within your surrounding area, with a chance to interrupt any spell casting actions. "Ummm. Neat. Fine, I''ll let it slip since nothing bad happened." The old man grinned again. "To apologize, we can give you an extra quest where you can obtain a newpanion. Do note that this quest is very hard, we will not be responsible if you fail it." "That will be nice! What kind of quest?" Harder quest means better reward! "I...do not know the details." He took out a small, greenish object. I checked it over and over, the only thing I made out is that the stuff looks like an almond. "It''s used to trigger a quest. Bring it to the Garden of Life if you decide to do it." "Understood." I put it away and left the trading center. Man this ce is scary. One visit cost me a dozen levels! When we walked for a while I called rk. "Come here, I just found something!" "Umm?" I showed him my gauntlet. "Check this out!" "A...crossbow? What''s wrong with that?" "There was no crossbow on the gauntlet before. I just realized this thing is the same as my Revenger I lost before!" "That''s simple," He exined, "You already know Artifacts got souls in them. A soul will not want to vanish, your crossbow was shattered in that fight so its soul chose to fuse into your gauntlet to keep itself alive. This was not shown until your gauntlet is repaired. Now they''re revived together. Speaking of which, why the hell are you always finding free Artifacts??" "Ha! The merit of having a good ''Luck''!" With my full Dark Dragon Lord set, I''m starting to like my own handsome look. Crap, am I turning into a narcissist? Forget it. I still have something to ask rk. "Can you makebat armors for horses?" "You mean...bardings for war steeds?" Oh, so that''s the professional name. "Yup that''s what I mean." I summoned my ten Phantom Knights. Each one of them is wearing full ck armors, heavy ones. Their entire bodies are covered, with only the eyes exposed. They are wearing really long capes too. The inner part of the cape is blood red, the outside is ck, with golden fringes. Even their mounts are dded in irons. I can only see the eyes and tails of these reallyrge steeds. They were in this formation when I was trying to capture them at Domergor''s ce. And wow I was impressed! So imposing, such awesomeness! If they charge at someone as a group, their target may just surrender on the spot! On the other hand, I''m crappared to them. I was wearingmon gear borrowed from rk. And I looked like some kind of errand boy! My only noticeable point is that Night Shade is even bigger than their mounts. I didn''t notice this before, Night Shade is actually way stronger than ordinary horses. Buuut...He got no protections. That''s when I made up my mind to find some armors for him. I pointed at the knights I just summoned. "I want a set of armor like these ones." Then I summoned Night Shade to show him the size. rk approached Night Shade and lifted one of his hooves. "I have some of these armors stocked up but...Yourpanion here is taller than anyone I''ve ever seen. Actually you just re-defined what I know about war steeds. That ten buddies over there are already thergest size of all horses. This Nightmare is even bigger, by arge amount. Let''s see. You go mind your own business for now. I''ll try to craft one for you." "What''s the price? I need to pay you something. You didn''t even ask for any for repairing my armor." "I''m not in a hurry with money. Just remember to pay it back when you can." I left the Lost City while nning on my next step. I''ll log out for now. Will try to grind harder during the next two days and try to reach over level 265. When rk finishes Night Shade''s armor, I''ll go into the Dragon State city and get my Soul Maniptor title. It will be practice too. Gotta know how to break into a city first before I can save Rose! I had breakfast with Rose the next morning. She told me that her projects were just approved by the college. She will need to spend the time allowance carefully to finish her experiments so she may not be ying the game for the next week. That''s fine with me. I may as well take the chance and get a couple of more levels, to ensure my rescuing n doesn''t go south easily. I went back into the game after driving Rose to theb. Grinding sounds a really dull process for most people. Not for me though. I love the feeling of it. Besides, this is for saving my princess! I reached 301 after six days. Allpanions stayed close expect Loong''er (300). I''m impressed with myself! My speed for clearing mobs obviously became way faster since I got my outfit back. With my high Defense I can look for monsters 100 levels above me, which means my progress is better than anyone can expect. Rose will be back in two days. Gotta take actions now! I went back to the Lost City and received Night Shade''s barding from rk. He''s quite the fast worker. I took Night Shade to the open ground outside the city to try it on. It mostly fits, but there is one problem: rk forgot to leave a hole on the forehead! He only made arger sized horse armor based on the ones he already have, but he forgot Nightmare''s horn, now I can''t get it on. It took another afternoon for him to fix it. This time I''m much satisfied. This full te armor on Night Shade made him even more intimidating than the Phantom Knights. Before I leave, rk stopped me. "Hold it. I think I have something else you may find useful." He ran away and came back with an object in his arms. "Try it!" He threw it on the ground. Saddles? "Something I used before. Pretty good quality. I no longer ride horses. Might as well give them to someone." I fixed it onto Night Shade''s back and hopped on. This feels really nice! I also noticed that Night Shade''s speed didn''t go down. From the walkthroughs, mounts will be slower depending on how much weight they''re carrying. While the riding skills of their riders will improve the situation. Though I never learned that skill. Besides I never heard of any riding skill that totally nullifies this speed penalty. Is that because of the saddle? I opened Night Shade''s equipment window. He is now wearing a cor, a set of barding, a saddle, four horseshoes. Cor is the reward I got earlier in the game. Everypanion has one. The barding is just made by rk. It increases his Defense by 200 and gives him a skill [Charge]. The skill is simr to a Fighter''s [Violent Dash]. It basically is used to bump the target off its original position and sometimes stun it. The four horseshoes are not themon ones you pick up on the streets. They got spikes on them, for causing damage when kicking or stomping on enemies. They add 200 Attack, 1 Speed for Night Shade while doubling the effect for [Charge]. Where did rk get these things? I looked at the saddlest. Yep, it got a bonus: Ignores weight load! It means Night Shade will keep his full speed whether someone is riding on him or not. He''s already fast enough, no one would ever catch me at this rate! I then went to King Chemist''s pharmacy to restock my medicine supplies. His meds are really effective in emergency situations, having more will surely improve my chances. Kay, all done now. I activated my ring, teleported to the ins just outside Dragon State city and logged off. Got to have a nice sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be the day to get into the city, finish my Soul Maniptor job change, and see if I''m good enough to get past the city guards while I''m at it! Chapter Book 3 - 33 – Intruding Dragon State Book 3, Chapter 33 Intruding Dragon State ------------------ I enjoyed a good night''s sleep. Today I''m gonna break through the guard system of Dragon State city. To improve my odds, I dragged Wayne along. His task is to help me figure out a route to my target before I attack the city, and then follow me closely when I''m being chased, so he can pick up any equipment I may drop in case I''m killed. I even gave him my bracelet to prevent any unexpected situations. I configured my armors and other equipments as first pick-up priority. No one can snatch things faster than the auto-pick function of my Space Bracelet. With my name color, I''m pretty sure at least half of what I''m wearing will drop on the ground if I die. "Leave assured, boss! I will make sure you don''t lose anything!" "...That sounds like you''re seeing me off to the executioner. Seriously now, don''t even blink. If I lost any one piece I''d go suicide, and make sure you''re dead too before I do it." "Yeah yeah." Wayne answered with impatience. "I''ll scout the city." There he goes. I stood just outside the attack range of the city archers and prepared. First, I summoned all of mypanions. Phantom merged into me as usual, while the others...look really pumped up. Somehow they''re even more excited than me. Then I summoned my main force this time--the ten Phantom Knights. I ordered them to stay in a row on a slightly higher in ground and wait for Wayne''s signal. It''s still early in the morning, with few yers outside the city. Not many people y the game at this hour at weekdays. But that doesn''t mean this conspicuous group wouldn''t be noticed. Before Wayne came back, a group of yers gathered up. They kept approaching us until they can see our details. One of the bystanders, a Fighter, asked his partner: "Is that a boss monster?" "Don''t think so. Look at that name, a red name!" "Ziri?... I''ve heard it before." Another yer chipped in: "Of course you heard it before. That''s the top wanted criminal in the game!" "It''s her!" "It''s really her!!" A lot of Oohhs and Aahhs rose among the yers. I listened to theirments while sitting on top of Night Shade. That somewhat satisfied my vanity. I never knew I''m THIS well-known! "Wait, it''s a woman?" An annoying voice came about. "I know right? I thought it was a huge guy with scars and a big axe and stuff, so I can kill him and be a hero. Now look at that face, I don''t want to hurt her!" That''s...move annoying. But the third voice almost caused me to fall off Night Shade. "She looks beautiful!! I don''t care who she is, I want her as my girlfriend!!" "Yeah!! She''s brilliant! I gonna keep her as my wife, she must be good at both fighting and...you know!" "Pfft. As if you can win. Look at that set up. I bet she can take down three of you within a minute." "I agree. She got a whole lot ofpanions. I mean, a lot! And is that a dragon behind them?" "Ohe on. It''s just eleven people, plus threepanions. Won''t be TOO hard to deal with." That idiot misslooked Night Shade. He even saw Phantom Knights as yers! I wonder how they''ll react if they know they are all actually my Servants. A guy who''s carrying an owl on his shoulder spoke: "Fourpanions is already impressive for 11 people. Do you know how hard it is to get even onepanion? Maybe you all have two or three slots, but more than 90% of people don''t even have a singlepanion now. And look at that, a dragon! Or at least something simr to dragon. It can wipe a group of you guys with one hit!" "I want her armor!" "But there are too many of them!" Wayne sent me a message when the yers had their discussion. "Boss, I''ve found it. The quest NPC is not far from the city gate, I''m standing at the gate now. Come on!" "Understood!" I lowered my helmet mask and shouted: "Form up! Guards to the front! Praetorians, stay close to me! Onward!" The knights moved into position the moment I finished my orders. We marched towards the city in a tremendous formation. A great number of the bystanders began to panic. "Oh my gosh! What are they doing? A red name is going to the city!" We didn''t receive any attacks when we move into the city territory, I got a system notice instead. "Please select whether this is an individual action, or a city siege. You have 5 seconds." "Individual!" Once decided, I ordered the group to speed up. The five stronger male Phantom Knights at the front deployed their shields. Good choice, because a wave of arrows rained down upon us just as they raised their shields. Most of the arrowsnded behind us, they probably didn''t expect us to be so fast. A small number of the attacks still hit us, without causing much damage. (In [Zero], projectile weapons need to hit the target to cause damage. Arrows or bolts hitting the shields will not deal damage, while melee weapons will.) The second arrow barrage arrived several seconds after the first one. We are prepared though. Phiona cast a me storm and burned out all the feathers, causing the arrows to tumble in mid-air, without hitting anything. But some of the arrows still managed to hit my shield, causing my arm to go numb. Level 600 city guards are not to be underestimated. Leveraging the fast speed of our mounts, we didn''t give the guards a third chance to attack. There''s also a bridge outside Dragon State city. But unlike the giant stone bridge of the Lost City, this is just a small wooden bridge which stands on top of a city moat. A row of warriors are already defending the bridge when we got there. It''s not a siege war so the city gate is left open. I ordered the knights in the front: "Ignore them. Charge ahead! Lucky, clear a path for us!" Lucky swooped down from the air the breathed fire all over the bridge, forcing the warriors to break out of their formation. The five vanguard knights tightened their group until they''re the same width as the bridge. They let out a battle cry in union, drew their spear and began to elerate. With the speed and weight of theirbat mounts, they tackled the warriors in disarray down the bridge, followed by several water sshes. The yers far away are watching the scene with their mouths wide open. Someone finally gave a singlement: "Well I certain would not want to ever get knocked over by those guys." The level 600 warrior guards failed to stand their ground against the level 850 Phantom Knights. Now all of them are swimming down the river. When I got into the city I saw Wayne waving at me from a corner. There''s no time to mind where I''m going now. I grabbed Wayne and dashed straight towards where he''s pointing at, while causing all kinds of mayhem on the street. Ugh. My reputation is going to be even worse at this rate. Lucky and Phiona are setting fire here and there along the streets. The whole city is probably on fire now. And I can notice my Evilness increasing already! Loong''er deployed a huge crystal barrier behind us. A group of pursuers didn''t stop in time and crashed into it like dumping potatoes into a barrel. The other riders far behind didn''t hit the wall but they pulled the bridles too hard and all got thrown off their horses. The obstacles didn''tst long. A group of city defense cavalries soon approached us. These guys are level 800, and their leader is 850. Besides there are too many of them! We cut countless corners and rushed into a small alleyway when Wayne shouted: "That NPC is in here, and there''s only one exit. Ask your men to block the entrance for a while!" "Team! Hold them off at the entrance!" "Yes sir!" Ten Phantom Knights should be enough to cover up here. The alleyway is too small, more helpers won''t make any difference. "Lead the way!" I followed Wayne deeper into the alley. I eventually had to ask Night Shade to wait outside. The path became too narrow for riding! Chapter Book 3 - 34 – Failure? Failure? ------------------ With Wayne''s directions we soon found our target NPC -- an old man with a...mostly rotten body. I thought he was a zombie on the first sight. ording to the scroll, I need to find an old man who was bitten by zombie in Dragon State, take his [Desecrated Heart] to the Garden of Life and wash it clean with holy water to finish the quest. Looking at him, I''ve no doubt he''s now affected by zombie virus or whatever disease it is. He was groaning on his bed. When we came in he stretched out his hand towards me. I think the only difference between that hand and a skeleton''s is ayer of thin skin covering it. "Finally, a capable young man! I was hurt by a zombie and will soon turn into one myself. The gods will not forgive a zombie. I need your help!" "So what can I do for you?" "After I die, *cough cough* take, take, my heart...to, to..." "Hey! To where? Don''t die so fast! I do know my destination but my quest won''t proceed before you tell me the next objective you know!" I shook the old man violently trying to wake him up. He did open his eyes. Huh, that actually worked? "Am I dead? Am I...in hell? And why do you look so familiar?" "Ohe on! I''m here for the quest! Tell me now, where should I go?" "Oh. Go to the Garden of Life and wash my heart using the holy water there. I will be able to ascend to heaven if you can cleanse it!" Then he started to convulse like mad, scaring me into jumping back. That was the right decision, because he bounced up and lunged at me. He turned for real! "Spirit Seal!" Wayne quickly stroke a posture, like those mudras in ninja movies, and activated his skill. The old man (zombie) shook, and fell on the ground with a now stiff body. " ''Kay, That does the trick." "Oh nice one. You''re pretty good! Can you get that heart for me too please?" "Forget it. You''re the one doing the quest. I don''t wanna touch that thing. Dig in yourself." He gave a small dagger. "The great and powerful wizard, master Wayne, now bestow this holy dagger upon you. Use it well!" "Screw you." I kicked him outside the door, when one of the Phantom Knights came in just at the right time and caught him. "Sir! They''re going to break through soon!" "Got it. Hold for another minute, then retreat your defenses towards my position." "Yes sir!" He turned and left. I looked at the rotten corpse on the ground. Dammit. Who came up with this gross idea? Though I''ve seen a lot of fallen body parts or broken limbs and stuff in the corporation''sboratories. This one is not an issue. I triggered my w des. Ching! The 1-feet des sprung out. The best part with these ws is that they are very suitable to cause bleeding wounds. Which means i can use them as dissecting tools as well. I fished out a ck-ish heart while trying to suppress the urge to vomit. This thing itself emits the odor of a corpse that has been exposed to warm and wet weather for a whole week! I took the bed sheet and wrapped up the terrible organ. Ew. Now I''m looking at a corpse which is lying in a mess blood pool. Never expected there was so much blood in this skinny old man. He was giving out blood like a water pump when I ripped him open. I left the room to see my team of Phantom Knights holding their position just outside. Yup, the city guards are powerful enough. These mighty knights could only hold them off for several minutes. I spoke to Wayne: "They''ll not do anything to you. Leave the city by yourself after I get away." "You get it boss." He stepped to a corner to see us off. I activated my teleport ring. No reaction. Then I noticed the blinking help bar, which says there is teleport suppression system in cities which will prevent red named yers from using any means of teleportation. It is mainly used to prevent criminals from suddenly rushing into a city, kill people, then escape via teleport. This means I can only get away by flying. I hope there''s no anti-air defenses in the city. I activated my wing des behind my back. Now I think about it, I''ve never tried it before. Controls....Hmm, seems easy enough. I pushed my feet against the ground hard and rushed upwards. Weeee! This feels good! However, I didn''t get the chance to fly very high before I noticed a group of city guards in square formation standing on a roof not far from me. Oh shit. Heavy crossbows! It''s toote for me to realize what they''re carrying. Tons a bolts are now flying straight at me. I already de-summoned the Phantom Knights. They can''t fly anyway. Phiona and Lucky are distracting their main forces elsewhere, Phantom''s [Blink] won''t be enough for me to escape their attack range. Oh yes, I still have my [Absolute Defense]! That''s a talent skill of my wing des, if I remembered right. Just as the bolts are about to reach me, I yelled: "Absolute, Defeeense!!" A blue, half-transparent sphere shaped barrier appeared around my body. None of the attacks got through. I thought that''s thatst of it when a 3-meter-long super sized bolt flew straight at my head. The bastards turned their city defense ballista towards inside the city! ng! It crashed into the barrier. That thing can break a freaking city wall for christ''s sake! To my relief, my barrier still bounced it away. Now that''s certainly Absolute defense. Nothing can break it! Several rounds of attacks and a dozen ballista bolts following behind were all repelled without causing a scratch to me. I''m invincible! I taunted in mid-air: "None shall defeat me!!" Yup, that was a death g. The blue barrier began to blink, before itplete vanished. Of course there is a time limit! In the next second, I''m decorated into a hedgehog by countless bolts and died before I can reach the ground. When I respawned, I found myself in a room with Wayne. "What were you doing, boss? Here!" He took out the whole Dark Dragon Lord set from the bracelet. "That was awesome! Even when you''re killed you would make it like a grand show. I would thought the system was raining equipment for free if I didn''t know it was you." I began to re-equip my stuff. Only several rings stayed on me after that death. Thank god I asked Wayne to help reim them. "Your bracelet is the best tool I''ve ever seen. It got everything before they reached the ground! It would be hopeless if they actually fell into the crowd. You don''t want to know how many people were waiting to fight over the drops. Anyone who got his hands on one piece would get instantly maimed by others." "Where are we?" I looked around the room. It looks like some kind of bedroom. "A private estate I bought in the Dragon State." He exined proudly, "I was the first yer to buy a house in the game. The system even gave me a reward, any houses I buy from now on will have their prices cut to 80%! Too bad you can''t sell your houses. Or I''d make a fortune!" "No NPC ising at me?" "Private estate is like an embassy in foreign territories. It''s free from the management of city NPCs. Speaking of which, that was close! As undead wizard I can seal your soul and take it here to revive you. If you were caught by your enemies you will be transported to jail!" "How do I get out now?" I finished putting on myst equipment. "I can wait for tomorrow and use my barrier again but that won''t be long enough to get away. " Wayne lifted my cloak. "Have you tried this?" "Invisibility?" "Um-hmm. Just walk out while disguised! NPCs won''t see you." "But yers may report me to the guards if they see my name." "That''s simple." Wayne raised his hand and made a "slit" gesture against his neck. "Ohh, I like it." We logged off after the discussion. I still decided to wait for tomorrow when my barrier bes avable, just to be safe. Since I got nothing else to do, I drove to the collegebs to pick up Rose. I figured her researches should be done sooner orter. When I met her, I asked, embarrassed: "Well... Can you wait for a bit before you get online?" "What''s wrong?" She tilted her head. "I''m doing a job quest in Dragon State." "And?" "I was killed! Wayne helped me recover my lost gear so I didn''t lose anything apart from two levels. " (Wayne used a resurrection scroll for he can''t revive yers. Using that scroll will lose two levels, fixed) I exined, "I''m afraid I don''t have enough asset to save you now. I thought I just needed to get in, but now I can''t get back out! I managed to barge into the city today, though once I epted my quest I got trapped inside. And red names are not allowed to use teleportation in cites. Besides, Dragon State is a small city and my target was not far from the city gate. But the Bright City is on another level. It''s medium sized, it must have more NPCs than Dragon State, and the prison is almost in the center. I don''t think I can make it at this rate. So..I''m sorry but, you''ll need to wait a bit longer. I need toe up with something else." Rose kept her smile. "Surely you didn''t think I would be angry just for this right?" "You won''t?" "Hum. Your looks don''t mean you can understand women very well. It doesn''t matter if you can''t do it. You''re trying, that''s enough." Rose gave me a peck on the cheek. "Take it slow. My project is going well and the professors asked me to go further. So I...probably will need to spend another month." "I promise. I don''t need that much time to find a solution." "Yeah I believe you. Come, my treat tonight. Don''t pick anything too expensive you hear?" Rose joked. I gave her a wicked grin. "So that means I need to find out which ce costs most. When you can''t pay the bill, someone would buy you as ve, and I can buy you back, then...Eehehehe!" "Oh stop it." Chapter Book 3 - 35 – Escape Book 3, Chapter 35 Escape ------------------ I hurriedly went back into the game. Rose said I could take it slow but that doesn''t mean I should ck off. First I should go finish my job quest. I think the old timer back at the trading center also gave me apanion quest to that garden. Well this would save me a lot of effort. I began my escape n ording to Wayne''s suggestions. I moved out in the very early morning to make sure there won''t be many yers around. I walked towards the city gate with my cloak''s invisibility skill on. Each time I passed near the patrolling guards I would need to hold my breath carefully. Almost there. There are many NPC guards all over the ce but luckily, none spotted me. Some yers have already noticed why a name is floating in the air. One who looks like a warrior, finally decided to check it out. He approached my position and drew his sword, poking it at me to see if anything is under that name. Nope, can''t hide it any longer. I looked at the distance. Should be able to run for it. "Night Shade!" I summoned him in a sh and jumped up. Then I canceled my invisibility and summoned the Phantom Knights. Here goes nothing! That warrior poking at me is kicked away to somewhere by Night Shade. NPC guards quickly gathered. We can''t use our charge skills since we don''t have enough space. And there will only be more enemies if I stay longer. Time is critical. I summoned Phiona and Lucky as well. The ten knights stayed in front to clear the path. We''re dealing with level 800 guards now. Their leaders haven''t arrived yet. Lucky roared and charged into the crowd. With those ws and spikes, he''s like a battle tank wrecking havoc in a chicken coop. He can''t really do any serious damage to those guards, but each time he swipes his tail around he would knock some people flying. That is enough. A lot of yers appeared around the scene as well. Everyone is wondering what kind of people attracted so many guards. The fight may look awesome on the outside, but I''m having some real trouble here. The gate is just ahead but we can''t advance an inch! The worst part is, several guards closed it up! Hey that''s unfair. I thought they don''t shut the gates just for one yer! We still managed to get to the gate. Now I''m having a headache on how to get it open. The gate of Dragon State is one of those vertical sliding shutters shaped like a floodgate. Once it''s down it will not be easy to raise it again. I ordered the Phantom Knights to stay behind and keep enemies away. "Lucky! Smash the door!" He quickly disengaged himself from the crowd, jumped to the gate and gave it a tail swipe. Bam! The gate didn''t move, but I can see several small cracks on it. "Again!" Lucky roared and gave it another shot with all his strength, which caused the entire part of the city wall to shake a little. The city guards behind us is pushing through really fast, and it seems Lucky''s not going to break it fast enough. Loong''er spoke to me: "I''ll try it!" "You sure?" I don''t think I''ve ever saw Loong''er using physical attacks before. As far as I can see, rough works like breaking walls or digging rocks are more of Lucky''s cup of tea. "I got this! Lucky, step aside!" Lucky moved to one side of the wall, before Loong''er rushed towards the gate. More shaking and a louder booming noise this time. The gate fell into shreds. With her long body, Loong''er pierced through the gate archway like a running train while knocking several figures outside the gate flying towards the fairnd. No idea if those are yers or guards. "Go!" Now there''s nothing to stop us! However, more guard swarms rushed out of the gate just behind us. "Lucky! Destroy the bridge!" He finished that order before I can turn around and look at it. I just heard a snap, then the sounds of bodies falling into water. "Ha! Try to catch me now!" I looked back at the guards on the other side of the moat and those struggling in the water. A middle-finger feels so nice in such a moment. I was nning to slow down and taunt them more before I noticed they quickly let out a path towards the gate. A team of cavalries charged and jumped over the city moat with ease! Run damn it! We fled awkwardly until the pursuers stopped at the border of Dragon State''s territory. Man that was not easy, any more mistakes and I''ll have to spend the rest of my life in prison! But that''s nothing I should be worrying about now. I opened my quest window to check where the Garden of Life is. I read through the texts for five minutes before I finally gave up. There''s not a single word mentioning the whereabouts of the garden. The only thing I learned is that the ce is full of goodpanions. That''s both good and bad news. Goodpanions means they''re terribly deadly monsters before I can capture them. And there are a lot of them too. I contacted Wayne. "Hey Wayne, ask around the city and see if anyone knows where the Garden of Life is." "Garden of Life? You mean the ce good for farmingpanions?" "Wait, you''ve been there before? Tell me where it is." "I never went there but I saw a thread on the forum talking about it. Check it out yourself, I''m busy." "Ok thanks!" I ordered the knights and Lucky to keep the area safe, then I opened the forum while sitting on Night Shade. I soon found that thread. It''s highlighted in red too. Umm. Looks like I should learn to check the forum often. The thread is written by a yer who went into the garden by ident. He ims that the garden is located to the north of the Celestial City, which sits right at the center of the entire continent. It''s a two-hour walk from the city to the garden. There is a dense forest around the ce, and a certain valuable material fruit grows in that forest. Many yers would go pick the fruits and sell them for money. They mostly grow in the outer area so few people would wander into the depth of the ce. You reach the entrance of the garden if you get through the forest. There is a Maze of Life, yers will need to clear this maze as well to finally get into the garden. There will be a minotaur monster at each corner of the maze. They will ask yers questions instead of attacking them. Anyone giving the wrong answer or fails to give any answer in three minutes will be teleported back to the entrance. The author of the post said he cleared the maze after somewhere like 30 questions, but was killed instantly as he stepped into the garden. He never knew what killed him. Unlike yer kill, there is no record showing your opponent''s name when killed by monsters. He did say that he saw the garden to be extremely beautiful, like a paradise in childhood stories. He also heard a dreamy music somewhere. Well, the location is all I need. I teleported outside the Celestial City and walked north as instructed in the post. I soon reached the fruit forest. As described, there sure are lot of farmers here. "Hey you! Stop!" Someone shouted behind me. I turned around impatiently. Two yers. The one to the left is wearing poorly maintained wizard robe, with a...mop stick in his hand. I guess that''s a magic rod. The other one is wearing pretty impressive iron armor. But the rusts all over it kinda ruined his overall image. "What''s the matter?" They don''t look like the friendly type but I still tried to be polite. The pair checked over my showy armor and the flowing cape behind my back, then gulped. The wizard whispered something to the warrior. I can still hear it though. "He looks strong. Tell the boss to bring some helpers." "Which guild are you from?" The wizard asked me. "Why do you care?" That''s not really a secret, but I don''t feel like answering him. "Doesn''t matter. I saw the icon on your shoulder. Just need to go ask the authorities for it." "So what do you need? I''m in a hurry. I''ll leave now if you got no business." "You are going into the forest right?" "So what?" I''m getting annoyed. "We run this ce. Pay an entrance fee if you want to go pick fruits." So that''s what''s this all about. I stared at the two guys for a moment, then turned and walked towards the woods without saying anything else. They quickly moved to block me. "Are you deaf? Pay up." "I''m not here for the fruits." "How do we know that?" "I don''t care. I give you five seconds to get out of my way, or I''ll give you a free ticket back to the city instead." Reasoning with these scums is wasting my time. "Don''t get cocky you hear? Maybe you got some nice-looking gear but our guild will be here soon. Don''t be stupid." The warrior finished his call and spoke as well: "Yo, a red name! How ''bout dropping those equipment to us?" He ran to me and drew his sword before I can respond. I shifted a bit to the left, dodging his attack, then stretched my w de. Puff. The de easily pierced his body. "How about using your brain before attacking people?" I pushed his corpse down to the ground. He''s already gone back waiting to be revived. Then I walked towards the remaining wizard, with blood still dripping down from my w. He froze like stone. I lifted his robe, wiped my w clean with it, and strolled into the forest, leaving the poor wizard behind whose teeth are chattering as if he''s standing in arctic area, naked. Chapter Book 3 - 36 – The Garden of Life Book 3, Chapter 36 The Garden of Life ------------------ The forest is not as thick as I expected. And the trees are mostly fruit trees, instead of those lush vegetations in the Lost Woods. They got taller as I walked deeper inside. Ah, bingo. That should be the maze. I saw the maze mentioned in the post. It''spletely constructed out of nts. This is the first time I see such wallspletely made of nts and thick vines. The wall in front of me got no entrance to it, so I picked a direction and walked along it. There should be a single entrance somewhere. There it is. An opening in the vines. When I entered the maze I noticed it even got a roof over it. Looks like flying is not an option. I walked in the maze for a while without running into anything. Not a single monster. After about another 100 meters, I saw a fork ahead. Yup, a minotaur, carrying a magic wand, is standing in front of it. It walked towards me when I got near. "Young pursuer of knowledge. Tell me, what is the meaning to live?" Pfff. Is that supposed to be a question? The meaning to live? Those philosophers have been working on it for centuries! "You have 30 seconds left." It urged me. "There is no meaning to live. I live because I am, no reason in it. Being alive is the meaning itself." "Good. Go ahead." It moved out of the way. I actually passed? I made that one up you know. After some more exploring, I found that the maze is bigger than I expected. There are so many dead ends! I finally reached another "minotaur fork" after going back and forth for god knows how long. Yeah I just need to look out for these guys for the correct paths. The question is more absurd this time. He wants to know what''s the nature of magic. How should I know?? There''s no fcking magic in my world. "I don''t know!" The minotaur moved aside. "I was testing your honesty. You passed." "...Thanks?" I continued to scout for the signs of these ox-head creatures. If I didn''t find one after passing two turns, I just go back and choose another path. It''s almost high noon when I finally got out the maze. I answered about fifty questions of all sorts. Ugh, my head hurts. But the scenery in front of me instantly lifted my mood. I must be dreaming! I never witnessed such a ce in any tourism advertisements. The river is almost transparent, the leaves are shining green, the flowers and the butterflies among them look like rainbows! Wait. This is when that yer said he got killed. It''s not time for sightseeing. I cast a magic barrier. I don''t think anything''s going to kill me in one shot with my full protection on. I stepped ahead for a bit. Nothing''sing up. I began to wonder if the author was just bluffing, because he doesn''t want other people toe here and share whatever treasure he found. Then I dropped the idea. He wouldn''t post the thread in the first ce if that''s the case. When I''m considering my options, the ground below began to shift. Bong! I was knocked flying like a baseball! I spread my de wings and looked around. Who did that?! "Arrrgh!" A falling rocknded right on my back and smashed me to the ground. That must look really embarrassing. When I''m trying to get up, the dirt cracked open, and a green snake rushed out and wrapped itself around one of my legs. I quickly cut the snake with my w des, then took off the remaining corpse tangling on my leg. Wait, it''s not a snake, just a tree vine. "Ahhhh---" Another vine came from my back and sent me flying. Then four more of thempletely locked up my limbs. Ohe on, how do I fight something like this? Before I can struggle, some more vines wrapped up my body like a mummy! "Help me out!!" I summoned my entire team. The Phantom Knights skillfully cut down all the vines, freeing me. While Lucky grabbed one of the vines in his maw and pulled on it. His strength is no joke, the vine was pulled out of the ground. Loong''er breathed something at the vine and shouted: "Petrify!" Wepletely dragged the entire thing away from the ground, only to find it''s just a piece of broken root or something. Whatever it''s connected to must have abandoned it. Can''t be careless anymore. I asked the knights to stay in a circle around me and watch out for any more ambushes. Phiona and Loong''er scouted the area in the air. We noticed that there is an arc shaped barrier above the ce,pletely isting it from the outside. So even if I managed to bypass the maze by air, I wouldn''t get in. "Lucky, watch our six." We carefully marched for some distance. I thought it''s over when a vine broke the ground open right beneath me. We''re prepared this time. Night Shade dodged the attack with a swift hop-away. None of the other assaults seeded. The Phantom Knights are too strong to get caught by some petty vegetables, while Lucky would usually just drag the vines out instead of getting trapped. I was hoping that Phiona and Loong''er can provide some air support, but it appears our enemy would just hide underground so they won''t help much. A vine managed to catch one of Phiona''s ws. She only had time to let out a short cry before she was dragged into the ground! I jumped down from Night Shade and searched for her. That shouldn''t be enough to kill her. The vine soon came up again, with some blue mes burning on it. Then more of them showed up. Every hole they opened on the surface is now giving out fire beams like a methrower. Wow. Phiona really did it. She set fires under our feet and forced these things out. The ground is shaking more and more violently. A giant bulge appeared not far from us, and a green round bud-like object emerged from it, with Phiona standing on its head. The thing got no legs but it somehow rushed into a nearby pool with extreme speed. Fzzzzt! That''s a lot of steam. Looks like it really got "heated up". Phiona seems still angry at getting dragged down. She threw a fire wave and burned the pool empty to the bottom. The green bud is still running around trying to find water! "Phantom, can you talk to it?" "Sure!" Phantom is able tomunicate with anything with a mind. "What is this thing?" Phantom paused for a bit. "He says he is a monster, level 600, the Flower Creeper." I took out the "almond" I obtained from the trading center. "Ask if he knows this thing." "It''s a creeper seed." "What is it used for?" "Flower Creepers are a special species. They turn into seeds instead of eggs when captured. You can nt the seed near the Fountain of Life and water it using the water there, it will grow into a Creeper like him. But it will need to absorb fresh blood for it to be something that can move around freely. How strong it bes depends on the amount and quality of blood." "That''s it? Then why is this one...so weak?" "He says he''s just a wild monster who happened to absorb some random passing-by monsters. That''s all he can get." "Where is the Fountain of Life?" "He doesn''t know how to direct us but he can lead us there." "Let''s do it then. Tell him to lead the way." We followed the bud for quite a long way before we reached a vacant area among the woods. This time all my team was attracted by the view. A tall rock sits in the middle of a small pond, with a tiny spring stream flowing out of it. A miniature rainbow is giving out a bright color above the pond, catching everyone''s eyes. There mere sight of this is worth the whole effort! Phantom dragged me back into reality. "The creeper asks if he can leave now." "Let him go." The "bud" quickly dug a hole and vanished. It must be really terrified of Phiona. I took out the rotten heart of that old man. So I just need to wash it clean here right? Seems easy enough. I crouched beside the pond and prepared to wash. "Don''t--" That''s a woman''s voice. Gentle, but obviously scared for some reason. It didn''t stop me in time though, I already put my hands and the heart into the water! Chapter Book 3 - 37 – The Spring of Life Book 3, Chapter 37 The Spring of Life ------------------ "Ahhh!!" A visible electric current appeared from the spring hole on the rock as soon as I put my hands into the water. It flowed towards me along the surface, and there''s no way I can react fast enough to avoid it. Zap! The strong current shocked me flying away from the spring. All the Phantom Knights and mypanions moved their necks in union to watch my "flying route" like watching a home-run baseball. One of the knights even put his hand onto his forehead to shield his eyes from the light. No one did anything to help. And that was pretty far! I flew in the air for about 10 seconds, before a booming sound rose from somewhere faraway, followed by a miniature mushroom cloud. I ended up several kilos away. I even broke a number of trees when crashing down. Thank god mynding point is full of soft dirt, plus I activated my [Absolute Defense] in time. Or I would be dead for sure. "Aw!... "Oof..." "O owowow.." I tried to shift my body which now feels like it just got rammed by a train running at full speed. That spring is sure deadly. Night Shade came running to me after a while. I had to ask him to crouch down a little for me to crawl onto his back. I think some of my bones are not in their right ces. When I got back to the fountain I see someone else at the scene. Wow...an angel! That''s how I would describe her on the first impression. Different from Rose, the woman gives out a strong sense of innocence. It feels like the pure existence of her would make any man want to redempt his sins. No one, would ever have the idea to do anything "stupid" in front of her. Her beauty will vanish all evil minds! Imagine a pervert is stalking such a girl on the street. I think he will just stare at her until she gets back home safely, while forgetting to do anything. "Nice-nice to meet you!" She said. Ahh..my heart is beating in synchronization with those gentle words. "Are-are you alright?" Her clean white face turned red somehow. I covered my eyes in order not to choke myself. I forgot how to breath for a moment! "I''m Ok! Are you the NPC for the job quest, please?" "Huh? Oh I''m not. I''m a yer!" "What--" I fell from Night Shade. Ugh. I need to get my mind back on its course. "I''m not NPC. I''m a yer. Were you trying to wash this...ck...peach, in the spring water?" The [Desecrated Heart] is now sitting on her palm. I was going to tell her that it''s a heart, but something told me I should y along. "Well yes! But that peach is terribly dirty, I should take care of it myself!" "Ah no problem, I''ll wash it for you." She smiled and turned to the spring to wash the "peach". But I was shocked--- "No!" "Um? What''s wrong?" She looked at me again, with water still dripping from her hands. "Are...you ok?" "Oh.. About that." She tiled her head in a really cute way. My heart skipped a beat again! "I''m not an Evil yer so no worries. You look like you''re from the dark sides. This fountain will attack anyone like you." Then she crouched down and continued washing. I stared at her back. She wears a pure white one-piece long dress, it looks like a winter wear. There are fluffy floss furs at the cor, cuffs and the lower hem, which makes her look like a princess from a northern nation. There is warm cap, also with pure white furs, on her head, with some colorful decorations on it. A silver staff hangs on her waist. I''m not sure if it''s a magic staff but from the special designs I''m certain it''s an Artifact. Now you mention it...It''s too short to be a wizard staff. And there are lot of strange holes on it. "All done!" She turned and handed the heart to me. "The peach is really weird. It''s rotten, and is too soft and slippery." I took the heart (now red). When I touched it, a voice came out: "My gratitude, young man! My heart is now purified, and I can ascend into the heaven now. As a reward for your kindness, I shall pass my divine arts to you. I created them when I was still a young adventurer like you." Then I heard system notices as I got my new job and a bunch of new skills. But I don''t have time for that now, because...! The girl pointed at me and stuttered: "That that that that''s a--human heart??" I can''t really think of a good answer so I just grinned like a fool. She nods. And copsed! Somebody tell me why do girls faint so often?? I held her body for a while without receiving any orders from my brain. Then I tried to recover, and put her on a nearby stone tform which looks clean enough. I took her staff away for fear that it may cause trouble when she lies down. To keep both of us safe, I don''t dare to look at her anymore, so I shifted my focus onto that staff. It''s about a feet long, with a series of holes on it. Now I looked at it closely...it''s a flute, not a staff. Weird. This ce is not really safe, why would a girle here with a flute but without any weapons? "Mmmf..." I heard groaning behind me. Yes, she came to. "You ok?" "AHHH!" She bounced up and rushed to the fountain to wash her hands. She kept doing it for 10 minutes. "Uh, I''m ok now!" She took a deep breath. "Sorry! I lied to you so you wouldn''t get scared--" She interrupted me. "It''s fine. I took it as a peach first right?" She lowered her head and looked at the ground. Then she touched around her waist and asked, nervously :"Did you see my silver flute?" "It''s here. I took it away so you can lie down." I handed it back. "Why are you carrying a flute? Don''t tell me your side ss is a musician?" She smiled: "That''s not it, but close enough. My main ss is Spell Flute." "Spell Flute? What kind of ss is that? And how do you attack? Like, y something loud and terrible to knock people out?" I joked. "Well...you can see for yourself." She ced her flute onto her lips. "[Variation of the Fallen Ones, Chapter One--Decadent Spirit]." A gentle music filled my ears. It''s like...I''m going to get indulged in this dreamy music and forget about everything. The music halted when I was just enjoying the most of it. It feels like floating into the air in a warm afternoon and then fell head-first onto the cold ground! She kept her smile: "Check your skills." "Hm? Check what?" I failed toprehend the reality for a while. She repeated her words before I managed to understand. "Wait, my skills are grayed out." "Trying using one." I did as told. And no, I can''t! "What happened?" "Look at the clock!" It''s...12 at noon. I''m not sure how long itsted but that song must be longer than I felt. "The first chapter of the Variation is 32 minutes. Usually I just need to y the first 3 minutes, but I did it full this time because you seemed to enjoy it." "You mean, I listened to your music for 32 minutes?" "Almost. I''m not really professional so I may make it faster or slower sometimes. But that was at least half an hour." I was too shocked to say anything for a moment. Then I managed to ask: "So your attack is to seal people''s skills?" "Not only skills. Spells too." "There are other chapters? You said that was only the first chapter right?" "You want to hear more?" She smiled again. "[Variation of the Fallen Ones, Chapter Two--Melody of the Dead]." A melodious music reached my ears again. Different from thest one, but still catching. Though it''s pretty short. At least from what I can tell. "It''s over?" I asked, hoping for more. "You don''t want to hear any more of it. Look at yourself." I tried to look down at my body, but noticed I can''t move my neck. I thought it got all stiff because I kept myself in the same position for too long. Then I found I can''t move my hands either! "What''s the deal?" "That chapter is 43 minutes. It only takes 3 minutes to show its effect but you listened to the entire music again! This chapter is to strip enemies of their mobility." "Will it go away? How long do I need to stay like this?" I tried very hard to look at her just by moving my eyeballs. She put her flute up again. "[Anthem of the Sun]!" I can move again after hearing an invigorating tune. "Anthem of the Sun, 6 minutes. It lifts any negative effects." "Can you tell me about the other music you can y?" "Sure. The third chapter of the Fallen Variation, 29 minutes, will burn enemies'' HP slowly. Paean of Life, lifts your HP for 7 minutes. And the Lune Chant, restores your MP for 6 minutes. That''s all I can use. I can learn more if I level up in the future." "Can you y them for me?" "You have any MP potions?" "What for?" "ying these music cost MP, silly. My blue bar is already empty!" "Just for three songs?" "They drain my MP based on how long I y, and you''ve been listening to me for more than an hour now!" Chapter Book 3 - 38 – As You Sow, You Shall...Oh Shit! Book 3, Chapter 38 As You Sow, You Shall...Oh Shit! ------------------ "That was awesome! You can just keep a whole lot of enemies at bay if you y music like that. Your skills are area of effect right?" "Yup. And the effect range is pretty big. There''s no limit to how many people I can affect as long as they''re within range. And I can determine which targets to affect and which targets are not. But actually they''re not as powerful as you may think." "Come on. What you did just now is already impressive. People can''t use any attacks or move, how will they fight then?" "That''s not how it works. The effect shows up slowly. I need to y long enough to achieve something I just did to you. People can juste attack me when they notice what''s going on. My Variation song needs 3 minutes topletely immobilize someone. I have even lower HP than casters, anyone can kill me before it happens." "That''s no problem. So you can''t do any solo battles but you''re a deadly killing machine in group fights. You can dominate the whole battlefield if someone protects you for long enough!" "That''s sounds good but...I can''t." "Why''s that?" "I can''t get out! I was teleported here just after I left the Rookie Vige. Then I found out I need to beat the minotaur at the entrance to leave this ce, and it will be a one-on-one fight so I can''t find any helpers. There''s no way I can do it!" "You havepanion slots?" "Six. That''s a lot right? I added a lot of Charisma on purpose!" That''s...quite beyond the average. Though mine is way more OP. I can bring 9panions after getting my new sses. "Yes, that''s a lot more than others. So why didn''t you get any? Find somepanions that can keep you safe for 3 minutes, then you have nothing to worry about." "I thought about it too. But...I don''t have [Capture] skill." "Take this." I took out the "almond". "nt this thing into the dirt and grow it using the spring water, you will get a nt-typepanion." "Sunflower seed? I have lot of these." She pulled out a handful of them from her pocket. st it. That old SoB tricked me! He gave me this daily snack and passed it as apanion! And I''ve been treating it as a treasure until now! "Hold on a minute. Where did you find so many of them?" "They grew on that tree over there. But the tree bites, I have to y music and lock it up to get near and collect these seeds. They taste good too. You want some? I never knew these arepanion seeds, or I''ll be out of here already." She buried a seed into the dirt and sshed some water on it. A small sprout came out, and puff! It quickly turned into a tree. Then the tree transformed into a green ball, before it finally disappeared underground. "Huh, so it IS apanion. That old man wasn''t lying after all." "But... it didn''t listen to my orders?" "Oh. You forgot blood. You need to put your own blood onto the seed before growing it." "Got it." She did again, it turned out better this time. She grew several more while humming happily like a teenage girl. I quickly stopped her. "How many have you nted? You can''t change yourpanions, it will be trouble if you use up all your slots." "Oh oops... I forgot! I already got six of them." "Ugh. Now you''re a musician AND a gardener." "Gardener? It''s fine, I love flowers. I haven''t introduced myself right? I''m , my real name is ShangGwan Yuri." She gave that out before I can stop her. "My name is , real name is Sairin. Don''t trust people too easy. We just met and you already told me your real name. That''s dangerous you know." "Are you a bad guy?" "Um, no." "No problem then!" She smiles. I think that mild smile is always on her face. "Oh right. I almost forgot why I came here. Do you have any almonds left, Yuri? You won''t mind me calling you that right?" "I don''t mind. But what almond?" "That sunflower seed you were just nting. I need one as well." "Eh?" Her face turned red. "I''m sorry! I was too excited just now, I put them all to the ground! Don''t worry, I''ll take you to that tree." We reached that giant tree after crossing through some brushes. I mean, it''s HUGE, it will take like six people together to hug the tree with their arms spread. Yuri pointed at some red fruits on the tree. "That''s it. You can find the seeds if you crack these fruits open." I walked ahead. Yuri dragged me back. "Not yet. The tree bites people. Let me freeze it first." Well that seems the safer approach, so I agreed. Though frankly speaking, I do want to hear the nice music again. The good news is, she sessfully stopped the tree after a brief performance. The bad news is, she forget to switch her attack mode so she froze me up as well! I had to ask Yuri to pick a fruit for me. I told her I need one but she still collected anyst one them within her sight! Then I listened to her Sun Anthem again to recover. Geez, we should really be careful with these songs. They hurt. I broke the fruit to start my nting operation. First, I cut my own fingers and dropped some blood on it. That green ball monster mentioned I can power it up by giving more blood, so I called my team and collected some blood from every one of them. The seed has be pitch ck when I''ve finished the job. Looks like there''s something in me that will simply turn anything ck when I decide to mess it up. Then I dug a hole and put the seed under. I had to ask Yuri for help again to water the seed. I can''t do anything on my own if she''s not here. A small root came out of the dirt quickly. Different from the ones we saw, this one ispletely ck as well. Something went wrong just as Yuri tried to spoon water on it. The ck vines definitely look like some sort of Dark-affinity creature. The spring water just caused a lot of white mist and fizzing noise on it. It looks as if we''re pouring strong acid on it! The root didn''t get knocked away like me but is obviously hurt. Before I decide to give up, Yuri yed her Sun Anthem again. Right, so getting hurt by holy water is considered negative effect too, which means we can clear it. The root straightened itself up but...something doesn''t look right. The leaves on it turned red, then all the veins became blood red too, like blood vessels. I felt the ground shook, like a herd of horses are galloping somewhere nearby. The shaking got stronger, before several vines shot out, bond everyone including mypanions and Yuri, locking us up off the ground. We''re not losing any HP though, so I told the struggling Lucky to stop moving. More vines came up and formed into something like a tform. We are released onto it. It''s pretty safe up here, I looked down towards the spring, which is now a total mess. Countless tentacles grew from the vines. One stretched into the spring water, then burned up in a blink of an eye. Without stopping, the other tentacles shot themselves into the water one after another. The first ones were all burned to ash. But there are just too many, they managed to cover the whole spring up in the end. A really thick tentacle crashed into the spring hole on the rock, breaking it apart. The spring stopped flowing. Next, the vines started to spread around us, the whole garden is covered by the vines in no time. The spring is now dried out, the trees died. A strong wind current blew over, turning the once beautiful scenery into a wasted desert! "Holy-- What the heck happened? Phantom, ask him what''s that all about!" Phantom paused a little. "He over-evolved because we used too much blood. He''s now level 900, the [Enhanced Creeper]. He was trying to absorb the surrounding energy, this is what happened." "That was crazy!" Yuri looked at the desertnd below us with some sadness. "This is...terrible." A ck rose and a crimson rose suddenly appeared on a vine near her. Phantom said: "He says that was his instinct to get fully grown and he couldn''t control it. He won''t and probably cannot do that again. He gave those flowers to Yuri as an apology." ...Is this nt actually trying to pick up a girl? "Okaaay. So, I''ll be calling you ''Rosa'' from now on. Let us down, please?" There. It feels safe if you can actually touch the ground with your own feet. I think I''ve been "in the air" for too much today. Rosa recovered to his original size as well. We still got problems, though. Chapter Book 3 - 39 Book 3, Chapter 39 ------------------ I didn''t find a title for this chapter, and the story seems a bit off, like something is amiss. The author mentioned he was busy with his graduation so he made some mistake here. I guess the story starts from when the characters defeated the minotaur, exited the dungeon and was stopped by those previous thugs who asked for money. ------------------ "Oh lookey here! A pair of couple on their honeymoon!" That came from a ck knight in front of me. This guy is wearing a cheap, gray-colored knight armor set. It''s still a lot betterpared to the others. He doesn''t even have a horse, though I can tell he''s a ck Knight from thatnce he''s carrying. "What do you want?" I asked while checking my surroundings. From a vague look I can make out about 50 people. Or more. This is the first time I saw so many yers together. Well, I''ve always been hanging around NPCs. I kept talking nonsense with him to buy time and assess the situation. The 50+ yers are obviously from the same guild, and the one talking with me is their leader. They have crap gears. Really. Look at those--mops and sticks and broken swords from garbage dumps. They look more like armed refugees. However, they''re organized. The ones in the back are apparently priestesses. I think Wayne mentioned he always wanted to meet a cute looking little priestess. This ss has nearly no damage, with poor HP and hard to grind. That''s why few people would y it. In [Zero], most priestesses would be some mild girls who are too afraid to see blood. They can greatly enhance the battle capabilities of their team so this ss is one of the most weed. There are few cases when a priest or priestess would get killed by other yers, since they never go out alone. So...This guild brought a full team, including healers, just for me. Well I''ll be. "Haha! You know what, we just talked about this. We will let you go, as long as you leave that girl behind." Yuri flinched behind my back. That''s all I need to see. "I''m not afraid of you lot. Look at what I''m wearing, we''re not on the same level." I''m confident I can deal with this group and escape. But...I have Yuri behind my back. With that HP she''s easily killed. I can''t fight against 50 people while keeping her safe at the same time. So the best oue is that I can sessfully bluff my way out of this. I''m not sure I can manage that though. "Well, you do have some nice equipment on ya. But did you ever notice we have 57 members? Seriously, 57 to 2. We''re on the upper hand here!" "Is that soooooo...?" I intentionally asked that question in a dramatic way. "Night Shade! Lucky! Phiona! Loong''er! Come!" I didn''t call the Phantom Knights. Normally I can pass them as yers to fool people but now it''ll be meaningless if I do that in front of their face. "You--what--how--" The ck knight stepped back and fell on his hips. The others moved back too, someone even took out their town recall scrolls. "Off with you. I do not have time for trash talk. Don''t make me kill all of you!" "But tha-that''s impossible! Don''t get scared you all! Those are fake. That girl must be an illusionist!" I was going to tell Lucky to charge in when Yuri pulled on my hand. She spoke up. "Leave. I don''t want to kill anyone. We all came to this game to have fun, can we not take any personal issues in here?" The ck knight stood up. "Cut that outdy. We''re enough to crush you with our manpower! Besides, I havepanion too! Come out, ''Punk''!" A...big lizard, appeared and began to disy its ws and teeth at us. But it froze up the moment it saw Lucky. Lucky looked at the "small dude" and stretched a w like a "hi there" in front of the lizard, who just slumped down like a deted balloon. Then Lucky grinned, revealing his white, shiny fangs. I wonder what kind of toothpaste can make your teeth clean like that. The lizard ran away like flying! Yuri giggled. "You look scary but never thought you''re humorous too!" Lucky puffed up to thatpliment and roared proudly. Some morepanions in that group fainted, and it seems that lizard wasn''t the only one who ran away. Their masters could only watch as theirpanions fled and can''t do anything. They know it will be more trouble if they break their formations. "So you''re not getting out of the way. I have no choice then." Yuri held up her flute. "[Variation of the Fallen Ones, Chapter Two--Melody of the Dead]." We''re now in the same team so I simply enjoyed the music without receiving any effects. The rest of the people, however, began to show minor symptoms. But none noticed it because the music is so nice to the ears. Besides, Yuri''s skills will not cause any system notices, unlike the ones that you will receive when taking regr attacks. Three minutes passed. The idiots still haven''t noticed anything! "Wait, I can''t move!" Pfft. Finally. I''ll not let this pass though, it''s my motto to get back to anyone who dares to offend. "Told you. You wouldn''t believe us, now I''ll make you believe us." I quit the team in order not to bring any Evilness to Yuri too. I walked to that leading ck knight. "You asked for it. Don''t worry, no biggie. Just a little sting." A nice and clean cut to the neck. I asked Lucky to finish off the rest of the people. I don''t really like the feeling of ughtering. That''s not something I can enjoy. "Is this the right choice?" Yuri looked at the falling corpses as Lucky does his job. "Are we taking it too far? They didn''t attack us for real." "To me, their intention is enough. I don''t think there''s much difference between actual murder and intended murder. They are already nning to hurt us, so that means I need to get rid of them. The faster the better. Nothing to worry about here." We left the woods after Iforted Yuri. "Do you have any ns from now on?" "Not for now." "Then...can you help me with something?" Yuri''s skills are quite handy, I should make use of this. "Go ahead. Anything I can help. You kinda rescued me out of that ce, just returning the favor." She patted on her chest as if ready to dive through me and flood. "The truth is, I''m not ying solo, I had a girl friend with me." "So where is she?" "She''s caught and locked up into prison because of red name. I wanted to rescue her. I tried to break into a small city, and I did, but couldn''t get back out." "You want me to stall the guards?" I love talking with smart people. "Eeyup. I think I can manage it with your help." Yuri pondered for a moment. "There are...some problems." "What kind of problem?" "First, I''m only level 171, and I never tried to confront any city guards. I don''t know if my skills can affect them at all. It may work, but it''s very possible that my songs will only have reduced effect on them. Besides, how do we survive the first 3 minutes? I''m sure those level 800 guards can one-shot me even if I only took a minor scratch from them." "I have n for that. The reduced effect can be a problem. As for protecting you, do you remember those riders I brought with me?" "I saw them." "They are called the Phantom Knights, level 850. They should be able to keep the guards away for 10 minutes at least." Yuri raised her eyebrows. "How did you capture level 850 monsters in the first ce?" "Well, I sort of, tricked them over. But let''s talk about thister. Now we should find a city guard and try if this will work." "Wait, for real? As in, right now?" "Umhmm. Right now." I pushed her onto Night Shade, then jumped on Lucky''s back myself. "Here we go!" Chapter Book 4 - 1 – Failed Plan Book 4, Chapter 1 Failed n ------------------ TL note: the following alert is from the Author himself, not me. ** Attention dear readers. The story from now on will contain senses of nationalism, please skip this book if you cannot tolerate such content. As for the interaction with foreign yers...the MC will first try to befriend some, after which enemies will show up. The book is solely based on MY point of view. I won''t be writing any anti-Japanese propaganda but something simr can''t be avoided, because I don''t really like Japan either. ** TL note 2: Well, what he said. I mentioned this before and I should mention it again: please do not take certain stories seriously. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª "AHHHHHHHHHH--" We''re well on our way towards the Bright City, when a human shaped object fell from the sky and knocked me off my mount. "O...What the fuc? Who''s trying to y superman?" "I''m, I''m sorry! That''s wasn''t on purpose!" A man fully covered in ck cloth helped me up. "I''m really sorry. Someone is trying to kill me, that was an ident!" "A...ninja?" Yuri and Night Shade arrived. We were both sitting on Night Shade and chatting. This ''superman'' crashed into me, while avoiding Yuri, probably because I''m the taller one. We were traveling pretty fast so they moved ahead without me for some distance, and now they''re back to check on me. Yuri instantly recognized the intruder as a ninja. "A nin--what??" I pped his hand away and stood up myself. This man is tall, at least taller than me. I think he''s about 178cm or so. But that''s not anything special, since my height can be considered shorter than average. He''s wearing full ck clothes, even his face is hidden behind a ck cloth mask. Two katanas sit diagonally behind his back. Yup, that''s what a ninja looks like from those movies. "Hey friend! Catch him! That guy is Japanese!" A group of more then 100 people marched towards us. Including some riders among them. I looked between this ninja and the pursers, then shrugged. He understood my intentions and just escaped with a swift leap-away. Yuri didn''t understand it though. "What have you done?" "Um? I did nothing." I y dumb. "But you let him go!" Yuri seems excited. "A Japanese intruder!" "He didn''t do anything to us." I jumped back onto Night Shade. "I only attack my enemies. He was just passing by and didn''t look an enemy to me." Yuri is not satisfied with my exnation and humphed. Those pursuers reached us too. Their leader nced at me but didn''t say anything. They ran after that ninja. Another apanying rider gave out a single word while clenching his teeth. "Traitor". Nothing I should be worrying about. We began to travel towards the Bright City again. When we reached our destination I noticed the city has be more prosperouspared tost time. There are tons of people going in and out of the city gate. I jumped down and spoke to Yuri: "Stay here. If anything happens Night Shade will take you away safely. I''ll now go attract the guards, try to see if your flute works." "Be careful." "Piece o'' cake. I may not actually go in there but causing some troubles at the gate should be no problem to me." I summoned the knights and mypanions, then asked Night Shade to follow at a safe distance. The knights shall clear out a path as usual, while I stays in the middle on Lucky''s back. "Charge!" Our hybrid formation marched towards the entrance. NPC guards are not yers after all, they started to shoot arrows at us without the tiniest hesitation. As Yuri said, her skills can affect a really wide range. She can already use her skill on the front guards from far away. The foremost Phantom Knights shed with the guards first. As expected, the guards can''t even slow them by one bit. More guards appeared at the gate and set up their defenses. Now that''s something we''d better not underestimate. Yuri is already ying her chapter two back there, while we try to stall all the NPCs. Three minutes passed, I see no reaction from the enemies. Don''t tell me they''re immune for real? Our defenses cannot hold any longer after about 20 minutes. The Phantom Knights lost most of their HP, while the NPCs are stilling at us without any signs of hinderance. "Retreat!" I let it out in defeat. So the experimentsted for around half an hour. The result is disappointing enough--Yuri''s skills can''t affect the guards at all. Though we do not know whether it is due to the NPC''s characteristics, or just because our levels are too low. "I can''t do anything to them!" Yuriined. "Ouch. We''ll have to think about something else them." I tried to think how we could rescue Rose AND get away from all those powerful guards. "Ha!! Nowhere to hide now!" I see a crowd up ahead. More than a hundred people. Can''t resist the curiosity, Yuri and I walked to the scene to check it out. We hid behind a bush but when I peeked out of it I can only see the human crowd blocking my sight. Yuri walked towards the site like it''s nothing. Sigh, can''t leave her alone out there. I pulled up my hood, tightened my cape and followed her. She pushed an onlooker aside to get in. The man tried to protest but only gave her a stupid smile when he saw her face. It doesn''t seem like any of the people in the crowd knows each other. Someone nced at us but no one said anything. There are three people standing in the middle. We''ve seen them too. One is that ninja who knocked me to the ground. The other two were the two riders among the pursuers. The leading rider, who''s carrying a bastard sword, yelled: "Jap sucker, what are you nning to do on ournd?" "I''m not a Japanese!" The ninja exined. "Trust me!" "Then why are you a ninja?" The other rider wielding a sword and a shield, questioned him. "Stop lying. Only those who carry a Japan ID get to choose ninja as a ss." "But I''m not! I''m...mixed! My mother is from Japan and I was born there. I came to stay hereter and I''ll get my Chinese ID soon! I''m a resident here now!" "So, a Jap bastard." The rider drew his sword. "I don''t care where you from. Feel sorry for choosing this cursed ss!" He began his assault. The ninja is pretty fast though. He dodged the sword with a quick backflip. But someone behind him from the crowd kicked him back in front of the rider. The rider bashed the ninja using his shield, knocking him away. The ninja skillfully leveraged the force of it and jumped out of the circle. But that shield bash must have confused him or something. (Or, he watched too much action movies) He looked around, picked the biggest horse, which means Night Shade, hopped on and kicked on Night Shade''s belly, hoping to get away. Night Shade is not the type to ept a random rider. He jumped, sending the ninja into midair, and did a signature horse-buck at the falling target. I heard that a horse kick in the right ce can even kill a lion. I wonder if the dude is alright. The ninja was sent flying sideways, while knocking dozens of people down like domino blocks. He stayed there while holding his stomach. That looks...painful. Night Shade trotted over and stared at him, seems like Night Shade doesn''t mind a little more kicking practice. I don''t want to draw too much attention so I asked him to calm down. The rider with a bastard sword approached Night Shade to check, but decided to keep his distance when he saw Night Shade''s size and those unfortunate onlookers who are trying to get up. "Woah there brother, your horse is mighty strong!" I tried to stay low: "Sorry about that. The guy got a bad temper and won''t let anyone else touch him." This one doesn''t seem a bad guy so I didn''t avoid his conversation. "May I know where you got him?" He pulled his own horse over, a wheat colored stallion. "This is my partner. I call him . He''s fast but is too gentle forbat. I''m nning to get a fierce horse somewhere, can you tell me where I can find one?" (*) I pointed at the one-feet long horn on Night Shade''s forehead. "He''s a unicorn, not a horse." "Ohhh, I was wondering why your steed is so big!" He seems envious. "Now I really want one!" "Unicorn? Pfff. As if. That horn is fake right? Anyone of you heard of ck unicorns?" That was from the other rider who uses a shield. This guy though...there''s something about him that annoys me much. I carried Yuri onto Night Shade and hopped on myself. I spoke to the first rider: "Your mount is like your legs. A horse that can move in sync with its master is the best partner out there. Nothing can do good to you if you don''t trust it. I''d suggest you take good care of your own friend now." ------------------------ (*) "Storm Runner" is an alternative name for Cao Cao''s horse in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms The original horse name is something like "Yellow Hoof, Flying Lightning". P.S. I think I''m going to move my work onto one of the ReadNovelFull sites soon. This shouldn''t cause any inconveniences to readers, the only difference is that you will read it in another site. Chapter Book 4 - 2 – Fathers Invitation Book 4, Chapter 2 Father''s Invitation ------------------ We left the scene and headed towards the Lost City. I think it''s a good idea to get Yuri some more levels. I received a message from Wayne when we reached the city. "Where are you, boss?" "The teleport station in Lost City. Why?" "Your father called you!" "My old man?" "Yeah. He asked me to tell you, go to Dragon Fate''s New Nanjing Branch tomorrow. Oh and, bring Rose with you." "Alright. What are you doing now?" "Leveling in the forest near Lost City." "Come to me. I brought a friend, help her grind a bit." "A minute!" He came out of the station. " ''Sup boss. What--Wow! " Wayne stared at Yuri, drooling. "O fair maiden, may I ask how did you know my boss?" Yuri giggled at Wayne''s silly expression. Without getting an answer, Wayne turned to me. "Impressive. You got two already? Come on, when are you nning to help a poor brother out?" "Drop it. Since I got other business, I''ll have to ask you for help to level her up. Take good care of her, she''s special and she''s even more squishy than a mage." "Squishy than mage? How is that possible?" "It will take some exnation. Just ask her when you grind. Ok, I''m off now." "Roger that. Leave it to me." Wayne made a dy first" gesture. "This way please, ma''am." Phew. That''s a lot of work done today. I called Rose to tell her the n and hit the hay early. I drove to pick up Rose the next morning. She picked a formal outfit for the day, because she''s going to "meet the elders", as she said. "Oh dear. You look like some super able career woman now." "Owe on. It''s for you! You said dad got something really serious to tell us right? I should behave. The problem is...What''s that on you? Shorts? Seriously? Go change it!" "No need for that." "Not good. Change up. No buts." I was forced into a suit in the end. I rarely wear this thing, now I feel all ufortable. When we reached the branch a senior manager is already waiting for us. He jogged towards our car when he saw us, but stopped in his tracks when we got out of the car. "My apologizes. Which one is master Sairin?" Rose tried to hold back herughter. Sigh. "...That''s me." "Here''s the address code. The president asked me to give you this." "Huh? Now this is strange. Why didn''t he just tell me the ce yesterday?" We went back into the car and inserted the disk-like object into the navigator. A path appeared on the disy. "...Outside the city?" "Just go!" Rose urged me. "I got a lot of experiment to do! I wouldn''t be out here at all if anyone else called me." "Okay okay. As you wish, mydy!" As she ordered, I raced the car towards the destination like a roller coaster, while causing Rose to scream several times. I guess I''ll receive a bunch more "girly punches" again. "So..where are we?" Rose looked around the in ground. There is a forest in front of us. The dense vegetations in there don''t seem to belong to this season. "There are just trees. Why would dad ask us here?" Rose scratched her head, unable to take in the situation. But I''m different. I''ve been to a dozen or so of the corporation''s secretbs. None of them were built anywhere found inmon senses. I was right. A row of yellow rm lights appeared on the ground ahead and started blinking. After several seconds, the lights rose--no, the ground beneath them rose upward. When the movement stopped, a tunnel about 10 meters in width has appeared in front of our car. I nced at Rose, it seems something in her head stopped moving as well. Nothing special to me. I waited for the lights to turn into green arrow marks and drove down the tunnel. The entrance closed up again behind us. Typical. Bump! We didn''t go far before the car dropped to the ground like an iron block. There''s no error on the disy but I just can''t get it floating again. Rose recovered from her shock. "What happened? The car broke?" "Can''t move it. But the car is all right. I think something in the base caused it. Don''t worry, the car got a backup system." I pushed a button below the controls and released the car wheels. Usually the wheels are kept inside the fairing shell to minimize pneumatic resistance. Now I''ll rely on them. After some more driving I noticed that we''re going in a circled direction. The tunnel is like a spiral stair, which means the base is deep under us. We reached the end--arge parking lot. "Son! Here!" Father is standing near the entrance. I didn''t saw him cause I was driving too fast! We pulled the car and walked to him. "Hey dad. So...why did you call me?" "Oh, nothing." "Nothing??" Well that''s unexpected. "I''m looking for dear Rose. It''s not safe for her to travel here alone so I called you along. You''re just her bodyguard plus driver." "That''s not--muuuf--" Rose covered my mouth. "You need me, father?" "Follow me. Let''s sit down and talk." Father led us into an elevator. And...more elevators. Then we finally arrived at something like a waiting room. "You know, Rose, I''m positive you two''s business is guaranteed now, that is, I don''t need to hide much secret from you. I''ve read your economy simtion experiment. It looks good! Several days ago I sent an opinion letter to the State Council to have a look about your ns." "But...what''s my experiment to do with the State Council? I''m just studying on the rtionships and effects between economy and the society, is that important?" Father raised a hand. "Listen to me. You may not know it but your theory is highly valuable. We tried to adjust some of your variables. The oue is not perfect but is enough to pump some surprises into those old-school researchers. I asked you here to invite you into our corporation." "You want me to work in Dragon Fate??" I see stars in her eyes. Now I''m quite certain a position in Dragon Fate is even more attractive than her future husband. "I''m serious. You''re a worthy talent that we would not hesitate to recruit even if you''re not my daughter-inw. Now this is one of the situations where we would meet much contradictions--we need talented people, yet we cannot tell them too much about our secrets. But there''s nothing to worry if it were you. I can leave all kinds of matters in your hands. By the way, Sairin would need a helper too. He may not be one of the spoiled rich kids, but he''s totally the amateur when ites to running a business. Do you know why we weed you without any problems when you first came to our house? Usually we won''t epting something so important without doing enough researches first." Rose shook her head. "Ahem. We already checked your files beforehand, including your ongoing project. I''m quite impressed by your talent in the field of economy. I''m already worrying that I may not find a sessor for my little empire. Now you gave me hope. So what do you say? Will youe to Dragon Fate?" "STOP!!" I pulled them away when the two smart guys are about to shake hands as if they just agreed on some super-duper important trade partnership. "Just, hold it! Dad? Rose is a nice girl, we''d better not get her involved in all those fishy business out there." "Oh don''t worry, Sairin. I want to try it out! Please?" Rose mped onto my arm like a cat. Man I can''t resist those puppy dog eyes! Now I know why rulers would always ruin their throne when there''s a beautiful woman around. "Ok ok! I surrender!!" Father continued once we settled down. "Rose''s project was just theoretic, but we added some detailed adjustments and now it''spletely practical." "Adjustments?" We both asked. "True. The original topic was a mere rtional model, now we turned it into a deadly weapon!" Father is talking with much enthusiasm. I think he''s about to dance, with that arm movement. "Wait, weapon? But isn''t Rose studying economics?" "That''s also true. I''m not talking about those military weapons. This n works on the economy level, it will easily get a whole nation under control if sessfully executed." "Really??" "Exactly. And of course, we need the cooperation from various aspects to achieve that...but that''s not important for now. And Rose, you can stop your college work now. Go straight to the corporation for your researches. Our specialists all wanted to inquire about your thoughts. Face to face. We got a whole lot of better equipment than your school too." "Understood! Can I have a look at my workce?" ---------------------- Remember that the game supports real-money trading? It''s meant to act as a giant money-bomb. And no, this is not spoiler. It''s in the story synopsis but I never mentioned it... Chapter Book 4 - 3 – A Plan in the Making Book 4, Chapter 3 A n in the Making ------------------ Don''t take the story for serious! ----------------- We followed dad to theboratory. We''re now standing on a giant trestle bridge. An area the size of four or five football courts lies below us. Three really big...machines are located there. I see the emblem of Dragon Fate printed on them. They are about 10 meters high, with octagonal shaped foundations. Hundreds of thick cables are connected to them. There are cooling devices attached on the cables, which would release out some vapour now and then. They must have implemented a really good venttion system in here, since the ce doesn''t feel damp in the least. "Now what you see here is the very core of my Dragon Fate--Nova!" "Is that the game server of [Zero]?" Rose asked, a bit excitedly. "Well, we also use Nova as the game server yes. But not these three. The game server is a simplified version. We removed a lot ofponents that are useless to host a game, and of course it won''t be as powerful as the threeplete machines." "So these threeputers are Nova?" Rose''s face is getting red. I moved behind her in case she faints. "They''re notputers! Photoelectronputing units, they''re semi-biological machines." Father pointed at those cables. "Look at the biggest one. That is not an electric cable, it''s a nutrient canal. What''s inside these machines is basicallyposed of insectoid brain tissues." "Insect? Why not human?" Father knocked me on the head, while Rose also rolled her eyes. "First of all, my boy...you don''t find free human brains lying around! Using a human brain will bring a lot of...ethical issues. Besides, the only advantage of the human brain is the excessive capacity." "But there''s no doubt humans are the most intelligent creatures out there." Rosemented. "That is also because of our brain size. Now suppose an insect can grow a brain as big as ours, they will outsmart us in no time. Their brain cells are independent, each cell is like a single digital chip that can function on its own. As for human brains...they''re useless if separated. The most important reason though, is the low cost. We can breed tons of semi-products within a year, thanks to their reproductivity." "I can use Nova to do my simtions?" "Yes. We will allow you 20 percent of our system resources for your project." "20 percent?" "That''s more than enough. That oldputer back at school probably can''t even match 1% of Nova''s true capability." "This is brilliant!" Rose jumped. Thank god there are safety bars on the bridge. "I believe I can finish my experiment in no time! By the way, what kind of ''weapon'' did you turn my project into?" "We gave a vivid little name for your theory." An old man with white hair, wearing clean room suit, walked to us. "The ''Commercial Nuke''. Boring, I know. But is enough to tell us the idea of it." "It still sounds dangerous though." I joked. "Of course it''s dangerous!" The old researcher continued, "Our progress has proved it to be reliable, and we have already found a proper detonator for it." "Exactly." Father took over the topic. "The detonator is no other than [Zero]." "Wha--" I yelled. "Zero? The game I''m ying?" Rose smiled. "I get it. So who''s your first target?" "Take a guess." "Japan?" "Bingo." The researcher smiled. "Tell us dear, how did you reach this conclusion?" "Several reasons. To begin with, the first target who took the ''bomb'' is thest one expecting it, so the bomb will have its best oue, which means we should pick a tough target. Next, we''re using [Zero] as a middle. So who loves games? Japan or Korea. Lastly, Dragon Fate has its influence all over the world but is weakest within Japan. If we can force a power shuffle there, we will have a chance to get a big haul in the process." "Clever. Very clever!" Hemented. "Why didn''t you consider our ethnic contradictions though?" "A businessman talks business. We pursue profit, and all for profit. Without an actual war, ethnic and nation conflicts are just political lies, profit decides everything." Rose is speaking with a high spirit like those ambitious empresses in movies. I never knew she had this in her! Geez. I hope she can be as good when ites to dealing with emotions. Father and the researcher chuckled. Dad exined slowly. "Nice insight. But not thorough enough. It''s totally understandable though, for your age." "I was...wrong?" Rose asked in shock. "Nonono, I said ''not thorough''. That ethnic issue which you considered least, is actually our biggest motive." "But how?" Rose questioned, "Why would you act to your emotions?" "We''re not acting on emotions." The researcher exined. "I don''t hate Japan. On the contrary, I admire them. Japanese people have always been living under great pressure of all sorts, thus they developed some of the best awarenesses. As you may heard, they work with great efficiency, they never ck off on their job. They don''t enjoy much spare time because they''re the first ones to know how to face crisis. They learn fast, too--they can always study from the other nations and races, then leverage the best parts. Sadly, our ancestors already imed we should learn from the foreign world, but we never took it seriously. That''s one of the many aspects where the Japanese people would win over us." Well, listening to this is surely depressing. "Are you saying our billions of people are weaker than them?" Father turned to me. "You didn''t understand. We admit that they can do SOMETHING better than us, not everything. Of course our overall strength is better. We should know their advantages and learn. I know you don''t like Japan, Sairin, but don''t take that emotion to the whole nationwide level. There are a lot of good people, apart from those intruders and ughterers you learned from the history book." Researcher: "Japan''s geographical location is far from ideal. They never had much nature resources. It only got worse when we sunk their Honshu Indst time. Nobody would just sit there and wait for demise, they need to grow, yet they don''t have thend for it. The obvious way to get out of the situation, is war. They can solve all of their problems if they simply seize thend and resources from nearby countries. And the best choice--us. China sits in the way when Japan wants to develop. That''s why they nned to remove us; On the other hand, Japan is an obstacle for China as well. They''re like an outpost for America, and pose threat to us at all time. They are in the way for our fleets towards the Pacific. Our boats need to make a detour and avoid their sea when going anywhere. Do you know what that means, when everyone is trying to harness ocean resources? It''s like someone is preventing us from reaching a gold mine. Wouldn''t it be nice if this ''someone'' just disappears? It''s never a good thing to wait for the intruders. We should act first! Do you understand now? As you said, the real problem is always caused by profit. The existence of Japan is a threat to our survival, and the same can be said in both ways. Eliminating the other one will always be the ultimate decision for either of us." The old man is getting over excited. I think I need to stop this. "Wait! Stop! I get it. So China and Japan are like two hungry wolves in front of only one piece of meat. We both need to dispose of the opponent in order to get the meat--or rather, eat the other wolf as well." Father frowned. "That''s not really a good way to put it but... close. We were just trying each other out during the previous conflict, and Japan fell behind." Then he pulled us near and whispered. "Now you''d better not tell this to anyone else: It''s very possible that there will be a war between us very soon, a big one." "Are we going to do a genocide?" Father pped me on the head. "What''s going on inside your brain?? That''s not how a war looks like. If possible, we can just take control of the nation. Now that we mentioned it, I do hope there is a day when I don''t need to waste my time getting a VISA to travel abroad anymore." "What about America? Surely they won''t just watch us beat up Japan." "I''m not sure what they''ll think. They may just decide to give up on helping Japan. It''s never been easy to keep a leash on them anyway." "So that''s the reason behind it." Rose nodded in understanding," Looks like I was thinking too simple. I''ve always believed that we hate Japan because of those old histories." "Don''t worry." Iforted Rose. "It''s already something that you can understand these things, when you were born in that kind of family." "Pfff. My dad and stepmom never seeded when trying to teach me to follow their steps." "Sairin, I believe you got quite some nice equipment in the game?" Father grinned at me in a...creepy way. "What are you nning?" I know something ising. "Oh simple. I need you to go to Japan and cause some damage to them." The researcher took over. "ording to the records, the total yer investment into [Zero] around the globe has went beyond 10 billion. It''s not a noticeable numberpared to the economic of an entire country, but is enough to qualify as that ''detonator''. If you manage to damage their assets in [Zero], they will certainly try to throw in more fund in order to reduce and recover their loss. That''s when Dragon Fate can make a move inside their financial market and cause a big surprise to their groups, even breaking them apart." "That sounds easy but there are a lot of problems I need to deal with first." I considered. "Take it slow. We''re in no hurry, so you may act on your own decisions. Oh and, we have some news for you too. Guild wars will be unlocked in at most two months, then nation wars, in another four months. When that happens, all maps in different countries will be connected, and I''m positive the whole game world will fall into total chaos by then. Whatever you''re nning, you should try your best to improve your strength during the six months!" "Okay then. I''ll see to it. Why don''t you just rig something for me in the server?" Another p on the head. Ouch. "The other administrators are not fools! The server of [Zero] went under the supervision of five countries, that is China, the USA, the UK, France and Russia, from day one. We can only look at the data but not make any changes. You need permissions from all five countries to modify any game data. That was what we did when we contacted you in-game and recovered those abnormal gold you got from the bugged NPC, and it were the others who asked us to do it, otherwise we could just let you keep the extra money. We need to follow the majority. And that crossbow, we paid them greatly to change their mind or you would really lose it forever!" "Oh wow. I didn''t know that incident caused so many scenes behind us." We chatted until evening before I got to drive Rose back. Man, this is a tiresome day. ording to father, I need to be more aggressive in the game from now on...no more goofing off I guess. Chapter Book 4 - 4 – Hawk Book 4, Chapter 4 Hawk ------------------ I got into the game early the next morning. As father expected, I need to go to Japan region and sabotage something when the nation war system is imnted. There''s no doubt I''ll need some serious power to do that. I already have strongpanions, servants and gear, the only problem is my level. Nothing serious though, six months should be more than enough for me to get enough levels. I need helpers too. To fight against a whole country...There''s no way I can do it alone. Even the most powerful boss in the game would probably be dead fast if tens of thousands of yers try to kill it at the same time. And ten thousand is not really a big number, if you look at the current game poption. Yes, I''ll need arge-scaled Guild. But...I know my limits. The best I can do is tomand like 50 people, no more. Hum. I''ll try to find some elite yers with simr ideas as myself then. Quality values more than numbers. We just need to annoy them, not to fight an all-out war. We don''t need a whole army for that. That''s decided then. I should go to Yuri first, as her skills are not something I should ignore. As for Wayne...Nope. He got a nice hidden ss too but isn''t that powerful. It''s best if I ask him to do the support jobs. I was lying just outside the Lost City and looking at the skies when going over these ns (well, I like cloudy weathers!). Someone appeared and cast his shadow over my face. "Excuse me, sir." A deep, male voice came over. I tilted my head and looked at him. It''s a strong, warrior-like yer. His hair is soaked in sweat, panting heavily, and is wearing a worried look. Though his face told me that this man probably is the sunny type. He...should be wearing a golden colored knight armor, but it''s covered in blood, and the chest protections are all torn up. There''s a really big sword hanging behind his back. I can only see the hilt from my point, the long handle suggests that it''s a long, two-handed de. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Hawk has been really unlucky today. A random punk insulted his girlfriend when they''re trying to level up together in the morning, and they went up into a fight. What he wasn''t expecting is that the thug called his guild members for help. He couldn''t hold himself against so many people, and was eventually killed after picking out several enemies too. Luckily, his gf was teleported away by the system''s protection mechanism. (In [Zero], female yers can choose to instantly escape to a certain city, or teleport the target 10 kilos away when receiving sexual harassment. The first option will apply if the yer is unable to make the decision, such as when stunned or hypnotized. I''m not sure about male yers though...cause I never heard of something simr happening to guys, yet.) Next, he found himself respawned in a big, grand-looking city. The problem is there''s not a single living soul at the ce. He left the resurrection point and exited the city without meeting anyone along the entire way. It crept him out. He tried to leave the ce from the teleport station but was prompted that the station is unavable to white-name yers during the day. So he could only leave on foot. Now he stumbled into this mess graveyard! He''s sure this ce is totally haunted or something. Who would build a graveyard the size of a national park? He wandered around in the graveyard for a while when he saw a ck object lying on a crumbled tombstone. He approached it carefully and noticed that it''s actually a human, or at least something looks like a human. The figure''s helmet covered its entire face. A spike stood out from between the eyebrows like some sort of horn, with a "V" mark at its base. The mask part is obviously retractable. The eyes are the only parts that are notpleted covered, but he cannot see the eyes as there''s a V-shaped violet crystal embedded there like sses, like those eye lens in Japanese robot animes. The...creature, not sure if it''s a yer, is equipped with full metal armor of simr ck color. Two dragon emblems are engraved upon the breast part. The broad shoulder pieces suggest that it''s for male. Various gems are set on the tasset, below which is a pair of ck leg guards, also without much seams or visible joints. The left leg is crossed on the other, revealing a de behind the heel. Finally, the two gauntlets. Their tips are shaped like two life-like dragon heads. Their "horns" point towards the back, apparently weapons too. The part behind the hand is thicker, obviously there''s something hiding inside it. Conclusion: the whole armor is terribly deadly. From the two swords on the waist and that cavalrynce lying on the ground, the man must be a melee ss. Hawk is confident in closebat, so he decided to move over and ask him some questions. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I sat up and looked at the man in front of me. "Something you need?" He responded with quite some politeness. "I...think I lost my way. May I ask which way should I go to leave this ce?" "Leave? There''s a teleport station right?" Someone who doesn''t know about teleport stations is still a new sight these days. "I found it. But it told me that only red names can use it, white name yers need to wait for nighttime." "You''re not red name?" I stood up and retracted my wing des. I spread them when I lied down to make it morefortable. The man was shocked a bit when he saw the wings, but recovered quickly. "I''m not red, as you can see." "That...can''t be. This area is meant for crimed yers. Only those with really high Evilness will get sent here, how did you end up in that city?" "But that''s what happened. And my name is white, for real. I did fight someone but it was judged self-defence because I wasn''t the one doing damage first." "Now this is strange." I walked around him. This time I can fully see that sword he''s carrying--not only the hilt is long, the de itself is nothing like an ordinary sword I''ve ever seen. Simr to his armor, the sword is also tainted in blood and lots of cracks and turns. He must have been fighting with a lot of people. But I was just nning to find strong helpers! Now one of them is standing right in front of me. "Are you carrying anything rted to darkness?" "Huh? Maybe this one?" He took out a red gem. "I got this drop from a lich boss. I don''t know what it is for though." "That should be it. There''s a chance that you will be teleported here if any dark or evil object sits in your pocket. And this thing must be a really powerful one, if my guess is right." The knight became worried again. "But, how will I get out of the ce now?" "That''s simple." My observations told me he can be a very decent partner, I may just ask him to join me. "I know everything about this ce, and I can do anything in this ce. Sending you away should be a piece of cake. Just tell me the coordinate you want to go, I can take you there." The Teleport Ring will do the job nice and quick. "For real?" Ok, he''s doubting me. Totally legit. "The name is [Hawk]. Thank you in advance!" "I''m [Ziri]. Don''t thank me yet. Don''t expect free service. Fight me, I''ll send you if you win. No worries though, I just want to see your real strength, the oue doesn''t really matter." "Of course. Bring it on!" Shiing. He already got his sword in hands. That speed is impressive, only someone who PvP''d a lot can get prepared so fast. "No potions and items. It''s just practice, won''t be necessary to waste any money on it." "Agreed." "Let''s begin!" I lost target the moment I said that. Holy--I can''t believe it! I wasn''t expecting that kind of speed from someone big with heavy armors! Hawk charged at me from one side. "[Holy Hammer]!" He smashed the face part of the sword on my left shoulder! -100! Pdin skill! I took the full hit without defending myself and got knocked sideways. Before I fell, Hawk crouched below me and gave me a powerful upper-cut. "[Sky Upper]!" -200! "Ahhhhh--" I''m sent into mid-air. I can''t resist the forces at all, probably because they''re part of the skill''s special effects. Hawk didn''t stop though. He jumped above me when I''m still flying upwards. "[Falling Sun]!" -400! A downward leg-swipe at my stomach. Now I''m falling back towards the ground. I don''t know how he did it but he reached the ground first. He steadied himself using only one leg, and kicked the other leg at me. "[Rising Halo]!" -600! I''m flying again. Damn, this superman got on top of me. However did he do that? "[Meteor Drop]!" -800! He fell upside down from high above and smashed into me using his two arms at full speed, sending me down again. You guessed it. He shed below me like before. Hended on his hands this time, while bending his arms to dampen the speed and charge up his kick. He bent his legs all the way to the same level as his arms before kicking them at lightning speed, at just the right time when I reached him. "[Leaping Rabbit]!" -1200! "AHRRRH--" I''m rising for the third time! I saw a shadowed figure went past me again. He''s trying to finish me off in onebo! I managed to flip myself 180 degree, and triggered my w des. "[Heaven Impact]!" -1400! He gave me a shattering kick, crane style. I caught his ankle in my w and cut off his leg guard like opening a metal can. It didn''t prevent his attack though. That move surprised him. I know breaking his equipment won''t actually do any damage, the problem is I can''t touch him! He tried to use the other leg to kick me again. I grabbed his leg and did a barrel-roll. Now I''m the one behind him. I aimed my w at the back of his head. He tried to block it by putting his hand in the way. Crack! His gauntlet got cut down. He rolled over and kicked at me. I was sent away again. That was quite a series of attacks, but they all happened in a short period before we reach the ground. I touched down safely and kept some distance with him. Hawk looked at his bare leg and hand. "Impressive. This is the first time someone broke out of my ultimatebo. I never lost to anyone in a 1-on-1 fight you know." "Likewise. I lost 4700 HP. So each attack cause double damage than thest one? And I believe you hadn''t finished thatbo?" "Yeah. I created that move. You interrupted me before I can finish. After [Heaven Impact], I would kick you up again using [Perished Land], then do a 10-hit flurry attack using my sword as a finisher. I never expected you would catch me though. May I ask what''s your level? 4700 damage should be enough to knock out any type of yer at this stage. That Big de on the ranking top is the only one with 5000+ HP, as far as I know." "I''m 313 now. I got 5000 HP too." "Are you a tank? How did you set your points? But there''s no way you can get that much HP at 313. Big de is, let me see, level 477!" "I uh, have some really nice equipment." I pointed at my armor. "Look, you don''t find these stuff in market stalls." Hawk waved his hand, a tall, white unicorn appeared at his side. "I thought this is not necessary, but looks like I''ll have to use my full power to win. Careful now. As a rider, I can do much much better than what I did without my horse!" He jumped onto his mount and grabbed thatnce hanging beside the saddles. "You should do the same! I saw yournce back there. You have your horse too I assume?" "Oh of course." I smiled, and pressed my hand on the ground, creating a shining spell pentagram. Chapter Book 4 - 5 – Elfy Book 4, Chapter 5 Elfy ------------------ The same pentagram appeared under mynce, [Tail Spike of the Dark Dragon Lord], which has been leaning on a tombstone. It sunk into the ground as if it''s standing in a swamp. The pentagram below me got brighter. I slowly raised my hand, with the grip of thence following my palm. Then I grabbed thence and pulled it out in a sh. I found this move when I was trying random things out in boredom---I can call back my Dark Dragon Lord parts as long as I still possess more than half of them. Apart from being useful (I don''t need to worry about missing any equipment parts), one other thing is that I can y cool in front of others, like this. "Night Shade!" I jumped high as a ck portal appeared behind me. Night Shade sprinted out of it with some lightening sparks around his horn, he urately caught me on his back. "Let''s do this." Hawk whistled. "Ooh, looks like I found myself one heck of an opponent today! That''s a nightmare, right?" "Good eye." I gave Night Shade a pat on the neck. *Snoooort* Awe on. "Watch it. He''s fast and is pretty violent." Hawk touched his unicorn too. "Just about right. My Sunlight is about the same--fast, bad temper." "Charge!" We yelled at exact the same time. Now I want him as a partner even more. Hawk wasn''t lying, Sunlight is surely fast. But his direction is too straightforward. When we''re about to sh, Night Shade feinted to one side and dodged the attack by rushing to the other. I knew Night Shade''s n all along, so I wasn''t using my shield at all. I was holding mynce diagonally to give him a poke for good from the nk. Sunlight halted abruptly and almost did a forward flip due too his high speed. While Hawk tried very hard to bnce himself--he was pointing hisnce and shield dead towards ahead, expecting a hard collision with me. Though he still fell down from Sunlight because of that awkward positioning. It''s a fatal mistake for a rider to fall from his horse duringbat, but this time it saved his life--now I can''t hit him. Sunlight raced back to Hawk upon hearing his call. He skillfully got mounted and charged at me again. I asked Night Shade to turn around and face him too. Sunlight is charging slower than before, probably to prevent me from tricking him again. And this is what I''m waiting for. "[Heart Piercer]!" The spear head exploded into five andunched towards Hawk. After some metal shing noises, Sunlight galloped past me without anyone on his back. Hawk is now standing several meters away, holding his shield with five holes on it. The five spear heads locked themselves onto his body, each with a red colored steel wire connected to it, all the way towards thence in my hand. My HP bar is filling up--the wires are draining Hawk''s health. He realized it too and tried to pull off the stings. But when he touched the first one, an electric arc went from my end to him and shocked him back. He still knocked the head off him though. He quickly pried away the other spear heads using his own weapon. When thest head fell to the ground, the wires began to retract themselves. The five spear headsbined into one and returned to mynce. This is the first time I tried this skill, and man it''s dandy! "The hell is that attack??" Hawk struggled up using hisnce as a walking stick. "That was the most horrible weapon I ever seen." He waved his broken shield. " I give up! I gonna lose it for sure if you use any more of those moves." "How much damage did I do to you?" "3000 on the first hit. 500 HP drained away, and 200 more with that shock. I only got like 20 HP left. For cheese''s sake! My shield defense is above 2k you know! And that was a sessful block! It went through like paper! Are you sure you''re only 313? I''m 443 by the way. I don''t meet many people who can even break my defense. I killed like 10 people in that fight when a hundred are trying to attack me. Do you get traps and tricks all over your body? " "Well, not really. That was actually the first time I use the skill. Oh, I kinda used you as practice, sorry about that... But you''re quite good. I''ll send you out of here." I teleported Hawk to the Storm Cloud city. Well, a certain distance away from the city at least. Any closer and I''ll have to speak with the guards again. Hawk sent a whisper to his girlfriend toe here, so we waited. I don''t think we should just stand here so I tried to recruit him. "Hey Hawk, that was impressive. Can you help me level up when you have the time?" "Ah ha-ha. Me? Help you? You should be the one helping me. You get less EXP when carried by someone higher than you because you either kill low level monsters and get little EXP, or try to kill high level monsters when the weaker yer tends to die a lot AND get little EXP. Not many people are willing to help low level yers unless they''re good friends. Buuut if you can help me, I believe my level will just go skyrocket. You''re more powerful so we can go against monsters much much higher than us. So...will ya?" "Deal. Let''s do it together. By the way, you''re not going to repair your stuff?" I pointed at those holes on his shield. "Oh. This..." He gave it a nce. "My golden set recovers durability on its own when I equip it as a whole. I don''t need to worry about repairing it." "Really?" I looked at his gear with stars in my eyes. "A, why no such convenient attribute on my equipment..." "Ohe on. You like it? Let''s switch then. I''m the envious one right now!" I thought about that horrible repair fee I still owe rk. Sigh. "Everyone got his own problems I guess. They say it''s easy to buy a nice car but hard to keep it in good condition. I''m in the same situation now, they look good but I don''t have the money to repair it!" "So how much? I heard that you need really huge sum to repair Artifact. And some special materials too." "Ugh. No, don''t remind me anymore. Someone paid for me anyway." I looked at the sky. "I''m not sure I''ll ever repay the debt..." "Someone did? Now that''s some serious friend you got there." "Hawk!'''' Someone shouted. "Elfy! Are you alright? Did theye after you?" Hawk embraced with a girl who''s a lot smaller in size. When he straightened himself he lifted the girl off ground. "Put me down you silly buffalo! Someone''s watching!" Yup, that seems a smart girl. Hawk dropped her down with a red face. "Hello! I''m [Misty Elf], as in, a real Elf. Level 422, Elven Archer. So you helped my love escape? Thank you very much!" Her Elven character has long, green hair, pointy facial features and delicate skin, just like those exquisite elves in stories. She has a long bow behind her back and is wearing rattan protections. That sunny character though...They look like born couple. "Nice knowing you. I''m [Ziri]. level 313 Divine Demon D&P Rider plus Soul Maniptor." She lowered her head for a moment before eximing: "You''re that number one criminal Ziri! I knew I heard about you somewhere. How did you kill soooo many people in one day? Did you actually wipe out an entire city?" "Ohh ho ho I would like to try that if I can." I think I''m getting affected by their style too. "So are you going to grind, or get some revenge on those people?" "Forget about those suckers. There are too many, we won''t win. Let''s go level up. We already wasted enough time today. We nned to get three levels before noon!" To get 3 levels in one morning is easy job for me. I suppose it''s terribly hard for other people though. "Where are we going then?" "Definitely not the same ce in the morning...Let''s go to the Wonder Forest." Elfy suggested. "Be careful Ziri, the monsters will be higher leveled than you, just hide and share exp with us." "Nah, leave him be. He''s a monster." Hawkmented. "What do you mean?" "We were fighting just now. He almost one-shot me with one skill." "...A warrior, getting one-shot by someone 100 levels below? And those golden armors you''re wearing are not just decorations you know." Hawk handed over his shield, still with the five holes on it. "I got proof. He did this to me!" "Oh my. Who made a Pdin shield with 2000+ defense into a pepper shaker?" She tossed the shield back to him. "It''s decided then!" Hum. Looks like Elfy is the decision maker here. I don''t know much about the ces other than the Lost City so I just followed them without a word. The forest is quite near from the city. They seem familiar with the ce enough. We avoided crowded areas and marched straight towards the center. We eventually stopped at an open ground among the woods. ording to Hawk, monsters spawn pretty fast around here and few people woulde to such depth. We soon encountered a pack of [Saw Teeth]. They look like ordinary wild boars with really scary tusks. Hawk exined: "They''re level 430, both high attack and high defense. But their HP is low, and can''t move fast. They usually stay inrge groups." I''m going to get them into my guild anyway so there''s no need toy low. I just summoned all of mypanions and servants in one breath. "Yah!!" Hawk and Elfy jumped onto a tree. "What are you doing? Get back. These are my friends." "Dra-dra-dra-dragon!" Elfy mped herself on the tree like a ko. "Several days ago a group of people were fighting near the forest over a valuable gem. Then more people heard about it and came. The fight became an all-out brawl involving thousands of people. Then a dragon passed by, snatched the gem away and wiped all yers with a single fire breath. Hawk was there too, am I Right?" "Yeah I saw it! Thank god we didn''t get there too soon or we would be barbeque''d! We didn''t have much equipment back then. But the corpses left tons of them on the ground, we sold them for some money, that''s how we got what we''re wearing now." "Well you can get down here. This guy is still teenage, he can''t do that even if he wants to." Hawk is still hugging the tree like dear. "Are you sure about that??" Elfy: "I have...uh, right, dragonphobia!" I walked around the tree. "Are you getting down or not?" "NO!" "Last time. Get back here." "What-what are you nning?" Elfy is sure the smart one of the two. She soon realized my "evil intentions". Toote though. I looked at Lucky. He nodded and gave the tree a poke. They slipped from the shaking tree and fell. Two tentacles appeared out of the ground and caught them. Hawk stared at the thing and decided not to struggle. There is a green crystal ball at the tip of it, with two leaves around which move like eyelids. The whole structure looks like a monster''s head. There''s even a mouth on it--some barbs that shift like a meat grinder! Chapter Book 4 - 6 – The Wonder Mount Book 4, Chapter 6 The Wonder Mount ------------------ "Is this yourpanion too?" Hawk looked at Rosa and shuddered. "But aren''t you a warrior?" "I mentioned I''m Soul Maniptor too, right? It''s an alternative ss for Tamer. Now you know why I can bring morepanions. Alright, Rosa, put them down." Rosa released the couple gently and went back under. "Morepanions make your work easier, don''t you think?" "Yeah but...this is more than just ''morepanions''! I can''t believe this! Two...dragons, two trees, a nightmare, a parrot..." Hawk went over my team members one by one. "Oh, and the ten friends behind you. Introduce us please?" "Correction. They''re Phantom Knights, my servants. The ''trees'' are two tentacles from one of mypanion, not two. And he''s not a tree. He''s called a Creeper. The one who bumped your tree is Lucky. He''s big, but quite the gentleman if you get to know him. And that''s Loong''er floating in the sky. You don''t have any problems with this symbolic Chinese creature right? This is not a parrot on my shoulder. She takes the form of an Aurora Heaven Bird when not fighting but..." I tossed Phiona upward. Boom, she turned into a fireball, then the grand ck avian blocked the sunlight above our heads. "Be gentle next time!" "Oh, sorry...If anyone is dangerous, it''s her. So don''t get fooled by the look of that beautiful pet parrot. Next. Phantom,e out." A lump a ck mist appeared in front of me. "Phaaantom here. Orders, master?" Elfy seems about to faint. "Do you have any idea how much you need to pay forpanion eggs on the market??" "They sell them on the market? No I never checked. So how much?" "But--wait--are you even a real yer?" Interesting. I never knew Hawk could open his eyes THAT wide. "Listen,panion eggs are super hot merchandise out there, especially good ones. Do you know why they won''t allow you to changepanions? This is a typical psych test designed by the developers." "Psych what now?" Elfy exined. "Simple. The gamepany set up a giant headache for all the yers. First, most people have really fewpanion slots. They need to think carefully before getting apanion. If they find a low levelpanion first, they will lose the chance to get other better ones inter stages; but if they try to wait forter stages, they will have a hard time reaching that stage without apanion in the first ce. Besides no one is sure they can get a high levelpanion even if they level up." "There''s a ''Loyalty'' forpanions right? I heard thatpanions with low Loyalty can get captured by other yers. Why don''t people take a weakerpanion first, then find someone to take it away?" "Of course someone already tried that!" "And?" "The guy deleted his character and started anew." Hawk took over the topic. "Why would he do that?" "Guess what, when yourpanion is taken by someone else, the slot is still upied. Suppose someone has two slots and lost apanion to another yer, he will only bring onepanion for the rest of his career. You get the point?" "Oh shit. Thank god I didn''t actually do it." Hawk looked around thepanion army. "I think...we should choose somewhere else to level up." "Do we have to?" "Definitely." Elfy pointed behind my back. I turned around and like "Fuuuuuuu--" The area behind me has already turned into a ughterhouse somehow. Lucky is still picking out the remaining boars one by one, sometimes another one would get dragged away by a nt vine and go missing for good. "Now I didn''t give the order! Guys! Stop it!" Lucky tossed a torn corpse behind his back and looked around in a "I didn''t do nothing" way. Although the blood around his mouth gave him out. "...Do you know any other ces we can use?" I nced around the now lifeless forest. "Oh! I get it!" Elfy jumped. Hawk seems to have something up his mind as well. "Are we thinking about the same thing?" "That''s what I mean! What do you say?" Elfy is smiling wide as if she won the lottery. But I''m in the dark here. "A little exining please?" Hawk: "The Wonder Mount not far from here. It''s full of monsters with levels around 470 or 480. Sometimes level 500 bosses would appear among them. Should be just the right ce for us." "So...what are we waiting for?" "The problem is the monster spawn can be troublesome." "Too many?" "Um, no. They are just, endless. Normally, monsters respawn after some time when you clean them out. But on that mountain, any monster you kill will immediately respawn inside its belonging area. You may hold them back but they will keep gathering up in your location, until there''s not enough space for you to move a single step. We''ve been there twice. The first time we just quited, and second time...yeah, we were drowned." Now that sounds fun! "Why do the monsters move like that, have you considered about it?" "Huh? No. Why?" Hawk is confused. Elfy caught my answer though, as expected. "They''re trying to prevent yers from reaching the top." "Bingo. There has to be something up there. The monsters located on the mountain are not for grinding, but to repel any intruders." Hawk held up his chin. "I see it now... So there are really treasures." "Then let''s hurry! Go go!!" I''m already on Night Shade''s back. Oh lord Jehovah, Maria, Hades, Yeshua, or whatever is watching me, please please let it be golds, or a treasure vault or something so I can pay my debt! I can''t even sleep well with that in my mind! "Let''s go!" Hawk and Elfy are already riding on Sunlight while I was doing my silly prayers. Their positions is...a little bit strange though. Only Hawk is sitting on Sunlight. Elfy is seated on Hawk''s right shoulder. We galloped towards the Wonder Mount, while I kept observing the couple from behind. I''d say that''s quite some skills. The path in the forest is far from smooth--our mounts would hop and turn from now and then. But they can actually keep a posture like that without any trouble. Yeah, Hawk deserved that body shape. Elfy is small but is still a human weight, yet Hawk carried her like holding a rubber duck. We reached our target. Before we can get into the mountains, we still need to pass ake splitting the two locations. From a close look, the mountain upied arge area but isn''t really high on the vertical level. Ayer ofvender colored mist is floating around the mountain, sometimes giving out some shiny light reflections. "It looks beautiful enough." I tried to lighten the mood, because the two people beside me are already in an escaping stance. "The danger is well hidden." "Just like your phoenix, the scenery is just meant to cover the true malice that may take your life anytime." "Um, you don''t have to be THAT careful right? Just follow from behind. I''ll go first." I pointed forward. "Lucky! Go!" Lucky roared and jumped ahead. Ssh! He disappeared under theke. After several seconds, a giant water pir rose from theke, with Lucky and a mess of monsters falling from it. "Huh, I didn''t expect theke to be so deep." I looked at the now water-soaked Lucky. In theory, ake about 20 meters wide should be no deeper than 3 meters but...I guessmon sense doesn''t work in here. "I told you not to get fooled by the looks of them. Last time we fell deep under the water. We were lucky that we can swim fast or those piranha swarms would have turned us into skeletons." "Is there a bridge?" "Nope. But there is a narrow point, ourpanion mounts should be able to jump over." We came to the mentioned point. It''s about...6-7 meters far from the other side. I gave Night Shade a pat. "Can you do it?" Without a word, he just leaped over theke with ease. He even gave me a defying look and a snort. Ok, I really should be careful not to offend this guy. I wonder how fast his Loyalty drops if I try anything funny. "Hawk, go for it!" He asked Sunlight to move a bit away from the bank, before they charged and sessfully made it. The distance should be no problem for a unicorn like that, even with two people riding on him. Hawk pointed at the path towards the mountain. "Avoid any visible paths and routes. No matter who you are, they will always send you back to the starting point. That''s what happened to usst time. The only thing about the paths is that they''re safe--monsters will not attack anyone who walks on them." "That sounds tricky. You two should lead the way. I can''t really do anything before we actually meet any monsters." Chapter Book 4 - 7 – The Dart Book 4, Chapter 7 The Dart ------------------ Note: "Dart" should be the name of the new pet. But this is not mentioned in this chapter. ------------------ "AHHH!" Elfy and I were knocked flying by a strong force. Night Shade hopped to me in time and caught me on his back, while Hawk saved Elfy with a skillful volleyball save. "What was that?" I look around. "Saw anything?" "Not me." Hawk is searching around the area too, nervously. "There was just something blurry in front my eyes, and you two were in the air before I know it." "I think it was some kind of small animal." Elfy steadied herself and took out a strange-shaped arrow from her quiver. "I touched it. At least it was something with fur." Nope. The woods around us is totally silent. "Rosy, look out the area for us." The dirt around us began to shift, then tentacles with crystal eyes crawled onto each of the trees within the perimeter. They began to look around like cameras. "Noticed something?" Hawk asked. A bigger tentacle raised in front of us, an image appeared in the crystal ball. We saw a shadow flying among the trees. It''s too fast for us to make it out. The moving image is apparently made up from continuous pictures shot by different tentacles. Now that''s surprising, I got myself a living camera. Elfy let out a warning. "Watch it! It''sing!" From the "Camera", I saw the ck shadow approaching from our backs. I drew my swords. "Let''s back up each other and leave no blind spots. Lucky, take down all the trees around. Oh and, throw them away so they don''t get in our way. Phantom,e out and look for the target. See if you can control it. Phiona, watch us from above. Loong''er cast your gravity field around us. Knights, spread out!" Lucky is the fastest one to move as always--the trees are already falling down in bundles like wheat. Rosy helped cut off all the roots so Lucky only needs to carry the trunks and throw them off the mountain, creating an open area for us. "Over there!" One of the knights caught sight of the shadow and threw his spear at the same time, without hitting it. Not surprising, as the spear is almost as thick as the monster itself. "There!" That was Elfy. A series of spears went over. Still nothing. "Above!" I saw it this time. I wanted to check on Phiona, but a ck stuff blocked my sight when I raised my head. Phiona created a strong gust using her wings and disrupted the shadow''s movement. Something showed up from the shadow. It''s a...white, furry...ball? "[Shadow Barrage]!" Elfy released her arrow which she has been holding for some time. I only hear one shot, but a wave of dense arrows went past me. This is a powerful Archer skill used to restrict the movement of any fast target. Only half of the arrows are real, though whoever got caught inside the wave probably doesn''t have the time to judge it. However, the speed and size of the figure still allowed it to slip past the attack. I''m helpless now. I never knew how to deal with fast targets. I''ve fight with monsters with high HP or high attack but I''m yet to figure out how to catch something I can''t even see. The shadow made a turn and went at Elfy. Looks like it wants some revenge. Rosy''s vine blocked its way just before it reaches Elfy. This forced the shadow to change it''s course--it used the tentacle as a tform and jumped towards elsewhere. The Phantom Knight leader pointed at somewhere. "[Iron Cage] ready up! Seven, two-three,unch!" Schhhh! 10 spears shot themselves out in unite. From the looks of it, theirnding point is the estimated location where the ck shadow is about to reach. The shadow realized it too. But apparently it can''t fly--it can only adjust it''s postures but not change its direction in mid-air. They reached the ground at almost the exact same moment--the spears clustered into a round cage-like structure, trapping the shadow inside. Phiona dropped from the sky andnded on top of the cage, which is the only open exit. "Aha! No where to run now." I walked to the "cage" and peeked inside. It''s a white little animal that looks like a squirrel. But no squirrel has such long and silky fur. It looks more like a snowball, actually. It''s tail is even bigger than it''s own body. That should be why it was so agile. There are two miniature balls on it head, probably ears. Those eyes...are big, round, with the color of sapphires. The brightness of the eyes made it appear like the critter is about to cry. "This--oof!" "Aw it''s so cute!" Elfy pushed me and Hawk aside with abnormal strength. Her eyes are literally shining. "Aren''t you adorable, little friend. Will youe with big sis?" It jumped around the cage, obviously saying "no". That''s not gonna work though. "Hey dear, call your friend NOW! I want it as mypanion!" "Um? Oh!" I stopped Hawk as he tries to make a call. "No need. My side ss is Breeder, remember?" "Oh yeah, You said you are Soul Maniptor which is transferred from Tamer. As far as I remember, all Tamers would choose Breeder as a side ss." "Yup. Tamers will needpanions to fight. Surely no one would want to buypanion from others every time they need one." "Makes sense." "What are you two doing?? Help me capture it!" Elfy pushed Hawk aside (again) and dragged me over. "Quick! Do it!" "Okay okay, don''t push!" I began to cast [Capture] at the little thing. It got more violent as I try. The cage is shaking from its struggling. Looks like it''s not really a strong monster. It only took me a dozen tries, probably because of my level 17 [Capture]. I saw it somewhere that you won''t find many people who got the skill over level 10 at the current stage. This is not surprising if you look at mypanions though, each one of them would give me some serious skill exp, especially Night Shade--he just stood there for an entire afternoon, waiting for me to spam skills on him. "Here." I gave the egg to Elfy. The size is simr to either a small watermelon, or a really big apple. "Yay!!" Elfy wiped her hands clean before carefully taking the egg. I was giving out a relieved sigh, when her words choked it back down my throat. "How long do I have to stay on it to hatch? Do I hold it against my stomach? On myps? Hug it all the time? Can I ask someone else for help?" "Baahahaha! Haaa-cough cough cough--eww cough--" I crouched and held my abdomen to ease the pain caused by thatughter. "Ok, now I see why you saidpanion eggs are super rare out there. You--*snigger*-- you never seen anyone hatching an egg in the game did you?" More confusion is now written on Hawk''s face. "Hatch? We don''t even see many yers carrying realpanions! Do you know how you scared the heck out of us when you showed yourpanion team this morning? Last time I checked, an egg between level 300 and 400 worth 30k crystals! CRYSTALS! And you won''t get one easy even if you can offer that price. No one has high level capture skill yet, and NPCs only sell eggs below level 200. Good ones are on really short supply." Weird. I know eggs are hard toe by but this is a little TOO scarce, if you ask me. "You can capture any monsters intopanions right? Is it so hard to produce eggs?" "You...wait I''ll exin. You have to cut down the monster HP to 1 or 2 points when trying to capture, or it will just try to self-destruct or something. Those who don''t explode will just get furious and go into berserk mode, making it impossible to proceed. You need to be very careful how much damage you do and how much HP the monster regenerates. One tiny mistake and you will kill it by ident, or leave too much HP. Now wait a second, that little thing didn''t get angry or explode did it now?" "I don''t know..." I looked at the egg. "I never seen any monsters explode on capture. Maybe there are some hidden requirements or attributes you need?" "Let''s leave those questionster!" Elfy is still obsessed with her egg. "Tell me how to get it hatched first!" "Oh, that''s simple." I grinned. "Find some hay and build a chicken coop. Sit on the egg for three hours." Elfy rolled her eyes and kicked at me. " The truth! Now!" "Sorry! I-I surrender! Make a cut on your finger and drop blood on the egg. It will hatch once it gets some blood." ...Was that too obvious? "Hey hawk! Come here!" Elfy grasped Hawk''s hand and took our her dagger. I don''t think she''s going to just "make a cut", with that kind of movement. I quickly snatched the egg away. "What the heck are you doing??" "Get some blood of course?" "You...don''t want the egg then? Thepanion will consider whoever dropped his or her own blood as master. If you cut Hawk, he will be its master instead." "Tell me that earlier!" Elfy patted her chest in relief. But she noticed something on her dagger. "Is this...blood? Hawk, did I cut you?" Crack! The egg broke in my hands. A furball jumped around a bit, then crawled onto my shoulder and began to hug my face. But...! My hands...! "Ahhhh! You cut MY hand!" I took off my gauntlets to raise the sess rate for [Capture], and Elfy''s dagger left a 1-inch longceration wound on the back of my hand when I was taking the egg back! "What the-- Why is this happening?? I don''t want a pet dog using up my slot! Noooo!" Phantom interrupted me: "Hey master, this little one is no pet dog. It--I mean, he, is a level 700 Aurora Fox. That''s higher than me at least. I heard about this species before. They''re the champion in this world when ites to speed." "No kidding?" I opened it''s status window. [Aurora Fox], level 0. Attack: 15-25, Defense: 10, Speed: 750, HP: 300, MP: 50. The other attributes are ordinary, even worse thanmon monsters. That speed though...that''s twice as fast than Night Shade! With the proper attacks, no one would notice what got him. Elfy looked at the furry creature and whined. "Nnnnn...but I want it!" "No worries. We can find another. You saw how easy I captured it right?" "d to hear it but, are we really going to find one?" "You said the monsters would spawn non-stop on this mountain right? That pretty much told us there would be more of it." "Well that was for normal monsters." Hawk looks worried. "I don''t think this little one is a normal monster. The strongest monster we met before would be somewhere like level 500 or so, a level 700 is unheard of." "Now you mentioned it...What happened to the mob waves you were so afraid of? We walked so far and this thing is the only monster we encountered. ording to you two, our paths should be filled with all kinds of ghosts ''n'' goblins by now." Elfy looked about. "I...don''t know. That''s what happenedst time. And we didn''t even reach this far before we were driven out." I turned to Phiona: "Scout from above, let''s see where the monster ran off to." "Alrighty." A strong current caused us to lose bnce a bit. Phiona turned into a ck dot in a sh. She came down after a brief moment. "There are a group of yers fighting with monsters on the other side of the mountain. A lot of them. All the monsters elsewhere are marching towards them like tidal waves!" "Ohh. So someone is doing the job for us..." Hawk mumbled. Elfy jumped onto his shoulder. "Quick! Now we''d better not waste their effort. Let''s get up there and im whatever treasure lies ahead!" "Right. Let''s hurry it up." I hopped on Night Shade too. "Onward! Here Ie my precious!!" "Hey--wait for us!" I charged ahead out of too much excitement, leaving the couple a good distance behind. Chapter Book 4 - 8 – The Secret Treasure Book 4, Chapter 8 The Secret Treasure ------------------ "But there''s nothing here." We''re now standing on the very top of the ce. There is a square tform, apparently man-made, with a round stone ced on it. "Is this the treasure?" I walked around the stone, without figuring out anything special about it. Elfy grabbed Hawk''s sword. "Move away. Let''s see it when I break it open." She just chopped at the stone using that sword almost as big as herself, before I can stop her. The attack was simply bounced away. The stone isn''t really hard, a gash was left on the surface. "It''s just an ordinary rock." I got closer again. "Yeah...But why would anyone construct a t here and just put a useless stone on it? There must be something." Elfy returned the sword to Hawk and ordered: "Break it. It must be hollow inside." "Nah let me do it. You will take too long." I asked them to get away a bit. "This kind of job usually belongs to Lucky. Lucky! Get this thing open." He raised his tail and aimed the spike tip at the stone. Crash! Instead of breaking it, Lucky''s tail lodged into the stone. He tried to free himself, without sess. Then Lucky just began to raise his tail by force. Now the entire stone is lifted off the ground, we saw a stone pir connected under it. The pir seems still long below the surface, as Lucky''s height isn''t enough to drag it out. "Hold still." I said. "Rosy, try to get that thing out of the ground." After a while Rosy emerged at the edge of the tform. Phantom exined inside my head: "Master, Rosy said the whole structure under us is made from rock, he can''t get through." Hawk walked over. "What''s wrong?" I pointed at Rosy. "It''s a whole rock under our feet, and pretty deep too. Rosy can''t do anything about it. And Lucky isn''t enough to pull it out either." "So do we break it or not?" Elfy already rolled up her sleeves. I dragged her back again. "Leave that to me. Loong''er, can you break the pir?" "Let me try." She coiled herself around the pir and gave it a mighty squeeze. The pir crumbled into several parts. Lucky also took the chance and smashed his tail into the ground, breaking the stone as well. "That should do it." There''s still about half a meter of the remaining pir sticking out of the ground. We got no idea how big it is under the surface though. "Lucky, pull it." Lucky grabbed the pir and began to lift it using his superior strength. It went smoothly this time--the bottom part is only about 2 meters long. "Is that an underground entrance?" We looked at the opening left by the broken pir. "Seems so." Hawk agreed. "So...do we go in?" Elfy suggested. I summoned the small animal I just caught. "Your name will be [Dart] from now on. Go into the entrance and report what you see." "But, but do you have to ask the cutey to do the dangerous work?" Elfy looks worried. I nodded towards the hole. "It''s narrower than a window. Dart is the only one who can get in without trouble. He''s level 0 anyway, which means free respawns even if the worst happens. Besides he''s born to be a scout with that kind of speed." "Um, okay." Elfy is convinced. She held up Dart in her hands. "Be careful, little one!" Dart disappeared from our sight in a sh. He came back in just 10 seconds. Phantom acted as out interpreter again. "...There''s only one room in there, a really small room. There''s a chest, bigger than the hole so he doesn''t know how to get it out." "I see. Hawk, let''s get down." "Um, I can''t. The entrance is too small for me." He disyed his massive muscles. "I''ll do it." Elfy hopped into the hole like a rabbit. Geez, she acts fast. "Don''t worry, I''ll go after her." From the looks of it my size should just fit through. I still took off all the armors, except helmet, just to be sure. I carefully slipped down the narrow tunnel...p, my helmet is stuck. Hawk looked down from above. "Ziri, take off your helm too. I''ll hold it for you." "Alright." I reached the bottom and found Elfy standing behind me with a lit candle in her hand. "...You carry candles with you?" She handed me another. "No. There''s a bunch of them lying over there. I don''t have that kind of strange habit. I do have a lighter on me though." She paused. "Wait, you''re a girl too? I was wondering why you hide your face all the time. I thought you are not confident in your looks or want to hide your scar or something. Now that''s quite a-impressive, why would you hide it?" "Crap... I''m male! And I wear the mask because people always get the wrong idea!" "...Really?" Elfy is still doubting me. "Guaranteed! 100% pure! How about I introduce my girlfriend to you next time?" "No need. I see your Adam. But seriously, a lot of girls would be jealous of your looks. What kind of creams do you use?" "Forget it. Where''s the chest?" Now this is what I came for. I should change the topic too. Elfy stepped aside a bit, revealing a chest behind her back. "Here." I touched around the chest. It''s well worn but still intact. I pulled at the padlock on it. Nope. "Do you know how to pick locks?" "Do I look like a Rogue?" "Well...I''ll use my expertise then." "Expertise?" Elfy curiously leaned near to see how I will open the lock. I drew my sword and stuck it under the lid. "By force of course." I pried at the chest with my full strength. "...mmmf! It''s--pretty--solid--" I gave the other sword to Elfy. "A little help!" She found a gap on the surface and began her effort too. But looks like our strength is still not enough. "Ugh. This is no good." Elfy panted. "Let''s try something else." "What-- Oh right, why didn''t I think about it earlier?" I put away my swords and lifted the entire chest into my inventory. Thank goodness I can put everything into my bracelet--the chest upied my full inventory space plus filling up my weight load. "Now hold my hands." "What for?" Elfy asked in confusion. "I''ll take you out." "I can get out on my own. The problem is can you get back to the entrance with that weight on you?" "I''m not getting out from the entrance." I took Elfy''s hand and activated my ring. We appeared above the cave in the next second. "Here we are." Hawk ran to us. "Who is...? Where''s Ziri?" Then he just ran back to the entrance. "Ziri! Are you alright down there?" "Hey stop it. I''m here!" I took out the chest and began to re-equip my gear. Feels much safer this way. Hawk stood there, pointing at me while giving out some ambiguous mumbles. I put thest piece on me and gave him a pat on the head. "Hey you! Wake up. Never seen a handsome before?" "Handsome? You''re a beauty!" "Cut it. Help me get this thing open!" I pointed at the red padlock on the chest. "It''s just a lock. Piece o'' cake. Now back off." He raised his giant sword above his head. I quickly moved away. Ching! The de precisely hit the hook but didn''t break it. "Sigh. Lucky, can you do something?" He simply fiddled the chest around his ws like a toy before itpletely scattered open. "Now that''s my Lucky." "Ah! Treasures!" Elfy eximed when she saw something falling out of the chest. A bow. A milky white colored ball. A ring and...a bracelet. The bow is a heavy bow constructed from metal. Its shiny silver body is embedded with various gems. It looks like more like an arkwork than an actual weapon. "Elfy''s it is. You''re the only Archer here." She picked it up and stroked over it. "Don''t mind if I do." "Is it good? " "Let''s see, it''s...an Artifact! The [Elemental Kiss], attack 230-320. Every arrow shot from this bow will carry one or two random magic effects!" "So, you can be a part-time Magic Archer now?" "My lucky day!" "''Kay. Take a look at the others." Elfy picked up the white ball."What''s this? Nothing''s written on its attributes." "Huh? Can''t be." I took it over. "It''s apanion egg. But I don''t know what''s in it. Try to hatch it if you wish. Maybe you can get a really nicepanion, or waste a slot. Who knows?" "I''ll do it. You don''t understand how other people wantpanions so bad. Even Hawk has his Sunshine. It''s kept together with an Artifact anyway. It can''t be THAT bad." She dropped her blood on the egg. The egg shook, then crack! A snow-white pony head looked out of it, before it shook off the remaining egg shells. It has wings! "A Pegasus!" Hawk immediately recognized this mythologic creature. "It''s the king of all flying horses, a legendary pegasus." I watched it closely. "Is it different from other flying horses? How do you know it''s THE pegasus?" "The blue eyes. I saw it somewhere on the forum. Someone also got his hands on one and exined some basic knowledge about the species." Though this is not any concern for Elfy. She''s just being happy about the tiny horse. "Why is it so small?" Elfy looked at the pony which can basically fit inside her palm. I pointed at Lucky. "He was even smaller when he was just born. Try to level him up a bit. Companions usually reach their full size around level 50 or so. I think Lucky is exception. His growth won''t stop." "Good to hear. It will be weird if he stays like this forever. I don''t really mind though. He''s adorable! I''ll call you [Crystal Eyes], because that''s how your eyes look like!" The pony hopped around her palm before it jumped onto the ground and cut loose. Yup, that looks an energetic horse to me. I turned to the remaining drops. First, the ring. A cross is decorated on this ordinary looking ring. I tried to pick it up and--- "AHH HOT!!" I threw it away. That thing burns! "What the heck?" Hawk carefully poked the ring. Nothing. He held it up, still nothing. "What''s this thing?" I asked. Not gonna touch it. The skin on my hand is charred ck, and that''s with the protection of my gauntlet! Hawk checked around it and even tried to equip it. "I don''t know... How did that happen?" "Check the status. I''m sure there''s something holy or justice or such. That''s what will happen if I try to touch these god-damned stuff." The pain on my hand is getting worse. Ow. "Oh you''re right. The ring gives you 2 points of Luck, and there''s a bonus to it: Evil Resistance." He chuckled. "Tsk. I''m no evil!" Elfy finished her enthusiasm with the pony and went over to us. "You''re all ck, and with a red name over your head. If anyone''s evil it''s you!" "Ugh, fine!" I looked at thest piece, the bracelet. "Aha! Now here''s a real treasure!" I jumped out of joy. "What?" I took off amon bracelet and equipped the new one. "This one''s mine! You can have all the rest!" "Come on, what is it?" Hawk took the ring for himself and walked towards me. I pointed upward. "See my name?" "No, why?" Then Elfy''s eyes got wider. "Red named yers cannot hide their names...and I can''t see your name now, which means--" I disyed the status window. [The Masking Wheel], Sacred equipment, Luck +1, eliminates any negative effects caused by red name status, effects will return when the bracelet is unequipped. There is a 5% chance to double anyone''s Evilness when you attack them, ineffective against yers with Righteousness or 0 Evilness. "Wah-hahahay! Finally, I can enter cities! Gonna have some fun! Eeeehehahaw!!" Elfy and Hawk watched as Iughed out with insanity. Elfy even moved a little behind Hawk''s back. "Is he broken or something?" Hawk nodded. "I think so." I jumped onto Night Shade. "Go! To the city! Now!" The pair looked at me with doubtful looks. "Calm it. It''s not like the city will run away." "You no understand!" I''m too excited to even speak like normal. "Listen, From day one of the game till now, I only went into cities twice. And that was when the game is still testing itself. There were no people in the city. I never visited any cities after registration is open to everyone!" "But-- you never resupply your potions and items in cities?" "At first I lost my way in a forest. Then I fell into some kind of underground dungeon and was trapped inside a quest. For two months! When I finally got out I was already red named. Then that avnche put a bounty on my head in public. I can''t even get close to cities." "Ugh. That sounds really terrible experience." Elfy patted on my shoulder. "We''lle with you. We need to change up our gear anyway and maybe sell something we don''t need." "Then let''s go already!" However, someone shouted behind us before we can move. "YOU AIN''T GOING ANYWHERE!" Chapter Book 4 - 9 – Infuriate Book 4, Chapter 9 Infuriate ------------------ "Give us the loot. We want the treasure not your lives. WE were the ones dealing with all those monsters, now we can''t just let you take it for free. Hand them over or we will take them by force!" The speaker is a wizard-like yer wearing ck robe. He seems willing to talk but... Maybe he''s just nning about how to take us down inside his mind. That''s quite a big group behind him, about 500 people. From their broken weapons and ragged clothes, they are those unfortunate guys who were fending off the monsters on the other side. We were just trying to head back to the city so I already un-summoned everyone except Phiona, who is now standing on my shoulder as a small aurora bird. "Are these guys the ones you mentioned?" "Yeah. But there were several thousands of them back then." I asked Hawk to get closer and whispered to him: "So they brought thousands of people here and now this is what''s left of them, which means they don''t have much supply on them now. We three, plus mypanions, should be enough to take care of them." "But he was true, we can get the treasure because they helped keeping monsters away. We should at least give them half of the loot, and hopefully settle this without a fight." "Um, if you say so." Hawk is quite the honest guy it seems. Well, he chose to be a Pdin anyway, I guess honor is important to him. Hawk spoke to the wizard: "We didn''t know you were here, and we opened the secret entrance too. It was pretty tricky one, I don''t think you would have made it. How about this, we''ll share half of what we got, let''s consider the work done as a team." The ck robe began to consider. But a warrior beside him yelled: "How do we know how many items you took? You can just tell us a fake number and give us less stuff, am I right?" The wizard silenced him. "To tell the truth, we wouldn''t have made it up here. Those monsters suddenly stoppeding, I guess that''s because you opened the secret room. I believe you, we''ll ept half of the treasures." Hawk took off his ring and stretched his hand towards Elfy. "What?" "Give them the bow." Elfy held it tightly and shook her head. "No! Why should I? It''s mine!" "Elfy!" "No I won''t!" "Listen, we aren''t really justified here, we should at least give them what they deserve." Now that''s the first time I saw some anger from Hawk. Elfy looked at Hawk''s serious expression and decided toply. Though unwillingly. "Fine..." She looks about to cry. Sadly there''s nothing much I can do in such a situation. Hawk threw the bow and his ring over to the wizard. "Four items in all. I gave a bracelet to my friend, and an egg, already hatched so we can''t give it back even if we want to." The wizard looked at the items. "I''m [Fate Revenger], master of the ck Moon, our guild. We have several branches now, among most major cities. Come visit us when you have the time. I appreciate your honorable decision. Let''s at least be allies. If your girl friend over there really wants the bow, you cane to our auction sale next week. We usually sell our loot this way and share the profit for everyone. As their leader, I can''t break that rule. But still, I can make an exception this time and ask you only 90% of the bidding." Hawk answered politely: "We did take your advantage, I should apologize. That bow is indeed valuable to my friend, we will be there." "Farewell then." Fate began to lead his men off the mountain. Not everyone followed him though, we saw a small group left behind. Fate noticed the out-standers and turned back. "Mr. Loong?" A wizard wearing blue robe stepped ahead. "You ck Moon can leave now since you got no more business. Don''t forget to give us the share for the items. We got something else to do." Fate turned to Hawk: "Careful brother, this man is far from the kind type. We can''t help you because of...our agreement. Be on guard." Then he humphed and left with his members. The "Mr. Loong" sized us up for a bit. "Huh. Fate is an idiot but I''m not. I believe you are all smart guys too so let''s get this straight. The ck outfit you''re wearing, friend, is also one of the reward I assume? We won''t ask much...sell it, and we''ll share the money seventy-thirty. We take the seventy of course. How about it? You can get thirty percent out of it without even lifting a finger, just call it free. I know I''m always the nice guy." Well, if anyone can see my face they would notice I''m extremely pissed off right now. I immediately saw what he was going to do when he stayed, and I nned to give up the bracelet too. He''s going to sell it anyway, the worst case is I can just borrow some money from father and buy it back. Elfy is already the pegasus'' master so even the system would not have the right to take it away. What I''m not expecting is that the bastard wants my armors! I don''t know how much it would sell and I don''t care. The two months'' worth of effort is already enough to make it surpass any treasures we might find on this tiny mountain tip. "...Ha-hahaha!" I really feel likeughing to let off some of my anger. "Just tell us straight if you want dead! Of course I''ll help you with it." "What''cha saying huh??" A minion came up but Mr. Loong dragged him back. "Now now my friend, do you know you should never take your words too far? Your voice...sounds like someone just went over the age of 10. Do you want me to teach you the rules of the world out there?" Then he dropped his attitude. "Your equipment won''t help you fight against 200 people. How long can you stand if we attack you together? Now be clever so you don''t suffer too much." I didn''t respond, cause I don''t know what else I can say to this moron. Oh well, time for some actions. I raised my hand to my shoulder. Phiona jumped on it. Then I threw her into the air (a little more gently). She turned into her true form while creating a hot wave around us, cause several people in the front of the group to stagger. "A phoenix!" "ck phoenix!!" The group scattered. That''s what I expected would happen when someone who don''t even know aboutpanions see a real one. Hawk and Elfy are well-knowledged and they still tried to climb a tree. Someone in the group are already taking out their recall scrolls. Mr. Loong shouted and stopped their movement. "STOP IT! It''s just one phoenix, and it doesn''t look a real one! Use our advantage and kill the yer so hispanion will just disappear! Stay in your positions!" The group is still a bit chaotic but is under control in general. However, Mr. Loong''s face is not really "under control". He must have realized something is not going to proceed as he nned. The turns of his expressions look quite fun. I wonder what will happen if I give him some more surprises. I stretched out my right hand, a giant ck portal appeared beside me. A mighty roar came out of the portal and caused a visible air shock, knocking some people down. I rubbed my ears. I did tell him to "make a show". But I should have opened the portal a little far from myself. Now my right ear is ringing. Lucky shot himself out of the portal, gliding close the ground and swept past their head. He also caught two very unlucky people in his ws, who gave out some terrible inhuman screams out of fear, which caused the other people on the ground to shake. People lose their intelligence when stressed or terrified, that''s what''s going on in front of me--someone forgot they are still ying a game and began to beg for their lives. "I DONT WANNA DIE!!" Lucky threw the yelling madman into the crowd with some force. The falling human bomb crashed into something solid head-first and caused some blood sshes. Some female yers fainted. Good. I don''t really enjoy scaring girls. Now they''re out cold so they don''t have to see what''sing next. I pointed towards the sky. Loong''er appeared around me and slowly floated upwards while recovering to her full size. Mr. Loong seems helpless at how to control the situation. His men are crying like Christians who are meeting with Jesus face to face. (*) I summoned Rosy. Now I''m going to jump scare them for good, even give some people a heart attack, if I can. Several thick nt vines emerged from under their feet and brought some people down with them. More yelling. Mr. Loong''s face has turned into the color of purple. I''m not satisfied though, I asked Phantom to find someone unconscious and control him. The poor guy''s body suddenly stood up. "NOOOO! I CAN''T TAKE IT! DEVIL! IT''S THE DEVILS!" He screamed in hysteria and wed at his own face. He did it so hard that he now looks like a living zombie. The man has no idea what''s happening since he''s not awake at all. But those people around him aren''t aware of the fact, what they saw is one of theirrade just went insane. I took the chance when everyone has lost their mind and shot my dragon cords at Mr. Loong. Now I''m pretty good at it after all these days'' practice. The cords only be sharp when I inject my MP into them, otherwise I can just use them as really strong ropes. I caught the man''s neck like throwing asso and began to retrieve it. The cord wrapped around his neck firmly. I attached the other end of the cord onto my saddle before I shook Hawk and Elfy back to their senses. They have been staring at the scene with their mouths agape for a while now. "I caught the prey! Now run for it! Ahoy, Night Shade!" Night Shade bolted away, with Mr. Loong hanging behind us who just realized what''s going on. He pulled on the cord around his neck in order to breath a little. His condition is of no concern to me so I just asked Night Shade to gallop as he wish. I also tried to choose the most painful routes--whichever path with the most thorny nts or ragged rocks. When we left the mountain range the only piece of cloth left on the unfortunate dude is the unbreakable underpants used to hide his embarrassment. His equipments are no where to be found. Hawk and Elfy caught up from behind. Elfy nced at the now dying Mr. Loong. "Ziri, let him go. That''s enough revenge." "Not gonna. This is the first time someone tries to pull that off on me. I won''t stop before I get rid of all the bad mood. You two can get back to the city and have a rest, I''ll be there when I''m done with him." Without waiting for an answer, I asked Night Shade to charge faster and left the couple behind. After a while, I felt a weight go away, and the cord retracted itself. I turned my head to see a white light. So I finally dragged away Mr. Loong''sst point of HP. Hmm. I could have done worse if I finished him off using my Revenger and take 2 levels off him instead of 1. I opened the chat. "Hawk, where are you? Let''s have some fun in the city!" "You done with the guy?" "Not really. He just died on the ground." Elfy nudged into the screen. "You looked scary! I thought you were going to eat him or something." "I''m not a monster! I was just a bit over my head, did I do anything bad to you?" "No. So we''re going to the city together?" "Yeah. I''ve always wanted to see what''s inside a city, now''s the chance to lift up the spirit a bit. I got a close friend called Wayne who''s been sting about all the fun in various cities beside my ears all day long. I think he''s doing it on purpose!" "Alright. Which city''s on your mind?" "The Bright City!" "Bright City? That''s not really a big city. There are a lot of bigger ones to have more fun." "Not for fun this time, my gf is in jail. I need to rescue her from the Bright City and it''ll be best if you can help me with it." Hawk nudged back into the screen. "Um, I do want to help but, you know those guards will just kill us in one hit right? You will need at least ten or twenty thousand of people to attack a city!" "I''m not asking you to fight the NPCs." Ugh. It''s best to exin this in detail in front their faces, so I used my Star Gaze ring to detect their location and just teleported there, which of course, startled them. "You--" They stared at me as if an alien hase to visit. "Ask questionster!" I showed them my new bracelet. "Now this thing, will hide my red name. I need you to take this bracelet to my girlfriend so she can just walk out of the prison like taking a walk in the afternoon." "Good idea!" Hawk took the bracelet. "Tell us what she looks like in the private chat so we can find her." "She...is not on. A second, I''ll go call her." "Be quick!" I logged out the game and called Rose''s phone. Her roommate answered it. "Can I speak to Rose?" "She just went into the game. I''ll tell her you called." "Nonono, I''m hoping she would do that." "Ah, good for you. See ya then!" I appeared in front of the pair again. They''re leaning on each other, enjoying the scenery. I''m hurt! Must they show off their love at such a time?? I called them to join Rose''s private channel. Rose''s beautiful face showed up in the group chat. I pulled off my helmet and tried to speak but Rose took the initiate. "Hey dear. Wee back! I was just--ehhahaha--ahh don''t--HAHAHAHA! Hey wait--AH!" The screen shook violently, I see the figures of several girls in there. A nice looking girl came up to the disy. "Hey you! So you''re Ziri?" I frowned. "Who are you?" "You don''t know me? Which rural part did youe from? You don''t know this vice master of the second biggest guild in the whole game?" "Oh excuse me ma''am. I don''t even know about the chief master of the first biggest guild." "Why you--!" Ohh this is fun. I see smokeing out of her head. "I''ll only tell you once: I''m from the Goddess Alliance. Join us now. I give you 30 seconds, or you won''t like what I''m about to do to Rose!" Rose''s screaming came from the screen. "No! Ah!...Urf!... Stop it!" "What the fuc is this all about?" "I told you, silly. Join our guild. I heard that you got some really nice equipment. Oh and your Luck would help us a lot too." ------------------------ (*) This reminds me, apart from being offensive to certain nations, the author will make all kinds jokes against some religions and various gods from other cultures too. Example, Shiva from Hinduism, Anubis from Egypt. I think he even tried to turn Lady Liberty into a Boss or something. Though you''ll only see such content inter stages. Chapter Book 4 - 10 – Unexpected Acquaintance Book 4, Chapter 10 Unexpected Acquaintance ------------------ "I told you, silly. Join our guild. I heard that you got some really nice equipment. Oh and your Luck would help us a lot too." The girl''s expression is super confident, before Rose rushed over and knocked her over. The screen shook again, then Rose''s face came up, with some tears and messy hair. But she''s smiling big. "Don''t worry about it Ziri! I won''t give up even if it means they would tickle me to death! Ah!...." There she goes. That girl showed up again. She tried to keep a stern face but her hair and those straws tangling on her head are not really persuasive. "Join us now or we''ll use some serious torture!" "So what exactly are you doing to Rose?" I can only see a group of girls running back and forth in the back of the screen. That doesn''t look like what would happen inside a jail cell. "Hey, listen. I can get you all out of there, how about we talk about it in person? Youdies are making me dizzy!" "Ahhhh!... Get her off me!... Eh-ha- " The girl didn''t get to answer before she was pressed down again. Rose must be pretty skillful at whatever they''re ying. These girls... Now I''m worried. Not for her safety, but for fear that Rose might get led astray by their crazy ystyle. Ugh, gotta rescue her fast. I really don''t want to get myself a real "evil witch" instead. Though for some reason I think I''m already toote. A momentter, Rose was pulled away by someone and the "vice master" appeared on the disy for a third time. Her clothes are all messed up. Elfy almost pped her hands against Hawk''s eyes. "Don''t look!!" My face feels a little hot too. "Can you, um, tighten up?" "Huh? AH!" She just noticed her breast-level cor and began to tidy up. "...Alright! Let''s talk business. You said you can get ALL of us out?" "Yes I did. I wasn''t chilling off when my wife is there. I''ve been looking for ways and improving myself just to get her out as soon as I can." "Okay. Come meet me in the jail and let''s talk." "Understood." I used my Star Gaze to locate Rose, told Hawk to wait for me in the city and then teleported in front of the prison. "Ouch!" A girl yelled. "Yowl!" I yelled. My teleport ring caused a little ident. It determines your target location based on the coordinate you set. But if there are obstacles at that location, it will transport you to a random vacant location within 10 meters of the original point, or simply doesn''t work if there are none. And now something is just blocking my target. Well, someone. I chose to get to the entrance of the prison. Someone is passing through so my ring picked a point near this person, which happens to be right in front of her. Without much time to react, she walked into me and sat back on the ground, knocking me t as well. "Oh! I''m sorry!" I apologize in order not to cause too much trouble. "Hey watch it!" Another girl came, who obviously doesn''t know how I get here. All she saw was someone bumped into her friend. She helped the sitting girl up while mumbling: "Geez. Why would someone rush into a prison so fast? There are enough rooms in there." "Sorrydies, that wasn''t on purpose. I...was distracted!" I tried to help the girl too. "Did I hurt you?" "I''m fine! I''m not made of ss or something. And Snowy, you don''t have to me him like that." She pulled on our hands and stood up. "So what have you done?" "Em?" That''s not expected. I thought she forgave me, did she just decide to get back on me again? "It was just an ident, I promise!" I need to get out of this. "That''s not what I meant. I want to know how you appeared out of thin air. It didn''t look like someone just logged on. yer who just came up will appear slowly, but you got in front of me in a sh!" She asked that while staring at my face. I think she looks familiar but...I can''t remember who she is. She looks beautiful. No, "magnificent" would be the better word. It''s the feeling of a women who can lead other people into actions. Though that kinda feels weird when a young girl is carrying that kind of temperament. "It was teleportation. I think the system caused an ident by cing me right in front of you." "Teleport?" She lowered her head for a moment. "So...you got the hidden ss as a Taoism Sorcerer?" "Taoism? I''m a knight." I touched my armor. "Would a Taoist wear heavy armors?" (*) "Oh, my bad. Then how did you?..." I''m in a hurry here so I just disyed my ring to her. "Got it?" Her eyes went wide. "However did you get this thing?" "System reward. I''m the first yer to use a teleport station within the China region." "There is a reward for that??" The girl called Snowy stared at the disy in shock. "Will you sell it? I''ll pay a high price!" The other girl eximed. I drew my hand back. "Nope. I apologize for what I did. But that won''t be any reason for me to sell my ring. I''ll go inside now if there''s no more questions." I left them behind me. The structure looks pretty good. It''s a single hallway behind the entrance, the walls are well painted, and the floor is boarded using big gstones. The ce is much tidier than I expected. Whoever designed this ce didn''t n to make it the same as those terrible ces in real life. Two doors stand at the end of the hallway, a blue "M" and a red "W". I can see they tried as best as they could to make them NOT look like a toilet. I walked into the women''s door. There''s nothing like those heavy metal st doors you would imagine, it''s just a bamboo curtain. There''s only onerge room inside, with a light-blue barrier splitting it up into two areas. I''m standing in the smaller area, the other side must be for the prisoners. "Hey love, right here!" Rose noticed me as soon as I entered the room. I walked to the barrier. A dozen or so girls are all staring at me. From the looks of their hair and those messed up straws everywhere, they didn''t stop whatever they were doing after I cut the chat with Rose. The "vice master" came over to me. "Well that was pretty fast. But weren''t you outside the city just a moment ago?" "Never mind that. I''m here to speak to Rose." She moved closer. "Ziri you...cleaned your red name?" I held up my left hand and disyed my bracelet to her. "Nice trick right? I''ll ask my friend to take this thing to you, then you can just walk out of here. By the way, where is your friend you mentioned before? [Rosy]? Let''s take her along." The "vice master" humphed. "Thisdy doesn''t need your service! My status will return to normal in 20 hours anyway." "...So you''re Rosy?" My mouth went wide. "But, you were just, I dunno, forcing us to join--" "Master!" Rosy suddenly looked behind me. I turned to check the new arriver. It''s the girl who bumped with me back at the entrance. "You! You''re Ziri?" "How did you know?" My face is covered up, and she didn''t recognize me just now did she? "I''m [Red Moon], leader of Goddess Alliance. I knew something was familiar when I saw you. Rosy told me that Rose''s husband ising to visit her, and he''s called [Ziri]. That''s why I immediately returned." "Red Moon? I knew it! You didn''te just to get some revenge because I pushed your off the tformst time eh? I didn''t do it on purpose you know, my hands slipped!" "Wait what? That was you? Then why are you suddenly Rose''s husband?" Huh? What is she talking about? "Are youing to settle that matter or not?" "What--no! Rose has been telling me that you''re powerful and such so I just came to recruit you since I have this chance. And I always thought the Ziri she mentioned and the one I met in the dungeon are two different people with the same name." That''s a relief. "Phew! So I''m safe." "Not really. You have to join us." Oh please not again. "No can do." I shook my head, then took off my helmet so I can shake my head easier. My appearance won''t be too much of an issue in front of a bunch of girls right? ...right? I''m hearing a lot of gasps. Damn it. Rosy took out a small mirror and looked into it, then looked at me, and looked at herself again, before she sat down into a corner. Snowy did exactly the same and decided to sit with Rosy. Now I''m seeing a line of girls crouching against a wall together. "What''s going on?" Red Moon just chuckled. "Well...girl problems, not going to exin. So why do you refuse my offer? We''re the secondrgest guild within the region of China, apart from the number one, which is the Righteous League. All other guilds are like totally powerlesspared to us. And Righteous League is just a tiny bit bigger than us. We don''t even know who would win if we actually fight with each other. We won''t fight though, because their leader is my brother. Believe me, we''ll go surpass them soon enough." "I mean no offense to your guild, but whether to join you got nothing to do with how big you are. I already have my own guild." Red Moon interrupted me. "I heard it. The ''Blizzard Rose''? With just two people? What can you do with that? Join us. Come on." "That''s not important. Blizzard Rose is created by me and Rose, for that reason alone I will see to the end of it. Besides there are other facts why I shouldn''t join you. From the looks of it the majority of your members are females right? I would feel really constrained if I''m in there. I''m trying very hard here to prove to everyone that I''m a guy...Joining Goddess Alliance will totally ruin my effort. And, as you can see I''m the loner type. I don''t like staying among other people all the time. I''m pretty strict about my schedules too. It will be bad manners if I join someone and refuse to participate in your quests and activities, am I right?" Red Moon''s face is getting redder and I get the feeling that she will punch at me any time. However she just let out a deep sigh. "Huh...If that''s what you hope for. We do need talents but we don''t have to go as far as to beg people to join. Snowy, let''s go." She dragged Snowy out of the room. I think Snowy is still depressed for whatever reason. Rose beckoned me so I walked close to the barrier. She just looked at me with a weird look. "What are you afraid of? Come in." "Eh? I can get inside?" I pointed at the barrier doubtfully. "Of course. It will only block red names. Other yers can just ignore it." I poked at the barrier. She''s right, I don''t feel anything. "So this is...the very expensive outfit you told me?" Rose leaned close to inspect my armor. I nod. "Yeah. I wouldn''t have it repaired yet but...you know, to save you. I owed the repair fee to rk, now I still need to give him 150k Crystals." "It looks worth it. What''s that on your hand? Is this a weapon?" "This." I pressed on the spring and released my w de. "One on each hand. And this..." I pulled out the dragon cord. "Use this as rope or cut stuff." "Wooh! Where on earth did you get this thing?" The sitting-at-corner Rosy is now attracted as well. "Oh, you''re ok? What''s gotten into you all?" "Because of you,dy boy! Geez why would you look so nice? We were already feeling defeated by master and Rose. Now even a man looks better than us!" "...That''s it? Well sorry! I didn''t ask for it. The job was nicely done by my parents, you shouldin to them not me. Or maybe go ask your parents why didn''t they give you the face of a super star." "Ugh. Forget it! So what''s the level of your armor? I never seen anything like this. There are too many weapons! What''s this hole?" "Hole?" "This one." Rosy pointed at the back of my hand. "The hole above the three ones where your wes out." I aimed my hand towards the door and pressed something. Thud! A bolt stuck into the wall beside the door, followed by a scream. "AHH! Who was that?? This is murder!" It''s Elfy. Hawk is following her too. They were walking into the room whey I shot my crossbow, and Elfy just saw something pierced the wall beside her left ear. "Oh, sorry sorry. You came! I was...telling them about my weapon." "Watch it! If I moved faster that thing would opened up my nose!" "Are they the new friends you mentioned?" Rose looked towards the couple. "Yup. This is Hawk, a Pdin. And his girl friend Misty Elf, Archer. This is my wife, Crimson Rose." We exchanged some greetings and began to discuss about the rescue n. "The situation is simple:" I raised my left hand. "Any yer wearing this bracelet may pass through the barrier as they wish. We will first exit the city, and Hawk will take the bracelet back to Rose so she can leave. We just need some more tours if we want to bring everyone out. Easy enough right?" "Yeah...but there''s a big problem." Said Elfy. "What problem?" I don''t see anything. "Just, walk around the entrance for a couple of times right? What''s wrong with that?" Elfy pointed at the girls against the wall. "They all know what the bracelet does right?" "Yes they do." I''m still confused. "Rosy, the prisoners are not ALL from your organization I guess?" "What do you mean ''organization''? Well, only three of them are. And mind your words! That sounds like women mafia or something. Our guild is made up of good people. Even if we joined some sort of group fight, there wouldn''t be so many prisoners from our guild." "I...apologize. I just needed to make sure. So most people here are not from your guild, how do we trust them then? If anyone get the message out that there is a bracelet capable of getting rid of your red name status, what do think will happen?" I''m still slow. "Robbery? But this is inside a city! Robbers get caught." Rosy answered before Elfy can exin: "Use your brain! The bracelet will sell for at least 200k Crystals on the market. And Hawk will be carrying it alone, so if anyone kills him they will only earn 100 Evilness--just a day in the jail. 200k Crystals I say! A bunch of people would try to rob us for way less than those money." "This thing costs so much??" I''m beginning to wonder if I should just sell itter to pay my debt! "What should we do then?" Rose asked. I got an idea though. "Rosy, your guild is like, second inmand in the whole country right? And your brothermands the biggest guild? Can you send someone as escort?" She shook her head. "You''re not our member, we don''t have to help. You just shut the door in front of our master''s nose and now you ask for her help? She''s already helping, by not sending anyone to take your bracelet!" "But you need to get out of here right?" "Forget about it. We''ll all be free in at most three to five days, not like your dear wife. Some extra days won''t be an issue for us. If Rose isn''t my friend I''d already ask my members toe take it from you. This thing is priceless in future group fights or guild wars. Sigh, why did I meet with Rose first? And now I don''t want to make her feel bad. O lord. Am I being too kind to this world?" Hawk nudged me. "Don''t worry, we can take a little risk. You see how I fight, and I can just run if I need to." "No other choice I guess." Elfy suggested: "Let''s go together. If anything happens we run in opposite directions so they must split up as well, which means better chance for us. They won''t know who''s carrying the bracelet anyway." --------------- (*) In games, a "Taoist" is usually the Chinese version of mage, who usually performs hexes or deals with ghosts and spirits. They kinda look like "Onmyouji" in Japanese culture. Chapter Book 4 - 11 – Escape Book 4, Chapter 11 Escape ------------------ The travel from the prison to the city gate is safe at least. Not surprising, cause I won''t be making the move at this moment if I''m the robber. I gave the bracelet to Hawk as soon as we left the city range. "Be careful you two!" "Ha! I won''t even sweat in the face of a dozen people or two. Any more and I''ll just flee. No one can catch Sunshine that easily." Elfy protested: "Don''t forget about me! I''m not a decoration you know." "Alright. Try your best. Oh wait, let me trying something first." I summoned all of mypanions and the Phantom Knights. "I wonder if the NPCs will attack mypanions even if I don''t go in there myself. If they don''t, I''ll ask these guys to protect you." "Oh they won''t attack. But yourpanions won''t help either." "Why?" "One of my friend did it before. The guards will only attack red named yers and will just ignore theirpanions, unless the pets do something first. But..panions cannot go outside their master''s view. In other words yourpanions can only move where you can see them." "That can''t be," I spoke in surprise. "When I was grinding outside the Lost City, I would ask Lucky to fly back to the city and bring me some potions. Of course I can''t see through the city walls. There''s another time when I asked him to find some trees to make a towing cart (when I was trying to get inside the underground dungeon). He went towards a forest which was pretty far away." "Wait wait wait, yourpanions buy potions for you?" Elfy is quite shocked. "Only Lucky. The otherpanions don''t have inventory so they can''t carry any items. But still, I can ask them to fight or do something simple outside my sight as long as they can understand what I''m saying." "...There must be something special on you! I''ve never heard of anypanions so smart that can help their master run errands!" Hawk nodded in agreement. "I can''t think of anything. Maybe it''s because they''re special? Or because that''s how high-levelpanions act, since you never see any high level ones before." I pondered. "Never mind. I''m pretty sure they can help you get in there safely. Let''s do it now. The enemies may be assembling, it''ll be more dangerous the longer we take." "Okay then. We''re going in." There they go. I ordered the Phantom Knights to follow them, and split into two groups if necessary. They''ll be acting as stand-out bodyguards. I believe five level 850 monsters are enough to keep most people away. I can''t forget Rosa either, as he can conveniently hide underground. His job is not to protect the couple, but to get the bracelet to safety if anything went wrong. Phantom will be following Hawk and interfere with any pursuers using his mental attacks. Dart is to protect the bracelet as well. No one can snatch the item faster then this little creature. As for Phiona, Loong''er and Lucky...they''ll stay outside since their size would probably cause trouble in the city. I just wait. I would like to be patient but those guards are making it very hard by staring at me and keep reaching for their quivers. Hawk isn''t having an easy time either. We were right, someone among those girls already spread the message to someone. Well, more than just "someone". They ran into a whole band of highjackers not long after they entered the city. A crowd is standing in line across the main road,pletely blocking it. The usual passers-by are pretty annoyed by the sudden inconvenience but they can only choose another way since there''s nothing they can do against such a huge group. Hawk looked at the scene. That''s at least a hundred people. As he considered about how to get past them, the Phantom Knight Leader moved in front of him. "We''ll clear the way. Follow us!" They didn''t really wait for Hawk''s answer between the knights formed up an arrow head array. "Phantom Knights! Onward!" The other knights gave out a loud battle cry. "Crush them!" Hawk wasn''t expecting them to be so aggressive. That''s how they were when I first met with them, and they haven''t tried to change that. The people in the front of the group were mostly knights and warriors. However, most of them don''t have mounts, since it''s not really easy to get one. They still know what it means to face someone charging on a horse though. The Phantom Knights approached the roadblock with rming speed. Hawk grasped onto his sword as well, ready to face anyone that might get past the knights'' formation, which never happened. The first knights to contact with the enemies didn''t even use their weapons. They simply ced their shields in front of them to bash people away. The yers standing in front are all fierce attackers like Orc Berserkers, however they still can''t withstand the charging horses just with their bodies--they were knocked away like bowling pins. The crowd scattered in an instance. The knights at the tip of the formation didn''t slow down in one bit, the other knights readied theirnces and started killing anyone who gets close. Hawk stayed in the middle of the formation. He feels like surrounded by a solid iron wall, no one managed to went through, not with that kind of level gap. I''m sitting outside the city, looking at my Evilness bar. I can''t see what''s going on in there but I can pretty much imagine, since the digits are growing like water meter running at full speed. The robbers nned to keep Hawk and Elfy busy using their front-line berserkers and do damage with their wizards and archers. The n is good on itself but...no one expected the Phantom Knights to break through their 27 Berserkers and 43 high-level Iron Knights like cutting a piece of paper. The Wizards and Archers in the back didn''t get the chance to prepare their first attacks when they saw their defenders were all sent to the rooftops nearby, and were soon stomped to death by the war horses. The most unfortunate one among those people is none other than my previous enemy, Mr. Loong. He was just dragged to death outside the city, now he went back to his guild and heard the information about an anti-red name bracelet so he led some men here to get the valuable treasure. Of course he joined the group himself for the merit. Now he became the first batch of wizard corpses. A hundred people can''t make a very thick defense so the Phantom Knights charged all the way to the other side within 3 seconds. A bloody path was left behind them, with several remaining warriors groaning on the ground. The weaker sses have already disappeared. The scene looks grim but the actual casualty is not really big. Ten knights won''t cover a lot of area, those who died are mostly unlucky wizards. A wounded guy jumped up and decided to call the others to retaliate. But the Phantom Knight leader re-assembled his team before the idiot have the chance to give any orders. "Fools! Your trophy looks pathetic! Do you not remember the codes for us Phantom Knights? Tell me, aloud!" The other knights roared in unite. "Leave no one standing! Crush them!" Then they charged back! The remaining defenders panicked. They no longer have any standing defenses left, so the knights just killed thest of them like a pack of wolves into a sheep herd. Even some bystanders were involved inside the chaos. Elfy sent me the video feed in her private chat and told me to "admire the heroic deeds of my subordinate". I almost fell from Night Shade when I saw it. "Tell them to move NOW! It''s an order!" God dammit. Leave no one standing?? I need to give them some serious lectures after this. "Let''s go! Your boss is angry with you guys!" Elfy yelled to the knights. Woosh! An arrow pierced the air, towards Elfy''s heart with extreme speed. But a shadow blocked the arrow with even better speed. Dart did a back-flip andnded on Sunshine''s head, with the arrow still in his mouth. A masked man stood up on a rooftop across the road. "But that''s impossible!" He drew his bow and shot at Elfy again. Dart caught the arrow, with exact the same trick. Elfy looked at Dart who''s now standing on the ground. "Nice move little one! Now I really regret cutting Ziri''s hand like that, or you''ll be mine already..." The man on the rooftop is obviously unable to ept what''s going on. He pulled on his bow again. When Dart prepared to intercept the attack, the arrow suddenly turned into three. "Multi-shot!" Elfy is an experienced Archer, of course she recognized the skill. Dart however, made a swift U-turn in the air. He caught all three arrows before hended. "What the fuc??" The Archer''s voice is shaking now. That''s too much shock in a day. Hawk decided to ignore the assant and asked the Phantom Knights to ran towards the prison. I sighed in relief when I noticed my Evilness has stopped growing. "Bastards. Five minutes away from my sight and they''re already causing me troubles." Hawk and Elfy saw another group of people running towards them just after they cut a corner. Another wave of robbers, but they were too slow. Hawk dashed past their intended point of defense before they can reach it. One of the leading Fighters shouted towards Hawk: "Stop right--" An arrow shut him up by pinning into his helmet. Elfy did that while sitting on Hawk''s shoulder, the arrow is well-aimed at between the man''s eyebrows but it didn''t actually get in. For Elfy didn''t want to earn herself a red name just because this. That shot was merely a warning. The whole route is quite a mixed bag. Hawk and Elfy encountered 15 groups who tried to stop them before they reached the prison. Of course they reported it back to me. Now I can see people''s insane thirst for equipments. "We got Rose. We''re on our way back now!" Rose contacted me as well. "Finally! Hey Ziri, you have to take me to wash my name! I don''t want to be in that ce again!" "You said it. We should go shopping in citiester!" "But aren''t you red yourself?" "The bracelet! I''ll take it back once you clean your name, then this No.1 criminal will go for walks in those cities as he likes!" "Oh oops. Let''s talkter. We have some morepany here." Hawk is stopped this time because...a group of beautiful girls are standing in front of him. "Hey Ziri! We got trouble! Can I have some air support?" "What''s the matter?" "Just look!" Hawk opened his video feed and pointed at front. "Huh? It''s Red Moon!" "You know each other?" Hawk asked in surprise. "Yes we do. Get closer, lemme talk to her." Hawk unmounted and walked towards Red Moon, with his hands raised. I spoke when they''re close enough. "Hey Red Moon, do you have to do this?" She seems angered. "I''ll ask you onest time, do you join Goddess Alliance?" I frowned. "Is that very important? I''ll help you get your members out, but I won''t join you. Don''t push me!" "I do hope you don''t push me into pushing you! You will join us at your own will!" "Crap. What''s that supposed to mean?" "I meant well!" I''m seeing too much anger from her eyes as if I owe her a million dors. I almost owe that much money to rk, and he never gave me that look! "...I see. So we must settle this with a fight then?" I lost my patience. "I know girls tend to act up. But don''t take it too far!" "You want me to kill Rose and your friends so I just take your bracelet by force?" Her brain is obviously heating up as well. "THAT''S IT!" I cut the chat. "Lucky!" I hopped on Lucky''s back. Getting in by the ground is not an option. My wing des can help me fly but there are restrictions. I can''t avoid those archers with it. While Lucky can easily fly way higher than me. I''m not sure if that''s enough to get out of the archers'' attack range but it will be safer. I told Lucky to head to their location from above and asked Rose to hang on for a while. The city is big in size but we can get there in a matter of a dozen seconds. We spent most of our time trying to climb high. With the help of Star Gaze, I can already see Rose''s escort team fighting with Red Moon''s guild members. As a Pdin, Hawk is having a hard time dealing with the youngdies. His honor doesn''t allow him to use his full strength. On the other hand, Elfy and Red Moon don''t have that kind of problem. They don''t need to hold anything back in a girl''s fight. As for those Phantom Knights...Well they''re just too good at drawing attentions. Wherever they go, people will see screaming girls running all over the ce. They never tried to control their damage in the least. Let''s say they don''t even know why you should go easy on girls--they simply charged around like how they did to those berserkers and warriors. Of course those delicatesses don''t have any chance against them. Half of the females are lying on the ground after only one round of attacks. The other on-lookers decided to help Goddess Alliance for some reason. Maybe not realizing what''s happening, or maybe just because he''s dumb, a yer wearing schr suit walked in front of the leader knight and scolded: "How can you call yourself a man?? How can you do such a thing to those beautifuldies??" Ugh. Apparently this guy saw Phantom Knights as some high level yers. The leader is surprised by the sudden intruder as well. He even believed that the guy must be someone really powerful so he can ignore the danger around him. He pointed hisnce at the schr, who''s still giving out his moral theories like a teacher lecturing a group of students. The schr screamed when he finally saw thence tip at his own neck. "What-what-what are you doing??" The knight thrust hisnce forward, turning the idiot into a white sh. "Oh lord. I though he was a Grand Priest from the God''s Altar or something." Another Phantom Knight moved over. "Maybe that was a reserve priest. He was bbering just like those heretics. But he was too weak!" "Cut the small talk." The leader held up hisnce. "Our codes!" "Leave no one standing! Crush them!" People began to flee when they hear this line again. "YOU''ALL COME BACK NOW!" Lucky almost crashed himself onto the ground. People close to us all fell down. I don''t have time to exin so I just pulled Rose up, threw two recall scrolls to the Lost City to Hawk and un-summoned all otherpanions and servants. "Use the scroll! Let''s meet over there!" I patted on Lucky''s neck to tell him to take off. Red Moon noticed my intentions and charged towards me, with her female members following behind. Lucky kicked at the ground and pped his giant wings, causing a strong wind current which helped us up while causing the enemies to tumble away. "We''re safe!" I hugged Rose in my arms. We''re already at a safe distance when the NPCs arrived at the scene. Some still tried to shoot at us but those arrows don''t have any power left at such an altitude. "...h...elp...! ....ahhh....! ..." Rose pushed my hands (close to her breast) away and asked: "Did you hear something?" "Yeah. No idea what it is. The wind is too strong." I looked around, and looked below us. "Well we can''t be hearing anything this high up. Must be imagination, or it''s just the wind. We never tried to fly this high before. Hey Lucky, lower yourself a bit, and take it slow." "...aaa...me...halp...!" It came again. The wind is not so loud this time since we went a lot lower. We can hear the voice clearer. "I think there is something..." I looked about again. I even used my Star Gaze as a binocr but I still don''t see anything. "Strange. A ghost maybe?" Rose leaned into me again and looked around nervously. "Gho-ghost?? You''re right! That sounded like some woman is crying!" "So, a woman ghost. Did you make someone hate you before, and now she came to get revenge?" I joked. "Heelp! ...*sob* Somebody help me please!" I heard it again. It''s very obvious this time. Indeed a woman''s cry, trembling. Man, creepy. "I''m sorry!!" Rose nudged her head against my chest and won''t get out. Chapter Book 4 - 12 – Kidnap Book 4, Chapter 12 Kidnap ------------------ "Ziri.....! ...you...asshole!... Help me!" The ghost sounds really miserable. But how did she know my name? I don''t think I''ve ever done anything serious to any women before. Did she have to be a ghost to revenge on me? Now wait a minute. This is a game! I know plenty of ghosts and spirits in the Lost City, why would I be afraid now?? "Um Ziri? I think the ghost ising for you, not me." Rose finally decided to look around. The voice came again. "Help...help me already!" "It''s not far." Rose listened carefully. "I think...it''s below us." "Below?" I steadied myself by holding onto a spike on Lucky''s back and looked under. What I saw nearly shocked me into falling off! "Re-Red Moon?? Bah-hahahaha!! How did you get up here?" "HELP ME UP!!" "You were trying to kill me for crying out loud! Why would I help you? Just teleport back to the city or something." Her face went pale. No idea she''s angry or is just too scared. "I...would have, done it, if I had one!" Okay. She''s still shaking. "...Promise, don''t do anything stupid." She looked down and nodded unwillingly. I returned onto Lucky''s back. "Lucky, can you send our...passenger, up here? Oh and, try to be a little ''passionate''." "I got it." Lucky grasped Red Moon, who had been hanging on his other w, and threw her high into the air. Then he flew towards her so she wouldnd on us. Red Moon''s screaming echoed across the clouds in the whole process. I helped her keep bnce when shended, but she mped herself onto me out of instinct like a ko. Now Rose is watching. Well, this is embarrassing. I tried to push her away, to no avail. "Let go. You''re safe!" Red Moon raised her head slowly. What she saw is, of course, my face. She bounced away as if she touched some exposed electric wire, and almost fell off Lucky again. She looked down behind her and approached me again. I don''t like where this is going so I grabbed Rose and stuffed her into Red Moon''s arms. "You can have my wife as your hugging pillow. And no, I don''t mind it. I''m pretty generous you know!" Rose waved her fist at me. She knows what I''m thinking though, so she didn''t protest. Actually she is pretty surprised to find out that Red Moon is shaking like mad. "Are you okay Miss Moon? You feeling ill?" "I-I-I''m afraid of heights! When I was young I fell from my second floor balcony and got hurt. That''s when I started to get terrified whenever I go to high ces!" "Ooooh. So the mighty Mrs Red Moon has her weakness. I thought you were like, a total fearless woman." Yes I''m trying to be sarcastic. "What did you say??" Red Moon yelled and reached for me. I stepped back. "Lucky my friend! It''s a mighty fine day today, how about we fly higher and enjoy the sky?" "Noooooo!" Red Moon cried. Her response wouldn''t stop Lucky from following my words though. "Roger that sir, gaining altitude." He pped his wings harder, bringing us above the clouds again. Red Moon''s face is white as paper now. "I''m gonna get you even if IT MEANS RISKING MY LIFE FOR IT!!" She gave up rose and lunged at me! "Lucky! Barrel roll!" "AhhhHHHH--!!!" That was Rose. She screamed even louder than Red Moon. Lucky, as a living dragon, is a lot more agile than an actual fighter jet. He did 7 or 8 side rolls without taking any break, almost making me dizzy as well. When he stopped I can no longer see Rose nor Red Moon. "Ziri!!" I hear Rose''s call from ahead. Then I saw her being carried in Lucky''s mouth by her clothes. So I quickly pulled her up. "You alright?" She punched at my chest. "Why would you do that?? Thank god Lucky caught me. So where is Miss Moon?" "Lucky?" "I shook her off!" "What?? Why didn''t you catch her too?" "Well, you told me to roll so I thought you just wanted to get rid of her. That''s why I only saved the mistress but not the other woman." "Oh shit! Get down fast and see if we can still save her!" "Understood. Hold on tight." Lucky folded his wings and began to dive. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª On the ground, a group of members from a small sized guild are inspecting the terrains. "Boss, the ce is good enough. That Mist Mountain ahead is a good ce for leveling, and I heard the Wyvern Gorge not far got some pretty rare drops. There are two major cities in both left and right side of here, each about 300 kilos away. We should choose this ce as our headquarter." Whoooosh "Hey Jason, did you hear something?" "Nope. You saw anything, Brandy?" "I heard something...above." Brandy looked up. "Hey you all check that out!!" The whole guild looked upwards. They see a small dot falling from the sky at extreme speed, and another bigger dot, falling even faster. The small one seems to be a female, and the bigger dot came out as a fierce-looking dragon. That sharp noise is caused by the dragon''s descending. It sounds like a mortar bomb is heading towards its target. The dragon caught up with the female before she can reach the ground (which obviously would result in a bloody mess), then spread its wings to slow down, which still didn''t provide a safending, so the dragon stomped on the ground and turned its momentum into a close-to-ground glide instead. The giant force and the air current following behind knocked everyone over. The dragon sessfully went up again, with that woman caught inside its jaws. It vanished into the clouds as fast as it came, like nothing ever happened. Several minutester "Um boss? I think I saw a dragon fly by. Am I seeing things?" "I saw it too!" Brandy pointed at the ground. "Look at that footprint! So I wasn''t dreaming!" "...Jason, how about we find another ce to build our city?" Their boss asked. "Agreed. Let''s move." "Yeah... The dragon ate a woman right? We won''t be recruiting any pretty girls if that dragon just came to pick up a snack when it feels like it. And I don''t want to run a man-only guild." The guild packed up their tools and ran away. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I''m sitting on Lucky, looking at Red Moon, who''s been lying still for a while now. "Phew, we did it." "Close one." Rose patted her chest. "We almost killed her. So what''s going on now?" "Maybe she''s TOO scared." I checked her face. "Well, she''ll wake up." Rose is still worried: "She''s afraid of heights right? Did we cause too much trouble? We might have hurt her if she got a weak heart or something." "Oh don''t worry, I asked father about that before." "You asked father?" Wooh. She actually addressed my father like that, probably because she''s in panic. "Be patient alright? Already calling ''father''? I hope you keep it that way." Rose just knocked me on the head. "Tell me already!" "So, our father said:" Ouch. Another hit. "...The helmet willpletely cut off the connections between your brain and the other parts in your body, including those autonomic nerves that control your breath and heartbeat. The designers already thought about the possibility when some of the content in the game might over-stimte the yers and cause negative effects. So they simply set up aputer to control your nerves, and return the control back to you when you exit the game safely. So you don''t have to worry about anyone having a heart attack and such." "I still don''t feel good!" Rose held Red Moon up. "She''s out cold. I don''t want to give her a mental scar. This was how she acquired acrophobia right?" "...I''m not sure about that." I spoke to Lucky: "Find a clean water source and bring us down." "On it." Luckynded towards a giantke. We carried Red Moon to theke and wiped her face withke water. No reactions. "Okay. Lemme try it." I raised her up and threw her into theke, which caused Rose to scream. "What are you doing???" "Argh-*cough* You jerk!!" It worked. Red Moon jumped onto thend so fast as if theke water is boiling. "You AHHH---" She fell back again. "Pfff. That should teach you not to get in my way again." I turned to Rose. "Let''s go." She looked back at the now wet Red Moon who just crawled back ashore. "Let''s take her. I don''t see any city around, she''ll lose her way. She doesn''t have any scrolls on her right?" "Lose her way? Sounds good to me." I huffed. "So I''ll never see this nuisance again." "Come on. Pleeeeeease." Rose shook my arms. Ugh, I can''t resist those kitten eyes. "Ok ok my good Rose!" I switched back to my angry tune and spoke to Red Moon. "Get on." Red Moon peeked at Lucky in horror and shook her head. "NOT AGAIN!!" "Geez fine!" I summoned Night Shade. "Come on, get on!" "I-I don''t know how to ride horse!" "For the love of--" I waved my hand. "Phantom! Get her. And Red Moon, rx, don''t resist." Phantom controlled her body and hopped onto Night Shade skillfully. After a while she recovered from all the scares. She began to check around Night Shade with curiosity. While Night Shade is quite annoyed. "...Can you not touch me like that?" "You can speak?" She began to fiddle with Night Shade''s ears like a little girl! Night Shade looked at me with all the annoyance I can see from his expression. "Hey you! Where the hell did you find this thing on my back?" I nced at Red Moon. "Picked up by ident." Then Night Shade asked in a mocking tune: "By ident? So you won''t mind if I break it by ident eh?" "Break?..." I see Red Moon totally unable toprehend what we are talking about. "I guess not." "Where are we heading?" Night Shade asked. "The Lost City." "Kay. Find me there." He dashed away at the speed of wind. I can hear a faint scream from his direction. Rose didn''t hear our conversation so she asked in surprise: "Where''s he going?" "Oh. He said we''re too slow so he went to the city by himself." "I...see." I patted at Lucky. "Let''s take the air too. He''s right, we should save some time." "Sure." Of course it''s faster to be flying but we still can''t catch up with Night Shade. I can only see a small ck spot disappearing from our view, with a trail of dust behind his path. As we finally arrived within the vicinity of the Lost City, we saw Hawk and Elfy as well as Night Shade. We nned to meet up at the city gate. Elfy is waving at us, Hawk is facing against the city wall, no idea what he''s doing. Red Moon is leaning over the railings near the bridge for some reason, and Night Shade is trotting around her as if he''s satisfied with something. Luckynded at the graveyard outside. The bridge is wide but is still inconvenient for his current size. Night Shade came running at us and helped us cross the bridge. Now I can see the scene: Hawk is inspecting the carvings on the wall, while Red Moon...is vomitting into the water. I looked at Night Shade. I''m sure he''s grinning. "What''s the deal?" "Oh nothing really. I was a bit too fast. It must have been a tough ride for her." Red Moon raised her head and looked at me weakly. "You...Even your horse is a stupid ruffian like you! I hate you! I hate you both! Gurrrrrr....!" She continued producing rainbows. Rose went over to her and patted on her back. "Ziri? You should be gentle to girls!" "I''m always gentle to girls!" I y dumb. "Am I not to you? Or...do you think I should be more, rough, from now on?" Rose didn''t say anything this time but Elfy gave me a knock. "Oh shut it! Don''t teach any wrong idea to MY husbando here!" She looked at Hawk, who quickly shook his head. "Nonono, I''ll always follow my dear waifu''s orders!" A palm-sized angel appeared near Red Moon, carrying a small camera on her shoulder. Well, that''s not a monster, it''s a video tool in [Zero]. Everyone is free to chat with each other but you need to buy the video tool to use the rted additional features. The toolse with various models and sizes. By the way, mine is a cartoonized bee carrying a camera on a fishing pole. A voice came from Red Moon''s camera. "Master! Finally! Where have you been? What happened? You just, disappeared in front of us! We thought you were blown away by the wind but we never found you. Then we can''t send you private chat because the system said you are unconscious! Then something about ''extreme conditions'', and ''severe illness''! What in the world happened to you?" Red Moon nced at me with a...wicked grin. Okay, something is not going to end well. I can feel it. She managed to squeeze up some real tears and began to cry in front of the camera. "Take this video to my brother! Waaah! I''m kidnapped! That Ziri took me to some strange ce and I can''t get away now!" She filmed at theke under the bridge, which is giving out creepy green bubbles. "See that? Help me! He''s mean! Noooo he''sing again! No, please! I''m not calling for help--" She shook her camera while screaming. It''s obvious what she''s up to. I hear a lot of angry voices from her chat. "ZIRI! Let our master go now or you''ll really regret it!!" I tried to take her camera away so she won''t be ruining my reputation further. But she took the chance to make a scene as if I''m seizing her camera by force. Now I can never clean myself up! Red Moon took the camera away from her angel and tossed it into theke. Then she shouted into her voice chat: "Oh no! He broke my favorite camera! Help me!! Ahh! Don--don''t pull my clothes!" Oh fuc it! I look like a universal pervert now! Next she cut all her chat and looked at me with a victorious expression. "That''s what you get when I''m angry. Humph!" "So you really want to make me condemned by everyone?" I gave her a stern face. "No one rejects my offer. You''re the first one and will be thest one! From now on you will always be the worst hentai out there as long as I don''t tell the truth. Our Goddess Alliance and the Righteous League will be looking for you! You won''t be ying this game even if you can get your name white again!" So she''s serious. Fine. I turned back to Rose. "You have research work to do right?" She nodded. "Go. Sorry I can''t give you ride today, just call father for a car. Take care." "Ziri!..." She took back whatever she was going to say, since she knows I won''t listen to her when I''m mad for real. She just handed the bracelet back to me and logged off. Next, I looked towards Hawk and Elfy. "I owe you two big this time, but it''s not really a good time to thank you, let''s find another chance. There''s a valley behind the city, the monsters are good targets for leveling up. You can find strong monsters deeper inside. Oh and, keep away from any dark fighters and simr monsters. They act in groups, you won''t stand a chance against those guys." They can see the situation and just nodded and ran away as fast as they could. So there are only two of us here... I slowly walked towards Red Moon and began to undress myself, which caused Red Moon to step back. "What what what are you doing??" I didn''t stop my actions. "You''ve already told the whole world that I''m a big viin, looks like I''m never going to clear that out. I''m going to carry this made-up crime anyway...so why not I just make it real? I mean, I can''t just earn that title without...enjoying my privilege." Red Moon is so scared that her voice sounds funny now. "Don''t-you-don''t you dare! I''m the leader of Goddess Alliance! We have more members than you think!!" "Leader of Goddess Alliance? Just about right. I''m curious about what makes a goddess different from normal women!" "Noooo...Ah!....!" -------------------- Oh don''t worry. The author is not going to write about "explicit" stuff. Chapter Book 4 - 13 – Tail Book 4, Chapter 13 Tail ------------------ Sorry but, I don''t know what this title means. ------------------ "No! Ah....!" Red Moon moved back in horror. Of course I won''t stop my movement. "Come on. Cry! Louder! This is the worst red-name zone, only the most terrible criminals woulde here! No one will help you no matter how you try! If anyonees they will be as bad as myself! Haa-hahaha! I tried to imitate a viinugh. My n is to force her into triggering that female protection mechanism so she would get sent to a nearby city, which means I can finally get rid of this troublesome woman without her realizing that I''m letting her go on purpose. Ha! I''m a genius. "Now now dear, you''d better not resist..." I approached her while carrying a wicked smile. I pulled on her robe. She struggled but didn''t use the protection--she isn''t trying to teleport either of us away. She didn''t even use any wizard powers but is just pushing me with her weak fists. Does she want to escape at all?? No I can''t go on like this. Time for my ultimate move--I pinched her face into facing me head-on and began to move us closer. I stopped after several seconds. I tried to push us as slow as possible but obviously I can''t prolong this movement forever, since we were pretty near from the start. Now our lips are only about a millimeter away. She stopped her struggling when she realized what I''m trying to do. The problem is, she closed her eyes and rxed as if she''s waiting for it! So now I either have to keep going and make the kiss, or drop her down to break her ego. The choice is obvious. I released my grip. Red Moon lost support and crash-sat on the ground. The pain on the bottom caused her to open her eyes. I''m re-equipping my armor. She stood up and...went towards me? "What are you doing??" "Oh, I just found that you aren''t very attractive. So...I gave up!" "But but but--" "No buts. Or are you actually hoping I would bust you right here?" I finished my equipment and hopped onto Night Shade. "I apologize for bringing you here, and I won''t be using for what you did today anymore. You can leave." I asked Night Shade to leave the city gate. Then I felt a weight behind me. I turned back to check-- "How did you get here again??" "By jumping, duh." Red Moon is looking at me with a big smile. "Ugh! Please, miss, can you leave me alone?" I took off my bracelet. "I''m never going near any system cities from now on. Come on, you can take it. Now do me a favor and let me y my game!" "No!" She smile again, an evil smile. "I''m following you, so you''ll always be a terrible kidnapper, every time someone see you they''ll just try to take you down right away. I never let my enemies go for free. You''re no exception!" "Sigh. So you will stick no matter how?" I failed to suppress the hint of threatening in my voice. "Yes I will!" She just nods. "Lucky!" I don''t believe she dares to go through so more aerobatic shows. "Ah, where are we going?" She jumped onto Lucky first! I un-summoned Night Shade and climbed on. Now I just need to keep going with my n. "Let''s fly. Higher this time." "Sure." Lucky kept going up until I began to feel faint myself. I wonder what kind of fear I would bring her. The first move, is our signature barrel roll which was pretty effective. I forgot how many rounds we went through. The only thing I knew is that Lucky was a little dizzy himself, as he told me. Red Moon just hang on tightly on Lucky''s back spike without giving out anything I would expect. So that failed. I got more tricks though! I''m going to throw her off and catch her before she reaches the ground again. That should be frightening enough. I went over the scene where Red Moon would scream like a kid in my mind while walking towards her. She noticed my terrible expression. "...What are you nning?" I didn''t say a word. I just held her up by force and walked to the edge. "Enjoy the principle of gravity!" I threw. However! She managed to catch my armor which caused me to lose bnce as well. Now we''re both falling down! Why is this happening to me?? "Luuuuucky heeeeelp!" I asked him to fly particrly high just to scare Red Moon harder, now I hit my own feet with it! It seems Lucky didn''t hear myst call at such height, he didn''t even notice two people have gone off his back. I need to think of something! I''m dead for sure if I reach the ground like this. Maybe summon another flyingpanion? No. I need to give them orders using words, and if I summon anyone now they will be out of hearing range before I can say anything. Right, my wing des. I can fly on myself! They can''t help me fly such high up, but I can still use them to keep a better bnce, instead of rolling over like a broken doll. The problem is still this stupid girl who is hanging on my back tightly. I can''t open my wings like this! Herst action is to hold onto something out of instinct, and that something is me! Now I know why you need to knock out someone you want to save in the water before you actually try to reach for them! This is what happens if you don''t--they''ll drag you to hell along! Wait, knock her out? Maybe I can make her release me if I stun her. ...But I can''t! She''s BEHIND me, I can reach her head but there''s no way I can hit her hard enough in such a position. I need tools. Yes, I need to hit her using something with long reach, like a stick. In the end I decided to take my sword sheath off my waist and use this thing as a staff. The handle part can easily act as as hammer. So how much force do I use? I don''t like her, but that''s no reason for me to crack a girl''s head open. Argh why is this soplicated?? I don''t have time. I can already see the mothernd reaching for me at an rming speed. Well, the other way round! Oh Fuc it. I''d rather leave a big bump on your head than dying with you anyway. I smashed her head with the most proper strength I can think of. There is a muffled BAM. Hope I don''t damage her brain or cause some mental issues. I know I seeded because her screaming stopped. I struggled only to find my terrible fate didn''t let me free yet. I did knock her out but she''s still locked up on my back. Her body is still following thest order from her brain, which is grabbing onto thest straw no matter what happens. And she''s going to kill that st straw" at this rate! "AHHHHGH!" I''m done! Screw this damn woman! She won''t leave me alone and now she''s going to pull me to death! Worst day ever! ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Not far below us, is the most famous leveling site outside the Cold Jadeite, and thousands of people are witnessing our fall. A warrior is sitting together with a pretty female archer. The warrior pointed at the sky. "Hey look, a shooting star!" "Wow really!" They leaned close to each other. "I never knew we can find shooting stars in this game. It''s beautiful!" Somewhere else, a small team is taking a break from their grinding campaign. A warrior shouted. "Boss, I see a shooting star over there." A berserker looked up. "Ohh wow. Now this game''s more realistic than I think." A priestess spoke: "Maybe it''s a hidden quest! We should check it out." "Nah forget it. You know how hard those quests can be, we''ll just wipe in an instant. Stay patient and let''s get some more levels first!" ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I''m trying to look at ournding point using my Star Gaze. I can clearly see five people just below us. That''s...five ninjas! And the one standing in the middle is that Chinese-Japanese mix I saw the other day. They don''t look like a team. The other four ninjas are attacking the one I know. What the hell? They are fighting among themselves? Though that''s nothing I should be worrying about now, cause I''m heading down towards them! The one in the middle noticed me first, then the other four all followed his gaze. But the mixed ninja has already dashed away before the other realized what''s going on. He got down to the ground and covered his head and ears. Shit. I''m not a carpet bomb or something. Do you really have to do that?? ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Razor (name of the mixed ninja) is in the middle of the fight when he saw something falling down from the sky. A human, actually. He''s already losing, so he did hope that whoever it is can be his helper. But he soon noticed that...maybe that''s not a proper way tond. So he decided to get out of the dangerous zone and dropped to the ground. Ka-BOOOM! He felt a shock wave going over his back. He thought the danger is gone when he tried to get up. But he was showered by a bunch of broken equipment pieces and ... fallen human parts. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I watched as I crashed into the ground. The impact caused me to lose conscious for a while, though not very long. Now this is no football match so I''m not gonna earn any points by this "touch down". But...my EXP and Evilness increased! I brought a dust cloud into the air, plus some random unknown flying objects mixed inside it. The whole scene looks like a missile just exploded inside a crowd. Yes, I see the human parts as well. "Uhhhh..." Red Moon groaned, still on my back. I opened my wings in thest moment and became a damping cushion for her. She''s still hurt, badly. She realized she''s sitting on me and rolled aside. She''s in no condition to stand up though. I hit the ground first but my condition is actually better, since I''m wearing full Artifact armor here. This thing is way stronger than her paper wizard robe. It took some effort for me to pull my hands out of the ground. Inded limbs-first, and they stuck solid into the dirt like wooden construction stakes. I struggled to get up on me feet, only to find there are two other people under me! Aha, so I''m not the bottom. Someone else is even more unfortunate. We caused a small meteorite crater where wended. No, not quite, since there are two human-shaped hollows that really stand out. I needed to use mynce to pry the two "volunteers" out of the dirt. They turned out to be two ninjas from that small group. "Thanks mate. But I''m not paying you. I didn''t ask for your help anyway." They wouldn''t mind me saying that at all because they''re already dead cold. "A little help here!" Red Moon yelled. "What now?" "Pull me up!" I held her straight so she can try to move her waist. She recovered after a some cricks and cracks. "Better. My bones were in the wrong ces." "Find a tree and rest. I see someone alive over there. I''m go check." I released her without waiting for answer. She fell on her hips again. "Oof!" I walked to the yer who''s still lying on his stomach. It''s a ninja too, the one who was attacked by the others. He bounced up when I tried to flip him over. "WHO ARE YOU??" He looked at me with horror in his eyes. "Calm it." I raised my hands (in front of my chest, not over my head). "Just checking if you''re alive or not." He stepped back with caution. "Did you see the four people who''s been attacking me?" I pointed at the mess around us. "You mean these. Oh and, Another two, at the bottom over there." "But you were---" He pointed upwards, then at me, with his mouth agape. "Eh, heheh. It''s just, an air ident." "I thought you were some helper who came to save me!" He put his katana behind his back. Seems he believed me. "If I''m a Chinese yer I would just help kill the other four, then finish off thest one. Now you''re strange." "Save you? Huh. I wouldn''t y skydiving like that without a parachute! As for killing you, yeah it''s totally legit, considering where you are. Because that''s what most yers will do--eliminate Japanese invaders in the fastest way possible." I picked up my sword from the ground. The ninja immediately drew his katana again. I waved it, showing him that it''s still sheathed. "Oh don''t worry, I was using it as a hammer--- Ow!" I turned around. "What the fuc??" As expected, Red Moon is standing behind me, with one hand rubbing her head and another hand holding her staff, which is probably the weapon she used to hit my head just now. "So YOU were the one who hit me! I thought I bumped my head on the ground!" "You asked for it! Had I not knock you like that to get you off myself we''d already be in the resurrection hall now!" "I don''t care! You hit me and you should apologize for it! Join our guild!" "Oh for the-- Please please my gooddy, forget it already! That''s not how you recruit people!" "Well I''m not forcing you! I''m negotiating!" How is she still acting as if she''s the justified one?? I saw ament somewhere and now I believe it: Women are likeputers, no one ever knows how their brains function, except for their producers (their parents)! "You call that negotiating?? Then ''forcing'' doesn''t exist in this world anymore!" "You---!" Her gaze suddenly shifted towards behind me. "An intruder!!" She pushed me aside. "Outta way! [Floating Thunder]!" A lightning ball went from her hand towards the ninja, who obviously didn''t have enough time to make out the situation and took the attack head-on. He''s now bouncing on ground like a Magikarp using "Ssh", which is of course, not effective. I just recalled Red Moon is the second ce on the ranking list in China region. That''s was impressive. She threw that spell without taking much time to prepare. Why didn''t she use anything like this when she was fighting with me? The ninja is still numbed by the electric attack but he managed to bring out his katana. I think this ss has really high Dexterity, wizards will have a hard time hitting him at all once he starts moving. I was wrong. Red Moon crossed her arms. "[Fire st]!" Whooopm! The ground below the ninja''s feet began to erupt mes like a volcano. He evaded aside but the ming crater followed him as if it''s alive. He ran around for a while before he realized he needs to take care of Red Moon who''s actually controlling the fire pit. The ninja put away his kanata and jumped high up. "Ninpo! [Doton]!" Poof. He disappeared into the ground like water. A bump began to slide towards Red Moon with high speed. The ninja jumped out of the dirt in front of Red Moon, who activated her wizard shield in time but was still knocked back for some distance. She crouched and pressed both her hands on the ground. "Fire converge, [Burning Sky]!" Countless fireballs and me pirs appeared and began to fly around everywhere. I realized what''s happening and dodged around together with the ninja, or I''ll be barbecued meat too! The ninja used his skill and went underground again. Now the whole scene is total chaos, with raising dirt bumps here and there plus all kinds of fire attacks dancing all over our heads. This is wasting my time! "STOP IT!!" I yelled. Allpanions and servants came out, including Lucky, who''s still flying somewhere just a moment ago. "Get these two under control!" "Yes sir!" Everyone answered in unite. Phiona reached her original size, all the mes began to fly towards her and then absorbed. The burnings immediately died out. Then the ground shook violently. Rosa pushed the ninja out with a strong vine strike. The ninja still tried to escape, but a series of tentacles blocked his path, before the Phantom Knights locked up his neck using theirnces. "Now that''s a lot better." Chapter Book 4 - 14 – Ninja (Made in China) Book 4, Chapter 14 Ninja (Made in China) ------------------ Hate content alert I''ll try to mitigate harsh words best as possible but some improper stuff in the main story can''t be avoided. ------------------ "Put me down!!" Rosa is holding Red Moon up in the air by one of her ankles. She can''t shake herself free with that upside down position. I released that ninja first. "Come on. You can go." He collected his weapon but didn''t leave. He just stared at me. "You aren''t going to kill me?" "Why would I? That''s a strange request." "I''m a ninja!" "Of course you are. Do you think I''m blind?" I pointed at his equipment. "You still let me go?" "That''s nothing to do with your ss. Or do you wish to die actually?" I ordered Rosa to capture him again. "I wouldn''t mind giving you a little help." "Nononono!" He shook his head like mad. "It''s just...Aren''t Chinese yers just gonna kill a Japanese ninja on sight? Especially someone strong like you. You don''t hate Japanese?" "Listen, I don''t care where you from. I''m practical, I look for benefit. Killing you means bringing myself another enemy but without any rewards, so I won''t do that. You are not trying to do anything to me right? Then there''s no point wasting my time here. Mind you, I don''t like Japan either because what they did to us before. You''d better run if you see me on your ownnd or I''ll not hesitate to kill you." "But I''m not a Japanese! My name is Razor, I live here!" "Ah don''t worry. I said I won''t kill you now and I meant it. It''s not like I''m going to stab you in the back or something." I turned back to Red Moon. Razor caught up from behind. I heard the sound of de being drawn. The guy wants to go dirty?? I immediately turned around and readied my w des, but I stopped. He''s pointing the katana handle towards me. "What''s that for?" "Take this de, please." I didn''t move. "It''s your weapon. Why?" "It''s one of the Nation Treasures of Japan, [Rin Ray], the straight sword (*). It was a lot of effort for me to take this thing back here!" I can''t resist the curiosity and took the weapon in my hands. "There are many problems here." "Problems?" "Ok first, what do you mean ''Nation Treasure''? I only know about Artifacts or simr ranks. First time I heard about this kind of treasure. Next, they haven''t opened international travel routes right? How did you bring a Japanese weapon here? And, I think you said you''re Chinese before. Then however did you be ninja?" "Those are simple. I''ll tell you about thest question first. I was born in Japan but moved here when I was a year old, with my grand parents. At that time my identity belonged to Japan. Now I''m already applying for Chinese citizenship but it haven''te through yet, when I started this game I used my Japan ID so I can choose ninja as a ss. I was hoping to bring the knowledge of this ss to other yers here so they can learn about it. Now, the second question. I went back to Japan to visit my parents the other day so my character moved along. You can''t travel between countries yet but moving in real life will still affect where you spawn. That''s all you can do though, you can''t actually start a war in this way, but you CAN try to send a spy or something if you really want to. When I was there I happened to see a guild fighting with a boss monster. I snatched the treasure away when they''re not noticing!" He pointed at the de. "As for Nation Treasure, I just heard about it recently. To prepare for nation wars, they gave two sets of Nation Treasures to each country. The treasure is actually a equipment set, designed for nation wars. Two nation sets already got exposed in Japan. One of them is called the ''Invisible Ninja'', which gives you super powerful hiding skills and some insane Dexterity bonus. The other is a Channeler set, it lets you revive corpses on the battlefield andmand them to fight for you. No one knows how many you can control yet. This sword is a part of that ninja set. Now I brought it here so Japanese yers are never going to wear it in full." That sounds interesting. I examined the sword carefully. Its appearance is just an ordinary eastern style katana, but a bit longer then average. The attributes...are not really impressive. [Rin Ray], straight sword, Attack 400-480, Attack Speed: Very Fast, 100-200 additional Lightening damage, 100% chance to causeceration, Amplified damage, Targets hit will have all their attributes reduced by 20%. Set bonus: invisible weapon, attacks do not cause pain. It''s powerful, but not THAT powerful. The main feature of this thing is invisibility, and now Japanese yers have to find another weapon. So if I see a weapon floating in the air in the future, someone''s probably wearing the remaining parts of the Invisible Ninja set. This is fun. Now those Japs gonna worry about this weapon in their sleep! "Why don''t you use such a good weapon then? You''re a ninja yourself you know." I looked at the young man in doubt. Now I can''t understand what he''s thinking about. "They chased me all the way here! I''d be in serious trouble if I carry this thing around!" He seems reluctant to give up the treasure. "You saw those four guys? They came just for me. They followed me to China in real life to get this weapon. I heard their leader''s nning to bring even more high level yers soon!" "Crap. Just for a sword?" "Just for a sword?? It''sbeled 2.5 million Crystals on the Japanese market!" (**) "That''s...a lot of money. Why don''t you just sell it back then?" "Ha. I wouldn''t have gone though all the trouble to bring it here if I just want money for it! I don''t need money anyway. There''s something I don''t like about Japan so I decided to take it away." "My respects man. Now I trust I can see you as a fellow yer here, despite of your half foreign blood." I stretched my hand. "I''m Ziri. Nice to meet you." He shook my hand. "It''s not half, just a quarter. My grandpa is a born Chinese too." Alright. There''s no doubt I''ll run into tons of ninjas when I go to Japan, should I recruit this guy? He seems friendly enough, and he knows all about ninjas. His weaknesses are the weaknesses of every ninja! "Will you follow me if I''m to do bad things to Japan?" "What kind of bad things?" "Well, smash their stuff, kill some people and maybe burn their buildings." "I''d love it! I''m nning to go over there and cause damage from the start. I chose ninja because of this reason, they''ll never suspect me as a spy!" I gave him the sword. "I know a ce where you can try to get some EXP. And take this thing, they won''t find you there." "They will!" Heined. "This weapon ranks second on the Japanese weapon ranking list. That list will always disy the weapon''s owner and his current location. The game is big, how do you think those people find me so easily? I give it to you because I think you can protect it. And you can fly right?" He pointed at my wings. "Ninjas can''t fly so they can never catch you." That reminds me...There are many different rankings in China as well. The thing is, my Hermit''s Ring hides my name from them. Or I''m pretty sure every list except for the level one would have been showing my name all over them. "But how do you grind without a weapon?" "Oh. I have this one." He took out another katana behind his back. "My original weapon. Weaker of course but I can still use it." "So where are you going now?" "Find somewhere to grind. Let''s go have some fun in Japan when nation war is open!" "Wait, I''ll take you to my friends. I got someone with me who also n to do that. You''ll level faster than doing it alone." "Nice! Some teammates, that''s what I''m hoping for." "Give me a moment." I contacted Hawk and Wayne, asking them to meet me at the gate of the Lost City. They are all not far from there. And even if someone''s far I just ask Lucky as transport. We won''t have any travel problems with thisrge sized rotorcraft around. We met as scheduled. Razor almost went into a fight with Hawk the moment they met, if I didn''t drag them apart fast enough. I exined a lot but Hawk is still looking at Razor with a weird expression. After some introductions I began to exin my main topic. "I''m here to tell you one thing: I''m going over to Japan and do some nasty business to them when nation war system is open. Your opinions?" Hearing this, Hawk started to inspect Razor up and down again, trying to find anything suspicious. "I''m in." Elfy is decisive as ever. "I don''t like them. Let''s go kill someone and get their stuff, that means we get profit AND have fun. Two birds with one stone." Hawk followed up. "No objections here. Of course I''ll tag along." Wayne: "Take me if you don''t mind I''m not really a good fighter. I can''t give up this online war this time!" Yuri raised her hand too. "I''ll go too! Granny told me Japanese are bad people. My skills are useful, you can keep me safe for three minutes and then do whatever you want!" She confused everyone. The only people who witnessed her skills before are Wayne and me. "Yuri, they don''t know what you can do yet. y a song for these guys." "Of course!" She took out her silver flute and began her performance. All the listeners enjoyed the great music for several full minutes before they finally realized they can''t move their bodies! "What''s happening??" Elfy struggled. "I''m stuck!" "Surprise! This is Miss Yuri''s special attack. She''s a hidden ss, the Spell Flute. Her skills are these music with all kinds of effects. The one you just heard is used to restrict people''s movement. Those with simr levels will be frozen for about 7 or 8 minutes. If she keeps ying you will never move again." I picked up Red Moon who''s been following me all this time (now like a ster statue), and put her onto Lucky''s back. "Go. Come down after some minutes." "Alright!" Lucky disappeared into the sky while carrying the helpless Red Moon. I turned back to the others. "Now the trouble is gone, let''s continue. Razor, you said you would join right? Everyone has agreed." There''s no need to ask him again, I''m just making sure that the other people can ept him since we all have a same goal now. His ninja ss makes it really hard for people to trust him. "Of course I''ll join. As a Chinese yer." Hawk looked consented after he heard that. Though I don''t think he trusts Razor enough. "Next, let''s talk about ninjas." "Something special about them?" Elfy asked. "ording to Razor, this ss makes up a great portion of the Japanese yer poption. There will be a ninja in every five yers there. There are many optional sses in [Zero] and still, 20% of them are ninjas. That''s a lot! You may already know that this game ims to allow every yer to y their own favorite, customizable ss, so there can''t be a particr ss that too many yers choose. Example, Elfy is an Archer, it''s only a general concept and there are hundreds of sub-sses under it. Since there are lots of ninjas in Japan I think Razor can tell us something we should know about them. To know your enemies, as they say." Razor stepped front. "A Ninja, just like Archer, Warrior, Wizard, Tamer and such, is also a general title. Everyone can choose to be sub ss when they reach level 200. For a Warrior, he or she can be a Shielder, Lancer, Bow Fighter, Berserker and so on. Ninja too, has many further sub sses. My current level is 379, and my direction is der Ninja. This ss usually has very high Attack Speed. My Attack is lower than most people but I can deal ten cuts when my enemy only makes one! My choice is not a major trend. Most people will choose from these four: Jutsu Master, Tool Master, Cloaking Master and sh Ninja. Jutsu Master is the ninja version of Wizard. They use all kinds of ''Jutsu'' just like spells, they possess the highest damage abilities among all other ninjas. But they''re the easiest to kill. Their Speed and Defense are average and their HP is usually very low. As long as you are careful enough about their attacks, they won''t cause much trouble. A Tool Master uses concealed weapons to attack. They''re like Archers. Main weapons includes darts, blowpipes, mini crossbows and simr trick weapons. But they''ll also carry melee weapons like chain des and daggers. Their main role is distraction--they don''t have much power, so they can''t kill you as long as you don''t expose your weakness first. Next, the sh Ninja. Well, they are fast, really fast. Their movement and attack speed can usually go beyond the reasonable degree. They''re troublesome, but shouldn''t be hard to deal with if you keep your defenses up. One thing to note is that they''re a nightmare for Archers because arrows can''t hit them. That''s why they always go straight to enemy long range damagers. They can still kill Archers easily even if their own Attack is poor. Wizards don''t really have to worry about them cause they can''t break through their mage shield. And some AoE skills can be deadly to them. As for Warriors...Well no sh Ninja is stupid enough to take on a Warrior head on. They avoid melee dps whenever they can. Cloaking Master...is the most nasty one among the four. Each of their attribute can be a bit higher than average. I mean, they''re not fast but at least they are faster than wizards and warriors. Their Defense is not high but is still tougher than Wizards and Archers. Just like that. The problem is they can go invisible. People say that a high level Cloaking Master can move and attack without causing any noise, and they won''t leave any traces either, like, footprints. There''s no way to detect them unless you can hit them with an area attack. The good part is that there aren''t many of them in Japan because monsters can sniff them out, so it''s really hard for them to level up without their only advantage. Few people would choose this ss. Apart from Ninja, there''s another featured ss in Japan called Channeler. They''re like those Necromancers who can manipte corpses, a lot of them!" Wayne cut in: " As a Spectral Mage I can control corpses too. I can just summon all the corpses on the field and then make them disappear, so Channeler is no threat for me. A corpse rots beyond use after it''s controlled once. I can make sure there are no corpses lying around for them." Razor looked at Wayne: "It''s always good to have professionals in the team. Alright, that''s all I know. What''s the n now?" "Do we go level up now?" Yuri asked. "We need to get more levels if we are to invade another country." "Before that, I need to go visit a city. I haven''t go inside cities for ages!" Hawk pointed at the sky. "What about that missy up there? You''re the number one criminal plus kidnapper in the whole country! You''re not nning to take a walk on the street like that, right?" "That''s why I must go now! Before more people know about it!" Yuri asked: "I always wanted to ask... Who''s thatdy? I think you hate her." "Hate? More than hate! I think she''s the most devilish being out there. Now I know why you don''t judge a book by the cover! I became the top pervert in the game because of her false usations!" "Pervert? Hahaha! You?" Yuriughed. "I''ll pass today, got to leave. Maybe tomorrow!" "Oh, it''s prettyte I see. Then you guys should rest early. Let''s make a schedule and have some fun in the city next time." Razor: "Yeah, I never actually went into any cities, since I''m a Ninja and all. It should be no problem if we all go together. I''m itching to see what those Chinese cities look like!" "So I''m not the only one expelled!" I eximed. "Let''s make it up tomorrow. So when do me meet? Can you all get up early? I never sleep in you know." "I always sleep in!" Wayne said. "Me too." Elfy followed. "Girls need enough sleep to keep their image!" "I see. Let''s make it 10 o''clock then. You should all be awake by that time. Let''s meet up right here, do whatever you want if you get on earlier than that." "It''s settled!" Everyone agreed. I feel faint when I took off my helmet. Now I think about it, I never had any lunch today! "Wayne? Hey Wayne!" "What?" "Let''s eat out." Rose is needed at thebs and she won''t be back till night. "You finally remembered me. Aren''t you going to have your happy hours with your wife?" He joked. I changed my tune. "Oh you''re right! Maybe I should go enjoy something at the Fortune Grand Hotel...with Rose only!" I can already see he fell for it. Over all the years, I know he never rejects hot girls and hot food. "Boss! I''m sorry! Please please take me with you!" His expression makes me worried that he might eat me up if I say no. "Go get dressed! Are you going to go out like this?" That was quite a feast. For Wayne at least. He ate until he can''t sit up anymore. Ugh, money is always a good thing to have. On our way back, he just limped slowly like a pregnant. I kept looking around for people and kept distance with him whenever there are people around. This is too embarrassing! It''s already dark when we finally made it. I hear my phone ringing inside the room. It''s dad. "Out ying at such an hour huh boy? At least remember to take your phone with you! Got time tomorrow?" Well that''s straight. Seems he got some more business for me. "I''m nning to y together with some friends. They are the people I found to help me with your infiltration n. Gonna socialize with them." "I see..." He thought about something. "What about after tomorrow?" "I can do it. So what do you need?" "A business trip!" "A trip? Ask an employee will you? I''m not your worker." "I have several business talks here and I don''t have more time on my schedule!" "Those managers in thepany are not just freeloaders right? Why me?" "This job has somepany secrets involved, the only ones I trust are all busy! You''re the only choice left." "Well shoot. I''ll do it. But don''t forget the rules!" I grinned. This is a special term between me and father. If he asks for my help he''ll need to agree on something I ask, as long as it''s reasonable. "Sure. Go to our secretb in the morning the day after tomorrow. It''s the one you went with Charonst time." "Got it, I''ll be there." ---------------------- (*) Japanese Straight Sword (**) ¡Ö $ 3.65 million Chapter Book 4 - 15 – Inside the Grand City Book 4, Chapter 15 Inside the Grand City ------------------ I appeared at the gate of the Lost City the next morning. Everyone arrived except for Yuri. Rose woulde too but both of us are red name, and the bracelet can only hide one person so she chose to go attend her research instead. Yuri showed up a bitter. We all moved out towards the city. Oh this gonna be fun. It''s a pity that Red Moon tailed me as well. Actually only me, Yuri and Razor are waiting to see the cities. The others have been to the ces countless times. I was trapped in the dungeon quest and then got red named. Yuri has been isted in that garden. And Razor is like a sting in everyone''s eyes, nobody would listen to him. He had no choice but to avoid any ces with dense crowds. Now finally, we can go enjoy ourselves! As our first destination, we chose one of the three biggest system cities--the Celestial City. The ce is quite eye-catching when we''re still a good distance far away. It''s 5 times as big as the Lost City, and I heard the city has two levels, the other half is underground! Really unimaginable. Such a huge city,es with its own dungeon vige! There''s no way to build something like that in real life. We see more and more yers as we get closer. Some small groups rush around for their own business, and some are simply enjoying the sunlight on the grass. [Zero] is not just a hack-n-sh mmorpg game. It got more yable content than anyone can imagine. To attract more yers, those developers tried very hard to copy all kinds of concepts from real life. There are many casual yers here who enjoy the game in ways other than fighting, such as hunting. Obviously you can''t carry a gun and shoot at animals as you like, but here, they get to hunt however they like. Many came to this game to realize their dreams too, such as climbing a high mountain. The game even set up some safe mountains without monsters on them, just for these yers. We saw a group of people sitting along the city moat, each holding a fishing rod in their hand. There''s a g beside them, the...Angler''s Fishing Club? "What''s this?" I''m at loss. This is totally new to me. Wayne exined: "They are non-fighting yers who loves fishing. Normally you need to travel to watersides right? Well, you don''t have to do that here in the game. The only problem is you can''t actually fill your stomach in here, but no one cares! If you want to eat fish you buy them at the market. Those people simply enjoy the process." Yuri pointed at one of those people. "What''s that mark on their back? Their guild emblem?" Elfy: "No. That''s abat-free protection mark. People who don''t fight can go apply for thebat protection system, that''s when you get those marks on you. They can''t fight with us and we can''t do any damage to them either. They can choose to disable the mark if they want. You can switch that protection on and off how many times you wish but...you need to wait for a week to change your status, and each application costs quite a sum." "So they are invincible against any attacks!" Razor is surprised. "That''s a lot of advantage!" Hawk: "Not really. They''re invincible but they don''t have any damage either. They came here to enjoy their lives in another way. Ordinary yers usually don''t have any interactions with them." "Makes sense." Yuri nodded in understanding. "So they cannot fight, are there any other restrictions?" "Not that I can think of. They can usually open up a shop or something." Elfy continued. "Normal yers sometimes apply for this system to grind their side sses too. One of my cksmith friend just did it recently. He built a big weapon shop in the city so he can develop his forging skills!" "These developers are so creative. They actually merged some game systems like the SIMS in here." Razor eximed. "Let''s move! Into the city already!" Yuri urged us. I''m waiting to see the biggest city in the region too. The Celestial City also has a city moat but it''s not wide, not as big as the Lost City at least, so the stone bridge leading to the gate is rtively short. But the bridge is really broad in width--I would say it''s more than three times wider than the Lost City one. Understandable, since the Lost City acts as a fortress so it doesn''t need a wide bridge to increase its defense difficulty. The Celestial City on the other hand looks like amercial city, it needs to look good. We reached the gate after passing through the bridge. There are many NPC guards stationed under the three gateways. Three guards carrying broadswords stand on each side of the big middle gateway, while only one stands under the smaller, side gateways. I also see two riders watching the main gateway on their horses. Their equipment looks really shiny but...I don''t think these guys areing to the battlefield when there is an actual war. Our view opened up when we went through the gateway. The central road in front of us looks well maintained. There are many structures around us but they''re mostly low buildings without any fixed patterns or unified styles. Inparison, all buildings in the Lost City look like temples and some religious architectures. I like the look in there way better. Countless vendors are selling their stuff on the roadsides, either on the ground or on simple stands. "Are these NPCs or yers?" "Both." Hawk exined. "Those on the ground are yers, NPCs don''t do that. But those with stands or bars can be yers too. You can''t see it from here." I scouted the area and wow, that''s tons of stuff. I don''t even know what most of the items are used for. "How do you use these? Or, are they usables at all?" "Oh these." Elfy looked at the counter I''m pointing at. "Those are decorations. You can put them up on your house if you buy one." "House?" Me, Yuri and Razor asked in unite. Wayne: "Well didn''t I take you to my housest time?" "But why would anyone buy a house?" Razor asked. Wayne began to lift his finger one by one. "For many reasons. First, as a storage. You can also put your items into the bank but thates with a small service fee. Second... You regenerate your HP and MP several times faster when inside your own house. Next, as shelter. A private house is non-destroyable, and no one gets in if you don''t allow them to, no matter it''s police or city guard or city mayor or whatever. You can also sleep in there. Sleeping in your house grants you a better buff than sleeping outside. Private waterbeds and air cushions are also a lot cheaper than those in hotels and inns. Of course, the most important..." Wayne whispered into Razor''s ear. "You can do ''business'' with your girl in there without being seen." I looked at the dense buildings around us. "These are all private houses?" Wayne nodded. "They are. But don''t judge them from the outside. The spaces in there are individual and can be a lot smaller orrger than what you can see here. You can also set your preferred styles and patterns, or choose from existing ones if you''rezy." "Sounds good. But this is too crowded. It''ll be better if I can get a house outside the city." "You can." Wayne continued. "As long as you can pay for thend and the construction work, the system will build your house where you point. You can build them anywhere as long as it''s not any irrational ces like on top of water or inside volcanoes. But still, you''d better build one close to a city or you''ll have a hard time traveling around. There are some restrictions. First, houses outside cities cannot use virtual spaces, so the interior size equals to how big it is on the outside. Each yer can buy up to five field houses, each house can be norger than 50k square meters and the total size of five houses must be within 200k SQM. Each house can have two levels of basement below and six levels above, but house towers and cabins can reach all the way to the 10th level. A single level must be lower than 8 meters, while the whole building cannot go beyond 50 meters, basement not included. As long as you follow these lines you can design your house however you like, or ask the system to make one for you. If you can make the full payment in one go for both thend fee and construction fee, you get 10% off. Or you must pay 30% of the money as down payment, and at least 10% each following month if you go hire." When he finished he found us all staring at him with our mouths open. "...I don''t know, are you their salesman or something?" I joked. Wayne though, answered in surprise: "How did you figure that out? I have a quest here asking me to sell 10 vi houses. I mean non-city houses. If I can finish the quest they''ll give me one for free!" Everyone rolled their eyes. I didn''t show it but I''m actually interested in a field house now. It will feel nice if I can build a home somewhere! "What are they doing? The crowd over there." Yuri dragged on my clothes. "Let''s go see it Ziri!" "Uhm. Alright!" I saw it too. Curious. We squeezed across the crowd and found a yer sellingpanion eggs on the ground. Most people around are nonbat yers, which means they mainly raisepanions as pets, so low-levelpanions with cute looks are well epted here. Yuri picked up a samplepanion--a bunny with really long ears---and stroked its fur. "She''s adorable!" Elfy picked another one. "Indeed. Too bad I will need apanion who can help me fight." The vendor turned to Elfy. "Oh pardon medy, but there is an auction center in the middle of the city. The very firstpanion auction sale across thend will be held thereter today. You can go have a look." "Really?" Elfy jumped. "Let''s go!!" Elfy dashed ahead while we followed her behind. For some reason I can see quite a lot of people gesturing at us. I approached Wayne. "Why are those people pointing at us?" Wayne looked around. "Huh really... I don''t know." Hawk and Razor joined us, while Razor asked in worry: "Is it because of me again? Oh no..." Hawk looked at him. "I''d say so, with that look of yours." Red Moon nudged between us. "Ohe on idiot. Look at what you''re wearing for god''s sake! And look what the others are wearing! Are you blind?" She spoke that aloud. I gave her an angry look. "Don''t give me that look. I''m talking about you! Hawk and Elfy are just beyond standard, but yours are beyondmon sense! Look at yourself, all ck, and shiny, and is that an antenna on your head?" She pointed at the horn on my helmet. "Those wings! Can you at least try to hide them? Now everyone knows you can fly, rich boy!" She was pretty true but I''m still getting annoyed in the way she said that. She didn''t stop though. "How about you call your eye-catching horse and ride on the road? That''s will draw more attention, mister." I summoned Night Shade in frustration. "As you wish!" I intentionally tried to make the scene showy. "Get on. The city is big. It''s too slow to run." "But...we don''t have enough horses?" Yuri asked. Elfy waved her hand. A snow-white pegasus wearing silver barding appeared, which caused a lot gasps from the bystanders. "I logged on too early this morning so I took it and went for some grinding. Now it''s grown enough. So, with Ziri''s mount and Sunshine, we have three horses. Oh, we have seven people? Now that''s a little..." I jumped onto Night Shade and gave orders. "Razor, you take pegasus with Wayne. Elfy and Hawk take Sunshine as usual." Then I picked up Yuri and put her in front of me. "What about me??" Red Moon yelled from behind. I released my dragon cord and caught her wrist, then I tied the other end onto my saddle. "You walk!" We received even more nces along the way. Well, let them stare. They''re not doing it for any bad reasons anyway. Wayne is holding the bridle while Razor is standing straight on the pegasus'' back. He says he can see farther this way. The couple is riding on Sunshine as always, with Elfy sitting on Hawk''s shoulder. She''s almost as tall as Razor. I''m pulling on the bridle in one hand while keeping Yuri in front of me with the other hand. Red Moon is trying to get rid of her restrains, without any sess, so she can only get dragged in the back like a prisoner. Most people would get astonished by our bizarre group. I think the majority are just amused by how I''m dragging a beautiful girl behind a horse. But for now, no one stepped up to stop us. Probably because we look pretty strong. Red Moon mumbled all the way in the back. I can''t hear her clearly but I''m sure she''s cursing my family. Don''t care. You''re the one pestering me. Let''s see who loses patience first. We reached the auction center. Hawk asked me to go with him but I refused. "No, nono. You know mypanions are probably better than anything they may sell. Besides...I''m in the red now. I still owe someone over a hundred thousand Crystals! Even if I see anything good I won''t be buying it." Red Moon looked at the sky. "Humph! So a cheaptard was just acting rich!" I pulled on the cord in anger and dragged her close. "What did you say?" She didn''t repeat it but started to scream instead. "Help! I''m being assaulted! There is a pervert!" Damn it. This is the city center, tens of thousands of people are waiting to get into the auction zone. Now they all heard it. A crowd soon gathered around me. They aren''t doing anything yet but I''m afraid it will happen sooner orter. "Oi youngd, now you shouldn''t do that." An old man wearing thebat-free mark walked to me. "Do ya feel ashamed, harassing such a fine youngdy on the street?" Ok, there''s no way I can exin myself out of this. The circle is getting smaller. Someone is already reaching for their weapons. Yuri suddenly pulled off my helmet. "Stop it sisters! The auction is starting! Let''s get inside!" All people around looked between our faces and gave out an "Ohhhh!" before they scattered away. Someone''s still looking back but I don''t see aggression anymore. The old man said dly: "Ah, so it''s just twodies having fun. Sorry for that." "Oh don''t worry." I answered. "Your intention is good sir, and we should learn from you." I can still remember to respect the elders. After the scene cleared up we decided to split. Razor, Hawk, Elfy and Wayne will be attending the auction, while Yuri and I will visit somewhere else. Yuri''spanion slots are already full so there''s no point for her to buy any more. As for Red Moon...She won''t leave me alone. We are seeing around the streets so I un-summoned Night Shade. We first asked around for the entrance where we can reach the underground part. It''s a whole business street, everyone here is selling their merchandise. Yuri chose a grand-looking clothing store first. The owner is a slim, middle-aged gentleman. He came to us when we entered the door. "What''ll it be, my friends?" "Oh uh, first time we came to a store like this. Are these all equipments?" All these colorful garments don''t look like they can offer much protection. The owner smiled. "They''re decorative wears. You can equip them over your armors." I checked the des and spikes on my armor. "...Are they not gonna tear up if I wear them?" "Well, try it on!" He picked out a schr uniform and put it over me. It..pletely covered my armor outfit! The uniform doesn''t have a headwear but my helmet disappeared. The most important part is that the clothes suit me just fine, my broad armors didn''t puff it up as I expected. "Looking good, sir!" "Ohh this is neat!" I looked at myself in the mirror. "Now I don''t need to worry about getting salutes from people because of my equipment!" Yuri rushed to thedy''s section and began to dress up. They don''t even need a fitting room in here, you simply equip the clothes and it will fix on you. Red Moon was just having a staring contest with me but she''s now enjoying the dressing up with Yuri as well. Sigh. No girls can resist pretty clothes. Looks like they totally forgot about me so I chatted with the owner. "Will these clothes break up?" "Yes of course, or I''ll lose a lot of business! They''ll break after you''ve worn them for 500 to 1000 hours, depending on its price. Expensive ones break slower. You cane buy another one, or buy the same one you like as long as you remember the serial number." "So the Durability decreases over time? Will it break faster if I go intobat?" "Nope. It only wears with time, in a fixed speed. The attributes and durability of your original equipment still apply." "That sounds good!" I browsed over the stalls. A wizard robe caught my eye, I wonder if I can wear this thing to pass myself as a mage so I can y some dirty tricks on enemies. "How much is this one?" "This one?" He seems somewhat troubled. "This robe has some bonuses." "But I thought they''re merely decorative?" "Well, normally yes. But this one is special, and it is the only special one I ever sold." "What kind of bonus?" "Apart from hiding your equipment...There''s a [Demagogue] skill on it. But there''s no exnation about the skill. You sure you want to buy it?" "Why not? An extra skill isn''t a bad thing." "Well this stuff''s expensive!" He''s doubting me! "How much is it?" I''m already taking out my credit card. "Ten thousand Crystals." "What??" I dropped my card onto the floor. "No kidding? As in, 15k dors??" "Told you. Normal people don''t spend so much money on this kind of item. The price is determined by the system. I only sold two of them since the beginning of this game." Well this is embarrassing. I only have....7349 Crystals on me. But I already-- "Ziri! Oh? You want this robe?" I nod. Darn it they''re back. "I don''t think I have enough money though." Red Moon seized the chance. "Ah ha! Poor guy. Beg me and maybe I can lend you some money!" "Never. I''d rather go find a prostitute job than borrowing money from the likes of you." Yuri came up: "How much you need? I''ll pay it." "No, no. Now I shouldn''t do that." "Um, I haven''t thanked you for getting me out of that garden. I saved up something in there so I can just pay for you this time. But you''ll have to pay me back!" She giggled. "If you really don''t want to borrow my money for free, you can pay me some extra interestter." Ugh. Now I can''t refuse that. "Alright!" Arrrrgh I got myself even more debt now! I need to think up something to earn money real quick or I''d be in serious trouble if this keeps on. Chapter Book 4 - 16 – GET THE THIEF!! Book 4, Chapter 16 GET THE THIEF!! ------------------ We left the store. I noticed the area is even more popted now. "That''s a lot of people in this ce." I spoke. "Huh, you call that ''a lot of people''? You should trying here on a holiday, nerd." Ok. Red Moon loves bickering sooo much. "Where are we going now?" I asked Yuri. "There''re a lot more shops selling clothes or essories. Want to see them?" "Of course!" We walked deeper into the street. I can see much interesting merchandise along the way. The problem is, it''s bing harder to get around because of all the people. Someone bumped my shoulder. It''s a nice-looking youngdy. Nothing serious so I didn''t stop. But Yuri yelled beside me. "Ziri! Where''s your robe?" "Huh? What''s wrong?" I lowered my head, only to see my ck Dark Dragon Lord set on me. The robe I just bought is gone. Red Moon raised her voice as well. "Hey I can see your red name. Pshhh. It looks like a light bulb in here." "What??" I jumped. My bracelet has disappeared too! "Damn it! That woman is a pickpocket!" Red Moon is alreadyughing. "Bah-hahaha! You''re real idiot! You lost two items within a minute. That''s impressive!" I turned to Yuri. "You go ahead. I''ll go catch the thief!" Then I dashed towards the woman. She began to move faster when she noticed me. She keeps jumping around in the crowd, our distance is getting bigger! Man she''s fast! This won''t do. I summoned Night Shade. He can''t sprint in the crowd but it''s still better than running by myself. The woman is escaping even more faster when she saw my mount. I still can''t reach her in this dense crowd! We soon reached the exit to the ground level. The thief zapped past the guard, who obviously attempted to catch her. Ouch. Looks like thievery increases your Evilness too so the woman is also a red name now. Now it''s my turn to get past the guard. "Phantom Knights!" They appeared in front of me in their battle array.\ "Break through the guards!" "Yes sir!" They turned into an arrow head in the next second and began to charge ahead. The thief was about to turn around and watch me getting caught by the guards but...what she saw was the two guards were easily squashed like pancakes, so she instantly jumped and ran again. Two level 800 guards are strong enough to keep most yers at bay, but are still useless when going against 10 level 850 Phantom Knights. The knights stayed behind to fend off any pursuers. I appeared in the middle of the city so the guards didn''t have enough time to assemble a defense line yet. And I need to get my bracelet back before it happens! But how can she move so fast?? I chased after her on Night Shade from the central area all the way to the east wall, without reaching her! This is the situation now: A female thief is running in front, a rider wearing full ck armor is chasing her, which is me, while 10 simr riders are racing behind, followed by a thousand city defense cavalries. This whole lot of people and thundering hoofsteps caused much freak-out among the citizens. The thief dragged several passing by girls into the middle of the road, trying to stall us. Night Shade hopped above the panicking girls, while the following Phantom Knights caught them one by one onto their horsebacks, ording to my instructions. At their level, grabbing someone when galloping at full speed looks easy enough. I think the three girls are looking at their saviors with stars in their eyes. Too bad the knights are only NPCs. Thedies gonna be disappointed. I saw a group of boys up ahead who look kind enough. When I went by I shouted to them: "Catch them!" They didn''t understand what''s going on but the Phantom Knights are already tossing the girls into their arms. I wonder if it should be considered lucky when you get knocked dizzy by random pretty girls. Well, they look strong enough so the girls won''t get hurt. Probably. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Hawk and his group are just leaving the auction site when the event is over. They saw all the people standing on both sides of the road without moving. Hawk lifted Elfy onto his shoulder. "Saw something?" Just as Elfy steadied herself, she saw a girl dashing across the road at inhuman speed, followed by me and my Phantom Knight team, before countless city guards thundered after them. The ground is shaking! "It''s Ziri! He''s chasing behind a woman!" Wayne asked in surprise: "He''s fighting with Red Moon again?" "No. Never saw her before." Razor: "Huh? It sounded like a thunderstorm out there. Does he need to call so many people just for one woman?" "Those are city guards. Ziri''s name is exposed! The guards are after HIM, not the woman!" ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª My private chat is ringing. It''s hawk. I''m pretty busy now so I only opened voice-only mode. "What''s going on, Ziri? We haven''t been apart for long and you''re already causing a scene to the whole city! Are you doing a parade?" "You saw me??" "Well of course! You just led like a thousand men passing in front of us! What the hell are you doing? What kind of pretty girl made you so determined?" "It''s not a pretty girl! A thief! She took my bracelet. I fu*king need that thing to survive in cities, I need to get it back NOW!" "Oh I understand!" "I hope you do! I need Elfy''s help! And tell Razor toe with Sunshine. I need someone who can move fast!" "What about me?" "The bastard''s too fast for warriors to deal with! Oh and Yuri is still underground, you can go find her." "Got it!" Elfy contacted me soon. "Where are you now and how do I find you?" "A thousand horses are running in the city, just follow the noise!" "Coming!" Elfy and Razor joined me from a corner. "Yo. Is it fun chasing a girl?" Elfy joked. "Do I look like having fun?? Watch it!" Some more random girls are pushed onto the path. Night Shade doesn''t need any warning as the thief tried this trick many times now. I was only reminding Elfy and Razor. The pegasus went over the girls easily. It can fly after all. And Sunshine already demonstrated his jumping ability before. Like always, the Phantom Knights picked up the girls and threw them into the crowds to get them out of harm''s way. But they missed one this time. Well not my concern now. I can only hope the city guards are skilled enough to avoid her. Though it seems too much to hope, with that kind of number. The guards jumped. Looks like they''re serious about protecting normal yers. But...some of the riders jumped too slow and stumbled, which caused a series of traffic idents to theirrades. "...Hahaha!" Elfyughed when she saw the pile of helpless city guards. "I only saw that kind of move in Disney cartoons." "Hey watch out!" Some unlucky bystanders got dragged in front of us again. The stillughing Elfy didn''t react in time and crashed into the roadside. Her voice appeared in my channel. "Go on! I''ll catch up! Sorry for that-- ouch!" "We''re just wasting our time running around the city like this!" Razor worried. "Any good ideas?" "Split up. I''ll try to force her out of the city." "Let''s do it!" Elfy appeared when Razor ran the other way. "What''s he doing?" "Split tactic. We''ll flush her out of here! Once outside our mounts will be faster than her. " "On it!" Elfy chose another direction. They approached the thief from the sides, blocking her way to turn back into the alleyways. Now she can only run towards the main gate. The gate is near, for some reason I don''t see any guards. Don''t tell me they all joined the army behind! The thief rushed out of the gate, then us, followed by the thousand riders who just managed to recover from their ident. People traveling on the bridge are shocked in their ces by the massive guard crowd. A small number of them managed to get clear while the majority fell into the city moat. Now there are no more covers for the thief. The guards all retreated when we left the defense range. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ We finally cornered her! "Lucky! Phiona! Loong''er!" I summoned all mypanions. Let''s see if that''s enough to catch you! "On foot." I asked Razor and Elfy to get off their mounts. She has no where to run now so we don''t need to be riding anymore. "Hand them back and I''ll let you leave." I asked her in a threatening voice. Unexpected, the thief simply charged at me. I feel a sting on my shoulder before I can react. She wants to take me by surprise! And shit! 3000 HP gone. What the fuc is that attack?? The thief also seems shocked as why I''m not dead yet. I think most people would, given that I''m wearing a full Artifact armor set. When I''m about to attack her she already stepped a dozen meters away. Man that''s some crazy agility. She dodged past me and headed towards the city direction again. Looks like she knew the ce is safer. Night Shade moved into her way, she slid past from under him. She looks quite experienced about how to avoid pursuers. "Rosa! Get her!" Rosa quickly built a wall on her path. The thief dashed to the left side when Lucky dropped down and stopped her, while Phiona is already standing on the other side. Without a way out, she turned back and ran to me. I saw something in her hands. A series of sleeve knives flew towards my face. Dart jumped in front of me and caught the four knives between his teeth. Elfy drew her bow. "Multi-shot!" A barrage of arrows covered where the thief is standing. But she rolled out of the area! Razor appeared behind her and stabbed using his kanata at extreme speed. The thief crouched to avoid his attack. Razor wasn''t expecting her to notice him so he failed to stop his momentum and crashed into me instead. He pulled me up while mumbling:" The woman''s slippery like a loach! You guys got something to slow her down?" "I can!" Elfy took her bow again and readied a headless arrow. Then she fixed a strange-looking tip onto the bare shaft. "Advanced homing arrow, [Frozen Path]!" Woosh! An arrow carrying some snow-white mist shot towards the thief. The thief rolled and jumped around but the arrow followed her. "Ha! That thing will follow you until it hits or you die! Just give up!" Razor watched as the thief tries to avoid the attack. "Never heard of this skill before. Where did you learn it?" Elfy took out another headless arrow and prepared it. "It''s not my skill, it''s special ammunition. I only got two on me by the way." I pulled on her arm. "Don''t waste that here." She still released her shot. "Oh don''t worry. I''m not as generous as you think. That arrow regenerates on its own, just a bit slow. I never used all two in one fight." "That''s a relief." We heard an explosion. When the scene cleared out we saw an ice cube standing ahead. "Ouch. That was impressive." I checked at the ice cube. The thief is frozen inside! It''s like a coffin made of ice. The woman is locked up in there while still carrying the posture when she was blown away. Pom! Before we can im victory, the thief''s body turned into smoke. Then the ice scattered, leaving a wooden puppet behind. "It''s [Substitute]!" Razor yelled. "Taoist skill!" As we stayed shocked, the thief emerged from a nearby grass rick and ran away. "Who the hell is her? She''s like, knows all kinds of moves!" I ordered all mypanions to chase up whileining. As we try to get close, the thief stopped in her track and pressed her hands onto the ground. A fire pir appeared and moved towards me. "Get away!! That gonna blow us up!" Razor warned us aloud. We immediately scattered. The pir soon reached where we were staying and exploded. We already kept distance but the shock still stunned us a little. The woman is taunting me! "Damn it you asked for it! I was hoping I don''t have to do this since you''re a girl!" I pped off my left gauntlet and pressed on the fire gem on my helmet. Countless small red dots showed up around me like fireflies. Then the "fireflies" grew bigger, until they are the size of volleyballs. I made a spell-like gesture in front of my chest (for show, of course), then locked my gaze onto the thief. "me Hos, go!!" There were over 600 red balls, now they all turned into gigantic flying hos. The terrible insects stretched their bodies to full size, by which I mean about 50 centimeters. These crimson-ck colored creatures carry weapons all over them. They have pincer-like mandibles on their mouthpart, three pairs of sharp legs which could probably be used as knives rather than movement tools. They''re called hos, of course the most scary part is the sting, also with a deep red color. The thing''s almost half a foot in length! The noise caused by these 600 giant insects is like a bombard ne flying by. I can see the grass around us shaking. But there''s a problem. They justnded around the area instead of following my order and attacking the woman. Razor already ran to a safe distance. He shouted towards me: "Ziri! Those are not me Hos!!" "Huh? They''re not?" I called Phantom. "What''s going on? I thought my fire gem summons hos?" Phantom paused a bit before he exined: "These summoned creatures are different from yourpanions and servants. I can''t talk to them, now I don''t know why they came. But I''ve seen them before in the depth of the Perish Swamp. They''re called Dragon Wasps. These things are only level 200 but they usually attack those who are two or three hundred levels above because they always stay in big swarms. They''re famous for their speed and deadliness. Even level 700 minor bosses in the swamp will have to avoid them. I think the gem changed somehow because you inserted it into an Artifact. Now it called something much much scarier than hos." "I see... How do I control them though? They won''t listen to me." "You got the wrong name maybe?" "Oops." I turned to the thief again. "So, Dragon Wasps. Attack!!" They immediately took off which almost deafened me. The woman backed off in panic. She threw some of her knives again and killed several wasps, which is totally negligible. The dead wasps didn''t disappear but all turned into small fireballs and flew towards the woman with even higher speed. She jumped away in shock. The fireballs exploded on the ground, they don''t look powerful but still caused mass fire around the grassy area. Now I know why even strong monsters would run away. They''re suicide bombers! The thief dodged most of the fireballs but a single one managed to set her clothes on fire. She rolled on the ground to put it out. That left enough time for the rest of the wasps to bury the woman under their attacks. She may be fast but she can''t prevent all these killers from leaving a good number of needle holes and gashes on her body. One of the wasp mped onto her neck and took a good bite. Blood sshed out, then some of the wasps snatched the liquid clean before a single drop can reach the ground. These little things drink blood for saint''s sake! The woman stabbed the wasp on her neck to get it off, which caused it to explode and bring her more agony. A minute hasn''t passed and the thief''s HP is almost empty now, while she only got rid of ten wasps. Or less. Elfy watched the terrible scene and frowned. "This is...creepy." Razor came to me too. "Seriously, this suicidal attack will just scare the shit out of any ordinary people before they can decide to fight back." "I--I give up!! Sto--please stop! Please!!" Finally. "Dragon Wasp,e back." I called. They turned direction and charged towards my head, almost with the same imposing manner as before. For a moment I thought I''m in trouble. But they just disappeared into the gem on my helmet. We approached the thief with caution. When we got close enough we all dropped defense--it doesn''t look like she can even lift a finger now. She''s trembling on the ground, and her clothes are all torn into ragged pieces. A series of long stings are lodged deep inside her body. One of her leg is pinned solid on the ground. Man, I think I would beg for help too if I''m in the same situation. Elfy tried to help her pull the stings out. When she did, the sting blew up and sted her away. "Oh you must be kidding. Thank god that one didn''t hurt much." "I''ll do it." I picked on the stings. They didn''t react this time. Razor: " So there''s even ast safe to prevent the target from getting healed. Ziri is safe because he''s the master." Hawk and the rest of the group arrived when I''m trying to make the woman look better. "Ziri! You found your items?" Yuri reached me first. "Well, yes." I pointed at the lying thief who still carries a good number of needles on her. "...Woooeeh. What happened to her? I think she needs help." She''s too kind! Yuri took out her flute, everyone else covered their ears. "What are you doing??" "Um, use my Sun Anthem to ease her pain?" "Ohhh. Go ahead." They dropped their hands. Red Moon arrived too. "Oh gud. Whatever have you done to this poordy? I was right when I said you''re pervert!" She went up and helped the thief with the stings. Of course, Boom. It took some time for me to clean away all the mess. That was at least 500 shots. Though it seems it wasn''t enough to kill her, since she took a lot of potions as well. She handed over my items unwillingly. "Really bad hit today. Why didn''t I choose anyone else? Geez." "You''reining now?? You ruined my sightseeing n!" "What kind of item did I take anyway? I haven''t checked them. People would just chase me for like 5 minutes before giving up. But you kept on for half a day!" I showed her the attributes. "See it now?" "Ah... I was wondering why a thousand guards were behind me. So YOU were their target." Chapter Book 4 - 17 – Temporary Salesman Book 4, Chapter 17 Temporary Salesman ------------------ "Oh greeting mydy, the name is Nameless, a Spectral Mage. It''s my pleasure to meet you!" Wayne appeared out of nowhere. "What''s he doing?" Elfy whispered to me. I just shook my head and looked at the sky. "Spring ising." "Ah." Everyone nodded in understanding. I pushed Wayne away. I got questions to ask her first. "So...let''s have a little talk." "If you promise not to send me to jail." Is she trying to bargain with me?? "Why would I do that? I''m not a bounty hunter." She seems surprised. "Huh...so you don''t know. If you use [Steal], whether it seeds or not, you will be ''Wanted'' for some time. If any victim can capture me to the jail they''ll have the right to take away half of my money. Now, I''ll answer whatever you ask as long as you don''t do that." "Fine. I''ll let you go." "Thanks! So what do you want to know?" She seems pretty rxed now. "First, your name. I''m Ziri, how do I call you?" "I saw your name when I stole your items. My name is [Golden Coin]." "That''s a...worthy name for you." Elfymented coldly. "Good. So miss Coin, where did you get such powerful stealing skill? I don''t know about it but it must have something to do with our Luck attributes. My Luck is pretty high for that matter, it should be hard to steal items from me. How did you lift two items in one try?" She chuckled. "It''s coincidence. I do have a high skill level but this is only the third time I actually seized two items. You just had a tough luck, if you ask me." Well that''s embarrassing. "I see. Are you wearing something that gives you a lot of speed? You ran faster than horses!" She just disyed her equipment window on her shoes. "[Boots of the Spring Rabbit] (Nation Treasure) Defense 300, Dexterity +7, Base Speed + 21, Movement Speed +300%, Evasion +50%, Jumping +500%. Active skill [Wind Walker]: Doubles speed for one minute, cooldown: 1 hour..." Elfy read through the texts, "No wonder we couldn''t catch her." Razor: "Another nation treasure of ours!" I interrupted their discussion. "Do you have other parts of the set?" She shook head. "I won''t be standing here in front of you if I did." "Makes sense." I nod. "What''s your ss? You can steal, use Taoist skills, and that stab on my shoulder can kill most people in one hit. There are a lot of mysteries on you." She smiles. "Same for you! I''m both Taoist and Assassin. That attack is abination of [Assassination] and [Magic Pierce]. I created thebo myself. I''ve killed tanks with it before. Let me guess. You either have a lot of PvP experience so you weren''t scared of the attack at all, or you have way more HP than that." I smiled too. "I don''t PvP much. Your damage is good but it will still take three or four more hits like that to take me down." "You''re the craziest tank I ever met." She mumbled. "You''re wrong. I''m not a tank. My HP is high but I mainly survive with my high Defense. You only did 3000 damage to me. That wasn''t really a deadly hit for average warrior sses." "Just 3000? Your Defense is insane!" "You''re the insane one. Usually that damage is impossible with such Defense level." "That''s not what I mean!" She became excited. "I call that skill [Last Resort]. It depletes my MP and halves my own Defense if I use it. After hitting a target I''ll be locked in ce for a full second, you just missed the chance to finish me off. This skill will either kill my target or myself every time I use it." "Wow. Looks like there is no perfect skill after all." Still, I think Coin''s skill is enough to help her win most 1-on-1 encounters. "Oh right, you said you are Assassin and Taoist. But assassins don''t learn [Steal]. Isn''t that a Rogue skill?" "I stole it!" She showed us her ring. I read it aloud: "[Eagle''s Knowledge]: Permanently learn the skill that is activated by your enemy. Sess rate: 0.1%. What the fu-- That''s way overpowered! Pity the trigger rate is too low." She canceled the window. "That''s not the only problem. You need to be fighting with the target. And they must use it at least twice. Also, the skill must hit you! I asked a rogue to help teach the skill. He kept stealing stuff from me for four days before I finally learned it." "I want to learn that Last Resort skill!" Wayne cut in. I kicked him away. "Didn''t you hear it? You need to take the skill, twice! You''d be dead in one hit! ...Now I think about it, I can try to learn the skill." "Yeah right!" Hawk pumped his fists. "If you can use that skill you''d be killing dragons with it! When you go to Japan, just one-shot whoever''s wearing their nation treasure and bring it back! No one would believe the host of nation treasure can get killed like that!" "It will take a lot of time. And I don''t think Coin''s gonna agree." She jumped. "Of course I agree! A living strike dummy to grind my skill level, why not? So what''s the n, right now?" "Uh, not today. I''ll tell you when I have time. That''s all I have to ask." "I''ll leave then. Remember to call me! I was worrying about how to level up my skill." Coin rushed away. She doesn''t really meet the beauty standard but somehow I like her personality. That reminded me of Red Moon. Ughhh. They''repletely opposite beings. Now that I get my items back, and know enough about the mysterious girl, there''s no point in staying here. I talked about the ns with everyone and decided to go leveling a bit. Don''t feel like going back to the streets now. Hawk and Elfy asked to go with me, Yuri and Red Moon won''t leave me, and Razor woulde together as well since he''s the only one left. A ninja can''t wander around the city by himself. As for Wayne...He took off after Coin! We came to the Dark Forest outside of the Lost City. We''re all good fighters so we simply picked on high level monsters. Everyone made good progress during an afternoon. With the lowest level among all, I earned a hefty 8 levels. Now I''m at 321! I should have found a team like this sooner! I have work from father on the next day so I told everyone to go without me for several days and logged off. I drove to theboratory the next morning. Father isn''t here, a senior researcher picked me up. "Where''s my father?" I asked him when we reached the office. "The president is still busy with some affair so he told me to do this..." He typed something into theputer and turned the screen to me. Father showed up on the disy. "You''re here, son!" "I thought we''d talk about this here together?" "I said I''m busy! I won''t be asking you for help if I got enough time with it." "What do you need then?" "Remember I said our nation is about to make a big move?" I nodded. This sounds fun! "What move?" "I don''t know. I''m not theirmander, it''s ssified!" I hate secrets. "Aren''t you deputy of the congress? So what do you need me to do if you don''t know anything?" "Well, the military gave me a research schedule and a bunch of purchase ns. We''re going to meet with their delegate today, I need someone I can trust, who knows our technologies, to speak with them. That means you." "I got it. Where do I go?" "Here." Father''s image moved to one corner. A map appeared on the screen. I looked over the map. "Shanghai? Any particr reasons?" "You know the Third Base beneath New Nanjing?" "...We got another one under Shanghai?" "Exactly." He seems rather proud. "And it was built earlier than the Nanjing one. Their representatives will arrive at noon. You will be leading them through the showcases of ourpany''s newest products while giving brief introductions. You may need to operate some of them on the scene, to show them the actual performance. You can decide on the details!" "Hold it!" I shouted before he can cut the chat. "That''s not enough. What are the prices for the products? How do I introduce them when I don''t even know what kind of stuff I''m going to sell?" "I''ve sent the data to your car. Go through it on your way! Sorry for the rush, the original n was that you can do it yesterday!" "Will do then." I hurriedly bid farewell with the researcher and took my car towards Shanghai city. I set my GT8000 into auto-pilot mode and began to read through the new products. These things are prettyplicated in terms of production procedure and technologies but I only have to remember those technical figures and numbers since I''m about to be their salesman, not an engineer. Theputer alerted me that I''ll be leaving the motorway soon. Geez, now I really hope I can use auto pilot on ordinary roadways too. I came to where the map is pointing at. It''s a mass constructionplex, the entrance is inside a military base! I''m stopped by the gate sentry. I lowered the side window when a soldier walked over and gave me a salute. "The area is off-limits, ma''am. Your permissions?" "Shoot. Read it!" I handed over my ID card. He scanned the card on a device and gave it back. "I apologize. You''re free to enter." After I''ve left, the soldier mumbled: "Huh that''s a man? I think I camped here for too long. I need a holiday..." Well I''ve no time to be concerned about what the soldiers are thinking. I went through another two check posts before I can reach the underground base. That''s some tight security. The military representatives are already here. A dozen lead researchers are talking with them. I quickly parked my car and joined them. There are 7 people. Their leader is an officer about the age of 50. I never learned how to read shoulder marks so I don''t know his rank. Two officers stand on his sides. One in his 40s, the other is younger, must be around 25 or so. The remaining four men standing in the back must be guards. I walked to their leader and raised my hand. "Wee, sir. I''m Sairin, tech department CEO of Dragon Fate Corporation." This department CEO is a position my father forced on me just for this job. I used another two different titles when doing simr work before. The representative is a high-ranking official this time which means we can''t send any ordinary employees here. "Why is the president Sai-Jingu absent?" The youngest officer asked first. He seems unsatisfied. Now this is fun. I don''t think that''s a wise move in front of our main guest, by which I mean his own boss. He continued. "We''re here to settle a contract involving hundreds of billions worth of military assets, and they sent a woman?" Crap. Before I can exin, their leader took my hand. "Yan-Ray, lieutenant general, manager of the General Armament Department. Your name is Sairin right? That isn''t amon name in China. Are you Mr. Jingu''s...?" Old wiser. "I''m his son." "Ahh!" He gave me a firm handshake again. "We never heard about president Sai''s inheritor. Thepany surely keeps their secret tight!" "It''s not really a secret. I''m the family''s only child so my father is just protecting me from harm as best as he can. That means to keep my true identity low." I tried to steer the topic back to the main course. "Shall I show you the products now, or do you prefer a lunch first?" "Oh don''t worry about eating. I''ve really wanted to see those wonders!" The general is obviously the straightforward type. And speaking with these people saves a lot of effort. "Please follow me." I led the way. When we arrived at the elevator I turned and asked him: "Can I know about your..panions?" "Oh, my bad there. I forgot!" He dragged the 40-rish officer in front of him. "This is colonel Shin, from the NSA." Then he faced the other officer. "Major Junken, Political Department. And these four are my personal guardsmen." I shook hands with colonel Shin but left out Junken, intentionally. "The area below is highly restricted, I''m afraid I can only take Mr. Yan-Ray and colonel Shin with me." Then I asked apany personnel nearby: "Please take the general''s guards, and the...other guest, to the lounge room." Junken failed to conceal his anger. I didn''t even look at him. I led the general and colonel into the lift. The elevator began to descend after I went through several superplex authentications. It kept moving for about 350 meters before reaching our destination. The pair stopped when they stepped out of the elevator door. The underground area in front of them is too big. We''re standing on the spiral observation tform in the middle of the room. The tform has many more levels to provide a better view for weapon experiments from all angles. I called the general''s name for three times before he noticed me. "How did you build something like this below the surface? I think you at least need to remove an entire ind." "The base was not built in one go. Our initial n is about a third of what you''re seeing now, and we erged the area to such size after three expansions. This ce is mainly used as a testing area for advanced weapons. We can test almost anything here excluding airnes and nuclear weapons." The colonel recovered from shock as well. He looked down at the vacant area below our feet. "How deep is it? More than a hundred meters I''d say." "174. We''re standing on the middle level, the area above us is a simr space." "Impressive." I took two copies of purchase ns from the secretary and gave them to the two officers. "Pray tell me which ones you''d like to see first and I''ll show them right here. Oh, no airnes please. The digital n books on you hand have all the product numbers and brief introductions on them, along with the prices. Tap on them to check their pictures." The general looked at the page number. "That''s over 200 pages. This will take some time." "Don''t worry. You will be staying here for several days I assume? We have enough time." The colonel pointed at something on the list first. "This...TZ-01 Maron Tank, can we see it?" I told a worker to bring a tank in. "Let''s get to the base level. The tank is not a hazardous weapon so we don''t have to stay far." "I''d love it!" The general walked down first like a child waiting to see his new toy. But I think such weapons are pretty much toys for these military leaders. The tank is already stationed when we got there. It''s big, with blue-gray outlines. They touched around the armor on the tank, while I searched around what I learned this morning and began to introduce: "Special alloy outer shell, produced by one-time metal stamping method. Hard to repair but can provide solid defense. The front armor can withstand multiple hits from kic projectile weapons using 120 mm caliber or lesser ammunitions propelled from 200 meters or farther. Simr for the side armors, against attacks from 400 meters or above." The colonel looked up at the main cannon. "Isn''t the barrel too long for a tank?" "That''s a 180mm electromaic cannon. We can''t put a standard-sized transformer on a mobile tank cause it will too big, so we can only increase the barrel length to give the shell enough initial speed. Well new products always carry some ws. But I guarantee the power and uracy of these cannons are way beyondmon explosive powered ones. And the shells can be smaller because they don''t need all the extrapound, which means you can carry more shots around." "Can I see a live shot?" asked the colonel. "Ready targets!" Three armor tes raised at about 1.5k meters away from our location. The tes are 200 centimeters thick, 10 meters away apart from each other. "Fire!" Sharp electric charging sound came from the barrel. After five seconds we heard a damp "Poof", then a distant explosion up ahead. I jumped onto the tank''s edge. "Let''s get close while you can see the mobility of this thing on the way." General: "I''m afraid these old bones will break if I sit on that thing. I''ll just take the cart." He got into the tour cart prepared by a worker while the colonel jumped up beside me. "Let go!" The tank levitated about half a meter above the ground and raced towards the targets. "Can it shoot while moving?" the colonel asked. I lifted the hatch and told the operator inside: "Two shots on the move. Use AP shells." Poom. Poom. I looked towards the colonel. "So what do you think? 5 seconds per shot, that''s 3 seconds faster than America''s STS-1." (*) We arrived at the target location. The tes are already scattered open from the center. The general reached us in his cart soon after. "That''s fast. This utility car can''t catch up with you!" "It can run at 200 kph, and that vehicle of yours isn''t designed for such speed. Are you satisfied till now? This is the first electromaic cannon in history that can be actually used in real wars you know." "Of course I''m satisfied!" General nodded. "But what about fuel consumption? We need to consider all aspects. We will put too much burden on the support team if it eats oil like a lion." I spoke towards inside the tank again: "Open the engine chamber!" Psssssh! The rear hatch of the tank bounced open while releasing some white vapor, revealing the signature radiation mark inside. "This is nuclear powered??" The colonel yelled. I grabbed a handle, rotated it in three spins and pulled it out, bringing a water dder shaped container with it. "Atomic fusion reactor, driven by tritium rods. Each rod canst for seven years or so, we usually prepare two for each unit, the other one is a backup in case the main rod malfunctions. Convenient, and safe." "Is this necessary?" "Don''t get fooled by the speed you saw. The body weighs 27 tons! If it runs on liquid fuel then we''ll have to attach a pipe behind it at all times. Besides, tritium rods are safer than fuel. They don''t blow up at least." "I see." Colonel seems satisfied. General checked his list. "Mark this down as preliminary selection. Oh one more thing, how''s the fire control?" "You probably can''t use the cannon to kill a mosquito but...we can try hitting a fly." That was only a half-joke. The general didn''t question my answer. I''m sure they know theputing capabilities provided by Dragon Fate. "Here, what''s ''ICA''? Never heard of it." "Individual Combat Armor, can be worn by soldiers." (**) "Bullet proof vests?" "Oh no, totally different." I asked the workers to recover the tank and bring an ICA over. A trailer dragged a row of 2-meter high robot-like devices to us. "These are ICAs. Sometimes we just call them iron units." "That''s a lot of them." Colonel looked among the armors. Every one looks different. I exin: "What you see here is the entire armor series. The first one is assault unit, next is heavy suppressor unit, the third, anti-air unit, fourth, sniping unit, fifth, support scouter, sixth, automatic unit, thest one is anti-riot. They''re only meant for special forces because the production cost is too high. You can assign only one to each toon at best even if I keep the price low for you." The colonel seems interested. "I know it''s impossible to arm the entire army but we can at least establish several special op divisions, no?" "I can only tell you that each of these costs 2 million, basic, since I don''t know how much expense you''re allowed. But I do know our country hasn''t put up much war expenditure in these years." (***) I jumped onto one of the assault types while they had their discussion. I opened the front hatch and climbed in. The four limbs of the armor are designed for human bodies to fit their own limbs into them. Since the armor is bigger than a human, my hands and feet can only reach the elbow and knee part. I controlled the unit to jump down from the trailer. It''s simpler than I expected, just like ying in [Zero]--you give themand using your brain, and receive feedback inside you brain too. Sigh. Even a game made by Dragon Fate has lot of crazy technologies in it. The general and colonel are still arguing over the armors when they see me hopping around with one. There are wheels under the feet of the armor so I can run freely like skating. It''s even equipped with a booster system so I can make short-range flights, or really big leaps. I made a demonstration in front of the general. The armor is able to jump as high as a hundred meters, andnd slowly using the air thrusters. The general said he would talk with the higher-ups. But his expression told me he''s going to buy it for sure, which is good news to me. If I sell enough of these stuff I might as well ask father for one and put it into my collection. ------------------ (*) I didn''t find this tank. Maybe the author made it up. (**) The original name created by the author makes no sense so I altered it. (***) The novel started in the 00s, which means some concept will be a bit off ording to modern standards, such as the cost for producing weapons. Also, recent updates will be slower, because... Chapter Book 4 - 18 – Treasure Crisis Book 4, Chapter 18 Treasure Crisis ------------------ I performed all sorts of military drills for threes days in front of the general and colonel. In the end, they signed on a purchase contract worth 130 billion, and nned another 180 billion, which needs to be discussed over with the centralmittee, as they said. I finally rxed myself after I sent them on their ne. I kept standing straight along General Yan in these days and now my waist hurts. An armyman selecting weapons feels a lot like women browsing clothes. We tried through everything on the list in the three days. I''d have already given up if not for such a big contract, and the fact that this is father''s order. I hurried back to the office to contact father. Despite my looks, I still love guns and swords, just like most boys. And since I have more background than "most boys"... "Hey boy! You done the job?" Is he in a...forest? "I did! 130 billion settled. Another 180 billion will have to wait. Whatever their decision is, it won''t fall below 100 billion." I patted on my chest. "By the way, where are you? Is that a rainforest behind you?" "I''m in the ecology simtionb. These nts are the first ones we''re going to send into space. How do they look?" He picked up a giant, red...object. "A new type of fruit I nted. It''s big AND juicy! You want some?" "Uh, no thanks. Hey dad, I want my reward now." Strike while the iron is hot. It''s easier to ask for stuff when dad''s satisfied with my work. "Decided already?" His dropped his smile. "Don''t tell me you want something from the base?" I just looked at him with a hopeful look. An obvious answer. "Alright. Remember, no funny choices." "What kind of funny choices?" I need to see if that thing is on his cklist. "No bio weapons!" "I''m not a terrorist why would I need those?" "No nuclear weapons!" "Do nuclear powered ones count?" "Nuclear powered? Is it big?" "Nope. Smaller than my car!" That''s true. The iron unit is only about 2.5 tons. "Just tell me what it is. I''ll see if I can allow it." He lost patience. "An ICA unit!" "Oh, that one..." He considered. "If you insist...But! I''ll have to remove some of the parts first. Tell doctor Wong, I''ll speak to him." "Understood!" I dashed out of the office and dragged the aged head researcher back in. "He''s here." Father spoke to him: "Mr. Wong, I need you to modify one of the iron armor and give it to Sairin." "Huff...huff. No-no problem. How do I do it?" "Take away all the weapons." Doctor Wong looks surprised. "You mean everything? The unit is just an empty shell without the weapons." I joined them. "If you remove those, can you get something else onto it instead?" "What do you want?" Father seems worried that I''d ask too much. "The cockpit in there feels way better than my bed. Can you try to install the game helmet into the armor?" "Shouldn''t be a problem." Father nodded to the doctor. "Do anything he asks as long as it''s not a weapon. I''ll pay youter." "Of course, sir." The doctor rolled up his sleeves. "Let''s go drop some weight for the big guy." "Drop--what?" I didn''t understand his words until I saw the pile of variousponents on the ground that were just taken off the armor. The original armor weighs 2.73 tons, and now it''s only 0.97. I knuckled at the armor''s body which gives out a sound like I''m knocking at an iron bell. "There''s...nothing in there anymore?" Doctor Wong looked at me with an "of course" expression. "It''s a military weapon. What do you expect if you remove all the killer tricks? The power unit andputer are pretty tinypared to the others." "Crap. This isme." I think I need to do something to make it up, or an empty iron shell is too boring. "Since you''re done with removing, now help me load something to it." "You say it. We got everything here." "First, this one." I pointed to a device on a nearby container. "Molecr Camouge Unit? What for?" "Well, just do it. Oh and this." I carried a bigger air thruster over. "Since it''s less than a ton it should fly if I have this right?" "Should be." The doctor ordered the engineers to do their work while he watched me messing around the items. "This." "...TBD Field Generator. What are you gonna do with that?" "Don''t ask. Anything besides weapons right?" Actually I''m only looking at the prices. I take anything that looks expensive! "This one, this thing here...and that!" "Organic Detector... Electromaic Anomaly Probe. Super Computer??" After ten hours, I''m looking at my final product while all the technicians plus the doctorys on the ground. Now this super toy of mine costs 10 million! You won''t find any crazier toy in the whole world now. Also, the doctor agreed to equip a Taser Gun into it (after listening to my carrot-and-stick speech for three hours). At least it''s not a paper tiger now. The weighbridge showed it as 1.3 tons. All those costly stuff can only fill it up so much. There''s no point in putting all the parts all around the armor so the doctor stuffed them to one location. Now there''s a big storage area on the armor''s back. The only tools I''ll actually be using is the camouge and wireless connector. The first tool can make the armor appear as anything, I can disguise it as an ordinary car and run on the roads when no one would notice what it truly is. The connector will allow my helmet to y the game anytime, anywhere. They didn''t even do anything to my helmet, because the game helmet is exactly the same with the armor''s original controller helmet. They only need to transfer some data to it. "I''m leaving!" I drove away from the base with the armor fixed on top of my car. The camouge system willpletely hide it from naked eyes. Now I''m itchy to try out my new game room. The armor is still a bit too big for the department hallways. I can try to steer it carefully but one mistake and I''ll bump into walls or even people. And I don''t think the stairs can support this thing. I decided to enter the room through the balcony. The armor is only at half weight now so it''s easy to jump into a building. I tried my best but still identally stepped on the balcony bar, bending it. I moved it into the right position after some efforts. There are still twists and turns but shouldn''t draw too much attention now. I didn''t find Wayne in the dorm. Where did he run off to again? Whatever. I turned off the camouge and logged into [Zero]. "Hey Ziri!" A private message from Hawk. He sounds in a hurry. "I''m here. What''s the matter?" "We found a yer trying to sell equipment." His seems more hurried now. "Well go ahead. You want it? Do you have enough money? Don''t ask me. That robe cost me everything I had, and that''s only because Yuri lent me some. I only have 300 crystals on me. Take them if you want." "That''s not what I''m talking about! Do you know what is he selling??" "What? Artifact?" "One of the Chinese Nation Treasure part!" "Say what?? Nation treasure? Where?" Ok, that''s not something I should ignore now. I wasn''t expecting we found the second piece so fast! "The auction site at the middle of the Goddess City! Be quick! I saw Japanese yers wondering around. I think they''re trying to break up out nation sets too!" "Have you talked to the seller?" "Not in person. I heard he''s a wizard called [Arch Necromancer]. The NPCs told us he registered the equipment on the morning yesterday. We couldn''t find you or Wayne anywhere." I calmed down myself and thought this over. "I won''t go there for now." "But why??" He jumped. "It''s already in the auction, we can''t get it unless it''s bought-in, or do you have enough money for it? I won''t help even if I go there!" "What are you going to do then? Nothing?" "I''ll look for money!" "Huh??" Hawk gave me a "you''re kidding me" look. "I''m going to try buying it off!" I exined again. "The attributes are already revealed. That thing''s at least 500 thousand crystals!" "Oh shit. Now this is trouble." Iined. "Tell me the attributes then! What is it anyway?" "A Taoist equipment, [Robe of the Primordial Lord], Defense 700, doubles the power of all your Taoist skills, +50% element resistance, +25% MP regeneration, and a passive skill that reduces all damage you take by 20%. A Taoist can just take a Warrior head-on if he wears this thing! Do you remember that rabbit boots we saw on Golden Coin?" "Yeah?" "They''re from the same set! The boots is part of the Primordial Lord outfit!" "Damn it. Now we can''t lose it. Ok I''ll go think of something!" "Alright but make it fast! The auction is tomorrow evening!" "Got it. I''ll try!" I cut the chat and sat on the ground. What to do what to do what should I do?? Exchange real money? No. Father said there''s no end once you started throwing money into a game. And I shouldn''t start it in the first ce. So the only option is to earn money in the game. But how?? I still got some serious debt on my ass for crying out loud! Maybe try to do some business? But what kind of business brings so much money within two days? Rare stuff is always precious. So what is rare? Good equipment andpanions. ording to Hawk, an average levelpanion egg can usually sell for tens of thousands of crystals on the market. Should I go farm some eggs and sell them? I contacted Hawk again. "Hawk! Do you know what kind ofpanions sell best in the game now?" "Why do you ask?" "Eggs are expensive right? I''ll go get some to sell!" "...That''s right! I forgot you have good capture skills!" "Tell me!" "I''m not sure but higher leveled ones are always more expensive. We don''t have time to lift the prices so try not to get anything TOO high, or no one would buy it! Consider your level, find some averagepanions around level 500. They should attract enough buyers." "What do you mean averagepanions?" "Bnced ones. Yourpanions all have certain specialties like very fast or something. They''re good but not many people will choose them. We need to findpanions favored by all people!" "Ok, ok! I''ll see to it!" More exnations will just make the matter worse at such a moment. "You help me find some buyers first!" "Roger that!" So, level 500. That means mini bosses around cities. I teleported to the grasnd outside Goddess City and rushed towards the high level area. The Goddess City is one of the three main system cities. There are tons of yers here. Thanks to my wizard robe (10 thousand crystals!!) and the bracelet, people would just see me as amon mage. The only problem is the robe looks too luxurious. And I can''t hide my face either. The robe hides my cape as well. The yers watched in amazement as a fake wizard dashed straight into the depth of the grasnd. Sometimes I pulled several monsters, and I just dodged them. I still caused the yers to drop their jaws . They never saw a wizard who can move so fast. Monsters that managed to get close almost did no damage. What kind of wizard runs inside monster crowds without even using his mana shield?? I suddenly realized a problem. What if all the monsters run wild all over the field? This is the first time I''m trying to capture monsters on open ground. I don''t want to run a marathon after them! I looked around the ce and all the yer groups who are grinding together. Eurika! "Hiring bodyguards! Good payment!" I can find some people to help me herd the monsters. They may not kill them easily but I only need them to keep monsters in check. I''m surrounded by the nearby yers in the next second. "How much??" A high-pitched male voice. "How many people you hirin''?" A deep male voice. "For how long?" Even females are interested! "What monsters are you killing?" That sounds like a student. "Immediate cash?" A trader! The scene is getting too chaotic. I raised my hands to silence them. "Deep into the grasnd, against level 500 monsters. Teams only, no solo yers!" That''s because teamwork would be of help. yers who don''t know each other will cause troubles. Some people left after I said that. Either solo yers or those who don''t feel safe against level 500 targets. I looked at the remaining people and proposed my conditions. "This is urgent, we''ll be working overnight, starting right away. We take some restte today but start working early the next morning. Until 4 pm tomorrow." Someone spoke: "Piece of cake. What kind of gamer doesn''t stay upte?" Of course there is. More people left. Only a small number stayed. They stood in three groups, apparently they originally belong to three different teams. I continued: "I''ll hire all of you if you agree. I need lot of people here. 300 crystals. You decide how to share the money and any drops you may find. I won''t ask. But I won''t provide any potions and consumables either. 50 down payment, another 50 when you log off tonight, 50 when you log in again, and the rest when we finish." They began to count people to see how much money each one can earn out of this. The left group has five yers, two male Warriors (again, this is only a general title, I don''t know what sub-sses they are), one female Elven Archer, a female White Mage and a Priest. Now that''s rare, usually only girls y priestesses. The middle group, one female Warrior, two male ck Mages, a male Swordsman. The rightmost team, three male Elven Archers, a Priestess, a female Taoist, and a ....woman wearing wizard robe with a two-handed sword on her back. No idea what she is. 15 people. If shared evenly, everyone will get 20 crystals. That''s pretty good ie. (*) "I''m going to catch monsters as eggs. You still get the payment if I fail, but if I seed I''ll pay another two crystals to each one of you. I''ll be pointing out monsters and your job is to prevent the target from escaping." "No problem. We''re in!" The Priest from the first team stepped out. It seems he''s the leader. Huh, but I thought one of their Warriors is. The female Warrior from the second team agreed on their behalf. The spokesman, I mean spokeswoman, for the third team is the female yer whose ss I didn''t recognize. "Now that you all agreed to participate, I''ll give you 20 minutes to get prepared. Be sure to bring enough potions or anything you may need. Come back here when ready,teers will be left out!" They fell into discussion. Each team sent a member back to the city for supplies. Or not, the third team sent two people, probably because they have the most members? The remaining people waited with me. It''s boring enough so their leaders decided to chat with me. "Are you grinding a support ss?" The unknown woman asked. "No, I''m abat ss." "Then...isn''t it too hard for you?" The female Warrior said, "Even those professional Breeders won''t have much luck, and you''re not a professional." "Doesn''t hurt to try." Not going to tell too much to someone I haven''t known for long. "Like I said, you still get the payment if I fail, so don''t worry. By the way, the task seems hard enough, but you all epted. I thought I wouldn''t find so many helpers. You will lose levels if you die right?" The Priest spoke. "Why not? The pay is good. I''d ept even if I lose a level for it." "Good? You mean, 20 Crystals for each one?" I didn''t think much about the payment because 300 crystals were all I had. "That''s like, the lowest pay rate for Dragon Fate employees." "Dragon Fate??" The female Warrior eximed. "Well I ain''tpete with people from that ce. You know how people would throng for a position there. Your lowest pay is higher than some of the managers in otherpanies! Do you know 20 crystals means three days worth of my sry?" "I don''t even have ie. Student, heh." The unknown ss spoke up. "I used to spend money on the game and get items or pay for game time cards before. If I can find such jobs often then I don''t have to eat cheap buns all day." Everyone chuckled. The female Taoist put an arm around her. "Hey sis,e to me and I''ll treat you to instant ramen bowls. That''s at least better than buns." "Ha-hahaha!" Peopleughed this time. Though I don''t really feel like joking, with the hot matter at hand. There''s a good chance that our Nation Treasure will get taken away by Japanese yers if I don''t do something. This is no joke, you don''t want to lose your g item to someone else during nation wars! I''m confident in my capture skills but there are always idents. What if I don''t find enough eggs in time? I need a n B! Maybe just take it by force? Possible, but too risky. If I''m a yer with a Nation Treasure and knows someone''s gonna take it away when there''s no chance of protecting it, I''d just log off and never get on again. At least they''ll never get hands on it. No. This is not safe. Besides they can just do that the moment they buy the item. So this means I need to prevent them from winning the auction in the first ce! Everyone else is chatting while I''m struggling with my mind. They look more and more acquainted now. Good, since better teamwork will help a lot. ---------------- (*) This means $30 for ying a game overnight. Not bad. Chapter Book 4 - 19 – Gullivers Travels Book 4, Chapter 19 Gulliver''s Travels ------------------ Two people areing towards us, each carrying a giant backpack. They are from the unknown woman''s team because they all rushed over. "I gave your staff to the auction house, ma''am. I''m sure you''ll fetch a sum." The errand Elven Archer began to report his duty. Another two people came back, which means everyone''s here. I waited several minutes for them to assign the items before we departed towards the far end of the grasnd. I''ve been saying "grasnd", but the vegetation around us are taller than average grass. They began to grow in size as we marched further in. After an hour the nts almost reached our heads. Thank goodness they''re not really dense, or we''ll have serious trouble walking forward. A female Archer pushed on my back. "Did you hear something?" "Em?" I stopped and listened carefully. No, nothing. "I don''t think so." The White Mage came over. "But Elves hear better than us." The three male Archers raised their hands. "Confirmed. We heard something too." "Really? So you got that kind of advantage." I looked around us but still can''t see anything. The Archerdy readied her bow. "There!" All other Archers followed her action. I can also hear it at this point, something is stepping over the grasses. "I saw it!" A male Archer looked to one side. "It''sing to us. Careful, it''s big!" Another Elf alerted. Something suddenly jumped andnded in front of us. The four Archers released their arrows in shock, and every shot missed. One of them even released his arrow straight upwards, which almost hit my head when it came down! They began to stumble around in front of the sudden monster. I watched in silence as they bump into each other while trying to get into position. Sigh. So much for teamwork. They faced the monster solemnly. Warrior stayed in front, trembling; Archers behind them to provide cover, while wizards hid in the back of course. Although from the monster''s jumping ability I''m not sure the back line is absolutely safe. "What the hell is that??" The Priest looked at our enemy, puzzled. "Is it a...rabbit?" One of the girls responded. I don''t know which one since I can''t look back now. "But it''s too big!" "I know right!" "Anyone can use [Identify]?" Finally, a solid suggestion. "I''ll do it." I proposed myself. I used my skill and-- "Grasnd Lepus. Common animal. Non-aggressive." What the fuc? "Huhhhh." Everyone lowered their weapons but they still kept distance. The unknown woman puffed up her courage and touched the rabbit''s side. It simply stared at us with those football-sized eyes. People finally dropped their caution. The Priest asked me: "So it''s just an ordinary white rabbit you would find everywhere?" "That''s what the skill said." "But, but, the size of it--" That''s my question as well. I nced at the rhino-sized creature again. "The rabbit at least weighs a ton! Why would they put something like this in the game? A bug maybe?" "Bug? Maybe you''re right." Yup. Even a rabbit can be pretty scary if it grows so big. When we''re discussing about the anomaly, the rabbit jumped up and hopped away at extreme speed. "GET DOWN!! AIR STRIKE INCOMING!" I don''t know which bastard shouted beside my ears but I stillplied out of instinct. The remaining people either followed the warning or got pressed down by someone else. A giant shadow swept past our heads. I twisted my neck as best as I could to saw a...golden eagle, above us. The problem is the bird is no smaller than Lucky! I used my [Identify] again and showed the result to everyone. "Yellow Savanna Hawk. Common animal." "Is this some kind of joke?" They climbed up while dusting their clothes. "Ok something is not right." I said while watching the hawk going after the rabbit. The unknown woman nodded. "Yes. I know that bird. There are a lot of them among these parts but I never seen such a big one." "No kidding! That thing is like a bomber ne!" The Priest yelled. "Monster behind us!!" Someone screamed. "What now??" I immediately turned around and saw another giant creature that looks like a centipede. I said "looks like" because I don''t think there are centipedes as thick as water barrels. The insect is at least three meters long, and I''m yet to see the end of it! "Get away! That''s a monster, level 200 [Toxic Centipede]!" I identified it without trouble but I still can''t understand why a level 200 lesser monster can grow so big! It crawled towards me. I stepped back and threw a [Compressed Fireball]. The spell hit its mark but isn''t really effective. The Archers used their shooting skills, which failed to prate the insect''s shell. The White Mage used a simple binding skill and locked the monster in ce. But it struggled free in the next second, causing the girl to scream and run away. "Are you sure your [Identify] isn''t broke?? That feels like at least level 500!" An Archer came standing beside me. "Itpletely resisted my level 400 [Pierce Shot]. It can''t be--watch out it''sing again!" He pushed me aside and rolled away to the other direction. The terrible bug charged past between us. "[Fusion Bomb]!!" The two ck Mages released the skill they have been preparing for some time. A magic missile almost as big as the centipede flew towards the monster. ck Mages have some of the most powerful skills in the whole game, and this skill needs time to cast which means it should be very deadly. The missilended right on the insect''s body and produced some bright electric shocks before it exploded into a miniature mushroom cloud. When the dust cleared out, we saw the centipede trembling on the ground with its body broken in half. That attack finally worked. The two mages wiped their sweat. "Again, are you sure this thing''s 200? We only use that spell to damage level 600 monsters. And our MP is only enough to use it once!" "Well I don''t know!" I''ve no idea what''s happening. I decided to summon Dart to help us find a path. He''s pretty tiny and no one would notice his actual level. "Come out Dart!" I raised my hand. Boomsh! A monster several times bigger than the rabbit appeared near me, causing everyone including me to dash away in horror. The monster followed me and caught up in a blink of an eye. I stepped back, and it kept following but isn''t doing anything else. Wait a second. It looks familiar. I saw a golden cor on its neck. "...Cor of Protection...Dart." This massive creature is Dart?? I took another good look at its entire body and yes, this is no other than my supposedly smallestpanion. The Priest moved closer. "Anothermon animal?" Well, Dart does look like a harmless animal. "It''s mypanion. Maybe." The Priest stared at me. "What do you mean man? You don''t know your own pet?" "I...know, but, he is, way smaller than this." "Now wait a second," Yup, we realized the same thing. "WE became smaller!!" We cried out at the same time. "What did you say??" People panicked. "We are the ones that are smaller than before." I exined. "You saw the grass growing taller? They didn''t! That was because we were turning smaller as we walked! The erged rabbit and such, they are just ordinary critters. The thing is we became tiny so they looked really big. And this is mypanion. He should be puppy size before, I can put him on my shoulder. Now this is what we see!" "I can''t believe it!" They failed to ept the reality. The unknown woman said to her friend. "Your servant, you know, that little furred ball. Let it out." "Oh. Come, Meowy." The Priestess summoned her pet servant...a giant fluffy round creature. The creature lunged at the Priestess, who screamed and ran away. "No! Don''t--" Ok, now we can only see her hands, as the rest of her body is buried under all that fur. The Taoist girl exined to me. "Well she would ask her pet toe into her arms every time. It''s a routine." "So it''s true." The Priest slumped down while looking at his team trying to remove the three-meter tall furball from the poordy. "We didn''t turn small all of a sudden. It happened slowly, so the culprit followed us from behind all the time." The unknown woman tried to analyze the situation. Ok, I can''t hide myself now. I don''t have time! "Phiona!" Phiona appeared beside us in her parrot form, which is still like 2 meters tall, from our point of view. "Scout the area for any high leveled monsters. Tell me if you see any." "On it." She soared into the sky and turned into her true form. She blocked all the sunlight since she now looks no smaller than a football court. She circled in the air for a while and came down in her parrot body again. "Nothing!" "Huh? Maybe underground?..." I mumbled to myself while the other people are already shocked frozen by what they just saw. "Rosa." After a terrible earthquake, one of Rosa''s tentacle came out of ground and looked around, without finding me. "Down here!" I called from below. He lowered the feeler in front of me. "Search from below and check if anything is hiding underground. Push anything you find to the surface." I turned to Phiona. "Get ready, something may show up." "Okay." They went their ways. "They are yourpanions?" The Priest questioned me. "Yeah. I''m a Tamer you know." No point hiding it anymore so I''ll just give them an exnation. That isn''t really the right answer but at least I didn''t lie. Rosa soon chased all kinds of animals and small monsters to escape from their hiding ces. With a great shake, a dirt block is hurled towards us. Phiona dived and knocked the block away. "Master, I think Rosa found what you''re looking for." "What is it?" I hopped on my feet to get a better look around us. The grass is now taller than our heads which means we became even smaller now. We can''t see anything like this. "Lucky!" I summoned my number one helper. "Get the target!" Lucky charged to whatever was driven out. I climbed onto Dart. "Phiona, go help them!" Then I called back to the other people: "Find some ce to hide." I asked Dart to go to the scene so I can give more orders. The monster is an...ox. To be more precise, it''s a white water buffalo with three eyes on the forehead! Considering Lucky''s size, the buffalo must be at least three meters tall. Must be a powerful boss. Lucky wrestled with the creature. They''re both strong physical attackers so the brawling looks pretty intense. The buffalo tried to ram Lucky using its horns while Lucky grabbed them and blocked the attack. Aser beam came out of the monster''s third eye and hit Lucky in the center. That one must hurt, since Lucky roared in pain and rolled away. The buffalo seized the chance and began to dig at the ground with its front hoof, which means a signature bull charge ising. "Loong''er!" Lucky is hurt badly so the buffalo''s level must be pretty high. I need more helpers. "Seal that eye with your spells!" "Understood!" She floated into the sky and began to cast. I faced Phiona. "ce a fire wall to block his attack!" Woosh! Now Lucky and the monster are separated. Rosa tried to catch one of its legs but it struggled free quickly. This is not enough. "Night Shade, cover them!" He rammed into the buffalo''s body with his horn lowered in front. This is the first time I see Night Shade actually using this move. And it''s effective. A big bleeding hole is now opened up on the side of the monster. Night Shade shifted away the moment he finished his attack so the buffalo didn''t find any target to revenge on. "Phiona! Burn the ce and roast it alive!" The dry grasses soon caught a mass fire. The mes won''t hurt us because we''re in the same team. The buffalo on the other hand, isn''t so lucky. It was trying to catch Night Shade. Now it realized the target is too fast so it decided to catch someone else, which is me. Oh silly. Dart is even faster than Night Shade. You got no chance. I summoned Phantom to suppress its movement. "upy its body. Just make sure it moves slower." "Yes sir!" It''s more effective than I expected. Now the buffalo is twitching in ce. Phantom sure is getting better at causing nuisance. "Lucky? Are you alright?" We moved to where Lucky is staying. That wound looks serious. What kind of attack can take down a dragon in one hit? A portion of Lucky''s torso is burned ck. Ouch. "Have some rest." I de-summoned Lucky since it doesn''t look he can fight anymore. The buffalo is now chasing Night Shade again. It''s fast but not as agile as Night Shade so the situation is quite safe. But this is wasting time. I noticed I''m still getting smaller. I need to take it down somehow. "Phantom Knights!" "LEAVE NO ONE STANDING!!" A thunderous battle cry roared from above my head. I should have told them to keep it down. Damn it. "The ox up ahead. Kill it!" "Yes sir!" The leader ordered. "Lances ready! Release!" They threw all 30nces within 10 seconds, and they all hit! Now I see how they can build a freaking prison just using these polearms. The buffalo now looks like a hedgehog with all thosences pinned on its body, and its white furpletely turned dark red. "Shit. What level is it? Not dead yet?" I was justining to myself, but Loong''er heard me and answered. "I think that creature is the vahana of Shiva, one of the three major deities in Hindu. If I remembered right...it''s level 850 monster." (*) "Wait what? The ox got a background behind it? Who''s Shiva, someone powerful?" "Major gods are not listed amongmon monsters. You remember my father? He sits on the same level with Shiva. If you must need a level I''d say they''re beyond 1000." "Crap. Will he or she get back on me for making their mount a hedgehog? Well shoot. I''m dead." "I don''t think they will. Lucky can probably protect you. Lucky is a dragon king, the same title held by my father. His rank should be over a thousand as well, don''t worry too much." "Woooh, I didn''t know he got such an origin." I knew about dragon king but never realized the actual level of this title. "But you''re offspring of a dragon king. Will you go past 1000 too?" "No I can''t. The system designed me as a level 1000 monster. I guess my fate is sealed. And watch out!" The buffalo charged at me again! "Phantom Knights! Cook this thing into beef dumplings!" "Yes sir! Knights, charge!" "Crush the bull!" They surrounded the monster. The buffalo doesn''t have much HP left after all the ordeal. And ten Phantom Knights with the same level chopped it down without much trouble. Rosa''s tentacle suddenly came beside me. "Um, trantion, Phantom?" "He wants you to call Lucky, he can do something about that wound." "Perfect!" I summoned Lucky who''s stillying on the ground, groaning. Rosa pressed a tentacle on the wound, then he used several more vines andpletely wrapped up the buffalo corpse. The corpse was torn into countless shreds after some noise like a meat grinder. Rosa absorbed all the blood and created a red glow on Lucky. Lucky crawled back up soon. The ck mark is still there but he can move again. "Hey Rosa, that''s some nice trick!" "AH!!" Someone screamed. I saw an unfamiliar girl looking at us in horror, while the knights and mypanions started back at her. She''s probably scared by the battlefield. There are burn marks everywhere, and some of the grasses are still ame. A giant blood pool is in the middle of the Phantom Knights, Rosa is still healing up Lucky. Phiona is standing on Night Shade''s back, while Loong''er is floating above our heads. ...Yeah, this will definitely scare the shit out of most people. She ran past me before I can say hello. Well, not surprising, since I''m still tiny. I''m afraid I''m only the size of a bee now. The girl approached the Phantom Knights. "Who''s in charge?" They didn''t answer. They all looked towards the leader knight. "Are you the leader? Which guild are you from?" Of course they don''t know what a "guild" is. The leader answered ording to what he knows: "We''re from the Dark Sanctuary." Phantom Knights received their titles from that ce. They belongs to the dark force, so that answer is mostly correct. However the girl doesn''t understand it in the right way. "Dark Sanctuary? A new guild? Never heard of it. I only heard about that Holy Sect." ...That''s an existing guild established by other yers. But that name conveniently caused a big understanding to the knights. "You''re Holy Sect??" All of them drew their swords out. Clerics are natural enemies to them, they''ll never tolerate any Priest and simr sses as allies even if we''re in the same team. "Huh? I''m not! I HEARD about them!" That was close. But the girl didn''t realize the danger. "Did you just kill a big, white ox?" "We did!" They nod. "Where is the corpse?" She seems worried for some reason. "He ate it!" The knights pointed at Rosa. "But but, it must dropped something right?" Drop? She just reminded me to check my storage bracelet. This thing auto-recovers any loots so I didn''t realize till now. I took out something that looks like a token. But the moment it left the storage, it grew bigger and dropped on the ground. Shit. The ox is dead why am I not turning back?? "Ah, here!" The girl saw the item and ran to it. "It''s under protection??" Duh. New items dropped by monsters are protected for a period of time, other yers cannot pick them up. She gave up on the item and turned to me. By which I mean, Dart. "A such adorable foxy! What''s your name?" The girl asked the Phantom Knights who are still not sure about what''s going on. "Who''s the owner?" I yelled as loud as I can on Dart''s head. "I AM! HERE!" The girl heard me but didn''t see me clearly. "Is that a bug? Wow this game is so realistic." Then she tried to flick me away! Before she can catch me, we heard several "POOM"s around us. We finally returned normal. Now a stack of people areying on the grass, groaning. "YES!" I jumped up happily. The girl just stared at the dozen people who just came out of nowhere. --------- (*) Vahana: a.k.a God''s Mount Chapter Book 4 - 20 – Indian A-Sirs Book 4, Chapter 20 Indian A-Sirs (*) ------------------ Alert: minor offensive content against India and Japan. ------------------ "We recovered!" "Hooray!" People celebrated for getting out of the curse. The newly arrived girl just looked at the group without knowing what to do. "You--but, who are you people??" "Well, I''m [Ziri]," It doesn''t look like the other people are going to answer her. "good day." "Oh, uh. Hi, I--I''m[Shura Violet]." She''s stammering. Hasn''t recovered from all the shock, maybe. "What are you...?" She waved her finger at the scene. I answered with a question instead: "Why are you looking for the ox?" "OH!!" She finally remembered what she came for. "The ox!! Did it drop anything?" I picked up the token I just dropped. "This. A ck...metal te, haven''t identified it." The girl''s eyes are beaming. "Are you selling it??" "Sell?" I looked at the te again. "Not yet. I''ll decide after I figure out what it is." Obviously the girl knows something about it. I''m not giving it for free though. "I''ll [Identify] it right now if you''re in a hurry. I''ll sell if I have no need for it." "No you don''t have to! 100 thousand crystals! In cash!" "...Let me think about it." Curious. She''s either rich as hell, or this thing values a lot. "Why do you offer like that? We don''t know what it is yet." "But I know! Trust me, 100 crys is pretty good price! And I really need it now! Please please sell it to me!" She''s looking left and right when she said that, which means someone else is looking for this thing as well. A chance to make a fortune. I can wait for herpetitors and ask them to bid for it. Maybe I''ll earn a lot more. "No, I''ll get it identified to make decision. That''s a high price, and there must be a reason." She seems really worried: "Do it fast!" Then she gave me a recall scroll. She''s making sure I don''t bump into anyone on my way back. That''s what I''m hoping for though. "It''s not far. Let''s walk it. These scrolls are not free you know." Aha. Her face is turning red. And she''s stomping her feet because of the impatience. "Why the hurry? It''s not like I''ll lose it." She looks about to explode! "Stop right there!!" Another group showed up. Jackpot. When I''m inspecting the new arrivers I suddenly felt a sting on my chest. "Yaaaw! Hey what the fuc??" The girl wants it so bad and now she''s trying to take it by force! My team immediately came standing in front of me. I hired them as bodyguards after all, they know they shouldn''t ck off on that job. "What''s that for?" I pretended to be angry with the girl. That hit didn''t hurt much. I was expecting her to do that anyway. "You want to spend time in prison??" She just stared at me in shock without responding to my provoke. "You''re not dead??" "Huh? You''re expecting to one-shot me like that?" I robbed my chest, pretending to be hurt. Of course I''m not hurt at all. The Dark Dragon Lord set counts as heavy armor, I won''t feel much pain if it didn''t get prated. Still, I need to put on an act since I''m a "Wizard" now. "But that was my special skill! Aren''t you a caster?" "What''s wrong with that?" "I used [Mana Burn]! It damages your MP and causes double damage for how many mana points you lose. No casters would survive that!" I looked at my status bar. "...It didn''t do anything. The skill failed maybe?" Must be the resistance of my armor. It nullified the attack. The new group arrived at the scene. They look...brown. And they''re wearing cloth folds on their heads. Indian A-sirs?? Aren''t international routes not opened yet? Why is tourism bing so popr in China? The leading Indian man walked to me. "Hallo flend. Mai I aska if you took da token from da sacred cow?" Hisnguage sounds so awkward. The guy didn''t even buy the system trantion? ([Zero] doesn''t trante foreignnguages. You can pay some money to buy the simultaneous interpreting system, paid by hours, very convenient.) "Yes I did. Here." I held up the ck object. "Why? You want to buy it too?" "Don''t!!" The girl yelled from behind. "That''s their Nation Treasure! If we take it now they''ll have nothing to counter us in nation wars! You are a Chinese yer right?? Sell it to me!" She must by panicking since she let out the secret on her own. Still, I think she''s doing the right thing. I tried to rip her off when she''s protecting our country...I should apologize. Shame. The A-sirughed. "If ya sellit we pay you good plice! Nation war ish not fun if we don y it fair! Come on flend. Giv me a plice, we pay you here!" The girl clenched her teeth. "150 thousand crystals. That''s all I have! Think carefully. Please!" My helpers looked at me as well. They would want me to reject the A-sir too. I turned to the girl. "Take it!" I tossed the token over. She caught it and looked back at me, eyes wide. I shrugged to the now blue-faced A-sir. "Sorry my friend, who pays more gets it. You''ll never pay enough to win our passion for our home. " It seems they''re about to start violence. I waved at the Phantom Knights. "Get into position folks! We got work to do." They lined up in front of the nine Indian yers. Now that will scare them. We got over 30 people here if I take mypanions into ount. They only got 9. And I don''t think they can survive against the level 850 knights anyway. We ignored the foreign yers and headed towards our destination again. Every helper nodded to me along the way and patted on my shoulder. "Respect man." "Good job back there." That satisfied my ego a lot. Though I do hope they could be more gentle next time, cause a dozen hit on my shoulder would have hurt me, if not for my armor. "Hey wait!" Violet caught up. "You take it!" "...What do you mean?" I took the token back, not sure what she wants to do anymore. "Weren''t you trying to buy it?" "That''s because I didn''t trust you. I don''t want the Indians to have it. You proved your standing point so I can let you keep it. It''s safer." Umhmm. That smile is so sweet. Now she''s friendly, I can see she''s pretty passionate girl. "Since you two are so modest with it, we''ll help you get it off your hands!" The A-sirs appeared again. More of them this time! I see somewhere near forty people following behind. So they were just waiting for backup? "I knew we wouldn''t get out of this easily." The unknown girl stepped ahead. "This is ournd and you will remember it! Go, everyone!" "Kill them all!!" My temporary mercenaries all charged forward. "No, wait a sec--" They''re too hot-headed! "Phantom Knights, go help them!" They wouldn''t send any ordinary people for this job, plus my helpers are not really high-end yers so the oue is pretty obvious. Three of my team members died on the first conflict! To my relief, the Phantom Knights are still deadly to the enemies. These Indians all belong to one ss called "Pope". They look like our Taoists, good at both physical and magical skills. Still, their level is too lowpared to the knights. Nothing to worry about. Violet joined the fray as well. I already know she''s a melee ss with all those red armors on her, what I didn''t expect is that she is 100% damage dealer. None of her skills have any showy effects, every hit of her aims for best and fastest damage. She can almost take down any of the Indian yers with just two hits. That''s impressive! Without clear targets, all the mages and the fake mage (me) have to stay put on the outside. The battle ended after about a minute. It would have ended even faster, but the knights couldn''t use their team attacks because too many yers are blocking their way. We began to clean up the battlefield after all the enemies are dealt with. There are many small bottles scattered on the ground. I picked one up. "[Blessing Oil]?... What''s this?" People inspected the bottles too. "I don''t think it''s healing item." "Let''s try it then!" The female Warrior is straight enough. I thought she was going to use the potion on her own, however she dragged the Swordsman over and stuffed the bottle into his mouth. That looks...ufortable. "How about it?" She asked the now mouth-filled Swordsman. He didn''t answer. He just crouched and started to vomit. There are letters printed on the bottom but...I can''t read Hindi. I paid for the system trantion. Then I held my stomach andughed. "It''s not for drinking!" "Really? Thank god I didn''t do it." A ck Mage from the female Warrior''s team mumbled. "Wow look at Till''s face. He''s green." Violet asked me. "What does it do?" I''m still trying to hold myughter. "This is sold in Indian temples. It''s mostly the same thing as those holy waters in western cathedrals. Your pour it on your body to increase your status for a short while." "I was wondering why those people are so strong. But...look at your Swordsman, bah-hahahaha!" He''s going to throw his lunch up. His ck Mage teammate is still joking. "Hey Till! Think about it, holy oil sold in Indian temples! What do they call it? Indian god oil! You just drank a full bottle of it. You gonna pierce the sky! Girls will scream after you! " All the guysughed hard. Violet followed them with several dryughs and asked me. "What is Indian god oil?" "Ah so you don''t know?" I looked at her in surprise. "Then why are youughing?" "I don''t want to feel awkward. Tell me, what is it?" "Ahem. The oil is used on the..." I whispered into her ear. Then sheughed for real! "HAAAHahaha! So that''s why they fought so hard!" (**) "Hey what''s this?" The Priest picked up a long stick and gave it to me. I used [Identify] and almost jumped. "Holy shit! Their other team arrivedte because they were after this thing, and they didn''t even have time to get it identified!" "What? What?" Violet urged. "It''s a Nation Treasure of India, the [Almighty Rod]." "Really??" Violet took the item and checked. " They didn''t send enough force after me because they were after a bigger treasure!" While my team passes the item around I asked Violet: "But why would TWO Indian Nation Treasures show up here?" "Pre-war treasure exchange." Violet exined with an "I know everything" attitude. "Not all Nation Treasures appear inside the original country. For every country, there will be four pieces located in foreignnds! This is written on the official site. I can''t remember the details. Two pieces of ours should be in India, another two in Japan. For India, two in China and two in the UK. As for Japan...two here, one in America, and one in Korea." "All unfriendly territories." The Priestmented. "They''re trying to start a war?" "Of course they are! The nation war system ising, they''ll cause more conflicts and attract more yers to join!" The female Warrior exined. "I see it now." I held my chin. "People will now try to find their own treasures in other nations. This will create a lot of hostility among yers before the iing wars." "That''s what they''re trying to do." Violet agreed. I heard my private chat ringing. "Ziri! How''s it going on your farming? I found the seller [Arch Necromancer]!" "Hawk!" I just remembered what I was trying to do. The Hindus distracted us! "Not yet! What about you? What did he say?" "Good news and bad news. He''s a good guy, but he can''t decide because the treasure doesn''t belong to himself! The good news is he already prevented foreign yers from joining the auction." "That''s not enough. You know there are always people who''ll help the enemies! What if the Japanese hire someone for the job?" "Oh shit...you''re right! Better than nothing, at least it will buy us some time! Oh and, I asked our friends and we managed to collect 100 thousand crystals so far." "Far from enough." "I know! We''re still trying!" "Alright. I''ll work on it too!" Violet noticed my expression. "Something went wrong?" "Yes." I nod. "Someone is selling our treasure piece in Goddess City. We don''t have enough money, and I''m worried it would get taken away by Japan." "Here." She opened up the trade system and gave 150 thousand crystals to me. "All I have. For the mothend." Oh thank you thank you thank you-- But her following words prevented me from actually saying thanks. "I''m d I met sister today! If you need any help, as long as it''s for our country, I''m all yours, sis!" Oh for the-- "I''m a gentleman!!" "You are??" Everyone, yes EVERYONE, stared at me. "No kidding?" "You''re a guy??" "Lies!" "I don''t believe it!" That exnation took some more time. Ok, I really need to make a hood for my wizard robe. Or this will never end! "Ok now, back to business!" I asked them to continue with our hunting n. No more surprises this time. Shura Violet also volunteered to join our quest. ----------------------- (*) "°¢Èý" (a san) is a joking, sometimes offensive way to address Indian people. I''m not sure how to properly put it here so I''ll just create a word for it: A-sir. (**) It''s a product which is said to be able to...make youst longer. On the bed. Oh well. Chapter Book 4 - 21 – The Wild Hunt (Part 1) Book 4, Chapter 21 The Wild Hunt (Part 1) ------------------ We can finally get onto our quest! We wasted some time but I''m positive I can still make it if things go well. My mercenaries are now scouting the path ahead in a cone formation, while my Phantom Knights watches us from behind. I really don''t want any ambushes again. Violet chatted with me while keeping a lookout for monsters. "So where did you pop up all of a sudden?" She didn''t get that answer yet. "Really, you scared me for good. I thought you were all monsters." "We didn''t ''pop up''. We were already there. It''s just you can''t see us." "...You can all go invisible?" That''s...a legit exnation. "No, not like that. You were after that ox right?" "Yeah. But it lost me pretty fast. I came to you because I saw fires." "Do you know what that ox can do?" She doesn''t. She knows the monster drops a treasure but never witnessed its skills. "No, is it powerful?" "Yes. That''s why you couldn''t notice us." "What skill exactly?" "Shrinking. It can turn any targets small. And it was terrible. Apart from the size our status were also reduced." "How did you kill it then? And your ten...subordinates, weren''t affected right?" "I think the skill needs a long time to take effect. We were targeted from the moment we entered the grasnd. We walked for an hour before we noticed it. And none of mypanions were affected. So the ox can only shrink something it can see." "You killed it with yourpanions? Then who are those ten guys?" "My servants. I didn''t summoned them at the beginning either." Violet looked at me with a shocked face. "You serious? Those knights are you servants?" "Yup. Why not?" "Wait wait wait, you can have TEN servants? I can only take three!" "Duh. I''m Tamer, I rely onpanions and servants. How do I survive if a Tamer can''t have some advantages?" "That''s still too many! Ten servants I say, Ten!" She refuses to ept the fact. "I''m jealous. If can bring such a big group with me then I''ll find a bunch of handsome bodyguards! Ooohohohoho!" "Stop, hey stop. I didn''t think you can manage thatughing mode though." This reminded me again that I should never judge a girl by the looks. "Not gonna happen. I intentionally put more points on Charisma when I created my character. And that''s only because I finished some really lucky quests before I can find such a party." That two-month dungeon run...I don''t want to experience that again. "I saw a dragon flying above. I mean, an eastern one. And another winged one on the ground. Oh and a phoenix! Aren''t they born from mes? Why is a phoenix burned ck? " She is...talktive. "...The dragons are mypanions. And the burned phoe-- I mean, ugh! You got me. The phoenix is an Inferno Phoenix. What you said must be ordinary me phoenix." "Those whole lot of creatures are all yourpanions?" "Bingo. No prizes for you though!" She gave me a side look. "You got lot of secrets on you. What else are you hiding? I''m sure that''s not all." I''m defeat! Women''s sixth sense huh? It''s a bless that Red Moon doesn''t have such senses, or it would be a real hell. "Enough questions, let''s talk about you. Shura Violet, female Warrior, that''s all I know." I don''t feel like exposing anything further so let''s change the topic. "Me?" She said inly. "Just amon yer. You know, the most boring yers you can find anywhere." "Spill it. I told you enough about myself, how about a little returned favor?" "Okay." It looks like she just made a big decision. "But really, I meant it. Human race, Swift Warrior, which is, a Warrior with a lot of Dexterity. Ordinary equipment. Well you see it, Crimson Armor set, the best outfit you can find in system shops. Expensive but not really special. Everyone can get one as long as they got enough money. Servants...none." She suddenly gave me a mysterious look. "But I have a powerfulpanion!" "Apanion?" That''s unexpected. She didn''t use it in the previous fight. "What kind ofpanion, can I see it?" "Alright. Come, Ashura!" Poof! A smoke cloud blocked my view. "Cough! Cough! Argk... What''s this?? Lucky! Do something!" Lucky used one of his wings to blow the smoke away. He used too much force and it felt like a storm. The smoke cleared and revealed a...little...boy, in front of me. It''s a blonde boy with azure colored eyes, about the age of seven or eight. He''s holding a strange-looking sword in one hand, which is longer than his own body. It''s too big so he can only carry the de on his shoulder. "This is yourpanion??" I looked at the amazing little boy. The pair of tiny wings behind his back indicates that he''s an angel. All females in my mercenary team rushed to the boy and squeezed Violet and me away. "He looks so cute!" "What''s your name little friend?" "I love his hair! I want to see him when he grows up!" "Can I hug him??" "His skin looks too good! Ahh my nose-!" However the boy is much annoyed by all the gabbling. "Beat it flower girls!! Who do you think I am??" ...That could have sounded imposing, if not for his childish voice. The squeaking girls kept touching and pinching him. Violet pushed around the crowd without finding a chance to get in, so she can only yell: "Leave him! Don''t get him mad!!" She''s toote though. "WE ARE executors of divine scourge. LEAVE US NOW YOU FILTHY MORTAL WOMEN!" He pointed his sword to the sky. "Divine scourge,bat mode!" The boy became bigger. To be precise, he''s GROWING bigger. The apple appeared on his neck, and a series of strong muscles and blood vines emerged on the white, slim arm. That miniature armor on his body is also growing with him! It didn''t take long. Now a super cool guy about 20-rish, wearing glimmering golden armor is standing before us. The only thing that didn''t change is that sword he''s been holding. Thedies are scared silent. Ashura spoke again, with a stronger, deeper voice this time. "You dare to challenge the divine executor. DO YOU SEEK PUNISHMENT??" Violet finally managed to get into the crowd and grasped Ashura''s raised right hand. "Do-don''t get angry! They are ying with you because you look too good!" "Don''t worry sis. These infidels will not hurt you when I''m here!" Ok. He''s big, and maybe powerful. But that brain stayed a kid. Sigh. I''ll have to solve their problem again. I walked to the staring girls and gave each of them a big knock of the head. They looked back in anger. I ignored them. "How can you harass our Ashura the godsend anddy Violet?? Now I have defeat you, obey my orders and serve as my soldiers!" I secretly gave them a wink. "Now get out there and act like soldiers, like those males who are already able on their job!" They went away and continued on our quest. I turned to Ashura. "I have taken care of the enemies. Thedy is now safe." Ashura nodded to me, "Thanks for the assistance, human." Then he turned back to his boy form. To prevent those girls froming back, Imented aloud: "Is Ashura''s sword a mighty weapon, if I may?" He spread his hands to Violet, asking to be picked up. Violetplied. Obviously that''s amon practice between these two. Then he talked to me while sitting on Violet''s arm: "My sword is called the Divine Punisher. I can call punishment strikes from the heavens and burn anyone into ash!" Then he faced Violet. "Sister...my face hurts!" "Easy, easy boy. Oh poor Ashura. Here, a kiss will take your pain away." She gave Ashura a peck on the cheek. "Feeling better?" "Better! Thank you sis!" Well shoot. I really can''t put this boy into the same figure I saw a moment ago. "Um, Violet? So who exactly is yourpanion?" I don''t think I know about this character. "I''m not sure. He can transform. He stays an eight-year-old most of the time, and he gets mad if someone hurts me or himself. Then he turns into that Executor you saw. He''s way more stronger like that. But apart from how he speaks, his intelligence doesn''t change much." "Is the new form stable?" To tell the truth, I''m bing interested in this weirdpanion. "I mean, can he control that on free will?" "I...don''t know. He always does that when he''s angry, and recovers when the fight is over. So I think he can at least choose when to get back." "That''s pretty good. So no time limits. It''ll be a disaster if he turns back to a kid in the middle of fight." "Agreed." "We found monster!" Someone yelled ahead. "Hey Ziri! Come here!" "Finally, some business." I quickly went to my helpers. "What did you find?" "Over there!" I looked to where the Priest is pointing at. My mercenaries are attacking a lion with beautiful golden mane. "It''s strong! Fast and high attack power. You knights did most of the work to block its attacks." "Alright. Keep it busy!" I removed my gloves and began to cast [Capture]. The lion gave up on its targets and charged towards me. "Stop it!!" I yelled in panic. It would be a problem if it reaches me. A red shadow shed in front of me. Violet moves so fast! She stabbed her sword downward from above the air, forcing the lion to twist its course away to avoid the attack. I kept using my skill. The skill hit the lion and failed for a second time, then the lion turned to my direction again. Violet did a quick leg-sweep at the lion''s body to draw its attention. But she didn''t keep her bnce well andnded on the ground on her back. "Rosa! Restraint!" If anyone''s good at holding something in ce it''s Rosa. He shot out several vines but the lion dodged them all! "Phantom! Interfere!" I have backup n! The mind control worked better. The lion is still fast but it would now crash on in ground now and then for no reason. But the damn beast still ran towards me! "[Dark Mist]!" Someone used a support spell. It got the opposite effect. The spell doesn''t distinguish targets. Now nobody can see anything! This created a perfect chance for the lion since it has a good nose. "Ouch! Stop it! Why are you poking me??" Someone is hurting their teammates! "Where''s the White Mage? Clear it up!" She sessfully got rid of the mist but...my heart skipped a beat when I saw the Lion is only about 3 meters away from me. It''s already going to attack but was distracted by the sudden light. It didn''t pause for long though. Now the terrible beast lunged at me. "[Grapple Toss]!!" A young man suddenly rushed beside me. Woah look at that! He charged at the lion bare handed. He didn''t actually toss the lion but still interrupted its attack by ramming it away. They recovered their stance and are now staring at each other. This is not time for a fair fight. I signaled my mercenaries to get close. I put my hand on the young man''s shoulder. "Thanks for the assist. But, who are you?" I don''t remember this man in my team. "Oh hi! I''m [Timely Big Pot]! Hawk told me toe. We''re ssmates." (*) We shook hands. "Hawk''s friend? Nice knowing you. Why did he send you though? We''re not short on hands or something." "He asked me to give you something!" He took out...a giant bundle of rope from behind his back. "You aren''t going to capture it without this." He handed one end of the rope to me. "Let''s tie up the big cat!" "But we need to get close to it first." Violet came over. Those dirt and messy hair suggest that she had a roughnding back there. Big Pot (*) just rolled up his sleeves. "We got enough folks here! It''s just a lion. Now go! Human wave tactic!" Then he threw the rope away and charged at the lion first. He did manage to grab the lion. The tail, at least. "Ahhhhhh-- Help!!" It looked silly but is actually effective. The lion is obviously running slower with a human hanging on its tail. Ok, here goes nothing. "Let''s do it! Keep it on the ground!" All melee sses followed my order and ran towards the beast. The scene looks funny. A bunch of people is now trying to climb onto the lion like in those monster movies. The weight of all these yers is real. The lion may be a high level monster but it still fell on the ground with so many solid burdens. It struggled for a bit and finally gave up. The girls used the rope to wrap it up like mummy. And is that a bow knot on its head? Finally. It didn''t look good but at least we did it! So the first try-out seeded. Big Pot is the first one into the mess so he got crushed under all that weight real bad. His clothes are a bit ragged, and some bruises are now on his otherwise brilliant face. I asked people to go find other monsters while I spammed [Capture] on the helpless lion. Later, many high level Breeders in [Zero] learned to use this approach to capture something as a defenseless target to grind their skills. Of course, this is another story. The lion turned into egg after thirty tries or so. "Now this is MONEY!" I carefully stroked the egg. Then I contacted Hawk. "Hey Hawk!" "Something''s wrong again??" He worries too much! "No no no, I just got the first item to sell. Level 512, [Savannah Lion King]. Find buyers. I also recorded how we captured it, show it to them!" "That''s pretty fast. Good job man! I''m on it. Did my fellow give you the rope?" "Big Pot?" I chuckled. "Funny dude. He tried to ride the lion using his own body. But it worked! I''m thinking about hiring a group of Orc Berserkers as my professional hunting team." "Really? I see the video... Ahahaha! That''s the man. He''s always like that in the school. But he''s a good guy. Everyone on the ss likes him! I don''t think you can keep using that crowd tactic. What if you find something bigger like Lucky?" "I see. I''ll think about itter. Going to find more monsters, you find a buyer asap!" "Leave it to me!" -------------------- (*) This is a randomly typed name: "asdgf". It has a funny meaning in Chinese pinyin pleted by the initial letters): The timely big-pot. I''ll use "Big Pot" as his nickname. Chapter Book 4 - 22 – The Wild Hunt (Part 2) Book 4, Chapter 22 The Wild Hunt (Part 2) ------------------ Hawk is going to find a buyer soon so I need to make it fast. Companions eggs are expensive as of now but not to the extent where you can buy a Nation Treasure with just one egg. And this lion I caught is not really a high end monster, it won''t be enough. I guess quantity works better than quality in this situation. I just need to capture more eggs. Our team found the second target soon. It''s a bulky creature covered in armored skin. I thought it was a rhino first but...it got no legs? It just, stays there, like a giant ck rock. Anyone would have missed it if not for that vibrating part on its side. I took out a random bow from my bracelet and shot at the target. It won''t do much damage but I can see its status with the attack. The arrow didn''t hit where I aimed at but it''s still a hit. A red "-1" floated up. That shot didn''t break its defense. I''m not an Archer, and the bow is amon junk but...I still have a high general damage. I should be able to do more than that. The attack seeded so my Star Gaze showed its status. "[Iron Beetle], level 650, Physical Attack 900-1800, Physical Defense 3000, Speed (ground) 72, Speed (airborne) 132. Skill: methrower, Acid Spit, Tackle. All attacks carry strong poison effect." I read that out aloud. Someone gasped. Violet gave me an uncertain look. "We should find something else. I don''t think we can take it down. Your Phantom Knights may kill it eventually but it''s pretty much impossible to capture it." Big Pot joined us. "That shell looks too smooth. The rope''s not gonna work." "Difficult target means more money. I''m not going to let up the chance." The sitting ck object is made of gold in my eyes! "Let me try it out." "Wait, I''ll do it!" Our female Warrior charged with her sword raised. It doesn''t seem the ck creature can avoid the attack at all, or, it isn''t nning to dodge in the first ce. Goong! That sounded like a hammer rather than a sword strike. The Warrior is bounced flying, and her sword stuck into Big Pot''s left foot. Now he''s hopping single-legged while yelling in pain. We got Priest here so his foot is not a problem, but... "That''s hard like shit." I looked at the unmoving creature in worry. "How much damage?" The Warrior spoke with a thick tongue. I think she bit her tongue back there. "Didn'' b-break the-defense. 1 point." "No kidding? So even a Warrior can''t hurt it?" Big Pot proposed himself when his foot is healed. "I''ll try it!" He took out his weapon...A nine-tooth spike rake! Shite. That looks badass! He roared and charged at the monster. A metal sh, then he flew back just like the Warrior. "So how did it go?" The female Warrior asked in a challenging attitude. "Just...just, a little, better!" I pinched his head to help him stop vibrating. "Thanks for that. At least I broke through its defense. 43 damage." "Not bad buddy!" I looked at the monster again. It''s moving?? Phantom alerted: "Get away master! Rosa told me the monster''s body underground is way bigger!" "Huh?!" It already looked like a mini van. So that''s not all of it? This will look ugly. "Get back you all! It''sing out big!" We didn''t react in time. The ground copsed below us, involving everyone except the agile Violet. A pan-shaped crater the size of half a football ground appeared. I managed to run up the edge, then me and Violet helped drag everyone up. "Is everyone here?" I asked the team leaders. "We''re good!" They answered. But Violet found something amiss. "Where is Big Pot?" "Oops. Anyone saw him?" No answer. They all shook their heads. "Help!! Up here!!" I looked towards the center of the pit. The beetle looks like a small ind, and Big Pot is standing on its back! "But how did you get there?" I yelled to him. "The ground is sinking and this is the only solid point! So I jumped!" Big Pot answered while trying to keep himself stable. It looks really hard because the monster''s back is slippery like a mirror! Before we can figure out how to save him, the "ind" moved. It stood up. The body slowly showed itself in full, maybe even bigger than Lucky. When it finally lifted itself using its six insect legs, it reminded me of those tanker bugs in Starship Troopers, just a bit smaller. However the smaller size doesn''t necessarily mean it''s any less powerful! "Eh?... Ahhhhhh!!" Big Pot lost his footing due to the sudden movement. Luckily he slipped towards behind the bug''s head, and grabbed onto it''s giant horn. "What in the name of the god is that?..." The Priest stared at the gigantic creature while drawing cross in front of his chest. The dude took his game role for real! "RUN, RUN DAMN IT!!" I noticed the beetle drawing breath. Of course I know what that means! That''s exactly the same move when Lucky tries to breathe fire. Step 1: a deep breath; 2: force up a pressure; 3: let it out! The monster is taking in air now, which means bad stuff ising! The beetle opened its maw and released a purple me beam at us. It looks like military napalm bomb rather than regr me throwers! Thanks to my warning, no one is caught in the attack. The beetle stared at us with its two pairs of green eyes. The four creepy light bulbs are making our hair stand. "Phantom Knights! Attack!" Forget it. I do need eggs but obviously my life is more important. If I die here I''ll need much more time to get back. I should just kill it and find other targets. The knights took my order and turned towards the bug. They first used their signature javelin attack. Perfect hit. Level 850 is no joke, everynce pinned into the bug''s body, causing green fluid toe out. But thences all began to smoke, then melted and disappeared under the liquid! The knights looked at each other, and me, in shock. Looks like they''re not expecting to lose their weapons like that either. So my Phantom Knights won''t work here. "Lucky! Ready your fire!" "Got it!" Lucky took aim at the bug and draw breath. The monster did the same. I think they''re going to have a sh at it. But Big Pot is still on the beetle. I don''t know if dragon fire can kill the bug but surely Big Pot''s not going to survive that! "Rosa! Now! Get that guy off the beetle!" Rosa caught Big Pot with a tentacle in the next second and dragged him underground. Then Lucky and the monster released their attacks at the same time. Lucky''s dragon fire is powerful because of nature talent and all kinds of species bonuses, while the beetle''s currently level is too high. The two fire beams don''t have an apparent winner. They are both enclosed in intense fire. We already kept distance but the heat still caused us to back away further. Lucky is the first one to give up. His current level is too low. The beetle is no better. The ten holes on its shell were erged into ten big hollows, and its shiny shell lost its luster. Now it looks like burnt stic. Lucky''s scales stayed intact against the fire. The beetle''s attack must be corrosive because Lucky''s body is smoking while giving out some irritating smell. I took the ropes and gave them to everyone. "Circle it around. Bind up its legs!" They moved. While the beetle is confused by so many targets, we sessfully got the ropes around its legs. When it discovered what''s going on, it lifted its back shell, revealing a pair of transparent insect wings. Violet mumbled to herself. "It can fly?..." Then the heavy creature left the ground for real! I shouted to the Phantom Knights when the beetle has already gained some altitude. "Knights, another round ofnce attack. And use something explosive if you can!" "Yes sir!" The leader ordered. "Ready up! sternce array! Release!" 10nces were hurled away almost the same moment as he finished that order. They all hit again, and this time they hit the bug''s soft belly part. The weapons exploded on impact. Ten fireballs erupted below the creature. Then the beetle tumbled down like a ne hit by a missile, while leaking out fuel. I mean bug juice. It''s dying. I quickly began to use [Capture] when there''s still time. I seeded after thirty tries! A big, winter melon shaped egg fell into my hands. Somehow I don''t want to sell it. The bug can be a really nicepanion. Too bad, the Nation Treasure is first priority now, so I still contacted Hawk. "We got a new product. Watch this video!" I waited him to finish. "How does it look? " "Good stuff! You really did it!" "Got any buyers?" "Yes but he''s still on his way. I''ll contact you once we settle the details. It''s 1 o''clock in the morning! Not much time left!" "I know I know!" I put away the egg and asked them to continue. The next target showed up in our sights soon. I think we''re getting experienced. "Get down! A Thunder Eagle!" Someone alerted us so we all followed. Well, except for Big Pot. I don''t know why he decided to be the only one standing. The eagle swept down past our heads. After a strong gust, Big Pot is gone. He''s carried away by the monster! "Archers! Aim!" I ordered. "Watch where you shoot!" "I got it!" One of the Archers gave me a confident respond, then he released his skill. The arrow flew towards the bird with a beautiful star track trailing behind it. That''s the effect of a Frost Arrow. "OWAAHHHH---" It hit something. But I don''t think the eagle can scream like that. Under the moonlight, we noticed that the human figure hanging on the eagle now have a "tail" on its bottom. The Archer scratched his head. "Sorry. Heh heh heh... ident. It''s too dark." "Booo." Someone gave him a middle finger. "Sigh. I''ll do it again I guess." I raised my right hand and rolled up the wizard robe sleeve. "Dragon cord hook out!" Pom! The hook wasunched towards the eagle. The bird obviously saw my attack, and avoided it with a brief mid-air halt. I raised my left hand and shot again. I caught its leg this time. Then I found another problem. I''m not strong enough to pull it alone! The cord is going away fast like fishing wire, which means-- "AHhhhh---" I''m flying too! "Rosa! A little help!" When I''m still within reach, a tentacle came up and wrapped around my waist. The strong stopping power almost split me in half! The Thunder Eagle is in no better condition. It got dragged down by the sudden force and crashed on the ground. Phantom Knights and my mercenaries immediately rushed to the bird and did their work. The knights pinned its wings on the ground using theirnces, while the yers packed it up for good. It''s level 517. But a flightless eagle is just a meat chicken waiting to be ughtered. Big Pot crawled away from below the eagle with stars in his eyes. "Med..medic! Help..." Thud. He walked several steps and fell face-first. That''s not my job. I need to capture the monster fast. It took less time. Only 13 tries. "Zirie here!" That''s Violet. "What''s wrong?" "Just look!" I looked where she''s pointing to, and my mind stopped! "A nest??" A dirt pit about a meter in diameter is in front of us. From those dry grasses and scattered eagle feather, it must be a bird nest! "Wait, so that means--" I didn''t finish my sentence when Violet disappeared. Crap. We got another one in the air! "Archer--" Big Pot shouted but I stuffed his mouth. "Phiona! Take care of the eagle!" Surely a phoenix is enough to get rid of amon beast. "Lucky, catch Violet when she''s free." Phiona''s currently level is a lot lower than the eagle, but a legendary avian is still legendary. The two flying creatures brawled in the air. The Thunder Eagle cannot keep it''s hold on Violet while fighting so it dropped her off without hesitating. And Lucky is already there to catch her. "Phiona! Retreat!" I told Phiona to get away, then ordered towards my back. "Archers, do it!" A round of arrows went up. They all used area skills, probably because no one is confident in hitting something that far away. Now I really hope Elfy is here. The arrows hit. In fact it will be a real joke if that kind of area attack misses. But the damage...is less impressive. "Leave it to me!!" Big Pot grabbed a javelin somewhere, performed a short run-up and threw it like an Olympic athlete. The javelin moved towards the eagle real fast. It won''t do much damage but I noticed something different. There''s a thin, metal wire attached behind the javelin. So this guy is not all blockhead! The weapon pierced one of the eagle''s wings. There''s no significant damage but our n is to use the wire to drag it down. The Thunder Eagle looks enraged. It turned to Big Pot, who''s holding the other end of the wire. Violet muttered to herself: "Oh no..." "Hm? What''s wrong?" "It''s called [Thunder Eagle], right?" ...Right. "AHHH--wehwehwehwehwehweh--" Big Pot is already trembling. The eagle used its skill. A visible blue electric wave traveled down from the metal wire, and Big Pot is thest part of conductor on the ground. Now we''re looking at a shining blue skeleton figure holding onto the electric wire while performing an impressive break dance. Violet face-palmed. While the Priest is drawing cross again. As for me...I sighed in relief for how my dragon cord isn''t conductive. The electricitysted for a dozen seconds. Then Big Pot opened his mouth and let out a smoke puff, before going down again. He''s all ck, and some parts are still giving out blue smoke. The Priest and Priestesses finally got the chance to go help him. Big Pot is a Warrior ss so he had enough HP to survive it. I still need to do something about the eagle. I turned to the Phantom Knights: "Someone shoot it down. And mind how much power you use, it didn''t have much HP left." The leader stepped ahead and threw hisnce at lightening speed. The heavy-looking polearm precisely pierced the eagle''s wing base. The wing was broken apart as it was just hit by a mortar shell. From the scattering feathers and blood, I realized that thences they unleash are actually rotating, like drills. So that''s why they got so much piercing power! The eagle crashed on the ground. It was hurt even worse than thest one and I only used my skill six times to capture it. "Over here!!" Violet called me again from the nest. "Don''t tell me there are more thunder eagles!" "Well no," She pushed some grass aside. "I was going to show you this." She took out an...eagle egg. "The two birds must be a couple. This is their nest. I think there are more eggs down there." "Really??" I fished around the nest. Prize! I found five eggs, which means we just got another six eggs without fighting. "Wah-hahaha! Rich I''m rich!!" They say misfortunes nevere single, I guess fortunes also love to pile up together! Since I got enough oue, I decided to dismiss my team early. I paid them what I promised and they''re also happy to be able to rest early. Me, Violet and Big Pot teleported back to the Goddess City. Hawk and the others are already waiting. "There you are!! How did it go?" I gave him my loot. "Level 517 Thunder Eagles, eight of them. A level 650 Iron Beetle. A level 512 Lion King." "Wowzah. How did you--brilliant!" He gave them back to me. Well he doesn''t have enough inventory to keep all these eggs. "The buyer is in the Moonpeak restaurant. Just waiting for you!" "Who''s the buyer anyway?" I asked on the way. "I''m not selling the eggs to anyone suspicious. I''m protecting our nation treasure, it will cause another problem if I sell powerfulpanions to enemies." "Don''t worry. He''s called [Shadow Gale], the boss of Righteous League." "Righteous League?" I looked at the sky. "I heard the name somewhere. " "Of course you heard it!" Elfy jumped out. "They''re the biggest guild in China region, and Gale is Red Moon''s big brother!" "Oh right!" Hawk exined, "Speaking of Red Moon, she helped me contact Gale." "What??" That''s a blow to my head. A terrible scene appeared inside my mind: I kneel before Red Moon, pinned down by all thepanions I sold her, while an unknown man snickers at me: "So how do you feel, getting rekt by your ownpanions?" "NO!!" I stopped in my track. "I can''t sell to them! Red Moon is trying to get back on me. How can you sell weapons to your enemy when there''s a war going on??" "Come on stop it." Hawk pped my head. "I don''t know about his sister but I can assure you Gale is a good man. We talked. He''s kind enough, and wise. Somewhat mysterious though." "...Let''s go and see." I trust Hawk. And besides I don''t have time to worry about something like that anymore. He''s the leader of the number one Chinese guild, so he''s probably going to lead all yers to fight with intruders. He can''t be bad. We reached the Moonpeak restaurant. The name didn''t lie, it looks like the moon is just on top of the building when we looked from below. Hawk led us into a private room on the 9th floor. It''s a big one designed for suchrge scale meetings. A line of chairs sit across the front door, and a knight about the age of 20 is sitting in the middle one. He wears full silver glimmering equipment, he can pretty much act as a light bulb in here. A row of beautiful girls are standing behind him. Each one of them has the face of super star! Hawk dragged me in front. "I''ll introduce. This is Ziri, he''s the one getting the eggs, so speak to him for prices and other details." The knight stood up to me and politely stretched a hand. "Greeting. I''m Shadow Gale, I came to buy yourpanions. Before we start, may I ask how you get them? I''m willing to pay a million crystal for your secret technique!" I smile. "A lot of people have seen it so it isn''t really a secret. But you probably can''t copy it because it relies on my attributes. I''m the only one who can do it now. Shall we begin?" "Of course, take a seat." We walked the long conference table. Gale walked to the window side while we took the other. I lined up all the eggs on the table. "Eight Thunder Eagles, level 517. An Iron Beetle, level 650. A Lion King, level 512. Do you need to review the videos for their abilities?" "There''s no need," he kept calm but I can still see the excitement in his eyes. "I know these monsters, all good ones. Especially the beetle, it has always been a terrifying target." He carefully checked each egg. "Thunder Eagles...They''re not strong but can be really fast. however did you capture them? No one seeded before!" "That''s...a secret." I just smile. As Hawk said, this man feelsfortable to talk with. Unlike Red Moon. "How much can you offer?" That''s my main concern now. "100 thousand crystals for the lion, is that alright?" "Deal!" I put the number in my mind. The Nation Treasure should worth at least 500 thousand. And I''m expecting it to raise to 550 or even 600 in the auction. The lion is the lowest leveled one. If I can get 100 thousand out of it I''ll definitely earn over 1.2 million out of all the eggs. More than enough! "How about the others? Do you need them?" "Of course I need them!" I was worrying he won''t buy them all but it seems he''s even worrying more. Companions eggs are still extremely rare on the market, he waited here since the early morning! "110 thousand for each of the eagles." Elfy wrote a "120" behind my back before I can respond. I immediately changed my tongue. "120." Gale nodded without hesitation. "Deal. 120 thousand that is. The beetle is too rare for an offer. You can give me a price!" I looked towards Elfy for help. I know nothing about market prices! Elfy wrote a "200" this time. But isn''t that a little...? I still spoke. "200 thousand Crystals." Gale hesitated this time. Only for several seconds. "Alright. I''ll take it!" He opened up the trade window and put 1.26 million in it. I quickly stuffed all the eggs in. Confirm. My actual ie is 1.159 million, since the system would take away 8% as tax. "I''ll be off then. Until next time." I stood up. But Gale stopped me. "One moment. Are you interested in joining the number one guild in China?" Sigh. Brother and sister. I pointed at the emblem on my chest. "I''ll have to decline, for I''m already in a guild." He didn''t persist like his sister though. He just chuckled. "Too bad then! Red Moon told me about it. And she was right. But! Please kindly contact me first the next time you sell eggs!" "That''s no problem." I shook hands with him and left the restaurant. Then I handed the money to Hawk. "I need to rest. I''m not sure I cane to the auction, so don''t wait for me. I''ll message you if Ie." "Okay." He nodded. "I''m off too. But you''d bettere, just in case. Don''t push yourself though." "I''ll try!" I said goodbye and logged off. It''s 4 in the morning! I''m having trouble keeping my eyelids open. I can only hope I wake up before the auction tomorrow. I mean, today. I left my Iron Unit and looked around the dorm room. Empty. So Wayne didn''te back the whole night. Where did he run off to? Nevermind. Sleeping time. I was woken up by a series of hysterical cries. I opened my eyes to see Wayne dancing around beside my bed. "Why the hell are you losing your mind in the morning??" "The- I mean, the??" "The what? Slowly!" "What what what''s that robot? Gundam??" The Iron Unit. "It''s just my new toy! Now keep it down I''m trying to have some rest!" "Toy? That thing''s a toy??" He won''t let go. I can only spend some time to exin. "I want a father like that!!" I kicked him away. "You''re already richer than most people here!" Not as good as my family but he also have several billions in his pocket. "What''s the time?" "Four. Why are you still sleeping?" "FOUR PM??" I jumped. "I''mte!! Get into the game NOW!" "Late for what?" Wayne has no idea what''s happening. I don''t have time to talk anymore so I just pressed his helmet onto his head. "Get in there and I''ll exin! Go to the Goddess City!" I jumped into my Iron Unit and activated the system. Chapter Book 4 - 23 – Auction War Book 4, Chapter 23 Auction War ------------------ "Boss! I''m in the teleport station. Where are you? And what''s going on anyway?" Wayne started to annoy my ears the moment we entered the game. "Get to the auction site in the city center!" "Ah okay." Wayne went on his way, a bit unwillingly. I logged off near the center so it will take some time for Wayne to get here. I began to search for Hawk in the crowd while giving him a call. "Hawk, I''m here!" "Finally!!" "Sorry sorry. I slept over! Where are you all?" "We''re inside. Wait we''ll go pick you up. We reserved a box with a nice view!" This guy sure knows how to enjoy himself. I cut the chat and saw Big Pot running towards me. "Hey Ziri!" "Hello again." "Let''s go my friend!" I looked around. Big Pot followed my head and looked around too. "Looking for something?" "I have a friend on his way here, let''s wait a bit." Wayne came in several minutes. He must had a rough way from all that panting. "Boss...huff...what on earth happened? Someone asked if my pants is on fire." "Let''s get in. You''ll see." We then followed Big Pot. We traveled through a stair to the second floor, then a long arch hallway. I can''t see the end of it, it must lead towards inside the auction hall. We walked to the doorbeled "2179". All the doors are making me dizzy! Countless of them are stacked close to each other along the hallway, I''d say each two doors are no farther than a meter away. The rooms behind these door must be small as hell. But I was shocked when I saw the interior. The room is arge, standalone lobby. I poked my head in and out of the door to check if I''m seeing things right. Hawk called out: "Come here. The room is like those private houses, you know, virtual spaces." Bleh. I forgot that. The people in the room are all familiar faces. Apart from Hawk and Elfy, Yuri, Razor, Golden Coin are here, and...Violet! So including me, Wayne and Big Pot, that''s nine people in total. "You''re toote. It''s starting!" There''s a balcony-like structure overseeing the hall below us. The hall isn''t really big from where we''re looking, but again, it may have been adjusted to improve visual. The seats are mostly taken. The event hasn''t officially started yet so people are chit-chatting among themselves which makes the area really noisy. But it''s a lot better inside the box. The personnels are carrying all sorts of stuff onto the stage. Must be the auction lots. "Hey Hawk, do you know how many items they''re selling today?" "I don''t. I''d guess a lot, from the looks of it." "When is our target?" "Will bete." Elfy said while looking at the workers. "They always reveal good stuff atst to keep the audiences. I''m sure a Nation Treasure stays far behind, if not thest one. Look, they''re starting!" A middle-aged gentleman walked to the center of the stage. ording to Hawk, he''s a real-life auctioneer who specifically joined the game today to hold the event. "Thanks for your patience everyone, the auction shall start right now! Please look at our first item today." He snapped his finger. A pair of pretty guiding girls carried a three-meter-longbatnce to the stage. "Now pay good attention if you will! Lot one--the [Cloud Piercer]. This is a Knight Lance, Golden rank, Attack 203-271, with amplified damage bonus. A rare weapon at the current stage. We start off at 10 thousand crystals, increment no less than a thousand each time and must be the multiples of a thousand. Begin!" (Equipment below Golden rank cannot enter auctions) "11 thousand!" "15 thousand!" "20!" "25 thousand!" The peoplepeted in chaos until the bid reached 80 thousand! "It''s just amonnce! They all lost their mind?" "Hah. Of course you wouldn''t know. Rare equipment is just likepanions eggs. 9 out of 10 level 300 yers are still wearing stuff below level 200. Not everyone is as lucky as you!" Violet answered while calcting something with her head lowered. "Okay then. You guys watch, I need to catch some more sleep. Wake me up when the treasurees up." I called up the in-game sleep assistant program. This is the first time I ever use it. When they called me it''s already six in the evening. "It''s here?" I asked Big Pot who just shook me awake. "Almost. They''re bidding on the second item fromst. Clear your head!" Then Big Pot gave me a strange look. "Hawk told me this but I want to ask again..." "Hm?" "Are you sure you''re a guy?" "Shoryuken!!" I sent him into the ceiling. "That''s my answer." I humphed and walked to the balcony. The hall is quiet, only people from the boxes are bidding now. Looks like all the rich guys stayed behind. "500 thousand!" The sudden voice from the nearby box made me jump. What the fuc are they trying to buy? "510!" Shit. They''re adding by the tens! "510 thousand crystals. Any more bids?" The auctioneer''s throat must be sore now. "510 thousand once! Anyone? 510 thousand twice! 510 thousandst. Deal!" Finally. That leaves thest item. He personally took a box from the stand, while a guidingdy took out the robe and disyed it to everyone. "This is one part of the Nation Treasure outfit which will be used to activate the nation defense system in nation wars, [Robe of the Primordial Lord]. Defense 700, doubles the power of all Taoist skills, 50% element resistance, +25% MP regeneration. Ites with a passive, [Heaven Barrier]. It automatically triggers your defense and reduces iing damage by 20%. Starting bid is 400 thousand crystals. Bidding rules are the same. Now begin!" "500 thousand!" Hawk shouted first. This is our n, we raise the price quickly at first to scare off the weakerpetitors. "700!" A voice from a nearby window made us all jump into the air. "Uh Hawk? How much fund do we have?" I started to think about new ns. There''s someone even crazier! "Yourpanions, and the money we collected, that''s 1.6 million in total. This should be enough, I guess." I gave them a grave look. "I don''t do much business but I heard a lot about them from my parents. That man is obviously not considering about the price, he must be the agent those Japanese yers sent here. Their goal is to break up the treasure set no matter what the cost is, and they will not care how much money the piece actually worth. They WILL raise the bid like there''s no tomorrow! We need to do something!" "But what can we do??" Everyone panicked. Another voice came from another box across from us. "1.5 million!" Thud! Violet crashed from her seat. "This is madness!!" She crawled up and yelled. "1.5 million first call!" The auctioneer is settling up! I gave Hawk a knock on the back. He''s already petrified! "Uhhh 1.6 million!" "1.6 MILLION SOMEONE CALLED 1.6 MILLION IS THERE ANYONE HIGHER?!" Apparently the auctioneer isn''t expecting such high prices either. He''s waving the hammer like a cheerleader. "2 million!" That''s from the room near us. Crash! Bunk! Everyone fell or sat on the ground this time, and nobody in the whole auction center besides these three rooms are responding anymore. Hawk helped Elfy stand up. "I, I need some air! My heart can''t take it! I''m not gonna risk my life like those bastards! Elfy, let''s go." Before he exit the door he turned back to me. "Do we do it?" I just nod. "Get prepared then!" Looks like we''ll have to do it the hard way. "More bids anyone? 2 million,st call!" The room across gave a price before the auctioneer can drop the hammer. "2.3 million!" The room shook. People fell again. I''m sweating hard. Who the fuc are those guys?? "2.5 million!" The adjacent room lit it up. I see groups of people running towards the exits while holding their chests. The auction is giving out a lot of heart attacks tonight. The opposite room didn''t give up. "2.6 million!" The price race is slowing down, which means the result wille any second now. I contacted Hawk. "Hawk, speak to that Arch Necromancer guy, we need to know who bought the piece as fast as we can!" "I know. I''m right beside him. He''s losing it too! The price must hit him too hard. We''ll know the name the moment the auction ends!" "2.7 million!" Came from the room nearby. A third voice came up. "3 million!" Someone else showed up! Now this gonna be fun. I talked to Hawk again. "Stay put, we got new situation. The price will keep rising. Watch over the guy don''t let him faint!" "He already did!" Hawk sounds depressed. "I''ll try to wake him. You watch over the auction!" "Will do!" "3.1 million!" The room nearby is raising the bid again. Where did theye from?? 3.1 million crystals. That''s like, 4.5 million solid US dors! "4 million!" It''s the new voice. I spit the tea I just drank. The auctioneer dropped his sses and the guidingdy holding the robe almost tripped on her feet. Big Pot pinched his own face. "For real? 4 million?? They''re just, insane! Did someone from the central bank decide to y the game??" All the participants in the hall are restless now. "5 million!" The nearby window dropped another bomb. More people are now heading outside while carrying those who can''t walk anymore. "That''s money I say! Real money! And this is just a freaking game!!" "5.5 million!" It''s the new voice. This is getting beyond out of hand. No one expected this to happen. "6 million!" The voice nearby began to sound uneasy. They won''tst long now. "6.2 million!" The newer is clenching teeth. Both sides are at their limit. "6.5 million!" The first voice sounds broken. The hall stayed silent for a while. The new voice never came again. The auctioneer spaced out for a minute before he remembered his job. "6.5 million, first time. Anyone? 6.5 million second time. 6.5 millionst call! Alright, de--" "7 million!!" A female voice appeared. The auctioneer tried to stop his hammer which caused him to stumble off the stage. But the room nearby didn''t even hesitate. "10 million!!" "Argh!!" My legs gave out. No one is sitting on their seat anymore. 15 million dors!! What kind of lunatic-- "Hawk! Get ready it''s almost over! Is he awake?? Someone bid 10 million crystals, I don''t think anyone will keep up!" "He''s here! The name is--[Smoker]! Do it!!" "I GOT THIS!!" I used my Star Gaze. The target has already moved to another city. He must be prepared. Too bad your enemy is me! "I found him. At the Far Land!" "What do you mean farnd?" "It''s a city! The city is called the Far Land. He got teleport scrolls. Come now!" "We did!" "Huh??" "We were waiting at the teleport station. Now waiting for you!" "Understood!" I told the location to the rest of the people and teleported. I saw Hawk, Elfy, Golden Coin and Razor standing outside the station. "There!" I pointed to one direction and moved, while keep checking my ring. After some distance, we saw an Assassin running ahead, that''s the target! "What''s the n?" Hawk asked with a worried voice. "You guys leave the city and find an open space, tell me the coordinates. I''ll teleport that guy over there!" "On it!" Hawk led the others away, while I kept following. He''s running fast. Someone must be waiting for him to deliver the goods. So this man must be the traitor! I was hoping someone else can help preserve the treasure. But now it looks like the Japanese won the upper hand. I know that''s an enemy because an ordinary Chinese yer doesn''t need to run like this while trying to send the item to someone else. Hawk pinged me soon. "Ziri! Here! The location!" "Got it!" I lunged at the Assassin and sessfully grabbed his waist. I activated my teleport ring and appeared...inside a crowd? I entered the wrong numbers in the chaos and teleported to another city! The Assassin jumped and tried to get away. I reached for him, nning to teleport again. I have good attributes but the Assassin is still a bit faster. More importantly his level is higher! "Night Shade!" I know how to catch you! Now I think about it, why am I always rampaging inside cities on a horse these days?? I lost target after several turns. Damn it. I used my Star Gaze again. Wait, our coordinates are exactly the same? I raised my head and saw him hanging on a rope above me. He quickly dropped down when he realized it. "You aren''t getting away!" I took out mynce. "[Heart Piercer]!" The tip exploded into several pieces while hurting some of the bystanders. But that''s not my concern now. Two of the pieces caught the Assassin. I pulled on thence and dragged him down on the ground. Night Shade charged and stomped at him. The attack only broke the stone floor, the Assassin dodged away with a side roll. "Phantom Knights! Catch him!" "Chaaaarge my honored steed!!" The knight leader is super excited for some reason. The group of knights moved in unite but the Assassin jumped into a hotel nearby. That''s not going to stop these violent mayhem makers though. They crouched on their horses and simply rode into the building! Sigh. Guess I''ll have to follow. Hawk sent me a message. "What happened?" "I reached the wrong ce! Still after him!" "Where? Do you need us?" Elfy sounds worried too. "Not yet! I got enough helpers! Give me a moment!" The Phantom Knights chased the Assassin to the second floor. Their horses can climb stairs! Again, I should worry about thatter. We didn''t see anyone on the second floor. "There!" One of the knight pointed to the rooftop across the street. "Hee-Haw!" The knight leader controlled his horse and leaped over to the roof. And every member followed his lead! I looked at Night Shade. "Well?" "Piece of carrot." Night Shade hopped across the broad street like it''s nothing. The rooftop is not t but all the war horses galloped after the Assassin without slowing down in one bit. "Stop right there!!" I used my crossbow on my right hand. I may not hit him but it will affect his speed. We''re getting closer. He realized that the terrain won''t stop us so he just jumped back to the ground again. I summoned Rosa and Phantom. "Phantom, control. Rosa, rope him up!" Phantom floated ahead but quickly went back to me again. "Master, he has something that would resist me. I can''t get in." "Huh? Nevermind then. Just merge with me and give me some speed." The Assassin is shifting through all kinds of small alleys and dense crowds which makes it really hard to catch him. When he turned his head to check on us again, several tentacles flew towards him. He avoided them with a backflip. Rosa kept following. A broken trail appeared on the stone floor and began to move, while causing the stone blocks to scatter everywhere. A big gap is now left behind where Rosa marched. We followed behind. "Phantom Knights,nces ready!" The leader finally gave the order. A series ofncespletely blocked the entrance to an alleyway where the Assassin just nned to go in. He quickly turned to another direction. I summoned Dart and asked him to block his only exit. Now I got you! "GO!!" Ten knights circled him up. "Hand over the item and I''ll let you go, son. Why are you helping the Japanese?" He didn''t answer. I can see he''s trying to log off, but I hit him before and he can''t do it in battle status. I charged and grabbed him again. This time I sessfully teleported us to Hawk''s location. Coin is already prepared. She spammed her [Steal] before the Assassin can figure out what''s going on. And she''s a pro! I thought we''d have some trouble taking the loot but Coin lifted the target within 10 sec. "Is this it?" Coin disyed the robe to us on her hand. "Looks nice!" "That''s it. Yours now." I told her. "It''s from the same series as your boots. Don''t lose it. And don''t you dare sell it! If you can help us with our ns in Japan, I can try to collect the whole set for you." "You meant it? Deal!" She seems a bit worried though. She saw the auction. That thing''s 15 million bucks! "I don''t really like them either. And since you gave me this...I''m all in!" Hawk went over to us. "Aha! That was too easy." Coin: "It''s just luck. I can''t choose which item I take you know. Wait, you''re not thinking that I can steal stuff on free will right? If I can I''d definitely ''clean up'' Ziri first! His armor looks so good! Haha-- Uh, I was joking!" While we''re celebrating over the treasure, the Assassin began to cry. "Help me please!!" "..What the fuc?" I moved back. I don''t want to bump into another Assassin who can steal my equipment. "My boss will kill me for this!!" Yup, I see tears. He''s crying for real. "Your boss? A Japanese man I guess?" Elfy is smart as ever. "I''m [Smoker] but you knew it. The money I used is from the boss, he exchanged those crystals with his own real money! And yes he''s Japanese. When he saw the Chinese-only thing he asked me to buy the item for him. And you took it away! He will kill me for sure!" "Hey chill. This is China, not Iraq. It''s not like anyone can try to kill you when they want. Worst scenario, you get fired. I can give you a better job if that''s the case." "That''s not all!!" He cried harder. "They sent my wife and my mother to Japan yesterday to prevent me from escaping with the money! The boss only said he wanted to thank me for my work so he can give my family a vacation. Now I know they are taking them as hostages!! Help me!! Waaaaah--!" "Bastards." Elfy stomped the ground. "Ziri?" "...Tell me your address and phone, and their names. I''ll help you get them back." "Really??" His face is totally ruined by all the crying. "Yeah, I got this." I told him to log off and keep the situation from his boss for now. "Tell him that you''re being tracked by Chinese yers so you logged to avoid them. Just dy. I''ll do the work, and I''ll tell you when I saved them." I quickly logged off and contacted my father. This is human lives we''re talking about, I don''t want to cause real idents. Father came up with an idea soon when he heard the story. Dragon Fate doesn''t have much influence in Japan but saving a pair ofmon civilians should be no problem. He told me to leave the matter to him and concentrate on the infiltration n. He also gave me a mouthful for wasting too much asset on the Iron Unitst time before I hang up. I just gave him sillyughs. I already brought them, he can''t take them back now. Everyone has left when I logged back again. They really need some sleep, that''s about 30 hours without proper rest. The only people in the online list are...Wayne and Coin. I called Wayne to level together but he said he need to hang out with Coin. Heh, traitor. It''s myself then. I asked around the Far Land city and was told that the city is built between the sea line and a desert. This is the east most part of the Chinese game region, and that''s how it''s named. The sea huh? I wonder if I can swim in there. Forget it. I decided to go to the desert first. Unknown means dangerous. The sea won''t run away. I''ll check it outter. The immediate outside of the city is covered in grass. I can see the desert from here, but there''s still a distance. When I reached the desert I saw a lot of camels, and groups and active yers. A low leveled Warrior is being chased by a wild camel. I may as well ask him for information. I locked the camel up with a fire ring and killed it with several lightning skills. It''s not a strong monster, only level 300 or so. "You alright?" I helped the Warrior up from the sand. "I''m fine-- Woah!" He froze up upon seeing my face. And I know the reason. Sigh. "Hey, hey! Anyone there?" I waved my hand in front of his eyes to call his soul back. "Ah! Sorry!" "Oh it''s fine. I''m male by the way. Keep staring if you want. Can you tell me what are all these yers doing?" "They''re trying to catch camels." His sight isn''t moving away from my face, which means he didn''t believe me. "What for?" "To ride them of course." He exined. "They act as mounts. They''re weaker than horses buy they move faster in the desert. Ordinary horses will sink into the sands." "I see, thanks." I began to march into the desert. The Warrior yelled from behind to ask if I want to team up. Well of course not. I kinda know what he wanted. I pretended that I didn''t hear him, summoned Night Shade and ran as fast as we can. Chapter Book 4 - 24 – Monster Book 4, Chapter 24 Monster ------------------ As the Warrior said, the terrain isn''t nice to horses. Or nightmares. Night Shade soon began to have trouble lifting his hooves. We could only choose paths that looks more solid. All the camel riders would run past us at ease. Now I know why they''re called the ships of the desert. Eventually I had to de-summon Night Shade and walk on my own. I can move faster this way! The sun feels terrible but I must admit the scenery here looks quite equisite. My feet suddenly sunk. Damn it, quicksand! "Rosa!" Poom. A tentacle shot out of the surface while lifting up a lot of sand. Looks like the soft area is quite suitable for Rosa to move around. The tentacle pulled me to safety. I''m seeing fewer yers now, probably because the deeper part can be more dangerous. "Help me!" I heard a faint cry. But it''sing from...underground? It sounds muffled. I followed the voice, ran over a small dune and saw it''s source. An Assassin is struggling in the sand. He wears a strange shaped mask which covered his face, so I can only see his eyes and a small portion of his mouth. I have no idea what he''s wearing because he''s immersed under the sand. Only one of his hand and the head are visible now. "Rx!!" I jumped off the dune. "Don''t move! It will kill you faster!" (*) He heard me and stopped moving. I ordered Rosa to stretch a tentacle towards him. Even Rosa can''t enter the quicksand area so we can only pull him from far away. "Catch it!" He grasped the tentacle and we sessfully pulled him out. "Thank--thanks for that! I thought I''m done for." He sat on the ground and breathed heavily. "I''m [Merciless Heart], a Killer. Just call me Merciless. May I know your name, maam?" "I''m Ziri. Male. Don''t call me maam or I''ll throw you back in there." I didn''t tell him my ss. He can guess on his own. I don''t like lying anyway. "But Assassins usually don''t level up in deserts?" He didn''t question me, probably because he believed I''d throw him into the sand for sure. "I''m not leveling." He stood up. And woah this guy''s tall. That''s at least 180 centis. He looks good too. But that body doesn''t look really strong because of those assassin tights. Jealous. I''m only 172, I look miserable when standing beside him. "I got a quest which needs me to kill some monsters here and discover the hidden desert road." "That sounds fun. What''s the reward?" "10 thousand crystals, an egg and a champion badge." He didn''t keep any secret. "But it''s a unique quest. If I ept it then no one else can. You can team up if you wish. The quest said I''ll need a lot of helpers. It will not give us any extra reward so I trieding here alone." "If I join you I will share the loot you know?" "You saved me, let''s consider it a thank-you. Besides if I die the quest will fail." He sent a team request without waiting for my answer. Interesting. I epted it. My quest recorder beeped. Yup, I got the quest too. The destination is not far. We''ll reach it soon ording to the map. The description didn''t say much so I can only ask Merciless again. "What monsters are we fighting?" "I think they''re called [Army Bugs] or something." He shook his head. "I don''t know what they look like yet. this is only the third time I actuallye to a desert." "Really?" So he wandered here without knowing what he''s doing? I got the feeling that this will not be easy. Considering the rarity ofpanions eggs, this quest must be really difficult. And the money reward is not bad either. It even mentioned that a team is required. So it either involves something that needs a lot of teamwork, or a strong boss which is impossible to face alone. And he still came on his own! I should have asked for more information before I joined him. Shoot. "Did you ask for any information around the ce before you came?" "Why? I can juste and see for myself." Dang! A total quest noob! I can''t quit now. I saw the penalty for failing the quest, I''ll need to pay a lot of items plus losing a level. Fuk. I should have used my brain more. "We''re here!" Merciless stopped abruptly. "Huh what?" I''m still worrying about the bad oue in my mind. "Already?" "Over there." He pointed to a burrow located on a sand dune ahead. We carefully approached the burrow and poked our heads inside. Nothing, it''s all dark. Sssssss! Something caught our attention behind us, and we jumped when we looked back. It''s a pale brown colored monster that looks like a crab. Luckily it''s also shocked to see us. It must be intelligent. I''ve noticed from previous experience that intelligent monsters can sometimes get distracted or surprised, while dumb ones just charge at people without thinking. I drew my sword and moved to the monster. I''d hope to keep my identity a secret but protecting my life is more important. I swept at its legs instead of attacking its body, since that shell looks pretty hard. Cutting its thin legs is a better choice now. My sword easily broke six of its legs. Obviously it never learned how to stand just using two legs so it copsed down with a BONG. "Run!!" I dragged the dumbfounded Merciless and ran away. He recovered soon and ran even faster than me. But neither of us made it to safety. A giant wave of sand was pushed into the air. The dune disappeared, and now more than 300 monsters are standing at the ce. They''re bigger than the one we just met. They look like those hairy tarant spiders found in forests, each one is no smaller than a water buffalo! Merciless took out his dagger. "Careful now. [Desert Tarant], level 507. They don''t usually stay in big groups but we must be really unlucky today." "...Do you know that monster I just cut?" I already identified it. And I know this will end badly the moment I heard the name of these monsters. "What was it?" "[Desert Tarant Queen]!" "Huh?? But they look so different!" "Too bad then! It''s the truth!" I''m already thinking up ns. Using Lucky to strike from above may be a good idea. But something else went wrong before I can make the move. The ground shook. Then a ck, smooth, half-sphere shaped object appeared behind the spiders. And I recognized it! That mirror-like back...Iron Beetle! So they can live in desert too?? The small bump raised quickly, followed by its body. Then a second, a third Iron Beetle. Now this is serious trouble. We wandered into a monster nest. "What the hell are those??" Merciless doesn''t know about the beetles. "[Iron Beetle], level 650, with insane defense! You aren''t gonna damage them!" "No kidding? What about that thing behind us?" "Behind us??" I turned back and, sat on the ground. The burrow we saw ispletely gone. An Iron Beetle, three timesrger than the other ones, is standing there! I don''t need to use my skill to know that it must be an Iron Beetle King! "I got an idea!" "What is it??" "We run!!" I run ahead while Merciless reacted a bit slower. The beetle king breathed a green me beam, Merciless simply disappeared. I kept running. My private chat came up. "Ziri? I was killed!" "I know! That thing''s at least 700, insta-killing a squishy ss is too easy for it! Now leave me alone I''m trying to survive here!" I cut the chat. The spiders are already hot on my tail. I can''t get away without Night Shade! "Lucky!" I jumped onto his back. The ground is a killing zone! Before Lucky can take off, a white object flew towards us. It hit Lucky but didn''t do any damage...? But it locked us onto the ground! That''s a lump of spider silk. Countess silk wires are attached behind Lucky''s body, and a group of smaller spiders are pulling on them, keeping us in ce! "Everyonee out!!" I summoned all of thepanions and servants. I can''t get away so I have to fight it! Phiona quickly cast a fire wall, separating the monster group from us for the moment, while burning the web away. I called the Phantom Knight leader over and began to assign tasks. "Take your knights and block those Iron Beetles. Phiona, use your AoE fire skills inside monster crowds. Loong''er, can you do something to prevent the beetle king from moving?" "I can use my sealing spell but it will onlyst for a short while." "Do it then! Lock up the monster king. Phantome with me. Rosa, disrupt their movement, and pick out the small spiders when you can! Dart, run around the monsters and distract them. Night Shade... stay far and support us with your spells. Lucky attack with me! Let''s do it!" Phiona cancelled her fire wall and began to use massive burning skills. Blue me covered a huge area, causing the spiders to run amok. "Lucky, dragon fire!" That''s a perfect skill when the enemies are stuffed together. Lucky released a fire beam and cleared out a straight path across the monster group. The Phantom Knights took the chance and sprinted through the monsters. They can''t use their horses now but they''re already fast on their own. When the path got filled up by monsters again, the knights are already closing in on the other Iron Beetles. I took off my wizard robe. No need for that now. I drew my double swords and jumped into the spider horde Lucky went airborne and helped me clear monsters nearby, I moved towards the legless spider queen while killing anything in my path. The tarants realized my intention and all moved to intercept, which only helped Lucky to get more kills with his dragon breath. Each me beam would kill or hurt a dozen spiders. A bigger spider jumped from the horde. I''m defending myself from all the other ones in front of me and I don''t have time to block this one! I hope I''m a spider now. If I have eight legs--gah! I thrust the dragon tooth sword in my right hand into a spider''s maw. Green fluid covered my face. The sword is stuck in the corpse. I simply gave it up, aimed my hand at the falling spider and released my dragon cord. Pssh! The spider is split into half. Another wave of green blood showered me from head to toe. I spun around while waving the dragon cord in a full circle, creating a series of green fountains around me. I just realized the cords are better weapons now! But it''s not perfect. Cutting stuff with the cords will consume my MP. That circle attack did kill a lot of spiders but it only left me with less than 20 MP! Another spider jumped towards me. I can''t use the cord now so I used a Soul Chaser bolt instead. It''s a waste but I don''t have choice now! The bolt went through the spider. I shot another bolt, amon one this time, and hurt another jumping spider. When I''m trying to finish off the second one, a giant force pressed me onto the ground. A tarant got onto my back! But it soon disappeared. I turned to see Lucky''s tail just did a perfect homerun. He tried to sweep away more spiders. It didn''t work well because there are too many! After some stressful fighting I noticed my burden is being relieved somehow. The spiders are moving away? I looked around and saw the Phantom Knightsing towards me. The Iron Beetles are all corpses! Rosa sneaked under the spider queen and wrapped his tentacles around it. Poof! The entire body of the spider was dragged underground. I don''t know if that''s enough to kill it because I don''t have time to check. My EXP bar is already flying due to all the kills. The knights reached me. These spiders arepletely defenseless against them due to the big level gap. They are killing these bugs like primary schoolers ying with ants. Compared to them, I''m in pretty bad shape. Cuts and holes are everywhere on my body and my HP and MP are already at bottom. I don''t carry much healing items on me since mypanions can share their HP with me. Now I regretted it. I need to at least keep some stock. "Watch out behind!" I saw the Beetle King breaking out of Loong''er''s spell. My alert is a bitte, three Phantom Knights running in the back are knocked flying by the giant monster which is even bigger than Lucky. Their HP nearly got emptied. I immediately un-summoned them. Servants can''t get revived, I can''t lose them! The other seven knights scattered apart, the Beetle King charged straight towards me. And it obviously doesn''t tell enemies and allies. Some spiders on the way all got squashed. Before it can reach me, Lucky charge over and parried its giant body. Lucky is then sent flying and rolled on the sand for some distance. It''s too strong! "Loong''er! Help!" She shed above us. "[Thunder], level 10!" A thick lightning pir hit the beetle on the back. It didn''t do any significant damage! "Master! Rosa killed the spider queen!" Phantom spoke. All the other tarants escaped faster then they came. That''s at least a relief. I got two whole levels in the fight. I don''t know the exact number but the sand around us is totally soaked in green. The Beetle King is the only monster left. I took the chance and scoped it with my Star Gaze. [Gold Beetle], level 900. Attack 1,200-2,300, Defense 5,000, Speed 100, HP 10,000 MP 5,000. Attacks carry poison effect. Talent skill [Strong Acid Spit], damage 120, causes continuous damage for 1,200 seconds. Physical Resistance 50%, Spell Resistance 45%. ??? That''s a fucking tank!! The skill looks deadly. And what the hell are those question marks? There''s something even Star Gaze can''t detect? That''s the only breather I can get. The beetle is charging again. "Phiona!" Phiona swept down and dragged me into the air. The beetle raised its head, a ruby-like object on its forehead shed before a red beam of light hit Phiona. We crashed on the sand again. What the fuc was that,ser weapon?? The remaining Phantom Knights threw theirnces. Unlike against Iron Beetles, thences only produced metal sounds without piercing the hard shell. "Phiona, are you alright?" She can''t stand up anymore. I had to un-summon her. Oh fuck you Merciless. You might as well call yourself Brainless!! This is no solo quest. You need to bring an entire guild to do it! Comining is not going to help. I need to get out of this! I asked the Phantom Knights to form up. They''re the only reliable force now. The beetle''s HP bar was chipped away quite a lot. So thences aren''tpletely ineffective. Level 900 means it''s only 50 levels higher than the knights. Seven knights will still cause some solid damage to it. The knight leader charged ahead first. But the beetle got another secret weapon! After a sh, the leader flew backwards which took all the other six members to catch him. Apart from six legs, the beetle has an extra pair of fore limbs as weapons! -------------------- (*) Tip: knowing how to survive quicksand, swamp dirt or thin ice can be useful. How many words did I finish this week? I overdid it again. Chapter Book 4 - 25 – The Tank Book 4, Chapter 25 The Tank ------------------ Different from other Iron Beetles, this thing has a pair of highly developed fore limps. And they''re obviously weapons! They have been folded close to the beetle''s chest part until we see them. They''re long. The outer part has a structure like a bone hammer, and the inside is sharp, jagged de. They are like mantis scythes equipped with hard rock! The knight leader was knocked away by that hammer part. And now the limbs arepletely stretched in front of us. The hammer is located a bit below the pointy tip. A stab of that thing could prove lethal. The beetle rubbed its two limbs against each other like knife and fork, as if someone is nning to enjoy a feast! I recalled Dart and Night Shade. They won''t help here. Phiona is down, so she''s out. And only 7 out of 10 Phantom Knights... This is not good. "Attack!" The beetle shed the scythe at me. I dodged it by putting myself against the ground, but the other one stabbed downward and there''s no way I can avoid this one! Loong''er dropped from above and entangled her own body onto the scythe. Then she began to release electricity. I didn''t expect she can do that kind of move like a shock eel. Rosa released dozens of tentacles and wrapped them around the beetle with severalyers. Some of them pulled on its six legs. Lucky lunged and sunk his fangs into where the beetle''s head is connected with the body. It''s the only part without any hard shell. Usually that spot is not easily reached since the beetle can hide it by raising its head. He revealed that weakness because of all the distractions. The Phantom Knights all went up with theirnces. These experienced fighters are good at picking out vulnerable parts--they stabbed at the joints on the legs which are less protectedpared to elsewhere. I crawled up and pressed my dragonnce against the beetle''s head. "[Heart Piercer]!" Boom! I was knocked away by the st power of my own skill. The beetle suddenly raised. The first one to get hurt is Rosa, all the tentacles were torn up one after one! Then it retracted its scythes. Loong''er got locked inside the de and shrieked in pain. Her voice stopped soon. With a Snap! The beetlepletely closed up its fore limbs, slicing Loong''er''s body into several pieces. Golden blood showered down on me and the knights who were trying to help her. My heart stopped for a bit. I know they can be revived but...this hurts. Before I can react, the scythes bounced open again. The bone hammers knocked away two Phantom Knights as if they''re toy figures. I tried to catch one of them and was then sent flying by the enormous force as well. Thank god the sand is soft so thending didn''t hurt us further. Lucky haspletely climbed onto the beetle and won''t release his bite. The beetle tried to reach for Lucky but realized his limbs aren''t long enough. It shook violently, without sess, so it can only jump and spin in ce. Maybe it knows I''m the master of Lucky so the beetle simply charged at me again. That giant body, added with Lucky''s weight, is now causing an earthquake. The Phantom Knights tried to distract it from behind. I heard Phantom''s voice. "Don''t worry master. Loong''er ising back soon!" A dark cloud appeared in the sky and Loong''er emerged from it. I forgot about Phiona''s special skill which is shared to everyone. We can get revived for once! Watching Loong''er die like that really disrupted my mind. "Master! Can I use my new skill?" Loong''er talked to me while swimming in the cloud. "What skill?" "[Heaven Storm]!" "What does it do? Nevermind just do it!" She went back into the cloud and disappeared. The piece of dark cloud grew bigger, until it covered a huge area of the sky above our heads. I think this can be a good move when I want to escape from the harsh sunlight! Rolling thunder came from the cloud, then a lightning came down and hit the ground. It''s pretty far from the beetle, so the skill''s uracy is poor? I''m wondering if we can hit the beetle at all when more lightening pirs appeared non-stop. Holy cheese ''n'' rice! This is literally a "thunder storm"! Countless lightening strikes rained down from the cloud and swept through the entire battlefield, hitting everything inside including me and my team. Thankfully the spell doesn''t hurt friendlies. Electric arcs ran all over my armor but I''m not feeling anything. On the other hand, the Gold Beetle is now burnt into adybug with god knows how many spots. Lucky is still hanging on the beetle''s neck. I can see Lucky''s HP almost empty. The dark cloud didn''t go away when the lightening stopped. Instead,rge water drops began to pour on us. A rainstorm followed the lightening attack, a big one! I''m surprised when I see my HP bar getting filled up, same for my team. The rain can heal us! As a nt, Rosa must loved the weather. His damaged tentacles all recovered. Numerous of them emerged from the ground and wrapped onto the beetle again. The immobilized beetle started to draw in air, and its belly is growing. It''s going the breath fire again! I called everyone to retreat. Lucky should be safe for now, since the beetle won''t be throwing that fire onto its own back. The beetle stopped breathing. But it didn''t use fire, it let out a greenish fluid instead. The first victim is Rosa again. The liquid melted most of the tentacles in an instant like strong weed killer! A Phantom Knight was knocked into the attack. His armor immediately disappeared! I quickly unsummoned him. This is bionic acid damn it! All the knights ran away from the terrible attack. Their armor can be restored after some time but their lives cannot. It''s not wise to keep fighting upfront now. When I''m un-summoning all the knights, the beetle turned its head and brought the acid stream towards me! There''s no time to avoid. The only thing I can do is to lower my mask and cover my face. The green, viscous slime engulfed me for good. I heard some "fizzzzz" sound. Then I lifted my hand and checked. Weird, apart from all the smoke, I''m not receiving any damage. I looked at my equipment durability. Nope, nothing. "Ah-ha!" I cried in joy. The Dark Dragon Lord armor is immune to acid! Which means the beetle''sst resort can''t hurt me at all! Wahhahaha! Meet your doom today, bug!! The attack stopped. I don''t know if it''s because the beetle realized my resistance or it used up its liquid stock. But it didn''t give up. It followed up with a green me attack. This time I intentionally took the attack head-on. 0 damage! Poor bug. Your breath weapons all aren''t gonna work. The beetle then began to rotate that strange looking mouthpart. I saw two holes hidden under it. Bam! I was then knocked flying by a great force. My HP dropped rmingly. Two more hits like that will kill me! "Phantom! What was that?" "I don''t know. Maybe the hammer?" "No. That thing can''t reach this far!" Loong''er spoke from above: "I think it spit something from its mouth. But I didn''t see it." Phantom added: "Rosa said he sensed something flying just above the surface!" The beetle''s belly grew and shrank. I''m sted away again. I saw it this time! The bastard can use air cannon. Those holes must be its nose or something. Itpresses the air inside its body and releases it with great speed. And it''s powerful! When I''m getting ready to dodge a third air shot, that ruby shed again. It''s going to use itsser weapon instead. Ohe on, this thing''s a freaking mobile artillery battery! It''s acting more and more like a real tank! The beetle didn''t actually use any of the weapons. It began to dig the sand and...went underground! The hole was quickly covered up by the surrounding sand. Lucky can''t survive underground so he could only give up his position and flew into the air. Now our only effective damage won''t work! "Rosa! Give me its position!" Can this fight be moreplicated?? Jesus. Before Phantom can trante Rosa''s message, the sand in front of us rose, then the ground shook. A stream of dark green liquid sprayed out and soaked arge area of sand. I don''t need Phantom to tell me now cause I saw it from the system. Rosa was easily killed by the beetle! So the green liquid was Rosa''s blood! I de-summoned the revived Rosa. He''ll only be killed again if he remains there. A series of long needles suddenly emerged from under my feet. I rolled aside to avoid them. Another needle array immediately followed to where Inded. I opened my wings to dodge this time. This will be troublesome. The beetle lost target and stayed motionless for a while, then needles erupted under one of the Phantom Knights. All the knights avoided the attack by turning into bats. Fuck. How do we attack this thing like this?? Rosa is our only member that can move underground and he can''t do anything. I summoned Phiona again. She looks better after the rest. "Can you set fire under the surface? The bug escaped there!" "Let me try!" Phiona circled around in the sky for a bit and quickly dived into the sand. The sand started to shift, and we can already see the surface turning red. The ground shook again. Then a bump appeared, followed by the beetle''s giant body. "There you are stupid bug. Phiona, get out of there!" I recalled Phiona and prepared to confront the annoying enemy again. Our team is pretty battered up but I can see from my Star Gaze that the beetle doesn''t have much HP left now. Lucky did most of the damage by tearing up its neck. We''re almost there! Right. I should try to capture it after all these effort. I''m d this idea came up in time or I''ll kill it any time soon. I concentrated my magic onto the gem on my forehead and summoned the Dragon Wasp swarm. I ordered them to attack anywhere on the beetle that looks soft. The beetle may be powerful but it doesn''t have much to counter these tiny killers. It tried to use its air cannon, and it''s like using artillery to shoot mosquitoes, just won''t work. Looks like being big isn''t all about advantage. I watched as its HP dropped to about 20. The beetle is already having a hard time standing straight. I de-summoned the wasps as the beetle finally fell, then I asked Dart to hit it using in attacks. Dart''s Attack is not near enough to prate that Defense so he can only do 1 damage each time. And that''s just what I needed. We stopped at 1 HP. Now there''s no better chance to capture such an impressivepanion. After a dozen tries, the beetle turned into a green egg. I didn''t hesitate to drop my blood on it. A pitch-ck miniature Gold Beetle cracked the shell and crawled out. Oh shoot. It''s ck again. Everypanion of mine is ck except Dart. Actually Dart is only white on the outside, if I smooth his fur aside I''ll see the ck skin beneath. This demonize effect on me is a headache. The beetle on my hand is only about a foot long. That''s no problem since I''m sure it''ll grow to its full size in the future. I named the little bug as [Tank], cause that''s literally what it is! [Gold Beetle], rank level 900 (current level 0) Attack 100-200, Defense 200, Speed 100, HP 2,000, MP 500. Attacks carry poison effect. Talent skill [Strong Acid Spit], damage 120, causes continuous damage for 1,200 seconds. Physical Resistance 50%, Magical Resistance 45%. That''s not all its skills. Maybe I need to level it up to activate them. Should be easy enough. Companions level faster, it is usually my own level that restricts their levels in the end. And the fact that I always ask them to kill monsters for me only makes it more obvious. Now I think about it, I''ve already have a good number ofpanions. Lucky, Phiona, Loong''er, Night Shade, Phantom, Rosa, Dart and now Tank...That''s 8 of them. My slot limit is 9. I should be careful with it. It''s a good thing that everyone I captured so far turned out to be strong helper. I''m still relying on the Phantom Knights to soak most of the damage now but I think these Boss levelpanions will be the actual heavy hitters when I get my level high enough. My private chat interrupted my thoughts. It''s from...Merciless? "What''s the matter?" "I saw the quest done, and I already imed the reward. Come here and I''ll give you your share." Ohh, nice. Usually most people will just run with the spoil in such cases. "You keep them. I''ll just consider this as a level campaign. I got three levels in two hours! If I find more of these quests I can try go for the top of the rank." "Well no!" He became...excited? "Come and take them. You did the whole quest, I don''t want to just be a tour guide or something!" "Huh. Wait for me then." I looked around the battlefield for any good drops. Nope. I spent some time searching around and only discovered all sorts of trash. There are over a thousand items lying on the ground, most of them are nes! Why the hell did they only drop one type of equipment? Are those spiders fond of collecting ne?? Well shoot. I''m short on money anyway, so any reward is weed. I managed to pick up every single item thanks to my patience. That felt like a homeless scavenger. O, my back... (*) Just as I''m finished, Merciless pinged me again. "What are you doing bud? Did you fall into another pit?" "Very funny. I''m picking money!" "Picking money?" "Yes! The ce is full of junk. Maybe 10 crystals or so." I can''t help it. I owe people big time! I do have those money from selling thepanion eggs but that''s far from enough! "You mean, all those monsters only dropped uselessmon equipment?" Merciless eximed in surprise. "Worse. They are all nes, about 700 of them. All trash, as in, the likes that give you one bonus attribute point or two. The rest are random weapons or other parts with one or two bonuses. Not even one valuable piece." Merciless''s mouth fell open. "Wait wait wait you''re not joking right? 700, nes??" "Yeah. What''s wrong? Let me see, small ones, big ones, colorful ones, for men and for women or for orcs. All kinds of them. I can give you a dozen or two for free if you want them." "Well, I mean, juste back! I''ll exin it in front of you." "Alright." I teleported to the station in the Far Land city. I sent Merciless a private chat to find out he''s waiting for me at the city gate. He ran towards the station, panting. "You have recall scrolls? I thought you were going toe back on foot." "Where''s the NPC shop? I need to sell this mess." "Wait." He sent me a trade request and put apanion egg, a champion badge and 10k crystals in it. "Take them!" I nced at the items. "I''ll take the money, you keep the egg and badge." He only took the egg off. "Just take them. I already earned big. I have my rules you know!" "Okay then." I confirmed. The badge gives you +1 Luck and 10% HP regeneration speed. Not too shabby. "Here, have a ne as a souvenir." "However did you get this thing? I mean, you are carrying a whole bunch of them right?" "Yeah, as I said, about 700 of them. All simr ones, they give you one or two attribute point bonus. Not very useful." "NOT USEFUL??" Woah the dude''s eyeballs gonna stick out. "They give you BASE attributes! The points you set up upon character creation! Do you know how much actual bonus you''ll get, with all the other multipliers??" "Really?" I picked out a ne with a "+1 Luck" and equipped it. All my base attributes became 14! Holy moses. This is almost Artifact level! (**) I''m rich! Thank goodness I didn''t discard or sell them. Looks like I know how to get rid of my debt crisis now! Merciless watched as I giggled like an idiot. "Are you alright?" "Oh, I''m totally fine!" I wiped my saliva clean. "Let''s go celebrate!" --------------- (*) It happened again. The author forgot his auto-loot bracelet. Please just ignore these logic bugs. (**) The MC has something that modifies all his base attribute points to the same level as the highest one. Chapter Book 4 - 26 – The Ace (Part 1) Book 4, Chapter 26 The Ace (Part 1) ------------------ I dragged Merciless to the restaurant. I know the location in the unfamiliar city because it''s just next to the teleport station, and that giant g with a beer cup on it really attract your eyes. "Hey what''s the deal? I know you earned a lot but don''t drag me like this!" Despite hisint I still pulled him into the door. "Yowch!" They say great joy is always followed by misfortune. Now I believe it. I bumped into someone behind the door. I was walking too fast so both of us got knocked onto the ground. And I assure you that dumping your hip onto the solid rock floor is not something to enjoy! As for Merciless, he crashed into my back and stumbled back out of the door. The opposite man knocked over a table before he can re-bnce himself. "Watch where ur going damn it!" He brushed his clothes. "Are you blind? Or are you looking for trouble?" "Sorry sorry. I...didn''t see you across the door. Are you hurt?" That was my fault so this is not a good time to y tough. "..." He froze up and stared at me for a few seconds before regaining hisnguage. "Beautiful...!" That was his firstment after the stare. "I''m really sorry, my bad there. Do you need help? If everything''s fine I''ll be leaving." I don''t have time to exin my gender issue with a random passer-by. But you know, things always go towards where you don''t want them to go. "Hey! You look brilliant! And I love your voice. Like an angel...!" Shit. I know my throat can be a bit strange but it sounds like child voice at best, which is totally different from actual woman voice. "You''re mistaken. Excuse me but I need to go upstairs." I dragged Merciless again and headed up. The man blocked my way. "Come on what''s the hurry? I wasn''t being polite back there. Would you have meal with me?" I inspected this sudden intruder. 176 in height, ordinary look. He wears traditional oriental style kung-fu costume, must be a hidden ss. "Sorry, I have other business. Can you let me through? I''m taking my friend up there." He looked over my shoulder to Merciless with a disapproving look. "Hey kid, there''s no way you can protect this chick. Go away, I''m taking her." Crap. The retarded thought Merciless is my boyfriend! And what the fuck does he mean "chick"?? Merciless looked between us. "Ziri? You told me before but are you sure?..." I knew it. He didn''t believe me! "Ahem!" I turned around. "Let''s go somewhere else." The man blocked the exit again. "Miss, my name is [Smokin'' Ring]. I ask you to be my girl now!" Merciless gasped behind me. I don''t know for which reason but I don''t have time for him now. "Let''s get this straight," I grabbed his cor. "listen, I''m a man. And I don''t enjoy business between guys. I prefer women just like any sentient males out there. Now get away. And keep distance. You''re making me sick. Smoking Ring right? If you don''t leave me now I can beat you into a bloody donut instead." "You know, you don''t have to make up something like that if you just want to reject me. Oh please, don''t hurt this sincere lover boy!" He won''t give up! "What''cha doing brother?" A group came down from the stair. Must be hisrades. "Ooooh. Where''you find this girl? Hot!" "Your new wife?" "Hey when did that happen? You didn''t even tell us!" None of them noticed what''s going on. Oh kids these days... Wait, I''m not really a grown-up myself. "Can I go now? Or do you want a fight?" I''m losing patience. "Ah, so not your wife." An uneducated looking guy snickered. "Hey chill gal. Do you know who muh brother is? He''s da second ce on the level rank, [Smokin'' Ring]. He hit level 497 this morning, same with that Big de dude! He may be the second now but he can beat the hell outta Big de I tell you! Go with him and you can have your life however you want in Zero!" "You rank second?" I''m interested. I''ve been improving myself in hermit mode for too long and I never knew how much I can do. He is the second in rank and ims to be the strongest...that means he''s the best target to measure myself. If we can have a fight... "Are you sure you''re the strongest yer?" Smokin'' Ring chuckled. "Do you ever check the ranking lists at all?" Well, I certainly haven''t looked at them for some time. Merciless exined from behind :"There are different lists in [Zero]. The man in front of you is the 2nd ce on the level ranking, and the tied 1st ce on the overallbat rating list! You didn''t know??" "But I didn''t find it in my Help menu." I asked in surprise. Is something wrong with my system? "It''s not in your Help. Ask any of the guards in cities and they''ll tell you the newest lists. You don''t even know this? How many quests did you skip?" "What do you say?" Smokin'' Ring looked at me in defiance. "epting my offer yet? I can give you a bright future!" "I have a question first." "Go ahead. I never refuse to talk with beauties!" "You''re tied first with someone. Who is it?" "The system determines this rating with really vague calctions. There are many people on the first ce. Three other people tied with me, so four champions in total. [Not a Jerk], level 493 Grand Beast Wielder. [Hydralisk], level 487 hidden ss. I don''t know what but he''s good. And [Wind Drifter], level 479 Fallen Angel. He''s Divine Demon so his own attributes are pretty high. He may have the lowest level among us but he''s probably the strongest one if we actuallypete." "I see..." I opened the note system and recorded his words. "So have you decided?" "Can I have a fight with you?" I dodged his question. But he took my word in the wrong way. "So you''lle with me if I win?" "Let''s talk about that if you can win at all." He''ll see my identity anyway. I don''t think he''ll actually ask me out when that happens. Besides...I won''t lose. "Alright. You''d better keep your word for it. Let''s get to the arena, so we don''t get red names or lose level or items." "No problem. Lead the way." We paid a small entrance fee and entered the arena. It looks like those ancient Roman Colosseums, just a bit smaller. The city is pretty small for that matter. Before we can start, the observations seats suddenly became upied. His buddies called all kinds of people to watch! Oh crap. They''re adding a lot of unnecessary trouble for me. "You can do it boss!" "Finish this quick!" I saw Smokin'' Ring''s personal cheering team. There are a lot of girls rooting for him too. "Smokey we love you!!" Dang. Is he a superstar or something? He looked at me :"I don''t hold back when I fight. Don''t me me for hurting you." "Do it. I''m not made of paper. And don''t get cocky, I have some serious attacks. Don''t take it too hard if you got insta killed." I''m confident enough in my own skills. I''m wearing full Artifact set for cake''s sake. Ping! The system announced the start of the battle. Smokin'' simply charged towards me. I''m wearing my wizard robe so he probably thinks he can win this easily if he gets close. I just watched as he approaches and waited for a chance. But he didn''t even attack me! "Do you surrender?" He asked. Huh? What? "Why would I do that? We haven''t started yet." "You''re a Wizard, and a Warrior just got to your face! Of course you lost." Pfffft. I grinned. As I hoped, he lost his guard for a brief moment. "Surprise!" I revealed my attack. "[Heart Piercer]!" This is currently my most powerful skill as a D&P Rider. I want to see if the so-called No.1 can survive this. It''ll be a joke if he died for it. If he didn''t, I''ll have a good reason to carefully research on him and the other three elite yers. After an explosion, Smokin'' was shocked far away without any defense prepared. His face went pale. He moved even farther away with several hasty backflips. "That robe is a disguise? You''re a Warrior?" He no longer carries that girl hunter attitude. He sees me as a rival now. I just smile. "Oh no you got me. So how did it feel? I prepared that big move just for you!" He stuffed potions into his mouth while looking at me warily, fearing that I may ambush him again. And I know why he''s scared. I can read his numbers from that hit: total HP 4,737, and my skill did 4,592 damage. Almost killed him in one shot. That''s my best damage without a critical hit too, since the number is in red. He can''t see that information, so he believes that I still have enough power to kill him if I''m lucky. "Heye closer! We''re both melee sses, how do we fight like this?" I taunted as I saw his HP bar getting filled. Since I can''t kill him with that, I''ll have to be careful about his moves now. "Still noting? I''ll shoot you then. Don''t me me for being mean." I aimed my right arm at him. I never tried to adjust the crosshair on my Revenger crossbow, now there''s a perfect target. I clicked my finger, a feathered bolt went out. He wasn''t expecting a long-range shot like this so he didn''t react. The attack still missed. Uhmm. So the crosshair strays too left... I began to tune my Revenger. This thing shoots every four seconds, after some exercise, the wall behind Smokin'' Ring is filled with bolts. None of the audiences are cheering now. They are wondering why a Wizard took out ance, then a crossbow, and with so much ammunition! The wall is loaded with over a hundred bolts now. None of my concern. I collected enough bolts to support my whole game career in that underground dungeon, plus there''s no space limit for my bracelet, so I brought them all. As I''m enjoying the shooting practice I heard a system message: "[Revenger] crossbow leveled up. Attack is now 680-980, Attack Speed is 3 seconds per shot. Number of Soul Chasers increased to 3." But there was no level up feature for Revenger? Dark Dragon Lord armor set can be leveled up, and Reverger is merged with the set. That must be the reason. This is a prize! Smokin'' took the chance and charged at me again. "[Leaf Sweep]!" He knocked me off my feet with a spinning leg sweep. Cheering voices rose again. Oh fuck you all, you kept silent when I beat him up, now you all came back alive? He didn''t give me chance to regain posture. He kicked me higher with another leg sweep, then he jumped above me and punched downwards. I was wondering where his weapon is, now I see those metal knuckles on his fingers! That will be painful if it hits me. "[Barrier]!" I''m half Wizard. Of course I know this universal defense spell. Wizards usually fight like this: Barrier up -- attack -- re-barrier if it gets damaged -- attack. I don''t use this skill because I have mypanions to protect me, besides I''m half Warrior type too. But now I need to stay cautious. Crack! His punch instantly shattered the barrier and hit my waist. That''s was strong! The spell still dampened his attack. I only received a scratch damage. I immediately retaliated when Inded. "[Heavy Bash]!" This is the most basic but the fastest melee skill. And he can''t dodge it with that kind of position. "[Iron Skin]!" He used his skill and took that attack head-on. 1 damage! Woah that''s some serious Defense. Humph. Let me see how much defense you can get. "Night Shade!" I hopped onto his back. "You''re not expecting a Rider to fight without a horse eh? Call yourpanions if you have any." I took off my wizard robe which caused gasps among the audiences. "A Rider huh? As I thought. I never saw Wizard carrying ance." He didn''t summon anything. So he doesn''t have any? No that''s impossible. The number two figure on the ranking list should findpanions easily, and he got a lot of fans too. Someone like this is bond to have a lot of resources. "You''re not callingpanion? Are you underestimating me again?" "No. It''s just mypanion isn''t good at fighting. It won''t help." He took out another knuckle set and equipped it. "Careful now, I''m going to hit hard!" He charged. I legged Night Shade''s belly, he dodged aside with a quick hop. Smokin'' may be fast but he''ll never reach the same speed as Night Shade. I ordered Night Shade to run towards Smokin'' who just dashed past us. "[Pole Pick]!" Smokin'' dodged mynce attackbo with several ground rolls. Man he''s pretty quick on his feet. Now we''re the ones facing the other direction. Smokin'' rushed at our back. "[Cloud Pusher]!" You should never p a horse''s ass but he did. His palm precisely hit Night Shade on the rear. The sudden pain caused Night Shade to perform the signature horse attack -- He supported himself using his front legs and bucked hard. "AHHhhhh---" Smokin'' went flying as if he was hit by a truck. Boomsh! A human-shaped hole appeared on the arena wall. The palm strike was obviously strong because Night Shade fell sideways after the kick. I checked his wound and noticed that deep hand-shaped hollow part on his rear-end armor. He''s not going to run like that. I could only de-summon him. Smokin'' freed himself from the hole and dusted himself. "Nice horse. It still has the strength to kick after my best attack? And what''s that on the hooves? The kick did piercing damage!" I can see several small bleeding holes on his body, drenching his clothes. So those horseshoes are pretty useful, I guess I need to tell Night Shade to use his kicking attacks more often. "You asked for it. If you touch horse ass or girl ass or whatever''s ass again you might get kicked by who-knows-what." I''m joking but I''m still serious about this fight. After all, I don''t meet many people who can take down Night Shade in one hit. "You''re good. My mount is not just an ordinary pony you know." "I can do better!" He rushed. "Fuuuugaaa Heaven Punch!" I felt as if a wall made of air just fell on me, then I took countless punches. The speed of these fists is like raindrops! "Gah!" I was sent flying and rolled on the ground. At least the impact is strong enough. I crawled back up and...700 damage? That''sme. That skill must be used to cause damage using the great number of attacks. But the oue is greatly reduced by my high Defense. "Nice one. But your fists feel so weak. It didn''t do anything." Of course he knows how much damage he did. And it must have shocked him. "[Feinting Lances]!" This is a new D&P Rider skill I just learned. A wave ofnces enclosed upon his body from all directions. He tried to dodge but there''s no way he can avoid hundreds of attacks at once. Without a way out, he used his Iron Skin again. Got you! Thences dropped to the ground and disappeared, leaving only one, which pierced his abdomen. "Those were shadows, there''s only one realnce. The name already told you those were feint and you still fell for it." Smokin looked up from his would, painfully. "You...how did you break through my Iron Skin?" "I can''t. But mynce ignores Defense. Now give up." I tried to pull thence out of his wound, but Smokin'' pulled at the tip and dragged it out from behind him instead. I was taken aback for a while. Smokin'' seized the chance and rushed close. "[Mountain Breaker]!" "AH!!" I was taken by surprise. The palm pushed me into the sky with a strange but deadly force. I crashed on the ground hard, coughing up some blood. Chapter Book 4 - 27 – The Ace (Part 2) Book 4, Chapter 27 The Ace (Part 2) ------------------ "AH!!" I was taken by surprise. The palm pushed me into the sky with a strange but deadly force. I crashed on the ground, coughing some blood. My whole body is filled with pain. I managed to stand up with some hard effort, but just as I bnced myself, something exploded on my back with a POOM, tearing up a big wound while causing my blood to flush out. "*Cough* Ahh!..." More blood came out of my mouth. I stumbled forward and dropped to the ground, supporting myself with my hands. "You...?" Smokin'' lost bnce and knelt down as well. "Heh ha ha--a-ark!" He tried tough but that wound on his stomach grew bigger. "What a powerfulnce." "Likewise. Your kung-fu is good!" I forced a smile. "Pity, you still lost." "We don''t know that yet." He seems pretty confident. "You took my [Mountain Breaker], so you won''t be moving for a while. Just surrender." "Oh really?" I raised my right hand. A bolt stuck into his arm causing him to scream. "I can kill you like this, slowly." "My skill can do more than that." He gave me a wicked grin. Poom! My arm exploded too. The bolt I was preparing was shot towards the sky instead. Damn it another one? His skill isn''t over? "Good job, I''ll give you that." I still kept calm. "But you think I''ll let you win? No! I will not lose! Never!" Smokin smiled bigger, probably because he thinks I''m getting desperate. But my next move removed that smile. I stood up while shaking. Pong! My left arm exploded. I''m knocked to the right but I kept standing. Pam! That''s my left leg. Blood covered the ground yet I didn''t lose my smile. "So how many times can you do this? Five? Six? Or--" Bom! My right leg was torn up. I staggered, almost falling down again. The audiences are silent. No one is apuding anymore. Everyone is trying to confirm if I''m a monster. Poof! Boom! Pah! The ruptures are bing faster. I feel like being pushed around by a lot of people. My HP has dropped to the bottom, but the Cor of Protection will still keep me alive, by pouring the life force of mypanions into my body. However the skill stopped before I need to rely on the cor. Looks like the skill only tries to empty the target''s own HP bar. I''m now covered in red but still standing. I gave my neck bone a crack and spoke: "Not bad. Pretty scary skill. Almost killed me. " I raised two fingers and smiled again. "Pity, just a teeeeny tiny bit left. Shame." Then I regained my posture. "Night Shade!" Night Shade is already recovered. Thanks to Phiona''s buff bonus, everyone heals faster than average. I aimed my left hand at the knightnce dropped by Smokin. Thence flew towards me. I grasped the weapon and gave it a wave-around. "You''re the best opponent yet, for getting me into this shape. I''m give you an honorable death!" I ordered Night Shade to Charge. "[Pole Pick], aerial execution!" I pierced his body and leveraged Night Shade''s speed to hurl thence away. Thence carried the helpless Smokin all the way onto the reviewing stand on the audience area. It stuck into the tform and quivered for a while due to the momentum, but Smoking is no longer moving. Even the best technique in the world won''t win against absolute power. A good martial artist may defeat someone much stronger than himself, but he''s never going to beat a war tank just using his skills or reflexes. Still, my victory was not guaranteed. If I don''t have this cor, if I don''t have mynce, or if he used his best attack at the start of the battle...I''m not sure I would have won. Time to learn some tricks I guess. I may have a lot of superior weapons andpanions but I''ll need more than these to beat someone like Smokin. Smokin has already turned into a white sh and gone reviving. I remote-retracted my dragonnce and put it behind my back. But I forgot yers get revived where they die in the arena. Smokin appeared again in front of me. Hm. This ce is sure suitable for sparring with other people. He looked at me with a scary expression. "What? I won. You will leave me alone now." He didn''t say anything. He stared at me for several more seconds before he suddenly jumped over and mped onto my waist! "Hero! I mean, miss heroine! Take me with you!! I''m following you from now on!" I tried to run away but was dragged onto the ground instead. "Help!" I crawled towards the exit. He won''t let go of my legs. "Halp!! Get away you freaking gay! Damn it why isn''t any beautiful girls doing this to me??" "Oww!" He was poked by the spike on my leg guard and released his grip. I immediately stood up and kept distance with him. He tried to get close again. I summoned my wasps and asked them to form a barricade between us. "Get the hell out of my face or I''ll make it violent!" "Lady master!! Take me!" "Are you a stray dog or something? You have guild and lot of followers, why me? You''re famous here! And don''t call medy I''m a man HOW MANY TIME DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU!" "Uh, alright! So you''re male, bring me along!" "Urgh!" This is getting tooplicated. "Here, how about we call each other brothers from now on?" "Well," He paused. "Okay! Let''s do this." I dismissed my wasps, he ran to me again. "Stop!! No closer! I don''t feel good with dudes near my face!" "Alright then! Give me a call if you ever need help and I''ll always be there first!" ...I think I can believe that. "I got it. Farewell!" I dashed outside the arena as fast as I can, leaving a smoke trail behind me. I almost bumped into Merciless, who''s waiting at the gate. "Why are you...?" "Oh, well, don''t me me for not watching your fight. Those fans are crazy. I tried to cheer for you and they tosses me over the wall!" "I...see. I can totally understand that." I wiped a drop of sweat on my forehead. "Let''s get out of here. I''ve had enough. And I need to find a cute girl to heal up my heart!" We stopped to take a break when we''re far enough from the arena. Then someone almost knocked me over again. "What kind of bastard--" I''m full of anger now. Can I even walk peacefully for once?? "Oof...So...Sorry...ugh!.... I...I didn''t...mean that..." The man is swaying left and right. I''m surprised he''s not falling down yet. He got really thick tongued and a red face. He''s drunk, for sure. There''s no point in arguing with someone like this so I dragged Merciless to leave. But the man somehow shifted in front of us. "Oh hello beautiful sisters. Why...why are you...all look the same? Tri-triplet?" "Triple?" I looked around. Nope, it''ste and no one else is walking in these parts. Ohe on. He drunk too much and he''s seeing double images. "Hey friend. Can you stop being all wobbly? You''re making me dizzy." His tongue is still not straight. "How...how did you know-know my name?" "Your name? I don''t know your name." "But you just called me." "Did I? What''s your name?" "I...I''m [Wobby]!" "That''s, well, a proper name for you." Mercilessmented. "We''d better not disturb this brewmaster. Let''s go." I turned away. "So, enjoy your drink! We''ll go now." Man we''d better hurry. That alcohol smell is making it hard to breathe. He followed us with that unstable step. And he actually followed us for some distance before we can lose him! We''re already outside the city gate. The night has arrived but the visual is still good thanks the the moon. This is specifically configured for those night shifters. Some people prefer to y atte night. Merciless pulled on my arm again. "Can you tell me how to hatch eggs?" "Oh shoot. Another one!" "...What do you mean?" "So many people are totally clueless about how to usepanion eggs. And you''re yet another one." "Huh. Is that a surprise? I don''t see many people withpanions around, I guess it''s just normal. The slots are mostly useless, cause people can''t catch any monsters at all. It doesn''t matter if you have one or two or fivepanion quota." "I see... I can understand that. You got an egg from the quest reward right? I can tell you now. Let''s see it." "Sure!" He followed my instructions and hatched the egg. An adorable ck kitten jumped out of it. "...What''s this? The quest is freaking impossible and they only give you a pet kitten?" I can only admit that the look of this little creature can probably seize the heart of most human being. But... "Seriously! A cat??" Merciless is getting depressed. We were both expecting something way better out of the difficult quest. "Well, easy for now. Check the status. Maybe it got some surprises." The cat doesn''t look any special but who knows. "Companions all look small when they''re hatched. Maybe it''ll turn bigger." As he read through the texts I see his expression getting brighter. He jumped in ce in the end. "It''s not cat! It''s called [Winged Leopard (Alpha)]. Ha! A leopard. And a pack leader!" He looks like a kid who just found his new toy. Well, I can share that excitement somehow. "Alright alright, stop it. Find somewhere private and dance however you like, don''t do it in front of the city gate. You''ll get a bad name." He looked at all the people staring at him and went silent. "Oops, sorry. I was...overjoyed." "Be happy then. I''ll log for now. I got schedule to level up with my friend tomorrow morning. I don''t want to sleep in." "Level up?" He gave me some uncertain nces. "Tell me if you want something. There''s no sissy here." "Can I join you?" "Any particr reason?" "I kinda earned myself some enemies around here so someone''s always trying to kill me. And that''s why I went on the quest alone. I don''t have to worry about that if I can find a group to grind together." "Come then." I told him the time and exited the game. Chapter Book 4 - 28 – Another Me? Book 4, Chapter 28 Another Me? ------------------ I woke up early enough. ording to n, I need to pick up Merciless before we head to Hawk and the others. "Oh, you''re already here? Am Ite?" "Nope. I came too early." "Follow me." I grabbed Merciless''s arm and teleported to the station in Goddess City. This is where we''ll meet up. No one''s here. Yup, this is too early. We found a corner around the street where we can see the station and sat down. I watched the passers-by in boredom, while Merciless ys with that ck kitten. "Hey Merciless. We look like some beggars. Someone''s not going to throw coins at us right?" Merciless looked at me, then turned to his cat again. "Definitely not you. Not sure about myself though." "What do you mean?" "Duh, that robe on you is obviously something expensive. No one is wearing anything better as far as I can see. They must be blind if anyone thinks you''re poor." "Hey! The Wizard over there!" A female voice called out. I looked around, the only one that qualifies as a "wizard" is me. "Are you calling me?" I looked at the woman who just approached me. Something caught my mind. She''s familiar, as if we see each other everyday. But...I can''t remember who she is. I can see the same doubt on her expression too. "We met before?" She''s apanied by a male Warrior, who looked between us for several rounds. Merciless is attracted too and began to check our faces. The woman finally spoke. "Are you--" But she stopped, not sure what to say. The male Warrior stared at us for a full minute, rubbed his eyes, then stared again. He spoke to Merciless instead. "Are you thinking what I''m thinking?" Merciless nodded. "I think I agree." The woman fished out a mirror somewhere behind her back and looked at it, then at me, the mirror, repeat. She then turned the mirror towards me. I observed myself in the mirror and-- "You, huh? Wait, I''m--nonono, you''re--" I stuttered without making out any full sentence. I turned to Merciless: "5 minutes!" "What''s going on?" I didn''t reply. I just quickly logged off. And I saw the woman did the same. I didn''t leave my Iron Unit, I used the built-in telephone and gave my father a call. I also dragged my mother into the conversation. "What''s up son? It''s still early." "I have a question, and I want a clear answer for it." "Something went wrong?" Mother seems worried. I considered for a while. How do I put this, to express my doubt without sounding too harsh? "Are you sure I''m the only child in the family?" Mother paused. "What''s going on dear? That''s out of the blue." "Just tell me. Am I the only child? Do I have any twin brothers or sisters or something?" Father chuckled. "You lost your mind son? Why, you want a little brother now?" My mother seems annoyed. "You don''t believe your own mother huh boy? Do you think I can''t even remember how many kids I have?" "No no no no that''s not what I meant! " Apologize first. Getting mother angry means she''ll take me back to thepany and give me punishment, which means, asking me to manage business. "I met some problem and I''m just making sure. Well, not going to disturb your work. Bye!" I quickly cut them. Any more and I''m going to get myself a serious mouthful. I went back into the game to see the female Warrior just logging back too. We stared in silence again. When we noticed we''re already walking in circles, inspecting each other. I finally decided to starting talking first. "I''m Ziri, and you''re...?" Yup, she''s surprised by my name. "I''m Zirai! Divine Demon race." We looks like a pair!(*) "Same here. I have double sses." "Me too. That''s quite a coincidence. And I believe we did the same thing when offline?" I nod. "So we got the same answer?" "I don''t have a twin!" We spoke andughed at the same time. Then my appearance issue hit me, so I quickly asked: "Are you female?" She(he?) just gave me a weird look. "I may not be a star but I''m confident in my looks. Can a man have such a bright face like me?" "So, you''re a woman?" "Of course!" I chuckled. "You''re wrong then. I''m a man with that bright face you mentioned." "What??" That shocked her for good. "You''re not messing with me right?" "Do I look like that type?" "Wait wait wait, you''re serious?" She got closer. "You didn''t use your true appearance for your character?" "Yeah. I made it 10% more masculine. I tried to make those body curves and lines straight." Zirai snickered. "Ah I did the same! I wanted to look cooler so I attract less stalkers. I wonder if we look the same in real life." She took out her mirror again and began topare us. "Almost the same person! Funny. Never thought I''d run into something like this in my life." "Where do you live?" "New Nanjing. You?" "Same. I study in the Neo-Dragon Academy." "You don''t say? I read in the Zenith Faculty." "Zenith? That''s close." Zenith Faculty is just behind Neo-Dragon. There''s only a wall separating the two ces. "I''m free tomorrow!" "I''m free everyday!" We both smile again. This is fascinating, the girl in front of me is just like myself. We look alike, we think alike...You know the feeling when there''s someone who can totally understand your own thoughts. Communication without having to speak...wonderful! "Let me trying something out." I got a wicked idea. "You want me to trick people?" Bingo. We''re in tune! "My friends. They''re arriving soon." I told Zirai about the characteristics of Hawk and others. Shortly, Hawk, Elfy and the rest of the group appeared, and I can see Rose too. She''s been away for quite a while. I dragged Merciless and the male Warrior somewhere to hide, while Zirai simply went to greet them like I would. "Hey dear! Miss me?" Rose leaned into Zirai''s chest. Even Rose didn''t notice! This is just why we both went to confirm with our families if we have a long-lost twin. Hawk patted on Zirai''s shoulder. "Good morning mate." That''s not surprising. This muscr big bro carries the least awareness among us all. Well maybe not, cause there''s Big Pot. Big Pot joined them. "Yo Ziri! That monster hunting was awesome! I''m looking forward to today''s work!" Violet looked at Zirai and tilted her head. But she didn''t catch anything. "Where''s your armor Ziri? And your robe?" Zirai is quick enough. "I changed so no one would recognize me here." wless. "What happened to your voice?" Elfy noticed something amiss. "It''s...sharper? You sound more like a woman now." "Pff ha hahaha!" Zirai looked towards my location. "Come out already, I can''t hold it! Ah hahaha! Oh wow this is so much fun!" Everyone froze. Except Rose, who immediately jumped away from Zirai''s hug. "Huh, what is--" Rose looked between us for a while and finally came over me. "Ziri?" I nod to her. She held my arm. "Who is that?" I didn''t answer. "How do you make sure this is the real me?" She raised her head. "I don''t. But I can feel it. So who is that? I won''t notice at all if you didn''t show up." "She''s Zirai. My twin sister." I dragged Zirai to stand beside me. "I knew it. You two look no different." Hawk is as careless as ever. Big Pot scratched his head. "I thought you learned how to use those shadow clone skills. Totally the same one if you ask me." Everyone nodded andmented about how we look so alike, except Rose. She knows our family and she''s definitely aware that I don''t have any sister. But she only observed the scene without pointing it out. However Zirai failed to hold it back again. "Hey you all believed that?" "Believe what?" Rose stepped out: "Ziri is the only child. There''s no sister or brother. Otherwise Dragon Fa woooo--" I held her mouth. I don''t think it''s a good idea to let the others know about my identity. They''ll just think someone in thepany gifted all my resources for free. "Alright alright, can you introduce her to us? And that two new faces over there?" Hawk opened the topic. "This is Merciless, I met him in a quest yesterday, a high level Assassin. We don''t have any Assassin in our team so I invited him. This prettydy here is Zirai, we just met. Trust me, I know nothing else. The gentlemen is together with Zirai, I don''t know him yet." "Let me introduce myself!" Zirai sure feels like a boy and I like that. "Good day. I''m [Zirai], Divine Demon, duo ss, Dragoon and Sealmaster. Pleasure to meet you. Ziri told me all about you so you don''t have to introduce back. This is a friend I just met today, name is [Passerby], I think his ss is called Chaos Rider or something. And ugh! I forgot why I came today because of all the fuss!" "What are you doing?" We looked at her curiously. "I want to steal the city defense cannon of Goddess City!" Say whaaaat?! "You mean, that energy crystal cannon on the city wall?" Hawk pointed towards one of the giant weapons located on the battlement. "You''re serious?" I also looked at the cannon in shock. "We don''t know if we can move it at all. Even if we can...how? That thing looks like at least a dozen tons, and it''s set high up on the tform." "It''s not safe here, let''s talk about it outside." Zirai led us into a forest far from the city. "I''ll call mypanion now. Don''t get scared!" She waved her hand. "Come, Skyfire!" With a strong air current, a red dragon simr to Lucky descended from the sky. Apart from the bright red color, it''s also a bit bigger than Lucky. "How does he look?" Zirai touched therge dragon''s nose and waved her other hand. "Come, Big Bill, Little Bill!" Boom! Two giants taller than the city wall appeared near us. "Titan!" We stepped back. She got a lot of interesting members! Zirai seems satisfied with our expressions. "Now how''s this? Big Bill and Little Bill can help us carry the cannon. I just need some helpers to take care of the NPC guards. These two are big but they''re not good at fighting. We can''t defeat too many enemies. And Skyfire is not enough to fend off hundreds of guards. This is why I came for help. What do you say? I''ll pay for the extra hand!" Hawk and I exchanged a nce. I spoke: "Our team has set up a goal to go to Japan and cause some troubles there. We''ll help you get that cannon if you agree to join our mission." Zirai seems embarrassed. "Not ''that cannon''. I need THOSE cannons!" "Huh? All of them?" Gold Coin looked towards the city wall and shook her head. "Oh dear. Now here''s someone even greedier than me." "No, not like that." Zirai exined. "I''m helping our country. I''m going to carry these weapons to the Nation War border and use them as thest defense line. Or what other reason do you think I have? For fun?" "We''re in the same team then! Hahaha! Let''s do this!" Everyoneughed. I stopped them. "Not yet, we have problems. We can walk into the city alright, but how do we get out?" I looked among them. "You can summon your titans inside the city, how can we get them out after that? Are they able to climb over the wall with the cannon? The main gate is no-go. It''s like a doghole for these big guys, and there''s no way for the cannon to get through. Putting your hands on the cannon means to start a city siege war. We will be facing more than city guards. Goddess City is a major system city, it can spawn 100 thousand regr army units during a war, you sure our small team can handle that?" They fell silent. I continued: "Now suppose we can get out of the city. There are five energy crystal cannons on the walls of Goddess City. So, we carry one, the one in the opposite direction can''t see us, but the rest three will have no trouble blowing us up. If my guess is right, those cannons are not designed for individual yer targets at all. One hit and we''re done. Death may not be a problem but it will destroy the cannon we''re carrying. What do we do then? Go back and get another?" "Ouch." Zirai slumped down. "I thought this would be easy...now you broke all hope." "Not really." They stared at me again. "How much weight can your Skyfire carry?" "Not sure but must be a lot." Zirai is uncertain what I''m nning. "How does that help?" "Lucky!" I summoned my No.1 assistant. "Say, if they work together, can they carry the cannon into the air?" Zirai didn''t answer. But Hawk shoot his head. "Not likely. Even if they can it will be too slow." "Phiona! Loong''er!" I summoned everyone who can fly. "What about now?" Zirai recovered her smile. "Yes, yes! We can do it! Two dragons? Oh my. I wonder which one is stronger, Lucky or my Skyfire." "Forget it. Skyfire will definitely lose unless it reaches level 1000." That I''m confident. "Why''s that?" She''s not convinced. I opened Lucky''s status and showed her. "As dragon king, he does double damage to any dragon-type monsters. Phiona can give him a free revival once per day. Can Skyfire kill him twice?" "Is that dragon king''s crown in the inventory?" Zirai swallowed. "I want one for my Skyfire..." "It''s a crown, not a cheap hairpin. It will make no sense if everyone has one." "So when do we start?" Hawk asked."It will really help us if we can put those cannons into the war zone." "How about this evening?" Zirai suggested. "Let''s do it in the day." Gold Coin proposed with a professional attitude. "This is a game, those NPCs can stay fully awake even in the night. But we can''t. And the view is better during the day so we can give it our best. There''ll beplications in the evening. You''re carrying a big object, we''ll need someone to give orders within sight. And NPC''s visual field stays the same during night hours, if I remember correctly." "Good point. I agree with Coin." I gave my stand. "Let''s prepare, we do it in the afternoon." "Okay!" "Let''s see what we''ll need." I drew a picture in my mind. "Potions and consumables. A lot of them. Be sure to stock up. Some ropes. Long ones." "What''s that for?" Big Pot asked. Violet knocked his head. "To bind up those cannons! Do you think we can carry them just with dragon or bird ws??" "Oh! Right." "Ok now, go get the items now." I dismissed them. Zirai stayed and looked at me. "You are not going?" "Me? I''ll stay in the back and give orders. Oww don''t hit me! Hey!" ------------------ (*) It''s too hard to turn their names into English while keeping the meaning behind them, so I didn''t. Ziri: the purple sun. Ziyue: the purple moon. I altered thetter. Directly calling them purple sun or moon doesn''t feel right. Chapter Book 4 - 29 – Escape Book 4, Chapter 29 Escape ------------------ We soon gathered in front of the city gate. Hawk is pretty smart when ites to these operations. He bought many ropes from the system shop and prepared them into thick towlines enough to drag the cannons. "How about this?" Zirai used the towlines to make a giant noose with four ends. So Phiona, Loong''er, Lucky and Skyfire can each take one end and lift the cannons. The cannons look more like some kind of observatories. Who knows how heavy they are. "Should be good!" Everyone nodded. "Let''s move then!" Zirai is getting super excited. "Wait!" Big Pot raised his hand. "Someone needs to stay on the rope right? Thepanions aren''t going tomand themselves." "You go then!" Violet pushed Big Pot onto Lucky''s back. "Be careful not to fall." "Noooo! I''m afraid of heights!!" He tried to climb down. I signaled Lucky to take off with the three otherpanions, bringing the rope noose and the screaming Big Pot with them. They didn''t go far. Skyfire stayed lower, without leaving our sight, which caused the otherpanions to stay behind too. "Um, Zirai? Is your dragon afraid of heights too?" "Very funny. That''s MYpanion, what do you expect when I''m standing on the ground? You at least know there''s a limit for how far you canmand your pets right?" I think Hawk and Elfy mentioned this before. Ordinarypanions can only operate within their master''s sight. This is not the case for my team though. "You should go with them then." I told them to get down. Zirai summoned her titans to lift her up, then un-summoned them again. Well that''s handy. "You guys wait in the city! I''ll get to right above the cannon. Give me a signal when ready, and I''lle down!" "Got it. Let''s move!" The team marched towards one corner of the Goddess City where one of the energy crystal cannons is located. Four cannons are separately ced at each corner of the city, and a bigger one is stationed on top of a tower in the city center. Thisyout is used to make sure that at least three cannons can hit something no matter which direction theye from. Our targets are the four smaller corner cannons. Of course we want the middle one as well but we''re not sure we can lift it, with that kind of size. If we manage to pirate the other four this time, we can try to get the big er. We sneaked under the cannon in the southeast corner of the city. The stone tform support made of gstones is as tall as the city wall, whereas the half-sphere shaped cannon stays aloft in the center of the tform. Thirteen guardians are standing under the cannon in a circle, with their backs against the cannon. There''s an unconspicuous room nearby which must be the spawn point. When the city goes into war, the five rooms at mentioned locations will produce 100,000 level 800-850 regr NPC soldiers. That will definitely be quite a view. "Is it possible to seal that door?" I pointed to the spawn room and asked Hawk. "We can''t seal it but...It''s still possible to stall them." "How do we do that?" "Look at the cannon." "And?" "What will happen if we knock it over and make it crash into the door?" "I like your way of thinking." I gave him a thumb-up. "Be quiet you two! We''re going!" Elfy lost patience. I sent Zirai a /tell, asking her to start. A ck spot in the sky quickly grew bigger. The temporary transport team arrived almost in an instant. Zirai jumped onto the cannon and began to tie the ropes. The NPC guards looked back towards her the moment she touched the cannon. But we already moved before they can react. The ten Phantom Knights charged ahead, followed by everyone else. We knocked down the guards within a matter of seconds. I gave Zirai an "ok" gesture. She then ordered Skyfire and the others to gain altitude. They (those with wings at least) pped their wings as hard as they can. A dull bumping noise, followed by a smoke cloud. The cannon left it''s base and went afloat. Groups of NPC soldiers are already appearing inside the house nearby! Zirai summoned her titans. They pushed at the remaining cannon base, which fell and broke the stone tform to pieces and caused all the rocks to bury the spawn point under a giant rubble. Something''s not right. That base lying on the rubble...It looks like a tripod stand, with a long, thick iron pipe attached to it. Wait, it''s the cannon! I looked up to the transport team. What they''re carrying is the half-sphere casing of the cannon. So the actual cannon isn''t so big, the heavy casing is used to hide the cannon''s long barrel! I quickly contacted Zirai. "Come back! You took the wrong stuff!" "What??" Zirai watched from Skyfire''s back as we stood on the rubble, waving at her and pointing to the object behind us. She soon realized the real target is still on the ground. We can''t hesitate now. I simply asked Phantom to send a telepathy and call Lucky and the others back. Phiona used her fire to burn the rope away. The giant half-sphere cannon casing fell and created a big gap on the city wall, while causing block pieces to fly about. We all covered our heads and dived for cover. Lucky is already flying down. The cannon in the city center turned to our direction and fired with a strange "poof" noise. A cannon bullet carrying a violet colored trail, like aet, approached us. It aimed high, apparently going for Lucky. Lucky did a beautiful tactic roll in mid air, dodging the bullet. It flew towards outside the city andnded on a small mountain tip. Thending point is pretty far away but we still heard the explosion. We observed the scene from the opening gaps on the wall. The mountain tip is ttened into in ground! Shit, that was scary. I hope no one''s over there. Lucky continued to dive down when the northeast cannon fired at us too. Lucky didn''t have time to avoid this one, and was killed fast and clean! The explosion brought a shockwave towards us. The ground full of rubble is now covered in smoke and dust. There''s no way we can reach the gate now so we just decided to get away through those openings on the wall. The dust was blown away by a strong gust. Loong''er came down like a swimming snake. She is no smaller than Lucky but her long, slim body is much much harder to hit. She only had to dodge one shot before touching down, then she coiled around the cannon and began to float. Lucky was revived using Phiona''s skill. He quickly escaped from those cannons'' lines of sight because he doesn''t want to experience that again. This is the first time something one-shot him. Not even the dragon deity Ao Guang can manage that. We quickly jumped off the city wall. There''s a deep city moat below, obviously we''ll have to rely on ourselves to get past it. I summoned Night Shade who did a wonderful job again. He leaped over the moat with me, Rose and Yuri on his back, although a little breathtaking. Hawk, however, caused some embarrassment. With Hawk and Elfy on the back, Sunshine fell into the river half way. Gold Coin simply ran across on top of the water surface, leaving a trail of separated water current behind. She runs too fast! Razor used his ninjutsu "Suiton" and teleported across the river. Violet summoned Ashura. The kid has a mount with him, a silver pegasus! Zirai''s friend, Passerby, summoned hispanion too. Oh my god what a giant roach!! Someone actually caught a cockroach as apanion! Of course it can fly. It had no trouble bringing Passerby over the water. Man he got guts. I got gooseflesh just looking at the size of the bug. Most women are terrified of these things, while I tend to avoid them because they carry too much filth. I hate filth! Passerby is holding onto one of the hairy legs like it''s nothing. Ew. So there''s only Big Pot and Wayne left. They looked at each other, nodded hard, held hands, jumped into the water and began to swim. Oh well. "...What are they doing?" Rose asked while looking at the duo who are moving slowly to us, dog paddle style. "Why not using theirpanions?" Yuri muttered. Violet came over on the pegasus (Ashura is lying in her arms). "I know Big Pot''s pet. It can''t swim. As for Wayne... no idea." I chuckled. "Wayne got nopanion. He only has two servants, and they''re can''t swim either." "Ow." I think Yuri is actually feeling sorry for Wayne. "Okay okay, let''s be quick. Get those guys up here, we need to run!" Elfy and Hawk dragged their soaked bodies ashore and urged us. I summoned Rosa and gave orders, though I can''t hide my amusement looking at the swimmingpetition. "Drag the two guys out of the water." Rosa extended two tentacles and fished them out. "Enough swimming, now run!" I turned to Hawk and the others, telling them to retreat. Wayne gave me a sad face. "I don''t havepanion!" Razor followed him. "You know, same here." "You have enoughpanions for them right?" Yuri suggested. I shook my head. "Loong''er is carrying the cannon, Lucky and Phiona will be against the enemies. They can''t bring people. Same for the Phantom Knights. Night Shade is already carrying three of us, that''s enough burden for him." Passerby came up and put his hands onto their shoulders. "You cane with Roachy. He''s fast I tell you! It will be like racing a car." "Okay I guess..." Wayne climbed onto the giant cockroach''s body, unwillingly. Oh ho ho man he looks so funny! Razor didn''t say anything. He jumped onto the bug''s head and stood straight, arms crossed. Big Pot summoned hispanion too, a...gray, wild boar, as big as an ox. I gave out a heartyugh and almost fell off Night Shade. Big Pot has a giant pig with a horse saddle on its back! I know about those Wolf Raiders, but what is this, Pig Raider? The NPC army didn''t give us time to think about that. A battalion appeared at the front gate and marched towards us fast. And they look strong! I wish I could take the time and observe the army parade but obviously that''s not going to happen now! Apart from the flyers, the fastest one among us is still Night Shade. The second ce is--surprisingly--Big Pot''s boar. Ahh har har hahaha those four tiny legs are almost as fast as Night Shade!! Gold Coin is sprinting on her feet. She has no problem keeping up with us. The one in the back is Hawk''s unicorn, Sunshine. I wonder what he''s thinking about now. The handsome steed has the same body build as Night Shade but he fell behind a boar. Again, never judge a book by the covers I guess. And no, don''t judge pigs either. The army cavalry is getting close. We have to pick up speed. Lucky and Phiona no longer need to help with the transportation so I called them back to stop the pursuers. Lucky swept past the rider formation from start to end while unleashing his breath. It didn''t do much to the level 850 city defenders but was enough to cause trouble to their horses. Phiona washed them over again using her purple me. After some white sh, thousands of riders became footmen. The Phantom Knights took the chance andunched their attack during the brief chaos. When the defenders managed to organize their retaliation, the knights are already running away. We soon reached a great distance where the Goddess City is only a small dot on the horizon. It should be safe but I''m feeling really uneasy for some reason. Hawk noticed my expression. "What''s the matter?" "I think someone''s watching us." "Someone? You mean, someone went this far from the city behind us?" Then I heard sharp noisesing from the sky. We all looked up. There are...spots,ing out of the clouds. "Griffins!! Take cover!" Razor is the first one to recognize the beasts and alerted us to hide. From my point of view, there are at least 5,000 griffins up there. The sunlight above us is bing blocked out. And the sounds of these things flying is no different than an airne formation! "Watch out!" One of the griffins left the group and dived at us at full speed. My warning came toote. Big Pot is caught into the air. Phiona charged from the side and collided into the griffin, which lost its bnce and fell from the sky. Passerby''s cockroach caught the falling Big Pot with an impressive move and ran away. I tried to call Lucky for help before I saw him already entangled in a fierce fight against a group of griffins. I summoned everyone avable. Any extra hand would be helpful now. Dart waited for a chance when Phiona flew low and jumped onto her back, then switched to a griffin''s back when Phiona got close to the enemies. There are too many of them so the griffins can''t really stay far from each other. Dart is simply hopping between different griffins. The thing is, when he left a griffin, it wille down spinning in the air, while losing some feathers at the same time. "Woo-ho! Hey Ziri, your pet''s awesome!" Gold Coin talked to me while checking one of the fallen beasts. "Is he?" "Just look!" She pulled the griffin''s wing, and I instantly saw what she meant. Dart went to pick their feathers! The back edge of this griffin''s wing is almost bare. Since they don''t have a wide tail like birds, they''ll need to use their long feathers at the back of their wings to steer around. If Dart plucked them clean... Razor suddenly eximed. "Hey I gained a level! But I didn''t do anything. We get EXP by killing NPCs?" I looked at my own EXP bar, and yes, it''s growing. There''s still a long way to go before I can level up though. Tank is leveling up rapidly. These griffins are level 800, each kill can gain him several levels at his current state. I watched as the palm-sized Tank grew bigger. He will turn into that original size in no time at this rate. Phantom pulled me out of my thought and alerted me to help Dart. I saw him falling down, so I ordered Night Shade to ran up to him and then caught Dart in my hands. He was hurt by someone. He has no trouble annoying themon griffins, but some of them got riders on their backs, one of them managed to strike Dart down. Despite our efforts, most griffins got past us and caught up with Loong''er and Skyfire. Zirai ordered Skyfire to fight off the griffins. Some more feathers rained down. Loong''er failed to hold against the assault. She dropped the burden in order to fight better, and the cannon was caught by a dozen griffins before reaching the ground. They began to carry the cannon back. We can only watch as they flew past our heads but we can''t do anything! As I''m trying toe up with something, I heard a buzzing sound behind. Tank is now big as an elephant and he''s trying to fly with his hidden insect wings. He got into the air after some attempts. It sounds like being the middle of a bee swarm, amplified by some loud speakers. The griffin transport panicked when they saw the sudden attacker. Maybe he''s confident in his hard shell, or maybe he''s just not good at controlling his flight yet, Tank simply threw himself into the griffins like a bomb. The griffins lost their bnce, and the cannon fell down again whichnded on Passerby''s cockroach. Yuri is already finishing up the second chapter of her Fallen Variation. The skill wille into effect any time now. But something always goes wrong. A griffin dived before we can react and caught Yuri. I''m struggling against a griffin myself so I can''t help her. I should have left her and Rose on Night Shade! We scattered up to keep more enemies from going after Loong''er. Now it seems a bad choice! Yuri was killed soon due to her weak build. She disappeared in a white sh, with her song interrupted. Before I can make new decisions, Rose is lifted into the air as well. Damn it I can''t protect anyone like this! -------------------- Novel migration imminent. If things go well. Chapter Book 4 - 30 – Mutation Book 4, Chapter 30 Mutation ------------------ On the other end of the battlefield, Passerby is intercepted by several griffins, causing the cannon to fall and finally crash on the ground. It shattered into several parts. A bullet went off and flew in the direction towards the Goddess City! We didn''t give it much thought since we''re pretty far off from the city and the random shot probably won''t do anything. However the shell preciselynded on the city gate, pulverizing it, while causing dozens if not hundreds of people to get buried alive. Right. Innocent bystanders always get into trouble. "Oh shit! Why me again??" My Evilness rose! It was Tank who caused the griffins to drop the cannon but...do they have to count ALL the deaths on my head?? Jesus cakes. All those people must have received messages that I attacked them. I just made a second mass-kill ident! I didn''t mean it!! Since I''m already the top criminal, the system didn''t announce my honorable deed again. This won''t cause TOO much of an issue since I have my Masking Wheel bracelet,pared tost time. The griffins all retreated when the cannon is destroyed. They hurt Phiona badly before they leave, Rosa saved her from a fatal crash. We began to wrap up the whole fight since the enemies are gone. Rose is the busies one. She''s the only healer in the team. Yuri can heal people but she died just now, which means Rose''s first task is to revive Yuri before she gets teleported back to the city by the system due to time limit. Rose used her skill three times at Yuri''s body before she can bring her back. Fortunately she only lost one level. Rose could really make a fortune by selling her skill on the battlefield. They soon returned everyone to their full state. I looked at Zirai, who''s sulking at the remains of the crystal cannon. I walked to her and patted her on the shoulder. "Don''t worry. We can always try again." I feel as if I''mforting myself. This is strange. "What''s the n now?" Razor asked me. "Do we do it again when the city is in a mess, or wait and save up strength?" Before I can respond, Elfy yelled and startled everyone. "Ziri, your pet!! What''s he doing?" "Hm? " I turned around and saw Tank munching on something. Oh good lord, he''s covered in griffin blood while tearing on a griffin corpse! "Ew. I don''t want to look at that." Gold Coin pointed at the griffin shreds. "Where did you find this freak?" "He''s not a freak." I retorted. "You have no idea what he can do when he grows up enough. He''s invincible!" Zirai recovered her spirit. "You don''t say?" "Yes. When he''s still an enemy he can knock Lucky away like he was nothing." "...The bug can knock a dragon away?" "You should check his status. Maybe eating corpse is something he learned." Elfy suggested. "I know some monsters that can heal or strengthen themselves by doing this." "Good point." I read through Tank''s description and my mouth instantly dropped open. "He--he--" "What?" Rose finished her work and ran to me. "He can heal up like that?" I shook head. "He''s not healing." "What is it then?" "It''s a special skill. He can learn the skill of whatever he eats!" "You serious??" Gold Coin squeezed to my side. I opened the window for everyone to see. "...[Fire Bullet](Griffin). Yeah that''s one of their skills. Good god, what happens if he eats a dragon? He can breath fire?" Merciless answered this one. "Oh he doesn''t need to. The bug can already breath fire. And it''s powerful." "How do you know that?" Gold Coin turned to Merciless. "I was killed by it. I''d say that fire is just like dragon fire." "A little less than that but close." I added. "Lucky was in a breathing contest with it, and he lost. Though that was probably because Lucky''s level was too low." Tank has finished his meal during our discussion. He slowly crawled away when no one''s noticing. "Where did it go Ziri?" Elfy is the first to notice the missing bug. She turned around and saw Tank just behind her, still biting on something. I went over to check. "Geez how many griffins do you--" Then I stopped, which caused all the others to look towards Tank as well. "The scraps! I mean, the cannon--" Tank is munching on the remains of the crystal cannon. There are only a few screws and springs left on the ground! But, but he eats CANNONs?? "Ziri, check his skill!" I didn''t close the window, Violet saw something new. "[Crystal Cannon Shot]? Wait wait wait you''re not saying--" I told everyone to step aside and started to give orders to Tank. "Hey Tank, that hill over there, do you see it? Use [Crystal Cannon Shot] on it!" No response. "What happened?" I asked Phantom. "Give me a moment." Phantom went silent for a while. "He says he can only use that skill with full HP." "Rose, heal him up. Looks he needs a full HP bar to use the cannon skill." Rose filled up his HP soon, when Tank turned towards the hill I mentioned. He fixed his six legs deep into the dirt andy low. The wing-case on his back opened up. I thought he''s going to disy his wings again. Instead, a pipe-like cavity organism stuck out from the middle of his back and pointed at the hill. The alien object is obviously part of Tank''s body now. The long, light green barrel began to glow. Poom! It kicked back in the same manner when a cannon releases a shell. A bullet like the ones we saw before went towards the hill. The only noticeable difference is that this one is green colored. Itnded on the tip of the hill, causing a shock wave that can be seen by bare eyes. The tip part disappeared from our sight, silently. It was when the shock wave reached our position when we were finally met with the thunderous explosion and terrible ground shake. We all had to crouch on the ground to avoid all the debris. When the whole scene calmed down, Tank fell sideways and almost crashed on top of me, if not for my quick reflexes. I looked at his attribute again -- HP 1, MP 0. All skills are grayed out. A half transparent message is disyed on top of the window: [Exhausted. Cannot act. 72,000 seconds left (online time)] And the time meter is slowly going down. Everyone gathered up with their bodies covered in dirt. Violetmented: "We should-cough! Should have picked something farther away! Cough! I wasn''t expecting that kind of power." I showed them the countdown. "Pity. It got a really long cooldown." Coin: "Totally legit. That was like a nuclear missile. If you can use it without any limit you might as well go fuc up Japan on your own. You know, just stand there, and give five or six shots, that''s enough to st a medium-sized city into in ground." Elfy: "Nice. A portable cannon. Now we can really call it a ''Tank''." "I''d prefer ''Self-propelled Howitzer'', if that counts as a name." Passerbymented. Merciless looked at the now strange-shaped Tank. "Apart from the speed...there''s another problem." "What is it?" We all looked at him. "The cannon is actually a skill right? And using it means Ziri''spanion will have to drop out of any actions for a while." Merciless paused a little. "It may be powerful but there are not many chances we can use it for real. Closebat is absolutely a no. As you see, the attack doesn''t distinguish friendlies. If we shoot in the middle of a fight we''ll bring everyone down with it." Violet spoke: "We can use it during city siege. A shot like that on the city gate or among the city defenders will solve us a lot of problems." "That''s right. But did you notice how long it took him to expand the cannon?" Merciless gave us the cold water again. "He needs to be at top status, and a full minute to prepare the shot. If anyone manages to touch him, the skill gets interrupted. The skill is really impressive on the looks, but not very practical, if you ask me." We lowered our heads. That made a lot of sense. As he said, the kill power is really good. But I can only use it at somewhere really far away from the team. "Oh oops...sorry for that. It''s better than nothing at least." "Agreed!" "So...what''s the n? We go fetch another?" "Not now." Hawk shook his head. "I agree with Hawk. We should wait for the night or wait till tomorrow. If we go now we''ll run into their main force again." Gold Coin held her chin. "I have an idea but...It''s just a matter whether you guys got the guts to do it." "Well shoot. We tried to take a city defense cannon for real. Is there anything else we can''t try?" "Do you know how the three major system cities got their title?" She got us hanging. And I don''t think she''s going straight if we don''t y along. "Why? Cause they''re big?" "Nope!" She looks satisfied. "The major cities are not the biggest ones. I''ve seen cities bigger than the Goddess City but they''re still not major cities. The reason is the three cities have imperial pces in them." "You mean, the inner city?" Hawk nodded. "I see what you meant. Only major cities have those pces in the center. But what''s important with that? They never allow yers in there. Anything worth taking?" Coin waved her index finger. "There are five crystal cannons in each city." "Duh, we all saw that." "What you didn''t see is the biggest cannon is located inside the pce area." "Can you make it simple?" "Okay, the simple question. Are you willing to lose a level to get that cannon?" "How do we do that?" I still don''t catch up with her. "It''s, well, maybe a minor system bug. The bug doesn''t mean anything tomon yers but we can use it." "System bug huh?" I perked up. Never thought I''d encounter any bugs in [Zero]. This is big news, I''ll go tell my fatherter. "Tell us already!" "It''s a strange system setup. I noticed it by ident. There''s one point when I stole something and was cornered. My only choice then was jumping into the inner city area. Guess what next?" "Yes?" "The NPC guards all retreated. They can''t get into the pce." "That doesn''t look ''minor'' to me!" I yelled. "Let me finish! City guards can''t get in, sure. But there are imperial guards inside the pce, level 900, led by level 950 captains! These imperial troops wille after you instead." Hawk shrugged. "No bug for us then. Those level 900 guards will be way harder to deal with." Coin: "Wrong again! I survived for a while thanks to my speed. The imperial guards only try to kill you, instead of taking you to prison. And I found a problem: there are very few of them, and they don''t respawn. In other words, they''re short on hands. So what happens if we attack from several different locations?" "Even they don''t have enough men, they can still kill us before we can bring the cannon outside the pce." "We don''t have to! Actually, we don''t do that in the first ce." "Now we''re not going to steal the cannon at all?" "The ordinary city guards left me alone after I was killed. I sneaked back into the pce again, guess what I found? The items I lost were still there on the ground. I tried several times more and this is my conclusion: First, the city guards don''t care if someone enters the pce. They only go after thieves and criminals. Second, items left in the pce will not get cleared up. The imperials don''t check what you dropped. (In [Zero], items don''t disappear on themselves but passing monsters and NPCs will try to take them away. Remember how Hawk and Elfy witnessed a dragon snatching a gem away from a group of fighting yers?) And third, when I went back for my items, the imperials came after me but they stopped at the pce boundary. The outside city guards never showed up again either. So, the imperials either try to kill me because I trespassed on forbidden ground, or because I have stolen items on me. Either way, they can''t go outside bounds. The city guards won''t care if I go back again and retrieve the stolen items I lost. You see the bug now?" "Okay, so, for whatever reason, imperial guards only attack intruders inside the pce, and city guards will stop pursuing anyone after they''re killed once. Neither of them actually care about the stolen items." Elfy gave her own sum-up. "Close. The city guards do care about the items, but they don''t try to take them if they can''t. Normally they will take the items from the thief and give them back to the owner, but since they can''t reach the items dropped inside the pce, they''ll leave them there. Even if I take them out again they won''t do anything." "How does that help with our n?" Passerby asked. Someone still didn''t get it so I exined: "Coin wants to say that if we move the pce cannon, the city guards will gather outside the pce and try to kill us to retrieve the cannon. Here, we move the cannon near the gate and let the imperials kill us. Then all the NPCs will return to their original positions, we revive, go into the pce again and take the cannon. In this case, neither the imperials nor the city guards wille after us. We can just carry the cannon through the city gate under broad daylight!" Chapter Book 4 - 31 – The Palace Book 4, Chapter 31 The Pce ------------------ "Nice idea!" Passerby apuded. "Possible. This means everyone must die once right?" Razor looked among all the people. "We should carefully go over the n, and maybe bring the necessary members only. I don''t think we ALL need to lose level. Besides, you should change your setup. Put on something cheap. Level 900 enemies will easily kill anyone whatever we wear, and you don''t want to lose your valuable equipment by ident." "Razor made a good point." Elfy nodded. "Yuri and Rose can stay behind, we don''t really need healers this time." I looked at Elfy. "You should quit too. We need tanks or anyone with enough HP to move the cannon as close to the pce gate as possible. Let''s try making the casualty minimum." Hawk nodded to Elfy. "As he said. Stay outside and help me carry extra equipment." "I want to go with you!" Elfy gave Hawk a stern look. "We all know you''ll die, then let me at least be there with you. That''s what a wife does!" "Elfy!!" Hawk held Elfy''s shoulders and called her name in a really dramatic way. Elfy also threw herself into Hawk''s arms. "You big fool!" "Ahem!!" Big Pot turned his head away. "Knock it! There are damn singles here! A lot of them! Be kind and don''t hurt our feelings further, okay??" "Leave us alone. This is family problem! " I patted on Big Pot''s shoulder. "Easy. Don''t you already know they''re couple of the year?" Big Pot brushed my hand away and grabbed Passerby. "You don''t understand how we feel!" Passerby yed along. "Yeah! You have enough pretties around you. Give us some space!" Rose walked behind them and gave each of them a good knock on the head using her mage staff. "Back to topic!" I cleaned my throat. "Okay now, still, the less people the better. I''ll now decide the team. No objections. First, me and Zirai. We can''t go without ourpanions. Hawk is in. He''s the best tank we have. Wayne stays behind. A caster won''t help much in this case. Yuri and Rose will stay outside. This will probably only take several minutes, there''s no time for you to heal us. Rose should be on reviving duty. It will be of great help if we lose less level." Rose opened her mouth but didn''t anything. She knows my decision will be better. I continued: "Elfy''s shooting skills aren''t really effective here, so don''t go. You can observe the situation and give us orders ordingly. Coin wille with us. We need your speed and your knowledge of the pceyout. Merciless is out. Your assassination skills won''t work against those level 900 guards. Big Pot and Violet will join. You both have good defenses, and Ashura is pretty strong. Passerby...you can decide for yourself. I don''t know about your ss." He quickly stepped up. "Of course I''ll join. You haven''t seen my special skill! That''s a perfect skill to draw monster attention!" "You can do that?" Zirai turned to him. "You never told me about it." Passerby scratched his head. "It''s a skill of my Roachy. It kinda...stinks, I don''t usually use it in front of girls. But I assure you it works wonders!" "Alright,e with us then." I need enough people and also need to make sure less people die at the same time. Guess I can''t satisfy both. "Razor is fast but you won''t work well against high level enemies, stay with Elfy and help us with situation control." He nodded without a word. He talks the least among us. Besides Merciless, maybe. "Do we start right now?" Zirai seems anxious about getting the cannon. She came up with the n first! I checked the system clock. "Not now. The NPC army should be still up. The cannons will fire at us at this moment." Yuri raised her hand: "Um, there are THREE major cities, right?" Zirai dragged her over hugged her tight. "I love you!!" Yuri is blushing hard. I think that''s the same expression when a girl goes on the date for the first time. ??? Oh dear. I hope she''s not looking at Zirai in ce of me. "Great idea!" Hawk interrupted my random thought. "We can go to the Celestial City or Cloudtop! Which one''s the target?" "Cloudtop then." Passerby suggested. "It''s my home city so I know it well. It''s also the smallest city among the three, which means the pce must be smaller. This will make the quest a lot easier." "Let''s take Passerby''s advice. Now, gather up in front of the pce gate in Cloudtop. Share your teleport scrolls if anyone doesn''t have any, go to any city and use the teleport station to our destination." Then I held Rose''s hand and directly teleported to the station in Cloudtop city. Everyone walked out of the station soon. Passerby has several scrolls to this city on him. As he said, you should prepare enough major city teleport scrolls because you will need to get to them often. We soon reached the pce gate in the city center. The gate arch structure is as tall as the main city gate itself! "How do we get in?" Hawk looked up at the impressively fortified rampart. Passerby gave him a mysterious grin. "Time for my Roachy to show his wonders again!" He summoned the giant bug. "What are you gonna do?" "If anyone doesn''t know how to climb the wall,e here and hold onto one of his legs. I''ll take you in." "For real? You want me to hug a cockroach leg? I''d rather die!" Violet moved back a bit. I totally understand why Violet would say that. Coin nodded, supporting Violet. "No, no, not cockroach, never. Zirai has a dragon right? She can bring a dozen people without problem. And Ziri has another!" "Yeah!" Big Pot nodded quickly. I can also understand why he doesn''t want to hug a cockroach. As a man. "Two dragons, a phoenix, that''s enough to transport several teams of people!" I shook my head. "We''re going stealth. This is not a sightseeing tour. What do you think will happen if a giant dragon went into the city pce by air?" "Oh...I see." Big Pot tilted his head. With the dragon transport n busted, Passerby began to sell his bug bus again. "Come one on! Try Roachy, fast, and safe! No noise! No hazard! Almost." "Rosa!" I ignored Passerby''s advertisement. I already have an idea. And personally I don''t want to choose the cockroach either if I have a second choice. "Make adder for us." Rosa crossed his vines onto the wall and created a ntdder within seconds. I took off my armors and handed them to Rose. Thedder is narrow but shouldn''t be a problem to climb as long as we''re careful enough. As foring back out...We can just jump. That little fall damage won''t cause any issue for us Warrior types. The pce must have that virtual space technology as well. It''s toorgepared to what we saw from outside! Just as wended on the ground, a group of imperial patrols appeared around the corner ahead. I rolled on the ground and hid myself behind a garden rockwork, followed closely by Hawk. Violet jumped into a flower bed, followed by Big Pot (clumsily). Coin ran around behind another big rock. Zirai panicked a little before she squeezed herself inside an open gap in the rock. Passerby is the only one exposed now. He insisted on riding on Roachy so hended a bit slower than us. When the NPCs appeared he hasn''t bnced himself yet! I prepared for a fierce fight, which never happened. The patrol team walked in front of Passerby without doing anything. We all left our hiding ces when they passed around. "What the fuc?? You almost ruined everything from the start!" Coin said angrily while trying to keep her voice low. "Did you use skill or something?" Hawk asked. "The guards can''t miss you out without a reason." "Yeah, one of Roachy''s skills. It''s called [Mimic]. We can blend into the background as long as we stand still. That''s why I didn''t move an inch back there." "Ooh. Nice trick buddy." Big Potmented. "Heh, thanks." Another team showed up. Everyone dashed away into their original covers. Expect for Passerby, who still stood there likest time. When the guards passed we quickly looked around the area and tried to change location. "This way!" Coin rushed into a door across the path. But a patrol came up before anyone can go after her, so we hid again. Thank god no one went too fast or they''ll be caught in the middle of the road. When it''s clear, Coin poked her head out of the door and contacted us via team chat. "One at a time. Run!" I went first. The patrols appeared mid-way, I immediately expanded my cape and stood still. It was a good choice to keep my cape and other essories instead of leaving them all behind. The cape perfectly covered my body. The guards marched past me about only a meter away from my face. I had to hold my breath! I reached Coin''s room when they disappeared. I told the others to wait and observe the patrols. We noticed there were more than one team patrolling this area. Two teams are walking on two different patterns, that''s why there will be a certain point when they both show up together. Finding their patterns means finding a solution. I''ve yed the Commandos before, that game was way harder than this. The rest of the group went into the room sessfully, following mymand. Coin guided us outside the other door of the room, into a courtyard. We proceeded past some distance while hiding, running, hiding, running again. We finally reached right below the crystal cannon. Ha! There''s no guard here! When everyone''s ready, I gave the signal and we all moved. With the experience fromst time, Zirai first summoned her titans to lift the giant half-sphere cover off the cannon. Loong''er hooked the cannon up using her tail, while Skyfire helped her carry the cannon towards the gate. We should be safe as long as we can get the cannon to the exit! All NPC guards in the city moved the moment we touched the cannon. Countless city defenders spawned. They surrounded the pce but couldn''t do anything else. Several imperial patrol teams also noticed us. Rosa trapped the approaching soldiers but his tentacles were all cut down within 5 seconds. These enemies are way more terrible than the city defense out there! Skyfire can only fly a little above the pce wall height with the cannon, which means the intercepting guards ahead can attack him. A team of archers and crossbowmen appeared in our path. They aimed their weapons high, obviously nning to shoot Skyfire down! Hundreds of arrows and bolts went into the air before we can react. Lucky is the only who managed to do something -- he simply ced himself in front of Skyfire as a meat shield. The projectiles decorated Lucky into a porcupine. Thankfully, his thick scales absorbed most of the damage. He looks badly hurt but those arrows didn''t go deep. However from the status bar I can see he''s not going to survive another attack like that. Lucky''s move gave Skyfire enough time to fly past the archers. When they turned around and loaded their next attack, Phiona and Loong''erunched their skills at the same time, covering the shooters in both me and ice. The first long-range team is thrown off their feet but a second team appeared soon. Lucky blocked their attack again, which of course, resulted in his death. Phiona tried to rece his position and she was killed soon by the fierce attack. Even if she can instantly resurrect where she died, she got instantly killed for a second time. This means I''ll need to wait for a while to summon Lucky or Phiona again. The 4th round of arrows didn''t give us any time to arrange our defense. Dart jumped in front of Skyfire in time and intercepted a good number of arrows. But the rest of the attack can be still deadly. A shadow appeared and protected Skyfire. It''s one of Zirai''s titans. As we watch the giant body fell, we all came up with the same conclusion. We proceeded with the rest of our escape n while keeping Skyfire in the air by sacrificing members. We each ordered ourpanions to take the attacks, and when there''s nopanion left, we go in ourselves. Now only me, Passerby and Zirai are still alive. When the main force of our pursuers got close, Passerby''s Roachy suddenly moved. We were expecting the cockroach to hold off thest round of attacks, but it decided to stay behind for some reason. I saw its belly swelling up. Fffffffffffffft! A terrible stench spread in the air. I almost vomitted on the spot. Then we fell the ground shaking. Endless cockroaches crawled out from under our feet! Passerby''spanion must be a cockroach king or something. It can summon allies! The tiny cockroaches swarmed up against the NPC army. They don''t have much damage but the sight of them is terrifying enough! In the next second, every single NPC soldier is covered in cockroaches. They tried to clean them off but more bugs will get onto their bodies even faster! They soon realized it''s impossible to get rid of these nuisance so they decided to keeping for us, while carrying all the bugs on their faces. However, the brief chaos provided us enough time to reach the pce wall. The outside is just within reach, our mission is finished. The following NPC army readied their bows and unleashed thest arrow rain, pinning us onto the wall. Our corpses all carried smiles instead of fear, before we vanished. Our souls were teleported to the resurrection hall after the time limit. The NPC resurrection wizard rushed to us to provide business, which of course, was declined. Rose is already running to us with Elfy and Yuri following behind. Though Rose is the only one who can see us now. Rose''s reviving skill is quite impressive. Violet is the only one who got unlucky enough to lose two levels. If we let the old NPC do the work we probably would have lost way more than that. I took my armors back from Rose, put them on, and headed to the pce with everyone. ording to Coin, the dropped cannon should be absolutely safe there. But I''m not sure until I get it into my own hands. That''s why I asked everyone to run as fast as we can. It''s been half an hour since we died. The pce perimeter ispletely clear of any city guards. I summoned Rosa again to take us over the wall. Zirai quickly ordered Skyfire and her remaining titan to get the cannon out. It only took less than a minute. When the imperials found us we had already escaped. As Coin said, the imperials didn''te after us outside the wall, and the city guards totally ignored our actions. We were quite nervous when we saw a team of city patrols walking in front of us. Thankfully they didn''t even spare a nce at the giant cannon we''re holding. That doesn''t mean the yers will ignore us though. A lot of people decided toe to us and satisfy their curiosity. This is expected. We already know a titan carrying a big cannon walking in the city would cause a scene. "What is that, miss?" A blind dude asked me. "Look for yourself! You can''t even tell man from woman??" I hate these kind of people! A Warrior yer spoke: "It looks like a, I don''t know, cannon? The game got cannons? Wait a minute..." Following his words, everyone turned their heads towards the tall ornamental column in the city center. "They carried the city defense cannon away!!" Someone yelled. And it invoked a serious panic among the people. More yers came and stuffed the road without giving us any space to move! It were the city guards who helped us out of the situation. An NPC team came and started to break up the yer crowd because they are "holding up the traffic". There are still too many yers around for us to walk easily though. It took some effort to reach the city gate. Then the titan made a huge mistake! He bumped into the gate while holding the cannon! I don''t know if we''re just unfortunate, or the cannon got some problem with it. It miss-fired again! A cannon shell went out andnded among a yer crowd in the city! Before we can take in the situation, the titan turned around too fast which caused the cannon base to bump into the gate again. A second bullet exploded right under our feet and sent us flying out of the city wall! The damaged titan let go of the cannon. Dammit we worked so hard to get this one, we can''t afford to break it again! "Phantom Knights!" I summoned my ace card. "Catch that thing!" The knights followed my finger and saw the falling weaponry. They all charged and ced their bodies under the cannon with professional baseball yer style. Now the cannon is safe, I can finally breathe again. Pheeew! "CATCH THEM DON''T LET THEM GET AWAY!!" A voice behind us startled me for good. But NPC guards never shout like that! Could it be...?! Chapter Book 4 - 32 – The Havoc Book 4, Chapter 32 The Havoc ------------------ I turned around. As I feared, a yer crowd is rushing towards us. "Stop where you are!" A yer running in front cried out. Oh please. Of course I''ll not listen to you. "Coin, Razor, Merciless! Hold them off for a while!" "Got it!" They went to the path, facing the iing yers. I asked them because they''re all fast sses. Even if they can''t defeat the yers they won''t be caught at least. At least that was my n, until I realized I''ve made a really bad decision by sending Razor out. Someone in the front line yelled when they saw Razor: "It''s the Japanese! They''re trying to break up our city defense system! We must stop them!!" I tripped on my own feet when I heard that. Break the city defense?? Then why are we taking all the effort to take the cannon all the way here, instead of sabotaging it inside the city? Besides that cannon will get refreshed after 24 hours. If I''m the enemy I''d do it right before a city siege begins. Why now?? Well I don''t think they''ll give us any chance to exin. And they''ll probably break the cannon by ident if they get their hands on it! Merciless and the other two have already contacted with the yers, the crowd is quickly shrinking towards them three. Coin is running in front while Razor and Merciless followed behind. Coin is going towards the leading yer, because he''s either intentionally trying to throw hate at us, or is just in dumb. Either way, we should take him down. The yer grinned when he saw Coin getting close. Coin is seemingly a fragile ss with all the cloth she''s wearing, and this high leveled Warrior has all the confidence in a head-on conflict. Coin is wearing the same grin as the foolish Warrior. Doubt reced the smile on the Warrior''s face, but he no longer needs to worry about it in the next moment. Coin jumped into the air about 5 meters away from the target, andnded right on top of the Warrior''s body, submerging her dagger deep into it. She used her self-created skill [Last Resort]. The Warrior died in a white sh before he can even see what just happened. All the running yers stopped. Their leader just died for no reason! And that moment is enough for us to gain enough distance from the city. "Zirai, take the cannon away!" I picked up Yuri and tossed her onto Skyfire''s back. "Wait for us in the Lost City. Yuri knows the way!" I don''t want to make Zirai feel that she''s the only one escaping. But I believe she can understand that getting the cannon to safety is our top goal now. She ordered Skyfire to retreat from the scene without hesitation. I can finally put my heart back into my chest when Zirai is gone. A flying dragon can''t be easily intercepted unless something really powerful shows up. I faced the battleground again. Razor''s group is now surrounded by all the yers. I don''t really want to fight them, since most yers are just trying to protect the city from "invaders". But I can''t leave my team behind. "Hawk! Get them out of there, and try to avoid killing if you can." "I''ll do it!" Hawk nodded hard. "Finally, some real exercise." I cracked my neck. "Mostpanions are still down. I''ll go in myself." I rarely do any fighting on my own because Lucky is always tanking, with all kinds of support around. I won most of my fights while giving orders from safety. Now Lucky, Phiona, Loong''er, Tank and Rosa are all gone for now. Guess no other choice. "Night Shade, Dart. Come out!" That''s my only avablepanions. As for Phantom, he never left my body. I hopped onto Night Shade and prepared my dragonnce. Hawk and Elfy were separated from each other. Of course Elfy can''t be sitting on Hawk''s shoulder during a fight. She got a pegasus now! Passerby is causing most of the damage among us all at the moment. Groups of witches and casterdies sat on the ground and never stood up when they saw the gigantic cockroach. Now I know why he seldom uses hispanion. He''ll scare every girl (and maybe some guys) away! Merciless is locked inside an intense fight on another side with several people. We don''t have time to set up a formation or any ns now. I summoned the Phantom Knights behind me, pointed my weapon skywards and gave the order aloud: "Charge!" "Leave no one standing! " The ten Phantom Knights plus the temporary makeshift rider (me) produced quite an impressive galloping horse formation. Our mounts are pretty big, all with heavy spike horseshoes, after all. This greatly affected the yers'' moral. In a game, yers either level up on their own or in small groups of four or five at most. You don''t find a dozen riders practicingbat horse charge together. A game means the guilds manage their yers in a casual way. They won''t set up any pre-established units like cavalry regiment or swordsman squad or something, nor ask them to constantly train as a group. I always despite those guilds calling themselves like some kind of military units. This is a game! We y games for fun, not listening to orders. There will be no armies in online games. The biggest fight you can get in here is a street brawl involving thugs and random hooligans. You only see trained troops in real life. I can say that a cavalry team of 11 people charging together is the biggestbat establishment you can find now in [Zero]. The yers are all intimated because they never seen something like this. "Run!!" Someone cried. Toote though. Our mounts covered the distance between us quickly. Most of the yers are still packed on the city bridge outside the gate. There''s no way they can run easily. We swept a good number of the people off the bridge like cleaning autumn leaves. Once we''re in, we''ll have to rely on our weapons without the initial charging speed. Cleaning out a path proved to be an easy task. The Phantom Knight''s didn''t even use their weapons. I told them not to kill anyone so now they are simply grabbing and tossing them into the river like throwing trash bags. More yers rushed to the knights trying to defeat them, which only means more yers get sent down. The river below us is getting filled up quickly. These barbarous guys never learned how to treatdies, they are hurling girls into the water as well! I didn''t have enough time to stop them before they rushed into a group of magesprised full of pretty girls. After some screaming and flying human figures, over 30 girls were sent swimming with everyone else. However, not everything is going smooth for us. Elfy and Rose were isted, the other people were pushed several meters away from them, and they can''t move around in the time like this. A dozen people noticed the easy targets and moved towards the pair. They''re trying to take the advantage! I saw Elfy taking out her homing arrow she used to catch Coin thest time, which means she realized the situation. Elfy is an Archer, and Rose is a healer. Closebat is never their expertise. Getting surrounded by enemy group is really bad news. "Hawk!!" I yelled to Hawk who seems to be the closest one to me. When I caught his attention I pointed a finger to Elfy. He immediately noticed what''s going on and moved. But the attackers already reached the girls before Hawk can make it. Being an Archer doesn''t mean Elfy has zero damage up close. She released her frost homing arrow she''s been preparing. Poom! The foremost attacker is turned into an ice block, those stayed too close to him are also affected. One frost arrow can only stop so many people. Someone on the other side still lunged at the girls. Before one of the attackers can hit Rose, a white figure appeared and mmed him away. I''m relived when I saw the figure stationed itself in front of Rose -- It''s the white alpha wolf I gave Rose a long time ago, I almost forgot it. It grew so big. The wolf stopped the following assants for enough time, allowing Hawk to get into ce and protect the two girls. With Hawk and the wolf tanking in front, the beauty pair began to show their talent. Rose''s healing skills can pretty much help Hawk fight all the enemies without having to worry about losing HP. Hawk already has high Defense and quick reflexes. Elfy is even deadlier -- she''s disying what I would call "one shot one kill". Though she''s not actually killing people. She only uses low-damage skills, aimed at her targets'' eyes. Those attacks don''t kill anyone but of course no one can keep fighting if they have a freaking arrow locked inside their eye socket. Since those guys are safe, I began to move towards Coin. Hawk blocked most of the yers on the bridge. There are many of them but only a small portion can actually attack Hawk. And those still inside the city can''t see what''s going on out there, they only try to push out of the gate. Now the area around the city gate ispletely locked up by the human wave. No one gets through! Me and the Phantom Knights are trying to move to Coin (by keep throwing people away) when we saw Coin''s grouping out on their own. Coin is hopping on top of people by using their heads as jumping tforms. And no one can catch her! Hack, with that kind of crowd they can''t even take their hands out. Razor on the other hand, is using his ninjutsu to move underground. Only some of the sharper yers can notice him but they can''t do anything either. Merciless is totally the opposite. I thought he''s an Assassin. Assassin would be someone who hides a lot and only jumps out to kill important targets. But...he''s obviously not the case. He attacks like a killer bee -- stabs someone, and disappear. Anyone hurt by him either dies immediately or bes seriously wounded. That leopard of him hasn''t grown up but is also attacking people just like its master, by shifting here and there among the crowd while scratching random people. Their disy distracted me too much. A Half-orc Berserker sneaked near me, mmed his weapon on Night Shade, knocking me off horse. I heard news before when people get hurt during a stampede when all the shoppers went crazy inside a mall, now I''m experiencing it -- I can''t get up under all the feet! Thankfully Night Shade wasn''t hurt much by the attack. He simply bucked at that overconfident Berserker, sending him flying into river below. Then he managed to push the people around away from me, that''s when I can finally stand up. It would be really stupid if I just died like that. Talking about too many people in China. But at least this can prove a big advantage when we go on a war against Japan. That aside, I still need to get out of here. I climbed on Night Shade to get a better view of the whole battlefield. The Phantom Knights havepletely blocked the city gate ording to my order. Ten level 850 monsters are more than enough to do that at the current stage. Coin''s group has reached a safe distance. So I came to help them and now I''m the only one trapped inside! Dang it. I also noticed some riders, unable to move an inch just like me. Most of them are NPC city defenders. They already came to solve the mess but they can''t get around the crowd either. Their job doesn''t allow them to do anything to innocent yers. I went all the way into the crowd by using the momentum of our charging skills. Now I''m stuck! The good thing is no one is attacking me for now. To be precise, no one CAN attack me. Night Shade tried as hard as he can to squeeze through while I used mynce to pick people and throw them behind us. But the tiny space I clear out each time is instantly filled up by someone else. We can only advance like a snail! In the end I''m even considering if I should fly away using my wing de. I''m not sure about that idea, cause that''s will make myself an obvious target. Besides I don''t really want to show my true abilities in front of so many people. I lowered my head and spoke to Night Shade: "Any good idea?" He looked around a bit. "Hold tight." "Huh?" He suddenly jumped high into the air before I can understand what he meant. It''s no joke to jump among such a dense crowd, he crushed a good number of people when hends, and jumped again before they have the time to scream in pain. Now we''re also hopping inside the crowd to move around, kinda like what Coin did just now. A little bit more violently, though. We reached the edge of the crowd after some dozens of jumps. Usually Night Shade would have achieved that by three or four good jumps, but he can''t do that when he''s using human bodies as stepping stones. When I finally got away, Hawk also called everyone else to retreat. The city gate is no longer blocked, allowing a huge wave of yers to rush outside. That looks even more impressive thanst time when we attracted those NPC riders into chasing us. But this time they don''t have horses so we shook them off easily. We slowed down when we no longer have any pursuers in sight. "Ziri!" Hawk approached me. "Um?" "You see Big Pot?" "Big Pot?" I looked around. "He''s not here? Didn''t he run with us?" "I don''t know, that''s why I''m asking!" "Violet?" I called her over to us. She was the one fighting along Big Pot. "What''s wrong?" "Did you see Big Pot?" "He''s...not with you guys?" She gave us a nk stare. "Me? I went inside to help Coin. Isn''t Big Pot outside with the others?" "He wasn''t. I saw him charging in behind you on his boar." "What?? Big Pot went after Ziri?" Hawk waved his arms around dramatically. "What was he thinking??" "Do we go back for him?" Violet asked. I spoke before Hawk: "No. If he can get away he already did, and if he can''t, he should be dead by now. Either killed by someone or stomped to death by the people." I''m speaking the truth. I would have ended up like that if Night Shade wasn''t there to help. Big Pot''s boar isn''t as agile as Night Shade so I''m not sure he can make it. "I agree." Hawk nodded. We shouldn''t risk everyone''s level to save Big Pot. "Well, we can always help him get a level backter." We waited for a while longer to leavebat status and teleported to the Lost City. (Once involved in any kind of conflict, a yer can no longer use teleport or city recall skills/items for a while. But this rule only applies to attackers. Passive victims can still try to teleport as long as they have enough time to prepare it.) Zirai and Yuri are already waiting for us there. Zirai spoke to Yuri :"See, told you they''lle out of the station. Why did you think they woulde in through the city gate?" Then she walked to us. "How was everything?" I checked our team. Everyone is carrying some injuries. "Basically all good. It didn''t look cool but we made it." "Oh my god my god my god! I did it!" Before I can tell them about the missing Big Pot, he stumbled out of the teleport station and fell in front of our feet. "What happened to you?" I looked down. "Did you know I went after you?" He managed to stand up, that''s when I saw a lot of footprints covering his entire face. "That was too close!" Hawk spoke: "Violet told us. So where exactly did you go? No one saw you." "Take a guess. Man that was really unlucky. Those people trapped me on the bridge. I saw Ziri went past me on his horse and tried to call him, then he knocked people into the water, me included!" Chapter Book 4 - 33 – The Plan Book 4, Chapter 33 The n ------------------ Alert: Minor offensive content towards Japan. ------------------ "Hahaha that''s some!" Everyoneughed. Even Big Pot himself began tough hard, which made us worry that he''s too stressed because weugh at him. Violet nudged him. "Hey. You ok? We didn''t mean to make fun of you, sorry for that." Violet gave us a look. We all nodded quickly until we felt dizzy. "See, we meant no harm. We were trying to lift the mood." Big Pot posed a "V" at me. "Thank you for throwing me off like that!!" "Did you bump your head somewhere?" Hawk looked at Big Pot with a raised eyebrow. Razor checked all those footprints on his body. "Maybe someone broke him by stepping on his head?" Merciless pointed out the question. "You fell into the water right? It didn''t wash off the footprints? And, why are you not wet?" "Oh yeah! That doesn''t look right." We just noticed the missing point here. What made him so happy if he dropped into the moat and without any water on him? Big Pot looked at himself and spoke: "Wet? Of course I''m not wet! Ziri buddy, you''re awesome! I''m so following you from now on, you''re my belief!" "...What did I do?" Something feels creepy. "You don''t know? You and your knights pushed like a thousand people down into the river. It''s just a small water ditch. It was filled up with all the yers! I fell on top of a group of cute girls! They felt so soft!" Ok. Is that making him happy? I don''t want to question it. Hawk interrupted his daydream. "Alright, let''s get back to business. Where''s the crystal cannon, Zirai?" "I put it at the central za. Skyfire is watching. Nothing to worry about, this ce is like a ghost city or something, I don''t see a single living thing." "You know what, I enjoy ces like this." I led them towards the za while chatting about random stuff. "It''s like being the king of the entire city. I can use anything here as I like! Oh, Hawk, do you still have the money I gave you for selling thepanion eggs?" "Yeah. We don''t lose money on death anyway so I didn''t take the time to bring it to bank. You want it back?" "Yes, all of it. I need to pay my debt." "Debt?" Zirai gave me a puzzled look. "You borrow money from someone?" "An NPC. He repaired my armorst time and I didn''t have enough to pay him. Now I have some money so I''d better pay him fast!" "NPCs allow IOUs?" Everyone opened their mouth wide, except for Wayne and Rose. They already know about my business. "Why not?" I turned to Hawk. "I''ll go take care of it. You all wait for me at the za. Won''t take long." "rk?" I rushed into his shop. Of course, no one''s here. He''s probably over at the clothing store again. Sigh. This sugar guy... I ran to the clothing store. Yup, as expected. "Why do you run wild all day instead of looking over your own shop? Here, 150 thousand crystals." He took the money. "You actually got enough money all of a sudden?" "I sold something and made a small profit. Oh, right. Do you know how to use a cannon?" "Cannon? You mean, the magic crystal cannon?" "That''s it. We stole one of them and haven''t figured out how to get it working. Actually we don''t even know how should we make good use of it." rk was a chief in the demon legion, he must know about such stuff. He held his chin for a while. "Where is it? I need to take a look. Our troops had mobile ones and stationed ones, they all work differently. Can''t give you answer before I look at it myself." "Follow me then!" I poked my head around rk and shouted to the store mistress. "Hey sister, I''ll borrow your dear husband for a bit." "Oh shush you!" Is she blushing?? We walked to the central za. Everyone else is waiting. Hawk drew his sword hastily when he saw us. "Ziri, behind you!! A Shadow Warrior!" "It''s my friend!" rk walked straight to the cannon while only sparing a small nce at Yuri, of all people. Looks like everyone else didn''t add much Charisma like us. He touched around the two-meter tall mechanism and spoke: "Good stuff. This is the biggest sized magic crystal cannon used for military fortresses. We also have some here in the Lost City." "You do?" Well I never saw them. "Yeah, hidden in the river. When the Eye of Underworld opens, they''ll emerge from the water and attack anyone who approaches. You can''t see them now. You stole this thing from Cloudtop I assume?" "Huh?" I jumped. "How did you figure that out?" rk pulled out a giant violet crystal as big as a human head from under the cannon. "The crystal still has Cloudtop''s mark on it. Look here." We all looked at it closely. There is a strange symbol on the crystal, though it seems no one knows what it means. "This thing is the energy source of the cannon, be very careful with it. The crystal bes pale after every shot, and depletes when it turns pure white." rk jumped off the cannon and turned to me. "Don''t throw it away when that happens. You can sell it to me, I recycle these things." "What for?" "It''s a perfect material for crafting high level armor pieces, what do you expect? Oh one other thing. You can''t shoot the cannon too fast, make sure you wait at least 30 sec before the next shot. Otherwise the cannon may explode!" "Understood!" I wasn''t expecting the cannon to be soplicated. "Where can I find extra crystals like that one?" "That''s beyond me. Go ask Domergor, that kid should know something." "I see. How do I operate it?" "Here." rk pointed to a handle-like part on the cannon base. "Pull that thing and the cannon will shoot. It goes back on itself when the shot is over. Don''t break it." "Thank you!" "No need to. Just help me collect materials. You still have that list I gave you right? Don''t forget." "Of course brother. I''ll keep it in mind." Hawk went to me when rk left. "Is that an NPC? That''s really different from everyone else." "The NPCs in this city are all different, just try to be nice to them. So what do we do? Leave the cannon here? There are still months before nation wars start." "I have an idea." Merciless stepped up. "We use it to fight Japan right? We can deploy it in naval wars first." "Naval wars?" Hawk looked between us. "What do you mean naval wars?" Everyone seems lost so Merciless began to exin. "Ziri, you remember the Far Land city?" "Yeah. That''s where we met." "You left in a hurry and didn''t get a good look at it. It''s actually a port city." "Port city? As in, a city with a lot of boats?" Passerby became excited. "It''s my dream to sail the sea! They have boats in this game? Then I''m definitely going!" Elfy seems interested too. "Are there any seaside entertainment? Some enjoyment would be nice!" Merciless chuckled. "Yes. There''s also one other thing you won''t be expecting." "What?" We asked that together. "Japanese pirates!" Ohhh! "But nation war hasn''t started yet?" "That''s true. But the game world is still aplete map. All countries or regions exist on the same, so we''re pretty close to Japan. There''s only a small distance on the sea. Same for other adjacent countries you can find on the globe. We''re separated by mountain ranges. So, you can travel to whichever country you like as long as you get past a special zone. When nation war starts, travel routes will appear and we can fight with them for real. We can''t do that now but small teams with several dozens of people can still cross the border if they can manage it. So if you want to go to Japan, just use a boat." "You mean those scums can send people to us right now??" Zirai seems the typical anti-Japan extremist. She gets drastic whenever someone mentions Japan. "In theory yes. But they haven''t done anything big, only some random yers will show up now and then and raid the citizens who live close to the sea." "What did you say??" Man, I see blood veins in her eyes. I''m really worried she might just jump into the sea, swim there and get revenge. "Have we done anything to stop them? We just let them do whatever they want?" "Some of the guilds sent patrol teams along the coastline. They usually level up there while watching out for enemies. I even heard some richer guilds have their own battleships. But...you never know when those pirates wille, and we can''t be staying on guard twenty-four-seven, so they won over us most of the time." "Argh I can''t believe this!!" Now Zirai looks like an infuriated bull with those steaming out of her nostrils. Scary. "Hey calm down. Calm it!" We tried to soothe her. Or she might do something stupid for real! She was brave enough to steal property from the system city after all. I tried to change the topic. "So how are we going to use the crystal cannon?" "The piratese here on boats right? So what if we sink their boats with the cannon?" Someone suggested. "Oh nice idea!" Zirai jumped up again. Hawk and I tried to press the girl down, and we failed. "Let''s go get the cannon over to the sea!" "Hold it!" Elfy stopped us. "The coastline of China is...over 26 thousand kilometers. One cannon won''t help much." (*) "Ah..." We all became quiet. Having a bignd isn''t all about advantages it seems. "Merciless mentioned battleships. How about building one of those ourselves?" Big Pot raised a very practical point. "The cannon can''t protect much area on its own but what if we ce it on a ship and move around with it?" "Yes, yes, YES! Let''s do it! Quickly!!" Zirai went berserk for a third time. "Skyfire, go!" We reached the Torrent Point city (with a little bit of chaos, with Zirai urging our asses), which is the biggest port city within the Chinese game region. We''re more familiar with the Far Land city but it''s too small to hold any big vessels. Of course we can''t put that cannon on a pathetic wooden nk. It''s almost evening. After some dedicated persuasion, Zirai finally allowed us to log off and rest, leaving the n to tomorrow. We went straight to the port area the next morning. And wow it looks big! The docking area expands more than 10 kilos along the sealine, full of all kinds of ships and boats. But I can only see a small number ofbat cruisers, most of the rest are fishing boats. The biggest sailboat attracted our attention. It''s made of wood, with tons of people working on it. I can''t tell which are yers and which are NPCs from here. A giant triangr sail hangs on the main mast, with a small g on the tip of it. The actual size of the g should be pretty big though. It appears to be smallpared to the other parts. There''s a sun on the g, simr to the red object on the Japanese nation g. A shark is drawn beside the sun, with its maw wide open, ready to swallow the sun in whole. An unfamiliar voice dragged us out of admiration mode. "The Ocean Might is the biggest battleship in Torrent Point city. She already took down seven Japanese ships in the past two months." I turned to look at the new face. He stands taller than average, with full ck battle armor on his body. But it looks seriously rusted. Verymon appearance. That pair of thick eyebrows gives him a heroic look. He stretched out a hand. "Hello, name is [King Conqueror], leader of the Anti-Japanese Association." "Good day. I''m Ziri!" I shook his hand. "So that boat belongs to your guild?" "Aye. Our members raised all the money for this customized galley. It cost us 500 thousand crystals! But those trophies are worth the ticket! Want to join the board, miss? Our guild-- Uh, hello?" I face-palmed and crouched on the ground. Not again! They''re hurting my feelings! King Conqueror''s hand is still left in the air. Zirai quickly took it over. "Anti-Jap Association? I like that name. We need people like you!" Obviously he never noticed Zirai until now. He looks more than surprised. He shifted his gaze between us for several times before finally asking Zirai: "That''s...your sister?" Zirai didn''t answer him, "Where did you order your ship?" "Oh, you want one too? It costs a fortune you know!" "Just tell me." Getting a ship to fight pirates is the only thing on her mind now. "If that''s the case...follow me ma''am." He kept chatting with us on the way. "May I know your name too?" "It''s Zirai." "So, Ziri and Zirai? I knew you''re sisters! You look almost the same." Zirai gave me a nce and smiled but didn''t help me exin. Geez. We walked a long way to reach the edge of the docking area. There''s a giant harbour structure, separated from all the other ones. It has a roof too. "Here. This is the boatyard. Go talk to the NPCs to order a ship." Before he leads us in, someone rushed to King. "So you''re here! Move it! The Japs showed up again. Ocean Might is departing!" "Again? Then let''s show them who''s boss!" King ran away while shouting back to us: "I''ll be back once we rid those thieves. Will talk to you then!" There he goes. "That''s an interesting dude." Hawkmented. "Alright, let''s go get our own ship so we can beat up some pirates too!" "Let''s do it!!" Zirai is pumped up again and dragged me towards inside. "Hurry up sister!" She''s doing that on purpose! There are many people running up and down in the boatyard. The keel structure of a medium-sized boat is ced in the middle, with people fixing nks onto it. Must be another new order they received. (**) I dragged a random NPC over and asked him where to order for a ship, and was told to go find their designer in a small room deeper inside. We reached the said room in the far corner. It looks broken, and feels like about toe down at any moment. Still, we pushed the door open. There''s an old man inside writing something on a piece of paper. He stopped his work when he saw us. Pale blue gown, a big apron, typical carpenter setup. He''s also wearing gold-rimmed sses. "You want to order ships?" "Yes. A special one!" I spoke before everyone else. I have the highest Charisma here so I should do the talking to make thing easier. "Come here then." He opened a room and signaled us to get in. I never noticed there''s a door on the wall...is it a hidden backdoor? We walked into a ce and saw a series of giant sailboat keels lined up. "These are keel temtes. You choose which size to use based on what you want to do with the ship. The smallest one is for ordinary fishing boats. You might need to choose the bigger ones if you want to catch whales or sea monsters." "Pardon me please," I stopped him from exining further. "We need a battleship." "Battleship? You should''ve said that earlier." He led us around the keels and towards another area with even more temtes. These ones are big, and they all have more frames and beams to make them sturdier. "These are warship keels. You need to choose a keel first because it decides the ship''s overall size. Equipment and everything else can be determinedter. So, anyone catches your eye?" "Are there any bigger ones than these? Truth is, we have something really bulky to load onto the ship and I think we need something extrarge. Therger the better." The biggest one I see here is about only 50 meters in length, which means just a bit bigger than the Ocean Might we saw outside. The cannon is apparently toorge for a ship like that, and we already saw how much kickback it produces. I don''t want the cannon to sink our own ship first. The old man inspected us for a while. "I do have a secret collection but..." Persuasion check, sessful. I quickly tried to tter the old man with everymendatory word I can dig up in my brain. "Alright, I''ll share the knowledge since you''re such a bright and mannered young man. I have another keel which may qualify as ''extrarge'' you mentioned." He nced around and then whispered into my ears: "It''s actually the corpse of an ancient beast. Those breast bones are perfect for forging the keel of a ship. However, the beast was once a foul existence. Its gued aura still lingers even after it has been dead for a thousand years. With those bones you can make your ship exceptionally huge, and way stronger than those ships you can see out there. But...!" He stopped where it''s important! ------------------ (*) This may not be a correct number. (**) A "keel" is the base frame used to support a ship''s hull. I hope I used the right word. Chapter Book 4 - 34 – The Beast Bone Book 4, Chapter 34 The Beast Bone ------------------ Alert: Minor offensive content against Japan. ------------------ "But what??" "We can''t transport the corpse because it''s too big!" "So it''s not here?" Zirai asked. The old designer slowly turned around. "It''s sitting over the mountain yonder. You need to move it here on your own. The cave is guarded by some monster recently and I never tried to enter the ce ever since. If you can chase the monsters away and move the corpse here, I''ll help you build arge warship. You won''t even need to pay for the keel." "Right on it!" I led everyone and rushed towards the mountain''s direction. But the old man stopped us from behind. "Not yet! I''m not finished. The beast''s evil power still remain on the corpse so it is too dangerous to approach. Use this to purify it before touching anything!" He took out a crystal bottle from behind his back. "Take this holy water to banish the devil. Just spray some of it on the corpse." "Got it!!" Zirai snatched the bottle away and dashed out of the boatyard. He called it a mountain but the ce is actually a big dirt clump, not anyrger than a small park. It took less than 30 minutes for us to climb over the terrain. There''s the cave. We don''t see anything at the entrance besides some twisted grass and weed. "Where are the monsters?" Coin watched around the area. "Maybe they''re inside." I told everyone to stay on guard. I also drew my weapon to prepare for any encounters. We reached the entrance. There''s a lone passage leading towards deeper inside. After a dozen meters we entered arge stone hall. A series of blue magicmps hang on the wall around us, making the hall bright as day. The bone carcass of an unknown monster is located in the far end. From the remains I can tell the thing was at least 300 meters in length when alive. Even Lucky would feel like a kidpared to it. The corpse lies in a coiled position inside the cave. The breast part should be somewhere around 200 meters long, which means our ship wille out around a simr size when finished. We should be able to put several crystal cannons on a ship like that. "WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY SLUMBER?!" A loud, aged voice boomed around us, making us jump. Zirai looked around without finding anything, so she just spoke towards the ceiling. "Who are you?" "I am the divine beast, Bi-Lin." (*) "And where are you?" "Right in front of you!" "In front??" "You im that you do not see this magnificent body of mine? Your joke is appreciated, young one." "You mean, you''re this, skeleton?" I figured it out first. "An apparent answer." "But aren''t you dead?" "A divine beast never dies!" "But, but you''re only bones left!" Yuri eximed. It silenced the "divine beast" for a brief moment. "My...body was badly damaged so I gave it up." "So why are you still here?" "The hatred!!" The voice suddenly became excited. "I demand revenge!! It shouldn''t havee to this!" It''s bing more violent. Even the cave began to shake, a number of falling rocks forced us to dodge for cover. So the "monster" the old man mentioned must be this soul or spirit or whatever it is. "Hey easy. Calm down, please!" I need to do something or we''d get buried alive! "Just, you know, tell us who did this to you, maybe we can help?" I immediately regretted that. Whoever killed this thing must be way powerful beyond our imagination, which means there''s no way we can help! "It was a snake with nine heads. It imed to be a god spirit from thend of pirates east of here." "Land of pirates? You mean Japan?" Zirai yelled. "You fell against the snake monster from Japan? Is it strong?" "Humph! A petty creature. Do you know about the four symbolic beasts on thisnd?" "Oh I know. Vermilion Bird, ck Turtle, White Tiger and Azure Dragon?" "The Azure Dragon of the Eastern Rain, and the Vermilion Bird of the Southern me are my disciples. The nine-headed snake couldn''t even beat these two kids back then. However, that cursed abomination and those eastern pirates lured me into a deadly trap. I managed to get away alive, but those wounds they inflicted on me could never be healed, so my only choice was to stay here and wait for perish. Ahhhh... the hatred!!" It''s getting agitated again. I quickly interrupted. "I read about the snake monster in Japan stories. But it only has eight heads if I remembered right?" "That''s because I bit off and ate one!" "Aha! So that''s how things went." Zirai snickered. "I thought those Japs don''t know how to count." (**) I pushed the topic:"Your excellency, we are actually nning to fight with Japan and stop their intrusion upon ournd, now we need a keel bone to construct a ship. That''s why we came here for the body you left behind." "If that''s what you''re going to do, just take it. These bones are of no use to me anymore." So generous! "But what about your soul?" "Just make sure you don''t break up the bones and keep it whole when making that ship or yours so I can remain. I may even help you protect the ship." "Much appreciated! We will be moving it now." I summoned Lucky, Rosa, Loong''er and Phiona to help with the bones. Tank would help too but he''s still on cooldown for using that cannon skill. Zirai also summoned her titans and Skyfire to help. With some extra effort from Passerby''s Roachy, we barely managed to move the giant skeleton remains. It''s already afternoon when we finally got the bone to the boatyard. The old man walked around and inspected it in delight. "Good stuff! So the legendary beast is real." "Well, get to it will you?" "Of course, of course. Shall we settle on the extra requirements and payments?" Yup, this is very expected. He took out some paper roll. "Tell me how you would like the ship, and I''ll give you a final price for it." I gave him a troubled look. "Truth is, this is the first time we''re trying to make a ship so we really don''t know what to look for. Can you give us some pointers?" "Oh that''s no problem." He gave me a small handbook. "It''s a purchase guide, just read the instructions." They even prepared something like this! I read it aloud so everyone can hear it. "First, determine your desired ship keel ording to the size and functions of the ship you''re expecting." "We can skip that one." Hawk said. I turned the pages. "Once the keel is set, choose the materials. There are usually the following avable choices:" I passed all the cheap ones and began to read through the more sturdy ones. "These are pretty good materials so let''s pick among them. Teak Wood, average protection, light weight, so you can put a lot of stuff on the ship. Problem, easy to burn. Iron Lumber, high resistance against both impact and fire, very heavy. Sun Wood, average protection and weight, resistant to spells, won''t catch fire. Thest one is Crystal Wood. Very strong, average weight and good spell and fire resistance. But several times more expensive than the other choices. Okay, which one?" "It would be best if we can choose the crystal one but...?" Zirai seems unsure about the cost. "How much money do we have?" Rose asked the simple question. "I have a million crystal pieces on me." I checked my inventory. Hawk opened his too. "I have 550 thousand here, collected by everyone." "1.55 million that is." Rose turned to the old man. "How much if we use Crystal Wood on this keel?" He nced over the structure. "So I won''t be asking money for the keel... From the size of the breast part I''d say 500 thousand crystal pieces." "But Bi-Lin asked us not to break it apart." I quickly added. "As a whole?" He considered for a moment. "It''s possible but the final product would reach beyond 300 meters. And you''ll need to pay 600 thousand for mere materials." Rose continued: "How much forbor work?" "That depends on how you n the cabins. It costs more if you build somethingplex. But 500 thousand crystals should be enough for even the most difficultyout." Rose did some mind-calction. "I guess we have enough fund to use full crystal wood. We should make it best as possible since Bi-Lin gifted his valuable bones to us. We won''t find a second chance like this." Zirai jumped: "Rose is right! Here, I have 50 thousand, take it." I spoke to the old man. "Okay, Crystal Wood please. Next is...let me see. The cabins. First, do we need lounges and storage rooms? We need them if we''re to go for any long-distance sails or crews will die. Opinions?" Zirai jumped again. "Of course! We''re going to travel all the way to Japan right?" "Sure. One storage room and one lounge cabin please." "How many crew do you need? You should decide on those rooms after telling me the number of sailors that are going to live on the ship. One lounge cabin is only enough for 20 people, and one storage can hold supplies enough for a hundred people to survive 10 days." "Hm. Let''s think about thatter. Go for the next items." Hawk suggested. "Next, paddle chambers. They must be symmetrically ced on both sides. Each paddle chamber holds a long oar which needs four sailors to operate. How many levels of chambers we can build depends on the draft length between water level and ship''s rail, and how many chambers we can put in each level depends on ship length." "What is the draft length for our ship?" Rose asked him. "More than 8 meters, or 9 meters at most. That means five levels of cabins. Be sure to leave enough space for the cannon rooms though." "How many cabins on each level?" "For something with this size...125 rooms should be no problem." Rose considered for several seconds. "Three levels of paddle chambers, 125 on each side of the level. That''s 750 chambers in all, 3000 sailors." I read further. "Cannon emcement. They share the same positions as paddle chambers, while you can also ce cannons on the deck, or build a front cannon room on top of the bow of the ship." I looked at the old designer. "Can you make the front cannon base rotatable? We''re going to put the crystal cannon there." "Of course." "Then...fill all the rest of the space with cannon rooms." "They all use small sized firelock cannons, mind that they''re way weaker than that crystal cannon you have. You still have two levels of windowed chambers, plus a row of cannons on the deck. 100 rooms each side of the level, one cannon in each room, each cannon will need 3 sailors. That should be 600 cannons and 1800 sailors." "Next is...mast. We need one or three or five vessel masts." Coin spoke:"Well of course we put five of them for a ship sorge." "Five it is. Next is sailcloth. Three choices, Lug-Sail, high downwind speed but cannot leverage any side wind. Lateen (triangr sail), average downwind speed but can have a boost when there''s side wind. Orbination of them, so we can use any types of wind but of course it will be expensive." "Obvious choice." Zirai said that without hesitation. I can see the others nod too. "Composite then. So, rudders. We need to decide their number and positions. That''s beyond me, any advice sir?" "They usually go behind the tails of ships but since your ship is bigger than average, I''d suggest you use separated rudders. Two in the front and three at the buttock, so you can control the whole thing better." "Let''s do it." I kept reading. "Do we ce a ramming horn or figurehead in front?" "I don''t think we''re going to ram people using this giant with all the cannons. Let''s use a figure." Hawk said. "We choose figurehead. Outer ting? We have iron ting, mithril ting or crystal wood pads." "Mithril. It doesn''t catch rust and can withstand spells." Elfy said after reading over the descriptions. "That should be all. Can you help us settle up the lounge rooms and storage? And give us the final price." The designer read through the long paper roll. "You have 3000 paddlers, 1800 cannoneers, 300 sail settlers, 200 support crew. That''s 5300 sailors, so you need 265 lounge rooms and 159 storage rooms tost for a month. Let''s see...you still have a lot of spare space on the ship." I thought this over. "Make it 400 lounge rooms, and build 40 additional double rooms. Fill the remaining areas with storage." "Alriiight...Give me a moment to finish this up. Oh and, you also need a captain room and a chart house." "Just give us the best n." "Right on it." He even needs some more people to help measure the ship. It doesn''t look like he''s going to finish anytime soon. We have nothing better to do so we all moved to the harbor to enjoy the view. That''s when we saw King Conqueror''s shiping back. We saw the Ocean Might drifting towards the port in a strange angle while giving out thick smoke. I said drift because none of the broken paddles or tattered sailcloth seem to be working anymore. We ran to the docking area and asked about the situation. When the ship went close enough, we can see countless holes on the ship''s hull. A number of sailors are running wild, I also saw King giving out orders to put out all the fires. Their mail mast is almost burnt out! We watched in shock as the massive battleship bumped into the buffer ropes around the dock and finally came to a halt. More workers on the dock joined the fire fighting as well, and a group of boatyard NPCs ran towards it with all sorts ofdders, hammers or wooden nks. Guess Ocean Might needs one hell of an overhaul this time. I decided to help too. The ship is damaged like this in a fight against the Japanese after all. I can''t repair ships but putting out some fire is no problem. "Loong''er,e out. Can you control the sea water?" "That''s my job!" (***) "Nice. Can you do something about the fire on that ship?" "Surely!" She dived into the sea. The area quickly turned dark. A small-scale rainstormpletely extinguished thest ember, before sunshine returned as fast as the rain came. Loong''er didn''t return when everything''s done. She instead began to swim and dance on the water surface. I think I should let her into the water more often in the future. Since there''s no more work to do, King Conqueror came down from the ship and walked to us. "Did you get your ship?" "Not yet. That''s a battleship we''re talking about, it takes time." Coinined. "Battleship? So you''re going to beat Japanese pirates too?" His face is ckened by all the smoke. He wiped it using one of his hands, only to make it look even funnier. I looked at the broken warship. "Do you end up like this every time you fight them?" That''s too much damage to my liking. He forced a chuckle. "Not every time. We encountered a big fleet today. Seven of them, and we only had one. We sank a ship, damaged another, before we escaped." Zirai spoke with excitement: "Are there no other guilds fighting with you?" "There are, but only few of them. Besides their ships aren''t gonna hold themselves against those Japan ocean warships. Not everyone can afford these babes you know." "I see..." We became silent. Must admit, the Japanese have way more money to spend right now. We have a biggernd but everything bes scarce when "averaged" to individuals. "It must cost a ton to repair your ship." Zirai spoke. "Ah, nothing to worry about. We seized a lot of stuff from previous fights, and we get EXP too. Worth it." "Wait, what? Exp? The Japanese count as monsters too?" "Nonono, of course they''re yers. But you still get EXP by killing foreign enemies. A lot I''d say. yers are considered as high level monsters so these battles level you up even faster than grinding by normal means. You know, if you kill a ship, everyone on board dies." "I see it now." Elfy sighed. "I was wondering why you''re so passionate about it. So you get both fame and wealth out of these fights huh?" "Right-ho! Ha-hahaha!" King let out a heartyughter, as if he already forgot about his precious, now badly damaged Ocean Might. ----------------- (*) I found little English reference about this creature. Something about "the mentor/master of the four symbolic beasts." (**) They''re talking about Yamata no Orochi, the "8-branched giant snake" in Japanese mythology. However it is often considered to have 9 heads in Chinese illustrations because of two reasons: 1: It is confused with Xiangliu, a Chinese mythology creature with 9 heads; 2: Language issue. The correct Chinese trantion for Orochi is "the giant snake with 8 forks". And someone believe that "8 forks" means "9 heads" . The confusion still exist even today. (***) In some Chinese mythologies and stories (such as Journey to the West), eastern dragons are not majestic or very powerful creatures. Rather, they''re more like ¡°local officials¡± who are responsible to control local weather and obey orders from other higher-ups. Chapter 97: The Priceless Battleship Chapter 97: The Priceless Battleship Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - "Ah, so you''re with them?" The old designer came behind us. "What''s up? You done the calctions?" "That''s right!" He began to read his notebook. "750 paddle chambers, 600 cannon rooms, 400 lounge rooms, 40 double rooms, arge chart house, abatmand center, 16 damage control rooms, 8 modified storage rooms. I need to exin this a bit. Since there are too much space you don''t use, I decided to merge those storage rooms into 8 bigger cargo holds, to save material. I also put up a temporary prison, you can ce up to 200 captives in there. There are also a medical ward, a kitchen, a dining hall, an armory, a strong room and a backupmand center. Composite sail cloth, 5 masts, that means 5 main sails and 45 studding sails. We can''t change the bone''s shape so I also installed a medium sized ramming horn on it. Don''t worry you can still put your figurehead. There are also three rotating tforms on the deck bow, for your crystal cannon. Two extra tforms at the back. You can put your cannon wherever you like. The final price is...2.8 million crystal pieces. This may be the most impressive work I''ve done in my life, so I''ll even give you a discount. 2.2 million should be enough!" "2.2 million crystals??" Everyone jumped. Rose mumbled: "1 million from Ziri, 0.6 from Hawk and Zirai... We still need 600 thousand crystals!" "Now I know why few guilds have their own ships." Coin said in defeat. "Uh, excuse me...how big is your ship?" King has been standing there with wide eyes and mouth in the whole process. "The Ocean Might is already a big one and it only cost us 500 thousand. What kind of ship needs 2.2 fucking million? That''s enough money to build an entire fleet!" I gave him a serious look. "Quality over quantity. This ship will be more deadly than a fleet." "That...I agree." King nodded. "But you don''t have money right?" "Yeah..." I admitted. "Still 600 thousand to go." "Figured. It took us months to get 500 thousand for our ship. Is 2.2 million the construction fee or total cost?" "Construction...huh?" We looked at the old man for exnation. "It''s for construction. That''s what you need to pay for the materials andbor work. You will figure out the rest of the stuff for yourselves. Of course we don''t provide everything for free." "You mean, we still need more money even after the ship is built?" "What do you expect? Our job is only to build the ship itself!" He lifted his fingers one by one. "You need sailors to get your ship moving right? Go to the Sailor Union to hire them. Different people have different prices. The paddlers are usually cheaper, and cannoneers will ask for more. There are also ship doctors, chefs, et cetera et cetera. And yes, you can hire yers too. For a warship, you needbat sailors. Either those NPC archers or whoever''s good at closebat when enemy got on board. Anyway, they all cost money. Go to a cksmith who sells siege weapons to buy cannons. Powerful ones are more costly. Don''t forget about supplies. Cannons are just useless junks without powder and ammunition. That figurehead is not free either. It''s a magical item. Those wizard guilds sell them, and they''re all different, so you better do more research before buying one. That thing isn''t cheap and they never refund! Also, you need food. yers don''t need to eat but NPC sailors do. A starving sailor may even betray you and cause a lot of problems." "...Anything else?" I feel faint. I''m afraid we need at least 3 million to settle everything now. "That''s all, for now." "Well...!" Rose hesitated. "We don''t have enough fund now, can we pay the moneyter?" The designer''s face immediately turned dark. "No. The project has already started. The money will be charged off you by the system. Get enough money before the end of the project or we''ll sell the ship to someone else." "How long will the project take?" He lifted a finger. "A month? Phew, we still have enough time." I signed in relief. But the old man shook his head. "...A year? The nation war would have ended by then!" "It''s a day! No matter what you ordered, we always deliver it the next day! You can pick up your ship tomorrow afternoon!" "What?? Just one day? We''re never going to make it!" I yelled. I know the game setup is meant to make it easier for yers, but now it''s a serious trouble for us! "Can you please give us some more days?" I tried to leverage my Charisma again. ...And it worked! "I can make the discount bigger...if you make your ship a most famous war machine in the world and help me make some advertisements." "How do we do it? And, how much can we save from it?" "First, you must engrave the name of our boatyard onto the ship''s hull. That should produce enough advertisement effect. Then you are going to take down enough enemy vessels whose total value goes beyond the manufacture cost of your own ship, within a week. Should you fail, we will confiscate your ship AND ask for extra penalty payment. What do you say?" "We can. But how much exactly does that give us?" "How much money do you have?" "1.6 million crystals." "Then the payment shall be reduced to 1.6 million crystals." "Oh! Thank you very much sir!" I could almost kiss him. We can spend 1.6 million for a ship tagged 2.8 million! Lottery of the month! The designer interrupted my joy. "Not yet. Remember you still need to hire sailors? Your ship''s not going to pilot itself you know." "We''ll get on to it!" I turned to King. "Can you tell me where the Sailor Union is?" "Yeah, I''m going there anywhere. We lost a good number of sailors in that fight. Follow me!" "Right behind you." The designer stopped me again before we can leave. "Tell me the name of your ship!" "Bi-Lin!" --------------------- We followed King Conqueror across half of the city district area before we saw a house with several life buoys hanging around the wall. "Sailor Union" is written on the door sign. He gave us a direction before going off somewhere for his own business. Following the direction, we came to the room at the end of the hallway. A small reception room stays behind the broken wooden door, with another old man sitting behind the desk. I stepped in front again. Charisma bonus. "Good day, we need to hire sailors, can you tell us the procedure?" "There are no procedures, it''s simple." He replied politely. "Tell me the name, type of the ship, captain name, captain level, types and number of sailors you''re looking for." "The ship is under construction until the next day. It''s called ''Bi-Lin''. What do you mean type?" "Is it a battleship or fishing boat? Or a tour yacht?" "Battleship!" "Captain?" I looked towards the others for confirmation. "Ziri." Hawk didn''t hesitate. "Ziri it is. Alright. Your level?" "339." "Sailor types? And how many for each?" "3000 paddlers, 1800 cannon duty, 300 sail operators, 200 support. And a team of essential crew like doctors and cooks. I don''t know about thebat sailors, can you introduce them?" "Not many choices. There are lightweight choppers, heavy swordsmen, archer adaptive at short range, long range or those who use fire arrows. There are also mage squads. Water, fire, wind, lightening, four types of them. Okay, which one?" "What''s the price?" "Do you buy or rent people?" "Buy." "50 crystal for paddler and support crew, 100 for cannoneer, 150 for sailman, 10000 for everyone else including doctors, chefs, maintenance and such. Chopper is 200 crystals, swordsman 500, close range archers 200, long range ones 400, and fire arrow archers 500. Mages are all 1000 crystals regardless of their type." Rose gave me a nudge. "Hey, the basic sailors already cost near 400 thousand crystals. With our lounge rooms we can still hire 2700bat ones, but we don''t have enough money for even the cheapest!" I spoke to the NPC, apologetically: "Excuse me, we need to talk about it a little." Then I quickly dragged everyone outside. "This is too much!" "But it''s reasonable. These are meant for guilds, not individual yers like us." Coinmented. "Yeah. We should create a guild too!" Zirai suggested. Yuri: "Oh, Ziri already created one, and miss Rose is the only member. We can join them." "You have a guild??" Zirai just noticed that badge on me. "Perfect. I''m in!" "You sure? I''m not really serious about it. You probably won''t enjoy anything in my guild." I exined. "No biggie. We never wanted to join any guild anyway, now this can help us stay together. We don''t have to regroup every time people get online from now on!" Zirai seems insisted on staying with me. "Alright alright, if you all agree." They did. I invited everyone. So now I can consider myself as the leader of a "big" guild (12 people, including myself). Must admit, this feels pretty exciting. "What do we do now?" I asked them. "That''s a lot of red ink we have here." "Let''s...go ask about the price for cannons and figurehead too." Elfy suggested. "At least we can learn about how much to work for." "Let''s do it!" We asked our way towards the siege weapon shop. I don''t know what the shopkeeper is thinking by cing his business at the edge of the city wall! The shop is more like a factory. Semi-finished cannons and simr weapons lie everywhere on the ground. After some more asking, we came to the chief cksmith who''s standing in front of a giant furnace. "Hello, we want to buy cannons for our battleship. Can you tell us their types and cost?" His upper body is bare, with glimmering sweat drops all over him in front of the furnace fire. His voice is also deep and hoarse like a typical experienced metal worker. "Come." He took us to a wall where a line of different cannons are stationed. "This is the cheapest one, the [Bare Shot], 2 kilos reach, 2 shots a minute, poor power and easy to bust." "Bust?" "The ball explodes in the barrel before it goes out!" "Oh. Continue please!" "Bare Shot is a thousand crystals each. This is [in Cannon], 2.5 kilos, 3 shots a minute, medium power, 1.2 thousand. [Heavy Cannon], 3 kilos, 4 shots, big power, big kick, 1.5 thousand. [Chain Cannon], 3 kilos, 6 shots, same power as heavy, 1.8 thousand. Thest one is [Bastion Cannon], breech loading, 4 kilos, 6 shots per minute, more powerful than the rest, 3 thousand for each. That''s all. Take it slow, give me a call if you decided." The cksmith returned to his post, and we also left the ce quickly. Rose is disying her economy talent again. "Suppose we want maximum power and go for the Bastion Cannon, we need 1.8 million to fill all 600 cannons slots." "Holy shrimps. This is going to be more money than the ship itself!" I can''t take it anymore! "I need money damnit!" I prayed, no, I shouted to the sky. "How much?" A voice both familiar and strange made me jump. "Is that...? Shadow Gale!" I soon recognized the rich guy who bought all mypanion eggs thest time! "But why are you here?" "My branch told me the Japanese pirates have been hitting them hardtely so I came to check." The hair on my neck stood up. This man is Red Moon''s big brother, which means... "THERE YOU ARE!!" Oh shit there she is!! "When I log on again I never found you. I got you this time!!" "Eh, heh heh heh!" I tried to keep my smile as sane as possible. "So, why did you came too?" "The establishment of Goddess Alliance here is also attacked. The problem is, why are YOU here?" She didn''t change in one bit! "We''re here the fight the pirates." "Oh good, we can do it together!" Gale smiled. "You didn''t happen to ask the sky for money because you can''t afford a ship, did you?" "Is it that obvious?" "You tried to collect a million by selling eggs thest time. A ship at least cost several hundreds of thousands of crystals, maybe a million, if you equip it full. Say, how much do you need? I''ll lend it to you." That''s the leader of the number one guild in entire China! But Red Moon stopped him. "Wait, use my money." Huh? Since when did she be so kind? But her following words proved me wrong. "Ziri? You''re in debt of ME from now on. Better obey my orders! If you can''t pay me back, use yourself aspensation! And no, I won''t mind!" She''s trying to buy me off! This is a game anyway. She probably won''t say that if she knows my real identity. "Hey Gale, I''ll borrow the money, cause I really needed it right now. I promise I''ll return it fast!" He just smile. "Oh don''t worry too much. I was hoping you don''t return the money at all." "Huh?" I jumped again. Is he trying to do the same thing?? "Those eggs, the management team in my guild almost started a fight among themselves. You can help us find more if you have the time for it. That will be more important than money!" So that''s what he meant. I thought he has some...special fetish! "No problem. I''ll keep that on my list!" "Good! Okay, how much you asking?" I looked at Rose and she instantly caught my idea. "4 million!" She isn''t raising the profit this time. Those cannons cost 1.8 million, and 2.2 million considering the basic crew. Thebat sailors will make it 3.5 million. And we never know how much for the figurehead yet! One thing''s for sure, magical items are all crazily expensive! "That''s...a lot of money." Gale has enough to spare but he''s still not expecting such a number. "Sorry but, how many ships are you buying?" "One!" I chuckled nervously when Gale''s jaw dropped open. "Well, you see, it''s kinda, big." "Big?? I have my own fleet you know. Youck 4 million crystals, so your ship cost you at least 5 million?" "Correct. 1.6 for construction, the 4 million is for buying all the equipment." "You only spent 1.6 million to build something that will need 4 million to gear up?" He took out a handbook of his own. "I already ordered thergest ship around here, it cost 1.8 million, and we never needed so much money for the extra setup." Rose exined for me: "Our ship is an exception order. The boatyard agreed to make a superrge ship for us thanks to his Charisma bonus. The original construction fee was 2.8 million, but they asked 1.6 million if we can do something they proposed." "Oh shit. So you spent a total of, 6.8 million crystals, just for one ship? When does ite out? I''m so going to see this biggest warship in Chinese history." "Tomorrow noon if you''re interested. Let''s see herunch together. You invested after all." " ''Kay, here''s the money. Now I need to go see my guild so I''ll be leaving." Gale walked away, dragging Red Moon with him. Oh thank god! I don''t want that woman to be any close to me! We went to the cksmith to order cannons and paid the Sailor Union for our necessary crew. "What about thebat sailors?" I asked Hawk and the others. Elfy spoke: "We should bring more melee ones. We already have strong firepower, those wizards and archers won''t help too much. If anyone can get close to us despite our cannon fire, we''ll need melee warriors to stop them." Rose said to me: "Let''s make it 2000 heavy swordsmen, 500 fire archers, 50 for each type of mage. That''s 2700 of them." "Let''s do it!" I gave the number to the old clerk. Another 1.3 million gone. Manning the ship nearly cost us 1.7 million! Together with the cannon orders, we threw away 3.5 million crystals within half an hour! Ouch, how money flies. We came to the wizard guild with our remaining 500 thousand. The ce looks like those city districts in the 60s, there are several towers, with a small piazza in the center. "Dark Wizard Guild, Chaos Mage Guild, Fire Mage Guild, Water, Light, Support, Spirit, Necromancer''s Hall, Chanter of Life, ..." Big Pot read through each of the signs. "Bugger. There are like 70 of them!" "What should we do? That''s too many." Elfy held her forehead. "Let''s split up." I suggested. "Each one of us take care of some of them and note down anything you think may be useful, then let''s gather here and discuss it over." "Got that. Let''s go!" We went separate ways. My targets are the seven buildings in the middle. The good part is the buildings are notplex. At least the ones I''m looking at. They all have pretty interesting stuff. Three of them went onto my list in the end: the Archdemon Figurehead from the Dark Wizard Guild, the Ifrit Figurehead from the Fire Mage Guild, and the Seraph Figurehead from the Light Mage Guild. They have their own functions and have simr prices. The Seraph one is the most expensive with a price of 510 thousand crystals. It sells good, too. I wonder if that''s because its stunning feminine appearance. The demon one is the most unpopr. 470 thousand. Even gods and deities have to follow the market, I guess. It''s turning dark when we gathered up. We still have too many choices: Archdemon: Greatly enhances closebat power for everyone on the ship. Ifrit: Prevents fire and increases cannon power. Seraph: Greatly improves HP regeneration and debuff recovery speed for everyone. Iron Hammer: Greatly improves ship''s defense. Skeleton: Panic enemies and cause them to mess up their actions. Half Moon: Makes the ship translucent and hard to hit. Virgin: Greatly increases crew moral, making them act and load cannons faster. Shinryuu: Greatly improves long-range firepower and ship sturdiness. Shark: Greatly increases sail speed and helps ship stay afloat in bad situations. Aeolus: Creates an evesting tailwind around the ship. ¡­ ... We didn''t reach an conclusion after some heated discussion, so we removed the choices we can''t afford (Seraph and Virgin), and those not very cost-efficient. Now we need to choose one from Archdemon, Skeleton, Half Moon or Dragon. Since we still can''t agree on the same choice, we used the dumbest but most effective way to make the decision. Chapter 98: Bi-Lin the Warship Chapter 98: Bi-Lin the Warship Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - "3! It''s 3!" Coin eximed first. "Shinryuu figure it is." I nodded. "Hum. Good enough." Hawk agreed. Zirai is the most happy since she always insisted on this choice. "Told you. Evendy luck agreed with me! This is our best symbol when fighting with the Japanese!" We made a tetrahedral dice using the wet dirt from a flowerbed nearby, to determine which figurehead to use based on which sidends on the ground. A "3" means we''ll buy the eastern dragon one. We went straight to the Taoist Guild to talk business. Well this ce looks really odd among all the other mage guilds. The old taoist is pretty generous. He even gave us a 20% off when he learned we''re going to fight invaders. So we only paid 400 thousand for the merchandise. The remaining 100 thousand is just enough to go buy supplies such as water and medicine. It''s toote now so we nned to meet again tomorrow morning. It will be Saturday, and there''s a good chance that more Japanese pirates will appear. The first serve when our ship goes into the sea! ------------------------ Everyone arrived early the next morning. They must be all excited to see our very own ship. Our first stop is to go to the Sailor Union to ept the crew. And wow, 8,000 NPCs standing on the square is quite a view! King Conqueror is also here to pick up his supplement. He was immediately attracted by our business. "For the-- Ziri, what the hell? Eight thousand??" "Yup. Our crew. I didn''t expect them to look so impressive though." That''s true, I was astonished as well when I first saw the scene. "What kind of ship are you getting? That''s enough people to fight a war! Ocean Might only has like 1k3 manpower at peak!" "I have no choice! We need all these people or there''ll be empty rooms all over the ship, wasting." "Ugh, never mind. I got work to do." When King is gone, we led the parade towards the siege shop. Our 600 cannons are still waiting there. We all summoned ourpanions to help carrying the giant weapons. The NPC sailors also formed up several teams as transport. These Bastion Cannons each needs 20 sailors to carry, barely. They''re too big! Lucky and Zirai''s Skyfire are acting as MVPs here. Lucky can carry four cannons using his ws plus another one in his mouth. Skyfire did the same. And the pair of Titans can keep eight cannons bnced above their heads! It''s almost 11 at noon when we moved everything to the port. For some reason the old designer won''t let us into the boatyard. He only allows the sailors to get in. I asked Hawk tomand 7,000 of the sailors to help load the cannons onto the ship, while Rose and I took the other 1,000 men to the city market, spent 100 thousand crystals to buy everyst bit of food for sale and carried the food back. Then we used thest 5,000 crystals to buy 10 thousand barrels of freshwater. The system stuffed the barrels in the center of the market, now I can only look at the mountain-sized pile helplessly. In the end, Rose decided she will ask the sailors to run around moving the water, while I go back and check if our ship has been released. I saw a crowd from far away, with Gale and Red Moon standing in the middle. Right, they said their guild also has a new shiping out today. "Hey Gale!" I walked over to him. "Where is your ship?" "Any time now!" He looked towards the closed boatyard in the end of the port. "That geezer doesn''t allow anyone to look when they build ships. They even sealed the ceilings!" "Well that''s good." "Why?" "A bigger surprise!" "But I can''t wait!" Gale let out a deep sigh. "Is something wrong?" "The fleet of Goddess Alliance was ambushed by Japan this morning. Our ships are already on the way, and I''m waiting for this ship to help them!" "Ambush?" That''s not expected. "What the situation now?" "I don''t know!" "Huh?" "I mean, I really don''t know. You can''t send messages to someone farther than 8 kilometers when sailing on the sea. Basically I''mpletely cut off from our men right now." "Then how did you know about the ambush?" "Here." He took out an...adorable white pigeon. "This is an Ocean Carrier Pigeon, you can use the bird to send messages, but with a dy. Thest one I sent hasn''t--" Another pigeon came down andnded on one of Gale''s stretched hands. He took out a small paper roll from a container on the bird''s leg. "How¡¯s it?" Red Moon has been sitting aside, now she quickly came to see the paper. Looks like something really serious is going on because this woman doesn''t have time to annoy me anymore. "...17 ships from Goddess Alliance were involved. 13 gone, 4 badly damaged. 21 reinforcement ships from Righteous League is still fighting with the enemies." Red Moon stepped back, dazed, almost falling into the sea. Several girls quickly caught her. I whispered to Gale: "I guess that fleet is super important to her?" "Her life depends on it!" "...What do you mean?" Gale exined: "Red Moon had a bet with father, that she can organize an entire fleet to go to Japan and upy one of their cities for a day before nation war." "What''s at stake?" "Red Moon can receive 50% share of the familypany and decide her own life. Otherwise, father will appoint a fianc¨¦ from another big n for her, and she won''t be having any family shares. Clich¨¦ much huh?" "Definitely. That kind of plot has been showing up in TV dramas for a century." "But you have a big family too I assume?" Yup, I''d expect Gale to be able to catch a glimpse about my identity. "There''s a ship! Is that yours or mine?" I changed topic. "Mine, of course." "You sure?" "I ordered the ship before you. And look, your people are still moving stuff. They can''t send out your ship with the crew staying on thend!" The grand-looking ship slowly approached us. Those high mast poles and the glimmering golden figurehead make it look like an art! The figure looks familiar too, it''s one of our rejected selections--the Virgin. Gale sure knows how to make things look good. As soon as the ropedder dropped down, Red Moon rushed onto the 100-meter long vessel without another word. "Excuse me now, Red Moon can''t wait any longer. I''ll have to look at your ship the next time." Gale said. I dragged him. " Tell me the cords, I''ll go help once our ship is ready." He considered for several seconds and gave me a chart. A simple sea map. "Give this to your second officer. He''ll know what to do." "Got it! I''ll go as soon as I can." I watched as Gale''s ship disappeared into the horizon. Now I''m feeling a little sorry for Red Moon. She''s been mean to me but apart from that, she seems decent. At least she knows how to strive for survival on her own, instead of keepining the world or seek free shelter from other men. "Ugh! Finally." Rose came behind me, with a big water barrel in front of herself. From all the sweat on her forehead, I can see she rolled this barrel all the way from the market to here! "I''m tiring myself out with work and you''re here enjoying the sea view?" Sheined. "So...who''s taking care of the supplies now?" "Yuri is there. The others too. So I came back." "Do you have to do it yourself? We havebors now you know." "I want to finish it faster!" "...Here, let me help." We pushed the barrel to the loading area just outside the boatyard. I saw the designer and called to him. "Is it done yet?" "Yes. But you have too many cannons, we''re still working on them!" "Make it fast then! Oh right, do you know where I can buy those pigeons?" "I have them right here. You want them?" Oh that would save me the effort of running around the city again. "Yes of course!" I quickly responded. "How much for one?" "You must buy them in pairs. And different types cost differently. I''ll just give you a pair for free, since you already ordered a wonderful ship. Wait here!" He ran inside the boatyard and returned soon, carrying a cage in his hand containing two white carrier pigeons. "This is the best pigeon I have. 600 kilo travel range, and round-trip time for max range is only 3 hours." That''s...not very fast. But I didn''t say anything. (*) "Good. Good! Thank you sir!" "Ah! They¡¯re so cute!" Yuri showed up behind me and was attracted by the birds in my hand. "Finished?" I just noticed the giant pile of supplies on the loading area, as well as Hawk and everyone else, who are panting heavily. "That''s pretty quick." "Yeah right." Zirai threw herself onto one the barrels very undylikely. "Says the cker. Ouch, I can''t feel my hands..." "Yeah. The captain asks the workers to do the hard job, while he go somewhere and ys his birds." Coin mocked. "I''m not cking. I just heard we need these birds tomunicate on the sea so I''m here to buy them." "Yeah yeah, never mind. Let''s get these in there." Hawk interrupted us and ordered the NPCs to start loading supplies. I took the time to ask the designer for how to use the birds. Pretty simple. You took out the paper inside the small bamboo container on the pigeon''s leg (the paper respawns itself), use your finger to write something on it. But you can only send less than two thousand characters each time. Tell the pigeon the name of the recipient and release it. The other person can write a reply in the same way, and the pigeon will fly back to you on its own. Convenient enough. I tested it by sending something to Gale immediately. "Almost ready, how''s your end? Will be there fast! --Ziri" I threw the pigeon away and helpedmand the workers. There are many barrels and sacks but unlike cannons, they can be easily moved with just two sailors each time. The old man came to me again. "Where''s your figurehead?" "I have it." I told Phiona to carry the giant object to the ground. The designer ordered eight NPCs to carry it away, but he still stared at me. "What?" "The other two?" "Two what?" "Where are the ship''s emblems?" "Emblems?" "You don''t know?" "Should I?" He made sure I''m not joking and exined: "Apart from the figurehead, a ship also has two emblems symmetrically ced on the railing where they stand out most. They also buff the ship, just not as strong as the figurehead. So you don''t have them?" "I can''t buy something I don''t even know about! Quickly, tell me where. I¡¯m not sure if I have enough money left." "No, forget it." He stopped me. "I have two spare Lunar Emblems here, use them. Geez young men these days..." I sighed in relief when the desigher left. If I knew it in advance I''d have asked more funding from Gale. We loaded everything onto the ship when it''s 1 pm. King''s ship departed at noon, when he told me that some "h h union" fleet from Japan appeared near our territory, about 200 of them, any avable ships in Chinese region all went to join the battle. All sorts of activities went on in the port the entire noon. Countless warships left the docking areas in teams or batches. Even some small fishing boats went after them. I don''t know, are they nning to fight the Japanese using their fishing spears ands? Those small wooden barges would probably break apart easily if a bombnds near them. The boatyard gate finally opened when the clock reached 1:20 in the afternoon. A huge shape slowly moved out of it, and everyone working and running around the port stopped in their tracks. Gale''s ship is about 130 meters in length and it already surprised enough people. Now no one know what to say when they are literally looking an iceberg approaching the docks. We forgot to breathe! It''s, huge! More than huge! We haven''t learned the exact number but that won''t be necessary now. The imposing figure of a five-wed golden dragon on the forebridge makes the ship exceptionally intimidating. Those shining mythril tings around the outer deck indicate that the beast is as powerful as it looks! I''m lost in admiration, I don''t even notice when the designer came behind me. "Now this is your ship, the Bi-Lin. 378.3 meters from tip to tail, 59.8 meters across, 13.6 draught, 9.2 draft above water. Main mast is 62 meters high and 2.1 in diameter. 57.4 and 1.6 for the secondary masts. 750 long oars and 600 cannons in total. Satisfied?" I heard none of the old man''s speech because my brain is still stuck! "Hello? Are you there?" He noticed my trance. "Oh, yes!" I wiped off a drop a saliva under my mouth. The designer didn''tin. He dragged me to the side of the ship. I saw some embossed letters. The biggest ones are: "Bi-Lin the Warship" with another line of smaller words under them: "Masterpiece from Torrent Point Boatyard!" That must be the advertisement. The words are quite smallpared to the ship but they are still a meter in height! Of course everyone would notice them. The designer nodded towards the advertisement in satisfaction. Then he recalled something and pointed at the bridge tower in the center, with two crescent badges installed on the sides. "Those are the Lunar Emblems. I wasn''t nning to sell them to anyone but I gave them to you! They can create fog on the sea, especially at night. It will give all kinds of buffs to your ship." "I see. Much appreciated!" I quickly ttered him. Then I walked to Zirai and nudged her awake. "Come on, take Skyfire and carry the crystal cannon here. It''s in the woods outside the city. My Phantom Knights guarded that thing for a day and night now. You remember where we hid it right? Be careful don''t break it." "On it!!" Her reply came from the sky. She already moved. Zirai hasn¡¯t return after 20 minutes, instead, my pigeon showed up first. Gale replied! "Critical! Help ASAP!" That''s all he wrote on the paper, which is enough to tell me the urgent situation. I can only wait anxiously for Zirai, while taking the chance to move around the ship and familiarize myself with it. The designer followed behind and exined anything I don''t understand. When we came to where the emblems are ced, I noticed something strange. ------------------------- (*) This is 3+ times faster than the fastest racing pigeons in real time. Chapter 99: The First Flight Chapter 99: The First Flight Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - "Is that the moon emblem we saw before?" It looked crescent from the ground but it''s clearly a round shaped object when looking up here. The crescent part is golden, while the rest of the emblem is silver, which is very close to the tings around the ship and easy to mislook. The designer smiled. "This emblem changes with the moon''s position. When you see a full moon in the sky, its shape will also turn full moon." "Oh that''s interesting." I put my hand on the emblem. It feels chilly, but nice to the touch. Next, we moved to the front deck. I saw the three big rotating tforms I asked the designer to build. Now there''s problem, if we put the crystal cannon here...it will be a easy target! "Can you make some protection for our crystal cannon?" He gave me a puzzled look. "I mean, make a cover or something and only leave a small opening for the cannon''s barrel." "Oh sure, I''ll tell them right away." We gave the orders and moved on to the cabins below. The interior is very different from the outside. The outer deck of the ship gives people a feeling of solemnity and sturdiness, while the inside is decorated like a most luxurious pce, especially that 40 double rooms I ordered -- they look like president suites! Well, I paid big, so this is not that surprising. When we stepped into a cannon chamber, the old designer eximed: "There are only cannons here. Where are the shots??" "We don''t have enough money for those! Each cannones with 10 free shots anyway. 6000 shots are enough to fight one battle for now, so I''ll think about buying ammoter." "This is uneptable!" He seems more excited than me. "You''re ruining my art! If this ship sinks in the first fight, it will put a big stain on my boatyard''s name!" He walked in several circles before speaking to me again: "Go tell your sailors, bring my message to the siege shop and take another 54,000 balls here. But you must pay meter!" "We can do that?" "What, you don''t like it?" "Oh nonono. Of course I''m d with it!" I quickly ordered the NPCs to go fetch the shells. The designer went off to check up on the crystal cannon shield. Now I can only sit on the edge of the port and watch the sailors moving the explosives. Someone touched my shoulder. I turned my head and saw a yer wearing typical Spellsword gear. That sword will runes written all over it is just too obvious. "What''s up?" "You saw the Ocean Might?" "King Conqueror''s ship?" His eyes lit up. "Yes! Where is it?" "Gone." "Gone??" "Yeah, it left an hour ago. I heard the Japanese sent a fleet to us, all ships are there now." "Damnation!" He dropped his sword on the ground and knocked his own head. "Arrrgh I missed the ship again!!" Anotherte arriver I guess. He suddenly stopped his actions, picked up his sword and rushed onto Bi-Lin. I watched in shock as the crazy man ducked into the wheelhouse. What the hell does he want? I don''t want anything bad to happen to my ship so I followed. Before I reached him, he came out of the room and grabbed me. "Do you know how to drive a ship?" "No!" He pushed me away and began to drag random people around, asking them to pilot the ship. Retard. The only pilots are all away carrying those cannon shells. Of course you can''t find anyone here. He gave up and went into the wheel room again. When I saw him messing around the levers and buttons I quickly dragged him back. "Who the heck are you?? Don''t y around my ship alright?" "Your ship?" He paused for three seconds before returning to his actions. "Perfect. I''m from the Anti-Japanese Association. Now we officially take over your ship for military purpose. Move along." Shit. He thinks he¡¯s a police or something? Take over my ship?? "Hey! Cut that out! Just wait here if you want to fight the Japanese. Our ship will be leaving soon enough!" I thought that''s pretty reasonable. But he only gave me a "humph". "You girls are always buying their perfume or mangas or something. You don''t know anything!" He may have his good reasons but I''m not happy with that. "Watch your tongue mate! I''m not a ''girl''! And second, what makes you think women don''t fight?" "What he said!! " Zirai showed up. "What''s your problem huh?! You want to know if I can fight? Let''s try it out!" "Wait, you two?..." The man looked at us, obviously shocked by our looks. "I don''t have time for you losers. Get lost, I need this ship!" He isn''t changing that attitude. "WHOS THE LOSER??" Provoking Zirai over such matters really sets her off you know. She grabbed him and tossed him onto the outer deck with a shoulder throw. "Someone tie him up onto the front rails! No one questions me like that! Hey you over there! Get the cannon in ce NOW!" The unfortunate guy is soon bound onto the railings by a bunch of sailors. Okay, now we have two figureheads. I decided to leave him there and went to watch the workers load our crystal cannon. The designer finished that cannon shield. Skyfire and Lucky acted as temporary crane lifts and put the shield over the cannon. The cover perfectly hid the cannon inside. Now our ships looks like a real battleship! With a main gun! As we discuss about some of the details of the cannon shielding, another stranger ran up the ship. And I heard Zirai yelling again. "Hey who the fuc are you?? Can you all stop ying around other people''s ship?" She''s still mad at the previous encounter. The neer however, is not aggressive like thest one. "Sorry sorry, may I know who''s the captain?" "That''s me. What do you want?" I walked to them and inspected him. He looks like a Dread Knight...or something close. "Oh hi, I''m War Chant, a Dread Knight. Is your ship going to fight the pirates? I missed my trip so¡­!" Zirai changed her tune the moment she heard this. "Oh please wait here! We''re still loading supplies, we''ll leave as soon as we finish!" "Thank you very much!" War Chant gave us a bow. Then he asked: "Um, on the railing...is that?..." "Oh, him." Zirai rolled her eyes. "He tried to steal our ship!" "Really??" Chant jumped. I would too if I heard someone just trying to take the biggest ship under broad daylight. "Well- you know, he''s my friend. His name is Wuyuu, we fought pirates together before. He''s just a straight head, trust me, he didn''t mean to steal your ship for real." "I know." I interrupted. "He''s too excited right now. We won''t be leaving the port if he keeps meddling with us. I know he wants to leave as fast he can, so tying him up like that will make things faster." "I agree!" Chant nodded. Huh. We soon heard from Hawk that each chamber is filled with a hundred balls now. Still hasn''t reached our goal (200 shots per cannon) but that should be enough for now! This means everything''s ready. I climbed onto the central tower and gave the order. "Set sail, my friends!" Whoosh! The five giant sailcloths were spread open, while a series of smaller sails expended on the sides. Those sail operators swung themselves from one post to another like monkeys. Impressive. "Oars out!" 750 long oars reached into the water. The ship moved ahead suddenly, almost throwing me off the tform. I never know ships can start off so fast! Did I ce too many oars? Two men wearing sailor hats approached me and introduced themselves as chief and second officer. I gave the simple sea chart from Gale to them. "So this is our destination, captain?" "That''s right. Let''s move!" "Yes sir!" The second officer walked to themand stand and started to shout orders to everyone. "Port, 40! " "Port 40!" The wheelmen responded aloud. The giant wheel is actually operated by two sailors. Surely one man is not strong enough to turn that 2-meter helm wheel. "Reef the right sail! Turn two!" "Reef the right sail! Turn two!" That came from the sail operators. "Left oars, lift!" "Left oars out of water!" All the oars to the left were retracted. I can already feel the ship making a sharp turn. The wheelmen released the helm after several seconds. I saw the wheel spinning to its original position like a motor. "Helm reset!" "Down wind three! Return sail!" The left oars reached out again and began to propel the ship forward. I turned to the officer. "How long till we reach there?" He looked up at the wind wheel. "Around two and half hour." The clock now is...almost two in the afternoon. It will be at least 5 pm when we got there! I took out the pigeon and wrote a message to Gale. "On the way. Arriving by five." Now the only thing we can do is waiting. From the high tides on both sides of the ship, I can tell that the ship is traveling real quick. But since there''s no reference objects on the in sea, I can''t really feel that speed. A strange idea suddenly popped up in my mind. "Chief mate!" "Yes sir?" "Are there spare ropes on the ship?" "Yes. What for, captain?" "To tow the ship!" "Towing??" He gave me a puzzled look. "Just give me the ropes. Three long ones, strong ones too." "Yes sir!" He carried them to me soon. I asked the sailors to tie the ropes in front of the ship and asked Zirai to summon Skyfire. I asked Skyfire, Lucky and Loong''er to carry one end of each rope. Then it''s simple. Lucky and Skyfire drag the ropes from the sky, while Loong''er swims in front of us. When I gave the signal, the ropes tightened in an instant, giving the ship a huge boost. All yers on the deck fell and rolled over until they hit something. The working NPC though...it''s like nothing ever happened. Yuri climbed up from my body and rubbed her waist. "Be gentler next time!" Big Pot pushed me away so he can crawl out. "I know we''re in a hurry but let''s not kill anyone before we even get there!" Zirai removed Big Pot from her leg. "Why not, it''s a lot faster!" Merciless also found his way out of the human pile. "You have a flying beetle right? " "Yeah! Let''s make it even better!" Zirai urged me. "He can only fly for short distances, unlike Lucky and Skyfire." "Oh." Zirai is hot-headed but she knows reasons. Our ship sailed on the water surface with unbelievable speed while breaking apart countless water drifts to the sides. It almost feels like flying. About two hourster, the lookout on top of our heads made some g signals, before the second mate reported to me: "Captain, we spotted something adrift on the water ahead." "Adrift?" I ran to the front rail and looked down. Those are definitely remains of broken ships! Everyone joined me. A huge number of splintered wood pieces are floating. Those artificial nk designs suggest that they came from other ships. I called back Lucky and Skyfire and un-summoned Loong''er as well. We must be near the conflict zone now, we may run into trouble if we keep up the speed. "Drift out!" Hawk shouted to the back side. The sailors quickly brought out arge with a long stick attached to it. We watched them bring up some wooden pieces from the water. Some of the pieces even have fallen equipments on them. "Weird. Are these equipments all happen to fell on these boards so we can pick them up?" Yuri asked when watching us collect the loots. War Chant exined: "You lose your items in naval wars too. Every time something fells into the water, the system will attach it to a randomly appeared floating piece like this. We''re seeing a lot of pieces without anything on them, which means some ships are totally destroyed." "A lot of them." Passerby moved his head along the trail of the remains float on the water, which extents several kilometers away. "I''d bet this is the ambushed fleet from Goddess Alliance." "Someone''s there!" Rose is first one to notice that a yer is hanging on one of the nks. "Get him up!" I order the second officer. He yelled backwards. "Halt the ship! Release the life boat!" Bang! A hatch in the back of the ship bounced open. The lid fell and stopped just above the water surface, creating a transport slope. A small wooden boat slid off into the water with three sailors on it. They skillfully drove the ship to the floating yer and carried him back aboard. Hawk asked the officer: "How many boats like this do we have?" "219, not including that one." "That¡¯s a lot." I''m shocked. "Well the designer never told me about it." "This is regtion. Every vessel should be equipped with enough life boats to evacuate the entire crew. This is not optional." "I see." Hawk spoke to him: "Send another 19 boats and search around. There must be more people close by!" As he said, out boats saved 30 people or so after a while. The most surprising part is that I saw Gale and Red Moon among them! Red Moon is out cold. Not sure if that''s a bless. As for Gale...he''s also unconscious. The ship doctor gave him some medicine to get rid his "Weakness due to prolonged sea water immersion" debuff and woke him up. I quickly asked: "What happened? Your people don''t look good." "You finally came! Do you know what we ran into?" "Some sort of Japan union fleet?" "Yes! But they have something we never seen before." "What it is?" "Well, they have three odd-looking ships among their ranks. Be careful, those things beat us up for good! Let me talk to your second officer so he knows how to avoid them!" When the NPC arrived, Gale continued: "The enemies have three special battleships, the ''Kamikaze'', the ''Nagashima'', and the ''Kirigakure''. (*) The Kamikaze is arge ship carrying many small boats. Those are not life boats, they''re demolition boats loaded with explosives! They are fast, small and hard to hit. They took down many of our ships! The Nagashima is an artillery ship, with a strange cannon located on its head. That thing shoots farther than any weapon we ever seen, and the ship''s fast, no one can catch it! The ship attacks us from far away and we can''t do anything to get close. The Kirigakure...I''d call it a submarine rather than a ship. No one can see it. It always appears behind out backs and hits us hard. But it can only attack when it reveals itself. Otherwise we''d been wiped out already!" The room went silent, because no one knows how to deal with something like those. One thing is for sure, we need to take them down first, by any means possible. I talked to Zirai: "Find Passerby, Big Pot and Violet and go take care of the crystal cannon together. Shoot at the three ships the moment you see them!" "Will do!" Zirai rushed away. Then I ordered the second officer: "Tell the cannon crew. Enemy suicide boats are first priority. Don''t let any one get close! We have 600 cannons for goat''s sake! Okay, everyone on deck! We have one hell of a battle ahead!" As I led everyone leave the room and walked to the outside, a giant force sent me flying from one side. With a "BAM", I broke the side rails and fell into the sea. Before I reached the water I hear the faint orders from the second officer: "Iing cannon shots! Battle stations!" All crew instantly received the situation and rushed to their assignments. I crawled back onto the deck, soaked, with my disguise wizard robe torn to pieces. "Fuck, so much for ''unlimited durability''." Everyone around me watched as if they''re looking at a monster. I can pretty much tell from their expressions that they''re asking: Why are you not dead?? --------------- (*) It means "To hide in the mist". You probably heard about this word if you ever watched Naruto. Chapter 100: Firefight Chapter 100: Firefight Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - I pried off that broken cannon shell from my waist. Man that was close. My HP bar is almost empty, and allpanions'' HP are red now. I didn''t survive that shot. I was revived to 10% HP thanks to Phiona''s skill. With that kind of power I''d say one hit is enough to kill ten yers if they stand in a line. Looks like naval warfare should be fought over by ships. Individual yers can''t y against cannon shots no matter how many levels they have. Another cannon ballnded on the deck railing, bringing some wooden pieces and two sailors with it. Oh shit. My money!! "Chief officer! Where are the enemies? Who''s hitting us?" "Target report! 3 o''clock, 10 kilos away!" The lookout shouted back. "Our side cannons can''t reach that far!" The chief officer yelled. I yelled towards Zirai (while dumping water from my boots). "Turn the crystal cannon around!" "I can''t see them! Too many ships, which is the target?" She shouted back. Oh shoot. We should have made an aiming scope for the cannon! "Put the helm over! Let''s move close!" I ordered the chief. The ship made a sharp right-turn. I saw another cannon ball grazing past our ship''s nose. I asked Yuri to use her song to heal up mypanions. I''d already asked Lucky to join the fight if that hit didn¡¯t cut down our health bars. ...But Zirai has Skyfire! I quickly jumped into the cannon emcement and dragged Zirai out. "Bring Skyfire to the enemy ships. I''ll take care of the shooting!" "Leave it to me!" Zirai summoned her dragon and left. I activated my Star Gaze and scouted the enemies. I never expected this ring toe to handy in this way. The binocr function helped me look at the other ships nice and clear! ng! A sharp metal noise and a violent shake threw me off the cannon tform. "What was that??" I walked around and saw a cannon shell lodged inside the cannon''s shields. Thank god I asked for this protection or that shot would have blown up the whole tip of our ship if it detonated our crystal cannon! I returned to my position and looked at the conflict area. I saw around 500 ships in the chaos, about 300 friendly ones. There are fewer Japanese ships, but they''re having the upper hand! Those enemies ships seem to share certain standards. There are only several fixed sizes and styles. On the other hand, Chinese ships are greatly diverged. There can be like 20 different sizes between the biggest one and smallest one, and they don''t have a unifiedmander. They survived this long only because they have the bigger number. I soon spotted the one who hit us just now, and I don''t need anyone to tell me that it''s the "Nagashima". That cannon with a super long barrel is just too catchy to the eye. I don''t think any of the other ships can reach us. Let''s return the favor! I aimed at Nagashima and shouted towards outside: "Do it!" Passerby and Big Pot pulled the lever. A violet bullet flew towards the Nagashima while carrying a long trail behind it. All yers in the midst of the fight noticed this peculiar object. Ordinary cannon shots don''t have trails behind them, so this abnormality attracted a lot of attention. The violet bullet preciselynded on the front tip of Nagashima. With a distant explosion sound, a giant fireball emerged into the sky. The attack took out the entire front part of Nagashima, including the annoying sniper cannon. The remaining body soon broke into several parts and went down into the water. From the Star Gaze, I can see a huge number of glittering equipments floating among the remains. Ha! No matter they say a war brings unlimited fortune. For victors, at least. I''m so go over there collecting golds and trinkets to my heart''s content when the battle is over! I saw another ship near the Nagashima going under. I don¡¯t think we hit it though? The ship is submerging as a whole. Must be the Kirigakure! I can only watch as the Kirigakure disappeared under the surface. We can''t shoot the crystal cannon too fast or we''ll risk breaking it. And the other cannons are out of range! The chief officer entered the emcement. "Captain, a ship gged to ask where we came from. How do we respond?" "Did they tell us where theye from?" "No. Do we ask them?" "Nah, tell them we''re from the Blizzard Rose. And ask them about the situation over there." "Yes sir!" The officer told his orders to his gman. This is how the officers mainly convey their messages, as not everyone can hear you on a ship during a fight, just by yelling. The apanying gman sent signals to another gman standing on top of the mast, who in turn sent the message to the faraway ship. The response came in soon enough. " ''The Anti-Japanese Association appreciates your help. We suffered great loss and require heavy fire support!'' " "Tell them to move clear from our line of sight. This ship IS heavy fire!" " ''Brilliant! Kick their sorry asses for us!'' " "Ahaha! That must be King Conqueror!" "Is that a message too, sir?" The officer is busy writing on his log without lifting his head. "Oh no no, don''t send that one. Did they do as told?" He checked the area. "Yes, the ships from the association gave us enough space to reach the enemies." "Tell the crew to speed up. Let''s move! Ram any enemy ships on the way. Oh and, remember to get that guy we tied up on the rails earlier off there." The office left to give orders. "Raise the sails, expend the ramming horn. Brace for impact!" "Understood! Raise the sails! Oars out! Top speed! Ready the ramming horn! All crew get ready for collision!" The sudden eleration caused Bi-Lin to let out a loud, deep booming noise as if some monster is roaring. Our ship quickly went past all the Chinese boats and went towards enemies. A series of sharp spikes stretched out in front of the ship, full steel, with crystal covers on their tips. I''m sure these things can be used to shave body hair if anyone wants to. We approached the Japanese within a matter of minutes. No one is expecting such speed from a ship thisrge. As our ship stands taller among them all, I can clearly see the enemy yers panicking around on their decks. Some of the ships tried to evade, which is then proved to be an impossible task when we''re charging full-speed. Besides, the area is too crowded, they''re blocking their own escaping routes. Several brave ones maneuvered and moved into a line, facing us. They all have impact horns installed. I''m confident that our ship can break them up using our size advantage, but our ship would get seriously damaged in the process. Man they really have some nicemanders to order their people as a whole, with such efficiency. Putting the aggression aside, I have to admit they are good teams. I never really understand their "bushido spirit". But now their resolve to sacrifice themselves to stop us really has its merit. But I''m not going to get convinced this easily! I spun the crystal cannon towards them, and made a shot just before we contact with them. The great explosion sted those trying to block us into pieces, which caused the other yers to run and try to hide from the falling debris. Our ship went on after the first defense line broke. The ships in the second line, with their sides against us, became our targets. The ramming horn cut into their bodies like a knife stabbing a cake. I can already see Japanese yers getting knocked away or torn up around us. In normal circumstances, a ship ramming another would be stopped and bounced back a little by the force. But Bi-Lin is toorge! It feels like a military carrier just knocked over a small cargo ship. The enemy ships are not even half of our size and we don''t feel any obvious obstacles at all. Instead of stopping, we went through the broken ships and continued forward. And we prated 8 ships along the way. We went all the way to the back of their entire fleet! Seems that Bi-Lin can be very well used as an icebreaker, if time calls for it. I can hear the Japanese yelling at us, probably calling names. But none of them is using their tranting service so I can''t understand any of them. The second officer asked: "Do we prepare for closebat?" I looked around. "Not now. Too many ships, we don''t have enough men for that. Tell the cannon crew to free-fire. Let''s not waste this perfect chance!" With another deafening roar, countless cannon shots were unleashed. We''re so close to each other and there are too many of them, so we don''t even need to aim carefully to score hits, as long as we don''t shoot towards the sky. Cannon roars and scattering ship fragments filled up the entire area. "Fire Archers, in position!" Second officer gave anothermand. The 500 Fire Archers we hired stepped into two lines and began to shoot burning arrows towards the other ships. The arrows all carry small leather pouches on their heads. They must contain oil or something easy to burn. When the arrownds on anything, the pouch breaks and fire will spread with the scattering content, keeping a wide area of enemy ships on fire for a long time. The archers can only get their attacks somewhere around 600 meters away. Otherwise they''ll be more destructive than the cannons! The enemies are not foolish. They already realized what it means if our mobile artillery stays inside their formation. Their cannons fired at us as well. Shots began to travel near the deck. Hawk and Elfy are still helping me with the crystal cannon outside, and they need to be very careful if they don''t want to take an iron ball to the face. More shots wouldnd on the ship''s sides, and that''s when I realized all the money I spent really paid off! From their power, I can tell most of them are using the Heavy Cannon we saw back at the weapon shop. They have Bastion Cannons too but each ship can only afford two of them as the main guns. That''s still a lot better than the other Chinese ships. As far as I can see, our people can only afford in Cannons. Some of them are even carrying the cheapest Bare Shots. Only a small number, like those from the Righteous League, have enough fund to equip their ships with some Chain Cannons and several Bastion Cannons on their main forces. That said, their advantage is nothingpared to Bi-Lin! The small number of holes along our ship are all caused by enemies within really close distance. Some of the others are made by Bastion Cannon shots. This means the other types of cannons can only prate our tings in close range, as for most ships farther away, only Bastion Cannons and that sniping ship (already sunk) can cause real damage to us. "Chief officer! Tell them to focus fire on any close-up ships and get rid of them as fast as possible!" "Yes sir!" My order went through quickly, and those within close proximity were all sted into wooden pieces in a brief moment. Now that will make our work a lot easier. The rest of the enemies are of no threat to us. They do have several Bastion Cannons but that small number-- Boom!! That came from our ship. We''re hit again, hard! "What the fuck? Didn''t we wipe them out??" "Target report! Enemy shiping from our six!" "Behind us??" I left the crystal cannons and ran up to themand tower. A thin, long ship which stands pretty low above the sea surface is facing against us sideways, firing at us. There is no cannon emcement at the rear of Bi-Lin. We can''t attack back. Gale rushed to me and pointed at the ship. "That is the ''Kirigakure''! It appeared out of nowhere just like that and destroyed our ship!" The submarine huh? So it has been hiding in the water and sneaked behind us. The ship/submarine is fully equipped with Bastion Cannons. The good part is, it doesn''t have space for additional cannon rooms. There are only cannons on its deck. Every new function has its drawback I guess. However there are still more than 30 cannons there, if we don''t do something it will open up a big hole on our ass! "Tank!" I summoned Tank and ordered him to move to the rear side. "See that ship? Bring it down!" Tank went into assault mode quickly. The enemy must have noticed us, since they stopped their attack and began to submerge again. I can already see their sailors running inside. Not fast enough though. Tank glided in the air andnded on Kirigakure. He raised his giant scythe and shed at the ship''s deck. Crack! The scythe sunk into the board halfway. Kirigakure is still sinking. But with that big hole, I don''t think it will ever emerge again. I watched as my EXP bar getting filled up like mad. Man, I should do this more! Kirigakure finally went into the water entirely, before a series of bubbles came up, bringing a lot of wooden shards with equipments on them. Tank already flew back. Beetles can''t swim. I can see Zirai fighting with Japanese yers in the air on Skyfire. I''ve done a lot of work but the situation didn''t improve as I expected. All the arrows are making it really hard for Skyfire to do anything. He can throw one or two fireballs down into the enemy groups but they don''t do much damage. I ordered Lucky and Phiona to prepare for closebat. Loong''er also received my order to move behind enemy lines. Her job is to sabotage enemy ship rudders. This move may seem unimpressive, but I''m sure it will cause as much damage as the crystal cannon. Without steering, those ships will only get into total chaos, they may even ram into other friendly ships. "Charge!" I yelled to the chief. Our ship gained speed and moved inside enemy formation. "All hands fire at will!" The 600 cannons began to disy their full power. All the cannon shots caused thick smoke around us as if we''re fighting in the clouds. After several rounds of cannon fire, the ships on both sides of us all caught fire and sank. They didn''t sink immediately. They tried to fire back in the final moment. Arge number of shotsnded on our ship, most of which were repelled by our armor tes. The attacks had no obvious effect apart from causing some scratches. But our defense is not invincible. When some parts are damaged continuously, tears and breaches still appeared. Enemy cannon fire is bing more intense. People in the cannon chambers are well protected, but those on the deck arepletely pinned down now. Our 200 cannons on the deck are made useless! Hawk crawled beside me and yelled: "Ziri! We need to do something!" He pointed at the mess. "We can''t attack like this! I can''t even stand up! Thank god those Bastion Cannons are breech loaded or we''d be fu*ked up already!" I looked at the dense enemy ships and frowned. Too many. We do have good firepower and defense, but our sailors can still be killed. It looks a bit funny when I saw a sailor pushing a shell into the cannon while lying on the deck, poked his head carefully to check enemy position, then tried to grab the trigger rope without lifting his body. We suddenly felt a decrease in enemy attacks. The other Chinese ships had enough time to regroup, now theyunched their attacks again. There are still a good number of them left so the enemies panicked to engage them. "There they are!" I posed an "okay" towards Hawk. He grinned and went back to his cannon. All the sailors now regained posture and began to shoot back at the enemies. They''re even shooting faster than before. Probably trying to get some revenge after being restricted for so long. The relief didn''tst long. A big explosion almost deafened everyone, and our ship swayed to one side violently. I thought we''re going to turn when the momentum stopped, and we managed to regain bnce. "What''s going on??" Chief stumbled to me. Before he can say anything, another explosion urred at the ship''s rear. Our ship was lifted up before it dropped to the water again. I''m totally fine since I''ve been standing in the front. But those at the back side were thrown into the air briefly, and not all of them made it back onto the deck. Some of the cannon rounds are also rolling around now. The sailors ignored their wounds and rushed to save these explosives. It''ll be a disaster if they go off here on the ship. Most of the escaped shells were either saved by the sailors or fell into the water. A small number of them bumped into something but none exploded. Phew. Then I heard a nking noise nearby as if a metal can is rolling on metal floor. Everyone watched in silence as a cannon ball slowly but surely rolled towards in front of me... Chapter 101: The Terrorist Chapter 101: The Terrorist Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - Then I heard a nking noise nearby as if an iron can is rolling on metal floor. Everyone watched in silence as a cannon ball slowly but surely rolled towards in front of me. I put a foot on it to stop it in ce. Time stopped. No one dared to make a sound. I waited for several seconds. Phew, safe! Big Pot left his cannon and looked at the cannon shot under my foot. "Scary. What just happen--" Ka-Boom! A savage force pushed me from under my foot, sending me upwards. All crew on board watched in silence as I flew into the clear sky. The force was so strong that I reached the clouds and not yet stopping! When my mind cleared up, my first reaction is to spread my wing des to regain control of my body. I''m losing it for sure if I keep spinning like this! The explosion was pretty strong. My HP bar is empty again, mypanions saved me with their HP. Barely. The difference fromst time is that I was caught by the explosion this time, rather than the iron ball. The excellent defense and my Cor of Protection saved me from death, but my face was still charred ck by the fire. As for my armor...it''s already ck so no one would notice. I kept my momentum still after some hard effort. Lucky flew up to gave me a lift down. When I returned onto the deck, people are still surprised but no one said anything this time. I survived a shot to the face back there, so this is not entirely new. What DID surprise me is that there is a hole on the outer shell of the crystal cannon. Well, not a hole, but an opening with the shape of a "´ó", obviously someone just went through there with their arms and legs wide spread. People chuckled when they saw me staring at the new entrance, except for Big Pot, who exined to me with much embarrassment: "Sorry boss, that was... an ident." I knew what he meant. So the explosion sted me into the sky but pushed him flying into the cannon shield. Iughed along with them. ...But we have pressing matters right now! "Chief mate!" "Yes sir!" "What just happened?" "Report! We were attacked by two suicidal boats!" "Huh? Didn''t I tell them to take them out before everything else? And where did they hit? What''s the damage?" "They charged out from the midst of the enemy group, and they were too fast for us to intercept. One hit us from the starboard, one in the tail. They didn''t connect with us. We already hit them. But the explosion was too close!" "Damage?" "The starboard was fine. We lost 37 oars and 237 paddlers, 313 injured. The cannon chambers are higher so they weren''t affected. But the rearpartment suffered heavy loss. There is a big breach on the life boat room, we lost a hundred boats!" Gale heard the report and put a hand on my shoulder. "Take it easy, this is only a small loss, I assure you. It''s a bless you hit them halfway. You know, one of those bumped into our ship head-on and it broke us in half! You saw how much power they packed right?" "I know! You know how much the ship costs. Now I have to pay more money to fix all these holes!" "Yeah, fix. Our entire fleet is gone, I have to build another!" "Guess we¡¯re both unfortunate." "Hey hey HEY watch out behind--" A random cannon shot precisely hit me in the back. When I''m still the air, I gave myself a serious question: Why am I hit by these anti-ship weapons, THREE TIMES IN A DAY?? I kept flying until I crashed into something. I removed some debris from on top of me and tried to get up. And I can''t! One of my legs can''t move! Is this a...cannon? My entire left leg was stuck inside the barrel of a cannon, and something deep inside caught my foot! The attack was obviously from a cheapest cannon because it didn''t cause much damage to mypanions'' HP bars. It came from pretty far away too so there was not much power left. I tried to survey my surroundings. I''m inside a wooden room, with stacks of...cannon shells? I''m inside an ammo depot! So I''m not totally unlucky. I crashed into this ce but nothing exploded on me. Someone approached the room. And they''re not speaking anything I can understand. It''s the Japanese! I fell inside a Japanese ship! They must have sent people to check the damage. From how fast I crashed in here, I''m sure they didn''t see if that was a yer or a round. They already reached the door from outside. My father used to ask me to learn foreignnguages, including Japanese. But I never did. I told him there¡¯s no way I¡¯d ever go to that ce. But well, I was just toozy. I carefully climbed onto the ceiling. Thanks to all the spikes on my Dark Dragon Lord armor, I can easily fix myself onto it upside-down like Spiderman. Someone opened the door. A ninja, and a...woman wearing something I don''t recognize. I''m pretty sure she''s not a melee ss though. I kept bnce by holding onto a beam using my elbow, then used my hands to create a makeshift knot with my dragon cord. The woman bent over to check the damaged ammo container, patted on her chest in relief and spoke something to the ninja. I can at least understand the bodynguage. The ninja walked to the hole and poked his head out, checking the damage on the ship''s hull, while the woman remained behind to clean up the scattered ammunition. Chance! I took out mynce silently. That took some time. I can only use one hand to hold a weapon like this now, while trying to keep the noise as low as possible. I readied mynce, waited for the ninja to turn back and threw it at him. The sharp polearm easily pierced his body and brought him into the sea. Just what I was hoping for. The woman heard the noise and turned to see the scene. When she failed to see any enemy, she was quick enough to check the ceiling. But I still had time to get my knot around her neck. I activated the cutting attack and pulled on the cord. The woman''s head left her body while leaking blood all over the room. I carefully jumped back to the ground while avoiding the blood stream. I summoned mynce back as fast as I can since I''m not sure if there''s a distance limit for this. I don''t want to lose my precious weapon down into the deep sea. I moved to the big hole while carrying a cannon round I picked up, turned to face the room, and jumped backwards. With a strong throw, I hurled the cannon shot back into the room, aiming for the center of the explosives. Then I went into the water like a diver. I felt a violent shock wave inside the water, which means my n was a sess. I adjusted my posture and began to swim towards Bi-Lin. To my joy, I noticed that the Dark Dragon Lord outfit is waterproof! I didn''t put down my visor in time so I''m still soaked. When I closed the visor and cut the water flow, I found out that I can actually breathe. This is really nice stuff! Since oxygen is not a concern now, I swam towards my ship while hiding under the surface. I caught a glimpse around the area when I jumped out of enemy ship, Bi-Lin is not very far. However when I poked my head out of the water, a white g with a red dot on it weed me. Oh shoot. Bi-Lin moved when I was swimming! I can clearly tell where it is because of its enormous size and that giant hole on the rear. As I''m thinking about how to return to the ship, something pulled me towards it with great speed. It''s Loong''er. I never witnessed her swimming speed from close up. This is impressive! She took me back in a matter of seconds and sent me on board through the breach. Now I found out something strange. Someone''s talking, and I can''t understand them! I looked around the outside of ship to make sure. Yes, this is the Bi-Lin. Why are there Japanese yers up here?? We were upied when I was gone? That can''t be. More than 8 thousand people would take some time to deal with even if they stand there defenseless, which wouldn''t happen in the first ce. Spies maybe? I carefully approached the voice and finally saw the intruders. Five ninjas, all wearing the same deep blue ninja uniform. Four of them are carrying big backpacks behind their backs. They look pretty heavy. I wonder what they brought. The vacant ninja seems to be their leader. He doesn''t have any load but there''s a long bamboo tube on his back. I followed them as they advanced without knowing my presence. I contacted Hawk. "Ziri? Where are you off too??" "I''m on the ship!" "Which ship?" "Bi-Lin of course!" "But...where?" I saw him looking around. He can''t see me, that''s for sure. "I''m down at the fifth level! I went inside from that hole!" "I see. Well get up here! We lost too many sailors and many cannons are left unmanned now!" "I can''t! Tell Big Pot and Passerby toe find me!" "What for?" "I saw five Japanese here, I don''t think I can take them down all by myself!" "Japanese? On our ship? You sure about that?" "Do you think I would joke in such a time?? Make it quick! I don''t know what they are doing but definitely not anything good!" "Roger that!" I cut the chat and continued to follow the intruders. I think they''re looking for something. The answer became clear soon enough. They''re going for our ammo depot. So those backpacks...explosives! They are suicide bombers trying to blow up our ship! I quickly sent a message to Big Pot and Passerby to tell them to be careful. The Japanese have already entered the door of their target. I sneaked beside the door, while Big Pot and Passerby arrived and did the same. I lifted my visor and made a "shh" gesture, then peeked inside the room. The enemies are unpacking their explosives and cing them into the ammo stashes. I drew my head back. First, I waved a finger in front of my face to tell Big Pot and Passerby to stay still. Then I made a drastic posture, indicating there are bombs in there. Next I pointed at the pair and then pointed to the ceiling. They instantly understood and climbed onto the ceiling beam, waiting for the ninjas toe out. When enemies showed up, Big Pot and Passerby dropped and each took down a ninja. They are both Warriors, a direct hit from above is enough to insta kill a speed-based ss. Two ninjas in the back row were still shocked when I punched at their faces. But man they''re fast, they managed block my attack by grasping my wrists. They gave me a defiant smile when they thought they locked up my arms, but that smile turned into puzzlement as I gave them an even bigger smile. I forcibly pushed my fists downward, escaping their hands and thrust at their chests. Psh! My w des stretched out, piecing their throats without giving them any chance to say theirst words. The weight on my arms disappeared as the two corpses began to vanish. I kicked them aside to see thest ninja leader running back inside to detonate the bombs. He must have seen there''s no way he can escape this so he''s nning to sacrifice himself to bring the ship down! I don''t have enough time to catch him because he stayed closer to the explosives. I aimed at my Revenger at his back. A Soul Chaser bolt urately prated his head, all the way to the forehead. But the igniter he took out is going to fall into the bombs! Big Pot and Passerby already saw the whole scene and they both covered their heads, ready to ept whatever''s going to happen. However, the igniter disappeared when a shadow shed in front of me. It''s Dart. I summoned him to stay on my shoulder just in case, now he did the job! I mean, he saved the entire ship, including everyone on it! I really don''t want to image what would happen if our main ammo depot blows up. "Ziri? Situation?" Hawk pinged me. "All good! That was too close. The bastards carried some dynamites to our ammo storage. Our ship was almost sent into the sky!" Hawk doesn¡¯t seem relieved as I expected. On the contrary, his expression turned dark. "You''d bettere back quick or we''ll get blown to the sky for real!" "Eh? What do you mean?" I asked about the situation while leading Big Pot and Passerby running onto the deck. When we reached there my mouth fell open. Along the area in front of our ship, hundreds of small life boats are packed together, with bombs on them! They''re simply charging towards us while totally ignoring our fire suppression. They are trying to take us down no matter the cost! "Archers! Area attack!" Hawk is standing on themand tform, ordering our Archers to block those suicide boats. But there are still a good number of theming through! The crystal cannon is also shooting at the boats. Each shot would take out a small area of enemies but that''s not enough. A boat sneaked past our fire barrage and went close enough. Elfy immediately took aim using her bow at the edge of the ship, and released her arrow, towards almost straight below her. The explosion arrow detonated the boat. But it was too close to us, the st power pushed Bi-Lin upward again. When the ship dropped to the surface everyone tumbled to the floor. "We aren''t going to survive many more hits like that!" Hawk panicked while looking at all the breaches along the ship. "Another one! Over there!" Big Pot yelled with broken sound. "You''re not!!" Elfy did her routine again. But this time she missed the mark. It''s too hard to shoot at something while standing on a swinging ship! "[Ray of Punishment]!" A sudden lightening sunk the ship into the water. Violet''spanion, Ashura, is holding his sword which is still giving out smoke. He saved us this time! However, a third, fourth and fifth boat quickly approached us. We can''t do anything now! I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Red Moon''s face, a little twisted because of all the overexcitement. "Red Moon?? Why are you--" "Promise me! Help me upy an enemy city for a day! And I''ll protect your ship this time!" She didn''t even wait for my answer before she walked to the edge and...jumped! I can''t see what happened under the railing from my position. I only know that there is a golden beam, from which a shadow emerged and went towards the enemy boats at extreme speed. I can''t make out what it is because it''s too fast. That...thing, bounced between the suicide boats in an blink of an eye, before ALL the boats just exploded where they were! And now the terrible bomber crowd is nowhere to be found! I mean, the entire enemy kamikaze team was turned into smoking shreds before our brain can register what we just saw! What on the mothend was that?? I''m sure that thing can easily kill me in any situation and I won''t have any chance to get prepared. Could it be...? Chapter 102: The Lady Wolf Chapter 102: The Lady Wolf Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - I''m sure that thing can easily kill me in any situation and I won''t have any chance to get prepared. Is that Red Moon? The unknown figure wiped out all bomb boats within 30 seconds and returned to our ship. Now I can clearly observe it as--a werewolf? It''s one of those typical mythology monsters in movies, a bipedal wolf-like creature, which stands about two meters tall. Though that''s not very highpared to ordinary orcs. It, or she, has pure white fur. She would look amazing, even beautiful, if not for those sharp fangs sticking out of that slightly opened muzzle. The heavy breathing indicates that she''s exhausted from the attack. Blood, as well as some unknown yellowish liquid is dripping down from those long, pointy ws. Nobody moved, since no one knows who this is or what to do. Red Moon? That doesn''t feel right. Red Moon is a...Divine Demon Mage, if I remembered right. That''s nowhere near a werewolf. Herpanion maybe? But why did she jump from the ship herself? I have too many questions, but I don''t think I need an answer when I saw Gale running to the creature. The werewolf fainted and fell into Gale''s arms. He signaled me toe over. "So she IS Red Moon?" I''m still not 100% sure about that. Gale however, did not give me an exact answer either. "I guess. Well, I don''t know. She told me she had some transformation skill like this but...this is the first time she ever used it in front of me." "That''s not important now. Take her to the cabin!" We carried her below. One man is not enough to lift her now. When I went past Hawk I gave him a kick on the leg to wake him up. "Tell everyone to get back to the cannons! Don''t stop firing!" "Eh, huh? Oh!" He finally remembered our situation. "To the cannons you lot! Don''t just stand there, fire! Hit''em until you can''t find any targets!" We went into the lounge room and put Red Moon onto a bed. "Hey Gale? So...what should we do to her?" We thought Red Moon is unconscious for good so we are not expecting her to...suddenly lunge at us! Gale tried to press her down, only to be knocked out of the room by a w swipe. I turned for the door, but I didn''t get to advance a single step when I felt a stinging pain on my shoulder and fell down. The creature bit my shoulder. Those fangs pierced my Dark Dragon Lord armor like paper and sunk into my flesh! This is no time to go easy on woman now (and I don''t think this is a woman at all). I punched at Red Moon''s head with all my strength. It didn''t work! Out of desperation, I removed the small shield on my gauntlet and used it to bash her head. Blood ising out but she''s still not releasing the bite! Gale stumbled back into the door while holding his head. He saw the scene and came to separate us, and he''s mmed away again! It''s quite funny if you think about it, a Knight, a big brother, is thrown away like a total defenseless toy figure by his little sister mage. The pain on my shoulder ceased. I quickly moved back a little when I saw the bloody beast mawing for me again, aimed at my neck this time. I tried to block, and she locked her bite onto my left arm. With some creak and crack, my gauntlet is torn into a strange shape. Ohe on I''m gonna waste a ton to repair it again!! "-ARHHHHH!!" She''s biting harder, I can''t hold it back and screamed. I managed to curl up my leg and gave her a good kick on the stomach. My arm is free but from the shape of it I can tell it''s already broken. "Argh!" I didn''t have time to do anything before Red Moon charged back and pinned me down again. We rolled on the ground all the way towards the door. I opened up my w des on the right hand to block another bite. Creak! Those straight des turned into curved metal. She didn''t stop for any second before biting at my face again. This time my right arm is caught! "Ziri!!" Rose appeared. Not knowing what to do, she just ran to us and stabbed Red Moon''s back using her staff. Of course that won''t do any damage. Rose is also sent flying by a wolf w. Gale rushed to her and saved her from crashing into the metal wall. "Requiem, [Melody of Tranquility]!!" Yuri showed up and slowed down the deadly attack! Red Moon stopped. Her teeth are still inside my arm but she''s not making any further moves. I watched as her eyes turned from bright red into ck, then she released me and stood up. I crawled and rolled towards Yuri with all the embarrassment and unmanliness you can find. This is the first time something scared the shit out of me. Those reckless attacks will only give me nightmares! In real life! Red Moon looked around, raised her head and made a distant howl. The sharp and terrible wolf howl grew weak, and finally turned into the whining of a woman. That two-meter tall figure became smaller, all the white fur slowly disappeared. Okay...she turned back into the real Red Moon, but¡­ "DON''T LOOK!!" Rose turned my head towards another direction. Aww my neck! Gale also turned around in panic. As you can guess, Red Moon is naked now. Usually every yer has a non-destructible underwear, and a pair of simple bra for female yers. But for some reason Red Moon is now standing in the cabin without a single string on her. "Ahem!! I''ll go get some medic." Gale left towards the sick bay. "I''lle too!" I quickly followed him. Rose is behind me too. "Yuri, take care of Red Moon, and ready your song just in case she goes crazy again!" "Okay. Leave it to me!" We came to the doctor (Rose pushed me all the way from behind). An NPC priestess healed my broken arms, but she aren''t going to fix my left gauntlet which looks like a waste metal can. And the w des on my right hand...they look like twisted bread! Ugh! Money! Gone! And I haven''t paid all my debt yet! Gale is fully recovered since he only suffered small injuries. "Is your armor alright?" "No! Totally no!" I waved my left arm, creating a nking noise. "It almost came off. And look at this!" I pointed at my shoulder and right arm, where series of teeth marks can be seen. "Aren''t your dear sister strong. Even cannon shots can''t kill me, but she almost did. Remind me next time to never get her nerves again. I''m not going near that werewolf or werewolfess or whatever, ever again!" "I didn''t know, she never showed me! I guess I should say sorry too. And don''t worry about your armor, I''ll help you with it." Now that''s a lot of relief. "Now I think about it, why did she hate me so much? She knocked you away twice but she only kept her attacks on me! Okay I know, so she''s trying to get revenge for what I did to her before!" Rose chuckled beside me. "...Funny?" "Of course you''re funny." "Me?" "So you want to know why Red Moon bites you?" Her chuckling turned into mildughter. She''s trying to hold it back. And she failed. "I think I know why she chose you, not Gale." "Why?" We asked in united voice. Rose pulled our arms together. I''m at loss first. But as I observed... Gale''s arm is, well, strong, a typical man''s arm, with muscles. While my arm...is white as cake cream. Now if you ce our arms in front of a starving wolf, the choice is too obvious. "Bah--hahaha!" Gale caught the idea and began tough. "Heh heh. So this---AHHHHHH!!" A searing pain went up through my arm, followed by unbearable itching, as if a thousand ants are crawling under my skin! An unknown feeling sapped all the strength from me, then I fell t on the floor. "What-what''s wrong?? Ziri?" Rose held me up in panic. I''m starting to convulse, then the pain forced me to straighten all my limbs and roar. That roaring is nothing human-like. My voice slowly turned into wolf howl. My left arm is bared now, and I noticed patches of ck, soft fur emerging from it, until they grew longer and covered my whole arm. My nails became sharp ws with metallic gleam. I''m also growing taller, now I have to lower my head a little to stand in the room! "Zi-Ziri? Are you... alright?" Rose approached me but Gale pulled her back. I tried to move my body. Hum, there''s no strange feeling anymore, the only difference is that I feel super invigorated. I have no problem controlling myself. I raised my hand(?) and looked at those terrifying natural weapons, wooah, scary. I looked at Rose and tried to use my tongue. "Rose?" "Ziri? You''re...you?" "I guess so." I moved my neck. Boomp! I bumped into the ceiling. "Well, a bit hard to move around in here." "You are not frenzied or something?" Gale asked since my situation is totally different from the crazy Red Moon. "Duh, I''m speaking to you. Oh god, my armor!" Did I break up my entire armor outfit like this?? I looked down to find that my armor set also became bigger with my body. Even the leg guards changed their style to suit a werewolf''s reversed leg joints! So now I''m an armored werewolf, a big one! "Can you turn back?" "Let me try!" I ordered my brain. Then my body returned normal pretty well. Not a single of those beast hairs can be seen now. "All good." "Impressive," Rose stroked my arm. "you know, that fluffy body is actually pretty cute. How about just go out like that next time?" "You want me to be a real ''wolf''?" (*) I hugged Rose, ready to kiss her. "As you wish!" Weugh. All the stress is lifted from us. "So, what kind of bonus do you get after that transform?" Gale asked. "Maybe we can also find out why Red Moon went out of control." "One moment." I opened my status window and noticed a message telling me that all attributes are doubled upon transformation. But I didn''t find anything rted to side-effects. My skill bar...there''s a [Transform: Werewolf] skill. It costs 6 MP per second, and I''ll turn back if my MP bar goes empty. "I don''t see any side effects. It''s just a skill, I can decide when to use it or cancel it on my own." Now I think about it, my MP regeneration speed is almost 6 per second. Which means... can I keep the form permanent as long as I don''t use any other skills or spells? Good. It''s a nice boost and simple to use. "Hey Ziri, can you turn into that again?" Rose asked while swinging my arm. "Sure." I triggered the skill and grew bigger. I''m not getting that pain and itchiness anymore. "Any reason you want me to do this?" I asked Rose. I didn''t find her though, she walked behind me. A strange feeling came up from behind. Someone is touching me, or...not? Weird, whoever touched me isn''t doing it on any body part I can normally tell. I turned my head and looked at Rose, who''s pulling on my tail. "I forgot to check this just now. Now I see it, it feels good. Ohh, bushy!" "Hey!" I pulled it back. "Don''t do that okay? Doesn''t feel right." She dragged it back. "Ohe on. Don''t be mean, let me use it for a while." ''Use''?? "Ziri? So what''s going--huh?" Hawk pushed the door open and instantly froze when he saw Rose trying to catch the tail of a 2-meter tall werewolf. He did saw us carrying Red Moon inside, but she was pure white back then, not this pitch ck creature, which is me. "Is that--" "Oh hello Hawk." "Ziri??" His jaw dropped. "You--but--how--" "Red Moon bit me." I picked up my wasted left gauntlet. "See? So what''s the situation up there?" "Oh. I was going to tell you that the Japanese retreated. What should we do?" "What else can we do? We return to the port." "But all the Chinese boats went after them!" He gave me a sad look. "If we turn back now people may think us in the wrong way." "Huh. Look at that big hole back there! There are storms on the public sea. Do you think we''ll be safe? I don''t care what they or the Japanese think. I don''t want to damage our ship further for no good reason." "I get it." Hawk nodded. "I''ll go tell them." "Wait!" Gale stopped him. "Tell your gman to send a message to them. Tell them I order all ships from Goddess Alliance and Righteous League to return to base now. I don''t agree to this meaningless pursuit either." "Will do." Hawk left. "So you agree with me?" I turned to Gale. "The Japanese came prepared, and we must admit their overall firepower is beyond our people. We''ll only lose more ships if we continue, and that''s assuming we can catch their speed at all. We''re protecting our port this time. But if we go after them, that will be another case." "Aha. Great men think alike." I patted on his shoulder, by which I mean I mmed him onto the floor. "Oh oops. Sorry, sorry. I''m not used to this yet." I quickly pulled him up. "Good lord. Nice hit." He rubbed his bottom. "Maybe you can give me a bite too. I want that skill! That''s perfect for a Warrior ss like us." "Yeah, we go ask Red Moon about the details when she''s ready. If everything''s fine I''ll just bite everyone and create a werewolf army for us. " "Ziri! Come. Miss Moon woke up!" Yuri ran into the room. "You''re--" Okay, another one. "Easy. That''s Ziri, and he''s not going to do anything. Let''s go see my sister." Everyone left the room while I followed from behind. Bonk! I hit my head on the doorframe. Geez I really need to remember this. I decided to turn back normal to walk around the ship. When I reached Red Moon''s room it''s packed with people. Everyone came. Well, the battle is over after all. I squeezed past the crowd and saw Gale talking with Red Moon. She escaped my eyesight when I looked at her. Huh this is new, the first time she''s not trying to create scenes with me. "How does it look?" I walked to them. Red Moon remained silent so Gale answered me. "All''s well expect that she lost 100 levels." "100?!" I jumped. "That''s ridiculous. 100 levels! Just to win one fight? And, why did she, you know, bite me?" Red Moon...blushed? She turned to face the wall and covered her head. "What''s the deal?" Gale gave Hawk a signal. The straight-headed Pdin didn''t get what he meant at all, so Elfy moved in and asked everyone to leave the room. When the room is clear, Gale exined slowly: "The transformation is a very particr skill. First of all, you don''t learn this skill. You get ''contracted'' when another one bites you, like rabies. However..." He considered his words. "It has different oue on different people. Someone resist it better." "Like me?" "Yes. The disease turned out to be a powerful skill on you, controble on free will and no other loss. Red Moon is an iplete immune. Her transformation onlysts for three minutes, her sanity, one. When one minute passes, she loses all surface consciousness. When the process ends she will lose 100 levels, and she cannot use the skill at all if she''s below 100. You may not know this but her case is actually a good one. There are other victims who will simply turn into a savage beast until all MP is spent, some people cannot turn back at all, and someone will just die t. I mean, they die for real. They go back to level zero." "Jesus cakes. Thank god I didn''t bite Rose." "Huh? You actually wanted to bite me??" Rose stepped back. "You''re a beast you know that?" "As you can see, I am!" I approached Rose and received a series of love punches. "You haven''t told us why Red Moon wouldn''t let him go?" Rose raised the point. "Well, about that..." Gale looks troubled. "As I said, she loses all surface consciousness right? The problem is what remains afterwards, her deep consciousness." " ...You mean, her deep consciousness tells her to bite me? I know she hates me but does she hate me THAT much? She even wrote it into her instinct?" "Nonono, that¡¯s not it. Normally, she''s always thinking about you. And a creature''s instinct is self-protection and finding food. When she turned, those ideas mixed up. She was trying to find food from the one person always on her mind. In other words, she attacked you because you are one of the people she won''t forget." The room became silent. I don''t know how I should respond to that. So Red Moon''s always thinking about me? Is that normally how things go when someone hates people? I don''t get it. Rose went silent too because it just doesn''t feel right when someone else keeps thinking about your husband, no matter for what kind of reason. She just found herself a rival(?), and a trouble! As for Yuri... the situation is too much to take in for this innocent girl! Gale on the other hand, is at total loss as he doesn''t know what to do with her sister''s unclear attitude towards me. He''s her big brother alright, but he''s still an outsider in a situation like this. Red Moon never spoke a word from the start. She just wanted to jump into the sea and end all the embarrassment. --------------- (*) In Chinese, a pervert, hentai, or whatever you call it, is usually referred to as a "wolf". Chapter 103: The Unknown Artillery Ship Chapter 103: The Unknown Artillery Ship Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - "Ahem. I uh, I''ll go see the deck." I decided to quit first and left the room. "Me too!" Rose followed me. "I, you, um, you should get some rest!" Yuri came too. It¡¯s hard to breathe in that room for some reason. I stood on the deck. The chilling sea breeze made me feel a lot better. Rose hugged me from behind and I held her hands. We simply enjoyed the moment without saying anything. "I''m risking my life fighting enemies and you losers came here ying Titanic?? Go to hell!" "Ahh!!" Something pushed us from behind. I can tell someone kicked us. The problem is, this is my ship, NPCs won''t do that, and none of my teammates would, either. So what the fuc? No time for that now cause we are going to fall into the sea at this rate! "Transform!!" I turned in mid-air. I used one w to hold Rose''s waist, then stuck the other into the ship''s side. As I expected, the knife-like nails easily went into the metal, locking us in ce. Using the spikes on my armor, I climbed back onto the deck with several leaps. "Who the fuck did that?" "I did! Problem with that?" It''s the Spellsword we tied up earlier. What was his name? Wuyuu? He''s staring at me in anger, arms crossed. "Hey what''s your problem??" "I just don''t like you, sucker!" "Ah is that so?" I''m getting annoyed. Anyone would when someone interrupts their romance like that. "Which part exactly?" "Everything about you! Are you the captain of this ship?" "So what?" "You told them to retreat?" He cracked his knuckles. "Loser! Weakling!" "I did. Do I have to ask YOU to order MY ship?" I pushed Rose away and got ready for a fight. "Why did you let the Japanese go?? What are you nning? A traitor?" This is getting ridiculous. "And you--Ow! What the fu--" "ARE YOU TRYING to get everyone, EVERYONE, on your bad side???" War Chant dragged him aside by pulling his ear. Then he turned to me. "I apologize, don''t take him serious, he¡¯s always like that. " "No problem. But I''d advise you to take good care of your friend. Not everyone is good at forgiving people." I shouldn''t push the matter too hard since someone''s trying to be nice. "Thanks buddy. Every time he''s fighting pirates he loses all his mind. You know, we joined several fights before and none of the other ships would ever let him on board now. When anyone doesn''t sink the enemy ship or gets sunk themselves, this guy will just call them traitors." "Huh, interesting. You two can follow us then." "You sure?" He looks surprised. "He causes troubles you know." "All you want to do is to fight the Japanese right?" "Yeah but--" I silenced him. "That''s enough. You two are my vanguard captains now. Just do your job, I will--" "ENEMIES INCOMING!!" The lookout interrupted our conversation with an rm. Boom! An explosion erupted from the side rails of Bi-Lin. Cannon shot! Why did the rme sote, when someone already hit us?? "Give me their position!" I yelled while running towards the crystal cannon. "Behind us! 5 o''clock, about 3,000 yards!" "What??" I halted. "What kind of cannon can reach 3 thousand yards?" "Those are long-range shooters! Three of them!" The lookout yelled back. "I saw them too! There are more!" Chief officer reported while looking through his monocr. "They''re getting close. And they''re faster!" He didn''t even wait for my order. "All hands in position! Load the cannons! Helm! Full right turn! Cut the main sail, right oars, reverse pilot! Let''s turn around!" Hawk rushed up from the cabin area. "What''s happening?? More enemies?" "I don''t know. They don''t have gs. Probably Japanese. They used those long range cannons." Chief officer gave his monocr to Hawk. "...I see them. But why didn''t theye out earlier? That sniping ship has only one of these cannon right? But they--" "Whatever, let''s get them under the sea!" I observed the enemy ship. "One, two... I see 18 cannons. How about you?" "Affirmative. 18 of them." Second officer confirmed. "20! Another two located at tip and rear!" Came from the lookout. "That''s too many!" Hawkined when another round flew towards us. The shot broke our second main mast in half, the entire sail cloth fell down to the deck, causing us to scatter away. But it''s toorge, we''re still covered under. "Shit that''s powerful." I crawled away from the giant cloth and cursed at the distant enemy ship. "Hawk, to the crystal cannon!" "Coming!" I entered the cannon slot and took aim. With the help of Star Gaze I locked up the enemy soon. "Fire!" Hawk pulled the shooting lever, releasing a violet bullet. We watched the bullet with a long trail going towards the enemy at pretty slow speed. It didn''t hit. My aim was good, but there''s another problem. Normal cannons are propelled by fire powders, while a crystal cannon''s bullet is driven by the energy crystal. It has superior range and powerpared to those iron rounds. The problem is, the bullet is too slow! It''s big, and glowing. No fools would stay where they are if they see this flying fireball approaching them! I said slow only inparison with other weapons. The actually bullet speed it still fast. But the ship we''re facing now is probably the fastest ship in Japan, and we''re too far away from each other. It took 12 seconds for the bullet to travel to them, during which the enemies already left their original position. I watched in distress as the bullet grazed past their tail and fell into the sea. The attack isn''t totally useless, it brought up a giant water pir which caused a big tidal wave, mming into the small ship. I don''t know how much damage we caused but there''s another bonus to it--a series of smaller water pirs went up around our ship, so the enemies made a full volley at us but our attack caused their shots to miss their mark. Chief officer gave the order. "Full speed! Close in and ready ye cannons!" We''re facing each other head-to-head so we approached soon enough. "Fire away!" We started our attacks at the same time. There''s no n or strategy, we''re simply shooting as fast as we can. They tried to keep distance, but Bi-Lin is no slower. And that tidal wave disrupted their movement for a good amount of time which gave up enough chance to catch them. Ships aren''t cars, you can''t turn around at free will. Well, maybe something like Bi-Lin with hundreds of pilot oars can. The 300 side cannons on our side opened up almost the same number of holes on the enemy. They did the same, but that damage is negligible, considering Bi-Lin''s size. They went past us without turning direction, so they are just trying to gain distance again. I quickly ordered the chief officer: "Around! Go after them!" "Drop the right anchor! Right oars reverse! Release the helm!" The giant iron anchor hanging on the right side was thrown into the sea. The chain dragged the ship into arge U-turn which is usually impossible forrge ships. The two helmsmen released the giant wheel, which began to spin madly. I''m sure if any one of them did it earlier than the other, someone will be sent flying away. The sharp turn gave everyone on the ship the urge to vomit. I''ve ridden a fighter jet before and I think this G force is as good as a fighter giving an aerobatic show. Not only us, the enemies are terribly shocked as well. It¡¯s like watching a 20-meter long overloaded cargo truck drifting on the road in front of your face! Several ships from the Righteous League are also within sight. Our maneuver raised a terrible sea wave which traveled all the way to them, almost knocking them over. Now we''re exactly facing the enemy''s rear. Before I can give the order, Hawk pulled on my hand. "Wait, we can try to take those cannons for ourselves. Maybe we can figure out how to build them." "Nice idea." I left the cannon. "Chief! Hook them up!" "Retract the ramming horn! Raise the ballista and bring the hook rope!" A giant ballista came out of a hatch on the front of the deck. A dozen sailors carried a rope as thick as a human leg and installed it onto the weapon. There''s a winss connected in the back, operated by another dozen sailors. With a loud BANG! The bolt was shot towards the enemy ship. It precisely hit them in the rear and stuck inside. "Reverse paddle and drop the anchors! Pull!" Bi-Lin stopped solid. Sailors on the winss began to retract the rope, which quickly straightened up, causing the enemy ship to suddenly leave the water surface for a brief moment and drop down again. "Archers!" I told our Archers to line up and ready for closebat. Allbat sailors are standing ready on the deck now. The winss is still spinning, pulling us closer and closer. I stood at the tip and transformed into werewolf mode. I looked at the approaching ship while dripping some saliva from my mouth, totally ruining my leader image. "All mine! Wooha-ha-ha-ha!" "Go, go, GO!!" A figure charged past me before I can do anything else. I didn''t see who that is but I can pretty much guess it. Wuyuu. No doubt about it. The ship''s still far, and he just went there by traveling on the rope. Man, is that even possible? He''s not slowing down to keep bnce. Did he practice wire-walking before? The rope may be thick but it''s swaying between two unstable ships! And he rushed to the other end like it''s nothing! Well, only him anyway. No one else moved, since sailors only listen to the orders from me, or the deputy captain, Hawk. As for the other yers, they''re not stupid as to walk on this rope when there''s an obvious better choice. So now Wuyuu is the only one on the enemy ship. He''s surrounded, as it should be. "Archers!" I ordered the long range sailors to attack. This won''t help Wuyuu escape but can at least provide him more options. Our first round of attacks quickly ignited enemy ship''s deck. There isn''t much movement over there. Their ship is designed to leverage their extraordinary attack range and escaping speed so they didn''t even consider the possibility of a boarding fight. With a small collision (for us, at least), our ships connected with each other. "Now go!" I gave the order and jumped first. I was nning to jump onto their tip but...I found myselfnding in the middle instead. Thank goodness I didn''t aim farther or I''ll probably be swimming again. Enemy sailors immediately closed up on me. I punched a random sailor into the sea and jumped towards the entrance to their cabin with an easy hop. "@%^&*&)#$%....!" Some iprehensible speech reached my ears. I know it''s foreignnguage but I''m sure it¡¯s not Japanese. This is not a Japan ship? Who else would suddenly attack us for no reason in a time like this? I grabbed the yelling man and tossed him over to Bi-Lin. "Chief, lock him up!" "Yes sir!" I searched around for more yers. Maybe they have someone who can speak ournguage. This is very likely since they came here as intruders. A yer wearing cloth turban answered my question. "Indians??" The battle is already over. They''re totally defenseless. No defender sailors. We put the enemy ship under control and held a conference in themand room. King Conqueror has been with the Righteous League all along, when he heard this is our ship, he came up as a spectator. "Yup, Indians." I told him. "They wear their clothes, and I know I heard thatnguage somewhere before." "We should have brought some prisoners." King sighed. "We did. 7 of them." "Really? Where?" "Here on the ship. I locked them up." "What??" He jumped. "They can''t use teleport on the sea but they can always go back by killing themselves! Dead yers get revived on the ship but once their ship is gone or captured they''ll directly go back to their cities. Did you check on them?" "Don''t worry. We built all kinds of random cabins and rooms because we have too much free space. Of course there are prisons too. As the captain I can force the prisoners to remain here for up to 24 hours, online hours. They either wait for my permission to get back or wait for that long. Oh, killing themselves is possible, but they''ll have to do it until they hit level 20 and get sent back to the Rookie Vige." "So you haven''t questioned them yet?" "You speak Hindi?" "Well, we can use the system interpretation, no?" "Try it." He fiddled around his system menus. "...So we can''t use it on the sea." "I told them to return at full speed. We can do it back at the port. Oh right, what''s going on with the pursuers?" "They returned to port." "Already??" Wuyuu yelled, then he turned to me. "Look! They beat up the Japanese and already returned home with all the glory!" King continued: "They were hit hard by Japanese reinforcements. All ships gone, everyone revived back at the port city." Wuyuu went silent. "Ohhhhh...the brave maiden..." We heard a gentle, charming female singing voice. It almost feels attractive, and somewhat...strange. I don''t think any yer is singing, since all yers are now guests on my ship and that voice isn¡¯t anywhere nearby. As for NPCs...there are no female sailors! Where did ite from? Chapter 104: Sirens Song Chapter 104: Siren''s Song Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - "Siren!" A sailor fell into the door and called out with pale face: "Ca-ca-captain it''s-is-is Siren!!" "...Captain is Siren? Come on, slowly." I pulled him up. "Ye-yes sir." He took a deep breath. "There are Sirens out there, a lot of them! Our ship is surrounded!" I looked at King Conqueror. He''s been on the sea for way longer than me. "They''re sea monsters. If you don''t know already, you can consider them as Mermaids." "Mermaids??" Big Pot let out a foolish smile. "Heehehe!" "Cut it!" Merciless knocked his head. "I know about Mermaids. Those things are awfully strong. You''ll just get dragged down into the water and torn up into a skeleton." "For real? Are we talking about Mermaids or Piranhas?" "Stop it." I waved a hand at them and signaled King to continue. "Just like in the stories, they have human body on the upper half, and a fish tail. No legs. Mermaids are extremely beautiful while Mermen have handsome looks that can charm any female. But they fight like the deadliest warriors. No one wants to run into these things when sailing on the sea!" "Ca-captain!!" Someone else stumbled into the door. It''s my second officer. "They''re going to attack--" The singing voice changed. It became a cadenced chorus, with a vocal and a group of apaniment. It does sound wonderful but I already have experience with Yuri''s skills. This is not good for health! "To the deck!!" I urged everyone to go up there while waking up anyone who seems to be losing their consciousness. I saw bunches of staggering sailors along the way. Even the second officer is talking with a thick tongue now. When we reached the surface, the first thing I saw is a line of sailors standing along the rail and jumping down together. Damn it!! I pped my own face and rushed to the head of the ship. A group of Mermaids are swimming alongside Bi-Lin. Our ship is going at full speed and these creatures can keep up with us like enjoying the afternoon in a beach park! I soon noticed the one Mermaid among the group who is wearing a set of armor. It''s green, corset-style protection, which perfectly disyed her beautiful body curve. The other Mermaids only have two sea shells in front of their private parts. As for Mermen...they leave their upper body bared. That must be their leader! She''s not wearing helmet. I can clearly see that pretty face in many women''s dreams and those silky, blond hair. She''s singing something, and there''s no doubt she''s been leading the show! "What should we do?" I turned and asked King, without finding anyone. Everyone is lying on the floor, sleeping. With smiles! Ohe on this is no time for getting mercy killed! "Ziri! What''s going on?" Yuri ran up from the cabins. "Why are they sleeping? Miss Rose was with me and she just fell down!" "It''s the Mermaid song." I looked at her. "Why are you not sleeping like everyone else?" "I...don''t know. I don''t feel good but I can keep myself awake for now. And you''re also awake!" "So we both have something that can resist this." I looked around the deck. Yup, we two are the only ones still standing now. I walked to Hawk and shook him. Nope. I gave him two strong ps on the face. "Elfy--stooooop...heh heh heh heh..." This is hopeless. I found Big Pot and kicked him on the stomach. No reaction! Looks like I can''t wake up anyone by violent means. Sigh. I walked back to the ship''s tip and looked at the Mermaid leader again. "Hey you! What do you want?" She was surprised, but only for a second. The song changed again. Some high-pitched notes began to appear. She must be trying to take me down by using different voices but...I don''t feel anything, if not better than before. Yuri joined me and looked at the Mermaid too, which surprised her again. "Who are you? Why are you not sleeping under my song?" She stopped her singing. However no one is waking up. So the effect willst for a while. "I ask again, what do you want? Do you get any profit by putting my crew into sleep?" "Your ship!" I was expecting her to give me an answer like "your money" "food", even "your lives". But this is totally unexpected. "Give me your ship, and I''ll let your people leave on the other ships." She pointed at those alliance ships anchored a little farther away. "I only want this big one, and nothing else!" "But why do you want a ship?" I give her a doubtful look. "I mean, you are Mermaids! Can''t you swim in the sea?" "That''s none of your business. Hand over the ship and go, or we''ll kill all of you and take it!" "Too bad then. I''m not nning to give up my ship yet." No way. I''m still indebted to the shipyard for god''s sake! "So you don''t agree?" The Mermaid leader give me a stern face. "Last chance. Hand it over." "Not happening." I answered without hesitation. "Very well. I appreciate your courage, and I shall mourn over your foolish decision!" She waved at the rest of the group. "Get them!!" All Mermen jumped from the water and lunged at us! "Phiona!" They are basically fish, so fire will work! Phiona''s first move is to unleash a wide-spread fire storm around her. These magic mes are somewhat adhesive, any Merman contacted with them won''t be able to put them out unless they jump back into the water. "You''re strong." Their leader stared at me in anger. "Ready the [Ocean Soul]!" I don''t know what that is but definitely something bad. "Yuri, your song!" "Oh, right!" She just remembered to ready her flute and began her skill. "Variation of the Fallen Ones, Chapter One--[Decadent Spirit]!" Yuri''s song calmed the scene for some reason. The creatures are now looking at each other, with their expressions full of doubt and uncertainness. The leader slowly raised her voice and asked Yuri: "Siren''s Flute? Why is it in your possession?" Yuri didn''t answer. She continued her song. I think some of the enemies are getting affected. The Mermaid leader opened her mouth again. "Ohhh---..." Her song and Yuri''s flute turned into one. If not for the dire situation I''d believe they''re performing together. I know they''re not, however, from their painful expressions. Sweat is streaming down from Yuri''s forehead. The songsted for several minutes, and Yuri''s clothes is soaked with sweat now. Yuri paused, took in a deep breath and raised her flute again. "Variation of the Fallen Ones, Chapter Three--[Dancing Spirit]!" The once gentle flute suddenly turned violent, which caused theposed Mermaid leader to jump a little. A water pir appeared under the Mermaid and lifted her up. She changed her posture and is now...standing on the pir? Her tail changed into a pair of legs! "[Ocean Soul]!" She''s now singing in an unknownnguage. I don''t really have to understand the lyrics since I can visibly see the air around me getting disturbed. There are sound wavesing out from the two! Phiona spun in mid-air and fell into the water. I quickly un-summoned her. Yuri''s notes are getting faster. I can feel my body heating up. The Mermaid¡¯s song is also bing faster, and moreplex! Whatever they''re doing, they must have reached the climax of it. My chest feels like getting torn up from the inside! So this is what it feels to "have your blood boiling". Well, I think my blood is boiling for real, cause red liquid is flowing out of my nose like running water! I''m not the only one. Most of the Mermaid/Mermen are having the same symptoms. Some weaker ones are even giving out blood from their eyes. The Mermaid leader is no longer handling the situation with ease. Her voice is trembling. Yuri would also produce several wrong notes now, and she''s also nose bleeding. To be precise, everyone in my sight, including those on deck and those swimming in the water, are bleeding. Except for the Mermaid leader. It''s time to do something. I walked to the front and stared at the leader. She saw my gaze. I grinned, and turned into werewolf. Oh hello dear, let''s see if you can handle me while keeping up your song. I leaped over our distance with ease and lunged towards the water pir. I saw her confident smile, before I crashed into something and was bounced back. There was a pale blue sphere shaped barrier shing around the Mermaid. Well shoot, so she has backup ns. It''s a good thing that all the other enemies are struggling against the song or I''ll be in serious trouble. I didn''t return or try again. Instead, I jumped into the middle of the Mermaids. All''s fair in a war. Don''t me me for this. I grabbed a random Mermaid and swam towards my ship. Wait, am I swimming in dog-paddle style? Oh well. I climbed onto the deck while carrying the semi-unconscious Mermaid. The Mermaid leader saw my action. She can only give me stares, since she can''t move. I lifted the captured Mermaid in front of me and move my w in front her neck, then I gave their leader a wicked grin. My intention is obvious. The leader only gazed at me for several seconds, before she closed her eyes. I see tears on her face now. She didn''t stop her song however, she only made it even more aggressive. Yuri''s bleeding through her ears now! I dropped the Mermaid. No use for her since my hostage n failed. I''m not a ughterer anyway. The Mermaid looks pretty good (if you only consider her face, that is), I don''t feel like killing her for no good reason. Without any good idea, I removed my gauntlets and pressed my furred ws against Yuri''s ears. Though I don''t know if this would work at all. It''s possible that the Mermaid''s song can went through your veins. And nope. It''s no good, telling from Yuri''s unchanged painful expression. Phiona fainted...I wonder if Tank can hold himself against the song. Insects have different ways of hearing their environment, if I remembered correctly. I quickly summoned him. The giant beetle looked around for a bit and locked his gaze onto the Mermaid leader at once. I opened his status window and saw a list of numbers disyed in white, which means the music doesn''t affect him. "Tank, go!" Tank lifted himself while creating a loud buzzing sound. Yuri let out a sigh in relief, so we somehow interrupted the song. Tank already reached the Mermaid and used those sharp scythes to attack. As I thought, they only created some sparks on that blue sphere. Tank moved back a little and spat acid at the barrier. Green liquid covered the entire sphere, only to reveal the undamaged protection after a brief moment. So acid doesn''t work either. Tank changed tactic. This time he used his orange colored fire beam. It didn''t work. The barrier is still unharmed after getting burned for several seconds. Darn it. This thing''s hard! In the end, Tank charged ahead again and sprung open his hidden forelimbs. Those two bone hammers hit the sphere and caused a sharp "BANG!". The barrier shed a little but remained intact. That said, the Mermaid leader inside is obviously shocked. The force of the attack still went through and affected her. I pressed on the Fire Gem on my forehead and summoned Dragon Wasps. A swarm of over 700 ho-like creatures appeared around me, gazing at the Mermaid with bright red eyes. I''m sure this looks pretty terrifying from the outside. With a finger snap, all Dragon Wasps flew towards the barrier, creating a round ball formation around it. They bite and cut at the barrier, which is beginning to show signs of instability. I ordered some of the wasps to back off, then I told the remaining 300 wasps to self-destruct. After a terrible explosion, the sphere stayed but is not bright as before. Hearing my signal, Tank rushed again and gave another mighty bash at the barrier. Crack! The sphere shattered with the sound of breaking ss, spreading glimmering shards everywhere. The Mermaid can no longer maintain her magic at this rate. Her song stopped midway, that water pir also disappeared. Then she just fell towards the water. At the same time, Yuri fell towards the floor. I caught her before she hit the deck but she''s already fainted! I gently put Yuri down and looked down at the surface. The Mermaid leader is ordering her subordinates to retreat. Well of course I won''t let them escape like that. Without much thought, I dived into the water and followed them. My Dark Dragon Lord set can help me breathe under water so I don''t feel much stress. However...my swimming sucks! The enemies are not in their best condition, still, our distance grewrger and soon I lost track of them! Now I don''t know where or how deeper I am. My armor keeps me alive but it can''t help me find my way! Ok. So now I''m lost in the sea. Perfect. There''s only water around me. I can neither see the surface, nor the sea floor. The only thing I can do is to swim upwards. The sky is dark when I reached the surface. There''s the moon providing some light but I can''t see very far. I used my Star Gaze to look around. Nothing. So either Bi-Lin has left, or I went to the wrong ce by myself. Probably thetter, cause I don''t think my crew will just abandon me. My private chat and teleportation ring both proved to be useless on the sea. Crap. So I can only kill myself to get back to my ship now? "Ohh, fancy meeting you here." A gentle female voice came from behind. I turned around and immediately got ready to defend myself. "You know I was after you?" It''s the Mermaid leader! She just smile. "You know, when you swim under the water you sound like a motor boat. I can hear you from miles away. I''m not deaf." "Why are you here?" I scouted around in caution. I''m confident in my strength but...this is the sea, I''m not sure I can keep my advantage in the water, against a seaborne monster. "You were following us right? I came to get you, since you lost your way." That serious attitude whenpeting with Yuri is nowhere to be found. "Get me? To where?" "You will see." She dived under and I followed behind. I can''t find Bi-Lin anyway, might as well find something to do. "So why exactly did you attack our ship?" "Isn''t it normal for monsters to assault yers? If we don''t, the sea will be a ce crowded with yers to train themselves. We don''t want that." Like rk, apparently this Mermaid has the same level of intelligence. As they said, the Lost City is a testing field for advanced AIs. Maybe I just found another? Chapter 105: Atlantis Chapter 105: Antis Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - I followed the Mermaid leader for quite a while when I noticed that we have been swimming towards the depth. From my speed I''d say we''re at least 300 meters under the surface now but...strange, I don''t feel any water pressure. Before I can decide to ask her where we are, I saw my surroundings bing brighter, as if the surface is below us! A giant, underwater city came into my view. There are all sorts of light sources among the buildings, illuminating the area. Together with all the unknown yet beautiful fish crowds and glowing jellyfish around me, this ce feels like a dream. "Isn''t it wonderful?" The Mermaid suddenly turned back and asked me. "Huh? Oh! Yes, truly." I admit I''m totally attracted by the scenery. Why is there something like this under the sea? "This city won''t survive for much longer." She sounds...sad. "But why? It''s so beautiful." "Our energy source is running out." "Energy source? You mean, you need electricity?" Funny. Thepany created a sea city that requires electric power? But the Mermaid gave me a puzzled look. "Electricity? You mean lightning? Why would we need that?" Okay...this means they don''t know about electric. Maybe they use something else. The developers probably wouldn''t ce modern technology into this game. Maybe fire powders, or steam power, at best. "Can you tell me about that ''running out'' part?" "It''s our core energy source. It is failing, if we don''t find something to rece it soon the city will stop functioning." "That...isn''t really enough exnation. Take me there. Maybe I can help." "That would be perfect." We continued towards the city. When we''re close enough I found out that this is not a city but a series of metropolises connected together. There are 13 half-sphere shaped dome structures, each protecting a city from the water. The Mermaid led me to one of the central ones. When we approached the dome I saw a door. Well, at least I think it''s door. The domes are transparent, while this "door" is blue, which really stands out. The Mermaid swam straight through the door. I followed behind. Before I enter, I tried poking it with my hand. The inside is empty, I mean, there''s no water inside! "What are you waiting for? Come in." The Mermaid turned around and saw me still ying with the door. She went back and pulled me over. "If you help us solve our crisis, we can just give you some of these doors if you find them interesting." "Oh!" I kept following her while looking around at everything in curiosity like a country bumpkin. All constructions here have round, smooth outlines. There are roadmps along the streets, poles with giant, white crystals on their tips. So the gentle light I saw from the outside came from them. Most buildings have pale yellow walls and pale blue doors. Colorful but pleasant to the eye. There are pedestrians on the street. I only see young people or children. There''s not a single elder for some reason. As King Conqueror said, they all have stunning looks. I don''t feel special here but I''m sure I should never let Big Pot know about this ce or he''ll just try to flirt with every Mermaid. "Here." The leader stopped. "This is the energy tower of Antis." The tower is at least 300 meters tall. It reaches all the way towards the dome. So this tower provides energy to support the domes and prevents water froming inside. As I watched, I saw the tip of the tower blinking, and it sometimes gives out strange noises. "Come on." She pulled me inside. There are four guards standing along the entrance but they didn''t say anything since their leader is here. The object in the center immediately caught my attention. Actually it is the only object inside the tower. It''s a...how do I describe it, an electric fork? There''s a rectangle pedestal, about one meter tall, with a hollow on it. A water well-like structure is embedded inside it. A pitch ck cylindrical object, 1 meter in diameter, is sticking out of the "well". Eight glowing sticks that look pretty much like fluorescent tubes are floating around it. They are slowly rotating, centered around the ck stick. And it looks as if they may stop moving any time now. "This is the ''crisis''?" "That''s right." She looks desperate. "This is the Magick Barrier Generator in Antis, which has been supporting all thirteen cities. It also provides us with everything else, protection, light, oxygen, food. Now it''s about to stop moving. When that happens our cities will bepleted immersed in water. Newborn Mermaids cannot breathe underwater in their starting years. If our next generation dies, our entire race will be no more. And Antis will stop existing." "What''s the cause? It has been well for many decades, if not longer, right?" She pointed at the base of the cylinder, where another white crystal is located, bigger than any I saw outside. "There, the energy crystal is depleted. It was violet once, the pale color indicates it won''tst long. Recently, our barrier has begun to fade. Our demise will be any moment now." "So...how should I help?" " It''s simple, really. Offer your energy crystal to us and everything will be solved!" She said that while floating about only one centimeter from me, looking at me with big, demanding eyes. "I don''t mean to be rude but, I don''t have those things." "Of course you do. I can feel it, there is one single energy crystal on your ship, a big one. That''s why we attacked your ship in the first ce." "On my ship?" I searched around my brain. "Can you tell me where exactly? I must''ve forgotten." "I...only have a vague idea. But I''m quite certain it''s somewhere around the front deck of your vessel." "Front deck...? The crystal cannon? It can''t be..." "Yes, or very close to it!" She began to use seduce tactic. "Pleeease, I''ll give you anything in return! Pretty please!" Hell no. Is this Mermaid trying propose--ahem! "Too close!" I pushed her away from my face. "You don''t have to do that. So what can you provide in exchange?" "Exchange?" She stopped. Apparently she never considered it before. Before she can give me an answer, someone else came in. "Aldeina! Who is this?" It''s a Merman, also wearing armor. He''s carrying a trident, must be another leader or someone with high rank. "King Antis!" The Mermaid went down on one knee. "This is a...friend, I found outside. He possesses the energy crystal we need, and we were talking about how to trade it." "Oh? You have it?" I think his eyes are literally shining. "My ears did not deceive me right?" "Actually I''m not sure. Even if I have one...it is not as big as yours." "Fret not!" His voice sounds too emotional for a king. "Size makes no difference now. It may be small but it will maintain our home for a while! Though it is true that the bigger is always the merrier." I raised my hands. "About this, a tenth as big of yours." "Good. Good! That will hold for at least another ten years! Haa-haha!" He stopped hisughter. "...You mentioned a trade, no?" "Right. I know you need it but I didn''t pick it up for free. I require something in return." I do business, not charity. "Well...!" The king discussed something with the Mermaid and beckoned me. "Follow us." We left the tower. After some walk we came to a warehouse-like structure, with two guards stationed in front of it. The king told them to push open the door and let us in. It''s quite big, with all kinds of stuff in it. But they are all covered under thick, ck sailcloth. Maybe this is to protect the goods from humidity, since I don''t think there is dust under the sea. The king led me into the center. "This is what we can afford as exchange. Pick something you like." "Alright, give me a moment." I walked to a random section and uncovered the content. Then I''m...not sure how to react. "Is this a motorbike?" It does look like one, but something is different. From another look, I''d say this is a double motorboat! The vehicle has a beautiful, fish-shaped carve, seats, but without wheels. It''s definitely a boat. "Why do you even have these?" He shrug. "They used to be for our naval forces, but..." He signaled Aldeina, who pulled out a pendant from in front of her chest. The pendant is actually a crystal. She pushed it into a slot on the motorboat. Whoom! Some water came from behind the boat. It stopped as Aldeina un-plugged the crystal. "See? They use energy crystals as power source. You know we don''t even have much power left to support the city." "I see." I removed another cloth. There are a bunch of long, bar-like objects under it. Sticks? "What are these?" They both took a "stick" and held them up in front of them. Again, Aldeina put her crystal into a small slot on the stick. A semi-transparent blue barrier appeared between the two sticks. I know this thing. This is the "door" through which we entered the city. It blocks water but doesn''t affect individuals. The king exined: "We used them as magic shields before, as you can see, they also consume crystal energy." "What''s over there?" I walked somewhere else. "Weapons?" "Oh, those are not weapons." The king walked to me and lifted the nket himself. Gold. Blocks of gold. I''m not talking about gold bars, these things are as big as building bricks! "Junks we collected from sunken ships. They took too much space so we melted them like this. Are theymon on thend? Every time there''s shiping down, piles of trinkets or sculptures made from these materials will fill up the sea bottom. They''re pollutions." "You don''t need them?" I pointed at the gold bricks, mouth agape. "No. Why?" He looks puzzled. "We can''t eat them. They''re too soft to be used as weapons. And they''re heavy too. We usually use them for construction. See our houses? One thing we like about it is that this thing never grows rust." "Wait, all those walls, are gold??" This is luxurious as shit! "The roads are yellow, so you also use them to pave streets?" "That''s correct. Is it strange? Like I said, it''s resistant to wear and rust, what else can we do?" "So you have a lot more of these?" "Of course." Aldeina answered. "What you see here is only part of our yellow brick storage. There are more outside, our warehouse isn''t big enough for them. For some reason all sea lives under the sea tend to avoid this material so we collect them here whenever possible to preserve our food supply. But these days we really don''t have time to worry about such matter. We''re running out space as where to ce these junk." I looked at king Antis, drooling. "Can you ask someone to carry the blocks onto my ship? I''ve decided, I''ll change the crystal for these!" "Are you certain? You would want these ''junk''?" They are both shocked. I just nod madly. "Yes, yes! The junk! Carry as much onto my ship if you want to rid of them." "I can give you all the remaining ones. The only issue is whether your ship can hold them. They''re heavy, if you hadn''t known." "Not a problem. I can just travel around if necessary." "So, what about the crystal?" "Oh, yes! Don''t worry, it''s yours now. You can ask your people to take it here when they return from moving the first load of bricks." "It is settled!" He grasped my hands and shook. "Thank you my friend! You saved our city AND helped us clean up!" "Ha har ha! Good doing business with you." We bothughed. (Inside our minds) King Antis: Fool. He gave us his energy crystal in exchange for a full house of garbage? Me: Fool. One crystal for whole shipments of gold. I''ll exchange all the gold into crystal pieces, and find Domergor to buy more crystals! Let''s seize the chance. I quickly pulled the king. "As you said, that crystal can onlyst for a limited time. I can help you find more. Well maybe not as big as this one, but several smaller ones would suffice." "You can?" King Antis became excited again. "Please do! We''ll buy however many you can find! " "Sure, I can help you. But, you see, I''m not the only one on the ship. I have helpers, and a whole ship of hired sailors, they''re not freebor. " Of course he knows I''m asking for payment. "This storage holds everything we have. Take as you like, but please don''t ask anything else." "Oh don''t worry, I won''t ask too much. First, that fish, I mean boat. I want 200 of them." "Not a problem. I give you 300." He tried to give me moremon stuff so I won''t ask for precious ones. "That shield stick, one thousand." "Okay." He thought to himself. "The fool only asks for inexpensive merchandise. Now I don''t have to worry about how to clean up our storage!" "That''s it. About that yellow brick, I can get as many as I can right?" "Yes. Considering your ship''s size, we can provide you 10 full shipments!" "Deal!" We shook hands again while wearing our own false smiles. It''s action time. First, the gold bricks. I tried to take them with my bracelet, but the system told me I can''t put construction materials in there. So we''ll have to carry them as is. Thank goodness they''re not as heavy when moved in the water. Otherwise I don''t think anyone can lift them easily. King Antis summoned almost all Mermen in the cities to help carry them. I also asked Loong''er to help. She can move about ten of them each round. Aldeina led us to where Bi-Lin is anchored. The other alliance ships are already gone, of course. I saw Rose and the others moving around the rails calling me from far away. They''ve been looking for me it seems. I summoned Phiona and asked her to fly up. Her ming feathers are the best beacon. "Over there!" Yuri saw me first. I swam and climbed onto the ship, when Rose rushed to me and hugged me tight. "Where were you?? And why were you not responding to my calls?" I just stroke her hair. Then I turned to Hawk. "Hawk, we got a good load of goods to carry around. Ask all sailors to get ready at the rear, near that hole." "Hole?" Hawk scratched his head. "I was going to tell you something about that hole." "Hm? Don''t tell me something else broke on Bi-Lin?" "Well, no. But..." Chapter 106: Project: Gold Chapter 106: Project: Gold Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - "But what?" Why do problems keeping for my ship even after the war?? "The hole disappeared!" "Disappeared?" It took me several more seconds toprehend that one. "What do you mean ''disappeared''? The breach just, gone?" "Ugh. Juste with me, you''ll see." He pulled me and ran over to the back. And he''s right. The hole is not there any more. Last time I checked, the breach exposed the entire lifeboat chamber inside. Now we''re inside the chamber, and all the walls are intact, as if the damage never happened! But the lifeboats are obviously damaged. Some are still broken, and some others are missing. I touched the supposedly broken wall. It''s real, in perfect condition. "Did you see how this is fixed?" "Not me. Wuyuu saw it." "Where is he?" "Inside his cabin!" "Tell him toe!" He did, dragged by War Chant and Merciless. "What do you want??" He struggled. "Tell me about what happened to this hole." "I don''t know!" "Didn''t you see it?" "I did, and that doesn''t mean I know what happened! Can you learn how to make nuclear bombs when you see one explode?" He''s not cooperating. But that makes sense. "So... can you at least tell me how it looked like?" "Oh that''s no problem." He shook off his two captors. "I was enjoying the moonlight. As the light shined inside, I saw the edge of the breach begin to glow. It was not easy to notice. Like dim stars. Then the hole started to close up. It took ten minutes or so and the area is sealed! That''s it." "The moonlight huh?" I think I know what happened. "Hawk, are those holes on the sides of our ship still there?" "They are." "The moon is... behind us right?" "That''s right." "Very well. Let''s go up there. Chief, tell them to pull the ship 90 degree!" "Yes sir!" The order is already through when we reached the deck. Now the moon is casting light on the left portside. We stretched our heads over the railing and looked at the damage. Yup, those within the moonlight are "healing up". I looked at the Lunar Emblems, which are giving out a gentle, pale blue light. So that''s what''s going on. This will save me a lot of repair fee! From now on if the ship gets damaged, we simply get it a moonbath! "We''re good!" Hawk pointed to those once damaged areas. "Chief, turn around! Give the other side some light!" "Yes sir! You heard the captain!" Bi-Lin soon returned to its most glorious state like it just came out of the shipyard. Apart from our lost and injured sailors, and some missing lifeboats, that is. "Oh right, Hawk, tell all crew toe here and line up in pairs. Make them form up a human conveyor belt, towards the cargo area." "What for?" "I have something to move around!" I walked to the edge and waved to Loong''er. The Mermen began to hand those gold blocks to Loong''er one after another, while Loong''er toss them over to the deck using her long tail. I transformed into werewolf so I can catch them one by one. Big Pot came to assist. "Careful, these things are super heavy." "Leave it to me!" He puffed up his chest. "I''m a warrior, not those squishy wizards." He took ahold a block from my ws. "You ready? I gonna release!" "Yeah, do it-- woooah!" Ssh! He toppled to one side and fell into the water with the block. Several Mermen quickly fished him out. I handed a second block to Hawk and Merciless. They too underestimated the weight of it, and they almost fell. "What on earth is this?" Hawk asked with stressed voice. I whispered into his ear: "Gold bars!" "Huh-- Ow!" "Arrrgh! Hey what the hell? My foot!" The block slipped from Hawk''s hands when he was shocked, which crashed onto their feet. Gold Coin joined us and looked at all the yellow objects with round eyes. "This...this is pure gold! We''re so rich !!" "Gold??" Now everyone came and inspected them in awe. I helped Merciless, while Elfy helped Hawk away to do something about their feet. "Where is Gale, and Red Moon? I can pay my debt now." "They left with Righteous League!" "Oh shoot. That will wait then." I returned to the front deck to help with transportation. Rose looked at the working sailors and asked: "Wherever did you find so much gold? And who are all the male Mermaids?" "I did a trade with them." I told them my adventure into Antis. They all joined the work with starry eyes. The only drawback of these valuable things is that they''re too heavy! They haven''t filled up even half of our cargo space, when the water has already reached our bottom level chambers! Big Pot poked his head out of one of the windows down there. "How does it look?" I asked him, "Can we continue?" "No! Any more and water wille inside!" "Let''s seal them up. We can always open them again when we''re done." Coin suggested. "Let''s do it then." With an order, the sailors nailed up all windows of our paddle champers. Now we can load more gold. Human desire has no border. We''ve reached our limit again soon. But human brain has no bounds either! We put all remaining lifeboats into the sea. King Antis only agreed to provide "ten boats", so I decided to load all cannons onto the small boats instead. Then we used cable ropes to line them up behind Bi-Lin. We threw all spare cannons, ammunition and supplies into the sea. Then we sealed all the cannon rooms and reinforced the side rails. Bi-Lin''s freeboard should be around 8-9 meters under normal operation load, now it''s down to less than 2 meters! The sea is pretty calm today, or else I''m sure the ship will go under easily. It''s midnight, everyone went offline. I removed the crystal from crystal cannon and handed it to Aldeina. "How do I find Antis again when I return?" Aldeina held her chin for a while. "Do you have vacantpanion slot?" "Only one. Why?" "Give me your hand." Iplied without thinking too much-- "Arf! Let-let me go! Oww!" I pushed her head away. "Why are you biting me??" I looked at the two rows of teeth marks on my wrist. Gulp! She swallowed some blood, and licked around her lips as if she just drank something sweet. "Thanks for the treat, master. I''ll help you navigate the next time!" She gave the energy crystal to one of the Merman and asked him to go back. "What do you mean ¡®master¡¯?" I already knew what happened but my brain refused to ept it. I quickly opened my status bar, the [Companions] is now 9/9, and is grayed out, which means it reached the limit! "Why did you do that??" "What? I''m level 800 you know. Even your dragon won''t defeat me easily when fighting in the water. Come on, trust me." "Aren''t you supposed to be an egg? And, your level?..." "I offered to be yourpanion by blood oath, so my level is only reduced to your level, 451. There''s no need to start over from a child." "Arrgh fine! There''s no refund anyway." "That''s the spirit." She gave me a hug. "I won''t let you down. I''m good at a looot of stuff." I don''t have the spirit to argue anymore, so I just asked the chief to return to port and logged out. I logged in earlier the next day. To my surprise, Bi-Lin is still sailing. We haven''t reached the port yet. "Still on the way?" "Of course!" Zirai is already here. "We can''t use any paddles, we''re overloaded, and with all those lifeboats tailing behind, also overloaded! This is the best we can do just using those sailcloth! The wind was good in the night or we won''t be moving at all!" "Well, I guess we at least need to pay for SOMETHING for all the gold bricks." I looked at the sea, wait, it almost reached our deck! "What''s going on? We didn''t load the ship like this." "Some of the windows aren''t tight enough. We''ve been taking water. The sailors are working hard to get the water out now, or you would have appeared in the sea when you logged in." "Ahem. Well, I''m trying my best to help us prepare for the war." Zirai''s attitude immediately changed when hearing this. "I agree!" She pointed to those long-range cannons we took from the Indian ship. "Now I hope we can reproduce those." "Don''t worry. We got money, there''s bound to be someone who can do it." Now I think about it, this is the first time I feel like doing anything I want in the game! "Ah, good morning early risers!" Passerby appeared behind. "Not there yet?" Wayne came too. When we saw the approaching port, everyone has logged in. There are many ships moving around the ce, the most eye-catching one being King''s Ocean Might. They''re departing. When we went by each other he stretched his head towards us. "What happened to you guys? Someone else attacked youst night? You''re almost sunk!" "It''s okay! We uh, sort of, got a leak!" I gave him a silly smile. Of course I can''t tell him we have too many gold blocks on the ship! "You need a pull?" "That would be perfect." Ocean Might towed us into the port and left for their own business. Our first job is of course unloading all the gold. Tarry any longer and we''ll sink for real! We can''t pile the stuff on the cargo tform so I asked ourpanions, which means Lucky, Phiona, Skyfire, Tank, Loong''er, plus two Titans, to carry them directly to the bank. The receptiondy literally stuck her eyes out of their sockets when we dropped all the blocks in front of her desk. Our first batch of gold is converted into crystal pieces and transferred to my ount, swiftly. -------------- I just noticed the editor made the nk lines look really weird, and sometimes there''re no nks where there should. Tried to fix, and failed. Sorry about that. Chapter 107: The Secret Agreement Chapter 107: The Secret Agreement Trantor: Wolfy Editor: - - I checked my ie and left the bank. First, we came to the transport service NPC and spent 1,000 crystals to hire 200 carriages. Then, to the carpenter workshop and paid 16,000 crystals for 1,600 giant wooden boxes. We took the hired helpers and tools back to the port and carefully stuffed the gold bricks into the boxes. Each carriage can hold 8 of them. Barely. I can see these four-wheeled vehicles are at their very limits with my eyes. I already told them to prepare two horses for each cart. Best decision ever. Still, we have to order two sailors to give each cart a starting push, or the horses can''t get them moving at all. Frankly speaking, 1,600 boxes aren''t a lot. It took us 10 round trips to move all the gold. Before the bank can finish their job, the system told me I can''t carry more currency! I have to ask Rose to hold onto the rest. This is the first time I learned about this limit. Never thought I''d have enough money for it. "What''s the n now?" Coin asked me. "The new cannons. Let''s replicate them." Zirai said. "Agreed. Thates first." I nodded. It is absolute disadvantage when enemies have something we don''t. "What about those Indians?" "Let''s split up. Hawk, take Elfy, Merciless and Passerby, go interrogate the captives. The otherse with me to the weapon shop." Hawk left with his team while I took mine to the edge of the city. "Hey mister, can youe here for a sec?" I called the chief cksmith and ordered the sailors to move the long-range cannon here. "What it''ll be this time?" "First, the payment we owe you." We acquired most ammunition by using the old designer''s message, we should settle this up first. "And can you look at this?" I moved aside and waved at the cannon behind me. The cksmith climbed onto the cannon and opened the chamber, looking inside. "Where did you find this thing??" "We recovered it from a sunken Indian ship. How does it look?" "Imported huh?" He checked it again. "Aye, never seen this technology around here. So what do you want me to do with it?" "Can you make something simr?" I exined. "It shoots farther than any of our cannons, and more powerful. It will improve our coastal defense by a lot if we can reproduce it." "It''s...possible, but I need to break down several of these to study. Is this the only one you have?" "We have more. I''ll tell them to move them here." "Good, good! Show me as many as you can, I''ll make out a blueprint faster." He became excited. "Together with our own tech, maybe we can build something even better." "How long will that take?" "Two days should be enough. The thing''s notplex, there''s just something we never thought of before." "Thank you very much! We''ll leave you to your work then." I told the apanying sailors to fetch the rest of the cannons, then we left the shop. Next stop is the shipyard. I need adjustments done to Bi-Lin. A lot of them. The designer immediately yelled at me when he saw us, something about "ruining his masterpiece". I shut his mouth by taking out a stack of gold bricks I left behind. Old moneybag. "Oh, heh heh... How can I help you this time?" "I need you to make some adjustment to the cabins." I summoned Aldeina and asked her to give me a pair of those shield sticks. "Install these things outside the ship and create a third defense barrier. Open up an entrance below the ship and use a shield to seal it up." "An entrance under the ship??" He didn''t understand. "This magic shield is waterproof. Lock this thing at the entrance so we can go in and out of the ship while keeping water outside." "Where did you...?" He looked around the item in curiosity. "It''s secret. Just get it done." I continued. "Can you further improve the ship''s speed? It''s not fast enough." Aldeina answered this one first. "You should told me that earlier!" "You know how to do it?" "We have ship boosters stored in Antis! Those are way faster than using paddles with human hands." "Really? You didn''t mention it back in the warehouse." "We didn''t know, since you didn''t ask. Did you look at our speedboats carefully? They''re propelled by these boosters. I thought you already noticed them." "Okay okay. Can you get me some of that?" "They''re too small for your Bi-Lin. Wait for some days if you''re not hurry, I''ll tell them to build a bigger one." "Go then. Tell them I''ll buy those boosters with additional energy crystals." "Right away, master." She changed back her fish tail, jumped into the water and disappeared. Now I kinda envy those convenient legs. I only know how to use dog-paddle underwater. "I''ll leave these to you." I pointed to the shield sticks I prepared. "Change the entire base level into one integrated area, I want to ce some small boats in there. Leave four exits covered with shields, tripleyer, just in case. Oh and, leave some space in the rear where I can install the boosters. Change all paddle rooms into cannon chambers. We don''t need paddles anymore. Seal the windows with these shields too." That will make the windows waterproof as well, so I don''t have to worry about taking in water the next time I move gold blocks. "Onest thing, make sure you change all the bast material (*) into movable parts so I can take them away when I want." Ha, I can just use gold bricks as bast when necessary. This will create an emergency gold reserve too, we might need something like this in the future. "That should be it. How much?" The old man kept his head lowered for a while. "1.5 million crystals!" "What?? Are you trying to rip me off?" "I already gave you a discount!" He gave me a sad face. "Look at your ship''s size, we need an overhaul from tip to tail! And you removed over half of the existing cabins! You know it''s harder to modify something than to create something right? I would have simply rejected this offer if you''re someone else!" "Fine!!" I paid him anyway. Damn he''s smart. My next job is to ask for more energy crystals. I guess I''ll need a lot more, considering the trade with Antis. As rk mentioned, I should go find Domergor. I turned to the rest of the people: "I''ll try to find more energy crystals, you don''t have to follow me now. Take the time to level up or something, I''ll contact you guys when something happens." "Alright!" Zirai responded first. "We''ll be off then." Most people followed her, while Yuri and Rose decided to follow me. Well, it''s a bless to have beauties following around, why would I refuse? I gave them two teleport scrolls to the Lost City, then activated my ring myself. I waited at the teleport station for a while but they didn''t show up as expected. Weird. Do you need several minutes to use a scroll? When I almost lost my patience, two figures appeared in the station with a white sh. Yuri is holding onto one of Rose''s arms, with her head leaning on Rose''s shoulder. Something doesn''t feel right yet I can''t tell what it is. "Let''s go!" I summoned Night Shade, hopped on and pulled Yuri up. Before I gave my hand to Rose, she summoned her white wolf and climbed on herself. "Three people on one horse won''t be easy, you two go ahead. I''ll take Chubby." She ordered the wolf to run ahead. Wait, "Chubby"? I told Night Shade to follow behind. Something must have happened during the interval, but I probably shouldn''t ask, since they aren''t telling me. ---------- (*) Bast: heavy objects, such as sandbags, used for adjusting altitude for certain vehicles, like ships and air balloons. Chapter 108: Money for Power Chapter 108: Money for Power Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy We kept silent as we galloped through the mass graveyard outside the Lost City, which feels real strange. Yuri would nce at Rose now and then, while Rose fixes her eyes straight forward. I tried poking around the topic, and she just dodged them. The uneasy atmospherested until we reached the entrance of the Dark Valley. This is the first time they saw this ce, including all those rotten zombies and crawling corpse worms. "You...usually level up here?" Rose asked first. I nodded. "Yeah, what''s wrong?" "Ughhh." Yuri pinched her nose. "What''s that smell?" Rose frowned. "Don''t tell me your sworn brother enjoys these things?" "Oh no no. His camp is pretty clean." I summoned the Phantom Knights. "Am I right?" "Not bad to me." Their leader nodded. "That fool isn''t strong but I admit he''s done a good job keeping the camp green." "Green?" Yuri tilted her head. The knight leader spoke to her: "You know, the Dark Sanctuary is filled with blood-thirsty warriors like us, no creature would get near around several kilometers around the perimeter, including nts." "And?" Another female knight continued: "And that couch potato found some sort of barren vines somewhere and nted them around the camp. Now they''re everywhere. That thing grows flowers too, every spring some of us would fall on the bed cause of all the pollen. Me included." "Ah hahaha! Hey Ziri, you said your brother is themander of some terrible forces right? But he sounds funny!" Yuriughed and almost fell from Night Shade. This is the first time I heard about his gardening deeds! At least the goodugh eased our mood. We ran around the weak zombies on the way. I''m not that weak starter warrior anymore, if anything blocks us I can just pick it away easily with mynce. They won''t give us anything now, we don''t have to waste time on them. We reached Domergor''s front stronghold soon enough. A row of metal barriers split the valley in half. The gate guards raised theirnces when they saw me approaching, but straightened up when they noticed the Phantom Knights. "Where''s your boss?" The knight leader asked the direct question. "He''s talking with the camp adviser inside. Do you need something, Ser?" "We want to see him. Send him a message now." Domergor told me these guys can do anything they like in the ranks. Now I see it again. "Yes sir!" The poor soldier immediately ran into the camp, going as fast as he can. He returned within a minute. As I remember, there''s still a good distance towards where Domergor stays. "Come..e inside, my lord." Thud, he fainted. Ouch. We dismounted and walked into the camp. Along the way we saw everyone in the area running around in hurry. What''s going on? All the soldiers were more, well,posed, thest time I was here. "Hey hey, stop." I pulled a petit soldier to a halt. "What are you doing?" He only looked at me in doubt, but it quickly turned into shock when he saw the Phantom Knight leader waving a fist at him. "There''s a waring up!" "War?" I''m shocked this time. "With whom? Someone is attacking this camp?" "It''s a routine. Lord Phantom Knight didn''t tell you?" I looked towards the said "lord". "Oh, right. Here''s the thing: a little further down this camp is the end of the Dark Valley, where the Dark Sanctuary is located, and the Dark Source is guarded under it. Our job is to protect it. The Dark Source is originally--" "To the point. What''s this war?" I''m sure he''s going to give me one hell of a history lesson if I don''t say anything. "...We assault a main system city every autumn, and those cities assemble their forces and attack us every spring. This has been going on for centuries and there is never a victor. End of report." "So it IS a routine." "It''s January, spring is soon." Rose mentioned. I released the soldier and came to Domergor''s tent. He''s already waiting outside. " ¡®Tis long time, brother. What brings you here in such a time?" "Oh nothing serious. I want to talk some business with you." "Business? You know I''m no merchant, how do I do business? And as you can see, my hands are pretty tied up right now." "Won''t take long." I took out a small energy crystal. This is from Aldeina''s pendant, I asked for it as a sample. "You know this thing?" "This is..." He looked at the object. "Let''s talk inside." He turned to the Phantom Knights: "Guard the door and don''t let anyone get close." "We¡¯re not under yourmand now, mister." "Do as he said." I had to give the order. They formed up a circle around the tent. Yuri and Rose are already inside. Yuri whispered to me: "This is your sworn brother? He¡¯s cool! How did you meet each other?" "Let''s talk about it when we get back." Domergor held up the crystal. "An energy crystal. So what''s on our mind?" "I knew you would know it." I put it away. "rk told me you have these." "That''s right. This is one of the most important military supplies. Why do you ask?" "I''m looking for them, can you get me some?" "...What for? There aren''t many ces you can use them. We only need these for crystal cannons and magic shields." "You have magic shields too?" So this means the three major system cities should have them as well. "What do you mean ''too''? Don''t tell me you already gotten your hands on them?" He seems even more surprised than me. "But how are you going to use something that size? " He looked at the guild emblem in front of my chest. "Oh, a guild master. You built your guild city already? You can join alliance with the Dark Sanctuary you know." "Not yet. I have only like ten people in my guild! But I have a friend who runs the biggest guild in the country. Maybe he needs to build a city. And what do you mean to join alliance?" "When you have your own guild, you can seek asylum towards certain symbolic beings. But certain beings are opposed, you can''t have them together. For example...you can''t put a Temple of Chaos and Temple of Order in your city at the same time. Dark and Light, Warrior''s Boon and Sorcerer''s Statue, they can''t co-exist. Of course, I''m only talking about major gods. You don''t have to worry about this for the lesser ones, like those Purity or Inspiration or something, you can ce them however you like. So when you have your own city make sure you join us! Don''t go to those bastards from the section of light." "I can, but don''t expect too much. It''ll take a century for our small team to build a city. Back to topic, can I see that magic shield you mentioned?" "That''s no problem. Come with me, that thing''s too heavy to move about. We have some smaller ones too, if that''s okay for you." "Let''s see the small ones then." "Guards!" No response. The Phantom Knights are making sure "no one gets near"! Domergor shrugged and went out of the tent himself, before he returned with several of his own guards, who are carrying arge object. "This is it?" It looks like those voltage transformers you see on the street! Square, with a circle of heat sink around it. Domergor flipped open a small lid and took out a palm-sized energy crystal. "This is a small-standard magic shield. It covers a round area with 500 meters in radius, any friendlies inside take 10% less damage. There is a big one in the sanctuary, a dozen times bigger. It covers the entire valley, and reduces damage by 25%. We only use the small ones when the legion is on the move." I checked around the item. Sounds pretty good, I wonder if I can install it at the center of my ship. "Do you sell it?" "You were asking for crystals no? You want the shield now?" "I''ll buy anything that''s good." "Actually yes. Believe it or not, the Dark Sanctuary sells these to yers to make profit. But they only sell the big ones, and only to yers who own cities. Since it is you...I can find someone who can sell small ones, but they only go in sets, one big and four small at a time. You can''t buy separate ones." "It''s fine. I just need to pay a bit more, right?" I sipped some tea and yed rich. "I wouldn''t say ''a bit''. Each set of equipment costs 30 million crystal pieces." "Pfffff--" I spit all the liquid in my mouth. "You''re joking right?" "I don''t joke." He waved a hand and ordered his men to move it away. "That''s the price. Solid. I can''t help you from my end." "30 million for crying out loud! This is madness!" Rose and Yuri haven''t been saying anything, cause they''re as surprised as I am. "Don''t buy then. You don''t have a city anyway." "Of course I''ll buy it!" Now there''s more motivation for me to get that money back by beating up Japanese pirates! "You sell energy crystals too right?" "Yeah, they''re not cheap either mind you." "Wait, wait." I straightened up myself and held steady to my chair''s arms. "Okay, tell me." "They are sold by weight. 5 million crystal pieces for a kilo." "God damn. These things are as heavy as gold, who can afford that price??" I was nning to make a huge profit out of Antis, now it seems impossible! I discussed with Rose and finally decided to buy a set of shields and 40 kilograms of energy crystals. I''ll need to get more shipments of gold for more. "40 kilos of crystals, one magic shield set." "Got it. I''ll tell them to prepare." It only took a cup of tea''s time. Arge-sized wagon is outside the tent, pulled by 16 strong horses. There''s the super big transformer, I mean shield, and four small ones on the wagon. "The wagon is extra service, you can take it. You didn''t bring any more people right? The shields are loaded with full-charged crystals. Oh, they don''t count in those 40 kilos. That''s all I can do for now." "Thank you brother!" I jumped onto the wagon. "Do you happen to have spare crystal cannons?" "Don''t tell me you''re going to buy those too?" "Do you sell it?" "Hell of course. They''ll give me a bonus if I sell more stuff for them." "How much for the cannons?" "There are four sizes. From the smallest to the biggest: 20 million, 40, 60, and 100 million. Each." Thud! Rose and Yuri fainted. "Forget what I said." I picked the girls up and quickly ordered the horses to get moving. While my Phantom Knights help me secure our surroundings. Even something built in pure gold is cheaper than those damn cannons! "Have a moment, sir?" The knight leader suddenly asked. "Hm? Go ahead." "About that price. You may think it as too expensive, there''s a reason for it." "Reason?" "What''s the price for the crystal cannon you already have?" "About 30 million crystals pieces, I guess?" "That''s it. Your cannon is only 20 million. The cannons in system cities are inferior,pared to those sold by the Dark Sanctuary. You already know that most NPC city guards are level 800, some of the captains are 850 or 900. While in the Dark Valley, the strongest ones you can encounter is 850, like us." "Now you mentioned it... You''ve been fighting for a long time right? Why didn''t anyone win since they have more levels than you?" "That''s the problem. The warriors in Dark Sanctuary are weaker, but they have better provisions. The cheapest mobile crystal cannon we use is the same one on your ship. As for the most expensive cannon, I haven''t heard of anything that can''t be broken through with it. We''ve been relying on all sorts of gear and equipment to be on par with the forces of light." "You mean, the crystal cannon that costs a hundred million crystals pieces is actually worth the price?" "That''s right. I think you got the wrong idea because you thought the cannon is simr to the one on your ship, which ispletely not the case." "I see it. Many thanks! We spent all money we have though, maybe next time." Rose and Yuri already woke up in the back of the wagon. "Where are we?" "We left the Dark Valley and are now on the edge of the forest. There''s only the grasnd between us and the port now. You can teleport back if you want. At this speed we''ll need at least three days to reach there." "You''re noting?" Yuri asked the obvious question. I thumbed towards behind me. "Do you think you can teleport with all these stuff?" Yuri lifted the nket and looked at the 3-meter tall shield device. "I don''t think so." "Clever girl." Rose rubbed her hair. We felt a lift in our mood and all smiled. ----------- "Stop right there!!" "Woah!" The transport suddenly stopped, causing me to stumble away from my horse. I fell onto another horse at the front. "Aw aw..." The two girls bumped their heads in the wagon and groaned. "What the fu*k?" I jumped down my horse. Someone, I mean, a lot of people, are standing in the middle of the road. Two of them stepped ahead, probably their leader or something. "Give me all your money and--" Shit. Not again. I didn''t wait for them to finish their lines. They''re outdated anyway. I raised a hand, and all the robbers just looked at me with raised eyebrows. I made sure I caught everyone''s attention, then moved my hand forward. "Crush them!" "Leave no one standing!!" The Phantom Knights immediately lined up and charged. I leaned on the wagon and yawned. I''m not interested in joining the chaos ahead. "Ziri, what''s happening?" Yuri asked while still rubbing her head. Rose came out too and saw the battlefield. "Oh dear." "As you can see, a bunch of hijackers." A strange idea popped up inside my mind. "Wait, robbers, pirates... Hey Rose? Remind me to make a skeleton g when we get back." "What''s that for?" "The Japanese pirates have been raiding our cities right? Let''s make a pirate g too and go mess up their cities for good!" "Ohh that sounds fun. Remember I told you I want to be a mafiady when we created our guild? A piratedy is not bad either. Aha!" Oh crap. I shouldn''t have reminded her about that one. "Sir, watch out!" I moved my head to the side, when ance stuck into the wagon nk instead of my left eye. "Who did that??" I soon spotted the attacker. A warrior, big. No, I mean, fat. He has a round and clumsy-looking body build but he''s exceptionally agile. Two Phantom Knights are engaged with him and he still managed to throw hisnce at me. Most enemies are down for the count now. The fat warrior is still moving around but it doesn''t look like he can hold on for much longer. Still, he must be pretty good since he survived until now under the attack of the knights. Even I wouldn''t be able to do that if I don''t summon any helpers. Who is this guy? Chapter 109: The Gods Bane Chapter 109: The God''s Bane Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Who are you? And what do you want?" I asked. "I¡¯m a proud Chinese warrior, fighting for ournd!" He looked at me with all the rage his can muster. "I don¡¯t remember Chinese fellows being all robbers." "Because you''re a traitor to us you Japan dog!!" He took out a pair of scimitars from behind his back. "DIE!" He charged. The knights are still in business though, they all moved to stop him. Two knights that are still far from him threw theirnces. Ping! The fat warrior deflected them away with a quick de flip. No ordinary people can parry the attack from two level 850 monsters. All the Phantom Knights readied their weapons and became serious. The leader knight thrust hisnce at the warrior. With another swift parry, the mighty knight was pushed back several steps. I heard a sharp noiseing towards me, before I saw an object flying at me again. I raised my w des to block but in the next second I remembered my des were already busted by Red Moon. Poof. The object stuck into my arm, spilling blood. "Arrrgh!!" I pulled it away. It''s a..nce tip? The leader knight looked at me in surprise, then at his ownnce. Yup, hisnce is tipless now. The fat warrior didn''t parry the attack, he sliced thence in half! "Oh my, are you alright?" Rose checked my arm. "No biggie." I drew my dual swords. "What¡¯s your name? Let''s have a round." Now I''m definitely going to see how strong he really is. "A traitor like you doesn¡¯t need to know my name! Come if want to die!" He waved his des and ran towards me again. What does he mean traitor? I don¡¯t think there¡¯s time to exin though, so I¡¯ll have to fight it. I ordered the knights to back away and went ahead myself. His first attack is a direct downward sh. I raised my swords to block the attack but-- With a snap, my swords werepletely split, leaving only the handles in my hands! Next, I felt a sting on my chest. There''s a cross-shaped wound, a big one. "Sir!" All the knights moved in again to protect me. Yuri and Rose also came to my sides. I''m still standing there, speechless, looking at my broken swords. What the fuk just happened? Someone broke my Artifact weapon with just one hit? The warrior moved again. Since we knew that we can¡¯t block his attacks, the Phantom Knights tried to attack his body instead. He is wielding his des in extremely fast ways and no one dares to get too close to him. "Stop! Let me do it." I asked them to back off again. "[Transform]!" I activated my new skill and became taller. Now I have a pair of new ws. "Let¡¯s see how many more surprises you can give me!" I shifted in front his face, when he tried to block my attack again out of instinct. With another jump, I appeared behind him. "Wolf''s fang, [Wind sh]!" I knocked him away with a double w swipe, and dashed to where he wouldnd. "Wolf''s fang, [Heaven Nigh]!" I pushed on the ground and kicked him flying upwards. The fat guy flew into a tree. I got ready for the next attack but he never came down. "Where did he go?" "He¡¯s on the tree!" A knight answered. "Maybe he ran away?" Another knight spoke. "Over there!" Yuri pointed at a tree branch where the warrior is trying to hide. I jumped to his location but he''s no longer there. I looked around all the trees in annoyance. Okay, so you want to hide? I returned to the ground and broke the tree in half with a w. Too bad he''s not here. "Rosa!" Since solo will not work, let¡¯s get some helpers then. Rosa appeared and covered all the nearby trees with his vines. He senses enemies by their movements and vibrations they caused. Apparently the fat guy is not moving so we don¡¯t get anything. "Lucky, clear the area!" "On it." Rosa retracted his vines, while Lucky pulled a tree out of the ground and threw it far away. He repeated this for a while until there''s no tree around us. I looked at the empty battlefield. "Where is the asshole??" "So he did run away." Yuri handed me a leaf. There¡¯s blood on it, someone else¡¯s blood. "So he¡¯s wounded?" Rose picked up some more red leaves. "Badly." Those des...They were terribly powerful. "What about your swords?" Rose picked up my broken des. "You should head to the Lost City. You don¡¯t have any weapon for closebat now. Yournce is too long for close-quarter fights." "But..." I looked at the wagon with magic shields in it. "I can¡¯t leave you and the stuff behind. Maybe he''lle back again. He had helpers too, maybe from a guild or something. What if he brings a hundred people next time?" "Even if you stay you can¡¯t fight him like this." Rose raised a good point. Yuri came up too. "I agree. Ziri should go get his equipment repaired. Me and Miss Rose will stay and watch. You can leave your knights here if you worry about us. We should have enough to defend ourselves." "Alright. Just be careful, if things aren''t well just teleport back to the Lost City. We can always buy those shields and crystals again." Apart from 9 Phantom Knights, I asked Lucky, Phiona, Tank and Loong''er to all stay behind, before I went back to the Lost City with the leader knight apanying me. I went straight to rk''s weapon shop. Thank god he didn¡¯t go to his wife this time. "Ah, something you need, brother?" rk dropped his work and came to me. "Of course." I took out the broken swords and torn gauntlets. "For the-- Did you go fight a dragon again? What happened this time?" "I didn¡¯t ask for it." I sighed. "The gauntlets are chewed up by a werewolf, and the swords were sliced by a pair of weird des. Right, do you know what kind of weapon can break Artifacts like this?" "A pair of des?" rk paused. "Wait a sec." He ran back to his forge room and brought back a long, slim container. "Something like this?" He opened the container and revealed the simr weapon. "Huh you have them? Yes this is it. But he was using finished weapons, not these des without hilts. He broke my Dragon Fangs swords in one hit!" "This is my collection when I was still in the demon legion. They''re called the [God''s Bane]. I didn¡¯t get to use them so I never gave them hilts." "Why not? They''re so powerful! Are there more of these, apart from the four I saw today?" It¡¯ll be serious trouble if something that can break apart Artifacts are everywhere around the world. "Don''t worry, there are only four of them in this world. I didn¡¯t use it because this weapon damages both your enemies and yourself. The des ignores all defense and crushes anything it contacts with, but that attack poweres with the price of their wielder''s own life. To put it simple, you damage your opponent using your own HP. You need 8 HP to cause 10 damage to someone else. Few people would choose to win a fight through such dangerous approach." So that''s why the fat warrior didn''t use his des from the start! "Okay...Can you fix my armor? And the swords and w des?" He looked at the cross shaped tear on my chest. "This is easy, we just seal it up with some mythril material." Then he held up the ws. "Hm. The gauntlets are easy to stitch up, and some hammering will fix the ws. The swords though... That will take some effort. Whoever you were fighting with snapped your swords at the exact point where the magic runes were critically connected, that is not my expertise. Unless..." "What?" "Unless we can find another weapon with simr rune enchantments, and forge it into your swords. We can more or less return your swords to its original state but it is not guaranteed to be 100% same as before." "You mean, we need to destroy an Artifact weapon of the same level, to repair my swords?" I already felt hopeless. "Afraid so." rk sighed. "There are options though. I can use my [God¡¯s Bane] if that¡¯s ok for you. But I don¡¯t know what will happen. All Artifacts tend to change when you reforge them and no one knows the result beforehand." "Will it change too much? Like, can we create a bow instead when we''re forging a sword?" "I¡¯m not sure. One of the best Artifact masters in Dark Sanctuary once tried to repair a warnce, and acquired a mountain axe in the end. I really can¡¯t tell you what might happen." "Let''s just do it. I don¡¯t have a choice anyway. As long as you don¡¯t mind wasting your collection?" "Oh don¡¯t worry about it." rk collected the broken des. "Never nned to use these things, at least I can put them to good use now. Nowe in and help me." "Oh!" I followed him into his workshop. First, he collected various materials I don¡¯t recognize and threw them into his furnace. Thest materials are the broken Dragon Fang swords and his God''s Bane des. "Ziri! Get an energy crystal in there." "This one?" I tossed a pale-colored crystal into the fire. "ck bakelite, three blocks." "ck...bakelite...there." "Dark jade! Four of them." "Huh?...Ah, here." I found four ck square objects. This kept going for a while, before rk asked me to help him press the wind bellow. "Oh and, give me two units of Chromium." "What¡¯s that?" Since I can¡¯t understand what''s he¡¯s referring to, he came to look for the material himself. "Ziri? Did you put in the dark jade I asked?" "Dark jade? Yeah, what¡¯s wrong?" "Why are they still here? I only brought four." "But I found four dark--Oh crap, Did I put the wrong stuff?" I panicked. rk checked the remaining stock. "Is this what you added?" "That¡¯s not dark jade?" I pointed at the ck object. "No." He held up another half-transparent crystal. "The dark jade is here, what you found is ma metal!" "God. Did I mess it up? Oh! Let''s put this in there too. We don¡¯t want to miss anything." I grabbed the remaining three dark jade blocks and threw them into the furnace. "No--" When rk failed to stop me, he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the outside. "You fool! We can''t heat up dark jade and ma together!" "Why?" Shoosh! A silver te grazed past my face and threw itself into the furnace. "That¡¯s why!!" All sorts of objects in the store began to levitate and rush towards the burning furnace, as if it is the center of gravity! At first they were only small ones like tes and forks. But heavier ones soon followed, such as armors and weapons. I¡¯m pretty sure I saw rk''s forging hammer waltzing in. It didn¡¯t take long before the whole room in empty of any metal object! Shite. There¡¯s at least a ton of stuff in there now. I don¡¯t want to get myself a giant metal bulge as a weapon! It''s not finished yet. The windows broke, random things entered the store and headed to the furnace. I carefully poked my head outside to see what¡¯s going on. From the mass graveyard''s direction, countless broken and shattered weapons formed up a metallic river stream in the air which is now flowing into the store! I don''t know about my weapon but I''m sure rk¡¯s house is not going to hold such a mess! Instead of running away, we soon noticed that the furnace is not getting filled up as we expected. Trash and junk are still going in, but it''s like they just disappeared inside it. When the crisis finally stopped, me and rk slowly approached the furnace and-- Ka-crack! The furnace shattered into pieces. Damn it. I¡¯m too quick to raise troubles. While rk looked at me with teary eyes, I fished around the remains of the furnace for my poor weapon. Weird. So many weapons and other things were in here, at least I should pull out something! But no, I found nothing--oh wait. Finally, I pulled out a red, long object from the bottom of the scraps. It''s still hot, a long de, with exaggerating designs. But it''s beautiful. "Aha! My sword!" I feel like hugging it if not for that it¡¯s still burning hot. rk didn¡¯t say anything. He¡¯s still sulking in front of his broken furnace. "Don¡¯t worry brother, I¡¯ll help you get a new one. Even a better one." "This thing''s not cheap you know!" "Let me worry about the money!" I handed him a million crystal pieces. "Is this enough?" "What the-- Did you go rob a city bank or something?" ...I didn¡¯t rob anyone but, I can¡¯t say the money came clean either. Heh heh. "Now you can get a new furnace, help me chill up my sword!" "Oh!" rk jumped up, and scratched his head. "I don¡¯t have any tools for that!" "Oh shoot. Someone around here sells them?" "I''ll get the backup tool from the basement. Wait here." While he finishes up my sword, I searched around the furnace again. They were originally dual swords, added with tons of materials, maybe there¡¯s something else down there. As I thought, I pulled out another identical sword. I didn''t stop searching, just in case. And I continued until I found another SIX of them. What happened? So I have 8 swords now? It¡¯s not over yet. With a final pull, I grabbed another single-handed sword, albeit longer than all the others, out of the trash pile. This one is different from the 8 identical swords, both longer and more decorative. rk already finished with the first sword. When he looked towards me he dropped his hammer on the ground. "What''s going on here??" "I don¡¯t know! Let''s just get them done." "...I''ll do it." He carried all the swords to his tform and began his work, while I turned back to the trash pile. ...I don''t know how to describe my feeling, as I found something else! "A dagger?" The short de suggests that it is definitely a dagger. With the same practice, I found a total of 5 of them. In addition, there are three unknown triangr objects, and another two dagger-like des about which I''m sure they¡¯re not daggers. I can¡¯t tell what they are before rk cools them up though. Chapter 110: The Danger Chapter 110: The Danger Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy rk is still busy with all the extra swords. When he saw me yet again bringing so many objects he almost fainted. "Is this some kind of joke?" "I don¡¯t know! It didn¡¯t give me a single big iron b, at least that''s something to celebrate for." I carried all the stuff to him. "Sorry to bother you again. Heh heh..." It took him 2 hours to finish up everything, then we began to examine the pile of weapons. First, the nine swords. The longest one among all turned out to be a pitch ck long sword. After some tries and trials we found out that it is a ma steel sword. When I wield it around, the other smaller ones will also levitate and fly everywhere. Unlike when in the furnace however, this one now only attracts the small swords instead of every metal object in the room. Speaking of the eight smaller swords...They''re silver white, light-weighted. I can literally lift them all by using only one finger. I think they weight less than a kilo altogether, as if they''re made of stic. "What are these? Throwing knives?" rk gave me that ma sword. "Check out the status." "[Master Sword of the Flying Dragon], Artifact, single-handed sword, Growth quipment, Durability 1500/1500, *Attack 600-700, Attack speed: Very Fast, *+10% amplified damage, 25% chance to causeceration, 100¡ë chance to deal crushing blow (equipment hit by it immediately breaks apart beyond repair), ??% chance to freeze target, Ignore defense, +100 lightning damage, 25% life steal. Talent skill [Flying Sword]: Able to control flying swords to attack targets within effective range." "And this one." He gave me one of the small swords. "[Sword of the Flying Dragon(3)], Artifact (appendant), Growth equipment, Durability 1500/1500, *Attack 200-400, Attack speed: Very Fast, Consume wielder''s MP by 2 points/sec, +20% amplified damage, Ignore defense, +50 hellfire damage. Talent skill: [de Barrier], [de Shift]." "All small ones share exact the same attribute. So you use the big one to control them." "That should be it." I held up the master sword and waved it around at random. All eight flying swords moved, causing rk to quickly dive under the table. "Carefuld! Don¡¯t ruin my house!" "Argh!!" One of the swords lost control and flew past my face, leaving a small gash on me. All remaining ones ran wild when I hurt myself which further caused several unexpected bleeding scars on my body. My armor is still under repair and I don''t have any protection now. "Stop it. Find an open ground and practice when you have time." rk looked around all the damaged walls. "Any more of these and you''re going to tear the ce down!" "Ow ow look at me. It''s a good thing that my own attack doesn¡¯t actually damage myself. These wounds are decorative." rk crawled out from under the table and took out the triangr object I found in the trash. "What do you think this is?" "No idea. An arrow head maybe?" "Correct." He tossed it over. "[Tip of the Dragon¡¯s Fang], Artifact, Arrow damage +100, +20% hit rate, Explode upon impact dealing 500 area damage." That¡¯s...not very impressive. And I only have three. I wonder if I can put it on a Soul Chaser bolt, so it will regenerate. "What about the dagger?" I asked rk while trying to install the arrow tip onto my special bolt. "This is no dagger. It''s a dart." "That''s quite a big dart then." I took one of them in my hand. Red, short de, lodged onto a curve and smooth handle...it does look like a dart, if not for the exceeding size of it. It¡¯s even bigger than a standard dagger. I¡¯d call it a short sword. I looked at the strange weapon which is about a feet long. "It must be quite powerful when thrown at someone. But, how do I throw it? " "You can use it as a dagger if you like." "Why do I need so many daggers?" "Of course you need them!" rk lined them up on his table. "You can use them as backup weapons when you can¡¯t use your main arms for whatever reason. Throw them at people. Or conceal them and stab someone when they''re least expecting it." "I see. I can also use them to gut animals and roast some meat I guess. What about the other two dagger-like des?" "Oh, this..." He handed one to me. "Follow my lead." I watched as rk readied the other object. There''s a short de at the front of it, but it is S-shaped. The "handle" at the end of it looks like a disc. Now rk is holding onto the object by the tip of the de, I copied his action. Next, he shook his hand. With a metal shing noise, the object changed shape. It''s definitely not a dagger now. A circle of small des, also S shaped, appeared around the center disc. It looks like pretty much a wheel of an electric fan...just with thinner and sharper des. I mimicked his action and gave the weapon a shake. Nothing happened. rk returned the object to its original state and did it again. "Stronger!" I did it this time. Now I''m also holding a fan wheel. "What is this?" "...You never yed this before?" "y?" I looked at the object in doubt. "So it''s a toy? My Artifactes with a toy?" "Nonono it''s not!" He quickly exined. "This is a boomerang! So you never saw any kids ying this thing?" He hurled the weapon out of the window. I watched as the weapon made a U-turn and went back to his hand. "How does that look?" I tried throwing it too. It dide back towards me but I failed to catch it. The boomerang crashed into the only standing vase in rk¡¯s room and stuck into the wooden shelf. "You need to get yourself familiar with it first! Nowe with me." He dragged me past several blocks and entered a poor looking structure. "Where are we? This ce doesn¡¯t look like Lost City style." "This is the training center for anything dangerous. It breaks a lot so we just made it into this simple shelter instead." When we came to the center of it something scared me for good. At least a thousand people are inside this giant room, all wearing knight armor. "They are the Mythal Legion?" The very scene when I first came to the city appeared in my memory. These are the same ones who almost chopped my head off back there. "You know them?" "I met them before. But why is their level so low? You know how city NPC are usually level 800 or 850, why do they have level 200 ones?" "Low level huh?" rk beckoned at a practicing dark knight and called him over. "Check his level." "...Dark knight, level 200." "Try again." I spammed my [Identify] several times, when a system notice came up: "You sessfully looked through target''s disguise. Skill leveled up." The dark knight suddenly turned into a bigger monster burning with blue me. The name is now [Phantom Knight], level 850! "He''s a Phantom Knight??" rk chuckled. "A fewmanders are level 950 Death Knights. Apart from them the entire Mythal Legion isposed of Phantom Knights." "I see..." "Okay, practice your weapons here, since you can¡¯t damage something that¡¯s already broken. If you somehow hurt yourself there is healer over there. Now I need to get a new furnace and repair all those damages you caused." I began to familiarize myself with the flying swords and boomerangs. I contacted Rose and told them to head to the next city, and call me if somethinges up. The new weapons are deadlier than I expected. The whole practice is a disaster. I could never control the flying swords at my own will, now my hands and face are filled with scars. As for the boomerang...no matter how I threw it, it alwayses back at my face. I either dodge away, or try to grab it with my eyes closed. After a day¡¯s effort, I can finally make sure the swords won¡¯t hurt myself. I can''t direct them to my target yet, but at least I won¡¯t get more bleeding holes on my body. As for the boomerang... No way. There is no advance. "Hey boss. I''m off now, dinner?" Wayne sent me a message. "Alright, I¡¯m off too." I collected my scattered weapons and logged out in defeat. Looks like I need to keep this up tomorrow, or no one would dare to team up with me in the future. In the next day I can more or less control the swords to attack my desired target, though something innocent can still get hit now and then. The boomerang can still escape my hand, but hey I learned how to dodge them! That¡¯s a bless. Before I can start the next round, Rose contacted me. "Ziri we need help!! Coordinate xxx, xxx, xxx!" "Right away!" She didn''t sound good. I directly teleported to rk¡¯s ce, grabbed my armor set. rk gave me a fan-shaped metal box and asked me to equip it on my back. There are eight slots on it, and I can put my eight flying swords in there. There¡¯s another bigger slot in the middle where I can plug mynce. As for the master sword...I have to hang it on my waist. When everything¡¯s ready, I teleported to the exact coordinate Rose told me. Before I can have a look around, something came down at my head and covered me up. "Who is that??" I do hope Rose is not ying a joke at a time like this. "Get this off or it''ll be violent you hear me??" "You can try! No one has ever escaped my before! Now give him some treat you lot!" Countless punches and kicks rained down on my body. Okay, this is definitely not a joke. But how did someone set a trap on me when Rose told me toe? Let''s consider itter. "Rosa!" A hole appeared on the ground. Rosa dragged me under and sent me out from another location away from the trap. "So which bastard was kicking me?" I looked at the group in anger. About two dozen people. "We all did it. So what?" Someone stepped ahead. I can tell he was the one who gave the order. "So what?" I raised a hand. Rosa grabbed one of his legs and pulled the screaming man over to me. I stepped on his face and ground it into the dirt. "Oh please forgive me! You were all kicking me like that, so many of you! I''m sooo afraid! So what? Huh? What can I do? Huh??" I tried to make that as sarcastic as possible. "Let him go now!" A muscr man approached me. A berserker. "Touch my friend again and I¡¯ll--" I silenced him by throwing mynce at him. I''m still not used to my new weapons yet. Thence went into his opened mouth and pierced his head, locking him onto a tree behind. "Filthy pest." I summoned Night Shade and hopped on. "There were two female yers here. Where are they?" "Why would we tell you? Oh right, the bitches. I think our guild master already have them on the bed! Gah-hahaha!" A sneaky looking guy taunted while imitating some unspeakable motions in the air. I released my dragon cord, caught his neck and pulled him towards me. "Ohh you seems strong. And scary! I''ll not ask you then. Let¡¯s find someone else." I dropped him to the ground and ordered Night Shade to stomp him until there¡¯s only a bleeding meat chunk left. "Now, which one of you would be so kind to answer my question? Oh don''t worry, I only need ONE. As for everyone else..." I made a "slit" gesture in front of my own neck. Some people stepped up in panic. "I-I-I-know!" "Quiet!" I recovered mynce and wiped it clean on the clothes of a random volunteer. "You then. Tell me." "The guild master captured them!" "Captured? There were nine knights, two dragons, a phoenix and a giant bug. Did your master defeat them all? Or did my knights ck off?" "That¡¯s not it!" Another one yelled. "They were strong of course! The knights killed 800 of our men and were drawn away by another group. We used the same tactic to get the attention of the dragons and the insect. Of course most of our men died. Those creatures are terrible!" "Get to the point!" "Then we assembled 300 Chain Wielders to capture the phoenix and locked it into a special cage we prepared, that¡¯s how we managed to get to thedies! We saw them chatting with someone, so our boss asked us to stay here and ambush anyone that appears. We were following orders! " "The girls didn''t use their harassment protection to escape? How did your master capture them in the first ce?" "The cage I mentioned, our guild can produce a special cage called the [Refined Iron Cage], anything put inside cannot use any teleportation, including the system protection." "What??" This is definitely a system bug! And we''re the first ones to bear its consequences! "Phantom Knights, on me!" I assembled my team that were drawn away, except Phiona. I can¡¯t seem to be able to summon her no matter how I try. I pulled another man over. "Tell me the name of your guild. And your boss." "We are the [God''s Design]. Our master is [Big de More Killz], top yer on the level ranking board, and second ce on thebat rating list!" "Big de? Man the world is too small." I released the man and activated my Star Gaze, acquired Rose''s location and ordered my team to move. Now you dare to put your hands on Rose? I''ll send you back to the rookie vige this time! The ce is not far. It only took several minutes before we charged out of the forest and saw a medium size city ahead of us. Before we can enter, the gate guards stopped us. "The city of God''s Design is not open to sightseeing!" "Fuck that. There are private cities?" "You are on the cklist for our city so you''re not weed here. Leave now or we''ll drive you away by force!" They raised theirnces. I moved away into a safe distance and contacted Rose. "Can you hear me Rose?" "Ah sweetheart. I guess you''re outside the city now?" "Yes. The NPCs won¡¯t let me in. I''m going to tell Hawk to bring more people to help. Are you and Yuri all right?" "We''re fine. Big de is the master of their city, he can decide who can enter and who can¡¯t. I saw him do it when Yuri told him you wille for us." "Don''t worry. Of course I''lle for you, even if it means I need to burn the city to the ground!" "Take your time to prepare. That man isn¡¯t doing anything to us yet. I have a skill I can use to kill myself. Souls can¡¯t leave this cage but at least he can¡¯t do anything to me like that." "Won¡¯t take long!" I began to send messages to Hawk and the others. There''s a good chance that we need to break down the city for real. Big de huh? You bastard overdid it this time. Chapter 111: To Breach the City Chapter 111: To Breach the City Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Hawk?" When I connected to Hawk I heard something strange. "Ziri, huff... Ugrh! What¡¯s...the matter?" Is he doing "business" with Elfy? Man. "Something happened. Can youe find me at the south gate of God''s Design city, when you are, well, done?" "Ten minutes!" He quickly cut the chat. Maybe I picked a bad time to call him. Next is Wayne. The guy is hanging out with everyone else, which saved me a lot of time. Several minutester, Zirai and the rest of the group appeared from the city gate, and came to me when they saw me waving to them from the forest. "What happened?" "Rose and Yuri are captured by someone, the crystals and shields we bought are all taken away!" "What?? Who the fu*k is messing up with our preparation against Japan?" Zirai is getting furious again. "Tell me their names. I''m so going to send them back to level 20!" I pointed at the city from which they just came out. "It''s a guild, the God''s Design. This is their city. The leader is called Big de, I guess you all know him." "Him again??" Wayne jumped. "You know each other?" Coin asked him. "I don¡¯t want to know him but yes! He killed me and took away my equipment back then. Boss helped me get revenge." "An old enemy huh?" That''s Hawk. He just arrived. "You two are satisfied?" I asked the couple while carrying a wicked grin. "Oh screw you." Elfy retorted with a red face. The other ones just looked at us in puzzle. "Back to topic. The lost items aren¡¯t really a big deal, but we need to get Rose and Yuri out of there fast. They have some cage that can prevent you from escaping, that''s how they¡¯re holding the girls, and my Phiona." "Phiona? Yourpanion? You can¡¯t even summon her now?" Elfy asked. "Tried, and no. The cage nullifies everything rted to teleportation, including the harassment protection for female yers." "What? Don''t tell me that Big de can do something...??" Elfy sounds worried. "That¡¯s why I called you all as soon as I can!" "What¡¯s your n?" "The gate guards won¡¯t let me in. They can decide to block certain yers from their own city, so my only choice now is go in there by force." "A siege you mean?" Passerby came up. "We''re in your guild now, if more than 30% of our members attack a city, the system will dere the action as a guild war. The losing guild is responsible for paying all the war expenses and loss, and they''ll be disbanded if they can¡¯t pay up." Coin: "That¡¯s not a problem. We don¡¯t have city, or any asset for that matter. Getting disbanded means nothing to us." "I agree. Our guild is only a title for now. Besides I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll lose that easily." Razor folded his arms. "Let''s take a vote. Raise your hand if you agree to attack." Zirai suggested and raised her hand first. And everyone followed. "That¡¯s settled. Let''s give it a shot!" Merciless is trying to block the already charging Zirai: "Do we go find helpers from Goddess Alliance or Righteous League? I know we¡¯re all strong but it''s an entire guild we''re fighting with. See the crystal cannon? They must have city defense NPCs too. Maybe not as many as other system cities but there should be at least one or two hundred level 800 guards. Can we go against all of them?" "Good point. No matter how good we are we can¡¯t win a war just with a dozen people." Elfy nodded. "I suggest we borrow some force from Gale. We can pay him if necessary. What do you say?" "We don¡¯t have to pay as long as our boss is willing to lend his body to Miss Moon. Believe me, that girl will lead her entire guild here and stampede the enemy city to ruins!" Wayne raised a terrible joke. I kicked him away and turned to Elfy: "Good idea but I don''t--" "You don¡¯t feel like asking them for more help? I''ll do it." Zirai came up. "Now tell me, how many men do we ask?" "That will depend on how many yers are online in their guilds. And I don¡¯t think they can send everyone." "I''ll just contact them then, and discuss the detailster." Zirai opened her chat and connected to Red Moon. "Miss Moon?" "Oh, is that Zirai?" They have their video on, and Red Moon instantly recognized "the other me". "That¡¯s right." "What¡¯s up?" "I¡¯m asking for some help." "Help? Go ahead, anything I can do." Weird. This is not the Red Moon I knew. "We need to attack a city, and--" "You need more people?" Red Moon is quick enough. "How many?" "Well..." "Oh, right. Tell me their city''s size, which guild it belongs to, and how many defenders." Elfy moved in front of the screen. "We only know it''s a yer-built city." "Big de''s God''s Design?" "How did you know that??" "He¡¯s the number one on the rankings! Of course we would pay attention to his movements. The God''s Design is the thirdrgest guild in the region, and the only guild with their own city." "Um, so you and your brother haven¡¯t built a city yet?" "It¡¯s..plicated. For certain reason we haven''t found an avablend yet, and someone went ahead of us first. So you''re going to mess up that guild? Good, now we don¡¯t have to worry about getting surpassed by someone." ...I knew she won¡¯t help us for no reason. "My suggestion is you wait for two or three days before you attack." "Huh? Why?" I asked. Red Moon paused when she saw me, but recovered soon enough. "Wait for Saturday so I can assemble more people. My brother is not online now, the Righteous League knew who I am but I don¡¯t think I can give them orders." "How many people do you have right now?" She doesn¡¯t know I''m in a big hurry. Red Moon talked with someone behind her and turned back. "20 thousand within an hour. No more." "That¡¯s fine. Thank you!" My thank is sincere. She smiled back, which gives me a really strange feeling. "Well uh,ter!" Time for preparation. My first task is to dere war to the enemy city. This will notify everyone inside the city to leave. Once the war begins the teleportation station will shut off, and anyone still online will be considered enemy. Of course this gives the enemy guild time to prepare as well but if we don¡¯t do this, our action will be deemed as ambush and our guild will receive Evilness points. I don¡¯t mind getting more of that but I can¡¯t let my whole guild gged as public enemy. I teleported to a nearby city and found an NPC to apply for a guild war, which cost me a thousand gold pieces. The NPC also told me that if we agree to take their war correspondent along in our team, he can help us cut the preparation time down to half. Of course I epted, we don¡¯t need much time to prepare but it will probably cause Big de a big problem. When I returned to our point, Red Moon already took most of her people here. There''s a problem though. Apart from 3 thousand male and female warriors, the rest of the team are purelyposed of priestesses and female oracles. More than three quarter are female yers! I walked to the front of the formation, where Hawk is sorting out the roaster. "What''s going on?" "This is my army!" Before Hawk can answer, Red Moon''s voice appeared behind me. "Oh, uh, hi!"I looked at her in embarrassment. "Well...!" "This is the best team in Goddess Alliance. Don¡¯t you dare lose it all." "But there are only three thousand warriors, and half of them are girls!" How do we fight a war with all these healers and supports?? Red Moon looks offended. "Just get on with it. My healer team will show you how they fight." "I should thank you though. I''ll pay for any loss in this fight." "I don¡¯t ask for payment. Remember my requestst time? upy a Japan city for a day, this is my only condition." "Right. I''ll do it!" I reached out my hand. "With pleasure." "Come on you two! They raised their cannon!" Hawk shouted at us from his position. We moved to the front. As he said, the city gate is closing, and the crystal cannon stationed in the city center is slowly turning its head towards us. "Our team aren¡¯t going to survive the attack!" Red Moon yelled. "Leave it to me." I summoned all mypanions and prepared. "Tank, use your cannon at the crystal cannon up there, and fast!" Tank steadied himself on the ground and took aim. "Fire!" A green bullet was pumped out of Tank''s organic cannon and moved towards the target. The enemy yers screamed as they watched the strange shotnded on their crystal cannon, creating a small mushroom cloud. Tank is out of the fight for now, he already done his job--the only crystal cannon in the city is now busted. Red Moon turned around and gave the order in her guild channel. "Attack!" Only the 3 thousand warriors moved, while all the healers stayed behind. Maybe this is their own tactic, which means I shouldn¡¯t ask. "Hawk, let¡¯s do it!" "Go!!" I charged in front on Night Shade, leaving the warriors from Goddess Alliance behind. Zirai followed on her Skyfire, while Lucky apanied them. We didn¡¯t reach the city before we''re weed by a barrage of arrows. The two dragons pushed through the attack using their thick defense. I saw Lucky¡¯s HP bar drop madly, but a light beam from the healer formation went into Lucky¡¯s body, restoring his HP in a blink of an eye. So that¡¯s how their support team works. Lucky and Skyfire are now flying along the city wall while breathing fire. Most yers on the wall are forced into the water below. Zirai ordered her titans to grab two tree trunks and use them to smash the city gate. It only took two or three blows for them to break through. I reached the entrance when a group of NPC guards rushed to stop me. Under the attack of several level 800 guards, my HP is emptied out fast, but I¡¯m not defeated yet since mypanions are sharing their health with me. Before the next round of attacks I already saw my own HP as well as mypanions¡¯ getting filled up. Hawk is fighting beside me, and I see the same expression on his face. I''m not nning to stand here getting damaged though. I punched at two approaching guards as hard as I can and sent them tumbling away. I''m under werewolf mode now, and using my ws feels better than using weapons. The Phantom Knights, as expected, are doing far greater than me. They charged into the NPC formation at full speed, bringing them into the air, while also mming some yers into the city wall. "Sir? Are you sure the enemies are level 800? They are so weak." The leader knight approached my position and asked. "Maybe we should switch target?" I asked them to wipe out enemy NPCs since they pose a greater threat to us. But now I also noticed that they''re not really strong, even I can manage to fight with one of them 50-50. "Give me a moment." I checked the status of several NPC guards in sight. They are...level 550! That¡¯s still higher than most yers but there''s no way they can defeat the Phantom Knights. The only reason I can think of is that Big de didn¡¯t have enough money to hire better guards for his city. Elfy flew past my head on her pegasus. Her job is to deal with any casters among the enemies from far away. We broke through the guard formation and headed towards inside the city, now we''re engaged in a head-on fight with the yers from God''s Design. Red Moon''s secret army began to show their true merit--my HP bar never drops now! I can''t die as long as no one finishes me off in one hit, which is quite impossible. I no longer need to worry about the warriors from Goddess Alliance now. They are simply running into enemies like army ants, since someone else always keeps their HP full. I noticed a white sh nearby. This means we got casualty, and whoever can kill our people now may be someone I need to take care of myself. Maybe it¡¯s Big de himself. I ordered my knights to close in and the other yers to back away. A warrior with a tall and slim build soon came into my view. He¡¯s wearing different equipment but I instantly recognized my former enemy. He¡¯s literally carrying a "big de" to sh people. Hearing my message, all yers from the Goddess Alliance moved behind me, and the Phantom Knights lined up along the street, blocking any escape routes. "We meet again!" "Do I know you?" He looked at me in doubt. I canceled my werewolf skill and returned to my usual body. "What about now?" "Ziri huh? I remember you, and I always will!" "Cut the talks, let''s see how strong you are!" I lowered my helmet mask and took out mynce. "Phantom Knights, charge!" The leader knight also moved. "Leave no one standing! " I called Night Shade over and charged ahead with the knights. The eleven of us can cover the entire street, there''s no way to get past us now! Before we reach Big de he called out to someone. "Come to me, de Dreamer!" Another warrior dropped down from a nearby building and crashed into me, knocking me off my mount. When we¡¯re on the ground, he held tight onto my waist and called to Big de: "Boss, run! I''ll stop him!" "Knock it off!" I punched at this guy but he''s not releasing me. "Knights, a little help here!" They can¡¯t use any violent means in such a situation so they just tried to pull the warrior off me, without much sess. "I''ll do it!" A warrior from Goddess Alliance poked his sword precisely at the man''s neck. The sudden pain caused him to finally give up his grasp, I quickly kicked him away. When he tried to rush me again, I triggered my w des and opened up six bleeding holes on his body, killing him atst. However Big de is already nowhere to be found! "Phantom Knights! On me!" I led them to move towards the city center. I saw a lot of enemy yers on the way but they already lost their will to fight when they found out the alliances can¡¯t be killed at all. This is not how a siege works. Usually, we should have suffered the most casualties when we¡¯re trying the breach the city gate, during which the enemy can well cause some damage to us using their archers and crystal cannon. What they weren¡¯t expecting is that I knocked their cannon out of the fight from the start and went through the city gate before they can organize enough people. "Sir! Over there!" One of the knights found our target. It''s a small za, with three cages hanging in the air by ropes. Rose, Yuri and Phiona are in the cages, while below them is a...dung pool. I can already smell the stink in the distance! Big de is standing beside the supporting point of the ropes. He just needs one movement to send the cages into the terrible pit. "Come any closer and your two girls and this stupid bird will have to eat shit for dinner! Well?" "Oh really?" I raised my hand. Some bubbles emerged from the mucky liquid, before countless nt vines appeared from it, covering it up. That''s perfect soil for Rosa, however I need to tell him to clean up afterwards. "You can try. Come on." Big de looked at the now useless trap and turned tail immediately. Lucky dropped down from the sky,pletely blocking his path. Before he can even think about going another way, Loong''er showed up at the only remaining exit. "Hey! Do you dare to have a one-on-one duel with me?" He suddenly suggested. Somehow I was expecting him to rely on this. "If I win, you let me go and I won¡¯t ask for anything topensate our loss." "What if you lose?" "Lose??" Okay. He didn¡¯t even consider that possibility. "I disband my guild and delete my character!" "Deal!" Actually I always wanted to fight with the so-called No.1 yer again. "Any rules?" "We go solo, use our own weapons, nopanions or servants, no potions!" "Pfff. You don¡¯t have helper so you want solo fight, you don¡¯t havepanions and servants so you ban them, and I guess you used up all your potions too? Aren''t you clever. But whatever, let''s do just that. You know what, you don¡¯t even need to keep your promise. I¡¯ll do it for you! I''m going to hunt you down until you''re back to the rookie vige and delete your character yourself. Now have at you!" Chapter 112: Occupation Chapter 112: upation Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy I took ahold of my master sword and pointed it at Big de. The other eight flying swords rushed out from behind my back in union, as if a peafowl is showing off its tail in pride. All the swords turned their tips towards Big de under mymand. "[Steel sher]!" He moved. A simple downwards sh, causing a blurred de shadow to drop down on me. "[de Barrier]!" The flying swords surrounded myself while pointing at the ground. They began to rotate. As they moved faster, a round barrier was created around me. Big de''s skillnded on the rotating swords, causing a metal sh and some sparks. One of the swords was knocked away, but his de shadow also dissipated. Since a ranged skill didn¡¯t work, Big de charged directly at me. I moved the master sword, ordering the flying swords to leave me and go towards my enemy. Big de skillfully knocked each of the swords away while running. However the flying swords would soon turn back on their course, which forced Big de to keep defending himself. The Phantom Knights already rescued the girls. I noticed Yuri''s white robe is now covered in mud and dirt. Okay, this will be ugly. Big de is getting closer. Instead of attacking him, I lowered my sword and pressed a finger on my helmet. "[Dragon Wasp]!" 800 flying creatures appeared around me. Big de halted and looked at me in panic, not sure what I¡¯m nning to do. "You agreed not to usepanions and servants! " "I¡¯m not. They are standing over there, look. " "Then what the fuk are these...??" "Oh, you mean these little ones?" I raised a hand and one of the waspsnded on it. "They''re notpanions, or servants. Or do you really think I can bring 800 of them? You¡¯re not THAT stupid, right?" I taunted him while poking at therge sting behind the wasp. Ouch. "But this is not fair!" Of course he knows he isn¡¯t going to win against these mess of enemies. "Too bad then. You know my main ss is Tamer, you are not seriously asking me to have a solo duel with a warrior, eh?" I tossed the wasp into the air. "Okay, shall we finish this? Ready up, my friends!" The wasps were all resting on the ground while we¡¯re talking. Now they all went into the air, causing a deafening buzzing noise. "Let¡¯s go taste some delicious blood!" All the terrible creatures swarmed up on Big de, covering him up before he can make another move. I think I hear him screaming. But it is not really distinguishable under all the buzzing which is as loud as an airne taking flight. "Ziri!" Zirai dropped down beside me from the sky, startling me a bit. "What''s that?" She pointed at the human-shape creature swarm. "Leader of God¡¯s Design, Big de." "Ew...You really out-did it." Zirai looked at the scene and flinched. "He deserved it." Yuri joined us. "He pped my face back there!" "He what??" I quickly checked her face. "Where? Did it hurt?" Rose came and pulled me away. "Come on this is a game! And do you think the professional healer, which is me, would allow a scar?" Coin appeared from one of the roads. She nced at the now copsed human figure while running towards us. "Who are you messing up this time, handsome? Ow, I sure hope I never experience that again. This is worse than what you didst time." "As I said, I usually go easy ondies." "Oh really?" A new voice joined, which caused my hair to stand. "But you never went easy on me." Red Moon walked in front of me. "I already did my deardy!" "Aha. I''m joking!" She didn¡¯t try to ignite a scene again. Okay, she¡¯s definitely changing, somehow. Before anyone can speak further, a system notice came up. This one is broadcast to the entire city. "The Goddess Alliance has sessfully broken through God¡¯s Design''s council hall. God¡¯s Design city is now upied. As the city is the main city of God''s Design, all guild members will lose three levels. All members of Blizzard Rose and Goddess Alliance will receive 10% EXP as a bonus, ording to their current level. Goddess Alliance has acquired a new guildnd, the God''s Design city is now abolished." Red Moon suddenly spoke. "We just obtained a medium sizednd, and I need to give it a name!" "Good for you." I nodded. "What are you waiting for?" "We took the city together. I...can''t take it myself." "Oh don¡¯t worry, I''m here to save people, and recover my lost items." I pointed at the approaching wagon. Hawk already found it. "I''ve finished all two tasks. Let¡¯s consider the city as a thank-you." Rose agreed. "We don¡¯t have enough people to manage a city anyway. Just take it." "Alright then." She finally agreed. "I shall call it the Friendship City then." We allughed at our "friendship". But another system notice interrupted us. "This name already exists, please use another one." Oh shoot. In the end Red Moon named the city as the "Present Town". As a reminder, when Big de was resurrected, he sent message to the whole world that he''s going to "find and kill all my family". Every time I went back online of before I log off, I use my Star Gaze to find his location, teleport to his side and sting him to death again. Itsted a month before his character is never used again, at least not when I''m here. And since I¡¯m online most of the time, I guess he created a new character for real. But this is another story. When we left the Present Town, Hawk and Elfy decided to help me transport the new equipment, while I went back to the shipyard first. Aldeina has already returned to the port with fourrge water boosters. Now I''m standing agape in front of this giant, container-like object. "...This is the booster you mentioned?" "Something wrong?" "It''s too big!" I knocked at the metal shell. "If I remembered right, those small boats are pretty swift vehicles right? Why does this one look like a small mountain?" Aldeina gave me a sad look. "I asked the king to help me build these ones, nicely. And you''re still not satisfied? Wah--!" Now I know why AI is not always a good thing! "Alright alright, it''s not your fault. Easy." I never knew how tofort a girl, let alone an NPC! She sobbed a little. "This one is special. The standard ones are never going to push Bi-Lin around so I told them to build these big ones. Did I do something wrong? " "I''m sorry! I should have known." She kept crying no matter how I tried. "Stop it that''s an order!" Silence. "Finally." I wiped some sweat off my forehead. "Come on, I¡¯m not ming you, for real. I was just a little shocked when I saw this giant. You okay now? Tell me how this works." "Put them behind your ship, and mind these holes back here." She pointed at several pipe-like structures. "They must be below the surface or they won¡¯t provide any power." "Alright, I''ll go tell them to modify the bottom cabin." "I''m right here, kiddo." The old designer appeared behind my back, nearly giving me another heart attack. "Oh my gosh...Okay, good timing. So you heard us?" "It''s a big project mind you!" The old geezer is trying to rip me off again! "Fine! Just tell me the price!" Before he can say anything my private chat came up. The name is...[Commander]? Who is that? And he requested a video chat too. "Hello?" I hesitated for a bit and decided to answer it. "Do you ever leave the game huh yboy? Now I have to create my own character to find you here!" "Dad??" Chapter 113: The Real Zirai Chapter 113: The Real Zirai Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "...Why are you here?" I can recognize my father¡¯s appearance across the video. He chose an orc berserker as his character. Interesting. "You¡¯ve been missing my calls all day!" Okay, he''s a bit mad at me. I see blood veins pumping on those orcish muscles. "It was you who asked me to prepare and infiltrate Japan." "Alright alright, back to business. You have time?" "I always have time. You''re not going to let me y an arm dealer again eh? I refuse!" "No." He quickly exined. "It¡¯s some other business." "Let''s hear it first." "Do you know about the Paradise Ind?" "I...think so." I held my chin and tried to recollect what I know about it. "The man-made ind, built by the government officials? It¡¯s on the South China Sea right?" "That¡¯s the one. Of course you would know it." But his expression indicated otherwise. "Now those officials decided to sell the ind." "To whom? Don¡¯t tell me you n to buy it off?" "Smart as ever, boy! It has nice views andndscape. The important part is the ind is directly open to the Pacific. Dragon Fate needs a sea-front base like this, and the ind is a perfect choice. Since it is artificial, the smooth coasts can be easily built into transition ports. We''re nning to buy the ind and re-develop it into another base of ours. But of course we won¡¯t let anyone else know about it, if anyone asks we just tell them this is a new holiday resort for Dragon Fate employees." "You...want me to go there? It''s the south sea for god''s sake, it will take at least a week or so." "That¡¯s what I''m thinking. You can take Charon along, just consider it as a holiday for you two." "You want Charon to cut her studies?" "You think I don¡¯t know? She will always be the top student even without attending to those sses. Unlike you! I talked with your supervisors, you finished less courses than other students drops!" "Wait, you talked with my teachers?" "A parent needs to know how their kid is performing!" He¡¯s getting angry, or pretending to be angry. "Do you go or not?" "Okay okay! Tell me my schedule." It¡¯s best to ept my father''s request. I can just bring two helmets with me so we can go into the game anywhere. "You¡¯re not the only one going. Someone will tell you the ns. Go to Charon''s apartment tomorrow eight and wait there." "Got it." I contacted Rose after seeing father off. "Rose? Dad told us to go on a holiday on the Paradise Ind tomorrow." "Hm? Tomorrow?" "Yes, eight in the morning. Do you need to prepare?" "Not really. But why suddenly?" "It''s a little..plicated." I told her about the holiday n which is actually a business tour. Rose said she can understand father''s n. I was kinda hoping her toin but she didn¡¯t. "I always wanted to see the sea!" So that''s what she''s thinking. "We''ve been fighting on the sea for several days now." "That''s different!" She gave me a shy look. "A seaside trip, just the two of us..." "Oh, ahem. Well remember to get there on time tomorrow. I''ll go catch you. Now I need a good rest." It''s almost 7 in the evening. The whole afternoon''s fight is exhausting as hell, I don''t wish to go on the holiday with panda eyes. It''s the end of January, the days on the ind could be pretty hot, and I don¡¯t have any summer clothes in my closet now. Oh forget it. I''ll just go buy some at the ce. Money can solve anything these days. I arrived at Rose¡¯s dorm at around seven, and walked straight into it without much concern. The robot dogs all looked at me with wagging tails for some reason. "Rose?" I knocked on her door while looking at all the girls wearing messy hair and half-open pajamas walking to the public water closet. I guess that''s how they usually look when there¡¯s no need to keep their image. Since I''m staring at someone else, I never noticed that the door is already opened. My next action is to knock on a girl''s head. "Hey! Do you have to hit ady like that?" "Oh oops, sorry sorry. I was distracted." She didn¡¯tin further. I didn¡¯t actually hurt her anyway. "So what do you want?" "I''m looking for Charon. She awake yet?" "You''re Ziri right?" It looks everyone around here knows me now. "Oh, actually I didn¡¯t see you before. Last time you saved Charon back, she shared all those expensive clothes with us. That¡¯s when we heard your name. Nowe in. She¡¯s still on the bed." I entered the room filled with the smell of several different perfumes. "Take a seat. I''ll go call her." "Wait, let me do it." I walked to her bed. The room is warm, she isn¡¯t having her nket on, instead she''s hold onto it like a hugging pillow. I carefully pinched her nose, which didn¡¯t wake her up. She just switched to mouth breathing mode. Sigh. I pushed her shoulder. "Rise and shine!" "Emmm..." She slowly sat up, looked around, then fell back down! I turned to the other girl. "When did she sleepst night?" "5 in the morning. I think she''s drunk." "I told her we got ns today, and she did what??" "Oh um, one of our friends was going the leave the school yesterday so we held a party. That''s why we all stayed upte." "I see..." I kept pushing and dragging Rose without much sess. The best response I can receive are some groans and moans. I simply removed her nket, put her on the edge of the bed and began to dress her up under the shocked expressions of her roommates. They all came to help once they know what I¡¯m trying to do. These girls are obviously better at the job, we put Rose into her daily wears in no time. I carried her to the water room and helped her clean her face (attracting more amused stares). The cold water woke her up, but she''s still dazed. At least she can move on herself now. I took the chance to help her finish up washing and then carried her downstairs. When we reached the school gate she¡¯s fast asleep again. Geez. The time reads 7:50. So I''m notte after all. Keeping the time is the basic of basics to respect people and I don¡¯t n to break this rule. After some waiting, two familiar figures came to us. "Butterfly and...Big K? Are you sure you two came for the right mission?" "We''re professionals! Of course we don¡¯t make that kind of mistake." Butterfly spoke, while Big K only gives me some humble chuckles, as usual. "What is your task then?" I''m still confused. Shouldn¡¯t they send me a financial assistant or something? "Our task is to ensure the safety for you and Miss Charon, and this is her, I assume?" Butterfly pointed at Rose, who¡¯s still leaning on my shoulder as if someone just got drunk after losing their only job. I just smile in embarrassment and try to change to topic. "So how do we get there?" "You have a car right?" "My car was a bit damaged by the Iron Unitst time and I sent it back to the base for maintenance. I don''t have it yet." "Oh crap." Butterfly looks surprised. "I thought we can use your car so we didn¡¯t drive. Okay, now this is trouble." "Ask our branch to sent a vehicle here then." I suggested. "It''s too far. And the traffic can be pretty bad in such hour." "Uhm...Okay, wait here." I passed Rose to Butterfly. Then I dashed back to my dorm, entered my Iron Unit and jumped down from the window. I operated my giant toy all the way back to the gate. "Will this do? We only need to get the the airport right?" "You have an Iron Unit in your room?? ...Right, thepany makes these stuff all day. But we have four people, there¡¯s only room for one." I opened the front hatch, carried Rose inside and closed it. The pilot seat is enough to hold both of us, just a bit awkward. "You two can sit on the shoulders." "Take it slow alright? There isn¡¯t really anything to hold on to up here." We ran to the airport in this strange setup. I also talked to thepany and applied for another two units for Butterfly and Big K. We may use themter. As for Rose...I''ll just keep her in here. She can¡¯t pilot these anyway. Our private ne is already waiting on the runway when we reached the ce. At least I think it¡¯s our ne. However I can¡¯t understand why they sent a camouged B-72 military transporter here, there¡¯s not even standard passenger seat on it, so I stayed in the Iron Unit after the ne took off. "So why are we traveling on this thing?" "This is not from thepany." Butterfly already received her Iron Unit, and spoke to me through her radio. "It''s a supply aircraft from the south sea marines. It is nned to go to the Nansha Inds today, and we''re just taking a free lift to the Paradise Ind." "Can that small airport on the ind take this military transport in it?" "Oh don¡¯t worry, we¡¯re notnding." The captain walked to us. "Hello sir." I first paid my respects to the military man. "What do you mean we¡¯re notnding?" "They drop us off from the air when we''re flying above the ind." Butterfly exined. "What??" I looked at the captain in shock. "From the air?" The captain just nodded. I checked the altitude meter on the Iron Unit''s controls. "You want us to jump from 20 thousand meters above the earth? I don¡¯t know how to use parachutes!" He knocked on the Iron Unit. "You have this. Besides you don¡¯t really need to learn how to use the chute." "We''re at the target, captain." The speaker in the cabin lit up. "Roger that." He gave us a salute. "Have a nice trip!" When the captain left the cabin, the ne hatch behind us slowly opened up. Butterfly controlled her unit towards the exit. "Need me to teach you?" "I learned it before but I never actually tried it out for real." "Give it a try then. If anything happens switch to auto-pilot, or give remote control to me." "Let¡¯s do it!" She posed an "ok" towards Big K, who walked to the open hatch and jumped off the ne, followed by Butterfly. I dashed out of the cabin with my eyes closed. In the air, I carefully kept bnce using the air thrusters. When I felt content enough I pressed the parachute button. Poom, the parachute was spread out above my Iron Unit. I felt a sudden force dragging me. All good now. "What are you doing??" Butterfly¡¯s voice came from the radio. "We are 20 thousand meters above! It will take hours for you tond with your chute out so early! And the sea wind can carry you off our target for hundreds of miles!" "Huh? Sorry I didn¡¯t know! What should I do now?" "Cut the main parachute. There are two backup ones on our units, release them when the altitude reads 7 thousand." "Got it!" I did as told. The altitude meter is dropping fast and we reached the designated height pretty soon. I already see two parachute spread open below me, I mean, above me. I¡¯m descending way faster than them. "Open it now you''re going too fast!!" "Yes!" I quickly pressed the button. I felt another slow-down but it quick vanished, after which I¡¯m free falling again. "Your first backup chute is broken! Open the other one! And activate your bottom thrusters too!" "O-okay!" I activated them both, which finally reduced my speed within an eptable threshold. I''m only one or two kilos from reaching the ground now. That...was close. But there''s another problem: I¡¯m above the sea! I can see the ind not far from me. I can even see passengers walking on the beach, but I¡¯m going to fall into the water at this rate. In the final distance, I gave up the parachute and began to glide towards the ind as best as I can using the thrusters. I didn¡¯t make it though. With a giant water ssh, my Iron Unit dropped into the sea. This attracted a lot of peopleing along the beach to watch the scene. Butterfly and Big K alreadynded near the port. They soon came running towards the gathered crowd, which scared most of the people away. Unlike my customized toy Iron Unit, these two guys are driving real stuff--with several Gatling guns installed on them! I managed to crawl back ashore. They considered nuclear and chemical hazard situations when designing the Iron Unit so it is waterproof. The bystanders only saw a giant monster covered in sea weedsing out of the water. Now they all left the beach screaming. Good. Now I don''t have to worry about jammed traffic. "You alright?" I asked them while trying to drag off all the nts. "That''s my question!" "I''m good. The thrusters were pretty handy, I almost made a perfectnding. Can you help me with all the weeds? I can''t open my hatch, something is caught on it." "Oh, right." A team of patrols came marching at the scene with weapons raised, but they all paused when the saw the armed metal monsters. Of course those tiny pistols aren¡¯t used to fight with something like us. "Easy, we¡¯re from Dragon Fate!" I pointed at the emblem on the Iron Unit''s shoulder. A group of higher-ups standing in the back of the line quickly swarmed up on us to offer pleasantries. "Can anyone show us to our rooms? Let''s talk in the evening, I need to get myself in shape first." They moved aside, giving us a passage. Well that felt good. The patrol leader took us to a hotel we reserved. Our first task is of course, park our Iron Units in the underground parking lot. The patrolman is obviously shocked when he saw me leaving my unit. Probably not expecting someone so young. Again. "Oh right, make sure you tell the other people to stand clear of the Iron Units. The security system will shock anyone who gets too close." "O-Okay sir. Now follow me please." When we stepped into the main hall, a big-bellied man quickly approached us with a business smile. It''s the hotel manager. He came as fast as he can when he learned about our arrival. "Wee my friends. I¡¯m the lead manager of the ind and this hotel, you can call me Wang Hai. How should I address you?" Butterfly and Big K are now walking behind me. Anyone can see that they''re my bodyguards. Rose is lying in my arms now, so the manage directed his question to me. "Sairin, tech department CEO of Dragon Fate Corporation. Just call me Mr Sai. I''m responsible of negotiating with the ind affairs. Thisdy is my...girlfriend, she got airsickness. Can you prepare another room for her? " "Already in ce. Follow me, Mr Sai." The hotel is decorated in extremely luxurious ways. Well, this is a world-ss vacation site, that''s for sure. "Are there any good clothing stores on the ind? We came in a bit hurry and didn¡¯t bring enough luggage." "Of course there are. I will show you once we settle thedy in her room. Or you can just tell us what you need and I will order services to save you the effort." "I''ll go myself. Oh, can you not tell anyone about my identity for now? I want to get a good look around the ce, it will be difficult to do so when people keep trying to talk to me." "That you can rest assured." He nodded with much professionalism. "I will also remind everyone you encountered just now about it." "My thanks. If I may, can I know about your n after selling your ind? You can remain here if there¡¯s no other n. Dragon Fate needs someone with good experience, like you." "Ah I''ll be very d then!" I saw a spring in his steps. "Now I won¡¯t lose my job. Here, your room." The elevator door opened, revealing a...another single door, instead of a hallway I was expecting. "Oh forgive me. This is the top floor, and there''s only the presidential suite here." "I see!" The manager opened the door for us. Before we enter, he signaled us to wait. A camera appeared from the wall, when the manager asked us to align our eyes in front of it for once. Though it took us some effort to manually open Rose''s eyelid. "This is pupil recognition lock. The door will open next time when you step out of the elevator if the camera catches your eyes so you don¡¯t have to carry a keycard around..." I stopped him from giving us further instructions. "This is produced by Dragon Fate if I remembered correctly." "Oh, uh, yes. How did I forget that, heh heh heh." "Not a problem. I¡¯m d you like our products. You''re soon one of us now." "Yes, yes!" His business grin came back. After I put Rose on the bed, the manager suggested taking us to the stylist center. I rejected since it may attract too much attention if he apanies us too much. Putting the business talks aside, I don¡¯t really feel like getting along with such people. Their attitude is always fake. I came to the stylist center he mentioned. It¡¯s pretty crowded. Most of the people are here for the ind auction, and of course they pay close attention to their looks. Crowd is something I always avoid so I decided toe backter. We went to a seafood restaurant to fill our stomach. The whole restaurant building is designed as a giant cooked lobster, and I¡¯m already feeling hungry by looking at it. Rose has to me herself for losing her meal. That said, I¡¯m going to take her to eatter anyway. Butterfly and Big K¡¯s daily menus only contain those routine meals in their training base. They may be nutritious but are for from delicious. Now that our trip is provided by thepany, the pair showed their demanding stomach to the fullest extent--Big K is wolfing down lobsters one after another using both hands, while Butterfly is also stuffing her mouth with sea cucumbers and crab meat like there¡¯s no tomorrow,pletely ruining her "professiondy" image. I¡¯m no better though. I spent most of my time in the game in my dorm and would only snack on fast or processed food. Now I''m also working all-out on the dining table. It''s two in the afternoon, there are not many people around. A man with ck hair and blue eyes came beside my chair as I''m trying to swallow another fish b. He''s wearing a pair of gold-rimmed sses, about 1.8 meter tall, with very slim build. Looks like someone cultured. "Greetings, I¡¯m Rezard, from Britain." Gulp! "Cough. Hello, I''m Sairin. Butterfly and Big K. Do you need anything?" I looked at my oily hands and decided against shaking his hand. "Um, they say a gentleman isn¡¯t supposed to eat like that but, I really wanted to enjoy a good meal right now. Can I join you so I don''t have to...?" Pffff. "Of course you can. Let¡¯s eat." I gave him a seat and we soon began to fight our food war together. It didn¡¯t take long before a big pile of remains of sea creatures are loaded on our table. Another group entered the restaurant. A beautifuldy is walking in front of the group. She''s wearing pretty heavy paints but I must say she looks good. Backless top, mini skirt... Hmm. Hot. Two males, obviously toy boys, are following behind her. Rich people, since they are both carrying holographicser projection phones on their waists which cost at least a million on the market. Behind the three there''s a in looking girl, about...15 years old? A timid and cute type. The girl is carrying a lot of shopping bags which seem to be stressing her out. Another woman came in, middle aged, with suit dress and also gold-rim sses. That stern look on her face reminded me of the headmaster of my high school. A new group showed up after a while. I dropped the half-chewed lobster from my mouth. I instantly recognized someone among the neers--Zirai. She looks a lot better than her character in the game. She has waist-level long hair, tight hot pants and a cute midriff-baring top. I never imagined this is how she dressed herself in real life. Before I can go and greet her, someone else came into the door and shocked me again. Huh, two Zirais? They look exactly the same! Apart from the color of their waist belts, one blue, one green. Thetter one saw me first. "Ziri??" "...Zirai?" So thete arriver is Zirai. Who is the first one with green belt then? "You''re Ziri?" "That''s me. Come, you can join us." I pointed to my table. The girl with green belt thrown a sharp look towards the first group of people before she walked to us. "Introduction then. My real name is Zu Ray, this is my twin sister Rin Ray, she was born about ten secondster then me." "I¡¯m Sairin, here are Butterfly, Big K, and Rezard." The British man quickly stood up and stretched his hands, only to redraw them again when he saw all the food craps on them. "One minute!" He dashed to the toilet, and ran back to us within ten seconds. "Pleasure to see you,dies." "Why are you using different family names when you¡¯re twins?" Zu Ray (Zirai) exined to me: "I followed my dad''s name as the older sister, and my little sister used mother''s name. My parent usually call us Big Ray and Little Ray when at home." "I wish I had a sister, haha. Come on, take a seat." I sat on my chair and stood up again. "Let''s uh, use another table." I can¡¯t see them across the food pile! I told the waiter to prepare another table for us and went to wash my hands with Butterfly and Big K. "Woah I can¡¯t tell you two apart at all." I spoke after cleaning myself up. "Duh, twins. The question is why do YOU look like us? We look like triplet now." Rezard looked among us and scratched his head. "I knew something feels off. Now you mentioned it..." Butterfly agreed. "If our young master grows some bigger chest muscles and hide his neck with a scarf or something, anyone will see you three as triplets. Right, Big K?" The giant man spoke, which is quite rare. "They''re totally different." We all looked at him with curiosity. "Young master carries a strong smell of violence, like those biological engineered cells. But the twodies only have perfume smells, mixed ones. They have nothing to do with violence." Everyone now has a "huh?" look on their faces. Butterfly quickly tried to change the topic. "Oh don¡¯t mind him, his has some, um, mental issues! Eh heh heh..." "Are you here on a vacation too?" I helped Butterfly. "For the ind." Rin Ray huffed. "My parents want this ind so they came. And they demanded us to follow them. I don¡¯t really mind but we just ran into that witch!" "Witch? That woman walking in the front?" I turned my head and looked at the other group. The woman is also looking towards us, with...killing intent. "Oh god. Are you enemies or something? " Zirai exined: "She is the daughter of our father''spetitor. The two families have been on bad terms for years, especially between Rin Ray and Miss Cindy. Cindy is the name of that woman over there. She''s been a superstar, who participated in a lot of movies and concerts. Rin Ray once tried to set a stage in the show business but she quited because of all the...unspoken rules. The women has been criticizing Rin Ray about it since then. They almost got into another fight, if I didn¡¯t stop them." "Humph! You don''t have to sis. I can beat her teeth out!" Rin Ray still looks furious. "No please. They had more people, you will only get yourself hurt." "Now WE have more people! Let¡¯s teach those bastards a lesson." Just like her sister, Rin Ray is pretty hot tempered too. "Hey Sairin, you¡¯re friend of my sister right? Do you help me or not?" ...How do I answer this one? Both yes and no will cause me troubles here. But Zirai dragged me out of the situation. "Don¡¯t worry about her. She¡¯s still young." Rin Ray stood up. "Young?? Yes we are young! Just about right, cause kids are supposed to fight a lot. Sairin, take care of the two guys will you? Don''t worry, they won¡¯t get back to you since my family is here." So the girl is worrying about me receiving revenge. Ha. "That¡¯s not the question here. Violence is never the right way to solve problems. Besides she''s not my enemy." "So you don¡¯t want to help? I¡¯ll deal with them myself then. I may get hurt but at least I can make the woman pay!" She walked towards them for real! "Okay okay I''ll do it!" I quickly pulled her back. "On one condition: follow my lead. What you''re doing is too reckless." "Your lead?" Rin Ray stopped. "Let¡¯s hear it." "Who''s the little girl walking behind them?" "Cindy''s private assistant, name is...Obaly? But she¡¯s actually Cindy¡¯s handy girl, sometimes her punching bag. It looks a poor position but the pay is pretty good, for her family. Why do you ask?" "What do you think will happen, if we help Obaly turn into a superstar and nudge Cindy off her stage?" I already have a wicked n set in my mind. Rin Ray grinned. "Interesting. But how do you do that?" She inspected me up and down. "You know how entertainment works? Either you throw in a lot of money, or you have a good look and pay a little ¡®respect¡¯ to those managers, directors or producers. You know what I mean right?" I¡¯m wearing a simple summer school uniform right now since I haven¡¯t gotten anything else, while Butterfly and Big K are wearing their light summer mercenary suit. They are actually costly, but people won¡¯t easily notice it. "Oh, we didn¡¯t bring enough clothes for this trip. Don¡¯t worry, money isn¡¯t a concern for us." "No matter. You n sounds good. Tell me if youck money, I''ll help you." Lack money? You must be joking. But I cannot show that. "Alright, I''ll remember it." Then I turned to Zirai. "Rose is here too. Do you want to see her?" "Rose? Perfect. I always wanted to meet her in real life. I never believed her when she said her character is 10% better than herself. Come, show me! Hey sister, let''s go meet the beautiful girl since we have this rare chance!" "Really? You don¡¯t usually describe someone like that. Okay, let''s go!" The two girls dragged me out of the restaurant. Chapter 114: Project: The Rising Star Chapter 114: Project: The Rising Star Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy We left Rezard eating in the restaurant and headed back to our hotel. The hotel manager saw us from the gate but I gave him a stare, telling him to stay away. We moved straight to the top floor, which surprised the girls a little. "This is...your room?" "Yup." "A presidential suite?" "Correct." "You can afford this??" Zirai has a pretty big family but they can''t easily pay for something like this. "I told you money isn''t concern. I was serious you know. When we have time I can introduce you two to my parents. You''re going to be surprised even more." "Okay I believe you. I think even my mom will drop her jaw when she sees you." Rin Ray nodded. "So, where is Miss Rose?" Zirai looked around quickly. "This way." I took them to her bedroom. Rose is still lying on her bed, carrying a mild smell on her lips. Having a nice dream maybe. The twins stopped at the sight, attracted by Rose¡¯s looks. "Like in the fairy tales." Rin Raymented slowly. "Now I believe she actually tuned down her looks in the game." Zirai added. It seems our words woke her up. Her eyelids twitched and finally opened. "Oh...Hi sweetheart." She rubbed her temples. "I think I drank too muchst night. I see three yous." "A--hahaha!" The twinsughed out. "Hey Rose, it¡¯s me, Zirai!" "Huh? Why are you in my dorm?" She can finally see things clear now. "Uh where am I? " She removed her nket and saw an unfamiliar pajama on her body. "Who changed my clothes?" "Me." I sit on the bed and give her a hug. "Don¡¯t worry, all''s good." "Ziri? So what happened? I¡¯m sure I didn¡¯te here by myself." "You are supposed too." I pretended an angry face. "You know we are going to have a trip today, and you still knocked yourself out like that? I spent the whole morning trying to wake you up. When I couldn''t I took you here by force." "So is this...?" She looked out of the window. "The hotel on Paradise Ind. Now get up. Zirai and her sister are paying us a visit." "Ah!" She jumped from the bed. "Excuse me you two, just a minute!" She ran out the room but came back again. "Where is the bathroom?" I guess I had to guide her since she''s unfamiliar with the ce after all. We ordered some snacks before we sit down to talk. "Zirai, you told me you''re a single child in your family right?" Rose asked her. Rin Ray answered us. "Oh don¡¯t me her, it was my idea. I told her not to tell others about me, so we can sometimes trick people." "Trick people? Oh I¡¯d like a twin sister to try it out." Rose chuckled. "Yeah, we even yed pranks on our teachers and ssmates." Rin Ray began to tell us their "glorious history". "Big sis was never good at math so I always help her take exams in her ce. And I was never caught!" "Oh shush you." Zirai retorted. "And I¡¯m always helping you with your history lessons!" "He heh..." Rin Ray scratched her head. That temper is more like a boy to me. "Master, the designer is here." Big K came into the room and spoke to me. "Already?" To help with our n, I asked the chief image designer in Dragon Fate toe to the ind. But I only asked that like ten minutes ago. Butterfly exined: "Oh, it seems the man was just having his day off on the ind." "I see. Let him in." I turned to Rin Ray. "Okay now, your n executive is here." "Executive...what now?" She only gave me a puzzled look. "The man who will help you promote Obaly and crash Cindy for good!" A man with dark skin, wearing thick goatee walked to us. Well that face kinda reminded me of a certain infamous terrorist in the history. "Greetings young master, I am the image designer working for Dragon Fate, call me Mr. Wu, please." He talked straight to me, which is quite unexpected since the twins are here. "Um, do you know me before?" "We never met like this but I have seen your photos. I must say you didn¡¯t change much." "Alright. Come take a seat, mister!" Rin Ray quickly dragged him to us. "We need your professional expertise!" He looked at Rin Ray. "Well aren''t this a simr face!" "Both of us. You didn''t mix us up huh?" Zirai asked. "As the chief designer, I can well quit my job if I can¡¯t even tell a gentleman fromdies." "To the business then. I want you to help promote a rookie on the stage." "Can I see him or her? A photo is fine, too." I spoke to Big K: "Go back to the restaurant and take the girl here." "Yes sir!" Big K stormed out of the room. I quickly spoke to Butterfly. "Follow him and make sure he doesn¡¯t do anything violent." "You can count on me." There she goes. Then I continued telling Mr. Wu my ns. "I wish to turn her into an all-around star. She must be taking part in everything, movies, dramas, concerts, et cetera et cetera." "That should be no problem. How much are you willing to spend on brewing her image?" "Um. Is...300 million enough?" I don¡¯t know how entertainment business works so I can only give a guess. "Hey, hey Sairin, isn¡¯t that too much?" Zirai seems uneasy now. "It¡¯s just a revenge for my sister, you don¡¯t have to use that kind of money." "We make money to enjoy a good life, and making my friends happy is part of it." Rin Ray grasped my hands. "Thank you so much! How do I pay you back? Maybe I can give myself to you? So I don¡¯t have to worry about getting indebted." Zirai knocked on her head. "Oh cut it, sis." Rose smiled as well. "Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t mind. Maybe you two can both join us, so I can take three husbands to go shopping in the future!" "Bah--hahaha!" Everyoneughed. ---------------------------- "Ah! Let me go!!" Someone screaming outside drew our attention. I see the elevator door opening. Big K is carrying the girl we asked on his shoulder. She¡¯s punching at Big K''s back, which of course won¡¯t have any effect on the bulky creature. "Uh, sorry sir, I kept telling him to be gentle but he won¡¯t listen." Butterfly only shrugged. Big K walked in front of me and put the girl down. "Mission aplished, sir." I face-palmed. "Go somewhere else with Butterfly. I''ll call you when I need something." "Yes sir!!" Now...to Obaly. The poor girl is staring at us with pure horror. "Who-who are you? I''m only the assistant, if you want to kidnap Miss Cindy you got the wrong people!" Ouch. A reasonable misunderstanding. "We''re exactly looking for you." I faced her. "Answer me, do you need a lot of money?" She hesitated, but nodded in the end. "Ye-yes." "How much does Cindy pay you?" "3 thousand a month. Enough to provide my family." "Now I pay you 10 thousand. Give up your job and work for me instead, alright?" "For how long? I signed a ten-year contract with Cindy, if I quit now I''ll have to pay a big fine!" "I will take care of the contract. It won¡¯t affect your monthly payment, and I¡¯ll even give you bonus if you did good job." She hesitated again. "What exactly do you want me to do? I won¡¯t do any dirty job mind you!" I held tight on her clothes. Sigh. Rose asked Mr. Wu. "Is that amon idea among celebrities and stars?" He gave us an awkward smile. "I''ll have to admit...This is a rather serious phenomenon in these years." "Make sure it doesn¡¯t happen to her then." I told it both to Mr. Wu and Obaly. "Rest assured. Most people usually offer that kind of service to gain fame and money. It is not a forced option, as long as they can resist the temptation." "I guess few innocent girls can resist it when those old foxes are ying from behind." Mr. Wu lowered his head. Obviously he''s also one of the "old foxes". "I heard about your excellent record when working in Dragon Fate, that''s why I asked you. I trust that you can live up to my requirements?" "Yes, yes of course!" He wiped some sweat off his forehead. "I haven''t agreed!" Obaly suddenly spoke. "You...don''t ept our offer? I thought it was good enough." I looked into her eyes. "Think again." "Okay, as long as you promise not to ask me to do anything rted to...you know..." "Of course. Let¡¯s start now." I nodded to her. "There is a celebrity party tonight and I need you to show yourself to everyone on it." "Show myself? How? Sing? I can¡¯t sing!" "I have everyone we need here, they''ll dress you up from tip to toe." "Dress up? That won¡¯t work. I''m not cute, I don¡¯t have a good voice...It''s no use." "Master, the personnels have arrived!" Big K returned. "Huh? Did they fly here on a rocket?" Weird. Is my Luck attribute affecting me in my real life? "They wereing home from a marketing campaign held in Australia, when they heard the n they just went off their ne earlier." "Perfect. Tell them to gather at the stylist center, they should have most equipment they need." "Understood!" Then we took Obaly to the center. It''s four in the afternoon, not many people are here. Our people are already waiting. The original workers all left the ce. Looks like we paid them to rent the entire ce. I told them my n, in general. These are all experienced people so they can figure out the details. I found a ce to sit and watch them getting to work. Obaly is ced on a lounge, while a group of designers surrounded her. Two of them are working on her hair, another two on her face. "Sir, we don¡¯t have enough time to do a thorough facial adjustment. Can we use the artificial cells?" "I don¡¯t know the details, just make sure to give her a good look before nine o¡¯clock, no matter what you use." "Understood!" The designer turned to one of his assistant. "Give me the cell regeneration fluid." "Do we have to? That thing cost us 20 million fund." "Do it! Did you hear our orders?" "Aye aye on it!" A music apanist walked to Obaly with a paper sheet. "Try to sing several notes here." Obalyplied. The musician signaled her to stop soon. "Sir, her tune is not...optimal. Do we give her a throat operation to mend it up? Or do we only train her in our limited time?" "The operation will take a long time to recover right? I need her on the stage tonight." "Don¡¯t worry, we only useser to modify her tissue in minimal extent. She¡¯ll be able to use her voice like normal within an hour." "Do it then." He asked the assistants to push their surgical instruments in here. At the other end of the hall, several people are in front of theputer are trying to make a dress ording to Obaly''s digital model, and a dozen of fashion designers are working on the fabrics. Rose and the twins are picking clothes among the showing cases in the center. No females can resist that I guess. I walked to an idle designer. Not all of them get work to do at the moment. "Can I help you, sir?" "Can you change my image a little?" "Of course." He walked to a distance and inspect my body. "What kind of look is in your mind? " "Make sure people can notice me as a man upon the first look, instead of confusing my gender again." "That''s simple!" He dragged me onto another lying chair. "First, let me change your hair." He brushed my hair into those marine-style crew-cut. It felt strange but at least few women would wear a hair like this. "Now let¡¯s get you some clothes." We went to the gentleman section and picked out a bunch of different costumes. After some trials and disagreements I finally chose a leisure sports wear. I think this is pretty suitable for street dancing. At least this will better persuade people of my gender. "Oh wow, Ziri? What happened to you?" Rose came and saw my new look. "How do I look?" I tried to strike a pose. "Are you...going to show up on the stage too?" "Ah!" The twins finished their shopping as well. "You want a ce on TV?" Zirai asked. "Ahaha that looks funny!" Rin Ray talked her mind straight. I looked at my designer. "Guess we change it up." After some other effort I decided to wear a format suit anyway. "Will this do?" I asked the girls for opinion again. "Good!" They all nodded. "Sir, we¡¯re finished!" Mr Wu came over. "That''s pretty fast." "Pray take a look, and tell us if you want any changes done." He took us to the designing stage, where a row of other designers are keeping Obaly hidden behind. "Ta-da! Meet Miss Obaly, the rising star!" Ahh! So this is the power of professional image designers. The shiningdy standing in front of me is totally different from thatmon girl we saw hours ago. The tailor makes the man! I mean woman! "She looks beautiful!" Zirai circled around Obaly and admired. "But how did you do it? This ispletely someone else!" A designer exined: "Actually we could have done better, if not for the hurry andck of equipment. We can improve her further if we take her back to the design center back at the headquarters." "This is fine!" I also checked Obaly up close. "Perfect! Exactly what I was hoping for!" "A pleasure, sir." "Did you do something to her voice too?" I asked Mr Wu. "We did some minor modifications to her vocal cords using oursers and cell regeneration medication. We also stimted her tongue a little. She also had some short breath problem which can''t be solved right now...But we can amend that with the help of certain digital sound systems. We don¡¯t have enough time topose a new song for her so we selected several songs from our database, all copyrighted to us. We''ll let her try them out, then choose which ones are most suitable." "She¡¯s not going up there with these cheap clothes right?" "Of course not, our tailors are still working on it, I believe they¡¯ll be done any moment now." He¡¯s true. Someone ran to us with their finished products and quickly dragged Obaly into the changeroom. When she walked out of the room she¡¯s now wearing a pure white silk midriff-baring jacket, white leather miniskirt with velvet rimming. There are several holes on the skirt, which reveal her improved white skin without exposing any private parts. Her chiffon cape and those tall, silk stockings are all designed to fully show her alluring body while not intending anything too far. A designer took out a white, puff headband and ced it on her head. Now she¡¯s truly an angel. "Niiice! This is going to humiliate that Cindy witch to hell I say! I¡¯m counting on you, hear me??" Rin Ray stepped around Obaly in excitement. "Anything else you need to do?" I asked. "Step practice, and simple voice control training. We can¡¯t do much now but better than nothing." An instrument coordinator walked to Mr Wu. "Let¡¯s record her voice so we canter use ourputers to help with her singing." "Ah." A really wicked idea popped up in my mind. "Mr Wu, go and buy off all major television channels to broadcast the party tonight from 9 to 11. Try to negotiate with the Central Television too. If they can''t, ask them to find time and repeat the show tomorrow. Also, tell the tel operators in Dragon Fate to broadcast the signal to other countries with our satellites, especially developed areas." "Uh, sir? That will cost much more than our budget." "I never make bad deals. We have a world-ss superstar at our hands now, and I only promised her ten thousand each month. We''ll easily get the money back." "Ew. So my husband is a big bad profiteer." Rosemented. "Nope. Obaly agreed on it on her free will. Even if you tell her my ns now she won¡¯tin, trust me. I helped her get famous and earn money, while I take profit in the long run. Nothing''s wrong. No one else could have done this for her." "Still...I probably should be more careful around you, so you don¡¯t suddenly decide to sell me to someone." "Didn¡¯t I buy you already, my little ve?" I booped her lip. "Hey!" Rose ran away and pulled Zirai close. "Careful now! I have backup n!" "Backup what?" Zirai wasn¡¯t listening to our "drama", now she''s confused. "Ha-ha!" We justugh without telling her what we¡¯ve been up to. "We leave now, I believe you can handle everything else?" I spoke to Mr Wu. "Yes of course. Just enjoy the night, sir." "Alright. Let¡¯s go Rose." When I led the three girls out of the hall I just noticed they are each carrying a big packet in their hands. "What are these?" "Some new clothes we took!" Rose answered. "That¡¯s some pretty big bags." "Worrying about your wallet?" "Oh hell no. I just throw away 300 million, some extra clothes won¡¯t hurt." "Then thank you for your treat handsome!" Rin Ray is carrying the heaviest load among the three. I guess she found additional fun apart from our n. "Where are we going now?" "Still time before the party so...Let¡¯s check the game." Zirai suggested. "Bi-Lin should be ready by now. We¡¯ve been away for some time, I''d guess Hawk is tiring himself out." "Oops. I forgot to tell him our absence." "Let¡¯s do it then." I take over all the shopping bags. "You go and buy three game helmets. I''ll take the stuff back to the room." "Three?" Rin Ray protested. "Get me one too!" "You y [Zero]?" "No but I want to try it out now, so I can make more friends like you!" I stopped a bit. Now she mentioned it...I¡¯ve been making some new friends since I started ying the game, I''m also talking a lot more,pared to before. "Hello?" Rin Ray patted on my shoulder. "You heard me?" "Not a problem." I gave my credit card to Rose. "Four helmets then." "Very well. Careful not to damage our new clothes! Or I''ll punish you!" Rose gave me ast order and ran away with the girls. She¡¯s definitely not the Rose I met the first time...Maybe this is her true self? Anyway, it''s a bless for her to finally get away from her tyrant parents. Back to my hotel I guess. I hope we can find connection ports in the room. Chapter 115: The Ambush Chapter 115: The Ambush Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy I moved back to the hotel with some hard effort. When the manager saw me he quickly asked several workers to help me carry all the bags. The clothes aren''t really a problem to me since my muscle strength is above average but, they block my view! We returned to our suite. I paid some tip to the helpers and asked one of them to stay behind. "Do you havework ports here?" "Yes sir. Each room should have a couple of them. I can bring your wireless routers too if you need it." "We''re ying [Zero] on our beds. Four of us." He pointed to a small lid near the bedside. "You should find them there." "Nice. Thanks!" I tipped him again and ordered him to bring some food. We haven¡¯t had any dinner yet. The girls already returned when the food is ready. They bought four full-cover game helmets, expensive ones. The bed is enough to hold four people but...still, I decided to use a lounge chair and let the girls use the bed. I was hoping to enjoy some time with Rose, but now...sighhh. We logged in and came to the port. However the scenery around us scared us a bit. Smoke covered the entire city, it should be still bright at this hour but the sunlight only showed us a dim orange after passing through all the smoke. Around 40 battleships are in line not far from our port, roaring mes at us. "What the fuk''s going on? Someone''s shooting at the port?" Zirai dragged a random yer over. "What happened? Who are those ships?" "The Japanese came to revenge! We beat them thest time and they juste to attack us when they heard our ships are all under repair!" "...To the shipyard!" I dashed towards where Bi-Lin should be anchored. Zirai and Rose followed behind. The shipyard is no better than anywhere else. Holes and tears are everywhere now, but looks like the enemies don¡¯t know that Bi-Lin is here or they should have already demolished the shipyard first. We entered and saw all the workers still doing their jobs on the ship, by which I mean they¡¯re carrying materials and tools onto the ship while trying to avoid all the flying cannon shots. Hawk saw us and quickly came. "Finally!!" "Situation?" "As you see!" He kicked the ground. "We can''t use our cannons in the yard now. We can try to shoot our crystal cannon but that will expose our position and attract concentrated fire!" "But we can¡¯t just wait here!" Zirai yelled. "Bi-Lin is our only hope, we can¡¯t let it sink like this!" "But we don¡¯t have cannons that can shoot from inside the shipyard!" "Did you check those long-range ones we asked the weapon smith to build?" "I did." "They done yet?" "Yes but each of those costs 100 thousand crystal pieces, there¡¯s no way we can afford them!" "What?? That¡¯s enough money to buy a freaking ship! Isn¡¯t Bastion Cannon like, only 3 thousand?" Hawk exined: "I think it¡¯s worth it. They mixed different technologies from Japan, India and us. The new cannon is called [Dragon Punch], they can shoot 20 kilometers, 10 shots per minute, and they¡¯re as powerful as crystal cannons!" "How many cannon chambers do we have after the modification?" "1,300, after removing unnecessary paddle rooms. " "...That''s, 130 million crystal pieces to fully arm the ship with the new cannons. And I haven¡¯t considered extra sailors and ammunition..." I feel faint. "The ammunition is cheap. 3 crystal each shot." "Cheap?? That''s 3,900 crystal gone for each full volley. This ship¡¯s going to burn 39 thousand crystal pieces every minute!" "Well I can¡¯t help with that!" Hawk shrugged. "Wait here. I''ll see if I can pick up the cannons in advance and pay themter." "Alright!" I took the girls to the weapon shop. The shopkeeper nearly threw himself at us when he saw us. "You have a big ship right??" "Uh, yeah. What¡¯s wrong?" "And you need cannons?? Do you want to buy these [Dragon Punch]? If you can drive the pirates away then I don¡¯t have to move my shop!" Oh! Now this is convenient. "That¡¯s what we want to do but we don¡¯t have enough money." "You can pay me backter, and I won¡¯t ask for any interest!" Bingo. Zirai looked at the massive cannon array in the storage and scratched her head. "So how do we take these things back?" "I...don¡¯t know." Now this is a problem. Last time we used thousands of sailors to transport only 600 cannons, and it took us like six hours. Now we neither have the time nor the hands! The weapon smith gave me an idea. "You can go to the Sailor Union and borrow some men to carry and operate the cannons. Tell them to put the warrant on me." "Ah thank you sir!" With the weapon smith¡¯s words, we hired 3,900 cannoneers. Our ship can hold a total of 16,000 sailors now, apart from cannoneers and some necessary utility sailors we can hire another 11,400bat sailors. In the end we put 4,000 heavy swordsmen, 5,400 fire archers and 2,000 mages (500 each type) on the ship. After some calction, my debt is now...140,690,000 crystal pieces... This means I need to spend another two full shipments of gold to pay the debtter! I dragged myself to the shipyard with grieve mood. The NPCs already took all the asset here. "However did you trick them?" Hawk asked me with round eyes. "Trick? I owe them 140 million crystals now! Who was tricked??" "But you have all the gold from Antis." Coin joined the conversation. "They don¡¯t give me the gold for free! I need the exchange those with energy crystals, and those stuff cost a lot of money! I¡¯ve done the bills before. After I provide enough energy crystals to Antis, my ie should be somewhere around 3 gold shipments. Now the modification of Bi-Lin took away 100 million, which is almost two shipments of gold. And I also need to buy the magic shields and crystal cannons. So in the end I probably need to spend dozens of millions instead!" "Are you sure you can pay it back at all?" Coin is now staring her eyes out. "We¡¯re on the same boat, and the debt will be considered as ours! Does this mean I¡¯m going to owe people money too??" "Let¡¯s support the war by means of war." Rose suddenly spoke. "What do you mean?" "We break enemy ships, pull them back, repair them and sell them to other guilds. Our people lost a good amount of ships in the recent fights and new ships are always in high demand. Also, we can collect the equipment dropped by dead enemies and sell them in auctions. If we can do a good job I''m sure we can maintain our deficit low." "That¡¯s still ¡®deficit¡¯ though." Coinmented. "I''m not finished." Rose said. "We bought arge magic shield and four small ones. Their effect don¡¯t stack up so we should only keep therge one and sell the other four. If we make a good profit out of it we can even consider making a business selling these things. If we manage to sell them off...then there will no deficit. We may even earn several millions in the end." "Nice one Rose!" Zirai apuded. "I study economics. This is basic." I saw a familiar figure among the running yers and ran to it. "Hey King. Why are you running around the shipyard?" "Did you see my ship?" He seems almost losing his mind. "The Ocean Might?" Hawk caught up with me. "Yes! Where is it??" King grabbed Hawk''s clothes and shook him. Hawk only pointed at a mast pole on the sea surface which is...sinking. "When the Japanese came their first move is to fire at your ship. Your people tried to pilot it away but the ship went down after the first volley. It¡¯s notpletely in vain though. Your people stalled their next attack so our coastal artilleries had time tounch a counterattack." "Where are the other ships then??" "The enemies came at dinner time and most people are not online. Many ships got broken while still in the port. We can¡¯t really help them." Hawk made a really good choice by NOT helping the other ships and expose Bi-Lin. It¡¯s all over if we lost our own ship. During our discussion, a random cannon shot exploded right in the middle of us and sted us into the air. Hawk, Rose and King were killed on the spot, while me and Zirai managed to stay alive. I have a lot of HP and defense, while Zirai was standing behind me so I acted as her cover. That was our own fault. The enemies are still shooting randomly at the port, we should have found somewhere safe, instead of talking in open space! After they destroyed all the idle ships, the enemies began to fire free shots at the city. And our chatting group became the obvious target! Coin, Big Pot and Razor are still helping with the equipment on Bi-Lin, or our entire guild would have lost a level. I picked up the unconscious Zirai and rushed into the shipyard for cover. However the cannon shots followed me and focused on the shipyard, so I put her down and left the ce. As I''m trying to run towards a small hill on the other side, a series of explosions went up along my trail! DAMN THESE JAP--- Before I can stop and call their names another shell dropped not far behind my back, causing me to run for my life again. Several Japanese yers on their ship areughing and apuding while watching me running like a headless fly. To humiliate us, that''s exactly what they came for. I came to a halt as I reached a severed cliff. But I didn¡¯t have the chance to turn back as another cannon shot sent me off thendscape. "Lucky!" I summoned him andnded on his back. I quickly ordered him to fly higher. The cannon shots still followed but none of them actually hit me at such an angle. We approached their fleet. Their side cannons cannot aim at me when we reached right above them. Now only several deck cannons can shoot at me if they try to tilt the barrels straight upwards. It''s funny that these idiots actually did that! And they fired! What were they thinking?? The shots flew in the air, missing their mark again. When they lost their momentum, the shells began to fall backwards. Since the cannons can be angled in very precise ways in this game and there is no wind, the shotsnded right back into the barrels. Those enemy yers were stillughing and hopping around several seconds ago, now they all jumped into the sea. I held my stomach andughed hard as a series of fireballs emerged on the surface. Then I quickly retreated. There¡¯s no way they''d do it again, so I only managed to destroy one ship. But of course I won''t leave without leaving any gift for them. I asked Lucky to shoot some fireballs at random ships. Most of the attacks went down into the water below, but we still ignited several ships. In the air, I saw a big fleet approaching the battlefield. Looks like the ships from another city just came as reinforcement. Since there''s no more profit in staying here, the Japanese all lift their anchors and sailed away. The reinforcement fleet tried to shoot at the escaping enemies but only caused minimal damage. In the end, the pirates destroyed most of our city at the cost of only a dozen ships. This reminded me of the Pearl Harbor incident...Our ships stayed in the port and got destroyed without doing anything from start to end. Still, they didn¡¯t get Bi-Lin, which means we have the strength to fight back. Now the whole city is in ruins. The shipyard is intact, probably because its poor design looked like deserted in the first ce so the enemies didn¡¯t give it much thought. Hawk and everyone else came out from the resurrection point. They all sat down on the ground and looked at the smoking city in silence. I''m sure we don''t need to say anything cause we now all have the same goal set in our mind -- revenge. This is the first time we received such humiliation, and this will be thest! There were a total of 135 different ships from various guilds, plus more than a thousand fishing boats and utility vessels. Now they''re all broken wooden nks drifting on the water. I told Hawk that there will be a n for this and logged off. Need to cool my head a little. If I decide anything now it probably won''t be rational. When I removed my game helmet I saw Zirai and Rose doing the same. They just looked at me without saying anything. There¡¯s no need. The brimming tears in Rose''s eyes and the burning mes in Zirai''s have told me enough. Chapter 116: The Party Chapter 116: The Party Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy Butterfly entered our room and interrupted our silence. "Sir, the party is about to start." "Alright." I stood up and beckoned the girls. "Come on. We¡¯ll win it back." "Ah is it time already?" Rin Ray also woke up. "It''s so much fun! I never yed such games before, and I love it! My character is Draconian, I was born in somewhere called the Dragon Valley. It''s so beautiful!" "Uh Wait." Something''s wrong. "What is your character again?" "Draconian. Why?" "What is that?" Rose and Zirai noticed it too. "Did you use the wrong game?" Rose asked while checking her helmet. "And...no. She¡¯s ying [Zero] alright." I also looked at the helmet. "Are you sure about your race?" Rin Ray just gave us a strange look. "Yeah. What''s the matter? There was ady asking me to choose my race so I chose one. Is something wrong?" "...In [Zero], there are 12mon races and 7 hidden races, I never heard of a race called Draconian. However did you pick it?" "Did you see your final character? Are you a human or a monster?" Zirai suddenly asked. "I was human. But I have a [Transform] option, I can turn into a dragon-like creature to kill monsters, it works faster than human form." "Aha! Now we have a dragon girl among our ranks." Rose chuckled. "Try to get out of rookie vige as soon as you can so we can help you. I bet you''ll be one of the strongest of us all. This is the first time we heard about this race, I wonder what you can do." I nodded. "Remember Red Moon¡¯s werewolf mode? That was a disaster to me." "Ah! We''rete!" Rin Ray pointed at the clock. "Let''s move!" We quickly tidied up and changed into our formal wears. And I must say the threedies are absolutely astonishing! They say the party is an entertainment event held by the ind managing team, but it is actually a chance where various participants observe their opponents. The ind is a HUGE investment, of course no one wants to get embarrassed for not able to afford the price in the public, so someone often hold a party or meeting like this before an auction to give everyone a chance to know about theingpetition. There are quite a lot of shows and performances tonight. Of course our Obaly is ced in the end to present a bigger surprise. "Mr Wu? Is everything in ce?" I saw the chief designer standing at the entrance of the hotel. "I came to give you a report. We¡¯ve bought all the schedules for major television channels during golden hours. The Central Television also handed their entertainment channel to us. There are also several popr foreign channels. Our 173munication satellites will broadcast the event across the globe, without leaving any blind spot. Anyone who watches TV tonight will see our program." "Good! I''ll leave it to you." When he left I turned to Rin Ray. "You heard that mydy? Get up early tomorrow and see how Cindy cries!" "Awesome!" She gave me a big smile. While Zirai only looks puzzled. "Seriously, who are you? You have your own satellites? Is your family doing media business?" "You can say so." I dodged the question. "We do anything that''s profitable." "Is that so? If I pay you to assassinate the prime minister of Japan, will you do it?" I spoke to Butterfly. "Tell her the price. Oh and, give her a little discount." "That will cost 2 billion. Another 500 million if you have special requirement, such as bring back his head or ear or something as a souvenir. We only ept cash. 50% down payment first. Is there anything else you want to ask? We can make it look like an ident, or leave a message that someone did this. If you pay 20% more we can deal with his entire family, including their pet dog and every single flea on its body. We can even take him back alive and let you do whatever you want if that¡¯s what you wish for." "Hahaha! You guys should show up in movies instead of being bodyguards." Rin Rayughed. "It sounds so real!" Roseughed with her, but I saw sweat dropsing down her neck. She¡¯s been to our bases, of course she knows Butterfly isn¡¯t joking. "Well well well, isn''t this the very Miss Rin who failed to be a star because no one wants her?" A sharp voice came near us which caused my hair to stand. Cindy. "Isn''t this the very Miss Cindy who has another name, what is it again, the ¡®Public Toilet¡¯? You seem pretty free today. I suppose those studs do not require your...service right now?" Rin Ray''s words are even sharper. Now I don¡¯t doubt they fight a lot before, because it''s going to happen right now! "Hey watch your tongue!" A young man behind Cindy stepped up, trying to act hero. He pushed at Rin Ray''s shoulder. Bad idea. I already noticed her as an athlete type. Rin Ray stepped aside, dodging his hand. However the man knocked into Rose who''s been standing behind Rin Ray. Rose fell backwards since she''s wearing those clumsy party dress. Butterfly caught her and prevented her falling with a quick move. I sighed in relief and turned to that uncultured asshole. "Apologize. Now." "Who the fuc are you? A kid should be quiet when the adults are talking. Do you know who I am? You heard me, Rin Ray, one word from my dad and your family''s going to shut your business! Now get lost if you know what¡¯s good for you!" "Ah. So this mister here must have a rather good family. May I inquire what it is that you do?" I asked him. The idiot continued: "Afraid now? Toote! My father is the president of White Stone Cooperation. You heard about it? We make airnes! 10% of all nes flying above China belong to us!" "Ohh, awesome!" I eximed. "Humph! So what if I pushed that girl? Speaking of the girl...She looks pretty good! What about--yawch!" The guy is losing himself. Cindy walked up and knocked his head. I beckoned at Mr Wu who¡¯s standing not far from us. "Can I help you, sir?" Cindy and her follower stopped to watch, not sure what I¡¯m doing. "Mr Wu, find someone to publish an article, saying that the president of White Stone had a car ident and is now having a broken arm and brain concussion. And make sure it stays on the headline on tomorrow''s newspaper." "Huh?" Mr Wu was scared a little. "But, their president is...?" Butterfly interrupted him. "Just do it. It will happen." Then she turned to me. "Sir, I¡¯ll go arrange it now." "What-What do you mean?" The young man is trembling now. "This-this is crime!" "Crime huh? Me? Which crime did Imit? Tell me Zirai, did I do something?" She chuckled. "Nope. We¡¯ve been having a nice little chat just now and we didn¡¯t do nothing." "This-this is just a bluff!" I can see he''s scared but he¡¯s still ying tough. I changed my smile into anger. "I don¡¯t need your apologize now. I give you 5 seconds to get out of our sight, or I¡¯ll change the news from someone¡¯s wounded to someone¡¯s killed!" He¡¯s not moving, so I began to count. "Five, four, three..." "You-you''d better remember this!" He ran away screaming. "Loser." Rin Ray spit at his direction. "Oh, so you found yourself a decent toy boy atst?" Cindy''s words are meant to be offensive but I feel happy somehow. Finally, someone saw me as a man! "...What are you smiling at?" Rin Ray gave me a nudge. "Oh, nothing, nothing." I recovered from my "joy". "Ahem. Miss Cindy, as a public figure, you should really mind what you say and do." "What do you mean?" "I''m just telling you we''re all cultured people. People are watching, and there¡¯s no good in offending others openly." She¡¯s going to taste shit tomorrow anyway so I don¡¯t have to waste time with her now. I think she sensed something in my words. She didn¡¯t say anything further and left. I hear music. The party is starting. Ladies and gentlemen began to gather and discuss anything they¡¯re willing to reveal. Of course I don¡¯t have a reason to join them, so I stretched a hand to Rose. "May I have the pleasure, mydy?" Rose epted my hand with a smile. We walked into the dancing floor but...I regretted it soon. It seems Rose has no idea of any kind of dancing moves. She stepped on my foot for several times within a minute. She''s born in a not-very-educated family after all. Crap, I should have taught her some moves first. But I think my feet are going to be alright, since Rose is slim, plus I''m wearing some thick defense (padded leather shoes). Rose dragged me away from the dancing crowd after some missteps. She must have noticed my mild expression when I tried to endure the pain. Zirai and Rin Ray weed us with a lot ofughing. The twins have been taking count of "how many times Ziri was stomped". Before I sit down though, Zirai pulled me up. "How about some moves with me?" And Rose pushed me towards the crowd! When we went up there the music changed into Bull Fighter Dance. Whoever came up with the idea? A lot of portly-looking men left the area. There''s no way they¡¯re going to follow such rhythm. Some younger people joined the quick dance. I also see Cindy and that young follower among them. For some reason Zirai gradually pulled me towards them and began to force me into all kinds of intense moves, as if we¡¯re having apetition with the other pair. When I received another signal, I dragged Zirai into my arms with a spinning move, then threw her above my head. Now this is something not everyone can do. This requires both strength and precision. Better if the female has a nice body shape. One wrong move and thedy will fall onto the floor or crash into her partner. Our action already attracted a lot of apuse. Anyone who joined the party tonight should have certain background behind them, of course they know how to admire exquisite dancing. Beside us, Cindy and her partner decided to follow our lead. However...I don¡¯t know about Cindy¡¯s skills, but I¡¯m sure the man got way weaker muscles. They finished the first steps just fine, but the young man failed to toss Cindy upwards. Instead, his arms gave up halfway and stumbled on the floor, while Cindy, with no one catching her, bumped on the solid ground like a dead fish. I could have saved her from receiving a painful bottom...I didn¡¯t though. It¡¯s pretty fun watching them both crash like that. Me and Zirai waited until they''re well lying on the ground, before we came to help them stand up. I spoke to the man: "You know that kind of move needs a lot of practice right?" While Zirai told Cindy: "I told you that you really need to cut some weight. Look, you almost broke your poor partner''s arms." Cindy¡¯s face looks almost purple. Not sure if it''s because her anger or she hit her face on the floor. Nevertheless, it felt good. When we walked down the dancing floor, Rin Ray gave us a thumb-up. "Nice one!" "Easy." "I think it¡¯s time to present our main dish now." Rin Ray suggested. "Got it." I checked the time and spoke to Butterfly. "Call Mr Wu to start the show." "Roger that." Butterfly ran to the back of the stage. The party hall soon became quiet. Someone stopped the music and focused the spotlights onto the center of the dancing floor, where an emcee is now standing. "Good evening, my honored guests. Today I¡¯m d to announce that we''re fortunate enough to have a new image celebrity for Dragon Fate Cooperation, Lady Snowke!" The stage curtain opened up. Obaly walked into the light, and I can already hear some gasps among the crowd. Mr Wu somehow appeared behind my back. "That¡¯s a nice first impression I''d day." "Lady Snowke huh?" Rose spoke. "Her stage name. It goes well with her pure and white designs so I think people would ept that name better." "The male creatures around the hall are showing signs of primal desire now. It''s a pity that Cindy went to the medical care just now and cannot see this first-hand. Obaly is singing ourpany song. As one of thergest internationalpany, of course we have our own song. Dragon Fate is still a Chinesepany in its title, but it is essentially an individual entity that isn¡¯t controlled by our country anymore. Every move of us would draw the attention of the entire world. Our financial and political influence is as big as some of the governments. Thepany song, "Dragon Soul", should be a chorus performed by a group of people. Now Obaly is soloing it just fine with the help ofputer and vocal assisting systems. After this song, she presented seven hot pop songs in session. These brilliant choices are often heard on the street, yed by the mobile phones of younger generation. Now they raised one after another round of apuse. Mr Wu put down his phone and spoke to me: "Sir, the report says that we now have over 1.3 billion viewers, 0.9 from within China." "Good, good! Just what I¡¯d expect." I looked at Rin Ray. "Now that¡¯s how you create a superstar overnight." She nodded. "Yup. All I need is to kidnap you." After the song streak finished, some of the elder bosses required several additional ones. Now these old men also became her fan? This is a little unexpected. Obaly finally left the stage after 13 songs, and it still raised a lot of protests. If I ever do this again I need to remind myself to hold it back it little. It''s not really a good idea to give all the old folks a spring fever. The partysted until 11 in the evening. The twins already told their parents to stay at their friend''s. Our suite have nine bedrooms so we have enough sleeping space. When we sat down and looked at our game helmets, bad memories came back again. "When is the ind auction?" Zirai asked. "The day after tomorrow?" I gave an uncertain answer and spoke to Butterfly in another room. "Butterfly. You know the time?" "You were right! 8 o¡¯clock after dinner!" "Okay, do we y the game for the whole tomorrow? I so need to get back to those bastards." Zirai is still angry with the pirates. "I agree. We need tounch our own attack as soon as we can, instead of keep taking hits." Rose nodded. I gave it some thought. "Alright. We get our ship ready for war tomorrow and set sail. The enemies should have their guard down after their victory, so let''s take the chance and hit¡¯em hard!" "Sleeping time then. Remember to wake me up if any of you got here earlier!" Zirai said that and dragged her sister out of the room. Chapter 117: The Gold Crisis Chapter 117: The Gold Crisis Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy Before they walked to the door, Rin Ray spoke: "What do you mean tomorrow?" "We get some well-deserved revenge." Zirai answered her. "The Japanese ambushed our port and almost ruined it this afternoon. Many friendly ships were destroyed, even our own ship was badly damaged. So tomorrow we¡¯re going to prepare and return the favor." "Sounds fun! Can I join you?" "Just reach level 20 and leave the rookie vige. We''ll depart the day after tomorrow, you should have enough time to level up." "I''ll do it fast then. Remember to take me along!" Now there''s only Rose inside the room, and this feels a bit awkward. I looked at her face trying to read her mind, but she always dodges my eyes. After some serious consideration I decided not to do anything too harsh anyway. I should wait for her consent for something so important. "I''ll...use the other room. Call me if you need anything." She caught my back before I can walk away. "No, stay." "Ah if that''s the case..." I quickly climbed back onto the bed. "You''re bad, you know that?" "I never intended to be otherwise." "Ugh. Just, sleep tight. No strange ideas, ok?" "Nooo my gooddy. As a fully functional gentleman I can''t hold myself back!" Rose raised her fist. "Then I shall teach you to do it." "Alright alright. No strange ideas." I washed and changed into my pajama. When I''m finished Rose is already fast asleep on the bed. I lied down and gently held her in my arms. Now I can feel her tension, she isn¡¯t sleeping after all. "No worries. Let¡¯s just keep it like this...easy...easy..." ------------------------------- Oh shoot. I was nning to take it slow and gradually "make it happen"st night. But I fell asleep first! "You awake?" Rose came out of the bathroom and left a kiss on my forehead. "Not so hurry. I''m not going to run away." "Ugh. You knew it all along." Rose only chuckled and walked away. "I¡¯ll go call the girls. Have something to eat and get into the game!" I shook my head and got up. When I''m finished with cleaning and eating, I told Butterfly to only wake me up for anything important and activate my helmet. We''re now standing at the port of Torrent Point city. It looks a lot better after the NPCs cleaned the ce up, but debris and broken walls still can be seen everywhere. Most of the team are still offline when we got into the shipyard. I only saw Violet and Merciless. "Good morning!" Violet greeted me. "Hello. How''s the ship?" "Weapons are all ready. We split up the energy crystals you took back. Half of them went into those waterproof shields. We also ced that big magic shield onto the ship, it''s functional." "What about the boosters from Antis?" "Done, and powered. Now we only need to wait for the others and give it a trial voyage." "Then let''s hurry and go to Antis to get some more gold back when we have the time. I need to buy crystals cannons and fill the other four rotatable cannon slots." Zirai spoke: "Let''s buy five cannons. The one we have now is the weakest standard right?" "What should we do with itter?" "We sell it. King Conqueror will need it. Or we can sell it to Gale too." "Good idea." We boarded our ship and moved, when Big Pot happened to log in just in time and joined us. I summoned Aldeina to help us navigate. "Boosters on!" I gave the order and then felt a surge of speed. We were prepared, but we still slid backwards. Four boosters seems a bit overkill, now the strong wind feels like knives on my face! With all the roaring air current, we need to yell to each other even if we stay close. "THIS IS AWESOME!" Zirai shouted. "Of course. It cost me millions!" "Antis asked you for money?" "They consume energy crystals!" "I see. Say, how long will it take for us to reach Japan?" "Four hours at most. Maybe even less, if we make some adjustments." "Adjustments?" "Do you know about hydrofoil boats?" "You want to make Bi-Lin into hydrofoil??" "Yup. That¡¯s going to be a lot faster." "It''s too big!" Zirai gave me a doubtful look. "Do you think it''s possible to make something as big as aircraft carrier into that?" "This is a game. Anything can happen if we don¡¯t break the basic rules. We give it a try when we¡¯re back. We can always give up the idea." "All right then!" Aldeina signaled us to stop. Though our ship only came to a halt after some other distance due to the great momentum. "I''ll go there with Aldeina, wait for me." With that said, I took Aldeina to our bottom level. This is the modified cabin I asked the old designer to work on. Now the entire level is merged into one big room, with five side exits protected by waterproof magic shields. The shields prevent water froming in but do not affect anything else. I can straightly walk into the water here. I also asked them to intentionally leak some water in here until it''s about a meter deep, so I can park all those speedboats from Antis in this room. People can drive them through these exits and ambush enemy ships. That''s going to be way deadlier than those suicide boats. I followed Aldeina towards Antis. When I handed myst energy crystal stock, about a dozen kilograms, to King Antis, the Merman revealed a face-splitting smile. I told him that I need two more shipments of gold as turnover to keep providing crystals. He agreed without a second thought. "I wish we can establish a long-term business rtionship and trade speedboats, crystals, and those yellow bricks." He said. "d to. Also, I hope you can provide me with a thousand speedboats at the moment. We''re going to attend arge-scale war, and we can only keep this up if we don''t get beaten." "Yes, yes! Take them. A thousand is an easy number really." "Good doing business with you." Same asst time, we asked a team of mermen to load Bi-Lin with gold until it''s almost sunk before we return to our port. This time I took back one thousand assault speedboats and gold worth hundreds of millions of crystal pieces. Should be enough to get our revenge. Bi-Lin cannot travel too fast with all the weight on it. However Antis is not really far from the port so we managed to arrive at nine. I saw Hawk and everyone else walking in circles on the port. "FINALLY!! I was worrying that you took away the ship to fight the Japanese all by yourself!" "I''m not stupid. I just went out to do a trade. Now wait here." I ran to the bottom level and activate a speedboat. This thing feels a lot like those motorboats. I controlled it to surf from under the water and dashed onto the port bridge. "What do you say?" "Cool! Now we have something to counter those ursed suicide bombers." Hawk walked around the new vehicle with excitement. "I''m nning to use these to ambush enemy ships. Imagine, if we put a fire archer at the back and ask a sailor to drive it... It''s small, and fast. Those cannons are never going to hit it. It can even dive underwater for a short time as long as the passengers can hold their breath." "Incredible!" Hawk is lost at words. "Oh right, go to Antis and get another shipment of gold. I need to go buy crystal cannons." I told Hawk. "Where is the ce?" "I''ll ask Aldeina to stay on the ship." With that settled, we quickly unloaded all the gold blocks. Bi-Lin is off fetching gold again, while I converted the blocks into currency and traveled to Domergor''s camp. The guards all know about me now so we directly went into the camp. "Again?" I saw my sworn brother busy with something. "More energy crystals?" "That can wait. I¡¯m buying those cannons this time." "Ah, so you''ve decided. Which one?" "The biggest one." "And how many?" "Five!" "That will be 500 million. In cash?" "I...don¡¯t have enough right now." "Oh I knew it. rk told me about you some time ago." That caught me off guard. "What did he say?" "That you''re always in debt. We never know why you keep spending tons of money." "Ugh. So he gave out my secret." "He cares about you. He told me to help you when I can, and that he can take care of financial problems for you." "He...asked me to borrow money from him?" "That should be it. But since he asked, of course I''d better not send you back to him again." "So...?" Is he going to provide weapons for free?? "Perish that thought. You can pay meter, but you have to pay." "I will!" I handed over all money I have. "Only have 100 million right now. Remember to load the cannons with your best energy crystals!" "Don¡¯t go too far damn you." The cannons are already ready when we were talking. Now I can see them from close up, they look nothing like the one on my ship. Their giant barrels are over six meters long! I was hoping that Skyfire and Lucky can each carry two of them and ask Loong''er to take thest one. Now it seems impossible. Good thing that we have enough helpers to do the job. I summoned Phiona and Tank too, now we can get all five cannons into the air. The dragons are fine, but Phiona and Tank would need to rest every several minute or they¡¯ll drain their stamina bar fast. When they¡¯re resting, Zirai will ask her Titans to carry the two cannons on the ground. It''s slower but better than stopping. We managed to drag all the new cannons back to the port before sunset. We installed them all onto Bi-Lin''s upper deck. I don¡¯t even need to ask the designer for extra outer shells since the cannons already have them. Better ones. We unloaded the smaller cannon. Now it looks like child¡¯s toy to us. "Hawk, you got the gold shipment?" "Oh, I was going to tell you." He dragged me into another part of the shipyard, where a huge pile of gold is ced. "What happened?" "The bank in Torrent Point city told us that their storage is full, we need to trade the gold in another city. They already stuffed every bank in nearby cities so we have to go somewhere farther." "Huh? How do we transport all these bricks bynd?" "I don¡¯t know!" Hawk shrugged. "And there''s another thing." He dragged me around the small gold mountain. Several more piles of gold are hidden behind it! "What the--how did you take back so many in one trip?" "That King Antis was looking for you. When he knew you were not there, he sent his men and carried all the rest of the gold to the port, so we don¡¯t have to run around again. He also said he trusted that you¡¯ll deliver the rest of the crystals you agreed." I looked at all the gold blocks in silence. I was always worrying about money, now I''m worrying about too much money! This will definitely attract unwanted attention. We may be strong but we can¡¯t fight against several groups of bandits at once. And there''s no way we can hide it. The shipyard is not private, someone''s going to see it sooner orter. The old designer is already doing us a big favor to let us keep the gold here. Plus we just lost a war, more people wille to order new ships, and when that happens-- "Oh good god. What''s going on?" Zirai walked to us with open jaw. "Shh! Keep it down!" I quickly exined the situation. "We now have about a billion crystal pieces worth of gold here, and no bank near us will ept it. We can¡¯t just keep it here!" "I have an idea." Zirai said that without much hesitation. "Really?" "People from Antis see these as useless building bricks right?" "Yeah, but I don¡¯t think yers will do that." "We paint the blocks into gray and build a simple cottage near the port. I don¡¯t think anyone is interested in stealing bricks off some random house." "Sounds good but there''s problem." Hawk shook his head. "First, how much time will it take us to paint all the blocks? And, that¡¯s quite a big house if we use them all to build one." "Um. How about melting them?" Zirai continued. "We find a cksmith to melt down the gold and make them into other objects?" "Won''t do. People will still try to get them as long as they know it¡¯s gold." But that gave me a new idea. "...Like Zirai said, we melt them. But we make some golden sticks instead of anything else." "Sticks?" "Sticks are considered as weapons. And if it¡¯s weapon, it can be put into my bracelet inventory, no matter how many there are. It will be fast to make something simple too." "Let''s get to it then!" Likest time, we hired a lot of wagons to transport all the gold to the weapon shop. The chief cksmith fainted on the spot when he saw this. We quickly woke him up and told him our n. It''s his job anyway, so he agreed without much thought. It took several hours to turn our gold mountains into almost a million golden sticks. It¡¯s already 10 in the evening, so we put away the gold and logged off to rest. We ordered some evening snack, when we noticed that Rin Ray is still inside the game. "Oh, oh, guess what, someone started a fight with me today!" Rin Ray took off her helmet and suddenly spoke. "Woah, you pvp¡¯d with someone while still in the rookie vige? " "Yup. Some passing-by assholes were taunting a cute girl so I beat them up!" "So...you turned into a ¡®dragon¡¯ and scared them off?" Yes that was a pun, and she heard it. We ended our brief meal while having our small quarrels and jokes. Now I¡¯m staring at Rose in embarrassment again. "Can we...?" "No strange ideas!" "Oh, good night then." I turned to leave. "No!" She dragged me back again. "I¡¯m...afraid of dark. For real." "But you slept just well in your own house right?" "That''s different. This hotel is too big and the room feels so empty." "So you want me to stay, and without doing anything. I¡¯m not a statue you know." "Come oooon. You can have a hug, likest night." "That¡¯s even worse." "What¡¯s do you want then?" "Well..." I gave her a wicked grin. And she quickly flinched. "What-what are you thinking about??" "Come on Rose. It¡¯s going to happen sooner or--oof!" A pillow knocked me over. "Someone''s murdering her husband!" I jumped onto the bed and press her down. When I turned the lights off, Rose stopped her movement due to the sudden darkness. "Don''t worry my dear. You can always trust me." Chapter 118: Voyage Chapter 118: Voyage Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Someone''s murdering her husband!" I jumped onto the bed and pressed her down. When I turned the lights off, Rose stopped her movement due to the sudden darkness. "Don''t worry my dear. You can always trust me." A kick on the stomach sent me off the bed. "That¡¯s what I''m worrying about." Ugh. Getting kicked off by my own wife. That¡¯s going to leave myself a bad record. I collected her nket and looked at Rose with the most innocent expression I can manage. "Don¡¯t catch cold you hear me? Call me if you need anything." "I¡¯m not--" "Stop. I know how you feel. I''d never force you again. Get some sleep, we have a long trip tomorrow." She hugged me from behind again. "Don¡¯t leave. I trust you now, okay?" Ah so that worked. "As you wish then." I put her back onto the bed. "Be gentle, will you?" She kissed my chest. "I would never hurt you." (The following scenes are censored by the author himself) ---------------------- I guess everyone can go out of control for the first time. Rose turned out to be quite a demanding little womanst night. We made it a bit too far and when we''re finished it¡¯s almost sunrise. Someone called us to wake us up. It''s 9:50 then, my body clock failed me. When I and Rose appeared in front of the twins with panda eyes they gave us two thumbs-up. "Itsted four hours? Nice." Rin Raymented. I just looked at them with shocked expression. "Remember to give Miss Rose some throat soothers. She doesn¡¯t sound right in the end. " Okay so we now realized that our "activity" can be heard across the other rooms during thest night. Rose hid herself behind me. Well I hope I can find somewhere to hide myself too. "You checked the game yet?" I quickly changed the topic or my face is going to burn off. "For a little while." Zirai decided to y along. "Everyone is waiting for you two." "Let¡¯s make it fast then!" We washed, told Butterfly to wake us up for the ind auction and went into the game together. We appeared inside the weapon shop. The piles of cannons and ammunitions reminded me of something, so I contacted Hawk. "Hawk, do we have enough ammunition for the war?" "We have 1,000 shots for each cannon, should be more than enough." "But we don¡¯t know how long we¡¯ll stay out there. What if we keep the war going on for two weeks? And if we manage to upy a city we''ll need to use our ship to defend it. Are you sure 1,000 is enough?" "How many should we prepare then?" "Go for 5,000." "Isn''t that too much?" "I have all the gold here so money isn¡¯t a problem right now." "¡¯K. You buy it. I''ll send our sailors to carry them." I cut the chat and asked Zirai and Rose to wait here for the sailors. While I activated my teleport ring and traveled to the Goddess City. First, I need to exchange the gold stock. And second, I need to find Red Moon. I agreed to herst time that I''ll help her upy an enemy city. She helped protect our ship after all. As one of the main system cities, the bank in Goddess City obviously has arger storage. Though I still didn¡¯t get rid of all the gold. They only epted half of it before they told me it''s full again. I then went to the Cloudtop City. After some run-around I still have about 100 million worth of gold left. Next is the Celestial City. Shoot, I had to run about all three main cities just to do something about the gold blocks. As an individual yer can only carry 70 million crystal pieces at most, I also had to keep running between the bank counter and the gold exchange NPC during the whole process. Man this is tiring. When the gold transaction is done, I again had to run between the weapon shop and the bank to pay off my debt. Hawk is still ordering the sailors to carry the explosives, so I teleported to the Goddess City again and sent a private chat to Red Moon. But the system told me she¡¯s not epting messages right now. What is she doing at such a time? Never mind that. I detected her location using Star Gaze and followed it. It led me towards a...garden of a castle-like structure. The ce reminded me of those wizard guilds. There is no guard at the gate so I just walked into the door. I first entered a central za, with a series of buildings surrounding it. A fountain statue is in the center of the za. The statue is a nice-looking youngdy sitting on a white unicorn. She¡¯s hold something in her hands but I can¡¯t see it with all the sshing water. Someone called me before I can take a closer look. "Who are you? This is the headquarter of Goddess Alliance. It¡¯s not open to outsiders!" It''s a bright looking female yer standing behind me. "I''m looking for someone." "Then you came to the wrong ce. Leave." "I''m looking for Red Moon!" "Red Moon?" Her attitude changed. "Miss Moon is having a discussion with the other team leaders. You need to wait for a while." The ship will be ready any time now though. "Uhh I can¡¯t stay now. Can you send her a message?" "Sure go ahead." "Tell her that, Bi-Lin will depart before 5 in the afternoon,e to the port before 5 if she wish to see her mission fulfilled." "Which port?" "She¡¯ll know." "I see. I''ll remember it." "Thank you very much." I turned to leave, when three female yers rushed in while yelling: "Miss Alice! We found your Big Pot!" "What--stop it! What do you mean ¡®my Big Pot¡¯?" The yer talking with me retorted. "Oh don¡¯t deny it sis. You fell in love with him under the bridge that day!" "I what?? No!" "Then why do you ask us to find his whereabouts?" The three girls chuckled. "He owed me something!" They¡¯re talking about Big Pot? I¡¯d better warn that guy then, cause every female yer in this Goddess Alliance can be trouble. "Are you talking about someone named [The Timely Big Pot]?" I walked back. "You know him? Yeah that should be it. We never mentioned his full name, so you''re his friend?" "I...met him before! But we¡¯re not friends. Tell me what he looks like, maybe I can help you locate him." Sorry buddy. But this rtionship may prove to be useful in the future. "The Timely Big Pot, a warrior, he uses a nine-tooth spike rake as his weapon. He was wearing some strange looking light armor but I¡¯m not sure he''s still using it now." Another girl continued: "Oh right, he has a giant, gray boar as his mount. Must be hispanion." ...There¡¯s only one guy in this world who fights on a boar while waving a tooth rake around. The girl called Alice spoke: "We were involved in a group fight on the city bridge the other day, and we got knocked off the bridge and fell into the river. Then that guy dropped down following us!" "He just, fell down?" Another girl said: "That¡¯s not all. He fell directly onto Miss Alice. And I think he stole her first kiss by ident ahhhhh---" Alice began to chase the girl around, and another one continued: "That¡¯s why Miss Alice asked us to find her new husband as soon as we can--" "HEY YOU!!" She also became Alice''s prey. Good buddy. Fortune favors the fools. "Okay, I''ll tell you when I saw him again." I quickly left the ce. Any longer and I''ll give myself out. I found a corner outside the garden andughed for a while. I thought this only happens in poorly written fantasies, now Big Pot proved it! My private chat interrupted my thoughts. "Oh Zirai, what''s up?" "My sister left the rookie vige and it seems she''s now in a ce called the Dragon Isle. She wanted us to go pick her up. But where is it?" "Ask her about her coordinates. I''ll go fetch her." "A moment...here." "I''ll be right back then." I activated my ring. "Teleportation failed. Target location is protected by barrier of Dragon Isle." Huh? "Uh Zirai, I can''t get into the ind. Can you tell your sister to try to leave the area first?" "Nope. She said that no one gets through the barrier. Herself included." "What¡¯s that ce anyway? Isted?" "No idea. Maybe we need to do a special quest or something. I guess we can¡¯t take her this time. Juste back, we should have left earlier. If we leave now we¡¯ll reach Japan tomorrow morning." "Alright right away." I left the corner I was hiding in and prepared to teleport back to the port when Red Moon suddenly showed up. "You''re still here?" "Weren''t you inside a meeting?" "We''re done. So we''re setting sail now?" "Yup, and we¡¯d better hurry so we don¡¯t postpone it by another day." We used the teleport station this time. I can bring her along with my ring but I don¡¯t feel like holding her in my arms right now. When reached the port, Bi-Lin is already ready to go, with...some extra people standing in front it. "King? Who are these...?" I saw War Chant, Wuyuu and someone I don¡¯t recognize. "Hello Ziri, we hope you can take us with you this time." I looked up towards Hawk, who just spread his hands and shrugged. "I told them to ask for your permission. You are the captain." I turned to King. "This is for personal matter. You guys can wait for your new Ocean Might right?" "We won''t." He gave me a stern look. "There will be no Ocean Might. She¡¯s sunk, and we¡¯re not going to rebuild one. Our new ship is called the Ocean Soul, and she shall inherit our old ship''s spirit. But before she¡¯s ready we need something to motivate our people, and going with you is a good choice. We''rerades right?" "If you say so..." I patted his shoulder. "Come aboard. We need to arrive tomorrow morning. If we wait for noon there will be more enemies, so we¡¯d better give them a bigger surprise when most people are still on the bed." "I get you." King called to the other people. "Let''s go. Those Japanese pirates shall taste our wrath! And Ocean Might will not go in vain!" "By the way, who''s the new face?" "Introduce yourself will ya?" King spoke to him. "Ah hello, name''s [Blue Wind]. A Hunter." "Nice to see you." I dragged him to the ship and told everyone about it. When the team is chatting among themselves I ordered the sailors to depart. With the new boosters on, Bi-Lin quickly gained immense speed. The operators even made it slower thanst time so they won¡¯t throw everything on the ship off their feet. As we went faster, the tip of the ship went higher above the water, and two hydrofoil wings emerged. Using the lift force of the wings, most of Bi-Lin''s hull left the water, allowing us to go even faster than before. "Woah when did you get this done?" I asked Zirai while looking at the flying water below. "Just after you told me about the idea. Even the shipyard didn¡¯t think it would work, but it did!" "Just like I said. Right, what¡¯s going on with Rin Ray? What kind of ce is Dragon Isle?" "I don¡¯t know. She isn¡¯ting out, that¡¯s for sure. There must be something special about that Draconian race. Why didn¡¯t I see that selection before?" "Special means good." "Ziri!" King called me from somewhere. "What¡¯s up?" He pointed to the now empty ship masts. "Where are your sail cloths?" "There." I pointed at the base of the mast poles where the cloths are folded. I left them there in case when the boosters get stuck or break midway so we can still move our ship. "How¡¯s your ship advancing at all if you didn¡¯t even put the sails on??" "Engines." I joked. "We¡¯vee into nuclear powered era, only small ships still use those fuel machines." "Come on I¡¯m serious!" "I didn¡¯t lie about the engine part. They¡¯re called boosters. Though they use energy crystals, not nuclear." "For real? Where did you get it? I want one!" "Oh, of course." I shrugged. "Each booster is as big as a shipment container, about 7 or 8 tons. They cost 5 million crystal pieces each. You can buy them. By the way, we have four on the ship to give us such speed." "Five-five million?? Forget it. And Ocean Soul is just a little bigger than Ocean Might. If we ce a container up there...just no. I really want a big ship like this now." "There are drawbacks. Look, the enemies will see us from far away, while your Ocean Might can sneak up near them right? Besides it''s really hard for us to make quick turns on the sea. We can¡¯t even change direction while inside the port. You saw how us have to move backwards to leave the port back there." "Still, big ship would be nice. Look at those cannons..." He looked at our new crystal cannons with drooling mouth. "Only if we can get one of these..." "You want one?" "Yeah, why? You have more?" "Oh yes I do. A smaller one. It''s not cheap mind you. It goes for 20 million crystals on the market. If you want it now I''ll pass it to you for 15 million." "15 million huh?" King slumped down. "I wonder if I worth that money. If so I''ll change myself for the cannon." So I can only sell the cannon to Gale then. Few people can afford it. "What¡¯s the time now?" Zirai suddenly asked. "4...37." King checked his window. "You have ns?" "Yes." I told him. "We have something important, need to get off before 8." "Go ahead then. We aren''t reaching the Japan sea before tomorrow morning. " Red Moon spoke while leaning on the rails. "Nah. I can stay until 8." "Humph. Just go, so I can look at the sea in peace." "Captain!!" The lookout interrupted our speech. "Fleet ahead, 70 ships, 35 kilometers away, they¡¯re approaching us!" "What??" Hawk yelled. "Japanese? Here? They just bombarded our port yesterday. They are attacking again so soon?" "We''re not sure yet. Maybe it''s our own people heading back?" I told him. "I can tell you that they''re definitely not Chinese ships." King exined. "We''re pretty far from our border now, the friendly guilds would never get this far at such a time. And we never had such a big fleet anyway. If it''s a joint operation by multiple guilds I should have already received message." "Can you see their g?" I shouted to the lookout. "Can''t see it clear. I think there¡¯s a cross on it, and a...round object?" "A cross and round?" Hawk mumbled. "At least that isn¡¯t Japanese g." Chapter 119: The Breakout Chapter 119: The Breakout Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Don''t tell me--" King suddenly jumped. "Hey, check their third g. Is there a trident on it?" "I think so." The lookout called back. "There''s a line, with a fork on the top. Looks like a trident." "Is the second g a parrot?" "Yeah it''s a bird. Not sure what bird though." "That should be it!" King sighed. "So what¡¯s going on?" I asked him and tried to use my Star Gaze to look at the ship. ...A skull, wearing an eyepatch, with a pair of scimitars under it forming an X-shape. It¡¯s pirate! "Chief mate!" "Command, sir?" "We turn around and avoid contact with them!" "Yes sir! Full helm right, everyone steady!" Bi-Lin made a 180-degree drift-around which should be impossible for its size. The movement forced everyone on the deck towards the left railings and caused a ten-meter tidal wave. "Boosters full power! Get away from them!" "Captain!! Unknown fleet up ahead!" "Ahead??" I scouted the said direction. A fleet of at least 100 ships is there, and pretty close to us now. "3 o¡¯clock, another fleet. 30 kilos, 93 ships, approaching!" "77 ships iing, 33 kilos away." The lookouts gave out alerts one after another. "We''re surrounded!" I yelled to Hawk. "We can''t get out now!" King pointed towards our left-ahead. "Ziri! The enemies are still far from our 11. We may rush outside their formation if we¡¯re fast enough!" As he said, the two groups of ships are still apart from each other in that direction. "Chief! Turn 11, full speed!" "Yes sir!! Hold onto something you lot!" Bi-Lin was still making its clockwise turn, now it changed into another direction, throwing us to the opposite side. Our ship has no remaining speed after the two turns. The four boosters are tuned to full capacity, bringing a surge of waves behind our tail. I¡¯m confident in our firepower, but there''s no way we can fight against four fleets at the same time. These hundreds of ships only need one round of in shots to tear anything into pieces. "Everyone get to your cannons just in case! Big Pot, bring Passerby and go to the bottom level. Take some fire archers and swordsmen with you. We''ll use our motorboats when the time calls." "Got it!" With the orders given, now I can only pray that we can escape without getting harmed. "Report!" A lookout shouted. "The enemies are moving in to cut our route!" "Loong''er!" I summoned my slim-bodiedpanion. "Give us a push. We need to go faster!" "Cannons! Release the safe and load up!" Hawk ordered while waving of his sword. Looks like he''s ready for a bloody fight. "Man the crystal cannons!" I shouted to my team. "Merciless and Violet, mount the front cannon. Zirai and Red Moon on the second, Rose and Yuri on the third, Gold and Wayne, fourth! War Chant, take Wuyuu and get to the tail cannon! And remember to wait for 30 seconds between each shot! Make every shot count! They are not the cheap toys you saw before!" "Okay!" Wuyuu rubbed his hands and rushed away. Frankly speaking, I don''t quite believe him. "Blue Wind, I don¡¯t know about Hunters but you look like a melee ss. You''re in charge of leading our men into boarding fights if there¡¯s any." "Sure thing." "King, you''re more experienced than me. I leave the piloting to you!" "Of course!" "Hawk stay with the other cannons, Elfy, you lead our remaining archers. That¡¯s it. Everybody get ready!" I stood at the front and watched as the two fleets ahead of us moving closer. I don¡¯t think we can make it. Bi-Lin is fast, really fast. But those pirate ships are no slower. They already closed up their dozens of kilometers of gap when I was giving the orders. "Ziri? 20 kilos. They''re within range. Do we attack?" Hawk asked. "Not yet. Let¡¯s wait a bit." "But our range is the only advantage now, if we wait--" Boom! An explosion caused a giant water pir near our ship. What the--the enemies have something that can shoot this far? "Attack! Return fire!!" I quickly yelled. "Make small zig-zag turns!" King ordered the helmsmen. Bi-Lin started to advance in a strange S-shaped manner. And it worked, because several follow-up cannon shots all fell into the water near us. When the attack paused I quickly ordered everyone. "Their first round ended! Quick, shoot back! Crystal cannons, aim at their gship and knock it out first!" "Which one??" Wuyuu poked his head out of the cannon shield chamber. "The biggest one!" "You got it!" Our five crystal cannons released their attacks at the same time. The big kickback force caused us to stumble again. And o...my ears are ringing. Great value pays off. The crystal cannons are all equipped with assistance aiming scopes, and the five shots all hit. The purple colored bullets went into the enemy ship as if it is soft cake. Our Dragon Punch cannons began their disy as well. The cannons located along our ship fired in sequence, from tip to tail. We have 1,300 of them for Christ''s sake! I don¡¯t know if we did enough damage or we simply scared them. The enemies didn¡¯t fought back. Either way, this is a chance for us. "Don¡¯t stop, fire, fire away!!" Hawk roared. More shots went away. Since our cannon formation stands really long along the ship, the cannons at the tip are already ready for the second shots when those at the tail are still waiting for the first. The pirates never did anything after their first wave of attack. Probably not expecting our firepower. Or maybe they''re nning to capture us without destroying our ship? When we''re close enough with them I contacted Big Pot in my guild chat. "Bring out our men!" "Finally. It¡¯s shoooow time!" Bubbles appeared on the water surface. Poom! Big Pot came out the water on his motorboat, with a fire archer sitting behind him. Then Passerby and the rest of our motorboats all showed up and rushed to the pirate ships with roaring engines. The pirates made their attacks again, aiming at the motorboats. Of course those fire archers mean a lot of trouble if they get too close. However, the motorboats are only about a meter in length, with really slim design. Cannons can''t aim at these speedy vehicles at all, so the only thing they can do is making mess fire and hoping for lucky hits. Pity. Luck belongs to me. The enemy attack came out with zero score. Some of our riders were knocked off their boats by the water waves but they can just climb back and keep charging. Our crystal cannons stopped as our motorboats reached the enemies. Everyone made a drift-halt in union. The fire archers took out their arrows from their waterproof quivers and released their me at the ships. Groups of pirate ships caught fire. These attacks are more effective than our cannons, since the cannons can only open several holes but cannot destroy their ships unless we hit their weakpoint, their ammunition depot, or cause enough breaches on them. While the fire arrows can easily ignite the entire ship if they don¡¯t put out the fire in time. The pirates obviously did not spend enough money on ship materials, they¡¯re all using cheap, easy-to-burn wooden hull. Big Pot led his team back towards us when their job is done, while the pirates saluted them with their random cannon shots. When close enough, the motorboats tilted downwards and all dived into the water, entering our bottom level through the magic shields. Big Pot and Passerby ran to us, looking wet and excited. "That was AWESOME! And cool!" "Any loss?" Actually I¡¯m not worrying about losses when looking at the broken enemy formation, but I asked anyway. "Not much. 7 boats damaged by the explosions, and 12 fire archers were missing. They fell into the water and never came back." Which is negligible. We already moved into the burning fleet. They¡¯re on fire but it will take some time for them to sinkpletely. Nevertheless, they can¡¯t fight back now. Their only choice is jumping into the water and hope they survive. "Ziri, some ships are blocking our path." King suddenly called. "Chief, open the ramming horn." "Yes sir! Ramming horn out! All hands brace for impact!" With a booming noise, Bi-Lin cut threw the now manless ship straight ahead while throwing the other ships nearby off their course. The other fleets behind us can only watch as we gain more speed and sail away. We''re still within their range though, and they finally decided to make a full-assault on us with their cannons. I think they know they can¡¯t capture our ship so they made up their mind to destroy us. Countless shots rained down. Many hit, but our new magic shields from the Dark Sanctuary and Antis absorbed quite some damage. The cannons didn¡¯t do much to our mythril tings after going through twoyers of protection. Ahh...now I don¡¯t regret spending all the money. None of the rounds went through our hull. They only sank into the tings and remained there. Bi-Lin now looks funny with all the little "bumps" around it...But this is better than getting sunk. It''s getting dark anyway. The moon will repair us up. "Fare thee well my dear pirates!" We sailed far from them using our speed advantage. It won¡¯t be long before wepletely go out of their shooting range. That said, we''re already pretty safe here, cause their cannons can¡¯t do much to us at such distance. The pirates stopped their attack. However instead of leaving, their gathered up and tried to follow us. When I looked at them using Star Gaze I noticed three small boats among them, going for their biggest ship in the center. The people standing on the boats caught my attention. One of them is Asian, probably Chinese, because he''s wearing traditional oriental attiresmon in our port cities. I¡¯m not sure though, as such clothes is not exclusive to China. He¡¯s a bald man with a terrifying face. I mean, there''s a lot of beard and muscles on him. A Caucasian woman is standing on a boat beside him, who wears bright red hair and full-cover leather tights. It looks like those female riding suits seen in middle age European movies. She looks good too. A typical able woman, with high nose and spirited blue eyes. Another terrifying-looking guy is with them. It is a bulky, Caucasian man with brown-ish mustache. Maybe a Russian? As I inspected them, another individual came into my sight. His brown skin suggests that he¡¯s from India. I get the feeling that this man is in charge here...Which is weird. An Indian is leading a team of pirates? They discussed something among themselves. I''m curious about what they¡¯re nning to do so I ordered my chief to slow down our ship. Their discussion turned into quarrel. The woman left their meeting first and returned to her own ship, angered. The big Asian man is next to quit, also in a bad mood. As for the Russian guy...he started beating the Indian up. "What are they doing?" King and the others all looked at the strange scene using their scopes. "No idea. Is that a global pirate union or something? They got every race over there. Well maybe except Africans." "Hey look, I think the Indian man is gonna die at any moment." Red Moon said. As she said, the Russian is now holding him up by the neck. The muscled man is a LOT bigger so the Indian cannot reach the ground or his assant no matter how hard he tries. The color on his face indicates that he''s going to have a get-together with Lady Maria soon. But looks like they are standing on an Indian ship. Most crew on the ship look brown, and they all rushed to help their leader. Suddenly, a stream of blood surged towards the sky, which caused the crowd to scatter in panic. The Russian man now has a curved de stuck inside his stomach. He stepped back a bit with round eyes, and copsed. At the same time, one of the fleet, probably Russian fleet, started shooting at the Indians. The Indians quickly fought back. Now we¡¯re looking at our former enemies fighting among themselves. The woman''s fleet also moved in front of the Indians and started attacking them, followed by the Asian man''s fleet. They aremunicating something with their gs, so I asked our gman. "What are they saying?" "You...take care of...the...ahead...we will...these damnable ck...something...until one of us dies." "What the hell?" I scratched my head. "Maybe their alliance broke apart and turned into a conflict." Hawk shrugged. "Halt the ship!" I ordered the chief mate. "Let''s stay and watch. We never had a chance to observe a naval fight before, maybe we can learn something from it." ---------------------------------- "What the hell?" I scratched my head. Hawk shook his head. "Maybe their alliance broke apart and turned into a conflict." "Halt the ship!" I ordered the chief mate. "Let''s stay and watch. We never had a chance to observe a naval fight before, maybe we can learn something from it." Trantor''s Thoughts Wolfy Wolfy There''s a small portion of double-post in the end but I can''t seem to fix it in the editor. A bug maybe. Chapter 120: Im a Pirate! Chapter 120: I''m a Pirate! Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy The fight is getting pretty intense. Sure, I was nning to learn something but...I can¡¯t! These lunatics have no strategy or ns, they''re just trying to take out each other as fast as they can. The Indians have better weapons, while the other fleets have the bigger number. No matter who win, they won¡¯t have many ships left at this rate. "Should we join them?" Zirai asked. I checked my EXP bar. I gained a level in thest fight. Yeah fighting pirates gives us way more EXP than killing monsters. "Might as well make good use of them." "So how should we do it?" Hawk asked. "How should we do what?" "Do we take on them all or help one to get rid of the other party?" "Let''s help one of them so we don¡¯t attract both of their hate." I pointed at the Indian fleet. "That¡¯s our target." Everyone went back to their posts. We moved Bi-Lin 90-degree and began to support the other ships using our side cannons. We may be only one ship but each shot from our crystal cannon can turn an enemy ship into floating shreds, so our help definitely tipped the bnce. Also, we picked the bigger Indian ships as priority targets. "They''re asking us to take out their gship." The gman suddenly spoke to me. "Tell them we don¡¯t know which one." "...Captain, they said they will guide us with their cannon fire." As they said, their next round of attacks all focused on a ship which has been hiding behind the Indian fleet. It was safe with all the other ships protecting it before. "Crystal cannons, aim for that one ship and blow it up." In the next moment, the ship I was talking about disappeared under several mushroom clouds. Even some other vessels staying close to it were damaged. Since we''re pretty safe here, I decided to try out the cannons myself. I went to a Dragon Punch cannon at the front of the ship, took aim, then pulled the trigger rope. The shot sessfully hit the mast pole of the ship I aimed at, breaking it in half. Nice. The new Dragon Punch cannons are powerful AND urate. 20 kilometer is their maximum range but the shots can still go where I want them. Good stuff! "Captain, they sent a message, that the head of Caribbean pirates will make sure our ship stays safe from Antic pirates on their turf." "Send our regards to them." I told the gman and turned to Hawk. "Sweet. Pirates from the west huh?" "Anyway, we found a really nice reward today." Hawkmented. "The Caribbean pirates...So does that Russian man, belong to the ck Sea Fleet?" King eximed. "Well I''ll be. I think we¡¯ve met all of the biggest pirates in this game." "Maybe they were having a meeting in this area and we happened to be their prey by ident." Red Moon said while watching the fighting to an end. "That must be it. Even if our ship is packed with treasures, we should not attract the most famous pirate organizations in the whole game into chasing us all the way to the Pacific. Guess we are just unlucky." "Well, I know one thing, they''re not enemies now. Hey you there, don¡¯t stop, keep firing until you can¡¯t find a single Indian ship in you sight!" I ordered one of the cannon operators. Some of them are cking off as the fight is as easy as target practice. Our cannons started roaring again. Together with the other groups, we annihted our targets fast enough. "Chief mate! Disengage and put on some speed. We are leaving!" Staying was a good choice. The fight wasn''t really hard and everyone gained a level. "Captain! A pirate gship is approaching us!" Only one ship huh? They have seen what we can do, so this time they must have something else on their mind. "Captain! The gships from the other two fleets areing as well!" "Do we avoid them?" Chief mate asked me nervously. "No." Rose answered this one. "They came to talk. gships are big but aren¡¯t good for anything offensive, and there''s no way they can stop us from escaping." "You sure about that? We can either fight or run at such distance... But it''s another question if we let them near. We will definitely lose if they all board our ship." "Captain! They''re asking us to stop and speak with them!" "Tell them to stop first ande to our ship on their lifeboats." "Yes sir! ...And they agreed!" "Chief, down the anchor." Now I''m confident enough. "Three lifeboats can carry maybe thirty or so people. But we have thousands of sailors here." But my confidence didn¡¯tst long before the chief yelled: "Sir, they didn¡¯t stop! And--they¡¯reing up faster!" "Fuk. It¡¯s a trick!" Hawk called. "Pull the anchor, we gotta move! You guys get back to the crystal cannons!" Toote though. Bi-Lin has been staying in ce, the pirate ships going at full speed soon reached us. Countless grappling hooks locked onto the railings around us. I only had time to order allbat sailors to get onto the deck before waves of pirates climbed onto our ship and began to force us towards the center. The red-haired female and the bulky Asian guy both came to us. Must be the leaders of their own fleets. "You promised you won¡¯t target us right?" I asked the woman. The message came from her ship. She is inspecting our Dragon Punch cannons with great interest, then she spoke without looking at me. She speaks ournguage too. But this is not surprising for NPCs, they always know multiplenguages. "Oh my. Did I?" "You did, ma¡¯am." One of her henchmen replied. "Oh really?" She patted on her own head as if she just remembered something important. "I''m very sorry, so forgetful. Alright then, a promise is a promise. Tell me dear, what exactly did I say?" The henchmen repeated the message we received just now. "Right." She nodded. "Now hear me! We will never attack their ship in our territory! However..." Her expression changed. "This is East China Sea. We don''t break our promise if we attack you here." Why is every NPC I met smart enough to trick me?? "You''d better think about it!" I tried to y calm. "I have more than 10 thousand fighters on the ship, even if we lose we''ll drag you down with us. How about we settle this in peace?" "Ah is that so?" She looks surprised. "10 thousand you say? That¡¯s a lot. Oh what should I do... I wonder if my 20 thousand level 600 pirates can defeat your level 414 sailors..." (Sailor level = Captain level - 50) "You...!" I¡¯m trying very hard to suppress my anger. I don¡¯t want to lose my ship. This is everything I have! "My, my. Look at you. Calm down a little, handsome." She taunted. "I''m just doing what a pirate is supposed to do." As we''re speaking, another Caucasian man walked to us. I think this is the new captain they appointed for the Russian pirates. He¡¯s just as big as thest one. "Rhona, must you trick anyone you meet like that? Just do your job." "I wasn¡¯t tricking him, big guy. Unlike you, I can use my brain. And I didn¡¯t break any rules." "Then we shall do it by the rules." The bearded man took off his upper garment, exposing those muscles that can make any fitness champion feel like a kid. "I''ll go first. Objections?" The woman just stepped aside with arms crossed. "What-what are you doing?" I panicked. He didn¡¯t respond. While the third pirate, the Asian man, spoke to me: "Listen, kid. Pirates only obey the strongest, so we three leaders will take turns and fight you. Whoever can beat you while using the least time will take your ship as trophy. Of course, we will give you some small boats so you can get back home alive." I looked between the Asian man and the warming-up Russian in doubt. "What if I¡¯m the winner?" "...Baaah hahaha!" The woman pped her leg. "You''re kidding right?" "I''m asking, just in case." The Russian huffed. "Same. If you win, the loser gives his entire fleet to you! But the rule is only for us pirates. Unless you want to be a pirate too?" "Oh certainly, I hope you remember your words." I walked up to face the bearded Russian. "Now Bi-Lin is a pirate ship of mine. I hereby request a duel with you!" "Ha-haha!" The womanughed again. "I haven''t met such interesting prey in some years. Hey kid, how about youe with me?" "No thanks. I think I''ll just win this thing and tell you to join me instead." Although I''m not sure I can do that. "What¡¯s your level anyway?" The Russian asked. "464." "I''m 800. Look, I''m not the type to bully the weak, so you can use any weapon, and I won¡¯t use any weapon!" "Any weapon?" I smiled. "As I said, anything you like!" He held his head high. "And I''ll let you go first. Three moves, I''ll give you three chances to attack, before I fight back." "Any weapon, my choice. You won¡¯t regret that right?" "I won¡¯t! Rhona and Tang here are my witnesses!" "Good. Now give us some space, please." Everyone moved away to give us room to fight. Now the pirates are standing on one side of my ship, while our men are on the other. "Last chance my Russian friend. Any weapon, you sure about it?" "GAH! YES for Kraken''s sake! Just get on with it!" Chapter 121: Leading the Gang Chapter 121: Leading the Gang Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Are youing or not??" The man seems angered. "Okay okay. I¡¯m going to get my weapon." I rushed back into the crowd, attracting a lot of curious looks. "Hey! Are those weapons on your back just decorations??" Wuuyu called. I didn¡¯t answer. I reached a Dragon Punch cannon, released its fixing bolts, and pushed it back to the temporary arena, aiming the barrel at the Russian man. He finally gave up his arrogant attitude and panicked. "Hey, hey hey hey! What are you doing??" I answered him while loading the cannon with powder. "Well, you told me to use any weapon, so I''ll use this. Look, it''s big enough. Hey you, stay still. It won''t hurt much. Show your manliness in front of thatdy will you?" "But, but, who the fuk duels people using a cannon??" He''s now moving side to side, which caused all the people around him to move to and fro as well. Of course no one wished to get involved. I¡¯m trying to aim at him but it''s pretty hard to do so with all the people around. "GET DOWN!!" I shouted. Everyone hit the deck out of instinct. As I expected, the muscled man is the slowest to react. I seized the chance and pulled the trigger. Bam! The cannon is free on its wheels now without the stationary bolts. Although I didn¡¯t load any solid round in there, the power of the powder explosion still caused it to fly backwards, breaking the side rails and drop into the female pirate''s ship. Her ship is a lot lower than ours, and Dragon Punch is made out of hard steel, thus it easily crashed through the deck board. "MY SHIP!!" She yelled and rushed to the edge to check the damage. As for the Russian man... He already disappeared towards the opposite direction. Faster than the cannon, of course. No idea where he is now. I brushed my hands. "Next!" Then I called to the Russian pirates. "Alright, y''all are on my side now. Come!" They looked at each other for a while, then decided to follow my word. One fleet down. Brain is always better than raw strength it seems. "Hey you!!" The red-haireddy pressed her nose on mine. "Now what do you have to say about ruining MY ship??" "Don''t worry. It''s mine after I defeat you. Sigh, I have to spend money to repair it myself." "Very well. Let¡¯s do it!" She retreated some distance and drew her thrusting sword from her waist. "Let¡¯s see what you got. And no funny ideas! Summoning is not epted in duels!" Looks like no tricks on this woman. I took out my master sword and lowered my helmet mask. With a wave of the weapon, the other eight flying swords lined up above my head. Then I put on my robe hood and activated it. My body disappeared from everyone¡¯s sight. With the flying swords catching her attention, the woman will have no time to find my whereabouts. She is already charging at my location, hoping to strike me before I move away. She''s almost double leveled than me, and maybe smarter. One hit could prove fatal. I quickly rolled away, dodging her attack. The movement caused tiny ripples in the air which can be seen by enemies. She noticed this and stroke at me again. ng! One of the flying swords was knocked away, diverting her attack from me. Her sword went to the wrong way and stuck into the deck floor. I saw the chance and ordered the flying swords to surround her. I''m aiming at her hand instead of her body, since my goal is to force her to give up her weapon. She didn¡¯t fall for it though. She bent her sword to one side into a huge arc. I thought she''s going to break her sword when she released her weapon, causing it to swing back and forth. My flying swords all hit the swinging object and were repelled away. When my weapons are dealt with, she took back her sword and stood there, not moving. Ha, lost your target? Again, I ordered the flying swords to attack her from eight different directions. When she¡¯s busy defending herself, I took out two dagger-like objects from my waist, and changed them into two boomerangs. I pinned my master sword into the floor, unleashed the boomerangs using both hands and quickly redrew the master sword. The actions only took about one second so the flying swords didn¡¯t stop their attack. The woman already saw the two boomerangsing from both sides of her, flying in a strange manner due to their unique designs, and there''s no way she can defend herself now. I saw blood. Two deep gashes appeared on both of her legs, causing her to scream. I intensified the attacks of my flying swords, hoping to keep her busy so I can catch my boomerangs without exposing myself. The woman realized my n. She hurled her swords away, knock off four flying swords from the air. She took the chance and hopped to a safe distance, keeping her eyesight on the returning boomerangs. Obviously she¡¯s trying to use them to locate me. I gave up on the boomerangs. I transformed into werewolf and jumped onto the high mast. Without anyone to catch them, the two boomerangs made another turn and flew back towards the woman again. Of course I can¡¯t remote control them. They''re just flying in circles until the momentum force ends, and the woman happens to be standing in their usual route. Now she believes the boomerangs are following her. She has no weapon to block them now so she simply kicked them away with her heel. When she¡¯s recovering from the movements, I ordered the flying swords to attack her again. What I¡¯m not expecting is that she took out two ck leather whips from her back, each several meters long. The flying swords are not sneak weapons so they''re not really fast. With a single whip, all eight swords were swiped down onto the floor, when the woman quickly took off her leather jacket and tied them up. When the woman stands satisfied with her work, I noticed that my boomerangs alreadynded behind her. I activated my weapon retrieval ability while jumping off the mast. This will probably give away my location, but that¡¯s not important now. The boomerangs came alive and began to fly towards me. As Ind right in front of the woman, they went straight into the woman¡¯s abdomen from her back. She looked down at her bleeding stomach with disbelief. When she realized what happened, she pulled them off and threw the boomerangs at me. Well, not just anyone can use these things as they like. I learned it the hard way. The boomerangs went back to her before even reaching me. She put her arms in front of her face out of instinct, now another two gashes are on her elbows. There is no need to hide now, so I took off my hood and charged. "You...!" She looked at me when my master sword pierced her chest. "You...cheated...!" "Nah, it''s me." I returned to my usual look. "No summoning right? I didn¡¯t summon anything." I poured some magic into the sword and activated its lighting damage effect. With some cracks and sparks, the woman''s beautiful red hair became afro style. But she managed to move her arm and grabbed my wrist. "Ahhhhhhrgh!!" I was shocked away by my own attack. You can''t damage yourself with this skill but it still hurts! "I''m not done yet!!" She steadied herself and pulled my sword from her body. I must have missed her vital point. "YOU ARE GOING TO PAY!!" I ignored her outburst and spoke to Rose. "Do you have a mirror on you?" She tossed me one. Then I put it in front of me. "Hey, check yourself out." The pirate screamed when she looked into the mirror. "AHHH! You, you, my hair!!!" "Surrender. Or I''ll post your picture on every city gate around the world, so they can make a new WANTED poster for you." "You threatening me??" "Oh yes I am. Give it up if you still want to maintain your image." I''m trying to be calm because I don¡¯t know if this will work. NPCs are unpredictable, and this woman is worse. "...Very well. I surrender! But you must promise, all of you will keep this a secret!" "At ease, mydy. I will. " Looks like women still consider their looks more than their lives. Even pirates. "So...who¡¯s next?" This is obvious. But I still asked, while ncing at the remaining Asian pirate. "I give up." Well this is unexpected. "I¡¯m sure you''re hiding more stuff on you. Is that a top-grade Fire Gem on your helmet? You can transform, and go invisible. If I fight you now it¡¯s probably only 50-50. And I don¡¯t make uncertain fights. Your ship is good, but it ain¡¯t worth risking my whole fleet. Okay now, have fun, I''m out." He jumped onto his own ship and sailed away. It took a minute for everyone to take in the situation, when an unexpected voice broke the silence. "...BAH! Finally." We turned to the voice to see the Russian man, all wet, climbing back onto the ship. "Someone give me some help here! Aw, aw! My waist!" I walked to him. "You¡¯re still alive? Okay. Three moves right?" I spoke to one of my sailor. "Give me another cannon, and load it with a REAL shot." "No, no, NO!" The big beard waved his hands. "I lost, I give up! And I thank you for not using any ammo just now. You saved my life!" Well that attitude changed too quick. "Okay okay. Now move side." I walked to the woman. Rose and Red Moon are helping her with her hair. "Sort out your ships for us. We got pirate work to do." "You mean, right now?" The woman, Rhona, looked at me in surprise. "I need money to keep you people feed. And how do pirates get money?" I took out a Japan g I prepared. "From now on we only attack ships with this g. Seize them whenever you can, until they no longer dare to sent any ship into the water with this g! Oh make sure you count their shipyards as your targets too." "Isn¡¯t that a bit, you know, excessive?" "This is called the tactic of ¡®Kill All, Seize All, Burn All¡¯. They used that on us in the history, we''re only returning the favor." Wuyuu exined in an as-a-matter-of-fact tune. "Got it. I¡¯m telling them the ns now." The piratedy returned to her own fleet. I checked the time, almost 8 in the evening. Guess we have to call it a day now. "Hawk, we need to get off now. Watch over the ships for us. We can return to our usual y time tomorrow. " "Alright, off you go. I''ll take it from here." I told them about of the assault ns tomorrow and logged off with Rose and Zirai. We just have enough time to catch some dinner before the ind auction. We reached the auction hall at 8:30, by which most participants are already here. Zirai left us to join her parents. She wasn''t the one joining the auction anyway, so she found her sister to read the recent news together. Obaly has upied every section on the news, also, the reporters purposely mentioned Cindy andpared her with Obaly in the articles, since I hinted them to do it. When I sat down with Rose I notice Cindy¡¯s follower boy sitting near us. The young master from White Stone Corporation. He noticed us too. He has been believing that I''m just a poor student who happened to be apanying Zirai''s family here. But now he''s doubting that idea. Besides, I¡¯m wearing my formal suits now. "You stupid son of--" I pressed his mouth before he can finish. "Now now, I¡¯m here representing the Dragon Fate Corporation, mister. It¡¯s fine if you have personal matters with me but I suggest you NOT offend my family. We have hundreds of different ways to make you disappear from this world without anyone to mention you ever again. Keep you mouth shut for your own good, we clear?" I deliberately made myself imposing because this man is a typical spoiled child from a rich family. I need to make sure he''s not going to raise the auction price to unexpected level just because he hates me. I don''t fear him but that¡¯s doesn¡¯t mean I can waste unnecessary money. The auction is staring. The ind owner, Mr. Wang, is now giving his long and dull speech on the stage, while I kept some attention on this young man beside me. I knew my n went south when he''s still staring at me with all the hate he can muster. I activated my earphone and called Butterfly in a small voice. "Give me a report of the stock holdings, transaction records and financial overview of the White Stone Corporation. Fast!" She called back in several minutes. "All looks standard. Most of their assets have gone into the stock market, ready to make further investments or make cash-outs anytime." "Can we do something to force them into needing a lot of cash?" "We can try ordering airnes from them, a lot, so their manufacture factories will have to operate non-stop, which will require a lot of operational fund to keep them running. These fund will not be free until the order ispleted." "Good. Go and order the nes now, and sign the contract immediately. The more the better. Tell the stock management department to drive down the price of their stock, and make the other shareholders to give up their holdings to us. Give them some benefit if necessary. I want you to freeze up their funds as best as you can. When this is all done, tell ourwyers to file a charge that the While Stone Corporationmitted fraud because they took our order without being able to finish it. Get it done within an hour!" "Consider it done." I turned off the earphone, took my cellphone and called Mr. Wang. He''s still giving the speech up there and didn¡¯t answer my call, so I held up my phone and waved it at him. Mr. Wang noticed my actions and quickly realized I''m calling him. He excused himself and left the stage. "Is something urgent, sir?" "I want you to try to prolong the speech as best as you can. Let¡¯s say, your yearly pay rises by 10 thousand for each extra minute you can keep the auctionter than the original schedule. Do you understand?" I hang up without waiting for an answer. Mr. Wang ran back to the stage. Oh this is gonna be fun. He began to introduce every single entertainment facility and construction on the ind, in details, even those that do not exist anymore. He kept it going for an hour before he finally left the stage. He''s a genius, I must say. "Huff, heh...was that enough, sir?" He ran to me. "That¡¯s the best I can do. Any longer and the audiences will probably drive me off with violence." I checked the time. "10:20... Good! As I said, we¡¯ll pay you for you time." "A pleasure, sir! Now if you¡¯ll excuse me, I need some rest..." He looks drained out. Yeah I¡¯ll probably be the same if I keep talking for an hour without even knowing what to say in the first ce, if I can do it at all. Maybe Mr. Wang overdid it a little. Now the auctioneer seems even more worried than the participants. He rushed to the auction stand and downed his hammer without saying formalities. "The auction begins now! I believe everyone has a sign we prepared for you. Raise the sign means you add another 10 million CNY above the current bid. Tell us your bid loudly if you want to raise it higher than that. The floor price is 500 million, start!" "One billion!" The bastard beside me tried to mess it up from the start. Oh fuk him. But the other people are already raising their signs. This is all expected. We estimated the actual cost of the ind to be somewhere around 5 billion, so everything is eptable until then. "1.5 billion!" He called out and gave me a defiant look. "1.6 billion!" Someone elsepeted. I remained silent. "2 billion!" The crazy asshole again. Sigh. I need to do something. "2.5 billion!" He stood up before I can lower my sign. "4 billion!!" Then he smiled at me, bigger, as if saying "Finally can¡¯t keep calm, eh? Too bad you¡¯ll never win it!" My earphone sounded just in time. "Sir, the White Stone Corporation in now history. They bankrupted 5 minutes ago." "Good." I made another call to Mr. Wang. The auctioneer already hit his hammer. "Deal, 4 billion. The Paradise Ind now belongs to this young representative from the White Stone!" I walked to him and shook his hand. "Congrattions man!" He stared me nkly, not knowing what I''m trying to do. When I released his hand Mr. Wang took several securities and controlled the man who''s still dumbfounded. Mr. Wang then announced to the participants: "I''m really sorry,dies and gents. We just received message that the White Stone Corporation dered bankruptcy. They do not have 4 billion to buy the ind, thus the bidding just now shall be revoked, we re-start from thest highest bid!" The audiences became restless for a brief moment before they calmed down. These are all experienced people from various financial groups, they soon learned about what Dragon Fate did to White Stone, from their own intelligences. And of course, this also means that Dragon Fate wants this ind for some reason, so they made up their mind almost at the same time. Thest highest bid, is 2.5 billion, called by me. This should be a lot lower than the expected price...But no one continued. In the end I acquired the ownership of Paradise Ind at this price, when everyone in the hall came and said their congrats to me, by which they are hoping we can assist their own businesses in exchange. Ha, smart old foxes. Dragon Fate is famous for its disregard againstmon rules. We have enough power to act on our own, so getting our help means a lot to them. It¡¯s already 0 in the evening when thest man let go of my hand. I really need some rest now. The two sleepless nights in session drained me out. ------------------------ Rose woke me up the next morning. Yup, I slept in again. The twins are already waiting for us in the living room. "Tight sleep huh, my cute couple?" I yawned. "You''re not in the game yet?" "We¡¯re waiting for you! Now eat something. Hawk drove us away as soon as he learned that we''re staying with you, demanding us to drag you in there asap. He asked if something terrible happened to you since you''re always absent these days." "Did you tell him?" "Yeah. I told him a beautifuldy caught your attention these days and made you doze off all the time after all the ¡®fun¡¯." She said that while ncing at Rose. When Rose realized what she¡¯s indicating, she began chasing Zirai around the room. When we''re ready for the game it''s already 8:20 in the morning. That''s more than an hourter than our scheduled n. Hawk yelled the moment he saw me appear. "FINALLY UR HERE!! I thought you were ruined by some woman for real!" Rose gave him a punch. "Who did what now?" Hawk chuckled. "Well I didn¡¯t mention the name, heh heh..." "Ohhhhh....!" Violet and Coin said. "Concentrate!" I changed the topic. "Where are we now?" "Here." Two sailors spread open a detailed sea chart in front of us, then Hawk pointed at somewhere on it. "Where did you find this map by the way?" I asked. "It''s mine." Rhona, the red-haired woman, came to us. "This is drawn by us pirates, it has every single detail around the globe you may need on it. This is made from whale skin so it won¡¯t break apart even if you drop it in the water." "But...I can¡¯t read these." I¡¯m sure this is a map of the current game world, but all notations on it are written in unknown letters. It''s not even in English. "Duh, this is MY map, of course it¡¯s in mynguage." "So can you trante it for us?" "Nah." She shook her head. "Just catch me another whale, and I''ll ask our draftsman to get you another map, with yournguage on it." "Nice. But I think we need you to trante for now." I pointed to the location Hawk told me. "Where is this?" "The Tsushima Strait." "So this part up here...is Korea?" "That''s right. We''re now between S.Korea and Japan. This is always a conflict zone so even us pirates rarelye here." "Why? Are pirates afraid of something too?" "Hey, you''re a pirate too now, remember?" She pointed to the g pole above us. I looked up and saw a giant pirate g waving in the wind. "Uh what the-- Who took off our nation g?" Hawk shrugged. "They asked us to do it, saying that they¡¯ll only fight alongside us as fellow pirates if we keep that g up. The g means our duel yesterday is legit, otherwise they can just ask to duel us again." "I see. Let¡¯s do this then: put the pirate g onto the port g pole, hang the port g onto our team g pole, and we still need our nation g up there to show our identity." "What about our guild g?" "Hang it on the nose." "Alright!" Hawk went to change the gs, while I turned back to the map. "So we''re not far from Japan now?" Rhoda spoke: "Only an hour if we went straight to it. But we¡¯ll definitely get intercepted if we do that. There are a lot of other fleets on this route." "Whose fleets?" "The Koreans of course. They hate Japan as much as you do. Korea has highly developed naval industry as well so they''re always finding trouble with Japan fleets. The Tsushima Strait we''re sailing upon now is their main battlefield. There are fights almost everyday. Actually I''m wondering why we haven''t run into anything yet." "Captain! Battleship array spotted ahead!" The lookout warned. "Jinxed." Violet mumbled. "Don''t worry. If they¡¯re Korean fleet they should have no reason the attack a Chinese ship." "But...we have a pirate g up our heads now remember?" Elfy reminded me. I looked at the g, then at Rhoda, who just shrugged. "...Let¡¯s try our luck." I called to the gman. "Are we close enough to make g signals?" "Not yet but soon!" "Tell them we''re yers from China, now en route towards Japan to y some piracy game." After a while. "The people from Korea wish us a safe return with our ship full of spoils!" "Ah-ha! What did I say? They are friendly." "I see. Your enemy¡¯s enemy is your best ally." Rhonamented. We watched as the Korean ships sail past us. They''re all tattered and torn. Hawk ordered the sailors to sound our cannon 12 times as salute, while I told the gman to sent them another message: We will rob them clean. "By clean you mean you''re going to take their underpants too!" Everyoneughed out at the humorous reply. Chapter 122: Sail n Hunt Chapter 122: Sail ''n'' Hunt Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy --------------- Alert: Moderate offensive content against Japan. I modified and deleted certain parts in this chapter, or the alert level could be "severe". --------------- The Korean ships haven''t left our side when our lookout sent rm again. "Another battleship formation ahead, 40 or more, approaching our location!" I quickly checked the direction. I also found out one extra information. "Japan ships!" "What??" Everyone switched their attention from the Koreans to the neers. "...I can only see some distant shadows. How can you tell they''re Japanese?" Hawk asked while looking through his scope. "My ring, remember?" I pointed at my Star Gaze. "Captain!!" The gman spoke. "Message from Korean fleet, that those ships belong to the ck Dragon marine force from Japan, be very careful! Korean ships had a fight with one of their squadrons this morning, now their main force came!" Rhona reported that they have a total of 107 pirate ships at the moment. It would have been more if they didn¡¯t lose a good number of them to the Indians. So, 108 ships including Bi-Lin. The pirate ships are also generally faster than ordinary yer ships, of course, being pirates means you need to catch other people so speed is important. 108 vs 40-rish. I¡¯m confident we just need one round of volley to devastate them. "Tell the Koreans to leave this to us. After all, everyone should try to get rid of junks in the public." "Make sure you kick a lot of asses!" Ha, I think I really should meet their captain someday. "Distance report!" I called to the lookout. "33 kilos, closing in fast!" "Good." I turned to my team. "To your positions. Ready the crystal cannons now, they¡¯re within range soon." "We should go back and order our own fleets." Rhona and the breaded Russian said. I stood in the front of the ship, looking at the approaching enemies. Since we have good firepower now, I only feel excited about theing battle. "31 kilos!" Now I don¡¯t need my scope to get a clear view of the iing ships. Wait, is that-- "Distance?" "30!" "Violet, fire, fire now!! They have crystal cannons too!" When our crystal cannons released their fire, one of the enemy ships unleashed a purple sh almost at the same time. "HARDPORT!!" Bi-Lin made a sharp left turn, almost knocking into another pirate ship nearby. The enemy ship carrying the crystal cannon is obviously more clumsy than us, since our bulletnded right on their tail. A big explosion sent their front half up into the air, which then dropped back into their formation, causing more ships to sway sideways. Bi-Lin already escaped its original route. The enemy shotnded into the water harmlessly, but it still stroke up enough water to wash the entire deck wet. I''m already scouting the enemy ships again. Maybe they have more than one cannon. There! "Crystal cannons, attention! Enemy fleet, front-left corner, another target!" "We''re still cooling, how about the others?" Violet yelled in the guild channel. "I see it!" Zirai''s voice and her second crystal cannon sounded at the same time. The enemy shoot as well, when our bullet traveled halfway. King raised his hand to give evasion order but I stopped him. "Don¡¯t. They missed, probably because they''re trying to dodge our attack." Our shotnded on their front deck, turning our target into flying wooden shards. Nothing can survive from these powerful weapons yet so we¡¯ve got to avoid them at all cost. As I said, the enemy attack went into the water again. From the looks of it, the second cannon is smaller than the first. I guess not everyone can afford these stuff. I began to search for other cannons. And now I have some experience in it. These cannons have great kickback force, and are way bigger than other cannons. Even the smallest version has a 5-meter long barrel, which means I only need to pay attention to big ships, because they need the size to support the bulky weapon, while also keeping it urate. With that in mind, I quickly located 7 more crystal cannons. Then I told my idea to everyone, so I no longer have to give the order myself. Our crystal cannon operators fired on their own will. The enemies tried to evade, but four of them were still destroyed. However the remaining three cannons shoot at the same time. This time, they used the three shots to cover everyone possible evasion route. Two shots were aimed towards both sides of us, while thest one willnd in front us, which means we will run into the bullet unless we can backtrack. Backtracking is, of course, impossible for sailing ships. But Bi-Lin is not a sailing ship! "Reverse the boosters! Full speed!" King already gave the order. Bi-Lin halted on the water as if it just ran into an iceberg. Then the giant vessel began to move backwards. A high tidal wave and several vortexes appeared in front of us due to the disrupted water currents. Thank got King already asked the other ships to stay far from us so we have enough room to maneuver. Three water sshes went up in front of us, not causing any damage. "Cancel the reverse, full speed ahead!" King ordered again. These movements already gave us the urge to puke. Now we really need some targets to vent off our bad mood. Our tail crystal cannon fired first. Wuyuu is there, so this is not surprising. The other four crystal cannons followed up. Five bullets hit the remaining three targets, announcing the end to the Japanese crystal cannon carriers. So this is what the Koreans meant. 9 crystals cannons can be devastating to any ordinary fleet. But still, the Korean fleet fought with their squadron and survived...I need to go and learn their experience when I have the chance. "Watch out! Cannon fire iing!" King knocked me to the floor, when a cannon shot pierced the air above my head. "Give me the distance!" "23 kilos!" "They still have something that shoot this far??" I watched in shock as the cannon shotnded on one of the pirate ships behind us. "Over there!" The lookout warned. But when we checked his signal we only saw a mast pole slowly going under the water. "Submarine ship again??" We both yelled. "Maybe they built more of them!" King spoke. "I hope we know which city the shipyard is located, so we can go there and steal their blueprint." "Hey boss, I have an idea." Coin said in the guild channel. "Idea?" "Yeah. Say, if we damage the ship, or submarine or whatever, it will have to go home and get repaired. It will probably go back to its manufacturing port, so we only need to trace the ship to find the blueprint." "Not practical. How do we follow a ship on the sea without anything to cover us? And, how do we control our power to damage but not sink the ship?" King said. "I can ask Aldeina for the following part." I summoned my seabornepanion. This should be a simple task for a mermaid. "As for damaging it..." "Damaging what?" Aldeina asked. "A ship under the water." I pointed down at the sea. "Oh, we can do it." She answered. "We can just open some holes on the ship. They can''t stay submerged with all the holes right? And surely they will return to repair themselves." "How do we make these holes then? We don¡¯t even know where it is now." "Ah don¡¯t worry. I''ll go find it. I can hear the location of anything moving in the water within 20 kilometers. " "Aw shoot. This is not fair." King yelled. "Your ship even got a sonar system?" "Well, I didn¡¯t know till now." "I''ll get to it then!" Aldeina quickly jumped down. "Captain! 20 kilos, they''re within range of the Dragon Punches!" "Signal the pirate ships to change into cannon-ready formation!" They¡¯re all equipped with pirate-standard cannons which can shoot 20 kilos far. I think they got the cannons from seizing other Indian ships and then modifying them, since the pirate cannons fire even farther than the long-range shooter we saw before, and are almost as powerful as the Dragon Punches. All our ships now turned our side towards the enemies, with Bi-Lin in the center, while the other ships stay near each other tip-against-tail to form a fan-shape array. "All units in position!" The gman called. "Fire at will! Take the faster enemy vessels as high priority targets." Soon, our ships began to free-fire at the distant enemies. 108 ships means...we have a total of 22,050 cannons facing them. Man this is some serious firepower. Countless cannon rounds rained down upon the Japanese yers, causing explosions everywhere. Apart from those missed shots, each of the target took somewhere near 300 shots to the face. A dozen ships went under the water on the spot, and the remaining ones are nowhere better. A rough voice appeared behind me. "Hey will ya look at that! I never thought we pirates can manage such a fight!" It''s the breaded Russian guy. "Aren''t you supposed tomand your people?" "Heh. There''s nothing tomand about. They only need to shoot as they want, and it''s not like I need to stay and teach them how to do that. Say, we found a mighty powerful leader today! I can¡¯t wait to get back home and tell those old fellows what I did!" "What you did? Is beating up Japanese something worth celebrating for you?" "Well, no. Truth is, these ships are regr yer armies that usually stay in their ports, we pirates rarely dare to set our eyes on them. Now I can finally tell them that I beat the shit outta a freaking army!" "Huh... When I saw you earlier you got like, 50 ships in your fleet. Can¡¯t you beat them easily by yourself?" "Actually...Yesterday I brought the whole ck Sea Fleet with me. We never acted as one before, most time people just go and hunt with two or three vessels at best, sometime even one. Pirate is not an easy job as it may sound." "What about Rhona?" "Rhona?" He checked around and made sure the woman isn''t here, before he answered: "She is in charge of all pirates in the European region, and what she brought yesterday was over half of their pirate poption." "She--really?" "No kidding. But still, she''s not the biggest pirate among us. You remember that man called Tang, who gave up the duel? He has every type of weapon you can think of among his ships. Have you ever heard of the ¡®Blizzard¡¯?" "Nope. What¡¯s that?" "I''m not sure. It''s a...box, with holes on it, filled with arrows. You light a fire, then the arrows all shoot out. I think it¡¯s kinda like those fireworks you guys use during festivals in your country? The arrows fly far, and they''re strong. We would never fight him when there''s another option." That...sound like the earliest rockets in ancient wars. If he has something like that then it¡¯s very possible that this "Tang" person is a Chinese. Something interrupted our conversation by knocking me flying. Oh for the--did someone count how many times I¡¯m hit by cannons? The Russian was still talking with his eyes closed. When he noticed the empty air in front of him, I''m already trying to get up from the broken wooden boxes on the other side of the ship. "Where did thate from??" Aldeina emerged from the water and pointed down. Okay that¡¯s the answer. "King, take over themand for now." I rushed to the bottom level and activated a motorboat. My armor set lets me breathe underwater so I don¡¯t have to drive the boat on the surface like the others. I followed Aldeina, towards the "submarine". You caused enough trouble for us today. The strange ship is still moving slowly towards Bi-Lin, totally unaware that someone found it. Now I had a good look of it...it looks nothing like submarine. It''s just an ordinary sailing ship if you don¡¯t consider the environment. About 40 oars are pushing it forward by making routine movements simr to how you do breaststroke swimming. I moved close to inspect the connection points between the oars and the ship. The ship has multipleyers of protection, and there are someplex gear system between the outermostyers. There are 20 oars on each side. But from the size of it, they could have added more oars than that to provide better movement...I guess they can¡¯tpletely seal the connection points. That exins why they need to return to the surface often, to get the water out. That''s all I need to know. We may not have a easy time copying them but, it''s certainly easy to destroy it. I asked Aldeina to move to the opposite side, then we took out some cheap arrows we prepared and stuck them into the exposed gears. Oh ho ho. Don¡¯t me me for this... The fragile arrow shafts were easily crushed to pieces by the gears, but the metal arrowheads remained in there. The Japanese must have been shocked by the sudden failure in their machine. I can already hear their panicked discussion on the other side. They can still choose to emerge, but they didn¡¯t. We''re pretty close to Bi-Lin now, poking their head out of the water will definitely attract our full firepower. A...stick, appeared from the top of the ship and moved around. Ah that must be their periscope which is used to see the surroundings. The scope is spinning around trying to locate the problem. It stopped spinning when it turned to my face. I gave the scope my middle finger. Then I pointed at them, held my neck and pretended to be drowning, by which I''m telling them that this will be their imminent fate. I heard that Japan sells pretty delicious canned fish. Not sure if they will enjoy being canned themselves. Running out of oxygen is one of the most terrible ways to die. Some bubbles appeared under the ship and they began to move upwards. Looks like they chose to fight Bi-Lin head-on instead of getting suffocated. But since I''m here... I summoned Loong''er and asked her to pull the ship back down. I heard a low noise. Four unknown objects came off the ship. That must be extra weights, because the ship suddenly gained speed and started floating despite of Loong¡¯er''s effort. I tried summoning Lucky. If I remember right, western dragons can swim, you just don¡¯t see it often. As expected, Lucky was only surprised by the water a little before he regained posture. Under mymand, he stood on top of the ship and used his wings to blow water upwards, causing the ship to drop again. With two mighty creatures holding it down, the ship has no chance to escape now. I used Phantom''s telepathy to sent Aldeina a message: "Keep it there, and block the exit too, so no one gets out." "Leave it to us." Well Aldeina can speak just normally here. Convenient. When I began to return to the surface I hear someone trying to break through the ship from inside. Maybe they chose to get drowned than being trapped in there. "Do you know any support spell?" I asked Aldeina. "Yup." "Let''s see...use something to reinforce the ship, then buff the people inside so they can live longer." I went out of the water only to find out the battle has ended. Thest enemy ship already sank. "That¡¯s...fast." I walked to Hawk and King. "20 thousand cannons versus 40 ships. Of course it will be fast." Hawk looks proud. "Where is that submarine?" King came to me. "Still down there. I broke their mobile system and mypanions trapped it in the water. We wait for the crew inside to die out, then we can recover the ship. We won¡¯t need to find the blueprint if we have a model with us. Now let''s collect our spoils!" The water ahead of us is filled with glittering equipment and items. This is all money! "Get to work you lot!" The Russian man called out, then his pirates rushed to the loots on their small boats with impossible speed and returned them to Bi-Lin. "Nice!" Coin checked out a golden colored chestte in her hands. "And this...and that! Oh my gosh I don¡¯t know how to pick!" "Put them all into the storage." I told Hawk. "When we return, keep those we can use and sell the rest. We keep 50% of the money as reserve fund, distribute the other half among the team and the captains." "Really??" Coin has two dor marks in her eyes. "Let me keep Wayne''s share too. He''s going to waste the money anyway." I chuckled at Wayne who didn¡¯t even protest. Good thing though, since it seems Coin epted him. Coin then looked between Wayne and me. "Just so you know, You need more than this to date me!" ...That part of her is not going to change. When we¡¯re finished putting away the loots, bubbles appeared near our ship, followed by a ship mast and Lucky''s giant head. The main hull is still inside the water. "It¡¯s quiet in there." Aldeina knocked at the ship and spoke. I checked the time. "Take it easy. Give it some more time." Curses came out from the supposedly quiet ship. y dead huh? That¡¯s too basic. I have all the time to wait for you guys be corpses. We waited for another half an hour before we finally pulled the ship up. Now it only contains dead yers and NPCs, which can be distinguished by their clothes. "What¡¯s that smell?" Violet and Merciless said when they stepped into the hatch. "Someone puked and...ughhhh." "Well I heard that people can get incontinence when stressed to death." I lowered my helmet mask. High-level knight masks can usually filter out hazardous air, but not everyone have them. In the end, only me, Hawk, Big Pot and War Chant decided to check inside the ship. The ship is designed to bepletely airtight. When the smell of diarrhea and someone''sst night''s supper are mixed together...I don¡¯t think anyone without a mask can survive in here. The walls inside looks all damp, which is understandable. We reached the cabins, looks like their resting area. The cabins are designed masterfully by utilizing the most out of the limited space they have. I''m sure our own cabins will look terrible if we use the same space to build them. "God I can¡¯t take it. I say we give up this thing. At least I don¡¯t want to enter here again." Hawk dashed back out, leaving a green-brownish trail behind his heel. I kinda agree but I need to get a detailed idea of the ship''s structures, so I advanced. I entered their central control room, where the periscope is located. I kicked the corpse still hanging on the scope away and looked through it. Ohh nice, I saw Coin and Wayne chatting on Bi-Lin¡¯s deck. When there¡¯s no more to see, I quickly rallied Big Pot and War Chant to back out. When we reached the outside, the team gathered to hear our findings. "Wait!!" I dragged Big Pot and War Chant and jumped into the water to wash out the stains. "How do you feel?" I lifted my mask and asked them. "Gross!" War Chant said. "That''s not what I¡¯m asking. What do you think of the ship?" "Nice design, with a lot of problems but, can be a good idea to annoy the enemies." "Just...annoying them?" Red Moon asked. "Afraid so." I nodded. "To stay in the water, this ship has really small masts, and is too slow. They only have 40 oars, and the oars don¡¯t work well because they need to keep them sealed. Several air rooms upied too much space, they only have room for 12 cannons. That won''t do any real damage." "I was nning to build some of them for the Goddess Alliance...Guess I better give up." "Not really." King spoke. "Let¡¯s try it. They work good if we use them to ambush enemy gships from the dark." "So what do we do about this one?" Coin asked. "Find some ropes and trail it behind. We make some holes on it when we get back and wash it clean with sea water." Big Pot suggested. "Let¡¯s do it then. Find a pirate ship. We can¡¯t put a burden on Bi-Lin since we have more fights ahead of us." I said. "Let¡¯s keep moving. 40 ships is just a start. We¡¯ll let them pay tenfold for what they did to our Torrent Point city." ----------------------- "Captain, another fleeting from behind us!" "Behind us? You mean from Korea?" I raised my scope to see a group of ships with Korea g moving to us. "About two hundred. Woah that''s a lot." "Captain!! Battleships ahead as well!" I quickly switched to the other direction. "...Japanese ships. It''s the ck Dragon marines again. I saw their g!" "How many?" Hawk asked. "Never mind that, let''s retreat for now." I told them. "Huh?" "There are at least a thousand ships over there!" "What??" Hawk jumped. "Tell all units to turn around! We get nothing by fighting them now! We''re not defending anything, so better keep our force alive!" I ordered while still trying to inspect the enemies. "What about those guys?" Hawk pointed to the iing Korean ships. "g! Tell them that a thousand Japan ships areing at us, armed with crystal cannons!" We are already moving back towards the Korea direction when we sent the signal. Their captain is fast to react. Therge fleet all moved in union and turned back. As our ships are faster, we slowly merged into the middle of the Korean ships, while Bi-Lin approached their gship. People from both sides walked to the edges and looked at each other in curiosity. I asked one of the gman to stay near me as trantor. When the ships are close enough, I simply jumped to the other ship with only Hawk and King. Too many people will probably raise suspicion. Their gship is about 190 meters from tip to tail, rtive bigpared to ordinary sail ships. Though still a lot smaller than Bi-Lin. A dozen people came to meet us. Their leader seems to be a...woman? "Hello there, I''m captain of Bi-Lin, call me Ziri. This is my first officer Hawk, and our advisor, King Conqueror." I talked first. "I''m captain of The Haena, my name is Silver Park. Greetings." She shook my hand. The yer looks somewhere near 16 years old... I only have one word to describe her looks-ic. She looks just as cute as those characters inics. The people around her though, are all adult males. "So were you going to?..." I waved around the 200 ships they brought. "To fight Japan of course." She smiled. "Didn''t you n to rob them clean just now? Why are they chasing you instead?" "You heard about it?" "Duh, we went past you a moment ago. You helped us stall the enemies, remember?" "Oh, that was you? But...you repaired your ships already?" She rolled her eyes. "This is another ship." "You...have a lot of ships then?" She considered for moment. "Apart from the broken ones and those still under construction...about 70 or 80?" Wow shoot. Isn¡¯t her rich. At least the add-up value of all of her ships can well exceed the cost for Bi-Lin. "Captain!" My chief officer called me from my ship. "Japanese fleet is only 31 kilos away!" "Damn. They''re fast." I turned back to Silver. "Sorry, I really need to get back to my escaping n now." "Can I have a look around your ship?" This is not really a good time but... " ...Alright,e." I don¡¯t really have a reason to refuse her. I only had time to introduce my crew before she ran off on her own. Good, since I can¡¯t be her tour guide at such a moment. "Where is Wuyuu?" "Here!" The man suddenly appeared. "Mount the tail crystal cannon. We should be able to hit them now." The Japanese are chasing us from behind so this can be an advantage. The crystal cannons can shoot no longer than 30, but our movement shouldpensate for the remaining distance. On the contrary, their crystal cannons won¡¯t reach us easily. There¡¯s a problem though. The little Korean captain is still on Bi-Lin so we can¡¯t leave the Korean ships. Bi-Lin and my pirate ships are forced to remain on the same pace with them, and I don¡¯t think we can outrun the pursuers at this rate. Chapter 123: The Pursuit Chapter 123: The Pursuit Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy Silver Park returned to me after god knows where she went. Our crystal cannons are firing now. The giant boom made her jump and look around in panic. But when she watched the purple bullet slowly travel across the 30 kilo distance and knock an enemy ship into another, she looked at the powerful weapons with glittering eyes. "Hey hey, what are these?" "Crystal cannons." "Oh, the same ones in system cities?" "I...think so? But these are bigger than the ones you saw before. They came in four sizes. The cities use the smallest ones on the corners, and the second smallest one in the middle. What we have here are thergest, they have better range and power. Of course, they are costly." Yeah...100 million each. They burned a big hole in my pocket. As I said, even a pile of pure gold the same size of these stuff would probably be cheaper. "Can you sell them to me?" "...Excuse me?" I¡¯m not sure I heard that right. "Do you sell the cannons?" I shook my head. "It''s not like I''m being mean but, you better not buy them." "Why?" "What''s the biggest ship you have at the moment?" "The one over there, about 193 meters long. I have several more, of the same size." She looks proud. "Not big enough." "But that''s the biggest standard our shipyards can build!" "Okay. Look at that one." I handed her my scope and pointed to one of the Japanese ship armed with a crystal cannon. "As you see, the ship has ONE smallest crystal cannon, as its ONLY weapon. They didn¡¯t ce more weapons because they need to spare the load weight to hold the crystal cannon." I took back my scope. "Your ship is just a tiny bigger than that, and slower. Now imagine what would happen if you put one of these giant monsters on it. Hear my word and give up. You can try and give it a shot, I mean, a real shot. I¡¯m sure your ship is gonna break apart on itself if arge cannon ever shoot on your deck." "But I want it!" Something¡¯s shining inside her eyes. Not that I want to make her feel sad, but even if I give her a cannon for free, it''ll only throw 100 million into the ocean. "Hey, look. How about this one?" I pointed to a Dragon Punch cannon. "They shoot 20 kilometers far, a lot better than those cheap things on your ship. I can give you a hundred right now!" "No! I want the biggies!" ...I should¡¯ve never let her here. Now I have to deal with the extra trouble. I ran to the edge and called to her followers. "Can someonee here for a moment?" One of them, probably the leader, moved to my ship. When he saw the crying captain he hurriedly rushed to ask what happened. Then he walked to me and said: "I apologize but, this...weapon, can you please sell us one? Just one! How much for it?" He gave me a 90-degree bow. Man this is embarrassing. "I bought them at 100 million, and it was quite a hassle to transport them. I can¡¯t just sell them to anyone!" "I understand, restricted merchandise I assume? We deal with a lot of those. I pay you 120 million, what do you say? Please feel free to tell me your idea." "Good price." I nodded quickly. That''s 20 million instant profit I say! Now I¡¯m beginning to understand why dad is selling all kinds of weapons to the other countries all day. The money is real! "Lucky!" I summoned my number onepanion. "Lift that cannon and put it to the other ship." I spoke to the man again as Lucky started his work. "Remember, no shooting! Your ship WILL sink if you try to use that weapon right here." "I get it. Thank you very much! Here''s the payment." He sent a trade request to me but-- "Oh good lord. Do you always carry all these cash on you? How do you carry it anyway? I can only have 80 million in my inventory." "I''m the vice-master plus financial ountant of our guild. The ountant of a guild is allowed to carry 2 billion crystal pieces. Where is your ountant? I''ll give the money to him or her." "Uh, no. We don¡¯t have one right now." I called Rose over. Two people are enough for this at the moment. "Is this okay, my gooddy?" I spoke to the girl. By this I''m trying to tell her to leave Bi-Lin. The enemies are only 20 kilos away now. I asked them to pick out enemy crystal cannon carriers as best as they can, or we would have been attacked by now. Things said, the situation is already bad. We only have one crystal cannon on our tail which isn¡¯t enough to suppress them, so they are going to shoot at us at any moment! Silver Park looked at her new cannon and finally nodded. Good, we can escape now! But...She isn¡¯t leaving. Instead, the middle-aged manager caught my intention. "Excuse me." He beckoned at me, asking for private room to talk. He''s speaking Chinese too. Then why didn¡¯t they send this man earlier?? (We''ve beenmunicating through our gman trantors until now) "What¡¯s the matter?" I led him away from the young captain and asked. "Our ships are not as fast and I don¡¯t think we can escape from the Japanese now. I hope you can escort thedy back to our port." "Huh? What about you then?" "We''ll split up and run, to minimize our lost, hopefully." "But--" "Truth is, we¡¯re bodyguards, hired by thedy''s father. Our job is to protect her, including when inside the game, so can you please take her away? Losing ships is not something we''ll worry about, but we definitely can¡¯t let thedy get harmed. 5 million crystal pieces if you return her to safety." 5 million! Just to transport a yer! I''ll never find a easier job than that! "Alright, let here." I took out Rhona¡¯s sea chart. "Give us the location." When we''re done we walked back to Silver Park. "Silver, looks like your men have some other business here, so I''ll take you back home." "Other business? Go ahead then!" She nodded to the man. "Okay. Stay safe with these new friends, mydy. They promised to send you back to the city." The man jumped back to his ship. I told the gman to return to his post and send a message to our fleet. "All ships, follow Bi-Lin and retreat!" "Full speed!" Chief officer ordered our men to speed up. Without the Korean ships to worry about, we gained enough speed to leave them behind. The Korean fleet moved apart into 10 smaller teams running in different directions. The Japanese fleet also split up into 10 squadrons and began to chase them respectively. Rose and Yuri took Silver to look around the ship, while the remaining crew stood watch on the deck. "They are actually trying to get all Korean ships?" Hawk eximed while looking at the enemies moving. "Greedy bastards." I cursed. "What do you mean greedy?" Coin asked while looking through her scope. "The Koreans are obviously willing to risk minor forces to save their main. A careful enemy captain would divide his fleet into two or three and focus down the same number of Korean ships, to ensure victory. Now they went into ten! They''re trying to get everyst one of the Koreans." "Why is no oneing for us then?" Coin asked a silly question. "Would you chase someone if they can move faster than you?" "Oh." "What''s the n now?" Zirai asked. I looked at King. "Any advice?" He considered for two seconds. "If I were you, I turn back now and pick out the small Japanese teams one by one. We¡¯re fast, and have better attack range. When we get rid of all their crystal cannons we can stay at a safe distance and shoot at them while they have nothing to fight back, and we''ll continue to stay safe as long as we don¡¯t get surrounded." "I agree!" Hawk spoke. "We can just run away again if something bad happens. They''ll never catch us." "Then we have all the reason to do just that." I agreed. "Tell our ships to return to the battlefield! Time to hunt!" "All units turn around!" Our pirates made a giant U-turn and moved back to the enemies. We also moved slowly, to make sure the Japanese don¡¯t notice our n too soon. We chose one of their small team which is closest to us as target. That team of ships are also located in the middle or their force, If we can get rid of it before the other teams get alerted, the rest of the teams will be too far from each other tomunicate. Judging from the number of vessels in each of their teams...There¡¯s no way we¡¯ll lose with our cannon advantage. We waited for about half an hour for the enemies topletely scatter. "It''s time. Full speed ahead, attack the enemy formation straight ahead!" Our 108 ships charged together. A small Korean team of about 20 ships is escaping on our route. When they saw us move back they immediately realized what we''re trying to do and moved sideways to give us passage. Same old practice. My first job is to scout for any crystal cannon carriers. The enemy team contains 137 ships...and I only found 5 targets in there. Maybe we knocked out too many of them in the previous fight. "Crystal cannons ready!" I gave the signal and waited for our ships to get into firing position. "Fire!" The crystal cannons on our ships roared purple me at the same time. Four of the target ships broke down on the spot. Too bad we sold a cannon just now or we would have cleared them out in one go. "Evade!!" King roared to the helmsmen when we saw the only enemy crystal cannon shoot at us. The iing bullet only fell into the water about a hundred meters to the right of our deck, soaking us wet. "Wuyuu! Is your cannon ready?" "Yes!" He already shoot when he answered me. The attack brought down ourst target. "Signal the other ships. The enemies no longer have anything that can shoot farther than 15 kilometers. Let¡¯s keep this distance while free-fire at them!" All the pirate ships swarmed ahead when they received the order. The enemy ships aren¡¯t fully armed like us, so our 108 ships can deal more damage than they expect. We hurled over 10 thousand solid rounds down their heads in the first minute. The pirate cannons are also breech loaded, which use high-explosive rounds instead of the shot put balls for cheaper cannons. Our sudden attack devastated our target without giving them any chance for counterattack. While the escaping Korean team saw the situation and decided to turn back to watch. The enemies fell silent. Most of the ships are still floating, though badly damaged. "Do we approach them?" Coin asked. "I don¡¯t think so. What if they''re ying dead again to draw us near?" Zirai spoke to her. "So we...keep shooting until there''s nothing left?" Hawk proposed an easy solution. "But we get less loot!" Coin protested. "Fine. I''ll go take a look." Zirai summoned her Skyfire and flew towards the enemies. We watched her spin above for a while before she returned. "How''s it?" "I don¡¯t think they survived that one. But I can¡¯t see below the decks. I can only tell you they¡¯ll not remain afloat for long." "Let''s go then." I ordered our force to move close, with our cannons all stand ready, just in case. We stopped at about a kilometer away, when I only ordered Bi-Lin to keep moving. The area is now filled with broken nks with shining items caught on them. Most of the floating ships are burning. I can feel the hotness from distance away. We moved side-to-side against one of the ships. As I''m rallying War Chant, Big Pot and Passerby to board the ship and take a look, arge, burning ship suddenly appeared from one side of us and charged. "Back! Back!" King quickly ordered. Our four boosters created four water beams in front of Bi-Lin. However, another enemy ship moved into our escape route and blocked us in. There¡¯s no time to make a halt now. We watched helplessly as Bi-Lin crashed into the roadblock, creating a terrible metal noise and a huge shake. The enemy ship was knocked away as if a train ran into a family car. Whoever tried to block us didn¡¯t expect Bi-Lin to have so much charging power even though we¡¯re still moving at low speed. When the ship''s bottom touched the water again, the sudden water resistance force caused it to tumble in the water, while losing pieces and parts in the process like a broken toy thrown onto the floor by a spoiled toddler. "Oh god. " King looked at the flying ship in awe. "That was awesome." "A-ha! Nice strike!" Wuyuu hopped in excitement. "Hey wait. What''s that?" Hawk pointed at the ship which is still rolling. I followed his finger. "... I don¡¯t see anything." "Look at the broken wood. We don¡¯t use such thin materials to build ships. I think something''s behind them." Now that he mentioned it...Yeah, those are not wooden shells that are thrown off the ship. They look like covers for something. I focused on the still unstable enemy ship and noticed some...ck patches? "Oh shit." I pointed at the burning enemy ship in front of us. "Zirai, shoot that ship NOW!!" I was toote. The ship already moved to one side of us and opened fire. There¡¯s no way we can evade attack from so close. The entire left side of Bi-Lin was showered by countless cannon rounds. "Godammit. Cannons! What the f*ck are you waiting for?? Attack!" The sailors finally remembered their job and returned fire. With a deafening explosion sound, the full volley performed by all cannons on our side caused Bi-Lin to sway a bit. Our power looks good enough but...the result is a bit unexpected. Instead of shattering the enemy ship, a series of sharp CLANGs intruded our ears. "What the hell was that??" Wuyuu rubbed his ears and looked at our target. The outeryer of the ship waspletely destroyed by our attack but... Some dark metal is exposed under the broken wooden structure. A metal ship?? It¡¯s made of full steel! So our previous attack only ignited its outermostyer of wooden materials without doing any harm to its inside. However, Bi-Lin¡¯s firepower is not to be underestimated. They may have built a thick defense but our Dragon Punch cannons still opened up some holes on them big enough to pass vehicles. Chapter 124: Dragons Vs Dragons Chapter 124: Dragons Vs Dragons Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Since when did they build something like that??" "They''ve had it for months." Someone said from behind. It''s Silver. "Wait, you can speak ournguage too?" "My grandpa¡¯s...grandpa, grew up in China, and loved there. Then they made a tradition that all children in our family should learn to speak Chinese." Now this intelligent girl looks nothing like that crying kid I saw moment ago. "And what do you mean, they had it months ago?" "Most Japanese warships lurk around the Tsushima Strait and fight with us, since, you know, it''s more convenient for them to reach us than to reach China. The ones attacking yournd are either those already fought with us, or those slipped past our ships. Every time they got their hands on something new, they test them on us. These metal ships appeared way before then. Though I''d never expect to see them again." "What do you mean by that? Did you wipe them all out or something?" "They''re out of date." She walked to the edge and pointed at the metal monster. "They are slower than the cheapest fishing boats because they can¡¯t have any sails. They even need other ships to give them a pull to start moving. Besides, those armors aren¡¯t so good. You can still hit through them if you concentrate your fire on one spot. So all in all, the Japanese ceased manufacturing the ship because it''s not worth it. I didn¡¯t think they still have remains." "Hey king, let¡¯s go take a look at this thing!" Now I¡¯m interested. Their weakness, as Silver said, is their extremely low mobility. However if we can modify Bi-Lin in the same way...it doesn''t hurt to lose some speed. I ordered the pirates to loot the other enemy ships clean before I jumped to the one beside us with King. My boots created a loud "ng" when Inded on the ship. Man this thing''s hard. We reached the main door leading towards under the decks...or the remains of it, since the door is made of wood. There are no survivors hiding inside the ship. The cannon shots that went through caused fire and burned out anything that can catch fire. After some close inspection I realized that the metal ship''s structure is not as simple as we thought. Apart from covering the ship with metal, there are numerous support beams on the inside which can pass any impact force onto arge area so the attacked spot doesn¡¯t get destroyed easily. We returned to Bi-Lin after enough look-around. Rhona''s men are still working. Our deck is now filled with all kinds of items taken from the enemies. I told some pirates to patch up the metal ship so we can pull it back as one of our trophies. Even if we can''t replicate their design, at least we can add anotheryer of metal protection outside Bi-Lin. The pirates brought back loads of equipment, fresh water, food and...somepanion eggs? Someone must be rich. They carried unused eggs on them! When we''re done, I sent Silver to the Korean fleet nearby since they can well escape on their own now. Then we moved towards our next target. The second Japanese team doesn¡¯t even have any crystal cannons. Guess they focused their asset onto one fleet as main attack force and we happened to knock them out first. However I saw something strange among their units. It''s a...no. Two ships connected together? "Uh, King? Do you see that twin ship?" I pointed to that direction. "Not very clear... Twin ship you say?" "You know about it?" "No. Guess another new invention. They are pretty good at this. Hey wait a second. What are those small spots?" He suddenly pointed upwards. "Spots?" I used my Star Gaze and looked at the strange ship again. The "twin ship" actually has two ships lined up together. They¡¯re not very long so the entire vessel appears as if it''s advancing sideways. The masts are located between the two ships, and the decks on both sides are empty. They¡¯re just two big t nks. A creature with a terrible head and a pair of giant wings came into my view. The reptilian creature standing on its hind legs looks a lot like Lucky...But it''s way smaller, and not as cool. "A wyvern?" I think I recognized it. Unlike dragons, these lesser beasts don''t have very good flying abilities and many of their species need a certain running distance to take off. So that''s what those t decks are used for! The wyvern in my view confirmed my idea by running along the deck when the rider on its back jerked his reins. They ran to the tip of the ship and finally soared into the air. "F*ck me. That thing''s a goddamned aircraft carrier!!" "Aircraft what??" King jumped away at my sudden outburst. "The twin ship! They use the t decks as runways so their wyverns can take off! The Japanese are freaking genius!" "What-what do we do?" Zirai looks nervous. "Lucky!" I summoned Lucky and hopped on. "King, take themand. Whoever has flyingpanionse with me!" Bi-Lin haspletely no anti-air deployment. It''s be really bad if we let the flying enemies approach! I summoned Loong''er, Phiona, Tank and Aldeina when I took off (*). Thank god I have my own flyers. Behind me, Red Moon followed by floating on herself, Zirai has her Skyfire, and Merciless came on his ck panther. The flying feline is still young but is strong enough to carry a man now. Further behind there are Elfy and Passerby. I also saw our new crew, Blue Wind. Passerby''s cockroach can fly just well, no surprises here. Blue Wind however, as I saw before, had apanion I didn''t quite recognize. I only knew it had a giant horn on top of its forehead, maybe a beetle. The "beetle" moved onto Blue Wind''s own back, when a pair of transparent insect wings suddenly spread open behind him. Good god. He merged with hispanion! My makeshift air force quickly moved close to the enemies. Now I think about it, we never had a real boarding fight before, and our first meleebat is in the air! The Japanese already spotted us. The two runways now have two lines of wyverns taking off one after one. Where the hell did they find so many wyvern mounts? No matter. We have to deal with them anyhow. Being the only two "genuine" dragons, Lucky and Skyfire charged ahead, leaving the rest of the team behind. I guess dragons still have the speed advantage-- Whoosh! A shadow went past us before we can realize what just happened. It¡¯s Blue Wind. He dashed towards the enemies while yelling like a madman. The air current he brought up even shook Lucky a little. I knew he wanted to y cool but...the guy got into trouble just as fast as how he went to them. He rammed into one of the wyvern riders face-first, which didn¡¯t stop him in the least. Blue Wind carried the unfortunate wyvern plus his master and kept going, until they knocked five more wyverns into a tight hugging group. When they finally stopped, the six pairs of enemies, including Blue Wind himself, lost altitude and dropped towards the water. Before soaking himself, Blue Wind regained flight and charged back to Bi-Lin in the same speed as before. I guess his flying has a time limit? He did a good job though, by taking six enemies off our list. Me and Zirai began our show. We charged into the enemy formation, attracting a lot of hate. Skyfire bumped into his first target, stunning the wyvern on the spot using his bigger size. A following w swipe sent the dazed wyvern into the sea, swift and clean. Maybe because our lower level, Lucky''s body is a bit smaller than Skyfire. Most of the enemies went to fight Skyfire, leaving only three of them engaging me. A wyvern sank its teeth into Lucky''s wing, when a golden aura spread open from Lucky¡¯s head and washed us over. The attacking wyvern is driven off by some sparks. I then heard a system notice: "Yourpanion has been attacked by a sub dragon species. The effect of dragon crown activated. Companion Lucky is now having the effect of ¡®Lordship¡¯." With another sh, Lucky''s dark scales all turned golden yellow. I looked at Lucky''s status window. All statuses now have a "x2" indicator after them. So the wyverns are considered as dragons too, which can also trigger the crown. Lucky swung his tail at the wyvern which just hurt his wing, tearing it in half. Then he charged into the other wyverns before they can realize what just happened. Lucky locked his maw into the thin neck of a wyvern. With a snap, the poor thing bid farewell to its own head, leaving its rider sitting on the broken body dumbfounded. Lucky didn¡¯t spare his life though. He caught the rider, tossed him into his jaw and chewed. After some brief screaming, body pieces and some items dropped out. Next, Lucky looked at the remaining wyvern rider in an "oh there''s still food" expression. The rider made a wise decision and pulled his wyvern to retreat. Too slow though. Lucky mmed the bottom-half of the wyvern into potato mash and treated the falling rider in the same manner. I don¡¯t really care how he killed them, as the fight gave me some decent EXP. The other wyvern riders attacking Zirai haven¡¯t realized their teammates have be snack, until Lucky reached them and snapped a wyvern¡¯s wing away. One of the wyverns unleashed a fireball at Lucky. Lucky just took the hit without much thinking, while taking the chance to grab two other riders and ate them. I checked my battle log window and found a message: "Draconic spells are ineffective against the dark dragon lord." The message repeated several times as more fireballs hit Lucky dealing absolutely no damage. More enemies approached but no one went near us. They all witnessed what happened just now. I also realized that I can¡¯t control Lucky anymore. Triggering the crown effect also put him into a berserk status. Besides Lucky doesn¡¯t have any riding gear like those ropes on the other wyverns. This is not a problem however, as Lucky is doing his job as I hoped. Phiona, Tank and Loong''er joined the fight at this point. Phiona rushed into the middle of enemies with her signature dark mes, scaring the wyverns away no matter how their riders try to control them. Loong¡¯er cast a giant spell pentagram towards Lucky, which made him even "madder". Some smaller wyverns began to fell into the sea out of horror. I noticed another creatureing up from the carrier ship. It''s another dragon like Lucky. A real one. Also, a small white dot moved away from the ship at the same time. I immediately yelled to Elfy: "Shoot it down! That''s a message pigeon!" "Huh? Oh!" She quickly chased behind the bird on her pegasus. I have no time to watch over that pigeon now because the enemy dragon is here. Lucky is still enjoying five corpses at the same time when I shouted into his ear, or where I think his ear is: "To the left! Take out the big one before you serve your stomach!" He nced at the target, threw the remains of the corpses away and charged. Two dragons soon mmed into each other. It''s a brown poison dragon we¡¯re facing, and bigger. It must be higher leveled then Lucky. The collision caused Lucky to tumble backwards for some distance, while the enemy dragon also fell down a bit, almost crashing onto their carrier. So our first strengthpetition is a tie. This means the enemy is a threat to us, and I must take care of it while I have the chance. Through Phantom''s telepathy, I told Tank to approach the dragon. It was rammed away by Tank just after it recovered from the previous collision. Tank may not be as strong as these mighty monsters but one of his talent is bumping stuff. The enemy dragon wasn''t prepared this time so it rolled in the air for quite some time. Following mymand, Tank moved behind Lucky to hide, while Lucky unleashed his fire breath at the enemy. The color of the fire beam looks a bit weird though. The golden me is mixed with some ckish substance. Some armor pieces and bones also fell out of his mouth. The poison dragon regained bnce just in time to see the iing attack but couldn¡¯t dodge it. It shrieked and pped its wings quickly to get out of the way. When it did, however, the chest and belly of the creature are already badly roasted. Its rider cursed loudly in anger. Well I can¡¯t understand a single word of it, so let him curse. He¡¯s going to be another snack anyway. The enemy charged again. Lucky took the challenge head-on. Before they connect though, Lucky suddenly lowered himself, revealing Tank who has been hiding behind us. Tank followed us when Lucky began the charge. Now he has enough speed and power. With a muffled "bump!", the two creatures finally hit each other. They''re all knocked away by the force. But I can see Tank was almost unharmed with those carapace as hard as te armor. As for the poison dragon...ouch. I gave Tank that name because he IS one. Surely it won¡¯t feel good if you run into a tank at full speed. Lucky was already waiting behind the enemy. He used his tail spike to send the other dragon into another direction, while Phiona appeared and threw a dozen fireballs at the stunned dragon, roasting it further. My team has been taking care of the other wyverns. Two of them managed to slip past their defense when they saw their boss getting bounced around. "Watch out!!" Merciless called from behind. When I turned and saw the situation it''s already toote to do anything. The two wyverns came aiming at me, since they know they can¡¯t take down Lucky. I felt a strong pinching force on my waist. The next second, I was taken off Lucky. Lucky turned around and torn the other wyvern into blood and pieces. He then came to save me. But there¡¯s no way he¡¯s making it when I saw an open maw full of sharp teething at me--the enemy decided to use the same tactic to finish me off. I struggled without much sess. I have neither the strength nor the time to break free of the wyvern w. The creature threw the now helpless me into its mouth. I still tried reaching out...but the sudden darkness engulfed me faster. ------------------ (*) The author didn¡¯t exin why he sent Aldeina the mermaid too. Maybe she can fly? Chapter 125: Dragon Slaying Chapter 125: Dragon ying Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy The wyvern''s teeth all missed me on the first attempt, so the creature opened its mouth and prepared to bite again. The brief opening isn¡¯t enough for me to escape. A slimy tongue dragged me back between the two rows of deadly fangs. "Transform!!" I activated werewolf mode in time and pushed against the iing upper jaw. Utilizing my armor''s strength bonus, I slowly pried open my death trap. When it opened up enough I quickly took out mynce and set it up to hold the wyvern jaw in ce. The wyvern is still trying to bite me down, but the suddenly pain caused by the polearm prevented it. Now that my hands are free, I took out my master sword and stabbed it into the upper jaw above me. The sharp weapon went into the creature''s head without much trouble. Then I took out all the flying swords and gave the wyvern a good needle treatment. The tongue around my waist went away. Since I¡¯m feeling a free-fall now I probably killed the wyvern already. I quickly pulled the master sword back and used it to control all the other swords to slice the wyvern head open. I jumped out from a hole I created and found the panicked wyvern rider in front of me, so I took the chance and gifted him another hole on his stomach. Me and the two corpses finally fell into the water. I raised a hand to catch one of Phiona''s w when she sweep past to pick me up. Lucky just got rid of thest wyvern attacking him. Above us, The poison dragon dived at me from Phiona¡¯s blind spot. Her smaller avian body was rammed away by the dragon. When I¡¯m falling I saw the poison dragon''s bloody mawing at me. Not gonna happen again! "Absolute Defense!!" This skill granted by my wing des onlysts for 20 seconds. But it is enough to protect me from those dragon teeth for now. As expected, the dragon neglected the barrier and bit down with great force. Ka-crack! Four teeth fell down into the ocean. How do you like that you ugly face! The poison dragon shrieked in pain, which gave me just enough time to jump away. I didn¡¯t escape though. I caught its jaw and leaped onto the dragon¡¯s back. The rider is still thinking about why his dear pet lost some teeth instead of killing me. I ran along the dragon''s neck and charged, aiming my sharp gauntlet fingers at the rider''s own neck. He dodged my attack by several backflips. I couldn¡¯t stop my attack. My entire right hand sank into the dragon¡¯s body below, causing it to roar again and roll around trying to throw me off, which...won¡¯t happen, because my hand is stuck inside its body for good. I can¡¯t get it out! I used my left hand to took out a dagger. I didn¡¯t use this thing much before, but I¡¯m sure it''ll do a good job when cutting meat. I slit around the area around my right hand, freeing myself. The action also brought down some dragon scales. Now these things are valuable crafting materials sought by rk. Of course I can¡¯t take them from Lucky, so how about... The rider charged at me in anger for hurting his pet. I thrust my hands forward, expanding my dragon cords and caught the running rider. I then poured some magic into the cords. They immediately sliced the trapped rider into some broken flesh and armor pieces. Next, I walked onto the poison dragon''s head and drove mynce down as hard as I can. The vital hit killed the dragon instant. I leveled up to 467! This is some rewardful fight. I left the falling dragon corpse andnded on Lucky''s back, while Tank hovered over and caught the corpse. Oh right, he can eat corpses to evolve. I wonder what will happen when he eat this thing. I ordered Tank to return to Bi-Lin to continue his meal. There are only three or four wyverns left now so I followed behind Tank and left the work to the others. When Tank tossed the giant corpse onto the ship, I quickly took out arge jar from my inventory. A vial of Dragon blood sells 100 crystals on the market. If I can drain this dragon clean I¡¯d probably collect several hundreds bottles. rk''s material list contains many kinds of liquid so I always keep all sorts of containers on me. Next are the dragon scales. We can collect much of that too, judging from the size of the dragon. Dragon teeth, bones, ws...they¡¯re all money! The remaining flesh will be Tank''s feast. Or wait, the dragon soul is also good stuff so I spammed [Capture] at the corpse, hoping to catch a servant. Everyone on the ship watched in horror as I carefully broke up the dragon into various materials like a corpse maniac. Looks like Coin is the only one who can understand what I''m doing. She snatched away some scales and blood for herself too. When she''s done, she stared at Lucky as if she¡¯s not satisfied. "No way." I moved in front of mypanion. "Oh, it''s nothing, nothing!" She walked away,ughing. ------------------------ We approached the enemy fleet since their air force is taken care of. They don¡¯t have a single crystal cannon so the aircraft carrier without its "aircrafts" is just a moving shooting target for us. Suppose we''re going to raid Japanese cities, then we¡¯re definitely taking a lot of goods back, and Bi-Lin itself won¡¯t likely to hold all of them. The pirate ships aren¡¯t really good for storage either, since their ships are designed to be fast. Umhmm. We can use a big carrier ship like this. They''re still fighting back using several small cannons, so I took Lucky to suppress their attack. Kingmanded our fleet to attack the remaining enemy ships, who are soon overwhelmed by our absolute advantage and became burning, sinking scraps. We''re experienced this time. We looted the ships to thest coin before the escaping Korean fleet realized what just happened to their pursuers. Just as we''re finishing up sorting out the trophies, Elfy returned on her pegasus, with an arrow in her hand and a pigeon stuck on it. "This thing¡¯s fast. I chased about a dozen kilometers before I finally got it." "Good job! You can keep it for dinner." "Hmm. Roasted pigeon. I like it." We then moved onto the third Japanese fleet. If we can wipe out another two or three teams of them we''ll sure win this fight. Things don¡¯t always go as you hope though. When we moved closer to our target we realized that this squadron has somewhere near 400 ships in it. Some of them must have already eliminated their Korean targets so they merged back. This is almost three times more than our number... Will be risky. "Opinion?" I asked King again. "With our range advantage we can take out a hundred of them before they reach us. That makes it 200 to deal with...I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a problem." "You mean we can do it?" "Yes!" Hawk nodded firmly. "If we take out more ships now, they''ll have less to fight us when we attack their port!" "Alright!" I confirmed since everyone is agreeing. "Let''s go. All units prepare for battle! And Zirai, how about a little air strike as a starting present?" "Sounds good to me!" I checked Tank before we move out. He''s already changing, after devouring the dragon corpse. A single horn stuck out above his forehead. Spikes appeared around his limbs and behind his back, which almost make him look like a hedgehog. [Golden Wyrm Beetle], max level 900. Attack 3,000-5,000, Defense 4,000, (*) Speed 100, HP 20k, MP 5,000. Attacks carry poison effect. Talent skill [Strong Acid Spit], damage 120, causes continuous damage for 1,200 seconds. Physical Resistance 50%, Magical Resistance 45%. Special skill: [Crystal Cannon shot], [Fire Bullet](Griffin), [Air Shot], [Hammer Down], [Poison me], [Dragon Breath], [Dragon me Sphere]. "Ha! I''m pretty sure Tank will be the toppanion in my team soon if he keeps eating stuff." "Are you ready or not?" Zirai urged me. "Yeah. Coming!" I jumped onto Lucky and followed Zirai towards the enemies. ------------------ (*) Tank''s defense was 5,000st time the author mentioned it. Maybe a bug. Yeah...The bug got a bug. Chapter 126: Behind Enemy Lines Chapter 126: Behind Enemy Lines Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy Lucky took me above the enemy ships when they try shooting me with their arrows. But unfortunately for them, those things can¡¯t reach this high. Even if some of them managed to catch us they don¡¯t have the power to hurt Lucky''s scales. "Hey look out!" We''re flying towards their gship when Zirai alerted me from behind loudly. I lowered my head to see something flying towards us while leaving a smoke trail behind it. A rocket?? "Lucky, iing!" The rocket missed us when Lucky simply folded his wings. As a living creature, Lucky''s way more agile than airnes. Of course these obvious attacks won¡¯t hit us easily. Or that''s what I thought. The problem is, the rocket made a 180-degree turn in the air and headed towards us again. They got homing missiles in this game?? No time to think about it. It''sing fast! Lucky made a sharp turn with a flick of his tail, dodging the rocket. But it soon came back! "Phiona!" I asked Phiona to go for the rocket since her slim body is swifter than Lucky. She chased around the rocket for a while and sessfully caught it in her ws. However, it seems the rocket is really a powerful one. Phiona can¡¯t hold it in ce, so I ordered her to try to keep it stable as best as she can, while Lucky went ahead and sliced the rocket''s tail off using his tail spike. The smoking rocket bottom tumbled away and is destroyed by a following fireball from Lucky. Phiona torn the remaining body of the object apart and-- There¡¯s a Japanese yer wearing starter equipment lying INSIDE the rocket! So this is another of their kamikaze attacks. They do love this stuff. The 20-level yer won¡¯t lose anything even if he¡¯s killed, and he can just gain another level quickly and return to the battlefield again. If we don¡¯t consider the ethics I must admit this is yet another genius invention. This guy is holding a bunch of fuze connected to a pile of explosives, and a lighter in his other hand, which means-- "Get away from him!!" Lucky turned tail while Phiona quickly dropped the broken rocket away. The yer yelled something loudly before he lit everything up. I guess it''s something like "for the mothend"? There is almost no dy between the ignition and explosion, since they don''t have to consider the yer''s safety in the first ce. We didn¡¯t get far enough. A powerful shockwave threw us away. Lucky lost his bnce and dropped into the water, and Phiona crashed into one of the enemy ships. Phiona is fine. She spread her wings and took off before the enemies can do anything. I can¡¯t say the same for Lucky and me though...we were falling too fast, it felt as if the water surface is solid stone floor. The impact on the water surface caused me to lose all my flying swords plus my helmet. Lucky hid his head under his wings out of instinct, while I don¡¯t really have anything to protect myself. Now I only feel my head burning with pain. Still, I managed to float back to the surface. I¡¯m using my master sword and my armor ability to recall everything when the water ahead of me rose. Lucky caught me and lifted into the air just before the Japanese ships fired at us. He turned and rolled among the cannon shower and escaped the rain of hell safely. We climbed high enough before the enemies can shoot another round. "You alright?" Zirai approached us. "Barely. I''ll be bigughing stock if that level 20 newbie actually killed us." And--oh shit. We don¡¯t know how many of these rockets they still have. Judging from that power, they can probably take down a ship with just two shots. And of course they fly farther than cannon rounds! A dozen more "human missiles" went away from the enemy ships before I can contact my fleet. "Stop them!!" I yell to Zirai and ordered Lucky to charge. Seeing that we¡¯re not going to make it, Phiona rushed inside the rocket group and turned into a giant fireball. The temperature ignited all of the weapons, but Phiona died in the explosions herself. Thank god she can stille back alive for once today. But another dozen rockets are in the air soon! I saw a series of rocketunchers on their deck. There are like 30, no, 40 of them! Out of desperation, Zirai charged into the rockets and caused more explosions. No rocket escaped the scene this time, but I never found Zirai and Skyfire. Theunchers below are firing again. What can I do?? Sacrifice myself too? No. The other ships are releasing rockets as well. They have more than one rocket ship, I feel totally helpless when I see almost a hundred of them taking off! Aldeina appeared behind my back without my summoning. "Are those things controlled by humans?" "Um? Yes. You have an idea?" "Let me try!" Aldeina moved onto Lucky¡¯s head. "Ahh----" She''s...singing? And with extremely high-pitched voice. Her voice gradually turned into a horrible stinging noise like when you use metal shards to move against ss. Then it disappeared. Maybe it went beyond human hearing range. A rocket suddenly lost control in the air and exploded on itself. Then followed by more rockets. Some of them didn¡¯t explode, but they went down into the water and never came back. Furthermore, those rocketunchers on the enemy ships blew up one after one. Some burning yers ran amok and jumped into the water. Aldeina kept it up for about 20 seconds. When she''s done I quickly leaned aside and vomited. Ultrasound weapon! Now I''m feeling as if two armies are fighting inside my head. The headache and urge to throw up won¡¯t go away. Being mypanion, Aldeina''s attack effect should be already nerfed when reaching me. Now I wonder how the enemies are feeling. I''m reaching my head aside to vomit again, when Lucky suddenly trembled and began to fall. We three went into the water. I quickly summoned Loong''er to drag Lucky back. His eyes are swirling. So Aldeina''s voice stunned him as well. I got to say this will probably be the only time when I¡¯m seeing a dragon upside-down in the water while giving out bubbles like a dazed fish. Aldeina swam to us. "Sorry! I should''ve warned you to stuff your ears with something." "What was that?" "Dual sonic cannon. I was gathering power when you can still hear me. When you cannot, it means I began the attack with both ultrasound and infrasound. The ultrasound can detonate explosives, while the infrasound makes people sick." "Nice one. Do tell me before next time so I can move away. Ughh. I think I gonna throw my stomach out. Hey Loong''er, let''s get back to Bi-Lin now. And stay under water." The airstrike wasn¡¯t really sessful but we can¡¯t keep going now. Lucky is still unconscious, and I¡¯m not feeling really good either. My team swarmed up on me when I climbed onto the deck. "You okay? We saw you falling down at the end. What happened?" Rose asked for everyone. "I''m good. We weren¡¯t hit, it¡¯s just, well, Lucky''s unconscious." "Your dragon?" King looks surprised. "What on earth happened to him?" "Gimme a break. Aw my head''s cracking. Need a medic here!" They just realized my condition, so Rose and Yuri helped me to the cabin. When I lied down on the bed I heard our crystal cannon firing. I bet the first shot was Wuyuu again. So the enemies are within range now. I went into sleep without realizing it. I felt as if I just got car sickness, while badly drunk. ---------------- "Ziri! Hey Ziri! Get up!" Someone shook me awake. I see Zirai and Rose. "What''s wrong?" The headache went away but I still feel heavy. "Easy." Rose quickly assured me. "We already wiped them out. Rhona took her men to collect the loot. We brought their gship too." "Nice. Do we have any loss?" "We stayed at the safe distance and they never reached us with their attacks after you took out their rockets. The battle was easy. The only pity is the Koreans were also wiped. We came toote." "Ziri!" King came in. "What''s our next n?" "Next n?" To be frank, I rarely do ns. I usually decide on something when I see it. "Yeah!" Hawk entered the room too. "Do we keep going for the remaining ships or go straight to their port?" "We do both." I gave them another answer. "You guys stay here and fight the other ships, while I go to their territory and scout the area." "No!" Hawk protested first. "You''re themander here! How should you leave?" "Well I don¡¯t really know how tomand people. I may have contributed the most money in building our fleet, but I''m no good at overseeing a naval war. King Conqueror''s way more experienced than me, so better let him take it over." I spoke to King. "As I said, you''re good at this and I know you always want to fight it out with the Japanese. Now I lend you my ship, do as you see fit." "I don¡¯t think so." Rose spoke up. "It''s too dangerous to go alone." "Come on, you know me. I can always run if I can¡¯t win a fight." THAT I''m confident. Who can catch me when I can teleport away anytime? "At least take me with you." Rose made herst effort. "I can take someone but, sorry dear, not you." I patted her shoulder. "You''re a healer. You can be more helpful here than going on an infiltration mission." "I''ll go with you then." Zirai stepped ahead. "Skyfire, Big Bill and Little Bill, that¡¯s enough firepower." "Take me too!" Red Moon nudged into the crowd. "You won¡¯t reject the help from the No.1 caster in our entire region right?" I looked among them. That''s two decent damage dealers, and Aldeina is master at almost all water-based spells, most of which are support and healing ones, so she can be our temporary healer. "Okay. Red Moon and Zirai, with me. Blue Wind, you''re a Hunter right?" "Eeyup." "Can you like, make traps?" "Of course. How can someone hunt without traps?" "Can youe with me too?" "Do you have to ask?" He disyed his bow. "I was worried you might now take me." "Hey I''ll go too!" Wuyuu jumped. "Nah. If you''re there I''m sure you¡¯ll attract half of the poption in Japan into chasing us within half an hour. Merciless, Coin and Razor, we need someone fast too. Also, we can try blending in with a ninja in our team." "Got it!" The three nodded. "Finally, I can find someone to level up my [Steal]. Oh hohoho!" Coin giggled. "But...how do you get there?" Hawk asked. "We''re still pretty far off from theirnd." "We use motorboats. Seven people...four boats are enough. Better not take more people so we don¡¯t draw too much attention. We can pretend to be a small leveling team. As long as we don¡¯t speak in the open, and Coin doesn¡¯t disy her Taoist skills, no one will notice anything." "Buy the trantion service too." Red Moon said. "Speaking through the trantion will still expose us, but at least we can understand what the locals are talking about so we know about their idea. Leave it to Razor if we must talk." "And potions!" Yuri spoke. "It won''t be convenient to buy from local stores, so you should take enough with you! Everyone give them what you can spare." I quickly stopped them from trading me items. "No no, no need for that. When I learned the lessonst time I always keep enough items on myself." I took out a giant package from my bracelet inventory. "See? I have enough here tost us for a week or two even if we have to eat them as food." "Woah shoot. Why the heck do you carry so many drugs on you?" Wuyuu and War Chant don¡¯t know me much and now they''re looking at me as if I¡¯m insane. There''s no big reason, just...I¡¯m toozy to run between the shops so I stock up as much as I can. "Let''s go then!" Red Moon looks anxious. "Not yet. Hey you, get me the pigeon." I spoke to a sailor. When he returned I handed one of the bird to Rose. "Use this to contact me since we can¡¯t sent messages by other means. If there¡¯s a real emergency, get off the game and shout into my ears." "Into your...huh?" Hawk is confused for a moment. "They''re lying on the same bed dude. They can switch to another ¡®game¡¯ by simply flipping over." Zirai exined to him. "Hey!!" Rose yelled. "Oh...!" Everyone else nodded. Now my face is burning! "Ahem! Let¡¯s move out now." I quickly ran outside the room with my team. We found four motorboats in the bottom level and headed out. Zirai stays with me, Blue Wind carries Coin, Merciless brings Red Moon, and Razor by himself. Our vehicles left Bi-Lin to the horizon with great speed. --------------- After a while. "Hey Ziri! We don¡¯t have a clear view now, we¡¯ll run into enemy ships like this!" Red Moon said. "Leave the job to Lucky." I summoned Lucky to scout for us. He probably won''t have enough stamina to fly all the way to Japan, but I have more flyingpanions. However, Lucky made a turn in the air and rushed to the opposite direction. "Lucky! Hey, go ahead, not behind! Where are you going?" He ignored my order and kept heading back as if he really needs to toilet. Well, if a dragon even needs that thing, that is. His Loyalty is full, 100. On theory, apanion with full Loyalty will do literally whatever you ask. Zirai shot me a doubtful look. "What¡¯s going on with him? " "Oi! What''s the deal?" Blue Wind approached us too. "I don''t know! He just, left! He never did that before." Lucky soon headed back as we''re talking. "Sorry, Sorry!" "Where on earth did you go?" "I uh, had to...relive myself with...something. I think I ate something bad this morning, and it''s getting back in my stomach." By something bad he means those yers he ate. "Oh no...oops, give me a moment master! " He left again! Oh Crap. I did bring a lot of potions and such but I never took any antidiarrhoeal stuff. The others areughing their guts out on the boats. Ugh. No excuses. Lucky returned after a while though he still looks not in his best condition. "Get some rest then. Tell Phiona toe out." I de-summoned him. He¡¯s not going to fly anywhere like that. Dragons can get purges? I¡¯ve seen enough strange things today. Thank goodness Phiona isn¡¯t keen on eating yers so she can well perform the job. We reached thend of Japan without any trouble. But before we can actually get ashore, we have to get past the shallow waters. Unfortunately such area is usually packed with grinding yers. As a nation on the ind, their naval industry is extremely advanced. And of course the waters are the most popted training grounds for them. Now our first problem is to consider how to reach their soil safely. Simply charging ahead is totally a no. We can¡¯t expose our motorboats cause we probably need themter to escape. Red Moon looked around. "Let''s move along the coast. We''re too close to the port city, there should be fewer yers far off." "Agreed!" Our team of seven stayed in a safe distance and cruised around thend for some time before we realized that this won''t do. The game region of Japan is more crowded than we expected. yer teams lined up from one port to another, there''s almost no vacancy! I thought China is congested enough already. Now I see worse! "What should we do? We''re never going to get past them while keeping the boats safe." Coin said. "How about stay under?" I suggested. Blue Wind looked at thend and made some calction with his finger. "It¡¯s possible. Our boats are fast enough to take us there within one breath." "I mean, we swim, and leave the boats right here." "You''re joking right? We still need air in this game, and there''s no way we can swim that far without resting." Maybe Coin is bad at swimming. "Let me see. Aldeina!" I summoned the mermaid and took off my helmet. "My helmet can let us breathe in the water. Leave the boats here, we use the helmet and sneak to the shore one by one, and let Aldeina to take the helmet back here each time someone''s done." "Good idea!" Coin pped. "Now I can safely tell you that, my swimming sucks." We drove the boats underwater and hid them in a safe spot, then I departed first. Aldeina stayed behind me and pushed to help me go faster. Though we still remained at a moderate speed so we don¡¯t get spotted. There aren''t many monsters on the shore so I don¡¯t see many yers here. I gave my helmet to Aldeina, then hid myself behind a pile of rocks. The rocks are all pale which isn¡¯t really a good hiding ce for my dark armor but...I can¡¯t find anything else. Unlike us however, it seems Japanese yers prefer to stick to their own business so no one really paid any attention to me, save some curious nces. One after one, my team all reached me. We pretended to be a leveling team and walked among the crowd. Again, no one noticed us. Upon leaving the coastal area, we quickly switched to smaller paths so we ran into fewer people. I have no idea where we are. The system map only shows my coordinate but not the name of the area. Probably because I can''t read that information as a foreigner. We never actually found a cepletely empty of other people, but at least we can speak now, quietly. Blue Wind and Red Moon aren''t my guild members so we spoke in the team channel. "n?" Red Moon asked first. "Find a bank or something and make a fortune!" Coin answered without much thought. Razor spoke: "I think we should go look around their shipyards. They have so many weird ships and weapons. We can learn about how theye up with all those ideas. And if we can¡¯t, we burn them all." "Let¡¯s do it then." I confirmed. That IS a question which has been troubling us for some time now. Since we are here we better get it over with. "Ask about their crystal cannons too. We destroyed like 30 of them on the way. How did they find so many of them?" "Got it." Razor headed towards the nearest city. I asked Blue Wind to follow him just in case. His traps woulde in handy if anything happens. The rest of us tried to avoid any other yer groups. But there are just too many of them. Someone even talked to us. We can understand them through the trantion helper but we can¡¯t speak back since the trantion doesn¡¯t cover our strange ent. Whenever someone asks us to level up together, we would just shook our heads and walk away. We waited for the pair to return. But someone else found us first. A group of rogue yers approached us, and the leading one disyed a typical viin plot you would find in any movies: "Hey dude, that''s some nice chicks you got. Come on, don''t enjoy all by yourself!" He was speaking to Merciless. I just remembered that I took off my helmet to get rid of the wetness. Now these people think I¡¯m a woman, which means Merciless is the only guy in their eyes. None of us spoke. We can''t! This gave the thugs more confidence that we¡¯re scared. Their leader took the advantage and reached towards my face. Before we decide to get rid of them quick, Razor appeared behind them. "Sorry my friends! They''re uh, my girls." "A fellow businessman I see. Perfect!" Razor could have made the exnation better but I can only stay silent at the moment. The thug leader asked him while pointing at me: "How much for this one here?" "10 million crystals. Just one time." Razor actually answered him with a straight face. "Hey! You messing with me huh?" Razor quickly winked at me, then he moved my head to face the thug. "Come on, just look at her. You don¡¯t find such woman everyday. Look at those armors, they''re all artifacts! I spent a ton to get her here, trust me, she can easily defeat any one of you or us if she wants to. You see what I mean? Such a strong one, serving you however you like overnight! 10 million is absolutely worth it!" "But, I don''t have enough money! You see bro, I''m from the ck Dragon Force, can I just owe you this time?" The thug disyed such an expression which I can only call it "lewd". Chapter 127: The Infiltration Chapter 127: The Infiltration Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy ck Dragon Force? I whispered to Razor: "Ask them if that ck Dragon Marine has anything to do with them. " "Is the ck Dragon Marine under you guild?" Razor said. "Yeah! Guess what, I¡¯m a team leader!" The thug looks really proud. "Ohh! You should told me earlier! Okay my friend, just pay what you can. But this is only for you! Make sure to be gentle with the girls. And of course, remember to introduce me to your other members! It¡¯ll be best if I can get to know your guild master too." "Sure, sure!" He quickly passed Razor all money he brought, then he walked to me with a wicked grin. Razor sent me a signal from behind him. "Take him to the bush in the woods and knock him out." I dragged the thug to the said location with the best smile I can gather. When I¡¯m sure no one can see us, I immediately covered his mouth and punched at his temple, sending him to the ground. Good. He''s still alive. If I kill him now he will respawn in the city and send rm. I sent a message to tell Razor that I''m done. "Stay there. I''ll try to draw information from his men. Keep your eyes on that guy, knock him again if he ever wakes up. I''ll leave this channel open so you can hear us too." (*) As he said, I''m now hearing one of the minions speaking to Razor. "Where did you find all these gear buddy?" "I hired people to search all over thend! But of course this is nothingpared to your guild. You know, I saw your fleet this morning. I hope I can be there someday!" "You bet! We aren¡¯t called the number one guild in Japan for nothin¡¯!" The man began to boast about his guild, and this means a perfect chance for Razor to get what we want to hear. "I heard that your guild has many of those powerful crystal cannons. However do you get them? I¡¯m trying to get a ship and have some fun over the China seas, I can do better if I had one!" The thug hesitated a bit. "Uh, I can tell you but don¡¯t tell anyone else! This is our secret." "Of course, of course!" "Do you know about city upgrades?" "No?" "Listen buddy, when a guild has their own city the guild master can appoint a mayor for it. This will be the master himself by default. The mayor can ess the city management page where he¡¯ll see the city attributes. They include ¡®Development¡¯ and ¡®Strategic Importance¡¯. Development depends on the city''s tax ie, and Strategic Importance is based on warfares. It increases as you defeat other yers attacking your city, or when your guild attacks other cities." "What exactly do they do? Tell me please!" He isn¡¯t getting to the point and I''m bing inpatient. "Why the hurry? We have all the time." The thug took out a bottle and sipped it. "Alright...where was I again?" Shoot. I just noticed the thug leader groaning, so I vented my anxiousness by punching his nose. Oops...I think I broke it. "The city attributes?" Razor reminded him. "Oh right, that one. The city levels up once the two numbers reach a certain limit. When that happens the attributes will drop back and increase from the start again, until the next level. You can check how much you need from the management page...I can''t remember them. A city starts from level 0 settlement. From there it goes all the way to level 19 settlement, then it''s level 0 vige, next is hamlet, town, then main city. A level 19 main city will then be level 0 metropolis. There are only 10 levels for this. When the metropolis bes level 9, you choose to upgrade it to one of these: Fortress, Commercial Center, Traffic Hub, Religion Ground, Magic Center, Hall of Knowledge, Monster Hive." "That sounds..plicated. But you didn¡¯t tell me how you armed your ships." "Patience!" Man, the guy is enjoying this. "These different structures have their own unique buildings. I''m not sure what exactly though. Last time I heard, there are only 3 cities that made this far in the entire game. One in Japan, one in China, and one in...Germany I think? Both China and Germany turned the city into Religion Ground, we ck Dragon Force owns the third one, the Hira City. The ce is a Hall of Knowledge now." I asked Red Mon in our team channel: "There is only one yer city in China now right?" "Yeah, that Present Town you seized for us. We built it into Religion Ground. This gave us a huge buff to our healing skills, our Priests and Priestesses can learn a lot more new skills than other people too. But this is only limited to our guild members. The skills will disappear when someone quits." The thug is still speaking. "The unique structure in our city is called the Tower of Truth. There is only one thing inside the tower, the Door of Truth. You walk to the door, make a wish and enter it, then you¡¯ll be taken to a special ce. The door can only be opened once everyday. We used it like 40 times or so, and every time it leads to a different ce. Sometimes in the middle of monsters, maybe inside a maze, or get dumped into a tidal wave, volcano, flood or all kinds of troubles. Anyway, if you can get past the trial you will be rewarded with the knowledge you wished for. Things said, the result is always a little different than your actual wish but, it''s still really helpful ." "That sounds really great my friend!" Razor ttered. And apparently it worked. "You know what, I¡¯ve been in there twice! It¡¯s really dangerous too. Our guild gathers hundreds of good men each time but only a few can return alive! Killing monsters is the easiest task among all, and is the only task that we passed every time." I instructed Razor: "Ask about the location about that door. Let''s see if we can steal it. Or at least we can tear it down." Razor: "Woah you must be a really strong yer then! Where is this Tower of Truth? I want to have a look!" "What, you never been to the Hira City before? You don¡¯t have to go inside the city to see the tower. That thing''s huge! But you can¡¯t get into the tower mind you. We always have four guards at the gate, hour shift. You must get our master''s approval to enter." "Sorry man, as you can see I¡¯m new in this game so I don¡¯t know much yet." Razor has been leveling up with us in China, and there''s no ninja equipment drops there so he''s still wearing the same setupst time he was in Japan. They surely look like noob gear. I heard someone huffing behind me. That someone grasped me before I can turn around. "You got a lot of nerves! Now DIE, BI*CH!" The other thugs all heard this. Can''t hide anymore I guess. I reached around my shoulder and stuck my fingers into the man''s eye sockets. I also asked Razor about the pronunciation of a Japanese sentence I''m going to use soon. When I¡¯m ready, I turned off my trantion service, sliced the thug''s head off using my w de and tossed it towards his team members. (In Japanese) "He didn¡¯t drop the loot! Let''s get out of here!" The other thugs are frozen in ce when they saw their leader''s head flying out. My team vanished quickly as I already told them about the n beforehand. I¡¯m not sure if my speech sounded right but it doesn¡¯t seem the thugs will question about our nationality for now. We ran for a while until we reached a cave to hide in. It''s 6 in the evening, this means 7 in Japan. Most yers have gone off to eat. "Did I say that out right?" I asked Razor. "Pretty good. I haven''t heard real Japanese in Nanjing ent for a while." "God damn. I think I did fine since I only had so much time to react." "Did you seriously try to sell us for prostitution back there??" Coin asked him. "Yeah!" I also had to ask this. "Why the heck did you count ME as one of them too? And--ow! Stop kicking me! Ahh! I mean--I''m sorry!" I earned a good beating from the girls. "Aww..So what do we do about that...door?" "The Door of Truth." Coin continued. "Let''s just steal it out. It''s made of pure gold right? Then it will sell at least 100,000 crystals as is." "It sounds like a teleport gate to me. I¡¯m afraid it can''t be moved." Merciless shook his head. "True. Besides how do we get past the guards?" "Just kill them!" Coin isn¡¯t using her brain again. "Ohe on. Suppose we can kill them, what will happen when they respawn? If they call for help in their guild then tons of people wille at us." I exined. "Not quite." Red Moon spoke. "I think we can try it." "Are you serious?" "Listen, surely we''re strong enough to kill four guards before they can react? We can even try to stun them, so we get the time to get in the tower and do whatever we want. We only kill them if we can¡¯t get them under control. They need 2 minutes to respawn back at the resurrection point, that¡¯s enough for us to break down a single door." "God. I wish we took Yuri with us." I looked down. "She can use her flute to restrain those guards, which makes this a lot easier." "But...can¡¯t your mermaid charm people with her song?" Coin suggested. "...I forgot! " I quickly summoned her. "Aldeina, can you put people to sleep without rming them?" "Yes, as long as they don¡¯t have anything to protect their spirit." "I''m not sure about it. Can you tell me what kind of people use that kind of protection?" "Advanced Oracles, Pdins wielding holy spells, all Archangels and high rank Divine Demons. Some items can also do this but they''re very scarce." "Let¡¯s try it out then." Zirai said. "I don¡¯t believe some gate guards possess rare items. We can do it if we don¡¯t see those mentioned sses." "Alright!" I made my decision. "Everyone log off and eat something. Let¡¯s move in the night." The darkness is the best ally for my Dark Dragon Lord outfit. Rose is already awake outside. "How''s the infiltration going?" "Good. We already know how they invented all the stuff. Tonight I''ll take Red Moon to check out that thing, we either take it back, or destroy it if we can¡¯t. Either way they won¡¯t be seeing it tomorrow." "Be careful then." "I''m always careful. Tell Hawk to stall the Japanese ships these days. Run if you encounter any big ones. The more ships you can attract, the less force they can send after us." "Got it. I already called the room service, take a break." "Sure!" --------------- I quickly satisfied my stomach and returned to the game. And it seems everyone is eager to do this. First, Razor took us into a nearby city. I felt really nervous watching all the yers running around me. Wait, I''m a thief now! Guess I should. It took some time for us to find the teleport station since we didn¡¯t ask anyone for the location to be safe. Our surroundings only got more crowded when we reached the Hira City. Most yers have a "ck Dragon Force" indicator before their names. More than half of what we see here belong to that guild. I don¡¯t think we can get out of here alive if they send every member to catch us! We walked to the Tower of Truth slowly and carefully. As the thug said, it''s so tall that people miles away from the city can see it. The tower is entirely gilded with gold and decorated with a lot of paper figures and sheets. Must be charms they use to repel evil spirits. They didn¡¯t put the tower at the center of the city, which is good. The buildings nearby aren¡¯t big but are enough to block the tower gate, giving us more cover to do our job. I first approached the tower with my Phantom Cape on, and call the others over when I make sure there¡¯s no one around to see us. We managed to sneak onto the ceiling of a house just beside the tower. Four guards are in our sight below us, all human ninjas. I summoned Aldeina to perform her song. The dim melodysted for a minute before the four guards slumped to the ground like soft noodles. We jumped down from our hiding spot. The others ran straight inside the tower, while I carefully ced the four sleeping ninjas into a leaning position against the wall. Even if someone saw them across the street they won¡¯t notice that they''ve fallen asleep. "How long can itst?" I asked Aldeina when I finished cing thest guard. "About 20 minutes." "Do it again if they wake up." "I can¡¯t. I can only use the skill once a day." "Oh, then stay watch. Tell us when it''s about time." "Will do." I walked backwards into the tower while looking around to make sure no one saw us, then slowly closed the door. When I turned around though, my legs nearly gave out when I saw the room about 5 square meters wide packed with people. My team went in here before me but they are all blocked near the entrance. So we came here just when the enemy guild is going to do a quest together! "What''s going on?" I asked in the team channel. "Are we discovered already?" Razor replied:" I think it¡¯s just a coincidence. See, they''re all looking at the door in the middle." I tiptoed a little and saw that golden door standing not far from us. It''s half-open too. "So they just finished a quest? Shit. Why now?" "I think they''re going IN actually. The door wasn''t open just now, they must be still waiting to start the quest." Red Moon said. "Now this is trouble." I looked around the room and estimated at least 800 people in here. We only have seven...we''d never win this by force even with all of ourpanions¡¯ help. "Any idea?" Coin asked. "I do." Blue Wind spoke. "The question is if you guys want to risk it." "Just tell us. We''re cooked anyway." "Let¡¯s find a chance and run into the door before they can stop us. That man said the door leads to somewhere really dangerous, which means they won''t have an easy time tracking us down." "Let''s give it a try then!" ------------------ (*) There is a serious bug here: ording to previous chapter, the team can¡¯t speak openly since the locals can notice this. But here they canmunicate with their own private channels. Well, bugs aren¡¯t rare in this novel anyway. Chapter 128: Into the Volcano Chapter 128: Into the Volcano Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Who goes there?!" A ninja turned around and saw us. He looked us up and down, then quickly locked his sight onto Razor. "That sword...the [Rin Ray]? Our nation treasure? You''re Razor?" Oh this isn¡¯t good. "Get ready." Blue Wind spoke in our team channel. "The door is opening." "On me." I told everyone. "Understood." "Tank! Hammer attack!" Tank appeared in front of me and used his bone hammer to m the speaking ninja, who crashed into several people and flew all the way into the door. The door is now fully open due to the force of the attack. The path between us and the door is now clear. We rushed towards it when the other Japanese didn¡¯t react yet, with Coin being the fastest again. We went through a pale blue barrier and fell into a terribly hot ce which I can only describe it as "hell". Thend is burning red, which is divided into several parts by bright hotva streams. Dark smog ising out from holes all over the ce. The ce looks bad but it will be worse if the enemies behind catch us. We kept running away from where the entrance is located, with Japanese yers hot on our tails. However, not all yers went through the door. Some of them were suddenly blocked by an invisible wall as the door slowly closed up. Next, a thunderous system notice voice came from above us. "The trial has begun. Your first task is to find and defeat the three hidden evil creatures in this world. Each creature will drop an item upon defeat. Bring three items back to the Door of Truth to prove victory. Only 500 yers are allowed in this task, and you have reached this limit. Logging off during the task will be deemed as abandoning, and the yer will be removed from this field. All monsters apart from the three targets will yield no EXP in this task, thus it is suggested not to waste your strength on them. That is all. May the truth favors you." The Japanese yers looked at us again when the voice ended. They hopped towards us using the floating rocks on theva stream. "Rosa! Sweep them down!" Rosa started to burn the moment he appeared so I immediately called him back. Razor pressed a finger against the ground. With a "fizzz!", he quickly redrew his hand and blew on it. "The ce is too hot, thatpanion of yours won¡¯t survive underground." "Right." I touched the Fire Gem on my helmet. "Dragon Wasps. Attack!" I can now summon over 800 hundred of these creatures. They look extremely active in this ce for some reason. A ninja is jumping towards another floating rock. But several wasps bumped into him in the air, causing him to stray away from hisnding point and fall into theva. He simply disappeared under some blue smoke, leaving nothing behind. Simrly, more yers are intercepted and killed in this way. Theva is real, which means instant kill if an ordinary yer steps in there. No yers dared to jump further after they saw over a dozen deadrades. There are still someone standing halfway, who can neither proceed nor back off now but only look around in panic on the rocks. I raised my right hand and used my crossbow at one of them. I''m not a shooter ss so the attack was a miss, as expected. However the poor guy moved too much to dodge my bolt. His foot slipped and dropped down below by himself. I saw that ninja mmed by Tanking into view on the other side. He slowly vanished in the air, then more ninjas followed his example. "Cloaking ninjas! Run!" Razor yelled. A bit toote. A katana already appeared in front of my face. I don¡¯t have time to draw my sword now so I raised my left hand to grab the attack. The Dark Dragon Lord armor didn¡¯t fail me. Theing katana waspletely stopped by my gauntlet. With a snap, I broke the de into half. Another katana stabbed me from my back. Phantom already warned me about it but I can¡¯t avoid it in time now. "Hrmph!" Someone groaned. Red Moon smashed the attacker''s head with her wizard cane. She can¡¯t do much damage like that but...ninjas are pretty squishy characters too. The ninja was knocked away, his de only caused some harmless sparks on my armor. "Tank! Acid attack!" I summoned Tank above our heads. Green fluid covered the battlefield. Now a hundred or two green human figures are moving around us. The mass attack won¡¯t cause damage to them but I meant to mark them with the color. Green can be very distinguishable in this crimson world. The exposed ninjas gave up their ambush tactic and all charged at us. Ninjas are simr to Rogues and Assassins. They use speed and assassination skills, but are easy to kill if hit. Now they don¡¯t have the element of surprise so they¡¯re nning to get rid of us before we can establish any defense. The Door of Truth gave us a quest which only allows 500 participants...so this means there are 493 Japanese yers in here. If they lose too many people from the start they¡¯ll definitely fail. "Tank, go somewhere safe and destroy this tform!" Hearing my order, Tank glided towards another safe spot on theva pool and began to preprare his crystal cannon shot. I spread open my wing des to take Red Moon off the ground. I summoned Lucky and Phiona at the same time. Lucky took away Merciless by biting on his cor, while Phiona took Zirai and Coin in her ws. The ninja leader saw us leaving the current small ind and realized what we''re trying to do, so he immediately retreated to where he came from. Tank fired the moment we took off into the air. He stayed on a nearby spot so the bullet shot exploded without dy. A small mushroom cloud followed by a strong gust caused us to lose bnce and tumble for a bit. I didn¡¯t have the chance to recall my dragon wasps, now the explosion wiped them out. Not a big deal though, as they''ll recover after a while. The ninja minions didn''t retreat with their leader. Now that the tform they''re trying tond on haspletely disappeared under theva, most of them, about 200 people, became part of the deadly flowing liquid. Only several experienced ones managed to follow their leader and escape. I de-summoned the now weakened Tank. We should be safe from the Japanese yers for now. We just had a good look around the terrain from the air. The Door of Truth is standing on a small ind in the middle of a volcano crater, this is where we came in. Three other inds are located, I mean should have been located around this central one to form a triangle formation. But now there are only two, as Tank just sted one of them into pieces. Each outer ind has two paths connected to it, formed by floating rocks that leads outside. One towards the central ind, another to the outermost safe ground around thevake. Now the one ind below us is no more. The Japanese yers will have to take a long detour to reach us. We should take the chance to think about how to escape. I looked up to see if we can leave the volcano by flying. Nope. The wall around us is so tall as if it''s against the sky itself. Suppose there is no limit to how high we can fly, it¡¯ll probably take a whole night to reach out, and I don¡¯t think this is what this task wanted us to do. "Ziri!" Coin called me. "Look there!" I looked towards where she¡¯s pointing to. There''s a cave entrance on the wall. "Lucky, Phiona, go over there!" We reached the entrance which is about 5 meters above the ground. It''s too small to be noticed from the inds, plus there''s no way Lucky and Phiona can fit in. Lucky crouched against the cave as our temporarydder. We came to the entrance but didn¡¯t get in. It''s horribly dark in there! The Japanese yers also left thevake. They didn¡¯te after us though--they found a simr cave on their side. Zirai walked ahead and decided to take the first step but I dragged her back. "One moment." Then I spoke to Lucky. "Dragon breath, into the cave. Try a strong one." Lucky reached his muzzle into the cave, took a deep breath and released his signature skill. Suddenly, several me beams appeared all around the volcano wall, and those bright white color suggests they''re dragon fire, notva eruption. As I thought, there are more cave entrances out there, all connected on the inside. Lucky¡¯s fire traveled through the inner area and busted out from the other ends. The Japanese already sent someone inside. I see several roasted corpses getting pushed out from their entrance. "Take that, losers!" Ziraiughed at them. "I think I saw seven or eight more exits in the area." "Let''s go inside. Any monster hiding in there would be dead or gone by now." I followed everyone from behind. I de-summoned Lucky and asked Phiona to turn into her smaller body. We didn¡¯t bring any torches, her natural glimmer can be our light source. The cave walls are made of volcanic rocks, which is not surprising. There are also shiny green crystals embedded inside the rocks. Thesemon quartz looks pretty but they aren¡¯t valuable. They can, however, help our light travel inside so we can see deeper into the cave. The path ahead of us goes upwards a little and bes narrower as we proceed. We had to bend down after about 300 meters¡¯ walk. After some more distance, we reached a crossroad. It''s obviously two paths joining in here. If we turn 90 degree here we would probably run into the Japanese yers, so we decided to keep moving ahead. The slope became steeper and steeper, now we¡¯re almost climbing straight upwards. It''s extremely narrow too, which is good, because we can climbing up by stepping on the sides. It turned t again after some climbing. Coin has beenining that we''re like rats running in the air vent. The map is no longer showing our coordinate numbers, so my teleport ring wouldn¡¯t work either. "It¡¯s not so hot here. Can you send yourpanion to watch ahead?" "Actually I''m gonna try something else. " I summoned Rosa and Dart. I sent Dart to scout ahead. He''s the size of a rabbit so he can move around freely in here. As for Rosa, I asked him to act as our conveyor belt by transporting us on his tentacle. It''s still slow but at least better than climbing on all fours. Dart came back after a while and yipped something, and Phantom tranted it for us: "It''s a dead end." "What??" Everyone behind me freaked out. Getting trapped in a small space like this will easily break down anyone''s sanity. Besides we can¡¯t even turn around. If we can¡¯t proceed we''ll have to crawl backwards! "Let¡¯s take a look." Blue Wind said. "My side ss is Miner, if we''re close enough to the surface I can try digging our way outside." "Alright." We kept moving until we came to a giant rock. "Rosa, how far is the surface?" He dived away and sent message that we''re only two meters away. Actually the rock itself is about two meters in length. If we dig around the rock it will be another dozen meters. "Can you break through rocks, Blue?" "I don¡¯t think so. Miners can pry off minerals out of solid soil but there''s no way we can dig open an entire stone." "What now?" Red Moon asked. "So we turn back?" "We might as well try moving around than to head back now." I opened my bracelet inventory and checked if there''s anything we can use. Since there is no space or weight limit to it, I always sweep clean everything I can find after a fight. I see all kinds of stuff... Oh. I actually found a shovel. Buuut this won¡¯t help us crack a rock so I put it back. Then I saw something interesting. "Eureka!" I took out a long, thin bamboo tube. This is a dynamite tube I collected for rk. I found the shovel again and dug a small crater under the rock, ced the tube, then created a simple bomb fuse using some nk scroll papers. Ouch. These nk scrolls cost like 20 crystals per piece. I used a dozen of them to get a fuse that''s long enough (I think). Man this bomb is expensive. When I''m prepared I told my team to back off and ignited the fuse. After a giant explosion and a brief earthquake, we appeared under the sky again. "Cough...cough! Can¡¯t you use something smaller? You almost sted us into the sky!" Coinined while dusting dirt from her face. Yeah...that was my fault. That thing was an overkill. Instead of destroying the rock, it pushed the whole roof of the path to god knows where, revealing us on the side of the volcano. "Hey guys, look. Where...are we?" I just realized we¡¯re looking at a bizarre scenery after cleaning myself up. The volcano is now behind us. It¡¯s peak goes all the way into the cloud so we don¡¯t know how high it is. I do know that we''re definitely not in Japan, because the volcano is like, ten times bigger than Fuji Mountain. No, maybe more. The gigantic volcano itself, however, shouldn¡¯t surprise us much. What did surprise us is the vast grasnd under the volcano, spreading towards the horizon. There''s ake among the grass, also giant. I''m afraid we¡¯d mistake it as the sea if we''re to stand beside the water. The ce is bustling with colorful, moving spots. Must be animals running around. This is so beautiful! "Guess what, I¡¯d spend the rest of my life here if I had to." Coin inhaled deeply. "I never experienced such fresh air in years!" We all nodded in agreement. However, what we don¡¯t know it that this ce is a terrible trap waiting to draw us in. We''ll soon learn our lesson about how we should not judge something by the looks. Chapter 129: The Hidden Malevolence Chapter 129: The Hidden Malevolence Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy When everyone¡¯s done admiring the beautiful view, we began to descend the volcano. I bet our target is just hidden somewhere upon the grasnd. It''s a long way down so I summoned Night Shade to go faster. Haven¡¯t seen him in a while. I¡¯ve been on the seas in the past few days, I can¡¯t fight on a horse. Red Moon and Coin hopped onto Skyfire with Zirai, Blue Wind and Razor took Lucky, while Merciless summoned his flying panther. We rushed all the way to the edge of theke. Man the water is so clear. Many colorful fishes would jump out of the surface now and then. Coin suggested that we should try catch some fish, but the voice of Japanese yers interrupted the fun. "Ho, you''re pretty fast!" It''s the ninja leader again. Their team only contains somewhere near 100+ yers now so...I guess they ran into some other trouble after leaving our sight? The enemies approached us slowly, while we backed off closer and closer to theke. A giant water ssh suddenly startled everyone, then an extremely disgusting snake head appeared from the water. We watched in horror as the two-meter wide bloody maw filled with sharp fangs swept past the waterside and disappeared under the water as fast as it came. The whole disy only took less than 3 seconds, and... three Japanese yers with it. I, and the ninja leader, slowly moved our heads to look at each other again, then we took our own teams to run away from theke as fast as we can. Now I know thiske''s not peaceful in the least! Just as we went far enough, another snake head reached out of the water, looked at us for a second and went back down. We kept moving just to be safe, until we reached the edge of some woods. "You, Chinese?" The ninja asked. "Heh. Obviously." We''re enemies, there''s no point for manners now. "My men were killed by someone without receiving any PvP rm, this only means one thing, that the opponent came from another country. Also, Mr. Razor is with you, so let me guess, you¡¯re not only from China, but also the very people from the ship that attacked the ck Dragon Marine." "How did you figure out we''re from that ship?" "Ha! Our coastal defenses are supreme. Your ship is the only one by far to prate our defense line and went so deep. I''m curious, yes. What kind of ship is faster than us, more powerful than us, and caused us such great loss merely by hit-and-run? Frankly speaking, I¡¯d like to buy that ship." "And you think we¡¯d sell it?" Retard. What kind of fool sells his greatest weapon to the enemy who''s about to use it against himself? "Actually I do." "Really? That¡¯s the worst joke I''ve heard." "Oh, no no no. This is entirely possible. There is nothing in this world you can¡¯t buy with money. Of course, I''m not really talking about money here. Say...will you exchange your ship for the life of your friend?" "Did you bump your head in the morning or something?" "I see. Let''s try another approach then." The ninja signaled his men. "Get them!" I''m already prepared. I turned to run while yelling to my teammates: "Run with me!" My team are all experienced people. Everyone followed my lead in the next second. It''s definitely not a good idea to take on over 100 enemies up close. A runningpetition is now live on the grasnd. All of us seven are fast enough to gradually gain more distance from the Japanese yers. When we think it''s far enough we stopped briefly to summon ourpanions, which made it even easier for us to escape. Finally, we managed topletely left their sight. But the problem is...we lost our way! "Hey what¡¯s that?" We just had time to catch some breath when we saw smoke on the horizon. "They are here again." I looked through my Star Gaze. Those people are running so fast that they are causing all the smoke and dust as if a pack of wild oxen are running. There''s another problem: it seems that they''re faster than us now! "No choice then." Merciless took out his dagger. We all followed his action and readied our weapons. A fight till death doesn''t sound so bad. We can now clearly see the looks on their faces. We all braced ourselves for the iing assault but...they kept running, passing our sides, and left. No one did anything, as if they didn¡¯t notice our existence at all. We turned around and looked at the leaving enemies in puzzle. "Okay...What are they doing?" Coin scratched her head. "Not a clue. Maybe the system told them the location of the target so they went there first?" Razor said. "I don¡¯t think so." Even if that''s the case surely they¡¯ll have time to kill us first. "Besides, we''re also participants in this quest. Why isn¡¯t the system telling us then?" "So why are they running like their asses are on fire?" Zirai asked while putting away her weapon. Chapter 130: Scary Monster and Adorable Monster Chapter 130: Scary Monster and Adorable Monster Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy This could mean one thing... I slowly turned around to look behind us. "Damn it. RUN!!" The others hesitated a bit. But when they checked behind too they immediately caught up with me. "Why are we always running today?" Coinined. She¡¯s a professional runner, while the rest of us are having a hard time to breathe already so no one said anything. A group of giant, mammoth-like monsters are chasing behind us. We didn¡¯t notice them earlier because of all the dust brought up by the Japanese. Powerful monsters are either really big, or small but look like humanoid with human intelligence. From my experience, these things should be at least level 800. Each one of them is no smaller than Tank when I first met him. We broke a lot of bones to defeat Tank back then. Now there are like ten simr monsters, of course we should run. Using the surge of adrenaline (or whatever simr effect in this game), we managed to catch up with the Japanese yers running ahead. Now we''re running side by side, somewhat peacefully. We exchanged some stares but no one have the time to do anything else at the moment. If we can outrun them the monsters behind will take care of the beating. We reached the edge of the area and saw a forest ahead. I don¡¯t think those big guys can run as fast among the trees so we''re safe once we get in there! There''s only one open entrance between the thick trees. Everyone, friend or foe, slowly turned into a straight line formation as if we practiced this before. Coin is leading as always. Blue Wind followed her. This guy''s really fast after merging with his beetle. Though it seems he''s having a hard time controlling his direction--He bumped into a tree, but recovered fast enough and entered the forest. As those two people are way faster than us, we still have some distance before reaching the shelter. However before we can enter the ce, Coin and Blue Wind dashed back out while waving their arms and screaming. "No no no don¡¯t go there''s something bigger in there!!" A tree was knocked away, then a hairy creature emerged from the woods. It¡¯s a...tarant. A North America Tarant to be precise. Coin didn¡¯t lie when she said it''s "bigger", this thing¡¯s a freaking observatory building walking on eight legs! The terrible abomination swept down several more trees, before it began chasing after Coin. "Uhh, run?" I said. "YOU DON¡¯T HAVE TO SAY IT!" We made a sharp turn and ran along the edge of the forest. Neither side is safe now! The trees ahead of us shifted. A dark colored mantis hopped into our view. A big one! Some falling trees almost knocked into us. The new obstacle caused the Japanese yers behind us to turn and run to the grasnd again. Some slow yers didn¡¯t react in time and bumped into the mantis. My team kept running along the forest, with two of those "mammoth" and the mantis behind us. The rest of the monsters, seven mammoths and the spider, went towards the Japan yers. I wish I can summon Tank now. His defense is enough to hold off the mantis. But he¡¯s still in a weakened status after using the crystal shot. The mantis moves a lot faster than the other monsters so it caught up first. The insect hopped around using its wings andnded in front of us. Coin immediately hit the ground, avoiding a side-sweep from the monster''s scythe. Blue Wind jumped high and made a 360 degree twist in the air, dodging the attack from above. Being the third ce, I didn¡¯t notice the attack in time. Plus the scythe can just reach where I¡¯m standing with its sharpest tip. The deadly de precisely hit my waist! However the scythe didn¡¯t cut me in half as I¡¯d expect. It broke into several parts upon reaching me, as if it¡¯s made of ss. Everyone stopped moving and stared at me. From the battle log I can see the mantisnded its attack...but it didn¡¯t get past my defense at all. I only lost 1 HP. The mantis is as surprised. It looked between its broken arm and me uncertainly. "Quick! Ziri!" Coin yelled. "Kill it!" I¡¯m not sure that¡¯s good idea when looking at this insect about three stories high, but I charged ahead anyway. Seeing me approach, the mantis shed at me with the other arm. I used my best single-hit skill, [Heart Piercer], to do as much damage as I can. If the monster isn¡¯t good at attacking then there must be something else special about it. Or so I thought. Whatever''s special about the mantis didn¡¯t work. My skill inflicted critical AND amplified damage. The next thing I see is a lot of green goo covering my face. The mantis flipped over, twitched a little and stopped moving. "What the heck?" I looked at the dead mantis in shock. One hit kill! "Wait, let me try something." I raised my crossbow and shot a bolt at the approaching mammoths. The bolt went into the forehead of one of them, causing the running beast to tumble in the dirt with a giant boom. The other beast lowered its head and charged at me. The first shot already proved my idea. I just stood there and punched at the charging monster. I felt I just hit a lump of cotton. There''s neither pain nor any forceing from the hit. The giant monster fell down on the spot. What just happened looks above strange, like a running truck was just stopped by a toy car. The Japanese yers also noticed our disy and stopped. "That¡¯s...wicked." Zirai kicked at the fallen monster. "You aren¡¯t cheating right?" I looked at my fist. Not a scratch on it. "The monsters only have the looks." I called out the battle log and checked. "Pfft. This thing¡¯s level 3." "Level 3??" Blue Wind pointed at the corpse. It''s still the size of the small hill. "You sure about that?" "Yes, level 3, as long as the system didn¡¯t go wrong. By the way, the mantis is level 12." "So, all of us people, were getting chased around like scared puppies by three monsters less than 20 levels added together?" Coin held her head and eximed. I see the Japanese reaching the same conclusion. Hell, they should feel worse, seeing how a hundred people ran for their lives like that. Without the monsters to worry about, they began to surround us again. They didn''t run as a whole, now only forty people are here. Though this is still not something we can go against. It doesn¡¯t look like they''re making the first move. They just stand around us, preventing us from escaping. We kept the staringpetition for a while, when a white, small horse, I mean a pony, wandered into our view,pletely oblivious of our tension. The pony is walking on unstable steps like a newborn foal. It raised its head to look at us with big, sapphire colored eyes. I suppressed the urge to hug the adorable creature since there are still enemies about. However, a Japanese warrior didn¡¯t share the same concern and caught the pony by its hind legs. The girls beside me are bing restless, about which I totally understand. But something else happened before they can go save the pony. The captured pony stood up, kicking its front legs in the air. Then a visible air wave, like when someone throw a stone into calm water, spread out from it. Several secondster, the pony is reced by arger creature as big as Night Shade, wearing white coat tinted with a bit of pink. It still looks like the pony before but it now has a golden colored horn on its forehead. Wow. A unicorn. And a big one. From those long, silky manes and longshed sapphire eyes, I''d guess it''s a "she". The unicorn turned around and looked at the warrior, who''s still holding onto her legs with an open jaw. Hey wait, it¡¯s smirking? It raised its legs by standing on the forelegs this time, throwing the warrior into air. When he''s falling down the creature performed a signature move among all artiodact animals--the painful buck. "---Ahhhhh----" The warrior disappeared into the skyline and became a star. Even if he''s not dead on the kick he¡¯d probably fall to deathter. Thank god I didn¡¯t hug the unicorn. I¡¯m now having a clear idea about this world. Anything that¡¯s big ¡®n¡¯ ugly could be actually harmless, while the small and cute ones are the opposite. From his gear, the warrior should be at least level 500. So this unicorn is NOT to be underestimated. I know Night Shade. Even a simr creature like him, say, a king unicorn, shouldn''t be able to one-shot a yer like that. Everyone including my team are still staring at the creature in awe. I tugged on their clothes and spoke in the team channel: "Get out of here. Quickly!" Of course they know what I mean. We slowly moved away from the site. We''re not afraid of 40 hostile yers, as I''m confident we can at least survive from their attacks. But my instinct tells me that we got to get away from that unicorn! We moved around the giant corpse of the mammoth as cover. When we nned to summon our mounts and escape, Zirai dragged me from behind. "What?" She point to something else and I followed her direction. "Ah!!" The unicorn is standing right next to me. When I moved my head I just saw its face filling my view. "Calm down people! No sudden moves." I whispered to them while slowly moving back. But this creature seems to take quite the interest in me. It followed my steps! I summoned Night Shade and led everyone to escape at full speed. The unicorn still followed me close. It''s faster than Night Shade too, judging at how it''s running along him like taking an afternoon tour. "Hey Ziri! Can''t Phantom tell us what this thing''s thinking about?" Red Moon called me from Lucky¡¯s back. Fine. We can¡¯t get away anyway, so we decided to stop. The unicorn slowed down and moved close to Night Shade. "Maybe she¡¯s attracted by your mount?" Coin joked. "How is that even possi--" Wait a second. Night Shade is a...nightmare, a unicorn tainted by some kind of dark power, so... "Come on dude. Just ask yourpanion to get a wife. A new member is good for all of us." Said Razor. You don¡¯t see this guy telling jokes very often. I patted on Night Shade''s neck. "Do you know what she wants?" He threw me a nce and didn¡¯t say anything. "What''s the problem?" I asked Phantom. I think Phantom is trying to hide hisughter? "Ahem. The unicorn is, how do I put it, having an...emotion, towards our handsome Mr. Night Shade here. He felt too awkward to speak to you." Woah, really. Night Shade joined my team because of Phiona, and he didn¡¯t show much of loyalty ever since. He did follow my orders most of the time, somewhat passively though. And I never thought this nightmare who''s ying cool all the time can be conquered by a unicorn so quickly. Maybe I can take Lucky to the Dragon Valley and bring back a female one! "Hey, what''s the n?" Coin dragged me out of my daydreaming. The unicorn is now nuzzling against Night Shade''s neck. I felt like a third wheel sitting on his back! "Ask her if she knows about the three target monsters in this area." I told Phantom. Before Phantom can speak anything, the unicorn lifted her head and looked at me. "Of course I do. I''m one of them." Yup, a sweetdy''s voice. I''d imagine a beautiful woman if I''m not actually staring at the horse face. "You can speak?" "What, that handsome can speak too right? Not a big deal." "So...you''re one of the three bosses here?" "Yeah. You don¡¯t believe me? I''m level 900. A lot higher than your friend here, mind you." "Then...do you know about the quest given by the Door of Truth?" "Beat us down and take that token back to the door or somethin¡¯?" Okay. If I stand before Night Shade and the unicorn with my eyes closed and listen to their speech, I probably won''t know which one is pure and which is the "fallen". "So you want this thing?" A golden round te object appeared above her head. "Let me hang out with the stallion for some time and it''s all yours." I hear the sound of jaws dropping. Frankly speaking, I don¡¯t know if the unicorn is a "pretty girl" in Night Shade''s standard. And I don¡¯t want to push him. "I refuse." I gave my answer. Night''s one of the earliest to join my team. I shouldn¡¯t sell him out just for this--ouch! "Why in Satan''s name would you refuse that?? Come, miss, let¡¯s talk." So much for the "cool dude" image. He threw me off his back and left with the unicorn! "That escted quickly." Blue Wind joked while helping me up. "I bet Night Shade was chased out by the others because he flirted with a youngling in his pack. That''s why he became a nightmare." "Hahaha!" Red Moonughed hard. "Now you have a lover boy as yourpanion." "Hey Lucky, don''t throw me away like him, alright? A gentleman doesn¡¯t just go away with a random girl they just met." The dragon nodded. "We have a long life. I takes a hundred years or two for us to determine a mate. So, no instant wives." ------------------------- "Careful. They¡¯re here!" Shoot. The Japanese are still chasing us! "Night Shade! Come back!" I sent him an order. He came to us with the golden te in his mouth, and...the unicorn running along with him. "Take it. Yuki will help us find the other two targets." He''s calling her by the nickname already?? There are only several Japanese scouts around us. Their main force hasn''t arrived yet. We all have fastpanions. We shook them off soon enough. The unicorn, Yuki, led us into the forest where those giant insects appeared before. But we¡¯re not afraid of them now since they''re only weaklings on the inside. We came to a pce after running a while in the woods. We followed Yuki past several constructions without running into any living creature, until we came to the depth of the pce where arge water pool is located. There¡¯s a stone statue in the center of the water. Maybe the figure of some deity but I can¡¯t recognize it. The statue is about 20 meters high...or as high as a six-story building. The gray and smooth surface of it indicates that it''s built from something really sturdy. Yuki walked to the edge of the water and spoke to the statue. "Hey Odin, these guys are paying you a visit." "...What do you want, little ones?" The "statue" slowly walked out of the water! Each step of him feels like another earthquake. We all moved back a little in shock. I took a deep breath. "Hello. We''re here to take your token, as asked by the Door of Truth." "That¡¯s simple. You only have to defeat me in a fight." His words boomed loudly around our ears. "Can you like, make it easier for them? They''re my friends." The unicorn asked. "Friends, you say? Very well. How about this: all of you shall join the fight against me in this courtyard. If any one of you is still standing after 20 minutes, you win." I looked around. The "courtyard" is about the size of two ser fields. Surely we can at least stay alive. "Let''s do it!" "Good! Yuki, you shall announce the start of the fight." We got into position while the unicorn moved to the outside. "Begin!" The statue punched at the ground with extreme speed which in nothing like that slow movement when he stepped out of the water. Razor was standing in the middle of the attack and didn¡¯t react in time. When the dust cleared there''s only a human shaped crater on the ground. The system told us that Razor has left the team. He died! Razor is a ninja. This means the statue is both powerful and fast enough to catch us. He moved again, this time aimed at Coin. Coin is fast beyond human standard. She dodged the attack with a swift backflip and then ran along the statue''s arm towards its head. The statue quickly began to knock itself everywhere like trying to kill a mosquito. Yet Coin is just too fast. She already reached her target. "[Last Resort]!!" She used her killshot skill without hesitation, aiming at one of the statue''s eyes. With a CRACK, Coin''s dagger submerged into the eye. A portion of the statue''s face around that damaged eye fell off, and Coinnded on the ground safely with some shattered rocks. The statue lifted a foot to stomp at Coin. I quickly ordered Rosa to grab its leg to let Coin get away. "Phiona, use your fire!" A wide me pir appeared from under the statue, engulfing it. "Pitiful creatures. Do you really think you can hurt me with fire?" I ignored the taunting and asked Phiona to keep her fire burning, while the rest of us began to run around the field, with the giant statue tries to step on us all over the ce, whack-a-mole style. We¡¯re the moles. We ran and hid for about 5 minutes when Phiona finally exhausted her MP bar and cut her skill. The statue is now burnt hot red. I summoned Aldeina. "Rainfall!" This is actually a healing skill. The widespread water will heal allies while dealing a small damage to enemies. Now the statue is hot-red, the water caused a totally different effect on it. "No---" The sudden drop in temperature caused the statue to crack. It stumbled for a while and fell down, shattering into pieces. "Nice move!" Yuki cantered to us and announced victory. "You won¡¯t mind we doing this to your friend?" "Nope. He¡¯ll get back in a sec. The guy¡¯s immortal." As she said, the rocks slowly moved together and turned into a brand-new statue again. "Excellent tactic. Here, your token." The statue took off the giant stone sword on its back and handed it to us. "This is, well, pretty big." I stared at the 10-meter long object and wondered how we can take it back. We''re not getting back through the tunnel, that''s for sure. "Oh, do excuse me. I forgot something." The statue took back the sword and mmed it on the ground, breaking it in half. A fist-sized gem dropped in front of me. "That gem will do the job." "Thank you very much!" The item has no description apart from two words, "Quest Item". So nothing special about it for the moment. Chapter 131: A Test of Humanity Chapter 131: A Test of Humanity Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Come on. I''ll show you the next target." Yuki walked towards another hall deep inside the pce. We walked on a path decorated with shining gold and gems. I guess this target should be a king or lord or something, since only these guys tend to make their residence showy. But what¡¯s inside the hall surprised us a bit. I was only half right. What we¡¯re looking for is not a king, but a tiny young princess wearing royal skirt, with long golden hair hanging all the way to the floor. "Ah you''re finally here!" It''s an innocent, child''s voice. "You knew we''reing?" Looks can be deceiving. We should be more careful since she¡¯s prepared. "Yes I do!" She bounced around her throne happily and then sat back on it. "She is the Earth Mother. She knows everything about everyone, unless you¡¯ve been staying in the sky." Yuki spoke before I can ask further. "That¡¯s the Earth Mother??" We all looked at the tiny princess in disbelief. The Earth Mother is a pretty high-tier deity ording to the stories I read before. We¡¯re having a hard time putting that title and this small girl together. "Question." I whispered to Yuki. "What¡¯s her level?" "Same as your dragon friend. She''s beyond 1000. Note that however, your dragon attained his rank because that crown on his head, while the Earth Mother is born at this level." "Let''s give up." I spoke. "Last time I fought with a boss beyond thousand, which is the dragon deity in China, I lost like 50 levels in a day. Believe me it was not fun." "Hey! I''m not fighting you." The girl spoke. "I don¡¯t know how to attack anyway." "Come on. THE Earth Mother above a thousand level is a boss without any attacks? No one would believe that." Coin protested. "That¡¯s fine. It isn''t important." That innocent smile is always on her face. Being a high god means her emotion is not easily affected. "My trial does not involve any violence. As a matter of fact, you have already shown me about yourselves on your way. You showed your power inside the volcano, your speed on the grasnd, your wit when fighting Odin''s statue. I don¡¯t really like how you destroy things because, my power is to create, which is the opposite to what you¡¯ve done. Here''s my trial to you: I''ll ask simple question. Consider it as a test of your mind." Red Moon walked up behind my back and spoke into my ears: "Why don¡¯t you try capture her? A master of creation! She''ll help us a lot." "There¡¯s no need to be quiet, my friend. The earth is my child, anything you do will not escape me as long as you stand on the ground. And please do not worry about what you¡¯ve just said. Children make mistakes or say silly words all the time, and a mother always tolerate them." Those words would have easily made us bow down our heads...if they didn¡¯te from a tiny figure less than 8 summers old. Again, it seems the Earth Mother saw through our minds. "This body is just a container. I can be anything in front of your eyes. The very soul is what determines us." "We--" "Keep your questions forter. Pass my trial, and I''ll give you the answers you desire. Let''s not tarry any longer. Now, my question." The Earth Mother waved an arm. The next second I found myself standing outside a small vige, alone. "Wipe out the monster vige and leave no survivors. Finish it in 30 minutes to pass this trial. Start." The Earth Mother''s voice came from the sky, distant and unclear. Well, since I know my objective...I took out my master sword and approached the vige. Several bulky monsters showed up and charged at me. Without hesitation, I lifted my sword, bringing all the flying swords out. The monsters went down faster than I thought. I killed them like cutting wheat. I walked over the corpses towards the vige entrance. Something pulled on my leg. I lowered my head to see a fallen monster dragging me, still breathing. Though it won¡¯t be long before he dies for good, seeing how guts and blood are spilling out from the giant cut on his stomach. Now I have a good look at the monsters, they all have simr bodies like humans, just with thicker limbs. Their eyes, nose and such are all like humans as well, but...in disorder, as if their creator suddenly decided to give them a disgusting saa instead of a human head and randomly stuffed everything else on their faces. The monster on my leg is already dying but he won''t let me go. I ended his misery with another stab. He doesn¡¯t have much strength but I don¡¯t want to drag a corpse around and left a bloody trail behind me. I kept walking to the vige as more monsters appeared. They are holding farming sickles, hoes and...broomsticks as weapons. None of them have any intact clothes, save some tattered rags. Something''s off here...Are these just, vigers? The Earth Mother¡¯s voice interrupted my doubt. "The clock is ticking. Remember, you will fail if you don¡¯tplete your task in time." The monsters are now standing in a line before me, with horror written in there eyes. I thought about this for another minute before I decided to speak to them. "Can you talk?" I said while trying to use some bodynguage as well. An older one stepped up, trembling. "Yes. Yes..." "What are--I mean, who are you?" "We...we...humans. We were humans." The old monster knelt down, broken. "Really?" So my guess was right. These are no "monsters". I turned around and looked at the seven corpses. Hell no. Did I just kill those innocent vigers?? "Daddy!!" A twisted girl''s voice came from the crowd. A smaller figure rushed out, ran past me with uncertain steps, then threw itself onto a corpse and cried loudly. I only hear that kind of crying in tragic movies when someone''s family get ughtered in front of their own eyes. Now I''m the murderer! The "girl" stood up and looked at me. That ugly face has dark green liquiding down from her eyes, must be tears. She fetched a sickle off a tree nearby. That was...her father''s. When he used it to attack me I knocked it into a tree back then. I watched as the girl charge at me with the raised weapon and didn¡¯t move. The Earth Mother suddenly appeared before me and blocked theing attack. "What are you thinking?" She spoke to me. "The small monster may be weak, but carelessness will ruin your mission." My next action is to grab her by the neck and lift her off the ground. "Tell me...The vigers turned into something I don''t know but they still have their conscious. Why do you want me to kill them? Why??" The Earth Mother struggled in my grip. "Are you mad?? This is your trial, this ce is illusion, what you see is all fake. You kill the illusions, I keep the time, understand? Now put me down!" I tightened my grip. "No. I give up. I already made the wrong decision and I can¡¯t make it right again. But at least I can do something about who caused all this." I grasped harder until I''m about to break her neck. All the monsters suddenly melted down into mud and disappeared into the ground. The force on my hand also went away--I thought I finally broke her but I only found more mud in hand. The "Earth Mother" became a y figure and shattered. My view shifted and I was back at the hall again. The Earth Mother is still sitting on her high throne, with that changeless, innocent smile. "What did you--" "As I said, it was only an illusion. I told you the truth when I said I know nothing about attacking. My power is creation. You''ve passed your trial. You refused my order and killed my avatar instead." "You''re not angry?" "Why would I be angry?" "It may be an illusion but I was serious when I nned to kill you." "You still didn¡¯t actually kill me, did you? If you followed my order and killed the vigers, you will lose 10 levels and fail the quest, which did not happen. You''re a man of observation, and responsibility. You know they are innocent people, you know you did wrong, you seek out the source of your wrong decision on my avatar instead of blindly taking all the me onto yourself, which means you can maintain a clear sense of discretion when your emotions rise up. From these I can tell that your soul is a precious one. You''re bond to achieve greater deeds." "You gave everyone the same test?" The Earth Mother pped her hands. The ground between us opened up, a stone pir slowly rose, with a group of...Japanese yers lying on them, motionless. Are they dead? "You''re not the first team to arrive here." "They all went through THAT?" "That is correct. 53 participants, 49 of them wiped out the entire vige of more than 200 residents without even a single second thought. Three of them realized the truth but denied their own actions and tried to put everything on me. Thest one...well, let¡¯s say he had some, improper ideas towards my avatar." "What about my friends?" The Earth Mother moved her chin a little to tell me that my team are behind me. I looked behind. Blue Wind, Coin and Merciless are lying there, not moving, same as the Japan yers. Red Moon is standing with her eyes closed. She¡¯s sweating hard too. Zirai is...looking around in puzzlement. Her arms are raised before her, I guess she tried to strangle the Earth Mother too? "Your friends are fine. Some of them didn¡¯t pass the test but they still did well. The one named Golden Coin gave up her task the moment she entered the illusion. She saw through the illusion and simply refused to do anything I asked of her, without meeting the vigers. Merciless and Blue Wind made the same choice. They both realized the truth after killing someone. Blue Wind killed himself out of desperation, while Merciless let the young viger take his life away bit by bit. The female named Zirai did the same as you. I almost confused you two for a moment." "What about Red Moon?" "She...hasn¡¯t entered the vige yet. She¡¯s still wandering around it, believing that it¡¯s a trap. I''m trying to guide her back. Oh, I think she did it." Me and Zirai looked at Red Moon''s face. She''s changing expression fast. Must be having a hard time too. She woke up after another minute. "Wee back." The Earth Mother spoke again. "You three triumphed your trial." "Tria-trial?" Red Moon stuttered uncertainly. Zirai quickly exined what''s going on. "So...Can we have the token?" "Of course." She hopped down from her throne and took out a sapphire behind her. "Take this back. Oh and this too." She gave me another small crystal. "This is the Dimension Key. You possess the Ring of Teleportation. Find a goldsmith and insert the crystal to the ring, so you cane back here at any time. When facing great danger,e here and I''ll provide a small help. Now go." Yuki the unicorn trotted to us. "I''ming with you!" The Earth Mother called. "Do you not remember the rules of the earth pce?" "I...do" Yuki lowered her head. Then she turned to me again. "Remember to ask Night Shade to visit me! Don¡¯t keep us apart for too long!" "Okay. Okay!" I quickly nodded. Man she¡¯s serious. The three of us left the Earth Mother''s pce. The others failed the test and were removed from the field. I asked the Earth Mother just to be sure. They will lose a level but won¡¯t drop any items. Now I only hope they respawn somewhere safe. It''ll be a disaster if they actually appear from the resurrection point in a Japan city. We found the exit from which we left the volcano. I did the right thing by creating a big one using more power, or we¡¯d have a hard time finding it. We reached theva area in the middle of the volcano without running into anyone else. Looks like we''re the only survivors. Lucky took us to the central ind, and we ced the three items in front of the door. "Here they are. Can you open the door?" The items vanished as the door released a dim light. "Trial of the Door of Truth has beenpleted. Level: B. You wished for an indestructible material to build ships. You will be rewarded simrly ording to the difficulty and your performance. The final reward: Scroll of Crystallization, one; Scroll of Spell Resistance, one. Scroll of Crystallization will cast crystal armor to one single entity of your choosing. The other scroll grants magical resistance to one entity, making it invulnerable to magic missiles, crystal cannon shots and such magical attacks." I picked up the scrolls on the ground. The door opened up too, but we didn¡¯t get in. We can¡¯t see through the blue barrier now. I wonder how many enemies are waiting for us on the other side? Zirai moved first. "We can''t wait forever. I''ll check it out, and call you if there¡¯s no danger." She jumped through the door before I can stop her. Guess we have to wait. Ten minutes passed and still no response. Red Moon and I finally decided to move as well. We ran into the door and...knocked into Zirai. "What¡¯s holding you up?" I looked around. It''s pitch dark out here. The space inside the door was bright because of all the burningva, now we can¡¯t see anything. Even my night vision ability needs some time to adjust. Time is different during the quest. Wepleted it in daytime but it''s 11pm here. "The damn door cut everything off!" Zirai whispered to me. "I tried going back and tossing stuff but nothing gets through. And I can¡¯t shout to you because I don¡¯t want to attract any enemies. Even the private chat is disabled inside this tower." I see Red Moon climbing up the wall. "What''s the matter?" "Let¡¯s see if there are exits up there. There got to be more guards at the gate." "But...Why don¡¯t they wait for us inside the tower?" Zirai asked. "Simple. It was 500 vs us, so they think we''re already killed. Now they¡¯re waiting for message from their own people. As you said, chat is restricted in here, which means they need to wait outside." "I see." Zirai nodded. "Come back, Red Moon. Let me handle it. I don¡¯t suppose wizards are good at climbing?" "Leave it to me." I dragged her back too. I ascended to the top of the tower easily using my wing des. Yes, there is an exit, and a big one. There are about a dozen people standing at the gate down below. Another group of yers are marching to us from far away. Those must be dead yers who just respawned and came to hunt us down. Well this is gonna be fun. I didn¡¯t see an end to their formation yet...There''re at least 3,000 enemiesing! Chapter 132: 1 Vs 6,000 Chapter 132: 1 Vs 6,000 Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "There''s a horde moving to us, let''s get out of here!" I told the girls down below. "Only a dozen people are outside now. We can take them out." I jumped back to the floor when Red Moon spoke to me. "What about this door?" "I don¡¯t think we can take it away. It looks pretty heavy." "But we can¡¯t leave it here! The Japanese will just use it against us!" Of course Zirai would say that. "Gimme a moment." We don¡¯t have time to discuss now so I''ll just have to try. I transformed into werewolf and walked to the door. My strengthened arms can just barely hold it across. I gave the door a mighty lift. I used too much strength...A grunt that sounds like wolf howl escaped my mouth, loud enough to alert the guards. Red Moon is already preparing her spell near the door. She released an explosion and sted eight people back out, while Zirai quickly knocked the rest of them onto the floor. I lifted harder. The Door of Truth finally made a cracking noise and slowly left the ground. "Red Moon! Destroy the gate!" The Door of Truth is bigger than the entrance so we definitely can¡¯t get out as is. Red Moon casted a series of magic missiles and created arge opening on the wall. I ran through it with the door on my shoulder. "Zirai! Get away with Skyfire and take this thing with you." "What about you?" They both asked. "You aren¡¯t getting anywhere if I don''t do something to stall them!" "But..." Red Moon didn¡¯t finish her words. She already knew I''m doing the right thing. However Zirai is still a rash one. "We can¡¯t leave you here!" "Just go! I can¡¯t teleport here but Phantom can still make some short-distance blinks. Don¡¯t worry, I can escape on myself." I cancelled werewolf mode and summoned allpanions and servants. Tank is still unavable so there are 8panions and 10 Phantom Knights with me. "See, I''m not alone. They can¡¯t catch me easily. " The knights readied their weapons. "In the name of the darkest star, we shall protect you to ourst breath! Leave no one standing!" "Be careful then. Don''t fight them unless necessary." Red Moon nodded to me. "Ohe on. I¡¯m not that Wuyuu guy. " "Let¡¯s go then!" Zirai finally agreed and left the area with Red Moon, and the Door of Truth hanging on Skyfire''s ws. As I watch Skyfire leave, a sudden bright sh appeared in the sky and left a light beam behind. Next, a series of magic missiles went up, aiming at Skyfire. The mages can still control these attacks after releasing them. The missiles will stay on the target as long as their casters are still there. But this is midnight, they won¡¯t aim if they can¡¯t see where Skyfire is, so I quickly found the wizard who used the illumination spell. He¡¯s floating in the sky, riding a...bat monster. "Lucky! Can you hit him from here?" "I just need more tries." He opened his jaw towards our target. A dozen fireballs flew towards the caster with almost no interval. The guy is still staring at Skyfire''s direction, believing that we all left. He soon faced the result of his carelessness -- eight fireballs shot into his face, leaving his remaining ash dissipating in the wind. The light beam vanished without its caster to maintain it. Skyfire quickly vanished from everyone''s sight. Another two light sources were fired into the sky after seven or eight seconds. But Skyfire is already in a safe distance. Since the girls are safe, I need to consider my own safety now. I already hear the running footsteps of enemiesing close. Several thousands of Japanese yers rushed to the tower area. They didn¡¯t enter it--they split into two and moved around the tower,pletely surrounding the structure. The following yers did the same and joined the encirclement, until they formed a human wall of 8 rows. I silently prayed to whatever god would help me, cause I really need it now. Let me see...one, against six thousand. This will take more than a miracle for me the get out alive. I also saw that ninja leader who entered the Door of Truth with us. Either he''s the guild master, or a high-ranked yer. The Japan yers moved aside to give him a path. The leading man approached the tower with a group of warriors beside him. "I must say, you''re a worthy enemy!" He bowed towards the tower. "I''m afraid I must defeat you right here, right now. I''m Matsumoto Masayoshi by the way. May I know the name of my opponent, and how he looks like?" I chuckled. "One of us is going to die today, so I''ll keep my name to myself. You know, I''m pretty charming, so I suggest you don¡¯t look at me so you don¡¯t shame yourself." "You...!" Matsumoto clenched his teeth in anger, which is a weed sight to me. Even if I¡¯m dead I''ll at least piss you off! "I gave you the regards like a true warrior but you won¡¯t ept it. So be it! You like to hide like a rat eh? Then we will kill you like a rat!" He yelled. "Cloaking ninjas, get him!" 13 ninjas stepped out and vanished into the air. Invisible ninjas again huh? I didn¡¯t have time to activate my Star Gaze back in the door quest. Now I can prepare. The detection ability of my ring immediately revealed thirteen figures in my sight. Besides, they won¡¯t realize that I can see them. The ninjas are still walking towards we slowly. I ordered my team to stay put. A ninja finally reached me. He took out his katana and prepared to sh at my head. I moved sideways, causing the ninja to stumble past where I was. Lucky is already waiting. He caught the unfortunate ninja with a w and chewed off his head nice and clean. I aimed my crossbow at another unwary ninja and release a bolt, piercing his chest. The other people only see the bolt stuck in the air, with blooding out from it. Then I released my dragon cords to pull a third ninja in front of me. "You''re not seriously seeing me as a rat are you? If you want to kill me, do it fast!" I kicked the man away. He crashed into his own people. "I may lose today but I''m gonna drag you all to hell together!" The remaining ninjas looked at each other, and charged at me as one. The Phantom Knights moved in union to block the iing enemies. They each picked a target, caught them by the neck, and snap. Actually I only heard one "snap" before the ninja all kicked the bucket. Matsumoto received the message of his dead men and jumped in anger. "Kill him!! All of you! There''s only one enemy!" "Go!" I sent the order to attack for everyone. A swarm of spells reached me first. Too bad though, I learned not long ago that my Dark Dragon Lord outfit is actually made from ck dragon materials, and ck dragons are pretty difficult to damage using magical attacks. I''m notpletely invulnerable to magic but the high resistance can already help me endure much damage. The magic wave only did around 3k damage to me. My HP is 5600 now, plus the shared HP from mypanions, this is nothing to worry about. It''s 11:30 pm...I can summon Tank again if I hold on for another 30 minutes. If I can¡¯t get out I''ll just ask Tank to blow up the whole ce. The wizards didn¡¯t make a second round of attack. They used their best spells in the first one so they''re now busy drinking potions. The warriors though, moved in to attack. I activated werewolf mode again. The suddenly growth of my body surprised them a bit. I drew my master sword and charged ahead. The yer running foremost is an axe-wielding warrior, probably a berserker with high attack. I canpete with him as werewolf but that¡¯s not a wise choice. There are too many enemies and I''ll exhaust myself sooner orter. My first priority is cutting down their number. I sidestepped his axe and punched his face, bending his armor mask into a strange shape. I then kicked the stunned berserker away and shed behind me, killing a ninja in mid-air, brought down my sword and stabbed another warrior rushing me from my rear. I didn¡¯t have time to pull my sword out when another warrior reached me. I punched his stomach while stretching the w des, tearing him open. His corpse helped me block another attack from someone further away. I jumped over the first line of warriors andnded among a group of ninjas staying behind. "[de Storm]!" Eight flying swords danced inside the crowd, maiming a good number of ninjas with low defense. I quickly turned back to the warriors--it''s not a good idea having enemies behind you. I stabbed another charging warrior. He slowly went down while watching his own intestine flowing out. A second warrior chopped my back. His de was blocked by Aldeina before reaching me. Ten Phantom Knights moved over and formed up a circle formation around me, with their warnces pointing outside. The highest leveled Japanese yer here is only 550, while the knights are level 850. The big gap means the enemies aren¡¯t getting past them easily. Loong''er and Phiona have been staying in the air and cast mess chain lightnings and fire walls among their wizard teams. They never had a chance to use their spells on me again. Rosa is hiding under the ground and ambush unwary enemies as always. I know he¡¯s there when someone suddenly fell t for no reason, or someone gets thrown into the air. Night Shade cannot find any chance to prepare his lightning attack so he simply ran around the enemies, knock them over and stomp them to death with his spiked horseshoes. Or he can kick people away, if he finds himself surrounded. Dart is also working on interrupting their wizards. Every time he sees someone casting a spell, he grazes past the attacker, cancelling the spell, and escapes with his extreme speed. Aldeina stayed behind me to protect me from any surprise attacks against which I can¡¯t react in time. She¡¯s like a battlemage--she can use some pretty good melee attacks, AND use recovery spells and support spells. As for Phantom...he only needs to stay inside my mind and give some orders to the otherpanions when needed. Lucky is the busiest one among all. He never stopped his fire breathing. Each time he opens his jaw, a dozen yers will catch fire. Besides those ws and deadly tail smashes are super effective in crowded ces. Still, most enemies are aiming at me, since they know I''m the master of all the creatures. Killing me means everyone else will disappear. Various attacks areing from all different directions. I kept diving, jumping and crouching but the attacks can always find me faster. After 20 minutes of struggling my body is full of wounds now. My master sword is nowhere to be found, probably still lodged inside someone''s belly. The flying swords won¡¯t work since I lost the master one, so I can only use my ws now. I¡¯m actually having a better time like this. The w des are easier to control, added with the strength bonus from my werewolf mode, I can kill someone in one swipe most of the time. If I''m too stressed to attack I simply grab them and toss them away. I stand taller than everyone so throwing people is quite easy. Their once organized attack already turned into a chaotic street brawl--now they drag, kick, p, even bite me as long as it can cause me trouble. My bite is definitely more effective now but I never tried it out. I don¡¯t want to create several Japanese werewolves too. 30 minutes passed. My dark body is nowpletely red with blood. Matsumoto sneaked behind me when I''m busy dealing with everyone else. I felt a sharp pain on my abdomen, then I saw a shining de tiping out from there. Isn¡¯t Aldeina protecting my back? I turned around only to see the confident grin of Matsumoto. Aldeina already died without me realizing it. God...she should''ve at least warned me about it. Guess she didn¡¯t have a chance. Matsumoto tried to pull out his katana and finish me off. I tightened the muscles on my abdomen and moved, causing him to lose grip. Then I pulled the weapon out myself and broke it in half. I turned to face the man while mming another of his guard away with my elbow. "You''reing with me!!" Before I can go grab him, Lucky made a crashnding in front my eyes. When the dust cleared I only see the ttened Matsumoto¡¯s body. "Sorry, sorry! ident." Lucky left those words and returned to his ughter. The death of Matsumoto gave me a brief moment to look around and spot my master sword. I quickly took it back, when the other flying swords sensed my call and gathered up on me. "[de Wheel]!" The flying swords floated around me, with their tips pointing outward. They began to spin around. I walked into the enemies with the spinning swords running like weed cutter. Those didn¡¯t get away in time became headless. When I''m still having fun cutting heads, Phantom alerted: "The knights can¡¯t hold any longer!" Aldeina was our only healer. Without her, the enemies managed to cut down their HP little by little. I quickly de-summoned the knights. If they die they¡¯re gone for good. Enemy force swarmed up on me harder the instant I recalled the knights. Dart died soon--his agility can¡¯t help him survive forever. Next, Phiona was knocked out of the air by a group of ice spells. She had a brief moment after revival to kill all the attacking wizards, but a new group of casters quickly finished her off. Without Phiona¡¯s support, Loong''er was soon killed by the focus fire of enemy archers. A group of ninjas managed to trap Rosa using their "Doton" skills. Rosa unleashed a big move before he dies, trapping arge number of ninjas under the dirt. The other yers tried digging them out but they only found corpses. Lucky and Night Shade were thest ones to go down, which means I''m on myself now. My de wheel stopped as I almost emptied my MP. The remaining portion can still maintain my werewolf mode for a while. "Tank!" It''s 0:30 in the morning. I can summon Tank as myst resort. "Crystal Cannon Shot!!" I shouted that out to scare off the enemies. I see Matsumoto returning to the battlefield. He saw me using this attack back in the Door of Truth, which means he will run away if I bluff. What he doesn¡¯t know is the terrible restriction of the skill. Tank needs 20 seconds to prepare it, and any damage during the process will interrupt him. There¡¯s no way he can get the skill out with so many people around. I shouted aloud merely to surprise the enemies. "Get back!!!" As expected, he ordered his men to back off. The shot on theva ind burned a hundred people plus a deep impression on him. All the Japan yers around me ran away faster than they came. I''m now standing in an open space filled with the corpses of over 3,000 yers and various enemypanions. Every time I attack I use big moves to ensure they stay dead, so most of the corpses would miss an arm or leg. Only the ones killed by the Phantom Knights seem intact. Actually they all look the same--with one giant hole on their stomach, pierced by the deadlynces. The worsted ones are those killed by Lucky. They were either burned to crisps, or chewed into meat lumps. I never noticed how many yers I killed until now. Crap. This is gonna leave another bad mark on my name. Not worrying about that now. Since the enemies are scared off, I turned around nning to jump to the top of the tower. The werewolf body would make it an easy task. It''s harder to hit me if I jump. I¡¯ll be a practice target if I use my wing des to fly under the nose of all the wizards and archers. However, things didn¡¯t go as nned. A sudden dragging force slowed me down. Instead of leaping onto one of the medium beams on the tower, I crashed into the wall andnded inside it. I rubbed my head and shook myself out of the dizziness. There''s a broken arm still hanging on my foot. So this is what dragged me. Angered, I walked back out of the cracked wall from where I came in and looked around to see which bastard didn¡¯t run away with everyone else. But what I see is...not someone, but a LOT of people, well no, monsters, or...zombies? The corpses...they stood up! Or only those that CAN stand up. Some of them are missing both legs, or all four limbs. Those either crawl on the ground, or just twitch in ce like a fish swept ashore. When I left the tower the corpses began to move towards me, including the headless ones. It means someone''s controlling them. They''re summoned zombies. Necromancers? No. Necromancers usually use skeletons. Even if they summon corpses they can only find them in graveyards or certain spots. I never heard of any necromancer calling up yer corpses as zombies. Besides, summoned zombies are usuallyplete bodies using their own senses to detect enemies. Now I''m looking at a lot of disgusting body parts worming over the ce. Who the fuk can do this?? A hidden necromancer-like ss maybe? I saw Matsumoto standing far away, and someone wearing...clothes with eight diagrams printed on it. He looks like a Taoist but, different. Taoists often dress themselves like well-learned sages. Even young people sometimes wear a long beard as cosy decoration. Whatever they wear, they shouldn¡¯t look so...sullen. This man looks like a corpse himself! I¡¯m sure he smells like one too. Razor once told me about a special ss in Japan who can manipte the dead. So this must be it. Chapter 133: The Mystic Helper Chapter 133: The Mystic Helper Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Argh!" I was too focused on the new enemy that I didn¡¯t notice a zombie approached me and bit my leg. "Well I know how to deal with corpses!" I grabbed the body and threw it into the air. "[Fire st]!" It disappeared under the explosion. I¡¯m part wizard too so I know several entry-level spells. The other corpses slowly moved towards my position. These are killed yers, now they''re slow, broken, and without any tactics. I can always take down one or two with one attack. But I soon noticed that my attacks didn¡¯t actually kill the zombies. They alwayse back! "Tank!" I called out to myst helper. "Wash them over with your acid!" Tank began to move around spilling fluid like a watering cart. None of the corpses know how to dodge attacks so they''re soon covered in green liquid. The battlefield now sounds like a frying pan with hot oil in it. White smoke rose from all the zombies with a faint "fizzz" sound. However the acid-burnt zombies are still trying to reach me. Those already lost their legs are crawling on their arms. Even the arms without a body are still moving! I¡¯ve been to my dad''sb a lot so I don¡¯t feel anything here. If anyone else looking at thousands of dead bodies melting into yellow or green pus, they sure won¡¯t be able to hold their lunch inside the stomach. When the acid mist cleared up the za is empty of any moving object, dead or alive. "Don¡¯t hide behind dead men. Come out and fight!" I yelled. The answer came from all around me, so I didn¡¯t get to find its source. "Afraid already? I haven¡¯t shown you the main dish yet!" "So you can¡¯te out? Too ashamed to show your face in the public? I heard your country has project or something that unites and protects animals in Southeast Asia. Are you one of the product? Yeah that''s it. Let me guess, who gave you birth? A pig? Such nice of you to preserve the animals! You even use yourselves to breed them eh? Respects, man!" A figure wearing Taoist-like costume appeared at the edge of the tower za. He wears a white robe with a giant, ck eight-diagram in the middle. Typical Taoists wear blue, so I guess this man is a diverted ss. Razor mentioned before that they''re called..."Onmyoji". The man standing far away is clenching his fists firmly in anger. I¡¯m sure he would havee and punch me up close if he''s not a ranged ss. "Hear my name carefully you filthy chink! I am the very top Onmyoji in the entire Japanese Empire, Tanaka Shota! And you will know the consequence of your pathetic insult! I will kill you, order your corpse to run around the city naked, and upload the video for the wholemunity, the whole world to watch, and--" Thud. This Tanaka Shota fell t on the ground. He didn¡¯t get to finish his words because two bolts are now stuck inside both of his eye sockets, with red and milk colored fluiding out. "Has anyone ever told you not to make long speeches on the battlefield?" Something is shining near his corpse. And the moment I noticed it, a roped hook appeared and snatched it away. That must be something Tanaka dropped upon death. The ground is covered by a good number of dropped equipment from the dead yers and no one paid them any attention, now someone took back Tanaka''s item instantly, which means it must be something really valuable. This also means I need to get it. I shot my dragon cord. The metal tip of the cord shed with the hook, causing the item to drop on the ground. It¡¯s a...strange shaped weapon. I¡¯ve read it somewhere...It¡¯s called a "vajra". The ninja carrying the rope hook quickly retracted the rope to throw it again, attempting to retrieve the item. My mind-controlled dragon cord is faster. But as I made a second attempt, another hook appeared and knocked into my cord, twisting them together. The second ninja and I pulled on our ropes at the same time and began a pullingpetition. I saw him smiling with the only exposed eye. He has sessfully stalled my action, letting his teammate to get the item first. What he doesn''t know is that my dragon cord is not some ordinary rope. It''s used to cut stuff. I channeled some magic into the dragon cord. The next second, the ninja''s rope was sliced into several parts, causing the surprised ninja to fell backwards. I shot my second cord on the other hand towards the other hook, knocking it out of the air, while using the one I just pulled free to seize the vajra. Without anyone else to stop me, I pulled the item back and immediately put it into my bracelet inventory, since I have no time the check it in detail at the moment. I also began to sweep the floor for all the dropped equipment using my werewolf body''s extreme speed. The Japanese yers are still blocking the entrance of the za withouting in, fearing that I may choose to suicide bomb the ce. They don¡¯t know about my bracelet so they think I can only take several more items before I overload my inventory. However, they gradually realized something''s wrong when I¡¯m almost done cleaning half of the za. Those entered the za and fought with me were their elite teams, and elite teams drop better items. Now they can¡¯t just stand and watch me take them all away. Some hundreds of yers rushed in. I was waiting for them to do this. Their defense grew thin, if they send more people in here there will be weakpoints in their formation on the outside. I jumped over the iing attackers, towards the main gate of the za. Matsumoto has been staying far andmanding his ranged attackers to watch my action and shoot me when they see a chance. But he wasn''t expecting me to escape from the main door. There aren¡¯t enough people guarding here now. I¡¯m faster enough to gain distance from the pursuers. After several jumps, Inded on the bell tower Matsumoto has been hiding in. I''m nning to kill him again before escaping. But I wasn¡¯t expecting someone else to be here--a female ninja is standing in front of Matsumoto, weapon ready. I was trying to reach Matsumoto''s floor. The female ninja saw a chance when I¡¯m still in mid-air and stabbed me in the chest. Unable to change direction, her kanata pierced my chest nice and clean, causing me to fall down the bell tower. I crashed on the ground and no longer have any strength to stand up. Suddenly a pair of hands grabbed me from...behind? And pulled. I didn¡¯t struggle because I heard some familiar words. "I can help you but don¡¯t move!" It''s Chinesenguage, and native, with some central ent. It definitely didn¡¯te from a foreigner. When I stopped all actions the hands pulled me into the ground. I only had a brief consciousness to de-summon Tank, before my vision and mind both went ck. ------------------ "WHO IS IT?!" I woke up from the game screaming and startled Rose. "Finally, you came out." Rose nced at me. "The other boys and Coin respawned from Bi-Lin. What happened?" I raised a hand to tell her to stop. "Give me a moment. I¡¯m not sure myself. Tell me something first." "What is it?" "Did you see Red Moon and Zirai?" "Not on the ship. But Zirai was offline too, she told me they reached the sea with the door of...Door of Truth? And she needs us to pick them up." "Nice. Where is she now?" "She¡¯s sleeping. Been staying up too long. Can you tell me what happened now?" "I helped the two of them retreat, then I fought with the Japanese by myself, against six thousand." "What?? So, you''re dead? Or are youing out to hide from them?" "Neither. I think someone saved me, then I cked out. But I don¡¯t remember I logged out." Rose looked at the clock. "Maybe the system kicked you out. It happens when you stay in the game for over 36 hours within two days, and you won¡¯t being back in there for three hours." "Wait, I yed THAT long?" "Almost." "What¡¯s the time now?" "Three in the morning. I''ve been waiting for you, now I really need some sleep." "Let''s both catch some sleep. We need to report back to the school soon." "Yeah...yawn..." Rose is fast asleep quickly. I also fell into slumber while thinking about who could have saved me. ----------------- "Hey get up!" Rose dragged me up into a sitting position. But my eyelids refused to function. "A little longer..." "The sun''s shining on your face!" "It''s fine. Fewer misunderstandings if I have a darker skin." It¡¯s pretty early still, and Rose seems all energetic. "Get up now or I¡¯ll use my dirty moves!" "Go ahead. Nothing will scare me now." "Good. Remember what you said." Rose fetched some ice cubes from the fridge and poured them into the water in the bath tub. She then soaked a towel in the icy water, went back to my room, removed my nket and pressed the towel against my chest. "Ahhhhhhrgh!!" I bounce up from the bed, almost knocking into the ceiling. I couldn¡¯t think clearly with all the drowsiness. My first instinct was to punch at whoever attacked me. Thank god I halted my fist before actually hitting Rose. Rose already closed her eyes, expecting the punch. That was stupid of me. But my mind is fine now. Rose is still standing still not knowing that I stopped my "attack". I simply surprised her by an affectionate French-style kiss. "This is for what you just did." She returned the favor with an even longer one, almost choking me. "This is for not answering my call!" "Then I''m sleep in every time so you can kiss me everyday." "Ahem!" Oh shoot. Zirai has been standing at the door. "Finished, my lover birds? Time for breakfast!" "Coming!" Rose hopped down the bed and rushed out of the room with her face burning. I cleaned myself and walked to the main room. Rose and Zirai are chatting, with their backs against me. Zirai''s sister saw meing in and...dropped her fork on her te, causing a loud "ng". (*) "What''s the matter?" Zirai and Rose looked at her. Linn opened her mouth without saying anything. She just pointed at me. Zirai and Rose then turned around and stared at me for a few seconds. Zirai gasped. Rose covered her mouth with one hand and pointed at me with the other. What the heck? I looked down on myself but didn¡¯t notice anything. It''s not like I came in without my pants or something. "Ziri?" Rose whispered. "What''s going on? Something on my face?" "Are you...feeling alright?" Zirai finally recovered. "I mean, you''re still you, right?" "I''m what? Come on, it''s not April Fools." "Get to the bathroom and look in the mirror! Your eyes!" "My eyes??" I walked to the mirror in puzzle and--woah! "What''s this??" I pressed my nose against the mirror and pulled on my eyelids to check my eyeballs here and there. The girls came after me. I turned and asked them: "Since when did it happen?" "I don¡¯t know. You were fine when you just woke up." "But--" I¡¯m not sure what to say. I just looked in the mirror and observed both of my eyes again. "What--how--? Are these even human eyes?" Linn nudged into the bathroom. "You''re like this when I saw you. Don¡¯t tell me you''re a vampire or something, I don¡¯t believe those. So are you wearing those color contact lens or something? Where you bought them? I''ll get a pair and scare people when I go back!" "I''m not wearing anything!" I panicked. Something unknown and horrible is going on inside my body! --------------------- (*) I made a mistake with Zirai¡¯s sister¡¯s name before. I¡¯ll call her "Linn" from now on. Chapter 134: Evolution Chapter 134: Evolution Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy "Rose, find Butterfly and Big K, and, find a pair of sunsses for me too." When she¡¯s gone I turned to Zirai. "I''m sorry, can you give me some room? I need to talk with my guards in private." Zirai nodded and took out her phone. "We¡¯ll leave then. Tell me your number so I can contact you again." The twins left the hotel room. I also asked Rose to apany them to their family. I walked into the office area with my bodyguard duo. This ce is equipped with soundproof devices. "Butterfly, you said Big K is a half-werewolf?" "That¡¯s right." She folded her arms not knowing what I''m trying to do. "Sit down." I told Big K. The man''s too big and I can¡¯t reach his head. Heplied and sat on the office chair. I pulled on his eyelid to check his eye. Butterfly looks more puzzled now but she didn¡¯t say anything. "Are your eyes always like this?" "I...don¡¯t understand, sir." Butterfly stepped in. "His eyes will be red, with vertical pupils simr to cat eyes, when engaged in any stressed activity, say,bats." "Do it now." I ordered. He just gave me an uncertain look. "He needs 30 minutes to fully transit intobat mode, and 48 hours to return human, only with the help of specialized medication and equipment. If he does it now we''ll have trouble leaving the ce." "That''s...pretty long. He can¡¯t do it at will?" Butterfly chuckled. "This is not a movie you know. We use synthetic cells developed by Dragon Fate, which can undergo controble mutation to suit our needs but, it takes time. 30 minutes is already fast." She then took out a small syringe. "Also, we need to get this into our bodies before going intobat mode to supplement our energy, or the cell generation will quickly exhaust our own body resource, killing us." "Really...sounds hard." "Of course it is. Again, what you see in the movies is just impossible, like how you can create a monster out of one cell. It simply defies the energy conservationw. Even if the cell can hold such energy in it, you still needs external materials for it to grow. The cell cannot fetch all that extra weight out of thin air. Speaking of weight, our bodies will lose some weight after transformation, instead of growing bigger, because we used up lots of energy." I thought about it for a while, and decided to took off my sunsses. Big K and Butterfly both widened their eyes. "Is that..." "Can you tell me what¡¯s going on? Is this the transformation you''re talking about? And, do I have to give myself a shot like you said so I don¡¯t die from energy lost?" Butterfly hesitated for a while. "Let me take a look." She examined my eyes for quite some time. "...I don¡¯t think this is mutated cell we just mentioned." Big K sniffed around me. "Smells like...B-13." "What is B-13?" I asked. "It''s a humanoid gene order, or DNA sequence, developed by someone in early years. People called it the Child of God but... I¡¯d rather call it the ¡®Demon Seed''." That made me even more puzzled. "Let''s get back to the HQ as fast as we can." --------------------- We''re back in New Nanjing City after 8 hours. We headed straight towards our underground facility instead of getting back to my college as nned. I¡¯m now lying on ab chair. Mom and Dad rushed into theb with a group of old scientists wearingb coats behind them. "Are you alright??" Mother is the first to reach me. "I think I''m ok. But my eyes are--" Father pulled her away, then one of the scientist came over and checked on me. "...This is B-13 polymerization reaction. No doubt about it." All the other researchers became restless for a while. Everyone tried to get a look on me. "What exactly is going on?" Father asked them. "We''re not sure why this is here. B-13 has been staying stasis inside young master''s body for 19 years. It should never be active ording to theory, but...it did. I can¡¯t believe this..." Another researcher continued: "The mistress was contaminated by B-13 during pregnancy. It has absolutely no effect on an adult body. The young master did not show any problem in the early years, which means he should not meet any in the future. We can''t exin why B-13 suddenly...woke up! After all these years." "What will happen to my son?" Father asked, calmly. "Under normal circumstances...Young master will experience acute calcium loss in 3-5 days, resulting in his bone structure bing softened. In the end, only cogen tissues will remain in the bones. We should ce him inside a constant pressure primary fluid chamber to protect him, or he will die from apnea without the bones to support his body. But we only have chambers designed to maintain infants. You should order for a bigger one, immediately. Young master will lose his ability to breathe in three days!" "Don¡¯t worry, we have everything ready. The chamber will be here by tomorrow morning. So...my son is going to live inside that thing forever?" "No, no. Only a few days. When the bones arepletely soft, we will inject him with certain heavy metallic salt, enough amino acids and various trace elements. They will help him grow a new bone structure in approximately 5 days. These new bones will be as rigid as high-carbon steel, and lighter than ordinary human bones." "What happens next?" Mother said. "Next is...body strengthening. We had an experiment schedule before and ording to that, we strengthen his muscles after reconstructing the bones. However we don''t know how far we''ll get." "My boy is going to be fine, right?" Mother asked with trembling voice. "There¡¯s no problem in the early stages but...the final phases can be a littleplicated. B-13 is, essentially, gene virus. The consequence is irreversible. It is impossible to cleanse the virus once it enters a human body, unless you destroy this bodypletely. ording to thest research notes left by Dr. King--before he passed away, that is--gene virus usually do not hurt the nerve cells because these cells are highly developed and refined without much room to undergo further mutation. But, B-13 has been engineered otherwise. It will form up a new tissue in between the cerebral and cerebellum. This new tissue was meant to help the infected being think faster, but the original research was halted before they can confirm this so...we''re not sure what will happen inside his brain." "Why was the research halted?" Father asked. "Dr. Donald proposed a theory that, the new tissue generated by B-13 can possibly take over the function of the original brain and control the infected body. In other words, the subject will no longer be the man he was. There''s another reason as why we didn¡¯t continue. We didn¡¯t have enough supply of death rows to be used in the research. You must understand that we must terminate all subjects we experimented on, whether we seeded or not. We just...didn¡¯t have the bodies to finish the research." "So my son is going to..." "Best case, a superman with exceptional intelligence and body strength. Worst case...a monster with a strong body but a degraded brain." I¡¯m sweating hard after hearing those words. "...I see. Let¡¯s get that chamber first." Father has seen enough in his years dealing with all kinds of situations, he can remain calm. Mother is holding my hand trying tofort me. To be frank, I only feel a bit scared, and it''s manageable. I don¡¯t know what he meant by "bing a monster". And "unknown" is one of the most scary concept possible for a man. "Hey dad!" I saw him walking back. "Will I be...gone?" "No you won¡¯t. Take it easy." "So why is this...thing, inside me?" He took mother''s hand. "When your mother was pregnant, I took her here to see your grandfather. The old man wanted to speak to me alone so I asked your mom to wait outside." Mother continued: "You know how curious I can be, so I walked around the ce looking at all the things I couldn¡¯t recognize in the least. There was this big room, I went in and couldn¡¯t tell what was in it either, so I left soon. That room happens to be holding a high-pressure cylinder with B-13 in it. The cylinder had a leak at that time, and the whole room was exposed. I was infected." "Were you okay?" Father spoke again. "The virus does not affect adults. We called it the ¡®Child of God¡¯, which means we hope that it will give birth to godly beings. B-13 was designed to be injected into pregnant women, to create a new generation with supreme body and mind. But you already heard, the experiment wasn¡¯t finished. Your mother was contaminated by air, not injection. We only found this out during the prenatal examination, and you, at that time, wasn''t affected at all. We did find traces of B-13 inside your blood. But the virus was inactive, they stayed at a certain quantity and never multiplied. You grew up till now just fine, so we thought the virus would never rise again. But now..." He covered his eyes. This is the first time I saw this man crying. "Hey dad. Don¡¯t worry. It didn¡¯t do anything to me before, and it won¡¯t now. Besides it¡¯s used to make me better right? Not a killing virus or something." "I¡¯m proud of you, son." My parents stayed with me until night. That liquid chamber is finished before schedule so I can move in there today. It¡¯s basically a giant ss water tank with two metal tes as top and bottom cover. It''s empty now. There are several cylinders nearby with the biohazard warning signs written on them. The "liquid" must be in there. I swallowed a pill given by a scientist and...felt a sudden stomachache. I had to stay on the toilet for an hour before I came out. My legs are numb! Heter told me that it''s used to flush out everything in my stomach and intestines, or my waste will be dumped into the liquid where I also will be staying for theing days. He could have just told me that it''s cathartic pill...a really strong one. After cleaning my "inside", a group of workers washed my body over several times using different kinds of medicinal fluid, topletely eliminate bacteria on my body so they don¡¯t be unwanted guests in my "private room". When this is all done, they lifted me into the chamber, since I spent all strength on the 1-hour diarrhea. The scientist ced me into position, pulled down several cables from the metal cover above me and affixed them onto my head. "Brainwave receivers. Use your mind to type words onto that screen over there. We can also send you messages through these things." "Wait. Can you patch me to thework of [Zero]? I can''t stay in here for a week without something to do." He looked at my father, who nodded. "Will do." He worked with the cables for a little longer, then pulled out a pipe in front of me. "Hold this in your mouth." I did as told. He then added something to it to fix it inside my mouth. Now I can¡¯t get the pipe out even if I want to. Two injectors went into my arms. Guess that''s for giving me meds from the outside. Everyone stood clear of the chamber. ss slowly raised around me, sealing me inside. Someone connected the cylinders nearby to the chamber with three pipelines. They fit perfectly into the three threaded holes on the base. A man took out a microphone and spoke. "Testing. Can you hear me?" I nodded. Can''t talk with this...pipe. "We will now flood the chamber. Stay calm, breathe the liquid in and you''ll be fine. It can provide oxygen through your lungs." I nodded again. He pressed a button, and I felt wet on my feet. The liquid is pale green, like clear apple juice. It soon reached my head. I felt awfully not good at first but the warm liquid is quite nice once I got used to it. "How''s the temperature?" The scientist asked. I nced at the screen, he followed my sight. "A bit cold, maybe two degrees higher." I typed. "Alright...What about now?" I made a thumb-up. Mother put her hands on the ss and spoke: "Be strong my dear. I''ll stay with you." I pointed at the screen. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll y [Zero] to pass time, just go back to your work." I''m sure that¡¯s what they¡¯re hoping for too. Dragon Fate would lose millions of profit per minute if father isn''t there to operate. Mother is unwilling to leave me at first but finallypiled by my persuasion. I also asked everyone to leave the room and turn off the lights. Now I''m staying in the dark with only the faint light of the machines monitoring my condition. I know none of these senior scientists would have trouble looking at a naked guy soaked in water but...I prefer avoiding it anyway. Since I no longer need to worry about eating, dumping, or anything for that matter, I can literally y [Zero] twenty four-seven, if not for the system¡¯s ytime restriction. I sessfully logged in and...saw a brick house with no window. It''s totally dark in here. I saw the situation thanks to the night vision ability granted by Star Gaze. There are two bed stoves in this room and I''m lying on one of them. There''s nothing else. The ceiling is really low too, because I can reach it when I stood up. I saw two doors on both sides on this small room. I walked to one and pushed...nope. Something jammed it on the other side. There¡¯s no handle on the door. I transformed into werewolf and punched through the wooden door with my w. The door was easily pulled open. What''s behind the door however, is...dirt. A solid dirt wallpletely blocked the exit. Is this a basement? But basements should have exits! The marks on the dirt wall suggest that someone sealed it up recently...from this end. I returned human and walked to the other door (room''s too low for werewolf body). This one can be pushed open. It leads to a small dirt tunnel, which means I''m definitely underground now. The tunnel is even lower than the room so I have to bend down to move ahead. Suddenly, I felt something sink beneath my foot. "Ahhhh!" A round log rushed down from the ceiling in front of me and knocked me away by a good hit on the stomach, emptying all air in my lungs. I stood back up and coughed. The log trap is still swaying like a swing. I carefully walked around the log and continued, slowly. I don¡¯t think this is the only trap. I¡¯m too concentrated on the ground and next, I tripped something over my head. This time a boulder dropped on me before I can run away. The weight wasn¡¯t enough to crush my armor so I survived. But it still took me some effort to crawl from under the rock. I kept treading carefully until I reached another door without meeting any more traps. It''s a room the same as the one I woke up in. The rooms must be some kind of resting points between the dangerous passageways. As expected, the tunnel continued after the room. I didn''t get far before I felt emptiness under my heel again. The entire ground below me copsed. I immediately stretched my w des and locked myself on the wall. There are sharpened wooden stakes standing beneath the area, ready to turn anything that falls on them into meat skewers. The ckened tips indicate that they already killed someone before. My w des and the spikes on my boots helped me navigate to safety. I raised my concentration to maximum from this point. But I never ran into anything else. This tunnel-room-tunnel structure continued for quite a while. I haven¡¯t reached the end, nor any branches. If the room I started from isn¡¯t barred on the other side I¡¯d think I was walking in circles. This is getting really irritating, until I came across another trap. The long walk already made me drop my guard, I noticed it because I¡¯m walking with my head lowered in thought. It''s a trip wire, made from the fiber of some unknown nt. I took out my dagger to dig into the wall where the wire came out, and...found nothing. The mechanic must be on the other side. I tried the other end and still didn¡¯t find anything because the wire is buried pretty deep, so I gave up and just fixed my dragon cord onto the wire, walked away, and pulled on it. I waited for the trap toe alive. Nothing happened. I walked forward carefully, still nothing. I looked down to check the now broken wire, when I heard something distant. Is that...water? It sounds like a running river, and it''s getting closer. The ground below me also began to tremble. The noise ising from behind me. But the other exit is blocked, and I don¡¯t remember seeing anything that can release water into the tunnel. As the water sound draws near, I suddenly recalled a typical trap often seen in movies about Egyptian pyramids. Could it be... Chapter 135: The Hidden Cavern Chapter 135: The Hidden Cavern Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy I stupidly stood still and looked at the source of the water sound. It feels like a waterfall now. I finally remembered to run when the water appeared around the nearest corner. And of course, I failed. I didn¡¯t get very far before the water swallowed me and pushed me forward with great speed. My body crashed into the next corner, and continued down the tunnel helplessly. I no longer know which way is down or up now. I''m only alive thanks to the air provided by my helmet. I tried fixing myself onto the wall with w des, but the force of the water is just too great. My ws did nothing more than leaving three deep gashes along the wall. I rolled, bumped and tumbled in the water for about ten minutes when I finally see some light. Is it the exit? ------------------- Inside a deep mountain area of Japan, there¡¯s a clear river running through the field. A surge of water rushed out from an opening on the riverbank, putting an end to the peaceful scenery. With a loud "Ssh!", a ck object fell into the river. Yes that¡¯s me. The river is not as strong as the torrent inside the tunnel, but it still carried me downstream. I heard more water noise ahead, so I turned around to look at--nothing! The river came to a sudden halt when it reached a giant waterfall with 30-meter drop. I never managed to gain control to my body again before I drifted down the waterfall, screaming to the top of my lungs, until I crashed into the water pool down beneath. The great speed of my drop caused me to bump really hard on the water surface. I tried reaching towards the shore with all the dizziness and stars inside my head. I sessfully got out of the water and quickly found a tree to rest under. All that ordeal felt even more dreadful than my first bungee jump. My head is spinning to no end! Sssssss A weird noise drew my attention. I looked back to see one--no, two snake heads moving towards me from a tree nearby. That unnatural size of them gave me all the more reason to run! I hit the ground to avoid the biting attack from the snake on the left. The other one followed up with a second attack, leaving me no chance to dodge again. Snake fangs sunk into my waist, draining away about 200 HP from me. Huh, this is not really life-threatening. I pierced the snake''s maw using my w des, but the beast won''t let me go. I hastily pulled out my master sword, but the snake behind me whipped it away before I can use it. "Lucky! Get it off me!" The dragon appeared and sunk his own teeth into the snake on my waist, tearing it in half. I quickly shook the remaining body away. The second snake realized it shouldn''t mess with this sudden intruder and turned tail. Oh you can''t just attack me and run without paying for it. The snake is really fast on the grass. It quickly disappeared into a bush nearby. "Ahhhh---" I jumped into the bush after the snake, but didn''tnd on anything. There''s a hole hiding in the grass here and I fell into it! The hole is almost vertical to the ground. Again. I tried using my ws to slow down, but the soft dirt around me cannot stall my falling at all. My action only brought down more dirt from the walls. The wall crumbled and somehow sealed itself up. Now I definitely can''t get out from there. I kept falling for another half minute when the area below became brighter. The dirt wall around me also became rocks. The bottom seems near, and I probably shouldn¡¯t free-fall onto it. I transformed and pressed both ws and both feet against the rocky wall, slowing myself to a stop. The end of the wall is only a meter away under me. Some rocks broke off around me and dropped down. I heard the sshing sound of them going into water after almost ten seconds, which means...it''s damn deep here! I fixed my dragon cord onto a rock and began to descend slowly. It''s a pretty wide area down here, maybe an underground river. The walls further away are giving off a faint light. But they aren''t bright enough to illuminate anything, the area is still dark. I¡¯m now hanging down from the ceiling of this area, above the water of the river. The river is wide, about 300 meters across. The water flow is...slow. Actually I''m not hearing any flowing sound, save the noise of some asional water drops and...squeaks. Bats maybe? I continued going down by using my dragon cord like a winss. Another water drop suddenlynded on my mask, blurring my view. I wiped my face to clean the water. The movement made myself swaying a bit, and the rock supporting my dragon cord cracked a little. A small shard fell off and dropped into the water, causing a small water bloom. A portion of the water surface rose, followed by an extremely ugly head of a monster. The monster rushed out with lightening speed and swept the fallen rock into its mouth. I immediately began retracting my dragon cord to get back to the ceiling. Luckily for me, whatever just showed up saw the rock as food instead of me. I don¡¯t think anything¡¯s going to see things in this darkness. So whether the monster has something like my Star Gaze to improve its vision, or it senses objects by other means. Judging from how it didn¡¯te for the obvious target (me) but swallowed the rock instead, I believe it finds prey by catching their vibration. However it finds stuff won''t change one point though--I''m not going down there again. I approached the ceiling again and attached my boots onto it. The boots can let me cling onto walls and now I can use them to walk on the ceiling. The only problem is that using this ability drains my MP. Well maybe two problems...the other being that my head isn¡¯t feeling very well with all that extra blood in it. I walked towards a random direction (since I don¡¯t know which way is "forward" now) for a while when I noticed a light source ahead. I also hear someone speaking. The light is dim orange, and not very stable. They must be a using a torch. Judging from the shadows cast by these people on the wall, they¡¯re moving closer to me. I can clearly hear their speech too. It¡¯s the Japanese. I quickly found a stctite stone and hid behind it. Next, a ship slowly moved into my view. It''s a really small ship, about only ten meters or so in length. There are eight paddles and no masts. It''s moving pretty fast thanks to its small size. Three figures are standing in the front. All the torches in the middle of the ship caused their multiplied shadows to move and dance on the cave wall. Creepy. "Are you sure it''s here?" One of them asked. I still have my trantion service on so I can understand them. "Very likely. That guy who took the quest told us the Mythril Vial is hidden deep in this cave." "Good. We ck Dragon Force spent so much time trying to find this thing...we can¡¯t mess it up again. The son of a bitch took away our door. If we don¡¯t find another treasure soon we will lose our leadership on thisnd." They are close enough for me to see their faces now. And the one who¡¯s been talking... Matsumoto Masayoshi! I don¡¯t recognize the man who answered him, probably his minion. The third man who remained silent, no surprises here, is the Onmyoji I killed, Tanaka Shota. I caused a big fuss in their city not long ago, this guy should be back there cleaning everything up. Why did hee here? What''s that thing they were talking about? I waited for the ship to move away to a safe distance before I silently followed behind them. Their torchlight made this an easy job in this dark cave. I never saw that monster again. It should have no problem flipping this small ship over but...it didn¡¯t. Don''t tell me that thing can tell foreigners from natives? Nah. Maybe it''s the torch. Something living in this darkness can be sensitive to lights, so it''s just scared away. Matsumoto''s ship sailed past the point where I fell in, and reached the end of the underground river. The river is cut off by the wall, but the flowing water indicates that there''s entrance under the surface. Matsumoto looked behind. "So it''s hidden under the water?" "No." The minion answered. "We only need to swim for about 20 meters, then there''snd again." "Alright, let''s go. Casters, use your [Underwater Breathing] on us." People inside the cabin all came out. There are... 35 people, including the three I mentioned. That makes 12 Ninjas (with Matsumoto and his sideman), 1 Onmyouji, 8 Warriors, 7 Mages, a Priest, and 6 Archers. 4 out of the 7 mages are wearing blue robes with the image of water printed on them. Guess they brought more water-aspected mages for this situation. After they all jumped down, Inded on their ship and considered if I should follow them. I''m hesitating because I don''t know when that monster behind us is going to strike again. I soon noticed a water trail not far from the ship. So the monster is lurking nearby, it already noticed the swimming yers but couldn''te because the torches are still here. Aha. Time for more troublemaking. I took away all the torches, put two of them into my bracelet forter use and threw all the rest into the river. The monster immediately approached when the light is out. I quickly jumped to the wall and ran up to the ceiling. The monster torn the ship to pieces with ease and dived under. I counted for several seconds before I went into the water as well. I also summoned Aldeina and asked her to help us locate the monster using her "sonar", in case the monster suddenly decide to turn back and bite our heads off. It never did though. The thing kept moving forward, towards the other yers. Aldeina shared her skill with me so I can also sense the whereabouts of everyone. The monster is already inside the Japanese swimming team, now I don¡¯t need the help of Aldeina to hear their screaming. Taking the chance, I found another route and reached air again. It¡¯s a narrow waterway, with the river flowing in the middle and drynd covered in stgmites on both sides. The monster only killed three yers, the remaining ones escaped here and are now moving ahead. I carefully followed them by hiding behind the stgmites. A minuteter, they reached a fork and stopped to discuss which way to go. I tip-toed behind a giant rock to observe. But another rock ahead blocked my view, so I tried moving around the rock to gain a better sight. When cutting the corner, I bumped into something and almost cried in surprise. Thankfully I swallowed it back. I looked carefully and realized it''s not something but someone. A yer moved a finger in front of his lips to signal me to keep silent, and then pointed towards the Japan yers. I nodded in agreement. Now I can have a good look of this stranger...he''s pretty big, I mean, fat, and...he looks familiar. "You!!" I actually said that out. I then covered my mouth and looked towards the Japanese. Phew, they didn¡¯t hear me. I connected him into a private chat. "Why the heck are YOU here?" "Do I know you??" He looks surprised. "You forgot? There were two girls with me, with a big wagon pulled by 16 horses. You led a bunch of men to rob us! And you broke my weapon!" This is the fat warrior who attacked us when we were transporting the magic shields back to Bi-Lin. I remember his weapon too, the God''s Bane. "You--" He almost stared his eyes out. "YOU TRAITOR!" He took out his weapon and shed at me! I somehow managed to dodge his des and used my fingers to catch them. "Are you trying to get us exposed??" He stopped his attack. "Weren''t you helping the Japanese? Why are you hiding now?" He sheathed his de behind his back but never lifted his gaze on me. "Who the fuk told you that? And what did I do to help them anyway? " "Stop lying. Do you know Big de?" "Yeah. What''s about him?" "Don¡¯t you dare y dumb on me!" "y dumb my ass! So I know him, who does that make me a traitor? Is he a Japanese spy or something?" "How dare you-- He''s our hero!" "Pfft. You call that bastard a hero? Man I don¡¯t know if I should feel sorry or angry." "Hey watch your tongue!" He''s reaching for his weapon again. "Hey hey hey, chill! Okay, I''ll stop. Just...tell me, what kind of heroism did he do?" Don''t tell me that guy is actually a good fellow? "Humph. Have you heard about the battleship, Bi-Lin?" "Yep." Of course. That''s MY ship. Looks like we gained quite a name for ourselves. "Then you know how Bi-Lin charged into Japanese fleet and chased them away, saving our own people?" "Yeah of course." I love this kind of story with me in it. "You know what, I personally know the captain of Bi-Lin." "You...what?" But I don¡¯t know you!! The fat guy looks really proud now. "Big de More Killz. He''s the captain!" I tried hard to keep my jaw in its right ce. "Um, excuse me. Who told you that?" "Big de himself, duh." He actually said that with the look of innocence. "But--But--Ugh! So you just, believed it? If I say I''m the chairman of China will you believe that too?" "He proved it to me!" It seems he''s really serious. "I saw Bi-Lin the other day. Big de is standing near it telling his sailors to load goods to it!" "Crap. Okay, now listen. Bi-Lin is MY ship, the captain, is ME." I took out a badge from my inventory. "Now this, is the Captain Badge. You need this tomand the crew on your ship. And look here, the name of the ship is printed in the back. What you saw are MY sailors re-supplying Bi-Lin ording to MY order, not Big de''s. The sailors won¡¯t listen to him. Besides, do you know the Goddess Alliance and the Righteous League?" "Yeah. They''re the biggest guilds in our country. They y the main role in our wars against Japan." "The guild masters of these two guilds, Red Moon and Shadow Gale, are my friends. We fought together before. Ask them if you don''t believe me. Oh and, Goddess Alliance teamed up with me a while ago to wipe out Big de''s city. Say, if he''s really the hero you talked about, why would they do that?" "Say what?? Big de''s own city was wiped?" "You...didn¡¯t hear about it?" That''s the only yer city in China for the moment. I thought it was big news! "After I ran awayst time, I met Big de and he told me that you belong to some kind of Japanese infiltration force. He also asked me toe to Japan so you don¡¯t hunt me down easily." "What the fu-- That¡¯s a likely story is it? Tell me, how did youe here anyway?" "Big de told me about the location of some Japanese pirate ships, I came back with them by hiding in the cargo." "You--God." I don¡¯t know if this guy is smart or in stupid. "Did you ever think about how did Big de know where the pirates are?? The bastard was connected to them!" "Huh? Now you mentioned it..." "Now I wonder why he asked you toe in the first ce. He could have just told the Japanese to kill you." "Uh, I boarded the wrong ship, because the one I nned to go in was on fire for some reason, so--" He stopped and widened his eyes. Looks like he finally realized what Big de tried to do--kill him and offer his God''s Bane to the enemies. "So you tried to rob our wagon because--" "...Because Big de said you were carrying items you took from his guild. They''re originally used to fight Japan." His voice went lower and lower since he already know this is all bullshit, and he yed along in it. "Sorry man. I was stupid." "Sigh... Don¡¯t worry now. You meant good." He caused a lot of trouble to me but I know he''s not an enemy now. "You haven¡¯t told me your name yet." "I''m Ou-yang Felix." "Can I call you Felix then?" "Of course, Mr. Ziri. As long as you forgive me, call me anything you want." "You know my name all along right?" "Yeah. Big de told me to check the Evilness ranking board to prove that you¡¯re a viin. You''re on the top!" ...Guess I¡¯d never wipe that away. "By the way, what are you doing here?" This is not really a ce suitable for a random yer to show up. "Well, since I came here I¡¯ve been causing all kinds of troubles to Japan yers. I heard rumor that a team wille here for treasure hunting, so I followed them. Maybe I can mess them up. What about you?" "I fell in here by ident. There is an entrance hiding under the grass. Hey they''re leaving, let''s go." The Japan yers continued into the left fork. It¡¯s bing dark here since the enemy casters are the only light sources. We stalked them under the darkness. Felix is, as I said, fat and round. But the guy can move faster than me! I feel more confident now with this extra hand. He''s carrying the God''s Bane, a freaking monster weapon which is solely used to break other weapons! I wonder if we can break one or two of their Nation Treasures. My master sword is imbued with the same power too but the trigger rate is too low, unlike Felix''s real deal. With the n set in mind, I approached the unwary enemies with a wicked smile. Chapter 136: The Defense Line Chapter 136: The Defense Line Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy The Japan yers chose the correct path. The floor slowly became clearer, with fewer obstacles. Though this is not really good news for the two of us, cause it''s getting hard to find covers. The next 100 meters is a straight walkway about 3 meters wide,pletely open ground. It''s nearly impossible to stay hidden while following them now. I asked Felix to enter my party, and wait for me behind. I activated my Phantom Cape and approached the enemies alone. Thankfully the ce is still dark, so the cape can keep me out of sight even if I move faster, as long as I don¡¯t cause any sound. I treaded carefully within several meters to their team. A giant boulder now stands before us, blocking the way. Several Japan yers are trying to break the boulder. But it seems none of them have enough power to do it. It never budged an inch after several tries. This continued for another ten minutes. I¡¯m losing patience too, but I suppressed the urge to show up and help them. Matsumoto found a smaller rock somewhere and ced it under the boulder as a lever point. Then three ninjas used their katana sheaths to pry, only to give up in the end. "Head back for now. Bring some explosives next time." Matsumoto spit on the ground. The other people followed him in relief. I climbed to the ceiling and sent a message to Felix, telling him to hide. The fat teammate appeared in my sight after a while. "Hey leader, they''re gone. Did they get the treasure?" I pointed to the boulder. "Nope. They never got past this thing. They went home to bring more tools." "Thing? What thing?" He moved to where I pointed while touching the air. "Uh, you can¡¯t see it?" "It¡¯s too dark!" Oops. He doesn¡¯t have night vision. Now the Japanese are gone it must be totally blind for him. I took out a torch from my bracelet and summoned Phiona. "Can I get a fire?" Yep. Phiona in her Aurora Bird form can be a pretty convenient lighter as well. Felix took the torch and moved to the boulder I mentioned. We only found a tiny peephole on one side, and saw more passage leading deeper. But apparently we can¡¯t get there as is. "Felix, can you use your weapon to break it?" "No. This is not a rock smasher." "Well shoot. It¡¯s on me again." I told Felix to back off. "Transform!!" I then readied my right fist. "[Earth Shaker]!" Bam! That was the sound of me crashing into the cave wall after being bounced away. "Holy cookies. What kind of rock is that?" Felix moved close, tapped on the boulder, wiped on its surface and put his finger inside his mouth. "Pyrite. This is concentrated pyrite." "What do you mean concentrated?" "It means the entire thing is one single metal te!" "So that''s why it¡¯s so strong." I knocked on it with my knuckle. "I have more tricks than that. Rosa!" I ordered my ntpanion to weave himself around the boulder. "Now grow." Rosa''s vines began to grow thicker, slowly crushing the boulder from the outside. It¡¯s working, small cracks are showing up on it. "Awesome!" Felix eximed. "The power of life. You know, even the tiniest seedling can lift a rock a hundred times heavier than itself." It didn¡¯t take long for the crazily growing Rosa to cook the obstacle into a rock pie. I asked him to keep it up until the thing shattered into pieces, then I bent down to collect them. "What are you doing?" Felix asked. "Pyrite ores. I can go sell them for money." "But, pyrite is not rare on ournds. Besides it''s pretty heavy. You can¡¯t take much with you." I showed him my bracelet. "My special inventory has no weight or room limit. It doesn¡¯t hurt." After I''m done, we walked down the passage for about 20 minutes before we reached a giant door. The door is made of stone. And from the size of it...I''d say it''s at least half a ton. Thankfully, we managed to m it open together. It¡¯s a big room behind the door, carved out of the space inside the cave. There is a stone tform in the center with some pretty conspicuous decorations on it, plus three really big words, "Magic Silver Vial". (*) There is nothing else in this room besides the tform and the bottle on it. No one''s gonna miss them. I don''t see any guards or other obstacles here but... The "vial", which is probably made of porcin, stands seven meters on top of the tform! It looks like those decorative vases in front ofmon china shops, just bigger. A LOT bigger. Felix is also standing in front of the monstrosity agape. "When they said ¡®vial¡¯ I thought it''s something you can hold in your hands." "Agreed." I used my hand to estimate its size. "Maybe, just maybe, this one is a cover-up. The real thing is hidden somewhere." "That¡¯s possible. It will take a dozen people to move this thing around. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s what the quest meant. Wait here, I¡¯ll go up and take a look inside." I climbed the vase. "Hey be careful!" Felix shouted. "Tell me if you can¡¯t find anything. I''ll just smash it so the enemies won¡¯t get it." "Got it!" The surface of this thing is pretty slippery. Even my boots are having a hard time sticking to it. I climbed to the top with some help with my dragon cord. But before I can look down to check inside, my feet slipped and I fell into the vase! Now I''m stuck in here upside-down. Felix tried to save me from outside by using his God''s Bane to hit the vase. I only heard a loud BANG right beside my ears which almost stunned me. It doesn¡¯t seem he caused any damage, so I quickly spoke in the team channel: "Stop, stop! You''re gonna knock me out first." "What should I do now?" "Just wait. My helmet will keep me alive for a while." "Can you see what¡¯s inside?" "Yes and no. There¡¯s white...liquid, I think it¡¯s quicksilver, in here and I''m covered in it. I can¡¯t see anything else!" "Can you throw your rope out? So I can pull you from here." "Can''t. Quicksilver is too heavy, and I can¡¯t shot anything from under it." "But you need to get out somehow." "I know! I¡¯m trying to figure out how. Oh right. Move away!" "Okay." "Lucky!" I summoned the dragon. "Get the bottle to the floor." Lucky pushed the giant container to the ground. But the quicksilver stayed inside, not a single drop left it. I felt the liquid level went down. However it flowed towards my head instead. I''m not sure exactly where it ended up to, cause my vision ispletely covered in white. I tried wriggling myself out since the vase lies t now. I didn¡¯t get very far before I''m stuck again. The thing''s too thin! As I mentioned, the ¡®vase¡¯ is 7 meters tall, but the bottleneck of it and the interior can barely let a human body pass through. Whoever designed this shit? Defeated, I asked Lucky to help again. He held up the vase upside-down and began to thrust it downwards, trying to get me out. Only my legs appeared in the air in the end--my waist is still locked at the bottleneck, and now I can¡¯t move in either direction. "I got an idea." Felix suddenly said. "Tell your dragon to listen to me." I ordered as he said. Lucky held the bottle in one w, raised the other w, and gave the bottle a mighty p on the bottom. Poof! I''m thrown out like a cannonball. "...Gah!" I gasped for air. "Almost didn''t make it." "Why would you jump in anyway?" "I didn¡¯t! That was an ident. By the way, did you see where the quicksilver go?" "Huh? No." "You don¡¯t see anythinging out when the bottle is down?" "Nothing. Hey wait, there''s quicksilver dripping down from that gem on your head." "Gem?" I took off my helmet and checked. "My Fire Gem--what the--why is it silver now?" Felix didn¡¯t say anything. I looked at him again and saw him staring at me. "What''s the matter?" "Oh, he-hello, sister." "Sis-- Goddammit I''m a guy! Call me brother!" "Oh, sorry sorry. You look beautiful, bro." "Hey stop drooling already. Tell me, what happened to this gem?" He didn¡¯t respond. He''s lost in staring at my face again. Forget it. I''ll go ask rk when I''m back. "Hey wake up, let''s go before the Japanesee back and block us in." "Well aren¡¯t you a troublesome one, my friend. When will you stop messing around us?" That''s Matsumoto''s voice. Shoot. We''re too slow. "Humph. I never mess around." "You stole our Door of Truth, killed our people in the square, now you''re here taking our Magic Vial too. So that''s not enough?" "Of course not. I was visiting your city when you sent an army after me. I had to defend myself you know. As for this...every treasure is firste first serve, right? It doesn¡¯t have your name on it. Last time I checked, your ck Dragon Force doesn¡¯t run this ce. " I see Matsumoto''s mustache twitching. "Bakayaro!! Kill him now!!" Well, this will end in violence anyway. Three of their Warriors charged ahead first without hesitation. Lucky is standing right next to me, so either they are underestimating the situation, or they''re just foolish. Whatever it is isn¡¯t Lucky''s concern, who used his tail to swipe the warriors into a nearby wall, adding some extra decoration to the empty room. "Ohe on. You had 6 thousand people with you and you still didn¡¯t catch me. Now you''re trying to get me with this few lot?" Felix took out his God¡¯s Bane. "Even we''re going to die we will die as heroes!" Crap. Is he serious? "I know what you can do. And we didn¡¯te unprepared!" Matsumoto waved a hand. The stone gate was pushed open again to reveal...a battleship cannon, slowly pushed inside by several men. "You can¡¯t use a marine cannon on drynd but we¡¯re near the underground river, so this will work here. Now prepare to die!" "Phantom Knights! Tear it down!" "Fire!!" Matsumoto yelled. He really shouldn''t have exposed his n too soon. My knights can rush over our distance in less than three seconds, and there''s no way they can take aim and fire the cannon this fast. A knight ran straight into a ninja who was trying to ignite the cannon with a torch. They brought exactly the same people again, none of whom can take a hit from the knights and still stand. "Wowee. You''re awesome." Felix looked at me with starry eyes. "Come. Run. I will not be so awesome when the entire familye again." We''re still not sure if that giant vase is the "Magic Silver Vial" we came for, so I just asked Lucky to smash it down. We backtracked until we reached the cave wall where the path is underwater. There¡¯s a big hole on it now. I guess they nned to use the cannon to break through the boulder too. "How did they move it here anyway?" I wondered. "The river outside is connected to the sea. They just need to bring it on a boat and drive it in." Felix exined. "You sure??" "Yeah. What¡¯s wrong?" "Oh fu*ck. If there''s the sea outside then there can be battleships waiting for us! We can fight ninjas but not cannons." "Let''s get out before they get here then." Matsumoto''s small boat is still floating here so we hopped on. I ordered the Phantom Knights to paddle for us. As a trained team, these guys can drive the boat faster than how it was moved by 30 yers. "Oh right, how did you get here, Felix? I didn¡¯t see any other boats." "I swim." "Huh? You didn¡¯t run into that monster?" "Nope. What monster?" "Did you carry a light with you?" "Yeah, I kept a torch above the water." "I see. You know, there was this thing in the water that almost swallowed me whole. It''s afraid of light though, and that''s how you were not killed." "You don¡¯t say? d I made the right choice." As we¡¯re talking we approached the exit. It''s still dark outside but the starlight is still brighter than inside the cave. Just after we showed up under the sky, I heard a cannon being fired. "Get down!!" I knocked Felix to the deck. However I didn¡¯t have time to avoid the iing shot. I watched helplessly when the round came straight at me, when the gem on my helmet, now silver colored, shed, and released a string of quicksilver into the air. It gathered in front of me and formed up a shield to block the cannon shot. The process didn¡¯t take long--the shield is ready before the attack can get here. The quicksilver shield is hovering about half a meter away from me, and justrge enough to repel the cannon round. When they connected, the quicksilver is broken to liquid drops to all directions like how a stone hit water. The attack sessfully broke the shield, but it also lost all force and dropped onto the nearby stone floor, causing a loud metal noise. The second shot is already here before I can feel relieved. The shield didn¡¯t protect me this time. I saw the quicksilver drops moving back but they didn¡¯t have enough time to get into position. The metal round rammed into my chest, sent my flying into the rocks above the cave entrance. I was pinned there like how Jesus Christ was pinned onto his cross...Ow Jesus, that hurts. The Japan yers are happy to keep this up--the third shot was fired when I''m still stuck here. The previous attack already drained most HP from myself and all mypanions. It''s totally a kill if I¡¯m hit again. The quicksilver drops became a shield in front of me again and intercepted the cannon. The deadly weapon slowly but surely lost its speed inside the liquid and fell into the water below. Of course I''m not staying here acting as their practice target. I pried myself off the rock and jumped away before they can shoot me again. ---------------------- (*) The "Mythril Vial" in thest chapter seems a wrong trantion. I revised it. Chapter 137: Prepare for War Chapter 137: Prepare for War Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy Of course I''m not staying here acting as their practice target. I pried myself off the rock and jumped away before hey can shoot me again. Inded back onto the small boat, shook Felix awake from his trance and dragged him off the boat. I also de-summoned all the Phantom Knight, since this is faster than calling them to run. The enemies never made another shot again as the boat blocked their view. Or maybe they''re trying to figure out why I''m not dead after taking three cannon attacks. We swam ashore to look at the boat being carried back into the cave by the water flow. Now that the Japanese can see us again, their artillery came alive soon. It''s another three-shot volley. I guess they only brought three cannons. The first one went into the air due to really bad aim. The second one is on its mark but we managed to run away from it. And the third one, is stopped by my quicksilver barrier again. You''re not the only ones with cannons! "Tank!" I can send these fools to hell using his crystal cannon shot but on second thought, it''s not worth it. "Use your air shots!" As for Felix...I think I broke him. He has seen too much weird stuff today. A phoenix, a dragon, ten warriors in ck heavy armor swept the floor with 30 enemies within 10 seconds, three cannon shots to my face and I''m still up and kicking. Now a hill-sized bug. Tank inhaled deeply and grew a bigger belly. I quickly dragged Felix behind the bug for cover. As soon as we crouched down we felt as if the air above our heads is sucked clean. Tank released a high-pressure air st across the river, while cutting the water in half for a brief moment and revealing the stones below. The Japanese formation is blown away like they were hit by a tornado. Even some trees and soil were carried away with them. Several yers are holding onto the cannon barrel to keep steady. But the cannon itself slowly rose into the air too. Tank''s Air Shot can''t really do much damage but it''s mainly used for disturbing enemies, cleaning obstacles or throwing groups of pursuers off their feet. I won''t kill anyone like this. That''s not my goal anyway. Taking the chance when enemies are still down, I de-summoned Tank, grabbed Felix and ran up the mountain. We vanished from their sight before they can stand up again. ----------- I''m now sitting inside a bush and breathing hard. I ran too fast trying to get away from the cannons as soon as possible, now I emptied my stamina bar. "I can''t believe we actually got away. You''re so good at it!" Felix ttered. "No big deal. There were six thousand yers who want me deadst night and I still escaped, while killing half of them. Speaking of which, do you know any other Chinese yers around here?" "What for?" "Well, I was alive yesterday because someone helped me in the end. They had an underground tunnel or something. He spoke good Chinese too. Shandong ent." Felix held his chin. "I know several people but none of them are Shandong. Maybe it''s someone else. Last I heard there were over 3 thousand people here trying to cause troubles in Japan, and I only know a few. I can take you to the man in charge if you want. Maybe he knows something." "Man in charge? So you guys are like, hidden rebellions? Organized? Any secret codes?" "No, no, none of that." Felix rubbed his temple. You can feel headache after stressed exercise in real life alright. So [Zero] even put this into the game? "So...what was that white stuff that protected you and disappeared?" I touched the fire gem on my head. "I think this gem absorbed the quicksilver in that bottle. And it makes a shield when I''m under attack. But there must be a cooldown for it. It blocked the first and third attack for me back there, but I ate the second one. "Neat. It can stop a fuking cannon, then it can stop anything! You know a cannon shot can kill any yer on the spot right? And we all know you''re not ''any yer''." "Right. Now I''m wondering if this thing can only stop cannons for me. Maybe it doesn''t work for other attacks." "Let''s try it outter. I need your help." His expression suddenly turned serious. "Help? Let me hear it first." I don''t make early promises. "Several dayster, the guild masters from all major guilds in Japan will gather at Fuji Mountain to retrieve something together. Every man with good skills will show up there." "You''re not asking me to fight them all by myself eh? I''m not superman." "Nonono!" He quickly shook his head. "If they need such a team then there''s either a Japan Nation Treasure over there, or a Chinese one." "Good point. I heard that two of ours are located in Japan." "Yup. And another two in India." "Okay...they''re going for the Chinese one then." "How do you know that?" "Just think. If it''s a Japanese Nation Treasure, why would they tell so many people toe? They should have just kept the secret to a few people and use the treasure for themselves." "But maybe it''s guarded by really powerful monsters so they need the help?" "No. Even if that''s the case they wouldn''t need to spread the message to the whole nation. It''s still better to get the treasure within smaller groups at bigger cost. So whatever they''re trying to get, they don''t mind sharing it with the others, which means it''s a Chinese Nation Treasure. Because no one can use it." "Nice thinking." Felix ttered me again. "I just need you to help us mess up their n. Of course we can try to seize the treasure too, but at least we can''t let them have it." I stood up and dusted some dirt from my bottom. "I''ll do it. Why not?" "Perfect!" ----------------- After the n is set Felix and I stayed in the mountain area to grind. I hit level 479 before logging off, which is not really impressive, since I got more levelsst time by killing 3 thousand yers. I can keep ying but I have to make sure the system doesn''t kick me out again when we invade Fuji Mountain. So I decided to rest for a whole day. I''m still inside this water tank...with nothing to do and nowhere to go. There are only machines around, and no researchers. It''s not like they can do anything even if they''re here. I tried moving my body. It feels too weird. It¡¯s hard to control my limbs, and both of my legs are now bent to a strange angle which is only possible when someone fractures their legs. As the scientist said, my bones are soft now. I stared at the air for two hours before I can''t keep it up anymore. I brought up the game menu and logged into the game forum. I hasn''t been here much since I started ying. The Chinese forum section is filled with random posts. There''s a post titled "The biggest viin in China". And yeah, it says me. The article described me as some...brutal murderer who doesn''t know any moral or humanity. The author is called I-Know-All. Guess I need to remember him so I can teach him a lesson some time. Even I actually feel a bit ashamed after reading his post. He''s really good at making up stories. I learned some pretty useful information from the other posts. I also noticed that half of them on the section are written by that I-Know-All guy. Is this man a professional intelligence provider or something? And there''s more. The other half of the posts, belong to someone called "I-Know-Everything". Are these two guys rted? One of the post mentioned the most powerful battleship in China region, Bi-Lin, also known as the "ghost ship", returned to the port after being away for an entire week. It also brought backrge number of pirate ships with it, which caused the coastal defense forces to freak out and stay guard along the shore for half an hour. "Ghost ship?? Who came up with this shitty name? So Hawk and the other are safe." The post continued, saying that Bi-Lin had a giant door made in pure gold on it. "They carried the Door of Truth back too, nice." The door was transported away from Torrent Point City and no one knows where it went. "Humph. Can''t let too many people know about it." I then switched to the international section. There''re more interesting stuff here. Let''s see...India constructed two super defense towers to guard their capital city. I wonder what that is. American yers found out a new Archer variant ss--the Musketeer. It requires Archer as your base ss and a series of special quests. Musketeer has high Attack but low Attack Speed, and uses more expensive ammunition, so it''s only for rich yers. Well, Americans are rich alright. Let them have it. There''s also a new ss in Germany called the Valiant Knight, who owns crazy Speed and Attack bonus at the cost of Defense and HP. Most news are about Japan. There are a lot of yers saying that they''re now staying in Japan trying to make a name or fortune. They are from...China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Russia...there''s even someone iming to be some sort of anti-fascist association who ns to blow up ck Dragon Force''s main city in a few days. I spent all rest of the day on the forum. When I opened my eyes again I see father, mother and...Rose?? I quickly tried to cover my private part with a hand. The water tank ispletely transparent and I''m totally naked now! This is when I realized I can''t control my hands now. My condition developed fast when I was reading the forum. Rose grinned a little upon seeing my reaction. But she also has some tear stains around her eyes. Same as my mother, who''s looking at my bottom-half, where my legs are twisted in several turns. Rose went close to me and said something through the ss, but I heard nothing. The ss isn''t sound-proof. I can''t hear her because my ear bones already lost their function. I tipped my head towards the screen. My mother caught my message first and told Rose to look in that direction. "Don''t worry, I''m fine! A worm just needs some time to turn into a mature butterfly. Speak into that microphone or I can''t hear you!" She took the said microphone from the table. "I know what''s going on. I just, can''t hold back the tears..." Chapter 138: The Monster Cat Chapter 138: The Monster Cat Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy I tried to soothe Rose for quite some time before she finally left the room with my parents, still crying a bit. Now I''m all alone again. Staying in the liquid means I don''t have to spend much energy. I don''t feel sleepy at all. Bored, I tried to use the brainwave receivers to control random machines in the room for fun. Father told me before that every device in Dragon Fate can be operated in this way. I went into the room camera and positioned it at myself, so I can get a view of my body from the outside. This is a bad idea. Without any bones to support, my body now shrank into an ugly lump of meat due to the natural contraction force of my muscles. I look like an extremely fat dwarf only 0.7 meter in height. Damn, now I know why Rose wouldn''t stop crying. I zoomed the camera towards my head. When I discovered my condition back at the hotel my eyes are pale red, now they have a color of deep purple, with long, vertical cat-style pupils. Anyone would call me a monster now. Next, I tried out the diagnostic instruments. After watching the readings I noticed that I can actively quicken my brainwave to 50+ times faster than normal brains! I used the EEG to record my brainwave and slowly tune up my brain to watch the change in results. Before I can reach my limit though, I suddenly lost connection with everything. I can still feel the receivers attached on my head working. So...My best guess is that the machines can no longer react to my brainwave because it became too fast. I then lowered it back down. When I hit x50 speed again, the signals of machines also came back, which proved my idea. The door of the room suddenly began to move up. Ourb rooms all use automatic shutter doors that rise into the upper door frame when someone''s nearby, but somehow the door in my view is moving really slow. My father and a bunch of researchers ducked under the door before it can fully open and went in here...slowly. What are they doing? My father''s first action is toe over to my chamber and knock on the ss, while yelling something I can''t hear. The other people went into their respective positions, also slowly, and started operating the machines. One of them identally knocked the microphone off the desk. I looked at the microphone SLOWLY drop to the floor and finally realized what''s going on. Of course we''re not on the moon, so the object is falling slowly because...my mind is faster. When I tuned my brainwave function speed to 50 times above normal, I also caused my own timeline to flow 50 times faster than everyone else. That''s why they seems so slow. And I''m not feeling any excitement out of this. Instead, I immediately realized I did something stupid, so I quickly typed on the screen: "Lower the liquid temperature by 10 degrees! Quickly!" I finally recovered to normal speed. Now the other people are moving around just alright. The researchers don''t know what I''m trying to do but they still did as told. Father remembered that I can¡¯t hear him by voice so he grabbed the microphone. "Hey son. You okay? What in the world happened just now?" I''m feeling...dazed. This is the same feeling when you catch a bad cold and serious fever. "It''s okay. I was trying something out, and I think I overdid it a bit." "What did you try?? Our monitor told us that your brainwave suddenly disappeared. I thought your brain died!" "Oh, no no I didn" I didn''t finish my sentence because I felt a strongck of oxygen, so I gasped in the liquid for more. "Pump some more oxygen in here! I''m losing it!" Father rushed to the operation stand and pressed the button himself. "I''m sending it at the limit. What exactly are you doing? Your oxygen consumption is same as a running elephant!" I finally felt better as the liquid environment is adjusted. "Well, I noticed I can change my brainwave frequency, so I made it faster, and the machines lost response when I reached x50 speed. You were moving in slow motions when I looked at you all. But I think doing this use up a lot of energy and cause my brain to heat up really fast. Gosh, my head feels like a hot water bag now. Can you turn down the temperature for a little more?" "On it." Father pressed another button. "You almost gave me a heart attack! Don''t do it again when you aren''t equipped with an oxygen tank and an ice bag." "I know. I just pushed myself too far. I can still make it double or triple speed without feeling anything wrong." "Just...be careful. You''re a grown-up now, you know how to protect yourself. A gentleman needs to be responsible for everyone around him." "Gentleman...what do you mean?" Father asked the researchers to leave the room. "So, you already done ''business'' with Rose, right?" "You knew already?" "Your mother saw it from little Charon. And you just confirmed it to me. Remember, it''s okay if you have the love for everyone, but it''s NOT okay to be unfaithful. Tell me, who''s Yuri, and Red Moon?" "Um..." "A man''s job is to protect his lover under his strong arm. Listen, I don''t mind if you wish to get your own harem house, cause that''s every man''s dream, me included. But make sure you don''t let any one of them down, especially Charon! She''s my most important daughter-inw. You heard me? Don''t, let, her, down. You can love many, which is totally alright. But there can only be one who''ll apany you to the end, don''t make the wrong choice. That''s all. It falls onto yourself as to how you take my words." "...Dad? You worry too much. I never had that kind of idea with Yuri and Red Moon." "Humph. You can''t fool your father that easily." "Yeah, right." I talked with father heart-to-heart for the whole night. Actually we haven''t talked this much in the past few years. It''s nearly the next morning when I slowly fell into a sleep. And I never realized when father left. I went straight into the game after the rest. I agreed Felix that we''re going to stop Japan yers from taking our Nation Treasure today. I appeared in the game to find myself standing in the middle of monsters. Now this is a mistake onlymonly seen on newbies--to log off on monster spawn points. I made the mistake again because I rarely participate in any "regr" gamey...so I always forget how to y like normal. Thankfully these are not really strong monsters. They are called [Soldier Rats], rats standing on two hind legs with shortnces as weapons and bamboo hats on their heads. The hats even have smaller Japanese gs on them. My appearance caused them to scatter away in horror. But they soon charged back. I''m not in the mood to deal with minions so I just summoned Lucky and asked him to make some roasted rats. Felix isn''t here yet, might as well get some extra EXP. Half of the rats ran away screaming after the other half of theirrades are all dead. When I prepared to move to another grinding site, the ground before me shifted, and a monster popped out from it. "A cat?..." I spoke out in surprise. "Huh? What cat?" That''s Felix. He just logged in and heard my words. "Just look!" I pointed at the monster in front of me. It sure looks like a cat alright. But it''s also standing, which makes it a lot taller, about the same height to my chest. But other than that, the chubby, furry body and the round feline face look pretty cute. "Strange. I was fighting with a buncha rats, so I was expecting a rat king or something to show up. Not...a cat." "Stop calling meh cat you runt! I am the great Bakeneko, lord Toyoda Nyan-Jiro. Nyaaa!" "A talking cat!" I''m interested now. Felix readied his weapons and slowly moved to me. "Be careful. Monsters that can speak are at least level 500." "It''s fine. I''ve killed enough strange things. A cat won''t scare me now." "DON''T CALL ME CAT!! How dare you insult the great and powerful Toyada-sama. Nyaa! Come out my loyal samurai!" The cat waved around his plumpy paw. Another group of Soldier Rats appeared behind it. But they''re different from the ones I saw before...They all carry armor and ninja katanas. "What age are we living in? Rats are being bodyguards for a cat?" "Meowaa! Kill those two!!" The rats followed the order. But...they''re too weak. These rats are only level 400 monsters, and they obviously win fights using their great number, which is not effective against my super hard defense. Lucky did the same job as before by cooking the rats alive. It''s a pity that they don''t give much EXP to me. We wiped out probably a thousand rats under 5 minutes. Now only the monster cat is still standing there, looking at us like a fool. "What-what do nyaa want??" I slowly approached it. "Oh don''t worry. I just want to borrow something. You''re weak. But you''re still a boss, so you must have treasures on you, am I right?" Upon hearing this, the cat quickly covered its belly using both paws. "No-no! It was so hard to get it from Orochi-sama. My life depends on it! Nya can''t take it!" "It''s fine." I activated my w des which caused a sharp metal shing noise. "You won''t need it when you''re dead." "Wait-wait! Give me a moment." The cat raised a paw to stop me. "...OK. I''ll give you! But you will let me live!" "That depends on whether the treasure worths my time." "Fine!" The cat humphed as if it just made the biggest decision in its life, before it took out a small white bead from its belly. Ohh, so there''s a pocket hidden under those fur. "What''s this?" I asked Dart to fetch the bead in case it''s a trap. The cat seems pretty smart so I need to make sure. I checked the bead on my hand. It''s just...white, and when I move it around there seems to be some dusting off it. Is it a ball of dough? "So, you gave me some dough and try to pass it as pearl?" "Eh? I took the wrong item!" It quickly brought out another white bead. This time it looks like a real treasure, because I see a faint golden aura around it. Same as before, I asked Dart to take it for me. "...[Bead of Evolution](Companion feed). Give it to apanion to let it evolve. The oue is random." After I read the description, Felix eximed: "That''s good stuff! You have all thatpanions, so you can use it." "But we got this thing together." It doesn''t feel right to keep the item all by myself, so I turned to the cat again: "Hey, you have more stuff on you right?" "No, no no!" It waved its paws in panic. I nced at Lucky, who quickly received my message and grabbed the cat by its legs and began to shake it. Jackpot. A bunch of random things fell on the ground. And somehow I''m feeling familiar about this scene...about a blue robotic cat in a certainic. "No, you say?" I searched around the pile. They''re all junk...only some gold coins and equipment that are probably cheaper than the coins. Felix helped in killing the rats too so I''m thinking about getting something for him. But now I can''t find anything. "Oh right, Felix, you don''t have anypanion eh?" "Nope. The eggs are expensive as shit, and I don''t have the skills to capture them." "What''s your level?" I asked the cat. "I--I''m 800!" "...Really? I don''t remember level 800 monsters to be so weak." "I-I''m not weak! I''m just, a coward... And nya! What are you nning?? Are you-- You promised to let me go!" "I said I won''t kill you. Capturing you doesn''t count as kill." I didn''t hesitate to take off my glove and use [Capture] at the cat. It held its head and shivered on the ground. My skill failed twice. Before I can try again, the cat bounced up and began to shake its own head madly using both paws. Now this doesn''t feel good. The cat returned to all-fours, arched its back, with its fur all puffed up. It''s growing bigger too. When it slowly looked at us, I saw those yellow cat eyes became crimson. The monster cat meowed--I mean howled towards the sky, which sounded like tiger roar! Also, I noticed those long, sharp fangs when it opened its mouth. "I think we have a problem." The cat finished its transformation and stared at us. Not a single trace of those cowardice andziness can be found around this creature now. The crimson, light bulb-sized eyes can only tell us the thing''s ready to kill, eagerly. "Um, Ziri? I don''t think this will be an easy fight." "I know. But 800 isn''t too difficult. My Tank was level 900 before I captured him. Just hide somewhere and watch, I''ll deal with it." The monster cat already took the first move. It reached my face in an blink of an eye! I quickly gained some distance by two cartwheel flips, while Felix reacted a bit slow and was knocked away by a w. Oops...So this monster is good at both speed and attack then. Chapter 139: The Bad Weather Chapter 139: The Bad Weather Trantor: Wolfy Editor: Wolfy I''m still recovering from my rolling when the monster cat attacked me again. I can''t avoid this one! I crossed my arms to brace against the attack. The arms of my Dark Dragon lord armor are most protected. The arm shields are also there, so there should be no problem taking a hit. As I hoped, the cat knocked straight into my shield. Most impact force was absorbed by the spring mechanism behind the shield, but I''m still mmed away. I transformed into werewolf in mid-air and wed at the ground to change my pose into a series of backflips. I stabled myself after some distance, though my feet still left two lines of gashes on the dirt. That was some serious power. I was well prepared for the attack and still get pushed away like a punching bag! I slowly approached the cat in werewolf form. I''m nning to capture it so I didn''t summon any helpers, since it''s too easy for them to identally kill the cat instead. Again, the cat attacked me first with a lightning-speed w swipe, which almost fractured my arms I used to parry. I bounced back again using the great force to stay away. The cat''s too fast for me, which means I can''t win this by closebat. I aimed my crossbow at it and shot a bolt. For some reason the wooden bolt I used became a vibrating and whistling shot in the air which looks pretty awesome. However, the cat ducked the attack with ease. It jumped towards a rock nearby and sprung straight at me with great speed. I avoided it with a dog-roll, but the cat''s fangs approached me before I can stand up! I can''t win the fight by dodging all the time either, so I quickly jumped up and took out mynce. "[Heart Piercer]!" My best-shot skill worked. The cat took my hit to the face and tumbled to the side. I then dropped mynce on the ground. That skill will shot thence''s tip into the enemy and I don''t have time to retrieve them. I used Phantom''s [Blink] to quickly teleport to the cat. When I appeared on its side the cat''s still looking at my original position. I knocked the cat away by a right-hook punch to the stomach. Then I dashed to itsnding point, w des ready, and opened up 9 bleeding cuts on the cat by three quick shes. The injured cat became infuriated now. It showed its ws while still in the air, and bounced at me the second it reached ground. I wasn''t expecting it to move again so fast and I only managed to give it a straight punch. I didn''t hit anything though--the hasty punch only caused my right arm to reach into the cat''s opened mouth entirely. The cat instantly bit down on my arm. But I''m already moving again--I pressed my right hand downward while using my other hand to get ahold of the cat''s jaw, prying it open. Somewhat barely. Cats are good at using their front limbs too. Now I only controlled its biting attack, the cat tried reaching me using both ws. My arms are still stuck between the jaws, if I don''t do something quick those ws will tten me! I lifted my legs off the ground and kicked at those exposed fangs. The force of the kick helped me jump away and avoid the ws just in time. Phew. Felix poked his head behind a stone with the look of worry. "Need help??" "Not now! I''m not getting defeated by some cat!" Since the cat hasn''t done any real damage to me yet, I can tell that the monster''s not really deadly. It''s just too fast so it can always make the first move. I''m confident that I can knock it out if I can find some way to force it into trading hits with me without dodging all the time. The cat is already running to me again. I rolled away from its running path, kicked at the ground and jumped onto its back. I held the cat''s neck with my left arm to stable myself, raised my right arm and punched at its head with all strength I have. The suddenly pain caused the cat to lose bnce and fell. I can''t afford to stop and give the monster any chance to recover, so I rained down my punches as fast as I can. Now the cat is hopping and struggling in ce trying to shake me off. It never seeded. After somewhere like 300 punches, the cat finally exhausted itself and slumped down. I quickly seized the chance and used [Capture] at it. The system announced my victory after only several tries. The cat vanished in a bright light and became a shimmering ball, which fell into my hands. Ta-da, apanion egg. "Hey Felix! Take it." I threw the egg at Felix but my aim is a little off. Felix jumped from his hiding spot in panic to try to catch the egg. He did catch it but he tripped on something and hit his face on the dirt. "*Cough* Watch it boss. This thing costs a fortune!" He crawled back up and brought the egg to me. "What are you doing?" "Here, your egg." He didn''t realize what I''m trying to do. I took out the evolution bead. "I''ll keep this. The cat''s yours. You''re almost level 500 and you have nopanions at all." "But you fought the cat all by yourself right? Besides I don''t feel like taking a Japanese cat with me." "You--" I suppressed the urge to hit his head. "Don''t be so stubborn! What''s wrong with a Japanese cat? You can hate the yers all you want but that doesn''t mean we can''t use their stuff." I pushed the egg back into his arms. "Besides, doesn''t it feel good to use their own cat to bite their own asses?" "...No." He pushed it back again. "It''s your reward. I can''t take it." "For the--why does it matter?? Look, if you don''t take it I''ll just smash the egg and make an omelette. My slots are full anyway." I looked around to find a suitable rock. "Ugh, nonono. Fine, I''ll take it." He finally agreed when he saw me picking up a stone for real. "That''s more like it." I tossed the stone away. "Ouch!" The stone went into a bush and...the bush yelled? I hit someone by ident. We''re in Japan, so...Japanese yer?! Someone found us out! "What''s that for??" It''s a young girl''s voice, followed by a female yering out of the bush. "I''m sorry. That was an ident!" I''m trying toy low for now, so better be polite. This is only a young girl standing in front of us, but she can cause us big trouble if she go alert Matsumoto. Felix whispered into my ears:"She could have heard everything we were talking about. Should we just...?" He wiped his own neck using a hand. "Come on this is a game! She''ll be back in the city in 2 minutes if we do that." I pushed him away and inspected the yer carefully. I can''t recognize her ss by her looks. She''s wearing strange cloth clothes like those maidens in Chinese fairy tales. At least this means she''s caster, or something simr to it. "Are you two from China?" She asked in our ownnguage, though the ent is strange. "You''re not from Japan?" I tried. You don''t find many Japanese people learning Chinese ever since the war between the two nations. This girl should be around 15-16 years old which makes this a pretty rare sight. She nodded first, and quickly shook her head. She tried to organize her words for a while and finally spoke:"I''m a Chineseborer!" "What is aborer?" Never heard of that. "Well, during the second world war, Japanese soldiers captured a lot of our people and sent them to Japan asborers. Some of them are returned to China after the war, but a lot more didn''t make it because of different reasons so they had to settle here. The officials call these people volunteers to help working in Japan but that''s not the case. We''re always treated badly so we make our ownmunity here and avoid talking to the Japanese when we can." "But, no one will stop you from going back to China now right?" "Laborers are all poor people. It basically means migration for us and we can''t afford it." "Why not ask our embassy for help?" Felix spoke. I pushed him away. "Do you ever read the news? We don''t have an embassy in Japan for years! After the Nanjing bombardment the embassy was brought down to a small agency. And even that was long gone when Japan tried to interfere with our n to subdue Taiwan. Now we only speak to each other using guns." "I see. Yeah...I don''t read the news much. But I know a bunch ofpanies still doing business in Japan. How is that possible with all the tension?" He''s true. Dragon Fate kept its trading record with Japan. The difference is that we can only transport our goods from Singapore now. "Sigh. Traders only see profit. They don''t care what the politicians are ying on their table as long as they can sell their goods to make money." "Woah. Are you a professor or something, Ziri?" "Cut it. Not now." I turned back to the girl. "What''s your name?" "Hope. Javen Hope." "I mean, your character name." "I use my real name in the game too!" "I see. I''m Ziri, and this is Felix, Ou-yang Felix. We can call you Hope, right?" "Sure!" "So why were you following us?" "I wasn''t! I logged off from that spot yesterday. I saw you two talking in Chinese when I got back so I wanted to find out who you are." "Say, you want to return to China right?" A good idea popped up in my mind. I can use the girl to gain some advantage, and it will also benefit her. "Yes! Everyone does! Our employers are mean, they pay us less money and ask us to do more work! It only gets worse when the nation rtion grows bad." "Good. Listen, I need your help for something. If you can get it done, I''ll get you AND your family back to China." Creating several legal identities is not hard job for Dragon Fate. The government would like this idea too since they saved civilians and can make a good name for themselves. "Of course! Anything!!" Woah shit. She looks ready to sell her body. "Calm down. It''s nothing big. I only need you to be my trantor and tour guide. You know, we can''t read Japanese map here so you can tell us where we are. And our ent easily gives us away. If you can speak for us, we''ll just remain silent so no one will find us out." "Sure thing!" We three began to move up Fuji mountain. The monsters are bing stronger the higher we go, so we need to hide ourselves carefully so as not to getting overwhelmed by both the monsters and Matsumoto''s team. The Fuji mountain area is huge, and whoever told Felix about the information doesn''t know the exact location of our objective. So we can only find a vantage point and check for movements down the hill. Matsumoto asked all elite yers in Japan to join the operation which means it should be easy to find such a crowd. We grew too bored waiting for the enemies so we chatted about ourselves. Of course, we talked about Hope. She is Human race, Material Maniptor. It''s like a psychic who canmand objects around her to move. Of course, there are limits to her ability. Her current level allows her to control around a hundred stones to fly about and attack people. That''s a lot of stones, but their power seems low. If she concentrates her skill on one object, she can more or lesspete with a Warrior several levels lower than her. She says the ss has no obvious advantages or disadvantages. Like Battlemages, Material Maniptors can do closebats and they have pretty good strength attribute. They have several weak self-enhance spells which allow them to fight most sses on par. We finally saw movement down the mountain foot. A huge group of Japan yers showed up from a forest, about 2-3 hundred people. They didn''t climb but sat down where they are. Must be waiting for more people. They also sent out several small teams to clean the monsters around them. "Hey, look there." I pointed along the edge of the forest. "The ck Dragon Force came!" Hope spoke first. "Yup. Our old friend." They went to join the first team. Someone from the first team stepped out to greet them. He''s wearing...Taoist robe, or so I think. It''s definitely not Onmyoji costume. The strange "Taoist" shook hands with Matsumoto and started chatting, with Tanaka Shota standing beside them. I pointed to the strange man and asked Hope: "Who''s that?" "Which one?" "The man talking to Matsumoto." "Oh. That''s Ikeda Rikio, master of the Inakawa Union. Don''t let him touch you if you''re going to fight him." "Why?" "Because his best skill is to merge with people. He can sneak into anyone''s body by touching them, then he takes control of the victim. For example if you''re a Warrior, then he can make you fight your own teammates using the same strength and same skills you have." "So...if the victim is hit, who takes the damage?" "Don''t know. I never went through that before." "What''s the ss called? That sounds a horrible skill." Felix asked. "I think it''s called...Soul Maniptor?" "What??" That surprised me. It''s the same ss I upgraded my Tamer into! "So we have the same ss??" "Really?" Hope looked at me in shock. "That''s a caster ss. Your armor doesn''t look anywhere near caster." "Ah...so you''re a wizard, Ziri?" Felix slowly nodded, but he soon shook his head again. "Wait a second. You didn''t use any spells when fighting the cat. As she said, casters can''t wear heavy armor right?" "I have two sses. D&P Rider and Soul Maniptor. Speaking of which, howe I don''t have that merging skill?" "Maybe you need more levels? That Ikeda guy only showed his skilltely." "Yeah...we should be very careful with him. Do you know what''s the worse part for a Soul Maniptor?" "What?" "Companions." I summoned Dart and put him onto my shoulder. "We''re basically advanced Tamers. Let''s hope Ikeda don''t have manypanions like me, or this can get ugly." "Um, Ziri?" Felix spoke. "I saw you summon differentpanions. How many do you have anyway?" "Ten! But with different levels." "Ten-ten?" Hope''s voice is trembling. "How rich are you? Even if I have that many slots I won''t make enough money to buy them my whole life!" "Well I didn''t buy them. My side ss is Breeder, I can capture them myself." "Awesome." She gave me a thumb-up. "And yes, I hope that guy doesn''t have so manypanions too." "Now I''m looking forward to learning that strange skill. Hey look, someone else ising." Another group emerged from the woods. This time they all wear the same white ninja costume. Hope answered my doubt without me asking. "Those are the best known ninjas in Japan, the Mist Ninjas. They''re second to none when ites to using dirty weapons and hiding their traces." "Dirty weapons huh? Well I have my boomerangs." "They''re also not afraid of death. Every time they fight they make sure someone dies. No one dares to mess with them around these parts." "Who are those?" Felix pointed towards another direction. "Are those Samurais?" I looked at the newers. "Yes. They''re traditional Japanese Samurais. They''re good at scaring people before a fight and then charge all the way into enemies recklessly. I''d say they''re the easiest enemies among these people." I hear the sound of water drop on my helmet. I lifted my mask and looked at the sky, when another water dropnded on my face. "What the fuck? Is it raining?" Felix also spread his arms to catch the rain. "Huh...This is first time I saw rain in this game." The rain grew heavier as we speak. It''s bing hard to see now. A system notice suddenly came from near our ears: "Attention, dear yers. The game has just adopted the weather system and now we''re testing it for the first time. From now on, different weathers will ur in the game and apply different influences to your activities. Please find them out on your own. Now each city and vige will be assigned a Weather Forecast NPC, who will tell you the iing weather for a small service fee. However, the forecast will not be 100% urate, but is still reliable most of the time. Thank you for your support." "Good lord. What do we do now?" Felix asked me through the rain with a miserable face. I just looked at the now waterfall-like shower and shook my head. "No idea. One thing I know is that we can''t follow them in this weather." I can''t see anything past 5 meters! And there''s no way to use my cape''s invisible skill too. The water will just give me out. "Let''s move closer. Maybe they''re waiting for the weather to clear. I won''t go for the treasure like this if I were them." The rain is too big. Dart has been staying on my shoulder and now he feels like a soaked cotton towel. I looked at Felix to notice that he''s staring at Hope with big eyes. Oh...the girl''s clothes is almost transparent with all the water and is now stuck to her skin. It doesn''t seem Hope herself noticed her situation. She''s still trying to get a look of the Japan yers down below. I quickly checked inside my bracelet inventory. I looted piles of equipment from the 3,000 dead yersst time. It isn''t hard to find a random armor for Hope. I poked her and handed the armor over, when she''s still not sure what''s going on. "Well I can''t wear this. Or, I can, but they''ll only give my debuffs instead." "Just use it as a raincoat for now!" I pointed to her body. She finally realized she''s semi-naked at the moment. She quickly grabbed the armor from my hands. It seems I held the armor in the rain for too long and there''s water in it now. When Hope raised the armor above her head the water washed her from head to toe. "Aw I hate this weather. Ah-choo!" She rubbed her nose. "What''s going on? You can catch cold in this game now?" "Uh maybe they brought a disease system into the game too?" Felix said. I brought up the help window to contact the game support...nope, I can''t get through. Guess a lot more yers and bombarding them with simr questions. "Game support is busted." "What do we--ah-chooo! What do we do??" "Let''s head down. See what the Japanese are going to do first." We didn''t go far before the rain just abruptly stopped. Now we''re standing on the middle on the mountain without any cover. I immediately hit the floor, Felix and Hope followed my example. Luckily no one spotted us. They''re still looking at the sky, cursing the weird system. We slowly crawled towards a rock and hid behind it. The system notice came alive again before we can discuss the n. "As the weather system was brought online for the first time, we need to perform some tests on different weathers. Please log off and rest for a while in the meantime. Of course you can choose to stay and observe the iing test, but we suggest that yers should go back to the cities as no harmful weathers will appear there. Thank you for your cooperation." As soon as the notice finished, an ice ball the size of a ping-pong dropped in front of me. I picked it up and inspected it. "...A hail stone." "That''s pretty big one." Felix took it and looked at the unnaturallyrge object. I de-summoned Dart first. That one could have killed him if it hit. The rock we are hiding behind has an arc above our heads so we can just hide from the hails too. Now we are hearing the booming noises as the giant hail stones drop around us. I wonder what the Japanese yers are doing. I picked out several shields from my inventory, piled them up and walked out of the shelter with the shields above my head. As soon as I walked to open ground I felt a giant forceing down. I had to transform into werewolf to not get knocked to the ground. My Star Gaze can help me peek at the Japanese formations, though barely. Everyone not wearing armor are running around madly, arms on their heads. I see Matsumoto and Tanaka doing the same, since Ninjas and Onmyoji don''t wear armors. Ninjas still have headbands with metal tes on them, while Onmyoji only wear cloth. Blue shes began to appear among the yers here and there. Many people are using their scrolls to teleport back or log off. Even the Warriors aren''t going to survive for long under this hailstorm. Some of their casters are already lying motionless on the ground, either dead or unconscious. I''m wondering if I can install some catapults on Bi-Lin and throw rocks at enemies. That''ll do some serious damage. Eventually, all Japan yers are gone back to the cites or logged off. I also moved back under the rock quickly. My arms holding the shields arepletely numb now. When I threw them on the ground I see the top one almost broke to pieces. The other ones are also bent in different degrees. It was a good decision NOT to use my own shield or I''ll need extra money to repair it again. "Are you an Orc?" Hope asked. "No. It''s Divine Demon." "How can you be a werewolf then?" "I''m bitten before." "Oh... Look, it''s clear again." The hailstorm finally stopped. Now the terribleyer of hail stones on the ground almost reached our ankles. Gosh. I wonder how much damage they caused to the game when testing the weathers. Chapter 140: Challenge Chapter 140: Challenge Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Once the hailstorm was over, I quickly crawled out from behind the rock, the ground outside had been piled up with hails to a height of close to 15cm. "What the hell!" Hope looked around, Mt. Fuji waspletely transformed into a white world. "The Japs have run away, I reckon they won''t be doing anything else today!" Felix looked at the gathering point which was inplete disorder. The things that the Japs have not destroyed were still there, and it seemed as though the majority of the things belonged to Spellcasters. I picked up a hailstone the size of an apple. "It won''t only be today, I doubt anyone of them wille until these things disappear! With so many hailstones piling up everywhere, it''s impossible to walk!" "Now what''s going on with the sky?" Hope looked up to the sky. "What do you mean what''s going on?" I raised my head up to look as well. The strangely sunny and cloudy sky that cleared right after the end of the hailstorm suddenly had dark clouds, the immense regiment of clouds churned and collided into one another, forming evenrger clouds. The dense mass of clouds made us unconsciously feel a strong oppression, it isn''t any ordinary power, nature is an unstoppable force that has always struck fear in humanity. "It looks like it''s going to rain!" Felix looked up andmented. Hope immediately retorted: "Didn''t it JUST rained?" "Who cares what it is, they are all catastrophic!" I quickly summoned Lucky and jumped onto his back. "Get up, we will fly above the clouds, regardless of what it is, it can''t do anything to us as long as we are above it!" Felix nimbly jumped up, but Hope dare not move at the sight of Lucky. "I-is¡­.is this a dragon?" "Of course it''s a dragon, or do you think it''s a lizard? Get up quickly!" Seeing that Hope wasn''t moving, I instantly summoned Phiona out: "Bring her up and follow us!" Phiona instantly transformed into her battle form and grabbed onto Hope''s shoulders and lifted her up, while Lucky opened his wings and with a leap, we soared into the sky. The sky already had signs of bad weather when we left the ground. A gigantic lightning bolt grazed past Lucky''s wings, and the rock that we had used to hide from the hailstones was struck, and instantly shattered into countless of small rocks. After the lightning, the wind started to pick up. Lucky disyed his superior flight skills with us, he expanded his wings and weed the wind without the need to p his wings, the wind was sufficient to increase our altitude. By the side, although Phiona was much lighter, she did not possess extraordinaryrge wings that were disproportionate to her body like Lucky. She could not raise her altitude by using the wind and had to continuously work her wings to keep up with us. When we were about to approach the cloudyers, lightning bolts started to gather. A bolt of lightning shed ahead of us, and although it was more than ten meters away, the intensity of the voltage gave rise to static, which caused an electric arc to sh across my armor, making me look like a light bulb! "Watch out!" Phiona cried out. With an unthinkable flexibility, Lucky somehow managed to swerve to the side, and we watched as a white ball of light that had electric arcs twirling all around it flew past us. "What the hell is that?" Felix, who was in a state of shock, was about to open his helmet''s visor with the intent of wiping his perspiration when I immediately swiped it back on. "That was a ball of lightning formed by a highpression of charged sma, those are what the army''s pulse cannons shoot. If you don''t want to be a roasted goose, don''t open your armor, your metal armor istes the electric current from your body, although there will be a huge build up of static on your armor, but you won''t feel it inside, but so long as you open any part of your armor, the static will instantly roast you alive!" "Then will yourpanions be fine?" "Can''t you see that I only summoned the two of them? ck Dragons are heavily resistant to all magic*, although this is lightning, most of the mage sses'' offense attacks are of the lightning attribute, thus Lucky is not afraid of lightning, furthermore, this is just static lightning, electric that doesn''t flow can''t really harm anyone! As for Phiona, she is naturally invulnerable to magic**, this little bit of lightning can''t affect her!" "Watch your front!" Phiona cried out again. Another lightning strikended in front of us, Lucky did another swerve around this lightning strike, but almost turned us into roasted meat! One after another, lightning strikes kept striking down around us, while manyrge balls of lightning were converged in the center. But by relying on Phiona''s acute senses and Lucky''s superior flight skills, we were actually able to get through this series of lightning bolts and flew to the cloudyers. Once we got out of the dark clouds, the golden and dazzling sunlight instantly enveloped us. The dark clouds and the endless lightning strikes continued beneath us, but it no longer mattered to us, we were much safer above them! "Oh my god, look there!" Hope pointed ahead. I followed her direction and looked over, and noticed apletely pitch ck monster floating ahead of us in the distance. This monster''s body somewhat resembled a Chinese mythical dragon, with its long body that was covered with scales, and the tip of its tail resembled a shark''s. But its head looked terrifying, which was roughly half the length of its body, and its gigantic beak resembled more of a bird. But the terrifying teeth growing out of its beak definitely meant that it wasn''t some herbivore! It had three gigantic and red eyes on its terrifying head. BUT, the eyes on the left and right covered half of its head, making it look like a mosquito, and although the middle eye is considerably smaller, it possessed eyelids, and its constant blinking most probably meant that this eye is important to this monster. This monster did not have any legs or ws, but there was a pair of fins between its head and body. Overall, this monster should be some aquatic animal, but I don''t know how it is actually flying above the clouds! I suddenly realized that there was a man riding on its back. That golden robe looks familiar! I activated Star Gaze and focused on the man on the monster. The identification of the man scared me. Isn''t he the guy with the same ss as me, that Soul Maniptor? "That''s Ikeda Rikio!" "What? What did you say?" Hope looked at me anxiously. "That''s Ikeda Rikio?" I nodded my head. "With THAT, I can confirm that his Soul Maniptor ss is the same as mine!" That shouldn''t be a Servant, but a Companion of his. To be able to control such a humongous thing should mean that he has other Companions! I don''t believe that anyone else will be able to obtain a Dragon through a fluke like me, that means he must have definitely caught that beast after using another Companion. Ikeda Rikio also noticed us. It isn''t easy to conceal ourselves with the size of Lucky flying around! He most probably considered as Japanese people who had flown above to avoid the lightning, as he controlled his monster to slowly float towards us. "What do we do?" Felix started to tense up. "Don''t worry, we have the advantage in the sky!" I jumped up: "Quickly prepare for battle." When Ikeda got closer to us, he suddenly stopped. He had somehow managed to recognize us. It had to be Felix''s fault, he had the China g imprinted on his armor which was easily recognizable even from a distance! "China man!!!!" Ikeda controlled his Monster to float towards us. "Why are you calling out for your grandfather?" At that point of time, I no longer cared about any propriety of speech! "Humph!" Ikeda Rikio snorted in disdain. "Don''t be too pleased! I know who you are, you are that Devil Ziri, who wiped out Lord Matsumoto''s three thousand men!" Damn, I am being called a Devil once again! "Matsumoto''s subordinates are all weaklings, your strength can only be considered above average. Today, I will kill you, and bring your corpse back to parade around! That''s right, I heard that you have manypanions, I wonder if you canpare to me? Come out! My Companions!" Ikeda Rikio summoned out his Companions, which caused the space in front of us to distort, and I immediately knew that Ikeda was trying to scare us. The appearance of Companions would not produce much effects, and his summon was obviously the same as I did thest time when Lucky, when I had the intention of scaring others. The distortion in the air became worse and worse, and in an instant, three ck holes appeared before us. The first ck hole shrunk quickly, and a gigantic ming bird appeared in the sky. It looked extremely simr to Phiona, but its entire body was covered with red mes. I immediately recognized it as a true Fire Phoenix, which was coincidentally the perfect adversary against Phiona, which was an Infernal Dark Phoenix***! Upon appearing, It let out a screech and flew to Ikeda Rikio''s side and faced off against us. Seems like its a highly intellectual Companion. I got Hope to go offline for the moment, and then got Phiona to fly forward and faced against the Fire Phoenix. The second ck hole also shrunk, and after it disappeared, a gigantic insect that waspletely golden appeared in front of us. It was just a Flying Ant that was erged many times, but its enormous pincers looked extremely powerful. As it flew, it released a buzzing sound like a bomber aircraft. It also flew to Ikeda Rikio''s side and hovered around. "TANK!" I summoned Tank to confront the Flying Ant. Luckily, Tank''s size was clearlyrger than the Flying Ant, and furthermore, Tank had consumed a Dragon before. Evolved Tank shouldn''t need to exert itself just to get rid of this damn ant. Once Tank tramples on this Flying Ant, it can link up with Phiona to get rid of that Fire Phoenix. I was just calcting the time that the third ck hole needed to close when a purple Faerie Dragon appeared in front of us. The Faerie Dragon looked simr to Lucky, but it waspletely bright purple, and its eyes wererger. The Faerie Dragon had appeared quickly, and I had no choice but to activate my Wing des and flew away from Lucky. Lucky confronted the Faerie Dragon (Of course, I had requested for Felix to go offline as well.). Lucky''s size was simr to the Faerie Dragon, but it meant that the Faerie Dragon was higher leveled than Lucky. After obtaining Lucky, I had carefully read through Dad''s admin FAQ(I secretly did it), and found out that Lucky was ssified as a Saint Dragon-type in the Dragon Race, and had an overall increase in stats, thus having a substantial increase regardless of defense or attack, even its life was much more than an average Dragon. Adding its Dark Transformation into a ck Saint Dragon Lord, Lucky was equipped with a ck Dragon''s heavy resistance as well as its ferocious and violent character. As these two categories of Dragons belong to therger scale Dragons, Lucky''s final form would be extremelyrge. But the Fairie Dragon was a type of Small Dragon that used Magical Attacks. Same Level Faerie Dragons should be smaller than a Saint Dragon or a ck Dragon, but the Faerie Dragon in front of us was asrge as Lucky, which meant that it was higher level. But I was not too worried for Lucky, after all, it was a Dragon Lord, with his crown, Lucky had no fear towards the Dragon Race, as its double amplification of stats against Dragons basically made Lucky a Dragon Killer! Right when Lucky got into position, the monster beneath Ikeda Rikio rose. Unknowingly, Ikeda Rikio had summoned arge Bird, which looked to be at a very low level, which looked to be his old Companion before he had obtained the high leveled monstrous Companion. I quickly summoned Loong-er to face against the monster, whatever that thing was, it''ll still die facing against a Ryu! ording to the situation, the possibility of me winning was extremely high. Phiona and the Fire Phoenix looked to be equal, the Flying Ant would not be able to win Tank, Lucky could trample over the Faerie Dragon without a problem, but it would take some time. The only variable was the unknown monster, but as long as I could win in the battles and have my other Companions join Loong''er to fight it, no matter how powerful the monster was, it would be useless. It was a pity that we were not on the ground, otherwise, summoning the Phantom Knights would have saved a lot of time! "You have many Companions!" Ikeda Rikio spoke with sarcasm: "These are all the Companions I have, luckily, all of my Companions are aerial units! Hahahaha! I did a thorough research on you from Matsumoto''s side, it seems that none of your Servants can fly right? Now, I will let you have a taste of my Aerial Army. Come out, my Servants." It was a miscalction, Ikeda''s servants were actually all aerial units. The sudden appearance of 8 Thunderbirds surprised me, they were extremely fast, and utilized both physical and magical attacks, although their magical attacks were only lightning attributed, the Thunderbirds'' lightning were far more deadly than any Mage sses. What they released werepressed smas! The addition of the 8 Thunderbirds was out of my calctions. Regardless of how Ikeda Rikio separated the 8 Thunderbirds as supports for the Companions or to use them all to target one of my Companion, it would be disadvantageous for me, It had destabilized my ns! Oh right, I have my Dragon Wasps, I''m level 479 now, 958 Dragon Wasps should be enough to lock 4 of those Thunderbirds down. Recalling the additional ''Companions'' that I had, the Fire Gem on my head immediately shed with a silver light with a mental summon. None of the fire red Dragon Wasps that I remembered appeared, but a flow of mercury flew out. This mercury formed into a silver ball 3 meters in front of me, which had a fine line of mercury that was directly connected to the Fire Gem on my Helmet. This mercury kept on pouring into the silver ball, which quickly grew to a size of close to two meters in diameter. The connection stopped when the silver ball was exactly two meters in diameter. After that, it started to split itself into countless of small silver droplets that floated around me. Every single silver droplet flickered with lights. I observed the little droplets that had exploded prematurely. The things that came out werepletely silver, as though they were truly made of silver! The shape of them looked like bees, but their heads had exaggerated mandibles, and all of their leg tips resembled extremely sharp silver needles, while at their fronts, they had what seemed like mantises. The terrifying part about them was that they were all at least a meter long each, their bodies were already twice the size of Dragon Wasps and looked more like a flock of birds! Their stingers at their ends were cone shaped that was at least 30 cm long, and their silver appearance made the sharpness terrifying. All of these silver droplets started to flicker with silver light. Two to three secondster, the silver droplets suddenly exploded that were actually as immense as bombers, and actually overwhelmed the buzzing sounds of Tank and the Flying Ant. I quickly asked Phantom that was already merged with me: "What are those things?" "They should be the product of when the Fire Gem absorbed the mercury, I don''t know what it is called, the system prompt should have something, you can take a look." I immediately opened the system prompt chat box and scrolled down, as expected, I saw arge chunk of information upon scrolling down. It was information regarding the evolution of the Dragon Wasps, due to arge number of Dragon Wasps, it had flooded the system prompt chat box with repeats of their evolutions. I scrolled to the top and finally saw the information. Silver Wasp Level 300 Creature High mobility Possess outstanding attack second to none against same level mobs Can Respawn Indefinitely. It was a short description and did not even mention any numerical values, but just these stats were enough to scare people already. Although Level 300 was not considered extremely high, I could summon close to a thousand of them! I will definitely sting Ikeda Rikio into a swollen fatty! Hahahaha! "Do you still have any more things you haven''t summoned?" Ikeda Rikio was shocked by the appearance of the Silver Wasps. In the ambush thest time, I did not reveal the Dragon Wasps to them, thus it was impossible for Ikeda Rikio to learn of this from Masayoshi Matsumoto. With the sudden inclusion of so many things, it would be weird if he was not shocked. Imagine, 958 Silver Wasps in the air is able to upy the size of a football field! Furthermore, the sound produced by them is truly terrifying. And by being above the clouds, the sunlight on the Silver Wasps refracts and produces a dazzling light that made them look even more imposing! How terrifying is that! "Kill them all!" I stared at Ikeda Rikio and gave out the simplestmand. All of my Companions rushed forward at the same time. Phiona and the Fire Phoenix were the fastest, as Level 1000 ss Bosses, with noble backgrounds, and as High Dexterity monsters, they were the first to collide. Lucky and the Faerie Dragon were Dragons, thus their movements were slower and were the next to collide. The Silver Wasps inherited the Dragon Wasps'' trait of being fearless, and the swarm of them rushed over and immediately enveloped the 8 Thunderbirds. Tank and the Flying Ant were both low intellect Companions and chose the simplest method of battle - head to head collisions. The two gigantic insects collided and produced a low bass sound, but the Flying Ant was instantly flung out, in terms of physical attacks, Tank was still number 1! Loong-er and the unknown creature were obviously Intellectual Companions, as both of them did not rush at each other, but prepared their respective spells. -------------------------------------------- (*) Chapter 7, ck Dragons are 75% resistant to magic, but in the Chinese trantion, it wrote that ck Dragon disregards all magic, I will put heavily resistant due to its 75% (**) Chapter 33, Phiona stats say she is invulnerable to magic (***)It was tranted previously that Phiona was an Inferno Dark Phoenix, but I have to correct it as the correct Chinese trantion meant that Phiona is rted to the underworld or hell, thus I corrected it to Infernal. Chapter 141: The Battle Between Soul Manipulators Chapter 141: The Battle Between Soul Maniptors Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Lucky and the Faerie Dragon chose the mostmon way of battle between Dragons, Physical Brawl. Faeria Dragons in nature did not like physical brawls, but it might had been because it could see that Lucky was smaller, thus had decided to go ahead with it. Lucky was a Saint Dragon Rank ck Dragon, and did notck in ferocity, viciousness or skills in a physical brawl. The moment the two Dragons shed, Lucky quickly bit down on the Faerie Dragon''s neck. Dragons mostly relied on their teeth in battles amongst their own race, due to the fact that their scales were extremely durable and their ws could usually do no harm. As for Magical Attacks, it was hardly used, a Dragon''s resistance to Magical Attacks were usually extremely high, and aside from the Faerie Dragons that possessed extremely high Magical Attacks as well, majority of the other Dragons species could not harm others with Magical Attacks, thus the oue of the battles between Dragons were mostly with their teeth. Lucky''s bite on the Faerie Dragon''s neck meant that he had gained the advantage, but a pity that the Faerie Dragon was much bigger than Lucky, and with a flick, it wrested its neck out from Lucky''s bite. Upon failing the neck strike, Lucky turned his attention towards the Faerie Dragon''s wings. Due to the pain, the Faerie Dragon struggled and tried to w Lucky off its back frantically, but the durable dragon scales did not fear the dragon ws in the slightest. Sparks were ignited on Lucky''s best due to the strong friction between the ws and the scales, which sounded like metal scratching on ss. After a few attempts, the Faerie Dragon realized that using ws was futile and used its tail to strike at Lucky, at the same time struggling free sessfully. Lucky seemed to have anticipated the Faerie Dragon''s advantage in ranged Magical Attacks, thus he made sure that the Faerie Dragon did not escape far, no matter how it tried to struggle free, Lucky would persistently chase after it without giving it a chance to catch a breather. In truth, Lucky''s actions brought him great advantages, the Faerie Dragon knew that although it was higher level than Lucky, but it was useless against the tyrannical ck Dragon, it was constantly trying to find an opportunity to distance itself from Lucky, but Lucky never gave it the opportunity. Furthermore, the double damage property of the Dragon Crown allowed for Lucky to tear a hole on the Faerie Dragon''s body every time he bit down on it. The Faerie Dragon suddenly used its tail and struck Lucky into the air, causing Lucky to spin a few times before being able to stabilize, but the Faerie Dragon had already used this short break to pull a distance between them. Suddenly, an angelic song came out around us. Phantom immediately warned me: "Be careful, that''s the Faerie Dragon''s Magical attack!" "Is it very powerful?" "I don''t know, but every magic casted with Dragon Language are all world devastating!" The song of the magical attack suddenly ended and a white vortex appeared in front of the Faerie Dragon, while Lucky brought forth a gale and rushed forward, hoping to break the magical attack. It was a pity, right when Lucky was 10 metres away from the vortex, the vortex flickered with a light, and shot out a water droplet shaped Magic Missile. Lucky swerved to avoid the Magic Missile, and I initially thought that it would be fine, but the Magic Missile actually curved its angle and flew towards me instead. As expected from the Dragon race, their intellect were truly something no other mobs couldpare. Right from the start, the Faerie Dragon never saw Lucky as its opponent, it had always been targeting, it might had figured that once it got rid of me, Lucky would never stand a chance! I clumsily dodged to the side, but it was a pity that the Faerie Dragon''s Magic Missile was homing, and could constantly turn towards me. Right when I thought that could no longer dodge, Tank suddenly appeared in front of me. BOOM! The Magic Missile struck directly on Tank''s body. The armor in which the Magic Missilended on immediately burst into a pale green spot, but in the Companion box, I could clearly see that Tank did not even care about that attack, this little injury was nothing to Tank, who was a Mob with extremely thick armor and specialized in defense. Tank had just obstructed the Magic Missile for me when the Flying Ant shot over from behind with lightning speed and with a BANG, it collided with Tank and got him flying. Although Tank had managed to obstruct the Magic Missile for me, but the Flying Ant had managed to push him away from behind, leaving me defenseless and alone against the Flying Ant, in which I had no way to escape! Luckily, the Flying Ant was in a stunned state from the collision and had not recovered. I instantly unleashed my Triple ded ws and took the opportunity to fly onto its back. Inded right on its Thorax, and ferociously plunged both my fists towards my feet, the long ded ws immediately pierced through the Flying Ant''s transparent wings (Flying Ant''s wings are simr to Dragonflies, however they extend out backwards). Sensing the pain from its back, the Flying Ant immediately flipped over in an attempt to shrug me off. I released my right arm and leaned towards the Flying Ant''s left wing and was sessfully shrugged off, but not before I sessfully pulled out a 2 meter long slit on its wing with my ded w. This immediately caused the Flying Ant to have difficulty flying. "Aldeina!" I summoned Mermaid Princess Aldeina, the situation was tougher than expected, and as she could support and heal, she could help ease the tension. Aldeina did not know we were in the air, upon appearing, she immediately screamed as she plunged into the clouds, but very quickly she flew up once more. Aldeina''s advanced flight spell was extremely powerful, although she could not fly and fight at the same time, but she could maintain her flight while using some Heals and other simple supporting Magic Spells. "Why are we in the sky?" Aldeina floated to my side and asked me, I immediately pushed her away, just in time to avoid the Flying Ant that suddenly swoop in between us. "Use your Magic to support us from the side, I don''t have time now, I''ll get Phantom to exin everything to youter." Aldeina opened up a distance from us while Tank returned. He used his tworge scythes and swept past the Flying Ant, although the Flying Ant''s wing had a huge hole, it was still able to avoid the attack, and counter attacked by biting onto Tank''s hip joint, where the armor was weakest. The bite did not do much, but the Flying Ant''s suddenly released a needle from the inside of its mouth into Tank''s joint. Tank struggled in pain due to that, and in course of the struggle, Tank''s scythe stabbed into the Flying Ant''s abdomen. Even from afar, I could hear the tearing of the abdomen that sounded like leather being ripped apart. The huge hole ripped by Tank immediately spewed out green viscous liquid all over, but Tank was also on the verge of copse due to the needle. Aldeina immediately used Water Blessing on Tank, it was able to dispel all magic induced nerfs, although it was not extremely effective, casting it a few times should be able to remove the ailments inflicted by the needle. Right after Tank had gotten rid of the Flying Ant, another Magic Missile struck Tank once again. It was the Faerie Dragon, after Lucky was shrugged away from it, he never got the chance to close the distance anymore. The Faerie Dragon could unleash consecutive Magic Missiles to the point that it looked like a beam, and I finally got to witness what was a Magic Genius was, the speed at which it was unleashing Magic Missiles was truly shocking! With the endless stream of Magic Missiles all over, Lucky did not have any way to get close to the Faerie Dragon, and although majority of the Magic Missiles that missed Lucky would continue on their trajectories, there were a few of the Magic Missiles that would be locked onto Lucky and would turn back like a boomerang and attack him from the back. Seeing how Lucky was being suppressed to the point that he could not even catch a breath, Phiona controlled her ck mes to attack the Faerie Dragon, but the Fire Phoenix locked Phiona down tightly, and a stream of red mes sessfully blocked Phiona from moving towards the Faerie Dragon. In the blink of the eye, the Fire Phoenix devoted its energy towards Phiona, and they fought into aplete mess that I could no longer recognize who was who! Two phoenixes used their beaks and ws to attack, feathers floated all over the ce, it was a pity we were not near the ground, otherwise, we would be weed with a majestic scene. The feathers that dropped to the ground would immediatelybust into and of mes, and would look as though the sky was raining mes. ------ Aldeina came forward and spoke to me: "So that thing on your helmet is actually a Fire Gem?" "Yes, but I don''t know what should it be called now!" "The Fire Gem can help Phiona, do you want to try it out?" "Yes, but how?" "Do you know Fire type Magic?" "Yes, but they are all low level magic spells! I haven''t entered any city to purchase any spell books for a long time!" "Repeat after me! Whether it works or not, we can only leave it to fate!" Aldeina said helplessly. I followed Aldeina''s instructions to ce my hand on the Fire Gem, and started to chant the Fire Incantation. "Grand Firelord, by the use of the Fire Gem, I humbly summon your presence! Descend, Ifrit!" Right at the moment where my Incantation waspleted, a gigantic Hexagram Spell Formation appeared. The Spell Formation shed with a burst of orange light, followed by a suddenbustion of mes, and a gigantic humanoid shaped monster twice my height appeared. He looked like an European Knight d in armor, except its armor waspletely me red in color, and beneath the armor, its eyes and mouth was constantly emitting mes. I could not believe it, I had never learnt such a Spell before, but I had actually sessfully summoned it! But after appearing for two seconds, this Humanoid shaped Ifrit started flickering, and after a few shes, IFrit suddenly disappeared. Aldeina looked at me while I was still controlling the Spell Formation: "Seems like getting you to summon Ifrit before even reaching Level 500 is still too early! You better go up yourself!" Just that two seconds of maintaining Ifrit had already consumed ? of my MP, it was truly an MP burner, something that I had to make sure never to use! On one side, Phiona was entangled with the Fire Phoenix and on the other, Lucky was busy avoiding the Faerie Dragon''s attacks, I did not know which side to help! I could not hope to count on Tank as well! He was still recuperating with the help of Aldeina, and it looked like he still needed some time to recover! Just as I was contemting about which side to help, a Yin-Yang symbol appeared in front of me and flew over. Everyone saw the Yin-Yang symbol, but no one had time to react as the Yin-Yang Symbol flew in a straight line andnded on the Faerie Dragon''s body. Upon touching the Faerie Dragon, the Yin-Yang Symbol unleashed a dazzling gold light and disappeared. The Faerie Dragon was initially focused on Lucky, causing it to be taken by surprise by the sudden attack of the Yin-Yang Symbol, but the Yin-Yang Symbol did not seem to produce any harmful effect, as nothing happened to the Faerie Dragon. But we quickly realized what the Yin-Yang Symbol was for. The Magic Vortex in the Faerie Dragon''s hand suddenly exploded into countless of stars and disappeared into the air, and all of the Magic Missiles that the Faerie Dragon was producing suddenly stopped, and all of her spells failed. The Faerie Dragon was stunned by the sudden disappearance of the Magic in her hand, and tried frantically to congeal the Spell once more, but nothing happened. I saw that Lucky was at a loss because of the sudden turn of events, and immediately shouted to him: "Lucky, that''s a Five Elements Seal Formation, It can''t use anymore Magical Attacks, kill it quickly before it recovers!" Lucky rushed over without hesitation, and the unprepared Faerie Dragon was instantly entangled with Lucky once again. The situation gradually tilted to Lucky''s favor, and the Faerie Dragon''s loss was only a matter of time. A Faerie Dragon that had lost its Magical Attacks is a useless Dragon, as even the lousiest Dragon in the Dragon Race, the Bone Dragon, could easily get rid of it! Although Loong-er had found the time to use the Five Elements Seal Formation to seal the Faerie Dragon''s Magic and saved Lucky, she had to pay the price of immense pain. The unknown monster bit down on Loong''er''s tail, and like a snake devouring its prey, it started to swallow Loong''er up bit by bit. This Monster was around the same size as Loong''er, but its head was extremelyrge, thus its mouth was alsorge, and swallowing Loong''er up was not impossible. Loong''er struggled frantically, spinning and turning in an attempt to struggle free from the Monster''s mouth, but the Monster''s nted teeth had her locked down! Right when Loong''er was about to be swallowed into the Monster''s stomach, arge swarm of Silver Wasps flew over in three perfect columns, every single Silver Wasp that passed by the Monster would use their 30 cm silver stings to stab into its body. From my angle, I could clearly see the ces where the Monster were stung had turnedpletely moss green. The Silver Wasps'' poison were truly powerful! The Monster opened itsrge mouth and screamed in pain. Loong''er used this rare opportunity to pull her tail out of the Monster''s attack range. After plunging their silver stings into the monster, the back of the Silver Wasps lit up, the white light extended out and actually formed new stings. The Silver Wasps that had participated in the attack immediately rejoined therge swarm and that surrounded the Thunderbirds, it could even be said that the Thunderbirds were beaten ck and blue. One of the Thunderbird suddenly opened its beak and shot out a dazzling white lightning ball, but the Silver Wasps seemed to be unafraid of any lightning balls hitting them. The Silver Wasp that was struck directly by the lightning ball shed with a bright light, and a few arc lightnings jumped from its body to the few other Silver Wasps around it, spreading through the entire swarm of Silver Wasps, but they had no reaction to it! The Silver Wasps'' bodies seemed to bepletely made up of pure mercury, while their exteriors had an additional unique silver, making them extremely good conductors of electricity, allowing the lightning to pass through their bodies without harming them. One of the Thunderbird suddenly rushed at the swarm of Silver Wasps and used its beak to peck on the Silver Wasps. One of the Silver Wasp that could not dodge the peckings was instantly broken into three pieces, one piece stuck in the beak of the Thunderbird while the other two floated in the air. The Thunderbird raised its head and swallowed it. The remaining two parts of the Silver Wasps automatically transformed into two mercury droplets whichbined into arger droplet before flying back into the Fire Gem. The Thunderbird that had eaten a part of the Silver Wasp figured that it had gained the upper hand, and immediately pounced onto the next Silver Wasp, but it only managed to fly for a second before it suddenly froze, and the entire Thunderbird dropped straight down in its exact flight posture, like a statue. The Silver Wasps were ultimately mobs evolved from me Hos, and they were fundamentally poisonous. Furthermore, mercury was by itself poisonous. This stupid bird actually ate the Silver Wasp, isn''t it the same as it swallowing a poisonous pill! The other Thunderbirds were dumbstruck, and no longer dared to swallow the Silver Wasps. But the Thunderbirds continued to use their beaks to peck and destroy one Silver Wasp after another, but these Silver Wasps that were destroyed simply turned into mercury droplets and flew back into the Fire Gem. Although the Thunderbirds were destroying the Silver Wasps quickly, but the group attacks of the Silver Wasps were even more terrifying, and one of the Thunderbird that was in the process of pecking a Silver Wasp to death was suddenly stabbed with over 300 stings, and instantly fell down through the clouds. Ikeda Rikio started to use superior healing spells to heal his Companions, which was amon capability that all ordinary Tamers should have. True Tamers should learn many healing and support type spells, and do battle by relying on many Companions and Servants while staying at the back to support them. A Soul Maniptor was an advanced ss of Tamers, thus their fighting style should be the same, but the Soul Maniptors have an additional powerful offensive spell, where in emergency, they could use their Companions to dy the enemy, while the Soul Maniptor could stay behind and prepare the spell to resolve the enemy. But I''m afraid there isn''t many tamers like me who don''t even know any healing spell and have so many Companions together! I could not stand idly while Ikeda Rikio was giving his Companions more HP. I took out a de from my waist, and a Boomerang expanded out from my wrist. I unleashed two Boomerangs at the same time at twopletely different trajectories, one to the left and the other to the right towards Ikeda Rikio, who foolishlypletely overlooked my ranged weapons. But in any normal circumstance, he would have never thought that I would use ranged weapons at him, which Tamer would ever do such a thing! Ikeda Rikio main train of thoughts was that we would constantly use our Companions to battle and not fight head on, thus he never thought that I would throw out ranged weapons, much less two Boomerangs! The two Boomerangs flew at high speeds towards Ikeda Rikio. "AHHH!!" With a wail, Ikeda Rikio''s Spell was stopped, both of his shoulders had the exact same holes in them, I never thought that the sneak attack would had been so effective, the two Boomerangs had cut off his arms, and one of them was even flung away with his staff in hand! I extended both of my arms, and with a sh of light, both Boomerangs returned into my hands. Although the Boomerangs were difficult to control, but after familiarizing with it, I realized that they were extremely beneficial with many advantages, firstly, they did not fly in a straight trajectory and thus extremely difficult to defend against, furthermore, they would never be stained with blood. Every time after I cut through a monster or enemy with my sword, there would berge amounts of blood or viscous liquid, but the high speed Boomerangs would fling these things away while on the way back, the blood of the Japs are too disgusting! With both of his arms gone, Ikeda Rikio could no longer use any supporting spells. I took the opportunity tounch an attack on the unknown monster, it was the most fearsome out of Ikeda Rikio''s Companions. From its back, I rushed ahead, but right at the moment when I caught up with its head, the monster suddenly turned back, and in that one leap, i jumped into its mouth. After being bitten by the Poison Dragon once before, I had gained the experience in such a situation, and used the Dragonnce to prevent the Monster from closing its mouth. I unsheathed the Dragon King Sword*, and started tocerate the Monster''s mouth with the 8 flying swords. The Monster did not have a tongue, which saved me a lot of time as I used the Dragon King Sword to poke multiple holes in its brain, after which I took the Dragon Lance and rushed out of its mouth. Right at that moment when I rushed out, a Thunderbird flew at me, it was the Thunderbird that had fought its way out of the trap and was also the remaining Thunderbird of the original eight. Behind it were a swarm of Silver Bees that followed closely. The Thunderbird might had nned to fly towards the Monster and suddenly turn to force the Silver Wasps to collide onto the Monster. But It was at that moment when I climbed out of the Monster, and the Thunderbird did not manage to avoid the Silver Wasps, and instead flew into my embrace, bringing me along with it. I used the dagger hidden at the side of my leg and ended its life. I controlled the Silver Wasps that had lost theirst target towards the unknown monster. There were about 500 Silver Wasps remaining, I lost less than half of them. A portion of them were separated to keep Ikeda Rikio busy, and now that Ikeda Rikio''s hands were gone, he could no longer do much, thus I gathered all of the Silver Wasps back. The Remaining Silver Wasps were the survivors from the fight with the Thunderbirds. Finally, I could coordinate the Silver Wasps to help Loong''er to get rid of the monster. I brought the Silver Wasps to rush at it again, and intentionally provoked the Monster to bite at me, in which he truly took the bait. I turned tail and ran, while the Monster had its mouth wide opened while chasing after me. 30 Silver Wasps immediately rushed into the Monster''s mouth, which I had controlled to be sent to their deaths. The immense poison of the Silver Wasps should be enough, a third of one single Silver Wasp was enough to kill a Thunderbird, so 30 of them should be able to kill the monster! As expected, the monster that had swallowed the 30 wasps continued to chase me for a moment before trembling, but it did not stop. It seems that his resistance towards poison is much stronger than the Thunderbirds. 30 Silver Wasps were actually not enough! A sudden burst of wind swept by my side. Tank rushed forward and used the sledgehammer on the back of its forelimb to smash the Monster once. The Monster was instantly flung out, and Loong''er rushed forward and used her body to wrap around the Monster''s mouth. Tank followed behind closely, then hugged onto the Monster''s tail and started nibbling at it. He is nning to eat to evolve again, but why is he eating something that is still alive now? I watched as Tank and Loong''er worked together to fight against the monster, when a strange sensation suddenly enveloped me from behind. I anxiously turned to look, and noticed Ikeda Rikio standing behind me. I did not know how he had managed to sneak up from behind, but he was already right on my tail. Hope seemed to have said something about not letting him touch me, but now¡­..! I watched on helplessly as he revealed a sinister smile, and a cold chill shot up my spine¡­. (*) Dragon King Sword was called Main Sword previously. Chapter 142: KO Chapter 142: KO Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Ikeda Rikio''s figure suddenly blurred as he stood up from his mount and suddenly jumped towards me. As everything happened too quickly, I was caughtpletely unprepared! BOOM! A muffled sound came out, it sounded as though someone''s head had knocked onto a wall, but I clearly heard the sound from my mind and not my ears. "You¡­.?" Ikeda Rikio did not merge into my body as to how I thought it would had happened, and instead stumbled backward and eximed out loud as his mount quickly caught him. A voice came out from behind me, It sounded like Phantom. "Ouch! It hurts! Don''t you know what is firste, first served? I''m already in here, you better queue up and wait for your turn!" It turned out that a Character can only merge with another once, Phantom had already merged into my body, and it can be seen as having two spirits in one flesh body, but now that Ikeda Rikio tried to merge into me, It is like another spirit trying to enter, but my flesh body can''t handle so many spirits. Thus, Ikeda Rikio had collided with Phantom, who was purely in a spiritual form without a tangible body, but he could be touched by another spirit. Ikeda Rikio''s attempt to possess me resulted in him colliding with Phantom. The end result was both Ikeda Rikio and Phantom were being forced out of my body! I was perspiring in cold sweat at that moment, I barely escaped with my life. "Go and die!" My first reaction was to sh forward with the Dragon King Sword in hand at an extremely fast speed and caused both Ikeda Rikio and his Mount to be sliced in half. After slicing Ikeda Rikio in half, I turned back to look at the battle between the Companions. Out of my expectations, Ikeda Rikio''s Companions were actually still fighting. Ikeda Rikio''s voice suddenly rang out. "Hahahaha! Don''t you know? I am Japan''s only Soul Maniptor, my unique ss has a Passive Ability called Symbiosis, unless my Companions are all killed, I can''t be killed! Hahahaha!" Soul Maniptors actually have such a passive ability? Soul Maniptors are a special ss, but the shops in cities only sell ordinary spellbooks and only special NPCs provides the special spells for such hidden sses. But ever since I started ying [Zero], I''ve hardly had the time to step into the cities, much less being able to meet the special NPCs. I rarely even meet the cksmiths, pharmacists or popr NPCs, much less the special NPCs hidden in the cities! Ikeda Rikio actually found an NPC that had rewarded him with a Soul Maniptor Spell, he truly struck it big! Right from the start, I, as a Soul Maniptor, have only managed to utilize the additional Companions slots and the additional increase in Magical Attack, I don''t even know how to gain the necessary skills or even, where to begin. As for the Experience Absorption, for some reason, it is still grayed out and unusable, I suppose my level is insufficient or I need to fulfill some special requirement to activate! Although Ikeda Rikio was killed by me, he and his Companions have the Symbiosis skill, looks like it is a must to kill all of them! The situation was still as chaotic. Phiona and the Fire Phoenix were still at odds with each other clearly because Phiona was not high leveled enough to attack and could only resort to defending. Lucky and the Faerie Dragon were still biting at each other. Without magic, the Faerie Dragon could only rely on her ws and teeth to resist Lucky, but obviously Lucky was having it easy, and his victory was only a matter of time. The Silver Wasps had cleared the Thunderbirds and were by my side waiting for my nextmand. Loong''er was coiled around the mouth of the Unknown Monster, preventing it from moving while Tank was hugging onto the Monster''s tail and nibbling it bit by bit, their victory depended on the speed of Tank''s meal. Aldeina was providing Supporting spells for Phiona, it was a pity that Phiona''s Magic Immunity also affects supporting spells, as the supporting spells that increased her damage did not do much at all! Phiona was having the most difficult time, and I should be helping her, but I was of no use in a battle between two Phoenixes. Even before I could get close, I would be burnt to death, thus I decided to help Lucky to kill the Faerie Dragon first, and have Lucky settle on the Fire Phoenix. As for the Silver Wasps, I should let them help Phiona first, at least to hold on until we have finished with this monster. "Heart Piercer!" I equipped the Dragon Lance and rushed forward from the Faerie Dragon''s back, along with various other spells that could nuke high damage. The Dragon Lance''s tip unleashed an explosion. The Faerie Dragon''s scales was unable to handle my Ultimate Attack, causing the Faerie Dragon to freeze. Seeing the opportunity, Lucky chomped down at the Faerie Dragon''s chest, the bite looked devastating. Lucky forcefully swung his head out, and ripped out arge chunk of flesh, along with blood that sprayed across Lucky''s body. The Faerie Dragon spasmed intensely while Lucky grabbed onto the Faerie Dragon from its back. Seeing that the Faerie Dragon was about to die, I suddenly had a very bad thought. ording to the system, one need not obtain a Companion by capturing wild Monsters, a yer''s Companion can also be captured, but once a person''spanion is captured by another yer, the owner will not only lose his Companion but also suffer the punishment of having one Companion Slot removed. If I can capture the Faerie Dragon, Ikeda Rikio will lose a Companion Slot. Although I have reached a limit for my Companions, I can keep the Dragon Egg and give it to someone else, or maybe even sell it at the Auction House and earn arge sum of money! Lucky grabbed onto the Faerie Dragon and prevented it from struggling free. That was when I removed my gloves and used [Capture]. I received a notification stating that I was initiating an attack on another yer, but the Faerie Dragon was Ikeda Rikio''s Companion and we were not from the same Country, thus although I had received the notification, it did not reveal the yer''s ID or any PK protection etc. The system''s notification also revealed the Faerie Dragon''s Loyalty, which was at 87, still a distance away from 90! Hahaha! Heavens is truly helping me! I attempted [Capture] multiple times and failed, but the information box revealed that the Faerie Dragon''s Loyalty was constantly dropping. Basically, every three [Capture] spells that I used would reduce the Faerie Dragon''s Loyalty by 1 point, furthermore, the more I decreased the Loyalty, the faster the Loyalty would be reduced. After casting [Capture] for about 30 times, every single cast would cause the Faerie Dragon''s Loyalty to drop by one. When its Loyalty dropped to 23, a white light shed. The Faerie Dragon transformed into a purple Dragon Egg andnded in Lucky''s ws. I anxiously kept the Dragon Egg in my Bracelet as it was definitely worth a few cities! Thest time I sold the few Companion Eggs, they were already worth a huge sum of money, a Dragon would be worth much more than all of thembined! But it will be best if I return and asked the rest first, I can gift it to someone who doesn''t have a Companion, I''m notcking in money now anyway, it isn''t a need to sell it. _______________________________________________________________________________ After keeping the Dragon Egg, I looked up and saw Lucky already entangling with the Fire Phoenix. Phiona gasped for breaths by the side, her ck mes were flickering so badly that it looked as though her mes were close to being extinguished! Luckypletely ignored the Fire Phoenix''s attacks and engaged in a firefight. Every time the Fire Phoenix unleashed mes, Lucky would unleash his Dragon Fire. Although this technique was a no-brainer, Lucky was constantly being healed by Aldeina, and the Fire Phoenix was close to exhaustion due to its previous battle with Phiona. All in all, Lucky was at the advantage. In the distance, I could not get close, and could only use my Crossbow to shoot at the Fire Phoenix. As the Fire Phoenix was many levels higher than Phiona, it was able to bring down many Silver Wasps that had surrounded it while fighting Phiona, and less than 30 of the Silver Wasps were left. But, many ants can still bite an elephant to death. After being restored, Phiona joined back in the battle alongside Lucky and with the support of my crossbow arrows, we managed to beat down the Fire Phoenix. I kept my Crossbow and moved over with the intent to capture the Phoenix, but the information box revealed that the Phoenix''s Loyalty was 100, It was impossible! Flying into a fit of rage due to my attempt to capture it, the Fire Phoenix used all of its remaining strength to unleash a Fireball at me before dying. It was not an ordinary Fireball. The Fireball used by Mages were ssified as Basic Spells, and all Beginner Staffs were equipped with this Magic. It could be called a Universal Spell, and all Mages would have it! Although the Fire Phoenix''s Fireball looked like a Fireball, in reality, it should be called [Phoenix Heart mes], its might multiple folds stronger than any Mage''s Fireball. At that moment when I was unable to avoid the spell, the Fire Gem on my Helmet flickered with a light and the mercury flowed out in front of me and formed a shield, like how it did when it blocked the missile, and sessfully intercepted the Fireball. Apart from the green smoke that arose from the collision, nothing else urred. The mercury is indeed strange, it only seems to react towards high speed flying objects and Magic, but does not activate when in close battle brawls. I guessed that it could only protect me against long-range attacks or Magical attacks, and useless in melee battles! After handling the Fire Phoenix, I turned back with the thought to help Loong''er. To my surprise, I was not needed, Loong''er was idling by the side, Tank was already holding onto the Monster''s Head nibbling away! We waited for Tank to finish eating before we descended to the ground. The Weather Test had ended, and the ground was covered with ayer of white snow. Apparently, the Weather Test not only tested in thunder and lightning but even trialed on a blizzard! Aside from Lucky, I unsummoned Phiona and the rest. Hope and Felix had logged off in the sky, who knew if they would appear in the sky when they logged back in or appear on the ground with the rtive coordinates as to where they logged off in the sky. If they relogged and appeared in the sky, I could still get Lucky to intercept them while falling. Iid on the floor in boredom and sky gazed while Lucky slept soundly by the side. Dragons slept the most! Previously, to prevent them from affecting me in battle, I had them logged off, but I did not know when they woulde back on, thus I had to wait in boredom, and decided to use the time to sort out the mess in my Bracelet. Although the Bracelet ignored Weight, there were too many things inside, that affected me in looking for things! Like thest time when I had to hand rk the materials, it took me a long time to find them. Since I had nothing to do, I packed everything neatly. If I had never organized it, I would have never known, but it truly gave me the shock of my life! I had everything inside my Bracelet! Firstly, I organized the materials that I had gathered from Monsters to one side, which piled up to the size of a hill, and aside from themon materials like [Refined Iron] or [ck Wood], I had many strange pelts and monster nuclei. Aside from materials, I had plenty of equipment, all the drops from mobs that I killed while leveling were picked up by me, unlike many others who gotzy to pick up all the trash equipment, I never left one on the ground. After packing all of them, I realised that I truly had plenty of junk. There were all sorts of equipment, enough to equip a 1000 yers! Aside from the junk equipment, I realized that there were many Unidentified Items, which were usually equipment with additional properties. I figured, since I had nothing to do, I could practice on my Appraised skill. 99% of items were appraised sessfully in one try, and basically, all of them were trash with one or two lousy properties, which were good for Beginners, but I was already close to Level 500, all of it was useless for me! Suddenly, I noticed a Crystal Ball among the trash. What''s that? I finally remembered where I had obtained it, it was from Loong''er''s Father, the Ryu [Named Ao Guang] (Mentioned in Chapter 38 I''m Broke!). At that point of time, he did mention that it was useful for me, but I hadpletely forgotten about it after receiving it, and had not used it until now! I threw everything else back into the Bracelet and started studying it. It did not need to be appraised, in its Description Box, it was indicated that it was called [Dragon Strike Ball], and one other line: Contains theplete Dragon Strike Skill. Dragon Strike Skill? What is that? I stared at it in a daze, How do I learn this skill? I ced the ball in my hand and used Star Gaze to observe it, but I could not see anything! I raised it up to allow the sunlight to shine on it and inspected it around, still nothing! Right, it was the Ryu that gave it to me, Loong''er should know something about it! I quickly summoned Loong''er out. "Loong''er, do you recognize this ball?" "Isn''t that a Dragon Pearl?" As expected, Loong''er was able to recognize it instantly. "Do you know what is it used for?" "It can record things down, like a book!" "Do you know how is it used? I can''t read the things inside!" Loong''er answered: "It isn''t meant to be read" "Huh? Not meant to be read?" "This is an object unique to our Dragon Race, you need to swallow it, and you will know what is recorded inside." My eyes instantly widened as I looked at the crystal ball which had a diameter of almost five to six cm. "Swallow?" "Yes!" Loong''er nodded her head fervently, indicating that she did not remember wrongly. I looked at the bead in a daze, how can I swallow it? It was indeed small for a Dragon as they could easily swallow a few hundred of such beads, but it was too huge for me! Ignoring the fact that my mouth was not big enough, to begin with, even if I managed to somehow swallow it down, it would just choke me to death! Chapter 143: The Dragon Pearl Chapter 143: The Dragon Pearl Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry After considering for a long time, I still decided for a go at it. "Can this be digested?" I did not want to consume it to realize that it was indigestible, and if that were to happen, I would constantly feel something bouncing back and forth inside my stomach everytime i ran! Loong''er replied with a tone of uncertainty: "It should be digestible! I have never heard of a Dragon swallowing a Dragon Pearl that was indigestible! But a Dragon''s digestive system is better, I do not know if a Divine Demon Werewolf Hybrid can be able to digest it!" "Forget it! We will know once I try it out, it is just a game anyway, at most, I''ll just lose two levels!" I tried to swallow the Dragon Pearl, but it was simply toorge, and even after forcing and exerting strength, I could not swallow it. I had initially thought to ask Lucky to help, but afraid that he would exert too much force, I decided against that and got Aldeina to help instead. I took off my Helmet, then handed the Dragon Pearl over to Aldeina. She looked at it: "Can this still be used after breaking it into smaller pieces?" Loong''er exined: "If a Dragon Pearl is shattered, it bes useless. Furthermore, a Dragon Pearl is not so easily broken!" Rendered helpless, I held the Dragon Pearl right by my mouth and gestured. "It seems to be a little too big¡­.urghh¡­..ahh¡­..cough¡­..coughhh¡­.Aldeina¡­.are you trying to kill me! ¡­..cough cough cough cough¡­" Right when I was gesturing on how to swallow the Pearl, Aldeina suddenly kicked the Pearl and forced the entire Pearl into my mouth! It almost choked me to death! "Are you trying to murder me?!" "Isn''t down your throat now?" "Huh?" I looked at my empty hands. "It seems to be in already!" "That''s right! I''ve seeded in helping you!" Loong''er rushed up to me: "How''re you feeling?" "My mouth hurts!" "I mean, any other sensations!" "My stomach feels hot like it''s filled with spice!" "Something''s wrong! After consuming a Dragon Pearl, one should feel extremely cool!" Loong''er muttered by the side. "Wait, wait, it''s beginning to be cool!" "That''s right, there should be a cool sensation." Loong''er eximed happily: "Cooling means that it has started to digest. Wait for a little while longer, after you have digested the entire Pearl, you will receive the information recorded inside it." "Alright, I got it!" I unsummoned Aldeina and Loong''er, then continued to wait for Hope and Felix. The cool sensation in my stomach disappeared quickly. I suddenly heard a deep and resounding voice, which sounded like Loong''er''s Father, the Shinryuu (Ao Guang). I looked around, but did not see anything that could speak, furthermore, Lucky was still sprawled on the ground without any reaction. The sound was meant only for me. "Fated man, you have obtained the Dragon Pearl, an Inheritance bestowed by my Dragon Race - Dragon Strike Skill. This is a profound set of battle technique, with its content split mainly into two parts." "The first part, an offensive set of techniques through Qi Gathering - Shinryuu Absolute Strike. The second part is a defensive technique - Matchless Dragon Dispel Forms." "For the Shinryuu Absolute Strike, it mainly focuses on condensing the True Qi drawn from the body, to be quickly unleashed to wound the enemy. The Absolute Strike consists of 3 Melee techniques and 3 ranged techniques." "Why are there even range techniques?" I questioned the voice, but the Shinryuu did not pause for me, apparently, the voice was like a recording that did not possess any response capability! "The melee techniques include the [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike], the [Dragon Glide Strike], and the strongestbo technique - [Heavenly Dragon Sessive Strike]. Now, we will begin learning these three techniques." My body suddenly moved without my control. "The [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike] requires the Left hand to wield the Heaven (Yang) and the Right as Earth (Yin) and bybining both hands together, you can unleash the most damage!" My body suddenly bent down into a Horse Stance while my hands moved in the shape of a Tai Chi circle. Furthermore, the path that my palms took in the sky had a faint blue light trace, afterpleting the Tai Chi Circle, both my arms retracted back and pushed the Tai Chi formation exactly on the two dots. With a ''Bang'', the giant stones ahead that blocked our path formed by the hailstones exploded into many pieces and flew all over, which struck my head. I had removed my Helmet when consuming the Dragon Pearl. If I had it on, being struck by the stones would not have been too terrible, but it was a pity my body was still being controlled, and I was unable to even dodge! After the rain of stones, the Shinryuu''s voice came out inside my ears again. "You have gained the [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike], if you wish to use it in the future, simply recite its name and repeat the corresponding movements, as with the other techniques in the future. Now, I will impart the [Dragon Glide Strike] to you, the [Dragon Glide Strike] is a technique that uses the leg to strike the enemy." I suddenly broke into a sprint uncontrobly, and at the peak of my sprint, I suddenly leapt into the air, where I faced a faint shadow that suddenly appeared before me, clearly an illusionary target. With my legs tilted further back, I felt like Superman, and when i flew over the shadow''s head, both of my legs suddenly wedged his head between them while my body lowered down, where my hands pushed his abdomen region and hauling out forward. The shadow was instantly flung far into the distance. "This technique derives its power from the speed of your run and can be greatly improved by wearing Heavy Armor." Oh my god, this technique is just acrobatics, I doubt I can use it by myself! "The third technique is [Heavenly Dragon Sessive Strike], the first step to it is to use [Dragon Glide Strike] tounch the enemy out, not at a low angle but as high up as possible and not forward." The Shadow suddenly walked back to his original position and prepared to be a target once again. My body once again broke out into a sprint uncontrobly, I rushed to his front, and immediately unleashed the [Dragon Glide Strike] and tossed him upwards. But this time, I did not stand in my original position like previously, but borrowed the inertia of the force and rolled forward to follow up with the shadow, who at that moment had not fallen yet. My arms started moving again, and with one look, I recognized the move to be [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike]. I then realized that the [Heavenly Dragon Sessive Strike] is joining the [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike] and [Dragon Glide Strike]. The Shadow figure was struck by the [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike], but did not shatter like the rocks, but was instead shot further away. I thought it had ended, but my body moved by itself once more and rushed forward. The speed of the sprint was something I doubted I could achieve by myself! Miraculously, I appeared below where the Shadow was dropping and suddenly stood still as my body began to bend backward with my left leg lifted up high, to the point that my legs formed a straight line parallel to the ground. Luckily, I was in the Game and no in real life, otherwise, I would definitely be unable to walk for a month! My left leg struck the Shadow urately, but this time, he was not kicked outwards but up. After kicking the Shadow upwards, my body flipped backward with my hands supporting my entire body, and I stood upright once again. At that moment, the Shadow had exhausted the inertia and reached his peak height. My arms drew the Tai Chi circle again. As expected, It was another [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike]. As the shadow was flung straight upwards and I had performed a backflip when I performed thest Fusion Strike, the Shadow hadnded right in front of me, and my Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike struck him outwards. Although I did not know how much damage this series of attacks would add up to, with my damage output, I could already unleash devastating damage with my ordinary attacks, but this technique had not ended yet. I continued to run forward, and upon arriving at the Shadow, I performed the same gestures and unleashed the [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike] again, after which it repeated for another five to six times before the voice came out again. "The [Heavenly Dragon Sessive Strike] is ssified as a Sure Kill Attack, the series of attacks can be repeated endlessly as what you have experienced until your target dies or your MP reaches 0. Of course, you can choose to stop after the first series of Sessive strikes. TO break your technique, your opponent''s speed has to at least twice of yours, otherwise, he can only receive your attacks until death." What a formidable unbounded technique, if I were to use it continuously, even if Japan''s Sun Goddess, the Amaterasu Omikami were to descend down, I believe I could chain it to death. My MP was close to 8000, the chain that the Dragon Pearl made me unleash only used up 300 MP, for me topletely exhaust my MP, I would need to unleash over a 100 of those techniques! By that time, I believe no one can continue standing! _____________________________________________________________________________________________ "Now, I will impart to you the ranged attack, which includes: [Shinryuu Dark Missile], [Shinryuu Lightning Missile], [Shinryuu me Bomb]. All of them are used in the same fashion, by reciting their names their respective names, you will be able to cast them." I suddenly extended my right hand out with my palm facing forward, my five fingers extended out while my left hand held onto my right wrist, and my mouth started to recite the name of the spell. "Shinryuu Dark Missile!" My palm suddenly formed countless of small ck dots that converged together. These ck dots formed into an apple-sized ck ball of light that flew out suddenly. I was forced backward from the recoil, as though my hand was a cannon. My left hand was used to reduce the bacsh and force transferred to my right hand. The ck ball of light flew out in a straight line until it struck a huge boulder that suddenly rose out from the ground. The boulder instantly exploded, while the things around it immediately started to deform, as though they had be soft. The Dark Missile wielded an extremely strong corrosive property! I maintained my posture and chanted: "Shinryuu Lightning Missile." A blue ball of light that looked like it was made frompressed lightning quickly converged until it reached the same size as the Dark Missile before suddenly shooting out, but this time the bacsh was not as strong. Lightning Arcs shed across the surface of the Lightning Missile, and the path where the missile flew past were all burnt to a crisp. Finally, it struck the same surface.This time, the Lightning Missile silently entered the boulder and no explosions could be heard. But one secondter, the ground suddenly shed with lightning, and I reckoned that anyone standing within its area of effect would definitely be electrocuted! Thest one was the Fire Bomb, it was the exact same method, but what came out was a fiery ball of fire, and upon descending, it razed the entirend, one could only imagine the intensity of the fireball! Afterprehending the three techniques, the voice came out again. "Now, I will begin imparting the [Matchless Dragon Dispel Forms], this is a unique set of Dao techniques, and is easier to employ. As long as you recite out the name and perform the corresponding hand seals, you will be able to use it. The Dragon Dispel Forms'' defense techniques are split into: Dispel Wind Technique, Dispel Water Technique, Dispel Earth Technique, Dispel Lightning Technique, Dispel God Technique*, Dispel Fire Technique." The Shadow that was beaten far away returned and stood in front of me. The Shinryuu started to guide me again: "The Matchless Dragon Dispel Forms is specially used to defend against the strongest spells of the Western Mages, God''s Embodiments** and the Eastern Onmyoji''s and spellcasters. Its effectiveness lies in the user''s ability to discern the type of element the enemy ns to use. The Western Mages'' Elemental Magic are usually easily recognizable, you should practice against them first." The Shadow opposite me suddenly had a staff in his hands and started to chant: "Fire curse!" Hey hey! Do you think I''m an idiot! Shouting out the name Fire Curse means it''s definitely a fire spell, I just have to use Dispel Fire Technique! "Dispel Fire!" I shouted out, with my hands automatically forming the corresponding Hand Seals, then a cutting motion from top down. But the Shadow''s staff suddenly released a blue light, and a lightning bolt descended down on the ground beneath my feet, instantly exploding me out a few meters. "The enemy will most probably employ tricks to puzzle and confuse you after he shouted for the Fire Curse, he released a Lightning Spell at the end. You have to watch the enemy''s staff, lightning type Magic will usually be pale blue with dazzling white lines, wind type magic will be milky white, water type will reveal a gentle and deep blue light while fire type will have red lines¡­." After differentiating the different colors, I was tested again and again, ultimately I was fooled by the Shadow utilizing the simr colored yet different type magic spells, but I managed to sessfully dispel a few other spells. All in all, I had a 20% sess rate! In fact, recognizing spells was rather easy, the main factor was the mental state. I was always afraid that I could not dispel the magic in time, resulting in me initiating a Dispel right after the Shadow revealed a move, but in the end, it was apletely different spell. As long as I could ovee this impatience and wait for the enemy toplete their spell before using the corresponding Dispel, it would not be as difficult. The [Matchless Dragon Dispel Forms]'' Hand Seals were extremely easy and fast to form, which could still be formed after the enemy hadpleted his spell! After practicing for a period of time, the Shinryuu spoke up again: "You have now learned all of the Dragon Strike Skill, the power of the Dragon Pearl will now dissipate!" The voice became softer and softer. It seemed like the use of the Dragon Pearl was especially convenient, just that the swallowing needs some effort! "Save me¡­.!" Right when I was in thought, I suddenly heard a voice from above and got a shock of my life when I looked up. Felix and Hope were falling from the sky, which meant that [Zero] log in system urately records the location of the yer, including the height at which he or she was at! After logging back in, Hope and Felix appeared above the clouds, where they were previously seated on my Companions, but my Companions were no longer there. At that moment, I realized that I had shifted from my original position from practicing [Heavenly Dragon Sessive Strike], Felix and Hope were dropping at where I was previously at. I anxiously shouted for Lucky to grab them. Lucky suddenly opened his eyes and saw that it was already toote to save Hope and Felix who were already on the verge ofnding on the ground, and used his gigantic wings to unleash a powerful gale that decreased the speed at which they fell. Bang! Bang! The two unlucky people finallynded. I quickly ran over to check on them. The t grasnd had two pairs of limbs struggling in midair, both of them had plunged straight into the soil head first, and their upper bodies were already plunged into the ground! In shock, I tried to rescue them, but they were in too deep and I had no strength to lift them up, and could only rely on Lucky! Lucky held onto their legs and pulled them out of the soil. The first thing that Felix said was: "I will never ever try Bungee Jumping!" Hope started to remove the armor on her body: "Luckily you had me wear this armor right from the beginning.Otherwise, I would have been smashed t!" I helped her to remove the armor: "It was the wind produced by Lucky that saved you guys. You two fell from such a high altitude, don''t talk about being smashed t, even with that armor, you would have died from that fall!" Felix looked around and asked: "Where''s that Jap dude?" "I killed him!" "You really won against him?" Hope looked at me with disbelief. "Yes, I won! He''s just another average yer, how could he have been my opponent!" "Then what do we do now?" Felix looked at me and questioned me. I pondered for a moment: "Masayoshi Matsumoto have gathered the experts from Japan, do you know what his quest is?" "I don''t!" Felix shook his head: "I only heard that they are doing an important quest to transport something, but I don''t really know the details or what the quest is!" "I know!" Hope suddenly cut in: "I know what they''re doing! It has already been spread throughout Japan, but you guys aren''t Japanese yers and thus can''t receive it!" "What exactly are they supposed to do?" I asked. "It is an extremely troublesome quest." Hope shared with us her map of Japan: "This is a yer City called Heavenly Sovereign City, built by Kyoei Organisation. Kyoei Organisation is filled with Far-right members of Japan, and they have even established a Shrine in Heavenly Sovereign City called the Keigo Shrine." "Keigo Shrine? You can even build such structures?" "Just treat it as arge buildingplex, its name is Keigo Shrine. Its capabilities is simr to that of the Church, and it is said that there are many Spirits there, all of which are Japanese people who had died contributing to Japan. Firstly, Kyoei Organisation received a quest, one of the spirit hinted that Japan''s soil has six Treasures that belongs to other countries, as long as they find the Mountain God on Mt. Fuji, they will be able to obtain one of the Treasure." "Then what are we waiting for? We should grab it first before they do. Wouldn''t it be more troublesome to seize it from the Japs?" Felix suggested excitedly. "That''s impossible!" Hope interrupted Felix. "When they received the Quest from the spirit, they obtained a Spirit Stone, without that, the Mountain God will not appear!" "Do you know where the Spirit stone is at the moment?" I asked Hope. "I don''t know about that! But, I do know that important things are either on Masayoshi Matsumoto or on the Chairman of Kyoei Organisation!" "Are we going to snatch it from them?" Felix was not willing to give up. "Stop it!" I ended his fantasies. "Masayoshi Matsumoto has more than one or two subordinates, we can''t possibly fight against all of them. Furthermore, what can you do even if you''re close to him? Even if you kill him, he might not drop the Stone, furthermore, the majority of the quest items are nontransferable or droppable!" "That means that the stone is still in the hands of the President?" "Even if it is, we can''t kill him. Killing him 10 thousand times won''t make him drop the item." "Then we can only continue to follow them?" "But when will they continue to look for the treasure?" Hope looked at the mountain filled with snow in a daze. "Hope, can you help us by entering the city to ask around?" "Of course, I''ll get to it right now." Hope said and took a Teleport Scroll and disappeared. "What do we do now?" Felix asked. "I was thinking of practicing my skills first, do you know of any locations that might have more Japs?" I had just learned the Absolute Strike techniques and needed live practice. Beating my own people was out of the question, luckily, we were in Japan, there were Japs all around, killing or injuring them would not be a problem! "At the foot of the mountain is Ban Rai City, there will definitely be people there, but don''t get surrounded! "No matter, I have Lucky with me, opening a path won''t be a problem!" I patted Lucky''s ws and he coordinated with a Dragon Roar. Fortunately, it did not attract any Japs! "Then you be careful, I won''t go down with you, I''ll grind some levels here while we wait for Hope!" "Alright! I''ll head off first, if you have any news, just private message me." With that, I summoned Night Shade and rushed down the mountain. While rushing down, I felt that Japan''s mountains were boring, Mt Fuji was t like a mound, and one could oversee the entire ce with one look. The mountains in China are truly mountains, the endless majestic mountain ranges that were intermittently visible in the sea of clouds. It was a pity that the Japs viewed Mt Fuji so highly, theirnd was too small and did not have many things, and I reckoned that in a few years time, they would have to tten Mt Fuji fornd remation. Otherwise, why would the Japs keep thinking about China''snd! Their country was simply too small! I rushed down the mountain in deep thoughts and arrived at the ce where Masayoshi Matsumoto and the rest had run away from. Further out was the small forest, and once I passed through the forest, I would arrive in Ban Rai City. Hey hey, my target practices, here Ie! The dense forest was filled with obnoxious crooked trees. On Night Shade''s back, my head had actually reached the canopy, I truly did not know if it was Night Shade being too tall or the Japan trees too short, but the trees that I were trampling on were short and resembled more like shrubs! I directed Night Shade through "Shrubs Forest", and had no choice but to stick my head closely to Night Shade''s back, otherwise my head would reach the Canopy, and I would not be able to see a thing! (*) The Dispel God Technique is Vague right now, but when the further chapter talks more about it, I might change it. It can also be written as Dispel Spirits. But as they emphasized on God''s Embodiments, I''ll stick it to that for now. (**) God''s Embodiment or Kannushi. Chapter 144: Cherry Blossom Season Chapter 144: Cherry Blossom Season Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry (Note: This chapter will be more racist and prideful than usual.) After walking a distance, Night Shade suddenly stopped. I looked up and realized that we have already walked out of the dense forest and arrived at an open space within the dense forest. There were many Japanese yers in this open space training, and I assumed it was a leveling spot. "Who are you? This ce has been reserved by our Cherry Blossom Organization" A sweet female voice came out not far from me. I turned to look towards the direction of the voice and saw an Elf Warrior dressed in Wood Armor, the green wood armor matched with the red sword that looked like a set. I then noticed that the people training here were all women, all of which were female warrior White Elves. It was a rare group, and they resembled Red Moon''s Goddess Alliance, but in truth, Goddess Alliance did recruit male yers. The Cherry Blossom Organization in front of me was rather weird, the 200 members were actually all females! "I am just passing by!" Although I did not like Japs, I could not murder women, I do not have any perverse hobbies! "Are you Ziri*?" The female Elf that spoke to me quickly became hostile and exhibited an offensive stance, while all the other female Elf Warriors immediately surrounded me after hearing her question. I had miscalcted and should have never spoken, once my mouth opened, my cover would be blown as the trantion system of the game sounded too unique! "You recognize me?" "Are you the Ziri that ughtered 3000 ck Dragon Force Members?" The same Elf questioned me. "Am I that famous?" I pondered about the usation: "How did you know it was me?" "At the start, when I saw your Dragon shaped Armor, I already suspected you. We heard that a Devil called Ziri hase from China and killed over 3000 ck Dragon Force elite members. Also, we heard that Ziri''s donned in a ck dragon-shaped armor, and at our levels, equipment is hard toe by, and finding set equipment isn''t easy at all. Very few people can find ck set equipment, much less such an exaggerated set. And the trantion system''s voice is too obvious, this means that you are a Foreigner, thus I was sure you''re Ziri!" I took off my helmet and hung it on Night Shade and sighed. I equipped mynce. "I initially nned to pass through peacefully, but since I was found out, I can only kill all of you!" I used the Dragon Lance and demonstrated a few shes in the air, which revealed threatening swish sounds as the de tip cut through the air. The Elf quickly sheathed her weapon and revealed her empty hands. "Don''t be impulsive, we do not wish to fight you!" She quickly waved her hands, and the other Elves behind her sheathed their weapons. "Then what do you want?" I summoned Phiona in her Aurora Heaven Bird Form*, whonded on my extended arm. I pushed Phiona up into the sky: "Go up and investigate the area, if there are any ambushes, let me know. Likewise, if there is anyone approaching us!" I spoke in Chinese, not intending to allow the Elves to understand my words. "You don''t have to try to avoid us!" "I am not intent-.....wait, you know Chinese?" I was slow to react and took awhile to realize that she had spoken to me in Chinese. "All of us know Chinese, although we are all from different ces, we are all students in the Chinese Language Department!" "If you don''t want to fight me, why are all of you surrounding me?" Regardless of who they were, I did not wish to continue the quarrel with them. "We want to know if you have a boat?" The Female Elf that talked to me previously asked me, and I noticed a younger girl behind her. "Hahahaha! Are you joking with me! You think I swam over from China?" Chuckles could be heard from the other girls. The Female Elf in the lead spoke up again: "We wish to borrow your boat!" "Borrow my boat?" At that moment, my train of thoughts could not follow what thedies were trying to say. "We seem to belong to nations that are hostile to each other?" I caressed the Dragon Lance in my hand, the tip of the Lance shed with cold light. "We should let this do the talking!" "We do not n to use the boat to fight, we just hope that you can send us to China!" The Female Elf anxiously shouted in hopes of rifying the situation. "You''re a Japanese, why do you want to go to China?" "Isn''t there Chinese people doing the same thing, running over to Japan?" "They are degenerates, traitors to China! I hate such people the most, those who migrate to Japan or America. At first, they said that they werepelled to do so for their livelihood because China was poor, but our Country is now well-off, but there are still people migrating, to them, the foreigners'' farts are all fragrant!" Our Dragon Fate Corporation had subsidiarypanies and branch offices all around the world, but they never hired the Chinese nationals that lived in those countries. Our subsidiarypanies and branch offices only hired the locals or China expats that lived in those countries, and we never cared about the Chinese people who migrate out of China. They had walked away from their mothend, why should we care about them? I believed that if war were to ever break out, they would even volunteer to join other countries to open fire on our fellow citizens! No one made a sound, most probably because they were all shocked by my sudden change of temperament! It took them a long while before the lead Female Elf spoke up again. "Maybe you look down on people that have abandoned their mothend, but I am one of them!" The Female Elf did not seem to have confidence when she spoke those words. "You''re a Chinese?" "No! You''ve misunderstood what I meant!" The Female Elf quickly exined: "I am a Japanese, but I don''t wish to stay in Japan but have always wanted to live my life in China!" "Is it really true that the grass is always greener on the other side? There are Chinese people that want to run to Japan and Japanese people that want to run to China! What the hell! People! In truth, you guys just don''t know what you want!" "Don''t make it sound so unpleasant!" The Female Elf''s words revealed her unhappiness to me. "We are just chasing different things, can''t a person have a different opinion and mind on things?" I did not wish to debate over human conduct with her and quickly changed the topic. "You guys can just buy your own boat! Why must you use my boat? Don''t Japanese Pirates frequent China Seas and raid our boats there?" "If we could, we would have done so long ago!" The Female Elf spoke angrily: "Boats are too expensive, do you think anyone can just build one? Those ambushes in off the coasts of China are mostlyrge corporations like the Inagawa Union or the ck Dragon Force people! They have financial backers behind them, and they pump real money into the game! Furthermore, to get to China, we have to first cross through Korea''s territorial waters, our boat will be sunk even before we get through that, how can we possibly get to China? Your boat is from China, the Koreans will definitely not do anything to you!" "But why should I send all of you to China? All of you are Japanese people, although all of you might be a left-wing organization, it does not mean you''ll be epted by China yers! Right even now, I can''t ept you! Honestly, if not for all of you beingdies and I believe in the Chivalry spirit, this ce would have already be a ughterhouse!" "You¡­..!" One of the female Elf that looked to be more aggressive in temperament rushed forward. "We merely wanted to negotiate a deal with you, you don''t have to go overboard!" My next sentence was spoken in an extremely articted and emotionless tone: "So what if I go overboard? So what if I bully all of you? I don''t even know what benefits I can receive from helping all of you immigrate illegally, furthermore, it might even bring harm to my Country! You think that just by saying you want to live in China, you can go to China? How do I know that you are not spies? You have to know, Japan''s international reputation has never been good, the value of your guarantees are less value than what you think is worth!" "Big sister**, stop trying to talk to him. He only knows how to humiliate us, and never had the thoughts to help us!" The impulsive Female Elf shouted to the Female Elf who was apparently the leader, and from the looks of her actions, as long as the leader were to nod her head, she would instantly rush at me. Right at this crucial moment, Phiona suddenly descended down from the sky andnded on my shoulder: "Master, there is a regiment of knights ahead, they will arrive at this location in 20 minutes!" I looked at the head of the Female Elves: "The adorable youngmbs have finally tear down your sheepskin and reveal your big bad wolf fangs?" I waved my Lance lightly. "Since everybody knows me as the Devil, I shall not care about adding the guilt of ughtering a fewdies!" The impulsive Female Elf saw my actions and immediately prepared herself to fight me to the death. Everyone had heard Phiona''s words. Right when she was about to rush at me, their Leader stopped her. "We did not leak your location, they might have obtained your information from other ces, or maybe it is just a coincidence!" "You can say whatever you want!" I maintained my distrust and distance with them. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Fine! We will go out all with this since we can''t even stay in Japan anymore!" She suddenly turned and faced the other Elves: "Sisters, to show our sincerity, we will intercept those Knights that are approaching. Whoever dies in this battle, gather over at Shiromizu! Understand?" The impulsive Elf spoke up. "Big sister, we will sacrifice too much for this!" "You want to end up like Big Sister Cherry?" This sentence caused everyone who objected to maintaining silence. It seemed like this "Big sister Cherry matter" was extremely important to them! The Leader turned her head and looked at me: "Can you tell us how many people are we up against?" Phiona looked at me, and I agreed. Phiona immediately spoke up: "There are 200 Knights at the vanguard and more behind them!" "That means a total of 400 enemies?" The Elf was obviously shocked by the number, she only had a total of 200 odd with her and thus ced them at a 1:2 ratio. Most importantly, they were all warriors, they might not lose in a 1 against 2 battle, but the problem was that they were all of the same profession. A warrior and a supporting profession were definitely more able and durable than two warriors, this was a point everyone knew, but the problem was that all of thedies were warriors, and none of them had a secondary profession! But luckily, they were Elves, and could at least use low-level self-restoration spells! The Elves quickly formed a defensive line in front of me, I did not know why they were so agitated, I had only casually spoken, but they had actually set their resolve to fight their fellow countrymen with their lives on the line! The head of the Female Elves stood behind the Female Elves and shouted: "Sisters, we must persevere! I have already gathered the other Sisters in the Guild Channel, the enemy only has 400 men, the time where our reinforcements arrive will be our victory!" I controlled Night Shade to walk over to the Leader of the Elves. "You have reinforcements?" "Our Cherry Blossom Organization has a total of a thousand sisters, what we have here is the organization''s Third Main Force! And I am not the President but the Captain of the Third Main Force! In the entire organization, everyone doesn''t want to stay in Japan anymore!" I chuckled. "Why are there so many of you that have the same thoughts?" The Captain immediately blushed: "You also know that Japan''s Porn Culture is flourishing, in the outside world, we are constantly being harassed and even in the game, we are never free! The Sister Cherry that I spoke about just now is one of them. She was originally the Captain of the Third Main Force, and at that time, I was her Deputy Captain! But someone in Kyoei Organisation fancied Sister Cherry, but she did not like him. Because of that, he constantly nagged at her, and ultimately, he threatened to destroy our guild, and for us, Cherry quit the game and deleted her character! But after that, we heard from some the Sisters who knows Cherry in real life that the man had somehow located Cherry. In the end, she was still caught by him! He is a member of some gang in the outside world!" "T-then what is Cherry doing now?" The Captain was already on the verge of tears: "That asshole sold her to the Entertainment Industry!" "Entertainment Industry?" Isn''t that the ce where many youngdies go to in China? "To film Adult Videos!" Seeing that I did not understand, the Captain added in. "You can just sell people off here? What is the government doing?" "You can''t do it to men, but no one cares about the women! Japan''s women are domestic animals raised by the men used to satiate their lust at night and housekeepers in the day. In times of poverty, we can even be used as money making tools!" "Aren''t you Japanese women very open-minded in this?" "Open-minded?" The Captain''s voice was already trembling incessantly, I could see that if not for her endurance, she would already be crying: "Many girls chose to give their bodies to their boyfriends when they are young, for the sake of experiencing the sense of love. If they don''t do it early, they will simply be livestock when they are older, at that time, there will no longer be feelings attached to it, and it bes a duty!" When she said thest sentence, tears rolled down her cheeks, but her expression was one of a smile. It made me feel terrible, as though something was stuck in my heart. "Found them!" A loud and clear voice interrupted our conversation. It was from the Knights. In the blink of the eye, many Knights surged into the open space from the forest. The Captain wiped away her tears and walked back to her troops: "Prepare for battle!" The Knights quickly formed up, and an extremely familiar person appeared from behind one of the Knights in the middle. Ikeda Rikio. I instantly knew what was going on. After getting killed by me, Ikeda Rikio returned to Inagawa Union and gathered his subordinates to take revenge! "Isn''t this the Cherry Blossom Organisation? Is there a collective public show today?" Ikeda Rikio was no kind soul and whatever that came out from his mouth were not kind words. The Captain of the Elves did not cower back. "You better not be too arrogant! Our sisters are already on the way, you only have 400 men, you can''t do anything!" Ikeda Rikioughed. "Can''t you see that I''ve brought Knights with me? Quickly kneel down and let us dominate the battlefield, after destroying Zi¡­..! You''re a woman?" Ikeda Rikio then noticed me on Night Shade, I had removed my Helmet, and he could see my appearance. If not for my equipment being too unique, he would never have recognized me. I did not say anything, but raised my hand towards him. "[Shinryuu Dark Missile]!" I urately struck Ikeda Rikio''s body. He actually tried to use his hands to block my spell, but a pity, the Dark Missile was extremely corrosive and would burn whatever it touched! Ikeda Rikio rotted slowly and turned into a puddle of ck water amongst the exmations of the Knights around him, and the ground emitted a green smoke and the smell of burnt pork. Only after turning into ck water did the Knight beside Ikeda Rikio, presumably the Leader of the Knights, shouted out. "Everyone get ready, capture her alive and let our brothers enjoy her body! Mages, begin the supports." The pillion riders behind the Knights all jumped down, the majority of them Mages, with a mix of Ninjas and Archers in the middle. A sheet of gold brilliance shed past us as the Knights dazzled with gold light. Seems like the enemy knows somerge area of effect Protection Spell, the light looks like some sort of Defensive Barrier! The Elf Warrior Captain immediately roared: "Attack!" It seemed to me that she was intelligent, and knew how to y to her own strengths. The agile Elf Warriors could not withstand the Knights rush by standing still, but if the Elves were to take the initiative to fight in a melee, the effect would be different. The advantages of Dexterity were easily disyed in close quartersbat. When the Elves had reached the Knights, the Support Spell had just ended, and the Knights immediately began their assault. It was just a few meters, and the mounts immediately mixed in with the Elves! All the Elves seemed to use the same actions, they bent and knelt down and shed at the horses'' legs! All of the war mounts immediately fell at the same time, and in the few seconds of battle, the 200 Knights found themselves off their mounts. I quickly retreated to the side of the empty space, and found arge rock to sit on. The Saddle was notfortable at all! Night Shade stood by the side and observed the battle with a sneer on his face. I summoned Phiona and Lucky as a precaution. I never had the thought to participate in the battle, although both parties were fighting for my sake, but to me, it was just two groups of Japanese people engaging in PK, there was nothing for me to do. "Go and die!" One of the Knights (now a footman) actually rushed out from the crowd with two swords in hand, and actually threw one of the sword at me. I did not even bother about the sword, Lucky had smacked it back at 10 times the speed the Knight had thrown at me. The Knight''s sword grazed that idiot''s ear and flew past him, in which he followed and looked back, to see the sword stabbed deep into another Knight who was looking back at it before falling. He wanted to exin, but the Knight had already transformed into a white light and disappeared. At least this idiot did not continue to advance towards me, he turned back and fought his way back into formation, what a smart*ss! Although he was a coward, at least he knew of his shorings! If all the Japs were like this, things would had been moreplicated! I suddenly remembered that Aldeina was a Command type Companion, and summoned her out to experience the battle. Being able to watch the Japanese yers fight in arge scale battle was a rare opportunity! Aldeina was instantly attracted by the battle before her. "Woah! Is this a campaign?" "How does it feel?" I pulled Aldeina over to the side and sat down. Although she was a Companion, she was still a beauty, even without Rose, I could still get by! "Their formations aren''t bad at all! Where do we support?" "We are spectators, this is a performance!" "A performance don''t have to be so serious and ferocious right? They look like enemies that had crossed paths! Ah¡­..!" Aldeina was speaking when a Knight''s Helmet flew over with his head still intact inside. "F*ck!" I grabbed the tip of the Helmet and threw the disgusting thing behind us. "AHHHHHH!" A scream from behind scared the hell out of me! When I turned back, Felix and Hope were already walking over. Hope was constantly turning back to look. I was 90% sure that the scream came from Hope! "What''re you two doing here? Was it you who screamed?" "What are all of you doing? We were just nning to sneak up on you and Hope wanted to scare you by covering your eyes, but who knew a human head wouldnd up in her embrace, and she scared the shit out of herself." Felix exined the cause for Hope''s fright. "Yeah! What are they doing?" Hope already noticed the two factions fighting ahead, but she did not know why two Japanese Factions were fighting while I, a Chinese, was actually spectating by the side! I called them over to sit with me, then exined everything to them: "Those Elves are from some Cherry Blossom Organization, they hope to borrow my Boat, while on the other side, they are Ikeda Rikio''s Inagawa Union subordinates." "Where''s that Ikeda Rikio? Why don''t I see him?" Felix had stared at the chaos for a long time before asking. "I just killed him, and he went back to respawn!" "Why is he so weak? I used to hear that he is very powerful!" Hope did not believe me. "He is a Soul Maniptor and relies on Companions. I killed him too quickly, preventing him from summoning his Companions, so what can he, an Army of One, possibly do? Furthermore, He is a Mage, but he actually stood at the frontlines, tell me, is he voluntarily looking to die or what!" "Why aren''t you helping them?" Hope looked at the Elves in the hard-pressed battle and somewhat sympathized with them. (*) Have you guys read Rebirth of the Thief who roamed the world? I was thinking of using the MC''s real Chinese name as his name in the tranted novel, but instead of Ziri as his IGN (In game name), will Purple Sun sound better? Zirai will be Purple Moon, like how Nie Yan (In RotT), is called Nirvana me in the novel! (But remember, at the beginning of the novel, when the MC was creating the character, the game encouraged him to use Chinese Characters, I don''t really know how the Japanese or other nationals ying the game do the same thing. HMMMMM.) (**)I used Big sister, but they are Japanese yers and thought of using Oneesan, oneechan, etc etc. what do you guys think? Chapter 145: The value of trust Chapter 145: The value of trust Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "How do I know if they''re being honest or not! So I chose to let them fight, and the best scenario is if all of them die!" I did not care, they are not from China! "But they are women!" Hope had the urge to help them. "You shouldn''t randomly help others." I stopped the both of them. "How goes your search for the Spirit Stone?" "I didn''t find anything!" Felix answered. "Then why are the two of you here? Quickly go back and continue searching!" "Oh!" The two of them detoured around the empty area and headed to another city. I continued to observe the PK performance, which was truly spectacr. The Female Elf Captain was too nimble and agile and resembled a dexterous fox leaping in and out between the Knights, yet no one was able to get close to her. The aggressive Elf that almost fought with me was another prominent one, her movements were extremelyrge, every attack of hers looked to be in full force. From the way she fought, I could tell that she must have definitely chosen to ce all her points in Strength. This was a rarely seen Female Elf model that walked the path of pure brute strength! Amongst the battlefield, I noticed the shy youngdy from before, her profession seemed to be some Battle Sacrificer, she was always situated at the rear, although she would asionally run up to strike some enemies, the rest of her time was spent giving blood to her allies! This pure Warrior Organization was not as weak as they looked, they had in fact exploited one of [Zero]''s significant feature - Variety and differences in the Professions. [Zero] had established an extremelyplicated Profession System, every Profession would develop differently, ording to how the yer groomed him or herself. A pure Warrior could be differentiated into 4 Generic Paths that had over 20 subpaths in each of them. Further adding the different advantages of different races, even more varieties would appear in just one profession itself. Maybe because they were all Female yers withparatively more delicate minds, although the Cherry Blossom Organization Members were all Warriors, they had in fact branched out into different varieties in the profession itself. The Captain was a Dexterity Warrior, the impulsive girl was a Strength Warrior, while the smallest girl was a Battle Sacrificer. From the looks of it, they had in fact sessfully obtained all the different Professions, but a pity they did not have a Mage withrge AOE* spells! Although Ikeda Rikio''s Knights had the advantage in numbers, the Cherry Blossom Organization was able to gain the upper hand slowly. Although there were casualties, the Female Elves sessfully controlled the situation, most importantly, the Captain had specially formed a small group to break through the enemy''s lines and kill the enemy''s Mage Camp. They were all Dexterity Warriors with fast movement speed. Adding that Mages were the slowest Profession, it was simply a Big bad wolf dropping into a herd of sheep. In an instant, the enemy''s mages were cut by half, and although the Archers were able to intercept them for a short while, they were still not the opponents of the Elf Warriors, and after a few bouts, the entire back line was destroyed. I watched on with great interest until Aldeina suddenly shouted: "The Knights are about to unleash a Finishing Blow!" I hurriedly focused on the Knight Regiment''s movements, at the start I was not able to catch anything, but then I realized that inside the regiment, there were about 20 odd Knights that were slowly retreating, while the Knights around them would cover their empty spots and defend against the Elves. This group of Knights slowly retreated out of the chaotic mess and summoned their war mounts. This group of Knights was a few that did not have their war mounts injured, and could still actually mount on them! They quickly formed up, while the Knights in the mess suddenly split apart like the Red Sea and formed a pathway, where the 20 Mounted Knights initiated a charge. Although this 20 men charge did not possess a terrifying threat, the damage was still sufficient for the Elves that were weaker in Constitution! The Cherry Blossom Organizationdies did not expect that they would meet with the Knights'' Charge head on at such a moment. The 20 Mounted Knights were like Knives cutting through the Elves formation, their frail screams along with the graceful figures flew all over. Without looking, one could also tell what had happened to the Elves at the front. Around 10 meters away from me, I saw a mist of red blood in the sky, a few beautiful heads had flown out of the chaos, one of which belonged to the youngest Battle Sacrificer. Aldeina was stunned by the scene. "That...! Too terrifying! Master, can I go and help them?" I instantly pulled the already standing Aldeina back down to sit. "Only when one side ispletely obliterated, otherwise, we will not move! That is how they will earn my trust, with their blood!" "But¡­." I raised my hand, an indication for Aldeina to stop talking. "If you truly can''t watch the battle without doing anything, you can give them all a Full Blessing, that is my bottom line!" "Alright!" Aldeina had no other choice, she was still my Companion and could not go against my intentions. Although a simple Blessing could not help much, it had indeed lessened the pressure on the Cherry Blossom Organization Elves. After receiving the Blessing, the Impulsivedy fanatically rushed to the mounted Knights and used her slender red sword to parry with the Knight''s Broadsword which produced a series of sparks before being forced back. It was impossible for a Pure Strength Elf to fight head-on against a Knight that used their Strengths for a living. But after being forced to retreat, the Elf Captain suddenly appeared behind the Knights. The Impulsive Elf was just a distraction! The scene of the blood mist appeared once more, this time 7 heads were cut off from their bodies, which rolled on the floor. Before the other Knights could even react, shes of light dazzled their eyes, and they found swords in their stomachs. The mounted Knights suffered from the focus attacks, and in an instant, all of the Knights that had participated in the Charge were eradicated, but because of the 20 Knights Charge, Cherry Blossom Organization lost 30 over Elves. That was how effective the Charge was against the Elves. The circle of chaos became smaller and smaller as time passed and the number of people in both parties gradually lessened. The endless pirs of white light and the number of corpses on the floor proved that both parties were on the verge of copse. Cherry Blossom Organization was left with less than 30 Elves, all of them with injuries. The Inagawa Union was nowhere better, with about 40 odd men, but all of them severely injured. The Elves'' fighting capabilities and damage output were far more powerful than what I had anticipated! When I thought that the battle was concluding, a burst of uproar suddenly came out from the forest, the sound of horses galloping along with the trembling ground meant that an even bigger group of Knights had arrived! As expected, the trees swayed as rows of Knights arrived one after another. I sent Phiona up into the sky to scout, who quickly flew back down. "There are about 700 mounted Knights with pillion ridersing over!" _________________________________________________________________ I knew for sure that the Elves were finished, 30 injured and tireddies could not possibly defeat 700 Light Cavalry soldiers, furthermore, they had Mages with them! But another yet another uproar came out from the other side of the forest, with many green figures rushing into the empty space. Elves, arge formation of Elves. Archers, Warriors, Mages, Sacrificers, this time, all sorts of Professions could be seen. The Cherry Blossom Organization''s reinforcements actually arrived at the same time as the enemy. Both parties did not engage in any superfluous words and quickly engaged in battle, with limbs and blood instantly flying all over. As I did not wish to get involved, I got Lucky to bring down a fewrge trees behind us where we retreated to, where it was difficult to be attacked. A pity though, the Inagawa Union''s fools were not cautious enough, 40 Knights who did not even unload their mages behind them rushed at us. Duty bound, Lucky and Phiona rushed forward. With a burst of spells, the Knights and their pillion riders were instantly flung back into the chaotic battlefield where they were trampled on indefinitely and were unable to stand again. "Master, are we truly just going to watch them fight?" For the umpteenth time, Aldeina encouraged me to participate in the battle. "Yes! We will not move from this spot!" I was determined not to participate. The situation became even messier than before, the Cherry Blossom Organisation''s reinforcements consisted of over a thousand Elves while the Inagawa Union had close to 1500 people, and although the Cherry Blossom Organization was at a disadvantage in terms of numbers, their fighting capabilities were exceptionally high, and with their formations and coordination, they instantly took the advantage from the beginning. The battle continued for another hour, and the headcount of both parties got lesser and lesser, with ayer of dropped Equipment on the ground. At longst, the total headcount of both parties were less than 10 people, the Cherry Blossom Organization was left with the Captain thatsted through both battles and one Elf that came with the reinforcements, who looked to be the President** (Guild Leader) of Cherry Blossom Organization. Inagawa Union was left with eight men, three Archers, and five Knights, but none of them looked to be of Commanding positions. Although the two Elves were at a disadvantage in terms of numbers, their levels were much higher than their enemies, adding their stronger equipment and tactics, they were actually handling the eight enemies with ease. The two Female Elves worked separately, the President of Cherry Blossom Organization faced against the five Knights and although it took a toll on her, she was able to barely hold on. The Captain rushed towards the three Archers, who were most probably low-level Archers or had consumed all of their Potions and did not have much HP left, but they were easily killed without any resistance. The Captain then returned back and aided the President in a pincer attack on the Knights. One of the Knights who was slightly higher leveled suddenly pounced at the President and used the Knight''s version of [Sacrificial Strike] - [Noble Sacrifice]. Two white lights descended at the same time, the President and the Knight both died at the same time, but the President used her terrifying battle experience and killed another Knight with her sword. The Elf Captain was up against three Knights and was also low on HP. Previously, she was able to sustain due to her own members sacrificing themselves for her, but since the Battle Sacrificers were gone, she no longer had much health. The Three knights were also low on HP, their armors were filled with holes which indicated that their durabilities were low and their armors prated, their HP nowhere as much as before. "Die!" One of the Knight suddenly used [Noble Sacrifice] once more, he was nning to risk it all to kill her. Both parties were no longer fighting for victory, but for face, just like what America faced in the Vietnam War, they went for an ''honorable'' retreat and did note close to winning. Even so, the Female Elf Captain looked as though she did not n to give any face to her enemies, with a nimble turn, she actually dodged the [Noble Sacrifice], where the Knight''s [Noble Sacrifice] caused him to exhaust his HP to 0 no matter if he hit or missed, he was instantly killed in mid-air, but another Knight took the chance to strike at the Elf Captain. She was struck heavily into the air and with a frail scream, she fell to the ground. The other Knight immediately rushed at her with the thoughts of adding the finishing blow, but the Elf Captain threw the sword in her hand at him. The Knight that was left with a bit of HP was easily killed off by the nick of the sword. Thest Knight standing took his sword and walked over while the Elf Captainid on the ground without an ounce of strength left in her, and without any resistance, she turned her head and looked towards me. In her eyes, I saw her intent to question me, and I instantly knew that she was asking if they had proven their sincerity. I nodded my head slightly, which resulted in her revealing a satisfied smile and the closure of her eyes. The Knight stabbed into her body ferociously, but the sword did not manage to stab into her because, by the time his sword had plunged downwards, she had transformed into a white light and disappeared. She must have sustained some severe injury that contained the effect Bleed, thus she was constantly losing HP till death. The Knight looked at his sword that was plunged deep into the ground and effortfully pulled it out. He then turned and looked at me with dread, he knew that he could not fight me, ignoring the fact that he was already at half HP, just with Lucky alone behind me was menacing enough to suppress him froming forward. Aldeina became angry, and hit me with her fist: "You''re truly cold-blooded, she was already in that state, yet you still did nothing." I stood up and caressed Aldeina''s head: "People will only cherish things that they have worked hard for, humans will never care much about things they obtained with ease! Seems like your AI*** isn''t evolved to the point of understanding such philosophies yet!" I jumped up onto Night Shade, extended my hand out and Aldeina up with me while the Knight looked at me with a strange look, which looked as if he thought that I did not n to finish him until I spoke up: "Lucky! Kill him, and take everything up." (Lucky has his own Inventory, he can help with transporting Items, I hope everyone did not forget about that!) Before we even walked out far, Lucky caught him, it was not difficult for him to get rid of a dying Knight without a mount, and picking things up did not consume too much time. I was about to PM 1 Felix and Hope, only to see them running over. "Boss, we''ve found it!" Felix ran over excitedly. "They will continue their exploration tomorrow morning, it will be fine as long as we follow them, their itinerary route is the same, just that they dyed the time." I interrupted his excited speech: "Hope, do you know where Shiromizu is?" "Which Shiromizu are you talking about?" Hope replied with a question that caught me in a daze. "What? Are there many Shiromizus?" "Nope, I know there are two. One is Shiromizu City, the other one has huge leveling area, with a hot spring and river called Shiromizu. I''m not sure which Shiromizu you''re talking about!" "I don''t know too, most probably Shiromizu City! Let us go to the City first." "You have something to do there?" Hope looked at me with astonishment, normally, it was safer for us outside of Cities. "Yes. The two of you don''t have to follow me. Let us gather at the ce we met yesterday first thing in the morning tomorrow." "Alright!" The two of them quickly turned and ran up the mountain. I moved the Items from Lucky''s Inventory to my Bracelet, then unsummoned all my Companions except for Aldeina and Night Shade. I suddenly recalled that Companions were considered NPCs, they were able to speak various nationalnguages, thus allowing Aldeina to speak Japanese would not produce the unique voice of the Trantion System of the game! If I had remembered that she could be my trantor, everything would had gone smoothly! ________________________________________________ I removed and kept my armor, changing into lousy equipment to prevent others from recognizing me. To add to the disguise, I intentionally wore different equipment, and no longer had a proper set. There was no other way, the majority of the yers were like that, usually, only members that belonged torge Guilds or Organizations were able to formplete set equipment due to their manpower and exchange system within the organization that acted as a guarantor. There were too many Professions in [Zero], thus a myriad of equipment, and further adding that it had to be further differentiated into male and female equipment, it was extremely difficult for a yer to obtain a full set equipment alone without the exchange system of the Guilds. One had to either receive the equipment through chain missions like what I went through or spend money to buy, otherwise, it was impossible for one to obtain all necessary equipment from drops. While entering the city, I maintained vignce and observed the guards by the gates, the yers might not know who I was, but I was unsure if the NPC guards could recognize and attack a foreigner like me. The fortunate thing was that the Nation Wars had not started, so the NPCs had not unlocked their hostility towards foreigners. I carefully entered the City, which was my first time truly entering a Japanese City! Thest few times were either at night or for fights and never got to experience the City life. The Japanese City was extremely beautiful, it had a ssic feel to it, with everything being small, regardless of the doors or windows, even the houses were short! The street was extremely narrow and looked to be able to amodate a few people at once, maybe because the City was not some Large City, I remembered that the ck Dragon Force''s City was not like this! Along the way, I saw many stalls selling equipment and initially had the thoughts to sell all the equipment that I picked up, but upon thinking about it and how it would make me look suspicious, I gave up on the idea. I continued walking until three Japanese people suddenly blocked my path. I had the intention to detour around them, but as I moved to my left, he moved to his right, when I turned to my right, he turned to his left, he was intentionally blocking me! With my ordinary equipment, an ordinary Knight''s Helmet covering my face and my decision to unsummon Night Shade and walk to prevent attracting attention, what could this person possibly want? "Big Brother, your Girl is very beautiful, how much will the three of us be worth?" I almost fainted, even with Aldeina''s beauty, they didn''t need to treat me as a Pimp! Under my orders, Aldeina spoke fiercely: "If you don''t want to die, get lost!" "Ah! Sorry, sorry!" The three of them immediately made way for us. The Japs are like that, the more ferocious you are, the more respectful they be, once you reveal any weaknesses, they will definitely enjoy bullying you! After scaring the three fools easily, we quickly found the Teleport Station and chose Shiromizu City. Uponing out from the Station, I mistook the City for a cemetery, as the entire City was green. All of the structures were covered with vines and vegetation all over, while the streets were littered with unknown flowers and nts. But the various broken walls and pirs informed me that the ce was not reforested, but it was actually a ruin, and for it to actually have a Teleport Station, it was really strange! "Who are you?" A Female Elf suddenly appeared on a dpidated structure that was missing a half, with her bow armed and drawn at us. When I saw her, I knew that we were in the right Shiromizu City. "Where''s your President? Tell her that I''m here to fulfill my end of the agreement!" "You''re Ziri?" The Archer eximed out as she rxed her bowstring and jumped down. ELves were much more nimble and agile, thus the height was not a problem for her. "Please follow me!" She ran ahead of me. Not one of the houses that I saw along the way werepletely intact, as though the entire ce had encountered bombs! The grass and vegetation covered every corner of the City! The Archer held onto her bow and ran to arge house, which was most probably the most intact structure of the entire City, with only its one side of itsrge door left leaning against the wall, as though it was struck heavily somethingrge. "What happened here? Was there some kind of bombing?" I could no longer resist and decided to ask about the state of the ce. "It has always been like this here, this City is Japan''s Elf City. Elves that leaves Beginner Town will all appear here first. Legends state that Elves is a race that adores nature, thus the City is like this!" "Woah! That''s really creative!" While talking, I was pulled into a room, and immediately saw the Female Elf Captain with the President running over along with four other Elves. I figured that they were the other Captains since I could only recognize the Third Force Captain, the few others who looked to be on equal grounds with her had to most probably be the other Forces'' Captains. When they came to me, the other Elves were stunned. At the beginning when they saw me, I was equipped with my Dark Dragon Set, but I was currently in trash equipment (Obviouslypared to my Dark Dragon Set), thus their strange reactions. Before speaking to them, I poured out all the equipment from my Bracelet, they were the equipment from the battle between Cherry Blossom Organization and Inagawa Union. I never had the time to organize them. "These are the equipment you dropped, I helped all of you to pick them up." The six of them stared at me nkly, ordinary people will never be able toprehend how I, a single person, was able to pick up so much loot. But since they had more important matters to attend to, they did not bother about the equipment. "This way please!" The President invited both of us enthusiastically in while one of the Captain ran to find the other Elves to im their items. We followed the President into a room which looked to be more or less intact. The interior was neatly arranged and decorated with wooden furniture, but with a hint of western and modern taste added to it. I ced my Helmet on the table. "I''m Ziri, this is Aldeina. Do you mind introducing yourselves first?" "I am the President of Cherry Blossom Organisation, my name''s Hiko, Elf Warrior." The President introduced herself first. I observed her elegant ck hair and beautiful green eyes, and she truly gave off the demeanor of elegance, no wonder she was called Hiko*****. "This is Peach, Elf Archer and Captain of our First Main Force, holding the responsibility of leading 200 of our Elf Archers." Hiko pointed to the slim and talldy. She looked like a model, her height looked to be close to 180cm! With such a height, she was definitely a crane in a flock of chicken in Japan! "Nice to meet you." She graciously shook hands with me, but I did not like standing next to her, it made me feel short, and it was simply jabbing at my self-esteem! "This is our Second Main Force Captain, Akira, Elf Warrior, she is in charge of the 200 Elf Warriors of the Second Main Force." Akira looked like a weak and pretty daughter of a humble family, I could not guess that she had chosen to be an Elf Warrior, even more so a Battle Sacrificer. Everyone has their own dreams, I guess! "This is our Third Main Force Captain, Yoshimi, she is also an Elf Warrior. I believe she was the first person you met? The 200 Warriors that you saw are under her charge." "Thank you for helping us!" Yoshimi smiled and shook my hand. I suddenly felt that she was extremely simr to Rose in terms of personality, of course, she isn''t as pretty as Rose. Before Hiko could even introduce her, the Captain of the Fourth Main Force jumped up and introduced herself: "I am Captain of the Fourth Main Force, Norika Shizuka, Elf Mage, you can call me Shizuka. I am in charge of the 200 Mages of Cherry Blossom Organization." This girl was at most 16, at such an energetic age, she still chose to be a mage. I felt warmer towards Shizuka and Akira, for such a bright girl to be a Mage, who knew if she would be so agitated and rush to hit her enemies with her staff! "This is our big sister, and also the Deputy President of the Organisation, Meigetsu Yuri, Elf Battle Sacrificer, she is in charge of all of our Battle Sacrificers." Honestly, she could no longer be considered a young girl, although she had maintained herself well, I could still tell that she was around 37 to 38 years old, her bearing was more like an Office Lady. "Nice to meet you!" She shook my hand politely, but her eyes were filled with lust, which scared and caused me to retract my hand back quickly. What the hell, she''s already so old, yet she''s still coveting over me, a tender young man! Disgusting! "All of you wants to go?" I did not like to beat around the bush, and after the introductions, I went straight to the problem. "Not all of them, more like 99%!" The Captain answered my question. "How many is that? I need a specific headcount, I''d prefer a precise number." "There''s a total of 1021 of us!" (*) AOE - Area of Effect (**) In the previous and this chapter, they call the guild leader the President, but in games, they are mostly guild leader. I''ll continue to go with President, but I hope all of you will understand that she is the guild leader. (***) AI- Artificial Intelligence (****)PM - Private Message (*****) Hiko - Apparently Hiko is Flying (ording to Google Trante), and the Chinese word tranted to elegant used to describe her bearing can also be tranted to float or drift, which is like flying, thus her name andparison. Chapter 146: The Mysterious Mage [Vol 4 Chapter 84] Chapter 146: The Mysterious Mage [Vol 4 Chapter 84] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "That''s quite a number!" I eximed out loud. "Almost all the sisters want to go, we can''t just leave anyone behind!" Hiko nodded her head looking slightly helpless. "Luckily my boat is big enough, it isn''t a problem to load a thousand people." "You mean, you''re willing to bring us away?" Yoshimi became excited and asked. "I will beying down some conditions that have to be met if youdies want toe on board, and if you are all able to agree to it, I''ll dly bring all of you away." Upon hearing the term conditions, Hiko and the others looked at me anxiously. "Don''t be nervous, the conditions that I''m talking about are things that all of you need to abide by. Firstly, when all of you reach China, avoid contact with the yers there as much as possible, especially for the few of you that has super obvious Japanese names. Secondly, Cherry Blossom Organization has to be disbanded, no one in China will ever use that name, you guys need to create a new Guild. Thirdly, Regardless of anything, you can no longer use the Japanesenguage, you can only converse in Standard Mandarin in China, and after entering the game, all of you must forget about being Japanese people! Can these three conditions be met?" Hiko spoke up: "The majority of us used Chinese for our IGN*, aside from us few Captains, Norika Shizuka and Meigetsu Yuri, everyone else has Chinese names. But in the future, we can shout for their first names without theirst names, it won''t be easy to catch the Japanese ents from Shizuka and Yuri''s names. As for the organization! We will definitely disband it, Cherry Blossom is too Japanese! Lastly, there isn''t a problem with us speaking Mandarin, all of us knows thenguage since it''s impossible to migrate to China without knowing how to read and write in Chinese!" "Very good, if you can achieve all of it, that''ll be the best. I have onest thing to inform all of you. As of right now, I still do not haveplete trust towards all of you, as long as anyone of you goes too far and do anything that I deem is off the scale, I will consider bringing all of you back at any time. All of you have heard of my strength, if any of you are uncooperative, don''t me me for killing you back to level 0!" I spoke harshly without any emotions. I am a person who enjoyedying out all the ugly truths and reminders first, to rify all regtions whilst unfamiliar as I firmly believed it will only be beneficial for the future. "Then when do we go?" Shizuka asked excitedly. "Not so soon!" This sentence caused all the smiles in the room to freeze. "I still have a few matters to attend to, so we will not be leaving temporarily, but don''t worry, my attendance here indicates my decision to bring you all over to China, if I didn''t want to, I wouldn''t havee today." "We believe you, but what matters do you have? Do you need our help? Cherry Blossom Organization has over a thousand members!" I had not nned to inform them of my ns since I still did not haveplete trust towards them, and whether or not they would do as they said if by any chance they were tricking me to gain my trust. "No need, it''s nothing much and I can do it by myself, having more people won''t be good anyway!" "Then what do we need to prepare for now?" "You don''t need to prepare much, but you can sell off everything that you can''t bring, as money is interchangeable anywhere. Also, gather all of your offline members, everyone must be online on the night after tomorrow, I won''t have the time to make a second trip!" At this point in time, I truly felt like a professional human smuggler for illegal immigration! "Yes, we will be there!" Hiko nodded her head which indicated that she understood. "Then I''ll go off first, I''ll be back the night after tomorrow." After leaving Shiromizu City, I directly teleported to Ban Rai City and headed up Mt Fuji to our stipted meeting ce, equipped back my Dark Dragon Lord Set and went offline, all I had to do was wait. Theb was empty as usual. I looked at the scheduled surveince image camera and looked at my current self. Haha, I had actually gained back my human shape and my skeletal structure looks to have recovered as my body actually looks supported without any more shrinkage, and I somehow looked taller than before. "You''re awake?" Rose suddenly walked in. "Rose? What''re doing over here? It''s quite a distance between here and school, you shouldn''te over sote at night!" "But I really miss you! Oh right, how''s your body¡­.?" Iughed: "What about it? I''m already recovered!" "Then you''reing out soon?" "About that¡­.I''m not too sure myself. You can ask Dad when you see him." "I will." "Oh right, are you still on the boat?" "Yes!" "Where''s Bi-lin now?" "We''re at Torrent Point City''s port, we have just finished the resupply!" Rose suddenly smiled and said: "The group that you helped are extremely yful, now they are addicted to acting as Pirates, they are robbing Japanese Fleets daily, causing the entire China seas to have no Japanese Ships sailing alone!" "That''s great, it''ll be better if they dare not set sail ever again! Go back and tell Hawk that I will need Bi-Lin to be at Japan''s open seas the night after tomorrow. Let Coin and the rest lead all of you to where we docked thest time and wait for us, I have Passengers that wants to board!" "Passengers?" "You''ll understand when you see them." Rose and I talked for a bit before I got her to go home. After a simple nap, it was already 7 in the morning. When I got online, Felix and Hope were already waiting for me, they were truly energetic people! "How is it? Have Masayoshi Matsumoto and his group arrived?" My position when I went online was behind Felix and Hope, so when I spoke, I scared the hell out of them. The both of them immediately turned back and signaled me to keep quiet. "What are you guys doing? They''re all still at the foot of the mountain! As long as we don''t shout, who can hear us?" Felix pulled me into a patch of tall grass. "The enemy brought many Ninjas, I saw a few that went up the mountain first, but as I continued walking, I could no longer find them, I think they are in [Stealth], and I''m afraid there might be a few near us!" The reasoning was truly dangerous, I immediately concealed myself carefully. With half of my head out of the grass, I activated [Star Gaze], and instantly a few white translucent figures appeared along the mountain path. Luckily when I looked around us, there were no Ninjas! The Ninjas were gathered along the mountain path, it seemed as though they were tasked with clearing the road, if they were tasked to look for people, they would not find them on the road. "Boss, do you see those Ninjas?" Felix pulled on my armor and asked. "Do you see that rock by the side of that road? There''s one on the rock, and another two meters adjacent to him." "How do we make our move with so many of them there?" "Don''t be anxious, let them go up, the mobs on the way will help us reduce their strength, we will only make our move at the end!" "Oh!" ______________________________________________________________________________ We quietlyid in the grass and waited for movements from the foot of the Mountain. Masayoshi Matsumoto and his subordinates quickly gathered arge group of people, most of them looked to be important figures of different Guilds. Masayoshi Matsumoto exchanged greetings with the guests, then they began climbing the mountain. Masayoshi Matsumoto was at the head, while Ikeda Rikio and Tanaka Shota walked behind him, and further behind them were a dozen of teams, none of them whom I know of. But they were definitely not ordinary yers! Masayoshi Matsumoto quickly passed through our hiding spot. All the mobs en route were already cleared by the Ninja team, and were now scouting for them! I carefully followed them, leaving Hope and Felix behind to act as support, they had no stealth or invisibility spells, and could be easily spotted by the huge number of enemies around! I, on the other hand, was much safer being alone! Mt Fuji was truly not that tall, we quickly reached the peak of the Mountain, where Masayoshi Matsumoto led the group to the side of a volcanic crater. I carefully crouched a 100 meters behind them. This distance allowed me to move without them noticing me. "Lord Masayoshi, is it beneath here?" Ikeda Rikio inquired about the location of the mission. "It should be!" "But there''sva everywhere, how do we go down?" Masayoshi Matsumoto took out a Spirit Stone. "This can protect us and prevent us from getting harmed by theva!" "It''s no wonder you keep saying you have a way, so it was this!" With the Spirit Stone in hand, Masayoshi Matsumoto led therge group that consisted of the important figures of the various Japanese guilds down the volcanic crater. I anxiously extended my head out and looked into the volcanic crater, the Spirit Stone had formed a blue barrier around Masayoshi Matsumoto and the group that hadpletely isted them from theva and the high temperature. The walls of the volcanic crater had a ribbed pattern that resembled spiral stairs, and with the protection of the Spirit Stone, they were able to enter the volcano. But the problem was how could I go down. Without the Spirit Stone, I could not enter. I did not know if the Dragon Lord Set was afraid ofva or not, but I could not even withstand the heat wave that emitted from the volcano, much less theva. In the blink of the eye, Masayoshi Matsumoto and his group had already circled and reached close to the surface of theva, which was reced with another set of spiral stairs that entered theva. Masayoshi Matsumoto and his group continued to walk down as anyva that touched the blue barrier would automatically move aside, paving an easy path for them down theva. I stood above the volcano alone and drenched in perspiration, I had initially nned to steal their things, but now, I could not even get through the first hurdle! Oh right, don''t I have Phiona? Phoenixes are creatures of mes and birthed fromva, who knows if she has any idea. I detoured around the volcano crater to the other side and summoned Phiona. "Phiona." "Yes, Master?" "Do you have any way of helping me enter theva without being burnt?" Phiona nodded: "You won''t get burnt by theva regardless of anything because before you can even touch theva, you''d have be a pile of ashes. Ashes can''t be burnt!" What the hell, Phiona was actually being sarcastic with me! "You want to get beaten?" "I truly don''t know!" Phiona felt wronged: "I am naturally unafraid of fire, I won''t have a problem going down, but I can''t bring you down! My ability to enter high-temperature regions is due to my innate heat-resistance, but not because I know any Magic that avoids fire!" "Seriously!" I summoned Loong''er out. "Do you know anything to avoid fire?" "Avoid fire?" "I mean, resist fire!" "I do, but I cannot sustain the spell for long, with my current capabilities, I can sustain it for at most 10 seconds!" That''s the same as not having any! I have so many Companions, but none of them are able to help me at such a crucial moment! Suddenly, I had a strange idea, why do I need to go through theva, I just have to get to the other side! "Phiona, can you go down and take a look at how deep theva is on, I don''t believe that the ce ispletely filled withva, there shouldn''t be any moreva after a certain depth, take a look at how deep is it for a ce withoutva!" "Yes!" Phiona turned and leaped down the volcanic crater while I waited above. Masayoshi Matsumoto and his group had gone down much earlier, if I were to lose them, then everything that we had done would be wasted! After another two to three minutes, Phiona came back up. "There is a rock stratum beneath 200 meters ofva, beneath the rock strata is a huge cave." "Got it!" I spoke to Phantom who was on me: "How far can you [Blink] now?" "I don''t have a problem blinking within 250 meters!" "Isn''t that just barely longer than the depth of theva? It won''t be funny if we were to [Blink] into theva!" Phantom spoke honestly: "There is truly such a possibility, Especially when I can''t see the ce that I want to [Blink] to, in such scenarios, it is possible that I can get trapped within two ces!" That IS dangerous! But rewardse with risk, and I am a person that can ignore the risks for the rewards. "Phantom, [Blink] downwards with thergest distance that you can use!" "Yes!" The scene before my eyes instantly turned red, with high temperatures enveloping me from all around, although it was not at a temperature where it could kill me, it was scalding enough! I immediately knew that we did not manage to [Blink] through the rock strata, but were stuck within it! Just when I thought that it was over, the rocks behind me suddenly loosened and I lost the sense of weight. I realized I was falling, as one could only feel the loss of weight through falls. I had to be falling!* Bang! I dropped onto some durable object, the collision caused me to fly out. Thump! This time, Inded on what seemed to be the ground as I continued to roll a few times before stopping. I quickly got up and clumsily swiped away theva chunks on me, the redva had made my Dark Dragon Lord Set scalding hot! After patting theva off my body, I got the time to look around. I was in arge cavity the size of a cinema, except for its height, which at least 100 meters taller than what a cinema would usually have! At the top of the cave was a hole whereva leaked, forming ava waterfall. Beneath the hole was a protruding rock that extended into theva waterfall, which was what I reckoned was the first thing that I had collided into. Theva waterfall flowed onto the protruding rock and flowed on both of its sides, and the floor beneath had formed argeva pool. With such a speed, I reckoned that the room would bepletely filled withva soon! ______________________________________________________________ Suddenly, I heard footsteps, Masayoshi Matsumoto and his group of men had appeared in the stone room adjacent to where I was. I quickly concealed myself and stood still, as long as I remained stationary, no one could see me. Masayoshi Matsumoto led the group and walked right past me, not even caring about theva waterfall, most probably because they had just arrived and would think that the formation was natural. The group simply walked past in front of me and arrived at a rock wall at my side, where Masayoshi Matsumoto found a groove. He inserted the Spirit Stone he had in hand into the groove, which caused the t wall to suddenly have a door that opened and revealed a passage further downwards. Masayoshi Matsumoto let the group of men enter first, then took the Spirit Stone the groove and quickly bolted into the door, causing the door to shut close after his entry! I immediately pounced on the door, but it had already been sealed tight, although I could still see the outline of the door, I could not open it at all! Back to the old method, use Phantom''s [Blink]! Bang, my head collided with the wall, the shocking recoil flinging me back over 10 meters. Phantom was actually forced out of my body, and actually flew even further away! "Phantom? What happened to you?" Although Phantom rarely participated in battles, aside from Lucky, he had the most uses, thus I was extremely caring towards him. "I''m fine! It was the collision!" Phantom quickly crawled back up and merged back into my body. "There is a powerful barrier preventing anyone from phasing in by any means behind that door! I''m afraid we can''t use [Blink] to enter!" "It''s fine, we will think of other ways!" I walked back to the door, Damn it! I knocked on the door, producing a low noise. Seems like smashing it will not create too much noise. I summoned Tank: "Help me break this door down!" Tank''s tworge bulging hammers on its forelegs were like the hammer-like ws of a mantis shrimp and could punch with extreme speeds. A mantis shrimp that is unable to even reach 50 cm in length could use its hammer-like ws to break a 1 cm thick bulletproof ss, with Tank''s size, breaking down the stone door should not be a problem! Tank walked right to the door and stood still. I only saw something sh, and the big door actually disappeared without a sound. Tank''s punch was too fast that I could not even catch a thing, and due to the intense speed, therge door had already turned to fine dust even before the shock could take ce, thus no sounds were produced! What reced the door was a hole that looked as though it was produced by a bomb. I gave Tank a thumbs-up, then unsummoned him and entered the passageway. The passageway was like a flight of spiral stairs that turned endlessly in one direction, and with its distinct slope, luckily the stairs were not slippery, otherwise, I was sure that we would have just tumbled our way down! After running a distance, I heard footsteps ahead. Seems like I''m sessfully in catching up to Masayoshi Matsumoto and his group. As we walked on, the passageway suddenly came to an end as a new room emerged in front of us, but it was unlike the one at the beginning. It was clearly a manmade location, the room had marble floors, walls that were carved and decorated and decorated ceilings. It practically looked like a Rome Cathedral! The Japanese group stood right in the center of the hall and admired the beautiful paintings on the ceiling. "Wee, wee, my fellow guests!" A deep and sonorous voice suddenly spoke up inside the hall, where even I could hear it in the passageway. The voice resonated through the entire hall, and due to the intense echoes, no one could make out where the voice had originated from. "Who are you? What is this ce?" One of the Japs asked the question that I wanted to know. "I am the Great Magus Asmere!" No one reacted when they heard his name, no one knows who he was! But, my Companion''s mood Icon suddenly started to flicker, which meant that one of my Companion was in an unstable state. I immediately got Phantom to check on them. Phantom ran back out. "Master, it''s Lucky!" "What happened to Lucky?" "He wants to kill that man!" "Who?" "That Great Magus Asmere!" "Does Lucky have some hatred towards him?" "No, it''s not that, Lucky said that the Dragon Race has animosity towards him. This Asmere has a nickname called the Dragon ughterer Magus and had single-handedly killed 30 over Great Dragons. In addition, the Bone Dragon Summon and Ghost Demon Summon and simr rted Spells were invented by him, the Dragon Race had once decreed that they would give up everything to kill this man!" "HE KILLED 30 OVER GREAT DRAGONS? Aren''t all Dragons level 1000 mobs? Loong''er''s father, the Shinryuu, can''t even do such a thing!" "It was not at one go, he killed all those dragons throughout his life. Don''t say 30, if even two Dragons had appeared together, he would undoubtedly be done for!" "He was truly a lucky man!" "Where are you?" While I conversed with Phantom, the Japs inside the hall were already eagerly looking for the Great Magus Asmere''s position. At the end of the hall, a throne suddenly appeared. A middle-aged man that had a pointed mouth and thin cheeks sat on the throne as though he was some sort of king. "I''m right here!" "We are explorers, can we ask, do you know about any hidden treasures here?" Masayoshi Matsumoto walked out from the crowd. "Of course, The treasures are hidden with me!" Right when the Japs became excited, Asmere spoke out again: "But¡­.." "But what?" I wanted to ask, but Masayoshi Matsumoto asked him instead. Asmere looked as though he had caught them hook, line and sinker. "But I will not give them for nothing! All of you need to help me do a few things." "Do what?" Masayoshi Matsumoto asked. "Try killing him, but don''t do it too quickly, I enjoy the process, the more brutal and cruel you are, the better!" Asmere pped his hands, causing the hall to tremble incessantly. The ground started to tremble, and a long crack split the hall right dead center. It was not truly a split, but more of a separation. The opening was extremely perfect, and from one look, anyone could tell that it was formed through some mechanism. Following the separation of the ground, something started to rise from beneath. At first, it was a pointed and ring prick, then two more came out, then even more appeared. Following the rise of the object, I slowly saw what seemed to be the dorsal fin of some monster. But the size of the Dorsal Fin was toorge, and suddenly recognized it. DRAGON! "Dragon!" All of the Japs cried out at the same time. The object that was trapped beneath the ground hadpletely surfaced. It was a great Dragon, and it even had the same color as Lucky. It was a ck Great Dragon. The Great Dragon was sprawled across the floor with a thick andrge chain wrapped around his neck, with four more even thicker iron chains tied around its limbs. Even the Dragon''s tail was chained up. The Dragonid there and looked weak without strength, all the ck scales were not as glossy as Lucky''s. Seems like he didn''t have a good life! "You want us to kill this Dragon?" Masayoshi Matsumoto probed Asmere. One had to know, although there were one or two yers that had Dragon Companions, they were all obtained through rare opportunities, in a face to face true battle, who could ever beat a level 1000 Dragon! "Yes!" Asmere nodded his head. "I enjoy watching the ughtering of Dragons, the more cruel and brutal you are, the happier I will be!" I saw through all of it, Asmere was just a perverted psychotic! He must have been bullied by Dragons when he was young, or some Dragon had raped his wife? It had to be some absolutely irreconcble hatred for him to be like that! "Why not this?" Masayoshi Matsumoto must have thought of another n. "We will turn him into our Companion to kill other Dragons outside, isn''t watching them massacring each other the most enjoyable thing?" So it turned out that not only did Masayoshi Matsumoto want the Treasures, he wanted to bring the Dragon out as well! "Impossible!" Asmere immediately refused: "I want to see this Dragon die, only by ughtering it can there be Dragon Bones to work on, I have no use of a live Dragon!" "Ok! Ok!" Masayoshi Matsumoto immediately promised him, he did not want to provoke the entric Asmere. Masayoshi Matsumoto suddenly picked out his own Ninjas and rushed up with him in the lead. nk¡­.nk¡­. The continuous sounds of metal colliding came out. The ck Dragon looked as though it was dead as it remained stationary as he waspletely indifferent towards their attacks. None of them could break through the ck Dragon''s defense! This ck Dragon waspletely different from Lucky, this ck Dragon was at its max level of 1000 and had grown to adulthood. It had gained the rights to be a BOSS, and its perverse defense was shockingly high! All of the Japs looked at their own weapons in disbelief, all of their weapons had lost their durabilities, the hardness of the Dragon Scales were truly shocking! The mountain-sized ck Dragon looked as though he was sleeping, he was toozy to even look at the ants around him! Chapter 147: (Chapter Title at the End) [Vol 4 Chapter 85] Chapter 147: (Chapter Title at the End) [Vol 4 Chapter 85] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry (Slight racism in this chapter) "Ah¡­.." No one knew what happened to Masayoshi Matsumoto, but he suddenly screamed and rushed at the ck Dragon. He looked just like a lunatic! Of course, regardless of whether he had gone crazy or not, a de will always remain a de, he was still unable to cut through the ck Dragon''s scales, but this time, he had awoken the ck Dragon. The ck Dragon''srge eyes suddenly opened, its sharp gaze so strong that it caused some of the Japs to feel vertigo. He lifted his head up, and after swaying around for a bit, the ck Dragon actually stood up, the human length thick iron chains rustled and nked with his movements. By standing, the iron chains were actually stretched taut, and because of it, the ck Dragon looked to be extremely angry, with a resonant roar, the ck Dragon struggled to lift his body higher in an attempt to remove the iron chains. Phantom suddenly spoke up again: "Master, Lucky hopes that we can help this ck Dragon." "There are too many people there, I don''t know if I can defeat them, especially that Asmere dude, He can single-handedly kill Dragons, how can I defeat him?" "But¡­.?" "I didn''t say I''ll do nothing, tell him not to be so anxious!" The ck Dragon struggled for a while before giving up, the ck iron chains were too thick, and were impossible to be broken! The ck Dragon looked at the ants beside him, his eyes revealing a pleading expression, even a fool would be able to tell that the ck Dragon was begging Masayoshi Matsumoto and his group to save him. But by the side stood the even more ferocious Asmere, whose strength was something they had to take into ount, furthermore, they were Japs, who had always been known to be cruel and people who kicked their benefactors in the teeth! Masayoshi Matsumoto had no intentions to save him, and an aggressive Mage by the side even unleashed a gigantic ming Meteor at the ck Dragon. Without even looking, the ck Dragon extinguished the ming Meteor with a bite! That fool, how can a ck Dragon be afraid of Spells! Even Lucky, a bogus ck Dragon is already almost immune to all spells. This ck Dragon is the real deal here! After being attacked on, the ck Dragon seemed to have given up the hope of being saved, his neck and head suddenly bent backward while his chest area started to inte violently. After being with Lucky for so long, how could I not know what was going on, those were the moves that the Dragon would showcase while preparing for their signature skill, [Dragon Fire]. Ruly, the ck Dragon''s head suddenly came forward and spewed purple [Dragon Fire] all around, scaring the Japanese Mage who had released the Meteor to immediately raise his hands in an attempt to block. But before the fire could even reach the man, a blue barrier suddenly appeared around the ck Dragon and blocked the [Dragon Fire]. The internal space of the Blue Barrier was quickly filled with [Dragon Fire], and luckily Dragons were immune to their own mes, otherwise, the ck Dragon would have definitely died! But regardless of that, the ck Dragon suffered from some injuries, immune would only be immune, the damage output of the [Dragon Fire] is something that can never be overlooked! Asmereughed out loud. "This Dragon that you see is one that I had bred from young, he was supposed to be a Saint Dragon, his Father was the Dragon Lord of the Dragon Race, but he was killed by me. This is the Dragon hatched from a Dragon Egg that I picked up for the purpose of torturing him. If I hadn''t been lucky in the past, I would have died in the mouth of his father, but I still won! HAHAHAHA!" From that sentence, I was even more sure that Asmere was a perverted Psycho! "Phantom, ask Lucky, how is that guy a Prince of a Lord? Isn''t Lucky the Dragon Lord?" Phantom took a while before returning: "Lucky said that that ck dragon is his older brother, that year, there were two Dragon Eggs, Lucky was brought up by their mom while his older brother was raised by their Dad. After that, their dad was killed by Asmere while his brother''s whereabouts remained unknown, they all thought that he died, thus Lucky inherited the position of the Lord." "At that time, shouldn''t Lucky still be his shell?" Without asking Lucky, Phantom answered: "A Dragon Egg incubation period is usually 200 years, thus their coronation usually urs before the Dragon Lord hatches." "Oh!" I nodded my head, but suddenly felt something amiss: "Doesn''t that mean that Asmere is alive even after 200 years?" After a while, Phantom brought Lucky''s words back: "Asmere is an Old Demon that had lived for thousands of years, since the beginning of the Dragon Race, they were already trying to kill him!" "Woah woah woah, he is also a long time fugitive on the run!" No one could tell that the disgusting man had such a huge fame, the entire Dragon Race was on the hunt for him! Afterughing, Asmere continued: "All of you have to be careful, I fed this brat with corrupted things from young, and his original saint body hadpletely turned into the dark body of a ck Dragon. My original intent was to remove his Saint traits and turn him into a Dark Dragon, but instead, it made him even more powerful! This brat inherited all of his father''s powerful abilities and strength, making him very powerful. All of you have to focus your attacks either at his mouth or eyes, those are the only ces without Dragon Scales, and do your best not to hit on the Iron Chains. Although you guys should not be able to break the chains, if by any chance it DOES break, I might not be able to suppress him!" When I heard that, my spirits were lifted. Asmere did not have the capabilities of handling two Dragons at once. If I were to break the Iron Chains, Lucky and the other Dragon could most probably defeat Asmere together. As for the Japs, as long as I could dy them and hold them back until Asmere dies, they would easily be trampled by the ck Dragon! Upon thinking about it, I decided to take a gamble, and with lightning speed, I rushed out of the passageway while summoning all of my Companions. Before Asmere or Masayoshi Matsumoto and his group could even react, I had already led my Companions forward. Lucky spoke to the ck Dragon, but obviously not in Mandarin, but most likely Dragon Language. The ck Dragon quickly stretched all the iron chains on his body to their maximum tightness while Tank rushed up and spewed a mouth of acidic liquid onto the iron chains locking down on the ck Dragon''s neck. After that, Tank started to run towards the other iron chains behind. Asmere was the fastest to react, he immediately prepared a spell in an attempt to kill us, but I had the perfect Mage Killer - Dart. Before Asmere couldplete his spell, Dart had already arrived by his side. Although Dart had the most terrible attack and HP amongst my Companions, he had the most frightening harassment tactics. As long as he was around, Mages should never consider on using any spells, because, the time they took to prepare a spell with the shortest cast time, Dart was able to attack three to four times. Asmere had never encountered such a fast-moving monster before, therge Fireball that he was preparing exploded in his hands, resulting in a shock that caused him to retreat a few steps back. Masayoshi Matsumoto and the rest only realized what was going on when the Fireball exploded, and they rushed forward. But my Phantom Knights were not just for show. The 10 Phantom Knights quickly took the vanguard, and although Masayoshi Matsumoto had close to a 100 men and were all experts, the Phantom Knights were still level 850 mini BOSSES, and could still hold against 10 enemies individually! I took the chance where both sides were being held up to jump and cut down the iron chains on the ck Dragon''s neck. ng! The part of the iron chain that had been corroded by the acid was cut apart by my sword, but the recoil from the iron chain sent me flying as well. Rosa quickly wove a and received me safely. Phiona rushed forward and shot consecutive me shots at the iron chain, turning the iron chain red hot. Asmere was too busy fighting against Dart, but Asmere was after all the Dragon ughterer Magus and had plenty of treasures and unique Spells on him, Dart had somehow got nerfed with a Slow spell as his speed had clearly dropped. Aldeina rode on Night Shade and helped to harass Asmere through meleebat. Although Asmere was powerful, a Mage who could not unleash spells, he had turned into garbage, and with Aldeina''smand, the three of them efficiently suppressed him. Asmere could only run from them as the three of them chased after him relentlessly, preventing him from even have the breath to chant a spell. On the other side, the iron chains were already glowing red from Phiona''s mes. Loong''er cast [Weaken] on the iron chains, enabling them to be more easily broken. Tank raised his gigantic scythe and cut down on the red-hot section of the iron chains, but the chains simply trembled a bit and did not break. After that, Lucky rushed forward and used [Dragon Fire] together with Phiona''s mes. I borrowed Rosa''s stic force to spring back, and with my sword, I shed down on the exact ce once again. nk! It was the sound of an iron chain dropping on the ground! The ck Dragon roared out loud, followed by the deformation of the reinforced steel bars that were forcefully pulled by the ck Dragon with pure brute force, causing thest bit of iron chains to tense up. With a Tail attack, Lucky struck thest bit of iron chains andpletely destroyed the iron chains. After breaking the iron chains on his neck, the ck Dragon immediately started biting the iron chains on his left leg while we worked on the right. Tank added more corrosive acid on the chains, causing the iron chains to burn with green smoke. The iron chains that I had hacked down thrice was reduced down to a bit of attachment in which Tank was responsible to continue spewing the corrosive acid. The remaining iron chains were quickly broken apart with us dealing with them separately. The ck Dragon once again unleashed a Dragon Roar that caused soil and debris to fall from the ceiling. The ck Dragon suddenly pped his wings forcefully to add in power. Continuous nks could be heard from the breakage of Refine Irons and sparks ignited on the remaining iron chains that were forcefully broken apart. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª After unleashing its joyous Dragon Roar, the freed ck Dragon smashed his w down on 10 over Japs while the Phantom Knights rushed over to Asmere under mymand. The unrestrained ck Dragon used its tail to sweep at the Japs, causing 40 to 50 Japs to fly into the air, and in midair, around 30 of the Japs transformed into white light, while the remaining few were smashed onto the walls, leaving humanly shaped grooves all along the walls in the room. Masayoshi Matsumoto and the few other more powerful yers managed to dodge the attack, but even so, they were flung away by the powerful gale. Before they could evennd, [Dragon Fire] enveloped their bodies, and by the time the [Dragon Fire] spell had ended, nothing was left of Masayoshi Matsumoto and the rest except for their dropped equipment. Not even ashes were left. The 100 odd Japs were all swept clean in five seconds. It was the true power of a full Adult Dragon. This scene made me feel even more lucky to have encountered Lucky at the beginning! If I had encountered Lucky at his full Adult form, I reckoned my entire game life would have beenpletely different! After resolving Masayoshi Matsumoto and the other Japs, the ck Dragon immediately turned and rushed towards Asmere. I anxiously got Aldeina to lead Dart and the rest away. Who knew that the ck Dragon would only take 5 seconds to take care of the Japs, the Phantom Knights who were initially supposed to harass Asmere had to immediately make way for the ck Dragon''s attack. Aldeina and the rest retreated too quickly, leaving a shortpse of time before the ck Dragon''s attack could follow up. Asmere was truly no ordinary character, in that few seconds, Asmere was able to finish preparing his first spell. The ck Dragon opened his mouth, it seemed as though he wanted to eat Asmere, but Asmere had finished casting his spell, and the blue barrier that had previously sealed the ck Dragon suddenly appeared once again. When the ck Dragon''s teeth bit into the barrier, an intense and dazzling blue light instantly blossomed like a welding power supply, the ring light instantly pained our eyes! The blue bright light was followed up with sparks that flew all over. None of us dared to look in that direction. The sparks continued to flicker as the bright light remained. I adjusted the visor of the Dark Dragon Lord Helmet from its transparent color to ck to act as sunsses, and with difficulty, I turned my head to look at the dazzling ball of light. Asmere was supporting and controlling the ball of light right from the beginning while the ck Dragon was giving his all to bite on it, both parties were stuck in their positions and were in a deadlock. I walked over to the side of the ball of light, in which both Asmere and the ck Dragon had noticed. From the ck Dragon''s gigantic eyes, I could see a smiling expression, while Asmere had a look of shock. At the ball of light, I took out the Dragon Lance and stabbed into the light, resulting in the light disintegrating followed by a collision. The ck Dragon''s gigantic jaws had unexpectedly closed and the sound of the rows of teeth smashing into each other was simr to two trains colliding! But I never saw blood and Asmere actually escaped at thest second, he was actually able to utilize an [Instant Blink] Ability in such a crucial and short moment, what a terrifying Mage! If not for the ck Dragon, even three of me might not be able to defeat Asmere! Asmere was in fact not having it good as well, the hurried use of [Instant Blink] resulted in him appearing not far away, in fact, he appeared right in front of Aldeina, the distance between the two was less than a meter. Aldeina moved forward and kicked Asmere out. I predicted his trajectory and threw my Dragon Lance at Asmere, who was urately stabbed by my "Javelin" in midair, but almost at the same time, he had released an offensive spell, the target - Me. A light beam with a diameter of over one meter struck my body, and after feeling limp and numb, I did not know what happened after that. When I woke up once again, I saw a handsome face right in front of me, scaring me to the point that I jumped up. "You''re awake?" The other party was the first to speak. I looked around me, I was still in the same hall, but the ck Dragon and my Companions were gone, but Asmere stillid on the floor in the distance, with my Dragon Lance still stabbed in his stomach! I quickly summoned Lucky and the rest but was once again reminded by the notification that I had died once and was in a weakened state, thus unable to summon any of them. Without a choice and being helpless, I could only obtain information from the man before me. "Who are you?" The other partyughed and his body suddenly distorted, and the ck Dragon from before appeared again. "Do you recognize me now?" "You...you''re that ck Dragon?" The ck Dragon returned to his human form, his ck clothes made him look like a Cultivator. "Thank you for saving me, the Dragon Race will forever remember your grace!" "What just happened to me? I feel as though I had died once, but if that''s so, why did I revive here?" "You did die, but I saved you. Before you disappeared, I made you ingest the Spirit Stone." "What? I swallowed the Spirit Stone?" When Masayoshi Matsumoto had died, the Spirit Stone had dropped as mission items would have their undroppable trait removed at the mission location, who would have known that it would be eaten by me! I opened my stats to take a look and the result shocked the life out of me. All my stats hadpletely dropped. "WHAT! What the hell happened?" I fainted again. The ck Dragon shook me awake and exined: "The Spirit Stone allows aplete redistribution of Base Attribute Points, which is equivalent to reconstructing a new Character with your current one. Thus some of the values would changepletely, especially the number of Companion Slots." It was truly aplete transformation, an extremely huge change. My Companion Slots had actually increased to 13, while my Servants Slots had increased to 20. "Because of your equipment, your Basic Attribute Points have all increased to 14, ording to your 14 Charisma Points, you should own 7 Companion Slots, adding the additional slots provided by the Main ss of Tamer and Side ss Breeder, you have a total of 9 Companion Slots. Your Second ss, the Soul Maniptor, increases the number of Companion Slots by 2, and with your race as a Divine Demon, it gives an additional 2 Companion Slots, thus a total number of 13 Companion Slots. The Servant Slots has changed in proportion to your Companion Slots, thus you now have 20 Servant Slots. Are you satisfied with your new Attribute Points?"* "I am satisfied, but what about my level¡­.?" I could not carry on asking, I had spent thest few months bitterly training and struggling through it all, but in the end, this was the result. "Your level?" The ck Dragon then realized that I was not agitated because of the Companion Slots. "Didn''t I tell you? The Spirit Stone can help you reset your Base Attribute Points, just like reconstructing a new character? Since it is the reconstruction of a new Character, of course, you start from level 1!" "Oh my god!" I was already crying. "I have trained for the past few months, but you actually forced a broken stone into me and turned me back to level 1, why didn''t you just leave me to die instead! If I had died, I would have at most dropped two levels, but how great is it now, I dropped over 400 levels! How do you want me to y from now on?" The ck Dragon never expected my reaction to be so huge. "I am sorry, I am truly sorry, I didn''t know that you wouldn''t want the new distribution of Attribute Points!" "What''s the point of being sorry, my levels will note back!" Oh right, I can just ask Customer Service about it! I quickly called the Customer Service Department. "Hello! How can we help you?" The customer servicedy''s voice was sweet. "I want to file aint, my level 479 Character was wiped clean by an NPC to level 1!" "Alright, let us help you take a look at it!" The Customer servicedy immediately started investigating. Not longter, she returned. "I am sorry, your situation belongs to a story development that the Game has set into ce and does not categorize under a BUG, but considering that the drop in level is truly too drastic, the Company has decided to give you a set ofpensation. Firstly, let us directly increase your level to 20, this way, you can continue the game from your location. Secondly, we will give your Character the Trait of ignoring Equipment Requirements, that also means you are free to use all Equipment regardless of the requirements set for the equipment. The level requirements, stats requirements, ss requirements are all ineffective for you, this way, you can continue using your current equipment. Thirdly, we have preserved all of your Spells and Spell Levels. Lastly, we will give you a choice ofpensation." F*ck! Level 20, why bother even setting it, and even im that it is apensation! But I did not dare toin, what if they actually took everything back! "What choice ofpensation?" "The first choice is to increase your Companion Slot by one and your Servant Slots by two; The Second choice is to grant you a passive trait of not dropping any items, regardless of what item it is, it can never be dropped upon death or stolen; The Third choice is to increase the Leveling Spring Water** into 10 dosages, we realized that you have items that can help increase levels, and can help you transform them into pills for easy consumption, every pill will increase one level. These are the options, you can choose from either one of them." There was no need to consider: "I want the passive trait of not dropping any items!" "Alright, the Trait has been entered, thank you for calling Customer Service!" Although I had obtained thepensations, I was still in a foul mood, A Character that was almost level 500 had actually dropped to level 1! (supposedly 20 with the customer service) How long would I need to train back up! ____________________________________________________________________________________ The ck Dragon became embarrassed upon seeing my anger: "I am truly sorry, I did not know that levels were so important to you!" "Forget it, you did it with the intention of helping me. I can train my levels back up!" "What about this, I''ll follow you to help you?" The ck Dragon suddenly shocked me with those words. "I am very powerful, if I were to follow you, you can regain your levels quickly!" "You don''t know about this, but a Companion''s level cannot exceed that of the Master. I am level 20 now, so Lucky will definitely be level 20! Oh right, have you seen Lucky? He''s your younger brother!" "I know! When he saved me, I caught the scent of Mom! Anyway, since my brother is with you, it''ll be perfect to have me. Even if our levels are low, we are still Dragons, a level 20 Dragon is definitely stronger than a level 40 Lizard!" "That''s true! Alright then! AHHHH¡­." Right when I agreed, the ck Dragon pounced and bit on my wrist. "Why do you guys like to bite my hand?" The ck Dragon opened his bloodied mouth and suddenly turned back into his Dragon Form. After taking my blood and recognizing me as his Master, he had turned back to level 20. Seems like the Dragons required an extremely high level to be able to transform themselves! "Since you are mypanion now, I should give you a name, what about Epidemic? Because ever since I saw you, I have been unlucky, you''re truly no different from an epidemic!" Although he was not very happy about it, Epidemic nodded his head. "Phantom Knights!" I summoned the Phantom Knights, luckily they were still around, I was back to level 20, and out of all my Companions, only Epidemic could fight, I was in deep trouble! I suddenly recalled that I had a Faerie Dragon. Since I''m in need of all the help I can get, Why not! I took out the Faerie Dragon Egg and pricked my finger to drop a drop of blood on it. Crack, the egg cracked, and a tiny Faerie Dragon staggered out. Epidemic looked at her excitedly, I never expected Epidemic to actually be a perverted Dragon. "Little one, you have a really beautiful color, I''ll call you Crystal from now on!" I gave the Faerie Dragon a name. Now, I have be the world''s first Dragon User with Three powerful Great Dragons, what a pity they were all level 20! I looked at the empty hall and found a small door in the distance, most probably, the treasures were kept in there. This time, I had paid such a huge price, and could not return empty-handed. As long as I brought our National Treasure back, I could say that I had sacrificed myself for the country! Of course, I had to first deal with Asmere. He was still lying on the ground without disappearing, which only meant that he had not died or he had something on him. I walked over and grabbed onto Dragon Lance and flipped him over, and it turned out that he was still alive. "PHANTOM KNIGHTS! HELP!" I was only level 20, how could I not run from the old Monster! But the old monster on the ground actually did not crawl up to kill me, my Dragon Lance had already taken most of his life. The Dragon Lance was a weapon that ignored Defence, matched with my high Damage output that only Warriors could unleash, no matter how perverse this old monster was at in being a Mage, my Dragon Lance had definitely struck a fatal blow despite being unable to kill him! "Master, he''s about to die soon!" The Head of the Phantom Knights used his Spear to poke at the dying Asmere. I carefully returned and looked at Asmere. He was vomiting blood, and it prevented him from chanting spells or curses. But I did not dare to get too close, I was sure that a level 1000 mage could kill me just by hitting me with his staff! "Kill him!" The head of the Phantom Knights used his own spear and stabbed twice. Bang! Asmere suddenly exploded. Luckily, I was hiding further away, the Phantom Knights in front of me had quickly drawn close to me and formed a human wall to block the power of the explosion. But even so, I almost died from the impact, a level 20 Character was truly weak! When the Phantom Knights in front of me moved away, I immediately noticed the items on the ground, there were three gemstones, who would have thought that the old man''s private stash would be so generous! I walked over and picked up the blue Gemstone and took a look at it. Good stuff, Ultimate Ice Crystal! It was an item on par with the Ultimate Fire Gem on my Helmet! Right next to the Ice Crystal was a green gemstone. I inspected it, it was an Ultimate Poison Gem. I quickly picked up thest gemstone as well, it was an Ultimate ck Water Gem! I''ve struck it rich! All the Gemstones had the ''Ultimate'' Quality property, which meant they could be used like how the Ultimate Fire Gem was used. In the beginning, it was the Fire Gem that saved me from theva when I attempted to [Blink], if not for the Dark Dragon Lord Set''s Gem slot that had the Ultimate Fire Gem in it, I would had long been burnt to ashes! As for the three gemstones in front of me, they should all have equivalent capabilities. The Ultimate Ice Crystal could resist Freeze or cold effects, not only could it reduce Ice type Magic, it could also summon Yetis, the number of summons was equal to 1/10 of the User''s Level plus one. I did not know what a Yeti was, I had never tried gaining levels in a Snow region, so I did not know how or what a Yeti was, but I guessed that they would be something simr to the me Hos that the Ultimate Fire Gem initially summoned, just that the Element type was different. The Ultimate Poison Gem could resist Poison, at the same time summon the King Butterfly, the number of summons equal to the level of the User. I did not know what a King Butterfly was as well, and only wished that I could summon Phantom as he was like a walking encyclopedia, he would know all these! As for thest ck Water Gem, the information box wrote that it could resist Light Magic, and could summon Underworld Skeletal Hands, the number of summons was 10 times of the User''s level. I had seen the Skeletal Hands before, The Dark Knights in the Death Valley knew such a spell, with one summon, they were able to summon a huge number of Skeletal Hands, although their damage output was low, there were plenty of them. It was aplete nightmare for foot soldiers or armies!*** Although their attributes were good, I had no way to use them, I had to let rk embed them into the armor for me! But I faced a problem of leaving the ce. The door at the end was the only way out. I came in by using Phantom''s [Blink], but now that we were level 20, Phantom''s [Blink] had a maximum range of less than 1 meter! I brought the Phantom Knights to the door and decided to get them to open the door. If there were any mechanism inside, My level 20 "Newbie" would definitely be unable to stop it! Fortunately, nothing happened when the door was opened, it only revealed a corridor. We ran through the corridor with the Phantom Knights split into three groups, the Head of the Phantom Knights led four Phantom Knights as the vanguard, another four walked behind while one Phantom Knight brought me in the middle. I had be as fragile as ss now, one touch and it''ll be the end of me! We reached the end of the corridor in a short while, where a mud wall blocked the path. The head of the Phantom Knights knocked on it, producing a hollow sound! Three Phantom Knights turned their Mounts backward with their butts against the wall (The corridor was extremely wide). The Head of the Phantom Knights waved his hand, and the three Mounts jumped and used their rear hooves to kick the wall. With a rumble, the mud wall fell and formed a hole. The Phantom Knights quickly expanded the hole to allow the Mounts to pass through. After passing through the hole, we arrived at a Teleport Station. Left with no other choice, I used it. After being teleported, we arrived at a gigantic cave with a river ofva flowing down by our side. The high temperature caused my HP to drop constantly, but with my fast HP regeneration, it basically bnced out, but the information box was constantly updated: You have lost 1 HP due to the zingva. Without walking far, we reached a giganticvake which had a striking resemnce when I was at the top of the volcanic crater, just that thisvake had a ceiling while the volcanic crater was open to the sky. In the center of thevake was a gigantic ind, but it was impossible to jump across. Luckily, I had wings, and flying was not a problem. I unsummoned the Phantom Knights and flew over to the ind in the center of theke, and summoned the Phantom Knights once again. This way, the Phantom Knights could assess the Ind with me. The temperature on the ind was much higher than the outside, and the rate at which I was losing my HP exceeded that of my HP regeneration. Itpelled me to swallow pills asionally to keep my HP up. Luckily, the Phantom Knights were at extremely high levels and were not worried over the loss of HP. At the center of the Ind was some sort of Altar with a Stone gue above which had some words carved into it. I led the Phantom Knights over, the temperature of the ground was truly horrifying, every step I took would produce green smoke from beneath my feet. Very quickly, we reached the Altar, and that was when I finally saw a brownish red wooden sword stabbed into the Stone gue. The Sword tip was stabbed deep into the gue, with less than a chi**** left exposed out of the stone. But from the Chinese Dragon shape hilt and its unique carvings, I knew that it was one of China''s National Treasure. I went up to grab the sword hilt and right when I was about to pull it out, I suddenly noticed words written above the Stone gue. I released my grip on the sword and swiped the dust away, revealing the words below, that were written in Chinese. Sage Tai Zu encountered a restless Fire Source, afraid that it would take lives, used the Deity Sword to protect thend. If the Deity Sword is unleashed, the mes will lose control, and lives will be seized! To move this Sword, one has to first cast the Spirit Stone into the mes, eliminating the intensity of the mes! The words were written vaguely, but I got the gist of it. Firstly, the sword was called Deity Sword, and it was used to stabilize theva pool, as long as the Sword were to be separated from the gue, thevake would churn and the mountain would be an active Volcano. To prevent theke from turning active, one had to throw the Spirit Stone into the mes. But I had already eaten the Spirit Stone, how could I find another Spirit Stone to throw it in! But, since we were in Japan, although I did not know where the Teleportation had brought me to, I was sure that we were still within Japan itself. Since the Volcano would not burn the Chinese, then let it burn! Who cares, I grabbed the sword hilt and pulled it out. Ssshhinngggg! The Deity Sword was easily drawn by me, but at the same time, theva started to churn. I unsummoned the Phantom Knights and used my Wings to fly back to the mainnd. Theke was already turning active with bubbles constantly forming on the surface of theva and already looked extremely unstable, as though it could blow at any moment. The Deity Sword suddenly shed with a faint white light, and a white barrier formed around me. I calmed down, the Sword was able to stabilize the entire Lake, protecting me alone would not be a problem. I had already flown over theke, thus I leaned on the wall and waited for the Volcano''s eruption to form a way out for me. Theke became more and more unstable, inside the churningva, there would asionally beva spouts spewing up over seven to eight meters before falling back into theke. Suddenly, the ground started to tremble, and the wall that I was leaning on copsed. The Lava started to surge towards me. A tunnel appeared at where the wall had copsed and theva surged into the tunnel like a flood. But the light barrier did not break, thus I did not suffer from any damage. What I did not notice was that the cave had a total of eight such tunnels that appeared, where the risingva had flowed into, flowing into eight different directions¡­. Chapter Title: Reincarnation & A Reset --------- (*) Ziri''s base attributes at the start of the game was Str 13, Dex 6, Int 2, Charisma 6, Spirit 3 and Constitution 8 (**) The Spring Water was most likely obtained from the Spring of Life, but Thunderstorm never wrote much about it after that. (***)I''ve looked through the novel but could not find any Dark Knights that had summoned this spell, most likely a mistake, or I did not read properly. If anyone remembers a scene where some Dark Knight in some Valley (the valley that I remembered was the one where he went to train and encountered high-level mobs at the Lost City in the beginning, but there were no Skeletal Hands there.) (****) Chi = Chinese foot = 30 cm Chapter 148: Back on board [Vol 4 Chapter 86] Chapter 148: Back on board [Vol 4 Chapter 86] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry I did not know that theva cave had actually produced 8 different tunnels, and theva was flowing through the 8 additional tunnels into their respective directions. I followed the river ofva further into the tunnel, in terms of physical damage, the powerfulva current was almost on par with thendslide, and I had no way to stop, and could only flow along with theva. After riding theva for a period of time, I finally arrived at the end of the tunnel. It was not a huge cave and it was quickly filled withva, but the churningva was unwilling to stop as so and continued to assault various points of the rock walls with the intent of finding drainage openings. Very quickly, ws started to appear on the ceiling of the cave and as the influx ofva grew more and more, the force gradually increased, and the cracks on the ceilings gradually grewrger. Finally, the ceiling was not able to withstand the assault of theva, the mountain started to tremble and shake intensely as the entire ceiling copsed, but it did not stop there. Theva flow that had grown much faster continued through the ceiling to the surface. The high-pressureva quickly found even more drainage passageways and excitedly surged out. I was forced out from one of the cave entrance, the intense pressure had produced an unimaginable power that pushed me out of the surface at an astonishing speed. The pressure around suddenly decreased, I sensed that I had left the cave as the inertia of the flood pushed me up a few hundred meters into the air before there I gradually lost speed. Japan, ck Dragon Force Base of Operations, Hira City* - After reviving, Masayoshi Matsumoto headed over to the Guild Hall and sat down in anger. "A bunch of trash, all of you were once again toyed with by that damn Chinese! Trash!" Seated with Masayoshi Matsumoto were the other heads of the various guilds and organizations that had formed an alliance. One of the Ninja argued in defense: "You can''t me us, that Dragon was level 1000! Or were you expecting us to be able to kill Dragons?" Another Warrior spoke up: "It is impossible for us to win against a Full Adult Dragon, didn''t you die in an instant as well?" "What are you trying to say?" Tanaka Shota stood up and pointed at the Warrior. "We are not Tanky sses, it should be you Warriors, to hold the front and tank the damage for us!" "But you have to factor in what we are up against! That was a Dragon! How do you expect us to tank that sort of damage? One tail of his was enough to sweep everyone into the sky, we are ofpletely different levels!" "Alright, stop arguing, we are already in this state, there''s no point pushing the me!" Masayoshi Matsumoto immediately put a stop to the argument that was escting. Right when he was about to speak up, the ground started to tremble, causing the teacups at the center of the table to vibrate towards the edges. CRASH! The teacups dropped and smashed to the ground. Everyone stood up, although earthquakes weremon in Japan, in the Game World of [Zero], Japan did not have earthquakes. Masayoshi Matsumoto was the first to bolt out of the hall, the ck Dragon Force''s conference hall was as tall as a Roman Pce hall, and at the entrance, Masayoshi Matsumoto had a clear panoramic view of the city, allowing him to check on the situation. The tremors of the ground grew more powerful, preventing them to stand properly. All of a sudden, the Tower of Truth in the distance started to tilt to one side. The holes on the Tower of Truth that I had destroyed after thest battle had not beenpletely restored and the iplete Tower was unable to withstand the tremors. A few secondster, the Tower of Truth lost its center of gravity and started to fall. The Tower twisted down towards the ground like a whip, causing all the Japanese yers below to panic to the point that they forgot to dodge. After the fall of the Tower of Truth, the conference hall behind Masayoshi Matsumoto began to show signs of destruction, cracks quietly crawled their way up the stone pirs of the hall which extended to the ceilings. BANG! The ceiling copsed amidst the smoke and dust from the explosion, even the Japanese Warrior Statue at the entrance of the hall had fallen and crumbled into pieces. Masayoshi Matsumoto was so flustered and exasperated that he howled out loud: "What is going on? Who did this? I want to kill his family!" Before Masayoshi Matsumoto could finish his sentence, a tall building in the city - the Resurrection Pce, copsed with a loud bang. All the structures inside Hira City started to fall one after another, even the City walls were crumbling and chunks of it fell into the moat that surrounded the City. A low rumble suddenly urred in the center of the city as thend that was roughly the size of Tiananmen Square (44 Hectares) rose in elevation, pulling the surroundingnd around as well, flinging all the dpidated buildings and people who were unable to run away in time into the air, followed by the scarlet redva that sprinkled all around like a fountain. Theva that spewed out caught up with the debris all over and increased their momentum while the main pir ofva shooting into the sky reached a peak of 800 meters tall before turning into countless igneous rocks and fell in all directions. The dropping igneous rocks might be cooled down by the air, but it was just the outer shells that had turned into igneous rocks that were as tough as stones. Theva inside, on the other hand, continued to churn in liquid form. All of these ''Super'' fireballs smashed into the ground and rolled across the ruins filled with dpidated houses, opening a trail of mes, and after colliding with the tall structures that had not fallen, the fireballs would explode into countless of pieces, scattering theva from within all over. It looked as though the entire Hira City was suffering from the baptism of arge scale meteor disaster, the entire City was burning, even the buildings that had survived through the earthquakes were not able tost as they were helplessly burnt into pieces from the great mes. The eruptionsted for less than 10 minutes, but the entire Hira City hadpletely turned into ruins. The originally neat streets and houses no longer existed, reced with smoke and ruins, the grey Amidst the gloomy rubble were the coolingva that formed terrifying streaks of lines throughout the City. Within some of the rubble were survivors that were injured and screaming at the top of their lungs with endless white lights shining, representing that there were many yers dying, and the death count was still rising! Masayoshi Matsumoto waspletely dumbstruck, he stared at the City with his lifeless eyes that he had painstakingly established being burnt into ruins in less than 10 minutes. If not for the ck Dragon Force having other bases and thus not disbanded, Masayoshi Matsumoto would most likely have suicidal thoughts! In reality, not all of the magma beneath the volcano had flowed towards Hira City, there were 8 different tunnels where theva had flowed through. Aside from the one that had destroyed Hira City, there were others that found ces to surge out of the surface. Within them, 5 other tunnels found cracks in the grounds outside the City, and although they did not explode within the City, many yers training near the City were all burnt to death. 2 otherva tunnels flowed further away, one of which surged to a ce called Saiping Harbor City and flowed out onto the surface. This port was not as huge as Hira City and waspletely wiped out within 8 minutes, theva had turned the entire ce into and of igneous rocks while theva cooled by the seawater and had cast a ck rock cliff. It was impossible for them to rebuild a Harbor City there in the future! Thestva flow ran the furthest, and only found its goal an hour after Hira City and the Harbor City had met their demise - Heavenly Sovereign City, this small City was Kyoei Organisation''s base of operations. Theva spewed out from beneath Keigo Shrine which was dead center in the City, elevating the entirend that Keigo Shrine was built on 450 meters up into the sky, after which it all crumbled down into billions of pieces that scattered through the entire City, all of those Idiots at Kyoei Organisation had to flee from their own ancestors'' memorial tablets that were smashing down onto them. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Back to me. I followed theva and shot up from beneath Heavenly Sovereign City, and after flipping for a few times in midair, I quickly stabilized myself. I expanded my Dark Dragon Wings and flew out of the Lava''s AOE, and quicklynded on the ground. All around me were Japs running away in panic, no one paid attention to me at all. Uponnding, I noticed something that had dropped along with me and took it with ease. A memorial tablet? On this long te was a portrait of a Jap, although I did not know who he was, but he was dressed in what seemed like the military uniform that the Japs wore when they invaded China in the 19th Century. I looked up into the sky, arge buildplex had unexpectedly been blown into the sky by the power of theva. On one of the of the more intact memorial arch, the name Keigo Shrine could be seen. Isn''t that Kyoei Organisation''s unique building, that Keigo Shrine? How did I got sent here? While pondering about it, a rumble came out, the Keigo Shrine in the air had suddenly crumbled into countless of debris, and one of the rooms actually dropped many ck dots. I guessed that the ck dots were the memorial tablet like the one in my hand. Fine, since you guys like to worship these war criminals, then I will help you guys worship them. I switched on the Auto-Pickup function of the Bracelet Inventory and kept the memorial tablet inside it, then chose to pick up simr objects. What happened next was the memorial tablets falling from the sky swarmed at me like a swarm of bees and were absorbed into my Bracelet, although theva had destroyed a few of them, 90% of the memorial tablets hadnded in my hands. When I saw the pile of memorial tablets inside the Bracelet, I broke out into an evilugh. When I return home, I will construct a "Keigo Toilet" for all of China yers to relieve themselves! Oh sh*t! The game doesn''t seem to have the function for yers to relieve ourselves, but it doesn''t matter, that doesn''t mean I can''t build a toilet! When I get back, I will build a magnificent andrge toilet, then ce all of the memorial tablets inside the manure as an offering, then I can collect entrance fees for people to view them! Otherwise, I can build a martyr monument and use these memorial tablets to pave the way that leads to the monument. My actions with the memorial tablets were most probably spotted by everyone, as a group of people started running towards me. I quickly summoned the Phantom Knights and got them to bring me away. Because of theva, the entire Heavenly Sovereign City was inplete chaos, which allowed us to throw off the pursuers quickly. Once we were out of the City, it was my world. I stood on a hill in the distance and watched as the Heavenly Sovereign City burned into a city of ashes, it made me feel so aplished! "Boss? Where''re you?" Felix had be impatient waiting for me, and private messaged to inquire about my status. "I''m outside of Kyoei Organisation''s Heavenly Sovereign City, I''ll let you watch the ming scene!" I opened the Video Chat and with my back facing the City, I acted like a News Reporter and exined: "We areing live from Japan, at China''s present time, Heavenly Sovereign City, Kyoei Organisation''s headquarters has just met with a sudden volcanic eruption, the entrance of theva seemed to havee from right below Keigo Shrine situated in the middle of the city, which resulted in theplete destruction of the Shrine. The citizens of the City have met with severe casualties and injuries, with the death toll increasing by the minute." Listening to my report, Felix and Hope had their mouth wide opened into an ''O'' shape. "The two of you, stop doing crap there, quickly leave and wait for me at Shiromizu City, just let them know that I instructed the two of you to go." "We left a long time ago!" Felix sensed that I had changed the topic, and immediately exined: "After you went down, Mt Fuji turned into a volcano and started erupting, theva rushed down the side of the mountains, we were forced to leave!" "That''s perfect, then quickly move! I''ll be there in a while!" After closing the chat, I suddenly realized that my Stats Icon was shing. Usually, the Stats Icon would only sh when the yer levels, Did I gain levels? I opened the Stats and took a look, I was actually already level 208. Hold up, I didn''t fight any mobs? How did I gain levels? That''s right, I had killed Asmere after the reincarnation, and the EXP gained from him had been added to my new body. But something was still wrong! Killing higher leveled mobs or BOSSES do gave additional EXP, but for a Level 1 yer to kill a Level 1000 BOSS, the best EXP it would provide would be 3x EXP, and even if the EXP from killing Asmere was extremely high, 3x of it was still insufficient for me to jump from Level 1 to Level 208! Thedder towards Level 200 is an extremely difficult level to climb! Unless¡­.? I quickly opened my Experience Bar and observed it carefully. As I had expected, my EXP was still increasing. Seems like the deaths of the Japs from the Volcanic Eruption was considered my kills! (Due to the fact that the other ces were too far, the EXP from the deaths of the Japs there did not ount to me, only the EXP from the deaths of the Japs in Heavenly Sovereign City, but at that time, I did not know that the Lava did not solely stop at one ce.) I sat pillion behind the Head of the Phantom Knights and sprinted towards the closest City. As we were in Japan, my Ring of Teleportation was unable to urately pinpoint the coordinates, thus there was no way for me to use it. And because of the drop in levels, Night Shade could not be used as a mount, and I could only follow one of the Phantom Knights! I had to quickly find a ce to grind levels, although my level had risen to over 200 because of the Volcano, the EXP was only given to me, kills by my Companions would provide a portion of EXP back to me, but my Companions could not take EXP from my kills, therefore although I was already Level 208, Night Shade and the rest were Level 20! Luckily, the Phantom Knights were not slow and we rushed straight through the gates of a City. I had the thoughts to unsummon the Phantom Knights, but after taking into ount my low level and the danger I would face without their protection, I could only let them lead me into the City. Fortunately, the Japanese people''s nature of bullying the weak and running from the strong prevented them from finding trouble with me, the term ''taking a step back to attain new heights**'' could only be used in China, but in Japan, taking a step back would only allow them to take 10 steps forward, if you lowered yourself, the Japs would see themselves as your Grandfather, but if you acted slightly fiercer, they would be your grandsons! That was how the Phantom Knights were deterring them. 10 Horses lined into two files sprinting down the road, even when many of them were pushed off the streets, no one dared to say anything. As for those individuals who wanted to show off their strengths, they were stabbed by the Phantom Knights and hung on the signboard of the stores. We rushed straight to the Teleport Station and used it to move to Shiromizu, where I found Felix, Hope, and Hiko standing right next to the station. "Why are you guys here?" Hiko was the first to speak up: "Your friends here said that you would be here, thus we came here to wait for you." "Let''s go, let''s not stand here, we should find somewhere else to sit and talk!" "Oh! Alright, please follow me!" We followed Hiko and walked towards the room that we had talked in the previous time. Along the way, I never spoke about my drop in Levels, I did not wish to let other people know that I was currently weak. All my actions in Japan for the past few days were enough to scare the majority and deter them from taking revenge on me, but once they knew that I had dropped levels, they would definitely prevent me from running out of Japan! When we arrived in the room, I briefly talked about my experience in obtaining the China National Treasure, of course, leaving my drop in levels part out. After that, Hiko and I discussed the arrangements for departure. "Have you assembled your people?" "They are all ready." "Then why didn''t I see anyone on the way?" "We informed them that we are leaving tomorrow afternoon, at the moment, everyone has logged out and are handling their requests for leave of absence, with their free time, they will be able to follow you from tomorrow till the following day!" "That''s fine. Then I''ll log out too, I won''te on until tomorrow afternoon, wait for me toe online, then we will leave." I turned to Felix: "Are you leaving?" "I think I''ll stay in Japan! If I return, we won''t have a way to resist the Japs!" "That''s true! We will leave for now, since the Nation Wars Update will open in five to six months, I will PM you at that time!" After bidding farewell to all of them, I went offline, my Level was too low and moving around outside was too dangerous, gaining Levels was a matter I could only consider back in China. I regained consciousness outside. As usual, I floated inside therge Support Chamber, but there was a circle of people standing outside, with Mom and Dad as well. Dad picked up the handset: "You''re finally out of the game? We were about to call you out!" "What happened?" The researcher by the side answered for my Dad: "Your recovery rate was much faster than what we had anticipated, you are already able to leave the Support Chamber already." "I can get out now? That''s great, after having liquid diet inside this ce for so many days, I have already forgotten the taste of meat!" "Alright, be prepared, we will drain the water, but because you''ve been inside for too long, your muscles might becking strength, do your best to lean on the back support yourself." "Alright!" When the researcher saw that I was ready, he pressed the drainage button, allowing the liquid inside the Chamber to drop at a fast rate, allowing my legs touch the floor in the chamber. The sensation upon touching the ground felt extremely weird, it felt as though my legs were cramping up, I had no control over them, which resulted in me standing in an extremely strange posture. After the liquid had beenpletely cleared, the ss opened automatically while the researcher quickly entered and assisted me in pulling out all the various sized tubes. When all the tubes were removed from my body, I was assisted out by the researcher while a wheelchair was quickly pushed over for me. I felt like a newborn infant with my difficult control over my arms and legs. With much difficulty, I finally sat down in the wheelchair, while my Dad pushed forward and personally pushed me out of the room. I was sent to a resting room. Mom took out a set of clothes that she had prepared for me and helped me change, to find out that all the clothes had shrunk! The pants that Mom had prepared actually turned into a three-quarter pants as it only managed to cover until my calf. My shirt was the same, the originally well-fitted clothes had revealed my navel, while the sleeves had shortened by half! "What happened?" I looked at the extremely small clothes. "Was it me, or did the clothes shrink?" The researcher next to Dad spoke up: "Your reconstructed skeletal frame had most probably over-absorbed the nutrients, thus the elongation of your body, that is the reason why your muscles feel extremely tensed and for now, you are unable to control your body. But don''t worry about this, your muscle tissues grow extremely fast, it will take two days tops for you to recover back to normal!" "That''s great! Who knows how tall I am now!" I was no longer a dwarf! ording to the researcher''s words, I could not go out for the next few days and required recuperation. The transformation on the muscle tissues that the B13 have introduced was not over yet, and for the next few days, I was required to consume arge diet to nourish and match with the immense consumption from my body''s extreme metabolism rate. Of course, it was not bad news for me, who would ever refuse overeating! Of course, recuperating did not mean that I had to lie down and do nothing, I could return to the game. But I decided not to. After staying inside the chamber for so many days, I asked Mom to push me out for fresh air, the air pumped into the Chamber was mixed with a strange odor which had assailed my nose so much, it was unbearable! The feeling of leaving the underground base and being able to see the Sun that I had missed out on for so long, the feeling was too awesome! After a casual roundabout, I was pushed back to the resting room where I talked to Mom for the entire day, where Rose joined inter. By the time they left, it was already night time. After enjoying a good night sleep, I finally realized that sleeping in a lying posture was the mostfortable thing in the world! I was woken up by the researcher the next day morning, he had pushed a cart of good food to tempt me, of course, I finished everything up, I had no need to lose weight! After sending the researcher away, I went onto the Forum with the desire to see the Japs'' reaction towards the Volcano, and what I saw truly shocked me. The front page''s lead story of the International Forum''s revealed that Japan had suffered from a rarely seen volcanic eruption, three cities were razed to the ground, 70k odd yers were burnt in the sea of mes, and two leveling spots hadpletely disappeared. On the same day, aside from Heavenly Sovereign City, even Hira City waspletely destroyed! The picture of Hira City almost made meugh out loud, the originally flourishing and bustling city now looked like the textbook pictures of Hiroshima that had been destroyed by the atomic bomb. The Japs finally received their retribution! After the news, there was actually a message written by Masayoshi Matsumoto. He had opened a 1 million Crystal Piece reward for anyone who knows of my real location. Hehe, truly an interesting person, you want to know my real location to kill me? You will only have a chance if you can employ Special Forces! Behind the post were many otherments written by people of other Countries. Majority of them were from Asian countries ming him, Japan''s reputation was too terrible to the point of beingparable to the rats on the streets! As I scrolled further, I saw a British user by the name Rezard who had left ament stating that he wanted topare as to who was eviler, he imed that he had caused a great forest fire in the UK that had killed over 3000 people! Seriously, there are all sorts of weird people all over the world! I stayed on the forum all the way till midday, where the researched prepared yet another huge meal for me! After finishing the meal, it was already past 1 p.m (There were too many things to eat, I ate for 2 hours odd) when I quickly went online. When I appeared in the hall, there was a circle of people all around. Hiko, Hope and the five Captains of the Cherry Blossom Organisation had gathered. When I appeared, they were in the midst of a discussion, but when I appeared, they immediately kept quiet. "Is everyone here?" Hiko immediately ran over. "Everyone''s here, we are just waiting for you. The Sisters are all very excited, and were already online waiting since a long time ago!" "That''s great, let us move out then!" I rode on the Phantom Knight''s horse with over a thousand girls following behind and I swear, the feeling was truly¡­..weird! We were not strolling around, and to reduce the danger, we were doing our best to prevent other people from noticing us, but it was a huge group of over a thousand people, not gaining attraction was easily said, not done! Hiko already had the arrangements made. She followed me to locate the position of where the boat would be in the afternoon and we formted three paths. Cherry Blossom Organisation had plenty of Elf Warriors who had servants as mounts. All of these horses followed me, while the other two groups moved towards their designated locations. Although it was still obvious, at least it was not like a thousand people unting off and moving together. No one knew if it was because our two great enemies, the ck Dragon Force and the Kyoei Organisation had their cities burned down and were too busy or we were lucky, but everyone arrived at the designated meeting point on the beach. The beach had an area of shoal where there were plenty of yers grinding Levels. Cherry Blossom Organisation forcefully expelled them on the excuse of reserving the ce, although there were more yers against the Cherry Blossom Organization, they were all of the different GUilds, of course, they did not dare to engage in an all-out battle against arge Guild themselves! I brought Hope and the Leaders of Cherry Blossom Organisation as the advance party to scout and locate the motorboats that we had left behind (Don''t ask me why the motorboats had not been refreshed away after so many days, the motorboats are considered boats, and there had never been an instance where constructed boats would be refreshed away after days of them being unused). Four motorboats got the 8 of us further out of the ocean, where Bi-Lin had stopped without any gs. That was my request, this way, the Japs could not locate Bi-Lin that easily, seeing a gless Ship, they would assume that it was other Jap yers. As it was the first time for Hiko and the others on a motorboat, they were not used to it, thus I did not travel too quickly. When the people on board Bi-Lin located us, Bi-Lin slowly sailed over. By Bi-Lin''s side, I got them to prepare a ropedder and allowed thedies to board first. It was their first time riding a motorboat, I did not dare to get them to jump into the water and enter Bi-Lin via the underwater entrance, it was a high-intensity movement that in their groggy states could not possibly perform, furthermore, they did not know where the door was! We quickly boarded the boat, and Hawk who had not seen me for many days ran over to hug me. I quickly pushed him away. "Wait, there are still many people behind, dispatch all the motorboats and follow me to pick them up!" Bi-Lin was too big and the beach was too shallow, thus we could not get too close ind, and could only use the motorboats to transport the people. Luckily, we had sufficient motorboats and they were fast enough, allowing the transport toplete quickly. After receiving thest member on board Bi-Lin, Bi-Lin dexterously turned and left the beach. It was too dangerous staying at the Jap''s side! The members of Cherry Blossom Organisation had been arranged to the hold of the ship, leaving the Five Captains and Hiko. Anyone who saw Hiko''s expression would truly understand what going wild with joy was, she was so happy she did not know what to do. Likewise, the other Five Captains were extremely happy, only Meigetsu Yuri had maintained herself, after all, she was much older. All the old friends on board all asked about what I had been doing for the past few days, and of course, I had to share my glorious stories to them. When I told them about how I caused the Volcano eruption, all of them cheered in joy, that was when Zirai truly regretted not following me and had returned earlier. I introduced Hiko and the other five to the rest when Hiko eximed emotionally: "So this the Chinese style of friendship?" Everyone looked at her strangely: "What does Chinese style of friendship mean?" "When Japanese friends meet, they are not as passionate, although everyone behaves extremely politely, in truth, their thoughts arepletely opposite, all of those friends, rather than calling them friends, I think calling them cooperative partners is more appropriate! But all of you are different, I can sense the affections between all of you! It is truly too touching!" All of us nodded in agreement, the Japanese people''s formal etiquette was in fact known even more as being hypocritical and a sham. "Oh! Right, Ziri, did something happen to you?" Hawk suddenly asked me. "What do you mean?" Hawk pointed to the Captain symbol on his shoulder. "Yesterday, the system suddenly informed me that the Captain''s level was below level 50 and cannot continue holding the Captain position, thus the position of Captain was automatically transferred to me, the Deputy Captain. What happened to you? Aren''t you level 400 plus? Why did the system suddenly say you that you aren''t level 50?" "I¡­." I was about to exin about my drop in levels when a cannonball suddenly exploded inside the water right beside us. A waterspout over 10 meters tall hot up, and the water sprinkled all over us! "Enemies! To positions! Prepare for battle!" Hawk was familiar withmand and had the strength to do so, he was truly more suited to be the Captain than me! I walked to the aft and looked at the fleet that had suddenly appeared in the waters. ------ (*) This City was exined in chapter 128 Infiltration. (**) The actual phrase is ÈÌһʱ·çƽÀ˾²,ÍËÒ»²½º£À«Ìì¿Õ, which roughly means ''a little something goes a long way,promising allows both parties to attain new heights''. But here, they only used thetter part, where Thunderstorm emphasized more on taking a step back promise) to point that the Japanese would push even further. Chapter 149: Plot Shift [Vol 4 Chapter 87] Chapter 149: Plot Shift [Vol 4 Chapter 87] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "ck Dragon Force Ships!" Unknowingly, Hawk was already right beside me, using a pair of binocrs and looking in the same direction as me. As they were not too far away, I could see them with [Star Gaze]. "They actually followed me!" "Not you, us!" Hiko stood at my other side and said. "You? What''s the point in chasing after you?" Indeed, Cherry Blossom Organisation had plenty of beautifuldies, but Masayoshi Matsumoto was not some desperate pervert, why would he risk his life just for a group of beauties! The Captain of the First Main Force, Peach, walked over. "Yes, there is nothing about us worth chasing after, but we have something that they desperately want." "What is it that is so important?" Hawk put the binocrs down and asked: "Look at that, it seems that ck Dragon Force has brought their entire Guild over just for you!" Hiko took out a pink Crystal Gem and handed it over as I took it and had a look. "There''s nothing about it?" Aside from the description stating that it was a quest item, there was nothing else, not even a name! "This is the Angel Gem! Masayoshi Matsumoto spent 30 million Crystal Pieces for it!" "Why is this broken gem worth so much?" Hawk received the Gem and took a look at it in disbelief. "Isn''t it just an ordinary gem? At most, it is slightly prettier, but that''s all!" Hiko took back the Gem. "This is a Quest Activation Tool, as long as you have this and enter any Shrine of Light, you will be able to activate the quest, but as to what it is, I am not sure either! Either way, that Masayoshi Matsumoto spent a great deal of money to buy this, it should be a worthy item!" "How did such an expensive and precious thingnd in your hands?" I did not believe that Masayoshi Matsumoto would gift such a thing to others. Hiko suddenlyughed. "That Masayoshi Matsumoto likes one of our sisters, but she doesn''t'' like him. After that when she found out about his dealings to obtain this Gem, she asked to take a look at it. Masayoshi Matsumoto was unwilling at first, but after the constant pestering by her, he could no longer take it and lent it to her. When she received the Gem, she immediately ran back. Right away, Masayoshi Matsumoto started to chase after her, he wants it back." "Then after that?" "After that, she gave the Gem to me, then recreated a whole new character with a different name, so Masayoshi Matsumoto can''t find her anymore!" "How does Masayoshi Matsumoto knows that the Gem is in your possession?" "There are traitors in the Organisation!" Hiko said it indifferently, but I saw the unhappiness in her eyes. "What''s there to feel bad about, it''s a game! How can an organization ever be free from spies?" "Alright, shall we head up to the Control Room? The enemy fleet has already entered an effective shooting range, the bow isn''t safe!" Hawk pulled us into the Control Room. "Prepare the cannons!" Hawk shouted out loud. The sailors quickly rushed up the deck and pulled down the canvas that covered the enormous Magic Crystal Cannons. Hiko gasped in surprise. "What are those things?" "Magic Crystal Cannons*!" I answered nonchntly. "They are massive!" "Yes! And also very expensive!" Was she joking, it cost 100 million crystal pieces for one, how could they not be massive? Hawk ordered the First Mate: "Position the cannons!" "Yes, Captain! Position the cannons!" The armored boards on Bi-lin''s side were opened in an orderly fashion, revealing all the firing holes, where all of the silver cannon tubes were pushed out of the holes. Bi-lin instantly became a battle prepared hedgehog. Another sharp shriek came out from the air, another cannon shotnded in the water just a few meters away from Bi-lin, the Jap''s aim with the cannons was truly terrible! "Return fire!" Hawk roared. "Return fire!" The First Mate passed down the order. All of the Magic Crystal Cannons were activated, with a bang, five of the cannons unleashed five shots in unison (The Cannons sold were already replenished). The five cannonballs flew to the ck Dragon Force Fleet in the distance, the fleet consisting of roughly 3000 ships, with their dense mass, meant that the probability of being struck was higher, without even the need to take aim, we fired at will! The purple magic crystal cannonballs urately dropped into the center of the ck Dragon Force fleet, the powerful might of the enormous Magic Crystal Cannons effortlessly destroyed some warships into pieces of wood. Hiko had never seen such powerful weapons before, the might of the enormous Magic Crystal Cannons had surpassed their imaginations. The first wave of fire stunned the entire Japs fleet for a moment, but very quickly, they chased after us again. But we were not anxious to run and dangled with a distance between us and continued to attack. The Japanese Fleet ignored our fires, they clearly knew that they could not catch up to us yet they continued to tank the fires, it seemed as though Masayoshi Matsumoto was fuming with anger to the point of being capable of acting so poorly! Turn the bow right!" Hawk suddenly shouted. The ship suddenly drifted horizontally in front of the Japanese Fleet. "Fire rapid and at will for 1 minute!" The entire Bi-lin''s starboard suddenly unleashed a barrage of fires, 650rge caliber cannons, and the 5 enormous Magic Crystal Cannons shot out a spectacr scene, causing Hiko and the few otherdies to be in dumbstruck. Hawk proudly watched the volley of fires constantly spewing out from the cannons, giving rise to smoke. Although I was d that I had such firepower, I felt more pain as it was my money, all the cannonballs were worth money! The dense rain of cannonballsnded in front of the ck Dragon Force Fleet, causing a sea of mes to rise, almost all the frontline ships were instantly razed and destroyed by the volley. In the minute of volley, each cannon in Bi-lin had shot over 10 times. Hawk ordered B-lin to drift once more and we escaped without a trace, the Japs behind us could only worry helplessly as the frontline ships that were destroyed had blocked their path to advance, and at that time, they were unable to continue chasing after us. Bi-lin easily threw off the pursuers and disappeared from the Japs'' line of sight. "Ziri?" I suddenly heard Hiko call for me. When I turned back, I was instantly weed with an object flying towards me. I instinctively extended my hand and caught the object. It was actually the Gem that they had cheated Masayoshi Matsumoto of. "What''s this for?" Yoshimi smiled at me: "that''s our ship ticket!" I took up the Gem and looked at it. "Alright!" Honestly, I was extremely interested in the Gem as I loved doing quests! "What do you n to do when you reach China?" "We are going to build a city!" The lively and excited Norika Shizuka replied. "To build a city, don''t you need a Guild?" "Aren''t we already a guild?" "The name Cherry Blossom Organisation cannot be used in China, anyone can tell it is a Japan guild." "We n to grind for another Guild Badge before re-registering the new guild in China." Hiko patted Shizuka''s head and said. "Then all of you better be careful in this period of time, you are all Japanese people, if you die, you will revive back in Japan, I don''t have the time to make another trip!" I warned Hiko and the rest in advance so as to avoid any hups when the time came. "But we can''t assure that we will all survive! There will definitely be people dying from fighting mobs, it is impossible for ourrge guild to have 0 deaths!" Hiko''s worry was not without a basis, but ultimately, I felt that they had to resolve it themselves. If they wanted to revive in China after dying and not sent back to Japan, they needed to ensure that they had a Guild Headquarters in China, but the Cherry Blossom Organisation''s name was definitely unusable (The Guild''s name could not be changed). The requirement to rebuild a Guild was to have a Guild Badge, but the grind for a Guild Token to drop would definitely lead to deaths! It was simply a death cycle, even before the involved person could resolve a problem, he/she would be restricted due to some variables and at the end, nothing could be done! "Why not this? All of you can join our guild and we build a City?" Elfy suddenly interjected. Hiko lowered her head with her finger scratching her cheek as she thought about it, then raised her head and looked at the other five Captains. Peach quickly nodded her head: "I have no objections, I''m fine with joining or not joining!" Hiko looked at the Second Captain Akira, who spoke with assurance: "that''s the best move we can make, I agree to join them!" Yoshimi voiced out her opinion right after: "I agree as well! Ziri is so powerful, if we are in the guild, we will no longer need to be afraid of getting bullied ever again!" Unexpectedly, Shizuka shook her head: "I am against it, we are alldies, how can we find a man to manage us around!" Being thest, Yuriughed and nodded: "I agree to join their guild!" Hiko shook her head helplessly: "Three for, one against, one forfeit, no matter where I cast my vote, it won''t affect anything, then our organization''s view is to agree to join!" I spoke up unhappily: "Hey! Ladies, all of you seemed to have forgotten to ask about MY opinion? Don''t show your dissatisfaction, I did not force all of you to join. My Guild requires strength, if you have no strength, I don''t want you!" I pointed to Hawk, Elfy and the rest and said: "These are the members of my Guild, the six of you have to individually pick an opponent, and can only join if you win, but if you lose¡­.!" Hiko realized that their voting actions in front of me were truly impolite, she was about to offer her apologies when the impulsive Shizuka shouted out: "We''re not afraid of you! Come, let''s fight!" In truth, I also fancied and desired to have the girls join my guild, and the words I spoke were words of anger. Ignoring the fact that majority of the Guild''sdies were extremely attractive and pleasing to the eyes, with the performance and disy of good coordination, outstanding fighting tactics and tenacity against the Inagawa Union''s Knights back in Japan was enough for people to admire them! On a real battlefield, the ability to be able to perish together with the enemies that were twice their numbers and under a disadvantageous situation was already hard toe by! But since Shizuka had refuted with such words, I could no longer back down. "Hawk." Hawk nodded and immediately summoned everyone to gather, and all of my Guild members came over quickly. I tried to look for Rose and Yuri, whom I had not seen on the ship ever since I got onboard. I was actually wrong to think that they were present! Before I could even say anything, Shizuka walked up angrily and said: "I won''t pick any of your subordinates, I''ll fight with you!" Her words caused everyone to cry out in surprise. The thing was, I had not informed anyone of my drop in levels yet! Although Hawk had asked about it, I was interrupted by the Japs attack on us, thus no one knew that I had dropped levels. When everyone heard that Shizuka wanted to challenge me, they were all surprised, in their eyes, I had never lost before. The Cherry Blossom Organisationdies were also shocked, they had never seen me in a real battle before, but had heard that I alone had destroyed ck Dragon Force''s 3000 elites. Even if it was just an exaggerated rumor, it had emphasized that my strength was of a different level. For Shizuka to challenge me, it was no doubt they would be afraid! Shizuka suddenly added: "But I don''t have any Companions, so you can''t use yours!" I felt that her words were nonsensical, all of my Companions were level 20, summoning them would simply be asking them to die! "Why do you want to fight me? You should find someone else!" I could not show myself, once I made a move, everything would be exposed! Although I was over Level 200, to single-handedly fight against Shizuka, who was over Level 500, was simply not enough! Furthermore, the stats of my Dragon Lord Armor Set corresponded to my Levels, thus at my current level, the Dark Dragon Lord Set''s defense was only slightly higher than ordinary equipment. It was the type of growth equipment that would only be overpowered at theter stages! "I want topete against you, everyone said that you are powerful, I HAVE to test your strength!" Wu Yu* shouted out: "Ziri, just fight her! You''re not even afraid of her, don''t throw our face!" "But...!" Hawk added: "Go and teach her a lesson! At most, you can be slightly lenient, don''t lose control and kill her!" Me, being lenient? Even with all my strength, I''m doomed to lose, if I am lenient, I will be the one being beaten up! "If you''re not going to make a move, I''ll dly take the first move!" Shizuka''s staff suddenly shone with a bright light. The Mage ss came with high damage outputs and any Spell would result in severe injuries. I, a Level 200 newbie, could not get struck by her. Otherwise, I would not be able to retaliate at all! I raised my arm up and aimed my Crossbow at Shizuka. Hawk, Wu Yu and the rest were all prepared to apud for me, in their eyes, it was a definite for my crossbow to hit a Mage, thus they all thought that Shizuka was bound to die! But my arrow was not able to strike Shizuka''s body, a green light membrane flickered, and the arrow was bounced away. Shizuka had a Magic Shield cast on herself, thus my ranged attack could not work. Of course, the main reason was due to my low level, otherwise, even my ranged attacks would be enough to shatter such low-grade defensive spells. But it was pointless to say anything about it, Shizuka hadpleted casting her Offensive Spell, following the wave of her staff, a gigantic meteor flew over. I panicked, and could not afford to dodge. "de Barrier!" I had Dragon Monarch Sword** at my chest and the eight Flying Dragon Swords quickly flew over and revolved around us at an extremely high speed, forming a defensive barrier. This skill was bestowed along with the weapons and did not have much corrtion to my Level, thus although my levels had dropped greatly, the protection that the flying dragon swords provided did not plummet. The Meteor struck my sword barrier with a bang, causing my Flying Dragon Swords to fly outwards, but the meteor was deflected. Gasping for breath, Shizuka could not believe her eyes. She knew that I was powerful and thus used her most powerful and fatal spell, her aim was actually to kill me with one hit! The meteor merely struck onto my Flying Dragon Swords and did not harm me in the slightest, I quickly grabbed the opportunity and rushed forward. "Shinryuu Absolute Strike, Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike Technique!" At this point, all I could think about was the ultimate repetition ability that I had just learned, as long as I had MP, killing a person was not a problem! With a sh, I appeared before Shizuka, my hands drew a Tai Ji circle and I struck her at her abdomen. It only took me a second toplete this set of movements and Shizuka had no time to react. With a Bang, Shizuka was thrown outwards. The [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike Technique] was sessful, thus I chased and followed up with the [Dragon Glide Strike], which was the first movement for [Heavenly Dragon Sessive Strike]. As expected, Shizuka was unable to run and was once againunched into the air by me. With the sessive [Dragon Glide Strike], the [Heavenly Dragon Sessive Strike] had begun its automatic phase, I need not do anything and my body would automatically move with the next movement, as long as I did not want it to stop or my MP was not at 0, thisbo could keep going. But I overlooked something, we were not onnd, no matter how big Bi-lin was, there was a limit in its space and [Heavenly Dragon Sessive Strike] required moving after every skill, which resulted in us reaching the end of the bow. With thest [Heaven and Earth Fusion Strike Technique], Shizuka was thrown off the ship. When Shizuka was firstunched into the air, she was already in despair. As a Mage, for her to be able to survive so long under mybo could already be considered an achievement for her. But if she were to drop into the water and knocked by Bi-lin, she would definitely be dead. It was my mistake for throwing off the Ship, thus I could not just watch her get knocked by Bi-lin! I unleashed the Dragon Tendon Wires*** which wrapped around Shizuka in the air. With all my strength, I pulled her back into the Ship. After she fell to the ground, I deliberately provoked her: "You still want to fight?" Shizuka did not reply and only shook her head. Hawk ran over excitedly. "Ziri, when did you create your own skills? What a sick move! It looked as though you could continue on forever if not for the length of the Ship. How many times can you do that for?" Iughed: "It isn''t a self-created skill, your [Inescapable Net]**** is a self-created skill. This set of skills was learned. The result is as what you have guessed, it is an unlimitedbo unless I want it to stop or if my MP reaches 0, otherwise, I can keep using it." "What the sh*t! Why not we go back and find some Level 1000 Immortal and beat the sh*t out of it, you can just keep using thatbo, at most, you just buy a few MP potions, I reckon it''ll just take a few hours to kill one!" "F*ck you! Kill an Immortal? We will die even before we can get close!" Hiko walked over, her head tilted downwards and looked as though she felt terrible. "I am so sorry! Shizuka was too impulsive, we never wanted to do that!" "What do you mean by that! I truly wanted to fight him!" Shizuka screamed out loud again. There was something wrong with her, it was as though she was on gunpowder! "Wu Yu!" Wu Yu ran over, I squatted down and whispered a few words to her ears. Wu Yu immediatelyughed as she pulled Shizuka away. Shizuka was still slightly unhappy, but with a carrot and stick method, Wu Yu pulled her away. Hawk was curious: "What did you tell her?" "I told her to bring the girl to the base of the Ship, and when she reaches the cell, she can kick Shizuka in to let her cool down. I guess that Shizuka is still feeling anxious after leaving Japan, thus her behavior!" Hiko heard what I said and was shocked. "You have a prison on this ship?" "This ship of mine is a Five Star Battleship fully equipped with facilities, everything that you need is in here!" From behind, Hawk patted me. "Alright, onto official business. What''s going on with the sudden shift of the Captain position? You didn''t finish your exnation!" I arranged for Violet and Elfy to handle thedies of Cherry Blossom Organisation. I then dragged Hawk to the Captain room and carefully closed the door. I then exined the situation of how I dropped Levels to Hawk. ".....so that''s why, keep this secret for me for now, I don''t want too many people to know that I dropped Levels!" Initially, I thought that Hawk would have instantly promised to keep it a secret, who would have thought that he would actually ask: "Can I tell Elfy about this?" "Why?" "We swore an oath before not to keep any secrets between us. Our feelings were built based on trust, and the best example of trust is not having any secrets kept from each other!" "The two of you are the real example of husband and wife! Fine! But you have to promise that this matter will not leak out from between the two of you!" "I can promise that!" Hawk swore. "Oh right, now that you''re only Level 200 plus, isn''t it very dangerous for you?" "I can''t do anything about it and n to train and level as quickly when I get back. You know it as well, I have many Companions, leveling isn''t a problem for me. My low level in the past was honestly because I never had the time to grind properly, If I were to rush levels all day, I''m afraid none of you can catch up to me!" "That''s true! You have 10 of those overpowered Companions and the 10 Level 850 Phantom Knights, you leveling is basically 20 odd people leveling. There will only a problem if you are leveling slowly!" "Hey? Where did Rose and Yuri run off to?" "The two of them are at the Port watching over the Door of Truth!" "Wasn''t it sent over to Feng Xian City? Why is it still at the Port?" "I wanted to do that, but no one was willing to take it! But since these Japanese girls are willing to join us and we need to establish a Guild City, then why not we keep it to use for ourselves instead of moving it away?" "That''s fine! But I''ll leave the nning and arrangements for building the city to you, alright? I don''t know anything about it!" "I can''t leave here, I can''t leave Bi-lin!" "Seriously! I originally merely thought of ying this game for fun, who knew that there will be more and more things to worry about!" KNOCK KNOCK! Someone knocked on the door. "Come in!" The First Mate ran in. "Reporting to Captain, we have just converged with the Pirate Fleet!" "Alright, got it!" Hawk allowed the First Mate to leave first, then turned and asked me: "Shall I hand over the Captain Position back to you?" "It''s fine, my level is too low, it''ll affect the sailors'' capabilities, you should hold onto it first! I''ll go up and check on my subordinates!" I left the hold and ran to the deck, and right when I reached, Hiko pulled onto me. "What''s going on?" "Don''t be afraid, they''re part of my fleet!" I directly flew over to Rhona''s ship. Rhona passionately pounced on me and gave me a hug, LUCKILY, Rose was not around! "Quickly release me, I''m being suffocated to death!" "Oh! Boss, what happened to your level?" "It''s nothing, I dropped a few levels, I''ll catch up in less than two months!" I patted Rhona. "How has business been recently?" "Hehe!" Rhona suddenly pulled out a key from behind her, although the emerald green key''s shape was easily recognizable, it''s bulk was muchrger than ordinary keys and additionally, the emerald green texture seemed to be made of jadeite. "Guess what''s this?" "A key? You think I''m retarded?" "I''m asking you what this key is for!" "To some Treasure Ind?" "You''re half right!" "Half?" Rhonaughed. "This was offered by my brother whom I left in Europe, I heard that he stole it from some yer. It is a key that opens the Gates to Dragon Isle!" Gates to Dragon Isle? Is that the same Ind that Linn is training in now? Could it be that she''s unable to leave because they do not have the key to open the gates? I did not understand the situation, but it seemed as though the key was the reason behind it! But there was no point with the key alone, I had no clue as to where the Gate was, having the key was the same as not having it! "Rhona? Do you have the location of this Dragon Isle?" Rhona shook her head: "I''m not too sure about it as well, I heard that Dragon Isle is a ce for the Western Dragon Race to breed and train future generations, I guess there should be people of the Dragon Race that knows about it!" I guessed I would have to ask Lucky and Epidemic about it, but I was not in a rush, it could be dealt with in the future! After chatting with Rhona for a while, I returned to Bi-lin, ording to their agreement, Hiko disbanded the Cherry Blossom Organisation while I started to invite them to the Guild. I invited Hiko and the other Five Captains and appointed them the positions of Guild Seniors, then got them to invite the rest. If I had to invite everyone, it would have killed me! Bi-lin''s speed was extremely fast, by the time nightfall approached, we had already reached the Port. The sunset glow reflected on the waters cast a beautiful red scene. My Homnd, I''m back! The moment I disembarked, Yuri rushed to me. Why not Rose? Simple, Rose could see me in reality, but Yuri had not seen me for days! Yuri''s adorableness came from her pure beauty, and it was difficult for people to not have feelings for her, even for me. She was like a little girl that deserved to be doted on! I bade Hawk and the rest farewell as I had decided to bring Rose and Yuri away for a period of time. The official reason to everyone was that I wanted to look for a suitable ce to build our City Headquarters, but in truth, I wanted to go and train! With Hawk''s help, no one suspected anything. The original members of Cherry Blossom Organisation had all be members of Blizzard Rose. I had ced them temporarily inside the port, if they were to die before the City was built, they would be sent back to Japan, and no one wished for that to happen. After sessfully leaving Torrent Point City, I finally returned back to the carefree life of training without worries! Long Live freedom! Upon leaving Torrent Point City, Rose looked at me. "You want to talk? What happened?" I almost fainted, Rose actually saw through me and knew that our departure was not simply because of building the city. "You knew?" "Of course! This wife position of mine is not nkly set in ce! Tell me honestly, why did you decide to leave everyone and even state that it was for a period of time?" Since I had brought the two of them with me, I never nned to hide it from them. "I chanced upon a fortuitous encounter in Japan¡­..after that, it became like this!" I roughly exined the reason for my drop in levels. Rose and Yuri were stunned upon hearing the story. "What are you going to do now?" "Grind and level like a normal, hard-working yer I guess? What else can I do?" Yuri immediately spoke up: "Big Brother Ziri! Although we haven''t met for many days and I have really missed you, your situation is rather special. Although you are at a low level now, your Attack power is not weak at all. Furthermore, you have plenty of Servants and Companions, so you don''t need to High-level yers to carry you like ordinary newbies, it might be even faster for you to do it by yourself!" Rose nodded her head: "Although we are not willing, it''ll be better if we left you alone! You should take the time and focus on training, I''ll bring Yuri to look for a ce to build your City, and when we have finalized the location, we''ll call you over to take a look. You have your Ring of Teleportation anyway, as long as it is within the country, you will be able to rush over quickly right?" "Alright!" Sigh! I am truly unfavored by Heavens, I just wanted the two beauties to train with me, but I am being deserted! Rose spoke fiercely to me: "Don''t y around too much and focus on leveling, you have to at least reach level 400 before we find a ce!" "Then it''s best if you find one after three weeks, if you find one too early, I won''t be able to make it!" "I don''t care, you better work hard!" Rose kissed me on the lips before pulling Yuri and activated a Teleport Scroll. I had no idea which City they would even be teleported to! Who cares, time to train! When I walked on the path into the forest, I felt the same emotions as when I had just entered the game. At that time, I was just a newbie who was scared half to death by Lucky! After reminiscing about it, I realized how interesting it was! Just as I was recalling the fond memories, a gigantic fireball suddenly flew towards me from the sky. ----- (*) Magic Crystal Cannons were used to be called Crystal Cannons. (**) Changing Dragon King Sword to Dragon Monarch Sword, sounds better IMO. it is the main sword that controls the 8 Flying sub swords (***) Dragon Tendon Wires used to be called Dragon Sinew Wires, Tendon sounds nicer. (****) The previous trantor didn''t really give a name to Hawk''s self-created ability and called it Net, I couldn''t really trace back to when he first said the skill, thus I just made one up. Chapter 150: Finally Encountering an Adversary [Vol 5 Chapter 1] Chapter 150: Finally Encountering an Adversary [Vol 5 Chapter 1] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "Watch out!" One of the Phantom Knight warned me to pay attention. But I was not Superman, the Magic Fireball''s speed was as fast as a falcon in flight, by the time I heard the warning, it was already toote for me to dodge! Luckily, there were Supermen standing by me! As I was still rather low level, I did not dare to unsummon the Phantom Knights, and got them to follow and protect me. The ambush had showed how sensible my decision was. One of the female Phantom Knight (I hope no one forgot about it, the Phantom Knights consists of 5 males and 5 females) was faster to react and quickly pulled me into her bosom which resulted in the Fireball scraping past my body and flying straight into the Phantom Knight that was right behind me. This Phantom Knight did not reveal any signs of fear. I heard a snap as the Fireball was cut into two hemispheres and flew past him on both sides. As the Fireball had blocked my line of sight, what I saw was him inserting his sword back into the sheath, I did not even know when he had unsheathed his weapon! "Master, are you alright?" Instead of worrying about himself, the Phantom Knight that had used his sword to cut through the Fireball asked if I was hurt! I walked out from the other Phantom Knight''s embrace and checked myself. "I''m fine!" Right after I replied, the Phantom Knight that had pulled me to the side suddenly turned to my side while unsheathing her sword with lightning speed. By the time I noticed her, she was already wielding the sword and in a defensive posture. Her sword hand suddenly moved and produced a ringing sound as it deflected an arrow that had flown towards her. The undergrowth ahead rustled and a few figures jumped out. The head of the Phantom Knights immediately brought the other Phantom Knights and formed a semicircle formation in front of me. All the Phantom Knights unsheathed their weapons in unison, the sound of the swords drawingpletely in unison. Five figuresnded on the ground, in the middle stood a youngdy roughly at the age of 17 to 18. Her blue Mage robes and the dark red staff revealed her identity as a Mage and was the owner of the Fireball because she was the only Mage among the five, or at that moment what seemed like so! The youngdy looked¡­..how do I exin it! Arrogant, an air of arrogance from never admitting defeat. Her round cheeks reminded me of adorable dolls, this dollfacedy also had a standard single-handed sword in her left hand, with droplets of dark green liquid flowing down from the sword tip to the ground. Although she had clearly chosen the race of White Elves*, I felt that her appearance had an extremely murderous look. To her left was two youngdies, it appeared that the age gap between the five of them was not far apart. The two youngdies were warriors, human warriors. The two of them had the exact same equipment, posture and actually looked the same, it looked as though they were another pair of twins. They were not that beautiful, but leaned towards the adorable side, and gave others a feeling that they were very pure. But the battle-axes in their hands made them look more deadly. On the battle-axes were the same liquid, which meant they had just cut something before arriving! On the Mage''s right was a couple, the man was obviously a Battle Priest, but his fair and delicate looks could have him mistaken for a female! His religious robes and his bald head meant that his level was not too high, but definitely still higher than mine! Thedy yet to be introduced was an Archer, she looked like an Elf, but did not look like one as well, most probably a Half Elf! Her light green equipment shed with a beautiful ring of light and the dark red bow that she wielded horizontally suddenly had three arrows. She half pulled the bowstring, which meant that she could release the arrows anytime. Based on the looks of the equipment, she was most probably the highest Level, and the arrow from before was definitely from her! "I say, Missy, shall we avoid this? This group isn''t something that we can handle!" "Don''t talk nonsense!" The dollface in the middle stared at ferociously. "Small Stream, [Battle Blessings]!" "Orchid Jie**, I don''t think this is good right?" The Battle Priest turned and looked at the Archer. The Archer''s name was Orchid Blood in which I gained knowledge of from her PK status prompt when she shot an arrow at my Phantom Knight. Of course, I also saw the name of the girl who cast the Fireball, which was rather strange, Missy. The name that the Battle Priest called Small Stream had shouted was actually her name. "Even if it isn''t good, we have to go for it, if we don''t, we''ll die!" The Archer answered the Battle Priest with resolve. I pushed my way out of the Phantom Knights ahead of me, although they moved aside to let me pass, they maintained their vignce. "What''re you guys doing?" Upon hearing my words, all of them were startled (During PK, the victim will receive notifications but the PK''er will not, thus they did not know that I was a yer.) "F*ck! We encountered a high-level BOSS!" The Battle Priest Small Stream screamed in exaggeration. "We''re finished, I told you guys not toe out, but all of you didn''t want to listen to me! Now look what have wended ourselves into. The majority of humanoid mobs are over level 400 while those who can speak are all above level 600, with their exaggerated and arrogant equipment, I reckon they are all above level 800!" "So what if they''re level 800, if we hack them down, there''s bound to be good loot!" Both of the female Warriors spoke at the same time with the exact same words, as though they were both controlled by the same person. The both of them swung their two battle-axes at the same time, speed and angle. nk! Without receiving any orders to attack, the Phantom Knights would remain in defense, both battle-axes were struck back in the same position and the two female warriors were thrown backward in the same exact motions. I truly suspected that the User had somehow split herself into two to control the two Characters, their movements were too perfect! When the two Warriors made their moves, the three others decided to go for it as well. The Battle Priest''s blessing was cast first, a pity the two Warriors were already flying away by the time the blessing had buffed them. The Mage called Missy unleashed a Fire Dragon which faced against the Head of the Phantom Knights. The gigantic Fire Dragon pounced with an immeasurable force, a pity it was dispersed with a strike from him, it felt as though the spell had a strong start but a weak finish! The sh from the Head of the Phantom Knight not only dispersed the Fire Dragon, it also flung Missy away. The Archer called Orchid Blood unleashed three arrows in one draw. Most Heavy Swords'' advantageid in its ability to strike many enemies at once, but if it were to focus on one enemy, the focused power would only be immense (like a shotgun). The pitiful thing was that the Phantom Knight''s level was too high, her arrows were instantly struck back by the Phantom Knight in two to three hits and even before she could unleash a second volley of arrows, the Phantom Knight had kicked away the bow that was in her hand. I extended my hand out and caught the bow in midair. I felt that the Phantom Knight had intentionally kicked the Bow towards me, they were truly intelligent and had even learned to take advantage of a situation! The Archer had lost her bow and the Warriors'' battle-axes were embedded into arge tree behind them, they had lost their fighting capabilities, the oue of the battle fixed from the single confrontation. The Mage called Missy actually continued to chant spells under such a situation, and of course, the Phantom Knights would never allow her toplete her cast time. The best way to deal with a Mage was to prevent them from casting Spells. The Phantom Knights quickly drew out their spears and wielded them single-handedly in throwing postures. "Keep her alive!" I barely managed to shout out when 10 spears flew out at the same time. "AHH!" The Mage screamed out loud and retreated, the 10 consecutive thumps caused everyone to remain stationary. The Mage was stuck hugging a tree in a ''´ó'' position, with a spear each on both side of her neck, both drilled over 2 chi deep into the tree, revealing only the spear end that was still trembling from the force. Aside from the two spears, there was one right above her head, one on either side of her face. As for the remaining five, two were by her waists, another two at her underarms with thest one stabbed into her Mage Robes at her crotch area. These five spears were all within a centimeter from her body where the slightest deviation would have killed her. It was unclear whether this adorable little Mage was shocked or what, her eyes were opened wide, but she did not cry or scream. I suddenly realized blood flowing down her face, and immediately pointed at her and shouted: "Why did you make her bleed! What happened?" A female Phantom Knight immediately turned, raised her hand and spoke meekly: "Master, your order was given toote, I could only deviate my spear slightly when you ordered us not to kill her, but it seems I did not deviate it to my intended position!" "Forget it, I was the one who forgot about it!" I walked over to the little Mage when Orchid Blood rushed in front of me with her secondary short de, but from how she was trembling incessantly, I knew she was not stable at all. "I''m not going to hurt her!" I exined myself. Small Stream ran over. "Orchid Jie, let''s hear him out! We can''t fight him!" Two female Warriors ran back at the same time, and both of them asked the same question at the same time: "Tell us, why aren''t you killing us?" "Why should I kill you?" I was confused, did I look that evil? Furthermore, my face was covered with my helmet, they should not be able to see my face! "We killed so many of your little brothers, as a BOSS here, you''re not going to take revenge?" "Little Brother? My little brother is still here! Even if you guys wanted to kill them, you must have the capabilities of doing so!" I had the greatest confidence towards the Phantom Knights, it was practically impossible for yers to want to kill them, I was able to kill off ck Dragon Force 3000 elites and escape was because of the Phantom Knights that had sliced through 1000 yers as though they were cutting vegetables, scaring all of the Japs. It was not simple to want to hurt the Phantom Knights. "Furthermore, I''m not some BOSS here, I''m a yer!" "You''re a yer?" In unison, the group of five eximed in shock. ___________________________________________________________________________ Small Streamid on the ground as though he was paralyzed: "Holy mother of a pearl! You scared the hell out of me, I truly thought we were dead meat!" "You''re really a yer?" Orchid Blood was still skeptical. "Have you ever met an NPC that will lie? If I''m an NPC, what I say can only be the truth, thus my statement of me being a yer is definitely correct; And if I''m a yer, then, there''s nothing to prove!" "So you''re really a yer!" Orchid Blood finally kept her short de. I returned her bow, they were not PK''ing me with any intentions, taking their items would not be good! The two warriors were in the midst of helping the Mage down, a pity every single Spear had nailed into her clothes. To bring her down, they had to pull out all the Spears, but despite all their efforts, they could not pull out the spears. The Phantom Knight''s Spear Throw ability had rotations, and whenever they drilled into something, the spears would screw in a ribbed pattern, it was impossible to just pull them out! "Let me do it!" I spoke to the two Warriors. When they moved aside, I ordered the Phantom Knights: "Retrieve your Spears!" "Yes!" The Phantom Knights went over and held onto their spears. With a bit of force, the Spears automatically unwound themselves. The spears were actually able to do such a thing! "I''m Orchid Blood, this is Small Stream, the Mage is Missy, these two warriors are twins, one of them is Windy, the other is Fire." "Windy and Fire? (Together, the four characters means energetic) Interesting names! I''m Ziri!" I extended my hand and shook hands with her. Orchid Blood used her eyes and hinted that I had not introduced the people behind, to which I casually replied: "These are my Servants, they''re not yers!" "All of them!?" Small Stream looked at the Phantom Knights who had formed up again behind me and eximed exaggeratedly: "This is crazy, how did you obtain a series of humanoid Servants!" "Nothing much, a brother gave them to me!" What I said was the truth, the Phantom Knights were half given half sold by Domergor, thus I did not know how to exin it to them! "We are truly sorry for just now, we saw you as a Mob!" "A mob? Do I really look like a mob?" I lowered my head and looked at myself, and no matter how I looked, I did not find myself like one! Indeed, the Dark Dragon Lord Set''s appearance was certainly slight overboard in terms of its aggressiveness while the ck and red Phantom Cape further increased the imposing aura emitted from my appearance, but I am definitely far from being a mob! "What do you know!" The Mage that had finally been ced down ran over vivaciously. "Just now, we encountered an ambush of a Bone Army which was initially easy to handle because of their low levels, but after that, Zombies started to appear, and once we finished clearing the Zombies, we saw you appear. With your entire ck outfit, we thought you were some Death Knight!" "Then you guys ain''t wrong! The 10 of them are Phantom Knights and belong to the same ss system with the Death Knights!" "Phantom Knights? You mean the ss, Phantom Knight, formed from the fall of a Holy Knight? That Level 850 Monster?" Small Stream suddenly rushed forward excitedly. "Are you an enthusiast or fan of theirs or something?" There were actually people who worshipped Phantom Knights, the world truly had all sorts of people! "Eh? Have your Phantom Knights been upgraded?" Small Stream''s sudden question confused me. He must have thought that I did not know about it as he continued: "I read it on the forums, there was a yer that saw some sort of humanoid BOSS that resembled Phantom Knights, with the name Apollyon Knight. Heard that he''s Level 950. It is said that Phantom Knights can evolve with their final form being the Apollyon Knight." "Even if they could, it''s useless, after turning into Servants, you can''t upgrade them, don''t you know that Servants can''t be upgraded?" "Do you know something called the Energy Crystal?" "Energy Crystal? What''s that?" "I don''t know either! I heard that it is a product made from the Alchemist***, the Side ss advanced from a cksmith. it is said to allow Servants to be upgraded, but no one knows who has it. I heard that it was a foreign yer that managed to advance into the Alchemist ss made the item." "Then there''s no such thing here!" I was ecstatic after hearing that my Servants could be upgraded! But in the end, it was a yer from another country that had produced the item, which meant that even if he was willing to sell it to me, I had to find him first! "Oh right, do you guys know of any suitable ce here for leveling? It''ll be great if the mobs are slow, I''m using these Knights to level, but my level is too low, the leveling speed is truly too slow!" The twin warriors suddenly spoke up: "We know of a ce. You can teleport to Holy City and head east from there. There is a dark forest there with undead monsters, there are plenty of them and they are very slow, you can have as many monsters as you want there!" "Alright, thank you! I''ll head off first!" Rose had given me a mission, leveling was the most important thing and could not be dyed! After walking a distance away from the group, I used the Ring of Teleportation and arrived at Holy City. Upon leaving the Teleport Station, I was greeted by the sight of bustling crowds running all over the ce, the City looked extremely prosperous! Being in the City, I did not summon the Phantom Knights, they were too conspicuous. It was fine in the past, but I was too low level to show off in Holy City! The City was huge, and only with a map andpass did I finally locate the East direction. Everyone on the road that saw me would turn back to have a second look at me as though I was some strange being, and even after half a day, I could not tell what was wrong with my looks. Suddenly, the crowd of yers in front of me was separated to the sides and a unit of what looked like cavalry sprinted towards me. All of them were dressed in white religious robes with white 2-meter long battle staffs which seemed to be made from ivory! All of them rode on snow white warhorses, that were perfectly white without any blemishes. Although the horses looked good, they were not tall, it might have been because I had spent too much time with Night Shade that I felt that ordinary horses had be too short. The man in the lead pulled on the horse reins. The White Horse neighed and stood on its two hind legs as it kicked out its two forelegs, which almost struck me! With loathe, I took a few steps back and narrowly avoided death. I initially thought that they were NPCs, but from the looks of it, such an arrogant man could not possibly be an NPC. Even the NPC viins were all gentlemen! The Battle Priest in the lead used his staff and pointed at me. "Who are you?" I looked to my left and my right to confirm that he was speaking to me. "Why should I tell you?" "You want to die?" Another Battle Priest behind rushed up with his staff, he looked as though he wanted to knock me in the head. I retreated half a step back, causing the brat with the staff to trip even before hitting me. "Phantom Knights!" I summoned the 10 Phantom Knights who stood behind me. The other party obviously wanted to bully me as I was alone, with the Phantom Knights scaring them, it could increase my chances and advantage in negotiation. "What are you trying to do? I''m just strolling in the city without obstructing all of you!" Upon seeing my summoned Phantom Knights, the brat that rushed at me was so frightened he retreated back, even his mount had be restless. "You even brought Dark Companions! Don''t you know the rules of Holy City?" "So what if I have Dark Companions? Also, what rules are you talking about? Is it the System Rules or rules you made up on your own?" "Hahahaha! Don''t tell me that you are unaware of the fact that Holy City is the territory of our Holy Angel Guild!" "Holy Angel Guild? What''s that? I''ve never heard of you!" I had been estranged in the ocean and Japan for too long, how did I have the time to care about the chaotic guilds in the Maind, there were tens of thousands of Guilds in a single regional area in China, if I even knew of them, I''ll practically be a God! "You¡­...you¡­..!" The other party became even more agitated by my honest words. "Our Holy Angel Guild painstakingly defended the City for Three days before obtaining the second yer City, and you actually say you don''t know? You dare to question our strength, just die! Brothers, fight!" Thest sentence was for the guild members behind him. The three days that he had imed they took to defend the City had coincided with my time in Japan, how could I know of such a matter! Right from the start, the man spoke to me while on his high horse, obviously, he considered everyone else beneath him. It was perfect that he wanted to fight, there were few that could defeat the Phantom Knights! "Phantom Knights, block them!" I gave the order while retreating. The surrounding yers all gave space and observed us. The Battle Priest in the lead started activating his divine techniques. A white beam of light suddenly shot out from the tip of his staff, but unexpectedly, the Phantom Knights had used their hands to cover their eyes and were actually retreating. My heart instantly plummeted, ever since the Phantom Knights had started following me, they were never afraid of anything, but it was the first time they were being beaten back. The few Battle Priests behind all started using their divine techniques, unleashing beam after beams of light. The Phantom Knights started to turn and run, while the head of the Phantom Knights easily pulled me, summoned his warhorse and we ran out of the city. We ran for our lives, but the Battle Priests behind chased after us even more aggressively. I looked at the enemies behind and asked the Head of the Phantom Knights. "What happened to all of you? What did they use just now?" "He is a high-level Battle Priest, what he used was [Epassing Divine Eyes], it is originally arge-scale illumination spell, but it is extremely harmful towards evil and dark powers! We are all terrified of it, if we had continued to stay inside the light, we would have turned into bats!" "How can it be THAT powerful? You are all level 850!" "We are, but¡­.!" A white beam of light shot over and interrupted the head of the Phantom Knight''s words. -------- (*) The initial Ordinary Race of Elves might be differentiated into White and Dark Elves. (**) Jie is elder sister in Chinese (***) The previous trantor actually wrote that Alchemist is the advancement of Pharmacists, but ording to this chapter, Alchemists is an advancement from cksmiths, aside from Forgers. I believe there will be more ss advancements due in the future, the ss was written by Thunderstorm as the advancement of a Pharmacist is typically depicted as using a fan as a weapon, as for now, I will call the ss a Luminary. Chapter 151: The Cursed Land [Vol 5 Chapter 2] Chapter 151: The Cursed Land [Vol 5 Chapter 2] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "We are, but¡­.!" A white beam of light shot over and interrupted the head of the Phantom Knight''s words. After being under the white light, the head of the Phantom Knight no longer said anything, but it looked like he was resisting the power of the light. We were already out of the City''s limits, but the pursuers were unwilling to let us go and continued to unleash beams of light on us. The Phantom Knights'' mounts were only slightly faster than the white horses, and no matter how far we ran, we were unable to throw them off. I decided to grab onto the Head of the Phantom Knight''s left hand and shouted: "STOP!" All of the Phantom Knights formed a straight row with their heads lowered against the enemy. "Prepare and take aim with your spears, and get ready to run! Shoot!" Although they were afraid of the white light, an order was an order, the Phantom Knightspleted my order sessfully as a row of spears flew out into the air. The pursuers that had caught up never thought that we would suddenly turn and fight back, resulting in the first 10 people to be stabbed and pinned into the ground as they turned into white light to be revived back in town. "Turn and disperse!" I gave the next order, the Phantom Knights immediately turned and sprinted down the road. The front row of pursuers had fallen and with the spears that were in the ground had obstructed the road, causing the pursuers behind who caught up to all fall to the ground, and by the time they got up their mounts, we had already disappeared into the edge of the jungle. It was my first time being chased so miserably by other yers, those damned Holy Angel Guild actually had anti-Dark attributes! The Phantom Knights were not even able to unleash half of their ordinary strength. Fortunately, the Phantom Knights were high level enough, each of their spears was enough to get rid of the vanguard and miraculously even blocked the ones behind! It was considered a huge win for us! "Do you guys know what monsters are unafraid of them?" I asked the Phantom Knights. The one who replied was still the head. "Actually, aside from Dark-type monsters, they are afraid of everything else! Darkness suppresses all other types of attributes aside from light, Light specially suppresses Darkness, and all of the other attributes suppresses Light, so we can''t do anything!" "You mean to say that I''ll never be free to roam in the light? Just because I drank the Spring Water from the Spring of Evil*, my attributes turn all of my Companions into dark types, even if I can find an Angel, the Angel would only be a Fallen Angel, doesn''t that mean I will forever be beaten by them?" "No, Lucky, Epidemic and Crystal can deal with them!" The head of the Phantom Knights spoke with certainty: " Dragons are naturally highly resistant to all Magic, so no element of Magic or monsters can suppress the Dragon Race, of course, the Dragon Race can''t dominate the other attributes as well. But generally, the grade of Dragons are extremely high, as long as you get Lucky, Epidemic and Crystal to a high level, it''ll be sufficient. Furthermore, it is not as if we were truly afraid of them!" "Then why the hell did you run?" "We hate the Holy Light! The [Epassing Divine Eyes'' light will render us blind, and after that, we will turn into bat forms. But as long as we do not look into the Holy Light, it would not be a problem, but if we can''t see, we can''t attack, therefore we ran!" "So you guys were just afraid of looking into the light!" If only I had sunsses, that would definitely allow the Phantom Knights to fight freely in the light! The Head of the Phantom Knights added: "In fact, Darkness is not truly afraid of Light, although, at the initial stages, Light dominantly suppresses Darkness, in theter stages, the suppression will gradually lose its effectiveness. Just like the spell cast just now, it deals devastating damage towards low-level skeletons and zombies, but to us, it can only banish us!" "You mean to say, the Apollyon Knights of Mythal Legion are not afraid of Light Magic?" "They are afraid of it as well, but not as much as us, they have a chance of avoiding the damage from Light Magic! In fact, Darkness by itself is the bane of Light, in any infected or evil regions, Light Magic will usually receive nerfs and be extremely terrible! But that Holy City from before had its surrounding areas baptized with Holy Blessing, our strength weakness in such areas, much less resist Light Magic!" "Master, they are catching up with us again!" One of the Phantom Knight suddenly reported. "Have we left their area of Blessing?" "No, this ce has been blessed as well!" The head of the Phantom Knights inspected the ground and replied: "I believe there is arge scale Shrine of Light inside the Holy City, that is why the power of the blessing can spread throughout the surrounding areas! In these areas, the Battle Priest will gain an increase in power!" "Forget it!" I jumped down the horse. "Phantom Knights, pay attention! Close all of your eyes and listen to my voice, we will do battle!" Since the Phantom Knights were not that afraid of the [Epassing Divine Eyes], we could fight, so long as they did not look into the light! The Phantom Knights obeyed my order and lowered their heads with their ultra long spears held parallel to the ground with the tip faced at the front. Arge group of Light Knights and Battle Priests rushed out from the small path with their Leader maintaining the [Epassing Divine Eyes] with his Magic Staff. "Charge!" I suddenly screamed out loud! The Phantom Knights suddenly rushed forward, the Holy Angel Guild members that were chasing after us never thought that we would suddenly rush at them, in truth, even if they did, it would not have mattered, the charge of the Phantom Knights was of apletely different level from them. The rushing Light Knights and Battle Priests were instantly dispersed by the Phantom Knights upon collision. That was how powerful the Phantom Knights were, their humongous warhorses were able to dismount their enemies in that brief exchange. I continued to shout at the Phantom Knights: "LOWER YOUR HEADS! CHARGE!" The formationunched its second attack, before the Holy Angel Guild members who were knocked off their horses could even crawl back up, they were faced with the second wave of attacks. The result was them being flung out over 10 meters into all the surrounding trees. "Alright, open your eyes!" The Phantom Knights opened their eyes and ran over to me. I quickly jumped up one of the horse and we ventured deeper into the forest. After breaking away from those damnable people, we continued to move through the jungle where there were no paths, the surrounding verdant and lush trees that did not resemble any nts that grew locally made it look as though we were not in China. All of the trees were extremelyrge with their average trunks having diameters of 3 meters and above, the dense canopy formed from the dense branches and thick leaves had blocked out the entire sky. Because of this, the forest started to get darker with the asional light that had forced its way through the canopies. I moved ording to the map that revealed a path ahead. Constantly moving through the forest was in fact really troublesome. After walking for a distance, we realized that something was wrong as the green forest started to transform. Initially, the leaves on the trees were green while the floor was covered with yellow or red dried leaves and the trunks were bright brown. But after a distance, the scene turned strange. The green leaves were slowly reced by silverish grey leaves which became more apparent the further we walked until all the green leaves were reced. The yellow and red dried leaves on the ground all disappeared and the soil became grey, as though ayer of dust had covered the ground. The surrounding tree trunks were no longer brown as they had all turned ck! What struck me as the most bizarre was that the frequent small animals that we saw all disappeared, but more and more spider webs had appeared. Strangely, we did not notice that a faint mist had appeared in our surroundings. Although it was not dense, it made the dark forest became all the more terrifying. After walking in silence for too long, the atmosphere scared me, whichpelled me to engage in a conversation with the Phantom Knights. Firstly, I spoke to the Head of the Phantom Knights. "Hey, after following me for such a long time, I haven''t seemed to have caught your name? Do you have one?" "Master, originally, I had already forgotten my name. But after turning into a Phantom Knight, My name is Scott." "Scott? That''s a good name." I extended my head towards the two Phantom Knights nearby. "What are your names? And take down your Helmets, all of your equipment is the same, I can''t make out who is who!" The Phantom Knights obeyed and took down their helmets and reported their names. To my left were 4 male Phantom Knights with the names Aragon, Cistern, Rayner** and Fullergor. Aragon looked extremely young and I guessed that he was not older than me; Cistern looked rather cold, and felt like a cool elder brother; Cistern was buff, with a rather stout stature. Just his head alone made him look like a Warrior from the Dwarf Race; Fullergor looked exactly like a Doctor and made me imagine him as a Mage, who would have known that such a sophisticated man would actually be a Knight. To my right were 5 female Phantom Knights: Meridar, Anna, Celine, Nina, and V. The five youngdies looked extremely young, the oldest Meridar was definitely not older than 30, and the youngest, Celine, looked as though she had not even reached the age of 18! "Master, it seems that we have walked into an illusion!" Scott (Head of the Phantom Knights) suddenly warned me. "Illusion?" I quickly opened up the map and took a look. "You''re saying we took a wrong path?" ______________________________________________________________________________________ "No!" Scott pointed to a location on the map. "We started from here, and ording to our pace, we should had seen the road long ago, but we have not seen it yet! Additionally, the map states that there is a river here, but we have already passed through this location, yet there are no signs of any water bodies. So I think we have entered an illusion, the map is useless now. It will not pinpoint our location, and following it will deviate us even further!" "You''re saying this is a forest of Illusion just like the one outside Lost City?" I still believed that only Lost City, the evil and haunted ce, would have an illusion to protect themselves! "I think that this illusion is of an even higher level than the one outside Lost City! Us Phantom Knights have eyes that have many capabilities. Our eyes are specially called Spirit Eyes and have a degree of resistance towards illusions, for our Spirit Eyes to actually be unable to see through this illusion means that it is at a higher level!" "Then what do we do now? Are we supposed to just stand stationary?" "We definitely can''t stand stationary, but we shouldn''t advance further, why not we try to return to where we came from!" "I have another idea!" I took out the Dragon Tendon Wires from my Bracelet and shot an arrow out with the Wire attached to it. The arrow shot forward and struck into arge tree far away with the Wire along. "Alright, we''ll walk this way!" We followed the wire and walked ahead and when we reached the tree, we continued to advance the same direction with the wire shot out in a straight line again. Each time the wire was insufficient in length or we reached the end of a tree, I would stop casting the Wire and recast it into a straight line again and again. Although this method was not too urate, at least we were walking in a straight line. As we advanced further, another transformation took ce. Firstly, the number of trees started to fall, but the diameter of the trees increased. The trees got bigger and bigger with some having diameters of over 10 meters. These tree trunks maintained its strength and straightness 10 meters above the ground before suddenly spreading out with countless of branches. But this type of growth led the forest floor to be empty, practically the entire forest was empty except for the fewrge trees around with their exaggerated canopy that blocked out all the sunlight! The thick fog had unknowingly disappeared and because of the sparseness of the forest, our visibility became better. Of course, it was because of our night vision capabilities that allowed us to view our surroundings, otherwise, it was so dark that even with our hands extended in front of us, we could not see a thing. "Seems like we are leaving the boundaries of the illusion!" Scott announced after looking around. "You mean to say we are out of the illusion?" "I''m saying we walked further into it!" Scott''s voice had turned slightly anxious. "The illusion is meant to protect this region, we have cut right through the illusion and entered its inner region!" "Oh! That''s even worse now! But since we''re already in here, it''ll be a pity if we don''t take a look around, let us continue ahead!" Under my orders, we continued to advance forward, but the mist that had disappeared came out once again, furthermore, it had turned green. Scott instantly ced my visor down. "Everyone put on your helmets, we are entering a poisonous miasma zone! Dismount and unsummon the war mounts, this miasma might be able to destroy our Death Warhorses!" We werepelled to walk, the green miasma pervaded throughout the forest, and the further we walked, the denser the miasma. It turned to a point where our fingers could be no longer visible, thus we stuck close together to prevent anyone from getting lost. To summon the Phantom Knights again consumed arge amount of MP that was at that moment too much for me to handle, thus I could not take any risks. Although the miasma was thicker than the mist, the area of it was not as wide, and we quickly passed through it. The world kept within the miasma shocked us, it was the same tall andrge trees, but they no longer had any leaves. We could see the sky, which was sadly filled with dark clouds. The clouds were low and thick, which blocked out most of the sun, the bit that passed through were weak and dusky. "I sense something! Some force! It is a very powerful force!" Scott suddenly took a deep breath and spoke out which scared me. "Are you alright?" "It''s nothing! I''ve never felt so good before! This sinister power, there''s even a hint of corruption and blood stench in the air! I can feel a powerful evil aura! It feels too good! It is to the point that even if the Battle priests are here now, I can swear that we will no longer be afraid!" The other Phantom Knights suddenly knelt down and then started toy down on the floor. "What a powerful force! This is an unholynd! Master, we are standing on a Cursed Land"! "Cursed Land! Is it like the ce outside Lost City?" "It is not! The outskirts of Lost City is considered and of eternal rest which belongs to a low-grade Cursed Land. But this ce is an extremely high-grade Cursed Land, in terms of power, it is many times stronger than Lost City!" "Why can''t I feel it!" I knelt down and touched the ground, but yet I could not feel the power that they were talking about! But I encountered something hard, which was different from the other parts of the ground around it. I dug at it for a bit, which revealed something white. It looked like a bone of something, but the majority of it was underground, thus I did not know the specifics! I continued to dig at the grey soil surfaceyer revealing the ck soil beneath that was extremely damp with a heavy blood stench! As the soil was damp, it was easy to dig, and under two or three more scoops, I dug the bone out. It was a human bone, most likely the femur. I continued to dig along the bone, and as I had expected, there were even more bones which formed a perfect human skeleton. "Master, what are you doing?" The Phantom Knights were still immersing and enjoying themselves inside the evil aura. "I want to see what''s inside!" Scott pointed at the skeleton. With a wave of his hand, the skeleton actually climbed out of the hole itself. I retreated a few steps back in surprise, not because I feared the skeleton but because of the coolness of the skeleton, and retreated because of surprise. "Scott, the Phantom Knights can summon skeletons? Why didn''t you tell me earlier, if I had known you could do that, we would have summoned skeletons back in Japan to fight!" Scott exined it to me slowly. "This is a Cursed Land, and only in such ces can all evil or dark type monsters summon skeletons! It is like how Elves can instant revive in Life Forests. But we can only do it here, out of Cursed Lands, we don''t have the spell!" "That''s some good news to hear at the very least!" I turned back and looked at where the skeleton came out from. "There should be more skeletons, right? How many skeletons can all of you summon at one time?" "There are plenty of skeletons here, but we can only summon one each, after all, we are not Necromancers!" "That''s true!" It was a pity, if they could summon more, it would have been good for us, to be able to fight with a skeleton army sounded awesome! "Alright, we will continue heading in this direction, who knows there would be more evil aura for all of you to indulge in!" "What''s that?" One of the Phantom Knights pointed further into the forest. I turned to look, there was indeed something moving closer. As there was still some lingering mist, we were not able to rify what it was due to the distance. But it looked like a human silhouette, but in a ce where encountering any others was not probable, most likely it was a zombie. Zombies and skeletons weremon urrences in Cursed Lands. The thing gradually got closer to us, and its target became clear to us, it was indeed a zombie, even more so one that I had never seen before. The human exterior that it maintained had no signs of corruption and looked like a person sleepwalking. It was my first time seeing such a clean zombie. More and more of these zombies appeared, all equipped in armor. They were obviously soldiers. Their numbers were most likely due to them being in a unit, thus they still enjoyed staying together after turning into zombies. Scott suddenly pointed at one of the zombies: "They''re the troops from God City! He''s wearing the Armor of God City!" Celine pointed to another zombie: "Those are troops from Sky City! Even the emblem of Sky City is still engraved on his sword! "Those are from Goddess City!" Another zombie was recognized. "F*ck! The Game''s Three Great Main Cities are joining forces here! For their forces to actually be here! How are we going to pass with them converging there! If I challenge one of them, will they gang up on me? Oh right, Scott, summon a skeleton and try and engage one of them!" So long as one of my units were to engage in either man or monster, my [Star Gaze] could read the other party''s stats, using the skeleton was the safest choice because if the zombies were to start attacking, we had the time to run! The skeleton nimbly rushed forward without any weapon and bit down on the zombie. The data of the zombie immediately appeared, named Un-decayable Zombie, no wonder it looked so clean, it could never decay. It was Level 400 which was rather high, its damage rather averagepared to other level 400 monsters, but its defense was extraordinarily high! Zombies already have an immense amount of HP, all of them were even equipped with armor, it was no wonder they had perverse defense! I looked at their speed, which luckily wasparable to ordinary zombies, they were extremely slow and practically any living thing could be faster than them! The skeleton which I sent out was destroyed in two hits, but although the other zombies had helped to attack the skeleton, they did note towards us, it looked like they were unable to leave their areas! Although their stats were not overly exaggerated, their numbers were astronomical! Furthermore, all of them were practically standing in formation with their shoulders aligned with each other, it was impossible to cut through them. There were so many zombies and they were slow, it was the perfect match for my need to level. I summoned all of my Companions and got them to stand by the side since the zombies were unable to leave their positions, I could use ranged attacks to test it out. If they were still unable to move, it would definitely be the best! I aimed an arrow at one of the zombies and shot. The arrow urately shot the Zombie by its chest, but the zombie immediately opened its mouth towards me with a sh of red flickering in its eyes. I instantly felt something at my ankle, and I was suddenly being dragged towards the Zombie Horde. "HELP!" ---- (*) Spring of Evil from Quest of the Cave (part 3) (**) Slightly cut short Rayner''s name. The original Chinese Name sounds like Rayner Jin. Chapter 152: Movements from the Japs [Vol 5 Chapter 3] Chapter 152: Movements from the Japs [Vol 5 Chapter 3] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry With a speed that blurred vision, the Phantom Knight closest to me grabbed onto me, which caused the thing pulling on my ankles to pull with even more force, causing my entire body to be pulled straight in mid-air, the Phantom Knight at my arms while a red thing coiled around my legs in a tug-of-war with me being the rope. A snap was heard. Scott had rushed forward and shed the red thing in half, and the immense force that was pulling against my leg disappeared, causing both of us to fall and roll a few times. The very first thing I did after climbing up was to pull off the half of the red thing attached to me, which after looking at it clearly, it was a tongue. The red long thing was the Zombie''s tongue! Those zombies were actually capable of utilizing ranged attacks, no wonder they were stationary in ce! "Go! Kill them!" I ordered the Phantom Knights to rush at the Zombie Horde. The 10 Phantom Knights went into formation andunched a powerful charge, which forced out a path in the horde. I brought my Companions and rushed in behind them. The 10 Phantom Knights formed a circle formation and protected us inside and would allow in 1 or 2 zombies at a time into the circle. My Companions and I were not High levelled enough to handle all of the Zombies at once, and could only fight in such a way! The Phantom Knights started to ughter the Zombies, a stab with the spear would instantly kill one, while I stayed in the center and watch my EXP bar jump and jump over and over again. I was already past Level 200 which was far higher than Lucky and the rest, thus I was the next in line for defense fighting the Zombies that leaked in, and when the Zombies were about to die, I would leave my Companions to deal the finishing blow. After calction, this method was purely giving my Companions EXP, but the Phantom Knights on the outer circle were helping me get EXP, thus I did not consider it as losing anything, furthermore, the kills that my Companions got still provided with me with some EXP! The 3 Dragons, Lucky, Epidemic, and Crystal, leveled the fastest, their high DMG allowed them to kill faster than the other Companions, which was normal considering their race. When I logged off at night, I was already Level 317. Lucky, Epidemic and Crystal: Level 301 Phiona and Loong''er: Level 289 Rosa: Level 288 Tank: Level 300 Aldeina: Level 299 Night Shade: Level 213 Dart: Level 210 Phantom: Level 208 Night Shade, Dart, and Phantom were not offensive Companions, thus leveling them was extremely troublesome, despite my meticulous care for them, their levels were still far from the rest! When I got offline, I felt much morefortable, the cramps in my muscles were no longer as severe. After dinner, I wanted to have a good sleep, but I could not fall asleep even after lying on the bed for a long time, I was actually not tired at all! I could no longer lie any further and decided to go back online to continue training until I got tired. I opened my eyes and took the Game Helmet by my bed and ced it on, and just as I was about to go online, I sat upright again. I looked at my own hands in surprise, then looked up at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. I saw the ceiling and the room around me as the same, the ceiling with fluorescent light was bright as the rest of the room, which meant that the lights were not switched on. I was in an underground base and was about 70-80 meters below ground where it was impossible for lights from the outside world to shine in, but I was able to see clearly even without the lights on! While I was in the Nurture Chamber, I had actually obtained Night Vision temporarily, but it disappeared after that and I did not bother about it anymore, but how did ite back! Furthermore, the Night Vision I was experiencing was far stronger than what I had in the Chamber, everything was not as blurred as before! I carefully looked around the room again, I could see everything clearly, but the world in my eyes was ash gray, the walls had somepany posters which were nowpletely ck and white, although everything was extremely clear, there were no colors! I could no longer sit still. I took off the Game Helmet and jumped out of bed. I walked over to the room in the mirror and was shocked to realize that the mirror was empty, I could not see anything in the mirror. The mirror now looked like a steel board, it was gray with a hint of ck and did not reflect anything in the room. The ability to seees from the stimtion of the light-sensitive neurons from light in the retinas of the eyes, which receives the image the cornea focuses on to. I was able to see inside the pitch ck room meant that my eyes were able to receive all sorts of light apart from visible light, like infrared light, but such lights cannot be reflected in the mirror, that was why the mirror looked like a steel board! For there to be such a light deep underground meant that this unique light was on an ultra-wave, otherwise, it would not be able to possess such prative power. In my excitement, I decided to look for the main researcher to inquire about it, and opened my room door and rushed out. Initially, I thought that there would be light outside, but upon leaving my room, I realized that the corridor was equally pitch ck. What''s going on? Why are the lights not on! The lights in the corridors were supposed to be on 24 hours a day, at the very most, the intensity of the light would decrease at night, but it would never be pitch ck! We were in an RnD base and had our own small-scale nuclear reactor, it was impossible for us to have a power cut because our electricity was not transmitted from the electricalwork outside! Furthermore, even if the 3 nuclear reactors had all stopped working at the same time, we had a reserve battery that could maintain the base for at least 1000 hours! It was impossible for it to be servicing at night as well! The corridor was vacant and no one was around. Fortunately, I had regained my night vision and need not worry about the darkness. As I moved through the corridor, I suddenly recalled that the main researcher''s room was not far from mine. I continued moving and suddenly felt that I had stepped on something. I was barefooted, thus I could feel it clearly! I bent down and took a look at the object. I jumped in shock, it was a bullet casing, the bronze body was still warm which meant it was shot not long ago! A thought shed past my mind - We were under attack. Dragon Fate did not allow guns in the base if someone had used a gun inside, it was not a personnel of Dragon Fate. Furthermore, the bullet casing was not from Dragon Fate, although I did not know gun parts, the code written on the bullet casing was not the usual codes used by Dragon Fate, Dragon Fate no longer used such numbers anymore! After my dinner, the base was still functioning normally, and the only timepse was when Iid on the bed for an hour, which was most probably the time where the intruders had infiltrated in. I ran in the direction where I found the bullet casing and noticed a ck patch on the ground which was most probably blood. Without color, I was unable to differentiate it, thus I used my finger to touch the ck patch. It was sticky and had a strong smell of iron, it had to be blood! I no longer dared to advance further, it was too dangerous and I had nothing on me, but the other party had a gun. Since they had somehow disabled the light system, they definitely had night vision equipment which meant I held no advantage in terms of night vision! After considering the situation, I turned around and ran back to the main control room. For the longest time, Dad always repeated the words of ''Preparedness averts peril'', thus the base had 3 systems in ce. The first system was the main system which was mostmonly used, the second system was the backup system, but very few people inside knew of the third system, an emergency countermeasure system, aside from Dad and I, the number of people who knew about it were the few high-rank Researchers. The Third System''s main control room was on the level below the resting area. I sprinted over, and suddenly realized that my speed was unusually fast, but it was not the time for me to study such a thing. I had to focus on getting to the System core. Very quickly, I arrived at the Third System''s Control Room. As this Third Computer room was built as an emergency facility, the doors to it were manually operated, otherwise, if there were no electricity, no one could get in! I entered the 2 square meters room and jumped onto the only avable chair, and locked the high-pressure doors from the inside. I was safe! The circle of electronic equipment was not switched on, and only therge screen in the middle had the words ''On Standby'' flickering. _____________________________________________________________________ There was only one power switch on the workstation, all other controls were handled via voice. Designed by Dad, there were no keyboards, thus even the most powerful Hackers can never hack into the system. I pressed on the power switch and a clear female voice spoke up: <¡­.Connection Complete, Functionalities of Main Facility ordinary, Electrical System have been damaged, Automated Repair Bots have been dispatched.> I was dumbstruck, the system was older than I thought, I did not recall having approval with my own Identity! "I am Sairin, son of Dragon Fate Chairman!" A mechanical sound sounded out, the workstation suddenly had a robot arm that had locked down on my arm. A needle pricked into my arm and drew a bit of blood, which then retracted back into the workstation. "Restore the power, but do not activate the Lighting System." "Activate internal CT scan, find all signs of life." "Scan all of them and find the people that have no nerve imnts ced by Dragon Fate!" "Are they together?" "Switch on thermal imaging and show me the people at D35!" The surveince monitor immediately revealed five figures. The red outlines of them were not clear, but I could recognize them as people. The five of them were in stealth with guns in hand. Theputer immediately detected the gun model and revealed them on the side of the screen, revealing the model numbers, manufacturing location and data about them. Following that, theputer scanned out shapes of des on the five targets'' back, which looked like Ninjatos*! "Computer, what are they carrying on their backs?" "What! They''re Ninjas! Who are they! Disy the two at the entrance." The screen changed, revealing the two men at the entrance. "Am I able to connect to the unit outside?" "Yes!" A second voice suddenly spoke up in the room which sounded like a middle-aged man. "Hello! I am Captain Long''an of the LCHS Unit (Dragon Fate Emergency Response Force), who am I speaking to?" The Captain knew that themunication came from inside the Base, but did not know who it was. I knew Long''an, he had brought me in once before. "I''m Sairin!" "Oh, it''s you, Young Master! Are you alright?" "I''m fine! I''m already at the Main Control Hub and have obtained control of the entire Base Systems, so listen to me. Get your men to the entrance and get prepared, I will open the gates for you. There are two intruders behind the doors with hand grenades and SMGs** with them when I open the doors, I will instantly illuminate the corridor with the strongest light to blind them for a few seconds, take that time and take them down, best is if you can capture them alive!" "Alright! Please give me a moment!" I waited for a moment before Long''an came back: "Alright, I will do the countdown, when the countdown ends, then open the doors and illuminate the corridor." "Alright, but be fast, the base illumination is not sh grenade, at most, I can only render them blind for at most seven to eight seconds!" "Not a problem!" I spoke to the Computer: "Listen to his countdown, once it is over, open the entrance and on all the lights with the brightest intensity, even if it breaks the bulbs!" Long''an started the countdown: "3, 2, 1, GO!" The two idiots at the entrance were still idling. When the lights suddenly switched on, it instantly dazzled and blinded their eyes. The doors instantly opened at lightning speed and although they could hear the doors open, they could not see anything, and could only rely on their memory and frantically shoot at the direction of the enemies. The Emergency Response Force had two remote-controlled Robots that rushed in first and deflected the hail of bullets. When the bullets struck their metal bodies, the nking sounds immediately came out. The remote-controlled robots swapped to electric guns and opened fire, which instantly caused the two blind intruders to faint. This electric gun was built on the theory of static electricity, a small current of high voltage could quickly knock a person out but was not fatal at all. I watched everything unfold from the camera. The Security Force rushed in quickly after the Robots and stripped the two intruders until they were naked, then restrained them with tight knots. "Young master, we have secured the entrance!" "I saw everything! Get the two of them to thebs and let the researchers tranquilize them, don''t wake them up for now. Send a few experts down, there are still 5 more at D35. D34 now has power, you can go there and save the researchers!" "Roger that!" I watched as arge group of people rushed into the base. The Remote Controlled Robots were too big and could not squeeze inside the base, thus Long''an personally led 20 of his men with 3 [Spiders] into the lower levels to chase after the 5 Intruders. [Spiders] were robots meant for urban warfare made by Dragon Fate mostly used for reconnaissance. They were the size of cats with eight legs and could walk on walls. All of them were also equipped with many advanced sensors and an electric gun which had 3 shots. ________________________________________________________ With me as a guide, Long''an quickly caught up with the enemies, but it seemed that they were no longer needed. The five idiots actually drilled their way into the Biological Experimental Combat Field. "Computer, restore all powers. Activate the power for the 5th Lab Field and seal the doors!" With the lights on, I switched back to Optics Cameras and could finally see how the five intruders looked like. F*ck, they are actually Ninjas, but now they are equipped with guns and not des, seems like the modern ninjas also realized that their techniques cannotpare to guns! Despite the sudden restoration of lights, the 5 Ninjas did not panic. They were obviously veterans but they were still temporarily blinded. They quickly readjusted themselves to the light and when they realized that all the doors around were sealed, one of them walked over to a door and started typing the code to open the door. The door instantly opened. What the F*ck, how do they know the security codes to my doors? "Computer, seal Door No. 4 of 5th Lab Field, and remove the power to the four doors." Before the Ninjas could even feel joy from seeing the door open, the door closed again. He pressed the codes a few times, but the Door no longer reacted. How could the door react when there''s no power to them. He quickly retreated and spoke to one of the other Intruders, from the audio feed, they were actually speaking in Jap. Those Japs did not have enough even after messing with me in the game, they actually came to find me in real life! The few of them suddenly began using their guns to shoot at the door, but the bullets only recoiled off the walls, one of the stray bullets even injured one of them! HAHAHA, Idiots, you deserved it! They were in a Live Test Field with Doors specially reinforced to handle the creatures that fought inside, the walls were also reinforced, even if they had anti-ship missiles with them, they would never be able to shoot themselves out! "Computer, release one Creature No. 2250 into the 5th Lab Field!" "Confirm!" The roof of the Lab suddenly opened and a metal enclosure was sent down to the 5th Lab Field. After the metal enclosure was ced on the ground and the robotic arm was retracted, the roof closed. The Japs looked at the enclosure anxiously, no one dared to approach it. The Metal enclosure suddenly sprayed out a mist, scaring the Japs to put on their gas masks. In truth, the spray was simply liquid nitrogen which was used to freeze the creatures. Although I hated the Japs, after considering that I still had to eat the next morning, I quickly ordered the Computer: "Close theb after 20 minutes and start the cleaning process." Test No.2250 was called the Meat Grinder, if I continued to stay and watch it get down to business, I would no longer be able to eat, thus I gave the orders and no longer bothered about the situation! I left the room and closed the doors properly. Just as I turned, I saw a short guy looking andughing at me. He was dressed in the Dragon Fate Security Force equipment, but the weapon in his hand was not manufactured Dragon Fate. I immediately knew that he was an undiscovered traitor! That was how the base was so easily broken through, there was a traitor from within. Maybe he knew what had happened because he suddenly raised his gun at me and was about to open fire. At this crucial moment, I did not run because I knew I could never be faster than a bullet, thus there was no hope of running. Instead, I chose to attack the traitor because I knew that my body was stronger than an average person! When he saw me pounce on him, he immediately pressed the trigger. Two of the bullets struck me. But I did not feel any intense pain and only knew that the bullet had struck me in the thigh. Without losing momentum, I rushed forward and grabbed onto the gun barrel and pushed it to the side against the enemy''s force. Unexpectedly between the struggle, I actually bent the entire gun barrel! The enemy reacted faster than me, he quickly retreated and threw the deformed gun and armed himself with a dagger. Before I could even react, he shed down with the dagger. I extended my hand out instinctively to block, allowing the de to sh my arm. Another miracle urred, the de was actually stuck in my arm! The depth of it revealed that the sh had cut into my bones. He had actually shed through my muscles. The injury on my left arm made me furious, but I still did not feel any pain! I raised my right fist and used all of my strength to punch his face. Bang, his entire face was smashed, the headless corpse staggered in front of me as the blood sshed all over. It was only then when I felt the pain from my arm and thigh. Because of the pain, my muscles started to spasm which resulted in pulling the wound and increasing the intensity of the pain! Luckily, I only had to endure it or a few minutes before a group of security force ran over. The soldier in the lead saw the headless corpse and eximed: "Holy shit! Was this guy''s head ran over by a train? You¡­." I was unable to hear the words after that as I had fainted. When I woke up, it was already bright, I was back in a resting room, the only difference was that my Dad and other researchers were with me. "How long was I out for?" ording to the television programmes that I watched in the past, all the main characters that fought with the evildoers would faint for three to five days, thus I thought I had fainted for a few days. "Around seven to eight hours!" "Ah?" That equals to me having a good sleep! I suddenly recalled my thigh being shot at and immediately took a look at it. It had been wrapped in gauze but strangely, it no longer hurt. My arm was already bandaged up and I looked as though I was a severely injured person. Dad took out a dagger and threw it on my bed. "Have a look." I took the dagger and looked at it, it was simr to the one that the traitor had used thest night. But the dagger''s center portion seemed to have a broken piece!" This was the ceramic dagger used by the man that tried to kill youst night, who would have thought that your bones are actually so tough that the ceramic would break but your bone is still fine!" "No way! This chip in the dagger was because of me?" "Of course!" "That''s great, now I no longer need to fear my bones breaking!" "Oh right, take down the bandage around your arm, the researcher said that B13 should have the cell rejuvenation capabilities, I want to see if your wound has been healed." I took out the bandage and to everyone''s surprise, my arm was actually as smooth as a boiled egg, there were no scars at all, much less any wound! I quickly removed the gauze off my thigh, and it was the same thing, there were no scars! B13 was actually so powerful! After being questioned by my Dad over all sorts of things, I finally gained back my freedom. It was only after I returned to my room when I remembered that I had forgotten to ask about the strange night vision ability, but oh well, next time then! I quickly entered the game and appeared between the Zombie Horde and miasma. I chose to go offline here because this location was safe. I summoned all my Companions and Servants and rushed into the horde. Lucky, Epidemic and Crystal were already able to fight by themselves, the three Dragons all took their own spots outside of our leveling circle and trained by themselves, they were not afraid of the Zombies at all. The other Companions continued to take shelter behind the Phantom Knights and trained along with me, which proved to be the fastest method. After training for a while, I started to get bored. I decided to move deeper into the horde. This Cursed Land was surrounded by a high-level Illusion along with a poisonous miasma zone and with so many Zombies for protection, it meant that there was something that required protection in here, and it had to be good stuff! I got the 3 Dragons to bring up the rear and along with the Phantom Knights being responsible for opening a path, we fought our way inwards. After going through, I realized that the Zombiend was over 2 kilometers wide, and by the time we reached the end, it was already noon. I went offline for lunch, then continued to grind. After the Zombie region was another ck forest but this time, the height of the trees had dropped dramatically and the trees were closer to each other. The terrifying thing about these trees was that they had no leaves, but reced with crooked creatures that looked as though they would pounce at any moment! I waspletely convinced by the creator of the area, this ce was a truly haunted ce! "Master, the demonic aura here is very dense!" "Demonic Aura? Isn''t that good? You''re all Phantom Knights, isn''t it to your liking?" "But what about you¡­.?" "Don''t worry about me, after drinking the spring water from the Spring of Evil, I am now apletely evil character, demonic auras and evil auras are harmless against me, as long as there''s no Holy Water, I''ll be fine!" The Phantom Knights actuallyughed when they heard what I said, It was the first time hearing themugh and it felt strange! "Alright, let us continue moving forward!" ---- (*) Ninjatos are short swords that are the preferred weapon for Ninjas and Shinobis, with length almost 10 inches shorter than ordinary swords. (**) Sub Machine Guns Chapter 153: Mordor [Vol 5 Chapter 4] Chapter 153: Mordor [Vol 5 Chapter 4] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry With a crack, arge tree by the side suddenly fell. The Phantom Knights and I nimbly dodged the falling tree. A gigantic Spider appeared from behind the tree, its size was actuallyparable to an elephant! Scott rushed forward with the Phantom Knights, the spider''s level was not high despite its massive size, and was cut down in two to three strikes. I suddenly recalled that rke''s list of materials for me to gather seemed to have the poison sack of a Spider. I went to the Spider and cast [Gather] N number of times. In the end, I never obtained any Poison Sack, but at least I obtained two Poison Fangs! What a miser, if only it had given me Poison Sacks! After the giant spider, we encountered even more monsters, all of themrger than a ck bear. Furthermore, they were all insect type monsters, it seemed as though the forest was specialized in demonifying insects. After walking for a distance, a faint barrier appeared in front of us. This light barrier was transparent, thus although it extended into the sky, we never noticed it! If it was not for us being close to it and identally witnessed the barrier flickering, we would have never known that such a thing had existed! Through the barrier, we could see that it was the same forest. Although I could see deep into the forest, I did not find any creatures or monsters, basically, it was confirmed that it was safe beyond the barrier. But as we were unclear whether or not the barrier had offensive traits to it, we did not dare to test it out hastily. Using the same old method, I got Scott to summon another Skeleton to test it out. The Skeleton walked towards the barrier without hesitation. When it interacted with the barrier, the surrounding areas flickered for a moment, causing the surrounding barrier to reveal a warped appearance. But the strange thing was what happened after. The Skeleton that had entered the barrier hadpletely disappeared, it managed to pass through the barrier, but we could not see it at all! We could still see the forest beyond the barrier, but we could not see the Skeleton! "Scott? Did your Skeleton pass through it?" "I can feel that it is already on the other side!" "Then why can''t we see it!" I scratched my chin and thought for a moment. "Do you still have a connection with it?" "Of course! The connection is still strong!" "Let ite back out!" The Skeleton suddenly walked out of the barrier, as though it had walked through a spatial door! We repeated this experiment many times, and the oue was the same! I found a tree trunk by the side and broke a branch off, then threw it towards the barrier. The branch entered the barrier and disappeared from our vision, and never appeared in the forest behind the barrier! I already had a few possibilities in mind. The first possibility was the barrier was a Teleport System, and anything that goes through the barrier would be teleported to another location, but not the forest behind it; The second possibility was that the barrier was, in fact, an illusion barrier, the forest that we could see behind the forest was in truth nonexistent, while the branch and Skeleton had actually arrived at the true location behind the barrier, but as the illusion had blocked our line of sight, we were unable to see them! But, since the Skeleton was able toe and go as it pleased, it meant that the barrier did not possess any harmful traits, thus, I finally decided to have a go at it myself! I stood in front of the barrier and carefully extended my hand through the barrier. When I touched the barrier, I did not feel anything, it seemed as though the barrier did not possess any physical form! I continued to extend my hand outwards and miraculously, the part of my hand that went through the barrier disappeared. I could not see my own hand, but I could clearly feel it. I took a deep breath and walked through it. I was shocked! After passing through the barrier, I waspletely dumbstruck! The scene beyond the barrier waspletely different from the forest that we saw, the ck forest before my eyes had transformed back to the gigantic trees that shot to the skies. All of these gigantic trees over 100 meters tall were all over the ce with many shorter and smaller trees mixed between them, the forest floor was covered with all sorts of bushes and shrubs but was not concentrated and did not obstruct the path. I retreated back in shock and arrived back behind the barrier. The barrier appeared once again in front of me, and I saw the forest of the short and bare trees! But when I passed through the barrier again, the dense forest appeared. I was right, the barrier could block any line of sight in! The Phantom Knights followed me through the barrier, and the scene stunned them for a moment, but the shock they received was not as severe as mine! Scoot suddenly eximed out loud. "Oh my Dark Lord! Could it possibly be, isn''t this Modu''s Iron Fortress*!" "Modu''s Iron Fortress? What''s that?" Scott calmed himself down before exining: "China originally had 4 Ultimate Evil Zones, separated into Lost City, Agony City, Demon Fiend Stronghold, and Modu''s Iron Fortress, with Modu''s Iron Fortress being the strongest. But after that, the 3 Great Cities assembled an army of 30 million and called it the Sacred Allied Forces and worked together to attack Modu''s Iron Fortress. This Great Battlested for over a month, and the Iron Fortress was ultimately sieged. At that time, the Great Cities was forced to detonate Modu''s [Sinister Eyes], causing the 30 million Sacred Allied Forces and 10 million Iron Fortress Great Army to transform into ghosts. From that day on, this ce became an evil Cursed Land, the evil aura of the 40 million ghosts turned this ce into the Light''s forbidden region, all members of the Light Faction will suffer from enormous weakening in here." "That sounds really moving and tragic, but where''s the city? Why can''t I see it? Other than trees, there''s practically nothing here!" "All of these are no ordinary trees, they are all pieces of the [Sinister Eyes] that had transformed into trees, they will absorb all types of power aside from Darkness, thus whoever casts any Spells aside from Darkness Spells have to use 2 times the usual MP required. Furthermore, all light type Mages are incapable of recovering their MP, once they consume all of their MP, it will no longer recover, unless they leave this forest to the outside of the barrier." "Right, so what''s the deal with this barrier?" "About that, I don''t know either!" Scott shook his head. "The Phantom Knights have always been defending the Dark Lord Shrine, while the 4 Dark Cities are considered subordinated Cities. But I think that the barrier is most probably a defensive measure, just like how Lost City has the ck Lake, every Dark City has their own unique defensive measures. As for the illusion and dark forest, every Dark City has it!" ______________________________________________________________________ "You haven''t replied my question, where exactly is the City?" "In reality, I believe that the City shouldn''t be far from us, it is because of the dense forest that we can''t see it, once we leave the forest, we should be able to find it!" "Then let us go and take a look!" I summoned Night Shade and jumped up on him. Night Shade could equip the saddle, and I no longer had to squeeze onto the same mount as Scott! We did not walk far and stumbled upon arge mass of shiny white things swaying in the forest. We rushed forward for a better look, good god, it was arge mass of Skeletons! I got Dart to size up a Skeleton that had strayed further from the main bulk of the Skeletons and obtained their stats. Holy shit, Magic Skeletons, Level 600! There was no need to question their extremely exaggerated DEF, even their ATK was extremely high, but luckily they had low HP! But unexpectedly, Dart that went to probe the enhanced Skeleton was instantly smacked and flew back. Although Dart was extremely low level, with his speed, Dart should have been able to avoid the Skeleton, could it be that the Skeletons'' AGI** are equally perverse? The Skeletons that we encountered previously did not exceed Level 200, but the mass of Skeletons were actually all Level 600! NO wonder all of them were able to wield shiny weapons and were equipped with capes! They were all high-quality stuff! "Scott, are there any paths that we can take to detour around them?" I''m not any Superman, at my current level, I was already helpless against monsters above Level 300, furthermore, there were too many Skeletons and they were all close together, even the Phantom Knights might be killed by them! Scott did not reply, he was focused on the Skeleton that Dart had disturbed as it had been aggro-ed towards us. Scott wielded his spear and was prepared for the attack, but unexpectedly, the Skeleton did not rush at us, but simply stopped in front of us. We watched its sword gleam and form a ck magic missile at the tip of the sword before releasing it to us. These Magic Skeletons were actually Spellswords, they could use ranged attacks on us! Seeing that the Skeleton was using a ranged attack, Scott immediately spun the spear in his hand and changed into a throwing posture. The spear sliced through the air and urately struck the Skeleton''s skull which cracked and shattered into fine white powder. But what surprised us was that the Headless Skeleton was actually still waving his sword and rushing towards us! I quickly retreated, the Skeleton was too high leveled and fighting it was extremely dangerous for me! The Phantom Knights rushed up together, and quickly destroyed the entire Skeleton into fine powder! The Skeletons were terrifying, they utilized spells and could engage in meleebat. Additionally, they had no weak points and even after their heads were destroyed, they could continue fighting! While looking at the mass of Skeletons from a distance, I suddenly recalled that I could fly! Who said that it was a must to climb through the Skeletons! I unsummoned the Phantom Knights and Companions and took to the skies alone. But the moment I took flight, I sensed something was off, my stamina was dropping at a quicker rate, and at the rate it was going, I could only maintain 30 seconds of flight time! Without wasting any second, I pushed myself to fly upwards. As long as I could surpass the height of the trees and leave the narrow forest, I could summon Lucky and the rest to carry me and continue flying! I increased my speed and finally, right before my stamina was depleted, I rose to the sky above the forest. I quickly summoned Lucky andnded on his back. After stabilizing myself, I looked at the scenery, and I was overwhelmed with shock! I waspletely overwhelmed! After rising above the treetops, I saw a huge mountain that had an extremely neat and orderly exterior, as though it was artificially carved out by men! From how I saw it, the form of the mountain was a few hundred meters tall, its shape simr to a square two tier cake! There was no time to admire the form of the mountain, Lucky''s stamina was depleting quickly as well, fortunately, Dragons had good flight capabilities and high stamina, thus he had no problem flying for another three to five minutes while maintaining the same speed, and when Lucky could no longer fly, I could swap for Epidemic or Crystal, I did notck in flying Companions, I could continuously swap them out until I reached the edge of the forest! It was as I had anticipated, Lucky flew for another four minutes and could no longer fly. I swapped Lucky for Epidemic, then after that Crystal. Crystal and Epidemic had a total flight time of less than 8 minutes before I swapped for Phiona. Although Phiona onlysted for 2 minutes, she was extremely fast, and by the time she could no longer fly, we were already on the edge of the forest. I swapped to Loong''er who flew for a minute before we finally reached the edge of the forest andnded safely. Behind us, the endless skeletons continued to stir but they never walked out of the forest, it seemed as though they were limited in movements as well! Finally, I had the time to take a look at the mountain. In the air, I was focused on my Companion''s stamina bars in fear of identally depleting all of their stamina and bing dinner for the skeletons! Back on the ground, I quickly summoned the Phantom Knights again. With them around, I could at least handle any sudden situations that might ur! The distance between the edge of the forest to the foot of the mountain was only around 2 kilometers. With the t and gray soil, we quickly reached the foot of the mountain in a few minutes by riding our mounts. I got down from Night Shade and gazed up at the mountain. I kept on looking upwards and stretching my neck backward until I became unstable to the point of falling on my butt. The mountain was truly majestic, from the foot of the mountain, it looked as though the mountain had shot through the clouds! The tall and gray mountain emitted an oppressive feeling that made me unconsciously want to retreat! Rather than calling it a mountain, it would be better to term it a stronghold, there was not a single vegetation on the mountain, the entire surface was covered with grey stones. The exterior of the mountain was obviously cut artificially, it was not only the mountain being square, the sleek outer walls had many skulls embedded in them and the angle between the mountain and the floor was definitely more than 80 degrees, making it more appropriate to call the mountain face a wall! I could not believe that a mountain could ever be so squared, or even have skulls inside the walls. It had to be a great mountain created artificially to form the square faces, even the skulls were all human skulls! This "wall" face was roughly 29 kilometers wide with a height of 450 meters! The Phantom Knights found a huge gap in the mountain that was about 30 meters wide in the wall with a pile of debris and rocks inside. It seemed as though it used to be the entrance to the City, but it had already copsed and thus looked like that! The pathway that was riddled with debris made it impossible for mounts to pass through, even climbing in already looked rtively difficult! I kept my Companions and tried my Wings, they were able to function normally, the extreme consumption of stamina seemed to only exist in the forest! After making sure that I could fly, I kept the Phantom Knights, I flew through the passageway. The walls on both sides were perfectly straight, further proving that the entire ce was constructed artificially. The debris all over the ce spanned the first 100 meters of the entrance, probably from the huge city doors that had copsed! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The entire passageway length actually spanned about 1.9 kilometers, which meant that the "wall" was close to 2 kilometers thick! How terrifying was that! No wonder the Iron Fortress was able to repel an army three times their size for a month! After flying through the passage, I finally arrived inside the mountain. So this IS the Iron Fortress! The being called Modu actually hollowed out the entire mountain and built hisnd inside! But at this point, all I saw was and of ruin filled with debris and broken pieces of things unknown, the entire city looked as though it had been nuked, the whole ce was in a mess! In the air, I was able to make out the rough city arrangement, the streets were arranged in a ''¾®'' pattern which was vaguely distinguishable, just that the buildings on the sides no longer existed! In the center of the city was something that still remained standing, from the color and texture of it, it looked as though it originated from the mountain, which meant that this was a part of the mountain and was left alone during the construction. I did not know whether to call it a pir or a tower, its bottom had a diameter of 1.2 kilometers, and it had a height of about 7.5 kilometers***! The bottom part of this thing was in fact already elevated differently from the rest of the city, it was erected on a base that was about 200 meters tall with each side spanning around 500 meters with a total of 2 kilometers of square walls that had man-made steps on all sides. As for the thing that resembled a tower, it had entrances on all four sides, but the interior looked empty. With no sightings of monsters, I summoned Scott alone and brought him to the base of the tower. "Scott, do you know where are we?" Scot looked around and replied: "If I''m not wrong, this is the Spirit Gathering Tower of the legends! What we are standing on should be what used to be their Dark Sanctum. The Tower is empty inside, but there is a flight of stairs that should lead to the top of the tower." "It''s too slow walking by the path, let''s just fly up there directly!" "You can''t!" Scott held me in ce. "The Spirit Gathering Tower has some sort of suppressive spell in ce above. You can maintain low altitude flight, but it is impossible for you to fly above the height of the walls, the magic barrier will ensure that nothing can enter the top of the tower except the entrances." "So they have a barrier in ce here! Then I guess I''ll have to climb!" I followed Scott into the legendary Spirit Gathering Tower when a burst of cold wind swept past, causing me to shiver. "Why is it so cold here?" "That isn''t any wind, it''s the evil aura, the evil aura mixed in the wind makes it like so!" "F*ck! Is it haunted here!" I warmed myself up and allowed my body to adapt to the evil aura, luckily I was also in the Darkness Faction, even though the evil aura made me feel ufortable, it did not pose a threat to me. After entering the door and walking through a corridor, a flight of stairs appeared before us. We ran up the stairs all the way and ended up in a 10-meter square room with stairs at all four sides. In the room by the walls was a flight of whirling stairs that headed upwards, but I could not see the sky when I looked up, it seemed as though this stairs did not connect to the tower! After 30 minutes of climbing, I finally understood the brilliance in elevators, a 7.5-kilometer tall tower is approximately equivalent to a 2000 story tall building. Solely climbing up all the way was extremely tiring! In the end, I simply summoned out Night Shade out. The stairs were wider and the elevation was not too steep, allowing Night Shade to run. With Night Shade, our speed increased greatly, but it had a side effect, I started to be nauseous after a while, turning in the same direction had made me experience vertigo! No! Simply climbing would not work, after climbing for so long, we were barely reaching half the tower, I would never make it to the top like that! I extended my head out from the stairs and looked at the roof, judged the distance, then aimed my right hand at the top of the tower. I had attached the Dragon Tendon Wire to the Revenger and with a shot, the Wire flew towards the top. PING! The arrow tip struck the ceiling of the tower but did not managed to embed itself in, and was recoiled away to the side. But as it fell, it got stuck onto the stairs, and due to the twirling fashion of the stairs, it wrapped around the stairs a few times before stopping. I pulled on the wire a few times as a test, it was sturdy. I unsummoned Scott and jumped out of the stairs. I activated the Dragon Tendon Wire''s self-retract ability and was naturally pulled towards the top level of the tower. Although this self-made elevator was notfortable, it was much faster than climbing the stairs, and most importantly, it was much faster! I arrived at the top level and removed the Wire and ascended up the stairs. The stairs ended abruptly and a wooden door appeared at the end. But this wooden door was already sliced into half and even looked as though it was about to fall! The broken wooden boards blocked half of the entrance. I tried to shift the wooden board away but upon touching it, the entire door fell down, causing a puff of dust to disperse. It had been long since a person had used it! Behind the door was another flight of stairs. This flight of stairs was extremely narrow with a maximum width allowing two persons to climb it at the same time, but fortunately, it was not very steep. I ran up the stairs and reached the end where signs of light were present. Upon rushing out of the corridor, I was stunned. The exit led to the side of the tower, and from where I stood, I could see the state of more than half of the city. The City was actually not a perfect square, but in a ''°¼'' shape, the entrance where we had entered the Iron Fortress from was coincidentally at the straight wall opposite the indented side. But what shocked me the most was that the other side of the Iron Fortress was actually a huge water body! Iron Fortress was actually a Port City! The gap inside the square of the city was obviously the port entrance! As there were no railings on the top of the Spirit Gathering Tower, I did not dare to move to the other side! I turned back and saw the appearance of the top of the tower. It was actually an extremely t level and looked to be circr in shape, but it was not asrge as the base. The top of the tower had a diameter of about 800 meters, which was smaller than the base. In the middle was a pile of debris, and looked like it was originally an altar or something simr. I summoned Scott. "Do you know what this altar was for??" "This is the altar where the [Sinister Eye] used to be, but it was destroyed during the explosion!" "Then does that port behind lead to the ocean? Or to a bigke?" "Yes! It leads to the open sea, this ce used to be a Deep-water Port. I remember vaguely that in the past, Modu''s Iron Fortress was imed to be the number 1 port in the world!" I looked down at the port, ording to the length of the city wall that was 29 kilometers long, the port was estimated to be at least 9 kilometers. Compared to this, the port at Torrent Point City was actually 7 times smaller, no wonder it was number 1! I suddenly realized that the "Walls" surrounding the City had many circr ck patches, but because of the distance, I could not see what they were. "Scott, what''re those ck dots?" "The ones on the walls?" "Yeah!" "Those are foundations for forts. It was said that in the past, Modu had 280 Large scale Magic Crystal Cannons!" "280 of them? Isn''t that worth 28 billion Crystal Pieces? Holy sh*t! As expected of Modu, he was extremely wealthy, wasn''t he!" Building a City here with Modu''s ruins seems like a good idea! The walls are already built, we just have to clean the ce up and rebuild the doors and this will be our city! It was perfect since we needed a Guild Base and I hated trouble. By building in the Iron Fortress, it would save on plenty of things, especially money! "Scott, are there any illusion barriers at the sea?" "Yes! The illusion barrier is a spherical shape, not only is it at the surroundings, it exists in the sky and underground as well!" "That''s awesome!" I had already decided to build our city here! Since I had already nned to use the ce, I had to look through the ce, the most important being the City Walls. Scott and I arrived below the wall and realized that the walls were actually not solid, there were passageways artificially made within the walls with many unique and usable rooms! The explosion of the [Sinister Eye] seemed to have only affected all the manmade structures, the walls carved out were protected rtively well and had no signs of damage. I concluded my checks after the day, the entire city was fundamentally intact, aside from the structures that were destroyed, it could be said that the Iron Fortress was a perfect Stronghold City. After dinner, I decided to go online and continue to inspect the City''s facilities, but the moment I got online, I got the shock of my life! I actually came online in the middle of many ghosts! I immediately ran to the taller tforms, only to find that the entire City was filled with them! The translucent ghosts moved throughout the city like live people, furthermore, their bodies emitted faint green lights. Just as when I was calming myself down from the fright, a ghost suddenly walked through my body from behind, he did not notice me and continued on his way. I quickly realized that all the ghosts were illusions, they were unable to see me, or should I say, they had no reactions to me! Every single ghost were all doing their own things, as though they had been in a time-lock back to when the Iron Fortress was in its most flourishing days. It was a horrifying sight, a city filled with ghosts! Lost City had many ghosts and spirits as well, but they could be touched and had their own thoughts, and even interact with yers, but not like these things, they were all like Zombies! I started to reconsider my n of building a City here, we had many females and children in the Guild, if they were to see the Zombies, they would most probably be scared to death! ------ (*) - I swear, Thunderstorm wrote ħ¶¼°¬ÐÁ¸ñ, which literally trantes to Mordor Isengard, but I will change it to Modu''s Iron Fortress, as terming it as the same name from J.R.R. Tolkien''s books will definitely attract endless rage. I believe the Sinister Eye that I tranted is literally the Eye of Sauron. By the way for those who are interested, there are drawn maps of Modu''s Iron Fortress at this link. But it''s in Chinese. https://gss0.baidu/70cFfyinKgQFm2e88IuM_a/forum/pic/item/232f6b09255704c33bc763ec.jpg https://gss0.baidu/70cFfyinKgQFm2e88IuM_a/forum/pic/item/ce49dd0967b4e88ed1581bec.jpg (**) - Just a reminder, the main 6 stats are STR, DEX, INT, CHARM, SPI, CON. Agility isn''t one STR determines Physical attack (P.ATK), (P.DEF), carry weight, endurance/stamina Dex SHOULD determine Agility (AGI) (***) The eye of Sauron is actually only 1.5 km tall, thus this tower is 5x of it. Chapter 154: Construction Plans and Negotiation [Vol 5 Chapter 5] Chapter 154: Construction ns and Negotiation [Vol 5 Chapter 5] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Since I knew that the ghosts were all illusions, I ignored them and continued doing my own thing. I scanned the city n and formted a rough n for my City. To establish a City, we had to apply for it at a Shrine, of course, I would never go to a Light Shrine, bringing my Phantom Knights into a Light Shrine to apply for a City would only lead to us fighting those Battle Priests! Thinking about it, the number of cities that had Dark Shrines were few, the majority of the Cities established Light Shrines, especially for the Three Great Cities, none of them had any Dark Shrines! But I remembered that Wayne had talked about a City called ckwater that had a Dark Shrine, it was also where he had changed his ss into an Undead Mage*. I activated the Ring of Teleportation and directly arrived at ckwater City''s Teleport Station. At that moment, I was already Level 345. Lucky, Phiona, Tank, Epidemic, Crystal, and Aldeina were also Level 345. Loong''er and Night Shade were Level 340. Phantom and Rosa just reached Level 327. And finally, Dart, only at Level 311! Although ckwater City was small, the poption size was huge, practically all the narrow streets were packed with people! But that was with reason. The number of Dark Cities set by the system were too few, but the number of yers that had applied for Dark Faction professions was close to a quarter of the total number of yers (Another quarter remained in the neutral faction with the rest joining the Light). There were plenty of yers that needed to find a Dark Shrine to change ss, ept quests, learn spells, and many other important matters, but with the lesser number of Dark Shrines, it resulted in the few Cities that had Dark Shrines to be filled with people! Furthermore, it was 8:20 pm when I entered ckwater, that was the period where the number of yers online was the highest, thus ckwater City was so packed that there was no space to even stand! I moved cautiously on the narrow roads, aside from the thorns on my Dark Dragon Lord Set, the knife des did not help much, it was tough squeezing through the crowds trying not to prick others. Although I did not switch to the PK mode and pricking them would not lose HP, but it was still painful! Warriors with their armors were fine, but Mages or other sses that dressed in Light Armor or Robes would definitely feel the pain! "Ouch!" Sh*t, I messed up! The armor near my elbows had many long des and I had identally cut onto a young girl''s face! The problem was, alldies viewed their appearance as the most important thing ever, although the Game would heal wounds and never leave scars, still, I was the one to have cut her face! "What are you doing?!" "I''m sorry! I''m sorry! It was idental, there are too many people here, the des on my arm are non-retractable, I''m truly sorry!" "Brat, you don''t want to live anymore? You cut her face and you think you can get away just by saying sorry?" A suspicious young man suddenly appeared from behind the girl, judging from his appearance, he looked like a college student, but his appearance did note across as an intelligent man to me, or should I say, he looked more like a gangster! "It was really an ident, can I heal her?" "You don''t have to heal her, your equipment looks good, gift them to us as an apology!" You b*tch, you''re not even considering and nning your words right! "I am truly sorry for this matter, but you better not cause trouble here!" I no longer cared about the hooligan, and turned to speak to the young girl: "I am sorry, can I heal you?" The girl covered her face and looked as though she was fuming. "You don''t even look like a Battle Priest, how can you heal me?" Before I could even reply her, the hooligan came between us. "Bro, you''re treating my words as air, aren''t you? Where are you from? Don''t you know the rules of ckwater? Do you believe that I can trap you here in ckwater City and not leave forever?" "What a braggart!" I offered my apologies and tried to make amends because I was in the wrong since I had hurt the other yer, but that did not mean I was easy to bully! "I entered a City to change ss with a Red Name, and not even the thousand City Guards could stop me, you think you can do better?" "Brat, you''re still talking shit, you don''t want to live anymore?" The hooligan''s words became even more aggressive. "You want to test me, you mutherf*cking try to speak one more time!" "I have other things to do and don''t want to waste my time with you, you better not give me any trouble!" I turned to leave, I had my own matters to attend to and it was pointless quarreling with them. Even before I could walk two steps away from them, a sword hacked down onto my shoulder. The powerful force caught me off guard and sent me flying, but although it was powerful, it did not induce much damage, resulting in me falling without losing much HP! "SCOTT!" "It''s useless trying to call for help!" The hooligan shouted out arrogantly. "I, your daddy¡­..!" He was suddenly split into exact halves by Scott, and his body which was separated fell to the left and right. The body that was split into halves was still speaking, but no more sound came out. The spectators around were startled for a moment before screaming like girls, the hooligan was not alone, aside from the girl that I scratched, there were two other girls and three guys. The girls screamed for help while the guys had their weapons out and thought to rush at me, but after that retreated. Hooligans, people I looked down the most. Thieves and robbers are ultimately forced to perform such acts to survive, but hooligans were doing it in the name of fun and excitement. Taking advantage of the weak and hiding from the strong was another way to call them, kicking their benefactors in the teeth were their motto and double-crossing their employers was their most favorite past time. I turned and looked at the remaining people. "If you don''t wish to do right, then go and join a real organized crime syndicate, if you can''t, then just be normal citizens, don''t ever let me catch you guys acting like hooligans around again, otherwise it won''t just be a de through your bodies, I will kill all of you until you return to the beginner town!" Without waiting for their reactions, I turned and left, leaving the dumbstruck group behind. ckwater City was not huge thus finding the Dark Shrine was not difficult. After crossing two streets, we saw the pitch ck structure. The Shrine looked small, from the exterior, it looked like a movie theatre without any grandeur or majestic senseing from it. I walked to the Shrine''s stairs to realize that the Shrine looked extremely worn down without any repairs done for years, the exterior looked so dpidated! It became even more strange inside the Dark Shrine, its name was not just for show, it exined how the Shrine was! The entire Shrine''s interior was pitch ck, and if not for my night vision, I would never have known how it looked inside! Many yers hade to the Shrine, groping about in the darkness hoping to transact with the Shrine, some might have been frequent patrons, as they had brought fire with them! "Can I ask why is it so dark here?" I stopped a yer passing by and asked. "I don''t know, don''t disturb me!" The yer ran away and instantly vanished. I could only walk further into the Shrine. Towards the back of the main hall was a small door that had the title ''Base Registration'' written on it. Scott took the lead and opened the door for me. I walked into another room which was equally dark to the outside, but I was able to see clearly inside. The room was not big, with a work desk and an old Dark Mage seated behind the table, but at that moment, he was sprawled over the table and I could even hear the sound of snoring! Behind the old Mage was arge file cab, which was the only appropriate looking thing in the room! The work desk had two wooden stools, but they looked so unstable that I would rather stand! _______________________________________________________________ I walked over and knocked on the Mage''s table. "Hey, is this the ce to register the authorization of building a base City?" "Huh? What! Oh! You want to build a City?" The Mage finally woke up, he turned to the file cab and flipped through it while wiping the drool from his mouth. Thinking about how he would use both of his hands to hand me the documents made me feel disgusted! I took the opportunity while the Old man was flipping through the files to ask: "Can I ask why is it so dark here?" "Isn''t this the Dark Shrine! If it''s too bright, won''t it be a Light Shrine?" The old man answered without turning back. The old man was talking nonsense, I had seen the Dark Shrine over at Lost City before, although I still had to use night vision there, it was not as dark and unlit as this Dark Shrine! "Can you even see in this darkness?" "I''m used to it!" You''re talking bull! "Why not install a few Magic Crystals here? They are not bright and you can use them to see." I summoned Phiona to sit on my shoulder, if I did not produce any light, I reckon the old man would only find what he was looking for the next day! The moment Phiona appeared, the room instantly lit up. The old man quickly took out arge folder and opened it up, then took a quill pen from the drawer. "Alright, what''s your Guild name?" "Blizzard Rose Guild!" "Have you chosen the venue for your base?" "Yes!" "This is the map, please indicate your venue!" The old man handed over a map and a pen to me. I quickly located the Fortress, then used the pen to draw a circle. "Right here!" "Thank you!" The old man took the map and had a look, his eyes suddenly grewrge. "Hmmm? You want to build your base at Modu''s Iron Fortress ruins?" "Is that impossible?" The old man kept the papers into the file in his hands. "It is possible, but our small Dark Shrine here do not have the authority to approve this!" "What do you mean?" "The Dark Sanctum is constructed in a concealed location and we are just a small branch. Although the Iron Fortress has been destroyed, we are still talking about Modu here, the significance of thend there is different, we can''t make the decision! IF you really want to build your Guild Base, it is best for you to choose a different location, or you can head straight to the Dark Shrine General Headquarters! Of course, it''s location is also rather covert, it is not that easily found!" "Isn''t it located in the ravine behind Lost City?" "Ah! You know of it?" "I''ve been there three to four times! If I had known about all theseplications, I would have gone straight there. I came here because the road there is rather troublesome, who would have thought that you Dark Shrines have differences, if I had known, I would have gone straight there!" I turned and brought Scott out of the room. Once out of the Dark Shrine, I instantly used the Ring of Teleportation to Lost City, the Dark Lord Shrin**e could only be assessed by Lost City, which still required a distance to travel. If only Domergor had a Teleport Station at his Shrine, it took a toll on me every time I had to travel there! Out of the Teleport Station, I went to find rk, I wanted to embed the Gems that I found onto my Armor! When rk saw me entering, he weed me back happily. "Where have you been recently? You haven''t visited for a long time!" "I''m here now!" I took out the Gems and handed them over to rk. "Check these out, guess what are they?" rk took and scrutinized them carefully. "ck Water Gem, Poison Gem, Ice Crystal! What did you go through to get them? And they are all in the Ultimate Grades!" "And there''s something else I need you to appraise!" I handed over the Fire Gem that had turned silver. "When I was in Japan, I encountered some Magic Silver Vial where I dropped in identally. When I came out, the Fire Gem became like this!" rk ced the three Gems down and looked at the Fire Gem. "This Gem is formed from the silver liquid mixing into the Fire Gem. The Fire Gem wields Fire Attribute Poison while the silver liquid wields Cold Poison, the Fire Gem perfectly suppressed the Silver liquid, thus it was absorbed by the Fire Gem, and became like this!" "While on the way back, I encountered an ambush whereby the opponent actually used a missile on me, but the silver liquid that flew out from the Fire Gem actually protected me. But when another person used a weapon to attack me, it did not activate, what about that?" "That''s because your Fire Gem has notpletely taken control over the silver liquid. I can help you bring the silver liquid into your armor, the Fire Gem will still suppress the Cold Poison of the silver liquid, but the Silver Liquid will essentially reside in your armor, that way, you can use it to repel against melee attacks in the future! But, it needs to be controlled, I am afraid that you can''t do it alone." "Can I get Phantom to control it? Phantom doesn''t really have a lot of things to do when he possesses me, allowing him to control the silver liquid will supplement everybody''s fighting strength!" "Of course you can! Leave Phantom and the armor behind, I''ll integrate Phantom''s spirit link into the armor so you can allow Phantom to help you control the silver liquid in the future." "Don''t forget about these gems as well, help me embed them into the armor!" "Where do you want them ced at?" "ce the Ice Crystal onto the gear on the right arm and the Poison Gem on the left in the same position. As for the ck Water Gem, embed it into the Fire Gem''s original position on my helmet, then shift the Fire Gem onto my belt." "Alright, not a problem! It''ll be done in a few hours! Want to wait here?" "No thanks, I need to find Domergor for a few matters. I''ll be heading over now and will be back tomorrow morning to grab the things." "Alright!" After leaving rk''s store, I summoned Night Shade and the 10 Phantom Knights and sprinted towards the Death Valley. We ran all the way there without any troubles, the Phantom Knights protected me against all the Undead creatures and small monsters all the way to the camp. I had been there for so many times that even the door guards recognized me! Without a need for a report, the door guards brought me into the camp. Domergor was training his troops at that moment, and when he saw me, he ran over. "Why''re you here again?" "What do you mean? Am I not wee?" "No way, no way! Even if this ce rejects guests, we will never reject you! We earned arge sum from you thest time, allowing me to be praised by the higher ups!" Domergor suddenly realized that my equipment looked queer. "Where did your armor go?" "It''s being repaired over at rk''s!" ______________________________________________________________ "Oh! And here I thought you were robbed! So what''s the thing you need me for this time?" After finding him for so many times, Domergor knew that I would onlye when I wanted something! "You''re spot on! I really need your help!" "Then let''s talk in the tent!" Domergor led me to his tent. "Speak freely here! What do you need?" "I want to build a base, so I need to approval from the Shrine." Domergor anxiously replied: "Then you must definitelye to our Dark Shrine! The Light Shrines are our mortal enemies!" "Of course, definitely! Look at me, if I were to build a Light Shrine, I would be cleansed and baptized by those Priests forever!" "That''s the way!" Domergor became overjoyed upon hearing that I expressed interest in joining the Dark Shrine. "Then why don''t you just go and apply for it, why did youe to me?" "I''m here to apply for it!" "You''re here to apply for it?" Domergor was slightly surprised. "Isn''t there a Dark Shrine at Lost City? Why did youe all the way here?" "I have a reason foring here!" I took out my own map and showed Domergor where I wanted my City to be. "I want my city to be built here." When he saw the location, Domergor jumped in shock. "You want to build on Modu''s Iron Fortress ruins? That is an Ultimate Grade Evil Zone! Once you finish building it, the Allied Light Cities will send out their Allied Forces to attack you! You need to defend your City for 3 days to ensure that your City will continue surviving!" "There''s such a thing?" It was the first time I heard of such a thing, the System would send out armies to attack a yer''s City. It was a normal urrence for monsters to siege on the Cities, but for the Iron Fortress, it would actually be the System sending out Armies! "What kind of army will they send? Don''t tell me they will send an army with troops that are like the Level 800 units in the Cities?" If that was true, I had to consider other locations, an army that consists of Level 800 NPCs was not only high level, but their discipline, skill, coordination would be far more powerful than yers, our City would not evenst a single siege from the great difference in level! Domergor appeared sullen: "Why not you follow me to the Shrine first! There are some things that won''t count if I''m the one to say it!" "Fine!" I followed Domergor out of the camp and headed deeper into the ravine. Aftering here for so many times, it was my first time in the camp and I could no longer hold back my curiosity and looked up. The ravine''s terrain did not have many changes from before, just that the walls by the sides were even taller! There were guards all along the path, to the point that it was not a joke that they had a mound every five steps and a sentry in every alternative mound! What shocked me, even more, was that all the guards were level 850 Phantom Knights. After about halfway through the ravine, the guards actually turned from Phantom Knights into level 900 Bloodied Knights. As expected of the Dark Lord Shrine, they were all High-level BOSSES. The Phantom Knights that followed me were considered experts of the experts in other ces, but in here, they were all equals! As we continued walking, a gigantic structure entered our eyes. Above the extremely long flight of stairs wererge doorposts with 27 ck obelisks that emitted extremely imposing and terrifying auras, the pressure enough to make yers go weak in their knees! I was practically held up by the Phantom Knights and Domergor all the way up the stairs, and we finally saw howrge the Shrine was. There were actually 13 doorposts that were all over 100 meters tall and more than 10 meters thick. I stood there feeling extremely insignificant! (Imagine the Doorposts from the Great Hall of the People in China but at a muchrger scale.) "Don''t just stand there,e in quickly!" Domergor had already walked in but realized that I was still standing outside gazing around like a grandmother. "Oh!" I quickly followed up. But when we arrived at the real door, we were actually stopped. The guards were two Level 950 Apollyon Knights, and I did not dare act rampantly in front of them, after all, even the 10 Phantom Knights behind me were unable to fight with the two of them! "This is my brother, we want to enter the Dark Lord Shrine to apply for a Subordinate Guild Base, please let us pass!" Although Domergor had a high rank, his level was not enough and had no choice but to speak politely to the two guards. "He can enter, but not the Phantom Knights!" Whoever heard the Apollyon Knight''s indifferent voice would feel a chill up their spine and their hairs raised for sure! "Then, you guys just wait for me here!" I turned back and ordered the Phantom Knights. "Alright!" Scott replied. The Apollyon Knights levels were too high and were even the superiors of the Phantom Knights in the past. No Phantom Knights would dare be impolite to them here! I followed Domergor through therge door and realized that the hall did not have a very high ceiling, from the outside, the Shrine looked to be almost 200 meters tall, but the hall inside was only around 10 meters tall, most probably the Shrine had more levels to it. In the middle of the hall stood a statue of a beautiful youngdy that had six Demon Wings. Strangely, the youngdy did not have any weapons, but was holding onto a baby! I did not understand the profundity of the sculpture, or why the Dark Lord Shrine would actually have such a statue for! Could it be that the baby is the Dark God? And that youngdy is the mother of Evil? Like how important Mother Mary is to the Catholics! Domergor realized I was stoning again but this time, he did not shout at me and instead came up to me and pulled me along. The ck bs on the ground were all extremely glossy and smooth, which allowed me to be dragged through the hall into a side door! I entered the room, to realize that it was a stairwell. Domergor let me go and allowed me to follow him up the stairs. The railing of the stairs was a type of ck wood that was extremely durable with engravings all over it. At the corners of the stairs were actually human size statues, causing me to be attracted to them once more. In the end, I was pulled up the stairs by Domergor! We left the stairs and entered a long corridor that had rooms on both sides. From our point of view, we could only see the rows of doors! Domergor led me through the corridor and stopped at the biggest door in the middle. It was a two-sided door like a cathedral''s, the gold doors were sculpted with many things, but a pity Domergor did not even give me time to have a glimpse of them! Domergor lightly knocked on the door and we waited for a moment when a weak voice came from the inside. "Enter!" Only after hearing the voice did Domergor push open the doors. As the doors gradually opened up, I got to see more of the room''s interior. The very first thing that I saw was a beauty lying down on arge throne facing the door. Her beautiful appearance, the way she lied on one side on the throne, and hernguid expression, mixed with her perfect beauty were enough to turn any man into a beast of instinct in a second. Domergor silently stomped on my feet, causing me to awake from my daydream, but I could not remove my eyes from the perfect beauty in front of me. I could not find any ws in her! She was a being that I deemed as never to exist in the real world, humanity could never be so beautiful and perfect! Suddenly, a thought shed past my brain. The reason why she was perfect was that she was not a human, but a Goddess! I suddenly recalled the statue in the hall downstairs. Isn''t she the statue in the hall! What should I call her, Mother of Evil? "Your Empress Dark Goddess, This is my younger brother Ziri, he wants to build a City under the Dark Faction." Dark Goddess? Did Domergor just call her the Dark Goddess? Then isn''t she the Master of all the Dark Shrines and the most authoritative and most powerful figure in the Dark Faction? "Why are youing to me for such an insignificant matter, if that is the case, why do I even need the Dark Shrines?" Her voice was beautiful even though her tone was cold and had sent a shiver down my spine! Domergor looked as though he was extremely afraid of the Goddess. "The location in which Your subordinate''s younger brother wants to build his city is slightly troublesome, he wishes to build his City at the former Modu''s Iron Fortress!" "What? You want to your City at the Iron Fortress?" The Goddess sat up, and thenguid expression instantly disappeared! "Why do you want to build your City there? Don''t you know that the City was destroyed in the past? Even if you sessfully construct your city, the Three Great Cities will join forces and attack you. It is a scale in which you cannot ever imagine and something you cannot defend against, my advice for you is to change locations! It is not suitable for you!" "If they are willing to ally up and attack, it means that the Iron Fortress is a strategic and valuable location, so what if I can upy a Land in which my enemies don''t care about!" I would never be swayed by an NPC! "You should just ept my request!" The beautiful Goddess suddenly revealed a smile, although her smile was extremely beautiful, it made my heart tremble, I knew that something was up! ------ (*) Previous trantor wrote Wayne as an Undead Wizard, I''ll change it to Mage. but back when Ziri learned that Scott could summon skeletons in Cursed Lands, Scott said that he was not a Necromancer. I am as of now unsure whether Thunderstorm intended for Undead Mage and Necromancer to be the same ss, as the difference between both sses in Chinese is just one word. (**) So, there are the usual Dark Shrines, the Dark Sanctum in which was a name I gave to the Iron Fortress'' dark tower because it is rather unique, and the Dark Lord Shrine, in other words, the Dark Shrine General Headquarters. Despite the Dark Lord Shrine and General Headquarters being in different names, the Dark Lord Shrine is the term used by the Phantom Knights, as it is sort of their personalnd, while others call it the General Headquarters. Chapter 155: A Demoness is truly a Demoness [Vol 5 Chapter 6] Chapter 155: A Demoness is truly a Demoness [Vol 5 Chapter 6] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "If they are willing to ally up and attack, it means that the Iron Fortress is a strategic and valuable location, so what if I can upy a Land in which my enemies don''t care about!" I would never be swayed by an NPC! "You should just ept my request!" The beautiful Goddess suddenly revealed a smile, although the smile was extremely beautiful, it made my heart tremble, I knew that something was up! "I like you!" The Goddess suddenly spoke up, and in that situation, those words were truly terrifying. "Ah? What?" I stumbled and fell on my butt on the floor. Domergor was fixed in his position, his eyes were fully dted and his mouth was opened, but no words came out, and after a long time, I heard him mutter to himself. "Am I dreaming?" "Hahahaha!" The Goddess suddenly covered her mouth andughed, her posture was too¡­..she made my nose bleed! Seriously! My HP started to drop, the blood loss from my nose was too powerful! "You''re really interesting! You are the first person after a long time that I find likable, you are too adorable!" "This¡­..this¡­..this! Divine Goddess! I¡­...I¡­.." "Don''t be too excited, I didn''t say I wanted to do anything to you!" She suddenly stood up which resulted in the loose ck overalls on her to fall as they were not worn properly. Herrge and soft outer clothing actually fell to the ground. Of course, a Goddess'' body could not be sphemed, she was after all the Dark Goddess and was someone that ought to be worshipped and respected, I believed that if I were to see her body, I would never leave the Dark Lord Shrine ever again! I was so afraid that I quickly shut my eyes and turned my body, while Domergor had instantly sprawled on the floor and had his face look down onto the floor with his eyes tightly shut while shouting: "I DIDN''T SEE ANYTHING! I DIDN''T SEE ANYTHING!" "Hahahaha!" A loud and clearughter sounded out. "What''re the two of you doing? That''s just extra clothes that I covered myself with while resting." "Ah? Really?" I opened one of my eyes cautiously. "WHAT!" Two streams of blood spurt out from my nostrils as a burst of vertigo struck me. I fell down once again, incidentally hitting the big doors that were closed behind me! I vaguely heard the system as it notified that I had suffered from a nil attribute attack, and my HP had dropped to below 50%. "Hahahaha! You''re really adorable, you''re so easily deceived! Domergor, where did you find such a fun person? I''ll promote you to the regional viceroy of the Demon Army, you can leave this man to me!" I waspletely certain that she was definitely the representative of Darkness, she was the grandmaster of evil and tricks! She truly had a terrifying personality and was rotten to the bones! As expected from the Dark Goddess! "Your Majesty! He is my younger brother, I plead for Your Majesty to let him go!" Interestingly, Domergor was rather loyal, he actually dared to contradict the Dark Goddess'' intent and plead for me. "You better not talk nonsense and get back to your post." The Dark Goddess'' voice suddenly turned extremely cold, causing Domergor''s entire body to tremble. "Yes, your Majesty!" In the end, Domergor had no choice but to leave me behind and escaped out of the room. I stared at Domergor''s back in shock, he actually threw me behind! "Little cutey, it''s us two left!" "What do you want?!" I started to retreat backward, away from her. "What else can I do?" The Goddess walked in an extremely slow fashion as though she was deliberately revealing her beauty and perfect figure to me, while I could only use my hands to pull myself on the ground further backward. Although I had to admit she was beautiful, at that moment, it felt as though I was being watched by a predator, causing my body to freeze because of fear. I truly regretted leaving my Dark Dragon Lord Set with rk, if I had it, I could at least hide my eyes with the visor, but without any armor, there was no need to talk about the visor, I did not even have my Helmet! "You don''t have to be afraid of me, I need a friend here, I''m very lonely! Don''t treat me like a Goddess, treat me like an a¡­.an ordinary person!" The Goddess bent down and extended her hand towards me. "NO!" Rose''s smile suddenly shed past my mind. An unknown strength came out from nowhere as I actually pushed the Goddess away. My shove actually made her fall to the ground, but the Goddess did not stand back up. Instead, sheid prone on the ground with her long ck hair spreading across her entire body and onto the ground. I took three deep breaths before I dared to stand up, for some reason, I felt as though I had anemia, I was constantly giddy! Suddenly, I realized that the Goddess'' shoulders were actually trembling, as though she was sobbing. I circled around the crying Goddess and walked to the throne (Sofa) that she was originally was lying on. I took the clothes that had dropped on the ground, it was actually just arge cloak with buttons that could be worn as an outerwear. I walked back to her side and used the cape to cover over her, then gently patted her back. "I don''t hate you, it is just that a rtionship is not like math. Only when there is a good vibe between the both of us can we ept each other! Since you feel lonely, I can be your friend!" "Really?" She looked up with her beautiful face. Her expression made me feel that if I were to reject her, I would be the world''s greatest sinner! "Of course! I mean what I say! WHA¡­..!" BANG! For one moment, I was hugging the Goddess, in the next moment, I was suddenly sent flying by a huge and powerful force. I was flung through the wall behind me, and another, and another, and another before I felt nothing behind me. I had actually flown out of the Dark Lord Shrine. With a crash, I struck one of the doorposts. The immense power was actually enough for me to break into the doorpost. The Phantom Knights that were waiting outside for me felt confused when they saw Domergor rushing out of the Dark Lord Shrine, but since they never had a good rtionship with him, they did not ask about me. In the end, it did not take long for the Phantom Knights that were talking to the Apollyon Knights to see me flying out of the Dark Lord Shrine and into a doorpost! Although I was stuck inside the doorpost, it was still considerably tough. I was barely stuck inside with a groove that prevented me from falling. I dropped out of the groove and fell head down to the ground, causing a human-shaped pit to form in the strong stone b of the Dark Lord Shrine! The sudden changed caused the Apollyon Knights and my Phantom Knights to be unable to react, the 12 Knights all looked at me in shock, then raised their heads and looked at therge hole on the roof of the Shrine. The Goddess suddenly appeared at the hole and looked down in shock, and when she saw me, she immediately ran back in. Before the 12 Knights could even grasp the situation, the Goddess ran down, finally dressed in a gown. Sadly, my face was nted in the ground. The Goddess sprinted over to my side. "What are all of you staring at? Quickly dig him out!" The Knights who were stunned finally knew what to do, and the 12 of them clumsily dug me out. "OUCH!" That was all the sound I could make, my entire body felt as though it had been trampled over by an elephant, it was even more painful than when I toyed with Red Moon in the sky before! What was left of me were the indestructible underwear that the system had in ce to prevent nudity in the game, all the of lousy equipment I had on were destroyed and were pieces all over the ce!" "Quick, carry him to my room!" The Goddess ordered the Knights to work. I was lifted onto a makeshift stretcher made of the Knights'' spears and the door and carried to the room. The Knights carefully lifted me onto a 3-meter long bed, then ran out with the Phantom Knights. On the bed, I felt as though I had been teleported from Hell to Heaven. The extra soft bed made me feel as though I was floating in water, the faint fragrant perfume told me that it was the Goddess'' bed, and it was used extremely frequently! "Are you alright?" The Goddess sat by the bed and asked me. With difficulty, I replied her: "Why not you give it a try! Ouch!" "It wasn''t intentional, I got angry because you rejected me, so I pushed you slightly. But I forgot that you are too low level, thus I did not control my strength! I''m really sorry!" The Goddess looked at me with puppy eyes, making me feel embarrassed for ming her! "Forget it, forget it! I''m just unlucky! Ouch! Do you have medicine? My injury is too severe, I almost died back there!" In truth, I had my own medicine in my bracelet, but my hands were too numb to move! "I don''t have any! But I can heal you, the power of Dark Priest alles from me, I can use heal on you!" With that, she stood up and extended a hand towards me. A dark gold light enveloped me, and my HP quickly regenerated. "Aren''t you a Dark Goddess? How can you utilize Healing Spells?" "Who told you that the Dark Goddess can''t use Life Spells? My Dark Priests can use Dark Heals as well, but because the difficulty of using Dark-type Heals are higher, thus they will only have it in theter stages of their ss, now it seems that there isn''t any Dark Priest that has reached the level to use Dark Heal, so all of you think that the Dark Faction can''t use heal!" I recovered quickly, although there were still lingering pain, I was out of danger. "I''ve been here for so long but I haven''t caught your name?" "Ling!" "Ling? Is that even a name?" "I don''t have a say in it, I''m just called Ling!" "Fine then, Ling! Can you just approve my application to build the City? For this application, I''ve suffered greatly today!" "Actually, I didn''t say I disapprove!" Ling who was initially seated by the bedside inched closer into my bosom and started drawing mini circles on my chest with her hand. "But I''m doing this for your sake! The Iron Fortress is a sensitive region for the Dark and Light Factions, if you want to build a City there, you will definitely suffer from extreme objections from the Light Shrines. The Three Great Cities all belong to the Light Faction, thest time, they trampled on the Fortress, they will do the same for you!" "But I really want to build the city there, I''ve seen it, the geographic conditions of the Iron Fortress is extremely formidable. Those powerful city walls formed by the mountain, and that port at its back, it''s truly an opportunity of a lifetime!" "You think I don''t know about that? But I can''t do anything! In terms of strength and levels, the Dark Shrine''s forces have never won the Light Faction, if not for our equipment, I''m afraid that even this Dark Lord Shrine of mine would have been destroyed!" I patted Ling and replied: "Isn''t it just defending the City for three days? I think that I am strong enough to do so, and by relying on that ultimate wall, defending for three days isn''t a problem!" "You wish!" Ling suddenly sat upright. "Afterpleting your City, monsters will siege your City first, which will be followed up by the siege of the Three Great Cities. Even if you can resist the monster stampede, before you can even rest and form up again, you have to continue resisting the siege of the Three Great Cities, do you think you still can hold up for three days?" When I heard what Ling said, I was stunned for a long time. China only had two yer Cities at the moment, why is that? It was because of the monster stampede being too powerful, that was why the majority of the yers were unable to resist them! We had to first resist the wave of monsters, after that fight against an NPC army, only if thedies from the Cherry Blossom Organisation joining under us had strengthparable to mine will we have the chance of winning, otherwise, we were bound to lose! "Actually, if you really want to build your City there, it is not impossible. I have an idea, but¡­.!" This girl was honestly killing me with her suspense at such a crucial moment! "What is it, tell me?!" I became so agitated that I sat upright and held her shoulders. "My Goddess, tell me!" "I can tell you my idea, but I have a condition!" "Condition?" I quickly hugged myself. "I''m not selling my body for it!" "Hahahaha! See how scared you are!" Lingughed so hard that sheid on the bed with her hand over her tummy and the other smacking the bed. "My condition is simple, you have to bring me out to y. I''m sick of staying inside this Shrine, it''s like a prison! I want to face danger with you!" "Forget it! With your power, you''re not facing any danger but bringing danger to others! Your casual push was enough to leave me dying, I think others will die even before you can do anything!" "No no! I''ll be careful, I will never hurt others!" Ling was as naive as a child, and actually raised a hand and swore. She was a God herself, I wonder who she was actually swearing too! "I still can''t believe you based on this!" I did not want a trouble like her at all! "As a person, I have my own rules and principles, it is a matter of principles here¡­..! WAIT! What are you biting me for?" Ling did not reply me, but the system prompt answered for her. "Congrattions, yer for obtaining the Companion . As the is a Demon God that surpasses Level 1000 and possesses a unique trait, the system will demote the Goddess to a Level 1000 Dark Power Wielder. The position of Dark Goddess will be passed down and be inherited by the Dark Goddess Annie." "You¡­..?" "Hehe! Now, you can''t throw me off! I will stay with you forever!" "It''s actually so good being a Goddess, but you rather be a Companion! Don''t you know that being a Companion equals to being a ve?" "Who wants to be your ve! Master, in the future, if you have any special needs, you have to tell me! Don''t be embarrassed about it!" While saying that, Ling deliberately revealed her attractive figure, subtly indicating me to find her for THAT! This vixen! I decided never to summon her when Rose was around. No, it would be best if I did not need to summon her forever, consider it as a Companion slot wasted! "Jie*! You''re really leaving?" The door suddenly opened and a girl that looked like Ling rushed in. Ling''s expression suddenly turned gentle yet strict, her seductive and flirtatious behavior disappeared without a trace, as though she was always so holy and dignified. "Annie, Jie is going out to face dangers, the Dark Lord Shrine will have to depend on you now!" I heard their conversation clearly, the one who had rushed in was the future Dark Goddess and also Ling''s younger sister! "Jie, you muste back to visit me often!" Ling suddenly ran over to my side and hugged onto my arm. "From now on, I can''t move on my own will, if you want me toe back and visit you, you have to see what my Master wants!" I almost fainted, she had somehow pushed all the dirt on me and dragged me into trouble! Annie stared at me with a scary gaze, causing me to defend myself: "What''re you talking about! You cane back anytime you want! Furthermore, I am still a member of the Dark Faction, I am still under the brilliant leadership of the Dark Lord Shrine! As long as Goddess Annie says it, I will cross the mountains and seas to hurry back here!" "That better be!" Annie stared at me. "I''ll consider you smart for knowing your ce!" "Annie! You can''t treat Master so rudely!" Ling was actually berating Annie for me! "No no, it''s fine, it''s fine! Goddess Annie cares for us!" Seriously, how did I ever get caught in this weird rtionship! "Oh¡­.! Goddess Annie, if there''s nothing else, can we go first?" "What? Are you in a rush? You have something to say against me and my sister talking to each other?" Maybe it was because I had stolen her sister, that was why Goddess Annie never gave me any face! "No! No!" Although she made me feel oppressed, I did not dare to provoke her. She was a big BOSS over Level 1000, even if I were to be at the maximum level, I might not be able to defeat her, much less my current low Level! "Sis, I really want to go out, if you have nothing else, I''ll be leaving first!" In any case, Ling was able to handle her sister! "Fine!" Annie walked towards me. I thought she wanted to hit me and started to retreat away from her. "Don''t run away, I want to give you something!" Annie passed a badge over to me. I epted it carefully. It was a regr and small hexagon. The badge''s surface was a skull with a sword pierced through from above with its de emitting some sort of me. "What''s this?" "That is the Apollyon Badge! Jie will be following you from now on, so you better protect her." Why does it seem as though I''m marrying some girl!? "I saw the 10 Phantom Knights outside, they should be under you right?" I nodded. "Take the badge and head over to the blood pool at the Archaic Hall, the badge grants you ess in there, you can have your Phantom Knights take a bath in the blood pool." "F*ck! Such a nice badge was made just for a bath!" "What did you say?" Annie became enraged: "The Blood Pool is the sacred ground for the Dark Faction, Phantom Knights that enters the blood pool will evolve to the Level 900 Bloodied Knights!" "What? Really?" I looked at the badge in excitement and shock, who would have known that a simple method existed to upgrade the Phantom Knights! Honestly, after spending so much time with them, I had emotions for the Phantom Knights and would truly hate to part with them. With the badge, I could evolve them, how great was that! Annie then handed a ring over to me. Whatever a Goddess have would never be trash, so I epted it quickly. The golden ring did not have any decorations and was a simple and in ring except for the tiny and packed inscriptions on the inner circle and outer circle. "What''s this?" "This is a Ring of Gratitude, in the past, we helped the God of Beasts to leave the jurisdiction of the Light Shrine, and he gave this to us as a reward. Bring this ring to him, he will increase your Companions Slot. Treat this as a substitute for Jie, you better not treat her like a ve!" "Since when have I ever treated my Companions as ves? I treat Lucky, Phiona and all the rest as my brothers and sisters!" "You can do whatever you want, but I do not wish for you to bully Jie. Alright, that''s all! You can leave now!" Annie turned and spoke to Ling: "Jie, you have to take care!" "Sis, you have to take care of yourself too!" In that situation, people who did not know of the situation would think that I had kidnapped one of them and was about to separate them for life! No one will ever know that I was forced to do it! Especially for Ling, she was unpredictable, what would I do if I were to suffer under her scheme one day! My life was in danger! "Let''s go!" Ling pulled me and ran out of the Dark Lord Shrine. When the Phantom Knights at the door saw me being pulled by the Dark Goddess, all of them could only follow me in confusion. When I passed through Domergor''s camp, I wanted to speak to Domergor, but I was helpless against Ling''s excitement, she was extremely excited towards the outside world and was pulling me to leave the ce! I had no choice and was forced out of the area under the Dark Lord Shrine. It was Ling''s first time leaving and seated in front of me, Ling looked around in excitement as though she was curious about every single thing around. Under us, Night Shade was extremely unhappy, another rider had appeared all of a sudden for no reason, and his emotions were extremely apparent! While Ling was enjoying the scenery, I took the chance to open her Stats and took a look at her capabilities, she was a living treasure, I had to see what was the best way to utilize her worth! Dark Power Wielder, Level 1000 Companion of the Ultimate grade, her ATK, DEF, and SPD were all ordinary, her HP rather high, it seemed as though all High-Level BOSSES had roughly the same stats! But her magic was scary, she was the ultimate Mage that had M.ATK 50% more than Crystal, which was a Faerie Dragon! Unique Trait: Wields all Darkness-type Spells Unique Trait: Completely invulnerable to all Darkness-type Spells Unique Trait: Able to control 10 lower level Darkness-type Monsters at any point of time (When yer goes offline or if Dark Power Wielder is unsummoned, control over the 10 Monsters will disappear, controlled monsters cannot be leveled, fighting capabilities as per normal). Unique Trait: When using Darkness Type Spells, M.ATK doubles, No time dy restriction between Spells. No time dy restriction between Spells? Doesn''t that mean Ling can cast spells forever? As long as her MP doesn''t reach zero, she can use her spells without any cast time! From how I saw it, she was the perfect counter against Warriors. A Mage''s ATK is usually higher than Warriors, the only reason they never allowed Warriors to get close was that Mages required long cast times. But ording to Ling''s trait, she did not have the restraints that majority of Mages have, and she could still fight in closebat! I had truly found a precious treasure, a LIVING treasure! ------ (*) Big Sister Chapter 156: Defending Lost City [Vol 5 Chapter 7] Chapter 156: Defending Lost City [Vol 5 Chapter 7] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "What''s that, what''s that?" Ling used one hand to hit me multiple times while pointing with the other to a small creature running across the grass and screamed in excitement, luckily her level was now the same as mine, and her ATK was not as when she was the Dark Goddess! "That is a rat!" I hung my head in low spirits. "That is No. 3000 thing you''ve asked me! Please, I''m begging you, let me go!" "But I don''t know what all of them are!" Ling ced her right forefinger to the corner of her mouth and looked at me with her puppy eyes which instantly made my heart feel even more troubled! "Although you''ve never left the Dark Lord Shrine, you should have seen a few things before? How old are you exactly?" "Ever since I was born, I had always stayed in the Dark Lord Shrine, those idiots (Great Dark Priest and the Apollyon Knights) always make me decide on this and decide on that as though they don''t even understand anything. It seemed as though I was making the decisions for all of them! So I had never stepped out of the Shrine before! Much less all of these things, I don''t think I can even recognize all the Darkness-type creatures!" "Treat it as I never said anything!" How could I harbor any anger towards such a person? Ling suddenly became excited once again. "What''s that in the sky?! What are they?! There''s so many of them! They look fun!" I looked up with doubt and saw that the sky was covered with a patch of ck things that flew over. They were flying at a very high altitude and were extremely fast, preventing me from recognizing them. Under Ling''s plea, I activated [Star Gaze] and looked at them. Arge flock of birds quickly entered my vision, they had gold feathers and had lion bodies, they were Griffins! Why are there so many Griffins here? We were in the Dark Shrine region and Griffins were Light Faction Companions, so they should not fly in and in such a huge group. I increased the power of [Star Gaze] multiple times, revealing the armor-d riders on the Griffins. What the hell, aren''t they the troops belonging to the Great Cities? ording to their speed and direction, it looks like they are heading towards¡­. Lost City? They were actually trying to sneak an attack on Lost City! After trampling on the Iron Fortress, they were still not satisfied! No longer lost in thoughts, I used the Ring of Teleportation and reached Lost City and summoned the Phantom Knights and Ling. "Scott, do you know where rk resides?" "Yes, I do!" "Quickly go to him and inform him that the Light Shrine had sent troops to ambush Lost City!" "Yes!" Scott immediately turned and ran off. "The rest of you, follow me!" I led the rest and headed towards the training ce where I used to train with the Boomerangs. As it was not far from the Teleport Station, we arrived not long after. Night Shade sprinted too quickly and when we arrived at the training ce, I jumped down his back with the inertia, but as it was too strong, I did not stabilize myself in time, and lost my rhythm, resulting in me flying out and smashing straight into the doors. "QUICK¡­..QUICK¡­.! Mythal Legion, Pay attention, The Light Shrine has sent forces here¡­..they want tounch a sneak attack, quickly get into defense positions!" The Mythal Legion that was in training all paused upon hearing my words. One of them, most probably one of a higher rank, quickly ran over and pulled me up. "How did youe to know about this?" "I saw their vanguard troops on the way here! They are all Griffins numbered in the tens of thousands!" This Knight immediately shouted to the rest: "Listen up all of you, the Mythal Legion will fall into position now. Lost City will be put in a state of war as of now!" The entire Mythal Legion rushed out and headed towards different parts of the City. I quickly ran over to rk and found Scott standing at the entrance. "Have you informed rk?" "Yes I did, rk has already left to inform the rest and got me to wait here for you. rk wanted you to wait inside his shop and not run around." "Oh! Alright, I got it!" I brought the Phantom Knights and Ling into the shop, but I knew that waiting inside was not the best n. I jumped to the roof of rk''s shop from the window. Standing on the 3-story building allowed me to view arge part of the City. I suddenly sensed the power of Evil increasing and looked at the source of the power. The Underworld Eye had actually been activated at the tall Tower in the center of the City! The originally closed Underworld Eye was in the process of opening, and the power of Evil was gradually increasing. It took more than 1 minute for the Underworld Eye topletely open. A gold beam of light shot out from it which resembled a searchlight, as though it was looking for something in the sky. "What''re you doing?" rk who had rushed back saw me standing on the roof of his building. "I''m just watching how you guys are preparing for battle, I want to build my own City as well, so I need to learn all of these things!" "Then get down here! Follow me to the Walls!" "Can I? That''s great!" I jumped down from the roof directly in excitement, with the Phantom Knights and Ling following behind. I ran towards the City Walls with rk and saw all the citizens and families in Lost City all dressed in Knights armor or Mage robes running towards the Walls. "rk! Are all the citizens of Lost City all soldiers and mages?" "Almost all of them! All the citizens in Lost City are all old Spirits of a long past, everyone here has some knowledge of battles, so whenever there are wars, everyone will go up and fight together!" "That''s sick!" We arrived at the City Walls and saw arge group of Knights and Mages running up the walls. I was positioned in one of the arrow towers on the wall (simr to the beacon towers on the Great Wall), where it was much higher and had a better line of sight. After settling my position, rk disappeared, and I stood on the Tower and looked around. The ckke around Lost City had more than 10 Cannon tforms raised, while the Large Magic Spell Cannons still under the water, it seemed that they had dyed the activation of the Cannons. I suddenly noticed something interesting, the Underworld Eye was actually the main control system for therge cannons, and wherever the Underworld Eye''s light shone at, the Cannons would follow ordingly. I heard a queer sound from behind. When I turned and looked, I noticed that the top of the tower in the middle of the city had opened a small door with countless of ghosts that resembled stone statues gushing out in formations. Lost City actually had an aerial army and it was the first time that it had been witnessed! Before the din behind me was over, sounds of water gushing came out from theke. A whirlpool appeared in the center and moved towards the edge of theke. When it reached the shore, a hole appeared. Due to the high-speed revolution of the ck coloredke water, a vacuum of space was formed from within, forming a passageway from the hole. ¡­..rumble...rumble¡­.rumble. The sound of an orderly unit could be heard from theke as rows after rows of monsters walked out from the whirlpool. I did not know what they were. They resembled humans in the way that they stood on two legs, but their leg joints were actually in reverse, like the joints of birds! The monsters that were close to 2 meters tall looked like locusts standing upright! They not only had a pair of arms, they had two more limbs that resembled awls that had sharp pointed ends that twinkled with a cold light! The terrifying part was their heads, the four sharp teeth outside of their mouths illustrated their carnivorous natures. The stream of monsters from the whirlpool was endless and at the same time, more passageways suddenly revealed themselves on top of the city walls, and manyrge wooden constructs were raised up. I realized in shock that they were actually catapults, not just any ordinary catapults, but ultrarge capstan catapults. These constructs relied on the power of gears to load the catapults and could throwrge rocks the size of full-grown elephants out over 7-8 kilometers away, imagine how destructive that would be. The catapults got into position the same time as when the soldiers reached their positions. Some guy dressed in red armor walked up above the City Gates with rk by his side, I immediately knew that he was some important figure! The whirlpool on theke had already disappeared, in the short span of a few minutes, the unit actually appeared over a thousand men (monsters). The man in red said something to the people by his side, but due to the distance, I could not hear anything. But what happened after that enlightened me! The long stone bridge that connected the City to the shore actually lowered down and into theke! Lost City''s mechanisms were truly all-rounded, they could even lower the long bridge! ____________________________________________________________ A few minutes after therge army was in position, ck dots finally appeared on the distant horizon, I knew instantly that they were the Griffins! The Griffins were extremely fast, and in the blink of the eye, they closed in towards us. The gold beam of light unleashed by the Underworld Eye behind me suddenly intensified and shot towards the Griffins in the sky. Instantly, the Magic Crystal Cannons raised their muzzle towards the direction of the light. BOOOOM! That was the only sound I heard, all the Large Magic Crystal Cannons had fired at the same time. The base te beneath every single Cannon released ripples that echoed outwards at the same time, produced by the powerful shot of the cannons. A row of cannon shots flew into the Griffins Unit, where the agile Griffins started to avoid them but due to their quantity and that they were extremely packed, every shot struck and killed one Griffin. The gold beam of light suddenly transformed into 10 light threads which aimed at a fixed position within therge pack of Griffins, while the Magic Crystal Cannons also started to aim at different positions. I used [Star Gaze] and watched the Griffins that were pinpointed by the light threads, I wanted to see if those Griffins were different from the other Griffins. I observed them for a moment and realized that those Griffins that were targeted actually had two riders on them! Aside from the Griffin Rider in front, there were Mages riding pillion! Do the mages have some special abilities to them? Why did the Underworld Eye target them first? The Magic Crystal Cannons shot relentlessly at the targeted Griffins that had the Mages on them, and it looked like the Griffins would not be able to upy Lost City at all, the ground forces were already far stronger than them! Are the people at the Light Shrines all Idiots? To think that just by sending a few Griffins, they can take over Lost City? My doubts did notst for long. Very quickly, the Griffins got through the forests and arrived in the sky above theke. All of the Griffins that had the Mages with them started to descend while the Locust Army (They truly looked exactly like Locusts!) outside Lost City suddenlyunched their assault towards the Griffins, which was countered by the Griffins swooping down and pouncing on the Locusts. It was obvious that the Locusts were not the match for the Griffins, although they had the advantage in numbers, they were unable to fight against the Griffins. The Locusts turned their targets towards the Mages that were already ced on the ground. This confirmed my guess, the Mages yed an important role, otherwise Lost City''s Locust Army would not be so fixated on them! The locusts were extremely fast, although the Griffins were doing their utmost to intercept the locusts, many of them were still able to get past them and closed in on the Mages. Upon their immediate descent, the Mages were focused on drawing something on the ground and werepletely unaware of the locusts rushing towards them. The locusts did not care about anything, the first few locusts that reached the Mages immediately started killing them. Many of the Mages were killed even before evenpleting half of the drawing. The Magic Crystal Cannons did not stop either, they were continuously unleashing barrages of shots, but many of the Griffins used their own bodies to deflect the shots, and the only effect the cannons provided were from severely wounding and killing many of the Griffins. I suddenly heard some nking sounds like what a metal chain would produce when being torn apart. I retracted my gaze and looked at its source, to realize that the catapults were winding up! WENGGGGGG! An extremely low buzz sound shot through the air, another catapult wasunched. A gigantic rock projectile was flung through the air, producing the strange sound, the processed rock was easily recognizable due to its roundness. The high speed of the projectile caused it to spin forward uponnding on the ground, their goals - the Mages! The Griffins in the sky were unable to block the rolling boulders that hadnded on the ground, even if they wanted to sacrifice themselves, it would be futile, the power in the rolling boulders was enough to tten more than 10 Griffins and not stop! The boulders were much more effective than the shots unleashed by the Cannons, many of the Mages were squashed into meat piles, the only w was that countless of Locusts were also squashed t! With the locusts, magic crystal cannons and catapults at work together, the Mages suffered. But when 70% of the Mages were down, one of thempleted their drawing, it was only then, did I realize what they were doing! It was a 7 to 8 meter diameter ring with a hexagram within and was unleashing a dazzling blue and white light. Even a fool would recognize it, it was a Spell Formation, and to form a Spell Formation at such a location, the only probable Spell was most probably a mass Teleport! Right, when I guessed it, the Spell Formation dazzled and teams of cavalry rushed out. The Mage who drew the Spell Formationughed and used his Mage robes to wipe away the perspiration from his head. Right when he turned around, a sharp awl stabbed into his body and sent him to Heaven. Before the locust could even pull out its awl, it was sliced into half by the Cavalry that appeared! The other spell formations werepleted one after another, releasing white lights after white lights and unleashing an army of cavalry to rush out like a flood. It was an eye-opener, the real battleid not in the number of troops brought to battle, but the swift and powerful defensive aerial defense bringing forth many Mages that excelled in Spell Formations to the City to prepare for the Mass Teleports! Us yers were still stuck in the age of marching on foot and werepared to the NPC troops, we could be called primitive! When the forces teleported out of the Spell Formation, the locusts lost their advantage, the cavalry was able to handle the Locusts easily, and very quickly cleared the entire army of Locusts. Suddenly, the Spell Formation teleportedrge scale catapults, many aerialdder vehicles and some square boxed vehicles that brought wheels with it, something I had never seen before. When the aerialdder vehicles appeared, they immediately retreated, I guess it was because Lost City had an extremely broadke and thus were temporarily unusable. The Catapults were quickly separated and put into work by the personnel. I suddenly saw arge boulder projectile flying towards the City. I watched the trajectory of the boulder and knew that it would fly past the walls into the city, but the Underworld Eye suddenly shot a beam of gold light at the boulder. BANG. A Magic Crystal Cannon shot at the boulder in the sky and shattered it into pieces. Following the firstunch of boulder were the second and thirdunches, the Underworld Eye separated its gold beam of light and aimed at these two projectiles and was followed by the Magic Crystal Cannons taking turns to fire at the boulders. But as more and more catapults were installed and shot, the Magic Crystal Cannons were no longer able to destroy them as quickly! Right when I was thinking about why the catapults were not shooting their boulders at the Magic Crystal Cannons first, it happened. One of the boulders struck one of the Magic Crystal Cannon. But this boulder was instead shattered into pieces and fell into theke, but the Magic Crystal Cannon waspletely fine! No wonder, the catapults were ignoring the Magic Crystal Cannons and constantly shooting at the city or wall! The square boxed vehicles carrying wheels started to move towards theke. The Underworld Eye suddenly gave up attacking the boulders and aimed at these square boxed vehicles. But a pity, many Mages formed spellshields in front of these vehicles, and the Crystal Cannon''s projectiles were only able to shoot through a few of these shields before losing power, although every one of these projectiles killed a few Mages, they were unable to reach the boxes! The boxed vehicles finally reached thekeside, but the soldiers behind did not seem to want to stop, they continued pushing these boxes into theke. After being submerged in the water, theke suddenly released strange sounds. Many whirlpools started forming on the surface of the water that the boxed vehicles were under. "What do you think??" rk suddenly appeared behind me. "What''re those for?" I pointed to the square box and asked. ________________________________________________________________________________________ Without even looking, rk exined: "That is a top grade product that an Alchemist can produce - the Water Suction Device. It relies on Magic Crystal Stones as power with a water spell formation and spatial formation within. The water spell formation will continuously suck water into the vehicle, while the spatial spell formation will send the water out, this way, they can drain theke!" "What! So powerful? Then won''t the ck waterke around ck City be drained very quickly?" "It will definitely be drained, but after all, thiske is not meant to be a moat, and topletely drain it will require some time. We can only hope that we can destroy more of the enemies during this period." "Then you''re just going to let them drain all the water?" "You can see it for yourself, they are sustaining too many spellshields, we have no choice!" While we were conversing, the Griffins in the sky suddenly rushed towards the City. The Stone Ghost Statues in the City immediately flew into the sky and met with the Griffins, tangling in a chaotic battle in the sky. The Dark Mages and Witches in Lost City all started casting anti-life restriction spells. The anti-life restriction spell is an AOE spell that is sustained for a period of time, mainly to form a vortex that continuously absorbs HP in the fixed region, furthermore, as long as it was not forcefully removed by Light Spells, it can sustain for a very long time. Even if the Caster was killed, the Spell can exist for a certain duration before disappearing. As the spells can automatically target enemies, the Stone Ghost Statues were not affected at all, but the Griffins were unfortunate, from time to time some of them would fall dead to the ground, of course, the Stone Ghost Statues also had losses! "Watch out!" rk pulled me to one side right when one of the stone ghost statues dropped at my original position and shattered into pieces. The Stone Ghost Statues were formed out of rocks, as long as they were killed or went to rest, they would turn back into stone, so after being killed and dropped from the sky, it had dropped and shattered due to the impact. Behind us, Ling pped her hands excitedly: "This is the first time I am witnessing such a grand battle! This is fabulous!" rk leaned in closer and whispered to me: "Where did you get this girl from? Why do I find her so familiar?" I whispered in his ear softly: "She is the previous Dark Goddess!" "Her Majesty Goddess?" rk blurted out loud. "I''m no longer the Goddess!" Ling was still observing the battle below and spoke up without turning back. "The Dark Lord Shrine now belongs to and is under the control of my sister Annie!" rk ced his right hand on his chest and bowed 45 degrees down. "Regardless of whether you were or are the Dark Goddess, there is a need for respect and politeness towards you!" "Alright, alright, I''m just a retired Goddess, no need for the formalities! Ah! Look, there''s no moreke water!" I looked down, the level of water in theke had certainly dropped drastically, but it was notpletely dry. The already dried upke bed had many enormous eel-like creatures spasming on the ground, while inside the remaining water were many exposed heads with sharp teeth growing out from them. As the level of theke water continued to fall, these things with teeth on their heads finally revealed themselves. They were creatures that greatly resembled the already extinct Plesiosaurus, the difference being their heads were muchrger. Additionally, their teeth looked to be extremely powerful, so it looked as though their appetites, their body size was extremely well proportionate. One of the enemies was not careful, and the strange sea monster bit down on a catapult, maybe they were all extremely unhappy about the water situation as all of them started to rush towards the Water Suction Devices. But the monsters had limbs like turtles, swimming was not a problem, but their walking speed was too slow! Majority of the Water Suction Devices were able to pull back safely, but the guards that rushed up to protect the devices met their demise. The ATK of the monsters were not inferior to Dragons, with one swing, they were able to throw both man and mounts so far that no traces of them could be seen! "Are they not part of Lost City''s forces?" I looked at the monsters, although they were attacking the enemies, they did not look as though they were part of the formation or were in sync with the soldiers, they were just venting their anger! "They are the original residents of thekes, we do not care much about them, and just let them defend theke themselves!" "No wonder!" Although the monsters below were strong, they were unable to handle the number of enemies. The cavalries all started to bring down the monsters in a few hits! Theke that was being drained was almost wiped out, with even the wet mud beneath turning into dry soil. The siege carts and aerialdder vehicles were finally being pushed forward. The Magic Crystal Cannons built in theke were sliced into wasted metals by the cavalries, which resulted in the Cannons self-detonating and dragging groups of enemies along with them to death! The battle at the city walls finally begun, the army that had reached the city walls rushed in like a flood, which to me, a spectator, was a spectacr sight. Although the number of participants in the war was close to 1 million (Allied Forces 900 thousand, Lost City less than 100 Thousand), imagine the scene of how a narrow space could stretch therge army of 900 thousand! Although the Magic Crystal Cannons were destroyed, the Underworld Eye still had work to do. The gold beam of light shot straight into the clouds and caused lightning to form. Rain started to patter down. I extended my hand out to catch some of the ''rain'', only to realize that it was blood that was falling! The Allied Forces soldiers who were exposed to the blood realized that the rainbow-colored spells on their bodies were eroded! The soldiers who lost their lusters felt a substantial drop in their fighting capabilities. The cavalries that arrived at the aerialdder vehicles stepped up thedder with their mounts and rushed up the city walls (These aerialdder vehicles are not like ancient vehicles, but more like esctors). The cavalry that rushed up the wall were immediately locked in a heated battle with the Mythal Legion Knights on the city walls. There were very few Mythal Legion Apollyon Knights, thus they were tasked near the stairs, fully utilizing their immense power to spearhead all the iing calvaries from the narrow stairs. The rear suddenly sent out arge tool which I recognized it as a battering ram, it was built like a seesaw, just that the hanging part was an extremelyrge bronze pir. rk shouted to the catapults nearby: "Destroy that battering ram!" The catapults immediately changed their targets, but the enemy Mages once again unleashed their spellshields and blocked the catapults without caring about anything else, as long as they helped the battering ram to the city, it would be their win. The Dark Mages on the City Walls unleashed all sorts of AOE offensive spells on the crowd beneath, but a pity there were too many of them, and they could not kill everyone! The Underworld Eye behind us started to change again, the beam of light that was originally aimed at the sky started to spread all out and from a beam of light, it turned into scattering rays, like a torchlight suddenly turning into a candle!The rain of blood outside the city suddenly stopped along with the dissipation of light, but the ground started to tremble. Slowly, arge field of zombies and skeletons rose from the ground, although the mass of them was low level, they wererge in numbers, the first wave already close to a million, and the number was still rising! The Mages by the battering ram were disrupted by the zombies and skeletons, causing a w to appear within the spellshields. The catapults on the wall grabbed the opportunity and flung out a row of projectiles. With onerge thump, the entire battering ram was smashed into the ground at a distance 300 meters away from the city gates! A second battering ram appeared from the Mass Teleport Spell Formation, but there were too many zombies and skeletons that blocked their paths. The rain of blood that had stopped had turned the driedke bed into thick mud, restricting the cavalries movements, which made them less agile aspared to the zombies and skeletons, resulting in them being beaten weary, with the asional cavalries that managed to rush up the walls to be sent down the city wall by the Apollyon Knights that held the absolute advantage on the wall. As the number of Zombies and Skeletons increased, the Light Shrine''s Allied Forces gradually turned passive. Tworge balls of mes suddenly exploded in the sky above Teleport Spell Formation and were followed by the gradual retreat of the forces. I guessed that the tworge balls of mes were the signal for them to retreat. It was not easy for them to retreat as well, the ground was too slippery and there were too many skeletons and zombies, adding that the catapults were constantly unleashing projectiles onto them, the allied forces suffered a huge loss in the midst of the retreat. But at longst, the allied forces were able to reach the Mass Teleport Spell Formation after the loss of a huge pile of bodies. That was when arge ck monster flew over from the other side of Lost City. I saw that it was a Dark Flying Dragon, which I supposed was the reinforcements from the Dark Lord Shrine! The Allied Forces no longer held any hope and rushed into the Spell Formation, they had suffered greatly, but Lost City had lost a part of their strength as well, although lesser. After the Army''s retreat, the skeletons and zombies outside the city all became still and gradually submerged into the ground, as though they had never appeared. All of the corpses that were defeated were also turned as well, the more intact corpses bing zombies, while the more broken bodies into skeletons, and like the fairytales, they all submerged into the ground. At that moment, I finally understood why Lost City had so many zombies and skeletons, after every battle, all that was left were the corpses from the Light Shrine! It was a pity that it was an NPC war, I could not obtain any EXP or any of their equipment (Battles between NPCs would not drop equipment), but at least I got to understand more on City battles, especially on how the Light Faction would attack, they actually utilized such a high-end method of movement, I always thought that they would march to siege, who would have known that all that came out were calvaries! "Ziri!" rk suddenly shouted for me. "Huh? What?" "Follow me, the City Lord wants to see you!" "That guy in the red armor?" "That''s right!" "Why does he want to see me?" "You''ll find out when you go to him!" With my suspicions, I followed rk down the City Walls and headed to the city center. I was unable to think of a reason for the City Lord to want to look for me! Chapter 157: The City Lord’s Secret [Vol 5 Chapter 8] Chapter 157: The City Lord¡¯s Secret [Vol 5 Chapter 8] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry I had yed the game for a rtively long time and have been to Lost City multiple times, but it was my first time meeting the City Lord. I unsummoned Ling and the Phantom Knights and followed rk around half the City before being led into an inconspicuous ce. "Am I not meeting the City Lord? Why did you bring me here?" rk did not reply me but pushed upon a door to a private estate. "Quick, go in!" I was unable to make heads or tails out of it, but I entered anyway. rk waited for me to enter before closing the doors again, then without exining anything to me, he ran over to a wardrobe next to a bed and stood there. rk grabbed onto the handle of the wardrobe and turned it instead of pulling the wardrobe door. The wardrobe suddenly shifted automatically by arge distance, and the wall behind the wardrobe was revealed. rk walked over to the wall and knocked on it twice, causing the ground where the wardrobe originally stood to plunge downwards. rk pulled me onto the descending tform, which plunged into the ground with what I thought was over 7 to 8 meters before stopping, we were actually in a tunnel! The moment the both of us got off the ''elevator'' and into the tunnel, the ''elevator'' automatically rose upwards. The tunnel was not dark and was lit up with some light source ahead of us. rk pulled me and walked further in. "Hey, bro, where are we going? Didn''t you say the City Lord wanted to see me? Why did you bring me into this tunnel?" "This is the tunnel that leads to the City''s Shrine!" "But why aren''t we walking by the surface? Or does the City Lord stay beneath the City?" "Dark Cities are always built like this, half of the structures are above ground while the other half beneath, the City Lord''s residence must definitely be more covert, thus it was built underground. This entrance is specially designed as well, it only allows entry and not exit!" "Then how does the City Lord gets out?" "The Shrine has a flight of steps that leads to the surface, but it has been sealed with a spell and only allows exit!" "What the hell! Isn''t that very troublesome!" "It''s not! Just that there are a specific entrance and exit each!" We talked and talked until we reached the end of the tunnel, which did not cover much distance. Upon leaving the tunnel, I was taken aback, we actually appeared on the surface, and we were even in arge forest! "What¡­.what the hell?" "Hehe! This is an illusion spell, we are actually still underground! Follow me tightly, don''t get lost, it won''t be fun getting lost in this illusion!" "Woah!" I followed rk tightly, afraid to be trapped forever! The forest illusion did not epass a huge area as well and we quickly got through it. A garden appeared in front of us. The City Lord stood in the middle of the garden d in his red armor, bending down and doing something that we could not see, his red cape had blocked our vision. With his back towards us, the City Lord did not notice our arrival. "City Lord, brother Ziri is here!" rk spoke up. Before the City lord could react, a small head popped out from behind the City Lord''s cape. This head belonged to an extremely adorable little girl who looked to be 7 or 8 years old, the sweet smile on her face producing two dimples. The City Lord finally turned around, he held onto the little girl''s hands and walked over. "So you''re Ziri! I have to thank you personally for your help today,e, let us sit!" The City Lord had invited me to sit and talk. I tried to look for a stool, but we were in a garden in the middle of a forest, much less a stool, I could not even find a rock to substitute for a chair. I could only look back towards the City Lord, but the City Lord had actually sat cross-legged on the grass! When in Rome, do as the Romans do, I sat beside him on the grass. Fortunately, the scenery was mysteriously beautiful, and upon sitting down, I felt more by nature. The little girl by the City Lord''s side did not apany us to sit, but instead started running around the City Lord andughing non-stop, children were indeed pure and sincere, even the smallest of things could make herugh for a whole day, but us adults have real difficulty experiencing genuine happiness! The City Lord extended his hand out and hugged the little girl who was running around. "Alright, Ting Ting, stop running around, can you go over there and y by yourself first? I want to talk to Uncle!" "Ting Ting,e with me! I''ll bring you to Aunty for a doll!" rk walked over and hugged the little girl. The Little girl''s naive eyes sparkled: "Really? The doll Aunty gave Ting Ting thest time was so cute!" "Of course, this time, we must get Aunty to make even more dolls for Ting Ting!" I could never tell that rk who had such a brute appearance was actually so proficient in coaxing little children! Although the little girl was extremely happy, upon thinking about the doll, she had to ask the City Lord. "Daddy, can I go?" The City Lord nodded his head and used an extremely affectionate and slightly imposing voice to speak: "Yes you can, but don''t take too many, your aunt still has to work. If you go to her, you better not cause trouble, ok?" "Yes! Ting Ting is the most obedient!" The girl''s vowed impatiently as she urged rk to bring her to take her doll. The City Lord watched rk carry the little girl up and walk away before turning back to me. "You should be prepared, I''m going to take off my helmet!" "Huh? What?" Before I could even understand the City lord''s meaning, he was already taking off his helmet. When it was off, I got the shock of my life! All the Undead and ghosts could be said to be more adorable than him! Inside the Helmet was a greatly rotten faceless half a head, the right portion of his head was gone. But his right eyeball was actually still connected to his brain by a strand of nerve and was swaying back and forth, as though it could fall at any moment. Half of his brain was revealed, the watery and gooey substance looked like mushy tofu! As for the left side of his face, it was not anywhereplete either, his chin looked as though it had been smashed by something and had nted to one side, his cheekbone waspletely revealed, as for his ears¡­..they were already pping downwards at his neck along with the rest of his skin! The grotesque sight in front of me almost made me puke, but I had somehow managed to control myself. "I look really terrifying, right?" The City Lord caressed his helmet and asked me in a self-mocking tone. "Honestly, you look really terrifying! But, we are all men, looks are not important, what matters is our capabilities!" I spoke as if I was an expert in bbering, but honestly, I had no idea on how tofort him! The City Lord handed a rolled up canvas to me, and I opened it up to take a look. It was a painting and the background looked faintly familiar, after thinking about it, I suddenly realized that the background of the painting was a drawing of where we were, except that we were at a different ce. The painting had two individuals, a man, and ady. Thedy was beautiful and was not inferior to Rose. She was seated on a swing made of vines, the dark green vines contrasted with her spotless white robes, making it an extremely beautiful painting. Behind thedy stood a man who had a stance that looked like he was gently pushing her. He was dressed in red armor without a helmet, and he had a smile on his face that was brimming with happiness. He was extremely handsome and suave, he was the best description of a manly figure, if any of the stars or models were half as suave as him, all the girls in the world would definitely fall for him. I suddenly sensed something amiss. Isn''t this handsome man''s armor the same as the City Lord''s? Could it be... I raised my head up and looked at the City Lord in surprise. He nodded his head. "That''s right, that''s me, good-looking, right?" I nodded my head as I looked at the drawing, then raised my head up to look at the City Lord, who looked like a monster. "YOU¡­..!" "It''s nothing much, anyway I''ve died a long time ago, I don''t really care about it anymore!" "Then what about your daughter?" "She doesn''t know that I''ve be like this after I died, I never let her see my face, I''ve always been afraid of scaring her! I told her that something had lodged my helmet onto my head, and it can no longer be removed, so she doesn''tin about it. Ting Ting is a very obedient¡­.child!" The City Lord had turned emotional talking about his daughter. "What will you do when your daughter grows up? She''ll definitely know!" "She won''t!" The City Lord said calmly. He paused for a moment, then continued: "I have sought for you today for two matters. Firstly, I want to thank you for the early warning. Because of you, we were able toplete our preparations to face our enemies, it was because of the wasted time that the enemies Mages and Aerial units had suffered that we were able to win so easily." "You don''t have to thank me, I merely reported it on the way, there isn''t really any contributions. Furthermore, My Armor is still at rk''s shop, if I didn''t report it, then Lost City would have been destroyed by the Light Shrine which equates to my armor is gone!" "You don''t have to be so modest, your report was truly valuable and extremely valuable as that! As thanks, I have decided to give you 20 Heavy Armored Dragons as repayment!" "Heavy Armored Dragons?" "MEN!" The City Lord shouted to his back, and a Mythal Legion Knight came running from nowhere, with an extremely humongous monster behind him! _______________________________________________________________________________ This monster that was called a ''Heavy Armored Dragon'' looked extremely like a T-Rex of the dinosaurs (Imagine Godzi), but it''s size smaller. Although it was smaller than a T-Rex, it was still close to 4 meters tall. The Heavy Armored Dragon waspletely covered in pitch ck scales, its defense must definitely be high! As a reptile, its tail was not considerably long, only about 4 meters long, but from one look, I could tell that it had considerable might! Its two hind legs were extremely thick with their obviously powerful muscles, revealing that its hind legs contained explosive force! Butpared to them, its ws were much smaller, but with its huge size, these ws were stillrger than my thighs! The most striking feature of the Heavy Armored Dragons were theirrge heads, which was half asrge as their bodies, with extremelyrge mouths. The Apollyon Knight that was holding onto its leash pulled onto it, causing it to suddenly roar out, its roar as unbearable as a gong, and was extremely sharp and high-pitched. But when it opened its mouth, it also revealed its perfect set of sharp teeth, and holy shit, they sure were long, every single tooth was at least 2 inches long, anyone who was bitten by them would definitely lose their limbs. Furthermore, its teeth were dramatically pure white, who knew what brand of toothpaste they used, I very much wanted it too! The Heavy Armored Dragon had veryrge eyes and were sharp slits like that of cats under light. They looked extremely scary! I realized that they had twoyers of eyelids, the inneryer was transparent like that of sea creatures. Adding the fins on their tail, I reckoned that they were mobile in the water as well, and not slow to that! Under the Apollyon Knight''s order, it actually knelt down, and that was when I noticed a saddle at where its neck and body were connected, which was most probably where the Rider would be seated. Behind the saddle were three sets of dorsal fins, the sharp dorsal fins could effectively serve as protection for its back. By the sides of the dorsal fins were a pair of folded membrane wings, it looked as though the Heavy Armored Dragon could fly as well, but as to its flight time, I did not know! But it had to be less than Lucky, who was a real dragon! "What level are they?" I patted the Heavy Armored Dragon happily. "They are level 750 creatures, and they are a very rare and hardly seen species!" The Apollyon Knight replied. "The ones with wings are even fewer!" The City Lord walked over and took the rope over from the Apollyon Knight, who then left. "How is it? Do you like it?" "I do, but I only have 10 Servant slots left and 1 Companion slot left! Where will I put these 20 Heavy Armored Dragons?" "Don''t you have Phantom Knights? Give these Dragons to them!" "What? Give the Phantom Knights? Phantom Knights can keep Companions?" The City Lord looked at me strangely, then replied me with a question. "You didn''t know? All human-type NPCs have 2 Companion Slots!'' "Are you serious?" "Of course! If not, why do you think that the mounts that the Phantom Knights you have not count as Servant slots as well? Or did you think that the Phantom Knights and the Spirit Warhorses equates to 1 Servant slot? They are actually all Companions under the Phantom Knights, that is why they are able to summon them at will!" "F*CK! Then if I get the Phantom Knights to ept other Phantom Knights as Companions, won''t this loop make me the ruler under the Heavens?" "Dream on! All NPCs that are Servants or Companions can only keep non-human type Companions!" "Oh!" Woah! ording to the City Lord''s words, wouldn''t that mean that Aldeina and Ling could take in 2 more Companions each? Wouldn''t that mean that I have an additional 5 Companion Slots? (Ziri has 1 more left, adding Aldeina and Ling, excluding the Phantom Knights) Seems like the remaining Companion Slots should be left for human-type Companions, this way, I have even more of them! So that''s how the loophole can be used! HAHAHAHA! I''m a genius! After basking in the joy, I looked at the Heavy Armored Dragon again, and started feeling depressed again! "So in the future, the Phantom Knights will ride these Heavy Armored Dragons, but with me riding Night Shade, I''ll be overpowered so greatly that even if I walk at the front, I''ll be too short to be noticed as the leader, I''ll only look like the person to pave their way!" "It doesn''t matter, I know that you have a Nightmare*, so I prepared a few things for you." The City Lord took out a stone from his body. "This is a Transformation Gem which can be embedded in the saddle, this will allow your Companion to have the ability to transform. Remember, the Heavy Armored Dragon transformed by a Nightmare will have a substantial increase in ATK and DEF, and is much more powerful than a real Heavy Armored Dragon, since it is a much higher level monster! But after transforming into a Heavy Armored Dragon, it cannot use any Spells. Additionally, there isn''t any time restriction on the transformation, you can allow him to maintain the form for as long as you want, but in between each transformation, you need to wait for an hour, for example, once you get him to transform into a Heavy Armored Dragon, you have to wait for an hour before it can turn back!" "That''s nothing! The benefits outweigh that single weakness!" Nightmare could transform into a Heavy Armored Dragon, and with Lucky, it could fight on the frontline, and I, a D&P Ride, would finally be able to mount on a Dragon, although it was a fake, it was still considered a Dragon! "Oh right, didn''t you say you have two things? What''s the other matter?" "It is a personal request of mine, I hope that you can find my wife!" "Is she the woman in the painting?" "Yes! If you see her, give this painting to her, she will definitely recognize it, we did it together!" "You guys drew this together?" "Yes, this is a paintingpleted by us two painting separately. She sat on the swing first while I drew, then we swapped positions, and she added me to it!" "That''s super creative and romantic!" I extended out a thumb. When I get back, I shall do that with Rose as well, seems like fun! "Oh right, Your wife, is she still human or¡­..uh?" I did not know how to phrase it, he was dead, yet he still had his daughter, thus it was difficult for me to talk about his wife like that! "She should still be alive!" "What''s her name? Where will she most probably be? You should give me some estimates to ease my search!" "She''s called Anna, as to where she is, I''m unsure! If I knew about it, I would have looked for her myself! But she is a Priest in the Light Faction and should be in one of their Shrine now. She is still unaware of my passing, if you see her, it''ll be best to not tell her about my death, just tell her that I am in the midst of aplishing a grand matter, and after it ends, I will find her." "You don''t want me to bring her back here?" "I''m already like this, how do you want me to see her? If you''re like me, will you go and meet your girlfriend? Aside from scaring her, what else can happen?" When he finished speaking, he wore his helmet back on, it looked as though he was still greatly affected by his appearance. "Then you don''t need me to bring your daughter to her? You''re already an Undead, it won''t be good for your daughter to keep following you, right?" The City Lord raised his hand and was about to say something when a child''s voice interrupted him. "Daddy!" I almost fell back in shock! The adorable little girl was running over while hugging her own head, the headless neck even revealing somethings that were sticking out. The little girl ran over to the City Lord and screamed: "Daddy, help me put it back on, it dropped again!" The City Lord turned and helped his daughter put her head back on, as I looked at his back view, I suddenly recalled when I just arrived, and finally understood what he was doing! The City Lord quickly turned back around and spoke: "You saw it yourself, Ting Ting died with me 30 years ago. After turning into an Undead, one will never age, she had always been this age since 30 years ago, but it''s good for her, she will never experience pain like me!" "I understand! I''ll definitely find your wife!" rk ran over anxiously. "This little brat runs really quickly, she didn''t see you?" rk ran over worried that Ting Ting would see how the City Lord looked, but fortunately, the City Lord had already worn his helmet back on. "These are 20 Heavy Armored Dragon Eggs and the painting, keep them well!" The City Lord handed the things over to me then turned to rk: "Help Ziri prepare 20 Saddles and gift them to him for me, I don''t feel so well and won''t be sending you off!" With that, the City Lord turned and pulled his daughter and walked away. Watching their back view, I felt terrible, there were actually such sad NPCs in the game! "Let''s go!" rk pulled me and left the illusion, and returned to his shop. I took the time while rk was preparing the Dragon Saddles to summon the Phantom Knights and handed over the Heavy Armored Dragon Eggs to them and kept the remaining 10 Eggs, which would be given to my future 10 Servants, anyway, my Servants were restricted to Calvary type units, so I would definitely be able to use them! I remembered the Transformation Gem and anxiously summoned Night Shade, then took the Saddle. I could embed the Transformation Gem without troubling rk as I was a cksmith myself and had learned a few skills after being with rk for so long! rk was definitely no ordinary cksmith, he had finished the 20 Saddles in the time that I took to embed the Gem! rk handed the saddles over to me, then went into the room to grab my Dark Dragon Lord Set. I handed the Saddles over to the Phantom Knights and kept the remaining few. "Scott, quickly hatch these Heavy Armored Dragon eggs out for me to see!" "Alright!" With that, Scott started to run out of the shop. I pulled him back. "Where are you going?" "Hatch the egg!" "Can''t you do it here?" "Here?" Scott looked around. "No way, the room is too small, the Heavy Armored Dragon''s toorge!" "It''s fine, Lucky''s much bigger than the Heavy Armored Dragons, when I hatched Lucky, he was the size of a kitten!" "We are different! Companions under NPCs will instantly reach their prime, so the Heavy Armored Dragons we hatch will reinstate their original levels!" "Are you serious? Then if I give all of you Dragons, will they instantly reach Level 1000?" "That''s impossible! Companions cannot exceed the Master''s level. We are level 850, so if we were to hatch dragons, they will be at level 850, but the dragon will never be able to increase their levels to 1000!" "So there''s still such restrictions! Forget it, let''s go and get the Heavy Armor Dragon Egg hatched outside!" ------- (*) Night Shade is a Nightmare Horse Chapter 158: Dragon Riders [Vol 5 Chapter 9] Chapter 158: Dragon Riders [Vol 5 Chapter 9] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Upon arriving on the streets, Scott and the other Phantom Knights ced the Dragon Eggs onto the ground, cut their fingertips and dripped a drop of blood on to the eggs. When the ck colored blood of the Phantom Knights was out of their bodies, it was immediately enveloped in blue mes which made the blood look like oil! The demonic blood dropped onto the Dragon Egg, which immediately formed cracks, and a small head popped out from within. The newborn little Heavy Armored Dragon already had an extremely sharp pair of eyes and was using it to take in everything around it curiously. The Phantom Knights helped to crack the remaining egg shells, to which the little dragon jumped out from. Upon leaving the egg shell, the little Dragon''s body suddenly unleashed a transparent ripple, and then started to erge like intable doll. In 15 seconds, 10 fully mature Heavy Armored Dragons appeared in front of me, these 3 meter tall Dragons roared at the same time, forcing me to cover my ears. All of the citizens on the road were bewildered by the spectacr scene and looked at the huge monsters strange. When they heard the roars of the Heavy Armored Dragons, they immediately covered their ears and ran in panic. All of the Dragons might be excited upon being born, and their roars started turning sharper and sharper! The window panes around the area could not withstand the high frequency and shattered, littering the entire street with broken sses! The Phantom Knights realized that the Heavy Armored Dragons had caused troubled, and immediately got them to quieten down. After all, they had the ''master-ve'' rtionship, the ''little'' dragons all immediately quietened down and obediently sat down and stopped moving. Right after that, the City Guards came running over. The leader dismounted from his horse. "What the hell happened here?" "My apologies, my apologies, these Heavy Armored Dragons were overly excited upon being born!" "But that doesn''t mean they can just roar out loud! You have to pay for all of all the breakage!" "Oh! I''ll pay for it then!" I ended up paying a 100 Crystal Pieces (which consisted of a fine) before being able to resolve the matter! The Phantom Knights were Level 850 while the Heavy Armored Dragons were level 750 monsters, thus upon being hatched, all of them were automatically raised to their max limit of Level 750, that was why they were so happy! rk ran out of the house somewhat unsteadily, most likely due to the roar from the Heavy Armored Dragons! He wanted to hand over the Dark Dragon Lord set to me. "Was that your Heavy Armored Dragons that roared?" "Yeah! Their roars are extremely unpleasant to the ears, it was too high pitched and loud!" "Give me a moment, I''ll make something for you!" rk dropped the armor in front of me and ran back into his shop. I picked up the armor and took a look at it. There were not many changes to the armor, just that there were a few more lines in the description of the Armor due to the Gems. But all 4 Gems actually had changes to them. The Ice Crystal on the right arm that was sparkling did not have any changes to its attributes, but like the Fire Gem, the summons was different. It was the same for the other Gems, all of their summons were different, and I guessed that it might be due to the Demonification from the Dark Lord Dragon Set that could change any gems that were embedded into it. The Fire Gem embedded at his waist had one additional line of information: Gives User Ability to control liquid silver, with its own passive control. This additional passive control meant that it could be controlled at will, but in addition to that, after meeting certain requirements to activate the silver liquid, even if I did not want it, it would move by itself. For example, I could now control the silver liquid as a form of defense, but if I was not consciously using it and suffered from an attack, it would automatically protect me. As for the Ice Crystal, the original ability to summon a Yeti had been changed into summoning a Snow Demoness. I summoned Phantom and asked: "Do you know of Snow Demoness?" "Snow Demoness are Level 400 Dark and Ice type monsters, they have no tangible bodies and are not afraid of being harmed by others, rely on offensive spells as their main form of attack, but know of very limited spells, all of which are Ice type spells, but they wield astonishing power in their spells. The Snow Demoness are innatelypatible with Ice types, thus all the Ice Spells that are produced by them are extremely terrifying!" After listening to the introduction, I moved on to the Poison Gem on the left side. The Poison Gem was embedded into the dragon head shaped pauldron on the left arm onto the dragon''s forehead, making it look as though the Dragon had three eyes. The Poison Gem had almost simr properties as the Ice Crystal, the changes only to the summons. The Poison Gem''s summon had turned from the King Butterfly into the Bewitching Butterfly, and as per usual, I sought Phantom for an exnation. "Bewitching Butterflies are Level 350 monsters of the Underworld, their most proficient attacksy in their extremely poisonous fog, they can create a dark fog within an area that prevents the enemies from having any visibility, and aside from disrupting sight, the ck fog is itself extremely poisonous and corrosive. But the terrifying thing about these Bewitching Butterflies is that they are able to locate their enemies within the ck fog and attack them, these attacks will induce a momentary dizziness as well as a gue effect thatsts for a long time! If the victim doesn''t find a Light Priest or someone who has high-level antidotes, the victim will slowly die to the gue effect." Listening to Phantom''s exnation, I found the Bewitching Butterflies not too bad, as long as the enemies did not bring high-level antidotes or did not have any Priests by their sides, the Bewitching Butterflies would be able to kill them with certainty. But in [Zero], hardly anyone would have too full inventories, the carry weight of each yer was rtively huge, so almost everyone would carry many cures and medicine with them, even if theycked them, they would have a Priest with them! I took the Helmet up and had a look. The Fire Gem at the be had been changed to the waist, and the sparkling ck Water Gem had reced it. The ck Water Gem was a darkness type treasure, and not putting it on the helmet would be belittling it! The ck Water Gem was originally able to summon the Underworld Skeletal hands, but it had changed as well, to be able to summon - War Skeletons. This time, before even the need to ask, Phantom started to exin. "War Skeletons are Level 200 Undying Monsters and are a different type of skeletons. The War Skeletons are all equipped with armor and wield sabers and metal shields. Although their ATK is not very high and they do not know spells, but as they are Undying monsters, as long as they are notpletely shattered, they can crawl back up forever, and they do not rely on individual strength to win but by numbers, they are definitely the ultimate horde that utilises their numbers to crush their enemies! Furthermore, the War Skeletons are not afraid of poison type, dark type, curse type, mental state type, wind type or water type spells. Fire-type spells cannot harm them much, which leaves the light type spells as their only kryptonite! Ordinarily, as long as they do not encounter many light Battle Priests, they will never be afraid of anything!" Hehe, doesn''t that mean the skeletons are even more powerful than the Silver Wasps? The number of skeletons summoned is 10 times that of the yer''s Level, which also means I can summon over 3000 skeletons, although they are not very high leveled, but even a Dragon will have to reconsider fighting 3000 skeletons! Immediately, I had the desire to summon them and started to equip the Dark Dragon Lord Set. After equipping everything, I entered the shop to look at myself in the mirror. rk''s shop sold armors and customers would always want to admire themselves when they chose an equipment, thus therge mirror in the shop. But when I entered, I realized that the mirror had been shattered, the roars from the Heavy Armored Dragon had shattered all ss, and not even the mirror was spared! But still, Ideas came from men, I immediately summoned Aldeina and got her to form a water mirror. This spell was used to reflect projectile type spells, but because of its extremely reflective surface, it was perfect to rece a mirror! I checked myself out in the Water Mirror, due to their bright colors, the Gems on the Armor were very prominent and striking, but there were no other differences to the Armor. Although the ck Water Gem on the Helmet was glossy and ck, it still looked extremely beautiful. First, I tested my control over the silver liquid. With a thought, the Fire Gem on my waist shed with a light. Instantly, white lines flowed around the ck armor in grooves, forming beautifully carved engravings, the silver liquid was extremely prominent and contrasted against the ck armor and in a few seconds, my entire body was flowing with silver liquid (less my Helmet). The grooves along the Dark Dragon Lord Set was already very beautiful, but after being lined with the silver liquid, it increased the mysteriousness of the Dark Dragon Lord Set! I tested it a few times, I could easily control the silver liquid with my mind, transforming into various shapes and sizes. I could even transform it into a form of me, but somehow, the silver liquid could no longer be retracted, although it made my ck armor look extremely beautiful and striking, I felt that going out with it would only attract even more attention! I could not do anything about the silver liquid. Thus I summoned the Snow Demoness. I summoned only one as we were not in battle. A white mist suddenly appeared in front of me and the temperature in the room dropped by a few degrees! The white mist dissipated and revealed a translucent beauty. It was not only her clothes, her entire body was translucent, and I could still see the things behind her body! Her body emitted a faint blue light and she looked exactly like an ice statue, just that she was even more lifelike and beautiful. Phantom had mentioned that they did not have any tangible bodies and I actually wanted to touch her, but right when I extended my hand out, I felt an extremely cold chill at my fingertips. I immediately retracted my fingers, I did not want to get a frostbite! ______________________________________________________________________________ I unsummoned the Snow Demoness and summoned the Bewitching Butterfly. I hadpletely underestimated the size of this thing, upon appearing, I was instantly forced to the ground. The Bewitching Butterfly was not like the ordinary butterfly but was a terrifying bug with an exoskeleton, it looked exactly like arge mosquito with armor (Imagine the Bugs in Starship Troopers)! On its back were a pair of Butterfly wings that were actually slightly scary! The wings by itself looked beautiful with a myriad of colors and had a few reflective surfaces, but the size of them was overboard! They had a wingspan of over 3 meters, and it was because of the wings that it could not fly inside the shop, but instead knocked me down onto the floor! It was too heavy and had pinned me down, preventing me from crawling back up. Phantom suddenly spoke: "This Bewitching Butterfly can actually change its form, this is its original form, but you can get it to be smaller in size!" It can even change its form? I quickly ordered it to change, and truly, the gigantic bug transformed into a beautiful young girl. With one look, this butterfly looked like the City Lord''s daughter, even the size was almost perfect, with a pair of butterfly wings on her back. The strangest thing was that this little girl''s hand actually held onto a bow. That was the reason why Phantom said that the butterfly could attack even inside the ck fog, it uses a bow! The transformed Butterfly girl was much smaller, and the pair of wings on its back was only a meter long, and did not fill up the entire room and allowed me to stand up! Lastly, the War Skeletons. I unsummoned the Bewitching Butterfly and summoned a War Skeleton, this time carefully done so on the main street, afraid of any unforeseen circumstances! In the end, the Skeleton was ordinary, and nothing out of the unexpected came out. After calling out for the Skeleton, the rocks on the ground suddenly moved, the ground split apart slightly and a white skeleton hand arose from within. The entire skeleton crawled out from the split, and actually even remembered to use a stone to cover up the hole, it was truly considerate and conscious, it was afraid others would fall into the hole! The skeleton that appeared was slightly hunchbacked, but even with that, it still stood at a height of over 1.8 meters to 1.9 meters tall, making me suspect that the Skeleton did not belong to a human! If it stood straight up, it would have been over 2 meters tall! To verify that it was not just its appearance, I summoned another 9 War Skeletons. All of them were the same, they were allrger in size, high-quality Skeletons were just that different, just by their appearance, they looked f**king powerful! The skeletons were equipped with light armor that had a few rust spots, with sleeveless cuirasses while their lower body waspletely covered with greaves and sabatons, they were actually well protected if not for the holes! They did not have any head armor which revealed their crude looking skeletal heads that had a few holes! On the Skeleton''s back was a huge circr and gold shield that had many green patches on it, most likely made of bronze! On its waist was a wide saber that was extremely ck, but the ck was not formed by rust, but by blood that had dried and stained for too long. From the size of the massive saber, there was no meaning as to whether it was sharp or not, with itsrge bulk, it could simply smash enemies to death! After looking through all the new summons, I unsummoned the skeleton. Coincidentally, rk came running over holding onto many straps. "What''re those for?" I took one and inspected it, it was not a strap but more like a connection to something, it looked like a tool to put onto the saddle but I did not recognize it! rk called a Phantom Knight over who led his Heavy Armored Dragon over. rk got the Heavy Armored Dragon to lower its head and looped the leather strap over the Dragon. I immediately understood what the strap was for, it was a mouth leash! It was what ck bears or hunting dogs would frequently wear, it could seal their mouths shut, it could not even open its mouth, much less make a sound! rk handed 20 of these straps to me since Night Shade did not need one, its intellect was far higher and would never make random and useless sounds. Looking around, I realized that we were fundamentally fully equipped. I summoned Night Shade and equipped him with the saddle equipped with the Transformation Gem, then got him to transform into a Heavy Armored Dragon, god! We had be extremely imposing! Although we were extremely imposing, it had be slightly troublesome, luckily I had wings, he was not high level enough, and was only 3 meters tall as a Heavy Armored Dragon, I did not know how I would mount him and get him to fly! The Phantom Knights were agile with their movements, they got their Heavy Armored Dragons to kneel and stepped onto their ws and jumped up their saddles. The scene was truly too majestic and imposing, unfortunately, Night Shade was notrge enough, and I had to climb up on him!! I led the Phantom Knights out of Lost City, our goal was to look for Archaic Hall City for the Phantom Knights to bath in the blood pool to evolve into Bloodied Knights, my level was not much of a priority, we would still meet monsters along the way, and by killing all of them, I was sure I would gain a few levels! I was not in an urgent need to train either, I could simply find a ce and fight and practice my skills easily! When we reached the gates of Lost City, we encountered a problem, the bridge was gone! The stone bridge had dropped to theke surface, but due to the battle, theke had been sucked dry, and the exposed bridge was broken into half, thus could not be used at the moment. Night Shade suddenly spoke up: "My Heavy Armored Dragon Form seems to be able to fly, sit tight, I''ll test it out!" "Wait, what? Test it out?" Before I could evenplete my sentence, Night Shade had leaped out of the Gates, and we were already 20 to 30 meters in the air. Night Shade immediately opened up its wings upon flight, but we were still falling, and right when we were about to touch the ground, Night Shade suddenly p its wings, the sudden burst of force forced us upwards, we were actually flying. Night Shade turned back and spoke to me: "This body has sufficient strength, but its flight is not as strong, to take flight, I will need a distance to run and gain speed. Furthermore, I don''t think I can maintain flight for long!" "No matter, all the yers are stuck to the ground now, we will hardly need to fly, and even if you can''t maintain flight, I still have Lucky and the rest!" Once out of the city, we quickly descended back to the ground. Although the Heavy Armored Dragons could fly, they were still monsters that belonged to the ground and were more proficient in running. To witness the 11 of us Heavy Armored Dragon Riders sprinting across the ins was so much more awesome than riding on horses! The Heavy Armored Dragons ran extremely quickly and were many times faster than horses. Soon enough, we reached the Dark Forest that I had crossed through two to three times, and would no longer get lost. We easily crossed the forest and got rid of countless Skeleton soldiers and Demon Trees. When we rushed out of the forest, we actually encountered arge party of yers. Arge group of cavalry had formed up in front of me, and their gigantic unit surprised me. It was not that I had never seen such arge force before, the war at Lost City was at a muchrger scale than them, but it was my first time witnessing arge group of yers. I saw plenty over at Japan, butpared to them, China''s poption was farrger than Japan! The formation of yers in front of me had about fifty to sixty thousand people, and they were all cavalry, but how did I know that they were yers? Simple, NPCs would never be dressed in such bright and different colors! The army in front of me was a mix of all sorts of yers, there were tall, short, fat and skinny yers. Even their mounts were different, many of them were actually riding on camels! There was not a need to mention their equipment, to be able to gather so many yers was a difficult action by itself, to have uniform equipment was something currently impossible! Although it was a chance encounter, there was nothing much between us, thus I did not want to provoke them. I pulled on the reins of Night Shade and turned to another direction and walked a few steps, obviously revealing my intent of making way for them, which to me, was definitely already a sufficient show of face! The Phantom Knights retreated to the side along with me. The people close to me saw that I made a path for them and revealed strange looks as they tried to look further into the forest, but could not see further. At this time, I noticed that their path of movement was not to enter the Dark Forest, but moving along the side of the Forest. I never had the intention of colliding into them head-on, but had coincidentally rushed out of the forest right in front of them, which made it feel as though I had appeared to block them, no wonder they were all staring at me cautiously! Since they were not nning to enter the forest, there was no meaning for me to give way to them. I pulled on the reins, and Night Shade immediately turned and ran out of the forest with the Phantom Knights following behind. "Hold up!" A shout suddenly came out from behind. I got Night Shade to stop and turned, only to see a few Knights galloping over. The Phantom Knights formed a semi-circle by my side and surrounded the Three Knights. The three knights trembled upon seeing our formation, the Heavy Armored Dragons were truly too tall, and in the face of them, their mounts looked like tiny rhinoceros against mammoths. The three of them could only raise their heads to look at us. "Are you a yer or NPC?" The Phantom Knights and I were all dressed in full ck, although the Dark Dragon Lord Set had been outlined with the silver liquid, but the overall was still ck, adding that we were all on Heavy Armored Dragons, it gave the feeling that I was like an NPC Boss that had brought my brothers out to venture. Afterall, no yers had seen such awesome equipment before, much less 10 identical ones! "I''m a yer, why?" "You''re a yer!" The three of them instantly spoke in casual tones and their postures became more casual. "What levels are all of you? All your things look awesome! And these Dragon Mounts" While speaking, he actually extended his hand out to touch the Heavy Armored Dragon. A sharp roar immediately sounded out, causing their war mounts to fall to the ground in paralysis, the three of them were thrown down onto the ground! rk''s mouth leash was not good looking enough. Additionally, the Heavy Armored Dragon mouths were crucial in battle, and thus the leashes were not convenient, thus I had kept all of them since we could use the Heavy Armored Dragons in the wild to fight. Additionally, the Phantom Knights could control their mounts to not roar, thus I had chosen not to equip them on. How could I have known that this guy would actually try to touch the Heavy Armored Dragon, not knowing the difference in abilities, resulting in scaring the Dragon and making it roar out against the potential threat. The Phantom Knight on the Heavy Armored Dragonforted and consoled the Heavy Armored Dragon and finally got it to calm down, otherwise, the yer would have most likely been eaten by the Heavy Armored Dragon! Chapter 159: The City of Ladies [Vol 5 Chapter 10] Chapter 159: The City of Ladies [Vol 5 Chapter 10] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "So powerful!" The idiot who had tried to touch the Dragon crawled up without any sense of remorse. I''m a more reserved person by nature and disliked the man''s casual attitude, thus I no longer had any reservations towards them. "I''m the only yer here, these Riders are my Servants. And, you should know, [Zero]''s NPCs are all very intellectual, Servants conduct themselves with their own means and methods under any vaguemands, as long as I state the goal, they will aplish it. So, it''ll be better off for you to not be too excited over other people''s things, myst order given was as protection, if you try to do anything that might be mistaken as an attack, you''re finished!" "They are all your Servants? That''s powerful!" The other party was not a fool, upon hearing my words, he knew that I was reminding him to maintain a distance since my words already contained an obvious hint of threat, he instinctively retreated a few steps. "So why did you call me for? If there''s nothing else, I''m leaving!" "Wait, don''t leave first! I truly have some matters!" The other party seemed to be unwilling to let me go. "Let me introduce myself first, my name is [Sword Saint], Level 552 Knight of the Light Faction, Guild Leader of the League of Qin." "Aight! Got it, now onto business!" I replied extremely coldly to him, I had seen many Guild Leaders before and I myself was one. The only surprising thing was his level, a level 552 yer was definitely a high ranker. From my then current knowledge, I knew that in China''s region, the highest level yer had not reached level 570, outside of China, the highest I saw was already Level 580, [Zero]''s leveling system had difficult thresholds at Level 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000, where the EXP to reach these levels are extremely difficult. In between these thresholds, the difficulty in leveling would gradually increase, and majority of the yers who had reached level 600 would find it unprecedentedly difficult to level, so in the past month, I had heard of people attaining Level 560, but had not heard any that had reached Level 570 yet! For the guy in front of me to be at level 552 meant that he was definitely one of the top few yers. The other party was surprised by my indifference. "You''ve never heard of me?" "Am I supposed to?" "Well, I''m the Guild Leader of secondrgest Guild in [Zero], the League of Qin!" This information was shocking to me. "You''re the Guild Leader of the Second Largest Guild? Then what is the Goddess Alliance considered now?" "Oh!" Sword Saint answered without taking offense. "Although the Goddess Alliance and Righteous League are two different guilds, they are formed by the two siblings, so the majority of us treat them as one single Guild. Recently, the original third rank Guild, Heaven Secret Guild was destroyed by Goddess Alliance, thus my Guild can be considered the Third now, adding that Goddess Alliance and Righteous League should be considered as one, we are thus technically hailed as the Second rank guild!" This guy definitely knew how to twist his words, somehow he had managed to call his guild the Second Rank Guild! "Alright, fine, I don''t really care what Guild Leader you are, tell me what do you want, I don''t have the time to chit-chat!" "Alright! I actually wanted to do business with you." "Business? What business can I possibly do?" "There is!" Sword Saint pointed to the army of knights behind him. "We are about to siege a City. We hope to gain your help, and after we sessfully siege the City, I will give you some Crystal Pieces and you can choose any of the mission reward equipment." "I don''t need any equipment, I doubt there will be anything better than what I currently have. How much of the Crystal Pieces are you talking about? My asking price is expensive!" "A thousand Crystal Pieces!" Sword Saintughed like some unscrupulous businessman. "Are you trying to beg me?" I pulled on my reins and left with the Phantom Knights following me. The Heavy Armored Dragon''s tail swept across the ground and narrowly struck Sword Saint and his two subordinates while turning. "Brother, don''t go! We can negotiate about it!" Sword Saint chased after me. "What about ten thousand Crystal Pieces!" "Ok! Tell me about the mission!" "The mission is simple, just help me siege the City!" I looked over to his army of over ten thousand cavalries, it was no wonder why he had mobilized so many men, they wanted to siege a City! "Don''t you have plenty of men? Why must you ask me?" "Although I have the numbers, their potential for ATK is nothing great, we will definitely suffer from huge losses from the siege, so I hope you can help! When I saw your equipment and your Servants, I knew for sure that you''re an extremely high-level yer, ten thousand Crystal Pieces is an amount we are willing to fork out to lessen our loss, if we truly fought, I believe our loss will still be more than ten thousand Crystal Pieces!" "Really economical of you to think that way! Fine, tell me the City''s name and location, I''ll go and take a look first." "The City is called Hovering Flower City, it''s right in front, we can reach there in 3 hours on mounts!" What, 3 hours? The World of [Zero] was truly toorge, in usual instances, it would be fine, I would have simply used the Ring of Teleportation to teleport near the City and run over, but it could not be done in a Siege, the enemies would not be foolish enough to allow you to Teleport to their area and gather to attack them! "Give me a 20% upfront first!" Sword Saint instantly got his subordinate to hand over 2000 Crystal Pieces to me. "I''ll hand over the rest when it''s over!" "You guys should pick up the pace, I''ll go ahead first!" I pulled on the reins of Night Shade and headed towards the direction that Sword Saint had pointed towards. "I''m off!" Our 11 Heavy Armored Dragons took off at the same time, I took the lead at the front with the Phantom Knights in two rows behind. The Heavy Armored Dragons wererge and fast, the sound of the 11 of us running sounded like arge cavalry army marching, leaving Sword Saint and the rest coughing in our dust. We had already left their vision by the time Sword Saint recovered from the coughing fit. He stood up straight, his previous attitude of a lowly personpletely gone. "That F*cker, cough cough! Pei Pei*! He made me swallow sand! So what if your armor is good, you still got cheated by me!" The subordinate behind spoke up: "Boss, didn''t we give him 2000 Crystal Pieces? That was a huge loss!" Sword Saint stared at him ferociously: "What do you know! We gave him 2000 Crystal Pieces for him to help us siege the City. Now that he has gone ahead, they will definitely assume that him is one of our men, and when he encounters their attacks, he will retaliate and attract the City''s Magic Cannons, if he gets wiped out, at least we know how powerful their Cannons are, and if he locks in a stalemate with them, we can take that advantage to siege!" "Boss is brilliant!" "Hahahaha! But of course, otherwise, how can I be your boss!" "But what if that brates back and asks for the rest of the money?" "Are you a fool? Did we write that down? Do we have proof of that? If hees killing his way back, so what, what can he do alone with his good armor, do you not know that a swarm of ants can kill an elephant?" "Haha! Boss is still the brilliant one!" __________________________________________________________________ While they wereughing over their evil schemes, they did not notice that just two meters away from them in the grass was a nt that had a green spherical eye staring at them. This nt was the size of an earthworm with the crystal eye attached to its end, this crystal eye looked like a sharp w and was at that moment capturing their voices and image and sent over to another crystal over a kilometer away behind the forest, where I stood. "Alright, Rosa,e back!" With mymand, the sharp crystal in the grass suddenly released a cover and retracted quickly back over to my side. "To think they want to harm me! I knew they were up to no good, luckily I still have some tricks on hand!" Borrowing Rosa''s help, I jumped onto Night Shade''s head. "Let''s go, we will help the people defend their City!" You want to use me as a tool, then I''ll help your enemies and see who dies! We rushed out of the forest at our fastest speeds, there was nothing much else I could say about the Heavy Armored Dragon''s speed! Reptiles movements seem to be much better than mammals, and with theirrger head size, there were no obstructions that could stop us. The Heavy Armored Dragon could step over a human-sized rock ande down on the other side, but on top of it, I had to suffer from the severe bounces! After running for a distance, we found ourselves at the bank of arge river that was about 40 to 50 meters wide. The 11 Heavy Armored Dragons started to increase their speed and upon reaching the bank of the river, the 40 to 50-meter wide distance was easily leaped across, the distance where wended was actually another 7 to 8 meters away on the other side! The power of the Heavy Armored Dragon''s hind legs was that frightening! From their size, they should weigh more than a ton, but to easily jump across a distance of 40 to 50 meters without even opening their wings and purely with the force from their legs! Although their jumping ability was powerful, theirnding techniques were much inferior, with a bang, Night Shade plunged a meter deep into the ground. The soil near the bank of the river was already soft, with the force of a ton jumping over, imagine how deep the weight can plunge into! The ground could not handle the pressure and all of us that jumped over plunged deep into the ground. Luckily, the Heavy Armored Dragons were huge and their legs were powerful. We eventually managed to climb out of the pits. After crossing the river, we could see the outline of the city and rushed ahead. Right when we were halfway to the city, a purple projectile shot towards us. I knew it was the shot from the Magic Crystal Cannon. "DODGE!" We instantly retreated back a few steps, the projectilended far ahead of us, aside from the strong burst of wind from the impact and a few stones hitting us, we were safe! "Advance!" We continued to proceed ahead, a Magic Crystal Cannon could not be loaded within 30 seconds, we took that time to press on. After the 30 seconds, the second shot was unleashed. "Move faster!" This time, the enemy did seem to have calcted their shot and just aimed ahead of us. We quickly dodged to the side. A Crystal Cannon would usually be used in sieges where the intruders were inrge numbers, but against us, a small group of extremely mobile mounts, it was ineffective. Even before the third round could be shot, we arrived at the City wall. "EPIDEMIC!" I summoned Epidemic to help me convey my intended message, my voice was too soft, the people on the wall could not possibly hear me! Epidemic repeated my words. "Stop firing, we are here to help defend the City!" Truly, the firing stopped, but a rain of arrows came down onto us. Without any instructions, the Phantom Knights blocked the arrows for me. I got Epidemic to convey my message again: "I''m not lying, I''m really here to help you defend the city!" This time, the arrows finally stopped. A yer who resembled a Warrior in red armor walked to the edge of the City wall. "Why are you here to help us? We don''t know you!" Her voice was loud, obviously some Mage had used a spell to amplify her words, furthermore, I could tell from her voice that she was female! Although it was astonishing, I had met Red Moon and Hiko, and thus did not stumble from the surprise. "I chanced upon Sword Saint and his men on the way, they lied to me and said that you and him were going to war, I got angry, so I decided to help you beat them!" "Who''s Sword Saint?" "Huh?" I almost fumbled off Night Shade from the question. "Isn''t this Hovering Flower City?" "Yes, it is!" "Sword Saint is about to attack your city and you don''t even know who your enemy is?" "That¡­.forget it,e in first! Open the gates!" Thest order was for her own men. The City gates gradually opened up, the City was built exactly like the medieval European castles, the City wall was protected by a moat, the City Gates was built in ordance to a drawbridge. I rode on Night Shade and stepped onto the drawbridge and entered the City, which instantly blurred me with the sight of it! It was exactly as when I met the Cherry Blossom Organization in Shiromizu! There was no sight of any Male yers, a 100% female yer rate crowded the city walls and towers. All of their eyes were fixed on us, or should I say our equipment. I watched as the warrior in red walked over. I quickly jumped down from Night Shade with the intention to greet her, it was impolite to talk while on a mount! "Hi, nice to meet you, I''m Ziri!" "Ziri? That demon?" The female warrior froze while extending her hand out for a handshake. "Argh! I¡­.." My exnation was interrupted. "It''s nothing. I don''t care what you did in the past, we are now allies! I''m Red Cloud, Guild Leader of the Hundred Flower Valley, d to have your help!" "Yeah! Yeah?" No matter how she had phrased it, it was bad! What about ''what I did in the past''! "Your guild only consists of females?" Red Cloud led me up a flight of stairs while exining: "All of us here are lonely girls that don''t like the protection of men, so we built our own Guild and only ept like minded female yers." She sighed then spoke again: "But my guild seems to be encountering problems due to this, and it isn''t practical at all!" "What do you mean?" "Initially, we even mocked the Goddess Alliance for recruiting so many male yers although they said they were a female Guild, after upkeeping our Guild for so long, we realized that it isn''t practical for there to be an all-female guild! Many girls want to be in the same guild as their boyfriends, but we don''t ept male yers. Furthermore, due to the fact that we are an all female guild, we will frequently receive harassment from male yers saying they want to join the Guild. Most importantly, I realized that the proportion of professions in our guild is severely imbnced! More than half of us are female elf archers, followed with arge number of Mages and Priests, weck in warriors, thus unable to have enough yers to tank in the day to day training!" "But wasn''t this City built by you? And you''re still saying you can''t do it? There''s only so many yer Cities in China region, isn''t there?" Red Cloud suddenly looked at me in a strange manner. "Have you been away from the game for a long time?" "What do you mean?" _______________________________________________________________________________________ "You really don''t know anything? The news is everywhere! Because the Nation Wars is around the corner, but in reality, there are still many countries that have no yer Cities, where even China, with such a mass ofnd, only has a few yer Cities, the Game Moderator thinks that the Nation Wars will not be able to bring out the true essence of warfare, and originally, there was supposed to be the Guild Power Battles before the Nation Wars. But as the game difficulty was designed to be extremely difficult, till now, there are only a few yer Cities, so the Guild Power Battles could not be conducted, and because of that, the System did a few changes." "Firstly, the Guild Power Battles duration has been extended by half a year, and Nation Wars will be pushed back by half a year. At the same time, they lowered the criteria to build a City, and the monster siege that will happen after the construction of a City will not be as powerful. It is because of these reasons, that in a week, over a dozen of yer controlled Cities have sprung up all over China. This Hovering Flower City of ours has justpleted 2 days ago, we managed to resist the monster siege, and now, the yer siege is onto us!" "Such a thing happened? Seems like I was ignorant of all of it the entire time!" "They''re here!" Red Cloud suddenly pointed towards the river in the distance, the crowd of troops had already arrived at the opposite bank, but due to the distance, one could only see them with a buff or binocrs. "Were there any bridges at the river?" I suddenly thought about it, it did not seem like there was a bridge to cross the river. "There isn''t!" Red Cloud answered: "We are a yer City, every aspect of construction was conducted and undergone by us, we had justpleted the City and did not have the time to construct a drawbridge across the river!" The troops on the opposite bank had stopped, they were obviously stopped by the river. Although they were on mounts and could attempt to rush across, the 40 to 50-meter wide river was not something their horses could leap across, much less the camels that the most of them were riding on! But the problem was quickly resolved, the troops found arge tree and it was used as a support to cross the river. The long trunks were 3 to 4 meters thick, which allowed the cavalry to easily run across on, the only problem was that there were too many of them, and one bridge was clearly not enough! Although they moved slowly, they were still able to cross the river over to our side. The cavalry formed perfect square formations and stood outside the range of the Crystal Cannons. Unexpectedly, they did not rush towards us but stopped in position. "What are they doing?" I was confused watching their actions, in terms of morale for city sieges, one should always start attacking while the morale is high, by waiting, wouldn''t the level of morale fall? "They are waiting for their soldiers on foot!" Red Cloud guessed the enemy''s intent. That was possible since yers did not fight like NPCs, at the very least, they would not bring Mages that had Mass Teleport spells over to draw out the formations. I became curious as to how the yers would start singing. Could it be that they would bring aerialdders and battering rams as well? "Their troops are here!" One of the elves in the arrow tower shouted. In terms of races, the Elves had the best sight, thus scouting was usually most suited for them. Just, in this case, we did not even notice anything, but the Elf Archer had already caught sight of the enemy. I activated [Star Gaze] and saw the marching troops running over. Inparison to the Cavalry, these foot soldiers resembled a bunch of rioting citizens! They werepletely ill-disciplined with no formation whatsoever, just arge group of people running over to the river. Maybe the soldiers were afraid of people drowning from the panic, but some of the cavalries actually initiated and kept order. There were more foot soldiers to cavalry, they were much slower, thus the progress of crossing over became extremely sluggish, to the point that I became impatient waiting for them. "You guys wait for me, I''ll head out for a moment!" Imunicated to Red Cloud, jumped over the wall and summoned Lucky in midair,nding on his back. I did not bring Night Shade or the Phantom Knights. Although the Heavy Armored Dragons could fly, I required a different ability. Lucky was instantly spotted the moment we left the city walls. Although the distance was great, as long as a person could see, they would not be able to ignore therge Dragon. When Lucky got close to the cavalry formations, we encountered the fervent arrow attacks but fortunately, we were too high above. The wounding capability of the arrows was diminished and unable to breakthrough Lucky''s defense. Arriving above the river, I instructed Lucky to dive down. Following the sudden drop, the power of the arrows increased exponentially, but the majority of the cavalry had already missed their first volley of arrows and were at that moment reloading, thus the attacks received were less. The target of our swoop down was the wooden makeshift bridge, but the enemy might have seen through my intent, the mages mixed within the foot soldiers had already started preparing for their spells, but Lucky was simply too fast. From a 45 degree angle, we struck the trunk. Lucky''s flight control was too great, from an elevated height, we drew close to the bridge and the moment we reached it, Lucky used his powerful hind legs and grabbed onto the tree. His sharp dragon ws wed deeply into the tree, and somehow, Lucky managed to lift the tree trunk up. But Lucky''s level was still not high enough, bringing along the trunk that was 4 to 5 meters wide and close to 50 meters tall prevented him from flying. But he did not bring it far out, and right after he left the river, I summoned Epidemic. Everyone watched in shock as Epidemic and Lucky carried the trunk to the skies, until we got into a distance when people finally woke from their daydream and tried to stop us. We did not fly further with the tree, at a height, the two dragons let go of the tree simultaneously and allowed the tree to free fall down to the ground. Being smashed on the ground, the tree was broken into 8 different parts with countless of shattered pieces, regardless of anything, it could no longer be used as a bridge. A sharp shriek suddenly sounded out, two unknown monsters were rushing from behind us. I miscalcted, I never considered that the enemy had aerial units! Considering the ten thousandrge force, having a few hundred aerial units would not be a problem, but I never thought about that! The one that rushed ahead was arge predatory bird, I only recognized Thunderhawks, Thunderbirds as well as Golden Eagles, therge predatory bird in front of me did not belong to them! It looked like a vulture at a muchrger size, its bald head and neck extremely ugly. On the other hand, I did not know how to describe the monster rushing for Epidemic. It looked like a Canine monster that resembled a wolf greatly, but this monster had a pair of gigantic gray wings on its back. What should I have called it? A flying wolf? The two monsters had already rushed towards us, and we had no time to think. Lucky lowered his head, the predatory bird had actually rushed straight at us, although a Dragon''s size was huge, it''s flight capabilities was second to none. The predatory bird that rushed over missed us and turned back, it was not stopping! Lucky could notplete preparing his counterattack and could only retaliate momentarily, thus he prepared to dodge once more. Lucky lowered his head and swayed his tail in the air, avoiding the predatory bird''s pounce. But this time, the bird had learned its lesson. On Lucky''s back, I suddenly felt a force pulling me in the other direction, I knew that I had been captured by the bird. A silver halo of light suddenly appeared in the sky which shot out lightning, its target, me. (*) - Spitting Chapter 160: My Personal Army [Vol 5 Chapter 11] Chapter 160: My Personal Army [Vol 5 Chapter 11] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Just as I was about to get struck by the lightning bolt, a gigantic ck figure suddenly appeared above me, Epidemic had actually rushed to me and took the attack for me. The lightning bolt struck Epidemic''s back. Fortunately, Epidemic was a Dark Dragon and was extremely resistant towards Magic Spells. Epidemic trembled slightly and recovered his movements once more. Epidemic suddenly lowered his head and bit onto the predatory bird that had caught me, while the Flying Wolf that had chased after Epidemic had chomped down on his hind legs. Lucky instantly rushed forward and bit onto the Flying Wolf''s body. The Bird that had been bitten by Epidemic extended its neck and bit onto Lucky''s back. The four Companions had their teeth sunk into each other, forming a circle of bites, none of them willing to let go, but under this strange posture, only Epidemic could p his wings, and although Epidemic was able to barely sustain all of their weights, he was also bitten, thus his flight capability was restricted. With the other three clinging to him, one being another Dragon, the four started to fall towards the ground. Of course, I did not fall with them as I still had my own pair of Wings! I quickly summoned Crystal and Phiona for reinforcements, and Phiona swooped down to strike the Flying Wolf out of the ring of locked bites. Crystal''s Ultimate Spell seemed almost instantaneous as arge yellow screen of light suddenly appeared beneath the two dragons and bird. This spell created a tform that caught the three Companions, while the unfortunate Flying Wolf had died due to suffering from the immense damage even before hitting the ground. On the tform, Lucky turned and bit at the vulture''s neck to which brought about a loud screech that even I could hear from a distance; the weak vulture''s neck had been broken by Lucky. Lucky held the bird''s head in his mouth while Epidemic bit on half of its body and pulled in the opposite direction. This pitiful predatory bird had died without aplete body, it was ripped apart by the two Dragons! After killing the two Companions, I could not locate their masters but quickly understood why. These two Companions were not high level enough and thus did not have the ability to allow their Masters to mount them, and that was why they had arrived along with the foot soldiers, their Masters had no way to mount them and had no choice but to walk! Upon noticing the difference, I realized how aggressive the Griffin Riders from the Game System''s Three Great Cities were! They were all actually able to carry their Masters and a Mage along! After getting rid of the two aerial monsters, there were no longer any attacks from below that was a threat, their spells could not reach me, their arrows were too weak and had actually killed some of their own men! Right when I was about to fly down tounch an attack, I received a System Prompt. "The League of Qin has officially engaged in an all-out war with Hundred Flower Valley, you are currently in the region of the war, please choose a side of either Attack or Defense, and if you do not wish to participate, please choose to be a Neutral. If a choice is not selected within 30 seconds, you will be viewed as a harasser and will be attacked by both sides." This prompt meant that the real battle had officially begun, and most probably because of me. For the sake of making the game more lifelike, [Zero] had made a few updates. As to sieges, the attacker could start an undisclosed war, or could also announce the engagement and then start the siege, while the defender had no authority or power to reject the announcement. Furthermore, there were differences in the circumstances as to announcing or not announcing the war. In a situation where the attacker initiates an undisclosed war, the attacker only needs to apply for it in the system and the system will not, in any way, govern the battle. The manner in which the battle would be conducted would be simr to arge scale team PK, where the killers would receive red names and increase in EVIL values, and to win, they had to kill all the enemy yers residing in the targeted City. Under the undisclosed war PK format, the killing was the same as PK''ing, and the winner would only take 0.1% of the enemy''s present EXP. As for an announced war, the attacker had to report it 20 minutes before, the system would then inform the targeted City for preparation and the 20 minutes was for them to prepare their defenses. Since the Game had its Teleport Stations, directly returning to the City and running to the City Walls would not take much time, and as for offline yers, even if they were informed 3 hours earlier, they might not be able to get online, thus 20 minutes was the designated sufficient time. Under an announced war, the attacker will be tasked to break through the city walls and enter the City''s governance hall and to destroy the Protection Beast Statue located inside. Under this format, killing an enemy would not result in red names, and when killing the enemy, one would receive 15% of their current EXP. This additional 10% cannot be looked down on, as the EXP that a yer requires to level is far more than the EXP that a same level monster could provide, thus this 10% of EXP would be far more than any Monsters! If one killed 10 simr level yers, one could already gain a level. Thus sieging cities became an ideal way to gain levels. It was a pity the Nation Wars had not begun yet, killing foreign yers would only provide a mean EXP of same level monsters of the yer, otherwise I would have struck it rich when I had gone to Japan if the Nation Wars had begun, the amount of EXP would definitely be adjusted in the same way as Guild Power Battles to encourage everyone to fight. If one decides to choose a Neutral Position in the siege and watch the excitement, the person would not be able to attack anyone, until departing the battle zone or if the battle ends. Being a harasser was the most pitiful state, both parties would be able to attack you, and everyone would view you as the enemy. Due to the fact that the number of yers would be higher on the attacking side most of the time, the Defenders would have a green light dot above them, while the attacker has a red light dot above all of them. In an undisclosed war, only the attackers have red lights about them while the Defenders have none. But if one chose to be a harasser, the defenders would view you as a red light while the attackers would view you as a green light, this way, everyone would see you as the enemy! In an announced war, one only needed to apply for it and it will begin, the City Teleport Station would automatically allow Defending yers to Teleport in while other members would be forced out of the City. Of course, in an undisclosed war, such a thing would not ur. Due to the information mentioned, attackers would usually choose to siege in an announced war for the sake of more EXP, but to prevent the Defenders from having too much preparation time, the attackers would usually apply for the war only upon reaching the Defender''s City, and if the Attacking side did notplete their mission within 48 hours after the announcement of the war, the entire guild will drop a Level. This punishment was extremely heavy! As to the Defenders, if they seed, they would gain 1 City Prosper Point, which directly influences the EXP and loot from the Monsters around the City, the monsters around Prosperous Cities would drop a lot of good loot, and as for City with no Prosper Points, the monsters around would not drop much loot. The League of Qin had decided to announce the war at such a time because majority of their troops had arrived, and as I had already started attacking them, they wanted to kill me to gain more EXP, since they all believe that my Level was extremely high and would provide with plenty of EXP! Of course, I myself would not give up on such a good opportunity to gain EXP, although yers were much more difficult to handle than monsters, think about it, it was a level for every 10 yers killed! This was far faster than killing Monsters! Furthermore, my current Level was too low while they were all higher Level than me, I believed that 4 to 5 yers would gain me a level! After choosing to help Defend the City, a green light dot immediately appeared above my head like a light bulb, the same went for my Companions and Servants! As for the people below me, all of them instantly turned red! I first flew back to the City, EXP could only be gained after 20 minutes from the announcement of battle, killing them prior to it would not help. Red Cloud saw me destroy the bridge from the side and ran to me upon my arrival. "Are you alright?" "How can anything happen to me, I can fly so high and avoid the arrows and spells. Oh right, when the battle beings, I hope that you can control your Crystal Cannon. My profession is more of a Close Combatant, I can''t do much standing on the City walls, so when the war begins, I will go down and fight them." "What? You alone?" "It''ll be fine!" I pped my wings and continued: "If I can''t hold on, I''lle back. Now that I have already joined the Defending Position, you can allunch attacks without a worry, even if I get hit by one of your attacks, I will not suffer from any damage, but please watch out for your Crystal Cannon, that thing will kill anything that stands in its way! Just don''t aim at me, and it''ll be fine!" "Alright, I will personally take control of the Cannon, but you have to be careful too! On behalf of our Hundred Flowers Valley, I thank you for your help!" "Don''t mention it, I am just pissed that they lied to me, you can even say that it is a lie that I''m helping all of you, it''s more like taking it out on them!" "Haha! You''re really funny!" ________________________________________________________________________________________ I stood on the City walls and calmed myself down, then summoned all of my Servants and Companions, along with the Four Gems. Currently, at Level 322, I could summon 644 Silver Wasps, 31 Snow Demoness, 322 Bewitching Butterflies and 3220 War Skeletons. Thisrge formation shocked all thedies around me, but even more towards the idiots who were preparing to attack the City, although they did not know much about Companions, the 3000 odd Skeletons had scared them silly. In truth, the least worrisome summons were the skeletons, they were only scary in numbers but were honestly weak. How much harm can Level 200 skeletons do to yers over Level 500? But the enemies did not understand the strength of my Summons, and thus viewed the 3000 ck skeletons as the biggest threat. The short yet seemingly long 20 minutes passed slowly. 20 minutes was not long, but both parties waited impatiently as though their youth were being sapped away. Everyone watched as the System prompted that the war was about to begin. "Attention to all Participants, 3 Minutes till the start of battle!" The enemy cavalries had summoned all of their fully rested mounts. As they did not move much after arrival, their formations were quickly reestablished, and the standard offensive formations were revealed. This was ast minute change of formations, obviously, the initial main force for siege was most probably the foot soldiers that were ced at the back. But after the bridge was destroyed, the speed of them crossing the river had slowed down substantially. They had brought ropes across the river, and the foot soldiers started swimming across the river while holding onto the river. This was extremely slow, and about three-quarters of the yers were still at the opposite bank. This situation forced them to swap their positions for the cavalries to be the main force to attack. The other reason for the cavalries to take point was also because of the 3000 odd skeletons, thisrge number of force forced them to have no choice but to use the cavalries that had strong prative powers to engage with the skeleton army first, otherwise it would be even more difficult for them to engage if the foot soldiers were to mix with the skeletons. Their forces would be so scattered that they would not be able to form a sufficient power to breach the City. Of course, I did not idle away in thest three minutes. The enemies were preparing their offensive formation, thus I had to retaliate, I could not allow them to shatter my 3000 odd Skeletons! The Bewitching Butterflies became a crucial part of my n, I got them to deploy theirrge poisonous fog, although every Bewitching Butterfly could only cover a circr area of 10 meter radius, the 300 odd Bewitching Butterflies were able to cover arge area altogether, and arge portion of the front became covered with my Fog. As we were on the same team, the fog did not influence the Defenders'' sight, while the enemies could only see arge patch of ck smoke and nothing else. All of them were my summoned monsters and were connected to my thoughts, thus the changes to my formations were much faster than the enemies. The 3000 odd skeletons quickly formed up 20 columns and got the Phantom Knights, who were on their Heavy Armored Dragons, to stand at the front of the Skeletons. One Heavy Armored Dragon perfectly blocked the sight of two column of skeletons, thus the 10 Phantom Knights were able to protect the front of the 20 columns. At that moment, the average Levels of yers were about 470 to 510, where yers above Level 510 belonged to the High Rankers. I did not believe that these Level 400 to 500 Cavalries could win in a sh against my Level 850 Phantom Knights, who were mounted on Level 750 Heavy Armored Dragons, these immense monsters were definitely far more powerful than all of their level 100 to 200 warhorses! After the Heavy Armored Dragons, the Silver Wasps quickly formed up above the Skeletons, the Cavalries could not do anything to them. The Snow Demoness was ced at the nks of my units, they had no tangible bodies, P.ATK could not do anything to them, so cing them by the nks was extremely effective in ensuring that the cavalries would not be able to nk my troops. I would consider the Snow Demoness to be the bane of the Cavalries. With the protection of the fog, the enemies did not know what was going on at my side, but they had decided to stick with their original n - the cavalry being the lead. By the time I had finished the formation, the countdown was at a minute. The Bewitching Butterflies started to buff all of us with their buff spell - [The Hymn of gue]. This was a low-level Spell mainly used to supplement the user with poison attacks. The Snow Demoness also started to chant incantations, which buffed all of us with [Frost Armor] and [Cold Aura]. [Frost Armor] formed a thinyer of Ice around us and could absorb a fixed amount of M.ATK and other forms of damage. [Cold Aura] was an offensive and defensive aura, it created an area of aura around us that had a dip in temperature, any enemies that entered this area would suffer from a drop in speed due to the aura, the closer they were to the buffed unit, the slower they got, the further away they were, the less nerf they received. Aldeina also started buffing us, but she could only provide an AOE spell for the summoned creatures, which helped to raise HP and MP regeneration. Aldeina was alone, and could not use her high-level buffs onto the skeletons, thus only provided thisrge AOE spell. But she gave me, the Companions, and Servants additional Buffs. We received a raise in defense due to [Water Blessing], and a stronger buff that greatly increased HP and MP regeneration. Lastly, it was Ling. Upon her appearance, she immediately gave the 4000 odd summons an additional [Darkness Realm] state. But because of this, she used up all of her MP! This Ultimate Darkness Buff spell actually increases the Darkness aura around the summons, and in the description, it stated that it was a spell that would continuously absorb the dead spirits to strengthen itself. My immediate understanding of this was that the Spell could absorb spirits to transform into EXP, which also means that the killers would receive additional EXP. As expected of the Dark Goddess, she even had a spell to increase the amount of EXP gained! It was a pity the amount of additional EXP receive was unknown! Additionally, this buff greatly increased ATK and gave a corrosive attack modifier. It was a truly powerful spell and not a surprise that it could deplete the Goddessrge pool of MP! After Ling''s buff, I quickly transformed into my Werewolf Form in preparation for the battle. Although Crystal was a Faerie Dragon, there were no buffs on her, her resistance to Spells was too strong, thus buffing Dragons would be ineffective, thus there were practically no buff spells in the Dragon Language! Since even the high-Level Faerie Dragon rarely had support spells, the current Crystal was greatly limited due to my current level, thus she could not use the majority of her spells, so I did not actually think of using her temporarily! After everything, we were prepared for battle. The System''sst countdown began. "Attention to all Participants, 10 seconds remaining! 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! The Siege on Hovering Flower City will now begin, and the countdown will start. If the attack does not finish within 48 Hours, the Attacking Guild will drop a level! All the Best!" "KILL!" The cavalries roared for the sake of raising morale. The warhorses neighed, and the ten thousand cavalry troops started moving in small steps due to them starting from a halt and in formation. As they distanced themselves, their footwork started bing faster and faster, gradually, they moved from a jog to a slow run, from a slow run to a sprint, and when they were about 300 meters ahead of us, they were already at their top speed. The Bewitching Butterflies'' fog was extended 200 meters ahead of us, in which the cavalries had already started to enter. Right when they entered the fog, the Phantom Knights began moving. The Heavy Armored Dragons'' explosive power was extremely powerful, they did not require the momentum charge like the warhorses. When the Phantom Knights charged out, all the Skeletons and other summons followed along. The Phantom Knights formed a ck line, simr to a wall, and charged into the cavalries. The Heavy Armored Dragons lowered their heads and rushed in, the crown of their heads were extremely durable, and like bulldozers, they started to push the cavalries in the opposite direction. The cavalries that were quicker to react dodged the bulldozers, but were still trampled into the mud by therge hind legs. A few of the luckier yers who managed to get past the Phantom Knights were instantly killed by the Skeletons and Silver Wasps. Of course, the majority of the yers were unable to avoid the Heavy Armored Dragons'' heads, all of these brave yers actually held onto theirnces against the Heavy Armored Dragons, but were shocked to realize that theirnces were being pushed andpressed into springs, followed by them and their warhorses being flung out. Many people suddenly appeared at the League of Qin''s Resurrection Hall in their camp. Majority of them had no idea how they had died! Due to the fog that prevented them from being able to even see their hands, the sudden collision in the middle prevented the nks to close in. The cavalries that were in darkness were cut down by the Phantom Knights like paper, while my summons and I got through this gap and arrived in the enemy''s backline. Right when thest person of the enemy troops entered the ck fog, the Phantom Knights actually rushed out of the fog with the Heavy Armored Dragons, followed by my Skeleton Army. The Cavalries that entered the ck fog were instantly poisoned, and what weed me was a sight of green HP dropping. The Bewitching Butterflies'' poisonous fog was extremely toxic, basically, it led to a poison that dropped 7 HP per second, which could be equaled to 70 thousand HP per second for the 10 thousand odd Cavalries. If they die, my EXP bar would instantly explode! With so much EXP to consider and not waste, I brought my army to enter the ck fog again. Under mymand, my summons started to move freely. The Skeleton Army started to charge up from our limited position, they were not High level enough and were using their advantage in numbers to overwhelm the enemies. The Silver wasps were the same, they chose to attack the enemies who nked the skeletons. The Snow Demoness worked together to unleash arge AOE of Ice Hail, a specialized offensive area targeted Spell. The ground beneath the cavalry instantly froze, causing their mounts to skid on the reflective ice surface. In time, the entire division of cavalry was falling over, and the Skeletons took the opportunity to kill over a dozen yers. Lucky and Epidemic simultaneously used the Dragon Race''s most proficient AOE killing spell - Dragon Fire. Lucky flew over the enemies and spewed mes down below, all of the yers started to be torched on fire, in which Epidemic followed up with another wave. It was a pity they were too low level, the two waves of Dragon Fire were not enough to kill anyone. But this forced all the mounted yers to be dismounted, the level 100 to 200 mounts could not tank the Dragon Fire, Lucky''s Dragon Fire had already wiped out most of the mounts, adding Epidemic''s second wave, even the tanky Camels were killed! Without their mounts, the yers tried their best to climb up on the slippery ice surface. Although the two Dragons did not burn any yers to death, most of them were left with a third of their HP. Right when they were screaming all around, my third dragon, Crystal, arrived. Faerie Dragons that were not proficient in direct attacks did not usually use Dragon Fire. Crystal suddenly had a Spell Vortex appearing in front of her, and with a sh¡­.. Chapter 161: The Mysterious Angel [Vol 5 Chapter 12] Chapter 161: The Mysterious Angel [Vol 5 Chapter 12] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Without their mounts, the yers tried their best to climb up on the slippery ice surface. Although the two Dragons did not burn any yers to death, most of them were left with a third of their HP. Right when they were screaming all around, my third dragon, Crystal, arrived. Faerie Dragons that were not proficient in direct attacks did not usually use Dragon Fire. Crystal suddenly had a Spell Vortex appearing in front of her, and with a sh, a white crescent light burst forth. It spun at an extreme speed like that of a Boomerang, and when this crescent light was a meter ahead, the Spell Vortex unleashed its second crescent. Beside me, Aldeina started muttering to herself when she saw the crescents: "As expected of a Faerie Dragon, they are able to use such an exaggerated dancing wind des!" While Aldeina wasplimenting Crystal, the spell vortex continued to unleash the crescent wind des, which was at the same time bing increasingly concentrated. The storm of wind des flew through the human crowd, and the already low HP yers could no longer stand as they shed with the wind des. As the white lights shed past them, the soldiers started to finally die. But following the massive yer deaths, the League of Qin''s main forces finally reacted. After all, they had the upper hand in numbers, they had other groups preparing to siege the city but due to the sudden appearance of the ck fog, they were startled momentarily. After calming down, some of them were already reacting to it. I could clearly see a Staff being raised inside the ck fog, which suddenly emitted a bright light. The culprit was a Light Priest, and he had actually mixed in amongst the cavalry to take the vanguard. The Priest had cast a medium level Light type spell - Expel Evil. It was a spell that could illuminate and dispel and negative buffs. The white light blinked for a few seconds before disappearing, but the darkness remained. The Bewitching Butterflies'' fog was a Poison Type Spell, the darkness was merely formed by the dense toxin within the sky and not due to a Dark Spell, thus the Light Spell was ineffective. Right when this Priest lowered his staff, another staff was raised. A white halo of light shed and a tornado suddenly appeared from within the ck fog. Upon its formation, the tornado started to move and the surrounding ck fog was sucked into it and flung into the air above them, causing the ck fog on the ground to disappear. When the ck fog disappeared, the soldiers immediately regained their movements. Although they no longer had their mounts, they could still fight. Upon regaining their vision, the Priests that were mixed amongst the soldiers immediately healing the yers around them, and started to cast their buffs that had disappeared. Crystal''s spell quickly stopped, she had killed a number of yers, but now that the Priests were back in business, she no longer held the advantage and quickly flew back to me. The duration of the [Ice ins] that the Snow Demoness had cast was over and the ground quickly turned back to soil. Scott pointed hisnce ahead and shouted: "Phantom Knights, attack!" "KILL!" 10 Phantom Knights on their Heavy Armored Dragon rushed towards the ''foot'' soldiers that had brandished their weapons. These soldiers were unaware of how theirpanions'' death due to the ck fog, and figured that the 10 approaching enemies were merely yers that had slightly better armor, thus were unafraid of the Phantom Knights. But it did not matter to us whether or not they were afraid, the assault of the Phantom Knights would not be affected because of that. The moment both parties shed, the difference in strength became apparent. How can anyone everypare Level 850 Phantom Knights on Level 750 Heavy Armored Dragons against yers that were only Level 400-500? The Heavy Armored Dragons'' roars forced the yers to cover their ears with their hands, but at the same time, the Phantom Knights were already among them. Scott took the lead, every strike took a life, none of the yers close by could take a second attack. The Heavy Armored Dragons'' mouths were also powerful weapons, without being controlled by the Phantom Knights, the Heavy Armored Dragons would chomp down on the yers, causing them to bleed all over, and throwing them up a few meters into the air before being smashed back down onto the ground. While the Phantom Knights and enemies were tangled, Tank rushed into the formation. Tank was the best ultimate weapon against such arge group of enemies. Tank''s high defense and ultra high HP allowed him to ignore the possibility of being ganged up on, but as for the enemies that dared to go close to him, they would be in huge trouble. The scythes on Tank''s two forelegs were able to unleash devastating attacks, every swipe enough to cut down a group of yers. A few of the soldiers used their spears at Tank, but were blown a few hundred meters away from its Vacuum Cannon. A few yers started rushing at Tank from behind. Their spears stabbed onto Tank''s body, but aside from the few white marks on Tank''s ck shell, nothing happened! Angered, Tank turned back and unleashed an acidic liquid from its mouth, pouring over the yers and turning them green which started to corrode excessively, and they disappeared from the battlefield. With mymand, Rosa started to grow fervently and instantly covered the entire underground of the battlefield. One after another, strangerge pits started to form beneath the enemies'' feet, and the groups of soldiers all started falling into them. Before they could even crawl out of the pit, they were instantly buried alive. Dart was so fast that it became a burst of white light. Many people were only able to catch a glimpse of a white light shing past their feet, and before they could even react, it would have disappeared. Dart''s task was to seek out the Mages, Priests, and other backline support yers and put an end to them. All my Companions were busy in battle, so I could not just idle away. I unleashed the ws on my arms and rushed into the battle, the movements from using my sword was too troublesome, and in such a chaotic battlefield, using the ws on both my arms were still more practical. An enemy rushed at me, to which I retaliated with a punch straight on his face. Suddenly, I felt a gust of wind from behind. I turned to look, only to see a staffing down onto me. Even before I could raise my hand up to block the attack, a silver light shed from my body and a silver ball suddenly appeared in the trajectory of the staff. The staff was instantly blocked by the silver ball and stopped in mid-air, to which the owner of the staff was still trying to subdue. I stared at the little girl holding onto the staff, and after she realized that I was staring at her, she immediatelyughed and retracted her staff. "It was not intentional, really, don''t¡­..don''t¡­." While speaking, she constantly retreated, then suddenly turned and ran. I raised my hand out and shot her with my crossbow. Splurt, the arrow produced a blood fountain from her neck after piercing in from behind her. It was a critical hit, the little girl instantly died, and her body fell into the pool of blood. To think she still wanted to backstab me! Due to me turning to face the backstabbing mage, I left my back open to the enemy in which I had punched. He came up at me once again with hisrge hammer that was swinging at me. The silver ball in front of me suddenly split into countless of little drops that moved around me and appeared once more behind me. The hammer struck right onto the silver liquid, and although it had diminished most of the force, the hammer''s power was too great, causing me to fly out from the impact. Uponnding, an old spear immediately thrust towards me. I rolled to the side and dodged the attack and got up. Before I could even stabilize myself, arge ax swung over, I knew for sure that If I were to get cut by the ax, my entire body would be split into half! Fortunately, I was still in werewolf form and had considerably more strength. I grabbed onto the ax by its handle, the other party''s strength was nothing to me, and his attack was instantly stopped. In my werewolf form, I held the advantage in both speed and strength. I easily grasped him by the neck and lifted him up. I threw him behind me, which was within my calctions, as he easily struck the enemy that was rushing towards me. "Move out of the way! The Hunter is here!" Someone shouted from within the enemy formation. I did not know what that meant, but I noticed that everyone was retreating away from me. As the crowd scattered, my vision suddenly widened. The opened pathway allowed me to clearly see a man dressed in all out talking to Sword Saint behind the soldiers. Sword Saint pointed at me, to which the man d in white armor nodded to, then rushed at me. Is that man in white the ''Hunter''? I immediately sensed something amiss when I saw the man move. He was not running but flying, he was actually flying! This yer was actually from the Angel Race and knew actual flight. There were many races in [Zero] that had wings, but many were for aesthetics purposes like mine, without the actual Dark Dragon Wings, I could not actually fly. But this man actually had real white wings from his back that allowed him to fly. All of the people around scattered and fought against my Companions and Servants, while the man in white flew straight at me. I retracted my hands and kept my ws back, and unsheathed the Dragon Monarch Sword. Against one man, the Dragon Monarch Sword was much stronger. The man in white was extremely fast, but the height at which he flew was actually not that great, and maintained close distance to the ground. As we drew closer, I saw therge broadsword in his hand but no shield, which meant that the weapon he used was a two handed sword with high damage output. ________________________________________________________________________________ I suddenly found the weapon extremely familiar, it was the Seraphim Sword that I read about from the materials I found at my Dad''s! It was an Artifact Grade Equipment! The man in white gave me no time to think as he appeared in front of me. With both my hands on the Dragon Monarch Sword, I shifted one leg back and prepared for the attack. The enemy obviously nned to use the momentum to strike my sword. Be it fast or slow, he had already collided with me. Both swords quickly parried each other. Strangely, there was no sound of metal shing, but a heavy thunder boom came out. With both of our swords collision as the center, a ck and white cyclone emerged. Both vortices conflicted against each other, the friction caused between the two unleashed an extremely distorted sound and dazzling light. The silver liquid floating beside me suddenly expanded and formed a silver ball that enveloped me and protected me. In the past, this silver liquid only knew how to block against an enemy''s targeted location, but after being tampered with, it was actually able to envelop me. Upon itsplete formation, a BANG came out, and both air masses exploded at the same time. The powerful force flung me towards in the city, where I remained helpless in the air as I was dragged by the momentum. BANG! I felt myself being plunged into something hard. The protection of the silver liquid suddenly burst and I started falling. Due to its protection, I did not suffer from much damage. After adjusting myself in mid-air, but I found my surroundings weird. I was standing inside the moat beneath the city that protected it, but there was no more water. Along with me was arge number of cavalry from the League of Qin, but none of them were standing, most of them were actually struggling on the ground, trying to stand. I expanded my wings and flew up the wall to gain a better a vantage point. Sadly, this vantage point shook me, all the Hundred Flower Valley yers on the City walls was gone, while the roofs on the buildings and the streets were littered with the bodies of yers. There must definitely be somerge explosion that unleashed a shockwave powerful enough to strike them off the city wall, and all the yers outside the City was flung straight into the moat. My Skeleton Army waspletely wiped out, the shockwave was too powerful for the level 200 War Skeletons, and their remains littered the entire battlefield. On the city wall were many beautiful things, my Bewitching Butterflies did not make it as well! Luckily, my Snow Demoness was still intact, the explosion could not harm these monsters that had no tangible bodies. Lucky climbed out from a building that no longer had its roof, and shook his big head and looked at me in confusion. Beside him, a pile of debris moved. Epidemic climbed out from the debris, beneath his wings were actually Phiona, Aldeina, Dart, Ling, and a few of the female yers. Loong''er was also buried beneath the debris, while Rosa who was underground, remained safe. Only Crystal, Tank and the Phantom Knights remained standing outside the City. The Phantom Knights were high levelled enough and the shockwave was unable to do much to them, but the ground actually had a fewrge and deep ditches formed by the Heavy Armored Dragons being pushed, although the shockwave did not blow them away, to resist it, the Heavy Armored Dragons had dragged themselves across the ground, forming two ditches per Dragon! Crystal reacted faster than any of us when the explosion urred, she immediately formed a spell barrier, thus she was not affected. Tank was not affected by the entire thing, with its streamlined and heavy shell, it simply crawled and stuck close to the ground. I considered my damage as reasonable, and jumped down the city wall andnded on the ground. At the location of where my white armor adversary and I had shed was arge pit due to it being the center of the explosion, and was affected the most! I took out Dragon Monarch Sword and was prepared to summon the Swords of the Flying Dragon back, but right when I lifted up the Sword, it actually cracked! At the center of the sword was an arched crack that looked like a lightning bolt that originates from the center of the sword to the tip. Although it was not broken, how could such arge crack not break my heart! "Repay me my sword!" A female voice filled with killing intent suddenly woke me from my pain. I turned to look, it was actually the ''man'' in white in armor standing across me, furthermore, her helmet had disappeared. A head of golden hairnded down on her armor, revealing her beautiful appearance and delicate lips, she was an Angel sent from Heavens! Oh! No! Wait! She''s originally from the Angel Race! This beautiful Angel held onto the Seraphim Sword and stared at me angrily, and we red at each other in that position, across the pit. I regained my Human form and took off my helmet. Ever since I was affected by B13 and after my transformation inside the capsule, my appearance had clearly be more masculine, although my skin was still wless and clean, no one would mistake me for a girl anymore. The game Character took the appearance of the yer, thus after my ''transformation'', my game Character changed as well. So when I took off my helmet, no one would ever mistake me for a beauty anymore. "Miss, have you mistaken something? I didn''t take anything from you?" Miss Angel shifted her Seraphim Sword to me. "You look! If not for you, why would my baby be like this?" Although we were separated by therge pit, I could clearly see that the Seraphim Sword also had a simr long crack to that of my Dragon Monarch Sword, from the center of the, it spanned across the entire de, its crack clearly more severe than my Dragon Monarch Sword. Dragon Monarch Sword was formed from two Artifact grade weapons , with over ten thousand different types of alloys mixed into it, so it naturally tougher than the Seraphim Sword. With Dragon Monarch Sword like that, it was natural for the Seraphim Sword to be in a worse state! I took out my own Dragon Monarch Sword. "My Sword was almost hacked into half by you! And you were the one who initiated it!" "I''m an assassin hired by the League of Qin to kill you, of course, I have to attack you!" "So you want me to pay you back your sword? Which Assassin actually asks their targets to pay for their weapons?" "I''m not going to argue with you over this, I''m just going to ask you, are you going to or not?" "Bullshit, I must be crazy to pay you!" "Then you can just die!" Miss Angel suddenly kept her Seraphim Sword that looked like it would shatter upon a single touch and took out a strange object from her back. It was a short wand that was less than 30 cm long with a handle at the bottom, and at the tip of it was an octagonal gem, which was rather unique. She drew a circle with this object. "In the name of Athena, I will seal your power! SEAL!" From within the circle that she drew in the air, a hexagonal seal suddenly spun and flew towards me. From her words, I reckoned that she had cast a sealing spell or a curse, and to be hit by it would not be beneficial to me in any way. I activated my werewolf form once more and dodged the hexagon seal and put on my Helmet once more. I kept Dragon Monarch Sword, although the crack did not affect its durability, I did not want to take any risk with the Sword, so I chose not to use it and let rk check it out. I kept the Sword and swung my arms, the triple-ded ws were unsheathed once more. Miss Angel was unrelenting, she drew another circle with the wand. "In the name of Olympus, I will seal your mobility! SEAL!" I wanted to run from this new sealing spell, but a pity it was actually tracking and chasing after me! My body flickered, I not only knew how to run! Phantom immediately activated [Blink]. I easily appeared behind the seal, and it pounced at air once again. Miss Angel became furious. "In the name of Athena, I will seal your Wisdom, in the name of Olympus, I will seal your mobility! Imposing dual seals!" What the f*ck, seal my wisdom? Could that make me go full retard? I don''t believe you! Two seals flew over at the same time, to which I casually dodged them and was about to mock her when I saw the smile on her face. Right when I became suspicious, a yellow line suddenly appeared beneath my feet, I was actually standing on a formation! This time, the flying seals were a distraction, and the seal was actuallyid in a position that she lured me in to jump into! It was actually on the ground Seals belonged to spells, while the silver liquid shield seemed only capable of deflecting against P.ATK, and could even absorb the damage from spells. But seals did not do damage, thus the silver liquid was useless at that moment! I wanted to run, but I realized that my movement speed had turned slow, extremely slow! It should be the seal of Olympus, although I was notpletely stuck, my speed was so slow that I looked extremely pitiful! Seeing that my speed had dropped, Miss Angel retracted her smile and took out a Sacred Grade Sword. She had plenty of treasures on her, that''s for sure! I watched as she prepared to rush at me, yet I could not run! I immediately got Phantom to use [Blink], but the answer I got was that due to the Seal, we were unable to blink! Phantom and I were considered one body, and the seal had actually sealed the both of us. Athena was a Goddess of Wisdom and warfare, she had sealed my intellect, thus all my spells were temporarily sealed! Seeing my panicked-stricken face, Miss Angel actuallyughed while approaching me. She raised her Sacred grade Sword and hacked down on me, she was resolved to cut me in half! "Go and die! You, an asshole from the faction of Darkness, I will represent the Light to pass judgment unto you!" As the sword got closer to me, it seemed to have felt the Darkness within me as the holy light around the sword actually became more intense. I could only watch as this sword, that was releasing a dazzling light, came down towards my head. At that moment, I felt that it was over, unexpectedly, I was the one to lose, and to a little girl at that! Chapter 162: The mysterious teenie-weenie Angel [Vol 5 Chapter 13] Chapter 162: The mysterious teenie-weenie Angel [Vol 5 Chapter 13] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry I watched as the dazzling Seraphim Sword swung down on me, unable to prepare any sort of defense. All my Companions, Servants and summoned creatures had killed many yers, giving me sufficient EXP to reach Level 439, the majority were from the Phantom Knights and three Dragons. Level 439 was no longer considered low, so even if the girl''s ATK was high or even if her Light Attack was undoubtedly extremely effective against my Dark traits, it was impossible for her to kill me in one strike! Right at the moment when the sword reached me, the ground started to swell with multiple earth bubbles, and over a dozen tendrils extended out fervently and formed a meter thick vine wall around me. When the vine wall was formed, I felt the ground beneath me crumble and I fell through the ground. Rosa had actually formed a tunnel below us, and I fell straight into Rosa''s protection, and then sent through the tunnel far away. Miss Angel''s Seraphim Sword struck the vine wall, in which the divine Light power that was extremely effective against Darkness instantly sliced through the vine wall like hot metal cutting through paper into half. The purifying power caused Rosa''s ck vines to emit a white smoke, but as the wall was considered a spell of Rosa, it did not harm Rosa at all. Knowing that she had missed her target, Miss Angel furiously shed down on the vine wall, but only to realize that I had disappeared. Before she could even start to look for me, she was instantly surrounded by the Snow Demoness. The 44 Snow Demoness trapped her in the center, to which she screamed out. "You asshole! Get out here¡­.." Herst few words were not audible for me as ice barriers had appeared around her, although the ice shells summoned by the Level 400 Snow Demoness were not extremely dense, with the 44 of them continuously forming the ice walls, the ice walls were 4 to 5 meters thick. Even if they were not sturdy enough, I believed that they could not be easily shattered! Right when we thought that we werepletely safe, the ice shell suddenly released a loud impact, Miss Angel was actually smashing the walls from the inside! Although the Snow Demoness were endlessly reinforcing the walls, cracks continued to appear on the ice. Clearly, the ice wall was insufficient to hold her down! Ling ran over to me and cast a Darkness Spell on me, removing the seals that were cast on me. Since the seals were Light spells, they could be dispelled with Dark Spells. Right after I recovered, the Ice walls finally crumbled and countless of ice pieces scattered all over the ce. Miss Angel flew out with the shattered ice and immediately collided with Epidemic upon escaping the prison. BOOOM! Epidemic and Miss Angel shed in midair, causing her to fly out into the distance and rolling a few times on the ground before stabilizing herself. Dragons were after all the race with the strongest body, colliding with Epidemic was tantamount to a tractor going against a bulldozer, pitting to see which was stronger! Miss Angel raised her head up only to see a ck shadow descend. She immediately rolled to the side, and just as she left the area of the ck shadow, Tank smashed his way down onto her original position. Tank turned and swiped at her, but to my surprise, Miss Angel actually dodged Tank''s attack by doing a bridge*, then standing up again. Is she a dancer or gymnast in real life? She could actually execute such a move? Tank''srge built made him incapable of being fast, thus none of his attacks worked. Lucky and the other two dragons joined in the attack, taking turns to swipe down at her. Although Miss Angel''s AGI was not that high, her body control and movements were performed outstandingly well, avoiding many of the fatal attacks. I started to suspect that she was a real performer or gymnast in real life, she was actually able to execute all of the exceedingly demanding positions and movements! Just as my Companions had surrounded her, a spear suddenly flew out from the encirclement. The Phantom Knights who were rushing towards me by the side threw their ownnces out, and finally one of them urately struck the iing spear, releasing a loud ''nk'' sound. The spear thrown from within the encirclement deviated and struck the ground next to me. The girl was truly something else, she had the capability of throwing out a spear even when faced with an onught of attacks! But my Companions were not one to be underestimated, due to her throwing out the spear and taking a risk for it, Crystal''s w actually struck her, the immense force causing her to flip a few times in the air. Scott could see that Tank and the three Dragons were insufficient to deal with Miss Angel, thus he led the Phantom Knights to join in. With the 10 Phantom Knights help, the stalemate quickly tilted to our favor. When Miss Angel dodged Lucky''s w, she was immediately swept by a Phantom Knight''snce and was flung out due to her loss in stability. Scott and three other Phantom Knights suddenly extended theirnces and caught her fall from below, the 4nces forming a ''¾®'' pattern. When she stood up, another 4nces extended out in the same pattern and caught her from above. Another two Phantom Knights used their Lances and immobilized her by extending their spears from beneath her waist to her underarms vertically and prevented her from struggling. The 12 Lances had finally locked her down. Locked into ce, Miss Angel continued to struggle. Ling suddenly casted a spell, conjuring four ck rings to appear and lock Miss Angel''s limbs to thences, and forcefully prevented her from moving. The 10 Phantom Knights lifted Miss Angel up as though she was a pig for ughter. "Let me go! Let me go!" Miss Angel, who could only move her mouth, struggled and screamed. "Lift her up right!" Miss Angel was lifted up but was faced down. Hearing my words, the Phantom Knights immediately turned her over. Who knew if they were being intentional or it was idental, but they actually turned her upside down! Her legs were raised above and her head was below! I resisted the urge tough but did not say anything. I walked over and squatted in front of her. "Miss?" "You¡­.you... if you dare treat me unreasonably, I will kill your entire family!" "What the hell! Are you on rabies? Did you get bitten by a dog before?" "You''re the rabid dog! Do you know who am I? You dare to touch me? Are you tired of living?" "Touch you? Don''t be arrogant just because you''re pretty, I''ve seen countless of beauties myself! To me, your looks can only be considered average!" I said while pping her cheek lightly with the back of my hand, although I did not use any strength, but the Dark Dragon Lord gauntlet had steel edges designed on it and could hurt someone simply by pping his or her face. I stood up and ordered the Phantom Knights: "Carry her back!" "Let go of me!" Miss Angel continued to struggle, but she was unable to struggle free from the Phantom Knights. The enemies on the battlefield were suddenly enveloped in blue light and all of them disappeared. I heard the adorable system voice. [The League of Qin have failed in the siege of the City. With your aid in the sessful City Defense, you have obtained the reward EXP XXX....XXX.] When the System prompt was over, I realized that I had gained 10 additional levels, holy hell, the amount of EXP gained from the reward was so high? Who cares, I had to return back to Red Cloud and check on them. With the Siege over, the City gates automatically opened. I led the Phantom Knights into the City, to see that Red Cloud and the rest were already waiting for us outside. I suddenly realized that Red Cloud did not have her helmet on and had it beneath her arms. For the entire time, I interacted with her while she had her Helmet on, thus I never knew how beautiful she was! "Who would have thought that you''re actually so pretty!" Red Cloud did not get embarrassed because of mypliment, she had to be someone extremely versed with interpersonal skills, or that she was like Zirai, and was more manly and did not care about such matters. But most probably thetter, people who could build up such a strong organisation could never be ordinary women. ____________________________________________________________ "Ziri, you''re one good looking chap yourself! No wonder you wrapped yourself up so tightly, otherwise, you''ll constantly be chased around by all thedies!" "Haha! Who''re you kidding! Oh right, why did the enemies outside suddenly retreat and admit defeat? They only lost less than 2000 men, didn''t they have over tens of thousands of yers?" Red Cloud: "I don''t know either, it is indeed strange that they retreated, but since they have, we won." An Angel Race Warrior that looked to be about 10 years old walked out from behind Red Cloud. I looked at this little beauty in surprise, there were actually such young yers? Although [Zero] did not have any age restrictions imposed, in theory, there should be no children in the game! All the game Helmets required binding identification to be purchased and all unbound identification would never be valid! China made this setting on purpose to distinguish between Child yers and Adult yers, could it be that there was a problem? "You¡­.?" The moment I spoke up, I was interrupted. The little girl raised her small hands and indicated for me to not continue. "You don''t have, I know what you want to ask." When she saw my surprised look, the youngdy nodded her head. "You wanted to ask how I am able to y the game despite my age?" I nodded my head, it was a huge problem that had to be reported. The Game actually had such a huge loophole! "Simple, I have a valid Identification." I pointed at her once more in surprise, and as I opened my mouth, I closed it back again. "You don''t have to say, I know you want to know why I have a valid identification. That is because I require it to find work, so I got the Department of Public Safety to issue me a special one." I opened my mouth again but was interrupted again. "You want to know why I want to work? Simple, because I''ve already finished all the required readings for all levels, and even finished postgrad studies, thus I have nothing to do now!" "Ok ok, Xiao Mei, don''t go on, you''re going to make big brother confused!" Red Cloud carried the little girl then spoke to me: "Don''t take offense, this is my cousin sister, Xiao Mei." "Xiao Mei?" The youngdy that was being carried suddenly spoke up: "Xiao Mei can only be used by sister, you can''t call me that. You can either call me Su Mei, or Young miss Su Mei." "Xiao Mei, don''t be rude!" Red Cloud pinched the little girl''s lips. "She is the genius child of my family, at the age of 9, shepleted all her studies, and no one can do anything to her! She has a photographic memory and can recite the entire City telephone numbers after going through the entire book once!" "Woah! A genius!" Such luck that I never had, even the English Language had left me foaming at the mouth! "Do NOT call me a genius!" Xiao Mei struggled free from her sister''s suppression. "I hate it the most when others call me a genius, I told you to call me Su Mei!" The little girl''s temper was truly befitting her age, but after all, she was still a young girl, and no matter how mad she was, it was extremely pure-hearted and adorable. The youngdy suddenly said: "I know why they retreated, the reason is simple. Imunicated with my spy inside the League of Qin, Goddess Alliance just announced their war on them, so they are rushing back to defend their city." I did not know how many times I had looked at the little girl in shock, but Red Cloud exined: "Xiao Mei is our guild''s strategist!" "HER? Strategist?" They were pulling my leg! Su Mei pointed to the Phantom Knights behind me. "What''s going on there? Your spoils of war? Do you have such fetishes? Seriously, the little girl was overly mature! How could she know everything! "Isn''t that the Hunter?" Red Cloud actually recognized Miss Angel. "You recognize her?" I quickly asked. "You don''t recognize her?" Little Su Mei jumped down from Red Cloud. "She is the Religious Law Court''s number one Assassin, nicknamed the Hunter, yer name God Messiah. If I didn''t remember wrongly, she''s already Level 563, her ss seems to be the Light Adjudicator. Her ss belongs to the Warrior ss, but also utilizes the bow and spells, but in terms of her spells, she will only know seals and some HP restoration and buff spells. The unique point about her ss is that her name will never turn red if she kills Darkness yers." "Level 563? No wonder she was so strong! Her level is already so high, and she still wields the Light that basically overpowers me!" "She''s not that powerful actually, she''s just lucky!" Su Mei spoke enviously. "What did you say? Little girl, if you don''t know a thing, don''t talk!" God Messiah who was being suppressed started to scream and struggle. "All of you have better remember this, those who offend me will never end up well!" "Hello?" I squatted beside her. "You''re the captive now! Can you stop being in denial and acknowledge your position?" "Peh!" She actually spat at me! But no matter, my silver liquid had automatically blocked against her attack, lucky me! "What''s her identity? Why is she like a rabid dog?" I turned and asked Su Mei. "She is the superior of Goddess Alliance and Righteous League!" "What?" I jumped in shock. "But the boss of Righteous League is Shadow Gale! I know him! And I know Red Moon of the Goddess Alliance as well!" "You only know of things in the game and not the things outside of the game." Su Mei replied me as though she was an old man. "Red Moon and Shadow Gale are brother and sisters." "I know that!" "But you don''t know what kind of person their father is. Their father is the boss of an extremelyrge corporation which in fact belongs to an upper echelon holdingpany, and the boss of this holdingpany is God Messiah''s father!" God Messiah suddenly screamed out: "Now that you know who I am, are you not letting me go?" "It''s not up to you to talk!" I raised my hand and the Phantom Knight standing beside her stuffed her mouth. She could only make sounds out but no longer speak. As she was being locked down by the Phantom Knights, it meant she was under attack, thus she could not log off either. In any case, we did not vite her body, so she could not use that to her advantage, and could only continue struggling. "So that''s the reason!" I sighed. Right when I was about to speak, the System prompt suddenly sounded out. [Attention all yers. The Game is about to undergo a small update. The update will run while tracking the current location of all yers, there is no restart of the server, yers can continue ying at ater time. As for yers in crowded ces, there will be slight spikes andgs, please do not be rmed. The update requires 10 minutes to bepleted before the server will continue as per normal. Kindly note, yers can consult the assistance menu to receive the update log.] After obtaining the notification, everyone stood still without moving, obviously looking at the assistance menu. I opened the assistance menu and looked at the update log. The update was mainly for modifications to equipment, in the past, dead yers would drop a random item or equipment under a percentage chance, but it will be changed to only dropping of equipped equipment and not the things in Inventory. Additionally, the rewards for battle had received a change. In the past, yers would seize the weapons of the enemies, but after their enemies die, the items dropped would not be the weapons, and the weapons would return to the original user while dropping another item, thus decreasing the realism of the Game. But with the new Update, if any PKs were to ur between yers, as long as anyone obtained the enemy''s weapon or equipment, they would truly earn the underlying item while the enemy would lose that item. After reading all of it, I sort of understood what had happened, there would most probably be more bandits in the future, they could simply snatch the enemy''s equipment in battle. They were simply encouraging banditry and thieving, weren''t they? I wondered who was the one in thepany to have thought about such a thing! Su Mei obviously had finished reading the update log, she looked at me with a strange look, then looked at God Messiah. I looked at God Messiah, then turned back to Su Mei, I did not know what she was thinking about. Seeing that I did not understand what she was hinting at, she pouted: "You saw the changelog, and you have no thoughts about it?" "Thoughts?" "HER!" Su Mei pointed to God Messiah. "What about her?" I did not understand. "She has all sorts of equipment on her! After looking at the update, you don''t even have any thoughts about it?" "You''re saying¡­..?" I stared at the little girl in shock, how could her little mind actually have thought about such a thing! (*) A move in gymnastic Chapter 163: The Little Angel is actually a Great Devil [Vol 5 Chapter 14] Chapter 163: The Little Angel is actually a Great Devil [Vol 5 Chapter 14] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "What I mean is to take all her items!" Little Su Mei exined her intent seeing that I was too slow to understand. I gave her a thumbs up. "Great! You''re good!" I turned and squatted next to God Messiah. "Hehe! I''m so sorry! The timing of this new update didn''t seem to be good for you! Your equipment seems neat and clean, I hope you won''t mind me borrowing them?" God Messiah shook her head with all her might indicating that she was unwilling, but with her mouth stuffed, she could not speak at all! "If you''re not going to reply me, I''ll take it that you agree to it! I won''t be polite!" Lift her up!" I ordered the Phantom Knights that were holding her. The Phantom Knights lifted her up, and I took her sword down. It was the Seraphim Sword, a top-tier Artifact Grade Weapon able to cause a crack in the Dragon Monarch Sword! After taking down her sword, the Phantom Knights kept theirnces and swapped to holding her down with their hands, allowing me to take her equipment easily! It might have been my actions being too slow, but Red Cloud even came up to help! This God Messiah was truly loaded with good items, with the two of us at it, we finally took a pile of equipment! After taking apart her equipment, the Phantom Knights looked at me and asked: "Master, what do we do with her?" God Messiah was screaming and wanted to rush at us but was held back by the Phantom Knights, she was truly a rabid dog filled with energy! "Ziri, you coward! You don''t dare to fight me directly and have to depend on all of your Companions and Servants, if you have the balls,e and fight me, just the two of us! You trash, aside from your good equipment, you''re just a trash with many Companions and no capabilities!" As she talked on and on, my face became darker and darker. "What did you say?" I kicked her in the face but regretted doing so. Due to my anger, I used a lot of strength, and was no longer able to retract it back! The Phantom Knights did not hold her down tightly, and my kick actually kicked her out of their arms, causing her to fly to the wall and ricocheting back. Before she could even crawl back up, the Phantom Knights ran over and suppressed her down. "You coward!" The rabid God Messiah continued to scream while being suppressed. "Hahahaha!" Iughed in anger. "My chivalrous attitude is being considered as cowardice? Have the virtues of the people in this generation be so degenerated? Are we still human beings? What are human beings? The one thing that makes human beings greater than all other living things is that we know about respect!" My Dark Dragon Lord Armor started to release high-pressure steam from its various joints, and after that, my armor started to fall, starting from my shoulders. This strange situation was out of my expectation, I had only wanted to remove my helmet and top armor, but I never thought it would be like this! The steam continued to spew out and the parts of the armor kept on falling until I was left with the newbie clothes that I had worn within. Aldeina kept my equipment for me while Ling walked over, apparently she might have wanted to say something to me, but without saying a word, I handed over my ring and bracer over to Ling. "Let her go, and don''t butt in!" I allowed the Phantom Knights to let go of God Messiah. "The two of us will have a real battle now, no equipment, no Companions, only our fists!" Without saying a word, God Messiah pounced on me upon being released. I fell back and with a kick, I lifted her above me. Uponnding, she rolled backward agilely and jumped up once again. Like a carp, I flipped back up and faced her. At the moment she arrived in front of me, she unleashed a punch. I urately grabbed onto her fist with my right hand and with her inertia, I easily forced her arm in a hook position.. Being grabbed by me, she was brought into a lift position and her left hand was forced above her head, which then I used to choke her. Crack. God Messiah slid along my body slowly like a noodle strand. Xiao Su Mei jumped excitedly and ran over to me and stared at God Messiah in shock. A sh of light shed, and God Messiah disappeared into the city. "Are you some sort of special forces soldier?" Xiao Su Mei actually asked me this question. "Your movements looked like the kinds that pro wrestlers perform!" Red Cloud ran over to me. "What Level are you at?" "I just reached Level 449! But now I''m level 450." "No way? God Messiah is a 100 levels higher than you!" I revealed a ring on myst finger, I never took off the Ring of Stars. "You really think that I did all that barehanded?" I looked at the ring cheekily. "Am I truly a coward? Equipment wise or Companions wise, I never relied on myself to battle! Even when fighting against women, I will use my equipment!" I realized that my mood had be extremely bad, I had never thought about such things and never cared about how others saw me, I never questioned myself on senseless philosophies, because it was just too senseless for me! But now that the problem was rted to me, I could not help but ponder about it! Su Mei walked over and smacked my legs. "You don''t have to care about such things! Are equipment and Companions not part of your own strength? Your equipment are tools, is there something wrong to have better tools than others? The reason why America is able to go around beating others up in their own countries is because of better equipment, thus they are able to bully others, but if other people are strong, they have no choice but to hold onto their anger because they are on equal grounds. If you give everyone the same armor as you, I can assure you that no one else will say anything about you! As for Companions, that is because of your high CHARM. Isn''t that part of your own strength as well? ording to what she said, it would mean that the big bosses of the triad gangs are all helpless people because they depend on their underlings to fight. People say that without your equipment and your Companions, you''re nothing. But are they some huge and powerful figure without their own Equipment and Companions as well? If the game has two yers and aside from equipments, levels, attribute distribution and choice of ss being the same but still has an obvious difference level in strength, then that is called unfair. No one will ever y that sort of game, because, who will ever y a game knowing they can''t be better than that person? But in this game, people can say that others have better equipment and hope to obtain better equipments. That is the principle of Invidious Comparison, people would work harder for the sake of surpassing others, which is the charm of online games. If yers can''t realize their strength through equipment, then what else can they do it through? PK skills? Then what kind of game is that? They can just go ahead and learn the tactics to PK, after learning the various sorts of techniques, they will be experts! Then what''s the point of grinding levels? Will yers still buy equipment or care about loot? I truly don''t know how they think about such things, it''s simply unreasonable! A game is a game, just be happy and content ying it, what''s the point of being so serious? Aren''t you sick and bored of living the real life of harsh rules and discipline? If the game is exactly the same as the real world, then what''s the point of ying games?" Everyone around who heard Xiao Su Mei''s speech was dumbfounded. Was that even a child talking? I felt as though I was being consoled by a psychologist! "You''re really a genius!" I emotionally hugged Xiao Su Mei and gave her a kiss, if only I had such a little sister, she was too adorable! "What are you doing?" Xiao Su Mei used all of her strength and wiped the ce where I had kissed. "Put me down now, you dare to kiss me, what happens if my boyfriend were to hear about it!" "Huh?" I was startled. "Your¡­..your boyfriend?" I was confused, was she 10 or 30? No matter, I quickly put her down first, this little devil was something else! At that point in time, I was thinking to myself if all the kids of the age were like that? "Is everyone fine?" A man sprinted in from outside the city and his voice could be heard even before he was seen. "Eh? Boss, why are you here?" The man was actually Wu Yu! From my side, Xiao Su Mei slipped away and pounced into Wu Yu''s bosom. "See, this man here is my boyfriend! You can''t kiss me in the future, understand? If you want to kiss me, you have to defeat my boyfriend first, understand?" My eyes almost bulged out from their eye sockets, I pointed at Wu Yu, and did not know what to say. Wu Yu quickly handed the little monster over to Red Cloud, then pulled me to the side to exin. "Wu Yu, your child is really adorable huh?" I took the initiative and teased him. "No, no no!" I realized that Wu Yu would be ashamed as well. "Red Cloud over there is my girlfriend, the little devil is her sister. I encountered them by chance and saved them when they were out training and identally met a BOSS. After that, the little devil said something about how a person must always remember grace and kindness and have to devote herself to me! But in fact, her elder sister is my girlfriend! But after all, she is still a child, we don''t really want to make her cry, so at that time, we agreed that I would be her boyfriend!" "HAHAHAHA!" I hugged my stomach and knelt on the groundughing my heart out to the point that my stomach actually hurt! "You''re really¡­.hahhahahahah¡­..too easily yed with!" Wu Yu replied helplessly: "Don''t see that she is from the Angel race, she is, in fact, a little devil with angel wings!" Wu Yu seemed to havee to a decision upon seeing meugh so badly as he pulled me back to the group. "I have to say, Su Mei! Please don''t y me like this, big brother here is an adult and you''re a small child. You can''t be my girlfriend! I am your Sister, Red Cloud''s boyfriend!" Su Mei''s face immediately changed, she looked back at Red Cloud who was hugging her, then jumped down and pulled Wu Yu''s hand over and sped it with Red Cloud''s hands. "Sis, I''ll hand Wu Yu over to you! You better love and protect him, don''t let me down!" To everyone''s surprise and confusion, the little devil actually ran over to me. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I sensed something wrong but was toote to make a run for it. The Little Devil grabbed my hand. "I''m heartbroken! Do you like me? Elope with me!" With that, she started to pull me out of the City. I was dragged towards the City Gates, but exined myself while running: "Since when did I say I like you?" The Little Devil suddenly stopped then looked at me with herrge and tear-filled eyes. Her expression seemed to say "If you dare say you don''t like me, I will cry for you to see!" How could I dare offend the little Devil, furthermore, she was such an adorable little sister, how could I bear to make her cry! "Ok ok ok, Su Mei is the most adorable girl, I love Su Mei the most!" When the Little Devil heard my words, she immediately turned and continued to run with me while muttering. "Quickly bring me away from this heartbreaking ce!" I did not dare do anything to make her cry, so I could only run along with her! All my Servants and Companions behind were confused, upon seeing that I was running away, they quickly followed along. The Phantom Knights quickly grabbed onto God Messiah''s items and ran over. Aldeina ced my entire Dark Dragon Lord set onto Lucky''s back then quickly chased after us. The Snow Demoness quickly followed along, and therge group of people ran out of the City in a mess. I suddenly remembered that I have not retrieved my Dragon Monarch Sword and quickly turned back and got Ling to bring the summoned monsters to retrieve the 8 Sword of the Flying Dragons back. Ling immediately got everyone to find the swords while I continued to run out of the City with the Little Devil, unsure if she had a goal or was just randomly running, I could only follow along! We ran and ran when the Little Devil suddenly stopped. "Ziri?" "Yeah?" I knelt down and looked at her. "What''s wrong?" "You must call me Xiao Mei from now on, ok?" "Yeah!" At this point in time, I could only go along with whatever she said! "Then I will call you my Dear from now on, you have to promise me that!" "Huh?" I fell to the ground. "Can you change that?" People who knew me might be fine with it, but for strangers who did not know the situation, they might assume that I''m a pedophile if they heard it! "Then can I call you my Sun?" "Sun?" "Aren''t you called Ziri? Although Ziri* is purple, it''s still a sun! I''ll call you my Sun from now on, is that fine?" "Why do I seem to recall that there is a famous dog called Sun?" "Then what do you want? It just has to be special, I can''t be calling you what others call you." "What about big brother? I''m almost twice your age, it''d be good for you to call me big brother!" "Alright! Then I''ll call you big brother." Su Mei stopped for a moment. "I''m not very happy now, can you bring me into the City to y?" "Into the city?" "I want to go to one of the Main Cities to y but all the sisters are always busy, and Wu Yu that idiot is always missing!" "Ok ok, I''ll bring you!" Although it was rather tiring for me, I wanted to visit one of the Main City as well and it coincided with my intent. I carried Su Mei on my shoulder, although I was not as massive as Hawk to allow Elfy to sit on her own shoulder, Su Mei was only 10 years old, and I was barely able to do it. I subconsciously reached for my Ring of Teleportation only to find it missing. I had nothing on my hand. I then remembered stripping everything off to fight with God Messiah and was left with the Ring of Stars. But I remembered that I still had the Hermit''s Ring and the Shroud Bracelet that concealed Red Names from Ling. Fortunately for me, I chose to hold onto these two items. I quickly equipped the Hermit''s Ring, who knew if there were anyone looking at the Ranking board, I truly hoped at that time that no one was looking! "Do you have a Teleport Scroll?" All my items were in the Bracelet Inventory, even my Teleport Scrolls were inside, without them, I had nothing! "I never bring things on me, the sisters always prepare everything that we need!" "Oh my god!" I pointed to my own body. "I don''t have anything on me!" "Don''t you put your things in your ring?" Su Mei asked me. I pointed to the Shroud Bracelet on my wrist. "You see this? I have two of these, this is the Shroud Bracelet that conceals Red Names; the other one is the Bracelet Inventory that can store things. As it ignores weight, I put everything in there, so I don''t carry things around with me!" "Then what do we do?" "Don''t worry, I have an idea!" I summoned Night Shade out. "Hehe, I have a mount!" "Your mount is so big!" Su Mei was only about a meter tall but Night Shade in Heavy Armored Dragon form was almost 4 times as tall as her. "Come, let us go up! The top is extremely high and provides quite a good view!" I carried Su Mei and jumped up Night Shade''s back, rk had prepared arger saddle for me, allowing Su Mei to sit in front of me without feeling cramped. I guided Night Shade towards the closest Main City ording to the map. Hovering Flower City was not far from Sky City with only a series of mountains between the two. Su Mei sat on Night Shade happily and looked around, although she was a genius child, a child was still a child, her curiosity was still extremely high. Night Shade moved extremely quickly and we felt as though we were riding on a motorbike with the wind blowing rapidly against us. All the time I rode on Night Shade was while being equipped in the Dark Dragon Lord Set, so I did not feel it at all, but since I was only dressed in newbie clothes, I realized how powerful the wind was blowing against me! Su Mei did not feel anything sitting in front of me, she was dressed in Mage Robes and even had a face mask, although the Mage Robes were not as tough as my Armor, it was still able to deflect wind. We quickly arrived at the outskirts of Sky City. I had not been here for a long time, and a lot of changes had urred to the City. Sky City had plenty of new structures built on its outskirts, but their structural forms were all extremely strange without any consistency. As we got closer, we saw more and more yers. There were many yers inside the structures outside the City setting up stalls with all sorts of newbies in their ragged clothes. I unsummoned Night Shade from a distance to prevent attracting any attraction. Upon entering the structures, we immediately sensed the flourishing crowd, all the buildings were personal buildings that belonged to the yers, Wayne had even informed me before about buying some designs but at that time, I had not much money, thus I did not attach importance into it. Who would have known that Sky City would have so many personal buildings constructed outside, as expected from the Main City! "Brother,e and take a look at my equipment! I sell equipment with the best attributes, upon wearing them to train, you''ll definitely be very powerful!" One of the yers at his stall passionately called out to me. Before I could even reply, another yer shouted as well: "Brother,e and see mine instead! Aside from Equipment with good attributes, I have some Gold (Rare) Grade Equipment!" The stall owner by the left who shouted first immediately stood up. "Brother, don''t buy from him, the things he sells are all too expensive, you can''t buy them!" The stall owner to the right retorted. "He sells cheap goods, although my things are slightly pricier, they are high-grade goods, I can promise you that your strength will increase. You will be able to kill higher level monsters faster, and who knows, you might be able to build your own guild in the future." "Don''t listen to him! He is trying to cheat you, you''ll waste all your money buying his equipment, and without any more for pots, you''ll train even slower!" "I say, Wang Wei, what''s the matter with you? Why are you trying to spoil my business?" "What do you care! Is it my fault that other people dislike your items?" ¡­.. I stood there innocently watching them attempting to steal business which resulted in a quarrel, which escted into a PK, even without me saying a thing from start to end! Truly, their spirit for business was indeed worth respecting! I decided that entering the City was better off, and carefully avoided the two PK''ing each other! Su Mei rode on my shoulder and looked around, and upon seeing interesting things, she jumped down and ran off,pletely forgetting that I exist! From that, I could tell that a woman''s love to shop never differed in age! "I want this!" Su Mei finally remembered me and brought over a strange badge. "What''s this?" "Angel Badge! I need to use it!" "Oh!" I turned to the stall owner and asked: "How much?" "2 Crystal Pieces!" "Alright!" I casually handed 2 Crystal Pieces over to him and obtained the Angel Badge. But upon thepletion of the transaction, the badge in my hand suddenly unleashed a bright light and gradually turned from white to red, and became extremely hot. "WOAH!" I threw the Badge onto the ground as I sensed its temperature was as hot as molten steel. "What happened?" Su Mei carefully used a Dagger to poke at the Badge. "Wasn''t it just fine?" "Brother, are you alright?" The Stall owner who sold it to us looked at us strangely. "It''s nothing, it''s nothing!" I waved my hand, acting as though it was nothing although my hand was extremely painful. The badge was too evil! The badge on the ground gradually turned white again. Su Mei then tried to pick it up with her bare hands. "Why am I fine holding onto it?" "I don''t know!" "Give me your hand!" I extended my hand out and Su Mei ced the badge in my palm. The white Badge started to release light again, then gradually turn red. "Ouch!" I anxiously threw the badge out again, it had turned hot for no reason again! (*) - Ziri, is the name of the movie Purple Sunset, which yeah, involves the sun. Chapter 164: Light Shrine [Vol 5 Chapter 15] Chapter 164: Light Shrine [Vol 5 Chapter 15] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "What is this badge? Why does it burn so quickly?" "What! It''s definitely something to do with you!" When the Su Mei waited for the Badge to cool down before picking it up again and taking a closer look. "It is an ordinary badge, there isn''t anything wrong with it!" "Forget it, we can''t learn anything about it now anyway. You wanted the badge, you keep it!" I did not even want to touch the thing at all. Su Mei kept the badge and pulled my hand and headed towards the City. Truth be told, I started to turn slightly afraid as we got closer to the City Gates! I was at the side watching when the 3 Main Cities had joined forces to attack Lost City thest time, and I was unsure if any NPC would have noticed me standing on Lost City''s walls. If any single NPC remembered and took it to heart, what could I do if they sought me out! I walked past the guards trembling, luckily, the guards did not seem to have any hostility towards me. It seemed to me that the Main Cities were only against the NPC powers belonging to the Dark Faction, and would not engage yers belonging to it. After entering the City, I realized that there were many more stallspared to the outside, both sides of the streets were filled with yers stuck close to each other with only gaps for the shop entrances. The yer-owned stalls inside the city were clearly at a higher level, the items sold inside them were far better than those outside. Majority of the items sold were Superior Grade Equipment with many Gold Grade Equipment here and there, and there were some even shouting that they sold Elite equip. Su Mei and I walked along the streets, but no one actually came up and attempted at hard selling their products to us, which was understandable. I was dressed in newbie clothes and obviously looked like a newbie that had just left the newbie vige, but the majority of the items sold in the stalls were Superior Grade equipment which newbies would never be able to afford. Since there was no business, they naturally never stopped to hard sell me. "Where do you want to go?" I lowered my head and asked Su Mei. "I heard that there is a tavern here is famous for many things, I want to try it out." "Alright, let''s find it!" Luckily for us, game currency and equipment were separated, if the money were in the Bracelet, that would have been terrible for us! As it was the first time that one of us was here in Sky City while the other rarely came, neither of us had done much touring, so we did not even know what tavern was famous! The map provided by the system was extremely vague and only pinpointed the general direction and own location which was good to figure out location outside of Cities, but to rely on it to find buildings was futile. Sky City''s map was merely an empty circle and aside from the Light Shrine or the City Lord''s residencendmarks, there was nothing. I stopped a yer that was passing by. "Sorry brother, do you know where is the tavern?" "Don''t disturb me, I need to go and train!" The other party shrugged my hands and ran away. The little devil Su Mei looked at me with disdain. "Hmph! In the end, this young miss has to be the one doing the work!" She suddenly walked to the middle of the road, took off her mask and hood then started to act as though she was crying, to the point that she was actually able to produce fake tears. She did not attempt to pull anyone, but a female yer voluntarily stopped. "Oh my, where did such an adorable sistere from! You''re so cute! What happened to you? Why are you here alone and crying?" Su Mei sobbed and replied: "I''m¡­..I''m lost!" "Ah! That''s terrible!" A few other young girls immediately became a sympathetic group. Su Mei herself pretty and would definitely grow to be a beauty, additionally, she was extremely adorable. Once she cried, people all around would feel their hearts clench. At that moment, the little devil was fully utilizing her charm. "Sisters, my big brother said that he is at some tavern, can you tell me how to go there?" "Why not we bring you there?" A few of thedies were obviously overly enthusiastic. "No need, I am a strong little Angel, I can go there by myself!" The tear-stained face of the beautiful Su Mei revealed a determined look, causing all thedies to be emotional. The result of all that - the location of the tavern was easily sourced, to the point that they even drew a map for her! At longst, the enthusiastic youngdies finally gave in to allow Su Mei to walk there herself. Su Mei watched as the youngdies who were reluctant to leave her and waved her arms and shouted: "Thank you sisters, take care!" Only after they disappeared into the crowd did Su Mei turn to me and did a twist gesture in the shape of a ''V'' with her index and middle fingers. I gave her a thumbs up. "Powerful!" "Of course! With my ultimate Little Angel''s charms, I''ve always seeded in whatever I want to do! Alright, let''s go!" Sigh! She held a natural advantage and if her request were not fulfilled, it would never be right! I hugged her and carried her on my shoulder, then with her guidance, we headed towards the tavern. Along the way, this little devil acted as though she was a princess while I was her Imperial Bodyguard! "Hello? Is there a need for you to act as though you''re some sort of high noble?" "What do you know? I''m doing it for your sake! Did you realize that only with me portraying myself as nobility and give off a disdain feeling towards others will they not dare to talk to us? Otherwise, you and I would have been surrounded and stuck with all the crowd already!" "Seriously?" I did not know how to refute that! ording to Su Mei''s guidance, we quickly arrived at the said location. "Woah! There is really a tavern here!!" The five story structure was interesting and appealing. It looked like an ancient Chinese pagoda, not only was it elegant, it was a magnificent sight. Upon entering the tavern, it felt as though we had entered a wet market, but it might have been because of the speaker system at the entrance that was slightly too loud and filled with static that scared us. A few waiters were even screaming at the top of their lungs to call for orders! This scene was far from what I had imagined the ce to be! How could it be so chaotic? Upon entering, one of the waiters immediately ran over. His voice was loud, although it was extremely noisy inside, we were still able to hear his voice. "Are the two of you here to eat or employing hitmen?" "Hitmen? Your tavern does assassination services?" "The two of you must be new here to not know of our business. When yers ept assassination missions, the system will deduct 20% fees, so the majority of the assassins or hitmen will deal privately. We only ept a 1% intermediary fee here." "Oh! We are here to eat, I wonder if you have any¡­." I pointed to one of the rooms. _______________________________________ The waiter immediately got my hint. "This is the lower tier consumption area, the dishes are more ordinary and are cheaper, thus the chaos. It is much cleaner upstairs, but I am afraid that you two might not be able to pay for it!" Before I could say anything, Su Mei spoke up. "We are not newbies, his equipment is being repaired by the cksmith, we just came over to wait for the equipment to be repaired." "Oh! Then that''s great!" The waiter''s smile immediately became even more brilliant. "Please follow me!" We followed the waiter through therge hall, which was obviously created using a spatial concealing system. From the outside, the tavern looked at most two to three basketball courtsrge, but upon entering, the tavern was asrge as a ser field! In any case, everything inside the game was all virtual, the space to size ratio of houses could all be altered with data! "Are you a yer or NPC?" I could not resist asking the waiter. "I''m a yer! After getting tired of training, Ie over here to earn some few bucks!" "Oh!" We quickly arrived on the second floor via a flight of stairs, and upon passing through the floorboards of the second floor, the noise disappeared. There was obviously some sound istion system at y to separate the two floors. The second floor had smaller tables with a few yers seated at every table, but the atmosphere was rather bizarre. The waiter looked at our skeptical faces and exined: "These are all the hitmen awaiting their missions, they are waiting for yers toe up to talk business." "No wonder the atmosphere is so cold here!" We were brought to the third floor before stopping. "Where would the two of you want your meal to be held at? Our tavern has a total of 5 floors and you have seen the first 2 floors. This floor is mostly used to eat." I was already looking around, there were plenty of people around but it was much quieter and everyone was dining with proper etiquette. The atmosphere was much more graceful and calmer than downstairs, without the tense atmosphere. The waiter continued: "The fourth floor has private rooms and the majority of yers who like to discuss matters will head there. The fifth floor is the couple dining hall, the atmosphere is much better but it is extremely expensive." "We want the fifth floor!" Upon the opening of the little devil''s mouth, nothing good everes out. "Then follow me!" The waiter gave me a weird look, as though I was some pedophile pervert! Honestly, being kind never pays! Although I was wronged, I did not exin myself. To exin oneself in such a situation would simply ce me as a fool, aside from making it worse, exining would never help. We followed the waiter to the fifth floor which was designed with private rooms, exempting me from awkwardness. We were brought to a room which was extremely narrow with only a cushion chair and a table. The chair was strange, to call it a bench was wrong because it was shorter than one, but it was toorge for one person to sit on! Two people could squeeze on the chair, it was truly suited for couples! But fortunately, it was extremely convenient for us, Su Mei was small and I saw her as my younger sister, thus I could ce her on myp. What would the two of you like to order?" After being seated, the waiter handed us a menu and waited for us to order. I did not even have a look at the menu, Su Mei alone ordered a few dishes. The waiter quickly ran down to prepare the dishes for us. Su Mei took out her badge once again and started to study it, while I opened up my Companions box and took a look, they were all full which meant they were safe, most probably still looking for my swords! The dishes were quickly served, piling up on our table into a small mountain. I was indifferent to the food, but upon the waiter''s departure, Su Mei immediately transformed into a demon, without even using the chopsticks on the table, she used her hands to grab the food. Seeing that she was enjoying herself, I joined in, and honestly, the food was true to its standard, and the strange delicacies almost made me swallow my own tongue! After finishing and paying for the meal, we left the tavern and arrived on the street. Xiao Su Mei''s ss was the Angel Race''s Holy Missionary Mage, which was a top end ss in the Priest and White Mage tree of the profession, ording to her, it was a ss that she had obtained from a hidden mission, and it was powerful. But she never focused on leveling and was only slightly higher than Level 400, which was lower than me. This Holy Missionary Mage ss could directly utilize God Power, so ordinary Light Shrines could not offer any advanced spells. But she had never interacted with one of the Three Main Cities before, thus she never really learned any spells. Since we were here, I decided to bring her to gain a few spells for herself. The Light Shrine was easily found since it was huge with a mark on the map. The two of us sprinted all the way to the so-called Light Shrine Main Headquarters. It was different from the Dark Shrine General Headquarters, there were three of them, each located in one of the Main Cities. As for whether or not there were ones in charge stayed in them, no one knew. Standing beneath the Shrine, I only had one thought - the Light Shrine truly knew how to put up a front. The gigantic Light Shrine was built entirely out of white marble, in between the two tall terraces was most likely a thousand steps flight of stairs, although the flight of steps was long, due to its long width, it was not as intimidating. With a breath, I carried Su Mei up the flight of stairs, and it almost made me stop breathing! On the sides of the stairs were countless of yers moving up and down. Compared to this bustling Light Shrine, the Dark Shrine was much cooler and calm. At the summit was an equally pure white structure that looked like the American Lincoln Memorial, its squarish form gave off a rather magnificent vibe. At the entrance of the Shrine stood a few Angel Guards who looked to be powerful NPCs above level 900. I led Mei Su into the shrine, fortunately, the guards and the city guards never made a move on me. "STOP!" Right at the moment when I had entered the Shrine, I was actually stopped! Just as I was just celebrating the fact that the NPCs did not care about me, it came! But I realized that the one who stopped me was not the NPC guards, but an NPC Priest. The reason why I knew he was not a yer was due to the gigantic words ''NPC Official'' floating above his head. Majority of the NPCs had them, just that the rest were either High-level NPC Priests or White Mages. "What''s wrong?" I knew that if something were to happen, for the sake of not interfering with Su Mei''s gaining of spells, I seamlessly pushed her out. Luckily she was intelligent, she immediately skirted around the NPC and looked for the other NPC Manager to learn whatever spells she could. Chapter 165: It really doesn’t concern me! [Vol 5 Chapter 16] Chapter 165: It really doesn¡¯t concern me! [Vol 5 Chapter 16] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "What do you want?" I stared at the NPC who had grabbed onto me. "You''re asking what I want?" The NPC actually questioned me back. "You still dare ask me what I want? I should be the one asking you what do you want!" "What do you mean?" "Why did you take so long toe?" "Me?" I pointed to myself. "Did I set a date to when I''ming here before?" "Stop talking nonsense!" The NPC Priest suddenly extended a hand out to me. "Quickly give it to me?" I looked at him strangely. "Give you what?" "The Ring of Light!" The NPC''s expression was queerer than mine, as though I should have brought some sort of Ring of Light. "Don''t tell me, you didn''t bring it?" Seeing that I was staring nkly at him without any response, he opened his mouth wide and pointed his finger at me. "You really didn''t bring it? Are you serious? Don''t you know it''s a matter of life and death? I plead you, don''t y this joke on me already, can you? Where is it? Quickly take it out!" As he said that, he started to patting my body. "Wait a minute!" I interrupted his rude behavior. "Can you exin the matter clearly to me? It is my first timeing here!" "I know that!" The priest actually continued searching my body. I pulled him off of me. "STOP! Wait for a moment! Can we just rify the matter one step at a time? Can you tell me, what is this thing you''re looking for?" Maybe he realized that he would not be able to obtain the thing unless he answered my question, the Priest immediately stopped. "I''m looking for a ring." "What sort of ring?" "A white ring with six stars on it. Its name is the Ring of Light, originally worn by the Light God." "The Ring of Light? I''ve never seen such a thing! Why do you think that I have it?" "Because you''re a subordinate of the Dark Shrine!" F*ck! In the end, I was still caught, and the thought of killing to silence him immediately came to mind. I looked around, only to realize that 2 Level 900 Guards were staring at me! "This¡­..! Since you know that I''m a subordinate of the Dark Shrine, why are you still asking me for some ring? Isn''t the ring being worn by the Light God?" The Priest acted as though he knew everything. " The Light God lost the ring in thest God Wars, and it was said that itnded in the hands of the Dark Shrine. We tried to negotiate with the Dark Shrine before and used a number of slots to get purified in exchange for the ring." "Oh! I understand it now! It was because you and the Dark Shrine already negotiated about it, so they should be sending people over to hand over the ring, so when you saw me, you thought I was the delivery man?" "Are you not?" The NPC Priest looked at me suspiciously. "Are you not a subordinate of the Dark Shrine?" "I am!" "Then why are you not the envoy bringing the ring over?" "What the f*ck? Why must I be the envoy to bring the ring over? The Dark Shrine has so many subordinates, are all of them, envoys?" "F*ck you!" The NPC actually cursed at me, howling with his hands in the air. "You are the subordinate of the Dark Shrine if you''re not the Ring Bearer, then what are you doing running over to the Light Shrine? Our Light Shrine doesn''t wee theckeys of the Dark Shrine, get out! Guards! Guards!" "Woah, f*ck! The moment you fall out with someone, you get hostile! Wait a minute, what are you guys doing?!" The two guards to my left and right grabbed my arms and dragged me out. "Let go of me, what are you guys doing?! WHAT! No, don''t!" "No¡­..ahhhhhh.ouch¡­.ouch¡­..motherf*...I¡­...you¡­...F*ck¡­..yo-...ahhhh¡­..help¡­..ahhhh¡­.god¡­..ouch¡­..I¡­..will¡­..never¡­..let¡­.you¡­.guys¡­..go¡­...ouch!" To every Single yer''s surprised eyes, I was pushed from the flight of stairs down, and immediately performed a long theatrical performance - rolling down the stairs! God damn it, It was a flight of steps that consisted of over a thousand steps, causing my face to swell from the fall! "Ah! So many stars!" Su Mei ran down the stairs. "Are you ok?" "Argh!" I supported myself by leaning against a wall. "Why don''t you try rolling down this stairs! Ouch! I think my bones are broken!" "Who asked you to quarrel with an NPC? You knew that you''re in the Dark faction, why did you run into the Light Shrine?" "I thought that since it was the System''s Main City, the NPCs would not attack white named yers!" "Those are all the older games, [Zero] is different, many NPCs do weird things!" "That is true! But I didn''t guess wrong. The Guards did not attack me but threw me out! If they really had engaged in a battle with me, I would have died a long time ago!" While we talked, I suddenly received a system prompt. "You have been attacked by yer . You have 30 minutes to engage." "You have been attacked by yer . You have 30 minutes to engage." "You have been attacked by yer . You have 30 minutes to engage." "You have been attacked by yer . You have 30 minutes to engage." "You have been attacked by yer . You have 30 minutes to engage." ¡­.. "You have been attacked by yer . You have 30 minutes to engage." "You have been attacked by yer . You have 30 minutes to engage." More and more warnings came out, I was actually being attacked simultaneously by over a 100 people! But even when the warnings came out, my HP did not even get drained. Furthermore, the closest person from me aside from Su Mei was at least 3 meters away! Many people did witness me rolling down the stairs and thus came over to look at me, but none of them came close! Could it be that the System had an error? Why would I suddenly receive such notifications of being attacked by others when there was no one attacking me! Seeing my strange expression, Su Mei spoke up: "What''s wrong with you?" "I don''t know what''s happening, but I received many notifications, saying that I have been attacked by other yers and can retaliate. But clearly, no one is attacking me!" "That''s really strange." Su Mei touched her chin and thought. Suddenly, the both of us shouted at the same time. "My Companions!""Your Companions!" I had brought Su Mei into the city but my Companions, Servants and Summoned creatures were outside helping me pick up my swords! ording to the long duration given, they should had already found my 8 [Sword of the Flying Dragons], and should be trying to find me. As Companions, they would be able to sense my location no matter where I was, as long as they wanted to look for me, they would be able to find me. At the start, I gave the order to locate my swords, and since they should have found my swords, they would definitelye into the city to look for me! ____________________________________________________________________ Right at that time, it was chaos at the City Gates. The two yers that I encountered selling equipment by the road while entering the City were currently staring at each other, after fighting with each other, they were forced apart by other yers but were still staring at each other with hatred in their eyes. Suddenly, the both of them sensed that something was wrong with the ground. The originally still shops were vibrating gently while the rocks and pebbles on the floor were jumping all around. They were not the only ones who had sensed the strange phenomenon, the yers around also felt as though an earthquake was approaching, as though everyone was standing on a volcano that could erupt at any moment. The initial quake was gentle that caused only a few yers to stop in their positions and look around. As it got stronger and stronger, it gradually felt as though a great earthquake was urring, causing all the yers to focus on finding the source of the quake. "Over there!" One of the sharper yers pointed to the other side of the road, where a cloud of dust was slowly approaching. While everyone was confused, an earth pocket suddenly appeared on the ground, which started to rush towards the City gates and causing the yers in its path to jump out of its way. Its speed was equivalent to a shark rushing at its prey right beneath the surface of the water, forming ripples on the ground. This earth pocket suddenly stopped in the middle of a crowd, and something started to surge up from beneath. An earthworm with a ck crystallized eye popped out. It looked around then suddenly retracted back beneath the ground. This earth pocket continued to move forward. No one understood what was going on and started to question each around with suspicious looking gazes. Before everyone could recover from the surprise, a sudden hurricane-like wind swept past the market, and all of those who were caught unprepared were swept to the ground. Everyone only caught a glimpse of arge shadow passing past them at a very high speed. But when they finally saw what had passed them clearly, they were even more shocked. It was a gigantic ck dragon that was close to a 100 meters tall that had happened his disproportionatelyrge pair of wings thatpletely covered the entire market. Everyone saw his arrogant eyes and gigantic ws. Every p of the powerful andrge wings brought about powerful gales that brought about a hidden pressure inside everybody''s hearts. After the first shadow passed, a second identical shadow swept past less than 3 meters above the ground, and the remaining few people who managed to maintain their bnce from the first shadow all fell. Before the second shadow could fly far away, the third giant shadow also flew at the same altitude above the ground, causing all the sand and stones on the ground to scatter, while everyone stared at the shadows with their mouths opened like carps! After the three gigantic dragons flew in a ck Ryu Dragon that swept past the market at an equally fast speed, its extremely lofty aura made everyone mistaken it for an Emperor touring! Following the mythical Dragon was arge beastpletely enveloped in blue and ck Underworld mes, which caused a yer to scream out in shock. "Inferno Phoenix!" This identity caused many people to take in loud breaths. After the aerial disy, a gigantic and ck beetle ran over from the ground. It looked exactly like a thorn-d fortress. On it''srge glossy and ck shell back that could act as a mirror were a few extremelyrge and long thorns. On its head were small but frightening green eyes that revealed a terrifying light. Despite its size, it was surprisingly fast. The rumblings from this mobile fortress moved above the yers,pletely disregarding all of them. Wherever this ck beetle crossed, it would leave behindrge and deep pits. Every single limb was d in armor and thorns, adding its immense weight, every step this beetle took would leave meter deep pits of footprints! After the ck Beetle was a group of Godzi-looking monsters, with a few ck armored Riders on them. All of these monsters charged onwards without any hint of stopping. After the Godzi riders were a group of beautiful Snow Demoness that flew past, with arge mass ofrge silver wasps and even a flight ofrge and horrifying butterflies! After the butterflies, thest herd was a huge number of skeletons running information towards the City, their unified pace, and the terrifying bone crackling sound was evidence of itsrge army. "Damn it, it''s a monster siege!" No one knew who shouted it, but it caused the entire City gates to be riled up. "Defend till the end" and "Fight till our deaths", all of these random phrases started to appear. In reality, this army was my Companions, all those ahead were also my Companions and Servants, while the ones behind were my Summoned Creatures. It was through that they suffered in the war at Hovering Flower City, but Darkness monsters all shared the same unique feature, that was respawning. All the skeletons on the ground started to form up after I left, and the entire Skeleton army wasplete again. The butterflies also revived and regained their HP after I left. As for the Silver Wasps, they werepletely intact in the first ce, it was only the impact of the explosion that blew them away in which they gathered again after I left. The Snow Demoness basically never suffered any drop in HP. As such, these monsters looked as though they were traversing thends in search of their master! An impulsive yer took the lead and rushed at the Skeletons. In a couple of minutes, he was hacked to death by the Level 200 skeletons. Although they were not high leveled, to want to kill them is not simple either. While the swaying soldiers were supported by others, the other skeletons would immediately engage the hostile opponent. With that person taking the initiative, it quickly slid into chaos as arge number of yers started to join in the battle. As the system notification frequently produced irrelevant information, the majority of yers in the city would choose not to open the system notification log, thus the majority of them who started attacking the skeletons did not acknowledge the system prompt of attacking other yers. Although information would still pop up from the attacks, they were already in battle, who could care to look at such things? There were people who did not conceal their system notification logs but due to the chaos of the battle, they did not pay attention to the logs, and some even thought they had mistakenly injured the surrounding yers. Some yers never activated the PK function, thus they realized that hacking down on the Skeletons actually dealt no damage. But they mistook the situation as fighting monsters in a City Siege was considered a PK, so they started to activate their PK functions and participated in the battle. Regardless of what it was, the battle quickly plunged intoplete chaos! "There seems to be a situation behind!" Aldeina reminded Ling. At that moment, the two of them were seated on Epidemic with Dart in Ling''s bosom. As Ling used to be the Dark Goddess, she became the leader of the Darkness Companions whenever I was not around. Hearing Aldeina''s words, Ling turned back to look and realized that the Skeleton army had been attacked. Summoned Creatures were like Servants and Companions, yers who attacked them would be deemed automatically as PK''ing, and if I am being attacked, my Companions woulde up to protect me. So to Ling''s understanding, all of them were attacking her Master, which was me. To be attacked meant that we had to retaliate, that was something I had set down. I had set the perimeters of my Companions to retaliate withoutmand if I were to be attacked. They would automatically help and engage the enemies or when I was attacking a specific target, they would automaticallye to help me. Now that the system had judged me as being PK''ed and that all of the people around were the culprits, Lingmanded without hesitation: "Return back to support them!" The three dragons changed directions in an orderly fashion like that of an aircraft unit, moving in a circle and rerouting back by the side of the city gates. The Phantom Knights that were originally charging into the City had also turned back, causing the City Gates to be extremely rowdy. Spells littered the sky as projectiles flew in and unleashed smoke and mes, no one knew who had unleashed those spells! Crystal was alone in the air like a strategic bomber releasing many magic missiles towards the ground, carpet bombing yers in the process. All of the yers here were different from the League of Qin, all of the League of Qin were experts to be able to siege a city, but the yers inside the City differed in all Levels, ignoring the fact that their strengths were extremely terrible, their coordination was already aplete mess! Under Crystal, a Faerie Dragon''s bombardment, many of the lower level yers were instantly killed! Tank''s gigantic body was the ultimate killing machine inside the group of people, every time he moved back or forward, a group of people would die. Either people called for their friends or someone had publicized the event, but all the yers in the City started to run towards the location, and almost half of the yers in the City were mixed into the battle. Originally, my Companions alone would not be able to fight against so many yers, but what made them depressed was that the City Guards betrayed them. Although I was in the Dark Faction, the City Guards would never attack White named PLayers. Although my Evil Value was high, I had the Shroud Bracelet so to the NPCs, I was a White Named yer. Although my Summoned Creatures, Servants and Companions were monsters belonging to the Dark Faction, they were under me and could not be considered wild, so the NPC guards would never attack them as they were a yer''s Companion, so the Guards never reacted to them. But all the yers that attacked my Companions were basically attacking me. I did not engage them but they ambushed me, so they were all judged as intent to PK, and all of them turned Red names. Don''t everyone know what the NPC Guards are for? The level 800 NPC guards immediately joined my Companions, and all the low-level yers were obviously ughtered. As there were many of them and not enough Guards, the City system automatically summoned arge number of Guards and started to suppress the PK situation. Back to me. I suddenly realized that many yers were running out of the City, while wave after waves of Guards was forming up and running out of the city as well. "Let''s go and take a look!" Su Mei said. "Yeah!" I carried Su Mei while running towards the City Gates and praying that it had nothing to do with my COmpanions. But before I could even reach the City Gates, I instantly fell into despair, I could already see three Gigantic Dragons in the sky circling around and spewing Dragon Fire from the distance, Tank''s huge body also appeared in my vision, while Phiona and Loong''er''s very obvious figures appeared in the chaos! "Big brother! Quickly summon all your Companions back! We should run!" "You think I don''t want to? My Equipment is with them, if I summon them back, my Equipment will definitely drop to the ground! They are all my life-saving items, if I drop them, I''ll cry to death!" "Then let us go over there!" Su Mei pulled me as we quickly ran towards the City Gates, but we were no longer able to get closer. There were too many people squeezing at the wide road, Sky City''s poption of yers was on average close to 50 thousand, half of them were at the City gate, which was close to 30 thousand yers! Adding that the System had produced an army of 5000 NPCs, the entire City Gates waspletely squished to the point that not even a drop of water could flow through! Although the NPC was a 5000 men strong army, they quickly suppressed the 30 thousand yers. But with the road stuck like that, where even the NPCs themselves were inside, the chaotic battle turned into aplete traffic ident! Since I had the Shroud Bracelet, I did not have my Red Name, I summoned Nightmare out. To everyone''s surprise, I jumped over every single one of them. After transforming into a Heavy Armored Dragon, Nightmare wasrger than the real Heavy Armored Dragons, this 4-meter tall figure had no problem moving through the crowd, just that it was a pity for those being trampled! Of course, being trampled did not mean that it was definite death, it depended on their levels! I did not know that because of this action, I suddenly charged into the next level. But I did not notice that while rushing towards the City gate, I trampled on a few NPC Guards. Because of my implementation, it caused my Companions to mistaken me as attacking the NPC Guards, ording to the rules of engagement, they also started attacking the NPC Guards. The original alliance between us and the NPC Guards broke down, and it became a three-way battle! Ling stood on a tall structure and gave various orders to my Companions and Servants. "Phantom Knights, handle the Guards, leave the yers to us!" "Dark Goddess, you have to be careful!" Scott pulled on his reins and led the Phantom Knights towards the City Guards. The level 850 Phantom Knights cut through the Level 800 Guards easily. Because of my Shroud Bracelet, even when the Phantom Knights attacked the NPCs, I never got a red Name. So aside from the guards that retaliate because I had trampled on them, the majority of the Guards remained focused on the red named yers. "Aldeina, heal them!" Ling pointed at a few Companions and summoned creatures who were losing HP. The Snow Demoness summoned terrifying hailstorms on the road which was effective against armies. Inside thisrge but congested street, it was extremely effective. The snow piled to over a meter tall, causing the chaotic battle to be even messier. I finally ran to the center of the chaos, upon the way I had trampled on many people, but I could not care about that. With one look, I spotted Ling and Aldeina, then got Nightmare to run over. Nightmare''s height perfectly aligned to the roof of the building. "Ling, where are my equipment?" "Master, your Bracelet Inventory and Helmet are with me" Ling said while handing them over. I epted the equipment while asking about the others through Phantom. "Bring over all my other equipment!" Right after I shouted, I saw Scott riding over on his Heavy Armored Dragon. "Boss, your armor is with me." Scott brought all of my Armor over. I quickly took them over and equipped them, only to realize that my weapons were missing! I handed Su Mei over to Ling, then rushed into the crowd alone and started killing my way through and finally obtained my weapons and the equipment that belonged to God Messiah from the other Phantom Knights. After keeping everything, I quickly ran back over to Ling and carried Su Mei up. I used the Ring of Teleportation and sent the both of us out of the City, then unsummoned all of my Companions and Servants. Although my Companions had disappeared, the NPCs were attacking the Red Named yers. Many of them were killed and respawned, but many more were caught. All of them still had no knowledge of what had happened, but when they looked back at the system log, they knew that it was because of me that they were being pursued by the NPCs. In that situation, I had innocently aggravated over 30 thousand yers? F*CK! At that moment, I told myself never to get close to Cities anymore, every time I entered a City, something would happen! "You''re really powerful!" Su Mei was still hanging on my neck. "I''m powerful?" "You alone could kill so many people, if you''re not powerful, then what are you?" "Forget it! I''m still thinking about what to do in the future! From now on, I can''t enter Sky City anymore, otherwise, they''ll start killing me! I¡­.." Su Mei suddenly used her left hand to cover my mouth and her right hand to cup her ear. "Do you hear that?" "Hear what?" I focused to hear for something out of the ordinary, but could not hear anything. "The sound of horses running!" I focused again, and truly, I started to hear the sound of horses running from the distance, which was getting louder and louder. Who else could it be? yers from the City had caught up to us? Chapter 166: The True Iron Fortress [Vol 5 Chapter 17] Chapter 166: The True Iron Fortress [Vol 5 Chapter 17] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "The sound isn''ting from the City but from the other direction." Su Mei pointed to the direction opposite of the City. "Hey, you''re right. It''s noting from the City! But why would there be a unit of troops from there?" While we talked, the troops had already rushed over. There were not many of them, but from the looks of it, their quality were extremely high. Although their equipment were not the same, at least they rode on high-grade mounts without the appearance of the strange hogs or camels. Su Mei and I moved to the side of the road. I had already kept the Companions, ording to logic, we would not look to be suspicious characters at all! The galloping sound came closer, an orderly formation that consisted of 4 columns charged forward. As we had thought, they were not looking for us, the formation charged past us without stopping, and did not even look at us. One of the riders at the side of the formation and was not within it suddenly stopped when he passed by us. "Hello, I am . Captain of Demon Capital''s Mercenaries." "Hello, big brother!" Su Mei started to feign her angelic behavior in front of others again. "Oh! What an adorable little sister!" Dark Lance Rider could not resist patting the little devil''s head (Su Mei was still in my arms, it was not strange for Dark Lance Rider to be able to pat her head). "Did the two of youe out of Sky City?" "Yeah!" I nodded my head. "That''s great. I heard that arge scale collective PK had urred outside of Sky City, I wonder if brother knows about it?" "I know about it, but I didn''t go there, it''s extremely chaotic there, I''m with my sister here, it''s inconvenient for us to go there!" "That''s true! Can I ask which City Gate is it held at? My brother is stuck inside there. He wants me to help him PK, but he only said the City entrance and didn''t say which gate it was! But when we tried to contact him after, he never replied!" We were currently located northeast of the City and was equidistant from either the east or north gates of the city, thus the man wanted to ask for its location. "The chaotic battle is at the north gates, but you should check clearly whether he is in the city or outside the city." "Why?" "Because the core of the chaos is at the City Gates, there are people inside and outside the City, the road waspletely stuck, if you want to ride in, it''s impossible to enter! If your friend is in the city, it''ll be best for you to enter by another gate by taking a detour. It''s impossible to enter from the outside!" "That''s bad news, we tried to contact him, but he never replied us, I reckon he is in a heated PK battle and has no time to look at the messages! I wonder if you have seen my friend? He is a warrior of the Demon Race called , he has tworge horns on his head and is easily recognizable." "Horns?" I thought for a moment. "I''m sorry, there were too many people, I didn''t pay attention to such details!" Su Mei suddenly cried out. "I saw him, that big brother looked so fun, there was two goat-like horns on his head. I thought he looked fun to y with, that''s why I focused on him!" "Then do you know the exact location?" Dark Lance Rider became so excited that he dismounted and came over to inquire. "I think he was in the city, a distance away from leaving the City Gates." "Alright, thank you, little sister, you''re really adorable! See you!" Dark Lance Rider mounted back onto his mount and shouted: "We will take the south gates, we will move from inside the City!" We watched as Dark Lance Rider and his unit rode into the distance. After they left, I summoned Nightmare and escaped, if they were to realize what had actually happened, it wouldn''t turn out well for us! Su Mei rode in front of me and kept smiling along the way, she was truly a lively youngdy! "Big Brother? You have a Guild Emblem on you, do you have a Guild?" "Of course! If I don''t have a Guild, how can I have a Guild Emblem?" "What Guild are you in? I haven''t seemed to havee across your emblem before, is your guild very small?" "Yeah! It''s not very big." The current poption of China was 1.5 billion, while the number of yers in [Zero]''s China region was about to break through 400 million, with an average of close to 90 million yers, most of the guilds would hold 60 to 70 thousand yers, on average one Guild would have close to 10 thousand yers. Compared to them, our Guild was truly low in numbers with only close to a few thousand yers, that was far below average! "What''s your Guild name? Is it as big as our Hundred Flower Valley?" "My Guild is called Blizzard Rose with only a few thousand yers, how many members does your Hundred Flower Valley?" "I don''t really know the exact number, but close to 10 thousand, I guess! Your Guild really has very few yers!" Su Mei suddenly extended out a finger. "Will you bring me to your Guild base to y? I have never seen how the yers of other Guilds look like!" "About that¡­.!" In truth, I was in a difficult spot, the n to rebuild Demon Capital''s Iron Fortress was temporarily stopped due to the issue on being approved by the Dark Shrine, which also meant that anyone could rush into thend and register it to themselves first, so the lesser the number of people knew about the ce, the better for us. But since Su Mei wanted to take a look, how could I lie to her! "Why? You don''t have a base?" "I guess you can say so?" "What do you mean by that? If you have one, you have one, if you don''t have one, you don''t have one, what do you mean by that?" "I have the location for my Guild Base, but the City isn''t considered built yet. But the City Walls are already there." "Then that''s fine, as long as you have the City Walls, basically it means the foundation of your City is there. I can even help you design the Cityyout and the style of the buildings." "You?" Little Su Mei feigned a fuming anger appearance: "What about me? I took civil engineering as an optional course in University, it isn''t a mere trifle to help you design a City, alright!" "Oh! I am just a lowly one without eyesight, I didn''t know I have met an abled person!" I deliberately teased Su Mei, her acting like an adult was extremely adorable. "That''s more like it! Let''s go, bring me there!" The Iron Fortress was rather far and even with Night Shade''s speed, it would take a few hours for us to run there, so I decided to teleport straight to a City close to the Iron Fortress and fly over on Lucky. Although the closest City was the Holy City that was under the Light Shrine, I truly did not wish to go there again, although I was not afraid of the Priests, I was bringing along Su Mei to have a look at the Base and did not want further troubles. __________________________________________________________ Ultimately, we still chose to teleport to Holy City''s Teleport Station and run out of there, there were no other ways, the other Cities were too far, and in the end, we would still have to detour around Holy City to enter the Illusion in the forest. From what I saw, Holy City was basically the sentry focused on watching the Iron Fortress ced by the Light Shrine. I figured that Holy City was notrge and as long as I ran as fast as I could, I would not encounter the people that wanted to kill me! After arriving in the Teleport Station, we did not stop to loiter but immediately summoned Night Shade and stormed out of the City Gates. ''Enemies on a narrow road'', I did not know who created it, but it definitely held meaning. In this run, I encountered the group of Priests once again. But the situation was different this time. The 30 odd of them actually squeezed to the side, obviously, they were making a way for me. Of course, I epted the gesture and immediately leaned towards the empty side and walked through. Although they had chased after the Phantom Knights hard thest time, the Phantom Knights'' volley of throws had killed 10 of the Priests down, and they were the ones to have suffered. So when they met me again, they were no longer as arrogant and aggressive. Actually, besides the Phantom Knights, Night Shade had helped as well, thest time while we were escaping, it was Scott who led us, but to suddenly appear with arge monster, it would truly be strange if they were not afraid! After passing through the unique road, we quickly ran out of the City area. Upon leaving the City, I summoned Lucky to rece Night Shade. There were too many monsters inside the forest, flying over there was more practical! With the experience of the past, we passed through much faster this time, and easily got through the forest and entered the Iron Fortress'' area. Lucky performed a calmnding (The forest has a powerful gravitational force, don''t forget). I jumped down first, then carried the stunned Su Mei down. "Wee to the future Demon Capital*, the paradise of the Dark faction!" "Woah!" It was Su Mei''s first time in a daze from shock, her mouth was in the form of an adorable O. "So huge?" "Of course, it''s the Demon Capital!" Although I was not the one to have built it, it would be my future City, so it could not be helped that I was proud of it. "I had the image of a City resembling our Hundred Flower Valley! So it''s actually so big? This¡­.this...is practically a Capital!" "It IS a Capital! Why do you think this ce is called Demon Capital*? Isn''t it because this is the Capital of the Dark Faction?" "Powerful This City has almost the same size as the System''s Three Main Cities! And it seems to be even bigger!" "Of course, there are three Main Cities, there''s only one Demon Capital if we don''t make it big, won''t we lose face?" "Quick, bring me to go and take a look." I hesitated for a moment. "All the grooves on the city walls are human skulls, you''re not afraid?" "So what? Aren''t they a part of the human biology? What''s there to be afraid of!" God! Was she truly a young girl? I shook my head and brought her towards the side of the City. Right when we arrived at the wall, Little Su Mei jumped down from my arms and rushed to the wall. She stood at the wall, ced her hand on the wall and looked up. I walked over and looked up as well. 450 meters of height was equivalent to about a hundred floors, standing at the foot of the wall, the view looked as though the wall was stretched to the sky, the wall was slightly nted, but not only did it not affect the entire feel of the wall but even made it more majestic. We were currently situated at the entrance of the City, which was the passageway. From our position, the 30 meters wide passageway looked like a path straight to Heaven, but the huge lofty form of the structure made the passageway look extremely narrow, in truth, the City Gates of the 3 Main Cities were less than 16 meters wide, but this passageway was already close to twice its size. Su Mei suddenly knocked on the wall, then extended a hand out to me. "Give me something sharp." "What are you doing?" "Forget it, you do it!" Su Mei pointed to the wall: "Smash this part right here!" "Oh!" Although her actions were suspicious, I still listened to her and used the Dragon Lance onto the position that she had specified. With a ''nk'', the Dragon Lance unleashed sparks but was ricocheted off. "F*ck! What''s this made of, to be able to deflect an artifact grade equip. Su Mei inspected the ce which was struck, then used her finger to touch and licked it, then nodded her head. "Not too bad!" "What''s not too bad? You made me do manualbor, can you at least tell me what''s going on?" "Your city''s location is really good!" "Bullshit! You don''t need to do that just to tell me that!" "The entire wall and foundation of this city are formed from an entire crystallized rock which is extremely rare! When our Hundred Flower Valley was built, we spent a great deal of effort just to purchase many small crystallized rocks to build the discussion hall for our City, I never thought that your entire City to be built out of the crystallized rock! It''s really unfair!" "Is this rock very precious?" My side ss was not a miner, so I had no knowledge of excavating or mining rocks. "These crystallized rocks are definitely precious and valuable because it isn''t sold anywhere. When yers build cities, they usually head to the NPC miners to purchase rocks to build their cities, but these Miners never sell such crystallized rocks. Our Crystallized Crystals were all purchased from yers. The output of this rock is extremely low, and every time it is found, there''s only a bit of it, it is impossible to procure arge quantity of it at once, to be able to use it to build a discussion hall is already considered fortunate!" "What advantage does it have to be rated so well?" "It is extremely tough and has an extremely high defense, even if a Crystal Cannon were to shoot straight at it, it would only be able to destroy a small bit of the wall. To want topletely destroy an entire City made out of the rock, one needs to shoot the Crystal Cannon repeatedly over 10 times. For this wall of yours, I think that one cannon isn''t enough for it to fall! I am afraid that even before the wall falls, the Crystal rock within the Crystal Cannon would already be used up!" "Hehe! I never knew that my wall would be such a good thing!" "The Iron Fortress does not have a moat, the city walls must be built like this for the sake of oveing this weakness! Ok, bring me in, I want to take a look!" I summoned Night Shade and carried Su Mei up. Although the passageway entrance was littered with rocks and boulders, the current Night Shade was muchrger and could easily jump between them. After passing through with ease, we reached a t pathway. Su Mei immediately noticed the Spirit Gathering Tower in the center. It was ced right at the center of the city, so it could be seen from the entrance. "What''s that?" _______________________________________________________________ "That''s the Spirit Gathering Tower, the center of the City. Above it should have been the original Dark Shrine." "Oh! This is a really good design!" Su Mei urged me to quicken our pace. Upon reaching the end of the passageway, Su Mei immediately sensed the magnitude of the City, the colossusnd was sufficient to call it arge-scale City. Thend within the city was filled with rubble, although it was messy, we were able to take in the entire view of the City. "Let''s go, I''ll bring you to the top of the tower." "Wait!" Su Mei suddenly wanted to go down. I could only bring her down, where Su Mei directly ran to the side of the streets and started to flip through the rubble. After a while, she turned back and shouted to me: "Help me to lift these things!" I looked at therge debris and helped her lift it up. Although there were many pieces all around, the ce where we were cleaning up was not huge, and we quickly cleared the area. Su Mei carefully researched the ground and even used her hands to grope about in the ditch. I could no longer hold back, so I walked over and asked: "What are you trying to find?" "A passageway!" "Passageway?" "The surface of this Iron Fortress has a good drainage system and an imperviousyer, usually Cities would not need such things, the only possibility is that the City has an underground structure!" "You''re saying that the Iron Fortress has a City underneath?" "I''m afraid it isn''t as simple like that! My side ss is an Architect close to Level 18, but even with this level, I''m actually unable to see through the entire design of this drainage system! Usually, with my level, I can easily make out all the designs andpositions of a City, but aside from theposition of the city walls of this city, I can''t make out anything else!" "It can''t be that abstruse right? From the way you say it, I now feel as though we are looking for some mysterious Mayan Civilization!" "You better not say such things, who knows if we truly find something like that below!" "But there are no entrances here!" "That is why I''m trying to look for it!" Su Mei started to probe about the ditch, she went along the road and probed until she reached the bottom of the Spirit Gathering Tower. The drainage system on the surface did not flow out of the city but converged at the bottom of the stage. We walked around the base for a few rounds but did not see anything strange, it was so t that there was not even a crack that could possibly be an entrance! Oh right, isn''t Ling a Dark Goddess? She might know of the Demon Capital''sposition! I summoned Ling and Scott out, the two of them were figures that wielded authority in the Dark Faction and should be more knowledgeable. "Do the two of you know if the Iron Fortress has anything like an underground City of some sort?" "Underground City? I''m not too sure about that, I''m not the Iron Fortress'' guard!" Scott might not have been in a high position so he did not know about it! But it was Ling''s reply that exceeded my expectation. "You''re asking about an underground City? Isn''t the Iron Fortress an Underground City by itself?" "What? The Iron Fortress is an underground City? Aside from the walls that are slightly higher, this ce is no different from a normal City!" Su Mei questioned her in disbelief. "This IS the underground City! We are currently standing on the Iron Fortress'' roof, the real city is beneath the ground. This is just the original Dark Shrine''s scope, the wall you see there is just the inner wall, we actually have an outer wall! The forest outside is actually part of the City." It was truly explosive news! The giant Iron Fortress was actually just the tip of the iceberg, the entire City was beneath the ground! "The City was already like that, or was it plunged into the ground?" Su Mei seemed to have grasped the crux of the question. "The main bulk of the Iron Fortress was originally above the ground, but in the Holy War, the Light Shrine sacrificed 3 of their Light Main Gods and 3000 high-level Angels to activate a God Seal, resulting in the Iron Fortress submerging 500 meters into the ground, so the original city submerged below, and the Shrine was mistaken for the City instead!" "F*ck, so drastic? ording to what you have said, wouldn''t that mean that the Iron Fortress size should be more than 10 times the current size?" "To be urate, it is 9 times more, and that is just the surface size. In fact, even if we were not submerged, the Iron Fortress itself already had an underground area. This is a dual surface City where the City consists of an identical city above ground and underground, just that the underground part was inverted! If you are able to lift the entire Iron Fortress up, you will be able to see that the Iron Fortress is, in fact, two cities ced upon each other." "What a terrifying City!" Su Mei mumbled to herself. "Is there a way to force the City to rise?" My hope was to be able to do something that would allow the City to rise, think about it, 9 times the size, twoyers of walls, wouldn''t that be the number one City in the world? "I do have an idea, but it''s troublesome!" "What is it, tell me!" "As long as you have the Light Star from the Light Shrine and the Dark Star from the Dark Shrine, it''ll do!" "What! It will be fine if it was just the Dark Shrine, but even the Light Shrine? Isn''t that asking me to die?" Su Mei suddenly screamed. "That day when you apanied me to the Light Shrine and was mistaken by the Priest, wasn''t there a mention about some Ring?" "You''re talking about the Ring of Light?" "As long as you have the Ring of Light, you can enter the Light Shrine uprightly, wouldn''t it be fine if you ask for the Light Star then?" "You''re really cunning to be able to think of that!" "Then are we still going to take a look at the City?" I asked Su Mei. "What else is there to see? The City''s surface is 9 times the size, adding the underground City, that would be 18 times the size, what''s the point of me looking now, we should quickly find a way to obtain those Stars. Oh right, I want to join your guild, invite me!" "Join my guild? Don''t you have your own Guild?" "I will leave it now!" Su Mei immediately applied to leave the guild, then PM''ed Red Cloud to help her quit. Upon joining a guild, it would not be easy to leave, an application to leave could be submitted or a force quit could be initiated. The application would also require the Guild Leader and 50% of the Core Members to agree so that it would affect a person''s stats. A force quit would not require going through the Core Members and the yer could leave directly, but that would result in a drop in level and even an increase in Evil Value! "Alright, I have left, invite me!" "Why do you want to join our Guild? Didn''t you say your Hundred Flower Valley have more members than mine?" "So what if they have more members? Our guild is so poor that we are on the verge of death, most of the money spent on building the City was barely scraped by everyone. It took so much effort, but in the end, our City was built there, it is no different from a county town, how can itpare to your City, this is basically a municipality, no, when the entire city gets raised, it will be even bigger than one in the future!" "So in the end, you''re joining us because of my City?" "Humph, at this age, to have a beauty, one must need money, car, and home. I am after all a beauty, and you have all of it, of course, I have to follow you!" I became confused from listening to her, how could a girl her age have thought about so much? "Since when did I have money, cars, and home?" "When you brought me to Sky City to buy things, you always chose the product first before asking the price, and you never ever tried to bargain for it, this means that you are very rich!" "Oh my god! I''m just like that, I''m a person who buys things and never liked bargaining, all men are like this!" "You don''t have to say it, in any case, you''re notcking in money, that''s for sure! Along the way, you called that Night Shade your mount, in [Zero], it should already be considered a Ferrari, no one could ever catch up to us, so it is definitely considered a luxurious car! Furthermore, you have so many Dragons, they are all private nes!" "You can even think of it as such? Night Shade just runs faster than the rest, even if it was considered a Ferrari, you mean to say that all mounts that can fly are considered private nes, then what about Aldeina and Ling? Private secretaries?" "Who cares about them, isn''t this Iron Fortress sort of considered as your City? How can I hesitate about such a big house, there will never be a houserger than yours!" "F*ck!" "I don''t care, you have to let me join you! If not, I''ll cry!" "Ok ok ok, you mustn''t cry, I can''t handle your vicious method at all!" I invited Su Mei to join the Guild to which she immediately epted then happily jumped onto me. "Big Brother is the best,e here, I''ll seal the deal for you!" With that, she kissed my cheek, she was truly a little devil in human skin! But the rather mature actions and thoughtsing from the 10-year-old Su Mei was truly too adorable, she was not like any other growing and pampered girls. A child prodigy was truly a child prodigy, after all, she was only 10 years old, her life experiences would never be that of an adult! After the matter, I teleported the both of us to Lost City, our goal was the Dark Shrine, no matter what, we had to have the Shrine''s approval for the City Building in our hands, otherwise, even if we had the Light Star or the Dark Star, they would be useless! -------- (*) It turns out that despite being a name, the ¶¼ du in Modu actually hints on it being a Capital. I''ll change Modu to Demon Capital as of now. In the conversation when Ziri brings Su Mei to the city, it might seem a little strange in the context of English. But in Chinese, the term Capital (Ê׶¼) is called (sh¨¯u d¨±) (google it to listen to its pronunciation), while Modu, or the Demon Capital, ħ¶¼ is (M¨® d¨±), which is in fact a nickname for Shanghai. So the conversation went on about how Su Mei was shocked that the City was so huge, and stated that it resembled a capital to which Ziri replied her by confirming that it WAS a capital, and emphasized its name of ħ¶¼(M¨® d¨±). In the Chinese Language, the name can be seen as a noun or if the Mo and Du are separated, it bes Demon Capital. So if you feel that the conversation went on weirdly, do understand that it is a y on the words. Chapter 167: Infiltration of Allied Forces [Vol 5 Chapter 18] Chapter 167: Infiltration of Allied Forces [Vol 5 Chapter 18] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry When we came out of Lost City''s Teleport station, Su Mei immediately became restless. "Put me down now!" I put her down on the ground and she immediately took off to the structure by the side and touched it. "Oh my god! This is simply perfection! What is this ce? Why are there such glorious buildings! They''re too beautiful, I want to see the designer!" "Silly girl, this isn''t a yer City, this is the Dark Shrine, one of the three Darkness regions!" "You''re saying that this is a Red Name Vige?" Truly a little genius, her knowledge was different from others and would always hit the nail on the head! "It''s not as bad as a Red Name Vige, but it''s somewhat like that!" "What pretty structure style! The designers must definitely have gone through a great number of historic documents to do this, all of this here is the first-ss products of Losert''s buildings, the ssics!" "I don''t know the Losert Style in which you are talking about, I don''t deal with buildings, I only feel that this ce is very grand." "But of course! Aside from its grandness, the true quintessence of it is the overwhelming pressure on people that makes them unable to breathe, it is truly hard to believe, but such structures actually exists!" "Alright, let us move now! If you keep on looking around like that, we won''t even leave the City area by tomorrow!" Talking about time, it suddenly dawned on me. I had gone online at night because I could not sleep, but by the time I met Red Cloud, it was already morning and the current time was already noon, which meant that I had actually not slept for over 30 hours? How was I not tired at all? Furthermore, I had been in the game for so long yet the Game mechanism did not kick me out! It was truly weird! "What''re you thinking about?" Su Mei came over and nudged at my tummy, she could only reach so high. "Oh! Nothing much, I suddenly recalled that I might have exceeded the 24-hour timeframe of not logging out, the system restriction actually did not kick me out." Su Mei revealed a look of surprise: "You didn''t see the announcement?" "What am I missing out on again?" Why was I always informed about the system update by others! I truly had to me [Zero] for the dynamic system information log, every gain in level did not require opening the log, resulting in me not even knowing when I would level! "The system log''stest reminder was that the time restriction has been removed, and they have started to use an even more advanced scientific method where they would observe the yers'' brain wave equilibrium to determine if they are fit to y or not. The system will constantly check on the yer''s brain activity and if they discover that the fatigue level of the yer''s mind has reached a certain value, they will remind the yer to go offline or directly use the sleep function to assist in rest, if the yer ignores the reminder and umtes the fatigue, the system will forcefully kick him out. You did not receive any reminders or get forcefully kicked out, which means your brain activity is functioning as per normal and does not have any sign of fatigue, so the system allows you to continue ying." "But I haven''t slept for over 30 hours, and I''m still not tired? Could it be that my Game Helmet has some hardware issues?" "I don''t know about that! I''m not a staff in Dragon Fate." "Oh right! I''ll go find Scofield and ask him another day." "What?" "Huh, no! I meant I''ll go check with the service." Shit! What a slip of tongue! Scofield was Dragon Fate''s chief designer in electromechanical engineering, he was the one who personally designed the Game Helmet, and if I had any questions or problems about it, I would definitely go straight to him. But I could not say that to anyone else, whoever heard of someone''s Windows having a problem and seeking Bill Gates to fix it? "Are you hiding something from me?" The little Devil immediately knew that I was lying, being too clever can never always be a good thing! "How dare I!" "You are! You didn''t say customer service at first but Scofield!" Seriously! This little girl''s ears were truly sharp! "What''s Scofield? Is that a cold beverage?" I started to use my act dumb move. "Scofield is the Dragon Fate''s chief designer in electromechanical engineering and he is responsible for the Helmet. For you to say his name means you know him, and the rtionship is definitely not shallow." At that moment, I thought she was Sherlock Holmes'' daughter?! "How can I! How will I ever know such a figure!" "Humph! Don''t feign dumb with me! You know him!" I knew that persisting to deny it was impossible, acting dumb was ineffective, so I started to employ a reverse psychology move. "Yes, I know him, I know ALL the Dragon Fate higher-ups, Dragon Fate President is my father and I am the young master of Dragon Fate!" Hehe, that was actually the truth, but I spoke it in a way that no one will ever be able to make sense whether it was the truth or lie. "You''re truly no ordinary person! That''s why I was asking why you were so generous, so it turns out you''re super wealthy!" Su Mei seemed to believe my words, and my reverse psychology failed. But hertter words almost made me fall to the ground. "Television says that men that have money will turn bad, but a woman must turn bad to have money. So I will be bad and follow you, a super wealthy man, so I will have money in the future! But you cannot turn bad, if you dare to be bad to me, I''ll die for you to see!" I finally knew where the little girl learned all of this nonsense from! She had watched too much of television, China was constantly ying all of those rtionship and messy shows, whatever family dispute and drama that tugs on the emotions, were there no other better shows to y? See what happened to the next generation of children! "You''re just a child, what do you need so much money for?!" "I have a use for it, you don''t need to know!" Su Mei''s expression suddenly turned down and hurt, she definitely had some important reason to need money, otherwise, she would never have portrayed such an emotion. But I could not think of a reason for why a 10-year-old was in such an urgent need for money! Furthermore, it seemed to be arge capital that she was worried about, otherwise with her adorable personality and being at such a young age, how could the adults in her family not give her money. At least I knew for myself that if I had such a child, as long as the family could afford it, I would always give her what she wanted. "Let''s not talk about this now, I''m feeling uneasy, I''ll go offline and ask the customer service and catch up on my sleep as well." Upon hearing that I was going offline, Little Su Mei immediately became anxious. "What am I going to do if you go offline? Are you throwing me alone here?" "Don''t worry about it, I''ll bring you to see rk, he is the cksmith around here, you can research equipment designs or whatever civil engineering that you want. Wherever you want to go, ask rk to bring you around, just don''t leave the premises." "Is rk an NPC or a yer?" "An NPC of course! Why?" "NPCs can run wherever they want? And a cksmith can hold a concurrent post of a tour guide?" "I don''t know about the other cities, but this city is extremely messy and the NPCs here like to run all around. But don''t worry about it, rk is my big brother, you''ll be safe with him." "Then I really want to meet him, to actually have such exaggerated NPCs in the game!" I brought Su Mei over to rk''s shop but he was not around. With my experience, I headed straight for sister-inw''s clothing shop, he was definitely there with her! As expected, when we arrived, rk was there. "Third brother, what''re you doing here?" "I just knew that you were here! I need your help!" "Did you spoil your equipment again?" rk had fixed my equipment a couple of times, and most likely had a fear of artifact grade equipment. "How did you know? I came here just to fix equipment. But there are other matters as well." I pushed Su Mei in front. "I have some things to do and need to leave for a while, this is my younger sister, can you help me take care of her?" "Woah! What an adorable youngdy! Comee,e to aunty." Sister-inw became very enthusiastic. "Then I''ll hand Su Mei over to you guys, I''ll head off first." "Don''t worry about it!" rk pulled Su Mei over to his side. "We''re all here!" "Alright, bye!" I immediately remembered that I had overlooked passing my equipment over to rk to be repaired, but after thinking about it, I gave it a pass. I coulde back online to repair it! Suddenly feeling hunger pangs, I decided to leave the house to find food. Unknowingly, a new set of clothes had been ced by my bedside, obviously for me. After changing, I realized that it was the security force''sbat clothes. After changing, I headed out the door. DONG! "Ouch!" I banged into the door. ____________________________________________________________________________________ All of the rooms in the base used automatic doors and would open when a person got close to it, but when I walked towards the door, it did not open, resulting in my knocking my head, luckily I did not move too quickly! After pacing back and forth a few times, the door still did not react. I waved my hand over the sensor, but the system still remained motionless. I had no other choice but to manually open the door, there was a handle that could be used with the average strength to open the door. Creaakk! I turned the handle but found out that the mechanism was locked. The door was not spoilt, it was locked! What''s going on? Dad knew that I''m in here, there isn''t any reason to lock me in! Forget it, I''ll find my way out first. I curled my hand into a fist and punched towards the position of the lock. The entire lock broke and flew out. Being in a resting room which was not a key instation, the materials used to make the door was weak and not sturdy, with the B13, I could easily destroy such doors. With the door lock gone, I pulled the hole to the side and bent the metal door. It took a toll on me, but I managed to form a hole and crawled through. There was no one in the corridor, which was normal, no one would be in the rest area in the afternoon, if they were, they would be considered skiving. I headed straight for the cafeteria, but strangely, no one was there. It didn''t make any sense! The clock on the wall showed 12:20, so the majority of the personnel should be in the cafeteria, right? Why wasn''t anyone present? BANG! A gunshot suddenly broke the silence and a researcher dressed in white gown stumbled in from another corridor and fell with his eyes wide opened. I could see the pleading look in his eyes, but he did not have the time to say anything. It was a hole of blood on the back of the researcher, the gun sound most likely aimed at him. His right hand was extended above him with a metal jar. From my position, I could clearly see the hazardous substance symbol on the jar. It was Dragon Fate''s base trademark jar to store dangerous biological products, but no one would know what was inside. But the gunshots within the base was definitely against the rules. The base had just been ambushed before, could it be that the researcher was a second spy? That was impossible, the spy would not seek help from me, the base people would never open fire in the base, so the person who fired was definitely not from Dragon Fate. With this cognition, I quickly flipped and hid behind the cafeteria counter. The fixed marble counter easy concealed my entire body. I relied on my hearing to determine the other party''s position while my eyes seemed to be able to see their body temperatures, even while being obstructed by the marble counter, I could easily pinpoint their locations. It was no wonder why the B13 was called the God-maker n, it strengthened the body to such a miraculous state almost to the state of being a God! 3 of them entered the cafeteria where one of them knelt down to inspect the body, while the other two conversed with one another. God damn it, they were speaking in Japanese! I quickly adjusted my brain wave frequency and increased my own metabolism, as long as I could raise it high enough, a human person''s speed would seem to turn slowly to me. I unleashed a great force and leaped out from behind the counter, but with my strengthened body matched with my hyperactive brain, the three of them were put down by me by the time they reacted. I only knew some simple defensive techniques, in theory, I would be slightly more powerful than an average Joe, but with my current speed 50x a normal person, even the dumbest of movements would be made up for by speed. The three of them were dressed in ck urbanbat clothes where only Japan or the US used, obviously from some Special Forces, while our Dragon Fatebat clothes were silver. Due to my focus on speed, I did not pay attention to my strength, all three of their necks seemed to have broke, they were not dead, but most probably they would never walk again. I did not take their guns but found a dagger on one of them, with my speed, a cold weapon was far more suitable for me than a gun. I took the metal jar from the researcher''s hands and had a look at it, it had a fingerprint lock at its base and a pin number code as double insurance, I used my hand to press down then put in my personal pin code. The seal opened with the vacuum being unsealed and a jar immediately popped open, revealing a test tube. I grabbed onto it and pulled it out. "M24?" I blurted out. This was Dragon Fate''s confidential research product for China''s Special Forces, through an intravenous injection, the user will gain superhuman strength and reaction for 12 hours, but would immediately have a severe hypersomnia after the 12 hours and have to go through 24 hours of high-quality sleep to recover. But even so, the Special Forces still admired this product greatly, using it for their jobs allows their mortality rate to fall by 80%, and was definitely something they loved! It could be used to preserve their lives and evenze around officially after the mission, only a fool would hate it. The Japanese definitely coveted it and wanted to recreate one themselves! I closed back the jar and concealed it inside the air duct in the cafeteria. I ran into the passageway where the 3 of them came in from and quickly reached the end with my speed. Inside theboratory, there were over 10 researchers scattered around different equipment and apparatus. They were obviously from different divisions, a group of them were dressed in the same ckbat clothes, another group was dressed in ck and white camougebat clothes while another group was in earth yellowbat clothes. All of them would converse in English from time to time, that revealed the two other groups were obviously not from Japan. The room had too many people, even with my speed, I might not be able to take on all of them. Right when I was thinking about what I could do, a hand suddenly patted my back from behind which shocked me and almost caused me to cry out. "Ssh¡­!" I turned back to see a researcher who had his finger on his lips, telling me not to make a sound. He indicated for me to follow him to which I did. The researcher brought me into the lift then closed the door. "Are you security?" The researcher did not recognize me. "I''m not security but I don''t have time to exin it to you, just tell me what happened here?" Although he was suspicious of my identity, he still exined: "These men suddenly appeared around 11:30, they had around a few thousand men with them." "A few thousand?" I was alone if I fought against a few thousand people, wouldn''t I be simply throwing my life away?! "They came from all directions, it seems like they came separately but after that, they worked together. Their equipment are extremely advanced and our outside security ispletely overwhelmed, they might still be fighting outside." "Did they force their way in here?" "It seems like it!" "It''s not enough that they lost thest time, this time they are actually robbing us openly! The Japs are really arrogant!" "It''s not only the Japs! Coincidentally, the lift malfunctioned today, since I''m in engineering, I decided to take a look to see if I could fix it. They suddenly rushed into the lift just as I was fixing the motor above the lift, fortunately, I wasn''t discovered. I listened to their conversation, they seem to be formed out of 3 groups, the ck is the Japanese, the ck and white are Americans and the yellow are the British!" "No wonder it is such arge scale infiltration, the International Police are here!" "Uponing, they immediately broke the base''s power, they then gathered all the researchers. They are now in thebs trying to take control and duplicate our data." "What? How can we allow that we need to stop them." If Dragon Fate''s data were taken away, how could we still y at the top? The researcher pulled me. "Wait a minute. Let them make a copy, those are all encrypted data, without our key sequencing and program, they can''t open it!" "That won''t do, with sufficient time, they can break the encryption, we can''t let them walk away with our data. I will think of something, you just hide here!" Alone, I jumped out of the lift and quietly grasped my way to thest defense control room, but what stunned me was that the entire corridor had been blown apart! Without it, I could only think of another way. Oh right, Lil White could help! Lil White was theb''s only sessful bioengineered battle beast after it''s creation, there were no other bioengineered battle beasts that were satisfying enough, and it was even an ident! Lil White''s appearance was that of arge white dog and looked like a wolf-dog, aside from me or the other researchers that were present for its birth, it would not listen to anyone else. It might have been because animals would naturally treat the first thing they see as their parents, so aside from me and the other researchers, no one could control it. I remembered that it was groomed in the Danger Biology Lab, hopefully, it did not change ce! I sprinted towards theb and when from a distance, I could see blood stters across the outside of theb, with many human parts andponents scattered all around. From the looks of the clothes and metal helmets, they were most probably from the 3 Japs and 2 Americans, but now they were ravaged to the point of being unrecognizable! I circled around the blood and entered theb, Lil White''s 100 square meter cage was actually empty, the superalloy fence had been twisted and worn out, with blood and bullet holes across the entire walls! Sprawled on the ground were two researchers seemingly dead from gunshots. I flipped their bodies over, to realize that they were Lil White''s caretakers. The two of them were fortunate to witness Lil White''s birth, usually, only they were able to enter the cage to feed Lil White or do tests on him. Now that the two of them were dead and the cage was twisted so badly, it meant only one thing, Lil White had run out. The 5 helmets outside meant that the 5 unfortunate fools had encountered Lil White and were ripped to shreds! Suddenly, I sensed movements behind me, with my ultra, heightened reaction and speed, I turned back, but I was a step toote. A gigantic and white figure pounced on me and flipped me to the ground. This thing was faster than me, a person who had speed 50x that of an average person, it actually caught me off guard, and a big bloodied mouth extended towards my face. Chapter 168: Hijack [Vol 5 Chapter 19] Chapter 168: Hijack [Vol 5 Chapter 19] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Due to fear, I instinctively closed my eyes, but the anticipated pain did note, instead, arge and slippery tongue licked my face over and over again, resulting in me having a face covered with blood and saliva. "Lil White¡­.ah¡­.quickly get off me¡­.stop licking¡­.stop licking my face!" After exerting arge amount of strength, I finally pushed the enthusiastic Lil White off my body, he was already the size of a young calf and was heavy as hell! "Wooof!" Lil White wagged his tail happily and jumped about, luckily he had not forgotten about me! "Sssh! Don''t make a sound!" I used hand gestures and got it to sit. To me, the ferocious Lil White was an extremely obedient military dog. "Ok, listen well, don''t make a sound and follow me! Alright, up!" Lil White obeyed mymands and followed me out of theb towards the data storage facility. Along the way, we encountered other infiltrators and easily got rid of them together. We finally arrived at the data storage facility, everyone inside hadpleted their tasking and were waiting for their high pressured explosives to blow up the disks. I gave Lil White the gesture to charge, and he immediately charged into theb like a lightning bolt to which I jumped in right behind. Although we were fast, we still encountered counterattacks. BANG! BANG! Gunshots could be heard. Furthermore, it was of arge caliber. I suddenly felt a hot sensation from my stomach and I knew that I was shot. Although I did not felt any pain, I knew that the heat was from a bullet. "Ah!" I stood stationary and looked at the arm size hole in my stomach. An unknown burst of strength suddenly came out of nowhere, and with one hand, I twisted the shooter''s hand. Crack! The sound of the metal distortion and his scream came out, I had squashed both the man''s hand and the gun together into a ball. There were no other sounds behind me, Lil White''s efficiency was much higher than mine, aside from me, there were no other perfect bodies inside the room. Despite the hole in my stomach, I was not affected much by it and my physique felt fine. I did not have the time for it, so I took out a bandage from one of the corpses and did a simple first aid on myself. The guy who had his hand knead into a meatball was still howling on the ground. After handling my wound, I walked over and grabbed his shoulders with both hands and applied pressure. Crack! His entire shoulder des instantly turned into pieces, ignoring his screams, I grabbed onto his thighs and ttened them out. At that moment, he fainted due to the immense pain. I still ignored him, and lightly grabbed his chin, then crushed it into fine powder. He was immobilized and could no longer bite his own tongue off. All of it was to keep him as a captive for interrogation! After settling everything, I led Lil White out of the base. It was within my expectations, the big doors of the base had been sealed shut! It seemed like the idea of one entrance for the sake of safety was actually a mistake! Lil White shed forward and got rid of the sentries by the side. I activated the manual override for the doors, allowing the thick and gigantic copper doors to gradually rise up. When the doors opened, the backs of a few ck clothed Special Forces retreated, they were obviously the enemies that assumed theirpanions hadpleted their tasks and had arrived, but in truth, it was Lil White and me behind the doors. The row of people at the entrance immediately sensed that something was wrong, and immediately turned back and attempted to kill me. A pity though, the moment they turned back, they met with a powerful barrage of firepower and became filled with holes. The first to rush into the base was a few spider-like androids. As they were able to identify me, they automatically rushed past me and entered the base. More troops quickly followed behind. The few vanguard robots rushed past without attacking me due to my uniform, while the people behind naturally recognized me as a member of the security force, thus no one came to stop me. I walked out of the base, exhausted, and arrived at the sloped public square, it was originally t but had turned into a bomb crater, an American made N4 semi-android that was affected and had its leg missingid near the entrance, while a British made UT2 invisible chopperid on the mountain opposite with smoke rising from it. Inside the base doors was an upside down armored vehicle that was also emitting smoke. All of these things were top-grade technological advances that belonged to the various countries, they actually treated our Dragon Fate as a test and brought all of their tests over. Near my feet was a strange corpse, his upper body was flickering in between being visible and invisible. When I moved towards him and touched him, I realized it was actually a camouge uniform, it was no wonder they were able to infiltrate Dragon Fate''s Base so easily! "Young Master! We finally found you!" It was actually Long An who ran over. "How''s the situation? What''s the casualty count?" "It is extremely serious, the security forces had a death toll of 631 people with even more injured! We lost half of our androids as well! As for the researchers inside the base, we are still unsure!" "Did any of them manage to escape?" "Two managed to run off! They are both westerners." Long An suddenly noticed the bandage on my body. "Young Master, are you injured?" "I got shot once! Oh right, there is a hostage inside the data storage facility, I''ve rendered him a cripple, tell the guys to use the psych machine to extract all his memories, we don''t have time to extort a confession out of him!" The psych machine was not like any mind ess device, this thing could forcefully extract a person''s data and even their unconscious information could be dug out. But this machine harms the victim, it would cause the victim a pain so tremendous that they would wish to die a quicker death, and the pain would continue to increase before ending. Those that undergo this cruel extraction would always die due to organ failure, it had the ill reputation of being the worst way to die! "Medic!" Long An called for a medic. A young medic quickly ran over and clumsily cut away my self-applied bandage. To our shock, the skin revealed was actuallypletely fine. The hole in my stomach had actually disappeared! "Go and take a look at the other injured people!" Long An knew that I had B13, and quickly sent the medic away. "The B13 is really powerful!" He carefully inspected the "wound" on my stomach, the skin and muscles were already regrown but blood traces still existed. "If my soldiers had your abilities, I won''t have to worry so much!" "Hehe! But a pity the B13 is not stable, some people are suitable for it but some will reject it!" "Not good! Not good! Ouch!" An old researcher stumbled out of the base doors and upon seeing us, he rushed over. "Not good, not good at all!" "What''s not good?" "The Bio-Source System was taken away!" "What?" Long An and I cried out at the same time. This Bio-Source System was a keyponent of a biputer, as long as one initiated an education and nurture for it, one would be able to obtain aplete biputer. [Zero] was able to sustain so many yers online at the same time was because [Zero]''s key central server, Nuwa, was a biputer. In the entire world, only Dragon Fate had revolutionized and made the biputer practical, the U.S and Europe were still focused on the direction of electronicputers. Although our biputers were not powerful in terms of calctive abilities like that of the Americans, the Americans'' electronic calctions were already at their limited potential, to want to improve their potential was already extremely difficult while our biputer was only at its beginning and still had a lot of potential to be tapped into. It was no wonder why the Americans and the Japanese were willing to huddle up and attempt such a risky venture, it was for the sake of the Bio-Source System! "After infiltrating our base, they went straight for the Bio-Source System then retreated, the rest was just to confuse us to think that they were stealing our data!" "Commander Long, I''ll hand this ce over to you, I need to chase them!" We could not allow the Japs to have a Biputer. ____________________________________________________________________ "Should I send a few men to follow you?" Long An was worried about my safety. I patted Lil White. "No need, I have him! Just give me a gun." Long An immediately passed me his personal pistol and handed three magazines. "Be careful, it has a strong caliber!" "Got it!" I stooped down and picked up one of the intruder''s clothing and let Lil White smell it. "Lil White, bring me to chase after them!" Lil White immediately rushed out of thepound while I ran over to a motorbike lying by the side, lifted it up and gave chase. Lil White was extremely fast and the maximum speed of the motorbike was unable to catch up to him, but Lil White would stop asionally for me. Out of the base, we quickly arrived on the main road. The other party obviously had people receiving them with the two obvious skid marks on the road. I sped down the main road and continued to out of the city towards the airport. I instantly figured that they might be transporting the goods out by civil aviation. We stopped at the entrance of the airport, I could not care about the motorbike as I threw it to the roadside and ran straight in. Due to my unruly and fearsome entrance and Lil White''s looks, the airport security quickly ran over. We were not in an airport under Dragon Fate, so I could not use my Identity to get past them. "Sir!" Five security guards quickly stopped me, all of them had their taser rods in hand and looked to be ready to pounce on me at any time. I grabbed onto the Dragon Fate emblem on my clothes and showed it to them. "I am a Security Force member of Dragon Fate, our headquarters had just been infiltrated by others and they have stolen something from us and entered this airport. I hope that you can amodate to me." "Sorry sir, just by relying on your clothes¡­.we truly cant¡­..!" The security guards obviously did not believe me. "Can you follow us to the security room and exin everything to us?" I could not be bothered to exin to him and turned to Lil White. "Did you find them?" Lil White did his utmost to distinguish the scents due to the human traffic in the airport. The scent had be chaotic and for some time, Lil White was unable to make out the direction. I pressed a hidden button on my watch. "Get me Long An!" "Young master, how is it?" "I am currently at Bo Xi International Airport, after getting here, we didn''t manage to see anyone. The security doesn''t believe me, so they are not willing to amodate for me!" "What do you need us to do?" I put my wrist down and told the security guard: "Did a ne take flight within the half hour before?" Although the security guard gave me a look of disdain, he still answered me. "No, thetest flight lifted off 50 minutes ago." "Then will there be any taking off soon?" The guard turned back and took a look at therge screen. "There is one due to take off in 5 minutes, to one of Japan''s new Ind." "That''s the one! You can''t let it fly! Quickly get the control tower to prevent it from flying!" "Sir, please don''t make any more troubles! Let us do our job and follow me!" The other party replied and started to reach out to me. Lil White tensed up and moved into a hostile stance, its ring and bright canines were revealed, causing the guard to immediately retract his hand. I raised up my wrist and spoke to the other side. "Long An, get me B1!" B1 was Dragon Fate''s bio-engineered force, the members of B1 had voluntarily epted experiments and transformations to their bodies in which Butterfly and Big K belonged in. As B1 did not conform to internationalws, the country had ced it under Dragon Fate and became an unknown ck Ops. "You want to mobilize them?" "I want them to be in Bo Xi International Airport in 5 minutes, a ne heading towards Japan is departing soon." "Roger that!" Roughly 10 secondster, Long An''s voice came out again. "They are already en route, but I am afraid they can''t make it! It is impossible for them to arrive in 5 minutes!" "I got it. Let SSC Air Support be on standby, if we can''t make it, we will force the ne to surrender." SSC was Dragon Fate''s technologically advanced experimental air squadron, in name, they were to test new nes but in truth, they were Special Aerial Forces with authority within the country and specially groomed Special Pilots to utilize unique Units for the Country. "Then what if the other party is in control of the flight crew or the flight crew are Japanese?" "We will have to strike the ne down, the central authorities will agree to it, if the data and secrets of the biputer are to be leaked, then the number of people dying won''t stop at just one ne!" "I understand! SSC will take yourmand!" "Sir, please cooperate with us, if not the matters will not be simple anymore!" The security guards had lost their patience and the sirens outside of the airport gates informed me that the police had arrived. A few policemen rushed in with a fat man in the lead." What''s going on here?" The airport security and the police frequently worked together, so they were extremely familiar with each other. The head of the security immediately informed the police: "This man is dressed strangely and brought such a huge dog. We are afraid that he is a terrorist." "What did you say?" "What''re you doing here? What are you doing here?" The fat policeman used the antenna of his walkie-talkie to point at me. "I''ve seen many of you young children, don''t be too scared. Am I clear?" "The ones about to take off are Japan spies, they have taken valuable data, if we don''t stop them now, it''ll be toote! I''m trying to ensure the safety of everyone here, once the ne takes off, I have no choice but to order for the entire destruction of the airport!" "Bomb the airport? Do you have a fever?" These words simply sounded like a fantasy story to any ordinary men! Right as the atmosphere turned intense, the airport announcement system suddenly sounded off. "Scheduled flight number A8334 to Japan New Ind at 14:10 is about to depart, friends and customers who have not boarded, please line up and board the ne now." "Quickly stop that ne from flying, if it takes off, I have no other choice!" "Stop shouting, disturbing the order of an airport is a serious crime. Follow me!" The police still distrusted me. With a sudden surge of courage, I made a run for it. Of course, the police were not as fast as me, by the time they reacted, I was already 10 meters away. With a single sprint, I was at the stairs to the ne, and what I saw was the ne already on the runway. It was a ne that belonged to a Japanese Aviation Company, and I believed that the crew was all Japanese Spies. I watched through the ss as arge ne that could fit a thousand people moved up the runway. The police finally caught up but without any reaction from me, Lil White moved into a threatening stance and scared the police. I watched as the airport moved on the runway when a ck figure suddenly flew over and 24 ck dots dropped down. They were the B1 Force devices, the 24 ck dots were 24 ck mobile capsules for 24 individuals. 24 burst of smokes came out as the 24 alloy capsulesnded safely. Uponnding, they automatically opened, and 24 people who were dressed the same as me ran out. One of them was most probably themander, with one look, he was able to pinpoint where I was. He pointed to his wrist, indicating me to use the device tomunicate. I quickly opened themunication device. "It''s the ne behind you guys, quickly stop it from flying!" The police behind were already frightened by the people who flew down and no longer said anything. 24 B1 members quickly rushed towards the ne. All these people, wait no, they are like me, they were no longer ssified as humans! Their speed was astronomical and was actually catching up to the ne that was about to take off. The fastest was the captain and two other members while the rest were no longer able to catch up to the ne. I watched as the wheels of the ne started to lift off the ground. The captain that was the fastest leaped up the ne right when it lifted off, and extended his hand backward where another member caught and as pulled up the ne. The third member also jumped but the ne was already in flight, he was unable to catch the captain or the second member''s hand and fell straight to the ground. The ne''s takeoff speed was already at its critical speed of 400 km/h, to which the member was close to matching, so after falling, he started to roll on the ground. But as a B1 member, he had gone through training and was strengthened far more than any ordinary human being, he quickly wrapped himself up into a ball and waited for the momentum to stop before quickly jumping up. Obviously, he did not suffer from any injuries despite the fall. I ran to the departure gate and jumped off directly, followed closely behind by Lil White. The police behind wanted to give chase, but after reaching the departure gate, they no longer dared to give chase. The distance from the gate to the ground was 7 to 8 meters and was not something any ordinary person would dare to jump from. Uponnding, I quickly ran towards the remaining 22 members. "What are the 2 members aboard called?" "Captain A8 and Violent Firepower A13." I picked up themunication device. "A8, A13, can you hear me?" "Roger that!" "The target should be in a unique deep freeze box with two parties who are both Westerners, the airne might have their support as well." "A8 copy, we are already en route to the hold of the ne." "Roger! Wishing you luck!" Right when themunication device ended, a few ck spider-like flying androids swept past the sky, one of them actuallynded right in front of me. They were the SSC Fighter Squadron. Uponnding, the pilot waved to me. "Chairman, we were ordered to receive yourmands, please get on!" I immediately ran over and jumped up the n in 3 steps. Lil White was left behind, he could not fit the ne! We quickly ascended into the air and converged with the rest of the squadron, they were many times faster than ordinary nes and we quickly caught up to the Japanese ne. I spoke to the pilot in front of me: "Get close to the ne, I''m going in!" "Chairman, it''s too dangerous!" "Losing the biputer is worse!" "Fine! I''ll try to control our seats closer to its wing!" There was nothing to say about the Pilot''s skills, he was actually able to bring us to therge wings of themercial ne. Upon opening the ne''s top, the high pressure and high-speed wind instantly caused me to jolt! Luckily, my body was no longer normal otherwise I would have been choked by the wind! After jumping out of the ne, I carefully grabbed onto themercial ne''s wing and slowly moved on, the Fighter ne behind quickly left us. With much difficulty I finally reached the window at the side of the ne, there sat a middle-ageddy at the window seat with a 7 to 8-year-old boy beside her. Thedy was resting but the boy actually saw me. His eyes immediately revealed an excited look. I pointed to his mother, then pointed to the window and disyed a punching posture, then used my fingers to tell him to move aside. The little boy immediately jumped down and pulled his mother to the aisle. She was jolted awake and did not notice me outside the window and only focused on the boy. But the boy still managed to pull her away. "A8 listen up, I am outside the windows of the ne, when I countdown after 3, we will enter together." "A8, roger that!" "1, 2, 3!" After counting to 3, I exerted a full force punch and broke the high-pressure ss, then jumped through it. One second after I jumped in, the shattered window immediately unleashed an automatic seal made of stic. Right, when Inded, the big door behind me was smashed open, A8 and A13 that held onto stic warhead machineguns rushed in. Their warhead grenades could easily wound people but not destroy a ne, it was especially used for precision and infiltration missions. Chapter 169: Successful Retrieval [Vol 5 Chapter 20] Chapter 169: Sessful Retrieval [Vol 5 Chapter 20] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry Our sudden appearance scared the passengers, especially with A8 and A13 holding onto guns. Ordinary passengers only knew of panic but did not do anything, but the two passengers seating closest to the door suddenly jumped up and rushed for the front of the ne. With one look, I immediately recognized them as the spies, ordinary passengers need not run from the sight of us, furthermore, ordinary passengers would not have such huge reactions. A13 threw a de urately and struck the one behind on his back but he did not fall down onto the ground as expected, instead, he had both of his hands on the door frame and stood there. The ne''s doors were not big in the first ce, and he had stopped our advancement to chase after the other spy ahead. I quickly knelt down and aimed my gun at the dead spy''s torso and fired off, the recoil of the pistol in my hand was actually close to that of a rifle. The corpse blocking the door was blown apart and the upper half of the body fell down, left with the lower part that remained standing. The spy that ran ahead was struck by the bullet after it went through his dead partner, but a pity it had changed its trajectory due to the corpse, and it merely grazed the man''s calf. But the 50 AE caliber bullet was still able to knock him onto the ground with ease. This Spy definitely had gone through training, he did not even turn back but jumped up and continued running ahead. In the blink of the eye, he was already close to the cockpit. That was when a rather beautiful stewardess suddenly ran forward and blocked the path. "Sir, you guys¡­." Bang! Before the stewardess could evenplete her sentence, my gun unleashed its power, her body was flung back and smashed into the spy that was close to the cockpit. I did not see any blood but the stewardess on the ground was still wriggling around, she was also a spy, and was actually equipped with a bulletproof vest! Before firing off a third shot, A13 and A8 had already rushed to the front from the other door but were still one step toote, one of the crew members had pulled the spy into the cockpit and ignored the stewardess while locking the door. I turned back and saw the little boy who had helped me by pulling his mum away from the window, he was in the mother''s firm embrace, a mother''s love will always be worthy of the greatest admiration, even at such a time, she still focused on protecting her son! I gave the boy a thumbs up then stood up. "We are China''s security force, we had just been attacked by a foreign Spy. For the sake of everybody''s safety, I hope that everyone will head back to the back of the ne!" The crowd panicked for a moment but all of them started to move towards the back. I did not have the time to manage the crowd, the aisle became empty and I headed straight to the front. A13 had the stewardess by her hair: "Speak, what organization are you from? How many people are inside?" Thedy stared at us but did not say anything. "She won''t talk, just make her unconscious. She will be of use back in the base." I never had any hope that thedy would tell us anything, so I brought over to the door. I aimed my pistol at the door and pressed the trigger. The bullet immediately ignited a spark on the door then ricocheted back at the cabin! "Fuck! The door''s reinforced!" My watch suddenly moved, someone had sent me a message. "What happened?" "We have already entered the skies above the ocean, we are almost out of China''s territorial airspace! The radar senses Japanese fighter nes above their skies!" "You guys go ahead and take a look at the situation, I''m not in a position to judge your means." "Roger that! Aerial Force JA-20 Interceptors have arrived, leave the task of blocking them to the aerial units, we will move first and begin Op. ''Cleanse and Obstruction''!" After putting down thems, I told A8 and A13: "We''re out of time, we''re almost out of the country''s territorial waters! The Japs have nes above international waters, SSC has gone ahead to clear them! We need to quickly gain control of the ne!" A8 replied: "It looks like the flight crew was ready to receive the pilots, we can only break through forcefully!" "Did you guys bring equipment that can break the door?" "We are not demolitions, we don''t have such equipment on us!" "Then we can only do this!" I punched the door ferociously, causing the metal board to produce a sound of being deformed, but I only managed to cause a dent in it! I followed up with my elbow but the effect was still not good, there was no other choice, the door was that tough! Fortunately, every time I struck the door, a few dents would form, it looked like it was only a matter of time before the door could be broken through! Thems device suddenly sounded out. "SSC Reporting! Japanese Fighter nes are firing towards us!" "I authorize you to return fire!" "Roger that! We are authorized to open fire! All teams to battle mode!" I began smashing the door more ferociously when I suddenly felt someone tugging at me from behind. I turned back to look, to see that the little boy was holding onto an ax that was practically the same height as him. "Big brother, this is for you!" I caressed his head and epted the ax and got him to retreat, then started to smash the door with the ax. The already deformed door could not withstand the attacks and was smashed downwards. Behind the door were two stewardesses with a gun each in their hands pointed at us. Right as the door fell, they immediately pressed the trigger! A8 pushed A13 and me away but he took the shot! Luckily he had a bulletproof vest on, and did not suffer from any harm! I immediately jumped over and shot one of the stewardesses. A8 had opened fire at the other stewardess at the same time, causing her to fall to the ground. The two of us had aimed at their heads, so their bulletproof vests were useless. The British Spy stood behind the two stewardesses with another gun in his hand, but before he had the chance to fire, his neck was met with a flying de! The flight crew all started to jump and rush at us, the three of them did not wield any weapons, so I easily took the three of them down. But the captain actually pressed some sort of button. I knew it was not a bomb but obviously to report to their base. After getting rid of the three of them, A13 jumped forward and fixed the autopilot stick to its position, but suddenly cried out. "The navigation system has been sealed, the ne can''t autopilot!" "Enemy ne!" A8 suddenly pointed ahead. Through the window pane, we could see the many nes engaging in battle, the ck ones were SSC while the rest were Japan''s Air Force. The JA-20 force outside of our ne suddenly left us and flew towards the Japanese nes. I was not afraid of an aerial battle, the SSC''s fighting capability was far stronger than the Japs, furthermore, there was even the country''s Air Force Fighter nes JA-20 for support. But our ne itself was more troublesome, no matter where it flew, it would reach Japan! I looked out of the window to the wings of the ne, then opened thems. "SSC, pay attention, destroy No. 1, 2, 3 and No. 4 Engine of our ne, use a machine gun, don''t harm the wings!" "But the ne¡­.!" "Execute the order!" "Yes!" The two nes ahead of us suddenly detoured and flew to our backs. I quickly ran to the back of the ne. "Everyone, we are forced tond above waters, please wear the life vests!" The crowd started to panic again, but there were many life vests, so I figured there would be no looting or fighting. The battle in the air quickly ended, the 54 Japanese nes were quickly taken down, my SSC lost one ne while the JA-20 lost 7! The ne trembled incessantly, the No. 1 and No. 4 Engines on the right and left of the ne emitted ck smoke at the same time, followed by No. 3 and No. 2 which started to go up in mes. The operation was a sess, without the engine to propel the ne forward, the ne automatically switched over to manual override, and we could control the ne once again!! A13 adeptly controlled the ne to descend down towards the water, thesergemercial nes all had protective instations, so we easily descended onto the water surface. Low on fuel, the JA-20 returned back to their point of departure. SSC descended and apanied us by floating on the water surface! The China Naval Force deployed warships and were en route, but the question is when the Japs fleet were arriving! A8 went to the back of the ne and found the Bio-Source System hidden behind the pilot''s seat, the Japs really knew how to conceal things! After floating for over 3 hours, ships finally arrived, but it was neither China nor Japan''s ships, but an American stealth ship. These ships were not merely invisible to the radar, they were actually able to turn invisible from optics and aside from the waves having strange ripples and movements, no one could ever see the ship with their naked eyes! SSC quickly sent a warning shot to the invisible ship, we would not bother if it were the Japs, but we had to think twice about directly assaulting the Americans, although they had a part to y in the infiltration, they would definitely refuse to admit it but we still could not engage in an open battle with them! Maybe they did not notice the SSC Fighter nes, the other party did not do anything and only stopped 2 kilometers away from us. Thems in the ne sounded out, and what came out was Mandarin. "We are the American Naval Force, ording to the International Water Laws, we are here as a humanitarian aid for the ne that fell!" F*ck! They actually spouted out such nonsense, I immediately opened my end of thems and replied. "I''m sorry, this is a China Sea Rescue Exercise, we do not need any rescue, our practice boats will be here soon!" On one hand, I was indirectly telling them not to intervene and on the other, I was indirectly telling them that our naval force would arrive soon, so they should think twice before going overboard. __________________________________________________________ Right as I spoke, a loud and clear steam whistle sounded out, China ships could be seen in the distance with many China warships protecting it. Most probably the Americans must have sensed something as they sneakily slipped away. By the time we returned to base, It was already midnight. Supper was served alongside NSA and the higher-ups of Central Authorities, although I was so famished, they were all high ranking and important people, I could only force myself to eat politely! On the table, I listened and found out from Dad and the rest that the movements by the Americans, Brits, and Japs were arranged a long time ago, the infiltration was the first, after failing they staked in everything and used their extremely dangerous second n. In this second engagement, aside from a minority of them that went through legal ways to enter China, the majority of them used the Americans stealth technology to infiltrate into China''s various locations, then gathered after that! China holds 960 square-kilometer of space, the borders were so long that no one can ever guard every inch of it, so we could not have our eyes 24/7 on them. Furthermore, the other party used top of the edge technology to infiltrate! After supper, Dad and the other old fogeys continued to talk while I ran off. The age gap was toorge, I could not continue to sit there and listen! Upon entering the base, one would immediately enter the dining area which was 24 hours. I quickly went to fill up my stomach! In the timespan that I ate, the food I had was equivalent to 10 servings of food that scared the chef. I initially wanted more, but a pity he refused to give me more! Luckily, I was more or less full, so I went back to rest! My original room had been repaired, the base was not extremely damaged, so it was restored to the perfect condition in half a day. Iid on the bed and stared at the roof, but after a long time, I still could not sleep. After calcting, it was around 60 hours since Ist slept, why can''t I get tired? Normally, I would be so tired that I would immediately sleep upon lying down! I continued to lie on the bed and even started to count sheep, "One sheep, two sheep, three sheep¡­..33,142 sheep, 33,143 sheep, 33,144 sheep! Why can''t I sleep!" I sat up annoyed! I could not sleep at all, and it turned extremely boring! I decided to go online and would sleep if I feel tired! After connecting, I immediately appeared in front of sister-inw''s clothing shop, it was afternoon and there were people (ghosts) all over. I turned and entered the shop, to find sister-inw sitting behind the counter. "Sis-inw? Where''s Su Mei?" I didn''t see Su Mei at all. "She left with your big brother, that little girl, she actually dislikes needleworks but loves to forge ironware!" "Then I''ll go over and find Su Mei, I''ll take my leave first, Sister-inw!" I sprinted out of the clothes shop and headed to rk''s, and ran up the second floor. There was no one outside, and upon entering the smelting room, I saw rk smelting something, but Su Mei was not around! "Bro, where''s Su Mei?" "She''s tired so she went to rest!" NPCs never said to log off. Whenever yers logged off, NPCs would say that they had gone to rest. It had been a long time so she should be offline, it waste in the middle of the night and she was a young girl, her parents would never agree for her to y through the night. Since Su Mei was not around, I could get to business. I took out the [Master Sword of the Flying Dragon] and handed it over to rk. "Take a look, can you repair this for me?" rk carefully took the sword. "Oh my god! Are you using equipment or eating them? Why do you break them every few months?" "I never wanted for it to happen as well!" "The first time was you fighting with the Shinryuu, the second was by God''s Bane, the third was by some Werewolf, now what happened?" I took out the shattered Seraphim Sword from the Bracelet." It was cut by this!" "No way? The Seraphim Sword? You met Michael?" rk raised his head and stared at me. "Who''s Michael? I don''t know him!" "He is the Leader of the Archangel Group, this Seraphim Sword in your hands belongs to him!" I shook my head. "I don''t know, I didn''t get it from him. I seized it from a yer! Oh right, I took everything of hers and there are many things here! I never had the chance to take a look!" I quickly took out everything that belonged to God Messiah and poured them onto the ground. "There''s really so many things here and it looks like a set!" "Woah! The Archangel Set! Did you meet a rtive of Michael? All of Michael''s things seem to be here!" "Are you saying that equip is the same as my Dark Dragon Lord Set?" My mood was already so heightened and I was bing excited! rk dampened my mood instantly. "These are indeed Artifact Grade Equip but they are different from your Dark Dragon Lord Set!" "Why?" "Your Dark Dragon Lord Set is a Growth Set Equipment, many of its traits requires the Owner to have a corresponding or simr level of strength to disy its strength, for example, your Helmet''s [Mind Drop] Spell, the [Sacrilege] of your gloves, the [Electric reflection] spell of your shield, the increase of Evil Value from your armor, the intense aggravation towards Light, the Dark World of the faulds, the [Curse of the Land] on your metal Sabatons, you are temporarily unable to use these spells because you are not strong enough!" "You''re saying my Level isn''t high enough?" "Levels is only an aspect of it, your capability includes Level, but it is not solely dependent on Level. Only when your capability reaches a certain level are you able to use the corresponding spells. I will tell you a secret I recently discovered." "What is it?" "There are actually even more traits to your Dark Dragon Lord Set Armors that have not revealed themselves!" "What?" "Don''t be so surprised!" rk pushed my opened jaw up. "I was recently repairing a Growth equipment when I discovered that the growth equipment would reveal different traits in my hands and in the hands of the Master, which means that aside from the obvious traits that it reveals, it will also reveal new traits never before seen in the Master''s hands, your Dark Dragon Lord Armor is the most powerful equipment I have ever seen in my entire life, it isn''t logical for it to have so few traits, there should be even more hidden power concealed within them!" "You said that the Dark Dragon Lord Set is the strongest Equipment you have ever seen?" "You must understand this, Growth Equipment all share the same unique point, they will be more powerful and more powerful in theirter stages, so Growth Equipments do not really require high levels to equip ordinarily. Elite Grade Growth Equipment will be able to unleash power close to Artifact Grade Equipment in theirter stages, while Sacred Grade Growth Equipment is able to unleash power stronger than Artifact Grade Equipment in itster stages. As for your Dark Dragon Lord Set, it is actually an Artifact Grade Growth Equipment set, until now, it is the first time I have seen an Artifact Grade Growth Equipment, tell me, what do you think of its power when it''s at a high level?" "I never knew that the Dark Dragon Lord Set will actually be so powerful!" "To be able to obtain such good things, you have to cherish them well, don''t always engage in reckless battles till they be broken and you have to bring them back for repair!" "Oh!" I never expected rk to beat about the bush, ultimately he still had to teach me a lesson! "Oh right, so how''s this Archangel Set? Can you help me repair the Seraphim Sword, I want to gift it to someone!" "I can''t do that! To repair it, you need to head over to an NPC in any of the Light Faction Cities. My furnaces utilize Underworld mes, the Seraphim Sword is a Light Sword, upon interacting with the Underworld mes, it will definitely explode, furthermore, this is the Seraphim Sword that belongs to Michael, it is the most powerful sword of the Archangel 7 Sword Series." "Oh my god! 7 Swords? How does the Light Faction produce them? They have 3 Main Shrines and so many powerful swords!" "What''s so strange about it, the Light Shrine has a total of 7 Head Archangels, why would it be strange to have 7 Archangel swords. You must remember, never go to a Dark Shrine or affiliated City to repair a Light Sword, only a City under the Light Shrine can fix such things. The cksmiths there uses the Holy mes to cast weapons, so finding them to repair weapons will be better." "What about neutral Cities? You must know that I''m full ck, I''m easily distinguishable in Light Faction Cities!" "This is an Artifact Grade Weapon and is different from others, the cksmiths in Neutral Cities do not have the capabilities to repair Light and Dark high tier Artifact Grade Weapons!" "Shit! Artifact Grade Weapons are so precious like Mercedez cars, even a broken wheel will cost an astronomical amount of money!" "Oh right, can my [Master Sword of the Flying Dragon] be fixed?" "It is possible, but it is rather troublesome, you yourself are aware of the materials required to repair Artifact Grade Weapons¡­.!" "Weren''t there leftovers from thest time?" "You came back to repair so many times, how are there leftovers!" "Then what do we do? Are you saying I need to gather the materials again?" "There''s no need for that!" rk shook his head: "It''ll be too troublesome to gather the materials again, this time we only need to repair the cracks and won''t require too many things, you think of a way to find some high-grade weapons for me, I will merge them and repair your Artifact grade equipment!" "High-grade weapons? Are you sure? Do you know how expensive they are, whenever I have any of them, I would sell them off for money, I never kept any! Furthermore, the weapons are the most expensive things in the marketpared to equipment, why would I keep them for myself!" "Then we have no other choice! You need to go and find the materials again! Do you still remember where they are? If you don''t, I can let you know where they are." "Hold up!" Suddenly I had an idea in my mind. "I still have a higher grade weapon, I just don''t know if we can use it!" "Let me take a look, we''ll find out in a while." "Alright!" I extended my hand into the Bracelet Inventory¡­ Chapter 170: Able-Bodied Help [Vol 5 Chapter 21] Chapter 170: Able-Bodied Help [Vol 5 Chapter 21] Trantor: ckberrry Editor: ckberrry "Alright!" I extended my hand into the bracelet inventory and took out an earth yellow rod with ends that resembled forks. That''s right, it was the Vajra Scepter that the Japanese Onmyoji dropped. Afterall, it was an object that belonged to the Japs, so dismantling it was fine, they would no longer be able to snatch it back in the future. "Isn''t this a Japanese weapon? Why is it in your hand?" rk looked at the object in surprise and flipped the thing many times. "You recognize it?" I was bewildered, how could rk know that it belonged to the Japs! rk brought the thing to my face and pointed to a square notch on the scepter. "Take a look." My eyes immediately moved to where he pointed. The notch seemed to look like a stamp with words in it, but because it was the ce where the handholds, the wear and tear of it had almost removed the words! After spending half a day full of effort, I finally recognized the words: "Spiritual Master Heaven Yang? Who is this Spiritual Master Heaven Yang?" "Spiritual Master Heaven Yang was an elder of Daoism, this Vajra Scepter was his former weapon." "What! Doesn''t Daoisme from China? Why is he instead some Japanese Daoist with such a powerful weapon?" "Whoever said that Spiritual Master Heaven Yang was a Japanese?" "He isn''t a Japanese? Then why did his weapon be a Japanese weapon?" "This Vajra Scepter was originally Spiritual Master Heaven Yang''s weapon, but after the appearance of the Demon Kuzuryushin¡­." "Isn''t the Kuzuryushin a Japanese mythological animal?" "Stop interrupting and let me finish! The Kuzuryushinter attacked Ancient China''s Mythological Creature Bi Ling¡­." "Bi Ling was really an ancient mythological creature?" I thought rk was lying to me! "Seems like¡­." I then realized that rk was about to hit me. "Fine! Continue, continue!" "Then¡­.erm, where did I stop?" "When the Kuzuryushin attacked Bi Ling." "Right, Bi Ling met with a surprise attack and the news spread to China''s Divinity Sect. Oh right, at that time, there were no Buddhism or Daoism, all of them were under one roof, called the Divinity Sect. The Divinity Sect was furious because of the sneak attack on Bi Ling, and chose Spiritual Master Heaven Yang to go to Japan to put down the chaos and rage. Who knew that Japan citizens were not open-minded then, and they were unable to evenprehend the Divinity sect''s knowledge. In the end, they treated Spiritual Master Heaven Yang as a Demon and even started to worship Kuzuryushin. Spiritual Master was merciful and magnanimous, he did not find fault with the Japanese for their inability to distinguish good from bad, he used his Vajra Scepter to suppress the Kuzuryushin, then used his Sword to suppress the Volcano in Japan." I quickly took out the Deity Sword. "Are you talking about this sword?" "Oh my god! How did the Deity Sword end up with you?" "Hehe! I am the harbinger of evil! Wherever I go, something bad will happen, if I didn''t have caused the Volcano to erupt, how could I dare toe back!" "You!" rk returned the sword to me: "After that, the Japanese mobilized arge scale rescue effort and retrieved the Vajra Scepter, resulting in the Kuzuryushin to reive! And due to its power, the Japanese used it as a weapon. In truth, the Japanese did not know how to use the Vajra Scepter beside suppressing the monster, its true power was to perform attacks, they always thought that it was used to just suppress the monster, so they just used it to suppress their enemies'' power and not used the Scepter to unleash attacks." "So Japan''s National Treasure was created by China!" "But of course!" "Oh right, how do you know of all these? It doesn''t seem like youe from China''s Divinity Sect?" "You don''t know about this, Europe''s Divinity Sect is the reverse of our China''s Divinity Sect. The Daoists of China Divinity Sect have a good rtionship with the western''s dark faction, while China''s monsters and devils have a good rtionship with Europe''s Light Faction!" "Seriously? Is it because they are on the opposite side of the, thus their belief in the Earth ispletely opposite of ours?" "No matter, ignore all of these, let''s just focus on repairing your sword first." "Let me help!" Upon hearing of my willingness to help, rk waved his hand at me. "You should just stand by the side! Thest time, you almost destroyed my home, how will I dare to let you help me now!" "Then, I''ll go somewhere else and take a walk?" "Alright alright, go go go!" rk kicked me out of the room without hesitation. The fact has to be rified, I merely spoilt his furnace! But he was so fierce to me?! But whatever, since he did not require my assistance, I left the ce and took a walk. Upon leaving the room, I was momentarily stunned at not knowing where to go, without my weapons, I could not go and train! Oh right, I could head towards the Dark Shrine to obtain the deed to thend! I summoned Night Shade and Ling then jumped onto Night Shade and rushed towards the Dark Shrine. Fortunately, Ling was born from the darkness, although her status was gone, she still had some use. The zombies and monster NPCs outside the Dark Canyon were for yers to kill and gain levels and so did not have any intelligence to speak of, without that, they were unable to recognize the boss of the Dark Faction. Luckily, Night Shade was big enough and the zombies were unable to catch up with us. After moving through the horde''s defense and area, we arrived at Domergor''s barracks. Upon seeing Ling, the guards immediately retreated and knelt on their knees. Bringing the Dark Goddess along was the best solution ever, all the Dark Warriors and Dark Riders would constantly bow before us. From the distance, I saw Domergor and a guard discussing something. I directly led Night Shade over. "Second bro!" "So it''s Third bro!" Domergor suddenly saw Ling and immediately bowed down: "Greetings your Majesty!" "What''s second bro doing?" "Oh! It''s like this, the new Dark Goddess is nning for us to research a new type of defensive trap. But we arecking in the knowledge and weapons, so I''m in a bad spot!" "A pity, I can''t help you!" "Right!" Domergor suddenly grabbed onto my shoulders. "You''re a yer! You help me!" "Do what?" Domergor made me confused. "You can learn the techniques and help us create the new defensive trap!" Domergor''s eyes shed with a light, as though if I did not agree with him, he would eat me up! "I''m a yer, but my side sses are cksmith, Breeder and an Appraiser! What you want is an Alchemist, which I''m not!" "If you''re not, you can learn to be one! Until now, you still don''t know that the Side ss system has no limit?" "No limit? Then why the need for us to choose side sses, if we can be all of them, why should we have to choose?" "You really don''t know? The system provides the selection of Side sses is to gift abilities to yers, and the yers are able to enjoy the abilities directly from being recognized as those side sses, but the System does not restrict yers from learning other abilities, as long as you gain the corresponding books, you can practice them." "Heh! Don''t try and lie to me, I''ve yed the game for so long and killed countless monsters if these skill books were drops, why haven''t I seen one?" "Bullshit, side ss books are not drops, even if you kill all the monsters in the entire map, you won''t find one! Maybe higher grade monsters will drop a few offensive type spell books, but side ss books can only be obtained through missions." "Say that earlier! Tell me what missions do I need to do to obtain those books, I''ll go and learn them now!" Since I could learn a few additional things, I definitely had to do them! Domergor patted my shoulder: "Why are you still asking about missions, then what am I for?" Domergor waved to the side where two young bros immediately ran out and came back soon after, with two carriages, these two carriages were piled with a load of books. "There, you don''t have to do missions, let me teach them to you directly!" I stared at the two mountain of books and salivated. "So many of them?" Two carriages, one book provided one skill, won''t that be over 10 thousand skills? Much less practice all of them, I would never be able to memorize all of their names! At that time if I wanted to use one, I would have to take a few hours of going through my abilities to find the one I need! "So many?" Domergor looked at the carriages. "It''s just one skill, you call that many? Are you willing to do just a bit of work for your big bro?" "One skill?" I pointed to the two carriages of books. "You mean that these two carriages of books can only allow me to learn one skill?" Domergor nodded his head. "You think it''s a few skills?" He suddenly understood where I wasing from. "Are you thinking that one book provides one skill?" "But¡­.but¡­..for one skill to require so many books, I can''t finish them all!" "You can take your time to read, I''m not in a rush!" "What!" I was the one in the rush! But I was embarrassed to say it, he was willing to put the 100 of millions of money for the cannons on my tab, how could I not help with such a minor problem! I walked over to the side of the carriage. "[Starting from Zero''s Alchemy Basics!]?" I put down the book and opened another "[500 Examples of Alchemy for Dummies]?" I opened another book and opened it, "[Introduction to Alchemy], [Alchemy Methodologies], [Teach you how to Alchemy], [Solutions to Basic Alchemy Problems], [Guide to Alchemy].....[Methods to hasten Alchemy], [From Beginner to Expert Alchemist], [Selection and choice of Alchemy Materials]! What are all of these?" Domergor excitedly came over to introduce them. "All of these publications belong to our Dark Shrine and are extremely useful readings, in the future when we sell them, we will definitely earn a huge profit!" DROP! "Hey! Third bro! What happened to you! Don''t faint! I know my method is good, but you don''t have to be so excited to the point of fainting right?!" The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!