I logged into the game at 1 pm sharp.
Swhoosh!
I appeared on the battlefield of Crossroads Valley once more, or should I say former battlefield, since the battle itself had ended almost 10 hours earlier. The entire place had been turned into a temporary supply base for the Silver Moon Alliance, and both players and NPCs could be seen all over the place. I saw a smithy, a potion shop, a tailor and more built under large banana leaves. Thank goodness this was the case, or we would have to return to Sky City first before continuing our march.
I checked out my Chill of the Nine Provinces and noted that it only had 14% durability left. Had I continued fighting in this state, it would’ve become a useless piece of metal in two or three hours at most.
Swhoosh swhoosh…
He Yi, Murong Mingyue and more all logged into the game and crawled out of the nearby tents as well. While they did so, I walked up to a middle-aged man and chose the option to repair everything. It was a short but terrible experience. After I gained the Flying Dragon Wristguards and Song of Freedom, repairing everything I wore cost over 490k gold. There was no discount either. If I had made my repair in Dark Moon City, it would’ve cost me 300k at most. What a scam.
That being said, my accumulated profits so far more than made up for the gold cost, so whatever.
He Yi walked up to me and asked, "Do you still have the Fire Qilin sets, Lu Chen?"
"Yeah. Why are you asking?"
"I think we should distribute them to our players and strengthen them now instead of later. This way, we’ll be able to deal with whatever Sainthelm Ruins tries to throw at us better. We’ll deduct the corresponding number of guild contribution points, of course. Do you think that’s okay?" He Yi shot me a dimpled smile before continuing, "Don’t worry, you’ll be properly compensated. I’ll pay your 100k RMB per Fire Qilin set, or 3 million RMB in total using the guild’s coffers for giving up your loot."
I let out a laugh before waving away her offer. "It’s okay, you don’t have to pay me. Plus, it’s not like I grinded every Fire Qilin set in my bag. It doesn’t feel right to be compensated for stuff I didn’t work for. Come, let’s head over and rate our metal-armor players."
"Mn mn!"
A while later, after Lin Yixin, Lian Xin, Beiming Xue and more had all come online, we went with our usual seating arrangement—Beiming Xue with me, Murong Mingyue with He Yi and Lian Xin with Lin Yixin—and took off for Sainthelm Ruins!
……
Swhoosh!
The Ancient Divine Dragon burst through the clouds first while the Crimson Crystal Dragon and Snow Crystal Dragon followed closely behind. During this time, I brought up the guild interface, filtered the member list so that only the metal-armor players would show up, and began ranking them using the standard contribution rules. Very soon, I had a list in my hands—
1-5: Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand, Legendary Brave, Gui Guzi, From Water, High Fighting Spirits
6-10: Chaos Moon, Heaven’s Rain, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun, Diamond Dust, Amazing Expert[1]
11-15: Hot Sun, Imperial Abyss, Yama Slayer, A Lazy Cat, Tiger Leopard Knight
……
I extracted the Top 100 players on the list and removed the top-tier players who didn’t need a Fire Qilin set. Then, I submitted the final list the He Yi and said, "Here, the ranking’s ready. Our guild truly is overflowing with talented cavalrymen. I dare say that there are no guilds in the world who possess as many talented cavalrymen as us!"
He Yi giggled. "Come now, we need to be humble. Not only do we have powerful cavalrymen, our quantity and quality of mages, mounted archers, tacticians and bards are all unrivaled in the world!"
I rolled my eyes at her. "Weren’t you supposed to be humble? I heard not a shred of humility here…"
He Yi continued giggling with a tiny blush on her cheeks. "We’ll distribute the Fire Qilin sets according to this list then. We’ll deduct 80% of their current contribution points as a way to encourage them all to work harder."
"Good idea." I thought for a moment before adding, "The stats of the Fire Qilin set are so good that they can practically wear it until the end of time, figuratively speaking. It won’t be outdated even after we’ve passed the Level 250 mark. Hehe, our guild is going to add 30 top-tier cavalrymen to our ranks after today!"
On the Crimson Crystal Dragon, Lin Yixin narrowed her eyes into happy slits as she said, "Is that so? Snowy Cathaya has also gathered 8 Fire Qilin sets in total. I guess we should distribute them as well so that we can tackle the Sainthelm Ruins map at full force!"
"Mn. Good steel should be forged into blades, and there is no better time than now to use the Fire Qilin set."
Around 20 minutes of flight later, we left the barren wasteland and arrived at a snowy region. Snowflakes filled the sky, and the broad-leaved forest on the ground gradually turned to needle-leaved forest. Another five minutes later, the only thing we saw was snow and more snow.
"Look over there!"
Leaning against my chest, Beiming Xue pointed to the south and said, "I see a lot of players grinding mobs in that necropolis over there. Big brother Little Gui and big brother Xu Yang are among them…"
"Mn!"
After we passed through the curtain of snow that was blocking our vision, the rest of us saw about 20,000 Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players attacking a necropolis filled with mobs. It wasn’t the only necropolis in the area either. From our bird’s eye point of view, the necropolises scattered across the snow looked as numerous as the stars in the night sky. This map was part of the massive map that was Sainthelm Ruins, and these necropoleis were the birthing grounds of undead knights, corpse eaters, skeletal devils and more undead units. In other words, we were extremely close to the Purgatory Legion’s mother nest on the surface world.
"Let’s go!"
I declared before spurring my Ancient Divine Dragon into a descent. When we reached the bottom and landed on the snow, I let loose an involuntary sneeze. Damn, this place is cold!
Xu Yang walked up to us with a laugh. "You’re here!"
I nodded before watching Li Chengfeng and Gui Guzi slaughtering a bunch of noisy skeletal devils from their giant dragons. Our players were grinding their own mobs as well. Not far away from our position, I saw Warsky Alliance, Candle Dragon Purple Lily and more doing their own business as well. The main assault hadn’t begun yet, so everyone’s first priority was to clear out the mobs first. Luckily, there were were more than enough players to clear out one map.
I looked at everyone and said, "So… Eve and I have finalized the name list to distribute the 30 Fire Qilin set. I’ll post the ranking in the guild channel later. All players who qualified for the equipment set but chooses to withdraw for whatever reason will be paid 100k guild contribution points for their kindness. Those who chooses to accept the Fire Qilin set will have 80% of their current contribution points deducted. Is everyone fine with this?"
Du Thirteen answered for everyone, "The Fire Qilin set is so OP that you can deduct everything, and we’ll still say yes!"
I nodded. "Very well then. Let’s begin!"
After I posted the Top 100 metal armor class player ranking in the guild channel, I announced, "Everyone, we’ll be distributing the Fire Qilin set now, and this is the player ranking we’ll be referring to. The criterias we’ve used to decide this ranking is your guild contribution points, your champion arena ranking, and open-world PK score. Those who think their current equipment is good enough that they don’t need the Fire Qilin set may opt to forfeit their right and obtain 100k guild contribution points instead. As for the rest of you, please come to Sainthelm Ruins (31778, 128737) to grab your equipment set.
Just so you know, not all of the equipment sets are dropped equal. Some of them are around 15% better or poorer than the average, and some even has their own unique skills. It will be up to luck whether you get a better Fire Qilin set or not!"
He Yi, Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and I forfeited since our current equipment were superior to the Fire Qilin set. Personally, I didn’t care about the 100k guild contribution points compensation since I was sitting at around 3 million guild contribution points right now. However, I accepted it anyway since we were trying to set an example here.
With the Chill of the Nine Provinces planted on the snow and He Yi and Beiming guarding next to me, I handed the Fire Qilin set over to the qualified players one by one. High Fighting Spirits was the first person to reach me. After he accepted the Fire Qillin equipment set and equipped it, he checked out his stat screen and burst out in hearty laughter. "Hot damn, I now have 950k base HP, and my total Attack is about 800k! This is amazing!"
I nodded. "Yeah. The high Attack is mostly your Bone Slayer though!"
"Yeah. Thanks, guild leader, vice leader!"
"No need to thank us. We grinded these equipment together, so of course they should be shared around!"
Chaos Moon, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun and more put on their equipment set and beamed like it was New Year as well.
Tiger Leopard Knight was the most excited out of everyone who received the equipment set. He had gone up to Moonlight Stone, got off his mount and showed off the Fire Qilin set to his sister happily, "You see this, little sis? I can’t believe I would get to wear a middle-level Immortal-grade equipment set one day, one that is as good as an S6 equipment set no less! Hehe, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ benefits are seriously amazing…"
Moonlight Stone held her older brother’s arm and partook in his joy. "But of course! You have always been a great player, big brother!"
"Yeah. I’ll work even harder than before!" Tiger Leopard Knight declared with a clenched fist.
……
After the equipment distribution was complete, Yamete walked up to me and asked, "Hey, Lu Chen!"
"Hey, Mamate. What is it?"
"Earlier, I went back to the main city, used up all the materials Heaven’s Rain and everyone else gave me, and spent an hour to forge 345 Dragonscale Armors in total. How would you like to distribute them? Do you want to distribute them now?"
I nodded. "Yeah, why not? The Dragonscale Armor has super high Defense, and everyone can use it. Give me a moment to remove those who already got the Fire Qilin sets from the list and sort it again. Then, you can distribute the Dragonscale Armors to everyone. The cost will be paid out of the guild’s coffers."
"Understood. I’ll rally the men right away!"
It wasn’t long before a company of cavalrymen stood in front of us. Yamete was the vice leader of Bloody Mercenaries, so he took it upon himself to distribute the Dragonscale Armor to his players. Now, we had 30 Dragonlight Cavalrymen wearing the Fire Qilin set, and 345 wearing the Dragonscale Armor. We were slowly but surely progressing toward the dream where we could equip all our players with a standardized set of equipment. It was unfortunate that there were no munitions factories in Heavenblessed, or we would’ve found a way to mass produce the Fire Qilin set and have all 100,000 of our Dragonlight Cavalrymen equip them. Now that would be something.
……
"Now then, it’s time to get back to the grind…"
He Yi pointed to the front and said, "According to the plot hint, we’ll need to clear out 99 necropoleis before we can venture deeper into the ruins. It is also rumored that a Sovereign Rank boss may be hiding among these 99 necropoleis. That’s yet another opportunity to drop a Ghost Armament…"
I chuckled. "It’s fine, there’s no rush. Even if we do find a Sovereign Rank boss, the chances that a Ghost Armament will drop from it are quite low."
"Yeah!"
I raised the Chill of the Nine Provinces over my shoulder and looked around, "So, I wonder where my personal bard is?"
A beautiful girl carrying the Seven-string Yaoqin chose this moment to step into the open. She was none other than Pure Love, of course. "I’m here, dear…"
Me: "..."
1. T/N: Du Thirteen truly has come far… ☜
I logged into the game at 1 pm sharp.
Swhoosh!
I appeared on the battlefield of Crossroads Valley once more, or should I say former battlefield, since the battle itself had ended almost 10 hours earlier. The entire place had been turned into a temporary supply base for the Silver Moon Alliance, and both players and NPCs could be seen all over the place. I saw a smithy, a potion shop, a tailor and more built under large banana leaves. Thank goodness this was the case, or we would have to return to Sky City first before continuing our march.
I checked out my Chill of the Nine Provinces and noted that it only had 14% durability left. Had I continued fighting in this state, it would’ve become a useless piece of metal in two or three hours at most.
Swhoosh swhoosh…
He Yi, Murong Mingyue and more all logged into the game and crawled out of the nearby tents as well. While they did so, I walked up to a middle-aged man and chose the option to repair everything. It was a short but terrible experience. After I gained the Flying Dragon Wristguards and Song of Freedom, repairing everything I wore cost over 490k gold. There was no discount either. If I had made my repair in Dark Moon City, it would’ve cost me 300k at most. What a scam.
That being said, my accumulated profits so far more than made up for the gold cost, so whatever.
He Yi walked up to me and asked, "Do you still have the Fire Qilin sets, Lu Chen?"
"Yeah. Why are you asking?"
"I think we should distribute them to our players and strengthen them now instead of later. This way, we’ll be able to deal with whatever Sainthelm Ruins tries to throw at us better. We’ll deduct the corresponding number of guild contribution points, of course. Do you think that’s okay?" He Yi shot me a dimpled smile before continuing, "Don’t worry, you’ll be properly compensated. I’ll pay your 100k RMB per Fire Qilin set, or 3 million RMB in total using the guild’s coffers for giving up your loot."
I let out a laugh before waving away her offer. "It’s okay, you don’t have to pay me. Plus, it’s not like I grinded every Fire Qilin set in my bag. It doesn’t feel right to be compensated for stuff I didn’t work for. Come, let’s head over and rate our metal-armor players."
"Mn mn!"
A while later, after Lin Yixin, Lian Xin, Beiming Xue and more had all come online, we went with our usual seating arrangement—Beiming Xue with me, Murong Mingyue with He Yi and Lian Xin with Lin Yixin—and took off for Sainthelm Ruins!
……
Swhoosh!
The Ancient Divine Dragon burst through the clouds first while the Crimson Crystal Dragon and Snow Crystal Dragon followed closely behind. During this time, I brought up the guild interface, filtered the member list so that only the metal-armor players would show up, and began ranking them using the standard contribution rules. Very soon, I had a list in my hands—
1-5: Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand, Legendary Brave, Gui Guzi, From Water, High Fighting Spirits
6-10: Chaos Moon, Heaven’s Rain, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun, Diamond Dust, Amazing Expert[1]
11-15: Hot Sun, Imperial Abyss, Yama Slayer, A Lazy Cat, Tiger Leopard Knight
……
I extracted the Top 100 players on the list and removed the top-tier players who didn’t need a Fire Qilin set. Then, I submitted the final list the He Yi and said, "Here, the ranking’s ready. Our guild truly is overflowing with talented cavalrymen. I dare say that there are no guilds in the world who possess as many talented cavalrymen as us!"
He Yi giggled. "Come now, we need to be humble. Not only do we have powerful cavalrymen, our quantity and quality of mages, mounted archers, tacticians and bards are all unrivaled in the world!"
I rolled my eyes at her. "Weren’t you supposed to be humble? I heard not a shred of humility here…"
He Yi continued giggling with a tiny blush on her cheeks. "We’ll distribute the Fire Qilin sets according to this list then. We’ll deduct 80% of their current contribution points as a way to encourage them all to work harder."
"Good idea." I thought for a moment before adding, "The stats of the Fire Qilin set are so good that they can practically wear it until the end of time, figuratively speaking. It won’t be outdated even after we’ve passed the Level 250 mark. Hehe, our guild is going to add 30 top-tier cavalrymen to our ranks after today!"
On the Crimson Crystal Dragon, Lin Yixin narrowed her eyes into happy slits as she said, "Is that so? Snowy Cathaya has also gathered 8 Fire Qilin sets in total. I guess we should distribute them as well so that we can tackle the Sainthelm Ruins map at full force!"
"Mn. Good steel should be forged into blades, and there is no better time than now to use the Fire Qilin set."
Around 20 minutes of flight later, we left the barren wasteland and arrived at a snowy region. Snowflakes filled the sky, and the broad-leaved forest on the ground gradually turned to needle-leaved forest. Another five minutes later, the only thing we saw was snow and more snow.
"Look over there!"
Leaning against my chest, Beiming Xue pointed to the south and said, "I see a lot of players grinding mobs in that necropolis over there. Big brother Little Gui and big brother Xu Yang are among them…"
"Mn!"
After we passed through the curtain of snow that was blocking our vision, the rest of us saw about 20,000 Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls players attacking a necropolis filled with mobs. It wasn’t the only necropolis in the area either. From our bird’s eye point of view, the necropolises scattered across the snow looked as numerous as the stars in the night sky. This map was part of the massive map that was Sainthelm Ruins, and these necropoleis were the birthing grounds of undead knights, corpse eaters, skeletal devils and more undead units. In other words, we were extremely close to the Purgatory Legion’s mother nest on the surface world.
"Let’s go!"
I declared before spurring my Ancient Divine Dragon into a descent. When we reached the bottom and landed on the snow, I let loose an involuntary sneeze. Damn, this place is cold!
Xu Yang walked up to us with a laugh. "You’re here!"
I nodded before watching Li Chengfeng and Gui Guzi slaughtering a bunch of noisy skeletal devils from their giant dragons. Our players were grinding their own mobs as well. Not far away from our position, I saw Warsky Alliance, Candle Dragon Purple Lily and more doing their own business as well. The main assault hadn’t begun yet, so everyone’s first priority was to clear out the mobs first. Luckily, there were were more than enough players to clear out one map.
I looked at everyone and said, "So… Eve and I have finalized the name list to distribute the 30 Fire Qilin set. I’ll post the ranking in the guild channel later. All players who qualified for the equipment set but chooses to withdraw for whatever reason will be paid 100k guild contribution points for their kindness. Those who chooses to accept the Fire Qilin set will have 80% of their current contribution points deducted. Is everyone fine with this?"
Du Thirteen answered for everyone, "The Fire Qilin set is so OP that you can deduct everything, and we’ll still say yes!"
I nodded. "Very well then. Let’s begin!"
After I posted the Top 100 metal armor class player ranking in the guild channel, I announced, "Everyone, we’ll be distributing the Fire Qilin set now, and this is the player ranking we’ll be referring to. The criterias we’ve used to decide this ranking is your guild contribution points, your champion arena ranking, and open-world PK score. Those who think their current equipment is good enough that they don’t need the Fire Qilin set may opt to forfeit their right and obtain 100k guild contribution points instead. As for the rest of you, please come to Sainthelm Ruins (31778, 128737) to grab your equipment set.
Just so you know, not all of the equipment sets are dropped equal. Some of them are around 15% better or poorer than the average, and some even has their own unique skills. It will be up to luck whether you get a better Fire Qilin set or not!"
He Yi, Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi and I forfeited since our current equipment were superior to the Fire Qilin set. Personally, I didn’t care about the 100k guild contribution points compensation since I was sitting at around 3 million guild contribution points right now. However, I accepted it anyway since we were trying to set an example here.
With the Chill of the Nine Provinces planted on the snow and He Yi and Beiming guarding next to me, I handed the Fire Qilin set over to the qualified players one by one. High Fighting Spirits was the first person to reach me. After he accepted the Fire Qillin equipment set and equipped it, he checked out his stat screen and burst out in hearty laughter. "Hot damn, I now have 950k base HP, and my total Attack is about 800k! This is amazing!"
I nodded. "Yeah. The high Attack is mostly your Bone Slayer though!"
"Yeah. Thanks, guild leader, vice leader!"
"No need to thank us. We grinded these equipment together, so of course they should be shared around!"
Chaos Moon, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun and more put on their equipment set and beamed like it was New Year as well.
Tiger Leopard Knight was the most excited out of everyone who received the equipment set. He had gone up to Moonlight Stone, got off his mount and showed off the Fire Qilin set to his sister happily, "You see this, little sis? I can’t believe I would get to wear a middle-level Immortal-grade equipment set one day, one that is as good as an S6 equipment set no less! Hehe, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls’ benefits are seriously amazing…"
Moonlight Stone held her older brother’s arm and partook in his joy. "But of course! You have always been a great player, big brother!"
"Yeah. I’ll work even harder than before!" Tiger Leopard Knight declared with a clenched fist.
……
After the equipment distribution was complete, Yamete walked up to me and asked, "Hey, Lu Chen!"
"Hey, Mamate. What is it?"
"Earlier, I went back to the main city, used up all the materials Heaven’s Rain and everyone else gave me, and spent an hour to forge 345 Dragonscale Armors in total. How would you like to distribute them? Do you want to distribute them now?"
I nodded. "Yeah, why not? The Dragonscale Armor has super high Defense, and everyone can use it. Give me a moment to remove those who already got the Fire Qilin sets from the list and sort it again. Then, you can distribute the Dragonscale Armors to everyone. The cost will be paid out of the guild’s coffers."
"Understood. I’ll rally the men right away!"
It wasn’t long before a company of cavalrymen stood in front of us. Yamete was the vice leader of Bloody Mercenaries, so he took it upon himself to distribute the Dragonscale Armor to his players. Now, we had 30 Dragonlight Cavalrymen wearing the Fire Qilin set, and 345 wearing the Dragonscale Armor. We were slowly but surely progressing toward the dream where we could equip all our players with a standardized set of equipment. It was unfortunate that there were no munitions factories in Heavenblessed, or we would’ve found a way to mass produce the Fire Qilin set and have all 100,000 of our Dragonlight Cavalrymen equip them. Now that would be something.
……
"Now then, it’s time to get back to the grind…"
He Yi pointed to the front and said, "According to the plot hint, we’ll need to clear out 99 necropoleis before we can venture deeper into the ruins. It is also rumored that a Sovereign Rank boss may be hiding among these 99 necropoleis. That’s yet another opportunity to drop a Ghost Armament…"
I chuckled. "It’s fine, there’s no rush. Even if we do find a Sovereign Rank boss, the chances that a Ghost Armament will drop from it are quite low."
"Yeah!"
I raised the Chill of the Nine Provinces over my shoulder and looked around, "So, I wonder where my personal bard is?"
A beautiful girl carrying the Seven-string Yaoqin chose this moment to step into the open. She was none other than Pure Love, of course. "I’m here, dear…"
Me: "..."
1. T/N: Du Thirteen truly has come far… ☜
