Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Few days ago, a livestream stage-clearing contest was held in the Light faction.
To put it bluntly, it was a promotional contest held by administrators to promote the game.
When the Den of Evil task was set in motion, players learned about stages for the first time.
In the first place, the mine was not a stage but rather an area that required a first team of pioneers to clear out the mine. For this, it became the first true stage challenge.
Before the introduction of stages, the chance to get a first kill on a Boss was high. This statement was given by the admins to attract more players.
This contest was rather influential. It would be aired on the official game platform, in every district, local regional game channels and even dedicated gaming TV stations.
However, most of the players now could only deal with ordinary monsters. They did not have the ability to defeat mobs in Elite mob areas yet. Many guild and club giants were eager to enter the contest. After all, it was a good opportunity to promote their guilds.
Few days back when the contest was held in the Light faction, players from the Dark faction were disgruntled. Now that the bitterness was over, the Dark faction also found a stage and were overjoyed.
Since the stage was located in the High Elven novice village, players from other Dark factions had to complete a trial test to obtain the qualification for a free trip to the village.
With such high degree of attention given to the event, the opportunity to make a name for oneself had attracted the attention of many expert player teams.
HundredFaceWitch nodded, she understood what Getaway Studios was up to. They plan to publicly embarrass Li Yao in the event to show that solo players were indeed strong, but they did not have the ability to clear out a stage alone. Without the help of strong teammates, it would be a self-inflicted humiliation. This kind of contest was actually a game between guilds, but squads that did not belong to any guild had participated in the contest before, all of which had failed.
Witch thought for a moment before saying, “I think you will be fine with your combat skills, Tong and I. At least both of us will not hold you back, this way you might have the chance of winning. After all, they have the absolute upper hand in the forum. If they keep it going this way, it will be bad for your reputation.”
“Thank you for your consideration and help.” Li Yao thanked them sincerely and smiled. “But whether it will have an impact on my reputation or not, both of you don’t have to worry about that. The more they enjoy making a scene, the heavier they will eventually fall.”
When AdorkableTong heard about the livestream match, her eyes instantly lit up. “It’s good that Big Bro already has his own plans, but this competition sounds pretty good. How about we participate in this contest too. Two days back when the Light faction had this contest, it was quite fun, and the rewards were excellent. Even without the rewards from the admins, the mobs’ loot is pretty good.”
Li Yao felt a jolt in his heart. “This really does sound like an interesting contest. Let me think about it for a moment, once I have the answer I will get back to you guys. Getaway Studios is trying to use the forum as a bargaining chip, but they have got it all wrong. I’m interested in this bet, and they think they had it right, but I’m going to let them have a taste of losing first.”
“Oh yeah, oh yeah! Once Big Bro has decided you must bring me along, I’m your permanent teammate now.” Tong said excitedly. She had never doubted anything Li Yao said.
HundredFaceWitch knew that Li Yao had good characteristics, but she could not see through what method of action Li Yao was going for. She did not understand what Li Yao had in plan.
But now, her relationship with Li Yao was complicated, real-life aside. In the game, they were friends that had just gotten to know one another. It was not right for her to continue asking Li Yao for more details.
After he ended the call, he went offline to take care of things in real-life. Then, he went back online. It was already night time in the game, Li Yao looked at the forum and the situation had developed exactly the way that Getaway Studios had expected. The internet was flooded with posts criticizing Liao Yuan.
They were already too lazy to determine which was right or wrong, they just felt that it was unfair that he was able to solo a Boss when an Elite mob was still giving them so much trouble. Due to the huge difference between their strengths, they jumped on the hate wagon.
The blue tracker that Li Yao was expecting from the admins did not arrive, he knew what he was supposed to do now. He used both StarFire’s and Liao Yuan’s identity to leave some comments under the forum. Then, he used the Hearthstone to return to the power room.
“Thanks once again to Getaway Studios for letting me make a small fortune.” Li Yao hung up his communicator and grinned.
His engineering proficiency was about to reach the intermediate level. He was impatient in wanting to create his first mechanical pet. Even if he could not use it now, it would be nice to make it first.
While Li Yao put in his entire attention in learning engineering, things started to take off in the forum.
First, it was the No.1 guild from the West, Overlord, that had successfully killed a Boss and their video was spreading online. People started to drool when they saw screenshots of the equipment loot dropped by the Boss.
However, that was not the most important thing. Under the video, the president of Overlord Guild, CaptainAmerica, left a short thank-you note.
‘Great thanks to both StarFire and Liao Yuan, this Boss had troubled us for days.
It was very enlightening to learn StarFire’s techniques in aligning his dodges and scoring critical hits. Although we were still unable to kill the Boss and our guild had suffered tremendous Level losses, we are grateful to learn techniques from the two remarkable players.
Today, I unintentionally came across Liao Yuan’s video that had completely invigorated members of my guild. They opened up their mind and thoughts, finally allowing us to kill the Boss.’
People were in disbelief. But from the video, a team of players tried to fight the Boss and most of them kept dying.
A player was used to lure the Boss to an outpost. They did not understand how the guild was able to convince the NPC. They borrowed a Ballista and used it to attack the Boss’s legs.
They had poor accuracy. It was not until after a dozen of arrows were fired when one of them actually landed on the Boss’s leg, greatly reducing the Boss’s mobility.
The battle was intense, and the number of players that participated in the battle was kept at twenty five players. After some players had dropped levels, they left the team and the team replaced them with other players.
In this battle, more than sixty expert players had down-leveled. Still, the power of the Ballista limited the Boss’s ability to move around.
In the end, CaptainAmerica noted that he did not know how difficult it was to hit a target until he actually used a Ballista. He expressed his admiration for Liao Yuan and hoped that they could be friends in the future. He sent a friend request to Liao Yuan.
One stone casted would cause a thousand ripples. Because of CaptainAmerica, people that could no longer stand Getaway Studios despicable behavior came forth. Players from America had spoken good things about Liao Yuan, but it was their own people that wanted his account to be deleted.
However, their voices were not strong enough, players that were jealous and hated him were too great in number. They did not care much, and there were even players that called Liao Yuan a traitor for hooking up with people from other regions. He did not share his techniques to players from China but rather took advantage of others.
The replies made AdorkableTong furious. While she was doing her side task, she helped Li Yao by having a tongue fight in the comment section, but her help had little effect. Not only that, people started criticizing her, which further infuriated her.
Then, something Tong did not expect happened. Three Boss kill videos were uploaded online.
They were videos from the Light Faction, the three videos were from casual players of the Light Faction, Glory Guild and BloodRose Studios, the biggest nemesis of Getaway Studios.
The casual players from the Light Faction did not belong to any guild, they were just friends of Li Yao. The Boss that they had killed had a reputation for being a novice player killer. It was the Gnoll Boss, Hogger.
Hogg was said to have a vicious reputation for being a true novice player killer. His location was discreet and most players did not know where he was. They would mistakenly fall into his range of Rage and be slaughtered.
BloodRose Studios and Glory Guild were also known to have killed other infamous Bosses.
BloodRose Studios was a famous beauty studio in the gaming industry. The studio only recruited girls, and they were all eye-catching beauties.
Getaway Studios knew them from previous games they had played, it was said that GetawaySecondBro had a crush on the big sister of BloodRose Studio. In the end, she was not interested in him but SecondBro kept clinging onto her. Once, in a grand competition, he confessed his love to her during a battle, but his confession was ultimately rejected. Members of BloodRose laughed and made fun of him.
BloodRose Studios was named after the big sister’s in-game name, BloodRose. She was a famous beauty in the gaming industry with a huge fanbase and caught the attention of the rich. She was also a highly respected goddess, which explained why she was not interested in SecondBro who had been divorced twice and had a notorious reputation.
As a result, Getaway Studios was outraged. They threatened to take action as a big group to get all the members of BloodRose Studio and make them part of their family.
This was just the way Getaway Studios vented out their frustrations, no one should take what they have said seriously. But the women of BloodRose Studios were not to be messed with, they took their stand to fight against Getaway Studios.
As years went by, both parties had multiple exchanges and their hatred for each other grew.
The three videos were edited into one. Below the video, there were comments left by StarFire and Liao Yuan.
StarFire: A certain studio is trying to frame my friend and confuse people. These scumbags even tried to mislead the public into having wrong opinions! To prove that my friend doesn’t need to rely on Bugs to kill a Boss, I watched every Boss fight video and came up with a summary of strategies. I made a strategy to defeat the Demonic Sapling Boss and gave it to Glory Guild. They have successfully killed the Boss.
Liao Yuan: Why would I need to rely on Bugs to kill Bosses? I have also watched all kinds of Boss fight videos, studied them and came up with two Boss fight strategies. I gave one to a real-life friend of mine and they successfully killed Hogg, the other strategy for the Skeleton Leader Boss was given to BloodRose in which they have successfully killed the Boss too. Their achievement was announced on the Battle Board.
It was insane as all the players went crazy with the comments. Three Boss kill videos were uploaded at once and the entire forum bubbled up with excitement.
Besides, everyone noticed that they had killed the Bosses at night. At night, mobs were three times stronger than they were during the day, and the same concept could be applied to Bosses too. Everyone clearly knew this, otherwise, players would not stop leveling up at night.
At night, the three Bosses became stronger, but they were still successfully killed by players. This proved that the Boss fight strategies they came up with were practical and valid.
Especially those casual players that killed the Boss. Forget about having an entire set of Green equipment, two of the players still had an incomplete set of White equipment. The average Level of the team was only Level 3, yet such a trashy team was still able to defeat the Boss. Players that had an eye for it knew it well.
The three videos had given Getaway Studios a slap across the face that could be heard from miles away, especially the way BloodRose had mastered the Boss fight strategy which was very detrimental to them.
Liao Yuan’s value and worth were finally proven through evidence. The fact that Liao Yuan and StarFire were friends explained that the value of the two greatest god-like players was unfathomable.
What did this say about them? Whomever that were friends with them could send them a video of a Boss that was hard to defeat. Once they have studied and discovered a new strategy, the Boss would be a piece of cake.
Not just ordinary players, guilds and clubs were also boiling over the news. They started to post good things online about Liao Yuan to prove his innocence. Influential expert players and commentators also posted things about Liao Yuan to spur their fanbase into action.
As more players helped Liao Yuan, the storm began to slowly shift to the other side.
Later, the administrators issued a blue tracker along with an analysis of several players at the end of the tracker. Shock struck them like thunder…