Chapter 940: Another Year
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
"How about it? Are you interested in joining our Team Happy?" After Chen Guo made her status as the boss known, she gave Sun Xiang another blow. After her encounter with Lou Guanning, Chen Guo truly experienced the greatness of having the status as a boss, so she started utilizing it more freely.
"Hmph. We’ll see each other on stage." Sun Xiang sneered coldly, but then he thought of something and immediately added: "I hope we can."
"We won’t be!" Chen Guo smirked, "I’m here as the boss."
This time, everyone laughed. Chen Guo knew when to stop. She swiftly left, not giving Sun Xiang another chance to speak.
Once Happy drew the lots and got their competition schedules, everyone took a look. Happy and Excellent Era had been split up into two different brackets, which meant that if the two were to meet, it would only be in the finals. Unfortunately, the two former pro teams, Mysterious Fantasy and Jade Dynasty had been placed in the same bracket. In order to reach the finals, Happy would need to beat these two teams.
"The offline matches will officially begin in three months." Chen Guo said.
"Yes." Ye Xiu nodded his head. He obviously knew that. The number of teams participating in the Challenger League changed every year, so it wasn’t possible to know how many rounds there would be in the online part of the league. The offline matches always started in the middle of April and lasted until the middle of May. It took place before the climax of the season and before playoffs, so there wouldn’t be a split in attention from the fans.
"Go back home and celebrate New Year’s! Then, let’s start preparing!" Ye Xiu announced.
This year’s Spring Festival took place a little earlier than usual. 1/22 was the Lunar New Year’s Eve. After Chen Guo brought back the results from the lot drawing, everyone in Happy was busy preparing to go back home and celebrate the Spring Festival. The first one to leave was Mo Fan. He didn’t say farewell to anyone. Instead, he chose a time when everyone was still there. He picked up his luggage bag in front of everyone and left without uttering a word.
"This guy’s going to come back, right?" Everyone began to discuss.
"Let’s go check his room." Wei Chen went up stairs with a cigarette held in his mouth. Randomly barging into someone’s room was nothing for someone as shameless as Old Wei.
"Fuck! It’s locked. Is there a spare key for it?" Wei Chen yelled a short moment later.
"Forget it!" Chen Guo said. She obviously had a spare key, but if she gave it away, wouldn’t she become Wei Chen’s accomplice in performing shameless acts?
"If he took the keys, then doesn’t that mean he plans on coming back?" Tang Rou said.
"What if that bastard locked his keys in there?" Wei Chen said.
"Damn, the keys are in there, but the door’s locked? Boss, let me climb up and get in through the window….." Steamed Bun shouted hoarsely.
"He’s not Steamed Bun..." Tang Rou replied calmly to Wei Chen’s question.
"Okay then!" Wei Chen approved.
Ye Xiu felt like Mo Fan would come back. Even though that guy never said anything, that was just the type of person he was. The current situation made Ye Xiu feel like he was approaching a dead end though.
After Ye Xiu won him over, he let him do his own thing and appeared to completely ignore him, but in reality, Mo Fan had never escaped his attention. It could even be said that he paid the most attention to him out of everyone here.
Ye Xiu saw all of the changes in Mo Fan.
Mo Fan sometimes watched Glory pro matches in secret. After the update came out and new dungeons popped up, he began getting used to coordinating with the team. After all, his foundation was solid. As soon as he started becoming aware of how to coordinate with the team, he improved rapidly. In Ye Xiu’s eyes, PvE could not completely reveal Mo Fan’s true potential. PvP was his expertise. It was just that there weren’t any chances to test him right now.
These tests also needed to happen naturally. Urge him or ask him? With Mo Fan’s personality, it would most likely backfire. Wait for him to ask about it himself? He was someone who stayed to himself and kept quiet. It was unlikely that he would take the initiative to request it. This was the dead-end that Ye Xiu felt like he was approaching. He needed to find some way around it.
The others spared Ye Xiu the trouble. Everyone followed the appropriate practice routine. Their practice tools still came from the game, whether that was through clearing dungeons, killing bosses, or fighting different opponents in the Arena. Their skill levels rose, and they accumulated all sorts of different experiences. Sudden growth and improvement would no longer happen anymore for anyone on Happy because none of them were noobs now. Their following growth would depend on the slow and steady accumulation of experience.
In the game, as players obtained better equipment, the new Level 75 wild bosses in the Heavenly Domain were gradually capable of being killed, and not just the materials, but the Level 75 Orange equipment dropped from these bosses were extremely valuable. It had been a month since the update. No Level 75 Silver equipment had appeared in the pro scene yet. The R&D departments of the various teams were still actively studying the new Level 75 materials. To research materials, the guild department needed to provide these materials to the R&D departments. With such a large player foundation, their ability to obtain dungeon materials was stable, but wild boss materials were always challenging to get their hands on.
To get ahead of the others in Silver equipment, they needed to get ahead of the others in fighting wild bosses. The fires of battle in the Heavenly Domain reached the skies. Level 75 wild bosses needed to be won, but Level 70, Level 65, etc. bosses couldn’t be let go of either! When upgrading a piece of equipment, a large number of materials would be consumed. Apart from new materials, the past materials needed to keep up too.
Even though Happy was small, they were still ambitious. All bosses would be fought over.
There were six Level 75 maps with a total of eight Level 75 wild bosses. The total number of wild bosses had now reached 82. Eleven wild bosses spawned each day on average, which came to around a wild boss every two hours. The intensity of work for wild bosses grew all the more. The top guilds increased the number of organized teams. Elite groups one, two, and three were thrown into the front lines of battle. The entire world was searching for and killing bosses. Supposedly, the clubs had increased the pay and bonuses for their guild department employees at this crucial moment, so no one dared to slack off.
Happy didn’t have a professional guild department yet, so they didn’t have these types of conditions. As a result, foresight from Happy and the guild alliance was now revealed. Happy didn’t have the resources, but the other guilds did. Happy had been the core of the alliance since the start. As Ye Xiu’s focus gradually shifted away, Happy seemed to have become more and more like a freeloader. However, the allied guilds had tasted the fruits of collaboration. At this time, they didn’t want to rashly disrupt the peace because everyone understood one thing very well. With their strength, if they did not ally together, they were pretty much spectators in these boss hunts. In addition, Ye Xiu had looked for mid-tier teams as allies. These guilds were not good enough to be at the top, but they could not accept being at the bottom either. They were the group under the least amount of pressure during the season. The competitiveness between them wasn’t as intense as the competitiveness between the powerhouses. The longer they allied together the better.
As for Happy, they had recruited Wu Chen over to help with the guild. By the time this alliance would no longer hold, Happy would have their own guild department by then and would have no trouble operating.
As Happy competed for bosses, Happy accumulated all sorts of materials bit by bit. Because they hadn’t begun developing Silver equipment, these materials didn’t get used up. More and more materials started being amassed.
Ye Xiu and Wei Chen hadn’t finished organizing the materials yet. The ones that they had finished organizing were all given to Luo Ji. When Luo Ji saw the enormous amount of materials, he wasn’t flustered. He said calmly, "It’ll be much easier with this." Luo Ji was incomparably confident at his area of expertise.
1/20. Monday of the new week.
Relatively speaking, it was simple and crude. Happy’s "training base" was usually filled with energy, but now, the people were gone and the place was completely empty. On the other hand, at Happy Internet Cafe, Ye Xiu, Chen Guo, and Su Mucheng had gathered together again.
"You’re not going back home again?" Chen Guo could see that Ye Xiu had no intentions of going back.
"Hm? Have you seen my brother’s QQ name?" Ye Xiu said.
"What is it?" Chen Guo was puzzled.
"He changed his QQ name to this today." Ye Xiu said.
"How could I know!" Chen Guo rolled her eyes. It was purely a coincidence, okay?
However, for Chen Guo, suddenly having two people by her side to celebrate the New Year made her very happy. She had to celebrate the Lunar New Year’s Eve alone many times. She could no longer remember how many exactly. She could only remember that she had been very lonely one year, so she let many of the kids, who just received their red envelopes, play at her Internet cafe.
In the end, even though she didn’t take any money from these kids, according to Internet cafe regulations, whether or not she charged them wasn’t important. Letting in so many minors was enough for Happy’s business license to be suspended.
It was better now. She didn’t need to take these kinds of risks anymore. It was just that this Lunar New Year’s Eve didn’t seem any different from normal? Why were they still playing Glory?
Chen Guo thought about it and felt a bit angry. She got up.
"What’s up, boss?" Ye Xiu noticed Chen Guo’s action.
"I’m going to watch the Spring Festival Gala." Chen Guo said.
"Isn’t using the projector to watch the Spring Festival Gala a little overboard?" Ye Xiu asked.
"It’s clearer that way." Chen Guo said.
"Too clear!" A close-up on screen showed a nose as big as a person’s head. Ye Xiu almost jumped up in fright.
"I’ll watch while I play." Chen Guo went back to her seat. With the Spring Festival Gala playing, the new year’s vibe instantly came.
"Where are you at?" Although the projector was showing the Spring Festival Gala, Chen Guo constantly looked towards Ye Xiu’s screen out of habit.
"82%." Ye Xiu said calmly.
"How are you so fast!" Chen Guo was furious. They were both doing the Spring Festival events. Ye Xiu was 82% of the way done, while she was still only at 31%.
"Do you really need me to say why?" Ye Xiu asked.
Chen Guo fumed.
"Haha, I’m done." Su Mucheng suddenly cheered.
"No way! How did you do it? Let me see! You’re cheating!" Ye Xiu was astonished.
"Hahahaha, it looks like Mu Mu is still the best!" Chen Guo was happy. Su Mucheng was faster than her by 69%, but Chen Guo didn’t mind. In fact, her anger disappeared because Su Mucheng was faster than Ye Xiu by 18%.
"How did you do it?" Ye Xiu never slacked off when it came to studying Glory.
"It’s over here. You can do it like this." Su Mucheng explained. Chen Guo understood half of it, but she still went over to listen.
In the end, it seemed like no one was watching the Spring Festival Gala...