Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“The contest this time seem quite different to previous meets?” Listening to the female host list the rules of the contest, the old Secretary’s eyes lit up.
Previous spirit sword exchange meets had basically just been students showcasing their individual talents by following a standard pattern of moves and judges scoring them based on their form and proficiency in swordsmanship, which could be considered extremely boring. The competition this time round, however, would be a team event, thereby doing away with the judging panel and replacing it with a comprehensive evaluation system. The scores given would hence be fairer and less biased.
Headmaster Jin smiled faintly. “The contest format this time round was personally proposed by General Yi at the standing committee meeting and our two schools were assigned to implement it.”
“What this female host said was a little complicated. Can someone give me a simplified version of the contest rules?”
“Well… simply put, the competition this time is more like a five-on-five MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game. There are three lanes and each lane has a turret: an outer turret, an inner turret and a high turret respectively. The students are free to choose a lane to follow and subsequently have to defend the corresponding turret while they try to destroy the crystal in the enemy’s base. After entering the game, the students are free to choose one functional system skill; currently, the only options are teleport, ignite, heal and flash skills 1 … overall, it will be even more interesting and confrontational than previous contests.”
Headmaster Jin said, “After officially entering the virtual space, the students’ personal data, including their spirit swords, will be converted into digital data that will be integrated into the system’s databank and their strength will be computed as numbers. These estimated values will be based on the grade of their spirit swords.
“There are two things that the students will need to do: firstly, increase their experience by growing steadily through defeating minions or monsters. After data conversion, the students’ overall fighting strength will be divided into twenty parts, or twenty levels. With each level upgrade, five percent of their strength will be unsealed. Completing all the levels will mean regaining all of their true, original strength. Secondly, they need to collect as many game coins as possible within a short time frame and exchange them for magic artifacts in order to build their individual spirit swords.”
“That’s remarkable!” Secretary Sun nodded. “The upgrade method is very challenging! And building their spirit swords also helps them to improve their rapport with their spirit swords. But how are the values measured?”
“Of course, in order to ensure fairness, the stronger the sword, the higher its value. For example, Student Lotus Sun’s sword Mysterious Sea has already spawned a sword spirit and will require a large number of widgets in order to be built. Its overall value is estimated to be around 5,000 game coins,” Director Xie answered from the side.
…
While several of the leaders were whispering to each other on the stage, the female host said, “I now declare the array open! The game has officially begun!”
The current arrays were very advanced and were all voice-activated. Before the array had been set up, the female host’s voice had already been inputted into the system. Hence, after she gave the command, a green light immediately appeared on the ground of the large sports field.
Bzz ! —
Then, a green beam of light linking earth and sky appeared before all the people present.
All the students from No. 60 High School were the first to step into the beam of light, and to the naked eye, it looked like they gradually disintegrated into small particles that eventually disappeared in the green beam.
“Let’s go too!” Tang Jingze gnashed his teeth and disappeared in the beam of light with Fang Huaqing, Liang Wei, Liang Zheng and Liang Fei.
The students from the two schools had entered the virtual space one after another; whatever happened next could only be seen via the large broadcast screens on the sports field.
The map that had been set this time rigorously “referenced” the battle design of a common five-on-five MOBA game. Next to both the red base and the blue base stood a stone tablet shamelessly inscribed with the words “Cultivator’sRift” 2 . The crystal towers, the high turrets, the bases and even the monsters in the jungle had been perfectly reconstructed…
By killing both the minions sent out from the bases every thirty seconds and the constantly regenerating monsters on the map, the corresponding number of game coins could be obtained to build individual magic weapons. But the ultimate way to achieve victory was to destroy the enemy’s base.
Although Wang Ling seldom played games, he understood some of the basic rules of this type of game. Besides combat, teams had to pay more attention to how they should proceed. The key was to build the most formidable magic weapon as early as possible.
But because this was a spirit sword exchange meet, they realized that apart from the individual spirit swords they carried, which had been converted into data, there were almost no other offensive magic weapons in the in-game shop. Furthermore, although everyone’s spirit swords appeared in the shop, each spirit sword was bound to their respective owners and couldn’t be bought by someone else.
Additionally, the rest of the magic weapons were mostly functional or defensive types… these things had all been designed by General Yi personally, so no one knew what the attributes of each magic weapon were going to be prior to the start of the meet. The students would have to wing it completely when they used them.
“Damn it! So many things… wouldn’t just reading the descriptions alone take us until tomorrow morning?”
“What the hell? Why is my sword Climbing Dragon so cheap? Just 998? There’s something wrong with this system data analysis!”
After the group of people from No. 59 High School had entered the virtual space, it had taken them a full five minutes to discuss the lanes each of them would take and a further ten minutes to browse through the shop’s treasures one by one…
In contrast, the students from No. 60 High School worked together much more harmoniously…
Sometimes, one person making all the decisions could really save a lot of time.
“So that’s how we’ll do it! I’ll take the top lane, Classmate Lotus Sun will take the mid lane, Xiaoyu will go to the jungle and Master of Dopey and Classmate Wang Ling are in charge of the bot duo lane 3 .” Each person had five hundred game coins to begin with. Super Chen, this damn fat gaming nerd who was a veteran games specialist, arbitrarily determined the lanes that each person would take before he selected the most common rookie blank sword and the “ignite” skill and left the shop.
[Name: Rookie Blank Sword]
[Type: Weapon]
[Quality: Ordinary]
[ATK: 10]
[Gold Coins: 350]
[Description: A common-type spirit sword magic weapon, ideal for home or travel]
Lotus Sun found her own sword Mysterious Sea in the shop and was taken aback to find that its price was as high as 5,800 game coins. She then hurriedly chose the same elements as Super Chen and went out to begin farming 4 for money. Each spirit sword was a finished item 5 , which would take quite a long time to build. But once it was built, Lotus Sun felt that this would be the key to their victory.
Feather Lin, who had chosen the jungle lane, selected a rookie hunting knife which sold for five hundred game coins. A small hunting knife had a higher ATK (attack stat) than a blank sword and had some HP (health regeneration) effect. In the whole game, apart from the spirit sword, this was the only prop with an ATK that could be increased… otherwise, it would take a very long time to kill the evil wolf Fenrisulfr in the jungle using just the rookie blank sword.
“Good luck, everyone! Don’t disgrace our school!”
After choosing her item, Feather Lin followed Lotus Sun and also walked out of the base.
[Name: Rookie Hunting Knife]
[Type: Weapon]
[Quality: General]
[ATK: 30]
[Gold Coins: 500]
[Description: Large monster kills receive 10% damage bonus and 10% HP effect. A critical magic weapon for building the “Bear Grylls’ Blade.” Once the “Bear Grylls’ Blade” is successfully built, it can instantly punish monsters and turn them into beef. The protein can be shared with teammates so that they can enjoy the HP effect]
Now, only Wang Ling and Hero Guo were left.
A bot lane combination usually consisted of a support and an offense; of course, Wang Ling didn’t have to think about it before he selected support, since it was the most inconspicuous role.
In the shop full of goods, Wang Ling saw that Hero Guo’s sword Ghost Tooth was priced at 2,800. Looking at the data, it was quite powerful.
Hero Guo also chose a blank sword and walked outside. “Wang Ling, be quick, I can’t handle it alone!”
The reason Wang Ling hadn’t left was that he was still looking for Jingke in the shop.
He had been afraid to show off in public for fear that Jingke would go on a rampage halfway through. But now that the contest this time had turned it into game data, Wang Ling was really very curious to know how much Jingke could actually be worth.
There were over one thousand swords among the magic weapons in the shop, and finally, at the very bottom of the column list of commodities, Wang Ling found Jingke in a very small and inconspicuous corner.
[Name: Jingke Peach Wooden Sword]
[Type: Weapon]
[Quality: Ordinary]
[ATK: Unknown…]
[Gold Coins: 1]
[Description: A peach wood sword that seems to have no damn use, perhaps it can be hung around the neck to ward off evil spirits?]
Wang Ling: “…”
