Li Chengfeng frowned. “It’s hardly easy, man. Even if we gather 100 Divine Crystals, there’s no guarantee we can ascend successfully. There was a story about an oil tycoon from the Chaotic 27 spending 700 Divine Crystals to attempt ascension 7 times, and it all ended in failure. Can you imagine how low the success rate must be? Ugh, I’m honestly not hopeful at all…”
“Calm down!”
I sucked in a deep breath. “It’s not as hard as you think. A player’s Luck can improve the success rate, and your Luck is pretty high, isn’t it? Yiyi for example managed to ascend in just two attempts. In my opinion, any player with over 50 Luck should ascend in just three tries at most[1]. Of course, it still puts a hole in your wallet, but it isn’t nearly as bad as you think it is.”
Li Chengfeng smiled. “I guess. I’ll make my first attempt tonight. Hopefully I will succeed on the first try. Pray for me, brothers and sisters!”
Beside him, Moonlight Stone said with a small smile on her face, “Li Chengfeng, I’ll become your little sister if you succeed on the first try. What do you think?”
“Oh? Is Tiger Leopard Knight okay with this?”
Tiger Leopard Knight raised a glass from the second table. “It’s fine. We’re all brothers here. My little sister is everyone’s little sister as well[2].”
Li Chengfeng rubbed his palms together. “Very well! With such a cute and beautiful little sister on the line, I’m sure my karma will work extra hard tonight…”
I slapped the table and declared, “For the sake of Li Chengfeng’s ascension, drink! Now I understand why he brought his gaming helmet over…”
“First they mooch off your meals, now they mooch off your beds. Ancient Sword’s members are truly ‘impressive’…” Lin Yixin shook her head lightly.
……
The dinner had started at 6 pm, and it wasn’t until 9 pm that it was finally over. The gang drank until they were dead bodies on the ground. No one who saw their current appearance would think that they were an expert. I didn’t drink too much because someone had to carry these chuckleheads into their rooms. It took me half an hour to finally throw them all into their rooms while the aunties were cleaning up the mess they had left behind. When all was said and done, we finally returned to our respective rooms.
As it turned out, I had both the biggest room and the biggest bed. The sight of the bed immediately reminded me of Murong Mingyue’s meaningful smile and comment that it was “big enough to fit at least three people”. I understood her meaning completely of course.
I had just taken a bath and sat down on my bed when my phone rang. It was a call from Xu Ning—
“Are you busy right now, Lu Chen?”
“No, I’m free right now. What is it, Uncle Ning?”
I heard him chuckling a little before asking, “Is Xinran doing okay in Suzhou?”
“Mn. Everything is normal.”
“Good, good. Well, I’m calling you to talk about something.”
“Tell me!”
“Eternal Moon’s international headquarters have confirmed and signed the contract the big miss signed after she awakened. This means that her shares have been officially transferred under your name. However, since the big miss has awakened, they demand that her in-game character be reset to a Level 1 Wind Singer. What are your thoughts about this?”
I thought for a moment before saying, “Uncle Ning, Xinran has gotten used to her power for quite some time, and it was something the main computer has set at the very beginning. I’m worried that she’ll experience various discomforts if she was suddenly lowered to Level 1. Therefore, I must insist that her levels and everything else be maintained exactly as they were.”
“But…” Xu Ning sounded a bit troubled. “They’re putting a lot of pressure on me. You understand what I’m talking about…”
I let out a cough before saying, “It’s simple. I’ve looked through the internal statutes and protocols of the company before, and I found a line saying that no one has the right to alter the main computer’s settings. Unless the voting shares of the board of directors exceed 80%, everyone must obey its original design. They had already modified Lin Yixin’s God’s Tear before [3], and now they’re plotting to modify Xinran’s stats as well? Not a chance. Tell them I own 25% of the company’s shares, so they can’t get 80%. That means my word is the law here. If I say ‘no’, then ‘no’ it is!”
For a moment, Xu Ning was too surprised to say anything. Then, he broke into laughter and said, “Good man! It looks like the big miss’s choice to make you her spokesperson isn’t just an emotional decision after all!”
I said, “Just checking with you, but my reasoning is fine, right? If they refuse to obey, then make them use our internal protocols. I have 25% of the company’s shares, and southern and northern headquarters’ combined hold another 9%. I’m sure that 34% shares is enough to decide everything!”
Xu Ning laughed again. “Yes, it will. In that case, we will do as the… CEO says. The big miss’s stats will remain as they are, and Eternal Moon will not interfere with the main computer’s designs!”
“Good. Anyway, you should sleep soon, Uncle Ning. You’re not young anymore…”
“Er, sure, right after I hold a temporary meeting. By the way, the big miss is already asleep, right?”
“Yeah. The nurses have put her to sleep after the checkup.”
“Good. Good night then!”
“Good night, Uncle Ning!”
……
I sucked in a deep breath after hanging up. The servers were plotting a virtual war against each other, so I could understand why they—especially the USA and India servers—would want to weaken Xinran. However, the way they were going about things was too petty even for me to swallow. Also, the only reason I wanted Xinran to preserve her strength was so that she could protect herself better inside the game. Lin Na would return eventually, but her chances of beating him were great as long as she remained at full strength. As for the Nation War, I had never once thought to ask Xinran to help me, so that was a moot point.
My brain still felt a little warm and dizzy due to the alcohol I ingested, so I wasn’t planning to go online tonight. I opened the official website and found that it was full of threads about failed ascension attempts of both the F2P and P2W kind. Also, Purgatory Mad Dragon’s disbandment was the headline news for the day. Mad Dragon and Hegemon Palace had parted ways, and Roaming Dragon and Wang Dongliang had returned to being their old guilds’ leaders. Moreover, both guilds had vanished from the Top 10 of the Guild Ranking as a matter of course.
With this, Little Piglet’s revenge had reached a perfect conclusion. Although he failed to kill Lu Chao even once throughout his revenge journey, he did cost him his dream and more importantly, the billions of RMB he had invested into Purgatory Mad Dragon. Today, Mad Dragon wasn’t even on the same level as Hall of Immortality and Rose of the Holy Domain. Finally, Little Piglet’s revenge wasn’t over yet. He had reached the end of one account, yes, but his new account was just beginning its journey. When he had reached a sufficient level, he would march through Mad Dragon forces once more with the heroes of the Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls on his side this time. It would be a most interesting battle. If there was one thing certain about the virtual journey, it was that it would never run out of interesting battles.
……
I read the threads until it was past 11 pm. I yawned and decided that it was bedtime.
I lay down on the bed and was about to fall asleep when a cacophony of laughter suddenly erupted outside my door. I heard Gui Guzi, Xu Yang and more people’s voices mixed among them, and they were singing and laughing like they had inhaled ten grams of heroin or something.
Worried that something might have happened, I got out of bed, put on some clothes and opened the door just in time to see Gui Guzi, Xu Yang, Du Thirteen and Li Chengfeng laughing like crazy in the corridor. I asked them, “What the hell are you idiots doing? It’s almost midnight, man!”
Still laughing, Gui Guzi looked at me and said, “You haven’t slept yet, Boss Broken Halberd? Hahaha, we’re celebrating because Li actually managed to ascend on his first try! He’s the eighth player to ascend, and he is a Chaos Divine Throne Guardian just like Breeze and Rain and Candlelight Shadow!”
It was a most pleasant surprise. “Holy shit! Really?!”
Li Chengfeng nodded. “Yep! In fact, it just happened three minutes ago. Cool, right?”
I clapped my hands. “Absolutely, hahaha! This is deserving of a celebration! How are you going to celebrate this, by the way?”
Gui Guzi pointed at the entrance without hesitation. “Food stall, barbecue, and beer!”
I shivered. “Wonderful idea! I’m coming with you!”
……
Meanwhile, Lin Yixin and He Yi were just crawling out of my bed [4] and asking me why we were being so noisy. They were happy about Li Chengfeng’s ascension, but declined my suggestion that they join us for the barbecue. They claimed that our taste was too “unique”, and that it was too late to head out. Also, they were still full from dinner and didn’t feel like eating anything…
And so, 14 of us in total paraded out of the villa at 12 am midnight. Moonlight Stone was the only girl who joined us not because she didn’t want to go to bed, but because she promised Li Chengfeng that she would become his little sister if he completed his ascension on the first try. Naturally, Li Chengfeng was the happiest man of the day. And why wouldn’t he be? He both ascended to become a god and gained a little sister. The guy was grinning like a bloomed flower.
The night of spring was cold but not chilly, not to mention that we were at Jiangnan. On another note, the middle-aged uncle and auntie working at the food stall also grinned like a pair of flowers when they saw us. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that we were there to give them a good amount of money.
We celebrated until 3 am in the morning when we were absolutely bone-tired. It was only then we returned to the villa and dropped on top of our beds. Speaking of which, Gui Guzi, Li Chengfeng and Du Thirteen were sharing a bed tonight, but how they were going to share it wasn’t my problem. I returned to my room, closed the door and slept like a log.
……
I woke up at noon the next day. The gang had already returned to the gaming base because Li Chengfeng wanted to grind and set himself apart from the unascended players as much as possible. It couldn’t be helped. During the middle to late stage of the game, one level’s gap could be as big as night and day. Right now, everyone was aiming to reach Level 275.
As for me, I went online after I ate lunch.
Swhoosh!
I left the territory hall after I appeared in Dark Moon City. Speaking of which, all the buildings in our city had been increased to Rank 11. Perhaps there was an opportunity to increase our city to Rank 12 somewhere, but I wasn’t expecting it to surface anytime soon. Moreover, we were still the only Rank 11 city in all the servers. Even Lin Yixin’s Silver Fir City or Candlelight Shadow’s Candle Dragon City were still at Rank 10.
I looked up. A black draconic pillar so tall that the tip was hidden by the clouds stood several hundred meters away from the territory hall. Due to being a divine player, I could sense the energies soaring about the dragon’s lair. They were of course the Dark Bone Dragons I had acquired from Sophie. They were the reason no one dared to attack our Rank 11 city. Otherwise, Candlelight Shadow and Warsky would’ve mustered their allies and maybe even their enemies to launch an all-out assault against us. Warsky at least was shameless enough to pull off such a stunt…
……
“Hmm?”
Suddenly, I turned my gaze toward a certain point in the sky. It was because I had sensed a tremendous power flying toward me from that direction. A moment later, a beautiful woman descended from the colorful clouds and stopped right in front of me. Her legs looked dazzling beneath her combat skirt, and her armored figure was sensual to say the least. She stared at me with her gorgeous eyes and said, “I found you, big brother!”
I looked up. “Heh. What’s wrong, Xinran?”
1. E/N: Based on absolutely nothing. Seriously, it makes no sense to even think about it like this. Yiyi took 2 attempts, sure. It doesn’t mean the chance was close to 50%. Even if they take into account everyone who succeeded, that’s the kicker, they succeeded. In BDO there used to be a spreadsheet that compiled all Dream Horses (Pegasus, Unicorn, Doom Horse) and the # of attempts. The average was 19 attempts. But this data was from ones that SUCCEEDED. It didn’t take in all the data from the guys that had 30, 40, 50 or even 70 attempts. It was only after these guys succeeded after dozens of attempts that their numbers were put into the spreadsheet. Just like in this case, no one cares how many attempts it took Yiyi, you need to compile data from all attempts and then you can think about the actual chance. ☜
2. T/N: honestly this thing absolutely isn’t a thing in my country, but who knows China’s culture can be different ☜
3. T/N: and YOU had pressured your fellow countrymen into reinstating Lin Yixin’s account, which was what led to her God’s Tear being modified, bro. Then again, you’ve always been a shameless hypocrite, so ☜
4. T/N: bruh ☜
