Chapter 41 – Starting the Train

At 8 o’clock Beijing time, there was a server wide announcement in the Moonlight Forest district.

[Players, the guild challenge instance has been opened. Players in a guild and above level 50 can team up and accept the challenge task from the guild administrator. This event will give a large amount of experience, money, equipment and guild construction points. Please actively participate!]

At present, not many players had reached level 50 in the Moonlight Forest district. Almost all of them were elites of the major guilds. At this team, all guilds had already assembled a team to challenge the guild instance. This announcement meant the instance was officially opened and everyone immediately raised the weapon in their hands!

The guild challenge instance’s first stage: destroy the intruders.

The so-called intruders were the mobs that Li Cangyu previously mentioned. They appeared in the east, west, south, north and middle directions in 10 rounds. The 25 mobs in the first wave had to be killed before the second wave refreshed. Therefore, in order to save time in this stage, it was best not to miss any mobs.

At 8 o’clock, the mobs refreshed in the instance and the activity time bar appeared in the upper right corner.

Time Machine looked around and found that the groups made by Love to Eat Braised Fish were a bit strange. The 30 people were divided into five groups. Group 1 had six white magicians, group 2 had six elf archers, group 3 had two white magicians, two elf archers and two psychics, group 4 had the remaining outputs and his healer Love to Eat Twice-cooked Pork, while group 5 had two paladins, two healers and two melee swordsman.

Li Cangyu quickly ordered, “The main T will start to pull the mobs. The healers and swordsman of group 5 will follow the paladins. The healers will fill the blood of the main T while the swordsmen will protect the healer.The outputs will wait for my orders to use the group attacks. Don’t mess up!”

According to the previous positioning, Gu Siming and Time Madman were sent to different colour monsters marked by Li Cangyu. They used the Battle Howl skill and pulled the mobs around them. Then they started running in a clockwise direction!

The distance outputs saw Gu Siming pulling the mobs in the west, north and east while Time Madman pulled the mobs in the middle and the south. They ran clockwise and the two groups joined together. This was a spectacular train!

Li Cangyu saw the mobs gather and said, “Groups 1 and 3, unleash the group attacks!”

The group of six white magicians used the group attack skill ‘God’s Faith’ while the archers of group 3 used the skill Death Arrow Rain. The two psychics in group 3 used their assist skills and the gorgeous light effects of the skills filled everyone’s computer screen.

Once the group attack skills were released, the mobs screamed and collectively fell to the ground!

“…” Everyone in the Time Guild was shocked.

When playing against the mobs in the past, the healer had to take care of the teammates’ blood due to the high attack power of the mobs. The six person groups would take at least 25 seconds to kill a wave. If some teams accidentally missed a mob then it would delay everyone’s time.

Now the two paladins brought the mobs together and it took only 20 seconds to kill the first wave of mobs!

The group was staring blankly when the second wave of mobs refreshed.

Li Cangyu ordered, “Continue.”

Xiao Gu and Time Madman repeated their actions in pulling the mobs. The two paladins pulled the mobs and ran around in a train. The mobs followed the two paladins and the outputs standing in the distance received very little damage, making it easy for Bai Xuan to heal all the remotes.

The two healing sisters of Time were arranged to take care of the blood of the paladins. They followed the paladins and topped up their blood. If the mobs came to the healer, the two swordsmen arranged by Li Cangyu would protect the healers. They ensured that the healers’ chanting wasn’t interrupted and the healers filled the paladins’ blood. This meant the pressure wasn’t too great.

“Groups 2 and 4, prepare for the group attack.” Li Cangyu said on the voice channel. “Go!”

There was a loud bang as soon as he gave the command. The elf archers’ Death Arrow Rain, the white magicians’ God’s Faith, the summoner’s Thunder’s Wrath, the black magician’s Hell Flames and Li Cangyu’s white magician’s timely use of Inspiring voice doubled the entire team’s attack power for 10 seconds.

The output of groups 2 and 4 weren’t as high as groups 1 and 3 but the auxiliary skill meant it took them seconds to wipe out all the mobs.

Time Machine saw the bodies of the mobs and his jaw dropped.

He didn’t expect the killing efficiency of gathering the mobs to be so high!

He didn’t expect Love to Eat Braised Fish to calculate everything before the instance opened and to clearly calculate all possible incidents!

He was afraid that interrupting the healers’ casting would affect the paladins so he specifically sent two swordsmen to protect the healers…

He was afraid that the outputs of the group skills would lead to damage overflow and a waste of skills so he split up the outputs according to class. He divided them into groups to maximize the damage of the group attacks…

The cooldown of a big group attack was almost 40 seconds. Groups 1 and 3 were responsible for the first wave of mobs while groups 2 and 4 were responsible for the second wave of mobs. By the time the third wave of mobs appeared, the cooldown for groups 1 and 3 would just be over.

This sophisticated killing design and the seamless connection of skills that didn’t waste any second…

At this moment, Time Machine was feeling frightened while a strong admiration rose in his heart.

This person wasn’t an ordinary cow!

Love to Eat Braised Fish saw the class distribution of the 30 team members and temporary adjusted it to a kiting method obviously tailored for the Time Guild! How come Time Machine never thought of this? Was his IQ not high enough?

***

The Time members who participated in today’s instance were all first-class masters. Everyone’s doubts towards Love to Eat Braised Fish had disappeared a long time ago. They belatedly worshipped him and listened to his commands.

After three rounds of killing the mobs, everyone was familiar with this style of play. Li Cangyu said, “The first stage is like this so I won’t repeat it anymore. Everyone use their group skills at the right time. The next stage is the maze. President, how did you clear this previously?”

The guild challenge’s second stage: the random maze.

It was a very large maze that could accommodate hundreds of people. Moreover, the route of the maze was randomly generated in each instance. It didn’t follow a fixed route to team members needed to cooperate and improvise.

Time Machine thought about it and said, “Once we go in the entrance, the groups will separately take different roads. If we encounter a dead end, the person will return to the beginning and put down a marker to indicate that this road is blocked. Then they will enter another road.”

Li Cangyu asked, “Is it the road elimination method? People who walk into a dead end will mark it and slowly eliminate all the wrong paths. The remaining path will naturally lead to the end?”

“That’s it.” Time Machine was disturbed. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“It is a good method.” Li Cangyu said, “We will follow the old method.”

Time Machine excitedly agreed, “Okay!”

He didn’t know why but Time Machine felt a bit proud when he received this master’s affirmation.

In fact, this road elimination method was developed six years ago by the old captain, Xu Luo.

The large maze was very complicated. If everyone walked a road and found a dead end, it would waste a lot of time. Captain Xu and his team used a bunch of small accounts to walk the maze. People walked in different directions and made the dead roads at intersections, which would prevent other teammates from entering the dead end again.

This way, among the 30 members, there would always be a person who headed in the right direction and reached the final destination.

Using this method to walk the random maze was very quick.

Later, the undercovers from other guilds spread this method and it gradually became the main strategy to clear the maze part of the instance.

How many people knew that the Time members studied the maze for a whole night to develop this?

Time Machine couldn’t help feeling sad when he thought about the retired captain.

Fortunately, Tan Shitian didn’t disappoint the trust of his master. After taking over as captain, he took care of the Time team and their performance was still at the forefront of the league, greatly pleasing the Time veterans.

Time Machine had just been thinking for a little bit and the first stage was already finished. Two large prompts appeared on the screen.

[Congratulations, the guild challenge instance’s first stage ‘Destroy the Intruders’ has been successfully cleared!

[The second stage, Random Maze is about to start. Countdown in 10, 9, 8…]

***

Li Cangyu didn’t want to change the strategy in the second stage. The large maze was more troublesome and changing strategies was likely to make things messy. Li Cangyu decisively handed back commanded to the president of Time, saying, “President, you can arrange the maze.”

Time Machine was startled and immediately said, “Okay! Everyone prepare to enter the maze. Group 1 will enter the left, group 2 to the right and group 3 will go forward. Teams who encounter a dead end will drop a stone as the signal. Once the correct direction is found, immediately report it!”

Time Machine had been managing the guild since Xu Luo was captain. He was a six year veteran. Compared to the younger generation of other guilds, he had more experience with managing a guild and was stable. He was also very decisive when commanding, causing Li Cangyu to feel appreciative.

The countdown was soon over and the random maze opened.

Three teams entered the maze according to Time Machine’s arrangement and immediately went in different directions.

The ban on the team channel was lifted and it wasn’t long before someone sent a message. [The left side is all dead!]

Another message soon popped up on the team channel: [The road forward is all blocked!]

Since the left and forward paths were all dead ends, the correct direction must be on the right side. Time Machine immediately said, “Group 4 head to the right and groups 1 and 2 will also help.”

The four teams dispersed to the right side and many dead ends were soon marked.

The fog on the small map in the upper right corner was gradually unlocked. The fog area being unlocked meant that someone had reached the right area.

Once 70% of the maze was unlocked, Time Machine took the last five members to the right.

As soon as they entered, they saw many dead ends marked by the players. Everyone saw the marks and avoided those roads. There was no need to walk into the dead end so a lot of time was saved. They walked almost unimpeded all the way and soon found the correct route.

[Congratulations, the guild challenge’s second stage ‘Random Maze’ has been successfully cleared!]

[The third stage ‘Work Together’ is about to start. Countdown in 10, 9, 8…]