Wei Chen’s mind was still wandering off when someone knocked on the door to the practice room again. Xiao Shiqin moved fast and quickly walked out of the door. Ye Xiu followed behind him, while calling out: "Why are you in such a hurry to leave? Why not play for a little longer?"
"No need. No need." Xiao Shiqin hastily declined, "I’ve got to get back. There’s a bunch of stuff in the team that I’ve still got to take care of. I’ve been out too for too long already, so it wouldn’t be good to overstay my welcome."
"It’s the holidays right now. What stuff could you possibly have to do?" Wei Chen immediately interrupted: "Why not play a bit more?"
The expression on Xiao Shiqin’s face looked like he had just eaten a bittermelon: "I just arrived. There’s a lot of stuff on the team that I need to understand!"
"Really?" Ye Xiu laughed.
Xiao Shiqin was gloomy! Normally, for his purpose in coming here, their polite request for him to stay longer was an opportunity that he had most wanted, but would never obtain. Allowing the current to push the boat by staying longer and observing their team more was usually a good thing, but was that the case now? While others would fight for such opportunities, Xiao Shiqin braced himself and hastily tried to leave, especially when Ye Xiu laughed: "Really?" It made him feel like he had been completely seen through. He was certain that the other side had guessed his intentions in coming here, but if no one poked a hole through the window. Wouldn’t they have to continue pretending?
However, Xiao Shiqin didn’t feel good faking it. He wanted to hurry up and leave. If he didn’t leave now, another boss would spawn in the meantime; should he help or not help?
Just when things had reached this step, Xiao Shiqin’s cellphone started ringing and vibrating. Xiao Shiqin was overjoyed! He quickly took out his cellphone, and indicated to Ye Xiu and Wei Chen that he needed to pick up the phone. Without saying anything more, he waved his hands wildly to say goodbye and immediately ran out, while asking "Hello hello hello?"
"Are you busy?" The person on the other side of the phone asked.
Xiao Shiqin had just gotten to the staircase and asked back: "Who is this?"
"It’s me. Zhang Xinjie."
Bang bang bang bang bang…...
Xiao Shiqin’s phone rolled down the stairs. Happy Internet Cafe’s stairs were fairly normal. They were built using wooden boards, so when his phone fell, it made a loud sound. In the blink of an eye, it had already fallen to the bottom. The back cover and battery had flown out.
By the time Xiao Shiqin picked up all the scattered cellphone parts, the call had dropped. What else could Zhang Xinjie be calling him for? Of course it was to ask why he was helping Ye Qiu! According to common sense, if the two were participating in the Challenger League on different teams, shouldn’t they be opponents?
That wasn’t something easy to explain! Xiao Shiqin was conflicted. He couldn’t just tell Zhang Xinjie that he had shamelessly barged into their practice room to find out about the enemy, right?
During his moment of hesitation, Xiao Shiqin assembled his cellphone back together. The several cracks on the screen made his heart hurt. He tried turning on the cellphone. Luckily, it still worked. It could still power on. Right when, the cellphone startup screen ended, another phone call came. The name flashed and flashed. It was Zhang Xinjie again.
"Hello." Xiao Shiqin left the Internet Cafe, while picking up the call.
"What happened?" Zhang Xinjie asked.
"I dropped my cellphone on the ground." Xiao Shiqin knew that Zhao Xinjie was probably asking about that.
"You were the one commanding Radiant and Parade, right?" The question finally came.
"That was me." Xiao Shiqin said.
"Why did you go over to that side?" Sure enough, Zhang Xinjie was very suspicious of Xiao Shiqin’s position.
"Sigh. We’ll be meeting in the Challenger League, no? I was trying to figure what their situation was like." In the end, Xiao Shiqin spoke the truth.
"Oh? How is it going on their side?" Zhang Xinjie asked.
"The majority of them are new players." Xiao Shiqin said. He hadn’t forgotten his purpose in coming here. While he had commanded Radiant and Parade, he still gathered quite a lot of information. Tang Rou and Steamed Bun were already quite skilled. To players in the game, these two were certainly top experts and not new players.
Indeed, for in-game players, Tang Rou and Steamed Bun had already played for half a year. How could they still be considered new players? Games with too steep of a learning curve rarely thrived in the market!
But Xiao Shiqin was looking at them from a pro player’s perspective. Under his keen observation, playing Glory for seven months was still too short. Xiao Shiqin quickly saw numerous areas of the game that the two weren’t familiar with. Their newness to the game was a bit frightening, even if their mechanics were outstanding.
And that Qiao Yifan, who Tao Xuan had attached a lot of importance to. Xiao Shiqin had observed him several times and felt that although his placement of ghost formations were not bad, there was nothing particularly noteworthy. Maybe he wasn’t going all out because he was fighting against normal players?
Xiao Shiqin had carefully observed each person on Team Happy and these were the conclusions that he had more or less reached. Tang Rou and Steamed Bun were fairly easy. He quickly saw through them. It was Qiao Yifan, who Xiao Shiqin had to repeatedly observe. In the end, he still couldn’t make any definite verdicts. When Zhang Xinjie heard Xiao Shiqin say that they were mostly novices, he casually commented: "New players aren’t that easy to grasp."
"Mm." Xiao Shiqin agreed. In fact, he didn’t continue staying in Happy’s practice room for this reason. If he could have found more information on them, he wouldn’t mind helping them snatch another wild boss, but how could one or two of these wild bosses be a deadly threat to Excellent Era? Xiao Shiqin doubted it.
After observing the three player’s performances, Xiao Shiqin didn’t feel like there was a need to stay any longer.
Xiao Shiqin understood why Zhang Xinjie said that new players were difficult to understand, especially Tang Rou and Steamed Bun. These two were the most difficult kind of new players to grasp, because not only were they new to the pro scene, but new to Glory as well. Such a degree of newness implied that they had a lot of room to grow. Everyone had different personalities and different levels of talent. Who knew how much one would improve after so long? For new players, grasping their present strength was meaningless. It would require long-term shadowing of their growth to truly understand them. As for Qiao Yifan, his foundation in Glory was sturdy. He deserved to be called a player from Team Tiny Herb. However, his performance also showed that he had a lot of room to grow, or perhaps he was a master displaying a small part of his skill. In any case, Xiao Shiqin wouldn’t be able to get anything more out of him by staying.
"But it looks like Ye Qiu is doing quite well! His team has made you worried enough to personally pay them a visit." Zhang Xinjie said.
"It’s never bad to be careful! After all, he is Ye Qiu." Xiao Shiqin said.
"Yeah..." Zhang Xinjie added. The two then started to chat about other things before hanging up. Zhang Xinjie mainly called to figure out why Xiao Shiqin had been helping Ye Qiu. Once he knew that it had only just been a temporary alliance, he relaxed. If he needed to face these two Master Tacticians in future confrontations, Zhang Xinjie would need to completely redraw his plans.
After they got the information that they wanted, the two hung up. Meanwhile, an atmosphere of nervousness could be felt in Happy’s practice room by all, yet Wei Chen wasn’t there.
"Do you think it’ll be successful?" Chen Guo was playing, but her mind wasn’t there. She stared with fixed eyes at her screen, when she suddenly asked Ye Xiu.
"From what we’ve seen, there should be no reason that it should fail." Ye Xiu said.
"What if it fails?"
"Then we’ll need to find the reason and fix it." Ye Xiu said.
"Ha ha." Steamed Bun suddenly laughed: "This is something even little kids know. You even need that to be taught to you?"
Chen Guo nearly died from anger, but what could she do? Steamed Bun was right. Fix the mistake. Who didn’t know that?
After a long time, Chen Guo couldn’t sit still. She opened the practice room door and looked out. When she returned, she muttered: "Why isn’t he back yet?"
For the final, most nerve-wracking step, she had given him a private room to prevent anyone from bothering him. Everyone else was still in the practice room. The scene looked as if they were waiting for the news of a baby’s delivery.
Who knew how much time passed. Finally, someone knocked and pushed open the door.
Wei Chen held a cigarette in his mouth, his face completely smug. He didn’t attempt to hide his joy at the success as he walked in.
For a moment, Chen Guo felt dizzy because she had the hardest time keeping her calm, so she kept overthinking. With her understanding of Wei Chen’s shamelessness, she thought he would certainly feign failure even if it had actually been a success, to deliberately play with their emotions. Who would have thought that he would come back smiling. Although his smugness made her want to punch him in the face, Chen Guo couldn’t care about any of that right now.
"A success?" Chen Guo wanted confirmation.
"Hmph. Of course." Wei Chen looked down at everyone’s nervousness in disdain as if it had been an easy task. He seemed to have completely forgotten that he had been the most nervous one just awhile ago.
So this was where his shamelessness comes in! Chen Guo thought in despise. Afterwards, she saw Wei Chen swagger his way over, while puffing puffs of smoke. Chen Guo endured and didn’t say anything. Then, he saw him flick his hands and throw Windward Formation’s Warlock account card onto the table.
"Take a look!" Wei Chen said as if he were the boss.
Endure!!! Chen Guo quietly took the account card. She inserted the card and logged in. Ye Xiu also came over to have a look.
His character was still in the Arena. Who knew how many times he would bully a normal player after upgrading his weapon. Chen Guo looked back and glared at Wei Chen. She opened up his inventory and hovered over his weapon.
Death’s Hand - Level 70.
Weight: 3kg
Durability: 30
Attack Speed: 2
Physical Attack: 650
Magic Attack: 899
Intelligence +66
Darkness Affinity +30
Darkness Resistance +30
Magic Critical Strike +14%
Magic Cast Speed +14
Cast Range +4
Death’s Door Skill Level +1
All the stats had increased. It couldn’t be anymore successful. There was also a +1 to a skill. After researching how to give Silver weapons a skill level up, it was found that all Silver weapons would level up a skill on its final upgrade.
"Death’s Door? How common!" Ye Xiu commented. Death’s Door was a Warlock’s strongest skill, so many would naturally use this precious skill level increase here.