891 Unceasing Mischief

In Excellent Era’s practice room, the team players were all looking at one another. They had also seen the newest system announcement. Happy’s new record was ahead of them by a huge chunk. Their current dungeon run was pointless.

"How could that be?" Sun Xiang’s One Autumn Leaf rolled after being blown away. When he stood up again, he didn’t charge back in. This guy was already beginning to mutter to himself.

The reputation of pro players wasn’t undeserved. Xiao Shiqin was startled at first, but after thinking back, he felt like there wasn’t anything the team had done wrong. Perhaps Happy performed better or perhaps Happy’s equipment was better than their current equipment, but such a huge gap in speed meant that the issue lay elsewhere.

XIao Shiqin quickly found the issue.

The first boss!

Happy had definitely gotten rid of the first boss’s signal flare, altering the dungeon’s difficulty and allowing them to achieve such an extraordinary clear time.

"The first boss’s signal flare? Yes, it must be that part." Sun Xiang responded soon after hearing Xiao Shiqin’s words.

"There’s no point continuing is there? Hurry up and call the guild department to send over another batch of accounts. We need to carefully study the first boss." Sun Xiang called out.

Xiao Shiqin heard the request. Wasn’t this what he was most worried about? He was afraid that the team would raise Ye Qiu onto a pedestal and put all their energy into studying dungeons.

Dungeons were PvE, but pro players should be focused on PvP. The reason that Ye Qiu and his team ran these dungeons was definitely in order to improve their PvP capabilities, but if Excellent Era concentrated on doing this, it would result in the reverse.

"There’s no hurry!" Xiao Shiqin immediately advised against it, "That’s about it for this run. Let’s finish it up first. There’s still another ten-player dungeon, Gray Corner’s Underground Market. Let’s go do that one next! Ye Qiu’s team will most likely go to that dungeon and improve that side’s record."

Sun Xiang wanted to turn the tables, but it would be difficult in this dungeon. If they received another set of characters, it was just one more try. What’s more, they needed to study the dungeon, meaning their run would be similar to a first attempt at a dungeon. They definitely wouldn’t be able to achieve a good time. Plus, would they even be able to figure it out after just a few runs? Sun Xiang’s proposal was too unreliable. A counterattack would also feel slow. As a result, Xiao Shiqin suggested to hurry and finish this dungeon and then run over to the last one. They would be the ones chasing Happy then. It would act as a motivator for them. Soon afterwards, he urged everyone to hurry.

After Ye Xiu’s team set a record for Sealed Mountain Thief Hideout, they indeed rushed towards Gray Corner. Their goal was the same as their goal at Sealed Mountain Thief Hideout, take down the record and waste Excellent Era’s time.

However, they hadn’t found any shortcuts in Gray Corner’s Underground Market like they had in Sealed Mountain Thief Hideout. Ye Xiu was still confident though.

Their team might not be as practiced or as coordinated as a pro team like Excellent Era yet, but if it was just for this dungeon alone, then Happy was definitely superior to Excellent Era.

They used this dungeon every day as their practice for teamwork. It was similar to having a home field advantage. Everyday gave them two attempts, and many days had passed since their first clear. Even if Excellent Era urged themselves forward, they wouldn’t be able to catch up in familiarity and proficiency towards this dungeon so easily.

"Just do it like we usually do. There’s nothing to be worried about." Before entering the Underground Market, Ye Xiu gave them words of advice. Even though Sealed Mountain Thief Hideout’s record had frightened Excellent Era, Ye Xiu knew that it hadn’t been a perfect run. Perhaps just having a direct competitor made them tense up. As a result, Ye Xiu specifically addressed this point. However, that was the best he could do. The rest was up to them.

They entered the dungeon. Their progress through it went swiftly like before. Mo Fan, who had never done any teamwork practice before, started following along everyday after this time’s DPS lesson. However, they were currently running a new dungeon. For a moment, he wasn’t able to adjust. In fact, this used to be a practice method in the past.

As Mo Fan assimilated into the team, the team’s combat strength naturally rose immensely. Don’t look at how the DPS of Mo Fan’s Deception was still only better than Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze and Luo Ji’s Concealed Light. His integration into the team no longer made him an obstruction. In addition, by adjusting to the features of Deception’s class, they could sometimes coordinate a higher DPS battle method. 　　

41:37:11.

Happy was the first to set a new record. It was quite a bit faster than their previous record that they had intentionally held back on. Excellent Era had arrived to the dungeon one step later, so they were still struggling in the dungeon. Happy’s new time gave them a clear goal as what to aim for.

"Hurry, faster! A bit faster!"

This voice belonged to Excellent Era’s Sun Xiang. His leading was pretty much just urging everyone to hurry. The details of their tactics and team coordination was given to Xiao Shiqin to deal with.

When Happy’s record appeared, Excellent Era subconsciously paid attention to when they first entered the dungeon and then let out a small sigh of relief. This time, the other side’s time was faster than their current time at least. They still had hope.　

As for how much hope they had…...

As the players battled and calculated in their heads, their conclusion wasn’t too optimistic, especially for Xiao Shiqin. He was the most clear about their current situation, so he was the closest to the truth. From their current progress, if they continued using this stable strategy, Excellent Era would not beat Happy’s 41:37:11, but if they didn’t use this strategy, Xiao Shiqin didn’t know where else they could improve. Even pro players needed time to study this kind of task. Xiao Shiqin hoped that everyone would remain calm even after losing this round. He hoped that they wouldn’t stand up and get into an either you die or I die stance.

The events did not unfold the way Xiao Shiqin wanted. Before their final time came out, when the outcome became clear, Sun XIang flew into a rage. He hated how his character didn’t have three heads and six arms, capable of defending against a hundred and crush this dungeon with a point of his finger.

The end result was that, during the final boss battle, their time went past Happy’s record. Their final time was slower than Happy’s record by almost two and a half minutes.

Two and a half minutes sounded like a short amount of time, but for a speed run, it was a huge ravine. To fill up this gap, the amount of effort needed wouldn’t be any less than figuring out how to stop the signal flare from Sealed Mountain Thief Hideout’s first boss. Xiao Shiqin became even gloomier. This Ye Qiu kept on making trouble for them! The more he was afraid of something, the more likely it would happen.