Chapter 5 - Mastermo's Amazing Sword.

"Kevin, I think I should shift my sleeping schedule to the afternoon since we can't sleep peacefully at night because of a particular RPG."

"Just like every other T.I.A.D. player who can't sleep peacefully at night with everything going on."

"Yesterday night a new stage in the game opened up and welcomed more than a million teams."

"All of them were given their first mission as a team and each team got a different mission on a different level; that's millions of levels."

"I'm still shocked by the fact that the game hasn't crashed due to internet traffic."

"Let me now finally tell you about how this game, T..I.A.D. actually works."

T.I.A.D. stands for Transmigration Into Alternate Dimension. This is an RPG with more than a million story arcs per stage. Since it is a newly released game; The exact number of levels and stages are unknown.

The players start on level zero where they'll be assigned missions. Each mission takes place on a particular level and each level has a different story that the player is supposed to role-play in.

The levels on stage zero were arranged in an order from easy to hard, however when the teams entered stage 1 they were randomly assigned their levels. Some top gamers were lucky enough to get E ranked levels, whereas on the other hand some misfortunate fellas were sent straight to S ranked levels.

There are 8 types of level:

1. Non-ranked levels (ranked: unknown)

2. Easy levels (E-ranked)

3. Amateur levels (A-ranked)

4. Intermediate levels (I-ranked)

5. Hard levels (H-ranked)

6. God level (G-ranked)

7. Divine levels (D-ranked)

8. Supreme levels (S-ranked)

Ninety percent of the levels in stage zero were E ranked and the rest ten percent were A-ranked.

"But with the opening of Stage 1; Players found themselves shocked to find all 8 types of levels randomly assigned throughout the stage."

"And the one level that caused the most panic was the non ranked levels. The difficulty rank of these levels were unknown because they might be the hardest level for some people while for others it may be considered the easiest. These levels were not ranked because their difficulty status would range from person to person."

"Thankfully so far we have only got to know about 4 such non ranked levels."

"And to spice things up, One such non ranked level is the level 1034: volcanic eruption. Some fans may be really familiar with this level."

"This is the level assigned to the team created by Mastermo and Devilmagiclover which people have nicknamed the devil team."

"In fact from the teams that entered these 4 non-ranked levels, 3 teams have failed to complete the mission hence the only team that is still playing this level and has the highest chance of winning it, is the devil team."

"Yes you read that correct, they are still playing it. You can watch their live stream on Mastermo's official account and with that, today's news update ends here."

"This news was brought to you by your anchors, Kevin and Dev, live from the studio where we can't wait to catch up to Mastermo's hot live stream."

Hot indeed. Maybe too damn hot. Zhihao couldn't believe it. His casual decision to blow up the volcanic mountain turned out to be more disastrous than he presumed it to be.

He was running low on T-points.

T-points were also known as transmigration points, they were considered the currency inside this game. With the completion of each mission, the player would gain T-points and by using these points, the player could buy potions, elixirs, weapons, gadgets, clues, and many more things. In the current scenario, Zhihao could easily protect himself by either buying defensive equipment or by paying T-points to abandon this level and enter a new one; This was another use of T-points. T-points can save a player's life under critical conditions. but this was a virtual game so how did it matter? If the player was to be killed in any of the levels, they'd go through what the game called "A rebirth". This rebirth was exactly as the name suggested; The player would lose all his possessions, his inventory would be emptied out completely and the materials he owned such as armors, sword, and potions would all be dispersed in the level in which they lost; waiting for a new player to come and collect them.

The explosions caused by Zhihao and Li Ling caused an aftereffect; They enraged the fire dragon and caused a volcanic eruption due to which the heat in the area rose at an unbelievable rate. Their heat resistant defenses could not hold up and were on the verge of melting. With the lack of T-points, Zhihao could not buy new defensive equipment nor could he abandon the level.

Both of them were running and right behind them was the fire dragon who was currently in his half-human form, chasing after them but they weren't running from him. They were running from the overflowing bright lava that was creeping its way towards them, engulfing everything on its way.

"W-What do we do?!" Li Ling yelled

"Let's just run for now," Zhihao answered. He blamed himself; Non of this would have happened if only he had been a bit more patient with his inspection.

He had been so stupid. His mind was accustomed to the E and A-ranked levels from stage zero, he overlooked the possibility of new difficult ranked levels appearing in this stage. He was super embarrassed with himself, only noobs could ever make such mistakes. As a pro-gamer, to him, this ought to be an embarrassment for life that he'd never forget.

"Li Ling, After we get out of here, please hit me on my head."

"Mastermo! Do you have a spiritual sword in your inventory?" Li Ling questioned, ignoring Zhihao's previous request.

"A sword? Right! A sword!" Zhihao suddenly realized something; This was a Cultivation genre story so although a spiritual sword would be of no use in a fight at the moment, it could still prove to be useful as a transportation device.

Zhihao opened his inventory and after swiping through it a few times, he found the hardly used, spiritual sword, Shuang.

When Li Ling saw Zhihao take out Shuang, he was stunned for a second, this sword was actually a limited-edition, high-grade equipment that only a handful of people in the game owned. Li Ling couldn't help but ask, "A-Zhi, Are you an idiot."

"Huh?" Zhihao couldn't understand.

"You have the Shuang sword and you still want us to run? Don't you know, that sword has a water element. It's the only weapon that can defeat the fire dragon!" Li Ling exclaimed making Zhihao feel a bit stupid. Indeed, Zhihao never knew this nor did he know how Li Ling knew it but he trusted his partner and so the two stopped in their tracks and turned around but Zhihao didn't attack, He simply waited.

It wasn't that he didn't want to fight and defeat the fire dragon, he didn't do it because it made no sense and he was done making rash decisions. He thought back to the instructions they received; To convince the fire dragon to come out. But they had already done that. The fire dragon had already come out of its den so why hasn't the mission been completed yet? It simply did not make sense. Why would they have to fight the fire dragon if their mission wasn't to defeat the creature?

Unless...

Zhihao had another crazy idea, "What if that's not the real fire dragon. No, That's not the question. How could we be sure that this is the dragon we are looking for?"

"Didn't it come out of the ground?"

"Exactly! It came out of the ground. There is a den under the mountain. It makes perfect sense. but what if the den is home to more than a single dragon?"

"You mean to say..?"

"If what I think is correct, The fire dragon we are looking for is still inside that den," Zhihao stated

"Then who is that?" Li Ling pointed at the creature with a handsome human face that had dragon-like wings.

"I guess we'll find out!" Having said this, Zhihao hopped on his sword and flew straight towards that man. Li Ling also followed suit as he mounted on his own spiritual sword and followed right after Zhihao.

"Who the hell are you people?" The man roared

"Great dragon, please show us mercy." Li Ling responded before Zhihao, "We are just two fellow cultivators who were looking for a place to practice. My senior brother used too much power during his practice and ended up destroying the mountain. Please forgive us."

The man indeed stopped and listened to Li Ling's bullshit and just as he finished, the man glared at Shuang. Having sensed the great power emitted by the high-grade weapon, the man seemed to believe their story.

"Your weapon is indeed too powerful. No wonder it caused such damage." The man spoke, pondering about something.

"It is indeed a bit difficult to handle." Li Ling responded almost immediately.

"Since it is not suitable for you, why don't you leave it with me."

"...."

Zhihao was speechless and Li Ling had a dissatisfied expression on his face.

The duo finally seemed to understand something.

"Say, Just who are you?" Zhihao asked, his tone extremely rude.

"Your grandfather!" The man cursed.

"Great Dragon, please don't be mad. My senior brother is really awkward around handsome people. Since the dragon is so handsome, he couldn't help but ask for your name." Li Ling spoke as he changed his strategy from acting innocent to blatant flattery.

"Your senior brother is indeed weird but at least he has a good eye."

"..." Zhihao had the urge to cringe at the egotistical man.

"I'm the prince of this land."

But at least they got the answer. Zhihao was indeed right when he concluded that this wasn't the real fire dragon. They could now rest assured that the real fire dragon they were looking for was still inside the den.

The man in front of them was actually the son of the fire dragon.

"We had long heard the great tales of the prince that rules this land. Now that we get the chance to see it for ourselves, I have to say, The stories were indeed not exaggerated in the slightest." Li Ling still didn't give up on his flattery and Zhihao kinda felt annoyed at it.

"This young cultivator brother seems to have a really sweet tongue. I had been living in my den for the past 1000 years. What are these great tales you speak of?"

"..." Li Ling was dumbfounded and embarrassed. "Ah! I must have been mistaken. Could there be another dragon who roams around this region?" Zhihao seemed to have a new impression of this Devilmagiclover; he had a smart tongue that knew exactly what to say.

"..." The prince stared at Li Ling for a minute before he spoke, "There was indeed another dragon reigning over this region. My father, The great monarch."

"What happened to him?" Zhihao questioned.

"A few years ago, he was gravely injured in a dual and he is currently recovering from it."

"Who was his opponent? How could somebody injure the reigning Fire Dragon?"

"This! Isn't this all because of that sword." The dragon prince snarled as he pointed at Shuang.

Both Li Ling and Zhihao stared at Shuang in confusion.