Chapter 7 - Mastermo Is Hiding His Love Affair

"Confusion! Confusion! So much confusion!"

"That's what went through the minds of Mastermo's fans as they saw their favorite team winning the non-ranked level."

"Mastermo's live stream ended early this morning and once again it caused a sleepless night among the fans as they all thought together; Just what in the hell happened?"

"And that's why we are here. We have spent our entire morning analyzing the game and how the duo won it and I think we have finally got the gist of it."

"So let us now explain just how the team showed their amazing unity and harmony; they understood one another without even needing to voice out their thoughts."

"The level started with them receiving a mission to get the Fire dragon to come out and return the region to its former glory.."

"Now, remember how we told you previously that the non-ranked levels existed because their difficulty level was indistinguishable. Well, this level was a great example to show you guys just how it all works."

"Most people might not have realized this, but the level was in fact not as hard as everyone thinks, that is of course for the people who paid attention to the instructions given in the beginning."

"The most important question to ask at the beginning of the level was; How could the dragon restore the land to its former glory?"

From the way the whole scenario played out itself makes it seem like Mastermo might have already realized this from the beginning.

It was all a lie and just when did the lies start? It could be said that it started from the Dragon.

Although the system never lies or necessarily provides the player with misleading info, It could also not be trusted completely as it cannot lie, but it can still hide certain critical information from the player.

In reality, if the volcano were to erupt, by all means, a dragon could not save it even if it's a cultivation genre story. So why would the system include this in its instructions on how to clear this level? Well simple, Cause it was created by the dragon.

The starting part of the story may indeed be true; The fire dragon protected and reigned over this land, Humans injured him in order to take this land from him. But the latter part of the story was a bit mixed up. What happened to the cultivators who wanted to take this land? And what about the dragon who secluded himself in his den?

To sum it all up; The dragon found out that he could no longer protect his territory, but he was reluctant to give it up, so instead he created an illusion array to make it all seem like the volcano had erupted and anybody caught in this illusion, due to the high cultivation level of the dragon would not be able to break it so easily.

Another point to note was that if one were to look closely; they'll find that the mission was actually to convince the dragon to come out hence the first time Zhihao and Li Ling saw the dragon, they didn't finish the mission because they didn't convince him and instead they forced him or at least an illusion of him to come out. So it can be said that blowing up the mountain may not actually be a mistake on Zhihao's part but a strategy?

Although it was an illusion, the mountain was in fact real and the devil team destroyed it together, forcing the Dragon to be enraged and show himself. So far, this could be considered the only method that could actually catch the Dragon's attention.

The next step was to interact with the dragon and find loopholes in his story which were programmed in the game beforehand to provide clues to the players. One such loophole was how the dragon pointed at Mastermo's sword, Shuang. Now the game, no matter how advanced it may be, still ran on coding which was done on the basis of every other player, hence the dragon wasn't exactly acting freely, He was acting according to the orders he was given beforehand. So how could he know that the sword that the player was going to wield was Shuang and that's why throughout his whole narration of the story, he never said the sword's name. Whereas in cultivation genres, spiritual swords were in fact referred to by their names.

It seems, both Zhihao and Li Ling noticed this and for their luck, Mastermo just had to own a sword with a water element that was completely incompatible with the fire dragon.

When the dragon was busy telling his story; Zhihao and Li Ling weren't idly hearing him out.

Let us further break down their strategy step by step to help better understand it:

Step 1: Blow up the mountain to catch the Dragon's attention.

Step 2: Run as far away from the mountain as possible in order to weaken the power of the dragon since the real body of the dragon still resided inside his den, under the mountain.

Step 3: To slowly break the array. This step was done by Devilmagiclover who was secretly doing it while Mastermo was distracting the dragon by purposely indulging in his story

"I have to say, Mastermo is an amazing actor. He almost had us believing that he was actually panicking."

"I think Devilmagiclover was a better actor. I almost believed he was useless. kekeke..."

"But they both proved us all wrong by working together so flawlessly."

"In the end, Mastermo bought enough time for Devilmagiclover to break the array and that was what everyone actually saw. The background started to change drastically and so the dragon who by then had realized that his array was broken had to show his true form."

"And so they completed the mission."

"I'm still a bit mind-blown at how they had us all, lost and on our edges the entire time."

"This just comes to show that Mastermo is well deserved of the title of the top player."

"We are indeed looking forward to what this duo has in store for us."

"With that, we conclude our blabbering. This has been your anchors, Kevin and Dev live from the studio."

.

.

.

Huang Zhen who had listened to the whole news broadcast from start to finish had a proud expression on his face as he turned towards his big brother who was all over the news, "Big Bro, you're so amazing!"

"What's so amazing?" Zhihao sneered.

"You and Big Brother Ling form the best team. So compatible! You can even understand each other's minds. Amazing, indeed."

"What nonsense are you blabbering about?" Zhihao scolded, "Those people are over-exaggerating."

'What do you mean?" His brother looked at him, clueless.

"Even I didn't realize what was wrong. I blew up the mountain on a whim. I ran away on instinct and I was actually panicking, not acting, for a moment I thought my career was as good as gone."

Huang Zhen choked in surprise, finding it somewhat funny how highly the news anchor's regarded Mastermo. "But didn't you and Li Ling gege work together at the end?"

"Like hell we did!!" Zhihao snapped, "That guy didn't tell me anything until the end. I had no idea he was breaking the array. I thought he was listening to the story as well. He made a fool out of me, Makes me angry just thinking about it."

"B-But... You were even completing each other's sentences...?"

"That was because I saw him point towards the lava which was fading away! I instantly realized something was wrong and that shameless man winked at me."

"Ah! So that was when you realized that it was all an illusion and Li Ling broke through it?"

"Of course!" Zhihao fumed.

"But you didn't look so shocked."

"I'm a pro-gamer. I had to keep some face."

"So that was why Li Ling let you speak at the end? Letting you take free credit?'

"Hmph.." Zhihao was annoyed. Never in his life had he been so embarrassed. Never had he felt so stupid. It was as if he was a side character in his own story where Li Ling like a knight in silver armor had swept in and saved the day and to top it all off; the man humbly lets Zhihao share the credit. Free credit that Zhihao was ashamed to take. He clearly hadn't helped Li Ling at all, so why should he be praised like this while Li Ling is being appreciated as somebody befitting of becoming Zhihao's partner. It was clear as day that Li Ling was far better than Zhihao and it should be Zhihao who should thank the heavens to be given the chance to be on Li Ling's team.

"Shameless." A-Zhen chimed.

"H-Hey! I didn't ask anybody to give me credits." Zhihao explained himself

"Are you still trying to hide it?" A-Zhen asked suspiciously.

"It's not that I'm deliberately hiding it. I'm just not clearing things up. I also have a reputation to keep."

"So what? We are living in the 21st century. It's normal, nothing to lose face over." A-Zhen sounded mad as he heard his brother's response.

"You have no idea what you're talking about. The people think I'm a genius so let them think that if in the future they were to ask me the truth, I'll willingly say it, but right now if they don't care about the truth, why should I deliberately confess that I'm thick-skulled."

"That's not what I'm talking about! You are lying about your relationship with Li Ling."

"...." Zhihao was speechless

"Tell me the truth; you are dating him, aren't you?" A-Zhen questioned straightforwardly.

"..."

"..."

"..."

Zhihao couldn't comprehend what was going inside his brother's mind, "What makes you think that?!"

"You two are being too obvious. He protected you and solved the problem without bothering you and he even let you take the credit. Don't most guys do that when they play with their girlfriends? Who in the world would do such a thing unless they weren't in a relationship?"

"That... Kinda makes sense... But forget it! We are definitely not dating!" Such a strong denial from Zhihao made A-Zhen understand a few things.

"Could it be....?" A-Zhen covered his mouth, "Poor Li Ling gege." Zhihao had no idea what the boy had concluded but he had a feeling that it was nothing good.

In Huang Zhen's mind, he sympathized with Li Ling; Living with a one-sided crush on such a dim-witted man who could think of nothing but gaming. Li Ling was surely a poor soul that deserved all the prayers he could get. He suddenly wanted to play wingman and help Li Ling but even he knew it'll be a waste. Sure a relationship between two men wasn't accepted so openly in society, but the main problem wasn't that Li Ling was a man, The problem was that he was a human and not a game character! Huang Zhen had known his brother since forever and never had he ever seen his brother be even remotely attracted to anything that was not a bunch of codes in a system. Since the moment his brother held onto his first game console, his life was set; He would never be into anything else but games. No matter if it was a man or a woman, if anybody flirted with him, he would think they wanted to use him to progress in the game, that was how simple-minded he was.

Huang Zhen pitied Li Ling; To be attracted to such a man, Li Ling gege certainly had bad luck.

On the other hand, Li Ling, who was quietly pacing around in his office was struck with a different kind of worry; Had he given himself away?

While both the men were in deep worry, the main cause behind it, Zhihao was innocently eating his ice-cream in dissatisfaction, still visibly angry at Li Ling for letting him take the credit.