CH 9

Qin Xiujie took a glance at his friend and saw Jiang Xiao’s usually calm expression. The tone he used to call out ‘darling’ was the same as asking about the weather. 

As someone with a cold nature, Jiang Xiao cared about very few things and had an indifferent attitude toward many others. For example, once he accepted the bet and acted like he was in a relationship, he would send a kiss emote through the horn without hesitation. Right now, Qin Xiujie didn’t know whether Jiang Xiao had any other motive.

But Jiang Xiao after all just met Ran Ran, so it shouldn’t be what he thought.

He remembered that Jiang Xiao always liked to watch matches in the arena. Maybe Ran Ran’s performance today was really good, which led to Jiang Xiao paying more attention to his younger cousin?

As he was theorizing in his head, he heard his guild members’ voices from the earphone. 

“Er…Leader, you want sister-in-law to join the fight?”

“And to support one area alone?”

Jiang Xiao confirmed, “Yes, he can do it.”

[(Party) Vault of Heavens Essence<: No no no! Hubby, I can’t, I’m scared (fearful)]

Everyone chorused, “See!”

Look at how frightened the soft and adorable sister-in-law is!

Jiang Xiao ignored them because after Yue Ran expressed how scared he was, he included a private message.

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I will be exposed!] 

[(Private) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: You won’t.]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Really?]

[(Private) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: Has your strength been fully recovered?]

Yue Ran blinked slowly, and he understood what his senior meant. 

He had just somewhat gotten the feel of the game and had not completely recovered his former state. If he played now with some deliberate mistakes, they won’t tell the difference between now and later. Seeing no replies from the little summoner, Jiang Xiao explained in voice chat, “He has fast apm and reactions, but he can’t process everything at the same speed. He should be able to do it under my command.”

The guild members had no objection from their always reliable guild leader. They happily accepted the statement.

“You’re right, sister-in-law must have a talent for gaming if Sunken Moon wanted to take him under his wing.”

“Yes, sister-in-law, please don’t be afraid. The worst thing that can happen is we die and try again. Don’t be concerned if that happens, it only means our team wasn’t good enough to make the final push.” 

“That’s right, we never know if we don’t try.”

[(Party) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Okay, I’ll do my best (teary eyes).]

As everyone stood in position, Jiang Xiao opened the room and pulled aggro.

The first and second phases passed smoothly. As the third phase soon began, the boss raised its weapon and a light circle appeared on the right side, which was exactly the area that Yue Ran was in charge of. 

The party members watched nervously and heard the guild leader send a command, “Darling, skill.” They saw the summoner raise his staff to summon his Light Bird. The buff covered the entire glowing area at the same time as the boss used its skill. With both skills activated simultaneously, they crashed and disappeared without a trace.

Not only was Yue Ran keeping up with the rhythm, but the skill placement was also perfect. It was flawless!

The voice chat screamed, “Sister-in-law is amazing!”

Jiang Xiao interrupted, “Don’t get distracted.” 

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It was much easier to fight after that. 

From prior experience, the light circle would not appear in the same location consecutively, giving them time for their skills to go off of the cooldown. Even if they are in the boss’s daze zone at the next interval, the nearby summoner would come forward and substitute the position temporarily. As long as they maintained the rhythm, they would defeat the boss. The only worry was a mistake from sister-in-law. But he didn’t make a single slip the first three times. He was indeed talented.

They were almost there!

Everyone was excited. Under their guild leader’s leadership, they began to release all of their attacks and skills at the boss, but they celebrated too early. In the final round of daze skill, the boss set three light circles.

The summoners were in a panic. 

“Leader, our skills are still on cooldown!”

“Same here!”

Jiang Xiao’s voice remained calm. “Everyone spread out. Healers, buff yourself.”

Obviously, they can’t nullify the daze completely this round. They could only reduce the casualties as much as possible. With healers being immune to daze, they could keep themselves alive while healing others. The party immediately understood the leader’s decision and quickly ran to the side. 

The next moment, the boss’s daze triggered and several of them didn’t escape in time were immediately hit with the crowd control. This was followed by the boss’s wide range attack, which took three members’ lives.

But there were still so many members alive, much better than a total annihilation.

As soon as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, the boss stretched out its hand and a blood-red light appeared above their leader’s head. Before anyone had the time to react, the mini-boss used its ultimate skill.

Everyone’s heart skipped a beat. They suddenly realized that because the leader was the main tank, the boss was most likely planning to speed kill him. If the main tank dies, the aggro would change, and most likely would result in annihilation for the party. 

They could only watch the skill land helplessly, and some of them couldn’t hold back their cussing. But when the skill animation dispersed, they witnessed a big, fluffy bear hugging the leader.

This was the summoner’s defensive skill—summoning a White Bear that embraces one player and takes incoming attacks.

Because of the boss’s high attack stats, the White Bear lost all of its HP and dissipated with a pained whimper. But the guild leader was alive—this wasn’t just saving the leader’s life, it was saving all of their puny lives!

They looked around and saw sister-in-law in mid skill animation. 

“Holy fuck, sister-in-law is amazing—!”

When the boss used its ultimate skill, everyone was caught off guard and no one could react in time. While Yue Ran summoned his White Bear in a split second and controlled the spirit beast to protect the leader. The reaction and apm of this speed were terrifying!

“Great job, darling,” Jiang Xiao praised with a smile and threw out a misdirection. “You still remember what I taught you from the arena.”

After a pause, he went back to business-as-usual. “Regroup. Healers, pay attention to everyone’s HP. Frontlines, watch your spot. Mages—spells. Summoners, buff the backlines. Darling, buff the frontlines.” 

Mage and summoner both had a large area-of-effect skill that increased their teammates’ critical hit chance, but the buff from the latter is higher by five percent. Because a mage’s buff is from an array, everyone in the array would gain the buff. While a summoner’s buff is a skill shot and not a point and click ability.

The spirit that gives the area buff is a plant spirit. It had a furry body with electric lights scattered around it. Visually, it looked like a giant dandelion. It had five seconds of summon duration. During these five seconds, it gave the buff to each player it touched.

Generally, the summoners in the guild could buff three players, four if they were lucky. But there were five players on the frontline.

A few members in the frontline watched Furball’s fuzzy head sway from side to side as it skipped around them. Although it bounced on a confusing path, they all received the buff after the time duration. Their sister-in-law’s picture that was printed in their heads was a cute and adorable omega clenching his teeth and trying his very best. This image moved them to tears. 

As a result, several people rushed forward with a loud shout and quickly killed the mini-boss.

[(Party) Vault of Heavens Essence<: My hands are sore, and I felt like my heart had stopped (cry).]

[(Party) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: You did very well (head pat).]

[(Party) Vault of Heavens Essence<: (flushed)] 

Despite the loving conversation on the surface, a round of bickering was conducted in private.

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Stop calling me ‘darling’.]

[(Private) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: What’s your name then?]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Yue Ran.] 

This reminded Jiang Xiao that the name Qin Xiujie used earlier was a nickname.

[(Private) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: Can I call you Ran Ran?]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Sure.]

[(Private) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: My name is Jiang Xiao.] 

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: Oh.]

After the chat, Jiang Xiao moved his character forward and picked up the two pieces of equipment and a rare material that dropped from the mini-boss.

The party began to use {dice tossing}; Yue Ran joined them because he participated in the battle. Unfortunately, he was unlucky and rolled a low digit. The loot was distributed to the winners with Jiang Xiao getting the rare material.

Jiang Xiao said, “Ran Ran, come here.” 

It startled everyone in the voice chat as they watched the little summoner walk toward their guild leader. They suddenly realized that their sister-in-law was called Ran Ran. Such a pleasant name!

Not knowing what Jiang Xiao wanted, Yue Ran came forward and saw a system message pop up. It was for a trade request. He accepted the request and watched the rare material appear in the trade window.

He blinked slowly at the item and opened the private chat window.

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: For me?] 

[(Private) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: You deserved it.]

[(Private) Vault of Heavens Essence<: You don’t want it?]

[(Private) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: I can grind for another one.]

That made sense. 

Yue Ran sent a thank you message and bluntly accepted the free item.

After beating the mini-boss, they continued to push forward.

Yue Ran didn’t want to be too conspicuous, so he pretended to step in the attack range of a small monster and was knocked unconscious.

[(Party) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I am sorry, I wasn’t paying attention (cry).] 

[(Party) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: No issue, you just started.]

The whole party comforted him and told him it was nothing to worry about. Because he was, after all, not a standard newbie.

He had the potential to be noticed by Sunken Moon!

He had the apm speed to clutch them through the fight! 

He was likely to be a bright new star in the future!

He was their guild leader’s wife!

This time, not only the alphas, but the betas also jealously picked at their keyboard.

Why couldn’t they be the ones that met such a legendary wife! 

After the mini-boss, they would face two bosses at the end of the dungeon. For the summoners, the timing was not as critical for these two bosses. So Yue Ran’s performance for the remaining dungeon run remained as a normal shivering tourist. He tried to reduce his presence and finally moved the other members’ attention away from him.

Passing the final boss’ room was also very difficult. They completed the dungeon after being annihilated four or five times.

An attentive member checked the leaderboard to find that they were the second guild to complete the dungeon. Everyone was super excited and made a racket about doing another run.

At the same time, Traceless Water, the leader of the second-largest guild, made a rude remark, “White Koi? Where did this guild come from?” 

“If they aren’t from the old server, it should be a new guild.” A member informed him. “I did some digging. There are only about one hundred members in the guild. It should be a laid-back and a play for fun type of guild.”

Traceless Water argued, “Impossible. How could a casual guild be this strong? Particularly their twenty members dungeon run on the leaderboard. Eastern Blizzard has Sunken Moon at least, so I’m not surprised they took first. But this random guild? No way, investigate it immediately!”

“Right away.”

On the other side, Jiang Xiao rejected the guild members’ proposal and said, “No more for tonight, we will continue tomorrow.” 

“Huh? It’s only ten o’clock.”

“That’s right. C’mon leader, let’s do another one!”

Jiang Xiao explained, “I have something to do.”

After hearing his explanation, the members stopped begging. Ones that wanted to continue stayed on, while the ones that didn’t went offline to sleep. 

Because Yue Ran’s appointment was tomorrow morning, he went to bed. While Jiang Xiao glanced at his phone, which chimed for the nth time from WeChat messages. He got up with his laptop, said good night to Qin Xiujie, and went to his bedroom. Not to sleep, but to switch accounts and log on to the old server.

After a minute, the world chat exploded like tossing an ice cube into a pot of hot oil.

[(World) No Carrots: It’s Tempest God. I see Tempest God Ahhhh!]

[(World) Rec Tempest God for Life: Father, you are my father in blood, please give location!] 

[(World) Holding Hands: Me too, me too! I have been waiting all day, and he finally got on Ahhhh!]

[(World) Far Away: I’m crying for real. I just know he won’t stay away for long after the update!]

[(World) Tailless Rabbit: Waaaah, a holiday came early! All the great gods are online tonight!]

Jiang Xiao paid no mind to the flying messages. He quickly joined Sunken Moon and the group and entered the voice chat. 

Five new instance dungeons from this update, and also five new rare items for each job class. Obviously, the new dungeons dropped the materials needed for these new items. It was impossible for the elite players to not want them on their main account.

Pure White Sun said, “You are finally here.”

Sunken Moon chuckled, “It took you a while. What were you doing?”

Jiang Xiao said dully, “Nothing of importance. Let’s start the dungeon.”