Chapter 372: Imminent Battle

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Chapter 372: Imminent Battle

It had been a week since the incident at the Market. It was now the 30th of April. When the clock struck midnight, the preliminaries for the Tournament for the Best officially started. After one week, the level of all four members of Underworld Frontline had increased. Currently, the highest-level member was Feng Bujue. He was on Level thirty-four and halfway to the next level. Passing Rain, Laughing Soul, and Xiao Tan were all at Level 33.

Actually, if Brother Jue really wanted to focus on leveling, based on the natural advantage of forty percent extra EXP that he could get from each scenario, it would be easy for him to get to the top spot on the level ranking. But that was not part of his plan.

First, he did not wish to have a big level gap with the rest of his guild members because that would greatly increase the difficulty of team scenarios. Also, it wouldn’t help his mastery growth. Secondly, after most gaming guilds had passed the threshold of Level 30, the level ranking had remained pretty much the same. If a person suddenly shot up to the top without warning, they would be easily exposed. It would defeat the purpose of having one’s name hidden because once you joined a queue, you would run into other players and they could see your level. In Thriller Paradise, one could count with one’s fingers the number of players whose levels were over thirty. Those near Level thirty-five were mostly professional celebrity players. So, if Brother Jue kept it up, he would quickly rise to fame.

Of course, there was another reason Brother Jue gave up the EXP reward every time—he wanted to draw excellent quality equipment. The Magical Disintegrator was a blackhole. Other than the three equipment it had sucked on the morning of the 24th, in the past seven days, it had been given another ten excellent quality equipment. Of those ten, eight were from the extra reward and two were cheap items that Brother Jue got from the Auction House. When Brother Jue operated it the second time, he added in three more equipment, and the result was a failure. The success rate then had accumulated to 6.01 percent.

During the third operation, naïve as he was, he told himself that third time’s the charm, so he tossed in all four equipment at once. Well... failure was the result.

By then, the success rate had risen to 10.01 percent. When it came to the fourth time, Brother Jue was already like a gambler stuck to a slot machine. Nothing mattered anymore. So he drew three more equipment and suffered another failure. The success rate rose up to 13.01 percent, but Feng Bujue’s patience had dropped down to 0. It was a good thing he didn’t go crazy.

Coincidentally, compared to before, in the past seven days, Brother Jue’s probability of drawing excellent quality equipment had increased. Even though sometimes he drew stuff like stone and baseball bats, he often drew something of above-average quality. It was probably because of his level. After all, he was over Level 30, and the reward of ‘drawing a random equipment corresponding to your level’ wouldn’t give him a pile of sh*t. It was surprising.

Unfortunately, while the quality of drawn equipment had increased, there was none that was of value. Most of them were useless and would not sell at the Auction House. Even if they did not go into the disintegrator, they would be sold at the shop. Brother Jue did not feel so bad sending them into the machine. Therefore, Feng Bujue wasn’t really a gambler. At least he was one that had not lost his mind or else he would have removed the equipment he had on and tossed them into the machine as well.

Compared to Brother Jue, in the past ten days, the performance of the other players was truly amazing. As the date of the tournament was approaching, many chain effects occurred.

With the tournament approaching, Dream Inc. maintained their usual style—non-activity to counter activity. They were like the lynchpin that had everything under their control. Their loyal fans were very devoted to them.

Theoretically speaking, during this period, a normal company would strike while the iron’s hot and released many different ‘booster packs’ to grab money.

For instance, things like a pack of some special items could be prepared. It could be called “Tournament of the Best Preparation Pack,” and it could be sold for 998 RMB to lure the whales and earn some easy money. Or they could give discounts for the Double EXP booster, or they could offer ‘Buy two Get one Free’ promos.

They could also push out some new items like Five-time EXP boosters or cards to lower scenarios’ difficulty. It might destroy the game’s balance, but for the sake of ‘sales number’ and with a ‘limited time offer’ label tagged onto them, they could openly suck the player base dry. They could even have a bundle sale where they could offer gaming hubs with free virtual items.

Such tricks had been done by other cunning companies in the past, and such tricks never failed. With Thriller Paradise’s current popularity, Dream Inc. could have easily done the same to rake in the cash. But Dream Inc. was that unique. At such a crucial moment, they did not do anything of the sort.

Even the exchange rate for Game Coins and RMB was made steady. It only moved from 1:2000 to 1:1900. Its fluctuation was not very unstable. Obviously, Dream Inc. didn’t want to ruin the in-game economy of the Tournament. This proved to the player base their integrity, and the players gained more confidence in the game. This vote of confidence meant well to the players who never spent in-game voluntarily, and as a consequence, they opened their wallets to support such a clean and honest company.

But there was another thing about Dream Inc. Once they decide to do something, you could bet it would be jaw-dropping.

As expected, on the 30th of April, they announced a shattering news on the official website.

At 5 pm, the actual rules of the preliminary, semi-finals, and finals were revealed, and they were respectively called the Battle of the Bug, Battle of the Cocoon, and Battle of the Butterfly. The three battles would decide the Top 3,000, Top 100, and the Top 50.

After these three battles, the remaining fifty players would be automatically qualified to join the real Tournament for the Best.

Another piece of news was announced alongside this. “At midnight on the 1st of May, at the end of the registration period, the system will have already selected ten VIP players among the registered players. These ten are automatically qualified to join the Battle of the Butterfly.”