History[]
Ye Xiu was born in City B. He left his home with Ye Qiu's suitcase before his younger twin could. Since he left his passport at home, Ye Xiu had to use Ye Qiu's passport instead for identification in the competitive scene.
During his time as a free gamer, he met the orphans Su Mucheng and her brother, Su Muqiu at an internet cafe. After defeating Su Muqiu in a battle, he is invited by the two to eat the lunch that Su Mucheng brought. At Su Muqiu's invitation Ye Xiu, who didn't have a place to sleep anymore as he escaped from his home, started to live together with the two siblings and has ever since been treated as a family member. After Su Muqiu died in a car accident Ye Xiu lived together with Su Mucheng for an unknown amount of time.
Plot[]
Volume 1: Banished Battle God[]
Ye Xiu is playing Glory in a dimly lit room while smoking when Su Mucheng enters. Together, they head to the conference room in the Excellent Era headquarters. When Ye Xiu enters the room, he is told that Sun Xiang has taken over his role as captain and will be taking control over Battle Mage One Autumn Leaf. Ye Xiu is commanded to hand over the card by the manager, and as he does, his hand trembles. The manager tells Ye Xiu that they do not have any suitable competitive cards, and the only role they have available is that of a training partner. Ye Xiu tells the manager to cancel his contract. However, he does not have the money to pay the fee. Because of this, the manager tells Ye Xiu that they will terminate the contract if he announces his retirement. He complies and signs the documents.
After he leaves the establishment, he notices a lighted building across the street. He enters the Happy Internet Cafe and is given a computer in Area 3 Number 47, but when he gets there, he sees someone has already occupied it and is playing Glory as a Launcher. The female on the computer, Chen Guo, had already lost 52 times in a row in the Glory arena. She gets up and leaves when she notices him waiting behind her, but quickly realizes she left herself logged in. Worrying that someone may loot her account, she rushes back only to see the word glory appear onscreen, signifying victory within the arena. Though it only took him 40 seconds, Ye Xiu defeated the opponent that Chen Guo had lost to time and again. He comments that it would have only taken him 30 seconds if his hands had not been cold. Since he had forgotten his ID at the front desk, Chen Guo gives it back to him. When he hears that the 10th Server will be opening at midnight for the first time, he pulls out his 1st Server card and requests a transfer to the 10th Server. He asks Chen Guo about the job flyer, requesting a night Network Manager, for the cafe. Since the job hours are so undesirable, she gives him the job, which includes food and shelter. The room he is given is a storage room filled with boxes and only a meager bed in the corner.
When the countdown for the 10th Server ends and the server opens, Ye Xiu opens up a guide. He tells Chen Guo that he is actually Ye Qiu, and Chen Guo jokingly retorts that she is Su Mucheng. He picks up some quests and works on getting skill points. As he works on beginner-level quests on the new server, he reaches level 7 only to see Chen Guo had fallen asleep. He picks the skills he wants to use first but has some points left over, which he saves. He makes his way to a warehouse and opens a storage chest within the warehouse. His hand trembles, much like when he handed One Autumn Leaf over to Sun Xiang, and he takes out the Silver Weapon Myriad Manifestation Umbrella.
Ye Xiu heads to Green Forest and joins a random team that was in need of one more player. The team he joins is led by Sleeping Moon, a Glory veteran. The team decides that if a Hidden Boss were to appear, the items would be distributed based on a dice roll. While doing the dungeon, Ye Xiu reminisces an event ten years ago, a time when he dungeoned with a friend. By chance, the Hidden Boss Midnight Phantom Cat appears in the dungeon on their first entry. When he sees the Midnight Phantom Cat, he is pulled from his memories, and his senses return. As they battle, soon enough, the Midnight Phantom Cat reaches red blood. However, by this point, the Midnight Phantom Cat is constantly going OT. The other members of the team die, leaving only Sleeping Moon and Lord Grim. Sleeping Moon incessantly yells at Lord Grim to heal him but to no avail. Instead, Ye Xiu exposes Sleeping Moon’s true motives: Sleeping Moon had wanted all of the Hidden Boss drops for himself. Ye Xiu refuses to heal him, leaving him to die. Lord Grim ends up finishing off Midnight Phantom Cat solo and obtains first kill of it on the 10th Server.
Sleeping Moon, bitter over what transpired in the Green Forest, publicly denounces Lord Grim, claiming he had let his team die and stolen the Midnight Phantom Cat. After Ye Xiu leaves the dungeon, he begins looking for a new team, but no one wants him on theirs because of Sleeping Moon's rumors. Because of this, Ye Xiu seeks out Sleeping Moon, and the Full Moon Guild, requesting them to add him to their party. They add him to the party with the intention of backstabbing him by leaving him to die in the dungeon. To their surprise, they instead witness him killing off numerous enemies without the need for their help. When they realize he will not die off that easily in the Green Forest, they decided to wait and let him die in the next dungeon, Spider Cave, which can only be entered when they all reached level 10. Ye Xiu becomes one of the first few players in the 10th Server to reach level 10.
They head towards Spider Cave, and once again witness Ye Xiu’s god-level skill after he combos a monster four times in the air. With Lord Grim leading the way, they make it to the first boss, but two players are poisoned. Ye Xiu takes command and tells the two healthy players, Sleeping Moon and Seven Fields, where to stand. He gives them commands on how to attack the boss. They kill the boss quickly thanks to Ye Xiu’s command, and the second boss is fell easily in the same manner. Finally, at the end of the dungeon, they engage the final boss—with the abilities of the first and second boss, but even that does not stop them from defeating it cleanly and swiftly. The system announcement appears, announcing the first clear of the dungeon awarded to Lord Grim's group. They had beaten Blue Brook Guild by only 10 seconds. The team enters the dungeon again, and are notified that the Hidden Boss, Spider Emperor, had appeared. They successfully clear everything leading up to the Hidden Boss and end up near the Spider Emperor’s lair. Ye Xiu quickly glances at a guide and formulates a strategy. He tells them the plan and shoots his weapon inside. This single-shot awakens the boss, and the battle begins, meanwhile Ye Xiu maintains the rhythm of the team. Once the Spider Emperor reaches red blood, Ye Xiu tells the team to finish it off quickly. He sets up small spiders for them to crush whenever the aggro would switch over. This allows them to turn invincible for a short time after being bitten by the little spiders. Using this tactic, the Spider Emperor dies and their team also obtains first kill for the Hidden Boss Spider Emperor. Chen Guo wakes up at this time and is surprised that Ye Xiu is still awake, almost level 18, and playing with Sleeping Moon—the one who had tried to tarnish his reputation. Ye Xiu explains the situation to her and goes to bed.
When Ye Xiu wakes up and goes downstairs, he finds that the Internet Cafe has been playing a video of Ye Qiu and One Autumn Leaf. The video playing chronicled the glory of the former Excellent Era captain and grieved his retirement. When the credits begin rolling, Ye Xiu goes outside and finds Chen Guo crying. He speaks to her for a bit and then heads inside to eat. When he returns, he asks Chen Guo about him officially starting his job. His time to work arrives, so he goes to the front desk and logs back into Glory.
He meets up with those from Full Moon Guild that he had previously played with, sans Sleeping Moon. Collectively, they decide to go to Skeleton Graveyard to train, due to not having a full team. Meanwhile, Ye Xiu studies what he still needs to complete the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella, before lamenting how troublesome collecting the materials will be. While dungeoning with Seven Fields, Drifting Water, and Sunset Clouds, Ye Xiu accidentally makes a mistake while fighting a low-level monster after seeing the terrifying visage of Chen Guo in a facial mask. She speaks to Ye Xiu about Ye Qiu's retirement, but he does not pay her much mind. She tells him to come play with her on the 10th Server. To this, he tells her to go level, since she was still level 1 and could not enter the dungeon with his team. On their third run, they run into the Hidden Boss Skeleton Warrior. Ye Xiu has Chen Guo look up a guide for him on this Hidden Boss because he wanted to know how to get the saber drop 100% of the time. She tells him he needs to hit it 24 times in a specific location. With his skill, he quickly does this. However, it had only looked as if he had hit it 20 times. Instead, Ye Xiu had used double stab four times, which culminated in 24 hits. After accomplishing this, the other three team members join in on the attack and defeat the Skeleton Warrior. It drops the saber that Ye Xiu had wanted, and he picks it up. To fill their team, the female player Immersed Jade, who plays as an Assassin, joins them.
Although the other members were afraid Ye Xiu would grow impatient with Immersed Jade's lack of skill, he patiently teaches her. His team asks Ye Xiu what class he will change into once he reaches level 20. To which he responds, not now. After reaching level 20, Ye Xiu has Lord Grim leave the group. He then logs in as Chen Guo's Chasing Haze, while still controlling Lord Grim. He takes the two accounts into Green Forest because he still needs items dropped by the Midnight Phantom Cat. He controls Lord Grim to do the battling while Chasing Haze leeches off him. Sometime after killing the Midnight Phantom Cat and trying another run, he is spammed with friend invites from Blue River. Though Ye Xiu tries to ignore them at first, Blue River is persistent, and eventually, Ye Xiu accepts. Blue River introduces himself as a member of Blue Brook Guild and asks if Ye Xiu would be interested in clearing Frost Forest with them. For Ye Xiu's cooperation, Blue River offers him Purple Equipment, but Ye Xiu is not interested in this. He, instead, sends over a list of materials he needs. The astronomical amount of items contained in the list overwhelm Blue River, so Ye Xiu tries to haggle with him. Finally, they agree on a price lower than what was initially proposed, and Ye Xiu heads off to meet the team after finishing his dungeon.
When he finally meets up with the group, but before they begin the dungeon, he turns his attention to upgrading the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella. During this time, the members of Blue River's group are ridiculing him. Once he finishes with his weapon, he officially joins Blue Brook Guild so that the record would show the guild’s name on the system announcement. He analyzes the party composition, then quickly decides that Cleric and Knight are both unnecessary. Instead, the team should be comprised of a pure DPS. He also tells them to make him the party leader. After the Cleric and Knight are replaced, Ye Xiu heads into the dungeon without haste.
Ye Xiu explains to the team, while they are in the dungeon, that they would be using One Wave Rush with Ye Xiu as the MT controlling the aggro on the bosses. After explaining everything, he quickly advances forward by himself. When he returns, there is a mob of goblins following in his wake. Utilizing advanced techniques, such as Z-Shake and Aerial Fire, they proceed easily through the dungeon. They reach the boss, and Ye Xiu orders them to attack as soon as he was able to pull the Goblin Patrol Guard aggro. Since Ye Xiu does not make a mistake, they swiftly kill it without the boss going OT. In the end, they realize that Lord Grim was not just an MT, but also a damage-dealer as well. They advance through the second Boss and finally get to the Goblin Emperor Frost Thain, the final boss. Ye Xiu engages the boss and combos it. Even after reaching red blood, the boss remains helpless. Finally, the system announcement shows that a new record was set by the group with a time of 20:24:11. This record beat the previous record set by Herb Garden by more than 5 minutes (26:12:48).
After finishing the dungeon, the players from Blue Brook Guild give Ye Xiu the promised items plus more. Their intention was to cater to him, and rope Lord Grim into joining their guild, but Ye Xiu leaves the guild before this can happen. Afterwards, Blue River asks that they keep each other on their friend's list for future cooperation, to which Ye Xiu agrees. Ye Xiu heads to Bulls Town, stores the additional items, and then goes to Frost Forest to run it with Seven Fields and his group from the Full Moon Guild. When Lord Grim arrives, Endless Night greets him and asks to dungeon with them. However, even when he is told that Lord Grim's team is full, Endless Night tries to take Immersed Jade’s spot but is told plainly that Clerics are, once again, unnecessary. Ye Xiu and his team enter the dungeon, without Endless Night, and easily complete it twice. Unfortunately, the other members had already done it three times, and Endless Night and Ye Xiu still had one more run to go. Ye Xiu offers to break the record with Endless Night under two conditions: they pay a fee—10 White Wolf Bristles—and no cleric. Ye Xiu tells Endless Night that the team of maximum efficiency is that of three Fire Elementalists and one Witch. They do not have his desired group during that time, so instead, they do a run with the people Endless Night initially wanted to use. As they enter the dungeon, with Ye Xiu in lead, all is silent. As they proceed through the dungeon, Ye Xiu gives step-by-step instructions to the team, making them feel as if they are stupid. Infuriated at this treatment, Endless Night purposely messes up, but Ye Xiu patiently explains his mistake to him. They finish the dungeon in an ordinary time, and then Ye Xiu logs off and goes to sleep.
When he wakes up, Ye Xiu is introduced to Tang Rou by Chen Guo, and Chen Guo takes them to go play a round of Glory. She asks Ye Xiu what class he had decided to play as, to which he replies Unspecialized. She is shocked by this because no one plays Unspecialized anymore due to its level cap being only level 50, while all other classes are capped at level 70. Ye Xiu explains that he could theoretically continue to level by completing the Heavenly Domain Challenge at level 50. Planning to use his level 21 Lord Grim, Ye Xiu and Tang Rou, using Chen Guo’s level 70 Chasing Haze, battle PvP in a fixed-field. Ye Xiu calls Chen Guo over asking what her game is, and they made a wager of 100 yuan on who would win. During the fight, he uses skills from different classes, all with a single weapon. After a few exchanges, Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou that they should just end it since it is evident she does not know how to play. Though she is indignant at first, Ye Xiu lists what was wrong with her playstyle. Tang Rou demands a rematch, making another bet. This small wager attracts a crowd within the Cafe, many noticing that the famous Lord Grim was before them. In the end, she loses 10 rounds to him, without inflicting any damage onto him. After everything ends, people begin to question Lord Grim’s weapon. When they heard it was a Silver Weapon, they are shocked. After admiring his weapon, they send him friend invites, and he accepts them. Later, Chen Guo comes over to take a look at the weapon since she never seen a Silver Weapon in person before.
Ye Xiu returns from buying food for everyone and sees that Tang Rou was planning to play as a Battle Mage. He offers to set up guides for her while she eats dinner and he begins to revise the guides he made nine years ago. Once he finishes, he saves the guide onto the computer and heads to the smoking area to play. He tells Tang Rou that if she had any questions, to contact him. He logs on after getting to his computer and goes to Boneyard to train. While he is training, he meets the kill-stealer Battle Mage Thousand Creations, from Blue Brook Guild. Thousand Creations successfully steals one of the monsters Ye Xiu was battling and pesters Ye Xiu to fight him in the arena. Not bothered by this, Ye Xiu ignores his challenges and instead ropes five undead towards himself. While Thousand Creations continuously pestered him, he would likewise continue sending an undead over to Thousand Creations to fight.
These exchanges last until the arrival of Blue River, making Thousand Creations runaway. Blue River invites Lord Grim to fight Boneyard’s Wild Boss Blood Gunner Yagg with them. Ye Xiu accepts and joins the main team and they head to the boss’s location. When they get there, they see that Herb Garden and Tyrannical Ambition had already arrived as well. Ye Xiu notices Thousand Creations fighting Blood Gunner Yagg with more people he does not know and leaves Blue River’s party to join up with the party of noobs. Once he joins their team, he takes control of the situation with Blood Gunner Yagg. Redirecting a shot from Blood Gunner Yagg to a Herb Garden member, Ye Xiu causes an uproar within its guild. Blue Brook Guild orders its members to attack everyone, aside from Lord Grim, and support Lord Grim if he were to be attacked. Included in this order was to invite Lord Grim back to their party when a spot appeared. When Ye Xiu sees that the guilds start to move, he tells the other members of the party he is in to run. As the players ran, the Three Great Guilds were trying to get Lord Grim to join their mass party. Offering different items to Lord Grim, and trying to one-up one another, their fierce rivalry shines through. However, the guild leaders soon realize that Lord Grim was not the party leader, and shortly after, Blood Gunner Yagg is enraged—summoning a hoard of zombies equal to the number of players in a specific radius around the boss. While this event would normally occur at red blood, Lord Grim had performed a 200-combo on Blood Gunner Yagg, causing him to summon his undead legion. Though the guilds leaders did not bring their teammates into the radius, all of them had been party leaders. Because of this, all members of their respective parties were interpreted as being within the radius of Blood Gunner Yagg, and the boss summoned up to 100 zombies to attack them. In the meantime, Lord Grim continues to attack Blood Gunner Yagg, and draws the boss away from the Three Great Guilds. He orders the noob Brawler to transfer him party leadership, and has the five Full Moon Guild members, plus Immersed Jade, join the party. While they attack the boss, they see that the Three Great Guilds are chasing them. With limited time, they increase their tempo in an attempt to get Blood Gunner Yagg to red blood. When Blood Gunner Yagg reached 10% health, he once again summoned a single legion. They kill the small group of undead, and continue to attack Blood Gunner Yagg. He only had 5% health by the time the Three Great Guilds came over. For the third time, Blood Gunner Yagg summoned his legion. The Three Great Guilds arrive at that moment, and for the second time, fight off the legions. When Blood Gunner Yagg finally reached 1% health, he begins to use random firing. Dodging the bullets nimbly, Lord Grim uses Shadow Clone into Eagle Stamp, followed by Circle Swing, and completes more combos to finish it off. The system announcement appears, congratulating Lord Grim and his party for killing the Wild Boss, Blood Gunner Yagg.
After killing Blood Gunner Yagg, the group runs for their lives. As the Three Great Guilds chase after Lord Grim, the people in the Happy Internet Cafe could only watch as Ye Xiu fled. He turns around and stops some pursuers, while everyone continued to run. Ye Xiu manages to scare the pursuers until they retreated. Blue River messages Lord Grim afterward trying to get him to play with him. After being turned down, he tells Lord Grim to come do Frost Forest’s Goblin Merchant with them. Unfortunately, Ye Xiu had already made a deal with Tyrannical Ambition for doing this boss.
At midnight, the dungeons would reset since there was a limit to the number of times each could be run each day. When the reset occurs, Ye Xiu goes to the dungeon with Seven Fields. He also teams up with Steamed Bun Invasion, the noob Brawler he had met in the battle with Blood Gunner Yagg, who had been playing for 42 hours straight. Ye Xiu begins instructing everyone throughout the dungeon while giving Steamed Bun Invasion advice when he receives a message from Endless Night informing him that the Goblin Merchant appeared. Ye Xiu speeds up their progress through the dungeon and goes to meet up with the other Tyrannical Ambition members. He is invited into the main party for Tyrannical Ambition. According to Ye Xiu, a full DPS party with Purple Weapons will be the best way to control aggro of the Goblin Merchant. Endless Night boasts about his Orange Weapon, but Ye Xiu replies, “Cleric, behave yourself.” After the party is made and the plan is explained, they head towards the Goblin Merchant.
In an attempt to defeat the boss first, Blue River attacks the Goblin Merchant with Upwards Slash, but Lord Grim’s Myriad Manifestation Umbrella in battle lance form beats him to the punch. Ye Xiu combos the Goblin Merchant, causing Blue River to become anxious. Pulling the Goblin Merchant away, Ye Xiu flings the Goblin Merchant in Tyrannical Ambition's direction. They attack the Goblin Merchant and hide in the forest when Ye Xiu tells them to. Blue Brook Guild chase after the Goblin Merchant, while Ye Xiu lures the Goblin Merchant away. While some other members attempt to take control and cut off Lord Grim, he uses Aerial Fire to dodge their attacks. They are overwhelmed by the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella, which constantly transforms, and Ye Xiu when he had the Goblin Merchant support him by throwing an AoE grenade at those who tried to cut them off. In the end, he leaves the party and allows Tyrannical Ambition to finish it off so that the system announcement would announce the kill under their guild name.
After all this, Blue River messages Lord Grim to try and have him help him with setting the Boneyard record. Unfortunately, Ye Xiu says he will only discuss it when he has reached the appropriate level. Disappointed by this, Blue River tries to coerce Lord Grim into helping them set the Frost Forest dungeon record, only to find out Ye Xiu had already set an appointment with Tyrannical Ambition for beating it. The two groups, Lord Grim, and Tyrannical Ambition begin discussing the price for this clear. The price that he asks for causes them to metaphorically cough up blood numerous times. Ye Xiu has them set up items for mortgage and requests four DPS classes. However, after only 15 minutes had passed since they entered the dungeon, a system announcement pops out congratulating Excellent Dynasty for Frost Forest’s record time of 13:24:21. Lord Grim’s group finishes the dungeon and begin discussing the record. Ye Xiu tells them that the record is almost at the limit and they can wait until he reaches level 25 to set another and that he will need to borrow purple weapons for a Battle Mage, Brawler, and Launcher. He calls out to Steamed Bun Invasion and tells the noob that he will take him out to fight monsters so that he can familiarize himself with the game. Ye Xiu gives Steamed Bun Invasion a crash course on the Brawler class.
Before heading to bed, Ye Xiu talks to Tang Rou about the dungeon record. He then tells her to hurry up and level, and asks if she was going to stay up tonight. Tang Rou says she will, and after that, she begins her morning shift while Ye Xiu goes to bed.
Ye Xiu wakes up and heads downstairs to see that they were broadcasting the 20th match of the Glory Professional Alliance Championship. The match between Excellent Era and 301 Degrees was occurring. During the Team Challenge, Ye Xiu explains 301 Degrees strategy: give up the Group Challenge, which would expend Sun Xiang’s energy, and then take the win during the Team Challenge. Before He Ming, an Excellent Era member, could enter the fray, the power at the Internet Cafe goes out.
They call the repairman to come and fix the power outage. When he arrives, Tang Rou and Ye Xiu follow him around, trying to help him fix the power as soon as possible so they could get back to the match. After some time, it is repaired, and Ye Xiu checks how the game ended—Excellent Era had lost. As he logs into Glory, four customers come up, three of whom were from Excellent Era―Liu Hao, Wang Ze, and Fang Fengran―and the other from Excellent Dynasty―Chen Yehui. Liu Hao, Excellent Era’s vice-captain tries to ridicule Ye Xiu for being kicked out of the team and working at the Internet Cafe, but ultimately fails. Ye Xiu critiques the three Excellent Era players for their mistakes during the match against 301 Degrees. Finished with his scathing remarks, he kicks them, citing a sign which says that the Internet Cafe had the right to refuse drunk customers. They leave and Tang Rou finally reaches level 20, so Ye Xiu takes her dungeoning with him in Frost Forest.
Before they go in, Ye Xiu contacts Cold Night pertaining the players from Excellent Dynasty who had set the record. After finding out the details, he concludes that 3 of the 5 players must have been pros. They enter the dungeon. As they progress through, Ye Xiu teaches Tang Rou and Steamed Bun Invasion how to pull monsters. Once they finish the dungeon, Steamed Bun Invasion leaves for the Arena to PK, while Tang Rou goes to solo the dungeon. After she completes it, Ye Xiu takes control of her account, soloing the dungeon, while giving her tips. He completes the dungeon without any difficulty. He then has Tang Rou run the dungeon again, but this time as Lord Grim.
Morning eventually comes, and Ye Xiu calls Su Mucheng. As they converse, he tells her that she should come play with him in the 10th Server.
Later that day, he speaks to Cold Night about the dungeon record and tells Cold Night to send forth a skilled level 25 player to do the dungeon with them. When the time finally arrives, Ye Xiu, Su Mucheng, Tang Rou, and Steamed Bun Invasion join Tyrannical Ambition and set forth in the dungeon.
The four of them, and Crowd Lover from Tyrannical Ambition, all enter at the same time and begin pulling monsters. However, instead of a One Wave Rush, they perform One Wave Push, with Su Mucheng constantly pulling monsters for them to attack. They continue to pull and kill monsters off without stopping. As they pull more and more monsters, each player kills off a different amount of goblins within their group. Before they know it, Ye Xiu had finished off 18 goblins, while Tang Rou had 10, and Steamed Bun Invasion had 8. They decimate the last of the goblins and head to the first boss. Su Mucheng uses Delivery Gun, an advanced Launcher technique, to pull the first boss. However, afraid that the use of that advanced skill will reveal her identity, Ye Xiu messages her not to use it again. They quickly defeat the first Boss and proceed to the second boss, which Su Mucheng pulls as well. They reach and defeat the third boss quickly. They break the record that was set by Excellent Dynasty with a time of 13:05:47.
Liu Hao logs on to an open account spam friend invites to Lord Grim. He asked if Ye Xiu was going to go and break his record. Instead, Ye Xiu tells Liu Hao to go fight Steamed Bun Invasion in the Arena.
Ye Xiu goes dungeoning with Su Mucheng, Tang Rou, Sleeping Moon, and Seven Fields, fighting the Hidden Boss Vampire Knight Logue. They eventually kill it and receive two Purple eggs (Purple Equipment drops). They complete the dungeon multiple times. On their third run, they break the record with a time of 23.54:71. Later, Ye Xiu researches Boneyard, searching for new strategies in order to beat the record. He develops a plan and tells Tang Rou that he will show her tomorrow. To test out his plan, he uses Chen Guo’s account, Chasing Haze.
The next day, he shows everyone his new way to beat Boneyard. Everyone is amazed by his innovative pathing and they practice for a couple days. The technique for setting the record involved avoiding battles with monsters by trapping them, therefore saving time by not battling. Once Lord Grim reaches level 27, Blue River immediately messages him about setting the record.
Finally, time for them to set the record, they join Blue Brook Guild. They attempt to set the record on their first run, but Steamed Bun Invasion messes up while attempting to trap the second boss. Fortunately, Liu Hao, who had infiltrated their team with the intention of stealing the dungeon strategy, manages to smack the boss into the crack, and they only lose 4 seconds. The rest of the dungeon goes smoothly, and they complete the dungeon at 17:22:17, a new dungeon record across all of the servers.
A suspicious figure appears around the Internet Cafe—Huang Shaotian had come to help Ye Xiu rebreak the record after Liu Hao had stolen the strategy and broken it with Excellent Era members. Ye Xiu gives Huang Shaotian a computer to sit at. The Blue River member logs onto a level 27 Blade Master, Flowing Tree. Liu Hao logs onto his Berserker account and messages Lord Grim, only to find out that he had been found out by Ye Xiu a long time ago.[1]
Volume 2: Beginnings of the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella[]
Ye Xiu calls Huang Shaotian over and shows him the strategy that they were going to apply. He also shows him how to trap the zombies and the second boss, fully impressing Huang Shaotian. Once they finished the dry run, they begin the real run. Everything goes smoothly, and, yet again, another system announcement appears to congratulate Blue Brook Guild players for the new record of 16:24:67.
Ye Xiu and Huang Shaotian talk about Ye Xiu’s weapon, how it was created back when Huang Shaotian was still Boss-Stealing. After being reminded of his noob days, he asks Ye Xiu’s about his new account and inquires on his retirement. Before he leaves, Huang Shaotian tells Ye Xiu that he has to return to the professional league someday.
Plantago Seed has the Tiny Herb captain, Wang Jiexi, see the "experts" in the 10th Server. Wang Jiexi decides that he wants to test these supposed experts. Taking control of Plantago Seed's character, he attacks Lord Grim. Ye Xiu, noticing Plantago Seed's sudden increase in skill, realizes that the original owner must not be controlling the avatar right now.
Sometime later, Tiny Herb's reserve team is ordered to kill Ye Xiu at least once. The first player to engage is Qiao Yifan, an Assassin playing on the character Ashen Moon. However, he is quickly overwhelmed and has to resort to only dodging attacks. The next to arrive is Xiao Yun, playing as the Battle Mage Cloudy Heavens, who runs straight for Lord Grim with an Ice Chaser he had prepared before engaging. After toying with Xiao Yun a bit, Ye Xiu sends him into the air and uses Vanishing Step. Gao Yingjie arrives and attempts to support Xiao Yun who was still having trouble finding Lord Grim. He shoots a Magic Missile at Lord Grim, but he dodges. Shortly afterward, Ye Xiu finishes off Xiao Yun and focuses on Gao Yingjie.
Ye Xiu sets his team up in Cross Formation, while the Tiny Herb members try to use the cover method. Zhou Yebai and Gao Yingjie head out to attack with a plan. Zhou Yebai engages Lord Grim, but his efforts are futile. Soft Mist supports Lord Grim with an Ice Chaser. While Lord Grim suppresses Zhou Yebai, Soft Mist continues dealing damage onto him. Lord Grim then launches him into the middle of their Cross Formation and is attacked by all four players. Gao Yingjie tries to help him but is blocked by Lord Grim. He too is thrown into the Cross Formation. The situation for the Tiny Herb members worsens when Lord Grim surprise attacks Liu Fei with Falling Flower Palm. This launches her into the formation, causing her to be attacked by Soft Mist. In the end, the Tiny Herb members all die.
While training in Desolate Lands, Ye Xiu meets Tiny Herb's main and reserve teams. The first player to go up was Liang Fang, playing as a Berserker. The two fight for a bit with Liang Fang being suppressed. Finally, he is killed and Liu Xiaobie, a Blade Master, is sent up. Ye Xiu suddenly stops the Tiny Herb members and asks them if they are doing a Group Competition. Ye Xiu says that this battle is too annoying and that they should do a Team Competition instead so that it would go faster. Liu Xiaobie moves forward and attacks him. Ye Xiu chuckles and says that they are underestimating a true Unspecialized character. Wang Jiexi makes a decision and sends everyone who was still alive forward to engage Ye Xiu. They attack, following Wang Jiexi’s commands and coordination. The Gunners Li Ji and Liu Fei shoot while trying to predict Lord Grim’s next step. Much to their dismay, everything was in Lord Grim’s calculations. Lord Grim jumps over a wall and hides. As they searched for him, he had escaped the range of their battle and had force logged off. While this was all happening, Ye Xiu had been talking with Chen Guo who had seriously thought he was going to fight all of Tiny Herb's members at once.
Soft Mist, shortly afterwards, approaches and speaks to them. However, to the surprise of the Tiny Herb members, the player speaking was Ye Qiu. Xiao Yun is sent up to go and fight Soft Mist. When he gets up, Ye Xiu trash talks to him, asking if he wanted to build up Chasers first. They begin fighting, and Xiao Yun grasps an opening during the duel, dealing damage to Soft Mist. Ye Xiu says “My turn” and takes control of Soft Mist from Tang Rou. He attacks Xiao Yun’s character, and explains to Tang Rou what he was doing and what details to pay attention to. After executing another Vanishing Step, and turning Xiao Yun into a teaching dummy, Wang Jiexi orders his fuming teammate to withdraw. Another player wanted to take a try, but Ye Xiu told them they should go to the Arena instead.
They head to the Arena and Liu Xiaobie volunteers first to fight him. However, Ye Xiu wants them to fight Tang Rou first. If they can beat her, he agrees to fight them. He sets up his own room, and waits for the match between Liu Xiaobie and Tang Rou to end. Though Liu Xiaobie beats Tang Rou swiftly, he is quickly decimated by Lord Grim.
Ye Xiu eventually calls Wang Jiexi out, going as far as using his old nickname “Big-Eyed Wang”. The battle between the two Gods begins. The first shot fired is a Magic Missile from Wang Jiexi, but Ye Xiu dodges and retaliates with Tri-Shot. Wang Jiexi hops onto the broom and flies away to dodge it. He unleashes Frost Powder to add Ice Elemental Damage to his normal attacks, and then the two begin exchanging blows. As the battle progresses, Wang Jiexi’s movements become faster and more unpredictable. The members of Tiny Herb and Ye Xiu notice that Wang Jiexi’s signature Magician style had appeared. In the end, both players fall, thus resulting in a tie. Afterwards, he speaks with Ye Xiu for a bit, before logging off himself.
The next few days, Wang Jiexi and his team keep meeting and dueling with Ye Xiu. During one of these days, Ye Xiu meets with Qiao Yifan. Ye Xiu tells the young Tiny Herb member that playing as an Assassin did not show his full potential, and that he should play as a Ghostblade that uses Phantom Demons to support and coordinate with the team. They fight, and Qiao Yifan leaves the Arena. In the Internet Cafe, Ye Xiu speaks to Tang Rou; she tells him about Wang Jiexi’s invitation for her to join Tiny Herb, and her response. He tells her not to tell Chen Guo. Tang Rou later asks him why is not he playing in the League. His replies simply that he is taking a break, and that he will return later.
Ye Xiu meets Maple Tree, the guild leader of Full Moon Guild. Ye Xiu agrees to help set the Desolate Lands record for Maple Tree in exchange for four Scarlet Moon parts. Ye Xiu tells Seven Fields and Sleeping Moon that the record will be the peak for normal players because the party's weapons are not the strongest. Ye Xiu warns Seven Fields and Sleeping Moon that the Full Moon Guild's record will be broken by expert-level players. Ye Xiu calls over Bao Rongxing to help set the Desolate Lands record. Xu Boyuan and Cold Night learn that Ye Xiu will set the Desolate Lands record for Full Moon Guild.
Ye Xiu rejects all offers to set the Desolate Lands record clear, which included five class specific sets of Scarlet Moon equipment from Samsara Guild. He joins Su Mucheng, Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Maple Tree for a test run to practice the strategy and tactics of clearing Desolate Lands. Ye Xiu and the party fail to break the Desolate Lands record in three runs, so Ye Xiu advises Maple Tree to practice the Desolate Lands dungeon on Maple Tree's main account.
At Congee City, Ye Xiu teaches Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing about weapons, which should fit the player's preferences and play style. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou and Rongxing to look for weapons to buy. Ye Xiu is shocked that Rongxing found an 800 gold Orange weapon, Vampiric Claw, which Ye Xiu could not afford. He tells Rongxing that Orange weapons are off-limits. Ye Xiu sees Bound Boat, who is buying uncommon materials for Blue Brook Guild. Ye Xiu negotiates prices for the Strong Spider Silk and Frosted Stones. Ye Xiu makes no progress on negotiations, so he sets up his own booth to sell ten Frosted Stones for 30 gold each. Bound Boat capitulates and agrees to buy Ye Xiu's ten Frosted Stones for 30 gold each. Ye Xiu makes 300 gold and leaves to buy weapons for Tang Rou and Rongxing. For 190 gold, Ye Xiu buys the Purple weapon, Scarlet Moon Lance, for Tang Rou and the Purple Sandstorm Claw for Rongxing. For 100 gold, Ye Xiu buys a Purple Handcannon. After shopping, Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, and Rongxing leave Congee City.
After exiting the Line Canyon dungeon, Ye Xiu sees an enemy encirclement and blasts his teammates out of the encirclement with a Battle Mage combo. Ye Xiu leads Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, Seven Fields, and Sleeping Moon in an escape. In their retreat, Ye Xiu teaches his party how to strategically run by cycling through Walk, Jog, and Swift Run to conserve stamina. Ye Xiu realizes his enemies are led by Chen Yehui. Ye Xiu's Lord Grim leads the attack on the 24 enemies. Ye Xiu and his party crushed the opposition, who retreated. Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, Seven Fields, and Sleeping Moon go to dungeon at Line Canyon.
Ye Xiu answers Tang Rou's questions about his enemies that they encountered at Line Canyon. Ye Xiu explains that he ended the professional Glory career of enemy leader, Chen Yehui, who lacked professionalism. Ye Xiu goes to sleep in the morning. He returns for his night shift. Ye Xiu is surprised that Su Mucheng shows up at the Happy Internet Cafe to relieve her boredom. At the receptionist desk beside him, Ye Xiu prepares the server computer for Mucheng to use. Ye Xiu's Lord Grim gives a level 30 Purple Handcannon to Mucheng's Cleansing Mist.
On the first attempt, Ye Xiu puts in more effort to suppress the final boss of Desolate Lands, Ruler Toya. With a variety of skills from the Unspecialized Lord Grim, Ye Xiu ruthlessly counters Ruler Toya. Ye Xiu and his party obliterate Ruler Toya and break the record clear time of Desolate Lands. Ye Xiu and his party clear the dungeon with a time of 28 minutes, 1 second, and 27 milliseconds, which blew away Blue Brook Guild's time of 30 minutes, 45 seconds, and 66 milliseconds. Ye Xiu gets paid the four Scarlet Moon parts and trades the equipment over to Tang Rou. Ye Xiu, Su Mucheng, Tang Rou, and Bao Rongxing leave Full Moon Guild and go to the Desolate Lands dungeon to level. When Ye Xiu chooses not to suppress Ruler Toya, Tang Rou questions his lack of effort. Ye Xiu explains that he is an old eSports player, so he has to hold back to preserve his health compared to younger players like Tang Rou, who use extremely high hand speed and mechanics to overwhelm opponents. Ye Xiu offers instant noodles as a meal for Mucheng, who accepts.
Ye Xiu plays Glory on half of the screen while on the other half of the screen Su Mucheng watches a drama recommended by Chu Yunxiu. Ye Xiu joins Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, Seven Fields, and Sleeping Moon to level at the Line Canyon dungeon. With Mucheng asleep and leaning on his shoulder, Ye Xiu plays steadily. In the early morning, Ye Xiu talks with the awakened Mucheng about the lackluster drama. Mucheng calls him out on looking down on Yunxiu's tastes, which is one of Yunxiu's weakness according to Ye Xiu.
At Fire Forest, Ye Xiu creates a party with Tang Rou, Su Mucheng, and Bao Rongxing. Ye Xiu explains to the party that level 6 suppression will nullify most of their skills' effects. He finds the Fire Forest's Wild Boss, Fire Witch Cashew. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou and Rongxing to run away and wait for orders. Ye Xiu and Mucheng attack and gain the attention of Fire Witch Cashew. With Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing assisting, Ye Xiu interrupts the Fire Witch Cashew to prevent the Wild Boss from executing skills.
After three and a half hours, Ye Xiu and his party kill Fire Witch Cashew to achieve the first kill of the Fire Forest's Wild Boss. He gets the Flame Stone from the item drops. Ye Xiu gives the Red Flame Staff to Bao Rongxing, who sell the item to pay for his Brawler weapons. Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, Su Mucheng, and Rongxing go to dungeon. Ye Xiu tells Xu Boyuan that no wild bosses are safe. Ye Xiu implies that he has the power to own dungeon records and kill wild bosses at his discretion.
In front of the Desolate Lands dungeon entrance, Ye Xiu and his party meet Poplar Beach, who starts a fight with Bao Rongxing, because Rongxing calls Poplar Beach an illiterate. Ye Xiu stops the fight and greets Liang Yichun, the leader of Blue Brook Guild. Ye Xiu accepts Poplar Beach's challenge to a duel. Instead of using the Lord Grim account, Ye Xiu will use a random level 70 account to fight Poplar Beach's main account. Ye Xiu sees Blue Brook Guild's new Desolate Lands record clear of 24 minutes, 41 seconds, and 46 milliseconds. In the world channel, Ye Xiu sees Poplar Beach challenging him to break the Blue Brook Guild clear time. Ye Xiu explains Tang Rou that Qiao Yifan will help their party break Blue Brook Guild's record.
Ye Xiu and his party has special training in preparation for the Desolate Lands record clear. Ye Xiu greets Qiao Yifan's One Inch Ash account. Ye Xiu tells Yifan that he has three opportunities to help the party break Blue Brook Guild's record clear of Desolate Lands. Ye Xiu encourages Yifan, who lacks confidence in his familiarity with Phantom Demons. On the first Desolate Lands run, Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, Su Mucheng, Bao Rongxing, and Yifan practice the strategy of clearing the dungeon. Ye Xiu explains to Yifan that they must always look to improve in any environment even in a dungeon. On the second attempt of Desolate Lands, Ye Xiu and his party aim for the record clear.
Ye Xiu and his party break Blue Brook Guild's Desolate Lands record clear with a time of 22 minutes, 35 seconds, and 22 milliseconds. On the third run, Ye Xiu and his party break their recent record with a time of 22 minutes, 29 seconds, and 57 milliseconds. With Su Mucheng logging off, Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Qiao Yifan go to dungeon at Line Canyon. In the afternoon, Ye Xiu borrows Chen Guo's Chasing Haze account to duel against Poplar Beach.
In the Arena, Ye Xiu's Chasing Haze fights defensively against Poplar Beach, who charges forward. Ye Xiu drops Chasing Haze's Purple weapon, Rose Flower Cannon, to lure Poplar Beach into a false sense of confidence. Ye Xiu's trap works. Ye Xiu's Chasing Haze kicks Poplar Beach into the air. Ye Xiu completes a 77-hit combo to kill Poplar Beach. With Chasing Haze taking zero damage, Ye Xiu completes a perfect match.
At dinner, Ye Xiu flees from the Internet cafe when Chen Guo is furious about the endless messages from other players on her Chasing Haze account. Ye Xiu returns late for work and greets Tang Rou. Ye Xiu does not care that he is not getting paid for the day's work since he is late. When Ye Xiu logs onto his Lord Grim account, he does not recognize a message from Huang Shaotian's Flowing Tree account, which angers Shaotian. Ye Xiu learns from Shaotian that Yu Wenzhou, the captain of Blue Rain, exposed Ye Xiu's identity to Blue Brook Guild. Ye Xiu accepts a duel from Wenzhou to compare notes. Ye Xiu attacks relentlessly against Wenzhou, who lacks the mechanical ability to sustain the successful dodging of attacks. Ye Xiu fights aggressively with false combos, which are successive attacks that can be blocked, and trades damage with Wenzhou. Ye Xiu maintains the initiative for the entire duel to defeat Wenzhou. Ye Xiu learns that Wenzhou shares the same belief that Lord Grim can maintain its Unspecialized advantage against specialized classes until level 95. Ye Xiu leaves the Arena.
While dungeoning at Line Canyon, Ye Xiu receives messages to duel from Huang Shaotian's Flowing Tree account. Ye Xiu tells Shaotian to wait until he is free from dungeoning. Ye Xiu receives a message from Cold Night about the chances of Ye Xiu setting a new record. Ye Xiu tells Cold Night about running into the hidden boss, Illusion Swordmaster Ahong. Ye Xiu explains the skills that the hidden boss has to Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing. Ye Xiu manages to suppress the hidden boss and saves Tang Rou. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou to rest. With Su Mucheng supporting from afar, Ye Xiu and Qiao Yifan are directly fighting the wild boss. Ye Xiu sees that the inexperienced Tang Rou and the carefree Rongxing are not team players. Ye Xiu knows that Tang Rou, who is too stubborn and overly aggressive, is similar to Sun Xiang. Ye Xiu believes that Rongxing, who plays uniquely and too individualistic, is similar to Wang Jiexi's Magician play style.
In the fighting, Ye Xiu sees that Qiao Yifan's personality and awareness makes him a great team player. Ye Xiu coordinates with Yifan and Su Mucheng to fight Illusion Swordmaster Ahong. Ye Xiu is surprised by a customer, who orders soda. Ye Xiu talks with customers while trying to maintain his high-speed attacking tempo. Eventually, Ye Xiu makes a few mistakes, and Mucheng manages to save him from the hidden boss's attacks. When Bao Rongxing asks about Ye Xiu's job, he says he is an Internet cafe manager. Ye Xiu is surprised to learn that Rongxing is an Internet cafe security guard, which matches his Brawler character, Steamed Bun Invasion, too well.
Ye Xiu and the party attack aggressively and trade damage to kill Illusion Swordmaster Ahong. Ye Xiu does not see the Scarlet Illusion Blade, an Orange weapon, to upgrade his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella's sword form. From the item drops, he sees the Line Canyon Map Piece Three, which is one of the four necessary pieces to get access to a hidden dungeon. On the third and final dungeon run, Ye Xiu and his party break the Line Canyon record clear with a time of 30 minutes, 21 seconds, and 56 milliseconds. When Mucheng and Yifan log off, Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, and Bao Rongxing go to Desolate Lands to level. Afterward, Ye Xiu goes to his warehouse to organize all of his uncommon items. Ye Xiu realizes that he needs to increase his pace in acquiring uncommon materials to upgrade his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella.
Ye Xiu talks with Chen Guo and Tang Rou. He notices that Tang Rou is reading a dungeon guide. Ye Xiu sees that these dungeon guides are extremely detailed with step-by-step instructions. He learns the author is Concealed Light, a male level 32 Summoner. Ye Xiu and Tang Rou read multiple guides. Ye Xiu reads an unrealistic guide about his exploits in setting the Line Canyon record clear time. The guide claims that Ye Xiu's party had a full set of Orange equipment, which is not true. Even though the misguided analysis is on the right track, Ye Xiu agrees with the commenters that Concealed Light is out of his mind about his claims.
Ye Xiu reads six Idiot's Guides by Concealed Light before dinner. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that Concealed Light has no mistakes in his guides. Ye Xiu believes that Concealed Light is a new player, who has no experience in killing bosses. Ye Xiu sees that Concealed Light used old guides and videos to create the guides. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo that a player named Breaking Zero killed Soft Mist. Ye Xiu has to take revenge if he sees this player. Ye Xiu messages Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing to meet up at Line Canyon.
Ye Xiu hears that Tang Rou's Soft Mist has been assassinated and Rongxing fleeing from attackers. Ye Xiu learns that Su Mucheng and Qiao Yifan are being chased by attackers in Desolate Lands. With dozens of level 33 attackers, Ye Xiu realizes that the situation might be worse than he previously thought. Ye Xiu learns that Bao Rongxing is running away from attackers at the outskirts of Congee City. Ye Xiu talks with Tang Rou, who left her computer, because her character is critically ill, which reduces character stats by 80%. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou to remember her enemies' names and to sneak out of Congee City when her character is no longer critically ill. Ye Xiu learns that illusive Rongxing met a friendly player in a dried out well. Ye Xiu tells him to meet up at Congee Forest.
At Congee Forest, Ye Xiu monitors his teammates' situations when Huang Shaotian asks for a duel. Ye Xiu tells Shaotian to duel tomorrow. When the time passes midnight, Shaotian asks for a PK duel, and Ye Xiu invites him to Congee Forest. When Shaotian's Flowing Tree meets Ye Xiu's Lord Grim, Ye Xiu tells him that his dungeon record clears angered the guilds. When Lonely Drink and his forces arrive, Ye Xiu runs away. When Ye Xiu meets Shaotian's Flowing Tree, who has low mana, Ye Xiu gives him food and potions to refill his mana. When the enemy force catches up, Ye Xiu runs away. From chat, Ye Xiu learns that Shaotian has a dead enemy's level 25 Orange weapon, Strike Sword. Ye Xiu and Shaotian team up to compete to see who will kill more enemy players. In this test of quality versus quantity, they both kill a total of 10 players. The enemy reorganizes into teams of four. Ye Xiu and Shaotian ambush a semi-isolated group of four that had weak cloth and leather armors.
Ye Xiu and Huang Shaotian each destroy two enemy players with ease. Ye Xiu notices that the enemy force has surrounded them. Ye Xiu tells Lonely Drink and the enemies that they are surrounded. Ye Xiu's reinforcements, Su Mucheng, Qiao Yifan, Bao Rongxing, Concealed Light, and Tang Rou, attack the enemy's rear. Ye Xiu greets Concealed Light. Ye Xiu coordinates with his teammates to break up the enemy forces. Ye Xiu advises Concealed Light to not summon anymore creatures. Ye Xiu explains to Concealed Light that the Idiot Guides were impractical because highly skilled players have little use for the guides. Highly skilled players have a variety of methods to take down bosses without Concealed Light's complicated guides. Ye Xiu orders his teammates to prevent the enemy forces from retreating. He uses Concealed Light's summoned creatures to form a line to delay the retreating enemy.
After obliterating the enemy forces, Ye Xiu has 11 player kills, which is more than Huang Shaotian's 9.[2] Ye Xiu leads his party away into the Congee Forest to escape the enemy reinforcements that will eventually arrive. Ye Xiu talks about the rise of Tang Hao, who will be the successor to the declining Lin Jingyan, as the strongest Brawler player in the Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu wonders how many familiar players will be left once he returns to the Pro Alliance. When Shaotian claims that Ye Xiu will build his own team to return to the Alliance, Ye Xiu contemplates whether Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, Qiao Yifan, and Concealed Light will be ready for the tough life of a professional Glory player. Ye Xiu leads Tang Rou, Mucheng, Rongxing, and Yifan to attempt to set the record clear of Line Canyon.[3]
Volume 3: Golden Strategy[]
In the Line Canyon dungeon, Ye Xiu sees Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing's performance drop. Ye Xiu learns that Tang Rou is bored. Ye Xiu knows that practicing mechanics in dungeon runs are not as exciting as fighting through an encirclement. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing to compete against each other in practicing micro mechanics by hitting the first segment of the enemy monsters. Ye Xiu uses this method called limited practice to help stabilize Tang Rou's effective hand speed. At the end of the competition, Rongxing defeats two monsters faster than Tang Rou, who makes nine mistakes. Ye Xiu and the party finish the dungeon run.
Ye Xiu assassinates Endless Night. In retaliation for the battle at Congee Forest, Ye Xiu's party kills the other four Tyrannical Ambition members. Ye Xiu tells his party members to go to another Line Canyon entrance to hunt for other enemies. Ye Xiu analyzes information from guild leaders on his friends list to learn who targeted Ye Xiu's party. Ye Xiu leads Su Mucheng, Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Qiao Yifan to ambush a Samsara Guild party. Ye Xiu's party assassinates the five Samsara Guild members with ease. Ye Xiu and Rongxing fight the five Blossom Valley guild members. Ye Xiu warns Tang Rou, who overextends and fights five Void Walk guild members.
Ye Xiu sees an attack from Crowd Lover. Ye Xiu hits an enemy into the path of Crowd Lover's attack to avoid the damage. Ye Xiu realizes the top-tier skill of the five Tyrannical Ambition players. Ye Xiu unleashes a quick combo to suppress the five opponents. Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng use the dead angle strategy, which is to focus and to exploit an enemy's blind spot, and the "Screen Cannon" strategy, which is to allow a Launcher's superior range to support teammates. Ye Xiu, Mucheng, and Bao Rongxing suppress Crowd Lover to death. With Tang Rou, Qiao Yifan, and Rongxing, Ye Xiu and Mucheng fight against the remaining Blossom Valley members. While Ye Xiu fights the remaining Tyrannical Ambition players, he greets Blue River and other Blue Brook Guild members, who finished a Line Canyon dungeon run. Ye Xiu sees the Blue Brook Guild members leave, so Ye Xiu's team can destroy the remaining Tyrannical Ambition members. When Ye Xiu's party defeats all of their attackers, Ye Xiu leads Mucheng, Tang Rou, Yifan, and Rongxing on an escape from the pursuing enemies.
With Su Mucheng, Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Qiao Yifan, Ye Xiu sets a new record clear time of Line Canyon, 29 minutes, 51 seconds, and 44 milliseconds. Ye Xiu leads Tang Rou and Rongxing to level while Mucheng and Yifan log off to rest. Ye Xiu sees the wild boss. Ye Xiu quietly leads Tang Rou and Rongxing towards Cliff Ronin Alpine, the Line Canyon Wild Boss, who is controlled by the Tyrannical Ambition party. Ye Xiu posts false coordinates on world chat of the wild boss to cause chaos.
Ye Xiu leads Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing to the side of a mountain and hide in small pits. They wait for the six-man Tyrannical Ambition party to pull the wild boss over to Ye Xiu's location. Ye Xiu tells a ten-year old story to Rongxing, where Ye Xiu and his friend pushed twenty enemy players off a cliff to their deaths in an amazing battle. Afterward, Ye Xiu leads Tang Rou and Rongxing slowly down the mountainside to prepare an ambush for the Tyrannical Ambition team, who is controlling Cliff Ronin Alpine. Ye Xiu orders the sneak attack upon the Tyrannical Ambition Blade Master and Cleric. Ye Xiu attacks and kills the enemy Blade Master with the help of Cliff Ronin Alpine. With the wild boss, Ye Xiu destroys Crowd Lover. In quick succession, Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, and Rongxing kill the six Tyrannical Ambition members. Ye Xiu suppresses Cliff Ronin Alpine with amazing mechanical play, which shocks Tang Rou and Rongxing.
With Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing, Ye Xiu kills Cliff Ronin Alpine, the Line Canyon Wild Boss. Ye Xiu is congratulated in world chat by some players. Ye Xiu explains to Tang Rou that the wild boss drops are decent with the Purple Twin-Tailed Swords, two pieces of Blue equipment, and uncommon materials, Amber Crystal and the two Breath of the Cliffs. When Tang Rou goes to sleep, Ye Xiu stays on his shift. Ye Xiu looks at some videos and guides for Line Canyon. When his shift ends, Ye Xiu leaves to eat breakfast. Afterward, he goes to sleep.
Ye Xiu logs back onto 10th Server. His Myriad Manifestation Umbrella is low on Durability, so any more fighting would break his Silver weapon. Ye Xiu leaves the canyon when he sees a character standing in a very precise position on the left of the middle of the Line Canyon entrance. Ye Xiu feels weary from Endless Night’s positioning. He chats with Endless Night. Ye Xiu runs up the slope towards the Tyrannical Ambition members. He uses Z Shake to dodge the enemy Elementalist’s attacks. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim is silenced for 5-6 seconds when two Sacred Fire skills lands one after another. He sets two Thief traps to stall the enemy Blade Master and Striker. Ye Xiu evades the enemy’s attacks and flees from the area. Ye Xiu believes that Zhang Xinjie, the vice-captain of Tyranny, controlled the Endless Night character.
Ye Xiu agrees with Zhang Xinjie for the 5v5 team competition at 9:00 at night. Ye Xiu goes to Buzzer Village to fix his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella. He sees Concealed Light is online. Ye Xiu changes his QQ nickname to Lord Grim because he is no longer the controller of One Autumn Leaf. He reads Concealed Light’s Line Canyon Idiot’s Guide. Ye Xiu tells Concealed Light that the guide’s Unspecialized content is wrong. Ye Xiu advises Concealed Light to dungeon for more experience. Ye Xiu sees Su Mucheng is online. He asks Mucheng to join him for a 5v5 PvP team competition against Zhang Xinjie. Ye Xiu sees his new profile picture from Mucheng, which is a sloppy Chinese character for to smile or laugh and appears as the Chinese character for to cry. Ye Xiu is disappointed that Mucheng's handwriting has not improved over the years.
After dinner, Ye Xiu went online to visit the Glory forums. He learned that his Lord Grim is the main topic on the 10th Server. He gets Tang Rou’s phone number from fellow employees. Ye Xiu calls Tang Rou to ask her to join him in a PK against Tyrannical Ambition. Ye Xiu logs onto Glory and asks Bao Rongxing to team up for a PK. Ye Xiu is able to get Rongxing to join up. Ye Xiu goes to Line Canyon. He kills a few enemies. He greets Su Mucheng’s Cleansing Mist. They both escape the pursuers and reach Bulls Town. Ye Xiu tells Xinjie that he does not have five players ready. When Xinjie prepares to reschedule for tomorrow, Ye Xiu finds Huang Shaotian online on his Flowing Tree account. Ye Xiu, Mucheng, Shaotian, and Steamed Bun Invasion meet at the Arena. Ye Xiu randomly accepts the Assassin, Zero Kills, into the team. Ye Xiu reveals this random player, which shocks his teammates. Ye Xiu has Huang Shaotian join to a 5v5 PK against Tyrannical Ambition. Ye Xiu sets up his team with Mucheng’s Cleansing Mist, Shaotian’s Flowing Tree, Rongxing’s Steamed Bun Invasion, and a random Assassin player, Zero Kills.
Ye Xiu is disappointed when Zero Kills falls into a lava pool and loses a lot of health. Lava Cemetery has a lot of lava pools. Ye Xiu leads his team forward towards the Tyrannical Ambition team. Ye Xiu has Cleansing Mist initiate with three Anti-Tank Missiles. Ye Xiu targets Zhang Xinjie’s Endless Night. With the support of Su Mucheng, Ye Xiu and Huang Shaotian suppress four Tyrannical Ambition members into a lava pool. Ye Xiu and his team defeat the five Tyrannical Ambition members. Ye Xiu plays mind games about his true identity with Xinjie. Ye Xiu gets his items from Jiang You. As a gift for participating, Ye Xiu gives a level 30 Purple Twin-Tailed Swords to Zero Kills.
Ye Xiu hears that Bao Rongxing is watched by numerous enemies. Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng go to rescue Rongxing at Congee City. With Mucheng’s Cleansing Mist, Ye Xiu fights and easily escapes from the enemy players. At a village near Congee City, Ye Xiu meets Rongxing. With Mucheng and Rongxing, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim ambushes and kills the enemy pursuers. At Fire Forest, Ye Xiu attacks and kills the enemy guild alliance members. He chooses to hunt down these elite players to hurt the enemy guilds’ confidence and determination.
Ye Xiu fights monsters while maintaining a safe distance from the massive enemy formation. With Mucheng and Rongxing, they continue to level and to search for the Fire Witch Cashew. Ye Xiu chases after two Parade guild members and believes that the Fire Witch Cashew spawned. Ye Xiu sees eight Parade guild members fighting the Fire Witch. Ye Xiu tells Mucheng and Rongxing to hide. Ye Xiu runs out to lure the enemy pursuers to the Fire Witch Cashew. Ye Xiu watches the chaos when the seven enemy guilds fight amongst themselves.
Ye Xiu tells Mucheng and Rongxing to retreat. Ye Xiu goes to Line Canyon. When Ye Xiu’s shift starts, he logs off his Lord Grim account. He sees Chen Guo and Tang Rou return to the Internet cafe. Ye Xiu sees that Chen Guo bought keyboards and mice. Ye Xiu gets a Blue Classic keyboard, which is a professional gaming keyboard that he used in the past. Ye Xiu sees the “Heavy Metal” mouse that Chen Guo bought for him. Ye Xiu tells her that he prefers to use the “Seventh Edition Light Wind” mouse, which is small and lightweight. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to try out the “Heavy Metal” mouse, which is increases the accuracy for players with poor mechanics. Ye Xiu plugs in his Blue Classic keyboard into the computer, where he primarily works at. Ye Xiu helps the customers. He tells Chen Guo that switching keyboards and mice will not improve her skills.
Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou that Chen Guo lost six consecutive Arena duels. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to calm down in her gameplay. Without looking at Chen Guo’s screen, Ye Xiu predicts that she will fail her Aerial Fire technique. When Chen Guo demands for advice, Ye Xiu tells her to switch to a “Heavy Metal” mouse. Ye Xiu logs back into the game and learns from Mucheng that no one has killed the Fire Witch. Ye Xiu, Mucheng, and Rongxing kill monsters near Line Canyon while they wait for Tang Rou and Qiao Yifan, who are both repairing their weapon’s durability. Ye Xiu sees that Tyrannical Ambition killed Fire Forest’s Fire Witch Cashew. Ye Xiu asks to update the list of uncommon materials for the bet in a future Arena duel.
Ye Xiu repeatedly asks Cold Night to update the list of uncommon materials for the next gambling match in the Arena. Ye Xiu fails to get the list updated. With Tang Rou, Qiao Yifan, Su Mucheng, and Bao Rongxing, Ye Xiu goes to dungeon at Line Canyon. Ye Xiu uses roundabout routes to avoid enemy players, which wastes one hour compared to the regular routes. Ye Xiu receives the “Seventh Edition Light Wind” mouse from Chen Guo. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou and Rongxing to level up, which is the most effective way of fighting against the enemy guilds. Ye Xiu leads Tang Rou and Rongxing to Fire Forest to kill monsters. After a few days, Ye Xiu realizes that the enemy guild alliance stopped actively hunting him. Instead, Ye Xiu occasionally gets ambushed by enemy players. Ye Xiu survives multiple ambushes. He learns that Rongxing’s Steamed Bun Invasion died to an ambush. Later, Ye Xiu angers Chen Guo when he says he does not need Chen Guo’s reserved computer station.
Ye Xiu goes to Bulls Town to create the Arena for the 5v5 duel against Tyrannical Ambition. Cold Night tells him to hurry up. Ye Xiu smiles when he sees his five opponents. He recognizes Han Wenqing (Striker), Zhang Xinjie (Cleric), and Bai Yanfei (Elementalist). Ye Xiu dodges his Wenqing’s repeated attacks. Ye Xiu transforms his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella from a lance to a gun. He fires three Anti-Tank Missiles at Wenqing’s Striker. Ye Xiu opens the umbrella to block his opponent’s Sand Toss. Ye Xiu is surprised by Wenqing, who uses a Qi Bullet, which Ye Xiu dodges. Ye Xiu fails to dodge Wenqing’s Eagle Stamp. Ye Xiu counters with a Receiving Throw, a level 20 Grappler skill on Wenqing’s Striker.
Ye Xiu tells Wenqing should take some damage or Wenqing would be too arrogant. Ye Xiu jokes that Wenqing fights too seriously. Ye Xiu allows Wenqing to attack Lord Grim. Ye Xiu jokes that he has not lost and surrenders. Ye Xiu tells Cold Night that he will not touch Tyrannical Ambition’s record clear times. After the Arena match, Ye Xiu messages Blue River about a guide to taking the Line Canyon record clear time since Blue River refuses to hire Lord Grim directly for help. Ye Xiu prepares this Line Canyon record clear time guide, which is based on Concealed Light’s guide. Ye Xiu offers his Line Canyon guide to Blue River in exchange for uncommon materials. Unfortunately, Ye Xiu is rejected by Blue River, who promised to not contend with Tyrannical Ambition for the Line Canyon record clear. Next, Ye Xiu goes to the Misty Castle guild leader with his Line Canyon guide. Ye Xiu wants the uncommon materials paid up front in exchange for the guide, which Hazy Mist, the Misty Castle 10th Server guild leader, opposes.
Ye Xiu inspires Hazy Mist to be confident about the Line Canyon record clear. Ye Xiu sends the guide to Hazy Mist through email. Ye Xiu answers questions from Hazy Mist about the guide. Ye Xiu sees Tyrannical Ambition’s Line Canyon record clear of 27 minutes, 41 seconds, and 24 milliseconds. Ye Xiu informs Tang Rou that they have the strength to set the Line Canyon record clear time at 25 minutes. Ye Xiu reminds Tang Rou that her true motive is to surpass him and not to set arbitrary record clear times.
Ye Xiu answers Tang Rou’s question about his motive for record clears, which is to gather uncommon materials. Ye Xiu asks Su Mucheng, Qiao Yifan, and Bao Rongxing about their motives. Ye Xiu persuades Tang Rou to drop their monopoly on dungeon clears, which angers the enemy guilds. The enemy guilds will keep harassing and hunting Ye Xiu’s party until Ye Xiu’s monopoly is broken. Ye Xiu easily convinces Rongxing to level up and to steal bosses at the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu sends Tang Rou a personal message that Chen Guo is waiting for them at the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu talks with Concealed Light about annoying commenters. Ye Xiu sends his version of the Line Canyon guide for Concealed Light to learn about the true limit of the Line Canyon record clear. Ye Xiu invites Luo Ji to dungeon, so Luo Ji can improve his mechanics. Ye Xiu gives Hazy Mist some encouragement to believe in himself and in the Misty Castle experts. Ye Xiu sends Hazy Mist the focal points necessary to break the Line Canyon record clear. Ye Xiu tells Hazy Mist to go over to another server to test out the guide. Ye Xiu tells Hazy Mist that Misty Castle has the strength to transfer their 7th Server record setting performance to the 10th Server. Ye Xiu checks the 10th Server Line Canyon leaderboards to see Tyrannical Ambition in first place.
After dungeoning, Ye Xiu and his party spends a lot of time running and hiding. Ye Xiu receives a message from Hazy Mist for the Fire Forest’s guide. Ye Xiu tells Hazy Mist that the guide is not finished. Ye Xiu promises to give Hazy Mist a priority price. After dungeoning at Line Canyon, Ye Xiu tells Su Mucheng, Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Qiao Yifan that they will go dungeon at the Desolate Lands. Ye Xiu tells Mucheng to relax on playing her Cleansing Mist account because they will not target dungeon record clears in the future. When Mucheng and Yifan log off, Ye Xiu tells Concealed Light dungeon at Desolate Lands. With Tang Rou, Rongxing, and Concealed Light, Ye Xiu dungeons at Desolate Lands. In the dungeon, Ye Xiu shouts directions to Tang Rou, Rongxing, and Concealed Light. Ye Xiu is disappointed in Concealed Light’s horrible mechanics.
After three Desolate Lands dungeon runs, Ye Xiu spectates the Arena duel between Concealed Light and Bao Rongxing. Ye Xiu watches Rongxing defeat Concealed Light in ten consecutive duels. Ye Xiu tells Rongxing to not be complacent because Rongxing has a more time training and dueling in the Arena than Concealed Light. Ye Xiu sends materials and programs for Concealed Light to study and to train on his mechanics. Ye Xiu knows that professional players loved the game, which is the basis for all of the training and suffering to be professional players. He wonders if Rongxing and Tang Rou can become true professional players.
Ye Xiu tells Cold Night that he needs uncommon materials, so selling guides is the next option. Ye Xiu informs Cold Night that the Line Canyon guide is still on sale. Ye Xiu sends the list of uncommon materials from Fire Forest to Cold Night. Ye Xiu sets up a 15-minute deadline for the Line Canyon guide. Ye Xiu gets a few uncommon materials in exchange to sell his guide to Cold Night. Ye Xiu logs off.
Ye Xiu goes out to eat breakfast. When he returns, he sees Chen Guo's Christmas decorations. Ye Xiu sees an old handmade Christmas tree and learns that Chen Guo and her father made the tree ten years ago. Ye Xiu remembers hearing stories from other employees that Chen Guo took over the Internet cafe after her parents died. Ye Xiu is not needed to set up the Christmas decorations, so he goes to sleep. He wakes up before noon to see the Christmas makeover. Ye Xiu talks with Chen Guo about the Glory Christmas events, which is the reason why Ye Xiu woke up early. Ye Xiu uses a computer station that Chen Guo reserved for him. Ye Xiu sees the theme for the Christmas event is to hunt down the Christmas thieves. He sees the leaderboards, which is separated into five level ranges to match the level of the players.
Ye Xiu watches Chen Guo fighting a Christmas thief before returning to his game. Ye Xiu sees Tang Rou is looking around for Christmas thieves to kill. Ye Xiu gets a message from Su Mucheng, who claims that she is sick due to the Christmas event. Ye Xiu says that Mucheng should have some competitive integrity. Ye Xiu asks that sick people can participate in events. He hears Mucheng’s joking reply that the Christmas event is the cure for her sickness. Ye Xiu gives up the useless argument. With Mucheng, Ye Xiu goes to Sin City, a level 37-39 area, to look for Christmas thieves because this higher-level area is dangerous for most players. On his way to Sin City, Ye Xiu kills two Christmas thieves and sees five players die to Christmas thieves. Ye Xiu notices that Thousand Creations is on the level 31--35 leaderboards. Ye Xiu sees on the world chat that the Christmas thieves are too difficult to kill. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim arrives at Sin City.
In the rain, thunder, and lightning storm, Ye Xiu fights against a Sin City resident, one of the monsters of the leveling area. Even though the high Level Suppression affects Lord Grim’s damage, Ye Xiu quickly kills the monster and moves on. He focuses on moving through the city without drawing the aggro of the Sin City residents. Ye Xiu joins Tang Rou and Mucheng to form a party. Ye Xiu warns Tang Rou to focus on the sounds from monsters’ attacks, which will be affected by the background noise. Ye Xiu finds a Christmas thief and waits for the Sin City residents to move out of aggro range. At the opportune moment, Ye Xiu lands a bullet on the Christmas thief’s head and gaining aggro of the thief without aggroing the Sin City residents.
Ye Xiu fights against a Christmas thief and accidentally makes a mistake when Chen Guo pulls him. After Chen Guo apologizes, Ye Xiu manages to recover aggro of the Christmas thief. Out of the corner of his eyes, Ye Xiu sees Tang Rou. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to explain to Tang Rou. After an hour, Ye Xiu sees that he is ranked 261st place on the leaderboard while Mucheng’s Cleansing Mist is at 319th place and Tang Rou’s Soft Mist is at 784th place. On the 10th Server’s Christmas Hunting Guild Leaderboard, Ye Xiu notices Excellent Dynasty is first with Herb Garden in second place as well as Blue Brook Guild and Tyrannical Ambition following closely.[4]
Ye Xiu saves Tang Rou from being killed by monsters. Ye Xiu heals Tang Rou’s Soft Mist, who is low on health. Ye Xiu chases after Wind Following Sword, who is retreating. Ye Xiu lands a Stun Bullet and Floating Bullet to stop Wind Following Sword. Ye Xiu plays psychological warfare with Wind Following Sword. Ye Xiu blocks Wind Following Sword’s reinforcements while Tang Rou fights Wind Following Sword. Ye Xiu fights against five Excellent Dynasty players. With Tang Rou and Mucheng, Ye Xiu kills the five Excellent Dynasty members.
Ye Xiu splits up from Tang Rou. Ye Xiu has trouble finding multiple Christmas thieves to kill. He realizes that the enemies have surrounded him. Ye Xiu sees that Excellent Dynasty holds first fifteen places of the individual Christmas Hunting leaderboards. Ye Xiu points to a Christmas thief on Chen Guo’s screen. Afterward, Ye Xiu runs around in a small circle observing the enemy formation. Ye Xiu ambushes Wind Following Sword. Ye Xiu says that he invented the Spinning Spiderweb Formation, which Wind Following Sword is using. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim easily kills Wind Following Sword. Ye Xiu continues to observe the Excellent Dynasty’s Spinning Spiderweb Formation. As its creator, he moves in a specific manner to manipulate the enemy’s readjustments of the formation. Ye Xiu repeatedly creates holes in the enemy formation.
Ye Xiu jokes with Chen Guo about Excellent Dynasty. Ye Xiu refuses to join the guild. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo that a lot of Excellent Dynasty experts are not at the Heavenly Domain. As the former Excellent Era captain, Ye Xiu recognizes the Excellent Dynasty elites that Chen Guo mentions. In the past, Ye Xiu scouted the Excellent Dynasty’s top-tier experts for the club. Ye Xiu gains the aggro of two Christmas thieves, who chase after Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim. Ye Xiu jokes with Chen Guo that he will gather all of the Christmas thieves at Sin City. Ye Xiu wants to monopolize control of the thieves to prevent any more respawns because a certain number of thieves can exist. For six hours, Ye Xiu does not leave his seat, does not eat, and does not drink. As a result, he gathers over three hundred Christmas thieves.
Ye Xiu pulls the 323rd Christmas thief. After the guilds refused to kill Ye Xiu’s Christmas thieves to get the thieves to respawn, Ye Xiu gathers a total of 341 thieves and runs to the clock tower. Ye Xiu starts jumping up the clock tower.[5] Ye Xiu gradually ascends the clock tower. Ye Xiu uses the Mechanic skill: Rotor Wing to reach the top of the tower. He greets Mucheng, who gives him a lot of mana potions. Ye Xiu fires down the tower to halt the climbing Christmas thieves. With Mucheng, Ye Xiu divides the watch tower into five sections in order to prevent the thieves from climbing to the top of the tower.
Ye Xiu realizes that Mucheng is holding back in order to make him work harder. He calls her out, which causes Mucheng to put some effort into pushing the thieves down the tower. After two hours, Ye Xiu and Mucheng kill the 341 Christmas thieves. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim is third on the individual Christmas Hunting Leaderboard.[6] Ye Xiu jumps down the clock tower and fires his gun to reduce damage upon landing. He unhappily throws away mana potions to make room for the presents. Ye Xiu rushes to exchange the collected presents with the Santa at Sin City. Ye Xiu knows that normally hunting the thieves would have earned him the same points compared to his current situation. In reality, his gains come at the expense of the large guilds. On his return trip to the watch tower, a few presents remain because a lot of the presents disappeared after reaching the time limit. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he will not gather all of the thieves gain, which is wasteful for the presents that he cannot collect. Ye Xiu logs off. He uses the restroom, eats, and drinks some water. After half an hour, Ye Xiu logs on to the 10th Server again.
Ye Xiu receives questions from guild leaders about his next move. Ye Xiu suggests to team up with Blue River and other guild leaders except for Chen Yehui. The collaboration has 12 guilds in a 99-man team, which has twelve 9-man guild parties with Mucheng, Tang Rou, and Ye Xiu. When the guild members return with Christmas thieves, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim attacks and takes aggro of the thieves.[7] In half an hour, Ye Xiu leads the 98 other party members to the Sin City clock tower. Ye Xiu has 415 Christmas thieves. He climbs the clock tower while the others output damage upon the thieves. Ye Xiu, Mucheng, and Tang Rou got 32 presents while the remaining presents go to the 12 guilds. On the second run, Ye Xiu stays near the clock tower and takes the aggro of players returning with multiple thieves. The second run is more efficient. In less than thirty minutes, Ye Xiu and the 12 guilds kill the mob again.[8] Into the early morning, Ye Xiu is full of energy for the Christmas event.
After 24 hours straight of focused play, Ye Xiu feels fairly tired yet persists. Lord Grim is level 35. He advises Mucheng that she should rest. Ye Xiu learns that Mucheng claims to be sick with insomnia. Ye Xiu is able to negotiate a day-off after the Christmas event with Chen Guo because Ye Xiu will be exhausted after not sleeping for 36 hours.[9] At midnight, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim stands on top of the clock tower. Ye Xiu falls asleep. He wakes up when Chen Guo shoves him. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou and Chen Guo to claim his presents. Ye Xiu sleepwalks a bit before waking up and going to his room to sleep.
Ye Xiu gets up at nine in the morning. He sees Chen Guo brushing her teeth on the sofa. Ye Xiu goes down to the Internet cafe and greets fellow workers. He goes to the smoking section of the Internet cafe. Ye Xiu learns that Bao Rongxing was partying with friends before Christmas instead of playing Glory. Ye Xiu tells Rongxing to work hard to catch up. Ye Xiu opens up his Christmas present and finds a level 40 Orange weapon, Shadow Claw. Ye Xiu has no use for the Fighter class weapon. Ye Xiu tells Rongxing to level up to level 40 for Ye Xiu’s Shadow Claw. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim goes to Congee City to the storage house in order to offload and organize his items. He makes sure to pay attention for any enemy pursuers because Ye Xiu is still disliked by the large guilds. Ye Xiu sees the amazing record clear times for Line Canyon and Fire Forest.
Ye Xiu sees Tyrannical Ambition’s Line Canyon record clear time, which is attributed to Ye Xiu’s guide. He sees Blue Brook Guild’s amazing Fire Forest record clear time. Ye Xiu realizes that the large guilds exploited the Christmas event’s temporarily higher-level skills to set abnormal records. Ye Xiu sees the Sin City dungeon record clears, which appear normal. Herb Garden is the current record-holder of Sin City. Ye Xiu rushes to research for his Sin City guide to sell for uncommon materials. He reads guides and watches videos. Ye Xiu writes down a few ideas and goes into the game. He upgrades his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella to level 35.
Ye Xiu is satisfied that his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s Lance form finally possesses additional attributes (8% chance to Poison and 8% chance to Bleed). Ye Xiu goes to global chat to buy a Scarlet Illusion Blade to upgrade his Silver Weapon’s sword form. Ye Xiu negotiates to trade uncommon materials for a Scarlet Illusion Blade and upgrades his Umbrella’s Sword form. With the usual increase of Physical and Magic Attack, the level 35 Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s Sword form gains a 2% Critical Strike chance. At Sin City, Ye Xiu calls Tang Rou to party up for a dungeon run. With no other friends online, Ye Xiu and Tang Rou go to Sin City’s prison, the dungeon location.[10]
Ye Xiu practices and studies the Sin City dungeon. On the first run, he and Tang Rou completes the Sin City dungeon in two hours. Ye Xiu spends his morning and afternoon researching and studying to create a new strategy. Ye Xiu fails to sell his Sin City guide to Cold Night. Next, Ye Xiu fails to sell his Sin City guide to Hazy Mist. Ye Xiu sells his Sin City guide to Blue River. Ye Xiu sends over the list of uncommon materials for Blue River to buyout his guide. Ye Xiu gives Blue River one day to decide on to buying out the Sin City guide. Ye Xiu parties with Tang Rou and Su Mucheng to dungeon at Sin City. Ye Xiu sees an announcement of Tyrannical Ambition taking down Herb Garden’s Sin City dungeon record clear.
Ye Xiu sees Tyrannical Ambition’s Sin City record clear time of 29 minutes, 34 seconds, and 71 milliseconds, which is nearly a three-minute improvement. Ye Xiu explains to Tang Rou that Tyrannical Ambition set the Sin City record clear without Ye Xiu’s guide. Ye Xiu sees Misty Castle’s Sin City record clear time of 29 minutes, 33 seconds, and 46 milliseconds, which is a one-second improvement over Tyrannical Ambition’s record. Ye Xiu tells Hazy Mist that his guide will be better Misty Castle’s record. Ye Xiu sees Blue Brook Guild’s new Sin City record clear time of 28 minutes, 12 seconds, and 52 milliseconds. Ye Xiu agrees to sell his Sin City guide only to Blue River. Ye Xiu receives his uncommon materials payment from Blue River. Ye Xiu learns that Blue River wants to buy the Thousand Waves Lake dungeon guide. Ye Xiu sends the list of uncommon materials to Blue River. Ye Xiu tells Blue River the buyout price is ten times the normal price.
Ye Xiu sells a normal Thousand Wave Lake dungeon guide to Blue River, who cannot afford the buyout price. Ye Xiu sells a Thousand Wave Lake dungeon guide to Hazy Mist and other trusted guild leaders. After selling to an Excellent Dynasty spy, Ye Xiu sells 11 guides. Ye Xiu is satisfied with his profits from selling his guides. He goes onto the Glory website to look at the New Year event, which will reward real items that includes computers, mice, monitors, keyboards, and in-game currency. Ye Xiu goes back into Glory to complete the New Year event’s quests, which earns him one yuan’s worth of in-game currency. He goes to level up Lord Grim. Later, Ye Xiu is invited by Chen Guo to go to City S on the weekend.
Ye Xiu learns that Chen Guo has three tickets to the All-Star Weekend. Ye Xiu reminisces about his past experience at the All-Star Weekend, where he never walked onto the stage. He accepts Chen Guo’s invitation because Ye Xiu does not want to anger her. Ye Xiu hears that Su Mucheng will be at the All-Star Weekend in City S. On the Friday before the weekend, Ye Xiu joins Chen Guo and Tang Rou on a flight to City S. In a City S taxi, Ye Xiu gives directions to the Samsara stadium to the taxi driver, which surprises Chen Guo. With Chen Guo and Tang Rou, Ye Xiu leaves the taxi, which is stuck in traffic, and walks to the Samsara stadium. Ye Xiu enters the stadium.
Ye Xiu finds three empty seats and sits down with Chen Guo and Tang Rou. Ye Xiu smiles when he sees Mucheng’s Dancing Rain appear in a hologram with the 23 other All-Star characters. Ye Xiu watches a magnificent holographic simulated battle between the 24 All-Star characters. From his experience in the Pro Alliance, Ye Xiu knows that the perfection of holographic projection technology represents an important milestone for Glory. Ye Xiu watches Dai Yanqi’s challenge with Chu Yunxiu, who easily defeats Yanqi. Ye Xiu watches Gao Yingjie and Wang Jiexi’s intense duel.
Ye Xiu realizes that Wang Jiexi did not put all of his skill points into his Witch to let Gao Yingjie win by a small margin. To applaud Jiexi’s sacrifice, Ye Xiu stands up when Yingjie defeats Jiexi. Ye Xiu hears that Qiao Yifan challenges Team Void Captain, Li Xuan. Ye Xiu sighs when he sees Yifan prepare for the duel against Li Xuan. Ye Xiu watches Yifan lose terribly to Li Xuan. Ye Xiu finds Yifan outside and explains that Yifan was too reckless in challenging Li Xuan, the greatest Phantom Demon player in the Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu advises Yifan to keep improving as a Phantom Demon player. Ye Xiu tells Yifan that he is also looking for opportunities to return to the Pro Alliance.[11]
Volume 4: All-Star Weekend[]
Ye Xiu watches the intense duel between Sun Xiang and Han Wenqing. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that the duel will be decided at Red Blood.[12] Ye Xiu watches Wenqing defeat Sun Xiang. With Chen Guo and Tang Rou, Ye Xiu goes back to the hotel and eats at the dining hall. Ye Xiu watches the press conferences of Wang Jiexi and Zhou Zekai. In the morning, Ye Xiu plays Glory and tells Chen Guo that he would play Glory for another 10 years without losing interest. Ye Xiu accompanies Chen Guo and Tang Rou on their shopping trip. Later, they go to the All-Star Weekend Day 2 event. Ye Xiu borrows Chen Guo’s binoculars to see Su Mucheng. Ye Xiu watches Zekai take the lead in the Hurdles event.
Ye Xiu is worried that he might be chosen for the High Jump event by Su Mucheng as her joke to expose his identity. Ye Xiu is relieved that Mucheng does not expose his identity. Ye Xiu watches the High Jump event. Ye Xiu greets Chen Guo and Tang Rou, who return to their seats. Ye Xiu jokingly acts as an interviewer of Tang Rou. Ye Xiu watches the Targets event, which Huang Shaotian wins. When Chen Guo leaves for the restroom, Ye Xiu gets questions from Tang Rou about his identity. Ye Xiu admits to Tang Rou that he is Ye Qiu. Ye Xiu does not explain to Tang Rou why he has two names. Ye Xiu congratulates Tang Rou for pressing her answer device first to play against Du Ming. Ye Xiu speculates that Samsara fixed the random selection to pick Tang Rou on purpose to see her skill.
Ye Xiu watches Tang Rou increase her hand speed to compete against the superior Du Ming. Ye Xiu believes Tang Rou’s high hand speed strategy is the only way for her to compete against a professional player like Du Ming. Ye Xiu watches Tang Rou suppress Du Ming’s Blade Master to death. Ye Xiu is surprised by Tang Rou’s victory and watches Tang Rou accept Du Ming’s challenge for another duel. Ye Xiu accepts the request of the All-Star Weekend’s host to get Tang Rou to stop dueling Du Ming.
Ye Xiu climbs up a ladder onto the stage. Ye Xiu explains to Tang Rou that Du Ming is a superior player compared to her. Ye Xiu hears Du Ming’s provocations and accepts Du Ming’s challenge. Ye Xiu looks at his Battle Mage account’s skill distribution when Du Ming approaches. Ye Xiu dodges Du Ming’s attack and uses Sky Strike to launch Du Ming into the air. Ye Xiu uses Vanishing Step to juggle Du Ming in the air. Ye Xiu suppresses Du Ming with a relentless mix of low-level skills and complex normal attacks.[13] Ye Xiu unleashes the level 65 Battle Mage skill, Dragon Breaks the Ranks, upon Du Ming’s Blade Master. Ye Xiu continues the attack on the airborne Du Ming with Rising Dragon Soars the Sky. Ye Xiu executes his legendary Dragon Raising Its Head technique to hit Du Ming’s Blade Master. Ye Xiu finishes off Du Ming’s Blade Master to win the duel. Ye Xiu leaves the stage before anyone can find him.
Outside the stadium, Ye Xiu stands alone. He sees Su Mucheng. Ye Xiu and Mucheng go to an ice cream store. Ye Xiu smokes while Mucheng eats ice cream. Ye Xiu invites Chen Guo and Tang Rou into his hotel room. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo and Tang Rou that he ran away from home. Ye Xiu reveals that his family looks down at eSports, which will never be an honest profession.[14] Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou that he has no regrets leaving his family behind to become a professional Glory player.[15] Ye Xiu wakes up from Chen Guo knocking on his hotel door. Ye Xiu taunts Chen Guo, who falls for his jokes. Ye Xiu shuts the door on the angry Chen Guo. Afterward, Ye Xiu goes onto the hotel computer to play Glory. He lets Chen Guo level up his Lord Grim account. Ye Xiu asks Tang Rou if she is interested in joining him at the Glory Pro Alliance.
Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo and Tang Rou that he kept his identity a secret to not embarrass his family. Ye Xiu stays at the hotel while Chen Guo and Tang Rou leave for the Samsara arena. Ye Xiu logs onto his Lord Grim account to play Glory to play for a while before turning on the TV to watch the All-Star Competition. Ye Xiu watches Mucheng wave her hands to him on the TV. Ye Xiu watches the Individual Challenge and the Group Challenge.[16] Ye Xiu watches the Team Challenge and Team A’s victory. When Chen Guo and Tang Rou return to the hotel room, Ye Xiu answers Chen Guo’s question about Su Mucheng’s importance in winning the team competition. Ye Xiu is kicked out of the room when Chen Guo and Tang Rou prepare to sleep. Early the next morning, Ye Xiu, Tang Rou, and Chen Guo take a flight back home. When Ye Xiu returns to the Happy Internet Cafe, he ignores the discussion and goes onto a computer station to browse the Internet.[17]
Ye Xiu checks how the 10th Server is doing. He sees Steamed Bun Invasion and Concealed Light are still in the level 30s while the top guild members are all level 41. With Tang Rou’s Soft Mist, Ye Xiu dungeons at Sin City. Ye Xiu sees that Chen Guo leaves the guild Excellent Dynasty. Ye Xiu is surprised that Chen Guo wants to destroy Excellent Dynasty in the Heavenly Domain, which is impossible if Excellent Era’s professional players intervene. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that her goal to destroy Excellent Dynasty is impractical. Ye Xiu is appointed as captain of the team by Chen Guo. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that she is not good enough to be a player, which is true but hurtful. Ye Xiu is fine with Chen Guo’s idea of calling the team ‘Happy.’ Ye Xiu is advised by Chen Guo to set up his guild on the 10th Server, which is the only viable option. On global chat, Ye Xiu sends a message out that he would be creating a guild to see how the players would respond. Ye Xiu sees his friends list flashing from the messages.[18]
Ye Xiu messages Cold Night that he does not require manpower for his new guild. Ye Xiu repeats his promise to not challenge Tyrannical Ambition’s dungeon record clear times. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim prepares a guild application. He needs a minimum of 30 players to join to form a guild, which would be no problem for the famous Lord Grim. Ye Xiu’s guild is called ‘Happy’ and posts the guild application at night. In an instant, Ye Xiu gets the 30 players to form Guild Happy. Ye Xiu filters through players that applied to his guild. Ye Xiu accepts Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Su Mucheng’s Cleansing Mist. Ye Xiu takes his time to accept members in order to build a balanced guild with a variety of classes.[19]
Ye Xiu saves spots in his guild for Sleeping Moon, Seven Fields, Drifting Water, and Sunset Clouds, who left Full Moon Guild and must wait five days before joining Guild Happy. Ye Xiu finishes choosing members and chats with his new guild members. He learns that almost every member is a new Glory player. Ye Xiu informs the guild members to complete the guild quests to help the guild level up. He is surprised by the new guild members’ enthusiasm. After Guild Happy reaches level 2, Ye Xiu opens up the request list to accept more players. He sends out orders for guild quests, which guild members push to complete quickly. Ye Xiu watches Guild Happy level up. Ye Xiu sees his guild reach level 5. He prepares for the quest to subdue a Guardian in order for the Guardian to give Guild Happy its blessing. Ye Xiu is looking for high-level players in the guild for the quest to challenge the Guardian. He adds Soft Mist, Cleansing Mist, and Steamed Bun Invasion to the 20-player team.
Ye Xiu explains the strategy to defeat the Guardian to the 20-player team. He explains to Chen Guo that most of the high-level accounts in the 20-player team are spies from the top guilds. With the other 19 players, Ye Xiu leads the attack on the Guardian. Ye Xiu orders Mucheng to fire at the Guardian. Ye Xiu micromanages the fighting by ordering every team in positioning. With Mucheng, Ye Xiu attacks and keeps the Guardian occupied. When the Guardian is aggroed towards Mucheng’s team, Ye Xiu orders his team to attack the Guardian. When the Guardian’s aggro changes to Ye Xiu’s team, Ye Xiu orders Mucheng’s team to attack. Ye Xiu catches More Seasoning and Clearly Smooth, who purposely position poorly, and kicks them out of Guild Happy. Ye Xiu manages to get the low-health Guardian to kneel, which signifies their victory.
Ye Xiu explains to his guild that the high-level players were only temporarily helpers, which is easily accepted by the guild members. Ye Xiu messages his casual thanks to Cold Night, Plantago Seed, Lonely Drink, and other guild leaders for their help in defeating the Guardian for Guild Happy. Ye Xiu knows that he has to watch out for an outstanding spy, who could destroy the young Guild Happy. On guild chat, Ye Xiu explains on how to allocate skill points to the specific classes, how to build a strong class composition to dungeon, and other issues. He looks for the two other high-level players to help manage the guild, so Ye Xiu sends out friend requests. Ye Xiu invites one of these spies to the Arena for a duel.
In the Arena, Ye Xiu duels against Chicken Feather. After easily defeating Chicken Feather three times, Ye Xiu realizes that Chicken Feather is a new player. Ye Xiu invites Peerless Looks for a duel. Ye Xiu dodges Peerless Look’s Sword Draw skill. Ye Xiu counterattacks and sends Peerless Looks rolling away. With his opponent’s smart retreating roll, Ye Xiu realizes that Peerless Looks is a spy. Ye Xiu easily defeats Peerless Looks, who appears to be an experienced Blade Master player. Ye Xiu leaves the Arena. He correctly guesses that Peerless Looks is Blue River (Xu Boyuan). Ye Xiu asks Boyuan to help manage Guild Happy.[20] Ye Xiu persuades Boyuan to be a “babysitter” for Guild Happy’s 500 members. Ye Xiu gives Boyuan the power to add and to kick people from the guild. Ye Xiu gives Boyuan the title “Guild Happy’s Number One Babysitter.”[21]
In 5 days, Ye Xiu watches Guild Happy progress from Level 5 to Level 12. He accepts Seven Fields and Sleeping Moon’s veteran friends into the guild and sends them out to train with inexperienced Guild Happy players. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that he is purposely slowing down guild development and new membership to build a stable guild. Ye Xiu admits to Chen Guo that Xu Boyuan is doing most of the guild management. Ye Xiu assembles a 20-player team to take down the Level 2 Guardian. With the team’s hard work, Ye Xiu directs the 20-player team to defeat the Level 2 Guardian with ease.[22] Ye Xiu thanks everyone on the 20-player team in defeating the Level 2 Guardian. Ye Xiu introduces Seven Fields, Sleeping Moon, Drifting Water, Sunset Clouds, and their 4 friends to Boyuan. Ye Xiu wants Boyuan to organize Seven Fields and his friends into teams to train new players. Ye Xiu tells Boyuan that these 8 veteran players can help in managing the guild. Ye Xiu admits to Boyuan that he lacks the manpower to challenge the powerful guilds in dungeon record clear times.
Ye Xiu asks Boyuan about digging up or poaching any players from the top guilds. Ye Xiu looks at the lower end of the high-level accounts to find players to join Guild Happy. He finds Thousand Creations, who is affiliated with Blue Brook Guild. Boyuan fails to convince Thousand Creations, a valuable high-skill player, to stay. Boyuan allows Thousand Creations to leave Blue Brook Guild.[23] Ye Xiu looks for another high-level player to join Guild Happy. Ye Xiu asks Boyuan for a Launcher player to join Guild Happy and is rebuffed. Ye Xiu finds Horse Shooter, a Launcher from Misty Castle, to poach. A few minutes later, Ye Xiu learns that Mucheng persuaded Horse Shooter to join with a video chat. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that a team composition with a two Battle Mages and two Launchers is a mess.[24]
At Thousand Waves Lake, Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng ambush his opponents and sends them flying out of the water. Ye Xiu and Mucheng easily kill four opponents before reinforcements arrive. Ye Xiu uses Falling Flower Palm to push five players deeper into the bottom of the lake, so the opponents will drown. Ye Xiu divides his team. He orders Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Luo Ji to chase after the fleeing enemy. Ye Xiu fights against several opponents. Ye Xiu and Mucheng kill the remaining players in the water. Ye Xiu walks onto the shore. He learns from Tang Rou that the opponents retreated. Ye Xiu reveals that he ordered Horse Shooter to retreat earlier. Ye Xiu finds an enemy team, who is swimming to the dungeon. He orders Mucheng, Tang Rou, Rongxing, Concealed Light, and Thousand Creations to follow him.
Ye Xiu sees that Cold Night wants to surrender. Ye Xiu demands for the top guilds to cede Thousand Waves Lake to him or pay in uncommon materials for peace. Ye Xiu sends out lists of uncommon materials to Cold Night and Xu Boyuan, who both want peace and access to Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu receives the uncommon materials for peace and allows Tyrannical Ambition and Blue Brook Guild access to Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu asks Boyuan for any insider information about the other guilds’ plans. Ye Xiu sees Boyuan’s threats of pro players coming to suppress him. Ye Xiu checks with the pro players and reveals that Boyuan is lying. Ye Xiu finds a team to assassinate and jokes that it is a Blue Brook Guild dungeon team, which shocks Boyuan. Ye Xiu reveals that he is ambushing a Misty Castle dungeon team. Ye Xiu and the team quickly kill the Misty Castle team. Ye Xiu reveals to Boyuan that he sees another Misty Castle team.
Ye Xiu chooses a few level 30 Guild Happy players to send information about the movements of certain players. He uses this information to kill the previous Misty Castle party. Ye Xiu leads Mucheng, Tang Rou, Rongxing, Thousand Creations, and Concealed Light out of the Thousand Waves Lake to a hiding spot on the main road from Congee City to Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu is surprised by Concealed Light’s accurate guess that the next enemy team should arrive in 7 minutes and 21 seconds. Ye Xiu declines Tang Rou’s idea of engaging the enemy because hiding and waiting is more efficient than chasing down the enemy teams. Ye Xiu messages everyone to use messages instead of speaking, so they can hear the enemy’s footsteps. Ye Xiu hears the enemy’s footsteps and accurately measures the distance to 20 units away. Ye Xiu follows up Mucheng’s gunfire. Ye Xiu and the team swiftly kill the five Misty Castle players.[25]
Ye Xiu tells his team that Misty Castle will probably avoid the area. He dispatches Bao Rongxing and Concealed Light to go train. Ye Xiu messages Mucheng, Tang Rou, Horse Shooter, and Thousand Creations to spread out and to look for the enemy to ambush. Ye Xiu knows that he has six target guilds, Herb Garden, Howling Heights, Blossom Valley, Royal Heritage, Guild 301, and Void Walk. Ye Xiu looks on Tang Rou’s screen to see that she found a Guild Void Walk team. Ye Xiu watches Tang Rou push through the enemy Knight and Ghostblade to attack the enemy Cleric. Ye Xiu realizes that Tang Rou is copying his old tactics when he sent his opponents flying at Line Canyon. Ye Xiu advises Tang Rou that she does not have the skills and the mana to control the battlefield like an Unspecialized character, yet Ye Xiu is ignored by Tang Rou, who wants to persist in fighting.
Ye Xiu advises Tang Rou to push the enemy Cleric away from his teammates, who are attempting a pincer attack. Ye Xiu watches Tang Rou kill the enemy Cleric and orders her to swim into the water. Ye Xiu directs Tang Rou’s actions, which neutralizes her inexperience in water battle. Later, Ye Xiu advises Mucheng, Tang Rou, Thousand Creations, and Horse Shooter to go to Sin City in pursuit of the previously dead players, who respawned.
Ye Xiu waits around the Sin City dungeon entrance to scare his enemies before entering the dungeon. He runs through the Sin City dungeon three times to reach the limit. When Mucheng and Horse Shooter log off, Ye Xiu leads Tang Rou and Thousand Creations to Thousand Waves Lake. At Thousand Waves Lake, Ye Xiu completes quests and kills monsters to level. With Tang Rou and Thousand Creations, Ye Xiu manages to ambush three more dungeon teams. After Thousand Creations logs off, Ye Xiu helps set up a training regimen for Tang Rou, who wants to improve her skills in water battles. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that his team killed a few dozen enemy players. When Ye Xiu goes to sleep, he leaves his Lord Grim account logged in to scare his enemies from entering Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu lets Chen Guo control his account to keep Lord Grim safe from enemy monsters.
After resting, Ye Xiu switches with Chen Guo to continue playing as Lord Grim. Ye Xiu kills monsters and eliminates a Guild 301 player. Ye Xiu realizes that he has not worked his night shift for a few days and asks Chen Guo about his situation. Ye Xiu learns that Chen Guo wants him to continue building Guild Happy. Ye Xiu asks Xu Boyuan for insider information to find enemies to eliminate. After Chen Guo asks about Misty Castle players at Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu asks Hazy Mist if any Misty Castle players are at Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu learns from Boyuan that Thundering Light is assassinated by Herb Garden. Ye Xiu tells Boyuan that Boyuan should have expected the other guilds to ambush. Boyuan is stuck in a poor situation, where the other guilds will start killing Blue Brook Guild’s elites. Boyuan goes to Yichun for help.
Ye Xiu helps Xu Boyuan, who is being attacked by Plantago Seed and three other Herb Garden players. Ye Xiu attacks Plantago Seed. In less than a minute, Ye Xiu kills Plantago Seed and rushes to help Chen Guo’s Soft Mist. Ye Xiu sends a party invite to Boyuan, so Ye Xiu’s party would not damage Boyuan by mistake in the chaotic water battle. Ye Xiu records the names of enemy players that he assassinates. With his party, Ye Xiu assassinates enemy guild elites at Sin City dungeon entrances. After a day of assassinating the top guild members, Ye Xiu asks the opposing 10th Server guild leaders to consider his previous proposal to sue for peace.
Ye Xiu goes to a city’s safe zone to accept the reparations from the elite guilds. He accepts uncommon materials from Misty Castle, Herb Garden, and three other top guilds, who will get peaceful access to Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu realizes that only Guild 301 and Howling Heights have not paid him for access to Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu contacts Guild 301 and Howling Heights to learn that they were going to avoid Thousand Waves Lake. Afterward, Ye Xiu thinks about how to upgrade the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella past level 50, where he has no plans and no materials for. He goes into his storage room to drop off his uncommon materials. Ye Xiu offers Boyuan a spot in his Thousand Waves Lake dungeon team.
Ye Xiu sees that Xu Boyuan ignore his dungeon invitation for Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu jokes with Chen Guo that she cannot help level Su Mucheng’s Cleansing Mist account. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to level his Lord Grim account whenever he is resting. Ye Xiu enters the Thousand Waves Lake dungeon with Thousand Creations and Horse Shooter. With strong mechanics, Ye Xiu easily defeats the dungeon. Ye Xiu jokes with the top guild leaders that he wants more uncommon materials tomorrow. When Ye Xiu leaves the computer to rest, he lets Chen Guo level his Lord Grim account. Ye Xiu returns to take over leveling his account. Later, Ye Xiu watches immature customers break keyboards and mice because they want to watch Excellent Era’s match instead of the important Tiny Herb versus Blue Rain match.
Ye Xiu watches the Tiny Herb versus Blue Rain match to study their tactics. Ye Xiu explains Chen Guo that Gao Yingjie is a talented rookie, who can compete head-to-head against the experienced Glory Pro Alliance players. Ye Xiu sees that Yu Feng has improved as a player since last year. Ye Xiu believes that Blue Rain is the best environment for young players to grow in. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that Tiny Herb is too harsh on its rookies because of their Glory Pro Alliance Champion status. Ye Xiu watches the final Group Challenge duel between Huang Shaotian and Wang Jiexi.[26] Ye Xiu watches Wang Jiexi trap Shaotian. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that Jiexi has a slightly higher chance of winning because Jiexi thrives in even and orderly matches compared to Shaotian, who flourishes in chaotic fights.
Ye Xiu watches Wang Jiexi win the duel against Huang Shaotian. During the break after the Group Challenge, Ye Xiu goes outside to smoke a cigarette. Ye Xiu watches the Team Challenge. Ye Xiu reveals to Chen Guo that Tiny Herb is too dependent on Wang Jiexi to carry average pro players like Deng Fusheng and Li Yihui. Ye Xiu explains that a strong team’s outstanding performances might hide the team’s weaknesses. Ye Xiu watches the stronger Blue Rain wins by grinding down the slightly inferior Tiny Herb. Afterward, Ye Xiu goes back to the computer to level up his Lord Grim account.[27] After Thousand Creations and Horse Shooter join Guild Happy, Ye Xiu prepares to break the Thousand Waves Lake dungeon. Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng lead the charge through the dungeon. Ye Xiu and the party break the Thousand Waves Lake dungeon record clear with a time of 30 minutes, 25 seconds, and 41 milliseconds.[28]
Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to not worry about the name of Guild Happy because they can change their name in the Heavenly Domain. In the next two dungeon runs, Ye Xiu fails to improve their record clear time because Thousand Creations and Horse Shooter occasionally make mistakes. Next, Ye Xiu talks to Xu Boyuan about the new record clear of Thousand Waves Lake. Ye Xiu and his team moves to the next leveling area, Gloom Forest, to break the dungeon record clear time. Ye Xiu sees Tyrannical Ambition got the first clear record of Gloom Forest. On the first three dungeon runs, Ye Xiu and his team fail to break the record clear time. On the next day’s final dungeon run, Ye Xiu and his team break the Gloom Forest dungeon record clear. Ye Xiu repeatedly breaks his previous records, and Guild Happy monopolized the top 10 spots of the Gloom Forest dungeon record standings.[29] Afterward, Ye Xiu levels up. He spends some time to manage Guild Happy. Ye Xiu helps Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Concealed Light. When Tang Rou goes home for the Spring Festival, Ye Xiu and Chen Guo see her off. Ye Xiu and Chen Guo leave the Internet cafe to buy decorations for the Spring Festival.
Ye Xiu sits down and smokes. After returning to the Internet cafe, he goes to the restroom. Later, Ye Xiu greets his twin brother, Ye Qiu. Ye Xiu argues that he ran away first to teach a lesson by example to Ye Qiu.[30] Ye Xiu goes to a computer to play Glory. Ye Xiu refuses to help Chen Guo organize her holiday purchases.[31] Ye Xiu is given a red envelope by Chen Guo. With Chen Guo’s money, Ye Xiu leaves to buy food from nearby restaurants. Later, Ye Xiu returns with all the food but does not buy alcohol. Although Ye Xiu does not drink to keep his hands steady for playing Glory, he drinks some alcohol to celebrate. Ye Xiu sees Ye Qiu drunk and passed out. Two hours later, Ye Xiu and Chen Guo help Ye Qiu upstairs and onto Ye Xiu’s bed. Ye Xiu takes off Ye Qiu’s shoes and puts the blanket over his brother.[32] Ye Xiu drinks one final cup of wine and walks upstairs to sleep on the sofa.
On New Year’s Eve, Ye Xiu wakes up and walks onto the first floor. He jokes with Ye Qiu, who leaves the Internet cafe. Ye Xiu gives Mucheng a tour of his living area and his bed in a storage room. Ye Xiu looks through a window to see Mucheng’s window in another building. In Chen Guo’s room, Ye Xiu shows where Mucheng’s window is. Ye Xiu lets Mucheng sleep on his bed in the storage room. With Tang Rou and Chen Guo, Ye Xiu goes to dungeon to clear the daily dungeon opportunities. Ye Xiu sees that Horse Shooter and Thousand Creations are not online. In the dungeon, Ye Xiu does most of the work and saves Chen Guo’s Soft Mist from dying repeatedly. Ye Xiu gives advice to Chen Guo to make fewer mistakes. Afterward, Ye Xiu calls for food delivery. When the New Year event starts, Ye Xiu rushes to finish the missions. He advises Mucheng on the first round of missions.[33]
Volume 5: Deception[]
Before six at night, Ye Xiu sees that everyone on his friends list logged off. With Chen Guo and Su Mucheng, Ye Xiu goes to a restaurant and eat dinner in a reserved room. Ye Xiu and Mucheng gossip about the Glory Pro Alliance. After paying the bill, Ye Xiu follows Chen Guo and Mucheng, who are both drunk. Ye Xiu watches the two women laugh and dance through the street while firecrackers and fireworks explode in the air. With Chen Guo and Mucheng, Ye Xiu takes a taxi back to the Happy Internet cafe. Ye Xiu goes upstairs and grabs blankets to cover Mucheng and Chen Guo. Ye Xiu goes online and dungeons as Lord Grim. With another computer, he has Cleansing Mist follow his Lord Grim. Ye Xiu manages to solo the dungeon, which is inefficient. He logs Cleansing Mist offline and goes off to do quests as Lord Grim. At sunrise, Ye Xiu rests. On the fourth day of the Spring Festival, Ye Xiu goes out with Mucheng to buy clothes.
Ye Xiu works until the match between Excellent Era and Tyranny starts. Ye Xiu watches Mucheng’s duel against her Tyranny opponent. With Mucheng’s victory, Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that Mucheng has changed from playing a support style to an attacking style. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that Zhang Xinjie’s superior tactics exploits a lone wolf player like Sun Xiang. Ye Xiu believes that Thunderclap under Xiao Shiqin’s command could defeat Excellent Era. Ye Xiu watches Tyranny defeat Excellent Era in the Team Challenge. After supervising the exit of customers, he goes back to leveling Lord Grim. Ye Xiu becomes the first player on the 10th Server to get to Level 50.[34]
Ye Xiu searches the market for proper general equipment for Lord Grim. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that he is buying equipment based on price to stat ratio, which will be enough to defeat the Heavenly Domain Challenge. Ye Xiu uses his high-speed mechanics and his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s six forms to easily destroy the quests. Ye Xiu destroys a level 70 Midnight Phantom Cat, who is suppressing the level 50 Lord Grim by 20 levels. Ye Xiu uses his Gunner skills to easily complete the fourth test. Ye Xiu lets Chen Guo play on his Lord Grim account while Ye Xiu plays on Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze account. Ye Xiu switches with Chen Guo and easily completes the fifth quest. Ye Xiu studies the Team Challenge between the Tyranny and Excellent Era match.[35]
Ye Xiu analyzes the match in spectating mode and explains to Chen Guo the details behind the positioning of Zhang Xinjie’s Immovable Rock. Ye Xiu advises to Chen Guo that even though he has experience starting up a team from scratch he needs time to find and to develop players. In one attempt, Ye Xiu completes the sixth quest of the Heavenly Domain Challenge. Ye Xiu meets an 8th Server player, Ascending, at the Internet cafe. Ye Xiu realizes that he does not have to wait for 10th Server players to reach level 50 to complete his Heavenly Domain Challenge because the Arena is cross-server. In the Free Field duel, Ye Xiu duels against Ascending, a Mechanic. In 1 minute and 14 seconds, Ye Xiu suppresses Ascending to death. In the second duel, Ye Xiu defeats Ascending in 1 minute and 30 seconds. As Ye Xiu wreaks havoc against the opponents in the Arena, he sees the topic of Lord Grim explode in the official report forums outside of the 10th Server.[36]
In the Arena, Ye Xiu obliterates his opponents. Ye Xiu sees news that the game company has issued a statement to declare that he is no hacker. Ye Xiu sees a message from Huang Shaotian’s Flowing Tree for a duel once Ye Xiu gets to the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu completes all of the tests for the Heavenly Domain Challenge’s Arena portion on his first attempt. Ye Xiu fights three hours straight to kill a boss. Ye Xiu uses many mana potions to keep his mana high for access to his 120 skills. After the long fight, Ye Xiu is exhausted. Ye Xiu watches Tang Rou’s duels in the Arena. Ye Xiu advises Tang Rou to improve her overall skill and to level up because she cannot handle the level 20 suppression.[37]
After two months on the 10th Server, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim enters the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu ignores the massive amounts of friend requests. Ye Xiu checks his coordinates in the random level 55 area that he is teleported to. Ye Xiu levels by killing surrounding monsters because he has to reach level 55 to enter the level 55 dungeons. He is working as fast as he can because some elite players attack low-level new players, who ascend to the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu avoids running into other players. Ye Xiu meets Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze and Chen Guo’s friend, Forest Landscape. When Ye Xiu clears his friend requests, his computer freezes for five minutes.[38] Ye Xiu greets Forest Landscape. Ye Xiu thinks about leveling alone but decides to join Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze and Forest Landscape. While leveling, Ye Xiu sees five players trailing him. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo that these players are from Heavenly Justice, a powerful player guild. Ye Xiu recognize the Heavenly Justice players’ extraordinary equipment.
Ye Xiu greets Loulan Slash with a chat bubble. Ye Xiu answers Loulan Slash’s questions by revealing his identity as Ye Qiu, the former user of One Autumn Leaf. Ye Xiu tells Loulan Slash that Chen Guo is the boss. Ye Xiu sends a friend request to Loulan Slash. Ye Xiu watches Loulan Slash and four other players walk away. Ye Xiu continues leveling. Ye Xiu saves Chen Guo from a monster and tells her to concentrate. Ye Xiu sees three players, a Spellblade, a Sharpshooter, and an Elementalist. He thinks pro players are controlling these three characters. Ye Xiu uses Aerial Fire to run away.
Ye Xiu watches the Sharpshooter’s movements and realizes that he is most likely Wang Ze, a substitute pro player of Excellent Era. Ye Xiu orders Chen Guo and Forest Landscape to split up. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo, who refuses to split up, to jump onto a large rock. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim picks up Chen Guo’s equipment that she dumped to allow her character to jump up to the large rock. Ye Xiu grabs Chen Guo’s mouse and orders for a Stinger skill, which Ye Xiu fires. Ye Xiu suppresses and kills Wang Ze’s Sharpshooter, which forces He Ming’s Elementalist and Liu Hao’s Spellblade to retreat. Ye Xiu tricks Liu Hao and He Ming into thinking that Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze is Su Mucheng.
Ye Xiu leaves the previous leveling area. Ye Xiu advises Chen Guo to stop searching the enemies’ names because the enemies will have multiple accounts to use. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that he cannot quickly build a normal guild and fight off his enemies, who have well-run professional guilds supported by professional teams. Ye Xiu messages Loulan Slash to propose to join forces, where Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim will be used as publicity to help Loulan Slash’s ambitions to officially join the Glory Pro Alliance in exchange for protection.
After Loulan Slash and his teammates leave, Ye Xiu continues leveling. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that he is relatively safe now because the top guilds cannot ruin their reputation by killing the famous level 50 Lord Grim in the Heavenly Domain. On the first day in the Heavenly Domain, Ye Xiu manages to level without any huge disruptions. The next day, Ye Xiu learns that Chen Guo moved three computers upstairs. In Room 213, Ye Xiu sees three computers for the four-person room, which is the maximum capacity for rooms on the second floor.[39] Ye Xiu learns for Chen Guo that someone is trying to set up a Sweeping the Field competition.
In the Sweeping the Field competition, Ye Xiu secretly plays on four other accounts for Chen Guo against Ma Chenyi’s two expert players. With Chen Guo, Ye Xiu meets with four of Chen Guo’s friends, two employees and two frequent customers. Ye Xiu reveals his identity as the former Battle God, Ye Qiu. Ye Xiu borrows Chen Guo’s phone and calls Su Mucheng. In a video chat, Ye Xiu has Mucheng verify his identity as Ye Qiu to Chen Guo’s four friends, who are now convinced of Ye Xiu’s true identity. When only two players agree to sell their accounts in exchange for new similar accounts, Ye Xiu reveals his story behind Excellent Era forcing him out. Ye Xiu manages to convince the other two to sell their accounts to Chen Guo. Ye Xiu gets well wishes from the four to build a new team and to crush Excellent Era.
Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that his plan is already in effect. Ye Xiu’s recently acquired four accounts are working as a threat to scare Excellent Dynasty and other top guilds from attacking him. Ye Xiu has a facade of having skilled experts to protect him from large scale ambushes. Ye Xiu goes back to the 10th Server for a day to help four level 50 players to set four level 50 dungeon records.[40] With Forest Landscape and Chen Guo, Ye Xiu levels his Lord Grim character. He is joined by the four people, who traded their accounts to him. Ye Xiu advises Chen Guo to allow Tang Rou to level up on her own to reach the Heavenly Domain instead of giving one level 70 Battle Mage account from Ma Chenyi’s 24 accounts to Tang Rou. Ye Xiu sees an approval message from Loulan Slash. Ye Xiu joins Loulan Slash’s Heavenly Justice guild. Ye Xiu agrees to test Loulan Slash and his team’s skill in the Arena. Ye Xiu adds Loulan Slash to his QQ.
Ye Xiu follows Loulan Slash to the city Sword Shadow. Ye Xiu enters the Arena as a weaponless Battle Mage. Ye Xiu’s opponent, Homeward Bound, loans him a spear. Ye Xiu is disappointed to not get a wand for his staff-style Battle Mage, which better utilizes wands than spears, but he decides to work with his disadvantage. Ye Xiu and his opponent, Homeward Bound, do not move until Ye Xiu calls for Homeward Bound to attack. With a few clashes, Ye Xiu knows Homeward Bound is not good enough to be on a team competing for the championship. In two minutes, Ye Xiu, who has lower damage due to using a spear on a staff-style Battle Mage, defeats Homeward Bound. In the second duel, Ye Xiu duels against Ocean Ahead, an Elementalist. Ye Xiu seizes the initiative and suppresses Ocean Ahead in the air to death.
In the third duel, Ye Xiu fights against Night Tide, who puts up a tough fight. Ye Xiu defeats Night Tide. In the fourth duel, Ye Xiu fights Loulan Slash. From the initial clashes, Ye Xiu sees that Loulan Slash is more skilled than the previous opponents. Ye Xiu praises Loulan Slash’s skills. Ye Xiu easily defeats Loulan Slash. When Ye Xiu offers to duel Loulan Slash with another account, Ye Xiu logs onto his Lord Grim account at Loulan Slash’s request. With Lord Grim’s access to skills of all 24 classes, Ye Xiu decisively destroys Loulan Slash, Night Tide, Ocean Ahead, and Homeward Bound. Ye Xiu advises Loulan Slash to find veteran pro players to learn from in order to survive in the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu told Loulan Slash and his teammates that today’s results do not mean much because Ye Xiu’s skill level is too high.
Ye Xiu reads the news of Guild Heavenly Justice forming a team to join the Glory Pro Alliance. Afterward, he continues to level. Ye Xiu congratulates Loulan Slash for his successful marketing operation in building strong support in all of Glory’s servers for his new team. Ye Xiu advises Loulan Slash to slow down the information release to consolidate Guild Heavenly Justice’s position in Glory before the top guilds might attack. Ye Xiu tells Loulan Slash to develop a specific style of play and to nurture a new talent to represent Loulan Slash’s team.
In a pro player group chat, Ye Xiu sees Chu Yunxiu’s mention of “@Lord Grim” and sees message from Huang Shaotian and other pro players. Ye Xiu greets everyone and leaves, which angers Shaotian. Ye Xiu returns to taunt Shaotian by claiming that he is leveling up and is joining Guild Heavenly Justice as normal things that players do. Ye Xiu accepts Shaotian’s Fixed Field duel. Ye Xiu invites everyone to a Fixed Field room in the Arena. He gives advice to Wen Kebei’s Homeward Bound. Ye Xiu tells Loulan Slash to start the match.[41] Ye Xiu tells Lou Guanning’s Loulan Slash that this is his chance to fight against professional players. Ye Xiu sees Loulan Slash use the Enrage skill to turn the tempo around against Shaotian's Troubling Rain.
Ye Xiu watches Guanning’s Loulan Slash lose to Shaotian. Ye Xiu watches Kebei’s Homeward Bound get suppressed to death by Shaotian. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim enters the stage against Huang Shaotian’s Troubling Rain. Ye Xiu uses the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s spear form with Battle Mage skills. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim is knocked up into the air by Shaotian. Ye Xiu changes his weapon’s form into a rifle and shoots Shaotian’s Troubling Rain. Ye Xiu kites away from Shaotian, who closes the distance with Triple Slash. Ye Xiu switches his weapon’s form to a Tachi and Guards against Shaotian’s Sword Draw. Ye Xiu uses Shadow Clone Technique to avoid Shaotian’s high-level skills. Ye Xiu fails his initial counterattack yet manages to land a Mechanical Seeker and a Grenade on Shaotian’s Troubling Rain.
Ye Xiu’s short combo is stopped by Shaotian. Ye Xiu retreats from Shaotian and fires gunshots to harass Shaotian. When Shaotian closes the distance, Ye Xiu uses his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s Shield form to block Shaotian’s vision. Ye Xiu switches the weapon’s form to spear and catches Shaotian off-guard. Ye Xiu uses Dragon Tooth to stun and Sky Strike to launch Shaotian’s Troubling Rain into the air. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim unleashes a long combo to suppress Shaotian, who eventually breaks the combo with a Rising Phoenix Slash.
Ye Xiu is suppressed by Shaotian’s counterattack, which includes skills from the Blade Master, Spellblade, Ghostblade, and Berserker classes. When Shaotian makes a mistake, Ye Xiu seizes control of the duel by using his weapon’s shield form to block Shaotian’s vision. Ye Xiu drops a Shadow Clone, which is killed by Shaotian’s Formless Phantom Blade. Ye Xiu sneaks around to Troubling Rain’s back and combos his opponent to death. After the duel, Ye Xiu says his goodbyes and leaves the Arena. Ye Xiu logs off his QQ to ignore Shaotian. Ye Xiu goes back to leveling.
Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that Wang Jiexi is scouting out the individual talents of Lou Guanning’s team. Ye Xiu encourages Guanning to learn from their losses and to improve quickly. The next day, Ye Xiu is spit on by Chen Guo, who laughs from reading the headline on an eSports newspaper. Ye Xiu watches the news, which reveals Wang Sheng downplaying Ye Xiu’s conflict with Excellent Era. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo to calm down because the media will do anything to spread rumors and lies about anyone. Ye Xiu is the computer reading the news and sees Lou Guanning’s announcement of Team Heavenly Sword. Ye Xiu smiles when he tells Chen Guo that the truth is a decent counterattack to Wang Sheng’s lies.
Ye Xiu reveals to Chen Guo that he planned everything with Lou Guanning. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that the truth of him never intending to join Guanning’s Heavenly Sword is the most powerful to build a genuine foundation for Heavenly Sword. Also, Ye Xiu is able to hide the connection between himself and Lord Grim. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that he is getting more attention to Lord Grim and Lou Guanning’s guild to level up Lord Grim in peace. Ye Xiu browsed the Internet before going to sleep. The next morning, Ye Xiu continues leveling with Lord Grim and finds a boss.
At Chalk Town, Ye Xiu runs into a Wild Boss, Wilderness Escort. He realizes that someone used a “Boss Summon” to call out a Wilderness Escort, who spawns in Eastern Wilderness. Ye Xiu, who cannot kill the wild boss, decides to be scrap picker, who steals dropped items from dead characters. Ye Xiu is surprised when someone posts the coordinates to the wild boss on global chat.[42] Ye Xiu hides in a nearby building and sees a team of scrap pickers. He meets up with Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze. Ye Xiu leads Chen Guo to a better hiding space. Ye Xiu meets Sparse Fragrance, a Blade Master, who leads another four Blade Masters. Ye Xiu reveals his identity as Ye Qiu to Sparse Fragrance, who does not believe him. With Chen Guo and the others, Ye Xiu waits near a dog hole, which he never knew existed.
Ye Xiu gets a spot to look outside the dog hole. He talks with Sparse Fragrance to learn that Chalk Town is quiet because the area’s wild boss is dead from earlier in the week. Ye Xiu hears the opponents’ voices, who are the group’s targets of scrap picking. Ye Xiu persuades Sparse Fragrance to stay and to prevent the opponents from pinning the wild boss to the dog hole. Ye Xiu listens and uses a flick to prevent an opponent’s Falling Flower Palm from pinning the wild boss into the dog hole. Ye Xiu repeatedly uses normal attacks to force the wild boss into the sides of the dog hole.
Ye Xiu prevents the outside party from pinning the wild boss to the dog hole. He hears from the outside that Herb Garden and Excellent Dynasty players arrive. Ye Xiu learns from Sparse Fragrance that he has been fighting Ice of Dawn, one of the Blue Brook Guild’s Five Great Experts, and the Blue Brook Guild. Ye Xiu notices that the intense fighting over Wilderness Escort has slowed because the wild boss is not valuable to the elite guilds. Ye Xiu is surprised by Sparse Fragrance falling backward into a wall and looks outside the dog hole to check the situation.
Ye Xiu sees the wild boss’s face in the dog hole. Ye Xiu uses Falling Flower Palm to knock Wilderness Escort out of the dog hole. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim appears to greet Ice of Dawn and Excellent Dynasty’s Dreamland. Ye Xiu proposes to join forces with Blue Brook Guild and Excellent Dynasty to destroy the Herb Garden party. Ye Xiu uses Shadow Clone Technique to jump beside Mugwort and launches him into the Blue Brook Guild team. After Mugwort dies to the Blue Brook Guild players, Ye Xiu launches Ice of Dawn into the Excellent Dynasty team, which attacks Ice of Dawn.
Ye Xiu watches Ice of Dawn die to Excellent Dynasty players. Ye Xiu watches Herb Garden players attack Blue Brook Guild players, who are fighting Excellent Dynasty players. Ye Xiu watches Blue Brook Guild fighting Wilderness Escort, Herb Garden, and Excellent Dynasty at the same time. Ye Xiu tells Dreamland that he is scrap picking from the three guilds’ losses. After Excellent Dynasty’s players attempt to retreat and invites Blue Brook Guild and Herb Garden to attack harder, Ye Xiu flees from the dangerous area. Ye Xiu tells Sparse Fragrance to leave the dog hole and start scrap picking. Ye Xiu sees Deception and learns from Sparse Fragrance that Deception is a notorious expert at scrap picking. Ye Xiu praises Deception’s great use of the level 35 Ninja skill Underground Tunneling Technique. Ye Xiu chases after Deception, who steals valuable dropped equipment.
Ye Xiu learns from Tang Rou that Deception is a solo player and a ruthless scrap picker. Ye Xiu gives Chen Guo coordinates, which may lead to Deception. Ye Xiu arrives to save Chen Guo. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim attacks with Sword Draw, which Deception dodges. Ye Xiu sees that Deception is a skilled expert to predict his Sword Draw. Ye Xiu quickly dodges Deception’s attacks. Ye Xiu looks at Chen Guo’s screen to see through Deception’s Hundred Streams attack, which Ye Xiu dodges. Ye Xiu suppresses Deception.
Ye Xiu sees players from Blue Brook Guild, Herb Garden, and Excellent Dynasty chasing after him. Ye Xiu warns Chen Guo to flee and watches Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze die to the enemies’ long-range skills. Ye Xiu hears that Chen Guo loses her hairband and her weapon, level 70 Purple Rose Flower Cannon. Ye Xiu runs away from the enemy. Ye Xiu leads the way to escape, which Deception follows. Ye Xiu attacks an enemy launcher in order to scrap pick from the dying opponent. With Deception’s help, Ye Xiu suppresses and kills the enemy Launcher. Ye Xiu picks up some dropped equipment and runs away from the enemy players.
Ye Xiu looks out of the building to see the enemy surrounding the building. Ye Xiu throws out a grenade and runs out of a window. He escapes the opponents. Ye Xiu escapes from the sight of the enemy players. Behind the street corner, Ye Xiu watches Deception’s struggle against 15 Excellent Dynasty players. Ye Xiu apologizes to Golden Fragrance when Chen Guo shouts Golden Fragrance’s derogatory nickname, Golden Princess, through Ye Xiu’s microphone. Ye Xiu escapes the enemy encirclement with Shadow Clone Technique and attacks Golden Fragrance. With the help of Deception, Ye Xiu kills Golden Fragrance and picks up her dropped Orange equipment. Ye Xiu tells Deception and Chen Guo that he picked up an Orange necklace.
Ye Xiu talks with Chen Guo while running through the streets with Deception. Ye Xiu mocks Mo Fan’s Deception, who goes in a separate direction and runs back to Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim. Ye Xiu dodges the enemies without using any skills. Ye Xiu attempts to teach the basics of using knowledge in strategic actions to Mo Fan. Ye Xiu explains the theory behind using intersections to split up the enemy pursuers. Ye Xiu moves slowly through alleyways and buildings to hide from all enemies. Ye Xiu explains to Mo Fan that PKing for equipment is more effective than passive scrap picking.
Ye Xiu looks around and sees 10 enemy players closing in. With Mo Fan’s Deception, Ye Xiu enters a building to lure the enemies into a trap. Ye Xiu throws a Grenade to ambush an enemy player. With Mo Fan, Ye XIu kills the first enemy player in the building. Ye Xiu fires Anti-Tank Missiles and gunshots to harass the enemy players and runs out of the building. Ye Xiu ambushes 3 Excellent Dynasty players. He displaces the enemies, which allows Deception to unleash a huge combo to damage his opponents. In 1 minute, Ye Xiu and Mo Fan kill 3 enemy players.
With Mo Fan’s Deception, Ye Xiu continues the hunt for enemy players. Ye Xiu finds Golden Fragrance. Ye Xiu suppresses the other Excellent Dynasty players while Mo Fan kills Golden Fragrance. Ye Xiu picks up Golden Fragrance’s dropped equipment. Ye Xiu shouts to run. Ye Xiu shows Golden Fragrance’s dropped Orange weapon, Armor-piercing Cannon, to Chen Guo. With Mo Fan’s Deception, Ye Xiu ambushes and kills a 3-man enemy team. Ye Xiu attacks a 5-man enemy team and kills 2 enemy players before retreating. He picks up the dropped equipment. Ye Xiu explains to Mo Fan that they lack the damage to kill enemy players, who are max level and have Orange equipment. Ye Xiu runs into Golden Fragrance’s 20-player team.
Ye Xiu easily repulses his opponents. He receives an offer from Golden Fragrance to flee unhindered as long as he returns the Armor-piercing Cannon to Golden Fragrance. Ye Xiu entertains the idea, but ultimately, he drops the offer. Ye Xiu watches a group of allies jump into the battle to save him. Ye Xiu protects the allied Berserker, who charges up his slow animation Crimson Storm skill. Ye Xiu loses a large amount of health because his shield cannot nullify all of the incoming damage.
Ye Xiu regains health from an allied Cleric’s heal. Ye Xiu directs the battle. With Deception and five allies, Ye Xiu kills 12 enemy players in 1 minute of combat. Ye Xiu works with Deception to kill another enemy player. Ye Xiu and his players kill 5 more enemy players. Ye Xiu rushes towards Golden Fragrance and asks her what other high-end equipment she has. Ye Xiu and his team kills Golden Fragrance and her teammates. Ye Xiu meets and destroys 5 Herb Garden enemies.
With Mo Fan’s Deception, Ye Xiu finds a 10-player Herb Garden team. Ye Xiu criticizes Mo Fan for leading him to the enemy. Ye Xiu drops a Hand Grenade into the enemy team. Ye Xiu and his allies rapidly kill the 10 players. Ye Xiu leads his team through the city and runs into a 10-player Blue Brook Guild team. With his allies, Ye Xiu rushes into combat and overwhelms the enemies. Ye Xiu’s team kills 10 more opponents. He tells his teammates that they will rush to escape the enemy encirclement.
Ye Xiu explains to his allies that he observed the enemy’s movements and teams’ distances. Ye Xiu and his teammates encounter a Blue Brook Guild team. Ye Xiu chases after the 10 Blue Brook Guild players, who retreat and log off. Ye Xiu and Lou Guanning kill enemy scouts. Ye Xiu explains to Guanning that the enemy is sacrificing their teams to locate them. Ye Xiu and his teammates move around quickly to confuse the enemy scouts on their trail. Ye Xiu knows the enemies are from Excellent Dynasty. Ye Xiu sees a 5-man team. He warns Guanning and his team to be careful. Ye Xiu orders everyone to stand in formation and to let the enemy to waste their stamina. Ye Xiu tells Zou Yunhai to fire a Heavenly Thunder Earthen Fire skill at the charging enemies with Kebei jumping to cover up Yunhai’s Elementalist attack animation. Ye Xiu watches the enemy Battle Mage push Guanning, Xiye, Kebei, and Mo Fan back through superior gameplay and mechanics.
Ye Xiu jumps up and fires bullets into the Heavenly Lightning Earthen Fire to hit the enemy Spellblade, which stops the enemy’s attack. Ye Xiu sees the enemy Battle Mage charge towards him. Ye Xiu dodges the Rising Dragon Soars the Sky attack and fails to predict his signature Dragon Raises Its Head technique hit him. Ye Xiu is surprised that Mo Fan does not know who Sun Xiang is. Although Ye Xiu agrees that Sun Xiang has mastered and improved the Dragon Raises Its Head technique, Ye Xiu brushes off Sun Xiang’s improved Dragon Raises Its Head. Ye Xiu ignores Liu Hao’s insults and provocation. Ye Xiu calls out He Ming, Shen Jian, and Zhang Jiaxing. Ye Xiu hears He Ming boast of destroying him. Ye Xiu ignores the provocations and claims to teach He Ming a lesson. Ye Xiu claims that he has the numbers advantage with Mo Fan’s Deception, Lou Guanning, Gu Xiye, Zou Yunhai, Wen Kebei, and Zhong Yeli.
Ye Xiu sees Sun Xiang parry all 3 of Deception’s shurikens in V formation with a V-shaped Sky Strike. Ye Xiu fires a Stun Bullet at Sun Xiang’s Battle Mage, who dodges the attack. Ye Xiu fires 3 Anti-Tank Missiles. He tosses a Grenade afterward. Ye Xiu watches Sun Xiang dodge the missiles and parry away the Grenade. Ye Xiu explains to Tang Rou that Sun Xiang’s excessive microing leaves too many openings for counterattacks by the opponent. Ye Xiu reveals that Sun Xiang is great teaching material for Ye Xiu’s student. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim charges forward and attacks Sun Xiang’s Battle Mage. Ye Xiu quickly executes Collapsing Mountain and sneaks in a Sword Draw attack, which Sun Xiang parries with Double Stab. Ye Xiu sees Mo Fan’s Deception cut off Sun Xiang’s retreat path with the Ninja’s Hundred Streams attack. Ye Xiu shouts at his remaining allies to engage the enemy.
Ye Xiu fires his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s rifle at Liu Hao. Ye Xiu switches targets to attack He Ming’s Elementalist, who tried to save Sun Xiang. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim gets some healing from Yeli’s Cleric. Ye Xiu shouts at Lou Guanning, Gu Xiye, Zou Yunhai, and Wen Kebei to attack the Excellent Era opponents. Ye Xiu directs his teammates by shotcalling attacks on the enemy. Ye Xiu watches Sun Xiang dodge Guanning’s Crimson Storm attack. Ye Xiu sees Kebei’s Dragon Breaks the Ranks countered by Sun Xiang parrying with the same skill. Ye Xiu comments that better coordination between Guanning and Kebei would have prevented Sun Xiang from counterattacking Kebei with Dragon Breaks the Ranks.
Ye Xiu types a command to retreat to his teammates. He reveals this is a tactical retreat and runs away. He runs an empty building on the street and orders everyone to follow. Ye Xiu sets up an ambush outside of the building. Ye Xiu joins Lou Guanning, Gu Xiye, and Mo Fan’s Deception in ambushing He Ming’s Elementalist.
Ye Xiu and his teammates suppress He Ming’s Elementalist to death. Ye Xiu and Mo Fan rush to ambush Liu Hao, Shen Jian, and Zhang Jiaxing. Ye Xiu suppresses Shen Jian’s Striker. Ye Xiu knocks Liu Hao off the roof with a Grenade and 3 Anti-Tank Missiles. Ye Xiu and his teammates attack Shen Jian’s Striker, who is stuck in a water prison. Ye Xiu attacks and sends Zhang Jiaxing’s Cleric flying into Shen Jian’s direction. Ye Xiu has his teammates barrage the two enemies with attacks. Ye Xiu and his team kill Jiaxing’s Cleric.
On the rooftop, Ye Xiu looks down at Sun Xiang, who arrives late to reinforce Liu Hao. Ye Xiu watches his 5 teammates jump off the roof to reinforce Mo Fan’s Deception, who fell to the ground from Sun Xiang’s Dragon Breaks the Ranks. Ye Xiu fires 3 Anti-Tank Missiles to keep his team’s momentum in pushing Sun Xiang’s Battle Mage backwards. While his teammates fight, Ye Xiu relaxes by being the Cleric, who heals his teammates. Ye Xiu laughs when he hears Sun Xiang calling for help from Liu Hao.
Ye Xiu observes the movements of Liu Hao’s Spellblade. He counters Liu Hao casting a wave formation by firing his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s rifle. When Ye Xiu sees Liu Hao attacking Lou Guanning, Ye Xiu orders a retreat. Ye Xiu sees Sun Xiang recklessly attacking Guanning, Gu Xiye, Zou Yunhai, and Wen Kebei. Ye Xiu realizes that Sun Xiang focusing on stacking consecutive hits for Battle Spirit. Ye Xiu comments that Sun Xiang has “a bit” of strategy in his brain. Ye Xiu warns Sun Xiang that his team has a total of 7 members versus Sun Xiang and Liu Hao.[43] Ye Xiu watches Sun Xiang charge towards him after overpowering Guanning, Xiye, and Mo Fan.[44]
Volume 6: Mainstream Tank[]
Ye Xiu orders Wen Kebei’s Battle Mage to join him in killing Liu Hao’s Spellblade. Ye Xiu commands his other teammates in killing Sun Xiang’s Battle Mage. Ye Xiu attacks quickly and overwhelms Liu Hao. Ye Xiu advises his teammates to optimize their attacks against Sun Xiang. Ye Xiu comments that Kebei is using Ye Xiu’s Battle Mage technique with modifications. Ye Xiu shows off a different way to use Sky Strike to Kebei and Tang Rou. Ye Xiu realizes that Liu Hao logged off. Ye Xiu and Kebei rush to kill Liu Hao’s Spellblade before the system removes the character from the field. With Kebei, Ye Xiu kill Liu Hao’s Spellblade. Ye Xiu goes over to reinforce Lou Guanning, Gu Xiye, Zou Yunhai, and Mo Fan to kill Sun Xiang’s Battle Mage. Ye Xiu advises Sun Xiang to stop playing Glory with his poor attitude. Ye Xiu stands up and leaves the room to smoke. He has Chen Guo help him log out of Glory.[45]
Ye Xiu leaves the room to smoke inside the building as he looks out a window. He puts out the cigarette on the windowsill. He sees Chen Guo approaching. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that Excellent Era is finished. Ye Xiu walks out of the building. Ye Xiu is disappointed to see his successor, Sun Xiang, an amazing rookie player, lead Excellent Era to its destruction. Ye Xiu is saddened to see no one in Excellent Era help guide Sun Xiang onto the right path. Ye Xiu returns to tell Tang Rou to have Lord Grim log off. Ye Xiu asks how Tang Rou is doing in the 10th Server. Ye Xiu learns that Tang Rou is attempting to complete the Heavenly Domain Challenge.
Ye Xiu laughs at the 7 strongest guilds, who put his Lord Grim, Mo Fan’s Deception, and the 5 other Heavenly Justice accounts on a hit list. He sees that his Lord Grim and Mo Fan’s Deception have a bounty of 500 RMB per death while Guanning and his four allies have a 100 RMB per death bounty. Ye Xiu understands that the professional clubs want to oppress his return to the Heavenly Domain and eventual return to the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu asks Tang Rou to calculate how much money he could earn by farming deaths on the characters. Ye Xiu wants to use this bounty program to make a few million RMB to stockpile cash for his return to the Glory Pro Alliance.
Ye Xiu goes on QQ to chat with Lou Guanning. Ye Xiu asks Guanning to trade accounts to farm the bounties. Ye Xiu is happy to hear that Guanning will give over the 5 Heavenly Justice accounts for free and offers Guanning a share of the earnings. Ye Xiu learns that Guanning has plenty of money and all of the revenue from bounty farming is Ye Xiu’s. Afterward, Ye Xiu looks for a game studio that has the manpower and expertise in bounty farming. He looks at Chen Guo’s suggestions of Illusion Studio and Future. Ye Xiu does not like them and continues searching. He finds and calls Mo Qiang with Internet cafe’s phone. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he has all sorts of connections in the Glory community. On QQ, Ye Xiu chats with Mo Qiang and asks for his help in bounty farming 5 Heavenly Justice accounts. Ye Xiu offers him 50 percent of the earnings.
Ye Xiu tells Mo Qiang that it’s a long story why he “retired” from Excellent Era. Ye Xiu tells Qiang that he is forming a new team for a comeback to the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu accepts Mo Qiang’s better deal to take 40 percent and 60 percent for Ye Xiu. Afterward, Ye Xiu goes outside to smoke a cigarette. He returns and logs on as Lord Grim. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he will be going to leveling areas without many people. Ye Xiu comments that he will personally level up Lord Grim until he has to hire a studio to level for him. In Wilderness Town, Ye Xiu goes to higher ground to observe for weird enemy movement. Ye Xiu levels slowly because he is watching the surroundings for an enemy ambush. On Saturday, Ye Xiu watches Thunderclap obliterate Excellent Era, 9-1. Ye Xiu learns that the only point came from the individual competition.[46]
For over a week, Ye Xiu manages to evade over 100 bounty hunters from Excellent Dynasty, Blue Brook Guild, and Herb Garden. Ye Xiu ignores the Excellent Era versus Samsara match to smoke outside. Ye Xiu thinks about Samsara defeating Excellent Era, 8-2. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he does not know if Excellent Era will be relegated with their extremely poor play. He goes back to leveling Lord Grim. Ye Xiu sees a message from Mo Qiang on QQ. Ye Xiu learns that Mo Qiang finished his bounty farming. Ye Xiu learns that Mo Qiang’s “Xiaoqiang Productions” is for brand consciousness. Ye Xiu points out that Mo Qiang will ruin his business reputation with the professional clubs, which Qiang does not care about. Ye Xiu learns that Qiang has a plan to cash in on the bounty farming with the clubs. Ye Xiu sees the 5 Heavenly Justice accounts killed and revived only to be ambushed and killed again. Ye Xiu learns from Qiang that the big guilds are notified at every simulated ambush, but the big guilds never show up to see the assassinations. Ye Xiu gives Qiang a shopping list of rare materials to spend the bounty money on. Ye Xiu learns that Qiang will accept the job.
Ye Xiu needs 3 materials from Wild Bosses to upgrade his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella to Level 50. In the morning, Ye Xiu continues leveling and notices that a lot of bounty hunters are giving up because Lord Grim is too elusive to waste time on. Ye Xiu learns that Mo Qiang has a one-day delay on getting paid for his bounty farming. Ye Xiu learns from Mo Qiang that the bounty farming money has arrived. Ye Xiu asks Mo Qiang to keep looking into acquiring the rare materials for upgrading his Silver weapon. Ye Xiu continues leveling up in relative peace. Lord Grim reaches Level 54. Afterward, Ye Xiu focuses on studying and researching to find an upgrade path for the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella. Ye Xiu knew the next levels for the Silver weapon would be expensive. One day, Ye Xiu sees his old Excellent Era boss.
Ye Xiu declines Tao Xuan’s offer of a temporary coaching position because Ye Xiu wants to be on the stage as a player. Ye Xiu does not believe in Tao Xuan’s focus on entertainment and on making money. Ye Xiu proclaims his focus on victory. Ye Xiu hears that Tao Xuan is willing to sell the One Autumn Leaf account to him as a friendly gesture. Ye Xiu turns down One Autumn Leaf and wants Dancing Rain, which Tao Xuan agrees in principle. Ye Xiu lights a cigarette and walks out of the room. He goes to room 213. Ye Xiu logs onto his Lord Grim account. In the Heavenly Domain, Ye Xiu sees a burn mark on the ground and runs away. He warns Chen Guo to run.[47]
Ye Xiu retreats and rapidly dodges the enemy attacks. Ye Xiu uses his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s Rotor Blade skill to fly away. He switches over to the gun form to shoot down a female Witch. Ye Xiu switches to a sword and uses Falling Light Blade to escape an enemy Blade Master’s Sky Plunging Blade. Ye Xiu runs into a Berserker and parries with a Dual Sword Style, which only the Nightwalker classes could do. Ye Xiu neutralizes most of the damage and uses the recoil to move backwards. He escapes the next chain of the enemy attacks. Ye Xiu counts fifteen enemies around him. Ye Xiu manages to dodge the high-damage attacks and takes on the insignificant attacks. He knows he is running out of time because of the increasing strain on Lord Grim’s HP and stamina.
Ye Xiu slows down the intense key hitting in his retreat. Ye Xiu enters the Milo Ancient Ruins. He tells Chen Guo that there are 20 enemies after him with a very troublesome commander. Ye Xiu dodges an enemy Sharpshooter’s Thunder Snipe and a Launcher’s Heat-Seeking Missile. Ye Xiu dodges an enemy Berserker’s Colliding Stab and throws him at the two other enemies with a Grenade. Next, Ye Xiu shoots at an enemy Thief’s trap, which is sprung and wasted. Ye Xiu rushes to suppress a Witch and a Spitfire. He switches backward and uses a Falling Flower Palm on an enemy Striker and Grappler. Ye Xiu crushes the Witch, who throws a Lava Flask that hits the ground. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim switches the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella into Rotor Wings to fly over the lava field. Ye Xiu charges forward towards the three remaining enemies. Ye Xiu uses the Shadow Clone Technique to teleport in front of the Warlock. Ye Xiu notices the Warlock’s rough face with a messy beard, which is a scan from a real life photo. Ye Xiu realizes that the enemy commander is Wei Chen. Ye Xiu shouts, “Old Wei?”[48]
Ye Xiu attempts a Back Throw, which is dodged by Wei Chen’s Warlock. Ye Xiu reveals that the bounty on Lord Grim’s head is over. Ye Xiu stops moving and fakes that he is looking for information for Wei Chen. Ye Xiu steps to the side and looks at the enemy Assassin, who is using the skill Life-Risking Strike. Ye Xiu summons a Goblin, who takes the Life-Risking Strike head on and dies, and the enemy Assassin wastes a lot of his health on a useless enemy. Ye Xiu seizes the moment and kills the low-health Assassin. Ye Xiu reveals to Chen Guo that the enemy Warlock is Wei Chen, the former captain of Blue Rain and former owner of Swoksaar. Ye Xiu hears Chen Guo describe Wei Chen as a bandit. Ye Xiu explains that Wei Chen is a crude character, who retired after 2 years into the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen’s challenges to fight face-to-face, which Ye Xiu ignores. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen insult Chen Guo’s low skill level and describes her only usefulness as a whore in bed.
Ye Xiu goes back into hiding in the Milo Ancient Ruins and lights a cigarette to smoke. Ye Xiu comments to Chen Guo that Wei Chen’s forces are not Blue Brook Guild experts, which explains Ye Xiu’s ease of escape. Ye Xiu ignores Wei Chen’s idle talk because Ye Xiu’s sounds can be traced to a location with a trained player’s ears. Ye Xiu asks Chen Guo to check if Lord Grim’s bounty been removed or not. Ye Xiu learns that Lord Grim still has a 500 RMB bounty as well as contribution rewards from the guilds. When Ye Xiu sees enemies approaching, he runs off. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to pay attention to the system announcements for his reinforcements. Ye Xiu uses Rotor Wings to escape the enemy Thief’s traps. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim jumps near Wei Chen’s Warlock. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen that someone is behind him. He sees Qiao Yifan’s Ghostblade deploy an Ice Boundary on Wei Chen’s Warlock.
Ye Xiu sees Qiao Yifan’s One Inch Ash attack Wei Chen’s Warlock. Ye Xiu directs Yifan to increase his attack speed to kill the enemy Warlock. Ye Xiu moves against Wei Chen’s reinforcements. Ye Xiu directs Yifan to finish off Wei Chen, who rushes toward Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim runs toward Yifan’s One Inch Ash, who is stuck in Wei Chen’s Bind Spell and Control Spell. Ye Xiu attacks Wei Chen’s Warlock to free Yifan’s One Inch Ash from the Control Spell. Ye Xiu attacks Wei Chen’s reinforcements. Ye Xiu sees Chen Guo’s skill combo of a Satellite Beam, a Grenade, and a Stinger kill several enemies. Ye Xiu watches Wei Chen’s Warlock run away.
With Chen Guo and Qiao Yifan, Ye Xiu kills twelve enemies. Ye Xiu is fighting against the six remaining enemies and sees four of the healthiest run away. He sees Wei Chen post Lord Grim’s location in global chat. Ye Xiu chases after Wei Chen’s Windward Formation. Ye Xiu takes over Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze and lays down a specific pace of Gatling Gun fire to slow down Wei Chen’s Windward Formation. Ye Xiu catches up to Windward Formation.
Ye Xiu runs to block Wei Chen’s Windward Formation from the dungeon. Ye Xiu takes over for Qiao Yifan’s work. Ye Xiu tells Yifan to block off Wei Chen’s retreat options. Ye Xiu kills Wei Chen’s Windward Formation. Ye Xiu picks up Wei Chen’s Level 60 Silver Weapon, Death’s Hand, which is a Warlock’s scepter. Ye Xiu sees the stats of Death’s Hand, which are equivalent to a Level 70 Orange weapon. Ye Xiu looks on QQ to see Wei Chen’s message demanding the return of the Death’s Hand Silver Weapon.
Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen that he should sell Death’s Hand, which angers Wei Chen. Ye Xiu comments that Wei Chen’s Death’s Hand focuses on strengthening personal attributes, which is different to Swoksaar’s Curse of Destruction. Ye Xiu suggests that Wei Chen should return to the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu jokes that Wei Chen retired due to his defeat at the hands of Yu Wenzhou. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen’s question about his retirement. Ye Xiu replied that he will return to create some chaos in the Glory Pro Alliance instead of rotting outside the pro scene like Wei Chen. Ye Xiu proclaims his goal is the win the Glory Pro Alliance Championship. Ye Xiu offers a position on his team to Wei Chen, who accepts. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen to join him in City H. Ye Xiu goes over to wilderness with Chen Guo and Qiao Yifan to level.
Ye Xiu asks Tang Rou about Steamed Bun Invasion’s leveling progress. Ye Xiu learns that Steamed Bun Invasion is level 51 or 52. Ye Xiu knows that Qiao Yifan dropped off One Inch Ash to a leveling specialist to take care of the level grinding. Ye Xiu learns from Tang Rou that Concealed Light is also around level 51 or 52. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to take things slowly and advises her to practice her mechanics to be a substitute. Ye Xiu continues leveling Lord Grim. At night time, Ye Xiu hears Chen Guo’s worries that she cannot meet the stadium seating and technology requirements to join the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that they will participate in the qualification tournament to join the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu explains to Tang Rou that the tournament is commonly called the revival tournament because a lot of relegated teams get a chance to rejoin the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu reassures Chen Guo that if they win qualification into the Glory Pro Alliance the league will take care of the stadium and other costs that they cannot. Ye Xiu speculates that in the future the Glory Pro Alliance will develop the qualification tournament into a secondary league.
Ye Xiu walks over to Chen Guo’s computer and tells her to relax. Ye Xiu reassures Chen Guo that they need time to level their characters and get equipment. Ye Xiu goes on his computer to level Lord Grim. He sees a QQ message from Mo Qiang. Ye Xiu learns that Mo Qiang has most of the rare materials except Aquamarine. Ye Xiu goes to a level 55 border city to meet Mo Qiang’s Thief, Run Cockroach, to get his rare materials. Ye Xiu hears and agrees to Qiang’s offer for future game services. Ye Xiu says his farewells and leaves the area. Ye Xiu does not upgrade his Myriad Manifestation Umbrella in the Heavenly Domain, which would lock his weapon to the Heavenly Domain, and he would not be able to use it in the 10th Server. Ye Xiu goes back to the 10th Server to look for Aquamarine.
Ye Xiu sees Xu Boyuan’s Blue River ask why he is back. Ye Xiu reveals that he is looking for the Aquamarine Knight to kill for the Aquamarine rare material. Ye Xiu asks if Boyuan has any Aquamarine to sell and learns that Blue Brook Guild has no Aquamarine to sell. Ye Xiu hears from Boyuan that Tyrannical Ambition, Herb Garden, and Excellent Dynasty each killed the Aquamarine Knight once. Ye Xiu learns that Guild Happy is stable and is growing well. He asks if Boyuan can loan him some excess equipment to establish a storage system for Guild Happy. With a guild storage system, Ye Xiu can set up a contribution points system to retain motivated players, who want access to stronger weapons and equipment under Ye Xiu’s control. Ye Xiu needs to set up the guild storage system to contend with the professional club guilds.
On guild chat, Ye Xiu announces to his Guild Happy members that he is going to “great things.” He proclaimed to steal a boss, which energizes his guild members. Ye Xiu reveals that he plans to steal the Aquamarine Knight. He orders his players to go to the Western Desert to prepare.[49] Ye Xiu discovers that the Aquamarine Knight spawned, so he orders his troops to enter the Western Desert. Ye Xiu orders his massive army to run away from the Wild Boss.
Ye Xiu orders his Guild Happy army to take the initiative to attack the Aquamarine Knight and his entourage. Ye Xiu uses the guild chat to order the Mages to fire Ice Wall to block the Aquamarine Knight’s cavalry charge. He orders his Thieves to advance through the ice walls. Ye Xiu orders his Knights to move forward to be the defensive line to fight against the Aquamarine Knight and his entourage. Next, Ye Xiu orders his Clerics to heal his wounded Guild Happy Knights. Afterward, Ye Xiu shouts for his Ninjas to take the pressure off of his knights. Ye Xiu shouts for his two Battle Mage teams to pincer attack the left and right flanks of the Aquamarine Knight’s nineteen Knights. Next, Ye Xiu orders his Witches, Launchers, Spitfires, Mechanics, Summoners, Berserkers, Brawlers, and Qi Masters into combat. Ye Xiu manages the chaos of 600 Guild Happy members fighting against Aquamarine Knight. Ye Xiu sees some of the enemy Knights die to his guild members’ attacks.
In a few moments, Ye Xiu watches all of the enemy Knights die with only Aquamarine Knight remain. He orders his Summoners to split into three teams to attack sequentially and tells his Launchers and Elementalists to keep up attacking. Ye Xiu looks around for his enemies. For insurance, he had his Thieves set up traps around him to slow down any enemy guild ambushes. Ye Xiu watches Aquamarine Knight die and picks up the rare material drops. With Guild Happy members cheering, Ye Xiu found an Orange weapon and proclaims that this will be in guild storage for guild use. Ye Xiu asks Xu Boyuan’s Blue River for a copy of Blue Brook Guild’s storage system. Ye Xiu copies and pastes the majority of Blue Brook Guild storage system into the Guild Happy’s storage system.
Ye Xiu apologizes for publishing their guild rules with Blue Brook Guild’s name in the Guild Happy rules. He deletes it. Ye Xiu asks for another copy. He gets another copy from Boyuan and praises him for his literary skills. Ye Xiu puts the Desert Badge into the Stage 6 of Guild Happy storage. He places 2 pieces of Level 55 Blue equipment into guild storage. Ye Xiu gives Chen Guo an alternate account to have the authority equal to the guild leader although she did not have the power to remove the guild leader. He needs Chen Guo to run the 10th Server Guild Happy, so Ye Xiu can focus on collecting rare materials and leveling Lord Grim. Ye Xiu gives Chen Guo all of his excess materials to sell for revenue to buy high-level rare materials for Guild Happy. Ye Xiu keeps the rare Aquamarine material. He stays on the 10th Server to complete quests for bonus skill points or extra stats. Ye Xiu joins Bao Rongxing’s Steamed Bun Invasion to dungeon. Ye Xiu picks up the dropped equipment for Guild Happy.
Ye Xiu tells his Guild Happy members to work hard and that he will be waiting for them in the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu logs off. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo that some players are close to 6000 contribution points, which would give them access to the Desert Badge. He advises Chen Guo to give Tang Rou’s Soft Mist a bunch of rare materials to sell to Guild Happy, so Tang Rou will get access to the Desert Badge first before the spies. Ye Xiu returns to the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu starts working on upgrading the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella. He remembers the old days, where he wasted a lot of rare materials to figure out how to upgrade to the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella to Level 50. Ye Xiu opens up the Equipment Editor.
Ye Xiu puts in the Aquamarine into the Equipment Editor to polish and to cut the rare material. After half an hour, Ye Xiu finishes modifying the Aquamarine and looks at the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella blueprint to check every possible detail. Ye Xiu disassembles his Silver weapon and places the Aquamarine material into the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella. He rebuilds the Silver Weapon and runs through the various forms to check its functionality. Ye Xiu is satisfied that his Silver Weapon works and has better stats.
Ye Xiu goes out to level Lord Grim, who is level 54, because he needs to reach level 55 to get access to dungeons in the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu sees Wei Chen’s messages and learns that something big is happening in Poison Fang Swamp. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim teleports to the area and runs into Herb Garden players, who do not see him. He runs to Wei Chen’s coordinates. Ye Xiu notices that Herb Garden, Misty Castle, Tyrannical Ambition, and Samsara Guild in the area. Ye Xiu meets Wei Chen and his friends.
With Wei Chen, Ye Xiu reaches the area with the Wild Boss and the enemy guilds. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo about the temporary peace between the big guilds, which makes kill stealing the Wild Boss more difficult. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen to study the surroundings and to look for an opportunity to seize the aggro of the Wild Boss. Ye Xiu starts planning to create chaos in Poison Fang Swamp. Ye Xiu occasionally looks at Chen Guo’s computer to look at the eight guilds’ competition in the Arena for the Wild Boss, Swamp Hunter Leipu. Ye Xiu sees and informs Wei Chen of Misty Castle lose to Herb Garden as well as Tyrannical Ambition losing to Blue Brook Guild. He notices Excellent Dynasty defeat Blossom Valley and Samsara Guild defeat Void Walk. Ye Xiu watches the Samsara Guild defeat Herb Garden and Excellent Dynasty defeat Blue Brook Guild.
Ye Xiu and Wei Chen execute on the scenario to have the Wild Boss, Swamp Hunter Leipu, attack Blue Brook Guild. Ye Xiu runs toward Wei Chen’s location because Wei Chen succeeds in pulling the Wild Boss away from the enemy guilds. Ye Xiu works with a few of Wei Chen’s comrades in assassinating a Battle Mage from Misty Castle. Ye Xiu sees Octagon Aniseed and Sword Bean from Herb Garden trailing him. Ye Xiu sends over a list of rare materials in exchange for the Wild Boss, Swamp Hunter Leipu to Yichun and Three Realms Six Paths. Ye Xiu claims his friend, who is controlling the Wild Boss wants more rare materials, to scare Yichun and Three Realms Six Paths. Ye Xiu extorts more rare materials from Yichun and Three Realms Six Paths.
Ye Xiu sends over a list of rare materials in exchange for the Wild Boss, Swamp Hunter Leipu to Liang Yichun and Three Realms Six Paths. Ye Xiu claims his friend, who is controlling the Wild Boss wants more rare materials, to scare Yichun and Three Realms Six Paths. Ye Xiu extorts more rare materials from Yichun and Three Realms Six Paths. Ye Xiu leads Yichun’s Changing Spring and Three Realms Six Paths to Swamp Hunter Leipu. Ye Xiu watches Wei Chen’s comrades turn over aggro control of the Wild Boss to Blue Brook Guild and Samsara Guild members. With Wei Chen and his group, Ye Xiu drift away from the Wild Boss and Blue Brook Guild and Samsara Guild. With Wei Chen, Ye Xiu discusses their difficult future in securing Wild Bosses after angering the big guilds. Ye Xiu learns that Wei Chen and his comrades’ accounts have about 4700 skill points, which is more than an average character’s 4000 skill points.[50]
Ye Xiu learns from Wei Chen that there are methods to increase the drop chance of skill books from killing monsters. Ye Xiu realizes that they are surrounded by the big guilds’ members. Ye Xiu logs off. Ye Xiu asks if Chen Guo understands what he did to the enemy guilds.[51] Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that he has no choice but to use shameless methods like extorting Blue Brook Guild and Samsara Guild of rare materials in exchange for a Wild Boss. Ye Xiu comments to Chen Guo that he is not as shameless as Wei Chen. Ye Xiu recommends Wei Chen to be a spy in Samsara Guild. Ye Xiu promises to send Wei Chen and his comrades open account cards to spy on Samsara Guild. Ye Xiu speculates with Wei Chen that Samsara have what it takes to become the Season 8 champions.
Ye Xiu hears Chen Guo’s question if he posted the question about who had the power to control the Wild Boss compared to the big guilds. Ye Xiu refocuses on reading Wei Chen’s document about increasing the drop rate for skill books. He learns that Wei Chen focuses most of his research work on non-repeatable quests. In a QQ chat, Ye Xiu respects Wei Chen’s extreme effort through countless accounts to research the drop rate of skill books. Ye Xiu asks Wei Chen to prepare their weakened accounts to rescue his Lord Grim from the enemy guild members. Ye Xiu gets Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze account to help Wei Chen.
Ye Xiu’s Chasing Haze runs over to Wei Chen’s group. He tells Wei Chen that he cannot escape the easy way because Lord Grim is only level 54. Ye Xiu knows the only way to escape is fight through the enemy, which Wei Chen agrees. With Wei Chen’s team moving out, Ye Xiu’s Chasing Haze throws out a lighter lowly, which scares the enemy players. Ye Xiu fires Heat Seeking Missiles at the enemy, which hits a few players and creates a mushroom cloud. He uses a mushroom cloud as a smokescreen to fire a Satellite Beam, which hits multiple enemies. Ye Xiu sees Wei Chen’s comrades unleash a huge wave of AoE damage on the wounded enemies. Ye Xiu’s Chasing Haze sees Lord Grim appear in the Satellite Beam.
Exploiting the short period of invulnerability to damage after logging in, Ye Xiu has Lord Grim inside the Satellite Beam to hide his appearance. He switches computers with Chen Guo to get the controls of Lord Grim. As Lord Grim, Ye Xiu runs away. He knows as level 54 that his Falling Flower Palm is weak and only trips a level 70 opponent. After 2 days of resting, Ye Xiu goes all-out to push past the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s attack speed of 5 with his superior mechanics. Ye Xiu fights his way out of the encirclement. On the Glory forums, Ye Xiu reads the war of words between Heavenly Justice and the big guilds including Blue Brook Guild, Tyrannical Ambition, Herb Garden, Excellent Dynasty, Misty Castle, Blossom Valley, Howling Heights, Samsara Guild, and others. He watches most players support Heavenly Justice against the big guilds. On QQ, Ye Xiu talks with Wei Chen about the rise of Heavenly Justice into the spotlight. Ye Xiu reveals to Wei Chen that he has a use for the Knight account, which was not sent to Wei Chen.
Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen that the Knight account will be used personally. Ye Xiu implies to Chen Guo that he will be a spy. Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim passes level 55, so he can level in dungeons, which is more efficient. Ye Xiu logs off of his Lord Grim account and tells Chen Guo that leveling is not important any more. Ye Xiu logs onto his Knight account, Unrivaled Super Hottie, which was an eye-catching name. This Knight account has 4160 skill points, which is an average. He sees the Knight has green equipment. Ye Xiu asks for gold coins from Chen Guo and gets 13,000. Ye Xiu spends 5,000 gold coins to buy Blue equipment to fill up all of his equipment slots. He offers to give back the remaining 8,000 gold coins to Chen Guo, who tells him to keep the gold. On QQ, Ye Xiu congratulates Lou Guanning’s announcement of forming a professional Club with Heavenly Justice as its guild. Ye Xiu asks Guanning for information on Tyrannical Ambition. Later, Ye Xiu receives Guanning’s research document, which lists 27 branch guilds that followed Tyrannical Ambition.
Ye Xiu looks through Lou Guanning’s report to look for a Tyrannical Ambition branch to infiltrate. Ye Xiu finds a guild called Exterminate the Heavens, which is run by Senior Exterminate the Heavens, and applies to this guild. He reads that Guild Exterminate the Heavens have 1,024 players. After a few minutes, Ye Xiu gets a message from Clove, who adds him to the guild. Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie greets Clove and Senior Exterminate the Heavens. Ye Xiu reveals his Knight has 750 Vitality, 520 Strength, 414 Intelligence, and 405 Spirit. Ye Xiu shows that he only has green equipment to the guild members. Ye Xiu agrees to join Clove at Bone Dragon Abyss to dungeon at 7:00 P.M. He tells Clove that he will study a Bone Dragon Abyss guide. Ye Xiu goes to a Knight instructor to reallocate his skill points for Unrivaled Super Hottie, which is expensive. Ye Xiu goes to eat dinner and returns to his computer at 7:00 P.M. He logs onto Unrivaled Super Hottie and sees Clove’s message. Ye Xiu goes to Kansas City, a level 70 city. Ye Xiu goes to the north gate and sees Clove, a female Cleric, as well as 8 other Guild Exterminate the Heavens players.
Ye Xiu hears Crispy Bean insult his Unrivaled Super Hottie’s weak stats and 750 Vitality. He hears Clove explain that she needs Crispy Bean, who is a stronger tank with 950 Vitality, 760-plus Strength, 760-plus Intelligence, and 700 Spirit. Ye Xiu questions Clove’s strategy of having Crispy Bean, another tank, which would lower ideal damage output if there is another DPS class player instead. Ye Xiu tells Crispy Bean to switch over to a high-damage Knight instead of a tank Knight. Ye Xiu gets a private message from Clove to calm down and to get ready for the dungeon. With 9 Exterminate the Heavens guild members, Ye Xiu enters the Bone Dragon Abyss. Ye Xiu is the last player to appear in the dungeon and sees the messy situation. Ye Xiu sees that Crispy Bean is a veteran Knight player and Clove is a decent Cleric. Ye Xiu follows Clove’s directions. Ye Xiu hears Crispy Bean taunt him for his second to last damage output next to Clove, a Cleric, who focuses on healing and not attacking. Ye Xiu replies that he is just leeching experience.
Ye Xiu hears Crispy Bean’s insult in suggesting that Knight equipment drops should go the guild. Ye Xiu agrees to change his disposition from leeching to seriously attack the dungeon monsters. Ye Xiu hears Chen Guo’s demands to play seriously to “prove his strength.” Ye Xiu tosses a crumpled piece of paper, a Glory Pro Alliance Season 3 MVP award, to Chen Guo. Ye Xiu catches his paper from Chen Guo and puts it back in his pocket. Ye Xiu moves up next to Crispy Bean. Ye Xiu attacks the boss, Guardian Kaiwei, a bit after Crispy Bean, who is scared of losing aggro.[52]
Ye Xiu uses Shield Attack on the Guardian Kaiwei’s head, which induces a 1-second Dizzying effect on the boss. Ye Xiu only attacks after Crispy Bean’s attacks. Ye Xiu and his teammates kill the boss, Guardian Kaiwei. He sees the dropped equipment, a Dragon Guardian Axe, which is a Priest class weapon for Clerics, Paladins, Exorcists, and Knights. Ye Xiu declares that he wants the Dragon Guardian Axe, which angers Crispy Bean. Ye Xiu tells Clove that he is borrowing the Dragon Guardian Axe to raise his DPS until the completion of the dungeon. Ye Xiu gets the dropped weapon from Clove and equips the Dragon Guardian Axe. Ye Xiu pushes forward and increases his damage output. Ye Xiu charges into combat against the next boss with Crispy Bean. Ye Xiu and his teammates kill the boss. On the damage output list, Ye Xiu’s Knight jumps from ninth place to second place. Ye Xiu sees a Blue weapon drop from a mob monster, which is extremely rare.
Next, Ye Xiu and his teammates kill the third boss. Ye Xiu hears Crispy Bean’s cry. Before meeting the final boss, Bone Dragon Aldton, Ye Xiu hears Clove’s direction to check his Spirit stat. Behind Crispy Bean, Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie charges toward the final boss. Ye Xiu lands an attack above the final boss. Next, he runs into a safety zone, where the dragon’s wings would not touch, and jumps back out. Ye Xiu rushes out and gets hit by the Bone Dragon Aldton’s bone wing. He rolls towards the back of the final boss and lies down to dodge the final boss’s tail. Ye Xiu’s Knight gets up and attacks furiously against the final boss. He sees Crispy Bean lose aggro of Bone Dragon Aldton. Ye Xiu charges forward and activates Glorious Provocation, which enhances his skills and massively buffs his stats, to Provoke the final boss.
Ye Xiu pulls the final boss away from his teammates. He continues attacking and maintaining aggro of Bone Dragon Aldton. Ye Xiu sees the final boss about to kill his teammates with Dragon Breath, so he uses Sacrificial Roar to recover aggro of the final boss. Ye Xiu escapes from Aldton’s Dragon Breath attack. He shouts for a heal from Clove. After the heal, Ye Xiu retains aggro and orders his teammates to attack. Ye Xiu and his teammates kill the final boss. Afterward, he sees Crispy Bean leave the dungeon party. Ye Xiu sees the guild leader, Senior Exterminate the Heavens, join them in the second run of the Bone Dragon Abyss. Ye Xiu maintains control of the aggro of the dungeon bosses against Senior Exterminate the Heavens’s attempts to sabotage him.
Later, Ye Xiu sees a personal invite from a Tyrannical Ambition branch guild and tells Chen Guo about his infiltration into Tyrannical Ambition. Ye Xiu messages the person, who invited him into the branch guild, and learns that he can leave Exterminate the Heavens to play for 5 days as a guild-free player for the branch guild. Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie meets Happy Sheep and 98 other Tyrannical Ambition branch guild players. He learns that they are going to dungeon at Tomb in the Sky. Ye Xiu tells his teammates that he will check a guide. Ye Xiu joins the group chat and sees the insults. He claims that he can be the main tank for the dungeon run. Ye Xiu tells everyone that he will have trouble with the fourth, fifth, ninth, and final boss. He agrees to have Happy Sheep lead the dungeon run. Ye Xiu goes straight into the dungeon first.
In the beginning area of the dungeon, Ye Xiu learns that Seven Blossom Leaves will be the off tank, the main backup to Ye Xiu’s Knight. Ye Xiu calls out the 3 other tanks, who will help if Ye Xiu and Seven Blossom Leaves cannot handle the boss. Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie reminds everyone to be alert and moves forward. Ye Xiu triggers spike projectiles that fly toward him from the ground. He dodges the spikes with extremely quick movements. Ye Xiu learns of a safe path without triggering traps and follows Seven Blossom Leaves’s footsteps. Ye Xiu follows Happy Sheep’s direction to take the left path. Ye Xiu walks straight into two statues’ sword attacks. He dodges and rolls forward. Ye Xiu pulls aggro of 4 statues.
Ye Xiu sees the 4 statues are Blade Masters. He activates Knight’s Spirit and Heroic Charges toward the 4 enemies. Ye Xiu uses Arc Charge, a Charge that is curved, to hit all 4 statues in one attempt. Ye Xiu jumps up into the air to use a Fair Heroic Leap, where upon impact the enemies take massive AoE damage. With the 4 enemies suppressed, Ye Xiu shouts for his teammates to attack. Ye Xiu orders Seven Blossom Leaves to use Heroic Charge, which causes an intentional AoE displacement on the other 3 statues. Ye Xiu pulls 1 statue and leaves 3 statues for the third tank to suppress with a combo of a Heroic Charge and a Heroic Leap. He watches the fourth tank use Knight’s Spirit first before using a combo of a Heroic Charge and a Heroic Leap onto the 3 statues. Ye Xiu sees the fifth and final tank use a combo of a Heroic Charge and a Heroic Leap onto the 3 statues. Ye Xiu observes Seven Blossom Leaves, the third tank, and the fourth tank use Roar to maintain aggro of the 3 statues. Ye Xiu sees the fifth tank’s Roar make the mistake of taking the aggro of all 4 statues.
Ye Xiu’s Knight retakes aggro of the 4 statues from the fifth tank. He watches his teammates kill the other 3 statues. Ye Xiu manages to hold off the remaining statue for his teammates to kill. While he walks forward, Ye Xiu hears Happy Sheep shout at him for taking aggro of 4 statues. Ye Xiu claims that they can handle 4 statues because he can take care of the corralling the statues. Ye Xiu assures Seven Blossom Leaves and Happy Sheep that he can use Arc Charge to gather the enemy AIs. With Seven Blossom Leaves, Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie pulls 4 Battle Mage statues. Ye Xiu comments that his Knight’s Spirit is in cooldown, which prevents him from using an Arc Heroic Charge. Ye Xiu tells all of the tanks to help him divide the aggro of the 4 Battle Mage statues among themselves. Ye Xiu’s Knight charges straight into the range of the 4 Battle Mage statues to stall until his cooldowns are ready.
Ye Xiu gets the aggro of 1 Battle Mage statue. He dodges a lot of the statue’s attacks until he takes 1 hit, which reduces his health down significantly. Ye Xiu’s Knight gets Heals from 3 Clerics. Ye Xiu’s Knight manages to dodge the majority of the statue’s hits. Ye Xiu sees the fourth tank fails to block a Battle Mage statue’s attack and orders the fifth tank to save the dungeon team from catastrophe. Ye Xiu orders his tank teammates to line up the statues for a Heroic Charge. Ye Xiu activates Knight’s Spirit and uses Heroic Charge to hit 4 Battle Mage statues.
Ye Xiu displaces all 4 Battle Mage statues. He watches the DPS teams attack the 4 statues. Ye Xiu uses a Fair Heroic Leap to maintain the crowd control on the 4 statues. Afterward, he pulls the aggro of 1 statue to fight on his own. With Clerics healing him, Ye Xiu does not dodge all of the statue’s hits and only the critical ones. He focuses on attacking the statue with his DPS teams. Ye Xiu and his teammates kill the 4 Battle Mage statues. Ye Xiu, Seven Blossom Leaves, and the 3 other tanks rotate around the job to pull the remaining 16 statues divided into 4 separate runs. Ye Xiu and his teammates rest to recover on their health and cooldowns. Ye Xiu decides to be the main tank for the first dungeon boss. He touches the first gear, which activates the first boss. Ye Xiu dodges the first round of attacks from the boss. He stabilizes aggro and calls for his teammates to attack the boss.
With superior mechanics, Ye Xiu manages to dodge the vast majority of the first boss’s attacks. Ye Xiu and his teammates defeat the first boss. Ye Xiu watches Happy Sheep pick up the boss drops. Ye Xiu’s Knight leads the fight against the second and third bosses, who are easily defeated. Before the fight against the fourth boss, Ye Xiu asks for someone to lend him some equipment. He exchanges equipment with Seven Blossom Leaves. Ye Xiu initiates the fight against the fourth boss, a Summoner. Ye Xiu controls the aggro of the fourth boss. He uses his Shield to take the enemy attacks instead of dodging.
Ye Xiu divides the work of controlling the summoned spirit mob with Seven Blossom Leaves and 3 other tanks. Ye Xiu sees Seven Blossom Leaves and another tank succeed at taking some of Ye Xiu’s spirit mob while the two other tanks fail. Ye Xiu comments “how messy” the two other tanks are. Ye Xiu works harder to make up for his teammates’ mistakes. Ye Xiu leads his teammates in smoothly killing the fourth Summoner boss. For the fifth boss, Ye Xiu leads the way as a solo tank. He tracks and predicts the movements of the teleporting fifth boss. With multiple Clerics healing him, Ye Xiu and his teammates crush the fifth boss. Ye Xiu leads the way in crushing the sixth, seventh, and eighth bosses. Ye Xiu’s Knight stands before the ninth boss near a watery area. He learns from Happy Sheep that this branch guild has never beaten the ninth boss before. Ye Xiu explains that Happy Sheep’s dungeon team lack the skill to win in an aquatic battle. Ye Xiu comments that he has “a bit” of skill in aquatic battles.
Ye Xiu understands that Seven Blossom Leaves and his teammates have trouble with aquatic battles, which only hinder the players and not the bosses. Ye Xiu uses his shield to block the ninth boss’s attacks. He calls for a Heal from the Clerics. Ye Xiu orders the DPS teams to attack the ninth boss. Ye Xiu announces the ninth boss is “done.” Ye Xiu and his teammates kill the ninth boss with no deaths. Ye Xiu explains how to deal with the tenth boss because none of his teammates have experience fighting the last dungeon boss. Ye Xiu charges toward the last boss. He instructs everyone to spread out and not to be within 90-degrees in front of the boss. Ye Xiu shouts at Happy Sheep, who is within the 90-degrees of the final boss, to stand behind him. Ye Xiu shouts a short explanation on basic geometric angles to Happy Sheep.
Ye Xiu replaces Happy Sheep, who dies to the final boss, as the dungeon team’s shotcaller. Ye Xiu sees the final boss, Tomb Guardian Imset, appear. He sees the final boss smash the ground with an iron shovel, and the ground breaks up. Ye Xiu watches Happy Sheep die instantly. Ye Xiu directs his teammates on their movement and positioning. Ye Xiu sees 6 more players die from moving too slowly out of a danger zone. He directs his teammates to run counterclockwise and watches more players die to the final boss’s traps. Ye Xiu loses 14 players in the first moments of encountering Tomb Guardian Imset. Ye Xiu leads the remaining players against an enraged Tomb Guardian Imset.
For Tyrannical Ambition’s Fourth Branch, Ye Xiu clears the Tomb in the Sky dungeon. He exits with the other players and teleports to a platform. Ye Xiu sees Happy Sheep and Wolf Head squabbling over Happy Sheep’s successful dungeon clear. Ye Xiu hears Wolf Head call him an outsider, who illegitimately helped Happy Sheep’s team clear the dungeon. Ye Xiu learns from Happy Sheep that Wolf Head is from Tyrannical Ambition’s Fifth Branch. Ye Xiu listens to Wolf Head shouting about how 1 extra expert could not help Happy Sheep’s team clear the dungeon. Ye Xiu hears Wolf Head’s challenge for a duel.
Ye Xiu assures Happy Sheep that he will defeat Wolf Head. Ye Xiu suggests that Wolf Head will need a Cleric to improve his chances of defeating Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie. Ye Xiu hears Wolf Head ignore this suggestion. Ye Xiu claims that Wolf Head has peaked in skill level because Wolf Head has 50,000 matches with a 75% win rate, which shows stagnation. Ye Xiu enters Mist Earth City. He goes into the Arena for the duel and sees Wolf Head and Wolf Claw, a Cleric. Ye Xiu brushes off the 1v2. He regrets having Happy Sheep join him in a 2v2. With Happy Sheep, Ye Xiu’s Knight appears in a rectangular map. With a Charge and a Heroic Leap, Ye Xiu rushes forward to fight Wolf Claw. Ye Xiu suppresses Wolf Claw. Ye Xiu sees Wolf Head use Provoke to stop him. Ye Xiu activates Knight’s Spirit and moves toward Wolf Head.
Ye Xiu uses Heroic Charge and Heroic Leap to drag Wolf Claw into his chase toward Wolf Head. Ye Xiu smashes Wolf Head’s head with Shield Attack. Ye Xiu attacks Wolf Head, who is stunned. When the Provoke wears off, Ye Xiu returns to attacking Wolf Claw. Ye Xiu ignores Wolf Head’s attacks. Ye Xiu orders Happy Sheep to start healing him to negate Wolf Head’s damage. Ye Xiu parries Wolf Head’s Shield Attack with his own shield. Ye Xiu continues suppressing Wolf Claw with a flurry of attacks.
Ye Xiu attacks relentlessly at Wolf Claw while blocking Wolf Head’s CC attempts with his shield. Ye Xiu kills Wolf Claw and sees Wolf Head surrender. With Happy Sheep, Ye Xiu wins the duel. Afterward, Ye Xiu hears a 2v2 challenge from a Launcher, who is a friend of Wolf Head. Ye Xiu calls Happy Sheep to help him in this duel. In the duel, Ye Xiu dodges the Launcher’s attacks and uses Knight Spirit. Ye Xiu charges forward with an Arc Heroic Charge and pulls the enemy Launcher towards the enemy Cleric. Ye Xiu displaces both opponents and hits them with a Fair Heroic Leap.
Ye Xiu suppresses the enemy Cleric while the enemy Launcher retreats with Aerial Fire. Ye Xiu kills the enemy Cleric and turns to attacking the Launcher. Ye Xiu suppresses the enemy Launcher to death. With Happy Sheep, Ye Xiu wins the second duel against Tyrannical Ambition’s Fifth Branch. Afterward, Ye Xiu gets added to a lot of the fourth branch’s friend lists. At late night, Ye Xiu says his goodbyes to his teammates and logs off to rest.
In the morning, Ye Xiu wakes up to go back to gaming. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he cleared the Tomb in the Sky dungeon. Ye Xiu goes on a computer and logs on as Unrivaled Super Hottie, which Chen Guo drops off at the Arena. Ye Xiu grabs a computer next to Tang Rou and logs on as Lord Grim. Ye Xiu has 2 accounts online to prevent anyone from realizing that Unrivaled Super Hottie and Lord Grim are used by the same person. On the in-game chat, Ye Xiu sees a greeting from Qiao Yifan’s One inch Ash. Ye Xiu asks if Yifan wants to dungeon together, which Yifan agreed. Ye Xiu is joined by Chen Guo’s Chasing Haze. At a level 55 5-man dungeon, Ye Xiu manages the battlefield with Yifan supporting Chen Guo, who plays as the main DPS unit. With a level 70 Chasing Haze and Yifan’s pro-level skill, Ye Xiu finishes the dungeon with ease. Ye Xiu discusses with Yifan on what happened in the dungeon.
Ye Xiu gives Yifan some tips and advice to work on improving as a Phantom Demon. With Yifan and Chen Guo, Ye Xiu runs through the dungeon to the daily limit. Afterward, he sees Yifan log off. In the afternoon, Ye Xiu leaves for lunch. Afterward, he returns to dungeon. Ye Xiu gets called over from Chen Guo saw a message on the Unrivaled Super Hottie account. Ye Xiu leaves Lord Grim in a dungeon and goes onto the computer with Unrivaled Super Hottie. Ye Xiu learns from Happy Sheep that the fourth branch’s guild leader would like to meet him. Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie goes to Luxuriant Mountain City. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo that Loyal Hear, Flight, Burning Mountain, and Wandering Peak are the elites of Tyrannical Ambition.
Ye Xiu listens to Happy Sheep’s extravagant introductions to Jiang You’s Wandering Peak, Loyal Hear, Flight, Burning Mountain, and other elites. Ye Xiu hears an insult from Flight, who compares Unrivaled Super Hottie to a non-existent player, Unrivaled Silence. As calm as ever, Ye Xiu responds with what class Unrivaled Silence is and learns that Flight does not remember. Ye Xiu replies with a “Ha ha” emoticon. Ye Xiu learns from Jiang You that Blade Master Lan Rui, a wild boss, has appeared in Sword Peak Ravine. Ye Xiu gets a complete set of equipment from Jiang You’s Wandering Peak. Ye Xiu offers a trade of his weak set of green equipment to the guild through Jiang You, who does not want it.
Ye Xiu trades over his weak green equipment to Tyrannical Ambition’s Fourth Branch Guild Leader. Ye Xiu puts on his new equipment. He follows Jiang You to Sword Peak Ravine. Ye Xiu sees Blooming Blossom with his Blossom Valley forces and Three Realms Six Paths’s Samsara Guild. While standing next to Jiang You’s Wandering Peak, Ye Xiu asks everyone where the wild boss is. Ye Xiu runs away from the crowd to look for the wild boss. Ye Xiu finds a place to look at the wild boss and dodges enemy bullets and spells. Ye Xiu sees his 2 teams of reinforcements from Tyrannical Ambition, who kill the Blossom Valley and Samsara Guild teams. With Jiang You’s order to win aggro of the wild boss, Ye Xiu runs off the find the wild boss. He competes against a Blossom Valley Knight and a Samsara Guild Knight. Ye Xiu wins the aggro of the wild boss, Blade Master Lan Rui. He sees a Blossom Valley Spitfire jump into the air and shoot and drop grenades at the Tyrannical Ambition guard team.
Ye Xiu sees a Blossom Valley Spitfire, Dazzling Spring, kill 3 Tyrannical Ambition Clerics. Ye Xiu runs away from Blade Master Lan Rui, who attacks him. Ye Xiu dodges the attack and watches a Samsara Guild Knight die to the wild boss. With Provoke, Ye Xiu steals the aggro of the wild boss back from a Blossom Valley Knight. Ye Xiu runs away from the wild boss and meets Dazzling Spring again. Ye Xiu uses an Arc Charge to close down the distance against Dazzling Spring, who jumps into the air. Ye Xiu jumps to do an Aerial Curve, which is an Arc Charge in the air. Ye Xiu uses his shield to tank Dazzling Spring’s grenade. Ye Xiu uses Heroic Leap to jump above Dazzling Spring and swings his sword to send Dazzling Spring flying toward the wild boss.
Ye Xiu sees Zhang Jiale’s Dazzling Spring use Aerial Fire to dodge the wild boss. Ye Xiu hits Jiale’s Dazzling Spring with a Fair Heroic Leap. Ye Xiu orders the second tank to keep control of the aggro of Blade Master Lan Rui. Ye Xiu charges toward Jiale’s Dazzling Spring, who unleashes a rapid onslaught of attacks against him. Ye Xiu positions himself away from the attacks and dodges any close attacks. Ye Xiu charges straight into Jiale’s attacks and dies. Ye Xiu orders for a Revive from his allied Clerics and rises to fight again. Ye Xiu charges toward an unprepared Dazzling Spring and asks why Jiale is fighting against normal players?
With a chain of quick skills, Ye Xiu suppresses Jiale’s Dazzling Spring. Eventually, Ye Xiu loses control of the duel and retreats. Ye Xiu gets healing from the Clerics as he chases after Jiale’s Dazzling Spring. Ye Xiu orders the Clerics to run when Dazzling Spring attacks them. Ye Xiu fights against Dazzling Spring, who turns back to fight him. Ye Xiu complains that Jiale has a lot of equipment that boosts movement speed. Ye Xiu watches Blossom Valley players charging past him to attack Tyrannical Ambition players and sees Jiale’s Dazzling Spring pause on the battlefield. Ye Xiu activates Knight’s Spirit and charges toward Dazzling Spring.
Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he cannot fight against Zhang Jiale’s Dazzling Spring one-on-one with a weaker Unrivaled Super Hottie. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that he lacks the guild bonuses, which Jiale has, and his Unrivaled Super Hottie has inferior equipment to Jiale’s well-equipped Dazzling Spring. Ye Xiu reveals to Jiale that he is forming a new team to return to the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu tells Jiale that he wants to win one more championship, which angers Jiale, who has never won a Glory Pro Alliance championship. Ye Xiu proclaims that Glory is “our true starting point” to point out that retirement from the pro scene does not mean retiring from the game.[53]
Ye Xiu gets healed from Tyrannical Ambition Clerics. He chases after Jiale’s Dazzling Spring, who is fighting against Tyrannical Ambition troops. Ye Xiu orders the surrounding Tyrannical Ambition troops to kill Dazzling Spring, who is Provoked by an elite Knight. Ye Xiu watches a massive onslaught of ranged skills obliterate Jiale’s Dazzling Spring. Ye Xiu goes to Jiang You’s Wandering Peak for news on Blade Master Lan Rui. He learns that Samsara Guild has control over the wild boss. Ye Xiu asks for control of Tyrannical Ambition’s Knights and Clerics, which Jiang You grants. Ye Xiu orders his Knights to stop using Provoke. Ye Xiu plans to have all of the Knights to have Provoke off cooldown.
Ye Xiu orders the frontline Knights to withdraw. He orders the Clerics to heal him and activates Knight’s Spirit. Ye Xiu uses Sacrificial Roar to take the aggro of all nearby enemies. He activates Honest Maelstorm Counterattack to absorb all of the damage from the nearby enemies. Ye Xiu uses Fair Heroic Leap to return all of the damage that he absorbed against his opponents. As a result, he kills over 20 players. Ye Xiu orders all of his Knights to prepare their Provokes to get aggro of Blade Master Lan Rui. He orders the first Knight to Provoke the wild boss after Samsara Guild’s Knight uses Provoke.
For 3 occasions, Ye Xiu orders his Knights to Provoke the wild boss immediately after Samsara Guild Knights use Provoke. As a result, Ye Xiu and Tyrannical Ambition win back aggro of the wild boss. Ye Xiu runs off on his own with his Tyrannical Ambition Clerics and ambushes Three Realms Six Paths. Ye Xiu activates Charge against Three Realms Six Paths, who is sent flying backwards. Ye Xiu turns around to attack the Samsara Guild Knights. After pushing back the Samsara Guild, Ye Xiu moves on to attack Blossom Valley. He activates Maelstorm Counterattack to absorb the attacks from Blossom Valley players. Ye Xiu activates Crusader’s Trial, a level 70 Knight skill, which boosts movement speed and increases damage output.
Next, Ye Xiu cuts down an enemy Assassin with 1 strike. Second, Ye Xiu kills an enemy Ghostblade with 1 slash. Third, Ye Xiu chopped down an enemy Berserker, who dies instantly. Ye Xiu asks the remaining Blossom Valley players if they wanted to fight against him. Ye Xiu sees Blooming Blossom and Blossom Valley players retreat from the area. Ye Xiu moves toward Samsara Guild. He sees Three Realms Six Paths and Samsara Guild withdraw from the area. Ye Xiu watches the Tyrannical Ambition players kill Blade Master Lan Rui.
Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie stands still. Ye Xiu accepts Jiang You’s invitation to join Tyrannical Ambition’s Fourth Branch. Ye Xiu informs Fourth Branch Guild Leader that he will recover his experience points. Ye Xiu is sent new teammates to dungeon with by Fourth Branch Guild Leader. After a few days, Ye Xiu officially joins Tyrannical Ambition’s Fourth Branch. Ye Xiu goes to dungeon with different teammates, who he has never dungeoned with before.
Ye Xiu goes to 22 different 100-player dungeons with 22 different parties. Later, he gets more attention from other branch guilds to help with their dungeons. Ye Xiu notices Zhang Jiale’s Dazzling Spring is helping Blossom Valley with their day-to-day competition against Blue Brook Guild, Tyrannical Ambition, Herb Garden, and Samsara Guild. On QQ, Ye Xiu invites Jiale to join forces with him to win the Glory Pro Alliance championship. Ye Xiu wishes Jiale luck in getting back into the Glory Pro Alliance and closes the QQ chat. Ye Xiu explains to Chen Guo that Jiale does not want to join Ye Xiu’s new team, which has a low chance of beating the stalwart teams of the Glory Pro Alliance like Tyranny, Tiny Herb, and Blue Rain. Afterward, Ye Xiu goes to dungeon with a group from Tyrannical Ambition’s Seventh Branch. He sees a message to help Jiang You’s mission to kill the level 70 North Bridge Mage Mordak. Ye Xiu accepts the mission and runs over to North Bridge. With Tyrannical Ambition, Ye Xiu sees Herb Garden, Blue Brook Guild, Excellent Dynasty, Samsara Guild, Royal Heritage, Blossom Valley, Misty Castle, Void Walk, and Howling Heights guild members at North Bridge. Ye Xiu sees Jiale’s Dazzling Spring jump onto the bridge to take the aggro of Mage Mordak.
With his party members, Ye Xiu greets Jiang You’s Wandering Peak. Ye Xiu learns from Jiang You that Jiale’s Dazzling Spring and Blossom Valley are in control of Mage Mordak and the North Bridge area. Ye Xiu joins Jiang You’s party. He informs Jiang You that he will kill Dazzling Spring and drag the boss over to Tyrannical Ambition.[54]
Volume 7: New Champions[]
With Jiang You, Ye Xiu leads a Tyrannical Ambition team onto North Bridge. Ye Xiu jumps up and forward. Ye Xiu uses Firm Defense, Spell Reflection, and Shield Wall skills to reduce the damage that he was tanking from Zhang Jiale’s Dazzling Spring and Blossom Valley players.[55] Ye Xiu’s Unrivaled Super Hottie is about to die from Blossom Valley guild members’ attacks. He gets a critical Holy Heal from Little Cold Hands, a Tyrannical Ambition Seventh Branch Cleric. Ye Xiu sees the Blossom Valley players knock Little Cold Hands off the bridge. Ye Xiu praises Little Cold Hands for the perfectly timed Holy Heal.[56]
Ye Xiu hits Jiale’s Dazzling Spring with a Heroic Leap. Ye Xiu drags Jiale into the water together. Ye Xiu sees a message for help from Jiang You. Ye Xiu tells Jiang You that he is busy forming a new team, so Ye Xiu will not reinforce Tyrannical Ambition. Away from North Bridge, Ye Xiu jumps onto a tree trunk to duel against Jiale’s Dazzling Spring again.[57] Ye Xiu tells Jiale to point his gun down. Ye Xiu praises Little Cold Hands for the brilliant Holy Heal. Ye Xiu explains to Jiale that he has to look for players in the game, who are willing to play for a new team instead of the Pro Glory Alliance teams. Ye Xiu learns that Jiale is helping Blossom Valley as a way to repent for failing to win the Glory Pro Alliance championship on 4 occasions. Ye Xiu realizes that Jiale will join a championship contending team and not Hundred Blossoms. Ye Xiu wishes Jiale luck.[58]
Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to invite Little Cold Hands to join Happy. He explains to Chen Guo that the female Little Cold Hands is controlled by a male, who does not care about his character’s gender. Ye Xiu reveals that Little Cold Hands is a huge fan of Zhang Xinjie. Ye Xiu chats with Little Cold Hands, who is running back to the North Bridge.[59] Ye Xiu looks on Chen Guo’s screen and helps her look for Little Cold Hands. Ye Xiu sees Little Cold Hands hiding behind a tree.[60]
Ye Xiu answers An Wenyi’s detailed questions about contracts and the team’s ability to win the Challengers League. Ye Xiu explains that Challengers League is the ultimate test for the team to see if they have the capacity to fight in the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu reveals that he has everything to lose if the team fails to win the Challengers League.[61] Ye Xiu explains that he can help An Wenyi develop into a pro-level player with their incoming run at the Challengers League. Ye Xiu reveals that if Wenyi becomes a superstar, who wants to leave Happy, that no one will stop him. Eventually, Ye Xiu convinces Wenyi to join Happy.[62]
Ye Xiu accepts the job of recruiting new players after Chen Guo’s failure to convince An Wenyi to join Happy. Ye Xiu reflects on Wenyi, who plays beautifully yet has slow reaction speed. Ye Xiu is satisfied that Wenyi is a clear-headed and rational person. Ye Xiu learns that Wenyi is a twenty-year-old university student, who is in his third year. He learns that Wenyi lives in City B. Afterward, Ye Xiu leads Wenyi’s Little Cold Hands into a small five-man dungeon to test Wenyi’s skills. He gives Wenyi some advice before leaving. On Chen Guo’s QQ group chat, Ye Xiu chats with the newly invited Bao Rongxing’s Steamed Bun Invasion. Ye Xiu informs Rongxing that they will fight in the Challengers League in the summer and hears Rongxing’s eagerness to fight now. Ye Xiu learns from Rongxing that Luo Ji’s Concealed Light is still a poor player. Ye Xiu knows that Luo Ji lack the mechanical skill to be a pro-level player although Luo Ji has a great mental talent from his extremely detailed dungeon guides.[63]
Ye Xiu sees Bao Rongxing and Luo Ji arguing in the QQ group chat. Ye Xiu asks Luo Ji questions, which Rongxing answers. Ye Xiu invites Luo Ji to join Happy. Ye Xiu is satisfied that Luo Ji accepts. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo that Luo Ji is an 18-year-old second-year Famous University student, who is a mathematics major. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that mathematics is extremely important in video games. Ye Xiu sends Wei Chen’s research data on skill books to Luo Ji to study. Ye Xiu reminds Luo Ji that this information is confidential.[64]
Ye Xiu discusses with Chen Guo that he can invite older players to join, but they lack the potential needed to win championships in the Glory Pro Alliance. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo that Bao Rongxing will visit Happy Internet Cafe in-person to join Ye Xiu’s new team. Ye Xiu hears that Chen Guo will look for housing for her future team. Ye Xiu declines to join Chen Guo in house hunting. Later, Ye Xiu sees Chen Guo return. Ye Xiu is surprised to learn that the team will get to live in a large terraced home soon.[65] Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he will pick out his room at their gaming house later. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen that he can move over to their gaming house in City H. Ye Xiu goes to level with Lord Grim in the dungeons. After a few days, Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim levels quickly in peace. At 8:00 P.M. on April 1, Ye Xiu sees that Wei Chen will arrive tomorrow. Fifteen minutes later, Ye Xiu sees Bao Rongxing’s message that he is on a train to City H.[66]
Ye Xiu wonders if Bao Rongxing is playing a prank for April Fool’s Day. Ye Xiu learns that Rongxing had a three-day party with his friends, which caused the delay of his arrival at City H.[67] With Chen Guo, Ye Xiu greets Bao Rongxing. Ye Xiu invites Rongxing to join them in watching a Pro Alliance match between Excellent Era and Void, which the Internet cafe streams for its customers to watch. Ye Xiu informs Chen Guo that Excellent Era is a disaster with too many weaknesses. Ye Xiu thinks that Excellent Era might be relegated, which means that he will have to crush them in the Challengers League. Ye Xiu watches Excellent Era capitulate to Void, 2-8. With Chen Guo, Tang Rou, and Rongxing, Ye Xiu goes out for a late night snack. Ye Xiu walks into the shop and sees Tao Xuan, who sat at his usual spot.[68]
Ye Xiu sees Excellent Era’s director, Cui Li. Ye Xiu wonders why Tao Xuan and Cui Li are sitting in a snack shop instead of watching an important relegation-deciding match against Void. Ye Xiu greets Tao Xuan and Cui Li. Ye Xiu wants to leave his old bosses alone, but they want to meet Ye Xiu’s group. Ye Xiu hears Bao Rongxing interrupt and ask what Cui Li does as a club director, which Ye Xiu explains. While Rongxing annoys Cui Li and Tao Xuan, Ye Xiu picks a table and sits down with Tang Rou. Ye Xiu calls Rongxing over to the table. Ye Xiu and his friends order food. Ye Xiu hears Tao Xuan’s cold goodbye. When the food arrives, Ye Xiu eats and talks with Chen Guo. Ye Xiu does not believe that Tao Xuan and Cui Li are leading Excellent Era into relegation on purpose to crush Ye Xiu’s new team in Challengers League.[69]
One day after Excellent Era’s humiliating defeat to Void, Ye Xiu learns that Sun Xiang will withdraw for the rest of the season due to health reasons. In the afternoon, Ye Xiu advises Bao Rongxing, a security guard, to not worry about the Internet cafe’s security until Chen Guo calls for him. In the early evening, Ye Xiu learns that Wei Chen arrives at the Happy Internet Cafe. He walks to the first floor receptionist desk and welcomes Wei Chen.[70]
Ye Xiu pulls Wei Chen outside to scold him not to use the name “Ye Qiu” in public. Ye Xiu does not want to deal with the public attention. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen to talk more about Excellent Era’s supposed preparations for relegation after going to Forest Park and setting Wei Chen’s stuff in the gaming house. With Chen Guo, Tang Rou, and Bao Rongxing, Ye Xiu helps Wei Chen move into the Forest Park gaming house. At the gaming home, Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen that he will not use Su Mucheng to do their dirty work as a spy against Excellent Era. Ye Xiu reveals that he crushed Excellent Era’s morale in the game to Wei Chen. Ye Xiu discussion with Wei Chen devolves into trash talking until Chen Guo shouts at them to stop. Next, Ye Xiu agrees to go back to the Happy Internet Cafe to study and analyze Excellent Era’s performances. With everyone, Ye Xiu goes back to the Internet cafe and to room 213. He starts his computer and opens up the VOD folder with recorded matches. Ye Xiu starts the video when Excellent Era’s performance first declines.[71]
Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen’s grief at Ye Xiu’s “sins” to cause Excellent Era’s catastrophic decline. After watching Excellent Era’s horrible team competition, Ye Xiu pulls up the post-match statistics for Wei Chen to read. Ye Xiu sees Bao Rongxing bring over a bucket for Wei Chen to puke in and tells Rongxing to put down the bucket. Next, Ye Xiu starts a recording of Excellent Era’s match against Samsara. He watches an okay individual competition performance by Excellent Era with an alarming group competition, where Samsara’s Zhou Zekai sweeps the field. Ye Xiu observes Excellent Era’s horrible team competition. Afterward, Ye Xiu plays the other Excellent Era match recordings for everyone to watch. Ye Xiu listens to Wei Chen reveal only Sun Xiang and Liu Hao recovered from Ye Xiu’s crushing in-game and the other effected players cannot recover their morale and skill level, which drags down other players like Su Mucheng. Ye Xiu reveals Liu Hao’s moments of brilliance in matches means that he has given up on Excellent Era in order to secure a better future elsewhere.[72]
Ye Xiu explains that Sun Xiang’s removal from play is to protect him from blame of relegation as well as showing Excellent Era’s true strength without Sun Xiang if they escape relegation. After finishing their discussions, Ye Xiu and his teammates go back to the gaming house to rest for the night. In the morning, Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo to not worry about renovating the entire second floor for their team. Ye Xiu goes into room 213. Next to Tang Rou, he starts playing Glory to level up Lord Grim.[73]
Ye Xiu hears that Wei Chen defeats Bao Rongxing in eight duels. Ye Xiu learns from Wei Chen that Rongxing is a decent player for only playing four months. On QQ, Ye Xiu sees that Wei Chen almost lost one duel to Rongxing by being careless. Ye Xiu reads that Wei Chen believes Rongxing’s chaotic style of play can be nurtured with better fundamentals and game knowledge to be an extremely dangerous player. Ye Xiu agrees with Wei Chen that Rongxing could be a successor to Lord Grim, but the designers of Glory will increase the level cap to end the low viability of the Unspecialized class. With Wei Chen’s call for a duel against Tang Rou, Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou to prepare for an Arena duel . Ye Xiu continues to level Lord Grim while Tang Rou and Wei Chen duel. Matching expectations, Ye Xiu hears that Wei Chen beats Tang Rou. On QQ, Ye Xiu warns Wei Chen to stop dueling against Tang Rou. Ye Xiu sees Wei Chen defeat Tang Rou in the second, third, and fourth duels. In the fifth duel, Ye Xiu sees Tang Rou win. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou to give the old Wei Chen a break because Ye Xiu knows that Wei Chen’s aging hands cannot keep up with Tang Rou’s extremely high-tempo play. On QQ, Ye Xiu reads Wei Chen’s horror at Tang Rou’s growing ferocity with continued dueling. Ye Xiu learns from Wei Chen that Ye Xiu is the luckiest player in Glory to find two extremely high potential players in Tang Rou and Rongxing. Ye Xiu sees Wei Chen joke that Ye Xiu has to return to the Glory Pro Alliance to win the championship.[74]
The next day, Ye Xiu gets up early. On April 4, he wore formal clothes. Ye Xiu greets Chen Guo. Ye Xiu tells her that he is visiting a grave at Nanshan Public Cemetery for the Qingming Festival. Ye Xiu reveals that he is visiting the grave of an old friend. Ye Xiu gets a taxi with Chen Guo and Su Mucheng. At the cemetery, Ye Xiu watches Mucheng and Chen Guo go to a flower shop to buy flowers. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he and Mucheng will be in a specific area. Ye Xiu and Mucheng go to visit Su Muqiu’s grave.[75]
Ye Xiu sees Chen Guo peeking at him. Ye Xiu waves at her to come over. Ye Xiu claims that Su Muqiu would have become a God in Glory if he did not die. Ye Xiu silently listens to Mucheng reveal Muqiu and her background to Chen Guo. Afterward, Ye Xiu reveals that he met Su Muqiu and Su Mucheng around the time that Glory came out. Ye Xiu recalls that he and Su Muqiu spent all of their time on Glory every day to research classes, skills, equipment, and creating Silver equipment. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that One Autumn Leaf’s Evil Annihilation is Su Muqiu’s design. Ye Xiu tells a story of Glory’s game designers developing the Level 55 update to condemn the Unspecialized class as nonviable against the standard classes, where Su Muqiu declared “It’s a new start” to move on to play with a standard character class and research new classes.[76]
When they finished reminiscing about Su Muqiu, Ye Xiu leaves the cemetery with Chen Guo and Su Mucheng. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that he and Su Muqiu were supposed to join Excellent Era as a duo. With Su Muqiu beside him, Ye Xiu boasts that Excellent Era would win every Pro Alliance championship. With Mucheng going back to Excellent Era, Ye Xiu and Chen Guo go back to the Happy Internet Cafe. Ye Xiu goes to the second floor and sees Chen Guo scolding Wei Chen to stop smoking. Ye Xiu advises against letting Bao Rongxing, a non-smoker, smoke because it would be a waste.[77]
At Happy Internet Cafe, Ye Xiu sees the renovated second floor gaming room. He comments to Chen Guo that it’s too bright because of the huge window. Ye Xiu goes to his computer, which has his keyboard and mouse, and turns on the computer. He notices again that the sunlight creates too much glare on his screen. Ye Xiu recommends to hang a curtain over the window. With everyone, Ye Xiu helps set up a curtain. Ye Xiu sees the bright light from crystal lamps. He reminds Chen Guo about the projector. Ye Xiu hears of Wei Chen’s cursing and sees that Wei Chen is getting a promotion to be a team leader for Samsara Guild by Three Realms Six Paths.[78]
Ye Xiu points out that the fifth team of Samsara Guild consists of one hundred players, which is beneficial to get more important information as a spy. Ye Xiu goes back to his computer. He advises Wei Chen not to do anything crazy to get kicked out of Samsara Guild because they still need a steady flow of information from a big guild to help steal wild bosses. Ye Xiu jokes that he should assassinate team leaders for their valuable rare materials from the dungeons. Ye Xiu hears Chen Guo’s demands to stop plotting immoral plans to steal from others’ hard work. Ye Xiu concedes and accepts Chen Guo’s demands.[79]
Ye Xiu sees the news of Excellent Era’s impending relegation, where Excellent Era mentions Ye Qiu to deflect blame of relegation to him. To Chen Guo and Wei Chen, Ye Xiu bitterly accepts the blame for Excellent Era’s relegation. He walks out of the room to smoke a cigarette. On May 13, Ye Xiu sees the official relegation of Excellent Era in Season 8. He learns that Blue Rain, Samsara, Tiny Herb, Tyranny, Misty Rain, Void, 301, and Thunderclap are in the playoffs.[80]
Ye Xiu is angry that Wei Chen jokes about facing Excellent Era in the first round of Challengers League. Ye Xiu knows that his team lacks the professional manpower to face off against a seasoned Glory Pro Alliance team like Excellent Era. He knows that their equipment is extremely inferior to Excellent Era’s Silver equipment. Lord Grim’s Myriad Manifestation Umbrella is only level 50 while Windward Formation’s Death Hand is only level 60. Ye Xiu needs more time to prepare his team’s equipment. Ye Xiu goes on QQ to message Tao Xuan about the possibility of meeting in the first round of Challengers League.[81] After a few moments, Ye Xiu messages “Are you scared of me?” to Tao Xuan.[82]
On QQ, Ye Xiu tells Tao Xuan that everyone in Glory is afraid of him and claims Chen Yehui will tell Tao Xuan about Excellent Dynasty’s situation in the Heavenly Domain. Ye Xiu sees Tao Xuan’s message that they will talk when they fight against each other on stage in the Challengers League. Ye Xiu tells everyone that Tao Xuan will not rig the Challengers League to meet them in the first round. Later, Ye Xiu sees a QQ message from Luo Ji. Ye Xiu learns that Luo Ji and his professor, Zhang Yichun, develop a mathematical model with Wei Chen’s skills book research. Ye Xiu learns from Tang Rou that Zhang Yichun is a world-class mathematician, who is known for several breakthroughs in several fields of mathematics.[83]
Ye Xiu asks what Luo Ji’s background is. Ye Xiu learns that as a teenager Luo Ji won many mathematics competitions, and Luo Ji entered university at the age of seventeen without the required examinations. Ye Xiu learns that next year Luo Ji will be a graduate student, who will be working toward a Master’s Degree and PhD. Ye Xiu gets a copy of Luo Ji’s mathematical research. Ye Xiu does not understand the high-level math and jargon. Ye Xiu informs Luo Ji that he does not understand the research and asks for mathematics in Luo Ji’s dungeon guides. Ye Xiu learns that Luo Ji will work on a more readable version for non-high-level mathematics experts. Later, Ye Xiu gets a guide version and calls Wei Chen over to read it. Ye Xiu sees all of the logical relationships between the triggering requirements for dropping skill books. Ye Xiu advises Bao Rongxing and Tang Rou to conduct Luo Ji’s refined triggering requirements to drop skill books. Ye Xiu realizes that with Luo Ji’s polishing of Wei Chen’s research has reached the peak of investigating the inner workings Glory’s systems.[84]
Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim reaches level 66. He sends over a portion of Luo Ji’s simplified guide to Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Chen Guo to start attempting quests to pick up skill books. Ye Xiu logs off of Lord Grim. He goes over to supervise Rongxing’s quest work. Ye Xiu realizes quickly that Rongxing has trouble following Luo Ji’s detailed guide. Ye Xiu orders Rongxing to follow the guide. In the end, Ye Xiu observes Rongxing complete the guide and fail to get a skill book drop. Ye Xiu explains that Wei Chen’s original numbers show a 17.481 percent success rate and with Luo Ji’s refined models show a 34.314 percent success rate. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen to go outside to calm down. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou to continue with other quests with Chen Guo supervising Rongxing’s quests. Ye Xiu goes out and sees Wei Chen smoking in front of a window. Ye Xiu sees Wei Chen looking at Excellent Era’s logo. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen to not be too worried because he is going to lead the fight against Excellent Era.[85]
Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen fiercely agree to defeat Excellent Era in Challengers League. Ye Xiu hears Chen Guo’s news that a skill book dropped for Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing. Ye Xiu goes back into the room. He learns that Tang Rou and Rongxing each have a 25-point skill book. Ye Xiu hears from Chen Guo that she has completed these single-attempt quests in the past. Ye Xiu learns from Wei Chen that 1650 skill points are possible from theoretically winning all of the quest drops. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen proclaim his Windward Formation account has 4920 skill points, which is more than the highest officially recognized Desert Dust’s 4880 skill points. Ye Xiu goes onto his computer and goes to the 10th Server.[86]
Ye Xiu sees that none of his friends are online while all of his enemies are online. He greets his guild members, who are normal players. Without Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, Thousand Creations, and Horse Shooter, Ye Xiu knows his guild would be a regular player guild. On guild chat, Ye Xiu sees Rongxing spout nonsense about Ye Xiu’s all powerful ability and other exaggerations. Ye Xiu goes off to do the Ambitious Frank quest and wins a 20-point skill book drop, which Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing failed to do earlier. Ye Xiu laughs that he manages to win a 34.314 percent chance skill book. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen suggest that he can destroy the accounts market with his extremely high skill point accounts. Ye Xiu tells everyone that the game company will change the programming code once they realize Wei Chen is exploiting skill book drop chances. Ye Xiu asks Wei Chen if he wants to continue building Happy or building a business to sell high skill point accounts.[87] Ye Xiu questions Wei Chen that they do not have time to waste on creating high skill points accounts to sell. Ye Xiu congratulates Wei Chen on abandoning the possible accounts business and to focus on building Happy. Ye Xiu proposes to sell Wei Chen’s guide. He hears Wei Chen’s concerns about the guide possibly strengthening all of the professional clubs. Instead, Ye Xiu presents a plan to sell a buyout for the guide to prevent its proliferation. He hears Chen Guo guess correctly of selling the guide to Lou Guanning.[88]
Ye Xiu tells Luo Ji that they are planning to sell Luo Ji’s improved skill book guide to make money, which Luo Ji agrees to. On QQ, Ye Xiu contacts Lou Guanning and learns about Guanning’s progress on team building. Ye Xiu offers to sell Luo Ji’s improved skill book guide to Guanning, who only wants nine high skill point accounts.[89] Ye Xiu fails to sell the guide to Guanning. Ye Xiu agrees with Wei Chen to sell the guide to Samsara. Later, Ye Xiu completes quests to get high skill books. He is the first person in Happy to get 5000 skill points for his Lord Grim. Ye Xiu decides to reduce the amount of skill point quests from the version of the guide to sell to Samsara. He wants to keep an advantageous edge for Happy compared to Samsara, which Chen Guo agrees with. Ye Xiu prepares a 1000-skill point guide to sell to Samsara. Ye Xiu learns from Chen Guo that she only managed to get 280 out of the possible 1600 skill points onto her Chasing Haze.[90]
Ye Xiu walks around Samsara headquarters. He meets his old friend, Tong Lin, who works at the technology department at Samsara. Ye Xiu follows Tong Lin to his office and gets Tong Lin’s two accounts to play. Ye Xiu runs a quest with a 57.258 percent chance of dropping a skill quest. Ye Xiu succeeds and informs Tong Lin that Wei Chen’s research is the basis of increasing the percentage of skill book drops. Ye Xiu boasts that he has a guide to 1000 skill points, which shocks Tong Lin. Ye Xiu is grabbed by Tong Lin and is dragged to the Samsara manager’s office. Ye Xiu meets the manager of Samsara, who calls in Jiang Botao and Zhou Zekai. Ye Xiu greets Botao and Zekai.[91]
Ye Xiu claims that Samsara’s manager is trying to take advantage of his skill points guide without paying first. He hears Samsara’s manager joke that he will kill Ye Xiu for the skill books guide. Ye Xiu reveals that he has a guide to 1000 skill points from skill book drops. Ye Xiu learns that Jiang Botao’s Empty Waves has 4820 skill points and boasts that with luck getting 5000 skill points is possible, which shocks Jiang Botao and Zhou Zekai. Ye Xiu asks if the Samsara manager wants to try out the skill books guide on Empty Waves and gets approval from the manager. Ye Xiu gets Botao’s account card and logs into Glory with Empty Waves. On his first attempt to complete a quest, Ye Xiu sees the NPC ignore Empty Waves. He explains to Samsara Manager, Botao, and Zekai that the skill books come from quest rewards. Ye Xiu fails to get the second quest, which was already completed in the past. On the third attempt, Ye Xiu picks up a quest. He completes the quest and fails to get a 20-point skill book. Ye Xiu reveals that this quest has a 63 percent chance of dropping a skill book. Ye Xiu hears doubts from Samsara Manager, so he takes out an account card and logs in. Ye Xiu shows off Windward Formation, which has 4920 skill points.[92]
Ye Xiu hears the manager laugh. Ye Xiu sees the manager thinking about buying the skill book guide and proclaims that he is leaving. Ye Xiu logs off, picks up his Windward Formation account card, and walks off. After two steps, he is stopped by Samsara Manager. Ye Xiu agrees to negotiate with the manager. Ye Xiu jokes that he should have organized all Glory Pro Alliance clubs to bid on his skill books guide, so he could make more money. Ye Xiu negotiates with Samsara Manager for hours into the night, and they fail to agree on a price.[93]
On Samsara Manager’s computer, Ye Xiu logs on as Lord Grim to level up in the Heavenly Domain. He levels Lord Grim with Samsara Manager watching him. Ye Xiu hears the manager claim that Lord Grim will become a God-level character. Ye Xiu refuses to reveal Lord Grim’s amount of skill points to Samsara Manager. Afterward, Ye Xiu tells the manager that he will be back tomorrow. Ye Xiu leaves Samsara headquarters and goes to his hotel room to rest. The next morning, Ye Xiu visits Samsara headquarters and greets Samsara Manager, who leads him into the building. With the manager’s request, Ye Xiu prints out a copy of Luo Ji’s mathematical research and the skill book guide. Ye Xiu gets approval to overlook the Samsara research department’s work to check over their eleven pro accounts’ ability to complete quests for skill book drops. Ye Xiu learns that 5 Samsara pro accounts can reach 5000 skill points with the remaining six around 4960 while all Samsara pro accounts can reach 5000 skill points with luck. Ye Xiu gets an opening buyout bid of 15 million RMB from Samsara Manager, which would be the most expensive Glory transaction of all-time.[94]
Ye Xiu maintains his composure when he is shocked by Samsara Manager’s bid. Ye Xiu counters with 30 million RMB, which horrifies Samsara Manager. Ye Xiu hears Samsara Manager’s decline. Next, Ye Xiu wants 22 million RMB, which the Samsara Manager declines. Ye Xiu hears Samsara Manager’s counteroffer of 18 million and declines. Ye Xiu wants 20 million RMB, which Samsara Manager reluctantly agrees to.[95]
Ye Xiu hears Samsara Manager’s request of 5 million RMB to be paid up front while the other 15 million would be paid in monthly installments over 24 months. Ye Xiu counters with 8 million RMB up front and 12 million to be paid in monthly installments over 12 months. Ye Xiu decides to spend 2 million RMB to buy dungeon materials from Samsara Manager, who declines to sell wild boss materials. Ye Xiu haggles a bit with the manager and gets common dungeon materials. Ye Xiu calls Wei Chen to get a list of common dungeon materials needed for upgrading their Silver equipment. Ye Xiu sends the list to Samsara Manager, who gets the Samsara research department to gather Ye Xiu’s dungeon materials. At night, Ye Xiu and Samsara Manager sign the contract to finalize the deal. Ye Xiu downloads a copy of the guide from his email and hands it over to Samsara Manager. Ye Xiu stays overnight to make sure everything went smoothly. At 4:37 A.M., Ye Xiu sees that the research department verify Luo Ji’s mathematical research. He and Samsara Manager shake hands to conclude the deal. Ye Xiu hears Samsara Manager invite him to Samsara’s huge dinner party and politely declines because Ye Xiu has a lot of work building a team. Ye Xiu realizes that the Glory Pro Alliance’s growth will increase the value of pro accounts as teams become richer and more competitive. Ye Xiu returns to the hotel and buys a plane ticket home. At night, he returned home to the Happy Internet Cafe’s practice room. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen’s question of how much money did he get for the skill books guide.[96]
Ye Xiu sits down and pours some water into a cup to drink to build tension. With Wei Chen, Chen Guo, Tang Rou, and Bao Rongxing, Ye Xiu says that he got 2 million RMB in dungeon materials from Samsara. Following Wei Chen’s angry disappointment, Ye Xiu reveals that he has 6 million RMB in advance from Samsara. Ye Xiu hears Tang Rou’s question about the total money earned and discloses that Samsara will pay 12 million RMB over 12 months. Ye Xiu hands over the contract for Wei Chen to look at and points out the text detailing the 20 million RMB payment.[97] Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen’s call to improve their characters’ equipment and informs Wei Chen of the 2 million RMB worth of dungeon materials. Ye Xiu understands Wei Chen’s need for wild boss materials, but they cannot compete head to head with the guilds backed by professional clubs. Ye Xiu points out that money cannot buy wild boss materials, which are monopolized by professional clubs. Ye Xiu advises Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing to finish the Heavenly Domain quests as soon as possible. Ye Xiu wants Tang Rou and Rongxing to get into the Heavenly Domain and finish the skill book quests to get extra skill points because there is a chance that Samsara will get the game company to patch the game to secure an advantage for Samsara. Ye Xiu supervises Rongxing, who always fails at Heavenly Domain quests by not playing precisely. Ye Xiu hears that Wei Chen wants to have a Warlock account with 5000 skill points. Ye Xiu questions Wei Chen if he has the time to farm accounts to surpass Windward Formation’s 4920 skill points. On QQ, Ye Xiu asks how many skill points An Wenyi’s Little Cold Hands has and learns the Cleric has 4170 skill points, which is expected for a normal account. Ye Xiu tells An Wenyi that he needs to look over a list of quests to check which ones Wenyi has completed and not completed. Ye Xiu explains to An Wenyi that they have a method of improving Little Cold Hands’s strength.[98]
Ye Xiu waits for An Wenyi to check his quest completion on Little Cold Hands. Ye Xiu learns that Wenyi’s Little Cold Hands has 1220 skill points to potentially gain. Ye Xiu hears that Wenyi is hesitant to send his Little Cold Hands account to him. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen offer 2000 RMB for Wenyi’s Little Cold Hands as collateral, which Wenyi accepts. Ye Xiu listens to Wei Chen’s fury when Wenyi has the boldness to accept the money. Ye Xiu gets Wenyi to send over his Little Cold Hands account to him. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen’s dislike for An Wenyi’s character. Later, Ye Xiu learns that Blue Rain, Samsara, Tiny Herb, Tyranny, Misty Rain, Void, Thunderclap, and 301 Degrees enter the playoffs. The first round of matches includes Blue Rain vs. 301 Degrees, Samsara vs. Thunderclap, Tiny Herb vs. Void, and Tyranny vs. Misty Rain. On the first day, Ye Xiu sees Blue Rain host 301 Degrees, where Blue Rain obliterates 301 Degrees. On the second day of playoffs, Ye Xiu watches Thunderclap host Samsara, where Samsara’s improved characters via Ye Xiu’s skill book guide annihilate Thunderclap. On the third day, Ye Xiu observes Void host Tiny Herb, where Void struggles to a draw against Tiny Herb. On the fourth day, Ye Xiu watches Misty Rain host Tyranny, where Misty Rain manages to grind out a victory against Tyranny. Ye Xiu is surprised that Han Wenqing performs poorly against Misty Rain.[99]
Ye Xiu claims that Han Wenqing is playing differently, which causes Ye Xiu to point to a poor performance. Ye Xiu goes back to his computer and searches for a VOD for the Misty Rain hosting Tyranny playoff match, which has yet to appear online. Ye Xiu goes back to old Tyranny matches to study Han Wenqing’s Desert Smoke. After watching multiple matches, Ye Xiu informs everyone that Wenqing is changing his habits and Striker movements to research for a new style of play. Ye Xiu downloads the playoff match between Misty Rain and Tyranny. Throughout the VOD, he explains to Wei Chen, Chen Guo, Tang Rou, and Bao Rongxing about Han Wenqing’s change of gameplay. Ye Xiu agrees with Wei Chen’s suggestion for him to teach Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing about Strikers.[100]
Ye Xiu goes back onto his computer to close his Tyranny VODs. He tells Wei Chen that they will need a set of accounts to teach the other classes to Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing. On the fifth day of playoffs, Ye Xiu watches Samsara host Thunderclap, where Samsara crushes Thunderclap. Ye Xiu watches Jiang Botao reveal to the journalists that Samsara’s characters have improved skill points without any exact numbers. Ye Xiu learns that Xiao Shiqin is planning to transfer out of the Thunderclap. Ye Xiu suggests that Shiqin will go to Excellent Era, which angers Wei Chen.[101]
Ye Xiu jokes that Wei Chen can enjoy his retirement with his millions of RMB if they lose to Excellent Era in Challengers League. Ye Xiu reads the news on Glory, which explodes with Xiao Shiqin’s admission of leaving Thunderclap. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen shouting at Bao Rongxing. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen to calm down. Later, Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen shouting furiously at his Samsara Guild teammates. On the sixth day, Blue Rain defeats 301 Degrees on the second leg of their playoff match-up. On the seventh day, Tiny Herb defeats Void on the second leg of their playoffs match-up. On the eighth day, Misty Rain defeats Tyranny on the second leg of their playoffs match-up. Ye Xiu learns that Samsara, Blue Rain, Tiny Herb, and Misty Rain are the remaining teams in playoffs. Ye Xiu looks at the Glory forums, where Tyranny fans opposed the media’s portrayal of Tyranny’s surprising defeat in the first round of playoffs. Ye Xiu hears Chen Guo’s question about Han Wenqing’s inability to win with changes to his play style. Ye Xiu explains that Wenqing is still experimenting and the strengths and weaknesses are not apparent. Later, Ye Xiu picks up An Wenyi’s Little Cold Hands account and reports to An Wenyi about his account card.[102]
Ye Xiu informs everyone that their current accounts will be given to the team. He hears Wei Chen agree to hand his account over to the team. Next, Ye Xiu listens to Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing agree to give their accounts to the team. Ye Xiu tells Chen Guo that she now has control over their accounts.[103] Ye Xiu informs everyone that they need players and accounts for Challenger League. He works on getting skill books for Little Cold Hands, which originally has 4170 skill points. He reveals to Wei Chen that Little Cold Hands has 4925 skill points after consuming all of the skill books. Ye Xiu hears Wei Chen curse over the fact that Little Cold Hands has 5 more points than Windward Formation. Ye Xiu informs An Wenyi that his Little Cold Hands has 4925 skill points. Ye Xiu gives some advice for Wenyi to work on in-game. The next day, Ye Xiu watches the press conference on Misty Rain and Blue Rain’s semifinal match. Ye Xiu watches Samsara narrowly defeat Tiny Herb through Zhou Zekai’s amazing performance. Ye Xiu notices that Wang Jiexi sacrifice his own style for better teamwork with his fellow Tiny Herb players. Next, Ye Xiu watches Blue Rain defeat Misty Rain in their first match-up. In the second semifinal match between Samsara and Tiny Herb, Ye Xiu watches Samsara win and claim a spot in the finals. Ye Xiu follows the second semifinal match, where Blue Rain defeats Misty Rain again to claim a spot in the finals. Ye Xiu learns of the finals match-up between Samsara and Blue Rain.[104]
Ye Xiu learns that Wei Chen gets promoted by Three Realms Six Paths and other leaders into the second elite group of Samsara Guild. Ye Xiu tells Wei Chen to continue spying and to not openly betray the guild because Ye Xiu needs Wei Chen as a spy for inside information on wild bosses. Ye Xiu informs Wei Chen that he is bringing over Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, An Wenyi, and Chen Guo to steal Samsara’s wild boss. Ye Xiu learns the position of a wild boss from Wei Chen. Ye Xiu suggests that he will bring Heavenly Justice as reinforcements to steal the wild boss.[105]
Ye Xiu contacts Lou Guanning and learns that Heavenly Justice got 3 wild bosses last week. Ye Xiu invites Guanning to collaborate to steal a wild boss, which Guanning agrees to quickly. Ye Xiu sees Guanning ask about the skill book guide. Ye Xiu informs him that the skill book guide has been sold. Ye Xiu levels on his own and avoids high traffic areas, which are chaotic with Samsara and Blue Rain fans fighting against each other. Later, he learns from Guanning that Heavenly Justice is going to fight for a level 55 wild boss, Sewer King Lookashoo. Ye Xiu tells Tang Rou, Bao Rongxing, and Chen Guo to meet him at the Heshin City Sewers for a wild boss fight. Ye Xiu notices a lot of players in the area, so he and his teammates have to keep a low-profile. Ye Xiu learns from Guanning that five guilds are fighting for the wild boss with Blue Brook Guild in the lead. Ye Xiu tells Guanning to fight for the boss and the other guilds. As members of Heavenly Justice, Ye Xiu and his teammates run over to the area to cut off the opposition. He runs into two Blue Brook Guild players.[106]
Ye Xiu and his teammates kill off any opposition reinforcements. He arrives to reinforce Lou Guanning’s attack for Sewer King Lookashoo. With Heavenly Justice Clerics in support, Ye Xiu and his team attack all opposition with no mercy. Ye Xiu runs into Xu Boyuan’s Blue Bridge Spring Snow and crushes Boyuan before moving onto the next opponent. Ye Xiu warns Boyuan to retreat and sees Rongxing attack Boyuan. Ye Xiu and his teammates wipe out Boyuan’s nearby allies.[107]
Ye Xiu calls for Bao Rongxing to stop crushing Xu Boyuan and to reinforce his tactical maneuvers. Ye Xiu chats with Lou Guanning and learns that Heavenly Justice is controlling the wild boss. Ye Xiu warns Guanning to kill the wild boss because Ye Xiu sees more players swarming the location. Ye Xiu dodges a surprise attack from Boyuan. Ye Xiu stuns Boyuan with a Brick to the head. Ye Xiu advises Rongxing to be careful and to kill the enemy as fast as possible. Ye Xiu watches Rongxing and Tang Rou suppress Boyuan’s Blue Bridge Spring Snow to death.[108]
Ye Xiu sees the global message of Heavenly Justice killing Sewer King Lookashoo. Ye Xiu and his team join Lou Guanning’s team. Ye Xiu picks a few items and leaves the rest to Guanning. Ye Xiu gets a list of the possible wild bosses, who could spawn this week, from Guanning. Ye Xiu sends the list to Wei Chen to look at. For the rest of the day, Ye Xiu hears no new wild bosses spawn. At night time, Ye Xiu learns that Guanning will be watching the finals match between Blue Rain and Samsara. Ye Xiu persuades Guanning to have any free guild members to watch out for wild boss spawns, so Ye Xiu can kill steal any new wild bosses. Ye Xiu calls for Wei Chen, Tang Rou, and Bao Rongxing to join him in clearing a 5-person Level 70 dungeon. Ye Xiu needs to pick up dungeon item drops to equip Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing with better equipment and weapons.[109]
Ye Xiu shouts at his teammates in the frantic dungeon clearing. Occasionally, he glances at the Blue Rain vs. Samsara finals match. Ye Xiu reveals to Wei Chen that he needs to clear the dungeon for the Rising Wind Pendant. Ye Xiu agrees with Wei Chen to watch the Season 8 finals team competition and halts the dungeoning. Ye Xiu stops and watches Samsara vs. Blue Rain’s team competition on the “Grass Blowing in the Wind” map.[110]