As the mission was issued, Master Tian Ying took out a golden card and waved it in front of Meng Jingtian. This was most likely that admission notice to the Divine Academy!
"Alright! No problem! Leave it to me!" Meng Jingtian thumped his chest as he stared at the golden card.
Master Tian Ying chuckled and hid the golden card away from Meng Jingtian's greedy eyes. He also put away Master Tian Yuan's body, after which he sat back on the stool and poured himself another cup of tea. "This tea should be enjoyed slowly.
"Qing Feng! Please escort our guest!"
The young Daoist boy reappeared. Standing nearby, he gave Meng Jingtian a slight bow.
Meng Jingtian was unwilling to so easily be sent away. He asked Master Tian Ying, "Ah, Daoist Elder! You should at least tell me what this Demon Nightmare is!"
"This old Daoist has withdrawn from the world and should not have concerned himself with mortal affairs."
Master Tian Ying pointed at the heavens and said, "But this was Junior Brother's last wish. He did not wish to see the world in suffering, so I sought your assistance. Young friend, I cannot say much, only that you must be careful!"
Heaven? The Dao of Heaven? The system!
Meng Jingtian suddenly understood. Presumably, this was a restriction placed down by the system. This was all the information that Master Tian Ying was allowed to provide.
No matter how impressive Master Tian Ying's level was, he was just a collection of data in the game. Defying the rules of the system would only result in annihilation.
Information restricted by the system could not be extracted from the mouth of an NPC through mere Friendliness. Meng Jingtian could only follow the Daoist boy, Qing Feng, out.
Once they were out of the monastery, Qing Feng summoned a crane to deliver Meng Jingtian back down the mountain.
By the time Meng Jingtian returned to Black Tortoise City, more than half the day had passed.
He equipped the item he had received from the mission and then applied his one skill point to Divine Punishment. Divine Punishment was much more powerful now, and it was no longer a single-target attack, but a multi-target attack.
Divine Punishment (Lvl. 2): All targets within one meter of a specified point are struck with lightning, dealing 100% of basic Attack and 500% of Magical Attack as damage. If a targeted player is killed, apply the 'God Forsaken' debuff. This debuff can stack 5 times.
He then got in touch with Cai Minghou and asked if he wanted to take care of that bandit pacification mission.
But he learned from Cai Minghou that he was grinding at Qingming Mountain, not far from Cool Breeze Camp. Cai Minghou sent over the coordinates and asked him to come over so that they could head straight for Cool Breeze Camp together.
Meng Jingtian left the city and headed toward the location that Cai Minghou had sent.
But when he entered Qingming Mountain, a man and a woman suddenly jumped out and barred his path.
The man held a purple weapon in the form of a folding fan. His skin was fair and his appearance handsome, and he radiated an aura of elegance.
The woman had red lips and an exquisite face that had a classical beauty. But she wore a red qipao that highlighted all her curves, and she gripped a purple-grade umbrella in her hand.
They were both Level 30 and fully outfitted with purple equipment, with two or three items being part of a set. While the rest of their equipment did not belong to any set, not a single one was below purple grade.
Experts among experts!
The majority of players were still struggling at around Level 20, and even the rank-two Nangong Qi was only at Level 33. These two were definitely top-class players.
This sort of top-class player would never appear on the road to Qingming Mountain for no reason. Meng Jingtian's eyes narrowed, for he already knew who they were.
"Golden Boy and Jade Girl?"
These were the star assassins of Godslayer Hall, Golden Boy and Jade Girl.
They were said to be an actual couple in reality, and they were both professional players who had been primary members in one of the top ten gaming teams.
After joining Godslayer Hall, they stopped participating in gaming competitions and relied on their missions for a living. Their mission completion rate was more than 95%.
They had failed two times. The first failure was the guild master of one of the top three guilds, and the second time was the man ranked fifth on Bai Xiaosheng's list of gaming gods, Cloud-Cleaving Heaven.
And in 'Grand Desolation', they had been the ones to complete the mission on Meng Jingtian.
For Meng Jingtian, these two were old acquaintances. Even though they displayed two ordinary names in 'Tomorrow', not those IDs of 'Golden Boy' and 'Jade Girl' that made people's blood run cold, Meng Jingtian still easily recognized them.
Meng Jingtian would never forget the sense of helpless despair he had felt back then.
The first time, because he had not been prepared, he had easily died to their ambush.
Afterward, he had been forced into a state of constant vigilance. The moment Meng Jingtian stepped out of a safe zone, he would welcome instantaneous death.
There were even times when safe zones weren't safe and the pair still managed to instantly kill him.
As he died more and more, he dropped more and more equipment, making him less and less capable of resisting. It was no longer a problem of strength, but an overwhelming gap in stats.
Even when he logged off for a few days before getting back on, the pair would quickly appear. In the end, Meng Jingtian had no way of continuing to play that game.
The two of them had turned Meng Jingtian into a toy in the palms of their hands. He was always on tenterhooks, worried that he could be killed at any time.
"Eh? You know who we are?" Jade Girl's eyes flashed with surprise. Turning the umbrella in her hands, she smiled. "Since you know who we are, why don't you tell this humble girl who you are?"
"I've never been one to hide my name! Meng Jingtian!" Meng Jingtian declared with a smile, feigning ignorance as to her true meaning.
"You…" Jade Girl became annoyed. This man didn't know what was good for him!
"Little Jade, don't waste time chatting with him. Young Master Meng is a man of some skill and is waiting for us to show our own abilities!" The elegant Golden Boy coldly laughed.
Jade Girl glanced at Golden Boy and then tossed out her umbrella. "Pear Blossom Rain!" Countless hidden weapons dropped out of the umbrella's canopy like raindrops toward Meng Jingtian.
Meng Jingtian saw that this was an area-of-effect skill and instinctively dodged so that he could counterattack, but he discovered that Golden Boy had also used an immobilizing skill on him.
As to be expected of a couple that had worked together for many years, they shared a tacit understanding.
The immobilizing skill would only last for two seconds, but given how well the two of them coordinated, two seconds was more than enough for Jade Girl to apply all her damage to him.
Meng Jingtian's eyes went slack for a second, as if he was at a loss for what to do, but just when Jade Girl's attack was about to impact and the damage calculation be performed, he used the Black Tortoise True Body, rendering himself invincible for one second.
"Divine Punishment!" Meng Jingtian made his counterattack.
As Golden Boy and Jade Girl had not expected Meng Jingtian to not instantly die, or that he possessed an AoE skill, they had been standing rather close to each other. Thus, they were instantly struck by the Level 2 Divine Punishment.
"-70431"
"-71241"
As two damage numbers popped up, the two of them were instantly sent back to the spawn point.
It was an overwhelming gap in stats last time, right? Let me give the two of you a taste of your own medicine!
At this stage, the average player would have about ten thousand HP. Even experts like Golden Boy and Jade Girl would only have around twenty thousand HP at most, since they didn't specialize as meatshields. With this one skill, Meng Jingtian had dealt more than three times their HP!
No matter what you try, this old man needs only one skill to end you!