The black-clothed man was surrounded by his teammates, who were chattering continuously, expressing their admiration toward those treasures.
"Boss, what kind of luck do you have ah! These are two solar barites ah, you can't even buy these with money, but you actually got them so easily."
"These are really good things, but how do we even use them ah, you even have to deal with the lightning. I heard that you have to dispel that lightning before being able to use them, do any of you know the method?"
The others all shook their heads to show that they didn't know.
"Anyway, we got the things, we can slowly investigate how to use them, there will definitely be a way. Otherwise what would the game company be doing putting out these things?" A man whose muscles seemed a little exaggerated said.
Seeing that the black-clothed man had already placed all of the treasures into his storage space, Jing Yang thought that there wasn't much to do with him anymore, so he was preparing to leave when the black-clothed man suddenly turned to look at him and walked over to him.
Jing Yang froze for a bit. He finally saw clearly how he looked, his face was extremely handsome, and it didn't seem as fake as the other players. This should be quite similar to how he looks in real life.
The black-clothed man pulled out a page and split the treasures into two equal portions. Then he swiped toward Jing Yang and sent him one of the portions, saying, "Receive it."
"You're giving it to me?" Jing Yang looked at him with surprise. He completely did not think that this person would be so generous, directly giving half of the things to him.
"We worked together to get it, so of course we should give you half."
"Oh, oh…" Jing Yang still had not been able to react completely. He had encountered too many unreasonable people, so suddenly bumping into such a reasonable person made him feel a little out of sorts.
Jing Yang opened his own page and pressed the button to receive the items. Seeing half the treasures enter his storage space, he still felt that it was a little hard to believe. Along the way, he took a look at the other person's game name, he was called Qi Feng.
"Ding Nuoyang, is that your real name?" Qi Feng looked at Jing Yang and asked.
"That's right." When Ding Nuoyang had entered the game, he just put his own real name as his game name, because at that time he had not finished thinking of what his game name should be. Originally he had planned to decide later and then change his name, but he never had the chance.
"You don't have a team?" Qi Feng had just seen the shield that he had propped up, which was extremely strong. It should be impossible for this kind of player to not have a team invite him to join.
"It hasn't been long since I withdrew from my original team, so for the time being I still haven't entered another one." Jing Yang said.
"Then do you want to join us?" Qi Feng invited him.
Jing Yang looked at him with some surprise, and then turned to look at those teammates of his. His teammates' expressions seemed extremely calm, and did not show any kind of dissatisfaction. Jing Yang bowed his head to make the appearance of thinking, but used the system to quickly check out the important information about these people.
Those onlookers still had not left, so they had all seen Qi Feng divide half of those treasures to Jing Yang, and Jing Yang was also an alchemist with no team protecting him. Then whoever took the opportunity to kill him would have the chance to get his treasures. Even if you weren't able to get the treasures, killing him would leave you one less competitor.
"Nuoyang." Dark Flame saw that Jing Yang was considering joining another team, and after quickly asking for his teammates' opinions, he walked toward Jing Yang. "Nuoyang, return to our team ba."
Jing Yang turned to look at him, expressionlessly saying, "Impossible!"
"Don't be willful, Nuoyang, do you know how much danger you are in right now?" Dark Flame gestured around at the people around them. Once he was by himself, those people would immediately surround him like they had sieged the stone monster. "Don't worry, I have asked the team members, and they all agreed for you to come back."
Jing Yang looked at those team members, who had no less greed in their eyes than those other gamers. Agreed to let him go back? They must be afraid that later if the scene became too chaotic, the other people would be able to seize the treasures.
Those players in Dark Flame's team, ever since Jing Yang had left, had had to be very careful every time they bought something. For a lot of things that they needed to use, they could no longer select the best like before, and most of the time they could only buy the poorest quality items. They no longer dared to randomly spend money, concerned that if they used up most of their money now, later on if they needed something more important they would no longer be able to afford it. This made them extremely miss those days when they could be casually profligate, and all felt somewhat regretful for driving him out of the team too early.
And now Jing Yang even had a solar barite, so as long as they could refine the lightning outside the barite, it would be equivalent to mastering the fate of all of the other gamers. If the sun barite could belong to their team, as long as they mastered the method of usage, they would definitely be able to leave the game.
Jing Yang looked up at Qi Feng. "I would like to join your team."
"Nuoyang!" Dark Flame eagerly shouted at him.
Jing Yang ignored him, directly opening a page to submit his membership application.
Qi Feng also did not muck around, directly clicking OK and pulling him into the team list.
This team was called A team. Jing Yang had used the system to get a little introduction to them, and knew that these people were definitely reliable.
Even though Jing Yang had joined a team, there were still many people who were still relentless, their eyes shining with restlessness.
"Let go, return." Qi Feng brought Jing Yang to the transmission array.
Those people who were hesitating on whether to rush forward all stopped after seeing the advanced weapons the A team had taken out. If it had been previously, they would have rushed forward to try it out even if they would lose a few lives, it didn't take too much money to resurrect. But right now they only had one life, and if they were dead there was no chance for resurrection.
Dark Flame saw Jing Yang leaving with those people, tightly clenching his fists.
Jing Yang followed them back to their residence. He saw that it was a huge three-story villa with a garden and a pool, but to tell the truth, he was not surprised at all. This place's villa was the best and most expensive house in the game, completely on a different level from that small two-story building in the suburbs that Dark Flame's team was living in.
They held a welcome banquet for Jing Yang and introduced themselves to him.
What surprised Jing Yang the most was that these people did not have the least bit of concern for their lives like the other players. Usually, the less people had, they would be less scared. But these people were all ones who had a lot in reality, some were the people in power of large groups, some were future heirs. If they died in the game, everything they had in reality would be gone, but they didn't seem to worry at all that they wouldn't be able to live.
Jing Yang suddenly felt that this might be the self-confidence of those who really stood at the summit. That no matter when or where, they would always have a grasp of their own destiny, and even if they unfortunately failed, they would still have the courage to bear the consequences. Instead of taking the time to worry about whether or not you would live, it was better to work harder to live, the so-called doing one's best and leaving the rest to God.
Lying down on a wide comfortable big bed, Jing Yang used the system to pull out the team's details and go through it again.
In the game, very few people know about this team, not because they were not strong, but because they were too low-key. They were like capable people outside the world, extremely skilled, but they never participated in any rankings, and after the tasks they never went to retrieve their points, so their names would basically never appear on the leaderboards.
For these people, playing games was simply for when they became tired of playing all kinds of things in reality, they would come to the game to experience a kind of thrill they could not get in reality. Usually they were all very busy people, so they would only show up very rarely in the game. They had all gotten together once in the game with great difficulty, and actually all got trapped in the game.
In the previous world, these people had all successfully managed to leave the game alive, and thanks to them, later many people also survived. Besides their being strong enough, Jing Yang had joined them for some other reasons.
~
The next day, Jing Yang was sitting at the dining table, drinking coffee while looking through all the important information about the game world.
Suddenly he heard a bang. Turning around to look, that exaggeratedly muscled man whose game name was called Make Solid was pointing at the weapon he had just thrown on the table and loudly scolding, "The tenth time! This is already the tenth time! Once we get to a critical moment it starts spitting snowflakes, if it weren't for me reacting quickly, I would already have died ten times. You say, a properly good weapon, what is it doing being all romantic with the monsters? Nauseating or not?"
Dragon Seven sitting beside him threw him a glance, coldly saying, "I told you to throw that thing away a long time ago, but you had to say that that thing had commemorative meaning so you had to keep it. The amount of money you've smashed into constantly fixing that thing is enough for you to buy five or six better weapons."
Jing Yang walked over and said to him, "I'll help you fix it up and see ba." Since he had now joined this team, he should do his part to help the players repair their weapons. Plus these people were all very friendly to him, so he naturally should repay them a bit.
"Take it and play ba, do whatever you want." Solid handed over his own weapon to Jing Yang. "From today on, I need to give up on this weapon."
Jing Yang took his weapon out of the room and completely disassembled it for a look. This was an ice system weapon, and the power it emitted could freeze the opponent to death. It was very suitable for use against monsters who use fire, so when Solid said that it would spray out snowflakes once they go to a critical moment, it was likely because when the transforming stone came in contact with heat for too long it would fail.
Jing Yang returned to his room and modified the ice gun's internal structure a bit, and then changed a few things. Less than an hour later, he was done fixing it.
He took the ice gun and gave it back to Solid.
"So quick? Thanks a lot." Solid took his weapon back and looked at it again. He had said that he would give up on this weapon, but he was still a little reluctant in his heart. Usually when he sent it to the repair shops for urgent repair it would still take five or six hours, he never thought that Jing Yang would fix it so quickly.
Qi Feng walked down from the second floor and said, "Last time the volcano monster that ran off appeared again. The original place, inform everyone to gather, and we will immediately set off."
"It finally appeared again!" Solid placed the weapon back in his space, viciously saying, "This time I will definitely ice him up in vengeance!"
The nine team members, including Jing Yang, gathered in the backyard as quickly as possible, directly arriving near the volcano using a transmission array.
Because that volcano monster had escaped from their team last time, it had already been marked, so none of the other teams could attack it. When they arrived, they saw that volcano monster spraying fireballs, and every fireball that rolled down on the ground turned into a small fire monster. At this moment, there was a mountain full of small fire monsters looking at them.
Qi Feng began to assign tasks and confirmed each person's attack direction and cover position. He turned and said to Jing Yang, "Expand the shield, and add energy depending on the situation."
"Understood." Jing Yang responded.
Qi Feng had just walked out two steps when he turned back to Jing Yang. "Add energy as appropriate depending on the situation."
"…Got it." Jing Yang could hear that he deliberately emphasized the two words "as appropriate", and knew that he must have felt that last time when he had added energy to him he had overdone it. But wasn't that time a special circumstance?
Jing Yang watched them quickly fly up and move forwards, knowing that it was not that they trusted him, but Qi Feng. In this team, Qi Feng had absolute authority and leadership, so when he had brought himself into this team, no one had expressed any dissatisfaction. And no one had questioned his ability.
The teammates' fights with those small fire monsters was red-hot, and facing those small fire monsters who were gnashing their teeth but had no way to get close to them, these people were still able to take advantage of short gaps of time to chat with each other. "This shield is really strong, it's even stronger than Goose Over and Liang Ren's shields added together."
"My speciality originally should not even have been used to shield this team, just being able to barely hold up was already pretty good. How could it be compared to the shield that an alchemist has propped up." Goose Over was dissatisfied about being criticized.
"Can you continue your discussion after the fight is over?" Solid roared loudly. "It's rare for us to be able to fight so gratifyingly, lao zi won't care about you all anymore, I'm going to rush forward!!"
"Solid is killing until his eyes are red ah, Dragon Seven you watch him a bit, if he lets that volcano monster escape again this time, boss will definitely not let him go!" Goose Over loudly reminded.
Solid directly rushed out of the shield and killed to the front of the volcano monster. Just when he was going to start meleeing with the volcano monster, that volcano monster's head suddenly started shaking wildly, splitting into three heads.
Solid was hit far away by the heat wave that the three heads spewed out at the same time. Qi Feng quickly flew over from above, and a lightning bolt swung out from the weapon in his hand, one of the volcano monster's heads falling down. The other two heads spewed out another heat wave, forcing him to retreat and return to the shield for the time being.
"This monster actually mutated!" Solid loudly shouted. "No wonder it dared to appear again, but, even if you mutated I will still never let you go!"
Seeing that Solid had taken out that ice gun of his again, Goose Over loudly called, "Don't take out that toy of yours again, what are you doing always being so romantic with those monsters?"
Solid had moved completely habitually, and when Goose Over had not even finished speaking, he had already aimed and fired at the volcano monster's head.
They only heard a bang, and a flash of cold bitter chill instantly hit the head of the volcano monster and shredded into ice slag along with the head of the monster, even smashing a lot of small fire monsters as they were falling to the ground.
Everyone froze, and even Solid himself was stunned, looking at his ice gun in disbelief.
Goose Over came back to his senses and asked Solid, "Did you change to a new ice gun? When did you get it, it's actually so strong!"
"No, no change ah, it's still the original one, I just let Nuoyang help me fix it a bit." Solid said.
"What are you being stunned there for?!" Dragon Seven yelled at him. "It's going to grow a new head soon, hurry up!"
"Oh, yes! Right away!" Solid again aimed at the volcano monster's head, bang bang bang continuously firing three shots. He hit off the head that had just grown out, as well as the one that still remained.
The volcano monster's three heads had been knocked off at the same time, and its body turned from red to green. Solid continued his efforts, and before the volcano monster could regenerate, he fired several shots in the row, turning the body of the volcano monster into broken ice slag.
The small fire monsters all completely disappeared. No one paid attention to the treasures fallen all over the ground, all running over to surround Solid and express their admiration. "Solid, could it be that you also mutated? How did you suddenly become so strong?"
"Ah haha, just general, just normal strength." Solid smiled very proudly.
"Stop being proud!" Dragon Seven kicked him. "It's not you who's strong, it was definitely because Nuoyang had helped you change your ice gun, or else it would still spray snowflakes today."
Solid did not care at all about being criticized by Dragon Seven, touching his ice gun like touching a treasure. Then he walked to Jing Yang and said, "I had asked a senior alchemist to repair this gun ten times, and he still did not completely repair it. You only used one hour of time to completely repair it, and even increased its energy by more than 10 times. Even though I don't know how did you did it, I still can't help but say that you are really too powerful. Today I will give you all of my treasures as my gratitude."
"Line up." Qi Feng said to the team. "Let's gather up all of these things, and we'll discuss the rest when we get back."
The volcano monster was killed by Solid, so Solid would get most of the treasures today. But Solid had given all of his treasures to Jing Yang as a thank you gift, so most of the treasures today had actually been given to Jing Yang.
Everyone walked toward the transmission array, and Qi Feng said to Jing Yang, "Let's go."
"En." Jing Yang turned and walked forward next to him.
Qi Feng looked at Jing Yang's profile, an inexplicable sudden wave of love washing over his heart, even he himself felt it was very mysterious. He didn't think that he would actually have a good feeling toward someone in the game, but he knew that what he liked was definitely not that face, but the feeling that he gave himself.
Jing Yang felt that he was looking at him, and turned to ask, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Qi Feng said.
Jing Yang smiled at him. His smile was only out of courtesy for his response, but he didn't know that this smile of his made Qi Feng's heart tremble.
Translator Notes:
[1] chattering continuously – 你一言我一语, I think it means like you say something then immediately I say something
[2] restlessness – 蠢蠢欲动, idiom, means beginning to stir, becoming threatening
[3] doing one's best – 尽人事听天命, idiom/phrase, basically means like do all you can and leave the rest to fate?
[4] Make Solid – 做固体, lamest literal translation ever but what can you do
[5] transforming stone – 转化石, literal translation, assuming it's some sort of material for use in constructing the ice gun
[6] Goose Over, Liang Ren – 雁过和梁人, yeah one is literal and one is just the pinyin, these game names are a complete mess
[7] continued his efforts – 再接再厉, idiom, means to continue his struggle, persist, unremitting effort
Random Notes:
About 1.5 hours: 8:30 pm – 10 pm, for 4.9k characters to 3.5k words. This was quite a long chapter, with a bunch of badly translated names. Also, hello, new character 🙂