Back at the residence, the team members were still discussing Solid's huge explosion of power today, and lamented that they finally had a reliable shield. Last time, if not for their group shield being too weak, they wouldn't have been blown away by the wind, so that the boss could only go by himself to deal with the stone monster.
But the boss was still the boss, eyesight still incisive as always, he had casually gone to fight a monster and was even able to bring back such a treasure.
It was almost time for the task layer to open, and they all felt that going to an alchemist would definitely be too late now. But Solid had mentioned that Jing Yang had only taken one hour to help him completely transform his weapon, so they all one by one took out their own most familiar weapons and let Jing Yang help them improve them a bit.
These people all did not lack money in the least, so they were all very generous. They naturally wouldn't let Jing Yang work for nothing, and opened their own storage spaces, letting Jing Yang take out what he needed casually. Jing Yang also did not have the habit of taking advantage of other people's kindness, so he only took out the items that he would need to improve their weapons. Plus there would be some items that someone else might need but didn't have, but another person did have, and Jing Yang knew that these people all had good relationships and firm loyalty, so after obtaining their consent, he would use the items for each other.
Jing Yang heard a knock on the door and went to open it. He saw it was Qi Feng and thought he had something to say, so he let him in.
"You haven't rested yet?" Qi Feng saw his table filled with weapon parts.
"En, I'm still not too tired. There's not much time left, so I want to promote everyone's weapon power to the highest as soon as possible." Jing Yang sat down on the chair at the table.
"Don't work too hard, even though it's in the game, your body and brain will still be tired. Don't force yourself."
"I know." Jing Yang smiled. "When I feel tired I will go to rest."
"I opened an entry for you in my storage space, there's all of my personal and the team's items in there. If you need something you can get it yourself."
Jing Yang was very surprised, this person actually was completely not on guard against himself? Even if it were friends with a very good relationship, they would still not have an entry for accessing each other's storage. Even partners would rarely do so.
He joked, "Aren't you afraid that I will sell all of your stuff for cash? That's quite a big amount of money, very worth the risk."
Qi Feng subconsciously wanted to say that all of mine is yours, even if you want to take it all you can, but he suddenly remembered that they had only met for a few days, so if he said this it might not be appropriate and might even scare him off. So he very formally said, "You have already joined us, so then our fates are linked together. I have always been someone who trusts my team, so since I took the initiative to let you join, I will never doubt you, you don't have to worry."
"Thank you for letting me join your team, and thank you for your trust in me." Jing Yang expressed his gratitude very sincerely.
Qi Feng lifted his hand and rubbed Jing Yang's hair. The two people were stunned at the same time. Qi Feng had completely unconsciously done this move, as if it were something he had done countless times before, natural to the point that it did not even process in his mind before his body had already automatically reacted.
Jing Yang was very familiar with this action. Only one person would make this sort of move on him, and only one person could make this move on him without making him reject it. Could it be...
Their four eyes met each other, each person wanted to find something from within the other person's eyes. Their eyes entangled together, even causing the hearts in their bodies in the real world to start beating erratically.
Qi Feng stiffly brought his hand away from Jing Yang's head, but his fingers were still very reluctant to leave. Suppressing those inexplicable feelings, Qi Feng said, "Rest early."
"En." Jing Yang constantly stared at his eyes, wanting to find that familiar feeling from his eyes. But his prying failed, that familiar feeling never appeared.
Watching Qi Feng go out and close the door, Jing Yang still felt somewhat disappointed. But it didn't matter, he comforted himself, in the past it was also not like he could feel it every time. If he was his own lover, he would definitely have a chance to prove it.
~
Jing Yang only spent less than two days of time to help each team member transform one or two weapons. The team members all took out the weapons he had changed to try them out, and the intensity of their power really shocked them all, and then they felt that using them felt too refreshing. It was simply the feeling of having a divine weapon in their hands, making them invincible under the heavens.
At night a group of people sat and chatted together, spitting about how the commercial street alchemy shops and repair shops were too unreliable. They were all known alchemists, it was nothing that the cost was so expensive, they all did not really care about spending more money, but you should still return the equivalent effect of the money ah, smashing so much money in and you still could easily come up with tons of problems.
Suddenly, there was a roar of thunder and wind in the sky outside. Everyone looked out the window at the same time, it didn't look like it was going to rain.
Everyone walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked up at the sky. The wind had scattered all of the clouds in the sky, and they could faintly see a city in the clouds. The first mission city had finally opened.
After the lightning and wind disappeared, everyone received a message from the game system, publishing the content of the task. This time the new task layer was the Blood Monster Forest, and early tomorrow morning, players would be able to enter the task layer. They still had one night to prepare.
The several large commercial streets were filled with people, almost all of the players were going to buy the items that they would need to fight the blood monsters. The originally very spacious streets were now teeming with people.
The A team members all followed the crowd slowly moving through the street. Jing Yang walked at Qi Feng's side, surrounded by the teammates in the middle.
They entered the special fruit store to buy the blood serum fruits that could resist blood poison corrosion. No more than three could be bought at a time, and now there were only three left.
Qi Feng pressed the purchase button on the screen, but it did not succeed. A red light lit up on the screen.
Jing Yang looked at the screen with some doubt. Below the red light a tooltip showed that someone else had pressed the purchase button at the same time as them, so they were now waiting for one side to give up on the purchase.
The team all went around the column in the middle and looked toward the other side, and the other people also happened to turn around to look at them.
Jing Yang thought, this was truly enemies on a narrow road.
Dark Flame's team had long gotten to this shop, but they had entered through a different door. The cost of the blood serum fruits was extremely high, and there were only three. So in order to decide whether or not to buy them, and who would use it after buying them, they had discussed for half a day. When they finally decided to first buy them, Qi Feng's team had just happened to come in, and they had pressed the purchase button at the same time as them.
"Nuoyang." Dark Flame instantly saw Jing Yang standing slightly behind Qi Feng.
Easy Nobility also saw him, his eyes immediately becoming gloomier.
Jing Yang felt uncomfortable from Dark Flame's eager gaze, so he moved behind Qi Feng's back. Right now he did not want to interact with these people at all.
Dark Flame looked at Qi Feng. "We arrived here a long time ago. Since you all came later, please give up your purchase."
Things like quarreling and arguing naturally did not require this team's boss to personally come out, because it was too cheap. So Qi Feng did not open his mouth, and Goose Over stepped forward. "Who said that the person who came first would get it first, in here only who buys first would get the item. Since both sides pressed buy at the same time, then according to the rules, we will enter the auction process, the higher bidder gets the item."
Dark Flame's team had originally been less unified because the price of the blood serum fruits was too high, so if they entered the auction process, the price would definitely be even higher. But now since the other side had no intention of backing down, if they gave up on the purchase, they would be quite disgraced.
"We are the smoke squad." Dark Flame said.
"So what?" Goose Over said. "Is that amazing?"
Everyone was vying for the 100 chances to live on, and many teams were already considering joining forces with other teams, so the stronger the team, the more teams wanted to join forces with them. Their smoke squad was a team completely made up of professional players, and would often enter the top five in the team rankings. Recently they had received news from a lot of teams wanting to join their team, which made them quite proud. Dark Flame had thought that when he said his own team name, the other side would definitely give them face.
"Less nonsense!" Qi Feng said impatiently.
Goose Over turned around immediately, pressed the auction button on the screen, and quickly entered his price.
Now it was Dark Flame's team's turn to bid. If they didn't bid within the next 20 seconds, Qi Feng's team would automatically receive the items.
Dark Flame looked back at his teammates. Their expressions were all not very good, they didn't want to pay more for nothing, but also didn't want to lose face here.
Dark Flame entered an amount on the screen. Today he did not want to lose to this man, no matter what.
Goose Over immediately entered a new amount.
Dark Flame immediately entered a new amount again.
And so on back and forth seven or eight times. As the price kept on getting higher, the smoke team members' facial expressions were getting uglier and uglier.
"Don't go too far!" Easy Nobility glared at them and said.
"Too far?" Goose Over looked at him doubtfully. "It's always the highest bidder who gets the item in an auction, I'm just bidding and still going too far? What kind of logic are you spouting? If you can afford it then keep bidding, if you can't afford it just give up, the concept is just this simple."
"Is it so great that you all have money?" Easy Nobility said this to Jing Yang. He and the rest of their team members all thought it was Jing Yang paying the money.
"Of course it's great to have money, could it be that you feel that you all not having money is more amazing?" Good Over sneered. "We are just some obscure nobodies, so poor that we only have money, how can we be compared to your famous team."
Goose Over was satirizing them for Dark Flame just trying to intimidate them with their team name.
"Very good, you all have money right!" Easy Nobility pushed Dark Flame aside and entered a very high amount on the screen. Then he defiantly looked over at Goose Over.
Goose Over smiled indifferently, and continued to enter a bid.
Watching the price on the screen get higher and higher, it was already enough to buy 30 blood serum fruits. Goose Over was preparing to enter another price when Jing Yang stopped him. "The herbal medicine store has lark grass back in stock. We don't need this anymore, just let them buy it and we can go buy the lark grass."
Easy Nobility was preparing to enter a bid two more times and then stop. Letting the other side spend over 10 times the original price to buy the fruits would also bring their teammates some sort of relief. Suddenly hearing that Jing Yang didn't want it anymore, he was immediately furious, deliberately stimulating them. "What? Aren't you all so poor you only have money left? But now you feel that the price is too high, and you can't afford to raise the price?"
Jing Yang said, "This price is completely enough to buy three stems of lark grass, and the effect of lark grass is so much better than the effect of the blood serum fruit. So we will just let you all have the blood serum fruit, don't thank us too much."
On the screen the countdown for bidding was over, so the smoke team had gotten the blood serum fruits. Because this was an auction, they could not go to the purchase shop to pay for it, but instead had to pay for it right there.
Jing Yang did not have any intention to leave immediately. The lark grass was so expensive, there would definitely not be many people wanting to buy it. Whether Easy Nobility and the rest would pay the money or not, he still found it very enjoyable to see them being angry.
Qi Feng looked at Jing Yang, and seeing his appearance of wanting to wait to see a good show, his gaze unconsciously revealed some spoil and pampering.
Easy Nobility punched the counter angrily. He had been fooled by the other side, and Ding Nuoyang was also with the people who had fooled him. In the presence of so many people, this was his first time being humiliated like this. Right now he really wanted to pounce on Jing Yang and swallow him alive.
The screen was constantly reminding him to pay, or it would deduct 15% of the price as a penalty fee.
Easy Nobility would naturally not going to come out with the money, and the other team members were all avoiding his gaze, looking in other directions. It was very obvious that no one was willing to help him pay this money, and Dark Flame also did not have any intention of paying for him.
Easy Nobility rigidly did not pay the money. Because Dark Flame had used the team money to pay for the blood serum fruit at first, this penalty fee was directly deducted from their team funds.
They had not successfully bought the blood serum fruit, so it returned to the shop shelves. Qi Feng immediately pressed the purchase button again, and the blood serum fruits smoothly entered their purchase list.
The smoke team members' faces were all extremely ugly. They had lost such a large amount of money for absolutely no reason, and in the end did not even get anything for it. Easy Nobility was even angry enough to spit blood, viciously staring at Jing Yang, his eyeballs about to pop out his sockets.
"Let's go." Qi Feng hugged Jing Yang's shoulder and walked out. "Let's go buy the lark grass."
Today they had cooperated very well. Jing Yang knew that they were all ruthless characters in the real business world, so how could they suffer in the hands of people like Easy Nobility. He had only deliberately stepped out to stop Goose Over from continuing to bid because he was very clear that Easy Nobility was most defiant against and hated Ding Nuoyang the most, so being played by Ding Nuoyang would make him more furious than by any other person.
This was just a small small surprise. The real good drama would only start now.
Translator Notes:
[1] eyesight still incisive – 目光如炬, literally means vision like a torch, I'm assuming this is referring to him managing to discover and bring back Jing Yang and not the solar barites but idk
[2] as always – 一如既往, idiom, means just like in the past, as before, continuing as always
[3] someone who trusts my team – 疑人不用用人不疑, basically means if you doubt someone don't employ them, if you employ them, don't doubt them
[4] enemies on a narrow road – 冤家路窄, idiom, means an inevitable clash between opposing factions
Random Notes:
About one hour: 10:30 am – 11:30 am, for 4.0k characters to 2.9k words. These game names are going well as usual. Also, the start of some drama, in both senses.