The Blood Monster King had been wiped out, and the first task level of the mission ended. A team not only ranked first in points, but also left all of the teams far behind.
Back in the villa, Jing Yang started to study the treasures that they had received from the blood monster king. This game world having problems had a very direct relationship with these treasures, and Jing Yang felt that it was time to start solving these problems.
Jing Yang went to knock on Qi Feng's door. When Qi Feng opened the door, he was topless, and his lower body was only covered by a towel, as if he had just come out of the bathroom.
Jing Yang entered the room, but Qi Feng seemed like he wasn't planning on putting on any clothes. He handed Jing Yang a bottle of water and asked him if there was anything wrong.
Looking at his beautiful muscles, Jing Yang, who had originally not been thirsty, suddenly felt like his mouth was getting dry. He opened the bottle and sipped some water, before explaining, "When I was refining, I found that there were some problems with the blood dripstones. I have an idea and a guess: could the problems in the game system be connected to the problems in these treasures?"
Qi Feng's eyes became serious. "Continue."
Jing Yang took out his refinery tool and directly showed him.
During the refining process, every material added in would display a variety of values—there would be values associated with the treasure, as well as values for after the fusion. Jing Yang rapidly typed on his screen, and those values immediately turned into a string of code.
Every alchemist could see these code, but very few people knew how to see it, and even if they accidentally managed to type it out, no one would go bother about it, because they couldn't understand it. Jing Yang also had to rely on the system in order to know where the problem came from, or else if even the game's technical staff couldn't find the problem, he would also certainly not be able to find it.
Jing Yang highlighted the problematic code that he had found to show Qi Feng. "I was able to increase the energy of the weapons so high because I inadvertently found these erroneous code, and then modified them. These erroneous codes should have originally been designed by the game's technical staff to make the treasures slightly weaker, so that the weapons made from those treasures wouldn't be too strong. Those technicians definitely did not find that when refining there would be problems, and it is likely that these erroneous code would cause the game system to fail, and make us unable to exit the game."
Qi Feng looked at those highlighted lines of code, thought for a moment, and then sent a message for all the team members to gather in the conference room.
Qi Feng changed his clothes and went with Jing Yang to the conference room. Because Qi Feng had sent an emergency gathering order, when they arrived, the rest of the team was already sitting in the room.
The team members saw Qi Feng's serious expression and knew that there was definitely some big matter. They all changed their usual relaxed and joking attitudes, seriously waiting for Qi Feng to start the meeting.
Qi Feng let Jing Yang repeat everything that he had said earlier to the rest of the team.
After his explanation, Qi Feng said, "Dragon Seven, come over and take a look."
Dragon Seven was an internationally ranked hacker, and in the previous world it was also he who after leaving the game had been invited to the game company and had found the problem. Even though he had not been able to save all of the players, he had still been able to rescue the majority of them from the game.
Dragon Seven couldn't operate on Jing Yang's screen, so he let Jing Yang operate based on his direction. At first his expression was quite solemn, but then he seemed to have a big realization. "No mistake, the problem should have been caused by these things. Even if I can't be 100% certain right now, I still have 90% certainty."
"Can it be fixed?" Qi Feng asked.
"In theory, it can be solved, but this is something that only alchemists can do, it's not convenient for me." Dragon Seven suggested to Jing Yang, "How about I teach you how to do it? It's just that the process will definitely be very troublesome."
"No need." Jing Yang responded. "We can do this. When I'm refining, I will isolate and save the erroneous parts of the code, and then give you the fixed weapons. You can then retrieve and remove the erroneous parts, and then return the weapon to me to continue the transformation."
Dragon Seven considered it for a bit before agreeing. "We can try that first."
Qi Feng said to the others, "In your spaces, open an entry for Nuoyang and let him try to find some more error codes. If Dragon Seven can completely identify and solve these problems, we will contact the technical staff."
Jing Yang and Dragon Seven busied themselves for two days in a row, and until the second task level opened, they finally temporarily stopped their work.
~
The second task level was in Snake City, a city with countless venomous snakes. The task was to find the city lord of Snake City, and they could get points when fighting it, while the team that killed the Snake City lord would get the highest amount of points. The task stipulated that no one could fly in Snake City, and also could not use heavy artillery, only personal weapons.
After entering the task level, the A team members split up into groups of two or three, and looked around separately for the whereabouts of the Snake City lord.
Snake City was filled with a sense of desolation and decay, the buildings broken and dilapidated, as if they had been abandoned for a long time. Many of the taller buildings were all half collapsed, or had no walls.
The Snake City lord was a snake demon who could change into a variety of appearances, very difficult to find. Even though the city was uninhabited, he could not only turn into snakes, but could even change into the appearance of a player and walk around.
Plus after entering Snake City you needed to be especially wary of those snakes. They might seem soft and just lie around, but their attacks were extremely strong. They could jump out of a corner and attack at any time, and as long as you were bit by one, the other snakes would all pounce up as well. If the victim didn't take an effective antidote within half an hour, they would immediately die.
Jing Yang and Qi Feng walked along the streets, surrounded by snakes, with quite a few spitting at them. Qi Feng held a magma sword, while Jing Yang held a purple lightning sword. These were both new weapons that Jing Yang had just created, and their power was definitely not less than that of an heavy artillery weapon.
Jing Yang felt that the player who had just turned the corner in front of them was somewhat strange. He pulled Qi Feng, and the two people quickly chased after him. Those originally motionless snakes all suddenly pounced at them, and Qi Feng quickly hugged Jing Yang with one arm, and chopped all the snakes attacking them to the ground with the other arm.
When they looked in the direction of the player again, that person had long already disappeared. If earlier he had only felt that that person was strange, now Jing Yang was already certain that the person was the Snake City lord.
Jing Yang's back was affixed to Qi Feng's chest, and he could basically completely feel the shape of his muscles. He looked down at the arm still hugging his waist, suddenly felt his heartbeat accelerating, and then secretly lamented about his hopelessness.
Qi Feng held Jing Yang's hand and continued to walk forward, not letting go even after they had walked through two streets. Jing Yang was just considering whether or not he should tell him to let go when Qi Feng suddenly pulled him to run forward.
Qi Feng slashed at a fleeing snake, but the snake very rapidly dodged. But Qi Feng and Jing Yang's speeds were also not slow, and they tightly chased behind it.
Jing Yang had already collected his whimsical thoughts and chased after that snake with Qi Feng while also cutting down those other snakes pouncing at them.
After they chased the snake to an abandoned building, that snake disappeared. Qi Feng stood there and looked around in all directions, then motioned for Jing Yang to follow him upstairs.
This building and staircase were all very strange, there were no walls and no shelter, and no snakes. The two walked up the stairs together, one facing the left side, and the other facing the right side.
When they had almost reached the sixth floor, they suddenly heard someone cry out. The two exchanged glances, and sped up to get to the sixth floor.
A large snake at least two meters long was spitting at a female player sitting on the ground. That female player's beautiful face was full of fear and horror, continuously retreating until her back bumped into a post and she could no longer retreat.
The female player saw Qi Feng and Jing Yang, and with a weeping and sobbing appearance, she pathetically begged, "Help me, please help me."
Qi Feng walked over. That snake turned to look at him, and not even two moves later, Qi Feng solved that snake.
"Thank you, thank you both." The female player gratefully said, and then slowly stood up.
Jing Yang looked that female player up and down, this was completely the prime example of an angelic face and a devilish figure. Under the miniskirt a pair of long white legs was taking a step towards them.
Qi Feng waved the sword in his hand, and the female player barely dodged it, rolling once on the ground. She looked up in confusion and asked Qi Feng, "What are you doing?"
Qi Feng raised his hand again, and the female player wanted to escape along the side, but Jing Yang raised his sword to stop her.
"You, you two big men, want to bully a girl?" The female player moved back, her face full of horror. "Don't do this, please."
Jing Yang saw this act, and wondered why he felt somewhat uncomfortable in his heart. This was the first time he had done such a rogue act of bullying an innocent woman.
The female player watched Qi Feng and Jing Yang slowly approach her, and pleaded with them, "As long as you don't kill me, you can do whatever you want. If you just want my body, I can give it to you."
Qi Feng waved his knife and sliced at her again. Sensing his fierce momentum, the female player could only resist. Even though she resisted with all her power, she was still cut twice by Qi Feng. But she actually didn't die after being sliced by Qi Feng, so just now she was really just pretending.
"I was discovered by you?" The female player retreated while quickly healing her wounds.
"Snake demon, your acting is not very good." Jing Yang commented.
"Since you already know my identity, and I can't defeat you, I can only be slaughtered by you. But…" The snake demon looked at them teasingly. "Before you kill me, you might as well have a good time with me, I promise I will make you very comfortable."
Qi Feng was expressionless, while Jing Yang could only make a 囧囧 expression.
The snake demon slowly untied her clothes. "Even though this is in a game, every touch and feel is real, do you really not want to try it out with me? Don't worry, I will not hurt you. After all, I am only a bunch of data, if I die then I'll just be dead, and later I will have countless opportunities to be resurrected. I just see that both of you look so handsome, so I want to do it once with you both, and then you can dispose of me as you want."
"I don't like women, I have no feeling towards women." Jing Yang said.
Qi Feng turned and looked at Jing Yang. "Me too."
"Uh…" The snake demon froze, and then laughed. "I miscalculated, but that does not matter, since you both do not like women, I can also change into a man."
As soon as the snake demon finished, it changed into an extremely handsome man.
"That is not the type I like." Qi Feng said.
"Then what type do you like, I can change into anything." The snake demon was unfazed.
"I like the type like him." Qi Feng looked at Jing Yang, and then turned back to the snake demon. "But even if you change to look like him it would also be useless, a fake is still fake, it would never be as good as the real one."
Jing Yang couldn't resist blushing, this fellow actually took advantage of this time to confess.
"It turns out you are lovers." The snake demon's mouth twitched. "No wonder all of the tricks I tried were useless. This time was my bad luck, I won't play with you anymore!"
The snake demon originally wanted to use beauty to tempt them, but who knew that this time it had kicked an iron plate. He knew that he couldn't beat them, so he turned into a snake and quickly escaped.
The two people quickly chased up. Jing Yang took out a bundle of demon locking material and threw it. The fleeing snake demon was immediately tied up and turned back into the appearance of the female player just now, falling to the ground.
Qi Feng and Jing Yang also jumped down along a steel cable, and just as they were about to get rid of the snake demon, two people suddenly appeared and shouted, "What are you doing?"
Jing Yang looked up, it was actually Dark Flame and Easy Nobility.
The snake demon seemed to have seen a savior, struggling to move toward them. "Save me, they want to kill me."
"The two of you are men, you're actually even going to bully a woman?" Dark Flame looked at them with disdain.
"Get out of here, or die with her!" Qi Feng coldly said.
"You…" Dark Flame was furious, but still was cautious, not daring to move up.
"In here, they can't use heavy artillery." Easy Nobility reminded Dark Flame.
Dark Flame finally remembered, even though the A team members' heavy artillery weapons were extremely frightening, they weren't allowed to use them in Snake City, so then these people wouldn't necessarily be their opponent.
"The previous debt, we will collect it right now." Easy Nobility declared.
Dark Flame took out his sword and attacked Qi Feng, but Qi Feng easily blocked it and began to counterattack, the two people starting to fight.
Easy Nobility held his sword, viciously looking at Jing Yang.
Jing Yang changed his sword into the million thorn whip, sneering at him. "You want to experience Black Hawk's dying method?"
Easy Nobility saw the million thorn whip and remembered the pain of being whipped by it, his heart trembling. He expanded his shield and raised his sword, attacking Jing Yang.
Jing Yang lashed out with his whip, and Easy Nobility's shield immediately shattered, scaring him to back up several steps.
Even Black Hawk had been killed by this million thorn whip, Easy Nobility knew that he couldn't deal with Jing Yang by himself, so he immediately contacted the other team members to let them come over.
Jing Yang just stood there to wait for him to contact the rest, and then whipped him right in the face.
"Ah!!" Easy Nobility's face was immediately bloodied into a mess. He fell to his knees in pain and wanted to cover his face, but even just touching it slightly made it more painful.
Qi Feng also just happened to kick Dark Flame in the chest, and Dark Flame spewed out a mouthful of blood, falling by Easy Nobility's side.
"I hate when other people imitate my face." Jing Yang said. "How about I just ruin your face today?"
Easy Nobility trembled, looking at Jing Yang in horror.
"That…" The snake demon lying on the ground carefully said, "When you kill me, can you not use that long thorned whip, and just give me a chop?"
The snake demon didn't think that these two people would be so weak and become half-dead after just a few hits. Seeing that they were barely able to stay alive, it would be impossible for them to protect himself. That long thorned whip looked too terrible, even smashing a face with just one lash. She didn't want to die in such an ugly manner, if she had to die, she still wanted to die beautifully.
"Some other people are in a hurry to die first, so they rushed over and plugged themselves into your team. After we solve them first, we can come to discuss how you want to die." Jing Yang responded.
"…Good." The snake demon quietly said.
Translator Notes:
[1] dripstones – 滴石, this is what I got from mdbg, just seems like a special type of stone
[2] personal weapons – 兵器, basically like individual weapons used by soldiers, like swords or maybe simpler guns versus cannons
[3] magma sword – 地火刀, i'm assuming 地火, which is literally ground fire, would be described as magma
Random Notes:
Over an hour: 4:15 pm – 5:30 pm, for 4.5k characters to 3k words. Unfortunately, I have and will be quite busy with exams for the next weeks, so for the first time ever I have literally zero chapters in stock. This is being done the day before it's going up. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with the schedule, but don't be surprised if some chapters go up late.