Chapter 153: Controlling Behind the Scenes
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Han Xiao watched with interest from the side. Laughing Blade? No impression of him. Probably not important enough in Galaxy.
Frenzied Sword would eventually become a Legendary player in the future, but right now, he was bowing his head to Laughing Blade. This scene left him feeling nostalgic. For some reason, it brought him back to those days in the past, when he first started. Back then, there was a point in time when his power-levelling business was dwindling. To find other ways to get income, he had entered a small office to help them mine gold to earn some rewards. That office often forced him to work over-time and cut his pay. Asking them about pay would only elicit answers that were nothing short of excuses.
The office’s boss took advantage of being a business owner. When Han Xiao asked about his pay for the ninth time and started arguing with him, the boss told him that if he wanted to continue, he could; if he was not going to continue, he could just scram. If he continued to complain, then he would PK him until his level reached 0.
What else could Han Xiao do, he was also very exasperated. All he could do was to use his main account to show the boss why the business was doing so well. For a few weeks, he massacred all the players in the office till it suffered heavy losses and was on the verge of closing down. Then, he earned a reasonably large amount of reimbursement in exchange for his emotional losses.
In-game blackmailing was not illegal.
Aye, the happy times are gone, there’s no turning back. Han Xiao puffed as he smoked. As he overcame his obstacles, he could only appreciate it now because of his past experiences.
Frenzied Sword could only accept Laughing Blade’s request. Currently, he was LV 11, way ahead of average players’ levels. Other than a Mechanic’s repairing and reinforcement skills, he could only use basic shooting and fighting skills.
Han Xiao had complete understanding of Frenzied Sword’s fighting abilities. With a flash in his eyes, he called out to Frenzied Sword. “Come here.”
Frenzied Sword was a little confused as he followed orders accordingly. Han Xiao took off his thermo-electrical incisor gloves, secretly giving them to him.
With a look at the gloves’ stats, Frenzied Sword’s breathing stopped for a moment, his face overcome with shock and surprise.
“I’m only lending them to you; you have to return them.” Han Xiao erased Frenzied Sword’s unrealistic hopes.
Frenzied Sword was still very touched. It was the right decision to suck up to Han Xiao, he could even receive such a benefit! Is it because he’s afraid that I’ll lose, making him lose face?
Putting on the gloves, Frenzied Sword had a greater sense of confidence. Standing fifteen meters apart from Laughing Blade, both of them braced themselves, getting ready to attack.
Nearby, players began crowding around to watch the show. They were mainly curious about Frenzied Sword and wanted to see the difference between a professional gamer who had his name reported on the system and a regular player.
“Even if he is a professional player, he should be about the same level in these early stages.”
“With only a few basic abilities, he probably can’t show off his mechanic abilities as well.”
“I think there’s an advantage in these early stages. Maybe he’s practiced fighting before in real-life, or he’s someone who was in the military. After all, the controls here are so realistic.”
The players murmured to one another.
With a low cry, Laughing Blade made the first move, launching himself forward. With every step, the sand on the ground wrapped itself around his calves and snaked up to his body, forming a sandstone armor covering his body.
His pistol can only fire at most five shots, and my abilities can definitely hold him off. As long as I close the distance between us, he’s definitely finished! Laughing Blade thought.
The players were all new. The level of their control was only at a level where they understood how to use the skills and what they did. Laughing Blade’s decision was correct, but Frenzied Sword’s reaction gave Laughing Blade a shock. Instead of moving back and using the pistol to kite him, he rushed forward instead.
Both people quickly collided into one another. Without thinking twice, Laughing Blade sent his fist, which was wrapped in sandstone armor, flying toward Frenzied Sword, and Frenzied Sword met his fist with his black-gloved palm.
Could this glove be special equipment?
Just as Laughing Blade had this thought, he suddenly experienced a series of burning pains. Stunned, he realized that his health points were reduced to zero in that moment.
His vision turned black as he immediately died.
From the start to end, this duel only lasted three seconds!
On the battlefield, only Frenzied Sword remained. The wind blew up the edges of his clothes. Expressionless, he truly resembled a solitary professional at the top of his game.
The surrounding players watched, dazed, unable to react.
“Was... was that an instant KO?”
“That’s way too fast!”
“Too overpowered! No wonder he could get on Galaxy Times!”
“Could the secret quest really have given him such a huge lead over the rest of us‽”
Everyone was a new player. Technically, their battle power should have been about the same. Using a pistol, it would take at least four or five shots before one would die, and Laughing Blade’s Esper ability obviously strengthened his defense. Some players remembered Laughing Blade’s performance during the wild-beast attack. When he was surrounded by two gray wolves, he was still able to hold them off. But when he fought with Frenzied Sword, he died instantly just by meeting fists with him?
What kind of godly attack power was this?
Everyone stared at Frenzied Sword’s glove, envy showing on their faces.
“That is high-level equipment!”
“Mechanics can make something like that? I thought they could only make guns!”
“I really want one too...”
Not long after, the revived Laughing Blade ran over, his face looking dark as he said unhappily, “Didn’t we agree that it would be a friendly battle? How could you... you...”
He originally wanted to say how could he have killed him, but he felt that saying it would be too shameful.
Having defeated an old opponent, Frenzied Sword only felt refreshed from being able to settle all the discontent from the past as he chuckled. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were so vulnerable.”
This sentence made Laughing Blade so angry that he could felt the heat rising up from his chest.
Calling me vulnerable for dying‽
It was a complete loss for him. Dying once cost him a lot of EXP. Laughing Blade was very upset. He initially thought that once the duel reached a certain point, they would end it, but he did not expect to be an instant-killed, not to mention he could not even blame Frenzied Sword. He was so distressed that he could feel his heart tightening up over this horrible situation.
After the crowd around them had left, Frenzied Sword obediently returned the gloves to Han Xiao, hesitating as he asked, “Han... Black Phantom, are you selling these gloves?”
Han Xiao looked at him from the side of his eye, opening up the shop listing as he added “thermo-electrical incisor gloves” at a fixed price of 80,000 with a reputation of 15 points. This set of gloves was a prize that he had seized from Rose Militant. After learning the basic knowledge upfront, he had instead experimented to create the blueprints to create the thermo-electrical incisor gloves. By spending some EXP, he could make one on his own now.
Frenzied Sword was instantly motivated. Excitedly, he clenched his fists. This close-combat equipment designed for Mechanics was his favorite. “I can’t afford it now, but I will be able to, sooner or later!”
Then, Laughing Blade suddenly inched closer. His gaze lit, he stared at Han Xiao and asked, “Black Phantom, I heard you’re enemies with Germinal. I want to join you.”
In this time frame, the discussion board had all sorts of different guesses as to how one could trigger the Black Phantom’s secret quest. They thought that as long as one showed their intention to become Germinal’s enemies, there was a chance that they could trigger Black Phantom’s secret quest. Many players were guessing the phrase to trigger that. In his short time in Green Valley Ville, Han Xiao had heard several of such guesses and had rejected them all. This led the players to a final conclusion—it was all about possibility when one was trying to trigger Black Phantom’s secret quest.
Laughing Blade was also trying his luck.
Han Xiao raised an eyebrow and said, “Oh... You seem to be not bad.”
There’s a lead! Laughing Blade grinned in surprise.
Frenzied Sword’s heart fell. Getting nervous, he could feel a strong sense of discomfort welling within him for some reason.
“But you don’t seem to be up to par yet.” Han Xiao suddenly changed his words as he waved, rejecting Laughing Blade.
Laughing Blade had not even finished his breath and was left speechless for a while. His expression was annoyed. With his heart full of jealousy toward Frenzied Sword, he muttered to himself in anger, “This guy is really some lucky dog.”
Frenzied Sword heaved a sigh of relief, regaining his composure.
Han Xiao almost laughed aloud upon seeing Frenzied Sword’s reaction, as if he were a guy who had almost been cheated on...
Pfft, what kind of description was that? What would that make me? Han Xiao tossed aside this crazy idea.
On the interface, quite an amount of EXP had accumulated. For players in Green Valley Ville who intended to change their class, they all would have completed that by the next day. Han Xiao would prepare to leave after that.
While he was collecting EXP, someone recorded Frenzied Sword and Laughing Blade’s battle and uploaded it onto the forum.
...
Luzman was a player who came from Big Horn Village. By luck, he had managed to get into the phases of beta-testing and had been saving his money before he switched his class. He wanted to join the strongest class.
When it was time for public testing, he saw Black Phantom’s battle and was captivated. Hurriedly, he wanted to switch to become a Mechanic. Other players tried to complete tasks to improve their relationship with Black Phantom, but Luzman could not wait. He used his money to gain five reputation points with Black Phantom. From the five basic knowledges that Black Phantom taught, he learned [Basic Weaponry Knowledge] as he liked this name the most.
But Luzman quickly realized that Mechanics were not as strong as Black Phantom made them out to be. After losing continuously in the duel, he felt that he had been cheated; this class was way too weak! But he could not bear to abandon his beta-testing account and had asked the customer service if he could change his class, but that was of course not possible, leaving him infuriated.
What a waste of having this opportunity to enter the beta test! This account is useless now!
Luzman had been extremely frustrated. Going onto the forums, he had put up posts everywhere, regardless of topic. He had planned to thoroughly bash the Mechanic class by repeating how trashy it was and let all of the players know that Mechanic was a trashy class!
Players had debated after his comments. Initially, Luzman had been satisfied with what he saw. That was his original intention. He had also enjoyed the feeling of his words being taken seriously by others.