Gate of Revelation

GOR t

“I myself do not know how he came to become the manager for the China region. Truth be told, I was never that close with him…” Nightmare stuttered. “Originally, he was just an ordinary guild member of Thorned Flower Guild. Be it his strength or intellect, he was never outstanding. Didn’t I tell you before? In the China region, I am the only high-ranking member.”

Chen Xiaolian nodded his head and said, “Continue.”

After hearing everything Nightmare knew, Chen Xiaolian was finally able to gain a general understanding of the Starfall Guild.

Back then, Nightmare had been locked up by Chen Xiaolian for a long time. After he got to the instance dungeon area and made contact with members of the Starfall Guild, he was shocked to find out that the former members of Thorned Flower Guild had established another guild on their own. As for Nightmare, he had been utterly… … ignored.

Although he possessed the title of high-ranking member in Thorned Flower Guild, he did not possess enough strength. Thus, he was incapable of recruiting enough people to establish a guild. He also did not have access to the guild channel. Thus, he had no idea what had happened during the past few days. However, by adding up what he knew in the beginning and what little he learnt after meeting Jiang Long, it was possible to gather some information.

The number of Awakened ones from Thorned Flower Guild in the China region was somewhere above 200. The one known as Jiang Long was usually someone who would never stand out. However, after Zero City’s destruction and Shen’s disappearance, the Awakened ones began having second thoughts. As for Jiang Long, he was the first among the Awakened ones to step forward and began asking questions.

Nightmare was the only high-ranking member in the China region. Coincidentally, after Mr San contacted him, Jiang Long also contacted him. Jiang Long suggested that without Shen’s suppressive existence, the Players, who had never liked Awakened ones, would attack them. If they wish to protect themselves, they will need to immediately start a revolt.

Although they were never that close, Jiang Long was quite the smooth talker. As for Nightmare, he was someone with no real opinion of his own. All it took was a few sentences from Jiang Long to convince him to contact the other stronger members to establish their own guild.

However, Nightmare was not a popular fellow. Despite his high-ranking title, any Awakened with the least bit of seniority would know that he was just a special thing that Shen found interesting. He had neither ability nor leadership skills. Even after running around for a long time, Nightmare had been unable to recruit anyone.

In the end, he was caught by Chen Xiaolian and made a prisoner. After getting released, he did his best to rush to the instance dungeon area only to find that Jiang Long had gathered all the Awakened ones from Thorned Flower Guild in the China region together.

When they met each other again, Jiang Long no longer showed him the same respect he had shown in the past. Instead, Nightmare was greeted with indifference and curt politeness. Although Jiang Long had still allowed him to join the guild, no longer did he say anything about making Nightmare the Guild Leader, as he had so fervently did in the past. Without saying much, Jiang Long then sent him to Chen Xiaolian’s guild.

From what little Nightmare could gather earlier, Starfall Guild was the official name of the so-called Vengeance Corps that Nightmare had mentioned. Similar to the past Thorned Flower Guild’s conduct, they were separated into the Europe, Central Asia, China, North America, South America, Australia and Africa region, seven regions in total.

There was however, a difference. Originally, all the Awakened ones in those seven regions were all members of Thorned Flower Guild. At present, from the system’s perspective, they had established seven independent guilds. There was no formal partnership between the seven guilds, only the guild leaders were in contact with each other.

In other words, the so-called Starfall Guild was a relatively loose alliance formed by seven different guilds.

As for the ‘manager’ title that Jiang Long used to introduce himself, it was in fact the equivalent of Guild Leader.

Should Starfall Guild require a formal judgement made, the various managers will come together to discuss the issue and come up with a resolution together. Each manager was the equivalent of a member of the joint meeting.

Nightmare was not too eloquent. Thus, only after stammering for the better half of the day did he finish explaining the situation to Chen Xiaolian. After listening to all Nightmare had to say, Chen Xiaolian lowered his head and considered the issue. Then, he slowly said, “Earlier, you mentioned that you are the only high-ranking member for the China region. Additionally, the number of members in this region is also the lowest one, right?”

“Yes.” Nightmare hastily nodded. “Our overall strength is the weakest.”

“True. Other than you, the mascot, there isn’t another high-ranking member who obtained the title through pure power. It is truly the weakest.” Chen Xiaolian turned toward Lun Tai and said with a smile, “This Jiang Long fellow wants to make use of this opportunity to quickly expand their power.”

“Huh?” Nightmare scratched his head. “What do you mean?”

“Yes. At present, however, he will surely not reveal it.” Lun Tai had been maintaining a state of silence from the beginning. After Chen Xiaolian spoke to him, he slowly nodded his head in response. “Clearly, becoming the manager for the China region is not the most important matter for him. Due to his individual guild’s level of strength, his guild’s position in Starfall Guild is probably not high. If he can make use of this instance dungeon to recruit more solo Awakened ones or even some small-sized guilds, he can improve his position in the Starfall Guild’s joint meeting.”

“Wait! Hold up! Is that even possible?!” Roddy suddenly spoke up. “Thorned Flower Guild is a Player guild. The Awakened members from the guild… … they can be considered as the traitors of the Awakened circle. Now, they want to switch sides and return to the Awakened side and even recruit others into their guild… … who would be willing to join them?”

“That is hard to say. Don’t forget, back when Wu Sangui created an army to supposedly fight against the Qing, in the end, the ones he fought were the ones who wanted to fight against the Qing [1].” Chen Xiaolian sneered. “This Jiang Long is quite the capable character. He was able to keep a low-profile for so long within Thorned Flower Guild. He was the first to find Zhao Tiezhu and get him to do the dirty work first while he kept himself hidden in the shadows. If Zhao Tiezhu had not been captured by us, this Jiang Long might still continue to hide himself behind the scenes.”

“My… my name is Nightmare!” Nightmare summoned his courage and reminded Chen Xiaolian with a low tone.

“Fine, fine.” Chen Xiaolian waved him off. “Failing to become the Guild Leader may not be a bad thing for you. If you had really succeeded in doing what you had wanted to do and could smoothly sit on the throne, who knows what he might do to kill you in the future?”

“He… … Jiang Long…” Nightmare bit his lip but said nothing.

While not quite a cultured person nor too bright, Nightmare was no fool.

While he could not have figured that out by himself, after Chen Xiaolian’s thorough analysis of the issues, only a fool could remain ignorant.

“Enough.” Chen Xiaolian reached out with his hand to pat Nightmare’s shoulder. “There is no need for you to worry so much. Just be good and stay together with us. Relay just what I want you to relay. Just do that. Since that Jiang Long have gotten the manager position, he is probably not hell-bent on having you killed.”

“But… but…” Nightmare looked up at Chen Xiaolian and hesitated for a moment before nodding his head.

Although this eighth-grade syndrome patient used to be filled with ambition, he was just a youngster with very little experience in the ways of the world. After being imprisoned by Chen Xiaolian for so long, plus the terrifying poison, how could he resist?

“Very good. Now, first things first,” said Chen Xiaolian with a pleased tone. “At present, you have joined their guild. Use your guild channel and help me ask them if they are interested in buying Star Sand. I have quite a bit here for sale.”

“As for the price…” Chen Xiaolian calculated for a while before revealing a smirk. “One point per gram.”

“One point… per gram?” Roddy jumped to his feet. “Xiaolian, are you serious?”

“Of course.” Chen Xiaolian looked back at Roddy. “Why would I joke around when discussing a business transaction?”

“One point per gram. With one kilogramme, we’ll get 1,000 points… … 20 kilogrammes… … we can earn up to… 20,000 points?!” Roddy’s mouth had gotten so big it was nearly impossible for him to close it.

“20 kilogrammes?” Hearing that number, Nightmare’s face quickly revealed a look of shock. “You… … how could you have so much Star Sand?”

Despite his ordinary intellect and strength, he was a high-ranking member of Thorned Flower Guild after all. He knew quite a bit. Even though Star Sand was an expensive item, Nightmare had at least heard of it before.

Just 15 grams of Star Sand was enough to greatly enhance the strength and toughness of one kilogramme’s worth of alloy materials. It was a very valuable item regardless of which guild you belong to.

Additionally, it was not something that could be purchased through the system. It could only be obtained by completing instance dungeon quests. For a guild to be able to bring out 20 kilogrammes of Star Sand was not an impossibility. However, those guilds were often of the highest level. Besides, even if they do possess that much Star Sand, they will usually use it to enhance their own equipment. Why would they sell it?

“That is not the type of question you should be asking,” said Chen Xiaolian coldly. “Go ask, now.”

“Yes…” Nightmare shrunk his head back. Then, he accessed his guild channel and began asking around.

“Xiaolian, could this price be a little too high?” Roddy used their guild channel to ask Chen Xiaolian. “In terms of investment, our capital per kilogramme is less than 60 points. Now, you are asking for over 10 times that. Will anyone be willing to buy it?”

“Why do you think those resident guilds in Zero City would fight so bitterly over a mine?” Chen Xiaolian chuckled. “It is because the value of the product far outweighs the capital. Don’t worry. This price is probably slightly on the lower side. If not for the sake of quickly clearing out the available stock, I would have increased the price further.”

In the past, when he was discussing the price with Qiao Yifeng, Chen Xiaolian had not enough time to think things through. After the deal was done and Chen Xiaolian had more time to check out the details, he found that Qiao Yifeng’s offer of buying the Star Sand by paying three times the amount of capital invested into the mining operation was a huge bargain for Qiao Yifeng.

Blade Mountain Flame Sea Guild did not send out their own men but had instead sent Chen Xiaolian to fight for the mine as they had already occupied the mine twice. Thus, they could no longer continue to compete for the mine. As for the other two guilds who wanted to compete for the mine, the Knights of Darkness Guild and Rodriar Guild, they had sent out Spiritshadow and Jacob, an [A] class and an [A+] class member respectively [2].

With the exception of their final trump card, the [S] class powerhouse, Jacob was the strongest among the members of a resident guild.

The importance of the C11 mine was obvious to all.

Having said that, although Qiao Yifeng only offered to pay three times the amount of capital needed to run the mine to buy the Star Sand, he did not actually get much of a bargain.

In addition to the points, Blade Mountain Flame Sea Guild had also given them a Tidal Fighter and many other equipment and supplies. They had also given every one of their members the clearance to enter Zero City. Even Qiao Qiao and Soo Soo had been given the freedom to move as they like.

Most importantly, Qiao Yifeng was Qiao Qiao’s father. He became something like a father figure for Chen Xiaolian.

The importance of their relationship was quite the hefty one.

Besides, the mine was originally Blade Mountain Flame Sea Guild’s. Only, this time, they had to rely on Chen Xiaolian, an outsider, to access it.

Factoring in all those elements, three times the cost of operations was already Qiao Yifeng doing him a favour.

At present, however, Chen Xiaolian was going to sell the Star Sand to others. Thus, he will be using the market price as reference.

He had to get the 20,000 points before the instance dungeon began and use it to buy more equipment for the others and ensure the continuous operation of the mine.

“Boss Chen, I have already informed them,” stammered Nightmare as he raised his head to look at Chen Xiaolian. “Jiang Long asked how much do you have. He says he wants it all.”

“He wants all?” Chen Xiaolian sneered. “Does he think I run a grocery store here? Tell him, I have a total of 20 kilogrammes!”

Nightmare was silent for a moment as he communicated using his guild channel. Then, he raised his head up again.

“He says… … no problem. He can eat them all up. He wants to know, will you be going over to his place for the deal or do you want him to come over?”

1 Wu Sangui was a Chinese military general during the last stage of the Ming Dynasty and viewed as instrumental in the fall of the Ming and rise of Qing when he chose to side with Qing instead of his own fellow Han Chinese. However, he is considered a traitor to both Ming and Qing as he tried to set himself up as Emperor in his later years by rebelling against the Qing Dynasty. He failed.↩

2 Jacob’s first appearance in the Kombia arc is in Chapter 373 while Spiritshadow appeared in Chapter 374. ↩