Zhan Long

Chapter 110 - CBN Leaderboard

After killing a dozen or so Flaming Cat Spirits, I finally got to the mouth of the cave in the Green Qilin Abyss. Here, piles of black limestone were stacked into a precipitous, jagged slope. My heart raced anxiously; I had high expectations and would hate to be disappointed. If I can find some Green Qilin Grass here, there’s a good chance that I could make a lot of money. If I go back empty-handed then I will have no way to fund my studio.

……

Rustle…

As I made my way through the grass, I caught a glimpse of a Flaming Cat Spirit in the distance. It hasn’t seen me yet, so I continued on cautiously. I clambered over the pile of black limestone at the edge of the cave and became sorely disappointed. There wasn’t even a single blade of Green Qilin Grass. Damn, is it possible that the legendary Green Qilin Grass really doesn’t grow in the Green Qilin Valley? Or perhaps my method of searching is flawed?

I reached out with my hands to feel the wet stone walls and let the cool feeling spread in my palm. I clenched my teeth in frustration. I just can’t figure it out! Why can I not find the Green Qilin Herb? Even if it is a Lv 6 herb, I should be far enough in the map for Lv 6 herbs to spawn. Maybe the system is intentionally preventing players from crafting Lv 6 pills at this stage of the game?

No, that’s not right. The <> system is controlled by the main computer; even the company can’t interfere with it. There has to be something I’m missing here.

I silently stood and my eyes wandered over the terrain for a long time. Suddenly, I saw something out of the corner of my eye; something poking out of a piece of limestone. I kicked the rock, cracking its surface to reveal a seed-like object breaking through the rock. My heart sunk. My first impression was that some kind of monkey would jump out at me but of course that’s impossible. With the help of a little poking and prodding, the rock gradually broke open with a few crackling noises, and there, before my eyes, was a dark green seed —— the Green Qilin Grass!

Note: The monkey is a reference to Journey to the East, a classic in Chinese literature.

Great!

I am so excited! I was finally able to find the Green Qilin Herb. Although it’s extremely small and looked like any other old bean sprout, a dark green light shone from its tiny leaves, a sign of its power. Lv 6 herbs are really special!

I needed to collect the Green Qilin Herb without damaging the roots, so I carefully tried to scoop out the top of the limestone using my trowel. However, upon failing to make even a dent to the stone after many attempts with the trowel, I realized that this rock is abnormally strong!

Out of anger, I stabbed at the rock with my sword, breaking it to reveal herb inside. I then used the trowel to collect it——

Ding!

System Notification: You have collected [Green Qilin Herb] x 2, [Herb Collecting] proficiency +5. Since you are the first player to collect the Green Qilin Herb, you received +1 charm!

……

Not bad, I even got a point in charm…

Continuing my search, I carefully examined each rock for bumps on their surfaces while killing some more Flaming Cat Spirits to clear the area. Not long after, I had 100 Green Qilin Grasses in my inventory. However, having already spent 2 hours or so in the area, I felt a premonition telling me to get moving. Danger is coming. The Tyrant of Western Chu I know would not just leave matters the way they are right now.

I gripped my sword tightly as I scanned the area, seeing that there were still many Flaming Cat Spirits around me. Although they give a lot of experience, it is tough to take one down, let alone a whole group of them. Their [Flame Fan Dance] ability is particularly dangerous, since it deals up to 1000 damage, which is more HP than I can afford to lose. They also seem to be very sensitive to my chain skill and can sense where my chains appear from. Once they see my chains, all of the surrounding Flaming Cat Spirits immediately lock on to them and destroy them using the [Flame Fan Dance] skill. They must hate being restrained.

I cracked open the last black rock and carefully harvested another Green Qilin Herb.

After collecting all of the herbs in the area, I continued searching for more Green Qilin Grasses. As I headed deeper into the Green Qilin Abyss, in search of more grasses, I came across an enormous stone wall, which was carved with the ancient etchings of a mighty beast. It stood, like a totem, towering over everything in the vicinity. This beast must have something to do with the name of the area I’m in, the Green Qilin Abyss. It did, in fact, resemble the figure of the legendary Qilin.

I sat down to take a quick breather, contemplating whether or not I should wait and go back to check if the Green Qilin Herbs have respawned. I can only craft 30 Green Qilin Pills with the 100 Green Qilin Herbs I have in my inventory and that is nowhere near enough to make the amount of money I need.

Giving up, I checked my friend list to find that Song Han and his party were already Lv 30. Those guys are amazing; they grinded to Lv 30 in only 3 days, an incredible feat.

I sent a message to Song Han, “Little Wolf, how are you guys doing?”

He replied, “Everything is going according to plan. We recently recruited a Healer for our party. He runs a small shop selling shoes and hats so he has a lot of free time on his hands. He’s been online a lot and grinding is so much easier with a Lv 33 Healer.”

“Mm, nice. Don’t be afraid to give him any equips that he needs and make sure not to chase him away. It would be extremely beneficial to have a Healer on Zhan Long as well since the four of us isn’t going to be enough.”

“I understand. Don’t worry, with Fox here, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Ah, okay. How much money did you guys make while grinding?”

“Eh…It’s been almost 5 hours and we’ve since collected a total of 34 gold coins. Convert that into 340 Yuan (~$55) and dividing among us nets me, Fox, and Old K 110 Yuan per day. That’s currently more than enough to pay for our game card and groceries… But don’t worry, just wait until we hit the higher levels and get to the high leveled mobs. Coins will literally be dropping from the sky, and making 100 gold coins in a day should be easy as finding them on the ground.”

I chuckled. “Don’t forget that the gold coins’ value is still dropping due to the inflation in game while the number of coins dropped by a mob doesn’t change. To keep things short, making money like this can only be a temporary plan, the methods of a noob studio. You need to hurry up and grind to Lv 40, so we can go and do the higher level missions. Your list of priorities should be helping others, killing bosses, making money, and guaranteeing that the studio functions normally!”

“Got it. Oh yeah, Xiao Yao, don’t forget that the server will be down from 3 to 12 AM tomorrow. Although we won’t be able to go online for a while, we should be able to get a good 11 hours of sleep, so we can be in good condition for tomorrow.

“Okay, sleep tight, I’ll also sleep 11 hours…”

“Haha!”

“Good night!”

……

With the conversation dying down, I returned to my task of clearing the area of Flaming Cat Spirits. I aggroed them one by one to make it easier and within 2 hours I gained 31% of my experience. If I wiped out the rest of the Flaming Cat Spirits, I should be able to reach Lv 47 and regain my spot in the Top 10 in the Ba Huang City leaderboards.

The task of killing Flaming Cat Spirits quickly became tedious so I opened up the forum to check the top posts. Surprisingly, one of the posts is about me ——

【Video】Xiao Yao Zi Zai is being chased by [Wrath of the Heroes] in Green Qilin Valley!

I clicked on it and watched as my character jumped down from a tree to quickly take out a group of Wind Elf class players. I remember fighting a total of 22 of them and even making them retreat. Apparently a lot of the players thought that it was an amazing feat and the video already had several thousand replies—

【Post 1 (Player General Li Mu)】: Cough cough, Xiao Yao Zi Zai V5, destroy those [Wrath of the Heroes] members!

Note: V5 is slang for something… probably like OP or great job

【Post 2 (Player Half City)】: It is almost impossible to even fight a 1 v 22, let alone win one! Times are changing quickly; can the [Wrath of the Heroes] really believe that they will be one of China’s top 10 guilds? How stupid are they? Keep dreaming…

【Post 3 (Player Yan Zhao Warrior)】: To the above post. It’s not that the [Wrath of the Heroes] members are weak, it’s just that Xiao Yao Zi Zai is strategically stronger than them. He was able to quickly analyze the terrain and use the tree to ambush his enemies. Not only did he outplay his opponents but his gear is also very good. He also has [Heal] which he learned as a Healer so his HP is always high. On top of all that, his pet is god tier and he even created his own [Combo], which is rumored to be S-ranked. It is a combination of these factors which allowed him to fight 1 v 22 and win.

【Post 4 (Player Cang Tong)】: Li Xiao Yao’s pretty stupid…

【Post 5 (Player Cang Yue)】: Love him so much

【Post 6 (Demacia)】: The #1 healer pulls out different surprises out of his bag of tricks each time. It’s so fun watching Xiao Yao Zi Zai do the unexpected. Haha, I wonder if [Wrath of the Heroes] will continue chasing him after this defeat. Hopefully they don’t all die in the Green Qilin Abyss or else their guild would lose a ton of face LOL!

【Post 7 (Frozen Gravestone)】: Damn, he’s so strong! It’s hard to imagine that Xiao Yao Zi Zai is a Ba Huang City player like me. He’s way out of my league and really scary too…I wonder, in a 1 v 1 between him and Jian Feng Han, who would win?

【Post 8 (Crazy)】: Stop dreaming last post! It doesn’t matter how strong Xiao Yao Zi Zai gets, he won’t match Jian Feng Han. Don’t forget… Jian Feng Han has the strongest sword on the server, the Purple Rank Heavenly Plan Sword. Xiao Yao Zi Zai may not even be able to take one round of Jian Feng Han’s [Combo]!

……

There were countless posts on the forums but I stayed calm and didn’t bother leaving even one reply.

After that I looked at the website information and discovered new information, it’s is called “Hero Chaos: CBN’s Destiny Battle Network Leaderboard Officially Opens!”

I clicked on the description and stared blankly at it——

CBN (China-Destiny Battle.net) Destiny’s leaderboard: Called “China’s Destiny’s Overall Leaderboard”, it will be the most scientific way of judging the strength of the players!

……

Damn, only one sentence and nothing more. What the hell?

I opened my friends list and just as I was about to chat with someone to find out more, I heard a drop, and found Wan Er’s call request. I immediately accepted it and heard a sweet voice——

“Hi, Li Xiao Yao have you seen the new game mode? Don’t always PvP other players…”

I nodded, “Mm, I saw it but I didn’t understand it.”

Wan Er smiled, “In short, just search online for your own ranking tomorrow and you’ll know. I’ve got the information from a certain place and this CBN leaderboard is reliant on the player’s PvP battle achievements in all sorts of games. So, you player killing enthusiasts might even be ranked very high since every time you battle with other players the system will automatically record it. Hehe, from now on if the guilds are looking for players they won’t only look at the level, they’ll look at the CBN leader board too…”

I smiled, “So that’s how it is, I understand now, but as of right now, Q-Sword and Jian Feng Han‘s rankings will be pretty high…”

Wan Er is speechless, “Don’t compare yourself to them, those are the skilled and high-tiered players, people like you……should compare yourself to Tyrant of Western Chu, that would be wiser…”

I laugh, “Miss, you are too unloving…”

“I’m not joking…” In the calling screen, Wan Er smiled, showing her dimples and acted poutful.

……

Whoosh!

Suddenly, I heard movements above me. I immediately raised my head and I see several vines swinging back and forth. My heart couldn’t help but sink and I said quietly, “Wan Er, I can’t chat anymore, I have a bit of a problem!”

Lin Wan Er is smart; she realized what was happening and warned me: “Be careful, and don’t die!”

“Ok!”