This Lan He was, of course, the very same player as Jun Moxiao whose name had appeared twice on the system announcements. He was no small fry either—he belonged to Blue Brook Pavilion, one of Glory's three great guilds. On the Heavenly Domain, he owned a Blade Master character named Blue River, one of Blue Brook Pavilion's five great experts. But veteran players all knew that top guilds like Blue Brook Pavilion stood behind the backing of professional clubs, and those five great experts weren't even their apex—the professional masters of the club teams behind them were.
Behind Blue Brook Pavilion was the team of the Blue Rain Club, whose most elite expert was called Huang Shaotian. His account was Troubling Rain, class Blade Master, hailed in Glory circles as the Sword Saint—a character as renowned as the Battle God, One Autumn Leaf.
When Zone 10 opened, Blue Brook Pavilion sent Lan He to lead a group of players into the new zone to pioneer it, developing the guild's influence there and recruiting fresh blood. Only someone from one of the three great guilds would have such audacity as to covet all the dungeon records of a new zone. Who could have guessed that at the Level 10 dungeon, Spider Cave, their plan would collapse in failure—and by a mere ten seconds, no less. His brothers were depressed, and Lan He's mood wasn't much better.
"Jun Moxiao……" Murmuring this name, Lan He shared the same bewilderment as everyone else. Battlefields where guilds of Blue Brook Pavilion's caliber contended with one another were mainly in the Heavenly Domain. After years of competition, they knew each other's experts inside and out. Which experts each had sent to pioneer Zone 10 this time had all been scouted out; their intelligence was nearly complete. Yet this Jun Moxiao was not on any of the lists they had gathered. Could it be that some expert had secretly rolled up an alt to sneak in?
"Do we have any intel on the four people teamed with him?" Lan He asked.
"None," said one of the brothers.
"Contact the brothers stationed in the other villages and ask around, see if anyone knows anything," Lan He said. Since the starting villages were distributed randomly, the Blue Brook Pavilion people who'd come hadn't been lucky enough to all land together. Everyone was developing where they were—leveling up on their own while scouting promising newcomers—and would regroup after reaching Level 20, leaving the starting villages and establishing the guild's presence.
The Blue Brook Pavilion players who had come over were led by Lan He, so his side naturally served as the command center. In truth, no major guild's people could cover every starting village—that sort of thing was random, impossible to predict. But just as Lan He and the others stormed back into Spider Cave to grind levels in earnest, the intelligence they'd gathered finally began to bear some fruit.
Except this intel, far from clarifying anything about that group, only left them even more confused.
The reported intelligence stated that outside the Green Woods dungeon of a certain village, someone from that five-man party called Sleeping Moon had once flooded the local channel, accusing Jun Moxiao of deliberately sabotaging a run to steal a hidden boss……
"What the hell is this?" Everyone found it baffling.
So this Jun Moxiao first sabotaged someone to steal their hidden boss for a first kill, and then partied up with those same people to take the first kill of Spider Cave? Such a bizarre turn of events left even five seasoned veterans utterly puzzled.
"Forget it for now. Focus on leveling. Once we hit twenty, there'll be chances to meet sooner or later." Lan He spoke in a low voice and led the team onward into the slaughter.
Outside the Spider Cave of a certain village, Tian Qi and the other three were still wallowing in the excitement of the dungeon's first kill, unable to pull themselves out. They were tiers upon tiers below experts like Lan He, so things like first kills had basically existed for them only in the realm of fantasy. Who'd have thought they'd actually get to accomplish one? For a moment, they were too excited to know what to say.
And their great benefactor, Jun Moxiao? He still looked calm as the dead, saying only, flatly: "Pretty decent EXP, huh!"
"Master, we owe this all to you!" Tian Qi and the others crowded around Jun Moxiao. Having played Glory for so long, today they finally understood what a top-tier expert meant. A top-tier expert was someone whose mere presence could turn a dungeon that novices should detour around into a walk in the park. Tian Qi even felt that an expert like this would be well worth abandoning the guild to follow.
Compared to the high spirits of Tian Qi and the other two, Sleeping Moon's mood was utterly gloomy. He watched his former enemy transform into a hero in his brothers' eyes, and on top of that, he had harbored petty suspicions during the last run, so his brothers all had some grievances against him. If he didn't say something now, he truly wouldn't be able to hold his head up. Gritting his teeth, Sleeping Moon jumped in front of Jun Moxiao: "Your skills are really good, I'll admit that. But I swear, one day I will catch up to you!"
"Are you serious?" Ye Xiu smiled.
"Yes!" Sleeping Moon uttered the single word with maximum provocation.
"Good luck." Ye Xiu returned two words and walked off.
"Holy shi—……" Sleeping Moon was clawing at the walls, driven half-mad: You're mocking me! You're scorning me! You're laughing at me! Isn't this how a master is supposed to respond to a challenge? What the hell is it supposed to mean, saying "good luck" like nothing happened, you—!
"Xiao Yueyue, quit making a scene." Tian Qi came over to play peacemaker.
"Damn it, you're the Xiao Yueyue!" Sleeping Moon fumed.
"Dungeon, dungeon. Hurry up and level." The other two brothers, Mu Yunshen and Qian Shengli, called out a greeting and then scurried off to add Jun Moxiao as a friend.
"Hey, adding friends without me?" Tian Qi hurriedly rushed over too.
Sleeping Moon was grinding his teeth—when unexpectedly, he received a friend request from Jun Moxiao himself.
Decline. Sleeping Moon declined it without the slightest hesitation.
If he sent it again, then…… Sleeping Moon thought. But this if never came to pass. Jun Moxiao had already entered the dungeon, Tian Qi and the other two followed in one after another, and Sleeping Moon alone was left outside. Only after a long while did he receive a message from Tian Qi asking about him. Sleeping Moon was so depressed—when he finally entered the dungeon and looked, damn it, the four of them hadn't waited for him at all and had already fought their way through a stretch. Apparently they'd only just noticed he was missing.
Sleeping Moon was tempted to quit out again, but then Tian Qi's message came once more. A brother's concern was still rather welcome to him, and on reflection, he couldn't chill his brothers' hearts over that guy, so in the end he caught up. Tian Qi was really quite skilled at handling relationships, and he keenly noticed Sleeping Moon's displeasure, so he launched into another round of private-chat consolation, and Sleeping Moon's mood improved considerably.
This dungeon run again went smoothly as ever, and in a flash another round was cleared. They came out, exchanged hardly a word, and went straight into a third round—but the moment they entered, a system notification popped up: You have strayed into the Spider Lord's lair.
"Hidden boss," Tian Qi cried out in alarm, then looked toward Jun Moxiao.
Without this master present, they would never have dared touch Spider Cave's hidden boss under current conditions. The system was quite considerate on this point—the hidden boss did not block the mandatory path to clearing the dungeon; killing it was optional, and clearing the dungeon was still determined by whether the final boss was slain. Now the four of them all looked at Jun Moxiao in unison, wanting to see whether, with this expert in charge, there was some way to slay the hidden boss.
"Oh, so a hidden boss popped up!" Ye Xiu said. "Er, if it's the hidden boss……"
"Can't we kill it?" Tian Qi and the others were a little disappointed.
"It's not that we can't kill it—I just have a bit of a request. The Spider Lord supposedly drops Powerful Spider Silk, right? Could that go to me? I'll give up all the other materials and equipment—you can take whatever you want," Ye Xiu said.
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