Chapter Forty: Toxic, Toxic (1/2)

Xiao Yu had once attained a very high stage level for this game. Even though he had not touched the game for a while, his experience was undisputable – He could level up very quickly when he played the game again.

Xiao Yu used those few hours of idle time within the day to level up to the lowest rank of the silver stage, not advancing any further, simply waiting for Lin Zhou to ‘lead him’.

The players for this game preferred calling it ‘Toxic’ rather than its original name. That may be due to the similar way of saying it, or perhaps because it was like an addictive drug that made them unable to stop playing it. Who knows.

Xiao Yu picked a very ‘suitable’ timing to invite Lin Zhou to play Toxic together.

As SI’s former chief designer, Xiao Yu knew exactly when the company work hours and break times were. For example, on every Tuesday, the morning meeting would end between nine to eleven a.m. Everyone would be drowsy, but they were left with no choice but to quickly get back to work.

If the morning agenda was not met, then the employees would need to work overtime in the afternoon to make up for that portion. The majority of them would definitely make use of that allocated time – it would be the same case even for a design director like Lin Zhou.

[Fish and Hamster – You Can’t Have Both]: I have some free time now. You want a match?

[Lil’ Ye-Zhou]: Hold on, I’ll get on really quick.

The thought of Lin Zhou’s troubled expression made Xiao Yu feel extremely pleased. He reckoned that Lin Zhou was probably puzzled as to why Chairman Yan would have free time at this hour. But no matter how many brain cells he killed, Lin Zhou would never have guessed that the person asking him to play the game was not even Yan Jin, but Xiao Yu, who had become a hamster.

Five minutes later, the two people, oh no, the one human and one hamster entered the game and looked for teammates for the fight.

After the lineup was done, it was time to choose their roles. Lin Zhou sent a message, “You guys choose first, I’ll take what’s left.”

Xiao Yu immediately understood Lin Zhou’s plan – to gain a favorable impression in front of Yan Jin.

A bad mood filled his heart, so Xiao Yu immediately chose the archer role.

Xiao Yu’s account belonged to the lower ranks while Lin Zhou’s account was at a higher rank. The allocated teammates were in between their levels. In other words, they were all ranked higher than Xiao Yu. At first, under this kind of situation of ‘being led’, Xiao Yu should have chosen a role that could easily absorb experience without much effort put in. Yet he had chosen the archer role that was supposed to be responsible for dealing damage output, and that put his teammates in a difficult situation.

Xiao Yu took a glance at his hero’s battle records – Deployed Count: 0, Success Rate: 0 – he couldn’t even bear to tell them that.

Even without sending his battle records, it was possible to check from the account’s information. The account that Xiao Yu used mainly played Assassin and Mage; the Archer role had not been used for more than ten rounds. Thankfully, their teammates were of high quality and did not quarrel with Xiao Yu when they could not choose the role they wanted.

In the end, there were a mage and an assassin, one warrior in the jungle, with Xiao Yu as the archer and Lin Zhou choosing the veteran tanker. It would be hard to lead the team, but the output looked quite decent.

Then a message came from Lin Zhou on QQ.

[Lil’ Ye-Zhou]: Follow me, I’ll protect you.

Xiao Yu smirked.

Battle Start.

Xiao Yu ran upfront using displacement shifts that accelerated his speed. Lin Zhou’s tanker followed behind Xiao Yu’s archer and headed in the direction of the lower routes. At the start of a battle, the basic tactic was for the archer to take the red buff – Xiao Yu knew that, but he simply chose not to take it.

He was a ‘newbie’ after all. Wasn’t it perfectly normal not to know that he should take the red buff?

The archer carried the heavy artillery and ran all the way to the bottom of the tower, pretending not to see the red buff lying by the roadside.

A message promptly appeared on the public channel.

Tank (Lin Zhou): Give red 2 sin.

Even Xiao Yu had to give him a like for his capability to save the situation.

Even though Lin Zhou was harboring ulterior motives.

Xiao Yu conservatively hid himself under the tower as he took in the minions, occasionally fending off the midboss characters. Lin Zhou fulfilled his promise and beautifully ‘protected’ Xiao Yu. For the first five minutes, it was as if the two of them were playing a two-player game – not synced with the team, no kills, still alive, keeping a 000-battle score.

Then the opposing team’s assassin went to the lower routes to face off against Xiao Yu. After a few sound outs, the opposing team launched an attack. Xiao Yu, who had barely appeared, went into hiding underneath the tower again without even scoring any damage. The assassin probably did not expect his opponent to have such cold-feet. After they went so overboard with the attacks that they did not retreat in time, the assassin from the opposing team was dealt with along the way. That was a pleasant surprise. Fifteen minutes later, two towers on the upper route were destroyed, the middle route lost just one tower for each team and Xiao Yu and Lin Zhou’s lower route was slightly better – not a single tower lost.

The opposing team did not lose either.

In a normal situation, the archer and tanker’s routes would always fare better and could easily take one life count and one tower. Indeed, Lin Zhou’s tanker was well-played, as he almost killed off the opponent a few times. However, Xiao Yu’s archer would occasionally slip up and drag Lin Zhou down together.

The few times that there were team fights, Xiao Yu did not join in. Lin Zhou did abandon him to join the team fight, so Xiao Yu would quietly tuck himself into the lower route to defend the tower. The opponent’s mage-tank did not join the team fight either as he continued to suppress Xiao Yu and make him use up his life bar.

After the team fight, everyone had been killed except for Xiao Yu.

While waiting to be revived, messages began to pop up on the public channel.

Assassin: Archer, you’re Buddhist¹?

Xiao Yu clicked open the battle scorecard: Assassin532, 5 deaths with 3 kills and 2 assists.

Then Xiao Yu turned to look at his own battle scores: 001. Emmmm…