Chapter 392: Iron Mercenaries (1/2)
I complained at the loss of gold, but it was a necessary sacrifice I had to make for He Yi’s sake, so I paid the blacksmith 100k gold and left the materials with him. While he was working, Shadow Dancer Xue Wei and I sat together at a nearby stone bench and waited for him to finish.
……
Ding ding…
The Master Blacksmith sweated like it was raining as he smashed his hammer against the melted Ice Soul Steel and Soulstones again and again. He also tempered the gemstones before fitting them onto the molten metal.
The good news was that the forging process didn’t take long at all. It was finished in just ten minutes or so!
Ding~!
System Notice: Congratulations, your ”Ice Soul Barrier” (Spirit-grade, Outstanding★★★) has been forged!
……
The next moment, the blacksmith passed me the exquisite shield with ice flying around it with a smile. ”Are you satisfied with my work, my lord?”
I accepted the shield and examined it closely. The refined shield was well designed and beautiful-looking, and I was sure that He Yi would fall in love with it at first sight. Feeling pretty overjoyed myself, I replied to the blacksmith ”I love it” repeatedly while checking the shield’s stats. It was astonishingly good—
Ice Soul Barrier (Spirit Grade, Outstanding★★★)
Defense: 760
Magic Resist: 520
Strength: +95
Stamina: +90
Passive: Increases user’s Defense by 15%
Passive: Increases user’s physical Attack by 20%
Slots: 3
Outstanding Property: Summon “Ice Soul Shield” to slow down the attacker’s speed drastically.
Introduction: The Ice Soul Steel is the culmination of the Ice Soul Giant’s soul essence, and when infused with Soulstones they create the alloy used to create the Ice Soul Barrier. The shield is capable of forming Ice Soul Shield capable of protecting its user with magic as mysterious as it is profound.
Level Requirement: 125
……
I hurriedly teleported back to Sky City and used a Convenience Gem to lower its level requirement. Murong Mingyue was the one who spent considerable effort to buy it off the hands of a seller by the roadside. At first, the seller refused to part with the gem no matter what she offered him, so she changed to a robe with a low-cut and tried again. The little virgin’s defenses easily fell to the unstoppable tsunami that was Murong Mingyue’s voluptuous chest.
Finally, everything was ready to go. The Ice Soul Barrier had lower Defense and HP than Gui Guzi’s Spirit-grade shield, but its outstanding property, Ice Soul Shield, more than made up for it. From now on, anyone who wished to harm our ice beauty would have to first consider if the risk of being slowed was worth the reward!
I messaged He Yi immediately: ”Eve, come to the eastern gate plaza as soon as you can!”
”Okay!”
I nodded with a smile. ”Yep. This shield’s amazing, isn’t it? Still think you’ll drag us down when Who Will Rise begins?”
He Yi me stared at me with teary eyes before she finally let go of her modesty and hugged me tightly. She said quietly beside my ears, ”You… Why do you always make me cry…”
I felt my embarrassment creeping up to my face as nearby players started pointing fingers at us—
”Look, the guild leader of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, From Water, just hugged the vice leader, Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand! I knew there was something going on between them!”
”Yeah yeah! Just two days ago, that bastard held Wind Fantasy’s hand right here…”
”Really?”
”Really. I’ll eat a shoe if I lied to you!”
”Shit, what a lucky man. I could die happy if I could have From Water and Wind Fantasy for my own one day…”
”You’re despicable!”
……
My veins bulged with killing intent for a moment. The gall of these liars! I might have held Lin Yixin’s hand in real life, but never inside the game, okay!? I hope Eve didn’t catch what they’re saying...
”Eve, how much is your Defense right now?” I asked.
He Yi checked her stats and replied, ”I have over 1900 Defense right now, hehe…”
”WTF!”
It was a bit astonishing, to be honest. Magic knights were natural tanks because they got access to mounts way sooner than other classes, and they could equip shields. Gui Guzi’s Titan Barrier gave even more Defense than He Yi’s Ice Soul Barrier, so he had to have over 2000 Defense right now. Dang, his Defense completely outstrips mine now!
He Yi didn’t seem to mind the bystanders’ gossip because she simply released my hand and smiled. ”Alright. It’s time to log out and eat lunch, Lu Chen. Let’s do our best in the upcoming matches!”
”Yeah!”
I checked the rules of the Who Will Rise preliminaries before I logged out for lunch. It was as simple as it was cruel: Lose one match, and you’re out of the tournament. Here’s another example: over 17 million parties or nearly 100 million Chinese players were participating in this tournament, and all parties would have to win 20 BO3s in a row to make it to the Top 32, the offline segment of the tournament. Moreover, our opponents would only grow stronger the more victories we accumulated. This was going to be a fierce competition for sure!
Each match lasted 5 minutes, so every 20 minutes or so, one party would be disqualified. It would take at least until midnight before our matches were done.
A daunting ordeal lay ahead of me, but I was brimming with excitement nonetheless. Right now I was Level 108, and I had the Heaven-stealing Sword and a full set of high-rank equipment. Unfortunately, pets were disallowed in the tournament, or I would be even stronger with the Sky Obsidian Greedy Wolf by my side. Of course, this requirement didn’t apply to tamers, whose prowess depended entirely on the quantity and quality of the pets they brought. Still, acquiring pets was such a daunting task in this game that there were barely any noteworthy tamers in China at all.