Chapter 52 We Accept Your Terms

"We agree to your conditions." Ye Xiu received the message from Ye Weiyang and smiled. He replied, "See you tonight then."

"What time tonight?" Ye Weiyang replied.

"That's hard to say. I've got a mixed group here, and I need to contact them. The time is hard to pin down. Everyone's on tonight, right? Whenever everyone's ready, that's when we'll start!" Ye Xiu said casually.

"Can't you contact them now?"

"They're not online," Ye Xiu said.

After a moment of silence, another message came: "Nine o'clock tonight. That's 4 hours and 37 minutes from now. I think that should be enough time for you to gather your team, right?"

"Uh, maybe..." Ye Xiu wasn't really sure. Even Tang Rou had gone out with Chen Guo today. Who knew if she'd be back? Su Mucheng and Qiao Yifan usually weren't online at that time either. Steamed Bun Invasion would usually be around, but if he wasn't, Ye Xiu had no idea where to find him.

"Then, nine o'clock tonight," the other side said.

"Alright, see you then," Ye Xiu said.

"No waiting after the deadline. We'll reschedule," the reply came back.

As expected, it was Zhang Xinjie. Ye Xiu laughed and didn't reply to the message. His Lord Grim was still on the road, trying to avoid the players passing by. He wasn't planning on going back to Congee City. After all, he was still the target of public criticism. Even with the bet with Tyrannical Ambition, Ye Xiu didn't dare guarantee that they wouldn't try to stab him in the back and suppress him.

He just wanted to repair the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. The NPCs that provided this service could be found in many villages and towns. He didn't necessarily need to go to Congee City.

Bujier Village near Frost Forest was where Ye Xiu eventually arrived. This village was similar to the small villages outside Congee City. It wasn't a safe zone, and there were no monsters to level up on. There were only NPCs who gave out various tasks, diligently playing their roles in the Glory world.

There was an NPC in the village who could repair equipment. Ye Xiu had just found this information on the web. This area was considered low-level, so there would be fewer people from the big guilds. Moreover, the village was in a remote location with no valuable tasks, so there probably wouldn't be many people here.

Everything was as Ye Xiu expected. It was a fairly deserted village. After entering and finding the NPC, he immediately repaired the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. At level 25, even though it was a self-made weapon, repairing it didn't require any materials. All he had to do was pay. The system would calculate the price based on the equipment's basic stats, and the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was undoubtedly quite expensive. However, Ye Xiu wasn't worried about such a small amount of money.

He had plenty of extra materials from winning against Tiny Herb. Selling a few would get him some money. Many of the things Ye Xiu had asked for in his bet with Zhang Xinjie weren't actually needed to upgrade the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. He had asked for everything he could get. The rest he needed could be found in the Blazing Forest dungeon. However, the players in the tenth server weren't high enough level yet. Ye Xiu didn't dare let Tyrannical Ambition give him an IOU right now. With such a tense relationship, Ye Xiu had no doubt that Tyrannical Ambition would go back on their word. So he asked for things that Tyrannical Ambition could definitely provide. He could always use them to trade later.

After repairing his equipment, he was about to leave when he heard an online notification in his friends list. Ye Xiu clicked it and saw that it was Steamed Bun Invasion.

"God, you're here!" As soon as Steamed Bun Invasion came online, he immediately sent Ye Xiu a message.

"Yeah, I'm here! Have you been online during the day? Did you run into any trouble?" Ye Xiu asked. Steamed Bun Invasion was completely caught up in their dispute. If the big guilds were also watching him because of it, then he would be more wronged than Dou E.

"I was on for a while at noon. Nothing happened!" Steamed Bun Invasion said.

"Oh, that's good. How's your strategy guide coming along?" Ye Xiu asked.

"Uh, it's a lot more complicated than fighting a boss! But I'm about a fifth of the way done. Do you want to take a look, God?" Steamed Bun Invasion said.

"Sure!"

"How do I give it to you?"

"Add my QQ!" Ye Xiu sent him his number and logged into QQ. Soon, he received a friend request. He saw that the other person's QQ name was also Steamed Bun Invasion. And his own QQ name was also his game ID.

A fiery red maple leaf was the QQ avatar.

One Autumn Leaf was the QQ name.

Looking at these, Ye Xiu couldn't help but sigh. He casually lit a cigarette, opened the settings, changed his avatar to the default, and changed his name to Lord Grim.

One Autumn Leaf was in the past, although the past wasn't too long ago.

Ye Xiu silently accepted Steamed Bun Invasion's friend request. Steamed Bun Invasion immediately sent him a document: "Straightforward Strategy Guide for First Lline Canyon."

"You're still calling it 'straightforward'? Actually, your strategy guide shouldn't be called 'straightforward'. Although it's a detailed, step-by-step process, I don't know what kind of idiot could actually pull it off," Ye Xiu replied.

"It's just a name, call it whatever. God, please take a look." Steamed Bun Invasion obviously wasn't too concerned about the name. What he really needed was recognition of his own worth.

"Alright, I'll take a look. You go do your thing. I'll find you later," Ye Xiu said.

"Thank you, thank you!" Steamed Bun Invasion said repeatedly.

Ye Xiu had already run First Line Canyon many times and had been paying attention to how to break the record. After Tang Rou went to rest in the morning, he had studied the dungeon's strategy guide and videos for more than an hour and already had a rough idea in his mind.

So, what about Steamed Bun Invasion? What could this pure theorist do? Ye Xiu opened the document and saw that it started with a class introduction. But the five classes listed were actually unspecialized, Launcher, Battle Mage, Thief, and Ghostblade. This was obviously based on Ye Xiu's team. Ye Xiu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He had only read the first line before he went to find Steamed Bun Invasion. "Hey, why did you put unspecialized in there? I'm not representative."

"Ah ah... I just wanted to try it," Steamed Bun Invasion said.

Ye Xiu guessed that this guy wanted to use their five as a live experiment to verify the feasibility of his strategy guide. But the problem was that using Lord Grim as a template was too limiting for others. Where else in the game was there an unspecialized character? Even if there was an unspecialized character, who else had the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella?

An unspecialized character with the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella and an unspecialized character without the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella were two completely different concepts. If Steamed Bun Invasion didn't understand this self-made weapon, then he couldn't write a strategy guide that was suitable for Lord Grim. You have to know that a detailed strategy guide like the one he wanted to write required accurate judgement of the damage and effect of each attack. Any deviation could cause a coordination error. This was absolutely not allowed for a strategy guide aimed at breaking a dungeon record.

Ye Xiu thought about it and continued to read, paying special attention to the parts about unspecialized characters. As expected, the content about unspecialized characters was incoherent. Besides lacking information about Lord Grim, there were many other loopholes in the unspecialized parts.

Steamed Bun Invasion mainly relied on previous strategy guides and video materials to write his strategy guide. But the strategy guides and videos for unspecialized characters were quite old. It was difficult for him to even find them. The game system had been updated many times since then, and other classes would conduct new research based on each update. But the strategy guides and videos for unspecialized characters were still from seven or eight years ago. The things Steamed Bun Invasion wrote were completely out of sync with the current situation.

"This... I'm afraid this won't work..." Ye Xiu looked at it for less than two minutes before telling Steamed Bun Invasion the truth. Steamed Bun Invasion wasn't stupid, he was just a bit of a stickler and took things for granted. Ye Xiu didn't say much before he immediately understood and was ashamed of his big mistake.

"Unspecialized really won't work. I need to change to a different class," Steamed Bun Invasion replied to Ye Xiu.

"Actually, you should continue with your previous idea for the boss strategy guides. Running a dungeon is like killing a boss. There's actually a most efficient class combination," Ye Xiu said.

"Yeah, I saw some strategy guides mention that. I was originally planning to use that as a template, but I thought your unspecialized character was more powerful."

"Unspecialized characters do have a clear advantage with multiple skills in the early stages. But the problem is that there are no more unspecialized characters now. Writing a strategy guide with unspecialized characters is like your previous boss strategy guides. It's a strategy guide written for people who don't need it," Ye Xiu replied.

"Okay, I understand," Steamed Bun Invasion said.

"You should also run more dungeons to gain practical experience," Ye Xiu said. Steamed Bun Invasion really had a good grasp of theoretical knowledge, and he was very smart. But his practical experience was too disproportionate to his theory. He was too inflexible and often made presumptuous mistakes. Others could see it at a glance, but he was still blissfully unaware.

Steamed Bun Invasion went back to studying the strategy guide. Ye Xiu flipped through his QQ friends list and saw that Su Mucheng was online.

"Training over?" Ye Xiu sent a message.

Su Mucheng looked at the flashing avatar. She clicked on it, and saw the familiar number, but the avatar and name had changed. Su Mucheng was stunned for a moment. Ye Xiu's second message had already arrived: "Are you free at nine tonight?"

"Yeah, I'm free. What are you doing?"

"Come play the game. We have a team PK scheduled."

"Oh, with who?"

"Zhang Xinjie."

"Him? Why did he come to the new server?" Su Mucheng was surprised.

"Yesterday, after you and Yifan logged off, the three of us went around and ran into a world boss. It was in Tyrannical Ambition's hands at the time. We guarded it until the last moment and then snatched it. They must have been furious. Then today, I ran into a team from Tyrannical Ambition. If I guessed correctly, the team's Priest should have been Zhang Xinjie playing in their place," Ye Xiu said.

"And then you guys arranged a team PK for tonight?" Su Mucheng asked.

"Yes, he suggested it. I don't think he knows who I am yet."

"Really? Then he's made a big miscalculation this time. I think he's in big trouble," Su Mucheng said.

"I think so too, so I agreed," Ye Xiu replied.

"What's this?" Just as she sent a message, she received a small item from Su Mucheng.

"New avatar," Su Mucheng said.

Ye Xiu received it and clicked it open.

"Damn, what is this? Laugh? It looks like you're crying. Why hasn't your drawing skills improved after all these years?" Ye Xiu replied while setting this crude "laugh" drawn with "Paint" as his new QQ avatar.