TuxedoTranslations

Chapter 72

Finally, amid everyone’s eager anticipation, the new season of the King’s Tomb League sounded the battle horn.

Every year around this time, the official game would undergo a large-scale update to release the newest, highly difficult dungeon content. These newly developed dungeons often had complex mechanics unknown to most players. The official team wouldn’t provide guides, leaving ordinary players to explore and document strategies themselves—a long, unpredictable process.

Because ordinary players’ skill levels varied, and organized dungeon groups were hard to form, the official team worried that players would become frustrated and quit if they couldn’t clear dungeons. To maintain freshness without losing players, they focused on professional league players.

During the pre-season “Preparation” activities, these professional players would relentlessly explore dungeons for the new top-tier equipment. Their skill levels far exceeded ordinary players, and clubs would assemble elite, coordinated teams—members with top-tier reflexes and game sense—to clear the hardest content in record time. By posting exclusive strategies to attract fans, they solved the dungeon challenge for the official team and boosted their own club’s prestige—a win-win situation.

At dawn, after official server maintenance, the update package was uploaded to the game’s “Cocoon” cloud space. The update was large, requiring significant download time. While the game was updating, all clubs were brightly lit, everyone eager and sleepless. Polaris was no exception.

The official team, in typical style, teased players before the update with dramatic dungeon background music and exquisitely rendered environments and NPCs—but never revealed the dungeon mechanics. Only professional players exploring the update firsthand could uncover them, and the first to master the dungeons would gain the greatest advantage in the early league.

He Youjin ordered a late-night snack so the overnight team could eat, but he was nervous, as if standing at the starting line of a 1,500-meter race, waiting for the coach’s signal—his chest felt crushed by a boulder, heart racing, breath short, worse than actually running.

“You… don’t get nervous! Just play at your usual level!” He Youjin stammered. “After all, it’s just a game…”

“Manager He, maybe don’t speak,” Xia Tong looked up, helpless. “I wasn’t nervous at all, but now… I’m uneasy.”

“Then don’t look at him, don’t listen to him,” Lin Mingfei said, wrapping Xia Tong’s head with his arm and turning him to face Fire.

Zhou Yanjun, plump as ever, sat cross-legged next to the Cocoon holding a bucket of food, gnawing on a buttery corn cob, golden kernels sticking to his mouth. He looked completely relaxed, almost like he’d sleep right there after finishing.

He Youjin tensed. “Fire… you’re not nervous?”

“I am nervous,” Zhou Yanjun mumbled. “I turn my nervousness into appetite. See? That’s how nervous I am!”

“…” He Youjin was dumbfounded. “You’re not nervous at all.”

At that moment, the progress bars on the five Cocoons completed, buzzing “bzz”, and the pods opened simultaneously.

“Quick, quick! Let’s go!” He Youjin’s adrenaline surged. “Stop eating! Fire, get in the game!”

“Alright, alright.” Zhou Yanjun wiped his hands on his waistband and stepped into the Cocoon.

All five players were in position. He Youjin watched the doors slowly close. “Good luck!” he shouted, pumping his fist, feeling his heart race.

Boom.

The doors shut.

At the same time, live viewers on various streaming platforms skyrocketed. Countless King’s Tomb fans—night owls—were either watching continuously or setting alarms just to witness the epic opening. The prominent game IDs lit up simultaneously, charging toward the new dungeon map—the Garoan Ruins.

The comment section was a flood of text and emojis, covering the screen:

【Sabertooth Tiger will win!! Dylan forever the god!!】

【Sabertooth Tiger, Sabertooth Tiger, Sabertooth Tiger!!】

【Charge, Sabertooth Tiger!!!!】

【Can Sabertooth Tiger fans chill for once? I can’t see anything else.】

【Don’t want to see the chat on? Idiot!】

【If I didn’t know better, I’d think Sabertooth Tiger already won the championship, xtms.】

【Even if Sabertooth Tiger doesn’t win, it’s not up to your Shadow team, okay?】

【Why’s the second team acting so cocky? Believe it or not, my D will teach you a lesson immediately.】

【Stop shouting, I just want to see what the new dungeon looks like! A bunch of brainless fans.】

【Can I watch somewhere other than the official stream? Maybe the players’ streams?】

【Friendly reminder: definitely don’t go to the players’ streams.】

【New players, can someone explain why we can’t go to the players’ streams?】

【As usual, there’s going to be total chaos at the entrance of the new dungeon soon.】

【A brawl of dozens of high-level professional players, expect blood and carnage.】

【If you go to a player’s stream, you’ll probably just see death–respawn–death–respawn on loop.】

【If you watch Sabertooth Tiger’s stream, it might be better since they’re usually the last winners and first to enter the dungeon.】

【Haha, here come the Sabertooth Tiger fanboys again. In a free-for-all, everyone is equal, get it? Even Dylan can’t avoid dying!】

【D’s deaths are definitely fewer than your lousy team’s!】

…

Judging by the chat, everyone was extremely excited for this traditional brawl at the dungeon entrance. The fiercer the professional teams fought, the happier the viewers were.

On the Polaris side, everyone logged in one by one.

“Remember to turn on your stream, or you’ll get fined,” Shi Ya kindly reminded.

“I just turned mine on,” Zhou Yanjun said. “But there’s no one here.”

“Same here,” Bo Yu said.

Shi Ya: “Hmm… I have around a hundred, but the number is dropping. I guess they thought I was some kind of pop star, but realized it didn’t match.”

Xia Tong was still fumbling: “How do I start a stream? I still can’t find it…”

Meanwhile, on Weibo’s King’s Tomb forum, fans were updating the front-line battle report.

【Great news!! Sabertooth Tiger reached the Garoan map first!!】

【Shadow is there too!! Shadow team won’t let Sabertooth Tiger enter first, so they’ll block them!!】

【Just as expected, rivals meet and sparks fly!! They’re already fighting!!】

【Rainbow and Wuhen teams arrived together!! Rainbow tried to sneak in while the free-for-all was happening but Sabertooth Tiger caught them!】

【Hahaha Sabertooth Tiger’s goblin’s AoE accidentally hit Wuhen’s healer. Now it’s a four-team free-for-all!!】

…

Amid all the cheering and discussion, one newly posted status was inconspicuous, quickly pushed down, but carried a melancholy, humble tone:

【Damn, at the crucial moment when all teams are rushing to the new dungeon, the Polaris I follow looks like a bunch of old men who just walked their birds in the park—they’re still struggling with how to start the stream!! What kind of suffering is being their fan!!】

【Reply: Same here, they’re not moving at all. I can’t even participate in the forum discussion qaq.】

【Reply: Are they really just here to take it easy qwq!! I’m terrified!!】

【Reply: I tried warning them in Timer’s stream, but Zero made Timer turn off the chat! And he actually did!!】

【Reply: The entire Polaris team doesn’t care about fans!】

【Reply: You’re wrong, they don’t even consider fans human…】

【Reply: Even like this, you guys still aren’t unfollowing?? Sorry, I won’t unfollow.】

【Reply: Hmph! I want to see what else this team can pull off!】

…

In the game, Shi Ya guided Xia Tong to open his stream, finding a decent number of viewers in Xia Tong’s stream.

Xia Tong: “Eh! Zero, they’re urging us to rush to the battlefield. Is it the new dungeon?”

Lin Mingfei: “You also turn off the chat. Don’t listen to their random commands.”

Xia Tong obediently said: “Oh.”

Bo Yu asked: “So, what do we do now?”

Zhou Yanjun: “I think while they’re in the free-for-all, we should rush in and grab some spoils! Maybe we’ll be first in the dungeon!”

Shi Ya, scrolling the forum: “Rainbow team thinks the same. I think it’s safer to wait a bit before going, so we don’t get hurt in the process.”

Lin Mingfei: “No. We’re not going.”

The other four were shocked: “??? Huh???”

Shi Ya, slightly confused: “Not going? Do you mean what I think you mean?”

Xia Tong: “…You mean giving up the new dungeon?”

Lin Mingfei: “Yes.”

Zhou Yanjun: “What?? Captain, snap out of it!!!”

Lin Mingfei calmly explained: “I’m clear-headed. Look at the times Sabertooth Tiger reached the Garoan map versus Shadow team—they’re nearly a minute apart. That minute would be enough for them to clear the dungeon comfortably. But they didn’t get in and got stuck fighting Shadow team at the entrance. Unless Sabertooth Tiger’s network line was sabotaged causing lag, there’s only one explanation—”

Bo Yu thought for a moment, whispering: “So… Garoan Ruins isn’t a five-person dungeon.”

Lin Mingfei, being thick-skinned, didn’t open the chat when he logged in, unaware of how many spectators were in his stream or the spectacular chat flood occurring.

【Whoa 666666!! This brainstorming session!】

[“The old fox truly lives up to his name! Winning the battle from a thousand miles away!”]

[“Sherlock Holmes himself would call that professional!”]

[“God Z is way too sharp!! Instead of rushing into chaos, might as well get the lineup right first!”]

[“Waaah, as expected of the man I love!! He’s the embodiment of justice and wisdom!”]

…

Lin Mingfei snapped his fingers lazily and said, “Little Bo’s right. I don’t think this is even a five-person dungeon.”

In King’s Tomb, the dungeon types were divided by player size: five-person, ten-person, fifteen-person, and large-scale twenty-five-person dungeons.

Shi Ya pinched his chin thoughtfully. “You make a good point. Even if they win, it’ll take forever to gather a team. And in the process of forming one, a lot could go wrong.”

“The most important thing,” Lin Mingfei lifted a finger and wiggled it with a smile, “is that our P Team can’t even find a sixth member.”

His words landed like a hammer, striking each of the other four square on the head.

“Crap… how did I forget about that?” Zhou Yanjun’s mouth twitched.

“Yeah…” Bo Yu muttered awkwardly. “I keep thinking we’ve got a whole row of trainees and substitutes.”

Shi Ya coughed lightly and forced a smile. “So if it’s not a five-person dungeon, we’re out of the running for this new one, huh?”

Lin Mingfei countered, “Unless you guys are willing to team up with randoms.”

The others instantly replied in unison: “…No, we’re not!”

Xia Tong blinked curiously from the side. “Why not team up with random players?”

Zhou Yanjun’s face twisted in horror. “Because you never know what kind of idiot you’ll end up with!”

Xia Tong: “.”

Seeing that the young mage still looked confused, Shi Ya coughed again and said gently, “You know, once we were doing a twenty-five-person dungeon. One of our trainees got food poisoning and couldn’t come, so we reluctantly picked up a random from global chat. His gear looked amazing—really top-tier—and he seemed smart. But we were wrong.”

“I remember that,” Bo Yu said with a pained groan, pressing a hand to his forehead. “That boss had a skill that required the entire team to jump to avoid it. If you didn’t jump, you got hit with a debuff called Plague Invasion. Anyone who got infected would die, and if they were standing in the crowd, they’d infect others nearby. You can imagine how easy it was to wipe the whole raid.”

“It was actually super simple,” Shi Ya said. “All you had to do was jump the moment Zero said ‘jump.’ Even if both your legs were broken and you couldn’t move, at least if you got hit, you could walk away from the group. But that idiot—sorry, I can’t help but call him an idiot—he acted like he was deaf! Didn’t jump when told, got infected, and then ran straight into the group! Do you know how many times we wiped that night between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m.?”

Xia Tong blinked blankly. “How many?”

Shi Ya gritted his teeth. “Twenty-five times! I swear, we must’ve been the idiots for inviting that fool in the first place!”

Meanwhile, the chat exploded with ellipses.

[“Damn… that’s just tragic.”]

[“For Young Master Shi to actually curse someone out, that guy must’ve been really stupid!”]

[“As a PvE player myself, I totally understand this pain!!”]

[“Been there too!! One rotten apple wiped our whole raid over and over—I cried that night!!”]

[“Team Polaris really has it rough, huh? Can’t even find one extra player.”]

[“They’re so pitiful… but why do I kinda want to laugh?”]

…

“So yeah,” Shi Ya concluded, “I’d rather skip a dungeon entirely than run one with an idiot.”

Zhou Yanjun: “Seconded!”

Xia Tong hesitated. “Mm… but didn’t they say the new dungeon drops really strong gear? Are we just giving up on that? It’s not like we can gather a full team anytime soon…”

“That depends on what the captain decides.” Shi Ya turned his gaze toward Lin Mingfei. “Zero?”

“Give it up,” Lin Mingfei said casually.

“Huh? For real?” Zhou Yanjun’s eyes widened.

“Really.” Lin Mingfei smiled. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

Zhou Yanjun fell silent, then muttered, “Where else can we get higher-tier gear? We can’t exactly go to the pro stage wearing outdated sets.”

“I’ve already thought of that,” Lin Mingfei said, looking utterly unbothered. He arched an eyebrow and smiled. “We can farm points at the Scorpion’s Eye Trench.”

“The Scorpion’s Eye Trench??”

The Scorpion’s Eye Trench was a new PvX-style gameplay mode introduced about a month ago. It had thirty-nine levels of mysterious, deadly challenges. Players had to defeat various monsters and traps, descending layer by layer. Each level cleared earned points, and once all thirty-nine levels were conquered, players could exchange their points with the trench’s ruler — an NPC called the Scorpion King — for exclusive equipment.

“The gear we’re wearing now is Tier 1080,” Shi Ya mused, pinching his chin. “Going by the usual upgrade pattern, the new dungeon probably drops Tier 1400 gear. I remember the developers showed off the Scorpion’s Eye Trench rewards during promotion — the exchangeable gear there is Tier 1500. Let me double-check that.”

“Tier 1500? That’s great!” Xia Tong clapped his hands in delight.

“But the Scorpion’s Eye Trench isn’t exactly easy to grind…” Zhou Yanjun groaned, rubbing his temples. “It’s built for PvX players. If it were easy, every PvX’er would already have a full 1500-tier set. You know the biggest difference between PvX players and us PvP ones?”

Xia Tong: “Hmm?”

Zhou Yanjun: “They’ve got patience. They can do the same boring thing at the same time every single day — and never give up!”

Xia Tong: “Like what?”

Bo Yu: “Like how some players will camp at the same spot every day, at the same time, for dozens of minutes without moving—just to wait for a rare pet to spawn.”

Xia Tong: “Wow! I didn’t know this game even had pets you could camp for!”

Zhou Yanjun: “…Do you ever feel like you picked the wrong side of the game?”

Bullet comments:

【??? Zhou Fatty, are you looking down on PVX players?!】

【As a PVX myself, I feel personally attacked! [knocks desk]】

【But honestly, I’m looking forward to seeing how you PVP maniacs handle the Scorpion’s Eye Trench!】

【Wait, is Polaris actually planning to farm the Scorpion’s Eye Trench??? Are you serious???】

【These PVP dogs really have no clue—have they even looked at what kind of stats the Scorpion King gear gives?】

【😂😂😂 Z-God, look at the chat! You guys are about to make a huge mistake!】

…

Lin Mingfei rested his sniper rifle backward on the ground, lazily giving the final word:

“Anyway, I’ve already explained the situation clearly. We don’t have a choice here. This sacred land that even all the PVX players haven’t cleared—you’ll farm it whether you like it or not.”

“For 1500-grade gear? Fine, let’s do it!” Zhou Yanjun stiffened his neck and said.

At that moment, Shi Ya had already finished scrolling through the forum posts. His face was full of hesitation as he slowly spoke up:

“Um… I don’t know if I should say this.”

“Say it,” Lin Mingfei replied.

Shi Ya: “If I say it, it might ruin your big speech.”

Lin Mingfei: “That’s fine. Go ahead.”

Shi Ya: “I just checked the stats of the Scorpion’s Eye Trench gear exchange… and, uh, it doesn’t really seem suited for PVP.”

Lin Mingfei: “No defensive boosts—only movement speed and breath capacity bonuses, right?”

Shi Ya blinked in surprise. “Huh? You knew?”

In King’s Tomb, players’ characters have several attributes: physical attack, magic attack, defense, movement speed, breath capacity, and so on.

As the names suggest, higher attack means hitting harder; higher defense means being tankier; higher speed makes it harder to get caught; and higher breath capacity means being able to stay longer in underwater maps.

Obviously, the movement speed and breath bonuses were designed purely for the convenience of PVX players—since PVX types often run across maps to camp for pets, take photos, or complete achievements.

But for PVP players, those attributes were practically useless.

Shi Ya knew better than anyone how vital defense stats were for PVP, so he was confused.

“So what exactly… do you mean by this?” he asked cautiously.

Lin Mingfei narrowed his eyes, calm and confident. He hadn’t turned on the chat, and his livestream feed was clean—no barrage, no distraction—but who knew who might be watching on the other side, or with what intentions.

“We’ll discuss the specifics later, offline. Just trust me.” He drummed his fingers lazily on the gun’s body, looking slyly at the stream plugin as if addressing someone unseen. His tone carried a cool disdain.

“But I can’t shake the feeling that some enemy spies are lurking in my chat. What’s the matter? Trying to steal my tricks? Well, guess what—you’re not getting anything from me.”

Feel free to buy me a coffee/show your support on ko-fi! Thank you ❤