TuxedoTranslations

Chapter 76

As the first team to clear all thirty-nine levels of the Scorpion Eye Trench, the five members of Polaris had just discovered the hidden mode—the Scorpion King Duel.

Zhou Yanjun stroked the head of his mount doubtfully. “Uh… can this really be called a duel?”

Lin Mingfei didn’t care. “He’s just one NPC. Us ganging up on him—five weak, helpless, pitiful PvP players—that’s fair, right?”

Shi Ya couldn’t help laughing. “Looks like you really hate him, huh!”

Lin Mingfei cracked his knuckles again. “He didn’t even give me a chance to confirm before wiping out three days of our hard-earned work—I’m itching to tear him apart.”

Bo Yu pointed at the ugly, sharp-tailed arthropod and looked down at Xia Tong. “You’re not scared of it, are you? I remember you were terrified of that ghost emperor in the Snow Palace.”

Xia Tong bounced in place, looking gleeful. “I’m not scared! I can’t wait! What are you all standing around for? Charge, charge, charge!! Big scorpion, here I come!!”

With that, the little wizard dashed forward without hesitation, waving his crystal staff and aiming straight for the Scorpion King’s head.

“Crap, you pulled aggro, Xia Xiaotong!!!”

“Be careful!!!”

“Holy—QAQ!!!”

…Chaos erupted.

When it came to clearing monsters and fighting bosses, Team P were pros—it was second nature, easier than eating or sleeping. Even though the Scorpion King wasn’t an easy opponent, they had the solid fundamentals of a top-tier raid team, plus Xia Tong’s limitless damage output as a powerhouse wizard.

After just over twenty minutes, they took the Scorpion King down.

+800 points earned.

At that rate, it was actually more efficient than running the full dungeon.

The discovery fired everyone up. Even Xia Xiaotong, who had just been stung in the butt by the scorpion’s tail, stopped complaining about the pain. Limping but full of fighting spirit, he followed the team back into the dungeon again and again, relentlessly bullying the poor NPC.

Later, they found that the faster they finished the fight, the more points they earned. So they began practicing coordinated combos to shorten their damage downtime as much as possible.

After another all-nighter, Team P had exchanged all the available Scorpion Eye Trench equipment—and still had a few hundred team points left over.

Lin Mingfei checked the time and said, “Everyone, take screenshots of your equipment tabs—especially the stats. Download and print them out later. We’ll log off to rest, and then have a meeting.”

“The harder we beat him, the higher the score. I gotta say, this NPC is the ultimate masochist,” Zhou Yanjun sighed dramatically, twirling his fingers and pointing at the Scorpion King’s fallen ‘corpse.’

“Heh, I never want to see that ugly face again,” Shi Ya said, his lips pale. “I’m seriously sick of this boss.”

“But at least we got all our gear!” Xia Tong looked down at himself and muttered softly, “Though… this outfit looks kind of ugly.”

No one knew what the King’s Tomb design team had been thinking—the Scorpion Eye gear had a shiny rubbery look, like a life vest, and it was skin-tight. Wearing it made them all look like freshly caught catfish.

“Look at these wrist guards! They look like duck feet!” Xia Tong complained, holding his hand up to Lin Mingfei. Then he realized something—the rest of the team didn’t look nearly as bad.

“Wait—why do you guys all look so normal? Timer, you—you—you can change your appearance?!”

The elegant male elf had already switched into a flowing jade-green robe, complete with a matching jeweled circlet. His pale golden hair shimmered, the entire look radiant enough to blind.

“You really didn’t know the game has a transmog feature?” Shi Ya said. “You can copy the appearance of any gear you like into your wardrobe. Even if you’re not wearing that gear, you can still apply its look.”

Xia Tong stared blankly. “I didn’t know that…”

Shi Ya sighed dramatically. “Ah… no wonder your outfits always look so mismatched. Your headgear, top, pants, and shoes are all from different styles—it’s murder on anyone with OCD.”

“So… you’re saying I don’t have to look this ugly?” Xia Tong asked.

Lin Mingfei: “That’s one way to put it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier! Hmph! You let me stay ugly this whole time!” Xia Tong pouted unhappily.

Lin Mingfei froze. “I—”

Shi Ya instantly cut in, smooth as ever. “Oh, I always thought he already told you! Honestly, if you’d met me first, I’d have shared my fashion wisdom right away.”

Lin Mingfei pointed at himself, feeling deeply wronged. “But I didn’t even think you looked ugly—hey—”

Before he could finish, Xia Tong had already dashed off in a hurry to find the transmog guide, clearly not listening to a word. Lin Mingfei stared after him, then turned to jab a finger at Shi Ya, grinding his teeth.

“You phony, dramatic, green-arrow alpha.”

“You’re honest, sure — but what’s the use of that? You can’t eat honesty for lunch.”

Shi Ya laughed smugly. “You should learn from me.”

Lin Mingfei: “……”

—

After logging off to grab lunch, everyone from Team P gathered in the meeting room.

Lin Mingfei turned on the holographic projector and pasted the screenshots of their in-game gear stats onto a PPT.

“According to the frontline reports just posted on the forum, Sabertooth’s team has cleared the first five bosses in the Garonan Ruins. They’re currently the No. 1 team in progression. Based on their drop data, their total gear score is about two-thirds of ours. Overall, we at Polaris still hold the upper hand.” Lin Mingfei said clearly, “As you can see, after switching to our tier-1500 gear, both our overall gear score and detailed attributes have made a qualitative leap — especially in HP, base physical and magic attack values, critical rate, and crit effect.”

“But my and Little Bo’s defense-bonus percentages actually dropped,” Zhou Yanjun couldn’t help interrupting.

“My magic-attack bonus percentage dropped too,” Shi Ya said. “Friendly reminder: my healing output scales with magic attack, okay?”

“But our movement speed got way faster!” Xia Tong said excitedly. “My original speed was 80 points, and now it’s 380!”

“The movement-speed bonus from gear has a cap — usually up to 200 points,” Bo Yu said. “That extra 180 points is overflow. It won’t affect your character at all.”

Xia Tong froze. “Huh? So… that’s useless…”

Zhou Yanjun was still freaking out. “And this breathing capacity stat… it’s totally useless for PvP!!!”

Lin Mingfei coughed lightly and said in a calm tone, “The overflowed movement speed is easy to fix. Just unequip your shoes.”

Everyone looked up at him in unison, wearing the exact same confused expression: “……???”

“All footwear grants a base +200 movement speed. Remove them, and your speed will still be about the same. In my opinion, that’s perfect,” Lin Mingfei said. “You can replace them with an accessory for pure attack bonus or a piece of armor for pure defense bonus.”

“Unequip… the shoes?” Zhou Yanjun’s face twitched. “You mean go barefoot into the arena???”

“Dude, are you using a white imprint model or what?” Lin Mingfei rolled his eyes. “You talk like you’re actually wearing the gear in your equipment slots.”

“But I always thought… the shoe slot could only hold shoes!” Shi Ya was also shocked. “You can actually put other gear in there??”

“Only small accessory-type items — not set pieces or weapons,” Lin Mingfei said confidently. “I’ve tried.”

“You tried??” Zhou Yanjun’s jaw dropped. “Whoa, when did you even try that? You freak!”

“That was a long time ago. I’d already cleared the main storyline, got bored of the arena, and after winning the championship, there wasn’t much left to do. So I started experimenting with weird stuff,” Lin Mingfei said expressionlessly.

Zhou Yanjun: “……Why does that sound so punchable?”

Bo Yu: “But you can’t beat him. It’s not like this is your first day knowing that.”

“That’s actually a great idea!” Shi Ya had already pulled out a notebook and pen, scribbling furiously. “If I unequip my shoes and replace them with the Divine Healing Ring from Saus’s Dream Wonderland, my healing output could double!”

Lin Mingfei nodded. “That’s the basic idea. You can go on the forum, use the full gear-database plugin, and optimize your loadout.”

Zhou Yanjun suddenly lit up, excited. “Holy crap! If we plan it right, we might finish gearing up before Sabertooth clears their first run! That’s demonic efficiency!”

“Can’t deny it — Zero really lives up to the name,” Shi Ya said, shaking his head with admiration. “When it comes to brainstorming, normal people can’t compete. He always comes up with genius ideas at the crucial moment.”

Xia Tong’s eyes sparkled. “That’s what they call winning through the unexpected, right? Zero, you’re amazing!!!”

Even Bo Yu looked a little pleased. “Our captain will always be the one we can trust most.”

Lin Mingfei shivered at their perfectly synchronized flattery.

“Can you guys not talk like that? This sudden tone shift is giving me chills.”

“Oh come on, we’re complimenting you sincerely, and that’s what bothers you?” Zhou Yanjun clicked his tongue. “Zero, did you get possessed by that masochist Scorpion King or something?”

Lin Mingfei: “……”

—

The newly released 25-man dungeon by the devs turned out to be quite a challenge. Sabertooth’s 25-player team had been grinding it day and night for nearly a week but still hadn’t cleared it, stuck on the second-to-last boss for two days.

Even a powerhouse like Sabertooth couldn’t get through, let alone the other teams. Apart from last year’s runner-up team Shadow still stubbornly pushing through the third boss, the weaker ones were already starting to lose motivation.

After taking the afternoon off, Polaris logged back in at 7 p.m.

As an omega player who had always been surrounded by controversy, Xia Tong’s livestream usually had a solid crowd — sometimes even more viewers than Lin Mingfei’s or Shi Ya’s.

But when he went live this time, the viewer count read: zero.

“Huh?” he blinked in surprise. “Where did everyone go today?”

Shi Ya wasn’t surprised at all. “Maybe they finally lost faith in us and don’t want to watch us retire peacefully in the Scorpion Trench anymore?”

“It’s not that,” Lin Mingfei said calmly. “It’s because there’s now a bigger, more interesting target than us.”

“Huh? Really? There are teams performing even worse than we did during the prep phase?” The group actually sounded a bit excited.

“Yeah. Rainbow Team and Traceless Team both gave up on clearing the Garonan Ruins this afternoon.” Lin Mingfei scrolled through the forums and trending tags. “And their entire family trees are getting cursed out in the comments.”

Getting flamed online was something every pro player could relate to, so the veteran members of Polaris immediately opened the forums and started watching with interest.

“Whoa… they’re really getting roasted,” Zhou Yanjun clicked his tongue.

“Why is there even someone posting memorial pictures for Rainbow’s Lucasp? What kind of grudge is that?” Shi Ya was shocked.

Looking at all the furious fan comments, Xia Tong’s delicate brows furrowed. “Why do people have to be like this? Isn’t that going too far?”

“Because they only want to see what they want to see,” Lin Mingfei said coolly.

“Like what?” Xia Tong asked.

“Like thrilling dungeon boss raids, or passionate player-versus-player battles. Those represent the competitive spirit they idealize.” Lin Mingfei spoke with composed experience. “Giving up halfway through a raid — what does that mean to them? It means you’ve yielded to the game’s difficulty. Only ordinary players do that. You’re a professional — someone who became one because you have skills and instincts beyond theirs. You’re under the spotlight, streaming to thousands — so how can you quit like a casual player? If you do, then what gives you the right to call yourself a pro? It goes against the league’s core spirit — ‘never give up, never admit defeat.’ That’s how the players think.”

“But that’s just a strategic retreat!” Xia Tong protested, indignant on their behalf. “If you can’t clear it right away, it makes sense to switch focus for a while… that’s better than wasting time stuck in one place!”

“But ordinary people don’t think like that.” Lin Mingfei shrugged. “Human beings are visual creatures — they only believe what they want to believe.”

“And honestly…” Shi Ya added, “as much as those teams are getting torn apart, we probably had it worse a few days ago.”

Zhou Yanjun sighed. “Ah… and here I was thinking giving up the Garonan Ruins raid was such a wise decision.”

All five of them let out complicated sighs.

“Anyway, compared to Sabertooth, every other team just looks embarrassing,” Zhou Yanjun said helplessly. “Even Shadow Team’s still grinding away, but since their progress can’t match Sabertooth’s, everyone’s still flaming them as trash.”

“Well, not everyone can be like Sabertooth, can they? If every team were the same, Sabertooth wouldn’t be champions!” Xia Tong pouted. “Besides, I don’t even think Sabertooth’s going to win the championship this season…”

As soon as he said that, the room went strangely silent for two seconds. The surrounding alphas gave him a mix of curious and amused looks.

Unbothered, Xia Tong grew even more defiant, eyes sharp as he put his hands on his hips. “No, seriously! They’re definitely not winning this season — because we are!”

Lin Mingfei couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Not bad. You’re learning fast.”

“Now that’s the spirit, shorty,” Zhou Yanjun said, giving him a thumbs-up.

“That’s the attitude we want,” Shi Ya grinned. “If you want to be a champion, you have to first believe you are one reborn.”

“Because humans always believe what they want to believe?” Xia Tong blinked innocently — he really was a quick study.

Bo Yu: “Good thing no one’s watching the stream right now.”

“Yeah, if people heard that, our family trees would be cursed tonight too!” Zhou Yanjun laughed, completely unbothered.

The team atmosphere was bright and easy.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Lin Mingfei said with an amused smile. “Let’s go test out the new gear in the arena.”

—

It was probably the first time Polaris had officially trained as a full five-man unit. The setup looked even more serious than their previous scrims against Gourd Team.

“Xia Tong,” Lin Mingfei looked down at the eager little mage beside him and said softly, “You may be a gifted player — your talent could very well make you the dark horse of our team, our ace in the hole. But all of that depends on one thing — that you understand this is a team game.”

Xia Tong nodded, half-understanding.

“No matter how strong a player is, without precise coordination, they’re just a lone hero — and a lone hero gets torn apart by a pack working in sync,” Lin Mingfei said. “And coordination doesn’t just mean your teammates supporting you — you have to learn to support them too.”

“I get it. So what should I do now?” Xia Tong asked.

“We can’t just charge in and fight chaotically like before. We need a solid plan — and then adapt as the battle changes.” Lin Mingfei continued, “Compared to our former teammate Ping Shuai, Xia Tong’s advantage lies in powerful DPS and agility. But his weaknesses are obvious too — low base HP, poor movement, lack of combat experience. Once the match starts, those flaws will show immediately. The enemy will definitely target him as our weak point.”

“They’ll focus fire on me, right?” Xia Tong said softly, his expression turning serious.

“Exactly,” Lin Mingfei confirmed.

“Then should I… switch to gear with higher defense?” Xia Tong hesitated.

Lin Mingfei shook his head. “Don’t mix up priorities. A mage isn’t a tank. Your strength lies in destructive output. If you swap to tank gear, not only will your defense still lose to a real tank, but your damage will also disappear — and then you’ll just become dead weight. It’d be like we’re fighting four versus five. Understand?”

Xia Tong’s pupils contracted slightly, his lips pressed into a tight line as the color drained from his face.

“It’s fine, I’ll keep most of my attention on Xia Tong,” Shi Ya said with a smile, patting his shoulder to smooth things over. “Don’t panic, you’re not going to die that easily.”

“It’s not about whether he’ll die easily,” Lin Mingfei’s voice remained deep and steady. “Do you know the most likely situation you’ll find yourself in?”

Xia Tong asked, “What situation?”

“You’ll end up rolling all over the ground!” Zhou Yanjun said loudly. “Timer will have to chase after you nonstop to heal! The second he loses focus, your health bar’s going to plummet. You might not die, but that means we’ll instantly lose two people! It’ll turn into a three-on-five!”

Xia Tong’s little face turned completely pale.

“Then… what should I do?” he asked, trembling.

“There’s nothing you can do. One word: practice,” Lin Mingfei said flatly.

Shi Ya really couldn’t stand it anymore. He tugged Xia Tong a bit closer and said gently, “Can you stop scaring him? What’s the point of terrifying the kid like this? You’ll just make him afraid before the match even starts! Xia Tong, don’t panic. It’s not as tragic as they make it sound. Keep your mind calm.”

Xia Tong, already rattled by Lin Mingfei and Zhou Yanjun’s “crisis training,” suddenly felt like he’d found safe harbor in Shi Ya’s words. He leaned over tearfully and sniffled, “Timer, you’re so much nicer than them!”

Lin Mingfei folded his arms, tilting his head meaningfully.

“Don’t go thinking he’s some saint, little Xia Tong,” he said, his tone half-serious, half-teasing — that sly, foxlike air returning. “Actually, Timer should be the happiest one about your arrival. After all… before you came along, this was our team’s usual situation: neither of the tanks were pleasant to watch, my hiding spots were stealthy enough that most people couldn’t touch me, and swapping healers was a pretty effective mainstream tactic. So the one who usually got beaten into the ground was—”

“—him.”

Xia Tong: “…”

Shi Ya: “…Damn.”

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