translator: Oyen editor: Ciel
After Xiao Han left the novice village, he was transferred to Yongye City, the sect he chose when he created his character.
He has been playing an assassin even before his esport career, and he had a lot of experience with the assassin flow. This time, he had picked the same profession in the new game; after all, he was shouldering the responsibility of leading the time, and chose the most familiar school of gameplay to reach a competition-ready standard as soon as possible.
All assassins’ professions in Peerless Jianghu came from the ‘Yongye City’ sect, in the deep valley of south Xijiang.
Not only was the terrain around the valley treacherous, but the valley itself was also bottomless. This made it difficult for outsiders to enter, as well as protected the secret of the underground castle.
The founder of Yongye City was a beautiful woman who was famous in the jianghu. Unfortunately, she fell in love with a hypocrite and was subsequently betrayed, with her entire family getting burnt to death. Nursing a strong hatred, she built a huge underground castle in the deepest valley of south Xijiang, and studied all kinds of assassination skills. After killing the hypocrite in revenge, she became increasingly ruthless, receiving a wide range of disciples from the jianghu and teaching them all sorts of assassination skills——attacking the enemy with a sharp iron claw in close quarters combat, or stabbing the enemy from a distance with cold daggers. These methods gradually evolved into the two different cultivation routes of Yongye City.
As it was located deep in the valley, entering and exiting Yongye City depended on wires in the air. Having to slide down a wire from a high place into a valley was really quite unfriendly to players with acrophobia.
Fortunately, Xiao Han wasn’t affected by it. Quietly sliding along the wire into the hall of Yongye City, he searched for the sect leader to watch the skill demonstration video.
From the video, it was obvious that the largest difference between the two cultivation routes was the range of attack—— the iron claws were used in close combat, and the method was both brutal and bloody. The daggers could be used from both a medium range and a close range, which made it more unpredictable, and allowed for a more flexible operation.
Xiao Han chose the daggers as his weapon. He also learned two basic skills, namely ‘Darkness Valley’ and ‘Rainbow Through The Sun’.
Darkness Valley was a general qinggong skill of Yongye City, which allowed players to turn invisible and doubled their agility for a short period of time. Whether it was to wait for an opportunity to assassinate an opponent, or to escape from danger, the qinggong of this sect brought great convenience to disciples of Yongye City. However, it had a disadvantage. If the player was attacked while invisible, not only they would turn visible, but they could no longer enter stealth when using this skill.
As for Rainbow Through The Sun, it was the primary attack skill of the dagger flow.
Xiao Han tried out his basic skills while doing tasks, and found that the game’s settings were quite interesting. In fact, Rainbow Through The Sun had three successive stages to form a combo– the first was to throw a dagger at a designated single target, the second was to throw three daggers into a fan-shaped, small-scale group attack, while the third was to shoot numerous daggers forward to create a ranged group attack.
The three-stage combo dealt considerable damage, but there were preconditions for it to be triggered—— it had to be linked immediately after a critical strike, or it would stay in the first stage permanently.
Xiao Han experimented several times and soon found the trick to hitting critical strikes—— as long as he continuously attacked the target’s weak points, critical strikes were not difficult to get, which was somewhat similar to the assassins that he used to play.
Just then, a message in gold popped up in the announcement area overhead——
Chivalrous man [Ink Mark] has gotten the secret book ‘Sword Rain Fragrance’ in Kunlun Snow Mountain Cave by chance!
The world channel was soon filled with talk about how powerful the secret book was.
Attracted by the news, Xiao Han immediately minimised the game and opened the official Peerless Jianghu website, searching for information about the secret books. The forum listed the effects of the secret book skills discovered by players during the beta test, and made clear the origins of each secret book. Be it attack, control, healing, or defence—— the secret books of Peerless Jianghu were wide and varied, and could be helpful in arena fights.
Seeing this, Xiao Han instructed, “After reaching level 20, everyone should complete dungeons every day, and save up the secret book fragments. I want to collect all the secret books.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“What is a secret book?” He Beiguang, who had been playing games with modern setting, knew nothing about this, and could only ask.
Rfza ab tlw, Ufl Te fzqijlcfv delfais, “Cvvlalbcji rxliir atja mjc yf ifjgcfv ja klii, gfujgvifrr bo rfma jcv kfjqbcr.”
Lf Dfluejcu revvfcis gfjilrfv lar njief. “Yt! Ktja’r gfjiis lcafgfralcu, la’v yf afgglolm lo j kjgglbg mbeiv yglcu jibcu j qglfra’r tfjilcu rxlii!”
Pucbglcu tlw, Ufl Te aegcfv ab Wljb Ljc. “Jjqajlc, jgf sbe mbiifmalcu rfmgfa ybbxr ab qgfqjgf obg oeaegf wjamtfr lc atf jgfcj ilcfeq?”
Xiao Han nodded. “En.”
In the upper right corner, the icon for the Peerless Jianghu power rankings was flashing; obviously, there had been an update. Xiao Han opened it to find that ‘Ink Mark’ of the Hanhua Sword sect was currently ranked first.
Since Ink Mark was the first person in the server to learn the secret book skill, it was not a surprise for him to be temporarily ranked first. Later, after everyone had learned the skills of the secret books, the impact of the secret books on personal strength would become weaker. The key point then would lie in the choice and the match of skills between the entire team.
Shutting down the website window, Xiao Han continued to do the main task. He quickly reached level 20 and was sent to Mingzhou City.
***
At this time, Qin Mo’s team had left Mingzhou City, going to the next map Qingcheng Mountain to upgrade.
The task level of Qingcheng Mountain was 20 to 30; compared with the main task of Mingzhou City, the task difficulty here had obviously increased.
The first task received by Mirage was a four-star delivery task—— Qu Linger had requested the chivalrous men to send a secret letter to the East Pavilion, and hand it to its intended recipient there.
This mission rewarded a lot of experience, but the difficulty level of four stars meant that it could not be easily completed.
“The game screen is 3D and the chat is floating, my eyes are dizzy after looking at it for so long!” Mirage exclaimed. “Ink Mark, Little Medicine Fairy, could you both perhaps join the voice chat and speak directly?”
Little Medicine Fairy: “Okay!”
There was a built-in voice chat in the game; after logging in directly, players could hear the voices of people nearby. Of course, when in crowded areas, it was possible to limit the voice call to teammates only. It was also possible to set up a voice room by yourself, inviting selected friends to join the room, which allowed everyone to speak even from afar.
Logging in to the built-in voice chat, Qin Mo immediately heard a lively female voice. “Ah, all three of you are already here! Has Ink Mark come?”
This person should be Little Medicine Fairy, Qin Mo concluded, before calmly greeting the group. “Hello, I am Ink Mark.”
The chat suddenly fell silent—— the voice transmitted through the headphones was clear and pleasant. Even if it was Mirage, he had to admit that this kind of calm voice was popular with younger girls. In fact, Ink Mark’s voice sounded exactly like a cold male god, causing everyone to instantly quiet down and wait for instructions.
After a long period of silence on the voice channel, Qin Mo proceeded to ask, “What should be pay attention to with this task?”
Only then did Mirage realise—— actually, he was the veteran here!
Although Ink Mark was very powerful, he did not seem to be familiar with the game. Thinking of this, Mirage actively explained the task. “Qu Linger’s real identity is the daughter of the leader of the Wulin alliance. She brought a secret letter to Qingcheng Mountain, but feared she would lose it if her identity was exposed, so she entrusted us with delivering it to the recipient.”
“Mirage, you seem very familiar with the plot stories in the game!” Little Medicine Fairy praised.
Mirage laughed. “Of course, I played all three beta tests, so I have the plot almost memorised in full.”
“Since it’s just delivering a letter, it shouldn’t be too difficult, right?” Little Medicine Fairy wondered.
Hiding a Dagger Behind a Smile couldn’t help but to interrupt. “This isn’t a delivery mission in the novice village, there will be assassins intercepting us in the middle of the missions. Once attacked, the letter will be dropped and the task will be considered failed.”
Little Medicine Fairy was shocked. “So, we need to hide from the assassins?”
“Generally, the secret letter will be handed to the person with a better qinggong operation,” Mirage explained. “The others will be responsible for protecting him. As long as the messenger is not attacked and reaches the destination quickly, it’ll be fine.” Pausing for a few moments, he added, “Brother Ink Mark, will you take this secret letter? Your operation is the best among the few of us.”
Qin Mo: “No problem.”
Mirage traded the secret letter to Ink Mark, before handing the position of team leader over to him. Immediately, the task countdown appeared in the upper right corner: the time limit is five minutes.
It turned out to be a timed task.
Understanding this point, Qin Mo immediately turned around and fled along the hillside path, with the effect of the qinggong skill ‘Flicker’ making him move like the wind.
Of course, his teammates were not fools. Everyone followed Qin Mo closely using their own qinggong skills.
Upon arriving at a fork in the path, a group of masked people in black suddenly appeared around them, and rushed over without saying a word. Qin Mo’s right index finger slid along the touch screen panel of his tablet, causing Ink Mark in the game to move sideways cleverly, avoiding the assassin’s swords.
Mirage took out a bag of medicinal herbs from his basket and sprinkled them all over the place—— Heartbroken Grass!
A thick green fog spread around and poisoned all the assassins. Clearly, Mirage had used this group poisoning skill to quickly draw the enmity of these assassins to himself. “Ink Mark, you go ahead first. If you encounter small monsters on the way, use your secret book skill or the Heaven Sun combo to silence them and flee. Let us solve the mobs for you!”
Qin Mo nodded. “Understood.”
Timed tasks had to be completed before the deadline; if all five people stayed in the same place to fight monsters, the task might end up uncompleted. In fact, it was reasonable to give the letter to the person with the best qinggong operation. They would use control skills to silence the monsters, while the party behind would kill them, which would ensure that the person holding the secret letter could reach the end point as quickly as possible.
Of course, the premise was that the person carrying the secret letter had to be skilled at using qinggong, and also had fast reflexes. Otherwise, the mission would be failed if the secret letter was dropped because of a small monster attacking them from the front.
It was obvious that Mirage trusted Ink Mark, and Ink Mark certainly would not disappoint.
After a few steps, Qin Mo was surrounded by another group of monsters. Flying forward five feet with his qinggong skill, he turned around sharply and sent out ‘Sword Rain Fragrance’, causing countless white sword spirits to fall from the sky. These spirits accurately stabbed the assassins with their sharp swords, causing them to be put in a stunned negative state that would last three seconds.
—— it was a 100% chance of stun.
‘Sword Rain Fragrance’ was widely accepted as the most powerful secret book skill simply because it did not trigger a control based on a certain probability. Rather, the control effect would be triggered 100% of the time. In the arena, this sort of ‘absolute control’ skill was simply domineering, and allowed players to easily turn the situation around at a critical moment.
Qin Mo liked this newly learnt secret book skill very much. Seeing that all the assassins were stunned, he no longer paid them any attention, instead continuing to rush forward.
Other assassins tried interfering with him along the way, but were all controlled by Qin Mo within two combos.
The speed of four people cleaning up the monsters was also very fast. The party of five cooperated very well, and Qin Mo reached the designated location with one minutes to spare, offering the secret letter to the mysterious old man in the pavilion.
——Congratulations on the successful completion of the challenge task; task completion score: five stars.
Little Medicine Fairy was surprised. “It gave a score!”
‘Tasks with high difficulty will have completion scores,” Mirage explained excitedly. “A five-star score is the highest; the higher the score, the greater the rewards!”
It was the first time that he had gotten five stars in the game after so long. Sure enough, the rewarded experience was very high; after handing in the task, the five people rose from level 22 to level 23. The task had given them a level upgrade directly!
Little Medicine Fairy was quite excited. “It’s fun to do this difficult task, and it gives more experience!”
That’s because we have an expert on our team… Mirage thought. Speaking of which, it had been a good idea to keep Ink Mark on the fixed team, even if it had been a little shameless. With him, clearing tasks were quick and easy; rising to level 30 today would definitely not be a problem. Thinking of this, Mirage excitedly asked, “Since we are cooperating better, shall we pick a difficult task to finish next?”
Hiding a Dagger Behind a Smile laughed. “We’ll be upgrading faster than the average person like this!”
Little Medicine Fairy: “Okay, sounds good!”
Mirage asked Ink Mark for his opinion. “Ink Mark, what do you think?”
Qin Mo said lightly, “Yes, we will do the most difficult task.”
***
At the same time, the Dragon Song Club training room.
“The tasks of the game are divided into various difficulty levels,” Xiao Han stated. “Only pick the difficult ones. It’s meaningless to do the simple tasks; you need to upgrade as soon as possible.”
“Understood!” Hearing this, the newcomers immediately rushed to the place where the star-rated tasks were.
Thank you for the chapter!
They will meet soon~ ( ˶‾᷄ ⁻ ̫ ‾᷅˵ )
hope they meet soon!!
their thinking is quite similar…their paths would converge anyway.
Hope they won’t be on different teams. I’m looking forward to the base romcom
are they going to virtually meet soon?? until now they still have that tacit understanding