On the surface, everybody was from the same guild. The guild was like a warm and loving family, and its members were like brothers and sisters. But in reality, it was all nonsense, just like the advertisements shown on TV.
As the saying goes, "don't judge a medicine by its advertisement, but by its potency."
Steel-Blooded Battle Spear had a fantastic advertisement, but its potency was mediocre.
Internally, the discrimination was real. Ye Ci's treatment was the perfect example. The moment she threatened the position of an influential member's position, Ye Ci became a hindrance.
Ye Ci was dissatisfied after hearing the news from Zero Arsenic. It was not because she wanted the position of the commander. In a party like this, she would rather go idling in a dungeon like this... But as a commander, she'll be given priority when distributing the loot, this was the one thing she was interested in.
This was something that even Ye Ci could think of, so how could the higher-ups overlook it? Zero Arsenic's intention was to ensure that the fertile water did not flow into Ye Ci's farm.
Ye Ci was a Huntress, and there were also other Hunters and Huntresses in Steel-Blooded Battle Spear. They did not wish to see Ye Ci having priority when it came down to loot distribution.
Ye Ci understood the logic behind it. What an understanding child she was. That was why she kept quiet after hearing Zero Arsenic's words.
Ye Ci remembered that the info on Frosty Wasteland provided by Fate officials was really very vague. They rated the dungeon as "a dungeon so easy that it's literally handing out equipment to players."
Was Frosty Wasteland as easy as the officials claimed it to be? Ye Ci grimaced. Those who didn't listen to officials might not be deemed good children, but trusting everything the officials said didn't necessarily make one a good child either.
Clear Moon was fishing by Pearl Lake at Shuna Heights.
"Weren't you focusing on leveling up your Forging skill? When did you start fishing as well?" Ye Ci sat on a small boat in the middle of the lake with Clear Moon. She dipped her legs into the cold water. She couldn't resist the urge to stretch as she enjoyed that sheer satisfaction.
"I recently acquired a recipe to craft some plating which can increase physical damage by 60 points. Tetra Fish Scales were one of the required materials, and this place has the most Tetra Fish in the entire Eastern Continent." Clear Moon spoke softly, not wanting to scare away the fish.
He handed a few plating to Ye Ci, "Sister, I made these yesterday. I was gonna mail them to you, but there isn't a single mailbox around here, so I can only hand it to you in person."
Ye Ci accepted the plating without hesitation.
Tetra Plating: Can be socketed into armors and weapons. Increases physical damage by 60.
The Tetra Plating was a very good item. A normal equipment would need to be refined 6 to 8 times before it was able to have a bonus 60 physical damage. Factoring in the chances of failure in refining the equipment, it would cost players several hundred gold. But socketing a Tetra Plating to a piece of equipment could easily solve the problem. In the future, if they could start to purchase game credits, this item would be worth a lot.
Knowing that Clear Moon would not accept any monetary compensation from her, Ye Ci did not bring up the matter. She simply left for Red Lake City after an idle chat with him. She then sent him a bundle of ores afterwards.
Ye Ci did not receive any missions from Steel-Blooded Battle Spear the day before they explored the Frosty Wasteland, so she was free. She decided to spend her free time by acquiring some equipment for Remote Depths. Ye Ci contacted Clingy Wolf and invited a random Cleric along the way, and the four of them entered a 5-man dungeon.
After a day of hard work, they had quite a fruitful return. Bai Mo was so overjoyed that he treated Ye Ci and Liu Chang to a great meal.
After returning home that night, Ye Ci and Bai Mo had wanted to enter the game, but they discovered an official notification that as the purchase of game credits was going to be made available soon, the game would need to undergo maintenance for 20 hours.
Ye Ci estimated that after 20 hours of maintenance, it would be about 4 p.m. the next day. This timing was not very good. The initial plan the Steel-Blooded Battle Spear had was to start exploring from 8 a.m., but now the last minute system maintenance notification had messed up their plans.
She came out from the gaming cabin, planning to rest earlier tonight, considering it as giving herself a break. She had just washed up and laid down when she received Fang Shu Shu's call.
"Ye Ci, Ye Ci, I'm going crazy! Qin Churuo has been pestering me!" Fang Shu Shu's nagging voice came through with a hint of sweetness, exploding next to Ye Ci's ears.
"Isn't this good?" Ye Ci grinned and said. Although she might not be able to tell what other people were thinking, she understood Fang Shu Shu's very well. This lass had long had her sights on Qin Churuo, but was just too shy to be the one to admit it.
"What are you saying! That's not what I meant!" Fang Shu Shu's face turned flushed red. Thankfully, Ye Ci could not see it, otherwise, she would definitely tease her. "I meant in the game! He has been pestering me every day to introduce the two of you to each other."
The corner of Ye Ci's lips curled up as she said, "Is it for exploring the Frosty Wasteland?"
Fang Shu Shu didn't even try to hide it, "That's right. We've been in the Frosty Wasteland for three days. We haven't even seen the first boss yet, but we've died so many times that I can't even afford to repair my equipment."
"Steel-Blooded Battle Spear is also planning to explore that dungeon tomorrow." Ye Ci was astonished over how secretive and fast World Conqueror was. To think that no news was leaked despite the fact that they had been exploring the dungeon for three days. It was obviously easier to keep students in line.
When Fang Shu Shu heard Ye Ci's words, she knew that there was no chance for her to save them, and thus stopped the conversation about the game. They then continued to have a heart to heart talk for a while before respectively heading to bed.
The next day, after waiting very long for the system to be available again, Ye Ci went online at 4 p.m. on the dot.
Many of the people from Steel-Blooded Battle Spear had already arrived, all of them in a commotion over the recent system upgrade. Previously, many of them had suffered enough as poor people, and now that they could purchase credits, almost everyone had planned to purchase some. It was a pity that even the items that were put up for auction had also soared in price, so those who were poor continued to remain poor, while those who were rich, continued to be so as well.
The equipment of the Steel-Blooded Battle Spear's first and second squadron were ready, thus they decided to move in at the same time. Ye Ci was assigned to the first squadron. Since the previous experience of having 15 of them overcoming the Automatons Formation, many of the members were familiar with her. The moment she joined the party, Cherry Blossom and the others immediately greeted her warmly.
This was supposedly not a big deal, but because of the issue with Ye Ci's position as the Battle Commander, Little Dan, who was in charge, was not very pleased. With so many members greeting Ye Ci, his face turned cold. He spoke out, "If everyone's here, let's move in. So much time has been wasted due to the system upgrade, let's not waste any more time."
Ye Ci took a look at the party members. Almost all the elites in the guild were here. There were even guild administrators, including Thousand Sunsets, Zero Arsenic, and Peacock Blue,
Their exploration progress was very smooth.
As expected of the commander in of the first squadron, Little Dan's greatest trait was his calm and rational way of dealing with things. When there were unexpected situations, he would be able to make the best judgements in the shortest time possible. His voice was loud, and gave others a feeling of excitement and hot-bloodedness.
However, Ye Ci felt that his commands were a little too naggy. He treated everything with great importance, no matter how trivial it was, and had also had a low tolerance for mistakes.
Although having such a commander would allow them to progress steadily, it was too restrictive and the commander was worrying too much. Usually, it would not be possible for them to continue with such a setup in a 100-man dungeon. This was also the biggest reason why even though Little Dan was a great commander in a dungeon for 25 people, he could not be considered an important role for commanding dungeons meant for more than 25 people.
After proceeding on for 15 minutes and having defeated 7 to eight groups of monsters consecutively, Peacock Blue typed in the channel, "This dungeon really doesn't look tough. Little Dan, buck up, we must get through this today and get the first kill. Don't make us have to change to another commander later." (When exploring dungeons as a party, other than the commander being able to speak, all other party members were muted and were only able to type in the chat.)
Little Dan grinned and said humbly, "We're just starting out, don't speak too soon." Although he said this, Ye Ci could sense a hint of pride in his tone.
She knew that Peacock Blue's words were meant for her, but she did not feel angry. However, Cherry Blossom privately messaged her, "Gongzi, ignore Peacock Blue. This is how she talks, but she's quite pitiful also."
Ye Ci smiled at Cherry Blossom and asked casually, "What's so pitiful about her?"
"She likes Thousand Sunsets, but even though Thousand Sunsets knows about it, he pretends not to know and continues to go on with his things. She is a guild administrator, how could she not feel bad? Therefore, as time passes, she became a little..." Cherry Blossom let out a sigh and said with some disdain, "It's just crap."
This was really complicated. The two of them quickly ended the conversation and followed the rest of the team. Those who were supposed to just laze around did so, while the others continued to carry out the commands given.
Very soon, the team arrived at the first infrastructure that seemed to be more complete and entered the desolate wasteland. Ye Ci no longer left her guard down and started to treat this more seriously.
It was because it was only from this point onward that they were really considered to have entered the Frozen Wasteland. Compared to the monsters they had encountered earlier, what they would be encountering from now onward was truly what was dangerous. Unlike how the entire party was moving on boldly, Ye Ci was being extremely careful, looking in detail at every spot they passed by.
Suddenly, she heard panicky cries at the front of the party. She lifted her head to see that a Warrior's legs had been frozen and was made immobile. Not only that, he also continued to have his life drained because of the "Frozen" debuff. The Cleric immediately healed him to keep him alive.
Surprised, Ye Ci immediately called out in the channel, "Stop the healing."
"If the healing is stopped, he'll die. I'm the one in command now. Continue." Little Dan immediately rebutted in the channel and gave the orders.
Ye Ci frowned and immediately retreated a few steps. Since they wanted to court death, there was no reason for her to join them.
She only backed off for a few meters when she heard a few more panicked cries...