Chapter 106

Chapter 106 – Arena Encounters

On Monday, the Miracle official website released an announcement that all world servers would be shut down for a full update. The key to this update was the change in arena rules and the expansion of the equipment library.

Old players selected their equipment before entering the map and couldn’t change it. The new system allowed players to buy equipment in the battlefield store in the middle of the match, increasing the number of variables and allowing more flexible tactical designs.

Li Cangyu carefully studied the information published on the official website. This professional equipment expansion was the largest in the seven years since Miracle opened and the data was dazzling.

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the Miracle server in China opened.

In less than five minutes, all regional servers were full. This showed that the update attracted countless new and old players. The official emergency team added 10 server lines, doubling the number of players in the cross-server arena.

Li Cangyu asked Uncle Zhang to prepare a batch of side accounts to play the arena qualifiers.

The new update cleared all arena points, meaning those who previously hit the diamond or king rank had to regain the points from scratch. In addition to the previous 6v6 team mode, the arena added a new 2v2 arena mode, both of which could be used to accumulate points.

The team battle was more complex and winning gave 10 points. The partner arena mode was simpler and only gave 2 points for winning. Their scores might accumulate slower but this mode was very beneficial for Li Cangyu to train his team members. There happened to be four old and four new players in the Canglan team. Li Cangyu arranged the youngsters with their respective masters and everyone entered the partner mode in the arena qualifiers.

The bronze qualifying section were for those with less than 1,000 points. Apart from masters who were starting from scratch, most of them were novices and rookies. Li Cangyu played the 2v2 mode with Xiao Han and Xiao Han alone could kill two people easily. Most people were handled in one minute battles and they won more 50 games in an hour.

Li Cangyu was very confident in Xiao Han. Therefore, he acted as a soy sauce and let Xiao Han play alone.

To his surprise, once the pair won their 60th match, XIao Han was actually killed by the opposing archer.

What was this situation?

Li Cangyu saw the prompt that Xiao Han had been killed appear on the screen and immediately moved behind a stone pillar in the ring. His mouse clocked on the upper right corner to view the battle record. It turned out that Xiao Han had been controlled by the opposite side’s white magician, who used God’s Seal. Then the archer followed up with a set of critical damage, killing Xiao Han.

The matching rule for the arena was generally ‘matching similar levels together.’ He and Xiao Han won 60 games in a row and the system matched them with opponents who also won more than 60 matches.

Were they Cheng Wei and Tan Shitian?

Li Cangyu couldn’t help smiling and he typed in the public channel: [Cheng Wei?]

Cheng Wei was startled and typed: [Hey? You know me? An elf summoner, are you Cat God?!]

Li Cangyu: [Yes.]

Cheng Wei excitedly slipped into the central fountain.

Tan Shitian, “…”

Li Cangyu wondered: [Did you also come to play the qualifiers?]

Cheng Wei quickly typed: [Yes! Haven’t the rules changed? The single player mode is cancelled and it has become combination VS combination. Captain Tan and I came to practice our combination in the online game!]

This was equivalent to exposing the combination tactics of the Time team in advance but… he didn’t reveal anything. Everyone knew that the Time team’s Cheng Wei and Tan Shitian would definitely come as a duo.

Tan Shitian asked politely: [Cat God, are you with a teammate?]

Li Cangyu replied: [Yes, I’m taking my apprentice.]

Cheng Wei remembered the mixed-race child he met in New York and couldn’t help typing jealousy: [Xiao Han, you are just lying there. You’re dragging Cat God down!]

Xiao Han didn’t understand why Cheng Wei was so hostile to him and spoke in a somewhat puzzled manner: [I couldn’t react in time.]

Li Cangyu smiled and said: [I will let you have this game.]

In fact, he couldn’t help it since Xiao Han died. Li Cangyu might have confidence but even he would find 1v2 hard against the ace combination of Tan Shitian and Cheng Wei.

It was better to die quickly and move to the next game. After all, it was just a promotion match and there was no need to waste time.

Cheng Wei was thrilled. [Thank you Cat God! Tan Shitian, you stay still. I want to kill Cat God!]

Tan Shitian: […Okay.]

Li Cangyu stood still and let Cheng Wei kill him. Cheng Wei was very happy about personally killing Cat God and sent a row of hugging emojis.

The score for this match was quickly calculated on the screen. Tan and Cheng won 61 rounds in a row and got a lot of bonus points. Li Cangyu and Xiao Han lost and had two points deducted by the system.

After exiting the room, Tan Shitian took the initiative to add Li Cangyu’s side account as a friend and asked: [Cat God, have you assembled your team?]

[Yes, I’ve just assembled it.]

[Then refuel with your apprentice.] Tan Shitian smiled and said: [I will take Xiao Wei to continue to upgrade.]

[Go ahead!]

Li Cangyu bid farewell to Tan and Cheng before turning back to Xiao Han. “We have a 60 winning streak and are likely to meet more masters. Cheer up and play well.

Xiao Han, “…”

‘I’ve been playing well the whole time. You are the one idling, Master!’

Xiao Han saw Li Cangyu’s serious expression and didn’t dare say it. He just nodded in agreement.

***

The new rules had been updated today. Many guild management and passersby filled the arena. There were many combinations with a 60 winning streak, making it not that easy to encounter Tan Shitian and Cheng Wei.

Only, Li Cangyu couldn’t help laughing at the names of their accounts—Only Soy Milk and Progress Day by Day, what were these messy names? They weren’t as creative as his own ‘Fish Farming Professional’!

In the next few rounds, Li Cangyu didn’t meet any professional players. Most of the online masters were jointly handled by him and Xiao Han. An afternoon of playing the arena passed. The mentor and apprentice scored too quickly and quickly advanced to the silver group.

At dinner time, everyone gathered in the dining hall to eat. The faces of the teenagers were bright. They joined with a great god and the speed of their upgrade was very fast!

Gu Suming excitedly cried out, “Go back and play at night. I want to rise to the diamond group in one breath today!”

Zhang Jueming patted him on the head and said, “Don’t dream about it. We need 5,000 points to rise from silver to gold and then 15,000 points to rise to diamond. At our current speed, it will take at least one week.”

Gu Siming calmed down and scratched his head. “I was just thinking about it.”

Zhuo Hang wondered, “Isn’t getting to diamond in one week fast enough? It took me one month to rise to diamond.”

Xiao Han echoed him, “I also spent one month.”

Li Xiaojiang stammered, “Me, me too.”

Li Cangyu said with a smile, “Since you are so interested in raising your rating, return to your dorm and continue to play the arena. However, you must go to bed before midnight.”

The group cheered. Apparently, they were very fond of the pairs arena mode of the new system.

***

Li Cangyu returned to his dormitory and took a shower. Then he logged into the game and opened his Q account.

There were thousands of unread messages in the Miracle Gossip Group. He opened it and saw that all the professional players of the major teams were discussing the new system. Cheng Wei was saying: [@Grey Wolf, why don’t you go to the group battle? All of you are running to play the pairs mode!]

Su Guangmo said: [The pairs mode can accumulate scores quickly. A group battle will take more than 20 minutes. It isn’t too late to wait until the diamond section and then do the team battles.]

Cheng Wei sent a row of vomiting blood emojis.

Su Guangmo smiled: [If you lose to us, you will vomit blood. There are still many bosses in the future.]

Cheng Wei was surprised. [Who else?]

Su Guangmo replied: [Wind Colour’s Yan Guo combination and the Red Fox’s two sisters, I have met these two groups.]

Tan Shitian came forward to say: [It is estimated that the major teams will have people playing the pairs mode. After all, upgrading in the pairs mode is fast and the rules of the group battle haven’t been studied clearly. The group battle can be tried out after reaching diamond rank.]

Su Guangmo agreed. [This is the truth.]

The just mentioned Yan Ruiwen also spoke up: [There are three groups from Wind Colour in the pairs arena. Captain Ling is also there.]

Li Cangyu temporarily shut down the Q group and headed to the cross-server arena. Then he sent a private chat to Xiao Han: [Continue doing the arena.]

Xiao Han immediately replied: [Okay Master.]

The mentor and apprentice joined the cross-server arena’s qualifying list. The new rules had just been updated and everyone’s points had been cleared. It was obvious that no rookies would’ve rushed to the silver rank in one afternoon. The probability of encountering masters would naturally be greater than before.

Li Cangyu thought about which professional players he would encounter next. As soon as the map was loaded, he saw the combination of a demon summoner and a blood kin summoner.

The ID of the demon summoner was Wooden Wind.

Li Cangyu was startled and sent a message in the public channel: [Ling Xuefeng?]

Wooden Wind: […] (TL: Wooden Wind= Mu Feng)

This guy’s ID was even less creative and he used the ‘feng’ part of his name. It was simply too obvious.  As for the blood kin summoner called ‘Side Account Name is Difficult to Decide’, they were either Xu Feifan or Qin Mo.

[Is the other person Qin Mo or Xiao Xu?]

Side Account Name is Difficult to Decide immediately typed: [Cat God is well. I am Qin Mo.]

Li Cangyu couldn’t help laughing. [Xuefeng, are you also taking your apprentice along?]

Ling Xuefeng: [Yes, I wanted to try out the pairs arena.]

Li Cangyu asked: [Let me win this game?]

Ling Xuefeng: [Why should I let you win?]

Li Cangyu: [The 10 steamed bass you owe me will be decreased by one.]

Ling Xuefeng: […When did I owe you 10?]

Li Cangyu: [Your Steamed Bass account was an undercover in my guild for so long. 10 is cheap!]

Ling Xuefeng helplessly smiled and typed: [Fine.]

Qin Mo, “…”

Master, wasn’t this the arena?

Shouldn’t there be an earth-shattering confrontation between gods instead of discussing fish like this?

Moreover, Master agreed with whatever Cat God said. Every time Master met Cat God, he will throw all principles away.

He was scolding in his heart when a friends application popped up. It was sent by Li Cangyu. Qin Mo accepted and the other person immediately sent him a private message: [Xiao Qin, how is the task I assigned to you?]

Qin Mo immediately replied: [I checked. Master shouldn’t have a girlfriend. When the Wind Colour team was on holiday, he went to Beijing for a meeting. After the meeting, he returned to Shanghai and according to the Wind Colour Guild’s president, he stayed in the team for half a month and never went out on a date.]

Li Cangyu nodded with satisfaction. [Very good.]

Qin Mo was puzzled: [Cat God, why are you asking this? Do you want to introduce a girlfriend to Master?]

Li Cangyu said: [The secret can’t be revealed!]

Meanwhile, he was thinking in his heart, ‘You are too naive. I don’t want to introduce a girlfriend to your master. I am trying to gain your master as my wife.’

The author has something to say:

[April Fool’s Day small theater]

On April 1st, Li Cangyu took the initiative to tell Ling Xuefeng, “Xuefeng, I really like you. Become my wife.”

Ling Xuefeng nodded calmly. “Okay.”

That night, Li Cangyu happily threw Ling Xuefeng down. He wanted to do that to Captain Ling when there was suddenly a reversal. He was stripped, eaten dry and then cleaned…

The next morning, Li Cangyu rubbed his sore waist and cried out angrily, “Didn’t you agree to be my wife?”

Ling Xuefeng smiled and kissed him gently. “You shouldn’t believe anything you hear on April Fool’s Day.”

Li Cangyu, “…”