Published at 25th of March 2019 10:42 pm

Chapter 327: Batmans of the Ghastly Mountains

When a user plays the game, the body will be place into a sleep-like state. The gaming helmet did more than just connect the user to the game. A weak electrical current flowed through the body to maintain a certain level of connectivity between the user and the helmet. This allowed the helmet to monitor the user’s body health status. This function was thoroughly checked by the health department.

The function to allow player to continue playing the game consciously even in sleep was a newly added feature. Since the developers who had introduced the function did not apply any additional update to the helmet had led everyone to believed that the function had already existed in the helmet and was only waiting to be released. Just like a game update. It will only be open to the public, one update at a time and would only gather a number of response for a brief period of time before dying down.

The time adjustment (1 hour in real time is 3 hours in-game time) garnered exceptional response, as it was able to indirectly prolong a human’s lifespan! Even without the advanced time adjustment in the game, the ability to play while sleeping was already impressive enough. So far, the number of active players had been expanding continuously, from 200,000,000 to 300,000,000 players in a year. While the whole world enjoyed the game, some groups had publicly expressed that ‘God’s Miracle’ was a disaster and should be stopped. Judging from the reaction of those said critiques, unless they were only seeking momentarily attention by being a clown of the year, there was no other reason for them to do so!

Zhang Yang grinned, "Why is there suddenly a professor Tao?"

Wei Yan Er blink a little, "After some research, this Tao professor had a father. His father was once an infamous man named Professor Tao Hong Hong, and now everybody calling his son the Second coming of Tao."

Professor Tao was a professor, that meant that he had his own battles to fight in his field, which was almost similar how players fought each other bravely. Zhang Yang sighed, "Some people just love to cry wolf. When there is nothing happening, they would try to stir up something. All in all, it go back goes back one main objective, money."

Wei Yan Er griggled, "Be careful what you say. Professor Tao is a good friend with Researcher Yang. You best be careful, or else you will be caught and be strapped down to the electric chair!"

After supper, Wei Yan Er was the first one to flee back to her room, leaving Zhang Yang and Han Ying Xue alone in the kitchen to do the cleaning-up. In truth, there was no reason for them to do so. There was a dish-washer in the kitchen which could wash everything with just a push of a button.

"Dummy. Just so you know, even though I had confessed my feelings to you, I’ll have you know that I am not a loose girl. I won’t be randomly confessing my feelings to any guy that I like. Oh and, I’m warning you. Don’t let me catch you crawling into my room late at night!" said Han Ying Xue with a straight face.

Make up your mind woman! Was that a threat or a seduction!? Zhang Yang was a good man. He would had never have the thought of doing something as lame as sneaking into a woman’s room while she slept. However, now that she had said it sternly, that idea was already planted in his mind. It was just like a person telling you not to think about elephants, but you would inadvertently start thinking about elephants.

"Please. I would never go to you. In fact, you’re welcome to come into mine. I never lock my doors when I sleep!" Zhang Yang counterattacked, leaving Han Ying Xue to turn away with her cheeks blushing in pink.

"Hmm! Rascal!"

After cleaning up, Zhang Yang went back to his room with only the thought of finishing the quest to find all seven key fragments. He rode his way through the Crimson Fire Hills and into the small village called the Alfalfa Village to search for Tiffany. The village was rather historical. Outside, there were a few stone-carved statues of people, giving off an ancient, antiquated impression.

From afar, it would not take anyone a pair of binoculars to see Zhang Yang riding his white bear. Noticing his approach, a group of little kids had came up to him carrying sticks and wooden poles. Everyone surrounded Zhang Yang and glared at him as if they were adults, trying to intimidate Zhang Yang with their numbers.

Zhang Yang pulled the reins of the bear and stopped. "Where are all the adults here?"

The kids exchange a look with one another and remained quiet. The silence lingered until an older teenager who looked like he was at the age of 13 to 14 walked out. He crossed his arms and glared at Zhang Yang like an old man. "What business do you have here, stranger?"

Zhang Yang smiled. "I’m Tiffany’s relative. I’m here to pay her a visit!"

"Sister Tiffany!"

"He’s sister Tiffany relative!"

Once they heard the name ‘Tiffany’, they lowered their guards almost immediately and surrounded Zhang Yang. Chitter chatter started to fill every small corner of the village. The little children were bombarding him with questions that any adult could expect, such as how did he catch the bear, or what does the outside world looked like. The worst one of all was a young boy, with snot leaking out of his nostril, asking Zhang Yang to pass his marriage proposal to Tiffany. It seemed that Tiffany was really popular in the village.

Annoyed, Zhang Yang had waited patiently for something to happen, a trigger event of the questline, perhaps, before he snapped eventually. "Tony!" he cried. Tony was the eldest teenager in the crowd. "Where is Tiffany?"

Tony snorted. "Sister Tiffany had led a few men to fight the batmen."

"Bat…men?" Zhang Yang asked.

"50 kilometers east of the village, lies the Ghastly Mountain. There were flying monsters that looked like bats. They consume blood to survive. So, in order to prevent an attack to the village, we will always send a number of livestock as tribute for them to feed on. However, 2 years ago, their numbers multiplied. Eventually, our livestock was insufficient to satiate them. It was then, when the monsters started demanding for human sacrifice!"

Tony slumped. "People were afraid. None of us were willing to do anything. Eventually, the elders of the village had to sacrifice themselves in order to save the village. My grand-daddy and grand-mummy gave themselves up! However, the batmen were greedy creatures! They wanted more. Eventually, all of the elders of the village had given up their lives. After that, they had come to us and demanded the young ones! At this point, the villager had realized that there was no way to escape this. It was either to kill, or be killed. Sister Tiffany had stood up among the crowd and encouraged us to defy the batmen. Because of her, the adults in the village had rallied and were willing to fight. Under the command of sister Tiffany, she managed to lead the adults to victory and push the batmen back!"

Zhang Yang nodded. "She was always a brave young girl."

Tony came close. "Big brother, I see that you’re carrying weapons and armor. Are you perhaps a warrior? You can help us to check on sister Tiffany and the other adults!"

‘Ding! Tony has a quest for you: Retrieve News. Will you accept it?’

[Retrieve News] (Difficulty Level: D)

Quest Description: Tony of Alfalfa has requested for you to search for Tiffany and the other adults. Find them and see to their condition. Tiffany and the others should be fighting the batmen up at the Ghastly Mountain.

Progress: Search for Tiffany and the adults from Alfalfa Village 0/1

Zhang Yang bade the young children goodbye and pulled the reins of the bear. With a loud roar, the bear dashed off and headed east. The next thing he saw simply looked magical. A few kilometers away from the village, he saw a huge mountain peak, that was actually floating a thousand kilometers up among the clouds! Beneath the floating peak was a flattened mountain. The entire scenery looked like some godly figure had used some godly sword skill to slice the mountain in half and had somehow, left the mountain on top of the clouds! No wonder it was called Ghastly Mountain! It actually looked like it would fall down at any moment! If you were standing at the top of the flat mountain, anyone could feel the tremendous pressure, fearing that the clouds might disappear anytime, sending the gigaton mass of earth to fall down like the an Armageddon-bringing meteor! It that were to happen, it would definitely be much more than {Block} could take.

The flattened part of the mountain was rather small and short. Measuring at almost at 300 meters tall, Zhang Yang took no time at all to reach the top. Since the massive peak was hovering on top of him, its shadow loomed over the area, turning the place as dark as the evening.

On the route to the top, Zhang Yang had noticed many corpses. A few were normal human beings, yet many more were belonged to an odd race that had wings protruding out from their back. Based on the sheer number of them, the death toll of the odd race was far greater than the humans.

Zhang Yang was skeptical. The villagers from Alfalfa were nothing more than normal villagers. How could they possess the battle power to pull this feat? The village was so small, yet the battle here had somewhat made it look like it was an intercontinental war between humans and the monsters! How many villagers exactly, were participating in this battle? From the looks of it, no matter how many monsters there were, the humans were winning by a landslide. Either the monsters were too weak…or Tiffany was too strong, for the sake of the story…

Just as Zhang Yang stood there deep in thought, a few men and women came back down the mountain, running amok. Some of them had weapons in their hands, while the others were sprinting empty handed. At first, Zhang Yang thought that the reason behind their haphazard steps were because they were going down a slope, after all. But upon a closer look, he understood the reason behind the chaos. There were hundreds of flying monsters following behind them closely.

[Alfalfa Villagers] (Normal, Humanoid)

Level: 70

HP: 7,000

Defense: 70

"ARCK!" With a scream, one of the woman was captured by the flying monster. With a flash, Zhang Yang pulled the reins and rode as swiftly as he could. Within range, Zhang Yang immediately cast {Spear of Obliteration}.

‘-2,189!’

The attack landed on the monster. Provoked, the monster dropped the women and immediately shot down towards him. The woman landed unscathed, since the monster had not gained much height off the ground.

[Ghastly Mountain Batman] (Normal, Humanoid)

Level: 75

HP: 7,500

Defense: 70

The monster glided down from the sky and divebombed Zhang Yang. However, a mere normal tier monster could not cause Zhang Yang any damage whatsoever. The attack has merely knocked some dirt off Zhang Yang’s armor. Zhang Yang countered the batman and sliced him with a quick sword stroke. After dealing 2,000+ damage, Zhang Yang activated {Blood Rage} and gained 50 Rage. With a quick smash to the ground, Zhang Yang used {Destructive Smash} and killed the monster. With his monstrous strength, he could easily wipe out the entire swamp like a wasp’s nest.

Every flying monster stopped their pursuit of the villagers and changed their target to Zhang Yang. He took out and consumed a bottle of [Transmuted (6) Enrage Potion] and gained 100 Rage.

{Horizontal Sweep}!

SWOOSH!

Those that were too close to Zhang Yang received a clean hit, damaging them with more than 6,500 damage. PAK PAK PAK! The Dark Enigmatic Sword effect was triggered on and on, dealing a massive amount of damage that instantly killed more than 20 airborne batmen. The bottle of [Transmuted (6) Enrage Potion] had increased Zhang Yang attack power by 1.6x, making him practically a God of War at his level!

Undaunted, the monsters continued swarming Zhang Yang. Still, their attacks were so weak that even if he got surrounded by a thousand, or a million of them, it made no difference. With the sheer number of monsters, it was easier for Zhang Yang to kill all of them since the Dark Enigmatic Sword effect could be triggered almost endlessly. {Blast Wave}, {Horizontal Sweep} were used repeatedly. In just 4 to 5 minutes, Zhang Yang was completely surrounded by the dead corpses of the batmen. Not a single monster was left alive!

Every Alfalfa Villagers present on the scene could only stare in awe and disbelief. It was almost impossible for Zhang Yang alone to kill all of the monster singlehandedly!

"I’m Tiffany’s relative!" said Zhang Yang as he went ahead to pick up the drops on the ground. It was not the coins nor the ETC items that he wanted, but the [Silk]. They were rather useful, not for selling in the market, but for making [Bandages] for healing.

Instead of being in awe, they villagers nodded their head as if they had expected the result, thinking that Zhang Yang was somehow related to Tiffany. It seemed to explain his admirable performance.

"Where’s Tiffany?" Zhang Yang asked. He glanced around and found out that none of them had their own specialized name tags. In fact, every one of them shared the same [Alfalfa Villager] name! Zhang Yang could make out who was who at that point. However, he could easily guessed that Tiffany was not among them. Special quest NPCs would almost definitely have their own names!

"She was taken by the batmen!" said a villager.

Sigh! Somehow, Zhang Yang knew that the quest to obtain the second key fragment would never be that simple.

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