Published at 25th of March 2019 9:37 pm

Chapter 723: Upgrades in the Later Stages

At Excellent Era, Tao Xuan pondered over the "threat" that Qiao Yifan posed.

At Tiny Herb, because of Tao Xuan’s phone call, Tiny Herb’s boss gave a call to Wang Jiexi after asking the manager. Wang Jiexi had gone home during the season’s break. He was also very surprised to suddenly get a call from his boss, urgently asking about Qiao Yifan.

After hearing Wang Jiexi’s explanation for his decision, Tiny Herb’s boss finally felt at ease. Wang Jiexi didn’t deny Qiao Yifan’s potential. It was more of an issue with how he fit into the team. Team Tiny Herb aimed for the championships. Every single player on the team needed to do their bit to reach this goal. However, it didn’t require Qiao Yifan’s addition. Team Tiny Herb didn’t need someone who wouldn’t make a difference whether he was there or not. It was impossible to say how he much he would grow in the future, but Team Tiny Herb couldn’t give him the necessary time to grow. Leaving him on the team wouldn’t benefit either side.

When their conversation ended, Tiny Herb’s boss immediately called Tao Xuan back, telling him that Qiao Yifan was not a bad player. Team Excellent Era should consider him.

These were more or less just polite words. Usually, teams would say that about the players, who left the team, were very good, or very skilled. In return, the players would usually say that they felt it was too bad that they had to leave the team, but if that were the case, why did they even split in the first place? It indicated that despite being good players, there was an even better replacement or option. Just because the player felt regretful for leaving the team didn’t mean that the player wouldn’t feel regret for joining another.

How could Tao Xuan not hear the implications from these words? That was all Tiny Herb’s boss said though. After all, they were still competitors. It wasn’t like Tiny Herb’s boss would be so devoted as to conduct thorough research on whether Excellent Era needed such a player.

"Thank you, Boss Yu. We should grab lunch sometime." After saying some polite words, Tao Xuan hung up. The call hadn’t given him as much information as he had wanted. He had already realized that he had been somewhat impulsive. If he really wanted to know information on a player, it would be more appropriate to have the other employees deal with it. A powerful owner like him ran over to ask Tiny Herb about a tossed-out player. It was as if... he was picking up another person’s trash?

As for what exactly was up with Qiao Yifan, he would have his employees under him find other channels to find out. This was the decision that Tao Xuan made in the end.

At Happy Internet Cafe, Ye Xiu wouldn’t know that Qiao Yifan’s words would cause such a ruckus between the owners of the two teams. Even after the crowd had been dispersed, Qiao Yifan was still somewhat in a panicked state! Then, he was dragged away for a welcoming dinner. Afterwards, he followed Wei Chen and Steamed Bun to his living place as if nothing unusual had happened today.

The next morning, when everyone came together at the practice room, Ye Xiu told Qiao Yifan the details of their team’s situation, as well as their current work. Needing to face Excellent Era in the Challenger League didn’t scare Qiao Yifan though because he already knew! He knew Ye Xiu would be participating in the Challenger League. Excellent Era had been relegated too, so Qiao Yifan had already put two and two together long ago.

"I’ll definitely try my best." Qiao Yifan had a cautious personality. He didn’t say anything like "We must beat Excellent Era!" He only dared to guarantee that he would do his best.

"Okay, as long as you understand. Let’s start playing! Old Wei is currently a spy and is Samsara’s second elite group leader." Ye Xiu said.

"Wow!" Qiao Yifan gasped in astonishment. He obviously understood how guilds operated. The second elite group leader was certainly a core member position, no? It was extremely difficult for a spy to get to such a high position.

Wei Chen wasn’t about to explain that he was just being used for labor because of his skill. He waved his hands and said: "You flatter me."

"Little Qiao, you’ll mainly be playing with us. When you have nothing to do, you’ll practice on your own. When I call for you, we’ll gather together and snatch wild bosses." Ye Xiu said.

"Understood."

Soon afterwards, Ye Xiu threw a bomb at Wei Chen: "Old Wei, when I was organizing our materials, I discovered that there are enough materials for you to upgrade your Death’s Hand."

"Is that so… " Wei Chen replied. He was somewhat puzzled for a moment. In today’s game environment, creating a Silver equipment on one’s own was extremely difficult. Silver equipment required uncommon materials, but uncommon materials were monopolized by the Club guilds. It had taken Wei Chen a year to upgrade Death’s Hand to Level 60. Who knew how many coincidences and lucky encounters he had been given in order to achieve that. After becoming one of the competitors for wild bosses and getting good results, they were able to gather enough materials to upgrade his Silver weapon in just a few days.

"Are you sure there aren’t any issues with your blueprint to upgrade it to Level 65?" Ye Xiu asked.

"I… can’t guarantee it." For someone as shameless as Wei Chen to hesitate, it could be seen just how difficult of a step this was. Not having an accurate blueprint was the main reason for the waste of materials. During the process of adjusting the blueprint, batch after batch of uncommon materials would be used. It was a bottomless pit.

"I looked over your blueprint and it didn’t seem like there were any big issues." Ye Xiu said. The value of a talent in this area could be seen here. A talent would be able to ascertain an accurate and reliable blueprint with minimal experimentation by relying on his or her own experience and understanding of the game. In comparison to someone who didn’t have a clue, how many materials would be wasted by praying on luck alone? No matter how much money or materials you had, it wouldn’t be enough.

"I also can’t find anything wrong with it." Wei Chen said. He had been by himself before and didn’t have the resources to afford such a loss, so who knew how many he had gone over the blueprint. He wouldn’t ignore any little thing he thought of. This was the best he could do in theory. If there were any problems, the issues would need to be discovered through experimentation. In other words, they had to find the problems through failure. Thinking of this, Wei Chen couldn’t help but hesitate.

"How about we give it a try?" Ye Xiu said.

"Let’s try?" Wei Chen also said.

"You do it or I do it?" Ye Xiu asked.

"Fuck, I’m doing it myself!" Wei Chen ground his teeth, "Give me the materials."

"Alright." Ye Xiu prepared the materials needed. Upgrading Death’s Hand to Level 65 didn’t completely require only uncommon materials. The rest could be found from the two million yuan worth of materials from Samsara. If there weren’t any problems with a Silver equipment blueprint, there wasn’t much pressure. For example, for teams like Samsara or Excellent Era, if Cloud Piercer’s Wildfire or One Autumn Leaf’s Evil Annihilation broke, the respective teams could easily create another one in a matter of minutes. It was because there were no errors in their blueprint. The losses in material didn’t need to be considered at all.

After Ye Xiu prepared the necessary materials, Wei Chen logged onto his Windward Formation. Death’s Hand was in his inventory. He didn’t dare to bring it with him for his spy account. Firstly, it was too eye-catching. Secondly, what if it dropped when he died? Even if his Level 60 blueprint was perfect, he would still care about such a loss. Materials weren’t easy to get, after all.

The two met up in game and completed the trade. On Wei Chen’s side, Death’s Hand and the materials were put into the equipment editor. Windward Formation went to the Arena, a safe zone, before opening it up.

When he turned his head to look around, Ye Xiu, Chen Guo, Tang Rou, Steamed Bun, and Qiao Yifan had all gathered around him to watch. Everyone knew that this was an important matter. How could they not want to see the result?

"Ptui!" Wei Chen spat in his hands and rubbed them around to pray for good luck. He clicked on Death’s Hand and started to slowly disassemble it.

Next, he needed to replace the old parts with the newly crafted parts and assemble it back together. Some of the parts could be directly formed through the equipment editor, while others needed to be hand-crafted by Wei Chen. Ye Xiu had seen his blueprint, so he knew of the details. Wei Chen noticed the differences between the materials used in the new one and the original and adjusted the parts accordingly. The new parts wouldn’t have a mold already, so Wei Chen would need to create his own. He had to cut, slice, and grind away. The equipment editor was like a virtual lathe.

Ye Xiu hadn’t used any of these functions yet for his Thousand Chance Umbrella, but he would need to sooner or later. When Su Muqiu designed the weapon, Glory’s level cap was 50. Now it was level 70. The biggest change wasn’t the level difference, but the new high-end realm: the Heavenly Domain.

Starting from Level 55, the materials from the Heavenly Domain dominated everything else. Even though normal servers also had Level 55 to Level 70 wild bosses, no less rare than those in the Heavenly Domain, those bosses weren’t on the same level as those in the Heavenly Domain. It was like the difference between Level 70 equipment from a normal server and one from the Heavenly Domain. How could Silver equipment created from materials from the normal servers compare with one created from materials from the Heavenly Domain?

Top-tier Silver equipment required uncommon materials from the Heavenly Domain. Normal server uncommon materials could be used, but from Level 55 onwards, they could only be considered inferior substitutes.

Until Level 50, Silver equipment followed the same path, but the road afterwards was an entirely different matter. The materials from the Heavenly Domain were even more rare and complicated. The same mold couldn’t continuously be used for Heavenly Domain materials. As a result, a lot of parts required slight adjustments according to the materials used. Wei Chen’s blueprint for Death’s Hand considered this aspect. Ye Xiu’s Thousand Chance Umbrella would face the same issue to continue and upgrade it. Ye Xiu was currently in the middle of researching how to do it. It was impossible for Su Muqiu to leave any resources behind for him. When Su Muqiu passed away, the Heavenly Domain hadn’t even existed yet…

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