Sword Among Us

Just as Wandering Know-it-all mentioned, right when Happy returned to his room, he was told by Xu Yao that someone called him just now, and that person claimed to be the manager of the pay-to-view battle replay system at World of Martial Arts. Happy was told to immediately call the manager back once he logged out so that they could negotiate certain matters.

Happy took the phone Xu Yao handed to him, and while he called the number, he stared at Xu Yao, who occasionally snuck glances at him. “Why are you staring at me with such a strange glance? Did Blood Robes call me as well?”

When Xu Yao heard Blood Robes’ name, she instinctively scowled and denied it. “No. Don’t mention him again. I’ve already changed my number.”

“Oh.” With a great show of sensibility, Happy decided not to continue with this inappropriate topic.

“Happy?”

“Yes, I’m Happy.”

“Hello. We’ve contacted each other last time. I am Liu.”

“Good day, Mister Liu. How may I help you this time?”

“Hehe. I believe that you already know my goal, Mister Happy. I’m here for your battle replay, specifically, the first person battle replay of you killing the elites from Wild Wolves in Gusu City. As of right now, news related to this matter has already been circulating in the forum for most of the day, and if we don’t exploit this further, we’ll be losing the great business chance of pushing another battle replay to the top ten. If that happens, I might not be able to keep my job. That’s why I want to work together with you one more time!” Manager Liu told Happy his intentions straightaway.

“Will you make a better offer this time?’

“Of course. This time, we can offer you a fifty-fifty split. You will get half the profit,” Manager Liu answered with a smile, “This is the preliminary estimation. The profit gained from this battle replay will surpass the battle replay you gave me a few days ago. If you manage to get two battle replays to the top ten, then you will become our greatest client in the pay-to-view battle replay system. Next time, if you give us another battle replay, we will offer you even greater benefits.”

“Mister Liu, as expected, you’re a straightforward person.”

“Do you mean that you’ve agreed to give us the rights to your battle replay, Mister Happy?”

“But of course.”

“Mister Happy, we’ll give the most detailed assessment as to which mode the battle replay should be presented, as well as its price, before we upload it to the platform. For now, I will congratulate you beforehand for having another battle replay enter the top ten and that you will gain an even better result than last time. Meanwhile, I also look forward to us working together again.”

“Thank you.”

Once they ended their conversation, Happy went to the internet.

In just half an hour, the official website had already uploaded the entire battle of his fight against Wild Wolves in Gusu City online, and it was promoted by being placed at the most eye-catching part of the main page of their website.

The appeal of the official website was indeed extraordinary.

In just a few minutes, there were already a lot of people who paid attention to the battle replay. The people who paid for the battle replay shot straight up to the seven digits, and when Happy, who was already quite rich right now, saw how the numbers flew up, even he felt his eyelids twitch.

‘These people… is money nothing to them?’

“Chen Kaixin, it’s time for your rehabilitation.”

A nurse pushed open the door and entered before she stared at him with a frightening gaze. “You’ve been dilly-dallying over the past few days. Are you telling me that you don’t want to get better now?”

“I’ll get there immediately!” Happy smiled wanly.

But no matter what, there were still people in this world who could play him around like a fiddle.

*****

Slap!

In a high-class mansion facing the sea was a Philipine maid who was preparing lunch. She suddenly heard the clear sound of porcelain shattering.

The Philipine maid was shocked.

She nervously jogged to the living room and saw her beautiful and awe-inspiring master scowling. She held her phone in a foul mood while she sat on the couch and let her mind wander. The shattered pieces of her coffee cup and some of the residue from the coffee beans lying on the exquisite floor not too far away from the Philipine maid stuck out like a sore thumb.

“You don’t have to clean this. Just go.”

Just when the Philipine maid was prepared to search for tools to clean the mess, she heard words spoken with a cold tone enter her ears.

She shuddered, and the Philipine maid lowered her head before she left quietly.

Once the Philipine maid left, Dream Clouds massaged her temples a little before she cast a glance at the microcomputer on the coffee table. She then called a person in slight exhaustion.

“Contact Blood Robes.”

“Contacting… Please wait a moment.”

“…Yeah?” Blood Robes’ voice sounded incredibly grave.

“Did you see that battle replay?”

“I did.”

“What do you think?” Dream Clouds asked while suppressing her impatience. But there was a mocking and self-deprecating curve on her lips.

She originally thought that they could stomp and suppress a former elite however they wanted with their current strength after he quit the game for one and a half years. She did not expect that Happy would be able to crush their confidence bit by bit within such a short time.

Dream Clouds had already watched the battle replay between Happy and the three Wild Wolves, and in the end, she came to a grave conclusion: if Happy used a similar method against them, even if he went up against two Dream Clouds and two Blood Robes, they might not be able to win.

This meant that the training they did over the past one and a half years was not enough for them to catch up to Happy’s footsteps.

They trained for an extra year and a half and even gained a lot more experience compared to him, but Happy still managed to stand above them.

This discovery caused her to feel depressed and resigned.

Blood Robes remained silent for a long while before he replied, “We no longer have the chance for regret. Over the past few days he’s in Jiangnan, I’ve already asked my people to attack that group of people from before. I reckon Happy will soon receive this news.”

“You’ve already attacked them?!”

Her motions of massaging her temples came to a screeching halt, and Dream Clouds’ eyes flew open. A solemn and uneasy look flashed briefly in her eyes.

“In truth, since yesterday, we’ve locked down on more than forty targets continuously, and right now, we’ve basically killed all of them. They won’t be able to help Happy within a short period of time.” Blood Robes stopped talking for a while before he continued. “But now, Happy has Wandering Know-it-all’s help, and it’ll be even harder to fight against him now. This time, we’ve truly miscalculated.”

“It’s not just a miscalculation. If he doesn’t have Wandering Know-it-all’s help, we still won’t have a problem using Blood Alliance and Five Venoms to fight a war of attrition against Happy… But now, Wandering Know-it-all is helping him, and we’re exposed while Happy remains hidden in the shadows. The right to launch the preemptive strike might no longer be in our hands,” Dream Clouds said.

“Even if you say this now, it’s already too late! My relationship with Happy has already soured to this point, and there’s no turning back for me. Happy will never have the chance to fight against me. As long as he doesn’t build a sect, he will only be a nobody at the lowest level of the societal hierarchy in the game. Even if he builds a sect, I still have a lot of methods to destroy it. Hmph!” Blood Robes said in agitation, “No matter what, Dream Clouds, we can’t be merciful toward Happy anymore…”

“Merciful? Have we ever been merciful?”

Dream Clouds remained silent for a long time before she said, “Since we’ve already started fighting against them, then do it perfectly. Kill them a few more times and make sure that those people are completely useless for a month! Also, find an excuse and kill those people who trained with Happy at Ghost’s Domain. I refuse to believe Happy will be able to endure this after learning about it.”

*****

Once Happy returned to the game after he was done with rehabilitation, he organized the rewards he gained from the battles he went through this time.

Aside from the demon vessels he obtained from Common Reed Land, he also completed three kills in Gusu City, and he obtained six fourth-echelon demon vessels from it, which had coincidentally allowed Happy to gather together an entire set of fourth-echelon demon vessels.

With the current standards in the game, the attributes for the equipment could only be described as being of superior quality. Each piece had a defense that was more than three thousand, and they added quite a lot of points for the players’ own attributes. All of them also had the rare characteristic of allowing the player to maintain his or her posture. As long as the damage taken was not too great, the player’s next move would basically not be affected, and it was a very useful characteristic.

With a set of fourth-echelon demon vessels, not only would Happy’s defense and attributes increase by leaps and bounds, even his movement speed and attack speed would increase exponentially, and it was to the point that Happy could not quite get used to it.

His current stats were starting to show signs of surpassing his other self.

“I’ll have to search for a chance to get used to this first.”

While the large jump in attributes was a good thing, if he could not get used to and control this new power, it would just end up becoming a burden.

If he recklessly tried to control a power that was above what he could withstand, it was not a good thing.

After Happy left Mantuo Villa and Lake Tai, he went straight to Sky Demon Secret Cave.

Sky Demon Secret Cave was located at the ruins of Sky Demon Sect. In this world, most of the time, it was controlled by Class One Hall. In fact, Class One Hall had set up a branch outside the city, right in front of the ruins of Sky Demon Sect, and gathered together thousands of people to protect and monopolize this region.

Their target was naturally to monopolize Fire Qilin Scale and Fire Qilin Blood in an even more effective manner.

Speaking of which, Mu Clan’s Sky Demon Branch was a copy of Class One Hall’s prototype in this place.

In truth, when he first reentered World of Class One Hall, Happy could already not control himself from thinking about fighting against Fire Qilin. He wanted to gather some Fire Qilin Scales and Fire Qilin Blood to stabilize his foundation to fight against Blood Alliance and Class One Hall.

However, since those two great forces were already so strong that they occupy half of the Chinese plains, that was why Happy did not dare to act recklessly and enter Sky Demon Secret Cave.

But now, the situation was different.

With Wandering Know-it-all helping him to hide his coordinates and the human skin mask he obtained from Wind Chimes, he could go anywhere he wanted as he pleased.

Happy used one day to reach Class One Hall’s Sky Demon Branch.

‘Orders.’

He suddenly remembered something very important.

He needed orders to activate Sky Demon Secret Cave, and coincidentally, when Class One Hall monopolized the resources in this place, they also monopolized the plates. Not a single order for Sky Demon Secret Cave could be found anymore.

‘Am I to snatch some from Class One Hall?’ Happy felt a little gloomy.

Even though he would not hesitate or have any sort of trauma holding him back from attacking Class One Hall, he might not be able to gather together four plates immediately.

But if he stayed here for long periods of time, he would just end up too conspicuous, and he felt that it was not too appropriate for him to do so.

‘I miscalculated.’ Happy felt troubled.

Just when Happy was prepared to buy Sky Demon Orders from the market, he suddenly received a messenger pigeon from Hunter Clan.

He skimmed through the contents of the letter. Then, Happy’s expression instantly turned dark.

‘Blood Alliance, Five Venoms, you sure did a terrifying job…’

Mu Qi told him in his letter that last night, a group of people suddenly killed them and chased them out of Ghost’s Domain because of a trivial matter. Their entire group died once.

They had already noticed that this might be an act from Blood Alliance and Class One Hall, which was why they did not dare to continue staying at Ghost’s Domain. They returned to Beijing overnight and went to Mountain Villa of Ten Thousand Beasts.

But they did not expect that the people from Blood Alliance would already be waiting there, and they killed Hunter Clan once more in the name of clearing out the place.

Right now, they had already died twice, and their status had dropped by twenty percent. The people from Hunter Clan no longer dared to get out of the city readily.

Mu Qi also reminded Happy in the letter to be careful of Blood Alliance and Class One Hall.

‘I originally wanted to let you go through a period of peace, but since you decided to cause trouble, then don’t blame me for being ruthless…’ Happy tore the letter and got up his horse without hesitation.

His gaze turned cold, and he headed straight to Sky Demon Branch.