Chapter 54: I Will Go!

Translator: DragonBoatTrans

“I will go!”

Qiao Qiao had at an unknown moment moved out from the washroom; some bloodstains were still sticking to her arms. She shouted those words loudly. After a pause, she quickly added. “I will enter your team!”

Chen Xiaolian turned to look at Qiao Qiao.

Qiao Qiao quickly said. “I must be by Soo Soo’s side.”

“Who is Soo Soo?” Qiu Yun asked indifferently.

“My little sister.”

Hearing this, Qiu Yun laughed and pointed at Chen Xiaolian. “Then, the matter is settled, I choose you.”

“What?” Qiao Qiao’s face paled.

“It is simple, what I need is a temporary assistant. Even if it is only temporary, that person must be qualified to be my assistant. When completing my orders, I can tolerate my assistant using whatever spare time available to help care for his friend. However… it is obvious that your little female friend considers her little sister’s safety as her primary objective. I do not wish to take in someone like this as my assistant to enter the instance dungeon.”

Qiao Qiao’s face contorted and she casted her gaze at Chen Xiaolian, anxiousness filling her eyes.

“That is enough, Qiao Qiao,” Chen Xiaolian sighed. “I will go. Do not worry, I will do my best to ensure Soo Soo’s safety. Besides…”

He did not say anything else.

He had wanted to say that Qiao Qiao had never gone through an instance dungeon before. Since he had done so once, he should have a higher ability to adapt.

It was then that Chen Xiaolian recalled that both him and Qiao Qiao were not Awakened ones, but rather… Irregularities!

It would be best to temporarily keep this a secret from Qiu Yun.

At that moment, Chen Xiaolian found that he had received a message through the system.

Chen Xiaolian raised his head to look at Qiu Yun. Qiu Yun then nodded his head.

Chen Xiaolian took a deep breath…

Soon, some new changes appeared within the interface in his line of sight.

Chen Xiaolian turned to look at Qiu Yun.

“I believe that you presently need to get acquainted with some things,” Qiu Yun gave out a light laugh. “I will give you some time to say goodbye to your friends, then… 10 hours before the instance dungeon opens, come join up with me.”

“… Thank you.”

Chen Xiaolian straightened himself and forcibly pulled Qiao Qiao who had a dazed look on her face. The both of them walked out of Qiu Yun’s room.

Just as they were about to walk into the elevator outside, Qiao Qiao suddenly grabbed Chen Xiaolian’s arm. “Xiaolian! You promised me… I need to enter the instance dungeon! I cannot, cannot let Soo Soo…”

“Shut up!” Chen Xiaolian suddenly grabbed and forcibly pushed her against the elevator wall!

Peng!

“What do you think this is? Play house? A game?” Chen Xiaolian’s face was grim. “This is not a world where you get to dictate anything! In this world, having money and beauty does not mean that others will definitely want to look at you or pay attention to your actions! This is a cruel, new world! One wrong step will lead to death!

“Just because you want something, it does not mean that you will get it!”

At that moment, Chen Xiaolian’s face was somewhat fierce, causing Qiao Qiao to become stunned.

“Huu…”

Chen Xiaolian deeply exhaled and released Qiao Qiao. He then whispered. “Sorry, I became too impetuous.”

“… I am the one who should be sorry,” Qiao Qiao bit down hard on her lips. “Now…”

“There is no need to talk about it,” Chen Xiaolian shook his head. “I have already made my decision… additionally, matters have already fallen into place. For this instance dungeon, I will enter. I will do my best to protect Soo Soo.”

He looked at Qiao Qiao. “Don’t worry… there is no point in worrying! There is nothing we could do about it! We have already obtained the best possible outcome for now.”

Qiao Qiao remained worried.

Chen Xiaolian’s eyes suddenly flickered. “I need to ask you something.”

He abruptly grabbed Qiao Qiao’s arm and asked in a lowered tone. “When you were cleaning up the blood stains and the corpse, did you find a metallic sphere?”

“…No,” Qiao Qiao shook her head.

Chen Xiaolian’s face became somewhat peculiar.

…

After returning to the room, Chen Xiaolian did not talk much. Instead, he let Qiao Qiao explain what happened to Han Bi and Roddy.

He remained by their side, listening. At the same time, he was also carefully looking at the new features available in the system.

Guild features.

…

The guild features were partially similar to what Chen Xiaolian had speculated before.

At least, there was an ‘instance dungeon selection’.

However, this option was in grey. Clearly, Chen Xiaolian did not have enough authority. It was likely that only the Guild Leader of the guild will have the authority to control that aspect.

Although… true to its name, instance dungeon selection should be able to counter the scenario of ‘being selected by the instance dungeon’!

As expected, there was a leeway for guilds.

Despite not being able to open the grey coloured option, he could see the notes beside it.

After a moment of silence, Chen Xiaolian spoke out. “It seems, my speculations from before have been confirmed.”

“What did you discover?” Han Bi quickly asked.

“Guilds give a very big advantage,” Chen Xiaolian forced out a smile. “It should mean as follows: Once an Awakened one joins a guild, that person will be able to avoid being selected by an instance dungeon that is opening up. That person will no longer be selected by an instance dungeon and forced to participate.”

“That is good news,” Han Bi nodded his head.

“Not necessarily. There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world,” Chen Xiaolian smiled bitterly. “That individual will not be selected by the instance dungeon. However, the guild cannot avoid participating in instance dungeons. There are 2 types of instance dungeon participation for guilds. The first is active participation; I believe that means after a certain amount of time, the system will announce the information for instance dungeons that are opening to the guilds. The guild will have to decide if it wants to participate. If it chooses to participate, adjustments will be made to match the class of the instance dungeon and the guild’s own class.

“If the instance dungeon’s class is higher than the guild’s class, then the guild will face restrictions when entering. For example, the number of people allowed to enter will be reduced. A lower classed guild will have to endure the restriction of having lesser people when entering a higher classed instance dungeon. The guild will be unable to field as many people as it wishes to. Additionally… if the difference in class is too high, the guild will not even be allowed to enter and not a single person would be allowed to participate.

“A guild’s class is based on: Assessment of guild member’s strength, frequency of success in instance dungeons, rate of survival, completion of quests etc. These will be used to comprehensively evaluate the guild.

“Theoretically speaking, the guild with higher number of masters, instance dungeon participation and success rate will have a higher class for its rating.

“The division for guild class is also from [E] class to [S] class.

“There are several advantages to being a high-class guild. Firstly, it can participate in high-class instance dungeons. In addition, it will not face any restriction in number of participants. The guild can thus send in its main powerhouses and ensure that their combat strength will not be reduced, leading to a higher rate of success.

“The second advantage is… the right to not participate. When encountering an instance dungeon of a lower class compared to the guild’s, the guild may elect to be exempted. In other words, suppose that a guild is of the [A] class and it encounters an instance dungeon with the difficulty class of [A] class or below, the guild can then choose to not participate in the instance dungeon.

“However, this exemption will reduce the class of the guild.”

Han Bi suddenly had a thought. “This could be a loophole, right?” The thick browed youngster’s face became a little glad. “This can be exploited! Theoretically speaking, an instance dungeon with a higher class of difficulty will mean a higher rate of death. Then… assuming our guild had undergone a difficult amount of grinding, the battle strength of our members will become high.

“At that time, we take advantage of this right for exemption to suppress the guild’s class so that the guild can maintain its low class. Moreover, the guild can participate in low-class instance dungeons when in fact, our members already have high-class of battle strength.

“Participating in a low-class instance dungeon with high-class battle strength, our rate of survival will be assured!

“Additionally, once the guild’s class rises high again, the right for exemption can be utilized again to reduce the guild’s class. That way, the class of difficulty can be maintained forever…”

The more he spoke, the more excited Han Bi became.

A helpless look was etched on Chen Xiaolian’s face. “I thought about those things as well. However… it is not feasible!”

“There is a set rule displayed: Exemption cannot be used continuously!

“In other words, if the right for exemption was used for the last instance, then there will be no exemption for the next time, regardless of what type of instance dungeon it may be. Participation then becomes mandatory!

“Assume an [A] class guild had utilized the exemption once. It is then degraded to a [B] class guild… it can then no longer be exempted for the next instance dungeon.

“If the difficulty level of the next instance dungeon is [B] class, then they are lucky.

“But, if the next instance dungeon that they are forced to participate in is of the [A] class or perhaps higher…

“Then, that guild which had been degraded to a [B] class guild will be forced to participate in an instance dungeon with [A] class difficulty, leading to a restriction in the number of participants! Under this restriction in participant number, if some key members are unable to participate, then the guild will be unable to display its full strength. Within an instance dungeon of a higher class of difficulty, it is inevitable that the dangers will increase, leading to a higher rate of failure and death!

“Once failure or death occurs… the guild’s class will further decrease.

“The guild will then become even weaker!

“In addition… only high-class instance dungeons will give out high-class loots.

“In low-class instance dungeons… we may be able to laze about. However, our loot will be low and we will be unable to greatly increase the strength of our guild. Once disaster occurs… there is no need for me to explain. I am sure you all understand.

“I have checked the system before, there is an explanation within the guild’s instance dungeon selection area: Every once in a while, the system will select some guilds to participate in a ‘large-scale instance dungeon’ event. It is one that ignores the distinction between classes!

“If our strength is insufficient, then entering this world filled with masters… would be akin to a sheep delivering itself into a pack of wolves.

“This system will not give us the opportunity to exploit loopholes.”

“What about guild members then?” Han Bi suddenly asked. “Are there any restrictions for guild members? If being in a guild allows one to avoid being selected by the instance dungeon, then every time the guild has to participate in an instance, the Guild Leader can show benevolence to a certain guild member. That way, that certain guild member will always be safe, right?”

“There are restrictions,” Chen Xiaolian gave a strained smile. “A guild member who did not participate in an instance dungeon twice in a row will be forced by the instance dungeon to enter the third one, disregarding the difference in class. In addition, that member will end up occupying one of the limited spots in the guild’s participating team. I doubt there will be any Guild Leader who would practice such a kind of favouritism.

“Raising a wastrel, protecting that person and not letting him participate in instance dungeons. At most, that person will only be able to laze about for two times. The third time around, that person will be forced into an instance dungeon… additionally, that person will occupy one of the limited spots for participation. If the instance dungeon happens to be one that has a high class of difficulty, that would mean having one less key members in exchange for a wastrel… isn’t that act simply courting disaster?”

A lost look of resentment befell Han Bi’s face.

Chen Xiaolian suddenly let out a smile. “I feel that having this leeway is good enough. At the very least, after entering a guild, each member will have a maximum of two chances to be exempted from instance dungeons. When encountering an instance that is unsuitable or of a higher class of difficulty, one can choose to not let their guild members die a senseless death. With three opportunities, one would surely be able to get an instance dungeon with a low class of difficulty, thereby allowing the weaker guild member to have an easier time.”

Chen Xiaolian sighed. “In any case, the benefits from a guild far outweighs being alone. At the very least, the degree of freedom available when participating in an instance dungeon is bigger. There will also be more leeway to manoeuvre about. In contrast, when Han Bi and Soo Soo were selected, we were pushed to the cliff’s edge.

“Thus, I have been thinking… if we are to consider things from a long-term perspective, it would be best for us to find and join a reliable guild or… establish our own guild!”