Chapter 58: Special Hunting
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
UnchainedWanderer’s suggestion meant the rest of the team had to wait for a while. After resting for half an hour, they set out to earn points in the wilderness. Intercepting others was a tricky task, and although they had planned to coordinate precisely, the actual battle in the wilderness was chaotic. Fortunately, their team was strong, and they avoided any accidents.
“The damage this time was high; did you see how confused they were?”
“Brother Wanderer, you’re stacking arrays so fast; it feels like we finished the fight before it even started.”
“Maybe their equipment isn’t that good. Although [Zenith Expanse] is a big guild, not everyone there has top-tier gear.”
After intercepting one group, they moved to another location. There were many [Zenith Expanse] players, and they usually had wilderness tasks to complete. By visiting the common task spots, they could often find solo or group players.
“How many points do we need?” Su Mo had just finished killing one when he heard UnchainedWanderer’s question. “We still have 200 points left.”
The array master asked, “How many points do you need?”
“Fifty,” Su Mo replied. “We’ll finish soon.”
He added, “Let’s head south to Sunset City. There’s a region boss spawning during the afternoon task rotation. It’s abundant, but also risky.”
Yu Zhen looked at him in surprise. “Do you need the regional boss?”
Su Mo paused briefly and then said, “No, aren’t you tired? There are many people there; the sooner we finish, the sooner you can rest.”
Yu Zhen was speechless.
Thinking his words were right, Su Mo continued, “ScarletFruit, didn’t you sleep well? It makes sense; you were online late yesterday. Let’s finish quickly so we can rest early.”
ClearWind added, “Brother Wanderer, weren’t you fierce just now? You wiped out the warrior with three arrays. I was thinking of delaying the group interception, but intercepting teams isn’t challenging; real men fight groups.”
ZenSlasher chimed in, “There’s a group of ten monsters outside the demon dungeon. The [Temple of the Gods] has a fixed group every afternoon; we can intercept there.”
Su Mo continued, “Let’s finish earning points first, then go.”
He looked at Yu Zhen. “Rest after you’re done; the four of us will be fine.”
Yu Zhen was speechless.
Su Mo noticed something off about UnchainedWanderer since the afternoon, and it became more apparent after they went to the city’s south. Even after earning points, UnchainedWanderer didn’t leave but followed them to intercept a group at the demon dungeon entrance.
During this time, UnchainedWanderer fought fiercely, stacking arrays quickly. The team’s attack rhythm increased as a result, with UnchainedWanderer leading them. In the end, ScarletFruit, the sole healer, surrendered, complaining of sore hands, before they all returned to the city to rest.
ScarletFruit looked at Yu Zhen with disbelief. “I’ve heard of getting more tired the longer you fight, but I’ve never heard of getting more energetic.”
Yu Zhen replied lightly, “Let’s rest.”
After returning to the city, Su Mo went to exchange materials. Seeing it was almost time for dinner, he logged off. “I’ll be doing hunting battles tonight; be careful in the wilderness and don’t get intercepted. Signing off.”
ScarletFruit sighed. “If only I had been a bit more motivated that day, I could have joined my brother in the hunting battles.”
ClearWind added, “I’m different; I never managed to catch up from the start.”
He looked at UnchainedWanderer. “Aren’t you going to rest, Brother Wanderer?”
Yu Zhen was speechless.
….
Su Mo’s dinner was a nutritional supplement, and with the chicken soup from lunch still lingering, even the chicken-flavored supplement tasted dry and bland. He logged in relatively early, as he planned to participate in the hunting battles. With four hours available, he wanted to start early and finish early.
As soon as he opened the matching interface, he noticed the change in the number of participants in the hunting battles. Initially, there were nearly 120,000 people, but in just over a day, the remaining number was now less than 10,000. Despite the ceasefire period, many players kept re-entering the arena, continuously earning points and attribute bonuses as long as they weren’t eliminated. This led to a sharp decline in the number of participants within such a short time.
According to the rules, once a certain number of participants were reached, the final hunting battle would commence. The final winner would be determined, and the hunting leaderboard would be set, concluding the entire event. That time should be within the next few days.
Su Mo originally wanted to take advantage of the event to earn more points or attribute bonuses, but the time constraint was not friendly to him, so he had to give up.
When Yu Zhen logged in, the friend list already showed that Momo was in the hunting arena. Not long ago, he had spent some time checking the serial number sequence of the F-class loader and verifying its component status. He had noticed that Zhang Qi had recently returned the loader to be reconfigured, adding multiple medical components to it, clearly considering the user’s needs on multiple levels.
“Mr. Zhang explained the situation, and we also checked the key factors such as the user’s frequency of use,” the researcher said in the communication. “After all, it’s a loader for F-class users. The data after its return provides us with many new ideas for our current research. We have been somewhat biased in our consideration of F-class users, thinking they would be cautious due to physical limitations, but in reality, this user’s activity index in the game is higher than that of most players…”
Yu Zhen himself had consulted many doctors in various medical fields for data collection and simulation environments related to F-class conditions, especially regarding what kind of medical environment should be provided for F-class patients and how to build neural circuits. He had led a team to make detailed plans and understood how challenging it was for F-class patients.
When building the F-class circuits, the researchers’ goal was to achieve the potential of the F-class loader, mainly for their own interests and dreams of making a breakthrough in the history of loaders. They never expected such a loader to be cherished by F-class patients.
The holographic Global directly linked to players’ brains, theoretically enabling endless fantasies. They thought they were providing a special relaxation space for F-class patients, but in reality, they were opening up a new world for them, which was previously impossible.
He had never imagined that Momo would be Su Mo, or that Momo would be an F-class patient who needed special attention.
In reality, Su Mo lived cautiously, being polite and humble to everyone, but he never truly opened up to anyone. In the game, Momo was free-spirited and confident, a bold and lively young person.
In the eyes of others, these were two completely different personalities. Even though he had noticed the similarity between Su Mo’s and Momo’s voice, he had never thought much about it. The differences between the two were too significant. So when he found out that Momo was Su Mo, he was momentarily unsure whether to confess or maintain the status quo.
Su Mo clearly kept his real life separate from the game. He had never been honest about reality in the game, nor had he communicated about the game with people in real life, maintaining vigilance and caution.
Such a person might not like to mix reality with the game.
Yu Zhen inexplicably didn’t want the relationship between the two to be affected by some offline connection, nor did he want Momo to bring the humility of reality into the game.
….
Su Mo emerged from the hunting grounds with his level just reaching 78. As levels increased, the difficulty in leveling up also increased, compounded by various quests that challenged experience points. As a result, the maximum level in Celestial Horizon was currently 79. The 80 PvP golden equipment hadn’t been equipped yet. Su Mo was still wearing level 75 equipment obtained through point exchange. He had used the money from the game store dividends and accumulated point materials to refine his equipment, barely keeping up with the first-tier players.
ScarletFruit quickly formed a team as soon as Su Mo came out of the hunting grounds. Seeing him tinkering with his level 75 equipment, ScarletFruit asked, “Bro, why are you spending so much on level 75 equipment? You’re just two levels away from the max level. Why not just refine the 80 PvP golden equipment when you reach it? You’ve already saved up six Aetherial Shrouds.”
Su Mo had a different perspective, “It’s not that easy to reach level 80.”
During this period, more quest dungeons had opened up, especially for high-level players, making it easier to trigger quests. Everyone else in the team was level 79, and the experience bar from level 79 to 80 was twice as long as that of level 78. The vanguard players should have reached the edge of level 79 or even reached level 80 by now, but there was still no news of anyone reaching max level.
“UnchainedWanderer just joined the team,” ScarletFruit said. “Brother Wanderer, where have you been? ClearWind was asking in the group if you wanted to go to the wilderness, but you didn’t respond.”
Yu Zhen, who had just come out of the hunting grounds, asked, “Is that so?”
ClearWind remained silent for a while before saying, “Questions are tears, questions are irrelevant.”
“What’s up, guys?” Yu Zhen asked, sensing a change in the mood.
“We’re talking about no one reaching max level,” ScarletFruit replied.
“Level 80, someone’s attempting a quest challenge,” Yu Zhen said briefly. “There’s no specific information. The higher the level, the stricter the punishment from the mainframe. Until there’s accurate information, the first-tier players don’t dare to take the risk.”
“Doesn’t that mean the first-tier players have to wait?” ClearWind asked.
“They’re just waiting for intel. There’s information about the level 80 quest challenge in the main storyline quests at level 79. Once they gather enough information, they’ll start the quest,” Yu Zhen explained.
Su Mo finished changing his equipment and refining it, even upgrading his [Floating Cloud Lantern] to level 70. Weapons after level 70 were completely different. The [Floating Cloud Lantern] was renamed [Celestial Lantern], presenting a new texture. It felt heavier in hand, yet the additional attributes were completely different from before. The casting time required for summoning decreased, the base physical and magical attack doubled, and the control time increased by 2 seconds…
Indeed, it was a golden quest weapon, much stronger than other dungeon weapons or crafted weapons, especially in terms of attributes.
“Wow, your weapon is much better than mine,” ClearWind said enviously. “Is upgrading also based on luck?”
“It is!” ScarletFruit couldn’t help but show off his weapon, which increased his luck by +150. “Look at mine, a rare weapon with maxed out luck. It’s the only one in Celestial Horizon.”
“Let’s try it out in the wilderness!” ClearWind, who had been bored all night, found some excitement. “Let’s go!”
“It’s late. How about tomorrow?” Yu Zhen looked at Su Mo. “Aren’t you about to log off?”
Su Mo checked the time. “There’s still half an hour left. We have time.”
“Brother Wanderer, you’ve been acting strange today!” ScarletFruit remarked.
“Is it normal to ask if a teammate will log off or not? It’s not like you usually ask. You used to just ask how much time is left and calculate which activity would save the most time,” ClearWind added.
Upon hearing his teammates’ remarks, coupled with his earlier doubts, Su Mo also felt that UnchainedWanderer was acting oddly today. Or rather, UnchainedWanderer had been showing him this inexplicable care since he delivered the items and thanked him in the morning.
Su Mo harbored doubts and was about to ask when the hunting grounds’ exclusive announcement appeared again for everyone to see.
[Valor Peak Hunting Grounds all sessions closed, lifting the ceasefire period restrictions. The remaining number of players has been counted at 95, with 5 players selected from the ranking list, currently being confirmed.]
[Number of confirmations: 4/5, proceeding to select again.]
[Number of confirmations: 5/5, selection complete. Meets the standard for the final 100-player hunting ground.]
[Final list of the 100-player hunting ground determined, special hunting rights (0/500) issued, please confirm.]
[95/500]
[115/500]
…
[500/500，Complete]
The sudden announcement, along with the strange announcement rules, made it seem as if Valor Peak hunting ground had completely turned into another hunting ground.
“What the hell is this?” ScarletFruit stared at the announcement in front of him, dumbfounded. “There were still a lot of people at 7 o’clock, right? How come there are only 95 left? So many eliminated in one night? Wait, why are there still special hunting rights? What’s going on?”
“It seems like many instances have been opened since the afternoon, and there were a lot of people eliminated on the spot. I saw someone on the forum saying that the refresh points of the protective jade seemed to have become very strange, and many people couldn’t get the jade,” ClearWind said. “This event has only been open for a few days, and suddenly it’s the final hunt? How come the rules seem a bit different from the hundred-player hunting grounds we’ve seen before? Have the rules been changed?”
ScarletFruit added, “The previous rules only mentioned there would be a final hundred-player hunt, but it didn’t specify the final rules.”
[In order to prevent players from cheating, the hunting ground rules have been revised. The revised hunting rules have been sent to the player’s backpack for your reference.]
[Abstention channels and replacement channels have been opened. Ranking players can sign up for replacements, and hundred-player hunters can abstain. Please, abstain cautiously as there will be penalties (★★★).]
Su Mo paused for a moment. Rule correction? What does that mean?
[Server-wide announcement] Valor Peak hunting ground is coming to an end, and the final hundred-player hunting ground is about to open. The difficulty of the final hunting ground is ★★★★★ (Special Grade). The final list of participants for the hunting ground has been announced, with a hundred-player hunting participation quota (100/100) and special hunting rights (500/500). Please note, players with hunting rights, enter the final hunt in 21 hours. Players who fail to enter the match on time will be eliminated…
ApexMind’s voice appeared in the ears of online players, and all players received a server-wide hunting list and a live stream link.
21 hours…
Su Mo saw this time point, it was tomorrow night at 7:30.
Thanks for the chapter!