Chapter 78: Playing with Fire
Translated by Karai of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
The hand behind Su Mo gradually tightened around his neck. Just as it was about to grasp firmly, Su Mo’s staff suddenly appeared in his hand, striking back at the entity. The next moment, Su Mo decisively broke free and distanced himself.
He threw the Illumination Scroll towards the original position with his other hand, illuminating the area and revealing the true face of the hand.
Standing there was a slender youth dressed in white, with long white hair cascading over his shoulders. His eyes were very pale in color.
He maintained the gesture of raising his hand, the slender hand looking unusually fragile, as if it could snap with the slightest pressure. Floating barefoot in the air, he seemed to have just noticed that his prey had escaped. His eyes focused suddenly on Su Mo, and several ice blades were conjured in his hand.
Not good!
Su Mo immediately retreated. The falling ice blades were swift and powerful, penetrating deep into the ice. He summoned the bear, a huge creature that landed on the ground but still did not reach the top of the cave. Su Mo realized that this place was unusually spacious, making players seem like tiny ants in comparison.
Locking eyes with the youth, its health bar immediately appeared in front of Su Mo.
Boss name: Eternal Winter.
The health bar of Eternal Winter was the thickest Su Mo had seen among all the bosses.
But that wasn’t the focus. The focus was on the intelligence of this boss, Eternal Winter.
In all previous dungeon scenarios, yellow-named creatures needed players to trigger their attacks, while red-named creatures would immediately attack as soon as players entered their range.
Su Mo scanned his surroundings and the position where Eternal Winter stood. It seemed that Eternal Winter had likely entered Su Mo’s attack range long before, lurking until just now when it launched its attack on Su Mo.
The bear immediately used Taunt, drawing Eternal Winter’s attacks toward itself.
Su Mo seized a brief opportunity to catch his breath. He immediately summoned three summoned creatures, releasing the Soul Rabbit. He hid behind the bear, using the gap in blocking to command the three summoned creatures to attack actively.
Eternal Winter’s basic attacks were extremely powerful. After switching its aggression to the bear, it used two different basic attacks. One was the single ice blade Su Mo had just seen, and the other was three ice blades centered around the bear. Even though the bear had thick health, these two basic attacks were enough to reduce its health to half.
In the voice channel, teammates were still talking.
Su Mo didn’t speak but informed his teammates that a certain skill had been moved to an emergency position… Suddenly, Eternal Winter, who had been standing in front of the bear, disappeared abruptly.
At that moment, Su Mo suddenly felt a sense of danger. He looked up just as Eternal Winter descended from above. A skill landed on the bear, instantly killing it.
“!!!”
Su Mo swiftly dodged Eternal Winter’s attack, running swiftly through the long and deep cave. Eternal Winter moved incredibly fast, each skill landing right at Su Mo’s heels, the attacks coming relentlessly.
Suddenly, the attacks ceased. Su Mo’s footsteps halted as he scanned around, finding no trace of the boss.
Is it stealth? No, that’s not it.
“Welcome to Winter Realm. Winter Realm special mechanism triggered: [Frozen][Eternal Slumber][Immortality].”
Just then, a figure suddenly emerged from the ice surface directly in front of Su Mo. He swiftly retreated to dodge the frontal attack. Immediately afterward, he noticed that the boss’s movements slowed down abruptly, and its originally pale eyes momentarily turned deep and profound!
Su Mo instinctively avoided looking into its eyes. In the next moment, all of his summoned beasts around him turned into ice sculptures. At that moment, Eternal Winter raised its hand again, countless ice blades ready to launch. Su Mo quickly stepped back a few paces and decisively activated that skill.
The sudden announcement from the system immediately alerted the players who were casually chatting in the voice channel.
“What’s going on!? Why did the main system’s voice suddenly come up?” ClearWind immediately stood up, throwing the Illumination Scroll deep into the cave, but saw no sign of any boss. “Was it triggered suddenly?”
Yu Zhen’s heart skipped a beat. “Momo!”
Just as he uttered these words, a person suddenly appeared before him, uncontrollably taking a few steps forward and bumping straight into him. Yu Zhen instinctively reached out to support the person.
Su Mo almost knocked Yu Zhen over again, but just as he was about to lose his balance, Yu Zhen caught him. Gripping Yu Zhen tightly, Su Mo could feel the warmth emanating from the man’s body through his hands, pulling him back from the cold environment he had just been in.
After a brief pause, Yu Zhen decisively embraced Su Mo and led him to the warmth of the campfire, helping him to sit down. “Can you move your left hand?” he asked.
Su Mo shook his head. “No, I can’t. It must be due to the effects of frost.”
At this moment, Su Mo looked utterly disheveled, with only 30% of his health remaining. His left hand was covered in frost, and his frost value had accumulated to 20%.
Despite his inability to move his left hand completely, just being held by Yu Zhen allowed Su Mo to feel a steady warmth spreading from where they touched. He was about to speak when Yu Zhen gently lifted his hand.
“Lean on me first and stabilize your frost value,” Yu Zhen said.
ScarletFruit chimed in, “Bro, weren’t you going to look for clues?”
The others were dumbfounded. This didn’t look like searching for clues at allâit seemed more like a desperate fight for survival.
“There’s only one boss with a very thick health bar, and its attack skills are complex and varied,” Su Mo explained briefly to his teammates about encountering the boss inside the cave. He emphasized the boss’s skills, especially its ice camouflage mechanism. “At the time, I just wanted to test it out and understand the situation better, so I didn’t call you over. Now that I think about it, if we had gone deep into the cave without understanding the mechanism, we might have lost several team members there.”
Su Mo glanced at the skills displayed for the Winter Realm scene: [Frozen] referred to the frost value, while the other two skills weren’t explained and would likely only appear after being triggered. “This boss is tough. Besides its powerful regular skills and complex mechanism skills, there’s another particularly troublesome aspect.”
His gaze fell on his left hand. Just a short time there had raised his frost value to 20. Escaping in such a state was difficult enough, let alone trying to deplete the massive health of the boss. If the whole team went in, they’d either be killed by the boss’s skills or frozen solid with max frost values.
“We can’t just aggro recklessly. There must be another aspect to the frost value,” Su Mo deduced, realizing that without solving the frost issue, it would be challenging to defeat the boss. “The Winter Realm map is vast; perhaps there are places we’ve missed.”
The other players listened quietly, their expressions suddenly complex.
ScarletFruit said, “My big brother said it’s tough, so it must be.”
ClearWind added, “I think so too.”
Yellow Peach remarked, “Why do I feel like this boss will be as challenging as the one in the Spring Realm, taking us two or three days to beat?”
Apple gasped, “It can take down a half-health bear in seconds; we probably won’t survive.”
FireworksAndLanterns remarked, “Difficulty makes it more challenging!”
Bitter melon wondered, “This monster sounds agile. Can I keep up?”
The others remained silent.
When Bitter melon spoke up, everyone instantly felt that the difficulty might increase due to their team’s main tank.
Watermelon said, “I suddenly feel like logging off and getting some sleep.”
Yellow Peach suggested, “Let’s eat barbecue. We haven’t had these grilled foods yet, and they’re a specialty from the Autumn Realm. They might not be available outside.”
Su Mo caught sight of the meat on the grill out of the corner of his eye. “Can I have that skewer?”
“Coming right up,” ScarletFruit eagerly ran over. “Bro, what seasonings do you want?”
Su Mo smelled the aroma and suddenly felt hungry. “Just add whatever.”
ScarletFruit quickly brought two skewers of grilled meat. Su Mo took one skewer and handed the other to Yu Zhen beside him.
Yu Zhen took the skewer and watched as Su Mo sniffed the grilled meat after taking it, but didn’t take a bite. Virtual food in Global could satisfy a player’s sense of smell and taste, but when swallowed, it dissipated without providing any real satiation.
Yu Zhen hadn’t paid much attention to this before, but now he suddenly noticed that whenever Su Mo ate something in the game’s Global, it seemed to be like thisâhe would taste it, but not eat much.
Yet, in reality, Su Mo’s appetite couldn’t be satisfied.
“Want another one?” Yu Zhen offered him the skewer he held.
Su Mo shook his head. “No, eating more will just make me hungrier.”
“Ah, it’s not that simple. I’ll grab a late-night snack offline,” Apple moved around the Vicinity of the barbecue grill, holding several skewers. “These things taste really good. I wonder if the recipes can be replicated. I’ll have my robot at home try making them.”
Watermelon commented, “These ingredients are hard to come by. They’re specialties from Autumn Realm.”
Apple replied, “It’s all data. Just find something with a similar taste.”
Su Mo smiled but didn’t say anything.
Yu Zhen felt his heart sink. He knew Su Mo didn’t eat late-night snacks.
Close to ten o’clock, Su Mo handed over the raid leader position to Bitter Melon to save the team’s progress.
Saving the team’s progress meant that everyone went offline and switched to away mode. Once in this state, all players in the team couldn’t move or take action unless they came back online and resumed their status.
This was a unique mechanism in the Seven-Star Challenge, likely established by the mainframe to ensure progress during raids.
After logging off, Su Mo felt even hungrier.
Knowing he shouldn’t have eaten that skewer, he regretted it and thought about eating something else. Before going to bed, he instructed Lele to prepare a hearty breakfast.
Morning came quickly. Su Mo woke up early today, getting up at six o’clock. Seeing Lele hadn’t prepared breakfast yet, he changed into his morning exercise clothes and went downstairs for a slow jog.
The residential area was lively in the morning. People were already exercising in the community square early in the morning. Su Mo ran halfway and met Grandpa Zhang and Uncle Li. He asked if they wanted to play chess later, but they declined due to other commitments. He continued jogging for another lap.
In reality, unlike in the game, Su Mo had poor physical fitness. After running one lap, he needed a good rest.
But this situation was much better than before. Unlike his first time jogging, where he would be drenched in sweat after running 100 meters. Years of exercise had improved his physical fitness to some extent. While his constitution hadn’t changed significantly, it allowed him to live a relatively normal life, like some E-grade individuals.
Sitting on the roadside to rest, Su Mo caught a whiff of fragrance, which happened to be from a breakfast shop not far outside the community. Apart from certain formal restaurants, he rarely ate out. Even when he did, he would only order dishes with transparent ingredients.
Su Mo sniffed again and found the smell increasingly appealing.
Lele’s cooking was actually quite good. Why did the breakfast shop’s aroma smell even better?
Su Mo had pondered this question for many years. Lele had even gone to inquire about the recipes, only to be turned down by the owner with a simple “family secret recipe” excuse. Every time he passed by during his morning exercises, Su Mo would think about it, but despite his curiosity, he never went in. He eventually convinced himself with the rationale:
Breakfast shops served junk food that he couldn’t eat without consequences.
“Su Mo?”
Su Mo heard the voice and turned to see Yu Zhen. “Brother?”
It seemed Yu Zhen was also out for a morning jog, but with his excellent physique, he looked refreshed without a drop of sweat, unlike Su Mo who had already perspired.
Yu Zhen asked, “Finished your run?”
Su Mo replied, “Yes, I’m heading back.”
Yu Zhen pointed to the breakfast shop outside. “How about having breakfast together? My treat.”
“No, thanks. I’ll eat at home,” Su Mo declined, then asked, “Do you often go there, though?”
“After morning jogs, occasionally. Grandma loves their steamed buns,” Yu Zhen replied. Sensing Su Mo’s concern, he continued, “Their food is clean. They’ve been here in the residential area for many years. You don’t need to worry about the food.”
Su Mo hesitated for a moment. “I…”
Yu Zhen asked again, “Shall we go?”
Su Mo felt a shameful stir of desire and decided to only have one steamed bun, planning to eat Lele’s breakfast afterward without being caught. However, when he actually arrived at the breakfast shop and looked at the diverse selection of buns on the menu, he began hesitating over which one to choose.
Yu Zhen watched Su Mo closely from the moment he started perusing the menu. Or perhaps even earlier, before he greeted Su Mo, Yu Zhen had been observing him for a while. He knew Su Mo had been staring at the breakfast shop for several minutes but hadn’t gone in to eat.
After Su Mo fell ill last time, with Su Mo’s permission, Yu Zhen learned about his dietary habits through Lele. For example, his weekly nutritional standards, his standards for eating out, and his dietary restrictions were all detailed in a comprehensive list maintained by Lele.
“I’ve decided,” Su Mo said.
Yu Zhen took his order board, which only had one steamed bun selected. “Just this one?”
“I’m not sure if the other buns have added ingredients,” Su Mo explained. “This one looks simpler.”
Yu Zhen chuckled, “How do you know this bun doesn’t have added ingredients?”
“It’s the cheapest option,” Su Mo explained. “Considering the ingredients, the price is about right. The boss wants to make money, so naturally, they won’t add much.”
Yu Zhen tapped on the order board a few times and suddenly remarked, “The board seems broken. I’ll go talk to the boss about it.”
“Okay,” Su Mo watched Yu Zhen walk to the counter to discuss with the boss. His gaze wandered around the shop and unexpectedly spotted a few acquaintances. He politely nodded and exchanged greetings with them.
After a while, Yu Zhen returned.
Su Mo asked, “Why did it take you so long?”
“I asked the boss about the ingredients to make sure none of them are on your avoid list,” Yu Zhen replied.
Su Mo hesitated briefly, surprised by Yu Zhen’s thoughtfulness. “Thank you, brother Zhen.”
Inside the breakfast shop, robots were bustling about. Su Mo initially thought the food was being delivered by one of them, but to his surprise, the boss personally brought over a large plate and set it on his table.
Glancing at Su Mo, the boss placed a special dish in front of him. “This one’s for you. Next time you want to eat, just come in. You’ve been here so long, how could I not know you? Even Old Zhang and the others are tired of you.”
Su Mo blinked in surprise. “Boss? This is for me?”
The boss chuckled heartily a couple of times. “Otherwise, how would I not know that you pass by my shop every day? These are shaomai, don’t let them get cold.”
After saying that, the boss walked away. Su Mo stared at the food on the table for a while. “Brother Zhen… Did we order too much?”
Yu Zhen handed him a cup of soy milk and added a few more buns for him. “It won’t go to waste. You’ll finish it.”
The food they ordered turned out to be just right, and Su Mo ate his fill at the breakfast shop. On the way back, he kept thinking about how to explain it to Lele, only to find out when he got home that Lele hadn’t made breakfast.
“The buns aren’t steamed,” Lele explained. “Mr. Yu Zhen sent a message saying you went to eat with him, so I didn’t steam them.”
Su Mo hesitated briefly.
Lele stood beside him for a moment and then asked, “Su Mo, the smell on you is so familiar, like the smell from the bun shop at the entrance of the neighborhood.”
Su Mo instantly became nervous but managed to keep a straight face. “Really? Maybe brother Zhen’s buns taste similar to those from the breakfast shop. Lele, get my medicine for me. I’ll be playing games in a while.”
Lele stopped his scent analysis calculation and reluctantly went to get his medicine. “Don’t play games for too long.”
Su Mo replied very perfunctorily.
***
When he logged back into the game, it was a bit late. Just as he connected to the game system, a flash of fiery red swept before his eyes. He couldn’t help but step back a few paces, watching as the place where he logged out had become extremely eerie.
Winter Realm was still Winter Realm, but the cave seemed different from before. Despite only being offline for less than eight hours while sleeping, the cave had turned into a mess. Various items were strewn about haphazardly, and even the nearby tent items were on fire. Bitter Melon was holding a bucket of water, trying to put out the fire from who-knows-where.
“Oh no, Little Firework, you shouldn’t click that.”
“My beach chair!!!”
“Damn, damn, it’s burning, this is epic!”
“Get away, get away, don’t click on me!!”
“Get some ice and try!”
The scene was extremely chaotic, with several items even flying around, some with fire trailing behind them in the sky. Su Mo didn’t know where to begin asking about what had happened.
At that moment, ScarletFruit stood beside the bonfire, holding a burning stick of firewood, warmly inviting, “Hey bro, wanna play with fire?”
Su Mo was speechless.
Author’s note: Fruit: Bro, wanna play with fire? Momo: You sure are playing with fire indeed.
Love Shaomai đ