Chapter 27: Twenty-Three Spirit Stones
The group finally stopped after entering the main city.
All twenty-nine of them were stunned. All except Endless Time.
Everyone had heard the rapid succession of Firebomb Talisman explosions earlier. In YY, Blue Sky Beyond had already voiced what everyone was thinking: "Holy shit! How many spirit stones did that burn through?!"
The man who had just blown up several million spirit stones acted as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, the raid chat had exploded.
[Raid] Resilient Heron: Turns out the gap between me and a top player isn't just skill—it's also the cold, hard amount of money we have...
[Raid] Squishy: Xiao Chi! We need a highlight video! Please edit together Endless Time's epic moments from just now! It'll definitely look amazing if you do it!
[Raid] Stars: Nothing else going on, right? If not, I'm leaving to do my dailies. Anyone want to party up?
[Raid] Feng Cheng: Me.
[Raid] The Light Boat Has Passed: Ah, thank you, everyone. Seriously, thank you all so much.
[Raid] Floating: I'm off to do dailies too. Xiao Chi, please turn your stream audio back on! My favorite pastime is doing dailies while listening to your stream!
[Raid] Squishy: If you really want to thank us, release tonight's highlight compilation ASAP!
One by one, the players who had been dragged over by viewers left the raid. The remaining viewers excitedly wanted screenshots with Endless Time and The Light Boat Has Passed, gathering at the city gate and taking pictures for quite a while.
Chi Zhen thanked each of them individually and saw the righteous bystanders off.
Eventually, only Endless Time, Blue Sky Beyond, Thousand Feathers, and himself remained in both the raid and YY.
Blue Sky Beyond and Thousand Feathers were discussing gear and skill builds. Endless Time stood motionless at the city gate, apparently AFK while people took screenshots around him. No one knew whether the person behind the keyboard was even still there.
"Um..." Chi Zhen finally spoke, asking the question the stream chat had been spamming all this time. "You guys quit the guild. What are your plans now? Which guild are you going to join? Is Endless Time planning to start his own guild?"
"Huh? No idea," Blue Sky Beyond replied. "I saw this guy quit, so I quit too."
Thousand Feathers followed with complete sincerity: "The reason is exactly what I told Guild Leader Shadow earlier. Wherever Big Brother Endless Time goes, I'll go."
Endless Time still didn't seem to be back at his computer. No response came.
The stream chat scrolled rapidly.
[Wait, don't you have your own guild? You're literally the guild leader. Why aren't you inviting them?]
[They basically turned against Way of Heaven because of you, and you're still not inviting them?]
[Maybe our Xiao Chi is too socially anxious to know how to bring it up.]
[Xiao Chi's farming guild probably only has one active member—himself. Not to be rude, but if Endless Time joined, they still couldn't even form a full five-man team for battlegrounds.]
[Uh... Endless Time is loyal and all, but the number-one player on the server should join a major guild with resources and rankings.]
And that was exactly why Chi Zhen couldn't bring himself to say anything.
His farming guild had never been developed. It contained nothing except farmland.
The size and development level of a guild affected almost every aspect of a player's experience.
In Quest for the Azure Heavens, after a guild sanctuary was established, members had to work together to develop it. Guild buildings required the Construction profession, gathering wood, stone, and other materials little by little. Farmland, rivers, and ponds had to be reclaimed and dug out collectively. The guild kitchen's level increased only through continuously cooking food.
As a result, larger guilds naturally developed much faster and better.
The size of a guild sanctuary directly affected players' stamina. The larger the sanctuary, the greater the stamina bonus and the longer the stamina bar. And stamina was the foundation of all life skills. A longer stamina bar meant being able to craft more items.
The higher the guild kitchen's level, the greater the chance of producing food with enhanced effects.
Once a guild sanctuary reached certain milestones, NPCs who sold hidden weapons and rare equipment components would appear. In large guild sanctuaries, players could spend spirit points earned from daily activities to purchase rare equipment fragments.
The attraction for ordinary players was enormous.
That was why the overwhelming majority of players preferred large guilds.
For elite players, the benefits were even greater. Guild resources, stockpiled materials, and high-level equipment drops from guild raids were all prioritized for top players.
Not to mention that many small guilds couldn't even organize thirty-player raids and had to rely on pickup groups. Pickup groups consisted of strangers. Coordination was weaker. Mistakes happened more often. Efficiency was lower.
In short, from the moment Endless Time quit Way of Heaven, all the disadvantages of small guilds had flooded through Chi Zhen's mind. There was no way he could bring himself to invite the three of them into his little farming guild.
Blue Sky Beyond and Thousand Feathers had already gone off to the warehouse to examine Blue Sky Beyond's pitifully small collection of equipment. Meanwhile, Chi Zhen remained standing at the city gate. He lingered beside Endless Time. Spacing out. Pacing back and forth. Sighing.
[What are you doing? Can't bear to leave?]
Chi Zhen explained: "Endless Time hasn't come back yet. I'd feel bad just leaving."
[???]
[This isn't visiting someone's house. It's a game. You're both still in the same YY channel.]
[My gaming partner and I are like that, too. If one of us goes AFK, the other waits nearby. #Doge]
[No, no, everyone. Think about it. Endless Time was that cool just now. If it were you, could you calmly walk away from him right now? Wouldn't your heart be racing so hard you'd want to confess on the spot?]
[Alright then, sending a Fruit Bomb gift in support.]
[Throwing in a Fruit Can.]
[For the newlyweds. Go enjoy your honeymoon.]
[Is Xiao Chi trying to work up the courage to invite Endless Time into his guild? #Doge]
"Exactly! Xiao Chi! Why aren't you inviting us into your guild?!" Blue Sky Beyond's booming voice suddenly rang out in YY, startling Chi Zhen so badly that his hand slipped and accidentally pressed his forward-roll skill.
So when Endless Time returned to his computer, the first thing he saw was The Light Boat Has Passed suddenly perform a forward roll and slam directly into the city wall.
[Party] Endless Time: ?
[Party] The Light Boat Has Passed: Misclick...
[Party] Endless Time: Is your guild recruiting?
Chi Zhen looked around. Then he carefully checked the party members. Was that directed at him? Or had he missed some prior conversation, and Endless Time was actually asking Blue Sky Beyond or someone else?
[Party] Blue Sky Beyond: Please take us in, Guild Leader Chi.
[Party] The Light Boat Has Passed: Me? My guild?
Xiao Chi furiously started typing: "My guild is recruiting! If you want to join, you're absolutely welcome, really welcome! But my guild is tiny. I created it for farming, so nothing's developed, nothing's unlocked, we don't even have the NPC that sells hidden weapons—" Before he could finish—
[Party] Endless Time: Please take us in, Guild Leader Chi.
Quietly, Chi Zhen stopped typing. Then he clicked the guild invitations for all three of them.
They accepted immediately.
And so Chi Zhen watched the tall, cold, handsome sword cultivator before him. The text above his head changed from: [Endless Time] to [Endless Time] [Little Vegetable Guild]
[Party] Blue Sky Beyond: [Blue Sky Beyond] [Little Vegetable Guild]
[Party] Blue Sky Beyond: When Xiao Chi had this guild name over his head, it actually seemed kind of cute. But now that I'm the one wearing it...A bald Buddhist cultivator already looks poor enough. Adding "Little Vegetable Guild" somehow makes me look even more pathetic.
The stream chat burst into hysterical laughter. Chi Zhen was mortified.
If he could go back to the day he founded the guild— And if he had known that one day the number-one player on the server, Endless Time, would join it— Then he definitely would have chosen a lofty, heroic, poetic, immortal-sounding guild name.
Instead of casually naming it Little Vegetable Guild because he wanted a place to grow vegetables.
[Endless Time] [Way of Heaven] — perfectly reasonable.
[Endless Time] [Dominating the Firmament] — also fitting.
[Endless Time] [Little Vegetable Guild] — impossible to look at directly.
For a moment, Chi Zhen desperately wished the cash shop sold guild-name change tokens. No matter how much they cost, he would have paid immediately.
Unfortunately, in Quest for the Azure Heavens, once a guild name was set, it could never be changed.
For a brief instant, Chi Zhen even considered abandoning the guild entirely and creating a new one.
[Party] Endless Time: It's pretty good.
[Party] Endless Time: I'll learn how to get rich farming vegetables from the guild leader.
[Party] Endless Time: Blue Sky Beyond, lend me 1,000 spirit stones for dailies.
[Party] Blue Sky Beyond: ?
[Party] Endless Time: Spent all my savings on Firebomb Talismans.
[Party] Blue Sky Beyond: You didn't leave yourself a single coin?!
[Party] Endless Time: I still have 23 spirit stones.
[Party] The Light Boat Has Passed: ...
That very night, Chi Zhen mailed Endless Time two million spirit stones. Then he planted crops in every field within the guild sanctuary. He loosened the soil around every fruit tree. He bought fish feed and scattered it into the pond. He fed the chickens and ducks. After finishing all the farm work, he carefully checked the next day's in-game weather forecast to see whether conditions would be favorable for crop growth. Then he went to the marketplace to research which agricultural products were currently selling at good prices. Only after doing all that did he finally log off.
After washing up and lying in bed, his mind was filled with only one thing: Making money.
No more fighting. No more PvP. Apart from burning money, PvP earned nothing.
Starting tomorrow, he would face the fields. Grow vegetables. Raise chickens. Feed fish. And devote himself wholeheartedly to being a life-skills player again.
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