The World Online

After going offline, Ouyang Shuo could finally heave a sigh of relief. Even though it had only been 2 days in reality, Ouyang Shuo had got on and offline numerous times thanks to the battle map, it was such a torture.

After sending Bing’er to school, the first thing Ouyang Shuo did when he went home was to sleep. Taking a nap, he slept till 3PM before waking up.

Ouyang Shuo made some simple snacks to fill his tummy before returning to his room and switching on his handbrain. He went on to the forums to see the latest developments in the game.

In the forums, the most popular posts were naturally about the Battle of Zhuolu that had just ended. As players who participated in the quest had often went offline, details about the quest had never stopped. Everything in the battle map, be it big or small, was revealed by the players.

In the Battle of Zhuolu, Ouyang Shuo and the Shanhai Alliance that he led had made it big. On the forums, nearly everyone supported Ouyang Shuo. The current Shanhai Alliance was the representative of the Chinese region.

Of course, it couldn’t be stopped that Shanhai Town’s secretive mask had been unveiled by the players, be it the mountain barbarian warriors wearing the infantry armour or the cavalry wearing the Mingguang armor and riding on the Qingfu horse, all of which were revealed to the world.

Especially the battle between General Shi and Chiyou, it shocked everyone. Shanhai Town having an emperor rank general was also spread to everyone.

All of this brought a large amount of pressure to the players in the Lianzhou basin. What’s worse was that they didn’t know which part of the basin Shanhai Town was located in. The players who had some ambition upon learning about how strong Shanhai Town was, were so anxious that they couldn’t fall asleep.

Before, however famous Shanhai Town was, they were all rumors. However this time was different. The revelation of Shanhai Town’s army was real and was there for everyone to see.

The thought that a dragon was hiding near their base made the lord players in Lianzhou Basin shiver in fear.

On the forums, apart from the voices supporting Shanhai Alliance, there were also many that were insulting him.

Some people pointed out that Ouyang Shuo used his representative status to sabotage other players. They said he was scheming and unethical and wasn’t good enough to be the leading figure of the Chinese region. The supporters of those statements weren’t little, mostly those who had been negatively impacted in the battle map.

As for these statements, Ouyang Shuo just laughed it off.

Di Chen didn’t look for a fight this time, not saying anything from start to finish.

Apart from news about the Battle of Zhuolu, Ouyang Shuo cared the most about the territory upgrade to rank 1 city. In the international servers, there were already players from other regions who had applied for an upgrade to rank 1 city.

However, till date there were no territories that had successfully passed the test and upgrade.

The earliest to apply was the Sanli town from the Japanese region. Honda Keisuke wanted to get recognition and snatch the rewards so under unprepared circumstances he had applied to upgrade.

Seeing the failure of Honda Keisuke, the other lords didn’t dare to act rashly. One must know that failing the application would pretty much mean giving up the chance of being the very first city.

Ouyang Shuo was sure that as long as no lord had succeeded, Shanhai Town would have a chance. He made up his mind to apply for the upgrade the moment he went online that day.

After getting off the forums, Ouyang Shuo took the spare time to practice the Yellow Emperor Internal Cultivation Technique in real life. Activating it in the game had already helped in grasping the technique and he could now practice it in reality. To prevent being interrupted, he switched off his phone and locked his door, completing closing himself off from the outside world.

When he started cultivating, the difficulty was much higher than he expected.

The first step was to hold one’s breath and focus, the second was to cut off all thoughts. In the game, players existed as a sort of a spiritual being, hence it was easy to get into that form. In reality, one thought about many things and was affected by the body, to get into such a state was not easy.

Luckily Ouyang Shuo’s calmness and determination had grew recently. He tried to completely relax himself and not think about anything. When he completely let himself go, he followed the technique and rotated the chi around his body. 10 minutes later, a tiny thread of golden chi appeared in his dantian. Ouyang Shuo immediately moved it through his meridians and strengthened it using his internal strength. At the same time, his internal strength grew stronger as it regenerated.

After a whole cycle of rotating, the small strand of chi grew from a thin hair size to a size of a nylon string. Ouyang Shuo was more motivated to train harder and rotated 3 more cycles. At this time, his meridians were swelling, Ouyang Shuo didn’t dare to be greedy and stopped. Seeing the 4 strands of chi in his dantian, he felt a sense of achievement. No one said that cultivation will get one hooked to it.

After stopping, Ouyang Shuo picked up his phone. It was actually 6PM already. Oh crap, Bing’er and Xiaoyue should be at home already and he still hadn’t prepared dinner.

Ouyang Shuo pushed open the door and saw Bing’er watching cartoons in the living room and Xiaoyue getting busy in the kitchen.

”Brother, you are actually at home. Sister Xiaoyue called you and your phone was off.” Bing’er was shocked when he saw Ouyang Shuo walk out from his room.

Ouyang Shuo walked beside the sofa and punched her cheeks, ”Brother overslept.”

”Oh.” Bing’er didn’t care and continued to watch her cartoons.

Ouyang Shuo walked into the kitchen and upon seeing Sun Xiaoyue getting busy in the kitchen, he said apologetically,”I’m sorry, I overslept in the afternoon.”

Sun Xiaoyue didn’t even turn around and said, ”It’s fine, you players that joined the battle map messed up your sleep cycles so obviously you need to make up for it. I only didn’t expect that you could sleep so much, you slept a full day already.”

Ouyang Shuo laughed in embarrassment, he couldn’t exactly tell her that he was cultivating.

When eating, Ouyang Shuo cared for Sun Xiaoyue’s progress in the game, ”Xiaoyue, how’s it going, how long will it take till you graduate?”

”Very quick, at most one week and I can graduate.” Sun Xiaoyue said confidently.

”So fast?” Ouyang Shuo was amazed.

”That’s expected. And I also made many friends in Dali, they didn’t like fighting and killing so they chose working jobs.”

Ouyang Shuo nodded, it seems like Xiaoyue really found her interest in the game. After dinner, Ouyang Shuo watched television together with Bing’er before returning to his room and logged into the game.

After going online, Ouyang Shuo first sent 200 gold to Xiaoyue anonymously before he forgets. Now and 3 months ago was totally different as Shanhai Town has enough resources, hence Ouyang Shuo sent more gold. Coincidentally Xiaoyue said she made some friends so having some extra gold at hand was not a bad idea.

Going back to his office, Ouyang Shuo ordered his clerk Bai Nanpu to inform the 4 directors and majors to open a military meeting at 3PM.

Ouyang Shuo made his way to the meeting room and softy mumbled about the territory upgrade application.

A white light shone across and in the middle of the meeting room, a golden stone Steele rose up from the ground. He placed his right hand on the Steele and a system notification sounded.

”System Notification: Checking if Shanhai Town meets upgrading conditions...”

”Condition 1: Population upper limit of 10 thousand reached!”

”Condition 2: All basic structures build. Conditions met!”

”Condition 3: Lord rank at least third rank earl, conditions met!”

”Condition 4: Politics, economy, culture and military, 4 indexes all no less than 45 points. Conditions met!”

”System Notification: Congratulations player Qiyue Wuyi for meeting all requirements to apply for the upgrade, will you apply to upgrade?”

”Apply!”

”System Notification: Congratulations player Qiyue Wuyi, 3 days later there will be a large scale raider attack on Shanhai Town. Please get ready.”

What Ouyang Shuo didn’t know was that when he submitted his application, Di Chen also did at the same time. Whoever would lose to the other, it wouldn’t be known at such a time.

What was more helpless was because of the China region battle map, Ouyang Shuo had lacked behind other lords.

Apart from Sanli town that had already confirmed to have failed, Free Town from the USA and Bengalore Town from the India region had applied during these two days. As long as one succeeded, Shanhai Town would lose the right to be the first city in the world.

Contemplating too much had no benefits and all Ouyang Shuo can do now was to complete all his stuff on hand. Apart from praying that Free Village and Bengalore Village would fail, he had to be prepared to face enemies. If not, when the two towns failed and he also failed, then that would be a laughing stock.

At the end of the fourth month, after the Jifeng tribe surrendered, Shanhai Town did have a chance to apply. But Ouyang Shuo decided to give up in the end as he was not yet well prepared. Ouyang Shuo’s trump card which was the chuanzi crossbow made by the Bow and Crossbow Division, they only had one, as such his mind wasn’t at ease to upgrade.

Until the start of the fifth month, the 1 thousand elite mountain barbarians had finally been conscripted. What followed next was the Qingming Operation, to destroy the Tianling tribe and obtain Qingfu horses. After the operation, Ouyang Shuo had wanted to activate the upgrade but the battle quest came at the wrong time and destroyed his plans.

The Battle of Zhuolu cost Shanhai Town 300 elite soldiers. Originally, Ouyang Shuo wanted to wait for the new soldiers to replace them before applying. But Free Town and Bengalore Town application had once again disrupted his plans and he had no choice but to apply early.

Rushing so much, Ouyang Shuo himself didn’t have confidence to be able to successfully upgrade.