As soon as Lu Yang logged in, his mailbox began chiming nonstop. When he opened it, he found a message from Old Twilight.
"Brother, can you do me a favor? I haven't gathered all the materials you wanted yet, but I need to run a dungeon. Can you give me the shield in advance?"
Lu Yang laughed. He hadn't expected Old Twilight to lower himself and ask for help. This was the president of a thirty-thousand-member guild, a future renowned commander of national wars, yet he was asking him for help.
"Did something happen?" Lu Yang replied.
Inside the dungeon, Old Twilight had been wiped out by the first boss for the third time. Fierce Wine Clear Wind, the vice president beside him, said, "Boss, we can't keep going like this. Without a good shield, I, the MT, simply can't hold it."
MT referred to shield warriors or shield knights, the players mainly responsible for tanking monsters in dungeons.
"I know," Old Twilight said. "But Lu Yang wasn't online, so I couldn't buy one. How's Xiong Ba's side doing? Which boss have they reached?"
"They've already made it to the second boss."
"Damn it." The old man couldn't help cursing. "No wonder that bastard didn't compete with me for shields this morning. So he'd already made it that far."
"Boss, we can't let Xiong Ba's group clear the first dungeon before us. This achievement will be announced to the entire game. It'll have too much impact on recruiting players later."
"I know." Old Twilight was anxious too, but there was nothing he could do. Every major guild was competing for this first achievement. Whenever a shield appeared, someone bought it before he could find it. Meeting Lu Yang had already been a stroke of luck.
Just as he was worrying, Old Twilight received Lu Yang's reply.
"Brother, you're finally online," Old Twilight said excitedly.
"What is it?" Lu Yang asked.
"Don't even mention it." Old Twilight hurriedly told him about the setbacks they had encountered in the dungeon.
"Who knew the dungeons in Second World would be this difficult? It's only a normal Level 3 dungeon, yet our twenty elite players can't even beat the first boss. What kind of nonsense is this?" Old Twilight said.
Lu Yang wasn't surprised. In order to prevent players from leveling too quickly and to slow the depreciation of equipment, Second World limited equipment drops on one hand and increased dungeon difficulty on the other. A normal Level 3 dungeon not only required twenty players working together, but also a certain level of equipment—especially for the main MT. Without gear, it was impossible to clear.
"I can give you the shield first. Send someone to the entrance of Inn No. 7 in the East District. I'll wait there," Lu Yang said. He believed Old Twilight would not scam him out of the equipment.
Old Twilight had been worried that Lu Yang would refuse. He had been agonizing over whether to offer money as collateral. He could tell that Lu Yang was not someone who cared especially about money, and if he brought up money, Lu Yang would surely refuse. Yet he was also afraid that making an empty promise would make Lu Yang refuse even more. He had never expected Lu Yang to trust his character so much, agreeing without asking for any collateral at all.
"Brother, thank you for helping me this time. I owe you a favor. If you ever need me in the future, I'll definitely do everything I can to help," Old Twilight said.
That was exactly what Lu Yang wanted to hear. "All right, I'll remember that."
"Then wait for me. I'll send someone over right away." After sending the message, Old Twilight turned to Fierce Wine Clear Wind and said, "Go to Inn No. 7 in the East District. Lu Yang is online, and he agreed to give us the shield first."
"That's great. I'll go right now." Fierce Wine Clear Wind took out a Return Scroll and teleported back to the main city.
Return Scrolls were rare items. The system did not sell them; they only occasionally dropped from ordinary monsters. Players could not set their own return location. The system defaulted it to the plaza at the spawn point.
It took only two minutes to get from the plaza to Inn No. 7 in the East District. Before long, Lu Yang saw a young man running over. He remembered that this was the player who had followed Old Twilight that morning.
"Master, I'm here!" Fierce Wine Clear Wind shouted.
Lu Yang waved him over. When the man came close, he said, "You're Fierce Wine Clear Wind, right?"
"That's me. Boss Old Twilight sent me."
As he spoke, Fierce Wine Clear Wind sent a trade request. After confirming that the name was correct, Lu Yang placed the Wyrm Battle Shield into the trade window.
When Fierce Wine Clear Wind saw the Wyrm Battle Shield's attributes, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He hurriedly confirmed the trade. "Master, thank you so much. With this shield, we finally have hope of clearing the dungeon."
Lu Yang smiled. "I wish you success."
"Thanks for the good wishes." Fierce Wine Clear Wind was eager to return to the dungeon, so he left after only a few words.
After seeing Fierce Wine Clear Wind off, Lu Yang entered the helmet code of the gaming helmet he had bought for Xiao Liang into the game's friend search field.
Originally, the gaming company had created helmet codes to make it easier for players to find one another. Unexpectedly, many players later began entering codes at random to meet new friends, turning the feature into a new kind of social app.
After entering the code "0019852476," Lu Yang saw a name: Black Armored Warrior.
"This kid really did choose this name." Lu Yang smiled. Xiao Liang had used the same name in his previous life.
At that moment, Xiao Liang had already rushed outside the main city and joined the army of players fighting over monsters. After the first day of the game, the number of players in the Level 1 monster area had not decreased. Instead, it had grown even larger.
As an ambitious young man, Xiao Liang had imagined himself dominating the game ever since he heard it would be released. He had secretly sworn that if he got a gaming helmet, he would give everything he had to leveling up. If he got a gaming helmet, he would become a top expert who could make big money.
But now, as he looked at the Level 1 monster area on the map, there were nearly four people standing on every square meter of green grass. The moment a monster spawned, six or seven wooden swords would slash at it at once. Snatching a monster required not only fast reflexes, but luck as well. If it spawned too far away, he couldn't reach it. If his hands were too slow, he couldn't get the kill. And leveling up required killing dozens of such monsters. Thinking about it made Xiao Liang look utterly depressed.
"Why is this so hard?" Xiao Liang muttered gloomily as he opened the Level Rankings. When he saw that the player in first place, Lu Yang, was already Level 4, he sighed again.
"Ugh, I really don't know how this guy levels up. Strange, why does he have the same name as my boss?" Xiao Liang said.
Just then, a friend request appeared, and the person's name was Lu Yang.
Xiao Liang looked at the two names and realized they were exactly the same. He quickly accepted it and asked excitedly, "Boss, are you the one ranked first on the Level Rankings?"
Lu Yang smiled. "Of course."
Before you continue