Warcraft and Diablo

Li Shaolin was feeling pretty depressed today.

After finally getting a two-day weekend and taking care of all the big and small things at home, he happily put on his headphones and prepared to run a few dungeons. His best friend A'Q had already spammed him several times on QQ. World of Warcraft's Chinese servers had just opened Wrath of the Lich King, and they were now on version 3.35. They could queue for random dungeons, so he finally did not have to worry about having bad gear and nobody wanting him. There was a saying: Why won't they invite me? Because my Gear Score is low. Why is my Gear Score low? Because nobody invites me. That had once been many people's mount macro, mainly mocking players who blindly chased Gear Score. Now that there were random dungeons, even casual players could become reasonably badass.

Li Shaolin and his friend A'Q queued into a small dungeon together. He played a Death Knight, while A'Q played a shaman. Really, he was mainly benefiting from that guy being a healer—he could get into dungeons instantly. They had only gotten halfway through the run when a system prompt suddenly appeared: Due to a server malfunction, the system will shut down in five minutes. Everyone in the party was immediately speechless. He could not be bothered to keep running the dungeon, so he simply closed the window and logged out. Opening his browser, he checked the web, but no official announcement had been posted yet. The major forums, however, were already speculating: the server had been hacked, a GM had downloaded porn and crashed it, and so on. Seeing that he could not find any real answer, Li Shaolin closed the webpage too.

"Ugh, this is so boring." He idly clicked his mouse around, and after a string of clicks, he accidentally entered a long-forgotten folder: Diablo II. "Whatever, I'll play Diablo." He clicked into it. He probably had not played this game in two or three years, but it was still a classic. Might as well revisit it. He casually created a Necromancer. Since he was lazy, Necromancer was the class requiring the least control. Summon a whole row of skeletons, hide in the back and cast a little magic—it was basically a brainless class. He had just created the character and charged out into the Blood Moor. He had just leveled up and put a point into Raise Skeleton when QQ began spamming him wildly, kicking him back to the desktop. It was that idiot A'Q: "Warcraft's back up." Li Shaolin hurriedly opened his World of Warcraft window and logged into his character, forgetting to close Diablo II. Once online, he joined A'Q's party and said in the group, "Queue us up first. I'm going to pour myself some water." Then he got up to get a drink.

When he turned back, they could already enter. He hurriedly reached for the mouse, but his hand slipped and a cup of water spilled over the keyboard. Li Shaolin quickly grabbed a rag and wiped the water off it. A'Q was already urging him to enter the dungeon, so he gave it a quick wipe, tossed the rag aside, and continued his Warcraft journey. Just as things were getting intense, a burnt smell reached his nose. Looking down, he saw smoke rising from the computer tower. Before he could react, a burst of electricity flashed and surged through Li Shaolin's entire body. "Fuck!" After getting that one sentence out, he fainted. On the computer monitor, QQ messages from a contact named A'Q kept popping up...

When he slowly woke, a bright blue sky and several drifting white clouds came into view. "Huh? Why is the sky so blue today? Did they alter the atmosphere?" Li Shaolin was lost in wild thoughts when he suddenly realized, "No, wasn't I playing Warcraft at home? How could I be seeing the sky?" He stood up and looked around, only to find himself in a field. Rows of tea trees more than a meter tall grew lushly around him. A fence encircled the tea trees, and at the edge of the fence stood a huge tree that would take six or seven people to encircle, its canopy filling half the sky. Li Shaolin rubbed his forehead. "Where is this?" Just as he was wondering, a cold gust blew over him, making him shiver. "So cold!" Looking down, he found himself completely naked. "Are you kidding me? Did I transmigrate?" Li Shaolin cursed in utter grief and indignation. With no other choice, he randomly gathered some tea leaves and branches, fashioned them into a grass skirt, and tied it around his waist so he would not expose himself. As he looked around, a rumbling sound came from his stomach. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but hunger had made his stomach cramp.

Food came first. Li Shaolin quickly left the field and searched for houses, hoping some kind person might give him something to eat. As soon as he emerged from the field, a water well and a small house appeared before him. Firelight flickered faintly inside the house. Overjoyed, he immediately ran toward it. Just as he left the field, a sign appeared before him: Mirror Lake Orchard.

"Mirror Lake? That name sounds familiar. Isn't that the little lake below Stormwind City? How did I end up in World of Warcraft?!" When Li Shaolin played low-level characters, he had run through Elwynn Forest gathering herbs and mining, so he remembered it somewhat. Now he did not dare approach that house. In World of Warcraft, houses in Elwynn Forest generally had Defias Bandits or something similar inside. He had not figured out anything about his situation yet. What if they killed him? "Grrr, grrr." His empty stomach rumbled like thunder. "Screw it. Starving to death is still death. Either way, I'll die, so I might as well check things out first!" Without thinking any further, Li Shaolin strode toward the house.

With a thump, he jumped in fright. A rabbit had darted past Li Shaolin and run away. He naturally knew this most common little animal in World of Warcraft well; back in the day, he had killed who knew how many out of idle curiosity. He reached out and pushed open the half-closed door. Thankfully, unlike in the game, two knife-wielding bandits did not leap out at him. Peering inside, he saw a blazing fireplace, a table, a chest, several bags of flour, a few barrels of wine, and a small wardrobe. Seeing no one there, Li Shaolin immediately slipped inside and shut the door. After searching, he indeed found food: several loaves of bread and a few cups of milk. He grabbed two loaves and wolfed them down, and his stomach immediately felt much better.

"If there's food here, there must be people. This setup is just like the game, so Defias Bandits must be active around here. It's probably daytime, and they've all gone out to work. I need to get out of here fast." After rummaging around, Li Shaolin found two pieces of clothing and hurriedly put them on. He took several loaves of bread as well, quietly opened the door, and peeked outside. There was no movement, so he crouched low and slipped out. He sighed inwardly. "Sigh, a dignified college student like me has actually fallen so low as to become a thief!" Though he thought that, his feet did not stop. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

After leaving the farm, he began to run. About twenty minutes later, seeing no movement behind him, he spotted a lake ahead. A stone marker stood there with three large words carved into it: Mirror Lake. At the sight of the water, his legs immediately went weak. Li Shaolin collapsed by the shore and lay down. "Why am I so unlucky? Sigh, I remember Stormwind City is up ahead, but the road is full of wolves and stuff. I'm afraid I won't make it through. What a miserable life!" Since he was not hungry anymore, he picked a blade of grass and held it in his mouth, letting his thoughts wander. "No, wait! World of Warcraft has ten classes. As a transmigrator, I should at least have a class, right? I used to play a tauren Death Knight. Could it be...?" But he had arrived naked, without a single item. Focusing his mind, he indeed saw a panel appear in his mind:

Name: Li Shaolin
Race: Human (Eastern Warlock)
Gender: Male
Class: Necromancer
Level: 2
Health: 64/64
Mana: 64/64
Skill: Raise Skeleton, Level 1 (Uses a corpse to raise a Skeleton Warrior to fight for you. Costs 10 mana.)
Equipment: None

"Necromancer? Diablo?" Li Shaolin's mind immediately went blank. He remembered now. When he had been playing World of Warcraft, he had forgotten to close Diablo II. He had created a level-one Necromancer there, had just leveled up, and had put a point into Raise Skeleton. Once he figured that out, Li Shaolin was filled with regret. If he had known, he would have used a cheat tool to modify things first. Sigh. Still, this was far too ridiculous. His Diablo character had transmigrated into World of Warcraft. Then what about his level-eighty World of Warcraft Death Knight?

Raise Skeleton required a corpse. Barehanded as he was, how could he possibly kill a monster? Li Shaolin felt a wave of despair. Suddenly, voices came from behind a large tree by the lakeside. Sneaking over to look, he saw two Defias Bandits skinning a wolf they had just killed. Both wore red masks covering the lower halves of their faces, fitted leather armor, and daggers that spun rapidly in their hands. In the blink of an eye, the wolf's hide had been stripped off. Li Shaolin hid behind the tree, not daring to make a sound. The taller bandit laughed. "Today's haul was good. We actually got four wolves. These hides should sell for several silver coins. Too bad our carrying capacity is limited. We can't take all four wolf corpses, so we can only leave them behind. What a waste!" The shorter one replied, "Not bad. Normally, each of the brothers kills at most one wolf a day. The two of us have already done well enough. Don't be greedy." The tall one laughed. "True! Hahaha, let's go." They slung the wolf hides over their shoulders, each carried one dead wolf, and headed off in the direction Li Shaolin had come from.

"Haha, I searched everywhere for it, only for it to fall right into my lap. Free corpses delivered to my door so quickly. Good thing I didn't run around recklessly just now. Looks like there's a Defias Brotherhood stronghold over there," Li Shaolin thought. After the two bandits had gone far away and more than ten minutes had passed, he finally dared to reveal himself and walk up to the wolf corpses. "So... how do I use magic?"

He thought for a moment, focused his mental energy, and silently recited Raise Skeleton. Sure enough, something in his mind began to ripple. Waves of icy energy rose from his body and spread through him in an instant. One of the wolf corpses suddenly split apart. Amid spraying blood, a human-shaped skeleton of snowy-white bones stood up. Red soul-fire flickered in its eye sockets, and it held a Bone Axe in its hand.