Purple S-rank Instance

Only after the Miracle Guild took their places did the crowd's cheers quiet down a little.

Yin Chao hid behind Bai Xu and looked at the Miracle Squad on the opposite side.

Five people, three men and two women.

The Prophet, Moon Shadow, was the Miracle Squad's captain and the Miracle Guild's leader. She had an eccentric temper and was a cunning schemer.

The Killer, Midnight, was the Miracle Squad's strongest fighter-the hooded man. According to Bai Yu, he was a loner who disliked talking to people.

The assault specialist, Liang Chen, seemed like a sunny, cheerful young man, but was actually a lunatic with peculiar tastes.

The healer, An Nian, was a high school girl who liked following celebrities, making her one of the Miracle Squad's few normal members.

Lastly, the sniper, Long Zang, disliked crowded places. Very little was known about him.

That was everything Yin Chao had managed to find out about the Miracle Squad.

It wasn't much, and he had no idea how much of it was true.

He narrowed his eyes. While they were still waiting for everyone to arrive, he quietly turned his gaze toward the hooded man, hoping to read his information.

[Ding. Player: Midnight. Title: Executor. Level: 30.

HP: 30,000. Stamina: 30,000. Mental power: 90. Intelligence: 90.

Specialty skill: Executor. Below, he can slay ghosts, monsters, and mortals; above, he can kill gods, demons, and evil spirits.]

Holy shit!

Yin Chao was stunned by the guy's stats.

He had thought Bai Xu's stats were already unbeatable, but here was someone even more outrageous.

And his specialty skill practically meant he could kill anything. No wonder they called him the Killer.

Yin Chao remembered his own 60 stamina-even less than Bai Yu's-and suddenly felt how enormous the gap between people could be.

While he hung his head and wallowed in gloom, Midnight, directly opposite him, seemed to sense something and abruptly went on alert.

Moon Shadow noticed the change and asked softly, "What is it?"

Midnight said nothing, staring straight at the Bai Guild's group across from him.

When Yin Chao raised his head again, he met Midnight's vicious, coyote-like gaze head-on.

His heart trembled, and the blood in his veins began to boil.

It was like encountering the final boss in a killing game. He had been hacked to death countless times, yet every time he started over, the excitement was still overwhelming.

Yin Chao stopped hiding. With a teasing smile on his lips, he leisurely stepped out from behind Bai Xu.

Naturally, Moon Shadow noticed him.

She came forward with a smile to greet Bai Xu.

Of course, she had an ulterior motive.

Looking at Yin Chao beside him, she smiled at Bai Xu. "A newcomer? I haven't seen him in the lobby before. He's quite a looker."

Bai Xu knew the old fox wouldn't approach without a reason. "He is," he replied.

Moon Shadow's expression gave nothing away. Knowing Bai Xu was on his guard, she turned her questions on Yin Chao instead.

"What's your name, little guy? Want my WeChat?"

Yin Chao beamed and answered clearly, without hesitation, "No. I only like the Killer!"

Many people around them heard him. Moon Shadow's fans in particular felt that this pretty boy didn't know what was good for him.

Only the man Yin Chao was talking about felt as irritated as if he had swallowed a thousand flies.

The last time he had used an item to enter that B-rank instance, its side effects had suppressed his stats.

He hadn't wanted to draw attention to himself either, only to end up being played by a rookie.

Now, in front of everyone, he had to hear the culprit declare that he liked him.

What was that if not a provocation?

Midnight had reached his limit and no longer wanted to hold back.

He walked straight over to the Bai Guild and stood in front of Yin Chao.

"Wow! My idol! Are you here to give me your WeChat too?"

Yin Chao clasped his hands over his heart like a fangirl.

Midnight stared at the slender neck of the man before him, already imagining the warm sensation of blood flowing into his mouth as his teeth sank into it.

Before he could act, the screen covering an entire wall at the front of the lobby began to flicker.

It drew everyone's attention, and the vast plaza fell silent in an instant.

An enormous purple S appeared in the center of the screen.

After flickering several times, it vanished, replaced by a line of small text: Linmu City No. 2 Middle School. Judgment begins.

"A purple S-rank instance! Holy crap! In all my time here, this is the first purple S-rank instance I've ever seen!"

Someone cried out.

Confused, Yin Chao turned to Bai Yu.

Bai Yu explained, "You can choose A-, B-, C-, and D-rank instances yourself, with an eighty percent chance of getting in. S-rank instances appear at random, and the success rate is only thirty percent. Even if you want to enter one, you might not get your wish-and this is a purple S-rank instance."

She paused, then continued, "It's my first time seeing one too, but I've heard that purple S-rank instances have a very high chance of dropping S-rank items. You can't choose them yourself, though."

"You can't choose them yourself?" Yin Chao didn't quite understand what that meant.

Bai Yu merely winked at him and gestured with her chin toward the people who had already begun choosing instances. "You'll see in a minute."

As if to prove her point, it was soon the Bai Guild's turn to choose an instance.

Bai Xu introduced Yin Chao to the leader taking the team into this instance. He was a middle-aged man with a square face who apparently worked as a teacher or something similar in the real world. The team members all called him Mr. Yang.

He smiled and shook Yin Chao's hand. After introducing the team members, he began explaining their plan.

"Every team has a different plan. I imagine Vice Guild Leader Bai hasn't told you ours."

Yin Chao nodded, thinking that if Bai Xu was the vice guild leader, then the guild leader must be the eldest Bai brother he had never met.

"We're entering a B-rank instance this time. Your very first instance was B-rank-that's quite impressive!"

Mr. Yang praised him earnestly.

Yin Chao humbly accepted the compliment, saying he had merely been lucky.

After another round of polite flattery, someone finally called for the Bai Guild, and their group approached the screen.

Mr. Yang instructed Yin Chao, "Stand in this slot, put your hand against the screen, and silently say 'B-rank' to yourself."

"All right."

The slots divided the screen into several vertical strips. Whenever someone entered, the strip in front of them displayed the rank of the instance they had entered.

Yin Chao placed his hand against the pitch-black screen, closed his eyes, and silently said...

S-rank.

A flash of light passed, and the people standing in the slots vanished.

From left to right, the screen began displaying the ranks of the instances they had entered: B, B, B, C, S, B, C, B, A.

An uproar broke out when everyone saw the purple S.

Some asked who had gotten so lucky. When they learned it was a newcomer recruited by the Bai Guild, sighs rippled through the crowd.

"A newcomer? The person who went in was a Bai Guild newcomer?"

"Yeah! I've never seen him before. With looks like his, I'd definitely remember if I had."

"Then isn't he as good as dead?"

"Exactly. S-rank instances are high-risk, high-reward to begin with."

The chatter continued until a second person entered the S-rank instance. Everyone quickly forgot the newcomer they had already sentenced to death.

Only Bai Yu wept bitterly for the friend she had just made.

Bai Xu kept comforting her, telling her to have faith in Yin Chao.

But that was an S-rank instance. No one knew better than Bai Xu how brutal it could be, and even he didn't believe there was much truth in his own words.