The number of dungeons in the White Tower was uncertain. To this day, no one had managed to count them accurately.
A dungeon closed and disappeared once it was cleared, but it could be opened an unlimited number of times as long as it remained uncleared.
A new batch of dungeons refreshed at regular intervals, with no fixed difficulty.
The major guilds needed to grind dungeons to earn points, obtain high-level weapons and subordinates, and improve their positions on the rankings.
Well-established guilds rarely opened a dungeon at random. They usually gathered large amounts of relevant information, ran calculations and simulations, and conducted comprehensive evaluations before selecting a suitable dungeon to enter, improving their chances of success.
Dungeons selected by major guilds were generally marked on-site. Dungeons were open to all players and did not belong exclusively to any particular guild. But when players saw that a major guild, especially one ranked in the top twenty, had marked a dungeon, they would think twice.
Such dungeons were often quite difficult. Anyone lacking the necessary skill who went in would only provide the major guild's technical team with another reference, and whether they could even make it out was anyone's guess.
The marks were placed somewhere on-site that wasn't especially conspicuous but could still be seen. None of them appeared on online maps, and the major guilds couldn't openly claim territory.
But the major guilds ranked in the top twenty shared a special map displaying the emblem of whichever guild had marked each dungeon. Once a dungeon was marked, the other guilds had a tacit understanding not to take a slice of someone else's pie.
No one wanted to offend anyone.
Only guilds with deep-seated conflicts, such as Ten Thousand Ages and Nine Cauldrons, would poach each other's marked dungeons.
The map was distributed to each guild's president and vice president. Now Xiao Jun had separately cropped out Azure Mist's section and sent it to Zheng Xun; his intentions were plain to see.
"Marked dungeons usually have good stuff. People die easily in them, but with your freakish way of fighting, Old Zheng, you'll definitely be fine," Cheng Jie said, looking especially excited. "I'm tempted myself."
Zheng Xun finally managed to make sense of Cheng Jie's disjointed explanation, and his eyes lit up too.
"Why don't you come with me?"
"No, no, I can't." Cheng Jie clutched his thick hair, his expression one of utter anguish. "Brother Xiao's easygoing about everything else, but he strictly forbids team members from poaching other guilds' marked dungeons. He says it would break the rules. If I dared go, he'd skin me and put my hide on display at the guild entrance."
Remembering Xiao Jun's smiling face and hearing Cheng Jie's description, Zheng Xun shuddered.
Vice President Xiao was perfectly capable of doing that.
But poaching marked dungeons wasn't just about the tangible rewards; it was also a kind of psychological satisfaction. Their guilds all had frictions of varying degrees with one another. Who wouldn't want to fleece an old rival for all they were worth?
"Old Zheng," Cheng Jie suddenly said, staring intently at a bewildered Zheng Xun as though he were the hope of the entire village, "you have to loot Azure Mist clean, or even I'll look down on you."
"Don't worry." Good habits were hard to learn, but bad ones came quickly. Zheng Xun now thoroughly understood what he had to do. "I definitely won't disappoint a friendly guild's expectations!"
The two scoundrels huddled around the map, eagerly discussing which dungeon to poach first.
Over at Azure Mist, Meng Yijia was delighted that Zheng Xun had left without reaching an agreement.
Even the lecture Meng Yijia gave Huo Ziyan was much shorter.
Xu Guan wasted no words and had no intention of saying much to Huo Ziyan. Huo Ziyan had been a bargaining chip for suppressing Zheng Xun in the first place.
Zheng Xun couldn't be allowed to make a name for himself.
Xu Guan had no personal grudge against Zheng Xun, nor did Xu Guan like bringing personal feelings into business. Xu Guan had simply drawn on extensive experience to perceive, keenly, that Zheng Xun was trouble. Once he got something out of Xu Guan, he would latch on and refuse to leave.
Songbird was a cautionary example.
It was lonely at the top. For a powerhouse like Azure Mist to maintain its position, it had to think everything through carefully and make fewer mistakes.
And Zheng Xun, who had caused one disturbance after another, big and small, since his first battle, was clearly an unstable factor.
The farther away he was, the better.
Everyone had their own thoughts, but Huo Ziyan, at the center of the storm, had it worst that night.
The guild's captain and vice captain berated him one after the other for over an hour. By the time he returned, it was already past eleven at night.
His roommate was the teammate who had reported him. Hearing the door open, the man rolled over impatiently and hurled a couple of nasty insults at him.
Huo Ziyan had grown numb to his attitude. Without turning on the light, he washed up in the dark, lay down on his narrow single bed, and checked his messages.
Perhaps Zheng Xun's wish to hire him had been nothing more than a passing whim. Captain Xu's refusal had caught him off guard, but... it wouldn't change anything.
In the end, everyone was going to give up on him.
He took off his player wristband and placed it by his bed, intending to clear the messages on his phone before going to sleep.
There were only three new messages, all from the same person.
: Big brother, did training go well?
: I got 100 on my exam today. Look, big brother!
: [Image]
His younger sister's neat, clean handwriting covered the exam paper, and Huo Ziyan finally showed a genuine smile.
: Great job.
: I'll take you out this weekend.
: Get a change of scenery.
A reply came quickly.
: It's okay, big brother. You take care of your own things. The guild must be busy.
: I'll take good care of myself.
: You need to look after yourself too, big brother!
His younger sister was considerate and hardly ever gave Huo Ziyan anything to worry about, but the more she was like that, the less he knew how to broach the subject with her.
He was about to leave Azure Mist.
Huo Ziyan typed a message in the chat box, then deleted it, doing this several times.
Just as he was struggling with it and about to give up, his phone suddenly vibrated, alerting him to a new message.
He tapped the screen and exited the current chat.
When he saw who had messaged him, Huo Ziyan shot upright in bed.
It was God Zheng!
: Hello, Little Huo. This is Zheng Xun.
: Sorry to bother you so late at night.
: ...
The ellipsis on the screen showed that the other person was typing. Huo Ziyan waited, a little nervous, his palms sweating.
: Could you send me Azure Mist's first team's internal training plan?
?
Huo Ziyan was baffled. He had no idea what Zheng Xun wanted it for.
The internal plan was confidential, and team members weren't allowed to leak it. Huo Ziyan didn't know how to refuse people, but he had no choice, so he could only steel himself and type.
Before he could send it, another message arrived.
: Little Huo, that wasn't me just now. Someone couldn't keep their hands to themselves. Don't mind it.
At the other end of the phone, Zheng Xun swung the pillow in his hand, delivering a fatal blow to the back of Cheng Jie's head.
"Don't mess this up!"
Cheng Jie acted as though nothing had happened, opening the book by the bed and reading it upside down.
Three minutes later, Huo Ziyan received Zheng Xun's next message.
: I'm contacting you this late because I want you to be mentally prepared.
: Over the next week, you may be slandered and berated.
: Hang in there. It's okay.
?
This time, Huo Ziyan actually replied with a question mark. He didn't understand what was going on with Zheng Xun, suddenly saying such things out of the blue.
What did he mean, Huo Ziyan would be berated?
Tormented all night by Zheng Xun's strangely worded messages, Huo Ziyan didn't sleep well.
By the time he got up with dark circles under both eyes, Azure Mist was already in an uproar.
He heard his roommate cursing at the top of his lungs.
"That bastard Zheng Xun fucking raided our base!"