The Mysterious Voice

With a flash of white light, Xiao Yu entered the game and appeared in the Chamber of Chaos, where he was the only one in the pitch-black space.

Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly heard a strange sound, as if someone was whispering in his ear.

A mysterious voice cried out, "Great Elemental Spirits, speak with me! Guide me and tell me what has happened in the elemental world!"

(Damn it, here it comes again.) Xiao Yu couldn't help but curse inwardly. He had been hearing this sound from time to time lately, and it was driving him crazy.

However, after a while, he became immune to it and walked straight outside. When he arrived at the outside of the Immortal Throne, Ma Xiaoyun had arranged to meet him there.

Five minutes later, with a series of panting sounds, Ma Xiaoyun also arrived at the palace of the Immortal Throne. She had climbed all the way up from the Mountain of Origins, and her character was a special VIP template character.

Ma Xiaoyun (Explorer), Level 60, Explorer Template, 120 HP.

The Explorer template is specifically designed for players who dislike grinding, leveling up, fighting, running dungeons, and completing quests, but prefer traveling, exploring, and appreciating the virtual scenery of the game world. Explorers possess combat immunity, allowing them to avoid various ferocious monsters in the Sky World. Furthermore, due to the background mode being enabled, the character Ma Xiaoyun is completely integrated into the background and will not suffer any damage. Her Legendary ability allows her to appear in any area. Using the Explorer's adventure map, she can instantly teleport to any location; however, this is only possible across maps. Moving within a single map still requires walking to that location.

In addition, explorers are inherently weak, basically lacking the ability to fight monsters and unable to learn professional skills—aside from leisure skills like archaeology, cooking, and fishing. Therefore, even if they could teleport, they wouldn't be able to profit from it.

This Explorer template may not have any combat abilities, but it's not cheap. The basic Explorer template itself costs 100,000 points, and there are various value-added paid services. It's really hard for the average person to afford. Of course, since it's a GM, the Ma Xiaoyun character probably doesn't need to be purchased with real money.

At this moment, she arrived at the platform of the Immortal Throne, in front of the dungeon gate.

"Hey, why is this dungeon located so high up? It's going to kill someone! How are adventurers supposed to get up here to do this?" Ma Xiaoyun said, plopping down on the ground without any regard for her image.

She was dressed as an explorer—jacket, backpack, explorer's hat, binoculars, leather boots—looking like a female version of Indiana Jones, and she actually looked quite convincing.

"That's no problem, I'll arrange it later. Welcome to the Immortal Throne." Xiao Yu said, reaching out to help Ma Xiaoyun up from the ground.

Panting, Ma Xiaoyun looked at the enormous palace before her and exclaimed, "Wow, this place is pretty cool!"

"It's alright, it's alright. So, how about it? Interested in watching?"

"That's a must."

As they talked, the two walked one after the other into the dungeon gate of the Immortal Throne.

Azathoth (Elemental King): "The renovations aren't finished yet, and not all the bosses are here, but if we need to film a promotional video, I can call in some bosses to fill the space."

Ma Xiaoyun (Explorer): "No rush. I need to see what usable resources you have here."

Xiao Yu nodded. "Please come in, feel free to look around, don't be shy."

Ma Xiaoyun showed no politeness whatsoever, looking around as they walked, asking questions from time to time. As they walked, Xiao Yu introduced the various selling points of the Immortal Throne.

Azathoth (Elemental King): "This is the entrance to the Throne, the only entrance to the Immortal Throne dungeon. It will be guarded by a Fire Titan and an Ice Titan. This will be the first challenge adventurers will encounter in this dungeon. The Elemental Titans lack AoE skills, but their single-target damage is extremely high. If the tank isn't tough enough, it's easy to wipe the entire raid."

Ma Xiaoyun nodded, and the two continued walking inside.

Azathoth (Elemental King): "From here forward are the Storm Domain, the Earth Domain, the Raging Tide Domain, and the Flame Domain. Each of these will be guarded by a different Elemental Lords and their corresponding elemental creature. These four bosses aren't particularly difficult, probably around level five or six skeletons. Since this is a massive 100-player raid, if the adventurer team can clear the first stage, these four shouldn't be too difficult. All that's needed is repeated attempts and enough time. Because the four Elemental Lords require different resistances, preparation will be essential. However, once the corresponding resistances are built up, victory will be a natural outcome."

He knew this all too well; the Elemental Lords's greatest weakness was being targeted. The two passed through the four areas and arrived at a huge circular hall.

Azathoth (Elemental King): "This is the Council Hall, where the Elemental Elders Council meets. It's expected to become the final resting place for many player teams, as they will face the challenge of the Elemental Elders Council here. Four or eight elemental elders will simultaneously confront the adventurers, and there's also a possibility that elemental elders of different attributes will randomly spawn. These elemental elders will be relatively weak, generally only around the level of a skeleton, but because they combine four elemental attributes, defeating them will not be easy."

Passing through the council hall, one enters a vast, rectangular hall, with massive stone pillars standing between the corridor and the main hall.

Azathoth (Elemental King): "Next is the Forbidden Zone. Here they will encounter my Elemental King Guard, a monster horde composed of elites and low-level bosses. You'll need to clear out the mobs to reach the exit of the Forbidden Zone. And here, players will also face the Shadow of Azathoth, led by my personal guard Agnes."

"Finally, if they manage to overcome all these challenges, they will arrive at the Throne Hall, where they will be greeted by my most loyal servant, Ragnaros (the Firelord Colossus). This guy is no pushover; he possesses the strength of eight skeletons and is basically the nightmare of most adventurer teams."

"Finally, only if they can defeat Ragnaros will they have a chance to enter the final challenge and confront me— Azathoth, Elemental King, an invincible boss. Hehe, I've prepared several very cool skill combinations, guaranteed to ensure that any adventurer who dares to challenge me will not return alive."

Ma Xiaoyun asked, "What about the Sgelari? The Hydra demigods are incredibly powerful; you didn't include them, did you?"

"Of course! I plan to design Sgelari as an optional boss. He will guard my treasury in the icy lake beneath the Immortal Throne. Defeating him will open the treasury—of course, you'll need a key to enter. Adventurers have a very low chance of obtaining the treasury key from monsters while adventuring in the Immortal Throne —or you can purchase it with in-game currency. This boss is for the big spenders. So, what do you think after reading this?"

Xiao Yu asked with a hint of smugness.

Ma Xiaoyun clapped his hands. "I have to say, as a dungeon, the Immortal Throne is quite classic in its design. At least I can imagine how fun it would be for an adventurer to run this dungeon. However, it seems that this isn't enough to showcase your full strength. Putting a bunch of powerful bosses into one dungeon seems a bit too ordinary."

Just as Xiao Yu was about to respond, he suddenly heard a faint voice again, as if someone was whispering to him from a very distant place.

A mysterious voice cried out, "Great Elemental Spirits, speak with me! Guide me and tell me what has happened in the elemental world!"

Xiao Yu shook his head violently, silencing the sound, thinking to himself, "This is terrible, it's not over yet."

Ma Xiaoyun asked curiously, "What's wrong with you? Am I bothering you?"

Xiao Yu shook his head. "No, lately there's been a constant stream of voices praying to me, asking what exactly happened in the Elemental World. It's incredibly annoying. I don't really want to reveal anything about the Elemental World yet. After all, for a great demon king who wants to rule the world, prematurely exposing his plans seems a bit idiotic. Besides, I have so many things to deal with; I don't have time to pay attention to that."

Ma Xiaoyun's face turned serious. "Only the most powerful hero-level Shaman can communicate directly with the Elemental King. Could that voice be—'Wait for me, I'll be right back'?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Ma Xiaoyun logged out of the game. Xiao Yu thought to himself, "What's wrong with this girl?" But he decided to wait a while. Soon after, Ma Xiaoyun logged back in.

"Haha, just as I guessed, the person who wants to communicate with you is Thrall."

Xiao Yu was startled. "Thrall? You mean Horde Thrall of the Warchief?" Xiao Yu wondered to himself, what does this old charlatan want with me?

"Yes, it's Thrall. He sensed the restlessness of the elements, so he wanted to ask you what was going on. This is Shaman tradition; after all, maintaining the balance of the elements is the Shaman's job, and the elements are also the source of the Shaman's power. This kind of thing definitely needs to be figured out. But this is a good starting point."

"What do you mean?" Xiao Yu asked curiously.

Ma Xiaoyun's eyes lit up as she said, "Think about it, if we just talk about how amazing you are and how powerful your boss is, it sounds a bit like self-praise. But if we show it from other people's perspectives, then there's no problem. And if we say that the person who is so amazing to you is the Warchief of the Horde, then that's even more perfect."

As she spoke, she took out a notebook from her backpack and started writing a script on the spot. Since it was just a promotional video that was only a few minutes long, the script was not difficult to write and she finished it quickly. After she finished, she showed it to Xiao Yu.

"Take a look at this script. This is just a first draft, so there's still room for revision."

Xiao Yu was pleasantly surprised after reading it, thinking to himself that this script was indeed written by a professional, and its level of pretentiousness was almost on par with his own.

"This script is good, so it's settled then. But the filming is up to you. I can handle the elemental creature storyline, but I can't arrange the photography for Thrall."

Ma Xiaoyun readily agreed, "Don't worry, I can switch to an observer's perspective, then there won't be any problem. But you'd better act convincingly. This isn't like making a movie where you can just do it again. Thrall is a highly intelligent NPC, and even we GMs can't easily communicate with him about this, so we can't do it again with you. If it's not done well, we'll have to think of another way."

Xiao Yu laughed heartily, "Don't worry, it's just playing a delusional boss who dreams of conquering the world. That's my specialty. Just you wait and see."