Holidays

The holidays in the Zhang residence were carried out in a grim mood. Huobai's operation was shifted to a later time because the bone lump stopped growing, so they wanted to observe it for a while now too.

The second reason was that his doctor broke his arm and couldn't operate on him. And he was the best surgeon he could have. No one else was brave enough to cut into Huobai.

His father came home only for the New year celebrations and no other day. Because when he saw Huobai or more like didn't see Huobai out of his room, on any other day except the Winter solstice, he said it was unnecessary to be home for someone who wasn't home.

And it was basically true. Huobai's only fun now was leveling up, streaming, and podcasting about games and other things. He went to school and then to his room, where he basically made his own studio.

Having money was now something he appreciated a lot more than before. He could buy the latest and the best machines, microphones and other things.

And the streams now were in better quality than before. His HD cam could pick everything that he did, but only with the mask he wore, and showing in the tiny corner, not disturbing his game. He could pay for some lessons that would make his voice easier to control.

Soon, Huobai was pretty well known in both circles. Gaming and voice lovers. And he loved it. That he still had his privacy, the mystery about him only gaining him more attention.

There were some people saying that he hides behind his mask just to hide his ugly face. The only thing that those haters didn't take into consideration was that in the gaming circle, if you had skills, you didn't have to be handsome. And in the voice circle, only the voice was what mattered.

Most of the people there loved his voice, saying how rich it was, how it could portray emotions, and the deepness of it was drawing them more into the story.

When he was finally able to join the game after the new year, he noticed that he almost missed an event. Huobai's eyelid twitched as he was walking around the deserted town. There was almost no one there, because of the Chinese New year, and given that so many players on this particular Asian server were Chinese, he wasn't that surprised.

But he finally met someone sitting in front of the smithery. Huobai looked at the familiar green ID, suggesting that this person was in his friend list and he frowned. Because he couldn't remember where he befriended this person.

Huobai walked to him and waved, saying hi in the 'close' chat. The person didn't move at all, and Huobai sighed. Of course, he was AFK when he needed it. That was his luck.

There was like ten minutes until the end of the event, and he would miss out on really nice prizes if he didn't defeat this boss.

Just as he wanted to walk away, the person's avatar moved, stood up from the stool, and came to Huobai.

"Sorry, I was away. Hello, long time no see," SIG wrote in the close chat, suggesting that they really met somewhere before. Huobai was lost where and when, but he didn't pay attention to it.

"I missed the event. Could you help me out and join me?" he asked and waited for a reply. He still had time and if he had a good team he could have made it.

"Yeah, I can invite a friend too, if you don't mind. We already did it once, but didn't loot anything interesting." Huobai looked at SIG's level and the armor he had on. He looked like he knew what he was doing, so Huobai only nodded and waited for the friend.

They made a party together and waited for the other player. When from the deep inside of the smithy another player emerged and the name shining above his character made Huobai swear.

Doom.

The one guy Huobai wanted to defeat so much. The one guy that was better than Huobai, despite starting around the same time as him.

And just like that he was added to the party by SIG and Huobai was unable to say anything.

"Either you are so bad, that you know me and you are star-struck, or you are overconfident that you can defeat the boss in five minutes," Doom wrote and Huobai imagined Doom's annoying voice, he knew from streams, saying it.

"We need one more member," he said, ignoring what he said and teleported himself in front of the entrance of the event instance.

"I posted an invite in the world chat," SIG wrote, and just as he finished another name appeared in their party: HeiaN_YoulinG. Dark ghost? Huobai wondered about the nickname's meaning, but then when he saw their combined amount of HP, he didn't care about the name. He looked at the countdown and frowned.

Huobai entered now, without waiting for another one. Because they were almost out of time.

"Overconfident... I see. Open voice channel. I command." Doom wrote as they were out of the loading screen at the beginning of the tunnel.

Huobai wanted to argue, but he saw Doom's streams. He knew that he was great. When he remembered this, he suddenly remembered from where he knew SIG.

He was always with Doom when he was streaming. Those two characters were inseparable. And they were a perfect combination using their characters to the fullest.

Huobai opened the voice channel and put on his headset, his hands already following Doom's character. They were running inside the maze with infallible accuracy. Showing that Doom knew where to go, remembering the map once he was there.

Once again, Huobai had to applaud in his head. He had seen many people, not using their thinking to the fullest, and Doom wasn't one of them. And even though Huobai didn't like him, he had to admit this guy was a really excellent player. His level of thinking and reaction was already pro-level, and Huobai was interested in how high his APM was.

He wanted to ask, but he missed the timing because he heard Doom's voice coming from the headset.

"Ready, we have five minutes. Assassin backs up on the cave wall. Use sequence default 3 when I use my fifth skill. Magician, start before us, cover SIG, use MP skill default 8 first, then use MP potion. Yitian use skills 5 and 7 then react to mine skills," he said as they stood before the round entrance to the boss' cave.

"We have five minutes. Do exactly what I said, and we are done in two." Huobai was stunned as they entered the cave, doubting Doom's sanity.