Chapter 7: Guild Old Cats

"Once again I am not interested in joining Samsara." Cold Bear said. For several days experts and other representatives of Samsara had been asking him to join the Guild or try out for their Silver Equipment R&D department.

"Then how about the rare material you stole? That ended very costly for us." Three Realms Six Paths asked.

"I have stated my prices." Cold Bear replied. He was typing his messages carefully.

"Information on what every known material in game does is not worth it. Not to mention the casualties we took afterwards."

"It's not my fault your players mindlessly attacked Tyrannical Ambition. Speaking of which, both them and Excellent Dynasty has offered me a large stack of Grandpa Moa for the materials. I wonder what they would do if I rather send them the same price I sent you?"

"Fuck. They know?"

"The entire Heavenly Domain knows. At the moment, as a scrap picker I'm more famous than Deception. Stole from Samsara and then hid from them by breaking a dungeon record alongside their players. You're looking pretty incompetent." Normally Cold Bear would not normally type these long messages, but he really wanted the information, so he went all out.

The Guild leader wanted to cough up blood. He had no idea Samsara's reputation had taken such a hit. He had been so busy trying to find replacements for the materials stolen that he had not checked the forums in a while and none of the other expert or employees of Samsara said anything.

"Do you promise not to share any information?" Three Realms Six Paths asked.

"I won't go posting it online if that is what you mean." Cold Bear said.

"Then I'll get you a document."

"When you have it, we can meet and I'll hand over the material when I see I have a list that looks authentic."

An hour passed and Could Bear was informed that a list had been prepared. Sending Three Realms Six Paths a set of coordinates with the words, "Come alone", he closed his equipment editor and headed to the meeting location.

Arriving first Cold Bear found a spot where he could see what was going on around him. A few minutes later Three Realms Six Paths arrived.

"Send the document first so I can check." Cold Bear said. Receiving the document he checked it briefly to the one had made himself based on wikis and other sources. Samsara's list had a few more rare materials than his did and far more detailed descriptions.

Seeing everything was in order he sent all the material to the Three Realms Six Paths.

"Why didn't you sell to another Guild?" Three Realms Six Paths asked.

"I have friends in Samsara who asked me nicely not to."

The two of them parted without saying another word.

Ma Xuegang came out of the dungeon her team was running. Using Five Nights Standing she had been participating in the recent resurfacing of player trying to break dungeon records.

Xie Zedong predicted the trend would not last long.

A few days after their offline meet, Ma Xuegang was contacted by Xie Zedong inviting her to have Five Nights Standing join his player guild, The Old Cats. Now part of a proper guild that actually had players regularly online she was able to start running dungeons regularly with other players. This also resulted in her devoting less time to working on her program.

Alongside Xie Zedong's Paladin, Golden Aura, they had used up their dungeon entries. In Glory a player was only allowed to enter a dungeon a limited amount of times each day or week. This depended on the size and level of the dungeon.

"Looks like we were unable to get it this time." Golden Aura said.

"The record Tyranny set is just too high." One of the other players said.

"Well Heavenly Swords managed to get and hold one." Another player said.

"Yes, but they have plenty of wallet warriors backing them." Five Nights Standing said. "And it was with like .5 seconds."

"And no other guild has been able to come close to it." Golden Aura replied.

"I wonder if we will see pro players coming out?" Five Nights Standing said wishfully.

"Probably not." Someone said. " Who is watching the matches tonight?"

All of the players replied that they would. Team Tiny Herb was playing that night so Ma Xuegang was sure her father was going to be watching, and so then was she.

Ma Xuegang was watching more and more pro matches hoping to learn more about the tactics they used. Her knowledge on what a good player could do was increasing slightly with every match. She kept close track of players playing mechanic like her.

Using her program she began setting up scenarios where a bot was programmed to attack in the same sequence as a pro player would in the matches. But that took a lot of work and she would only do one of the players a month, and only those that were the most dominating. Even then she had a hard time replicating them.

Five Nights Standing was considered one of the best players in Old Cats, with her being called over regularly to settle PvP disputes. She had even gone up against the experts of major Guilds, winning most of them.

As her team disbanded, Five Nights Standing received a message from the Old Cats' guild leader, Old Cat. An argument had occurred between him and players from Samsara and it ended with them being challenged to a duel to settle it. Experts from Samsara would fight experts from Odd Cats. He was hoping Five Nights Standing would fight for them.

"Coming right away." Five Nights Standing replied immediately.

"Thanks. The opponents have a Knight with a large shield." Old Cat said.

"How did we get into this fight?" Five Nights Standing asked.

"The Knight attacked our people out of nowhere and then called backup when I popped his health down to 10%." Old Cat said. He himself was no pushover.

"Can't you handle them?"

"It's a 2v2. And my party is all noobs."

"I'll be right there."

Five Nights Standing headed straight to the PvP arenas. Having been sent a room number she entered the room and saw that Old Cat was already in the arena with a Knight and an Exorcist.

The Knight had a large brown shield. It almost fitted perfectly with his name: Brick. Five Nights Standing had never met Brick. But she had met the exorcist: Tea Time Taker.