Xiao Yi lay face down in his bed for a half hour before he shot out of bed and ran toward the shower to wash away lingering crumbs and the smell of alcohol. Perhaps, he may have been trying to wash the feeling of embarrassment away as well.
By the time he exited the shower and got changed into a cozy pair of black and white checkered pajamas, V had left a message that he’d be out handling matters.
Whether those matters were about his impending divorce or work, Xiao Yi didn’t know. He only sent a quick reply back and decisively replied to his elder brother so as to not worry him.
[X]: I got drunk, I’m OK. Train well.
In another province, Xiao Qiu cursed at his phone, making his chat jump. “I told you not to drink!”
[!!! Q Shen, we won’t drink!]
“Good, you listen well. Let’s continue…”
Xiao Yi had no idea that he helped his brother unintentionally scold his audience as he sat down at his desk with a soda, one leg crossed underneath him and the other propped up with his knee against his desk and foot locking the other leg into position.
The familiar dragons circled one another on screen as Xiao Yi opened the soda. Instead of directly logging into his character, he backed out and skimmed his character sheet.
Frost, assassin, level 100. As his mouse skimmed over the name, an avatar appeared and Xiao Yi stared at it in contemplation. A blood elf with long, inky black hair with cold undertones, and light blue eyes matching his own, adorning a beautifully designed black and red robe.
This was his championship outfit. Each player received a customized one after they won the world championship and if one looked closely, they’d find a small X engraved on the back of his neck if they weren’t paying more attention to the black tattoos winding around his neck.
If he was wearing something different, one might be able to see black tattoos winding around his wrists and ankles, an intricate pattern of a spell that hadn’t made it into the game.
They were supposed to be shackles.
When V was designing the prison and color system for the game, he came up with the idea of having tattooed shackles for assassins on the leaderboard. “Assassins are cool but aren’t they also criminals? All you do is go around killing people for money!”
Alas, people cared too much about cosmetics and it was quickly shut down by the development team. Yet, Xiao Yi had heard about this tattoo and specifically asked for it for his championship design.
It was only a tattoo, it didn’t have any special enhancements or drawbacks like they were supposed to but Xiao Yi had chosen them.
[Frost is online.]
Xiao Yi took a sip of his soda as he loaded into the game, the disguise spell still running, showing his name as “Shen Wei” to anyone who may pass by.
Frost walked out of his mansion at a leisurely pace, not paying any mind to the passing players running through the city or auto-traveling on their mounts. He continued into the mountains where he used the branches of trees as a stepping stone into the air, and began gliding on his sword mount.
Despite Sleepy being max level, his cultivation and gear score wasn’t as high as Frost’s was due to the lack of character-restricted stats added through titles, clothes collections, and gears that couldn’t be traded over. Hence, the only character he had that could make it to the area he was heading to was Frost.
Right before he encountered the ruins that he’d fought Nightmare at, he dismounted his mount, fell to the top of a tree, and double-jumped back onto the mount, pointing toward the clouds.
If one was on the ground and looked up, they’d see a small spec on their screen that could be a piece of dust stuck to their screen. As Frost flew higher, an island floating in the sky could be seen.
From this angle, though, one could only see dissipating water turning into mist underneath, further hiding it from the view of those below. Only a small bit of ground could be made out past the mist.
Mid-air, he dismounted once more and performed a move called ‘cloud steps’. The first level allowed the player to walk on pre-placed clouds to avoid ground attacks. The second, well, there were just more clouds. The third, instead of clouds, one was walking on rain droplets.
Xiao Yi’s fingers paused. He only needed the third level. A few hundred raindrops appeared mid-air, and Frost stood on one of them while regaining stamina. After a few seconds, the drops seemed to flicker and Frost leaped into the air once more and mounted the sword as they dissipated into mist.
This island wasn’t exactly hidden. It was just hard to get to so players who could make the journey would usually only go once and take a few photos as if they were a passing tourist and go along with their days.
Frost switched directions so he wouldn’t crash into the bottom of the island, he wasn’t in the mood to splat on the ground like a bug.
Amidst the sprinkling of trees, a lake sat in the middle of the island with three channels leading to the edge of the island, falling off in waterfalls. Walkways paved with white jade stone lead around the island to different viewing platforms, a gazebo floating in the middle of the lake, and a small cottage situated at the edge of the lake.
Frost landed next to one of the waterfalls and sat at the edge of the island. He could see three of the four continents from this platform, the housing islands and sky islands…
Xiao Yi smiled lightly. This was the first area the team explored after they reached the max level. They’d debated making it their guild area, but it was too hard for lower-level players to get to.
Still, it was the perfect place to wind down from a hangover.
