MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

Li Yi jumped onto the Mermaid Princess and advanced down the ocean route, clearing all the monsters along the way.

Due to his current level being higher than that of the murloc monsterlings in the Underwater Remnants region he could not obtain the full amount of EXP, however, there was still a sizable amount of murloc monsterlings around to give him a significant EXP boost.

“Shoot at Random!”

Li Yi’s body shone with a golden light, and he shot out arrows in all directions. In the blink of an eye, he had killed off several hundred murloc monsterlings.

“What a waste.”

Li Yi looked at the arrows floating on the surface of the water helplessly. Shoot at Random could not be aimed, so every time he used this skill, at least half of the arrows would miss and be utterly wasted.

“Go! Advance!”

Li Yi touched the Mermaid Princess’ face lightly, and the Mermaid Princess moved forward quickly.

…

“God, Buddha, UItraman, Pope Saga ¹ , Lucifer… All of you, please give me your blessings.”

Not long after Li Yi dived in, the female Human Wizard Qi Ge arrived at the Underwater Remnants. She put her hands together and prayed for a while before she leaped in with a splash.

This was her 1,589th going into the water…

“Wahaha, I, Qi Ge, truly am the luckiest person in the world, no doubt about it. I’ve struck gold, gold I say…”

Countless murloc corpses floated on the surface of the water. Qi Ge perked up immediately at the sight, and swam as rapidly as she could toward the embodiment of Gold Coins in her eyes…

“43 Silver Coins… 53 Silver Coins… One white equipment, so 12 Silver Coins, and holy hell! A piece of blue equipment worth 17 Gold Coins…”

…

Li Yi cleared his way up to the Tidal Throne Dungeon and killed Allofor easily. Compared to the first time he fought him, this time was much easier.

Li Yi went to loot the body and found that his luck was only average. All he got was 2 pieces of green-colored equipment and not even one piece of gold-colored equipment. Allofor’s corpse also had a Tidal Key, but he already had one, so he could not pick up a second.

Li Yi entered the Tidal Throne Dungeon.

Right now, Li Yi’s HP was much higher (thanks to Zangila’s Anti-poison Belt) and his crowd control power was much stronger (thanks to the Goddess of Hurricane’s Rage). As a result, it was much easier to beat the Tidal Throne Dungeon than before. When he sat on the Big Murloc’s shoulder, he even managed to strengthen the Big Murloc’s powers several dozen times over.

“Awooo—Goska’s really strong…”

The Big Murloc began to move. This time, Li Yi still chose the highest level of difficulty by not shattering a single crystal before he fought the Vile King.

He passed the first murloc boss, but when he was looting its body, Li Yi was dealt another blow. It was a rare Empty Hand, as in he did not get so much as a strand of hair.

Luck sure was a strange thing.

Once he defeated the second murloc boss, Prais, however, Li Yi’s luck returned.

He went up to loot it and the icon of a seahorse appeared in his Virtual Inventory Pane. It was the Deep-red Seahorse Mount!

“That means my luck is decent.”

Li Yi felt a little better. Picking up the seahorse mount, he discovered that there was another Skill Tome beneath it.

It was a Level 60 Archer Skill Tome for the Trap Path skill, Survival Instinct!

That more than made up for this trip!

Li Yi was over the moon. He took the Skill Tome and clapped it, learning the skill instantly.

[Level 1 Survival Instinct: Dispels all crowd control statuses and provides immunity against all crowd control skills for the next 10 seconds. Also increases the player’s AGI and EVA by 10% within this time period. Cooldown time: 3 minutes.]

This skill was the only skill that enabled Archers to dispel their Abnormal Statuses. It was an extremely rare drop. After all, Li Yi was Level 64 now, but he had yet to see anyone selling it.

He took the Deep-red Seahorse out for a spin. Although this was an underwater non-combat mount, its bright red exterior still made it look quite eye-catching.

The Deep-red Seahorse’s drop rate was not too low, so this thing was not exactly rare. It was only uncommon at the most; anyone could obtain it if they were willing to put in the time or money. Of course, as things stood, Li Yi was undoubtedly the first player to obtain this mount.

It was a decent haul. Not only did he obtain a mount, but he had also even learned the rare Survival Instinct skill. Li Yi had a large boost in confidence. Controlling the Big Murloc Goska, he headed toward the third murloc boss…

…

The library in the University of Toronto, Canada.

Xiao Xue was utterly engrossed in her copy of Pride and Prejudice when a fair little hand reached over from behind and stuck itself down her collar.

“Ahh—”

Xiao Xue was given a nasty shock. She pressed her chest with her hand and turned around to look at the prankster. It was a woman of indescribable beauty.

She had long hair tied into a ponytail, an oval face with a dainty mouth, a pair of seductive eyes and skin the color of milk. No matter how one looked at her, she was a beauty for the ages.

“What are you doing, Qian’er? You gave me a fright.” Xiao Xue’s heart had yet to settle back in place.

Qian’er gave Xiao Xue a flirty wink. She brought her pretty fair hand, the one she had just stuck into Xiao Xue’s shirt, to her nose and sniffed it hard. “Teehee, Ling’er and the others are always saying that mine are bigger than yours. Oh my my, I just wanted to see if it was true.”

“You pervy woman, why are you comparing that?” Xiao Xue’s face was beet-red.

“Because it’ll feel good if they’re big, and feel bad if they’re small.”

Qian’er brought her head closer to Xiao Xue and pursed her little mouth, blowing air into Xiao Xue’s ear.

“That tickles! Qian’er, stop it.”

“Teehee, it won’t tickle if I do this.”

Qian’er bit Xiao Xue’s earlobe, and Xiao Xue’s body gave a great shudder. The girl did not put a lot of force into that bite, but she kept licking Xiao Xue’s ear with her tongue as she sucked it, causing Xiao Xue a great deal of distress.

“Stop fooling around, Qian’er,” Xiao Xue pleaded.

“Teehee.”

Qian’er took her mouth away and made a face at Xiao Xue. Holding both hands behind her back, she skipped away.

Watching Qian’er back as she left, Xiao Xue sighed, flabbergasted.

It had been quite a few days since she arrived at this university. Xiao Xue had met many new friends, and the girl Qian’er who had just left was her roommate. She was also from China, but she had arrived here a year before Xiao Xue.

Qian’er was very passionate, but one part of her was causing Xiao Xue quite the headache. It was the fact that Qian’er, despite looking like the kind of beauty who caused dynasties to fall at her feet, was actually a bona fide pervert. She would ambush Xiao Xue every so often and touch her chest, kiss her face, or nibble her ear… She truly put Xiao Xue in quite a spot.

“This girl is kinda like that jerk, huh.” A person’s image appeared in Xiao Xue’s mind, and her face grew even redder.

…

Li Yi shuddered and gave a tremendous sneeze as he shot an arrow at the Vile King…

“Clink clank bam bam…”

The Vile King wailed and collapsed under the force of his arrow.

“Who’s thinking about me at a time like this?”

Li Yi rubbed his nose and went up to loot the body.

“Ding!”

A Virtual Inventory Pane appeared before his eyes, and five pieces of white-colored equipment were listed out in front of Li Yi’s eyes.

“F*ck!”

Li Yi swore. Without picking up a single one of the 5 pieces of white equipment, he began to rub the Return City Stone.

When he returned to Shattered Frost City, Li Yi realized that the streets and alleys in the city had all changed. They were now lavishly decorated in order to welcome the Ruler of God Appreciation Festival, an activity that the NPCs of the city held on their own accord.

The Ruler of God Appreciation Festival would begin in two days. By now, some of the divine messengers could already be found in the many major cities. Of course, since the Ruler of God Appreciation Festival had yet to officially begin, the divine messengers could not sell the Great Gift Packs yet. The only reason they appeared was to build up more hype.

Their bodies shone with light, and their every move could bring about changes in their surroundings. That was how the divine messengers were presented to the players.

“Do you want to be like this too? As long as you wish it, just come, and everything is possible.”

This was one of King of Pantheon’s slogans.

Li Yi glanced at Blade Peak Arena’s ranking and felt his heart settle in his chest.

He was not the only one to suffer a loss, many other people did as well. The increased frequency of Sark’s appearances had tripped up countless other players as well. Right now, the person in second place was 5,000+ points lower than Li Yi. Even if he did not try to gather any more points, his position as the seasonal champion was immovable.

Sark would continue to rampage for 5 to 10 days, so this round was in the bag.

Li Yi wandered around the Auction House for a bit and bought a bunch of materials for arrow-crafting. When he got home, he summoned the Mermaid Princess again and allowed her to continue listening to music.

The Mermaid Princess’ negative affinity for him had decreased by another chunk. It was currently at −32,123, so it was probably a matter of time before it reached the positives.

“What a strange mount. If you’re good to her, she ignores you, but if you abuse her, she’ll start obeying you…”

This was Li Yi’s review of the Mermaid Princess.

Princess Sif was the same as ever, though. She just kept playing her silky-smooth crescent flute, and no matter how Li Yi questioned her, she just refused to give him that quest.

Compared to the Mermaid Princess, Princess Sif was getting on Li Yi’s nerves.

She was practically a vampire. Her salary doubled every three months, and it had been almost a year, but Princess Sif still refused to give him the quest. Only Li Yi could afford that. If it were any normal player, they would have long since gone broke.

“Just tell me if there’s anything. All you do is stand there playing your flute, and you played it so much that your flute’s all smooth now. Your mouth is going to grow crooked from all that fluting. Can’t you just give me that quest already? C’mon, do this for me. After all, you’ll become the Elf Queen eventually, so you might as well be more generous now.”

Li Yi crafted more arrows as he muttered away.

After he made that trip to the Underwater Remnants, Li Yi did not have many arrows left. That was the Archer life; arrows would be a huge cost to shoulder, whether you liked it or not.

Most Archer players did not possess Arrow Crafting Skills, and they would never be able to use their full power using the trash arrows sold by the system. If they wanted to have more fun playing, their only choice was to buy more advanced arrows.

Li Yi would craft a large batch of arrows each time. He would save the Intermediate-level Arrows for himself and place all the Low-level Arrows on auction. If he was in a good mood, he would sell them for less, but if he was in a bad mood, he would be slightly meaner. Either way, he was still the only player who knew how to craft Flame and Frost Arrows.

He had a full monopoly of the scene, so how would he ever find a lack of business?

If it were not for the fact that the materials were hard to find and crafting them took a long time, Li Yi would have expanded this business of his a long time ago.

Now, Li Yi’s Arrow Crafting Skill had been raised to the Advanced Level, but since he had yet to get his hands on any Advanced-level Arrow Crafting Skill Tomes, he was still only restricted to crafting Low- and Intermediate-level Arrows.

It was only when his Backpack was full of the arrows he had crafted that Li Yi stopped. He teleported to the Auction House and auctioned off half of the arrows, keeping the other half for himself. He then rushed back to the Underwater Remnants.

Even though he had passed the Tidal Throne Dungeon, the large amounts of EXP he gained from killing the murlocs and the decreasing negative affinity with the Mermaid Princess motivated Li Yi to continue grinding levels there. He planned to stay there until the Mermaid Princess’ affinity reached the positives.

…

The female Human Wizard, Qi Ge, kept looting the murloc corpses as she advanced. After using more than ten Underwater Breathing Potions, she managed to reach the entrance of the Tidal Throne Dungeon. There, she saw Allofor’s sparkling body.

“A boss!”

Qi Ge’s eyes shone. She used Flash to teleport up to Allofor’s corpse, and then she looted it with her hand.

“The T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-Tidal Key!”