MMORPG: The Elementalist

“Ruo… are you very close with Li Lanlan?”

After hanging on until 10 a.m. in the morning, Xiaoxiao finally could not help herself from feeling curious. She slid her chair over to the front of the office desk next to hers. She stared at Qin Ruo who stuck his head in loads of papers and files as he continued to work. She then asked a question that she had kept to herself for over two hours. Although she was not a white-collar girl who loved to play games, that did not mean that she was completely unconcerned with things in the game. When a few female colleagues from the HR department were discussing something interesting in the game, Xiaoxiao would also be listening to their conversation at the side. After a certain period of time, she also acquired a certain general understanding of H&G.

But today, many of her colleagues in the company were discussing the same topic. They also kept mentioning “Qin Ruo”, who had been getting by in the game in the most ordinary way possible. The topic, which involved Qin Ruo had instantly aroused Xiaoxiao’s curiosity. After she asked, she realized that Qin Ruo had played a relatively important role in the operation the day before and he made a big splash.

Even though most of his colleagues did not notice his presence on the battlefield, among the people Qin Ruo rescued were Brother Da, the renowned Big Mouth King who was deemed to be an expert in spreading gossip; two assistants from the Finance Department; and dozens of his colleagues from other departments. After his heroic deeds were sung to everyone’s ears, it did not take long at all for his colleagues in the Citadel to know about his appearance and involvement in Devil’s Swamp’s incident. They knew that the Tier 3 Aquamancer had brought two pro friends and saved more than twenty comrades. Furthermore, he only used some extremely normal skills and aided them in taking out more than thirty Hunters from the Order of the Eight Gods Clan.

But the thing she was most concerned about was what a few of her colleagues said. They mentioned that Li Lanlan from the Finance Department and her sister, Li Xinqin seemed to be very close to Qin Ruo. They seemed to understand each other very well.

Based on Xiaoxiao’s understanding of Qin Ruo, she knew that Qin Ruo would not be interested in a woman like Li Lanlan who was as cold as an ice queen, even though Li Lan Lan was indeed a ravishing woman…

However, Xiaoxiao was not able to suppress her curiosity, which expanded relentlessly deep down in her heart. She knew that if a woman truly had someone in her heart, there was a high possibility that she would change—she had also gone to the Finance Department to confirm before. The icy cold expression on Li Lanlan’s face now seemed to be a little different compared to the usual. She could not help but recall a few questions that Xinqin asked her, and the “idea” she suggested to Xinqin.

An inexplicable frustration came into her heart and unsettled her so much that she could not calm herself to focus on her work.

***

After he was pulled out from the documents on his computer by Xiaoxiao, Qin Ruo rubbed his eyes. They were a little tired. He then turned his head over and said, “Didn’t I already tell you about this yesterday?”

“That’s why I’m curious to know.” Xiaoxiao’s eyes were sparkling strangely at him. “Take a guess and see. Do you think that the ice demon would be interested in you?

“You’re the one she’s interested in!”

Qin Ruo rolled his eyes as he was rendered speechless. He turned his head back toward the screen on his desk, ready to bury himself back into his work as it was a Friday. The workload before the weekend was always heavy. He planned to get his work done a little earlier so that he would not need to come in during the afternoon. That should buy himself some time to grind his level in the afternoon.

Xiaoxiao puffed her cheeks in dissatisfaction. She was apparently not happy with the answer that Qin Ruo had just given her. Just as she was about to ask Qin Ruo more questions, a man walked into the office and came straight toward them.

Xiaoxiao was instantly shocked. She thought that the manager had come in to inspect them. She quickly retreated back to her place.

Suddenly!

“Qin Ruo!”

The voice echoed next to the both of them. Qin Ruo and Xiaoxiao were startled by the voice as they looked in its direction…

“Why are you here?”

Qin Ruo pushed his seat back a little and stood up. The thin and tall man who came was the Assistant Manager of the Finance Department, “Luo Qian”. He was also known as Dinosaurcerer whom Qin Ruo met before dawn that day. It was really unexpected of him to actually look for Qin Ruo in the office during working hours.

Luo Qian smiled and touched his nose a little. He then pulled a chair over and invited Qin Ruo to have a seat. “Come, let’s sit down and talk… I sent you a few short messages in the morning, but you didn’t reply me… So I came over to take a look.” After hearing what he said, Qin Ruo felt even more confused. What made Luo Qian look for him then?

“Oh, it’s been busier today, so I didn’t notice. What’s up? Anything?” Qin Ruo asked.

“Right, a busy day. Alright then. I’ll make it short.” After that, Luo Qian actually started to talk about what happened in the game yesterday with Qin Ruo. Qin Ruo was dripping in cold sweat as he was listening to Luo Qian. He thought to himself that this Luo Qian was not really true to his responsibility as a leader. He actually got distracted from work and came downstairs to talk with Qin Ruo about the game. He even picked Qin Ruo’s office to do it…

Awkward sweat!

But what astounded Qin Ruo was, Luo Qian had actually communicated with a few colleagues of his already. They discussed gathering all of the colleagues in the company to form a squad. They even talked about expanding into a Clan by the end of it.

Qin Ruo furrowed his eyebrows intensely while he listened and thought to himself… It seemed that the incident yesterday had given Luo Qian a big blow! Otherwise, Luo Qian would not have made a decision like that. After all, everyone was a white-collar worker with a fixed job. It would require a professional player and a game guild to build a squad and expand a Clan. Taking a step back, one should at least have sufficient time during normal hours in order to build a squad. These people could only make time for the game at night for entertainment purposes. If they were allowed to build a Clan, he was afraid that their Clan would only end up as an attractive façade even if the succeeded in forming it… They could end up even worse than the Order of the Eight Gods.

“You want to form a Clan to stand up against the Order of the Eight Gods?” Qin Ruo voiced out the deep meaning behind Luo Qian’s words. Luo Qian did not deny it. He gritted his teeth and nodded. “We think that the Order of the Eight Gods Clan deserves to be punished.”

“They’ve already paid for their deeds.”

“It’s not enough! Their Clan has to be completely defeated!” Luo Qian clenched his teeth as he spoke in rage.

However, when his words fell on deaf ears, Qin Ruo chuckled disdainfully. “Not everyone comes into the game looking for trouble… In my opinion, even if we manage to set up the squad, we won’t have the strength in us to stand up against the Order of the Eight Gods, right?”

Luo Qian obviously had a very clear understanding in this regard. He nodded and said, “This is my plan: For the meantime, we only care about expanding. We won’t get into conflict with the Order of the Eight Gods Clan. Even if we encounter them, we’ll take the initiative to avoid it… I know that we have a big gap with many Clans in terms of strength, but we also have an advantage that none of them have! That is… our men are all together here. We have a mutual understanding, we’re familiar with each other, and we trust each other! It’s due to this trust that I believe once we really expand, we can definitely progress faster than the other Parties and Clans!”

Qin Ruo’s expression gradually relaxed. It was not unreasonable for Luo Qian to say that. If more than 200 colleagues of the company combine all their information together… Equipment, Levels, and hidden Dungeons… If they could expand together as one and they could trust each other without holding back at all, what Luo Qian spoke of was possible. Everyone’s strength would rocket up within a short period of time!!

But…

It would also be very troublesome to really do that! The difficulty of doing it would be extremely high! The most difficult thing to do would be the distribution of benefits among themselves and the issues of who came first…

It was really unexpected that Luo Qian had thought about a lot of things during the night. The moment Qin Ruo mentioned it, Luo Qian had immediately come up with a very detailed and proper solution. What surprised Qin Ruo was that Luo Qian had even thought about using his own post in the company and treated it as an outstanding ability to allow them to them take on the task of making adjustments and perfecting the system for their Clan.

After a few short questions and answers, Luo Qian had already laid out the broad outline of the Clan. Even Xiaoxiao who did not understand much was listening to his words carefully. She would even reveal some expressions to show that she was giving thoughts about it as she nodded.

After sharing his thoughts with Qin Ruo, Luo Qian seemed to be overwhelmed with excitement as he asked Qin Ruo, “What do you think about it?”

Qin Ruo remained in silence for a moment before he nodded with a serious expression on his face.

“If everything can be done smoothly, the plan that you speak off might just work wonderfully. But… I may not have that much time to spend with everyone.” He could not truly put all his focus on the game like everyone else. His priority was to follow Slayer’s Heart and his party to make as much money as he could. To delay his current progress on the side in order to build a Clan, that would do him even more harm than good!

“Don’t worry! Brother Da has already informed us about your situation. You can still do your own thing on your own during normal times. Only when necessary, we may need to borrow your abilities.” Luo Qian was very smart though. In the company, other than Brother Da and Little Kitten, only Luo Qian understood the importance of Qin Ruo’s Elemental Perception: Water and his relative strength. By having Qin Ruo in the Clan, at least in some complicated environments, Qin Ruo could play a role that many people could not.

“What ability?”

Xiaoxiao opened her large, pretty eyes wide and looked at Qin Ruo as she interrupted the conversation with curiosity.

Luo Qian was the company’s so-called “old man”. So naturally, he knew Xian Xiaoxiao. He took a glance at her and shook his head. “That’s a secret. I’ve made a promise to someone that I would keep it a secret. I can’t tell anyone about it… If you want to know, just ask him yourself.”

“She doesn’t play games. She won’t understand even if you tell her.”

The moment Qin Ruo spoke, Xiao Xiao was instantly disgruntled. She pouted as she spoke angrily, “Who says I don’t understand? I’ll go get a virtuhelm ¹ the moment I get off work… Remember to take me along when you go leveling up!”

“Fine! As long as you really come.” Qin Ruo knew that Xiaoxiao would have to do fitness gymnastics every night and some beauty regime after. And finally, she would punctually sleep early every single day in order to maintain her healthy skin. So, how would she have the time to buy a virtuhelm and fool around in the game with Qin Ruo?

As expected, after hearing Qin Ruo answering her so quickly, Xiaoxiao immediately turned her head to the other side as she felt disheartened. “I’m not going to do boring stuff like that with you guys.” Obviously, she had forgotten to ask about Li Lanlan.