Chapter 429: Chapter 415: City Foundation Celebration (2nd Update)

Holy Spirit City was bustling with activity.

After Jiang Qiao tightened the review process for visiting NPCs, the atmosphere in Holy Spirit City became much more peaceful, but even so, this time Bubble only drew fifty-three wild NPCs.

Nevertheless, these fifty-three wild NPCs still stayed in Holy Spirit City as tourists, and how to persuade them to settle down was a task that Bubble and the other four presidents needed to work on together.

Although Holy Spirit City now had the name of a city, it had only been half a day, and the Coca-Cola fanatic architects had just finished building the city hall; the city’s roads and scale were all still under discussion.

But this did not hinder Bubble from holding a city founding celebration. The entire Coca-Cola fanatics’ stronghold had transformed from a tourist resort into a resort celebrating a festival theme; it was very lively.

Zhao Mingwei also took the time to walk around the Coca-Cola fanatics’ stronghold… along with his disciple, Yelena.

After the final battle at Black Tide Island, the legal crisis Zhao Mingwei faced had unexpectedly eased significantly, thanks in part to the public relations team sent by the Silver chief.

The overbearing terms of ‘Conquering the World’ couldn’t stand up on a legal level, but the compensation, though not as exaggerated as three hundred million, was likely still in the tens of millions.

Therefore, Zhao Mingwei took the real estate certificate he received from the Black Tide Island top ten rewards and asked the Silver chief to list it for sale. He still lived a life that could not be described as… particularly frugal, spending his days running instances, battling in the inner world challenges, and earning money from running instances to eat and surf the web in real life before repeating this cycle.

Recently, Zhao Mingwei’s leveling goal had shifted from learning from Thorne in the inner world… to hunting the traces of the Oblivion Legion on Black Tide Island.

That’s right, hunting the Oblivion Legion.

The crisis on Black Tide Island did not completely resolve after the death of Denghis Xisi. Zhao Mingwei believed that the real enemy that needed to be eliminated was the Oblivion Legion. During his adventures on Black Tide Island, Zhao Mingwei occasionally encountered soldiers from the Oblivion Legion.

Another goal was to find the last Thought Beast to prepare for his second awakening.

This was still somewhat out of Zhao Mingwei’s reach, and the whereabouts of the fifth Thought Beast were also unknown. Today, Zhao Mingwei decided to enjoy some of the other contents of Holy Spirit City.

So he brought Yelena along for a visit to the Coca-Cola fanatics’ stronghold.

“Master! Want some squid?”

“No thanks.”

As Zhao Mingwei walked through the Coca-Cola fanatics’ stronghold, now named Holy Spirit City, he heard Bubble say in the bickering group chat that the land available for construction had to be bought with population, and even if purchased, it only gave building rights, not ownership.

This fitted well with the settings of an MMORPG, and the scale of the Coca-Cola fanatics’ stronghold was also evolving from a village towards a town.

Now, all around the central street were snack stalls set up by players. The Coca-Cola fanatics’ stronghold, with its reputation as a resort, was not unfounded, as half of the guild members were proficient in the cooking life skill.

“Pig Head Mister… are you sure you won’t have one?”

Yelena was patronizing a stall selling grilled squid; its owner, Mocha Coffee, immediately recognized her idol, Mister Smile.

“Is there even a taste when eating this stuff in the game?” Zhao Mingwei handed a silver coin to Mocha Coffee, whose pixelated head and double ponytails swung excitedly, seemingly delighted.

“It’s about the atmosphere! Don’t you have an olfactory device?” Mocha Coffee said, handing over two epic-level grilled squids to Zhao Mingwei.

“Internet cafes don’t have such devices.”

Zhao Mingwei held the grilled squid, whose effects were decent – capable of restoring two thousand health points within fifteen seconds and also increasing attack power by a hundred points.

Unfortunately, Zhao Mingwei couldn’t taste anything, so he just fed all of it to his disciple Yelena, who ate it with great relish.

The crystallization of Biland Island was under control, and one benefit was that the fish around the island were no longer affected by the Crystal Plague. NPCs no longer had to worry about biting into crystal grains and chipping their teeth when eating fish.

“Too bad, too bad, I hope those pig-headed device merchants will come out with a taste device at some point. Lately, aren’t there those full immersion experience pods? Though I think it’s still just a concept.”

Mocha Coffee, as an amateur journalist and part-time streamer, knew quite a lot.

“Hope that day comes soon. I won’t distract you from your business anymore.” Zhao Mingwei, carrying Yelena who was contentedly munching on squid and dropping hearts along the way, headed towards other areas.

The snack stalls set up by Holy Spirit City turned out to be… quite popular. On one hand, it seemed that the taste of ingredients was enhanced after reaching a higher level in Holy Spirit’s culinary skill?

On the other hand, the Transcendents and gods from various parts of the Star Chart had never tasted the food from Blue Planet.

“Master, can’t you taste anything?” Yelena, who followed behind Zhao Mingwei, had already finished the grilled squid Zhao Mingwei bought for her.

“That’s right, I can’t taste anything,” Zhao Mingwei said.

“Why? Master, you… clearly have a tongue.” Yelena was very cautious as she asked this question. Jiang Qiao always reminded NPCs living in the stronghold not to deliberately probe into the real-life matters of Holy Spirits.

This was a taboo commonly agreed upon among NPCs, but Yelena might be the NPC who had interacted with players the third most, the first being the Fureyas, and the second, Queen Mei, which was why she was extremely curious about the so-called real world of the Holy Spirits.

“Because… is it necessary? But I also think it’s a pity.”

Zhao Mingwei thought that there were probably very few game manufacturers that would create a special device just to reproduce the taste system in MMORPG because if you wanted to eat something, couldn’t you just log out and buy it?

Eating in the game seemed superfluous.

“Yeah, such a pity.” As Yelena spoke, Zhao Mingwei pointed at his lips to remind Yelena that her cheeks were smeared with a lot of sauce.

After wiping the sauce from her cheeks, Yelena hurriedly followed behind Zhao Mingwei.

The construction festival of the cola frenzy was divided into three areas, with the landmark ancient tree as the central division; one area was for players to set up stalls in the snack area, another was the area for the card duel tournament, and the last one… was where Zhao Mingwei currently was.

It was the warm-up area for the Holy Spirit challenge.

The majority of visitors to Holy Spirit City came for Thorne’s bounty orders and the wishes of the Devouring God.

Only a very few came out of curiosity or because they were a few cards short of a full deck and ventured into the realm of the disaster, the Devouring God.

Thus, the warm-up area where Zhao Mingwei was could be said to be overcrowded. After activating the event to hunt Thorne, Bubbles received a set of ‘Official Arena Arena’ blueprints sent by the lost Fureya.

This blueprint could construct an arena isolated from the current map, and the surrounding audience could also see the splendid battles happening within the arena.

“Damn… She’s already won thirteen consecutive battles, could this girl be the next Thorne?”

“Has Cola Frenzy really run out of people?”

When Zhao Mingwei arrived, the reaction of a group of players around him… reminded him of the time when everyone was still around level thirty and challenged the Gun Knight arena.

Only now, standing on the platform was not a Gun Knight, but a female in tight, deep purple armor, an NPC whom Zhao Mingwei immediately knew the forum bros would declare ‘I announce! This NPC is my new waifu from now on!’ the next day.

“Eternal Rosh…” Zhao Mingwei was more concerned about the prefix of the opponent’s ID.

It had been announced in the official notices that NPCs would participate in the Holy Spirit Challenge… but Zhao Mingwei hadn’t expected another Eternal to appear in front of the players as a prospective competitor.

An Eternal… at present, for the professional elites, it was equivalent to a prefix of a nightmare.

And this female Eternal had inherited the nightmare brought by Thorne; she had already consecutively defeated thirteen challengers from Cola Frenzy. The fourteenth challenger was… Black Wok Cooked Meat, who should have been bedridden.

“Black Wok! Is your back better?” When Zhao Mingwei saw Black Wok Cooked Meat, he shouted out loud from under the stage.

As the team captain… Zhao Mingwei also blamed himself for Black Wok Cooked Meat’s injury, and even specially visited him at the Dynamic Nuclear Club.

Logically, Black Wok Cooked Meat should have been bedridden for half a month, but he was the same as Zhao Mingwei… he felt like he would die if he didn’t play Holy Spirit for even one day.

So as soon as Black Wok Cooked Meat felt he could move, he decided to log in and experience the content of the new version.

“It’s been better for a while, Bro Laugh, why do you shout so loud!” Black Wok Cooked Meat called back to Zhao Mingwei and then turned his attention to Rosh standing before him.

Rosh, like him, was an NPC who used dual guns, and the Eternal prefix made Black Wok Cooked Meat look forward to her performance. After all, as a Wandering Gunman, he didn’t expect to understand anything from Thorne, who was skilled with swords.

But Rosh’s interest was not on Black Wok Cooked Meat, because she heard the nickname “Bro Laugh.”

“You’re Bro Laugh?” Rosh’s gaze instantly turned towards Zhao Mingwei in the crowd. “Holy Spirit! Would you fight with me?”

Rosh walked towards Zhao Mingwei… When she communicated with Mr. Silver, he gave her a hunting list, which was of several frontline players from the Chinese and Titan teams.

Unfortunately, Rosh hadn’t encountered any of them yet, but she did meet the player marked ‘Definitely do not provoke rashly’ on the list.

The strongest Holy Spirit – if she defeated him, winning the competition would be a piece of cake.

Rosh thought this way, but she couldn’t make it to the edge of the platform before a bullet shattered the ground beneath her feet.

“I am ranked in the top hundred of the ladder nonetheless, please don’t ignore me, Miss Eternal,” Black Wok Cooked Meat’s fingertip rested on the trigger of his revolver, his aim already fixed on Rosh’s forehead, ready to fire a bullet and blow her head at any moment.

“Okay, then.”

Rosh had learned her lesson now; she understood the various rules of Holy Spirit City. One of the rules of the Holy Spirit City arena was that before defeating a challenger, you are not allowed to choose a second challenger.

At the moment Rosh entered a combat state, she vanished from in front of Black Wok Cooked Meat.