Chapter 177: Punishing The Weak

As they were conversing, the Countess did not probe further for information regarding ‘Miao Yan’.

She possessed a very lofty bearing.

Soon, the middle-aged butler known as Stewart returned with news.

However, the news was not a good one!

According to the middle-aged butler, the club did indeed played host to a few Asian guests. Among them were two Asian girls. Appearance wise, those two were most likely Qiao Qiao and Soo Soo.

Regrettably… the group of Asian guests had already left.

They left at around noon the day after Chen Xiaolian had received the call from Soo Soo.

“Is it possible to find out where they went?” Chen Xiaolian knitted his eyebrows.

“My apologies,” The middle-aged butler said slowly. “Those guests did not let the club arrange their travel route. They also did not request us to book any flight or train tickets – it is possible that they had already made the necessary arrangements beforehand. Thus, we are unable to determine their whereabouts.”

Roddy sighed while Chen Xiaolian’s face turned ugly to behold.

Considering how long it had been since they left… and the present level of technological development, they could have already gone to any corner of the world.

“There may still be a way,” The Countess said softly. “I believe these Asian guests must not be the members of this club. In other words, they were only able to stay here because they are friends with one of the members of this club. Thus…”

The Countess smiled lightly. She turned to look at the middle-aged butler.

The middle-aged butler quickly said. “According to the records, the Asian guests were brought in by Sir Pattinson as his guests.”

“Sir Pattinson?” The Countess smiled. She turned back to Chen Xiaolian. “What a coincidence. Sir Pattinson and I happen to be friends in an equestrian club. I can help you ask him about it. Perhaps this Sir Pattinson will know of something. However…”

She turned to look at a vintage pendulum clock and said. “I will not be able to get to him in time today. Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow, I will convey the information acquired to you.”

Chen Xiaolian was well aware that she was simply making an excuse. However, there was nothing he could say against her actions – if she really wanted to find the information, a phone call would solve the issue.

Clearly, this Countess was planning something else.

Chen Xiaolian sighed inwardly.

It appeared this will have to do for now.

“If you two do not mind, you can stay here for today. This place will provide you with the best in quality, service and enjoyment,” The middle-aged butler gave a faint smile. He then turned toward Chen Xiaolian. “I heard that there is a car parked outside by the street. Those two friends inside the car may come stay here as well.”

Chen Xiaolian was not shocked to hear that. Considering the fact that they were within their grounds, Lun Tai and Bei Tai being noticed was not something to be surprised about.

“There is no need for that.”

Chen Xiaolian quickly stood up. “We have our own accommodations. So then… tomorrow?”

He turned his head to look at the Countess. “Tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow, once I obtain the information, I will get Stewart to contact you two. Can you please leave behind a way to contact you?” The Countess said coolly. “Tomorrow, I will get Stewart to fetch you over. Then, we will talk things over.”

“Ok.”

Chen Xiaolian quickly got up and left together with Roddy.

Of course he would not accept her invitation to stay there… this Countess was an inscrutable character and it was hard to tell if she was a friend or enemy. Furthermore… it was unknown what type of relationship there was between her and Thorned Flower Guild.

It was only natural that Chen Xiaolian would turn down her offer to stay within a place where she held influence over!

If he were to choose to stay there, he would have to worry about their conversations getting tapped!

Stewart the butler escorted the two of them out of the club.

Under his watchful eyes, both Chen Xiaolian and Roddy walked to the car parked by the side of the street. They then got into the car and sped off.

“How was it?” Lun Tai asked as he was driving.

Chen Xiaolian and Roddy recounted what happened to them inside. Lun Tai and Bei Tai were both shocked.

“Miao Yan? No. You mean… Miao Yan’s Exclusive Account?” Lun Tai’s face expressed a trace of astonishment. “In other words… Miao Yan could really be a Player!”

“In my opinion, the possibility of that is very high,” Chen Xiaolian said in a heavy tone. “In addition, it seems that she and Thorned Flower Guild – what I mean to say is, there might be a certain relationship between Miao Yan and Thorned Flower Guild.“

Within the car, all four of them fell silent.

“The Countess must have kept some things hidden from us,” Roddy said slowly.

“Naturally, for some of the matters, she must be either lying or holding back,” Chen Xiaolian nodded his head. “However, that is a very normal occurrence.”

After what had happened in the Tokyo instance dungeon, or perhaps, more accurately, after their encounter with Tian Lie, the four of them were highly cautious toward Thorned Flower Guild!

…

At the London Heathrow International Airport…

An international plane was resting on the airfield and luggage cases of various sizes were being moved down using conveyor belts.

It was night and the workers were anxiously doing their job. One trolley after another moved about as they transported the luggage.

A faint silvery liquid slowly flowed out from one of the luggage cases and went unnoticed amid the darkness of the night.

The silver coloured liquid slowly flowed into a drainage opening and disappeared.

Shortly after, some distance away from the airport where there was a drainage opening, Tian Lie… or more accurately, Da Gang’s figure slowly emerged out from the silver coloured liquid. He stepped forward.

Standing beneath the night sky, Da Gang began stretching his body.

“Sigh… a long journey really is bothersome. Should I contact the fellows from the guild… hmm, forget it. They probably think I am dead.”

After saying that, Da Gang’s figure began to wriggle. His body quickly transformed into a young, ordinary looking Caucasian and he swaggered along under the night sky.

…

“It is now 8 o’clock.”

After returning to their hotel room, the four of them sat down to discuss the matter. Chen Xiaolian looked at the time. “There is still 2 more hours to go. At around 10 o’clock, the system will issue out the information related to the instance dungeon over.”

Roddy grumbled. “Sigh… it’s so fast. I have yet to fully enjoy the one month of tranquillity.”

“Trust me, this feeling… you’ll get used to it,” Lun Tai smiled.

“Do you two veterans have any opinions about this instance dungeon?” Chen Xiaolian looked at Lun Tai and Bei Tai.

“Let’s not talk about the distribution for individuals. We are a guild, so we’ll be discussing about the procedures involved for guilds,” Lun Tai said slowly. “You should know this; the distribution of instance dungeons is related to the guild’s class.”

Roddy nodded his head. “We know that.”

“At present, the biggest question is what our Meteor Rock Guild’s class is.”

A guild’s class was dependent on the estimated strength of the guild’s members, the guild’s rate of success when participating in instance dungeons, the guild’s rate of survival, the completion of quests. Those and the likes would be put together to form a comprehensive evaluation.

Theoretically speaking, a guild that possessed more experts, a higher rate of success and a higher number of participation in instance dungeons would find itself at a higher class.

The system’s evaluation toward the current Meteor Rock Guild was…

[B+].

This class was not too high.

Moreover, Chen Xiaolian believed that the reason the guild would be able to acquire this class was due to what happened in the Japan, the Tokyo instance dungeon. There, they had accomplished a perfect completion of quests by completing both the given quests. That gave them an outstanding level of achievements, which contributed in bolstering their guild’s class.

If the appraisal for their guild’s class were purely through the calculation of their guild’s strength, the resulting class would likely be much lower!

“The past battle records that Meteor Rock Guild had should be quite good. At the very least, while Qiu Yun was still around, the Meteor Rock Guild was quite famous. Unfortunately…” Lun Tai said slowly. “During Qiu Yun’s time here, the Meteor Rock Guild also took several heavy hits in succession and suffered from heavy casualties. Some of them left the guild as well… their evaluation should have plummeted considerably since. Additionally, our present members were all added in later on. Not a single one of us are old hands from Qiu Yun’s time. The number of times Bei Tai and I have participated in instance dungeons is not small. However, the number of instance dungeon participation and battle records that you, the Guild Leader and the others have is quite small.

“When the system calculates the comprehensive evaluation of a guild, it does not only consider the historical battle records of the guild, it also evaluates the existing guild members individual battle records – in my opinion, the system’s method of evaluation is very thorough. It will be difficult to drill loopholes through it.”

Chen Xiaolian nodded his head.

It was not simply their battle records.

Judging by the strength of their guild, to be able to acquire a [B+] class evaluation was already quite the feat.

It had to be said, at the moment, their guild only had seven members.

One of them, Xia Xiaolei was a support type with limited battle strength.

Having a low guild class would result in a disadvantage.

For example, the right to be exempted from an instance dungeon!

The rules of the system stated that guilds have the right to be exempted from instance dungeons.

However, there were two restrictions placed on this exemption right.

First, the exemption right cannot be used successively. In other words, after using it, the guild will be forced to participate in the next instance dungeon! Additionally, the use of the exemption right would cause the guild’s class to fall.

The second one was more particular. The exemption right could only be utilized against an instance dungeon of an equivalent or lower class compared to the guild!

In other words, if the current Meteor Rock Guild with its [B+] class were to encounter a [B+] class instance dungeon or [B-] class, or [C] class, they could utilize the exemption right to be exempted from those instance dungeons.

However, if they were to encounter an [A] class instance dungeon, they would be unable to utilize the exemption right!

The exemption right was something that could be used to save one’s life at crucial moments!

…

“I am currently most worried about one thing,” Chen Xiaolian looked at his three members. “When our guild is selected to participate in the instance dungeon, we have a choice in the number of participants. Our guild currently has seven members. Assuming the incoming instance dungeon require us to field only three of four members, that that would be fine… even if we have yet to find Qiao Qiao and Soo Soo, we can be the ones to participate in the instance dungeon.

“However, in the event that… six members are needed, or perhaps a full participation is needed…

“We are unable to find Qiao Qiao and Soo Soo. If so, according to the rules of the system, those who do not enter the instance dungeon before it opens will be punished by the system…”

“The probability of that happening is relatively small,” Lun Tai considered the matter and said. “If we encounter one with the equivalent class as ours or lower, we can try to utilize the exemption right to circumvent this time’s crisis. If we encounter one with a class higher than ours, then… actually, when it comes to high-class instance dungeons, the system will consider the class of a guild and the differences therein, and thus place a restriction on the number of guild members allowed in for low-class guilds.

“Theoretically speaking, if a guild’s class is lower than an instance dungeon’s class, the system will reduce the number of members allowed in the instance dungeon. This is a form of punishment.

“Simply put, many of the older Awakened ones believe that the system’s utmost objective is to punish the weak.

“It could be likened to having a whip lashing out upon you, forcing you to continuously become more powerful.

“In other words, we are currently a [B+] class guild. If an [A] class instance dungeon were to select us to participate in it, it is highly likely… the number of members required by the system for the instance dungeon would most likely be less than the total number of members our guild has.”

“Isn’t that the equivalent of committing suicide?” Roddy blurted out. Looking around at the others, he continued. “What I mean is… the guild is already one class weaker compared to the instance dungeon! If the guild is not allowed to field all their members, then they would definitely not be able to unleash their full strength…”

“That is why it is called ‘punishing the weak’. If you are weak, then you deserve to die… that is the core characteristic of the damned system,” Bei Tai cursed out vehemently.

Chen Xiaolian frowned. “However… what about the incident with the Tokyo instance dungeon? All of us had participated in it. There was no restriction… although we were only sucked into it by accident by being within the instance dungeon area…

“However, the Tokyo instance dungeon’s class was clearly higher than our guild’s class.

“Furthermore… if this is a loophole, doesn’t it mean that other low-class guilds could use this loophole to bring their own members into the instance dungeon when faced against high-class instance dungeons? That would give them the ability to unleash their full power.”

“There is only one explanation. The Tokyo instance dungeon is a large-scale instance dungeon,” Lun Tai said slowly.

Large-scale instance dungeon.

Chen Xiaolian silently nodded his head.

He had studied up on the rules for guilds before.

Large-scale instance dungeons were a special existence within the system.

Large-scale instance dungeons cared not for the difference in a guild’s class. Thus, that restriction was not applicable. Simply put, it was a chaotic battlefield.

Naturally, the system was very tyrannical here.

In large-scale instance dungeons, those that were not selected could still choose to participate, but those that were selected must participate nonetheless.

“The reward for completing large-scale instance dungeons is very high; the marks acquired for our battle records will also be very high. That is why our guild was able to obtain a [B+] class evaluation,” Lun Tai smiled. “However… large-scale instance dungeons have always been a terrifying existence. All I can say is that we were very lucky to be able to survive and complete the instance dungeon.”

“Because, back then, we had Nicole with us. Nicole’s presence helped us a great deal,” Roddy suddenly whispered out.

The others fell silent.

Recalling back to what happened in the Tokyo instance dungeon, that was indeed the case.

Thorned Flower’s team and the several Thunderstorm Tanks were all decimated by Nicole.

In the end, Nicole had also contributed a great deal toward killing off Tian Lie.

If not for Nicole, Meteor Rock Guild would have been utterly annihilated the moment they encountered the Thunderstorm Tanks.

Seeing how sombre the mood had become, Chen Xiaolian sighed. “All right, let’s not talk about those things first. Soon, the details regarding the instance dungeon will be issued out. We’ll continue our discussion after that.”

They then got something to eat. However, they did not leave. Instead, they stayed together as they waited for the time to reach 10 o’clock.

It was almost similar to the wait for Judgement Day to arrive.

Finally, when the time finally reached 10 o’clock…

[System prompt: Meteor Rock Guild has been selected to participate in an instance dungeon. Instance dungeon details have been issued, please check.]

Pattinson. Raw: ‘帕丁森’, pinyin: ‘pà dīng sēn’.

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