Chapter 15: three-grasses combination

His master’s teachings made Li Xiang’s blood ignite as if he was an agile great master who could save their team when they were in the abyss of suffering. Unfortunately, even though he was moved, everything was still in progress. As his eyes returned back to the game screen, he saw three familiar ID’s not far away.

Nepenthes, Mimosa, Moon Grass…

What the hell! These three grasses that were wiped out by the great Tangmen Master still had the audacity to come back?! They didn’t run back and bring a bunch of helpers to take revenge, did they?!

Li Xiang immediately became vigilant, stopped pulling monsters, and stood on the tree with Buddha beads in a defensive posture.

Wu Zewen stared in the distant direction seriously, picked up his whip, and prepared himself to fight at any time.

All three people’s names were on the enemies list because they had just started a vendetta earlier and so as soon as the three people entered their vision, their names were automatically colored red.*

* I guess that if you’re enemies or you’ve opened vendetta mode against a player, their names would automatically turn red as a precaution.

Li Xiang was gearing up for a big fight, but unexpectedly, the three of them suddenly stopped at a distance of 20 meters. Rolling his eyes, he gave them a disdainful look and typed in the [nearby] channel: “What are you doing? Really dared to come back and snatch monsters? Want to be destroyed again?”

Nepenthes’ face was red for a while, white for a while*…

* Blush to paleness of the face which refers to the expression changes caused by anger, fury, or shame. I couldn’t find a proper translation for it while retaining the original words so I translated it like that.

Nevertheless, Moon Grass was thick-skinned. He sent a smiling face and said: “Three masters, it’s a misunderstanding! It was a pure misunderstanding just now! First, let’s delete each other on the enemy list. Let’s chill and talk about it calmly.”

Li Xiang didn’t want to: “Wanting to talk now when earlier you inexplicably* rushed over to kill people?”

* Term used is mo ming qi miao which is being puzzled or unable to fathom so here Li Xiang is saying he couldn’t understand why they want to talk now when they’re the ones who rushed over to kill them (Wu Zewen, Li Xiang and Liu Chuan).

Wu Zewen didn't like to participate in this kind of dispute. He stood silently on the tree without speaking, calmly looking at the three people in front of him, with his fingers pressed on the keyboard ready to take action at any time. On the other hand, Liu Chuan watched the show with a careless attitude. Li Xiang was a hot-blooded person. He used to rush into the battlefield together with his teammates even when he was a Tangmen Archer. He was killed once so ruthlessly, how could he chill and talk calmly? Of course, he quarreled with people on the [nearby] channel.

Li Xiang: “What are you doing? Not leaving yet? Do you want us to destroy you again?”

Nepenthes: “……”

Nepenthes' face is about to turn into the color of pig liver*.

* Very red in either shame or fury.

However, he also knew that among the three, Tangmen was the master, and the other two were absolutely new, so he turned his attention to Tangmen and said, “Elder Brother Tangmen, there’s three of you and three of us, so let's team up and fight together! I'll help you pull the aggro, okay?”

After saying this, his face was extremely hot!

It's so embarrassing to be so shameless! Blame the president for wanting to win a master over……

Moon Grass continued while smiling: “Delete the enemy, let’s team up! Let’s play together and erase the animosity between us, okay? Master Tangmen, what do you think?”

Liu Chuan couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

These three guys should be the most famous funny trio of the Seven Star Grass Guild, also known as the “Three Grasses Combination".

Regarding this three-person group, he has only occasionally heard gossip about these three before. The style of the Seven Star Grass Guild is influenced by the Seven Star Grass Team. It is also very low-key in the game but has developed very steadily. Only a certain trio didn’t seem to get the memo. They liked to steal monsters and fight in the wild which offends a lot of people. For many years, these three people are said to be inseparable and even their brainwaves seem to be synchronized as if one person was controlling all three players. Even their offline and online times were matched with each other and they seem to be friends in reality. Unexpectedly, when the new server opened the “Three Grasses Combination” also came to the Shuiong Yin together.

* Just a reminder! Guild is the team in the online game while Team is the one that’s playing for the Professional League.

In order to add fresh blood to the Seven Star Grass Team, the managers of the Seven Star Grass Guild would attract masters in the game by hook or by crook to be substitutes for the team. Liu Chuan understood the attitudes of these three people as soon as he saw them. It is estimated that these three grasses were sent by their president to recruit people!

Liu Chuan smiled and said: “Little Pig, didn’t I tell you not to regret it? I asked you to form a team together, but you were unwilling. Didn’t you just return to the starting line after making a big detour?”

“…” Your sister*! Did you just call me Little Pig**?!

* Derived from ‘Fuck your sister!’ which is used as an insult, could also be your mother/grandmother LOL

** Characters in Nepenthes’ name is zhu long cao; the zhu in this could mean hog, pig or swine; Heartbroken Grass refers to him as Little Swine while I made Liu Chuan uses Little Pig because he likes to mock people a lot.

Nepenthes was about to vomit blood, but the president's task was extremely difficult, so he had to endure the pain and said, “Master, you are magnanimous. Persuade your friends that it’s good for everyone to team up together to level up on experience! We’ll give you all the materials that have been dropped. We don't want anything.”

Liu Chuan smiled and said on the [team] channel: “It’s better to avoid unnecessary trouble. Let’s take pity on them and form a team.”

It's really normal for this kind of strange dispute in the novice stage and Li Xiang wasn’t a person who holds a grudge. Since the Tangmen master said so, he has no opinion so he typed two words: “Okay.”

Liu Chuan typed on the [nearby] channel: “Okay, anyway, you killed someone and we killed you back. We’re even! Come delete the enemy list and join the team!”

After that, the Three Grasses disbanded their team and instantly, team invitations popped up on their computer screens simultaneously.

The Three Grasses Combination joined the team in a complicated mood.

In order to express his sincerity, Nepenthes took the initiative to say, “I'll go pull the aggro and bring a few more monsters over!” Then he rushed to the bandit village diligently.

Moon Grass said: “I’ll be the output!” Then he jumped to the tree conscientiously.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he lightly jumped onto the tree, the Tangmen suddenly jumped down and asked in a puzzled manner, “Why are you jumping on the tree?”

Moon Grass was dumbfounded: “Uh… aren’t we going to fight monsters like this?”

Liu Chuan smiled and said, “There are already 6 people in the team so why are you trying to pull the monsters back and forth? Of course, we go in and fight!”

Nepenthes, who was running around to pull the monster over: “...”

Moon Grass, who actively jumped on the tree: “...”

The two of them suddenly felt as if they had suddenly become idiots with negative IQ.

Three-person teams fight back and forth with slow monsters because it’s safer when it comes to smaller numbers and fighting slow monsters can minimize the damage.

Now the group is full of 6 people: the two masters are thick-skinned and resistant to damage with four violent remote outputs. It's funny to run back and forth to pull monsters.……

Nepenthes and Moon Grass couldn’t help but redden.

Liu Chuan smiled on the team channel and said, “Let's go, let's go into the bandit village to fight! Little Pig, you go pull the aggro with Shaolin Li Xiang. Five Poisons switch to Heaven Mending School and add blood* since the output** is absolutely enough. Let’s do it only once!”

* be the healer

** damage dealers

With an order from the captain, everyone immediately followed into the bandit village.

With such a simple assignment and a replica of a qualified team: tanks, healers, and outputs, it was extremely easy to fight the monsters.

Liu Chuan asked Li Xiang and Wu Zewen to change their schools together. In fact, he also wanted them to become more familiar with the skills of other schools of their sects. Playing with the same school in the early stage would sometimes lead to limitations in operation and thinking. A true master must be familiar with all the skills of the twenty-four schools in order to know oneself and the enemy when they PK with others.

***

The mobs in the bandit village patrol back and forth in groups of three and their refresh speed is also very fast.

Nepenthes changed into the Buddha Shaolin School to act as a meat shield and pull the monsters back and forth, while Li Xiang changed Shaolin Blade and focused on the output.

The three major schools of Shaolin were: the Buddha Shaolin School, the Shaolin Fist School, and the Shaolin Blade.

Buddha Shaolin School focused on “Buddhist arhat magic” which is the most defensive of all three schools. Its weapon is the Buddhist bead which has a variety of skills such as “Damage Substitute*” and “Enforced Hatred**”. In short, it is the main weapon that resists the BOSS and acts as a meat shield to attract the aggro on the battlefield.

* Taking damage that was meant for others to themselves

** Forcibly attracting the aggro/hatred of other players, mob or the BOSS

The Shaolin Fist School focused on “Eighteen Buddhist arhats*” and its main weapon was the fist. It’s a melee** fighting position with a lot of powerful control skills such as grabbing and back wrestling.

* Original disciples of Buddha who have followed the Noble Eightfold Path and attained the four stages of enlightenment. If you want to read more: The Eighteen Arhats

** hand-to-hand, close-quarters combat

The Shaolin Blade School focused on the “Raksasha* Sword Technique” and has the highest attack power among all three schools. Once the sword sees blood, it would become excited and the damage heightens, however, its other skills such as his control skills were relatively few.

* A demon in Hindu Mythology. Rakshasas are also called man-eaters ("Nri-chakshas," "Kravyads") or cannibals.

In short, Buddha Shaolin majored in defense, Shaolin Fist majored in control, and Shaolin Blade majored in output.

The Buddha Shaolin School was the most common character in the online game because of the need for sharp masters in instances to resist the damage of the monsters, however, the Shaolin Fist and Shaolin blade were more common in arenas and the professional league.

Xiao Sijing played the Shaolin Fist School and his apprentice Chen Xiaobei was also playing the same school.

Right now, Liu Chuan still doesn’t know which school was the most suitable one for Li Xiang so he can only let him ponder about it more.

Wu Zewen, on the other hand, was very worry-free. As soon as he entered the game, he believed he could play the Poisonous Insect School and his hand speed was up to par. If practiced well, Liu Chuan believes he would definitely become a master.

On one side, Liu Chuan was carefully thinking about how to hone the two little noobs into masters as soon as possible. On the other side, the Three Grasses formed a channel to discuss and privately chatted with each other while fighting monsters.

Moon Grass: “Little Swine, did you tell the Tangmen about recruiting him to the guild?”

Nepenthes: “No. We went from enemies to teammates and he would definitely disagree with coming to our guild right away. At least, we have to cultivate our feelings first, get acquainted with each other, and wait for us to be close to him before we invite him to our guild. He would feel embarrassed if he were to refuse!”

Moon Grass: “The guild leader said to recruit them as soon as possible so that they wouldn’t be snatched away by other guilds…”

Nepenthes: “Ah, don’t panic. We’ve been following this Tangmen for a while. If a great guild wanted to recruit him, wouldn’t we see it?”

Moon Grass: “You’re right!”

Mimosa, who rarely spoke, suddenly said: “We’ve been following him for a while… will he think the three of us are mentally ill?”

Nepenthes: “……”

Moon Grass: “…….”

Nepenthes and Moon Gras vomited blood together. Classmate, don’t pierce to the truth with a single remark, okay!

This kind of recruitment task assigned by the president is really annoying! It’s better to be killed a few times with the poison dart behind his back*!

* They were killed by Liu Chuan with a poison dart to their backs in the previous chapters LOL

The depressed Nepenthes turned grief and anger into strength and pulled all the mobs in the bandit village over, beating them until there was no one left.

The efficiency of the team has suddenly improved a lot.

Because of the 6% bonus for having a full team and the monsters pulled by Classmate Pig, the experience rose very quickly. Soon, the upgrade light appeared on the bodies of the six players, one after the other. The Tangmen, who was relatively fast in doing tasks and was by himself for a duration of time, rose to the highest level among the six people: Level 28. The experience of the Three Grasses were synchronized and rose up to Level 27.5. Zewen and Li Xiang leveled up to Level 27.

Time passed slowly, everyone was fighting monsters, and the team channel was quite peaceful.

***

Wu Zewen was very bored.

Playing as a healer was really boring. The Five Poison’s healing school had low-level skills that encompasses blood-adding. In addition, the output of both the Wudang and the Tangmen was very high and the mobs were quickly killed as soon as they were pulled over. His teammates didn’t shed much blood…….

Most of the time, the healer is idle and has nothing to do.

Since Wu Zewen was bored, he simply minimized the game, opened a new window and searched for the Seven Star Grass Team, and went to the video area of the Seven Star Grass official video to search for a video of “Wheel of Reincarnation”* like what the Tangmen said.

* Changed “After Reincarnation” to “Wheel of Reincarnation” because of how the online game players call Su Shilun. Still suitable because the character 轮 of his game ID can also mean wheel or circle

Sure enough, after entering the keyword reincarnation, there was a video with the highest click-through rate: “Teaching the basic awareness of the Poisonous Insect School.”

After clicking the link, he browsed through and saw tens of thousands of comments under the video; most of which are: “Worship the Wheel God!”; “Line up to worship the Wheel God!”; “The Wheel God is awesome!”; and “On behalf of all brothers and sisters of the Five Poisons Sect, kowtow and worship the Wheel God!”

—Such a popular video must be very useful, right?

Wu Zewen pressed the play button with curiosity.

The video was recorded very clearly. There is actually a very nice soundtrack, and text annotations were added making the effect very good.

A male Five Poisons player appeared on the screen, wearing an advanced equipment for the Five Poisons’ Sect. He was wearing purple clothes with his chest uncovered, revealing a large white chest. He wore silver earrings on his ears and silver jewelry on his hair as he held a worm flute in his hand.

He looked extremely evil*.

* I guess you can imagine good-looking villains with their ̶t̶i̶d̶d̶i̶e̶s̶ chests out and various jewelries on. In other words, Five Poisons Sect: HOT

“Hello everyone, I am Wheel of Reincarnation of the Seven Star Grass Team. This video is mainly for novices of the Poisonous Insect School. Hoping that this will be of some help to the novice friends.

There are five kinds of insects that the Poisonous Insect School Masters can feed: Gu Toad, Snake Gu, Spider Gu, Centipede Gu, and Butterly Gu. Each of the five kinds of babies comes with two active skills: when they die and sacrifice, they will bring different benefits to their owner. It’s very easy for it to become disorderly and messy, isn’t it?

In fact, it’s actually very simple. It only needs to be remembered like this--

Gu Toads have the highest defense and are mainly used to protect their owners;

Snake Gu has the highest attack and are mainly used to bite their enemies;

Spider Gu and Centipede Gu are long-range pets that can control the enemy’s position;

And Butterfly Gu is a group-attack pet that can control the enemy’s field of vision.

After knowing this basic knowledge, let me present how to use these five kinds of darling babies to poison those stupid people from the Central Plains* ^__^”

* Again, each sect has its own territory. Both beggars and Shaolin are in the Central Plains.

—Vice-captain of the Seven Star Grass Team: Su Shilun, game ID: Wheel of Reincarnation

This person was the sharpest representative for the Poisonous Insect School. He likes to smile ^__^ when chatting with players on the Internet which was completely different from the speaking style of their Captain Xiao Sijing where not even a drop of water can leak out. This person embodied the “poison” of the Five Poisons Sect with his poisonous tongue and even ridiculed the officials on Weibo: “We, the people of Miao, are too hot. At first, we didn’t want to wear anything however, later on, we discovered that the people in the Central Plains were all wrapped like zong zi so for your benefit, we also had to wrap our key parts…”*

* He was the professional player chapter 13 was referring to LOL. What a sharp tongue.

Su Shilun specialized in fashion design when he was a student so he paid special attention to the appearance of the clothing.

Once, when the equipment was updated and the martial art suit of the Five Poisons was extremely ugly as if it was wrapped in two lump pieces of cloth, he took the lead in ridiculing the official account on Weibo, attracting countless Five Poison players to line up in favor of his words. Weibo’s retweets exceeded 10,000 and finally forced the art designer to go back to the furnace and rebuild* and the style of the Five Poisons suit was changed.

* Remake the designs

—The first person in the entire history of the league to force the officials to change the appearance of the clothes.

Most men in the e-sports circle care more about the stats of their equipment, not caring for their appearances. Only Su Shilun was different. He was a prodigy in matching all kinds of parts and anything that went past his hand was very pleasing to the eye. If it was really intolerable, he would go to the store and buy a non-attribute* fashion to wear. Whenever he takes the stage, his Five Poison clothes are one of the highlights of the game.

* Doesn’t add to the stats or is merely there for decoration.

The uniform of the Seven Star Grass Team was also designed by Su Shilun himself.

It was a dark blue base uniform that had the silver Seven Star Grass logo reflected on the shoulders and back. It was simple yet, impressively stylish and was extremely popular based on the sales alone. It was rated as one of the best-looking uniforms of all the teams in the league.

Among the professional players, the one with the most stable hatred is of course the Great God Liu Chuan. The people who have been killed by him can't wait to abuse him a hundred times to get rid of their hatred.

However, what Su Shilun pulls is not the hatred of the professional players but the hatred of the officials of the game.

People in the art department hate him very much: “A man who cares so much about the appearance of his clothes is simply annoying!”

The players, on the other hand, like him very much: “The clothes are not good-looking again! Wheel God, hurry up! It’s up to you!”