MMO: Pierce Heaven Til’ It Breaks

A fiery streak of Blade Aura whistled past Li Yi. Emperor Lan was different from Elenor, he was only friendly with players from the Southern Continent, while his attitude towards all other players was the same, ice-cold!

Mermaid Princess stood before Li Yi, intending to be a loyal shield for her master. Alas, Li Yi waved his hand and forcefully dispelled her.

Shank!

The fiery-red Blade Aura had struck Li Yi, inflicting [−18753] damage.

Another Blade Aura was hurtling over, but Li Yi did not budge but instead opted to meet it head-on like before. He did not summon Violent Bear King to defend him and he had less than 3,000 HP!

Shank!

The fiery Blade Aura hit Li Yi directly once more, leaving Li Yi with only 1 HP remaining.

Ding!

System Notification: [Emperor Lan’s attitude towards you has shifted to Neutral.]

Li Yi smiled faintly, and without recovering his HP, walked forward to greet Emperor Lan.

As one of the top three Legendary NPCs within King of Pantheon, Emperor Lan’s ATK was extremely terrifying. If Li Yi were to retaliate or evade his Blade Auras just now, he would have antagonized Emperor Lan. Thus, he neither evaded nor fled, but instead, endured both of his blows causing a shift in Emperor Lan’s attitude.

Li Yi would not die, no matter how much HP he had left. This was because Emperor Lan’s second attack would always reduce the players’ HP to 1, regardless of their HP pool.

Once Emperor Lan’s name took on the ‘Neutral’ yellow-shade, it meant that he would stop attacking.

After listening to Li Yi’s introduction, Emperor Lan rolled his eyes and chuckled, “Is that old geezer, Augustus still alive?”

Li Yi nodded with a smile on his lips.

“Hehe, our paths split at Flaming Dragon Lair. It’s been quite some time since I last saw him…”

Li Yi exchanged a few words with Emperor Lan and stated his intent.

“You want to purchase my wares? First, you need to kill those Superior Ice Spirits up there and extract their cores for me.”

Ding!

[Do you accept the quest, Collecting Ice Cores?]

Li Yi nodded to accept.

No matter where Li Yi encountered Emperor Lan, he would still be required to complete Emperor Lan’s randomly-generated quest in order to purchase his wares.

Killing the Superior Ice Spirits might be a little difficult, but for Li Yi, it was still manageable.

Li Yi summoned Mermaid Princess, dove into the boiling lake and went back by heading in the direction he came from.

After exiting the nameless cave, Mermaid Princess swiftly swam upwards. After ten minutes, she leaped out of the water.

Using Divine Looking Glass, Li Yi checked Drifting Snow’s position and found out that Drifting Snow was still quite far from his current coordinates. Converting the distance into travel time, Drifting Snow still needed to swim for about 3 hours in order to reach Emperor Lan’s nameless cave.

‘That’s enough time.’

Li Yi rode on top of Onyxia and raced towards the region where the Superior Ice Spirits resided.

The quest info of Collecting Ice Cores did not mention how many ice cores were required. However, for such a high difficulty quest, there was absolutely no way that it would have an absurd requirement, such as killing hundreds of Ice Spirits. Based on Li Yi’s experience, it would require a dozen at most, which was definitely feasible.

Once he arrived at the Superior Ice Spirit’s territory, Li Yi summoned Violent Bear King. This super HP potion’s presence was necessary, or he would find it hard to deal with any sudden turn of events.

Li Yi carefully inspected the positions of the monsters. He carefully nocked his bow and shot an arrow at a Superior Ice Spirit. Since they were insanely powerful, Li Yi was forced to fight them one by one.

“Brave mortal, how dare you trespass in the icemen’s territory! Prepare to face the wrath of a Superior Ice Spirit!”

The snowflakes that were drifting downwards had turned into icy spears. Li Yi stood still and waited until the spikes were about to impale him before he rapidly sidestepped to dodge them.

Tch-tch-tch…

All the spears had struck his previous position, hitting only empty air.

Thud! Thud!

Li Yi fired two arrows, removing around 30,000 of the Superior Ice Spirit’s HP.

The special effect, Armor Strip on his Orange Quality Bow was insanely useful. Li Yi’s attacks rapidly grew in ferocity, and after shooting a dozen arrows, his DPS had already broken past 30,000.

Dodging the ice spears was an easy task. All he needed to do was to jump aside right before they hit.

The Superior Ice Spirits had extremely high HP, every single one of them hovered around 5 million HP. Furthermore, their ice magic inflicted ‘deceleration’ and ‘freeze’ statuses. A minor lapse in concentration could very well spell disaster.

The first Superior Ice Spirit was effortlessly taken out by Li Yi. After looting its corpse, he received an ‘Ice Core’.

However, while fighting the second Superior Ice Spirit, a blunder occurred. The Superior Ice Spirit had used the ice-based Forbidden Art, Flurry of Dancing Snow, and instantly sealed Li Yi in ice. With that, his HP plummeted, and he perished…

He corpse ran, resurrected, and repeated the process…

For someone like Li Yi who would not lose equipment nor EXP on death, the only loss he incurred was the durability of his equipment.

After seven minutes, the second Superior Ice Spirit had fallen to Li Yi’s arrows, and following that, another one…

Half an hour had gone by, and Li Yi had killed 5 Superior Ice Spirits in total. He had finally received the system’s notification of ‘Quest Complete!’.

Li Yi rode on top of Onyxia and sped towards the ice lake.

By the time Li Yi had re-entered and met up with Emperor Lan, he learned from the Divine Looking Glass that Drifting Snow was still halfway through the lake…

After completing the quest, the system notified that the Affinity between them had increased and that Emperor Lan’s shop was now officially open to Li Yi.

The first page of Emperor Lan’s shop’s catalog was filled with scrolls. There was a total of 10 scrolls, however, only three of them were displayed in normal colors, meaning that they could be purchased. The rest of them stated that he was unqualified, and thus, he was not allowed to purchase them.

As for the second page of Emperor Lan’s shop catalog, Li Yi could not view it. It was currently locked, and Li Yi was only permitted to view the first page.

The three purchasable scrolls were: ‘Random Teleportation Scroll’, ‘Dungeon Escape Scroll’, and ‘Flame Shower Scroll’.

Each scroll cost 1 Gold Coin, and the maximum purchasable amount for each item was 1,000.

Li Yi bought a thousand of each scroll. He did not hold back and bought them all in one go.

Emperor Lan’s shop’s display panel had closed, and he was sitting cross-legged on the floor to recover his energy.

From the Special Instance Dungeon called Flaming Dragon Lair, Li Yi knew that Emperor Lan had suffered grievous wounds from the Flaming Dragon and had yet to tend to them. It was for this reason that he always appeared in the North Pole Continent. After all, he was currently in the central region of the North Pole Continent, which was the coldest area of the continent. However, due to his presence, the lake began to boil, which in turn, prevented the lake’s surface from freezing.

A while later, Li Yi heard Emperor Lan mumble, “Perhaps I should visit the glaciers in the southern region of the North Pole Continent. Since its deserted, it would prove to be quite a tranquil spot.”

‘Nice!’

Li Yi breathed a sigh of relief. Searching blindly for Emperor Lan’s whereabouts was an arduous task, but after locating him once, he could discover the location of his next appearance from his own words. Thus, his next search was going to be a cinch.

‘I’m guessing that the only reason Drifting Snow has traveled thousands of miles here is that he had previously learned of Emperor Lan’s position from his ramblings. However, that would only work once, the next time Emperor Lan moves, I’ll be the only one who will know his whereabouts.’

Even though Li Yi had finished purchasing the scrolls, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he waited patiently there.

Locating Emperor Lan was not easy, and it would be a waste to leave him just like that. Unfortunately, Li Yi currently was not the Emperor and he had no connection to the Southern Continent. Otherwise, he would have already received a Hall of Fame Quest from Emperor Lan.

10 minutes had gone by. Li Yi went up to chat with Emperor Lan, and his shop’s interface popped up again.

The three types of scrolls that were bought out had been refreshed.

Li Yi bought all the scrolls again, and the shop’s interface closed.

Li Yi still did not leave. He had only bought the scrolls twice. This was just the beginning for Li Yi. He had decided early on that unless Emperor Lan left, he would not leave. He would continue to sit there and purchase the scrolls.

All three scrolls were invaluable. It went without saying that the Random Teleportation Scroll had god-tier applications, such as carrying out sneak attacks on major enemy cities. To say the least, its use would be hard to predict, even for gods or demons. As for the Dungeon Escape Scroll, it was pretty useful as well. Whether it was a cave, a field, or even within a dungeon, the moment it was used, the player would be immediately transported to the area’s entrance, saving a lot of travel time.

The refresh rate for Emperor Lan’s third batch of items had been increased. The three types of scrolls had only been refreshed after a whole 20 minutes had passed.

After purchasing the scrolls for the third time, Li Yi summoned Mermaid Princess and swam out of the nameless cave.

‘Judging by the amount of time that has as passed, that b*stard Drifting Snow is about to arrive.’

Emperor Lan had yet to leave, so why would Li Yi allow Drifting Snow to enter?

Killing Drifting Snow in front of Emperor Lan had dire consequences. After all, Emperor Lan was famed as a hero who protected his people. So, should he catch Li Yi killing a Southern Continent player, he would instantly switch sides, and the chances of Emperor Lan’s status becoming Aggro would be hundred percent.

Remaining on Mermaid Princess’ back, Li Yi hid in an obscure corner and silently awaited Drifting Snow’s arrival.

Sometime later, Drifting Snow sluggishly swam his way over.

Tch-psh-bish-tst-pst-brrrr—

‘Powered-up Arrow!’

Li Yi let loose his Powered-up Arrow and it slammed into Drifting Snow.

Under the boiling lake, a player’s vision was severely affected. Drifting Snow could still manage to swim forward, but he could not detect the arrow that was hurtling towards him.

The Powered-up Arrow pierced his skull, instantly dealing a terrifying critical damage of [−12345]!

‘A critical hit!’

Drifting Snow died on the spot. He was not wearing any good equipment, only trash. Not only was his DEF extremely low, but the upper threshold of his HP did not even reach 8,000.

Who could have imagined being ambushed here?

Never in his wildest dreams could Drifting Snow imagine his current predicament. He let his corpse float underwater and did not release his soul for quite some time.

“Master’s amazing.” Mermaid Princess’ eyes were twinkling like stars, and her Affinity towards Li Yi had risen again.

“Your master’s pretty amazing in other areas as well.”

Li Yi chuckled and slotted a finger into Mermaid Princess small mouth, gently toying with her little tongue.

System Notification: [Because of your acts of love, Mermaid Princess’ Affinity towards you has risen by 100 points.]

‘Even this counts? This is crazy, too crazy…’

Li Yi mentally remarked. He then inserted another finger into Mermaid Princess’ small mouth…

“Uhu… Master’s really impressive…”

Drifting Snow did not resurrect immediately. Instead, he surveyed his surroundings in soul form.

At that point, Li Yi had already dismissed Mermaid Princess and had entered ‘Camouflage’ state.

Drifting Snow searched high-and-low, but did not find anybody. Thus, he boldly chose to resurrect.

Thud!

Thud!

Drifting Snow had died again…

“Who the f*ck is toying me? Why not make some noise?!” Drifting Snow spat angrily.

Li Yi used Camouflage Mode again. He had no intention of responding to him