MMORPG: The Elementalist

After he logged out from the game, Qin Ruo tossed and turned on his bed. He remained sleepless all night.

Early in the morning the next day, he entered the office building with a pair of panda eyes. His appearance amused the two front desk ladies, who then jokingly asked if he had found a girlfriend.

In the past, Qin Ruo would have certainly blushed out of embarrassment after the ladies flirted with him. He would quickly excuse himself into the elevator. However, things were a little different now. Walking in and out of the office every day, Qin Ruo had grown to be very familiar with the ladies. Naturally, he was not going to be teased like a rookie anymore.

He instantly passed by the front desk on purpose, and gave one of the ladies a dark glance with his resentful panda eyes.

“You dare to ask? I waited for you all night long and you didn’t show up. How could I have possibly had a good sleep?” His tone sounded exactly like a disgruntled male, who just got stood up by his date. Under his glare, Su Yi’s face quickly reddened. She glanced back angrily at Qin Ruo and spat, “Bah! You bad boy.”

“Well, well, Su Yi, since when have you been prying our Ruo Ruo away?. You better confess now.”

“Sister Ling! Please don’t listen to his nonsense…”

Hearing the conflict between the front desk ladies behind him, Qin Ruo was comfortably pleased in his heart…

The two front desk beauties in the company were considered the cream of the crop. They were very presentable, and teasing the two ladies was a common interest among the male employees in the office. However, one of them was already in a stable relationship, and rumors circulated that the boyfriend was rather protective. So, Qin Ruo dared not offend her. On the other hand, the elegant and graceful Su Yi, who though had a lot of pursuers, did not have a boyfriend yet. Hence, it was nice to make fun of her when he countered their jokes.

As he was full of himself, a man put his arm around him from behind and said, “Not bad young lad! Only been here for six months and you’ve already got the balls to offend our little princess, Su Yi. You even tried to start a rumor. Fair warning, I may file a complaint against you to the upper management.”

“Good morning, Brother Da.”

Without turning his head, he knew the sly person behind him was none other than his best buddy, big mouth Wang Da.

Right after he finished his sentence, the grip on his neck tightened.

“Don’t try to change the subject. Spit it out! Are you really interested in her? Like I said, no matter how you’re still considered a normal guy, it’s about time you pursued someone after being single for so long…”

Damn! What did he mean by “considered a normal guy”?

Qin Ruo found it both annoying and bitter at the same time.

“My dear Brother Da, when have I ever offended you? I won’t be able to take it if you keep pressing me with your 180-kg body. Are you going to buy me lunch?” Qin Ruo felt a little suffocated. After hearing this, the man on his back finally loosened his grip.

“Please, don’t simply add pounds to my weight. It’s just one hundred and seventy… eight.” The chubby Wang Da moved away as he spoke, and kept dwelling on the two kilograms Qin Ruo added to his weight.

“Why don’t we go and measure it with a scale?”

Once they talked about weight, the fat on Wang Da’s face trembled ever so slightly.

“Damn it! Don’t try to change the subject again. Let’s talk about you and Su Yi… Hmm, what’s wrong with your eyes?” Finally, he realized the two dark circles under Qin Ruo’s eyes.

Qin Ruo rolled his eyes.

Now who’s the one that keeps changing the subject?

As he prepared to tell Wang Da about his escapades the previous night, out of nowhere the chubby lad interrupted him with his bright eyes. “Hey, hey, hey, don’t tell me that you joined yesterday’s battle too?”

“Battle?”

Qin Ruo was baffled and opened his mouth a little. His face was now full of questions.

Just as he tried to explain himself, Wang Da began to showcase his big mouth trait and started to explain to him.

“You didn’t know? Tsk, what a shame! This was about those two Clans I’ve always told you about. Tsk, tsk, Shadow and Blood Devourer. There were a few thousands of them, such an eventful fight!”

When he spoke about issues relevant to the game, senior gamer, Wang Da could not stop talking. He explained the event to Qin Ruo while he walked into the lift with him. He boasted excitingly regardless of whether the audience in the lift were willing to listen or not.

When they reached their office on the 11th floor, Qin Ruo finally understood that the whole thing was initiated due to a Boss fight. During the fight, the members from Shadow Clan defeated two parties from the Blood Devourer Clan. This had led to what initially was a small scale PvP into a fierce fight between the two large Clans. The fight even involved the Field Commanders and Clan Leaders from both Clans. It was said that all Tier 3 players who were online at that time participated in the fight, which lasted for five hours. This was due to the fact that quite a number of unrelated players from Savis Town joined in to mess up the fight (to rob equipment). In the end, the fight became chaotic before it was forced to a halt.

Wang Da took advantage of the fight as well after he heard news about it. He insistently grabbed a few rubbish equipment back with him… No wonder he was not late. He arrived at work earlier today. Unfortunately, during that time, Qin Ruo was leveling up in Aricus Underground Ruins. He would not have turned back even if he was aware of it

Once they got out of the lift, Wang Da immediately stopped his seemingly endless speech.

He turned around and faced the reflective lift door to tidy up his hair in a flashy manner. He then walked into the Human Resources Department with high spirits, demonstrating his high caliber stance.

Qin Ruo had long gotten used to Brother Da’s many “talents”. Every time he saw it, he would just shake his head speechlessly. After greeting more than ten colleagues who were also early to work, Qin Ruo walked to his own cubicle and sat down.

Qin Ruo’s working desk was the same as everyone else’s—it was a four-meter-long, oval-shaped desk with a desktop and a laptop. This was assigned by the capable manager to every employee. Such a typical capitalistic mindset: hoping that everyone would work on two tasks simultaneously, and they branded this nicely as “Increasing work efficiency!”.

Not so long ago, when the manager was away, everyone would criticize this exploitative attitude of the capitalists.

Luckily, they were normally not exploited except during rare occasions, and the two computers were conveniently used for work as well as entertainment at the same time. Hence, the heavily criticized matter slowly turned into a pleasure for everyone.

Brother Da’s cubicle was a bit far from Qin Ruo’s…

But since they would meet up every day, Qin Ruo was not worried about not being able to find a time to inform him about the good news. Since he was sitting in his cubicle, he intended to finish the work on hand first.

He joyfully switched on the two computers. Before he opened up his work schedule, he first entered and logged into a private forum for “Honor & Glory”(H&G)  ¹ , Citadel.net.

This was the company’s online forum, secretly created by a group of enthusiastic employees, who were players of the virtual game, H&G. Brother Da was the one who introduced him to H&G as well as the forum. The purpose of the forum was to gather groups of players with similar interests. With this forum, whenever someone faced a problem in the game, others would be able to help sort out the solution together.

As it still was not officially working hours yet, Qin Ruo took the opportunity to send a message to Brother Da. He told Wang Da about his gain the day before. He did not expect Brother Da, who would usually be excited for long hours after obtaining a Violet Equipment, to react to his news so steadily.

“F*ck, it’s only an equipment, no? Why are you rushing to exchange it for money? Make sure you properly suit up your character first. Right now, I’m not lacking the money that you owe me, okay. Let me know only when you really make a fortune, then I’ll ask you for a luxury treat.”

Reading the reply text from Brother Da, Qin Ruo was touched…

From the day he first entered the company till now, Wang Da had always been there to help him out during his hardest times. He was grateful to have met such a good brother in this life.