Chapter 1180: Meeting the Azure Dragon (Expanded Version)

Flying in midair, Su Sheng opened private chat to ask about others' positions.

Over twenty people had all arrived at Huangcheng, but according to the coordinates they reported, they were completely scattered across the north and south.

Moreover, the map of Huangcheng far surpasses that of the Main City!

Even the combined maps of the four Main Cities are not as large as Huangcheng's map.

So, given the current situation, wanting to capture an Imperial City of a server is extremely difficult.

Not to mention their own defensive strength, just the advantage of having their personnel gather on home turf is far more convenient for them than for you.

First is the Main City gate: everyone on the Domestic Server came from the same Main City's teleport array on the National Battle Map, but they were randomly assigned to the maps of the four Little Days Main Cities.

This is the first step of dividing forces; gathering people in a Main City is already difficult.

In situations like this, small-scale operations are still manageable, but on a large scale, they're not stupid; to gather forces, they first need to break into a Main City and pass through its teleport array.

Just this step alone is not easy.

Second, to go to Huangcheng, one must first capture a Main City. When Chen Guan and his group gathered in Beihai City, they sneaked into other Main Cities' teleport arrays via stealth, but during transmission only the Main City's teleport was available, not Huangcheng's.

Therefore, one must capture a Main City before being able to go to Huangcheng, just as now.

Moreover, after teleporting to Huangcheng, there is another random teleport; although on the same map, due to Huangcheng's vast area, meeting up is even harder.

At least, given the current situation.

Unless using an item, within today's game time, even at your own travel speed, you couldn't hope to meet anyone else.

After all, there are only about twenty people; random teleportation in this vast Huangcheng map is like dropping over twenty fish fry into a big lake~

Huangcheng's map is too large.

Thinking of this, Su Sheng glanced again at the tricolor item in the corner of his backpack… the Guild Summon Order!

Under these circumstances, this item appears even more precious!

Su Sheng felt somewhat fortunate that he had not used it before.

Earlier, when breaking the Turtle Shell at the Beihai Main City Lord's Mansion, Su Sheng couldn't recall this thing for a while, and initially he didn't know whether it could be used across servers.

If he had known back then that this item could be used across servers, Su Sheng might not have been willing to sacrifice a level, possibly using the item directly.

After all, raising a level now is truly difficult.

Su Sheng controlled the Suanni, flew a distance, shook off that special monster, and landed at a swamp not far from the 90th-level training spot.

The monsters at the distant training spot are ninety-level swamp crocodiles; just now, while in midair, Su Sheng had the Suanni exhale a Dragon Breath to check the information.

As for why Su Sheng landed, it's naturally not for training; although Su Sheng is now only about 20% experience away from level 83.

But that 20% experience is not something you can easily grind out.

The reason Su Sheng landed is that the current game time is insufficient for him to reach Little Days' Imperial City on his own.

No way, it's too fast!!

Normally, when players train in the wild, even reaching a training spot is not easy.

Even during the Main City phase, signs were already showing; now Huangcheng further highlights the importance of player stations.

In the Huangcheng stage, after a player guild reaches level 5, it can split into up to three sub-guilds, each of which can establish a station.

Although the highest is only a town-level station, it also has a teleport array.

This is the later-stage transportation hub for players running maps from Huangcheng to the wild… Of course, this also requires each guild's sub-guilds to be deployed and built.

Otherwise, when running maps outside, with twelve game hours a day, just traveling on the map would take several hours.

As for returning to town, there are naturally Return City Tickets.

Changing the subject, Su Sheng landed now not for training, but because he eyed this swamp to see if he could fish.

Anyway, he can't make it to Little Days' Imperial City; as for the nearby training spot, after a day of exhausting battles from the National Battle Map to Beihai Main City, they've been fighting nonstop.

Su Sheng currently has no interest in grinding monsters; besides, it's not a big loss.

Better to fish for fun… Let's face it, as men age, they always develop some hobby; for example, Su Sheng now shows a strong tendency to become a fishing enthusiast.

Of course, if this were reality, Su Sheng would not have such leisurely refinement.

Also, thanks to the backpack being big enough, otherwise Su Sheng's backpack couldn't hold all this stuff.

Fishing rod, bait taken out.

However, after organizing the backpack earlier, the bait left is only the last set… naturally, it's the highest-grade bait.

He let the Suanni play at the side, and Su Sheng directly began fishing.

Let's face it, this is Su Sheng's first time fishing at a wild fishing spot.

Looking at this swamp, such a high-level map, who knows what kind of haul it might yield?

He cast the line, and soon the first fish came up.

A blue ingredient fish.

Su Sheng silently put it into his backpack, then continued casting.

A set of bait isn't many, but anyway, the remaining game time today should be enough.

One after another, Su Sheng caught a few more fish, all blue and green; he saw no purple.

Thus, this high-level map's wild fishing spot may not necessarily yield good catches.

Earlier, listening to Yong Bu Kong Jun and them chatting there, it seemed according to their experience that the good catches obtainable from a high-level map should have a higher probability.

Could it be that my luck today is really bad?

The random teleport to Huangcheng placed him before a monster that could almost instantly kill him, and the distance to Little Days' Imperial City is still eighty thousand li.

Tsk…

Suddenly, Su Sheng glanced sideways, silently put away his fishing rod; it seems his luck really isn't good.

A wandering little monster came strolling over slowly; if Su Sheng kept fishing, this guy would likely soon enter his aggro range.

The monsters here are level 90, and Su Sheng doesn't feel comfortable letting the mythic lion handle them.

The last time there was a special monster without a displayed level that was hard to deal with on my own; now it's a level‑90 Normal Monster, so there's naturally no difficulty.

Coordinating with the mythic lion's control, Su Sheng cleanly and efficiently took down this crocodile.

Unexpectedly, when the crocodile's belly flipped, it dropped a piece of purple equipment.

A Normal Monster dropped purple?!

Su Sheng couldn't help but be startled, picked it up and examined it: a level‑90 crocodile Leather Armor for the torso slot, its attributes were fairly decent—biased toward vitality, with relatively few agility bonuses.

It could be considered a small treasure; perhaps it's just the kind of gear a level‑90 Normal BOSS would drop.

Su Sheng couldn't help but feel both amused and helpless.

So is my luck good now, or is it bad?

Never mind, while this luck is on my side, I'll keep casting.

Su Sheng turned back to his original spot, pulled out his fishing rod, and kept baiting…

(The following is expanded content.)

Feeling a bit down, Su Sheng opened the game cabin door and crawled out of the cabin.

When game time was up, Su Sheng logged out in the swamp of the Huangcheng map within Little Days.

During the remaining game time, Su Sheng didn't catch anything worthwhile in that swamp; the best was an orange fish, which had no special attributes.

Su Sheng fed the mythic lion directly; after eating, the lion smacked its lips, but got nothing.

After logging out, Su Sheng was just about to take a shower and then get cozy with Huan Jie.

At that moment, the phone's notification sound rang.

Su Sheng picked it up curiously and glanced at it.

It turned out to be a green‑bubble message from that guy Xuan Yu Wu.

"Logged out, huh?"

Su Sheng was puzzled; why was this guy pinging me at this time, any business?

Could it be that those rats have left a trace?

Thinking of that, Su Sheng replied on the messenger: "Just logged out, about to shower, what's up?"

"I knew you'd log out at this hour. Isn't the National Battle Map open today? The chief wants to see you."

"Huh?" Su Sheng was startled—Canglong Chief?

Then again, since the National War System has been activated, the competition over New Energy has officially begun.

"Alright, what are the specifics?"

"I've already arranged leave for you today; at nine o'clock I'll come pick you up directly."

"OK."

Putting the phone down, Su Sheng calmed his mind and then went to shower.

As for how Xuan Yu Wu managed to get me leave—

Given Xuan Yu Wu's current position, Su Sheng wasn't really curious about how he could do it.

…

…

Xuan Yu Wu's vehicle was clearly specially authorized.

In the heavily fortified military zone, the route was unobstructed.

Under Xuan Yu Wu's lead, Su Sheng smoothly met the Canglong Chief.

"Chief, hello!"

The two saluted simultaneously.

The Canglong Chief smiled warmly at them.

"Enough, you two."

"Chief, I've brought the captain to you."

Xuan Yu Wu spoke.

"Still calling him captain?" the Canglong Chief glanced at Xuan Yu Wu with a hint of meaning.

"He's the captain of the university security team; I'm a security guard now, so calling him captain is perfectly normal," Xuan Yu Wu explained with a smile.

"Fine," the Canglong Chief gave a helpless smile, then looked seriously at Su Sheng.

"I called you here; you probably guessed why," the Canglong Chief asked.

Su Sheng nodded slightly: "Has the competition already begun?"

The Canglong Chief nodded: "You're right; the amount of New Energy extracted is already substantial, and right after the first season's National War ends, distribution will begin."

"You should understand the key point of this ranking, right?"

Su Sheng inclined his head slightly: "If I'm not mistaken, the key to National War rankings is the national fortune coefficient."

Canglong nodded: "Exactly. At the end of each season, rankings are based on each country's national fortune, which then determines New Energy allocation."

National fortune.

Su Sheng realized he hadn't guessed wrong.

"I didn't expect you to capture a Main City on the Little Days side on the first day; that gave you an advantage and surprised me," Canglong continued cheerfully, clearly still very attentive to the game's events, knowing every detail of today's happenings.

"Lucky," Su Sheng said modestly; he wasn't lying—indeed it was luck.

Those guys in Little Days probably didn't expect that on the first day the National War System opened, I could lead people straight into their stronghold.

Thus the arrangements were a bit chaotic, and with Solo Players acting disunited, everyone thought they'd defend, they defended, and then all fled.

Moreover, even though we had already begun attacking the Chengzhu fu, several major guilds were still hunting others in other Main Cities.

If they had defended the city from the start, they have four powerful major guilds, each guild commanding a Main City, cooperating with a huge number of Solo Players; with only our own invasion numbers, we really couldn't do much.

"Luck is also part of strength; keep the rhythm, keep pushing forward. Of course, the gun shoots the bird that sticks its head out; today's actions have downsides, and it's inevitable that other servers will jointly target us."

Su Sheng heard that and smiled, not taking it seriously: "Our Domestic Server's progress already far exceeds other servers; even without this incident, being jointly targeted is certain."

The Cang Long Chief heard that and said nothing; he naturally understood this point.

Afterward, Su Sheng ate lunch with the Cang Long Chief, then was escorted back by Xuan Yu Wu.

On the way back, Su Sheng asked Xuan Yu Wu about his primary job.

"How are those rats in the sewers doing now?"

Xuan Yu Wu replied while driving, "Our people at Customs have already caught quite a few rats."

"What about around us?" Su Sheng continued to ask.

"Yanhuang Club has been maintaining a deployment here; those rats probably know that, so they haven't come to tempt fate."

"However, during our protection of some important figures of Yanhuang, we did spot some suspicious individuals, but they were slippery and we didn't catch them."

"But, Captain, your identity still seems undisclosed; so far, nothing has been found around you or your family."

Su Sheng frowned; his own family had been keeping a low profile lately, and with Xuan Yu Wu's targeted cover‑ups, remaining undisclosed was normal.

But he didn't expect that the others of Yanhuang had all been targeted.

"Who on the Yanhuang side has been watched?" Su Sheng asked.

"There's some movement near that guy Chen Guan," Xuan Yu Wu continued.

Su Sheng heard that and furrowed his brows even more: "Chen Guan?"

"In the Ten Years of the Heroes, that guy was quite high‑profile; his identity was exposed long ago. We erased some traces of your early contact, otherwise your identity likely wouldn't be safe," Xuan Yu Wu said.

Su Sheng fell silent; now the National War System is active, those guys are likely to become even crazier.

"What about the situation with the other guilds?" Su Sheng asked, still thinking of Xingchen's recent car accident, which was later confirmed to be an accident.

Xuan Yu Wu shook his head: "I don't know the details; other guilds also have some personnel from other battle zones protecting them."

"But over at Qiancheng Muxue, that's another squad of our battle zone; it seemed uneasy at first, but today we got word that there are hardly any rats watching Qiancheng Muxue now."

Su Sheng heard that and roughly understood.

Now Qiancheng Muxue has fragmented, so comparatively its deterrence has dropped sharply. It's normal that they no longer pay attention…