By the time we finished dinner and returned to the hotel, it was already past 9 pm.

Rose said, “Rest soon, you all. We’ll be flying back to Shanghai in 11 hours, and all those who have friends or families to receive them when we get there should notify us now, so that Eternal Moon Shanghai branch can arrange the transportations accordingly.”

I hurried into my room but was caught by Lin Yixin. “What are you doing?”

He Yi giggled. “Isn’t it obvious? He wants to check out his Ancient Divine Dragon Fossil!”

Lin Yixin perked up. “Really? Where? Party me, Lu Chen! I want to see it!”

He Yi nodded. “Mn, same.”

Beiming Xue said, “Me too, me too!!”

But Lian Xin pulled her aside and said, “Don’t you see they want to spend some lovey-dovey time together? Do you want to be the third wheel? Just join me and help me grind up my Frozen Domain skill rank…”

“Okay…” Beiming Xue replied gloomily.

……

I logged on and appeared at the eastern inn of Sky City. I immediately sent a party invite to both Lin Yixin and He Yi which both of them accepted in no time. Lin Yixin said in the party channel, “You know, why don’t we find a place with good feng shui before we hatch this mount? It’s special enough to deserve some special treatment, right?”

I smiled. “Sure! Do you know such a place?”

Lin Yixin: “Well, to the south of Snowy Cathaya’s territory is Silver Light Forest, and it has great scenery and Level 200 mobs. I don’t think Sister Eve has ever been there, right? Do you want to check it out together?”

He Yi: “Sounds great! Do we head there now?”

Lin Yixin: “Yep! See y’all at Silver Fir City!”

He Yi: “Okay!”

We teleported to the Rank 8 Silver Fir City directly. Silver Fir City had buildings that resembled ancient trees and amazing sceneries; basically what you would expect from an elven city. That I was accompanied by two women of legendary beauty was just the icing on the cake.

After we met up with each other, we exited the city and rode across the plains. Lin Yixin asked me, “Wanna compete and see who can get there first?”

I nodded. “Let’s go!”

My Armored Ice Qilin Horse was buffed by the Qilin Stone. There was no way I was going to lose this race no matter what!

However, the outcome of the race exceeded both Lin Yixin and my expectations. Somehow, someway, He Yi slowly outstripped us even though her mount shouldn’t have given her the movement speed to pull off the feat. That was when we saw her shiny new orange war boots and understood everything. Lin Yixin immediately complained, “Ahhh! That’s cheating, Sister He Yi! Of course you’ll win with the Fire Goddess War Boots! This race doesn’t count!”

He Yi looked back with a giggle. “Aren’t you cheating as well, lady of Silver Fir City? You know this place like the back of your palm!”

Lin Yixin giggled noncommittally before pointing to the front. “There. Silver Light Forest is right ahead!”

It was nighttime, but Silver Light Forest had a canopy that glowed like raindrops of silver. It was basically impossible to miss it. Darkness descended upon us as we entered the forest, but the shiny glow of our badges kept most of it at bay. Speaking of which, He Yi got a shiny golden badge for winning the WEL, and I got two because I was also the MVP of the competition. Lin Yixin also had a silver badge on her shoulder.

Lin Yixin pouted a bit when she saw the badges on our shoulders, “Say, do you think I should join Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls for the WEL next year?”

He Yi exclaimed in pleasant surprise, “Oh! You mean it? Do you really want to fight with us for the second WEL?”

“Sure! That golden badge looks so beautiful…” Lin Yixin said enviously.

I joined in. “That would be great! If you mean it, we’ll pull Li Chengfeng into our team so we can have three near-guaranteed point securers. This way, not even a super close-range team like Cyan Beast’s will have any chance of beating us anymore!”

However, He Yi fell silent and bowed her head a little. “Oh. What should I do then? I’m still a noob…”

Lin Yixin giggled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Why are you worried, Sister He Yi? You’re smart, and the next WEL is an entire year away! Lu Chen and I will spar with you everyday until you become a super-tier expert who’s at least as good as Li Chengfeng!”

He Yi’s eyes lit up. “Really? Can I really become that good?”

I raised the Purple Ying Sword while replying, “Of course you will! Oh right, have you passed the Dark Blade to Li Chengfeng yet?”

“No, he didn’t come online. I think he went away to drink at a bar…”

“Well, whatever. I think Farewell Song and Warsky are accompanying him, so I’m sure he’ll be just fine. Outside our in-game business, they’re all great people.”

“Yeah. Anyway, let’s go find our feng shui place already!” Lin Yixin said.

I was pretty happy, to be honest. This was the closest and friendliest Lin Yixin, He Yi and I had ever been as a trio. I could see that the girls were doing their best to set aside their differences and wariness of each other for me. I was ashamed to say I didn’t know how to repay their efforts besides expressing my guilt and joy.

“Look, there’s a cathaya tree over there!” He Yi suddenly pointed.

“That, and a bear mob too!”

I immediately summoned the Phantom Wolf King and whistled. “Go, little wolf! Kill that bear and cleanse our spot from its filthy presence!”

It had been a long time since the Phantom Wolf King showed up. Once it appeared, it circled around the girls happily and begged for pats for a moment before finally leaving to challenge the Level 205 shadow-rank Wild Bear. It was a 1v1 fight, so I wasn’t worried about its safety in the slightest.

……

After the bear was dead, Lin Yixin stood beneath the cathaya tree and said smilingly, “Alright, it’s time! Let us hatch the Ancient Divine Dragon!”

After I took the fossil out of the bag and held it in my arms, I asked Lin Yixin excitedly, “So, how are we going to do this? Do you think warming it with your bosom will work?”

He Yi rolled her eyes at that. “Stop teasing Yiyi already, will you? This is a game, so that means you’ll need to drip your blood on the fossil to make a contract. I’m sure it’ll hatch on its own once it’s done.”

“Okay…”

I stabbed the Purple Ying Sword on the ground and sliced my finger on the blade. Then, I carefully moved my hand over the fossil and dripped a couple drops of blood on it. There was a sizzling sound, and a visible shockwave of blood red energy, but nothing else happened after that.

“Er, what’s going on?” I stared at the fossil. “Did we get swindled? Is this a fake item?”

Lin Yixin laughed. “Of course not! This is the WEL we’re talking about, not the shameless merchants in our country! They’d be crazy to pull a stunt like this!”

He Yi blinked. “Just give it a moment!”

“Mn!”

It was at this moment the system dinged—

Ding~!

System Notice: Your Ancient Divine Dragon cannot be hatched because it doesn’t have sufficient spiritual energy. It needs 1000 Spirit Energy Points to hatch successfully. You can gain Spirit Energy Points by leveling up, learning new skills, or killing mobs!

……

“Huh. We need to kill mobs to hatch it?” Lin Yixin looked around her. “Lucky for us, the spawning ground of Level 205 Ironback Bears is right over there. Are you two up for a bit of grinding? We can save Lu Chen some time, and I wanted to test out the Fire Goddess Battle Armor’s Defense anyway, so might as well!”

He Yi nodded smilingly. “Sure! Let’s go!’

“Okay!”

Lin Yixin led us to a valley of wilted trees just across the forest, and we could hear all kinds of beastial roars coming from inside. There were even tigers in the valley. Still, the strongest mobs in the valley were the Ironback Bears. Their skin was extraordinarily tough, and they moved around in large packs. Not even apex predators like the Forest Tigers would provoke a pack of Ironback Bears if they could help it.

Of course, its toughness was completely meaningless to our party. My Martial God boosted our Attack by 200%, and our pets were made up of OP monsters such as the Phantom Wolf King, the Ice Dragon Kris and a Ghost Chariot. At Level 184, He Yi’s Ghost Chariot’s armor penetration was almost as strong as the Phantom Wolf King’s. It was definitely going to play a huge role in our grind.

We pushed aside a clump of leaves blocking our vision and saw a group of 13 Ironback Bears just twenty meters away from us. They were growling and feeding on a dead mountain goat.

Lin Yixin said with a smile, “It’s a dread-rank mob, so watch out! I’ll be the tank this time, and I’m counting on you two to kill them before they kill me, okay?”

“No problem!”

“Mn!”

Lin Yixin spurred the Moonchaser Tiger and cut through the center of the mob group like a hurricane. One Ice Flame Slash was all it took to aggro all the Ironback Bears at once.

Bang bang bang...

The mobs retaliated and dealt around 2000 damage per slap. As expected, Lin Yixin’s Defense had become much more reliable now that she had the Fire Goddess Battle Armor. Even better, the passive effect of her armor turned her from a beautiful little pepper into a beautiful little rose with thorns that burned anyone who even got close to her.

“Let’s go!”

He Yi and I attacked from the flanks and joined our Thousand Ice Slash and Purgatory of Ice and Magma together, inflicting a number of critical hits in one strike. A dragon breath from Ice Dragon Kris later, one of the Ironback Bears dropped low enough to die to Claw of the Storm from the Phantom Wolf King. As I received a huge surge of experience, I received the system notice: You’ve killed the Ironback Bear. The Ancient Divine Dragon Fossil has absorbed 4 Spirit Energy Points!

Very good. Assuming that the amount of spirit energy absorbed was fixed, it should take only 250 Ironback Bears to hatch the Ancient Divine Dragon! I can’t wait!

We grinded for a while until Rose sent us a message: “WTF, you guys are still playing Heavenblessed? Our flight is tomorrow morning, people! Go to sleep already!”

I replied, “It’s fine, the WEL is over anyway. If we don’t have enough sleep we’ll just sleep on the plane tomorrow.”

Rose said disbelievingly, “Are you serious? Did you forget how Li Chengfeng emptied his stomach when we flew here? You’ll need an iron stomach to sleep with him around!”

“No problem! We’ll just make him sit with Warsky tomorrow!”

“...”

……

A bit over an hour later, the fossil finally gathered enough spirit energy to hatch.

I dripped my blood on the fossil again, and this time it shone like a mini sun. Very soon, golden cracks appeared around the egg-like fossil until finally, a tiny claw pushed through the gaps. Eventually, a dragonling with a black head and a pair of sapphire blue eyes poked out of the fossil and blinked at me rapidly.