Chapter 1621: 1621

As everyone knew, Ruling Sword’s predecessor was Xin Xin Mercenary Group .

The Xin Xin Mercenary Group was still currently an organisation . It always remained at the top of the mercenary rankings .

This ranking system ranked all of the registered mercenary groups . Everyone else ranked up by completing players’ requests, but Xin Xin Mercenary Group was different . They ranked up by getting First Clears .

The points that were gained through normal methods were incomparable to the points given by First Clears . One First Clear was the same as half a month of hard work .

Unfair?

None of the other Mercenary Groups were even close to the standard of achieving a First Clear .

This was because instance dungeons were too expensive!

The Xin Xin Mercenary Group had Ruling Sword as their backer . Who could compare? Unless Glory Capital shameless made a mercenary group from their core elite players and focused on wild Bosses, they wouldn’t be able to compete with the Xin Xin Mercenary Group .

Therefore, when mercenaries were being looked down upon, they would always use Lu Li’s name to defend themselves .

Lu Li was a respected figure in the world of mercenaries . Now that he was hiring, there was no need to hesitate to fill the application forms .

Crippled Black Ant took a form and looked at it with a serious expression on his face . With confidence and a genuine heart, he filled in his details and sent the form over . Then, he left the hall .

In the meantime, while waiting for news, he wasn’t in the mood to complete other quests .

Perhaps Lu Li was not only the leader of Ruling Sword, but someone who inspired the lower-tiered players to be greater .

Crippled Black Ant didn’t wait too long before he was contacted . This was because his details were too eye-catching .

He had three Epic items, with the rest of them being mostly Dark Gold . He had one Enhanced skill with his other key skills levelled to the max . His win rate in the arena was 97% and he had defeated pro players before .

This application was immediately put in front of Lu Li .

Crippled Black Ant’s name was a little familiar . Although Lu Li couldn’t remember it, he unhesitatingly accepted this player as one of the ten . Furthermore, he would be someone to be paid close attention to in the Stronghold battle .

If the player was interested, then Ruling Sword would undoubtedly accept him into the guild .

The last nine were picked based on a particular area that they were proficient in . For skills like Stealth, attributes couldn’t determine a person’s abilities, so they needed mechanically competent players .

Besides Crippled Black Ant, Lu Li also found someone who had potential .

Their ID was Bard Big Dog Li . Of course, Dawn didn’t have Bards as a class, so only an eccentric person would add something like that to their name .

As for the reason this person attracted Lu Li’s attention, it was because of his win rate in the Arena . He had a 96%-win rate, which although was lower than Crippled Black Ant’s, was still extremely impressive . This was around the standard of the average pro, while only a player like Lu Li would have a 100%-win rate .

This person had such a high win rate, but his items were jaw-droppingly bad . Besides one Epic and two Dark Gold items, all of the rest were only Gold items or even Steel items .

For ordinary players, Steel items were common . However, to maintain a win rate above 60% with these items was nearly impossible .

Looking at this form, Square Root Three wasn’t that surprised .

“I know this person . He’s built up quite a bit of reputation . However, he offended the Gangnam Royals, so his items were probably just stripped from him . His win rate isn’t that surprising either, since he is quite mechanically impressive .

“How did he offend the Gangnam Royals?” Lu Li asked, feeling quite interested .

Lu Li wasn’t afraid of the Gangnam Royals in the slightest . However, this didn’t mean that they were a pitiful guild that could be stepped on by anyone . For a normal player, this guild was still like a looming mountain .

“His mouth is really quite something – even worse than Wandering’s . He finds joy in making people angry . His personality is quite annoying,” Square Root Three said .

“Uh…How is he as a person though?”

This player would definitely add strength to the team . However, if he was only someone who enjoyed spiting everyone else, he wouldn’t be the best addition . He would only make the team unstable, no matter his abilities .

“As a person…he should be okay . He has a reputation for being genuine and loyal . It’s rumoured that he offended the Gangnam Royals because he decided to stand up for his friends,” Square Root Three answered unsurely .

“Then let’s count him in . ”

The final eight were selected fairly quickly . Square Root Three interacted with them under the name of Ruling Sword . They quickly agreed upon the rewards and the compensation for failing the quest .

There were two new releases that week – the Thousand Needles and Un’Goro Crater .

The Thousand Needles was a barren piece of land situated at the bottom of a canyon, which was surrounded by stone structures .

This area was further away from accommodation areas . The Thousand Needles in this version of the game was actually two different lands . The white sand in the area gave rise the name ‘Shimmering Flats’ .

No matter if it was the Shimmering Flats or the Thousand Needles, no one wanted to live in the desert .

Centaurs, Buzzards, Hyenas and Kobolds ruled this area .

The Dark Elves defended a moon well nearby, so Alliance players could benefit somewhat here, but the Horde dominated this area . Two Tauren clans ruled and controlled over the entire Thousand Needles . The difference between the two clans was that one stayed near the Cliff Walkers in Freewind, while the other stayed near the Darkcloud Grimtotems .

Both clans were influenced by the Horde culture and had radical views on the blood inheritance of chieftains, so their chieftains and leaders were usually selected by names .

However, there was something a little interesting about them . Both clans lived on the top of mesas . They would only descend the mountain when they needed to hunt or ambush another group . The Grimtotems used stairs and ropes to descend, while the Cliff Walkers used a form of stairs that rose and lowered to allow better accessibility .

However, the Grimtotems had a bridge which led to the Barrens .

These two groups had conflicting views which caused a rift between them to form . At the moment, they were still able to act peacefully with each other . After all, they were both Tauren clans whose nemesis was the Galak Centaurs .

It seemed that the Centaurs were a race that annoyed a lot of other groups . They were very fertile, so they reproduced quickly . Azeroth was filled with Centaurs .

However, the Thousand Needles wasn’t without its benefits .

The first benefit was that it was easy to defend the Stronghold, but conversely it was difficult to attack . From the information given, this Stronghold was situated on a high mountain and was difficult to access . Although there was a bridge on three of the sides, they were terrifying to walk across .

There was one more thing which attracted the attention of many clubs .

Wyverns!

Highperch was not far from here . It was rumoured that Highperch was to the south-western side of the Thousand Needles .

The cliffs were filled with caves and there were hundreds of Wyvern nests in this area, which attracted thieves to come and steal their eggs . The Centaurs saw the Wyverns as holy creatures, so they killed any thief who was caught in the act of stealing their eggs . There were rotten bones and corpses which were tied to wooden poles, warning any intruders against stealing .

However, death did not deter players from coming in . They weren’t afraid at all . There were thousands of players who came here and broke the Centaurs’ line of defense and tried to steal one or two dragon eggs .

In his previous life, Lu Li had also tried this . However, after observing for a while, he decided to retreat .

He retreated because he realised that this wasn’t a place that an individual player could hang around . This was a human-killing machine . The dead players would drop a lot of items, but the ones who attempted to go and steal would be instantly killed by the Centaurs or burned to a crisp by the Wyverns .

Although the players weren’t able to invade Highperch, clubs had always believed that there would be a day where that would be possible .

The other location was much poorer . Un’Goro’s Crater was situated in the southside of Kalimdor . To the West was the abandoned Silithus while to East was Tanaris . There were only a few explorers and similar occupations who lived in the area .

However, Un’Goro’s Crater had something that other places didn’t – the Bloodpetal Sprout .

This was the enormous volcano situated in the middle of the Crater and it held the record for the most scorching temperatures in Kalimdor . This was also how it attracted many Fire Elementals . It was said that this was a place of experimentation which was created by Titan during the creation of Azeroth . The earth spirits which roamed the area appeared to be the sign of this . Including this abnormally shaped spire on the side of the Crater, it was difficult to explain the mysterious powers at work here .

Some of the archaeologists in Azeroth hypothesised that there was a path to another experimental location which was created by the Titans in Northrend . This would be able to explain why the Ahnqiraj Scarabs didn’t damage the Crater’s ecosystem and instead, only stayed to the south of the land .

These two new areas weren’t far apart; both were situated nearby Tanaris . Some ambitious people were already planning to attack both, then connecting them to Tanaris . This way, they would be in control of Kalimdor’s south side .

Lu Li wanted to do this too, but he was much calmer, so he left it .