Bab 3: Chapter 2 - Happy Internet Cafe
The news of Qiu Fei's retirement took the swept through the Glory world quickly. Fans reacted sadly, and other pro players though felt that it was pitiful, knew that it was only a matter of time. In fact, following Qiu Fei's retirement, few other veteran players also announced their retirement.
Qiu Fei brought his luggage out of his room. It was now time for him to leave. He gave one more side glance to his room before finally walking away. At the entrance of Excellent Era headquarter, his teammates were waiting for him. "Here to see me off?" Qiu Fei asked.
"Of course! Captain, where will you go after this?"
"Worried? Don't worry. I have enough to live alone," Qiu Fei said with a burst of small laughter. "Someone I know also invited me to work at their place so for the time being," he added but he didn't mention where he's going. His team member noticed he avoided the topic again so they didn't pursue it again.
After a few more small talk, the cab Qiu Fei called for finally arrived. He handed his luggage to the driver and entered the backseat. When the driver returned to the driver seat after putting Qiu Fei's luggage in the trunk, Qiu Fei told him his destination: "H City, Happy Internet Cafe."
The driver nods his head and set the navigator up before finally driving away. Qiu Fei watched as Excellent Era building gets smaller and smaller until it is no longer in view.
The twenty-kilometer drive was silent, and Qiu Fei had been chatting on his phone for a while now. When he looked out through the window, he noticed a familiar tall building of the former headquarter of Excellent Era. He turned his attention back to his phone and sent a message.
[Qiu Fei: Master, I will be arriving soon.]
[Ye Xiu: Already? When you arrive, immediately come up. This is good, we are missing a person to do the 10 player dungeon, The Forsaken Crypt.]
[Qiu Fei: Master… I have just retired and you tell me to play the game immediately? I don't even have an account yet.]
[Ye Xiu: There is an extra battlemage account here. Just use them for now. The account rental fee is 5 yuan per hour.]
[Qiu Fei: …]
The car finally came to a stop and the driver glanced at Qiu Fei through the rear mirror. "Dear customer, we're here," the driver announced when he noticed that Qiu Fei still had his attention on his phone and shows no intention of coming out.
"Oh, sorry! Here's the payment," Qiu Fei quickly paid for the fee and got out of the car. The driver also came out and went to the trunk to get Qiu Fei's luggage before handing it over to him. "Thank you," Qiu Fei said and the driver only bowed slightly before going back into the car and drove away. Now, Qiu Fei stood alone before the entrance of Happy Internet Cafe. For some reason, his heart was pounding from the nervousness. Taking a deep breath, he finally entered the building.
Inside the cafe was lively as usual. The business was booming and there were little PC that were unoccupied on the ground floor. With just a glance, it could be seen that everyone here plays Glory.
"Ah, Xiao Fei! You've arrived? The rest is waiting for you upstairs. You can just head up," a voice came from Qiu Fei's right side. There at the reception desk, stood Chen Guo, the boss of both the internet cafe and the professional team, Happy. "You can just leave your luggage here first. Later when it's closing time, I'll tell Ye Xiu to bring you to the staff house."
"I'll take that offer then. Thank you, Boss Chen," Qiu Fei said with a smile. He walked over to the reception desk and placed his luggage behind the counter. Just as Qiu Fei was about to go up, Chen Guo called out to him again.
"Xiao Fei, when you go up, tell Steamed Bun to come down after you guys finished the dungeon. I have an errand for him to do."
"Will do, Boss Chen! Rest assured," Qiu Fei replied before he finally went upstairs. As soon as he reached the first floor, the atmosphere had changed. The first floor is quieter than the ground floor and there are fewer people on this floor.
Someone noticed him coming up and that person couldn't hide their excitement. "Qiu Fei's here!! Quick, quick! Get on the game so we can start the dungeon already!"
A familiar low chuckle sounded and Qiu Fei felt his heart stir. "Steamed Bun, calm down. The dungeon won't go anywhere. Xiao Fei, come and take a seat," the man who spoke up was none other than the first owner of One Autumn Leaf, the war god, Ye Xiu. He gestured at the empty chair beside him.
After Ye Xiu retired eight years ago, Qiu Fei barely heard any news of the older male. So to see him sitting in front of the computer like this suddenly brought Qiu Fei back to the lane of memories. When they were still in Excellent Era, Ye Xiu also told Qiu Fei to sit beside him like this.
Qiu Fei didn't waste time and immediately took a seat. Then, a card was slid over to him and when he turned his head, he saw Ye Xiu smiling at him. "Don't forget, 5 yuan per hour," he said in a playful tone.
"Do… I really have to pay?"
"Of course. Do you think raising a trumpet to maximum level is easy? And not to mention, the time taken to grind for their equipment. Xiao Fei, ah… 5 yuan per hour is already considered cheap if you take all of this into consideration," Ye Xiu replied, sounding really convincing. That is, of course for those who didn't know him better.
"Xiao Fei, don't mind him. He's just teasing you," the only female from the group said, deciding to save Qiu Fei from being played by Ye Xiu.
"Big sister Mucheng," Qiu Fei smiled at Su Mucheng as he greets her. Just having the two of them around really made Qiu Fei felt that he's back at the old Excellent Era over a decade ago. "What dungeon are we doing again? The Forsaken Crypt? That's the level 85, 10-man dungeon, right? Who else is in the team?" he asked. He picked the card up and plugged it into the card reader. He logged into the account and began to inspect the skills and the equipments of the character. After a while, he decided to purchase the skill reset book to reset the whole skill tree.
"There's you, me, Mucheng, Steamed Bun, Mo Fan, Yifan, Huang Shaotian, Wang Jiexi, Han Wenqing and Zhang Jiale," Ye Xiu replied. The names mentioned would've caused an uproar a decade ago but now, there are just a normal player playing the game called Glory.
"If this was a decade ago, one would suspect that you are trying to break the game by setting up an unbeatable dungeon record," Qiu Fei said jokingly. His hand is moving as he put the skill points according to his play style.
"And who says that is not my aim right now?"
"…" Qiu Fei was rendered speechless at what Ye Xiu was saying. "Master, are you serious?"
At this question, Ye Xiu's smile was enough for an answer. "Actually, we were supposed to do it with Xiao Tang earlier, but something came up on her side so she can't play. Luckily, you came today or else, we'll have to forget about tackling this dungeon."
"So I'm just a convenient substitute?"
"En. You can say that. And since you both use the same class, there is no need to change tactics. Are you ready now?" Ye Xiu asked.
"Ready."
As soon as Qiu Fei said that, he received an invitation to enter the team as well as the QQ group chat. As soon as he joined, he was bombarded by Huang Shaotian's voice.
[Huang Shaotian: Ah ah ah ah!! Is that really the newly retired little demon?! Hahahaha! It's about time you retire! Now let your senior officially welcome you to the old men club! So how does it feel to finally retire? Did you feel sad? Liberated? Lost? What are you going to do next? Are you going to--]
"You speak too much. Go and talk to the wall for a while."
Huang Shaotian's voice was suddenly cut off and Qiu Fei glanced over at his side to look at Ye Xiu who had just banned Huang Shaotian from using the voice chat for five minutes.
"The team is complete. Everyone, head to the entrance of The Forsaken Crypt in ten minutes. I will brief you of our plan as we go there," Ye Xiu said and everyone in the chat agreed verbally except for Huang Shaotian who can only type out his words.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Lin_XiaoLong
Lin_XiaoLong In case people start misunderstanding... no. Qiu Fei is not the main character. The main character will appear at the introduction of the VR system for Glory. The reason I'm doing this is to ease the reader (and myself) into reading (writing) the story first by introducing some familiar characters. And also to slowly info dump *cough*
The Forsaken Crypt dungeon is something I made up. I'm not sure what was the max level at the end of TKA's novel but I assumed it's level 75 since the wiki only stated the dungeon up until level 75 dungeon.
Also... I apologize if I didn't portray the characters well. This is my first fanfiction, to be honest. So I hope I do not butcher them too much.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
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