Sniper of Aoyama Clan

Whenever Lu Ze had some free time, he liked to watch Zhong Yi's live stream.

With a Challenger's brain but Bronze-level mechanics, the entertainment value was absolutely explosive. Whenever Lu Ze wanted to eat something, he would drop by Zhong Yi's stream because it was the perfect meal companion.

Seeing the screen filled with bullet comments, he felt no emotional ripples.

It was impossible for Lu Ze to intervene personally.

As a dignified game designer, stepping in just because of petty squabbles between players would be somewhat beneath him.

Lu Ze entered the Illusion Realm's backend to check and found that, just as the chat had speculated, those despicable guys from the Qingshan Sect were indeed teaming up to stream-snipe Zhong Yi's trio.

The player base in the cultivation world couldn't compare to his previous life; the matchmaking pool wasn't that large.

Lu Ze had implemented a certain anti-sniping mechanism, but it wasn't overly strict, otherwise, queue times would likely become too long.

Because of this, the Qingshan Sect was able to exploit a loophole.

"It seems necessary to re-optimize the matchmaking mechanism..."

While muttering to himself, Lu Ze quickly adjusted the underlying logic of the Illusion Realm, adding a few rules to prevent malicious stream-sniping.

If he activated this new rule right now, those people from the Qingshan Sect wouldn't be able to snipe Zhong Yi again for a short period.

By the same token, Zhong Yi's trio wouldn't be able to wash away their recent humiliation.

Lu Ze didn't think Zhou Yue alone could handle malicious teaming from two or even three squads at once. Just as he was about to activate the new rule, he noticed in the stream that Zhong Yi's character had been swapped to Uluru.

The weapon in his hands had also changed to a semi-automatic sniper rifle.

Others might not understand, but as a veteran player from his previous life, Lu Ze guessed what Zhong Yi was trying to do in a single second.

"Thinking of bridge-camping just half a month after the server launched?"

Lu Ze was shocked.

To some extent, Zhong Yi was a genius player on the same level as Li Moran.

"I wonder how far Senior Brother Zhong has thought this through..."

Lu Ze stopped his motion of activating the new matchmaking rule and continued watching the stream with great interest.

At this moment, Zhou Yue was asking with a curious face, "Old Zhong, stop keeping us in suspense. What exactly are we going to do?"

Zhong Yi wore an unfathomable expression. "Shh... walls have ears. Old Zhou, just equip the Heaven Suppressor 25 like I said. You'll understand once we get in."

"Senior Brother Zhong is so confident? Is the success rate high?"

Zhou Qiaoling was equally interested in this.

If Zhong Yi said he was going to beat the opponents using sheer mechanical skill, she definitely wouldn't believe it;

but if Zhong Yi said he was going to crush the opponents using tactics, she had no reason to doubt him.

"The success rate is very high."

Zhong Yi patted his chest confidently, then thought for a moment and added:

"Uh... as long as the Old Lady doesn't spawn at the Ascension Platform."

Hearing this, Zhou Yue and Zhou Qiaoling, whose confidence had just surged, gasped. "Old Zhong, maybe we should just forget it..."

Just as the two were about to back out, the match was successfully found, and the three instantly entered a state of combat readiness.

The stream's chat instantly grew restless.

[Then I already know the result]

[The jinx is taking effect!]

[I bet five spirit stones that the Old Lady will definitely spawn at the Ascension Platform!]

[Who would bet with you on an open-book question?]

[Old Zhong, your damn mouth...]

[It's over, looks like we won't be learning any techniques today]

[Old Zhong, try to prove us wrong!]

...

Lurking in the stream, Lu Ze was also breaking out in a cold sweat.

Zhong Yi's jinxing ability in the Illusion Realm was practically infamous.

He immediately used his admin privileges to pull up the world seed for this match.

Sure enough,

the boss, Witch Mulan, had her spawn location set right at the Ascension Platform!

The Old Lady the players spoke of was a joking nickname for Witch Mulan.

Because Witch Mulan had the appearance of an elderly, violent grandmother.

The Old Lady had two spawn points in the Ascension Base: one was the Core Area Garden right in the middle of the map, and the other was the Ascension Platform on the southwest side.

An Old Lady on the Ascension Platform would have an attack range covering the entire bridge, creating a massive obstacle for anyone trying to bridge-camp.

Although players in his previous life had long figured out various safe spots to defeat the Old Lady without taking damage, Zhong Yi clearly hadn't started looking into that yet.

Lu Ze thought about it and decided to erase the boss of this match before the game started.

First, he wanted to see how well Zhong Yi could execute the bridge-camp.

Second, the Qingshan Sect's behavior was indeed cheating and deserved to be punished.

"???"

The moment Lu Ze erased the existence of the Old Lady, the Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao appeared right behind him.

"Why has a wisp of my divine sense returned?"

Lu Ze blanked for a moment, then instantly realized that the Old Lady he had just erased happened to be controlled by an avatar of the Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao.

Sometimes, one just had to marvel at the sheer destiny between Zhou Yue and the Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao.

...

...

Qingshan Sect, Weidao Peak.

Over a dozen people sat in a circle at the martial arena where inner sect disciples usually sparred.

"Did we queue into them?"

Han Xian, sitting in the center, asked in a deep voice.

He was the personal disciple of the Weidao Peak Master, and the people sitting around him were all Weidao Peak disciples, every one of them an expert in the Illusion Realm.

"We did! The mission location is exactly the same!"

One of the disciples, whose dedicated job was to lurk in various live streams, hurriedly reported.

"Very good..."

The corner of Han Xian's mouth twitched up; he was in an excellent mood.

After all, opportunities to blatantly target the Lingxiao Sect with the backing of the elders were rare.

Especially when the opponent was Zhong Yi, the softest persimmon in the Illusion Realm.

Among all the players, he had the loudest reputation but the most garbage skills. Han Xian had been annoyed with him for a long time.

"Did anyone else queue into my match?"

"Yes, Senior Brother Guo is in too."

"The usual, call out your positions."

"Copy that! The Lingxiao Sect guys spawned at the West District Gate, and Senior Brother Guo is at Staff 2."

Han Xian glanced at his own spawn point. It was at Cell 3, quite far from Zhong Yi and his team.

"Looks like we can't ambush them right away... Junior Brother Guo, don't enter the Core Area yet. Come over and help me clear the Cell Area."

Han Xian made a prompt decision and issued his orders before the match even started.

"The heads of those from the Lingxiao Sect must be taken by my own hands!"

...

...

After a brief skirmish, the unlucky guys who spawned at Cell 2 were quickly pincered and taken down by the two Qingshan Sect squads.

To avoid leaving any evidence for gossip, the two squads even put on an act by firing a few shots at each other after wiping out the Cell 2 team, pretending to have a brief skirmish before parting ways.

"Good, it's safe now."

Han Xian looted the corpses of the Cell 2 team while letting his divine sense drift back to reality.

"Where are the Lingxiao Sect guys now? Centrifuge or the Deacon Hall?"

"They're... they're on the bridge!"

"On the bridge? What are they doing on the bridge?"

"That's right, after swiping their cards at the start, they ran straight through Centrifuge and headed right for the main bridge... and now they're just jumping around on the crates."

"Are they trying to run away and drop their loot?"

"No! True Disciple Zhong just announced in his stream that they won't let a single cultivator escape this match..."

"What arrogance!"

Han Xian laughed out of sheer anger, suddenly finding the loot box he was half-way through looting unappealing.

"I'd like to see how a filthy rat who only knows how to run with a knife is going to keep all six of our lives here in the Ascension Base!"

[The more I write, the lower the view count gets. I'm feeling a bit discouraged and hit writer's block. I will release the remaining chapter later tonight...]