Thank you Ziv for the Kofi. Here are two bonus updates for you.
Prev | Table of Contents | Next
Anchor Hall
Chapter 200: 20% off
Qi Qian stared at the young man not far away, with a smile on his face, but his eyes showed no warmth.
Of course, he knew this guy.
At first, it was just a report from one of his subordinates, saying that a daring new anchor had repeatedly sabotaged their two instances. Initially, he didn’t pay much attention since the opponent was just a low-level anchor, so he let his subordinates handle it fully. He never connected the anchor, who had clashed with his subordinates, with the rising strongest newcomer. He even sent people to contact him and flatter him.
The other side, while smiling and friendly, extracted information from them and even hinted at future cooperation, only to turn around and establish a new guild himself.
Kong Laoliu and his nephew, having experienced two different instances with him, were able to connect these two identities. However, fearing that Dark Fire might try to recruit the newcomer and thus stop their revenge plan, they never told Qi Qian about it.
So, after confirming that the cooperation between Dark Fire and the newcomer had fallen through, Kong Laoliu quickly contacted Qi Qian and informed him that the person who had repeatedly tricked Dark Fire’s anchors was actually this strongest newcomer—
They also exaggerated an incident where a fraudster impersonated Dark Fire’s anchor and tarnished their reputation, pinning it on this strongest newcomer.
Qi Qian had no personal grudge against the strongest newcomer initially, but after understanding the whole situation, he realized that the other side had never intended to join Dark Fire and had been toying with him all along…
Now, old and new grudges were all stacked together.
Under the other’s gaze, Wen Jianyan calmly sat down with a slight smile on his lips, as if completely unaware of the undercurrent in the air.
“I’m very sorry, I’m late; I got delayed a bit.”
His gaze fell on Qi Qian, asking considerately, “Do you have any other places to go next?”
“……”
Qi Qian’s eyes darkened slightly.
He scrutinized the young man in front of him, trying to find any deliberate signs beneath the seemingly polite and harmless exterior.
The timing of this dinner was very coincidental; about two hours later, Dark Fire’s higher-ups would have an internal high-level meeting… all the vice presidents would attend, except for him.
Qi Qian was the least experienced vice president of the Dark Fire Guild, not having risen through the normal internal contributions but because the former vice president above him had died in an S-level instance, giving him the opportunity to rise.
This resulted in Qi Qian having fewer experienced instances and resources compared to other vice presidents.
To gain more influence within the Dark Fire Guild, Qi Qian had exerted all his efforts to secure hunting instance participation qualifications for a few of his promising subordinates.
As a result, this golden opportunity that he had fought hard for was wasted, and the culprit was now sitting right in front of him.
This incident further decreased Qi Qian’s prestige among Dark Fire’s higher-ups.
If the subordinates he heavily supported couldn’t even pass a basic hunting instance, what potential was there to talk about?
Unfortunately, Wen Jianyan’s expression was impeccable.
Qi Qian lowered his eyes.
Indeed, how could an outsider possibly know about such a meeting? Perhaps it was just a coincidence.
Not far away, the smile on Wen Jianyan’s lips deepened slightly.
During this time, he hadn’t just been indulging in various private clubs for fun. In those places of indulgence and enjoyment, no one could maintain complete silence. Wen Jianyan was exceptionally skilled at extracting information and even more adept at connecting the leaked bits and pieces to figure out any information he wanted to know from the outside.
Wen Jianyan was now preparing to take on the Oracle, the number one guild in Nightmare’s rankings.
Who would be the most dissatisfied with the number one?
Naturally, it would be the one consistently stuck in second place.
According to Wen Jianyan’s knowledge, Dark Fire had been quietly competing with Oracle for a long time, always trying to surpass them. However, due to Oracle’s unshakable monopoly on prophetic talent anchors, Dark Fire had been unable to succeed.
As a result, Dark Fire became Wen Jianyan’s top choice for collaboration.
And Qi Qian was the breakthrough point Wen Jianyan found.
According to his information, Qi Qian was the least experienced vice president in Dark Fire Guild, and the other vice presidents somewhat looked down on him. A recent incident had further lowered his prestige, to the extent that he had to take on the task of recruiting newcomers—
And Wen Jianyan had a hand in that.
Past disputes didn’t matter at all; the most important thing was future benefits—Wen Jianyan was confident that he could make the other party realize this as well.
Wen Jianyan squinted his amber eyes, hiding the calculation and cunning within, and his expression became incredibly sincere and genuine:
“The reason I invited you here today is to discuss a business deal with you.”
“Is that so?” Qi Qian remained unfazed. “What kind of business?”
Wen Jianyan: “There’s something you might not be aware of… Our guild has a seasoned prophetic talent anchor.”
“?!”
Qi Qian was shocked and instinctively sat up straight.
A prophetic talent?!
Generally speaking, any prophetic talent anchor that appeared in Nightmare would be the first to be poached by Oracle—they didn’t know how Oracle managed to do it. Some even suspected that Oracle might have made a deal with Nightmare, but there was no evidence to support these speculations. Unlike these unsubstantiated rumors, Oracle’s monopoly on prophetic talent anchors was real and undeniable.
For a long time, many guilds had tried to break this status quo, but the results had always been disappointing. And now, this guy claimed that his team had one who slipped through Oracle’s net?!
“That’s right.”
Wen Jianyan smiled and nodded.
“To be honest, the reason I’ve been able to climb to my current position so quickly and achieve so many platinum accomplishments in succession is because of him. If it weren’t for his prophecies constantly helping me, I might have died in some instance long ago.”
“As you know, our little guild is just getting started, and we are in dire need of points. So, he wants to commission me to take a job to help supplement our income a bit.”
Qi Qian squinted his eyes.
Now everything made sense.
It was clear that the other party had used some means to enlist a seasoned prophetic talent anchor to work for him—likely one with exceptionally outstanding talent—so he could achieve such terrifying results right from the start as a newcomer with no prior instance experience, climbing to the top fifty in the total points rankings in such a short time, accomplishing such an incredible leap…
But why did Oracle miscalculate this time?
He said calmly, “So, you’re planning to compete with Oracle?”
“That’s right.”
Wen Jianyan nodded openly.
He paused and then suddenly lowered his voice, his expression turning grim: “In fact, two instances ago, Oracle contacted my teammate, hoping he would leave our team to join them…”
Just as expected.
“But he refused.”
A flash of light flickered in Wen Jianyan’s amber eyes, and his calm voice carried hidden turbulence, implying something beyond the words. “So, in the last instance, my teammate met with misfortune…”
“Oh?”
Qi Qian was taken aback, “Then your teammate…”
“His talent is strong; he foresaw his danger, so he barely escaped,” Wen Jianyan said. “Through this, we also learned a bit… about the inside story of why Oracle can maintain its monopoly.”
Unconsciously, Qi Qian’s posture had changed from leaning back in his chair to sitting fully upright, even leaning slightly forward.
He had been completely drawn into the other party’s conversation.
Wen Jianyan raised his eyes, his expression so open, full of genuine sincerity without a trace of pretense:
“In fact, before this, I was indeed planning to join your guild, but I couldn’t be separated from my teammate—especially since he refused Oracle’s invitation for my sake and even faced a life-threatening situation because of it. I didn’t want to bring trouble to another guild, so I had no choice but to take this desperate measure.”
He spread his hands.
“Actually, I have no experience in guild management at all. You can investigate; the current management of my guild is basically the same as before I joined. There has been no change at all. It was just to give my teammate a place to stay.”
“If your goal is to protect your teammate,” Qi Qian looked at him skeptically, “why are you now coming to me for a business deal?”
“I hope to ensure my teammate’s safety, and the only way to do that is to break Oracle’s monopoly on prophecy-based talents… I think this is something you would also like to see, right?”
Wen Jianyan answered calmly.
“……”
Qi Qian didn’t say anything immediately.
But he could already hear the blood pounding in his ears, even feeling a subtle excitement.
If Oracle’s monopoly could really be broken, its long-held number-one position would be in jeopardy. Dark Fire would have a great chance to overtake them. If this were truly accomplished, he would be the absolute hero who made it happen!
This was an excellent opportunity handed to him.
In an instant, the newcomer, who had previously been so annoying, suddenly seemed much more agreeable.
He scrutinized the young man in front of him and said, “If you are telling the truth, this is a huge accusation against Oracle.”
It should be noted that the other party was now implying that Oracle was assassinating prophetic talent anchors who refused to join them in order to maintain their monopoly.
In fact, this kind of speculation had never disappeared, but there had been no evidence to support it.
Because most of the people involved were already dead and unable to testify.
And in Nightmare, death was always in high demand.
But if evidence were found… things would be completely different.
It’s not that Nightmare’s anchors had a particularly strong sense of morality, but once there was evidence, Dark Fire and other guilds would definitely not miss this opportunity. If they all attacked together, even Oracle, the number one on the leaderboard, wouldn’t stand a chance.
“I understand,” Wen Jianyan nodded and looked at Qi Qian, a faint smile emerging on his lips, “That’s why I need a little help from you.”
“Of course…”
He leaned in slightly, a playful light in his eyes:
“As our very first customer, I can offer you a 20% discount.”
Prev | Table of Contents | Next
