While the players were burning with anxiety to defeat the boss, Lu Qiuchen was busy filming a movie under the system’s direction.
Well, it could be considered filming a movie, right? She had to recite the lines provided by the system, get into the designated positions, coordinate with her partner to make the corresponding moves, making sure the movements weren’t stiff, her expressions had to be natural, her enunciation clear and fluent, her voice layered and emotional…
Of course, what she was filming was a proper movie, not an adult film.
To meet the system’s requirements and get that checkmark in the task list, Lu Qiuchen was already mentally and physically exhausted.
After leaving Old Mister Silver Dragon’s Marvelous Little Cottage, Lu Qiuchen had been eagerly awaiting the old man’s research results: a magical item that could block the system for a short time.
After receiving the next stage of her mission, Lu Qiuchen waited and waited for Gaelv on Dragon Island, but never saw any sign of him. So, she started asking other dragons for news, and as a result, she became acquainted with many dragons she hadn’t known before.
But as the hidden power among the dragons, Gaelv was always excluded from the official dragon count, and except for Alduin, no one knew where his lair was.
After learning this, Lu Qiuchen was deeply moved by Gaelv’s willingness to risk exposing himself just to save her, and her suspicions about his ulterior motives diminished greatly.
Seeing that there was less than a day left on the countdown, Lu Qiuchen, unable to wait any longer, braved her fear of Alduin and went to the Council of Elders’ valley. On the way, she happened to run into Gaelv, who had just finished his experiment and was coming to find her.
Lu Qiuchen tried it out on the spot and found that the system panel in her vision disappeared, and cursing the system no longer got a response—confirming the item worked.
After Gaelv recharged it for her, an excited Lu Qiuchen bid him farewell, returned to her lair, and immediately wanted to enter the instance to test the effect.
When the countdown finally ended, she entered the instance, only to find it was completely different from before.
There were no players here, only the boss and mobs, and aside from evil spirits, nothing but corpses.
After reading the quest information and understanding the situation, Lu Qiuchen realized she was supposed to make a cameo appearance in the instance.
As the final boss running through Chapter One of the main storyline, she needed to show up more often in later instances to keep players anticipating her.
But since small instances ran with multiple players at once and would be visited by players continuously in the future, she alone couldn’t possibly handle it all.
The system’s solution was to record her actions in advance, then import the copied model whenever players challenged the boss.
Thinking that she’d have to do this kind of motion capture at least once for every small update from now on, Lu Qiuchen found the prospect terrifying.
She had no interest in standing on stage, nor did she want to act—no matter what kind!
After recording her movements, Lu Qiuchen didn’t leave the instance, because she discovered she could use the system to observe the players currently challenging the instance.
Although she could stay in the instance now, she was only in spirit form; only when the boss was defeated and she appeared in the cutscene would the system project her body, so she could only wait patiently for the boss to be taken down.
Cradling the tragic soul of a young dragon killed in the backstory, Lu Qiuchen gently stroked it while watching with relish as the players struggled to defeat the boss on the second floor of the instance.
Like an old man in the control room monitoring VTB… monitoring the players, she suddenly felt that being the boss wasn’t so boring after all.
As the players on screen died over and over, Lu Qiuchen’s spirits became more and more excited, her breathing turned heavier and more rapid, and her stroking motions stopped without her realizing it.
The little dragon soul in her arms, sensing the comforting strokes had stopped, nudged Lu Qiuchen to continue, but got no response and curled up into a ball, feeling aggrieved.
Lu Qiuchen greedily scanned the scenes of the players’ deaths, spotting a familiar figure. Her gaze paused on that spot for a moment, then quickly darted away.
*****
At six o’clock in the afternoon, Zhang Cheng’s team had already wiped out for the eighth time at 10% boss HP.
“Damn! Still at 10% HP!” Panda, as captain and raid leader, analyzed the team’s mistakes after respawning.
“Healer #2 failed to dodge the pounce at 30% HP, reducing healing by 25% and leaving us short on heals for the rest.”
“The off-tank taunted too late at 12% HP, letting DPS #3 get sucked dry by the boss.”
“We have wyvern DPS, and three priests in our team—one more than most teams—but our best result is still just 10%. Everyone, reflect on yourselves.”
According to the forum, so far, no team had cleared the second floor, with the best progress at about 6%.
Almost all the strategy groups were studying the boss’s movement patterns, hoping to find a way to safely dodge its attacks.
Zhang Cheng, who had been thinking all this time, suddenly spoke up after Panda finished: “It’s been six hours. With a boss this mechanically obvious and low on HP, no players worldwide have cleared it. Maybe the problem isn’t with us.”
Seeing all eyes turn to him, Zhang Cheng continued, “Right now, only the tank’s forced taunt can change the boss’s target. If there were another binding effect, the boss would be much easier to deal with.
“Mages’ slows and binds don’t work on ghosts, since they’re spirit-type. But as priests are supposed to counter the undead, do priests have any slowing or binding skills?”
Panda, being a priest himself, was the most qualified to answer: “No slowing skills, just a Holy Light Bind, but according to forum leaks, priests only learn that at level 55.”
Zhang Cheng slapped his thigh. “That’s it! No one’s cleared this instance yet, not for any other reason, but because everyone’s level is too low! This instance was supposed to open at level 60, but players triggered it early! That’s why what’s ‘difficult’ in the official announcement feels impossible to us.”
Panda gave a wry smile. This theory had already been mentioned on the forums, but hadn’t gotten much support.
That’s because after level 50, leveling slowed down dramatically. The top 5,000 players on the leaderboard were all level 53, and it’d take them two days of hard grinding to reach 55.
With those two days, other teams might figure out a way and clear the whole instance first.
No strategy group confident in their own strength would take such a risk; only third or fourth teams from big guilds, or small teams with no hope of winning, would try something like that.
Their own team could still compete for the rankings—why do something so thankless?
Panda was about to object, but saw Zhang Cheng smile, his voice full of confidence: “The reason others reached that conclusion is because their players are suppressed by high-level monsters and lack damage output.
“The mobs in this instance give a lot of EXP. I just calculated: with our wyvern advantage, we can grind mobs on the first floor three times faster than others. Even with breaks, it’ll take less than a day for everyone to reach level 55.
“In the worst case, even if another team has already cleared the second floor boss by then, I doubt they’ll have more than level 55’s worth of EXP. We still have the wyvern advantage, and our leveling and boss progress probably won’t be slower than theirs.”
As Zhang Cheng explained his analysis, his teammates’ eyes grew brighter and brighter.
Panda also found this plan feasible. After six hours of fighting, they’d seen the gap between themselves and the top teams. Everyone agreed to Zhang Cheng’s proposal.
“All right! Everyone log off and rest. Gather at 8 PM to grind levels! By this time tomorrow, we’ll definitely take down this boss!”