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As the saying goes, it takes a hundred days to heal a broken bone. Although she had incredible recovery abilities thanks to her high resistance, and the skills [Super Healing] and [Super Recovery] were also beneficial, it would still take at least a week, if not longer, for her two broken legs to fully heal to the point where she could walk. And even then, even if she could walk, it would still take a considerable amount of time to adapt to the increased attribute points—otherwise, she would be reduced to fighting like a drunken boxer, charging through the insect swarm.
The last [S1 Season] lasted only ten days. By the time her legs recovered and her attributes were fully adapted, the daylilies would probably have rotted.
Tao Sai was in a gloomy mood, perhaps she would not be able to participate in this [S2 Season].
She was depressed for a while, but then she changed her mindset with a positive attitude. After all, she could still use a wheelchair.
While she couldn't charge into battle with her explosive zergling like last season, she could still handle logistics. She also had 22 commandos under her command and the support of her allies in the Alliance.
Of course, she doesn't expect to reach the top, so she will try to get into the top 100.
After He Zhaonian and his friends noticed the new [Season S2] module on the system homepage, they immediately boarded the "Deep Sea Fish" and came to Tao Sai's ward to discuss.
Based on the experience of last season, the time from the release of the [S2 Season] trailer to the official start of the season is very short. The official start time may be midnight tonight, which means they still have more than ten hours of preparation time.
There's really not much to prepare for. After all, the season announcement hasn't been released yet, and we don't even know what the competition format will be. It's likely to continue with the points-based rankings from Season 1, with players earning points in a few different ways.
However, this was quite detrimental to Hailou. Since the end of last season, she, and indeed the entire Hailou, had been caught in a tangle of problems. Shi Jiahui and Tang Yingxue had spent several days dealing with personal matters, and she and He Zhaonian had also encountered a series of difficulties in the East China Sea, ultimately being trapped in a dead end and nearly losing their lives. This left them with very little time to truly recuperate and develop. Furthermore, under her guidance, Hailou had developed cautiously, not randomly adding refugees aboard, nor accepting random player applications. As a result, the number of alliance members remained at 4/10, which was likely a significant lag compared to other players and alliances.
Tao Sai thought about it and sent out a small team of about 18 people from her commando team, and sent them to follow the rest of Hailou members to kill monsters and earn points.
On the Deep Sea Fish, one of the captain and first mate had to go with them so they could give the commandos on the spot. Tao Sai, despite her disability and her strong will, was truly unable to go. She definitely couldn't go, so she stayed home.
Zhou Ning could go in her place, using the [Space Warp] skill to facilitate the team's movement. The four of them could then communicate in the alliance channel at any time.
Tao Sai expressed her thoughts, and everyone agreed. He Zhaonian then spoke up, "Sister Sai, I think it's time for Hailou to recruit new members."
"I think so too." Tao Sai nodded.
Fighting alone and outnumbering is just a coward's courage. When facing a transcendent force that is far stronger than oneself, one certainly needs help and the integration of that help.
The difficulty in recruiting new members is to find the right ones from among the large number of players. The strength of the new members can be put aside for the time being. "Insect Tide Online" is a character growth game. Even the weakest players can become masters if given enough time to develop.
Tao Sai believes that important recruitment criteria include character, morality and team spirit.
These three indicators are indispensable. She would rather recruit some partners who can be loyal to everyone and help each other even if they can only be at the bottom of the standings, rather than high-level players who are extremely powerful but forget their principles when they see profit and even stab you in the back at critical moments.
As for powerful and advanced players with similar values, Tao Sai didn't count on them at all. Players of this level must have joined an alliance or created their own alliance.
As of today, there are as many as 53 first-level alliances in the [Interaction] section, and most of the alliances are fully staffed, and there are not many players who have not yet joined the alliance.
Furthermore, recruiting new partners through the world channel is inherently difficult. After all, through the "internet," you can only see the surface of a person, not their true intentions. The only clue you can get is their comments. However, judging solely by their comments is too one-sided, making it difficult to discern a person's authenticity. The forces behind Jiange may also be hidden among the players.
"Do you have any acquaintances on the world channel?" Tao Sai asked.
Shi Jiahui shook her head. Tang Yingxue paused and said, "Sister Sai, didn't we say we were going to investigate that 'Mr. Bucai Youshan'? But have you noticed? He hasn't spoken on the World Channel in a long time."
After Tang Yingxue's reminder, Tao Sai thought about it and realized that he had not seen the nickname "Mr. Bucai Youshan" appear in the news records of the world channel he browsed during this period.
During this period, she encountered too many things. She said she wanted to investigate, but she never started to do it and even forgot about it.
Tao Sai remembered that this player used to love to talk, sometimes joking, sometimes showing off, sometimes saying shocking things. Tao Sai even had to label him as "unreliable".
Such an active player suddenly disappeared, what does it mean...
Tao Sai sighed softly.
"No, Sister Sai," Tang Yingxue understood Tao Sai's thoughts from her expression and immediately corrected her. "I noticed earlier that he suddenly stopped talking during [Season 1], but he's definitely still alive, because his nickname was on the end-of-season leaderboard, just ranked relatively low, around 700th. So we can rule out his death during the season, and his ranking hasn't been wiped out by the system. Being killed by other players is even more unlikely. There have only been a few death notices on the world channel recently, and we know the identities of every deceased player."
"What's going on?" Shi Jiahui asked puzzled.
Tao Sai thought hard but to no avail. He said, "How about this? Let's try tagging him and see if he replies. If he doesn't, then something must have happened."
"Okay, Sister Sai, I'll go and try to circle him." He Zhaonian volunteered, quickly opened the world channel, and then suddenly felt a headache.
In the world channel of this [Interaction] module, there's no tagging function, nor can you view all members in the channel, let alone search directly. If you want to tag someone, you can only look through the chat history. Looking through the message logs from more than ten days ago, in a group of one or two thousand people, with several major breaking news events in between... He'd have to search forever.
Hard work pays off. About half an hour later, He Zhaonian fulfilled his mission. Despite his blurry eyes, he found the last message record of the player "Bucai Youshan Xiansheng" and sent two messages in a row.
The message read: Wuhu! The Cx330 boss has reached the top! Now I finally understand why the boss doesn't want me anymore. The gap between people is even greater than that between people and dogs.
I won't say any more. I'm going to go into seclusion and work hard. I'll face the wall for ten years to break through the barriers. I won't come out until I become the best in the game!
"Is he really in seclusion all the time?" He Zhaonian doubted it.
Tang Yingxue analyzed, "Retreat doesn't mean he won't speak on the World Channel, right? It was only the third or fourth day of the season, right? He was able to hold back at the end of the season, he was able to hold back when we were being bullied by Jiange, he was able to hold back when Sister Sai was fighting three against one in the East China Sea to find the real culprit, he was able to hold back. And then when Jiange besieged Sister Sai and finally killed her on the World Channel live broadcast, the whole channel was in chaos, and he still didn't speak. How is this possible?"
"If the nickname is not confirmed, it cannot be changed. I even suspect that he has changed his nickname."
"It's really strange," Tao Sai said, holding his forehead with his hand and tapping his head lightly with his fingers. "But nothing is absolute. There are people with strong self-discipline and perseverance. For them, being offline for more than ten days is not a big deal."
"The problem is, he said he was in seclusion and worked really hard, but in the end he was ranked over 700th on the leaderboard. All the players who participated in [Season 1] were probably in the early 800s, so he was at the bottom," said Tang Yingxue.
Tao Sai had no idea what to do and said to He Zhaonian, "Xiao He, start by tagging him on the World Channel."
He Zhaonian nodded and immediately called on someone to speak.
[Three Feet of Life (Lv4)]: @(Mr. Bucai Youshan), brother, are you there?
Tao Sai, Shi Jiahui, and Tang Yingxue: "..."
As they read the speeches, they all felt a strong sense of the times.
Five minutes passed, and there was no reply. The world channel was also bustling with activity, as the new season was about to begin. Players were sharing their experience with ranking up, inviting each other to form teams, and chatting and making friends. He Zhaonian's message quickly rose to the top.
To be on the safe side, he sent another message.
[Three Feet of Life (Lv4)]: @(Mr. Bucai Youshan), are you there?
Tao Sai had indeed heard before that the chat records of boys inviting each other to team up to play games were very concise.
Five minutes passed, still no reply.
There were two possibilities: either they were too tightly closed, or something truly unexpected happened. Tao Sai hoped it was the former. The player, "Bucai Youshan Xiansheng," was a bit of a nagging, though perhaps a bit careless and chatty, but he probably wasn't a bad person. After all, he had accepted the "Hunting" mission targeting "Wei Ai Qu Wu Yi" with the good intention of eliminating this player.
"Forget it, let's find someone else," Tao Sai said thoughtfully. "But at this point in time, I don't feel very good. Our alliance is considered a top-tier organization right now, but of course it's also a thorn in the side of many people. If we openly post a recruitment notice on the world channel now, there's a high probability that someone with ulterior motives will sneak in, and disguises will be difficult to detect. So my opinion is to observe and pay attention first, and there's no need to rush."
Several people nodded in agreement.
"The season should start at midnight tonight. Everyone go back and prepare well. Don't fall asleep before midnight. When the season announcement comes out, we can discuss it in the Hailou channel."
After seeing them off, Tao Sai called Zhou Ning into the room and explained his plan to her in detail.
"Okay, Taotao, I'm fine." Zhou Ning completely agreed.
The tasks Taotao assigned to her were not many and not difficult: keep yourself physically fit throughout the whole process, drink nutrient solution if you are not physically fit enough, and take a nap for an hour or so when you are too mentally exhausted; then help with teleportation according to the coordinates, if the teleportation distance is too far and the energy is insufficient, first equip [Energy Stealing], replenish the energy tank and then open the teleportation vortex; finally, command the commandos on the spot. Although she has no combat experience for the time being, He Zhaonian and others are there, so she only needs to give orders.
"Stay away from the front line when the time comes. Aren't you afraid of bugs?" Tao Sai said.
"That was because I had never encountered it before, so I was a little resistant. Now I have no problem at all. Last time when I was in Nanzhou, I stabbed hundreds of insects to death with a knife." Zhou Ning said with great energy.
Seeing that Tao Sai didn't say anything, she asked again: "Tao Tao, is there anything else I can do?"
"Take care of yourself, don't be careless, observe more, and be careful of a type of flying insect that moves very fast. If you encounter danger, you can call the commandos to protect you." Tao Sai warned.
Zhou Ning nodded seriously and made an "OK" gesture.
For dinner, Tao Sai drove her electric wheelchair to the warehouse and, after many days, sat down at the table with everyone else. Li Yinzhu prepared a nourishing bone soup specially for Tao Sai. Her health had recovered to this point, and she no longer had any dietary restrictions.
Tao Sai soaked his rice in soup and gnawed on a bone. He noticed Lin Kang also sitting at the table, so he asked, "Kang Kang, your PSP is really fun."
"Hmph!" Lin Kang was so angry that his face turned ferocious and his face flushed red.
After dinner, Tao Sai operated the joystick on the armrest early and drove the electric wheelchair back to the ward.
She lay back on the bed and watched a classic Hong Kong or Taiwan action movie, studying the martial arts moves at 0.5x speed. Then she took out the PSP hidden under her pillow. Tired of playing The King of Fighters, she started playing Street Fighter.
Time is passing by every second.
Tao Sai was rubbing the buttons on both sides of the game console until they were smoking. The computer-controlled boss was so powerful that she was frequently overpowered using Chun-Li. Chun-Li was a female fighter who excelled with her legs. Tao Sai couldn't help but think of the girl in the gi she had fought that night on the Ureshino. She hadn't died.
Tao Sai had an inexplicable intuition that one day in the future, she would be a more difficult opponent.
The alarm clock rang and the time came to 23:58.
Tao Sai turned off her game console and stared at the ceiling, her vision suddenly blank. She opened the system panel and quietly waited for the new season to arrive. At this moment, players in different areas and coordinates were all doing the same thing.
Time returned to zero, and subtitles popped up on the panel homepage.
【Season 2 has begun.】
Tao Sai clicked on the [S2 Season] module on the main page, and a page of text quickly appeared.
[Season 2 is a mission ranking competition, and players at level 3 and above are eligible to participate.]
All participating players will be randomly assigned tasks of varying difficulty and categories. Players can choose to accept or decline tasks, and declined tasks cannot be accepted again. Players will be ranked based on the difficulty and number of tasks completed. Task difficulty is divided into five levels: one-star, two-star, three-star, four-star, and five-star. A two-star task is equivalent to two one-star tasks, and so on.
The season will end in 30 days. Players will be ranked based on their completed missions and levels, and will receive corresponding rewards.
【The player at the bottom of the standings will be eliminated.】
【Your rank [Overlooker] has been enabled. 】
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