I Am the God of Games

After the difficult battles, the Players celebrated their harvests in joy, while others cursed the whales who were bragging and flaunting.

That being said, neither the Dead Red Dragon nor the Undead Orks dropped anything impressive aside from the dragon scales some of the Players had pried off with Life Skills, the reason naturally being that Xi Wei was dumping every reward indiscriminately into the Personal Prize Pool and Global Prize Pool as he had originally planned.

At first, Xi Wei had assumed that dividing the Global Prize Pool into three categories in gold, silver, and bronze would upset the Players—and it turned out to be somewhat true: one of them did see the imbalance of such a setting and had their words about it, even complaining on the forums anonymously and getting almost 50 likes for it.

Still, would being anonymous on the forums matter to Xi Wei? He could see the essence from the phenomenon, immediately realizing that it was Marni running his mouth. Hence, he sneakily lowered the lottery success rate in the Global Prize Pool by 20% for him and the other Players who liked his post, and have them understand the pain of society…[1]

Either way, Xi Wei realized that he was worrying too much—the Bronze Prize Pool actually contained many useful items (such as strong forging stones), and many Players who had drained out their Personal Prize Pool and pooled enough Global Tickets started to draw from the Global Pool.

And right after their fellow Players managed to draw something, other Players who had been saving their tickets began to invest their tickets in envy as well. It was basically the same thing as smartphone games, where impulsive Players assumed that the chance of success is high when they saw the System information of ‘XXX managed to draw an SSR’. Believing that they could do it as well, they would then throw their money in the game as if having lost their minds.

Moreover, since Xi Wei did not put out a preview, the Players only knew about the rewards in the Bronze Pool and nothing about the other two. Therefore, to prevent a situation where something like ‘the rewards in later pools are rare but not as useful as strong forging stone’, most Players—aside from the stingy ones—began to draw from the Prize Pool.

And when most of the top prizes were taken, Xi Wei generously unlocked the Silver Pool even though there were still some junk left in the Bronze Pool.

Items in the Silver Pool were naturally more enviable to the Players compared to Bronze Pool items (Purple-rare items, buffer stones that prevented items from breaking in failed forging), which in turn ignited greater reaction and competition amongst the Players.

And just like he did for the Bronze Pool, Xi Wei unlocked the Golden Pool after most of the top prizes were taken.

Hence, when the legendary weapon Happy Flames showed up, the Players all went mad and tried as hard they could to find any Undead Ork still on the loose to earn any RIP points they could get their hands on, bent on going for one last try.

The border patrols of the Silver Eagle Duchy were all moved to tears by their actions…

Not only had the Players saved them in their darkest hour and handled the greatest of calamity, they simply had no intention to stop and continued searching for any enemy that remained, extinguishing any tinder of calamity that could reignite the calamity in its crib!

Even if the patrol guards would try to stop the Players and attempt to reward them with food or even coins for their actions, they would merely shake their heads in disdain. Claiming that they were not fighting for gratitude, they would turn and continued onwards to chase after the undead!

What makes a hero? That!

Could those sacred corps of the Temple of Glory or the Brilliant White Church do the same?!

***

In the end, it was a newbie Warrior who managed to get Happy Flames.

As if he had just earned his doctorate, he carried it with him and paraded around the city twice, basking in the envious or jealous looks of the other Players (especially Mages) before eventually auctioning it.

Given that the Mage Players were most numerous next to Warriors, all of them had wanted to claim the glory of having a legendary weapon—only to hesitate when they say its stats.

Happy Flames would greatly buff fire-type spells and carried the passive skill of Pyroshield that was effective three times per day. The strength of Pyroshield also increases with Player level, and could block any superpowered blow by a hundred percent even if it overwhelms the barrier itself—save for divine retribution.

Be that as it may, both fire-type buff and Pyroshield comes into conflict with water-type spells. Even if a mage could get the staff, their water-type spells would drop in effect significantly.

And when one considered Happy Flames’ buffs in spirit and magical damage, the weapon was more or less the same as Purple-rares.

Since the Mages only had a single class-change available in Tide Callers, Happy Flames was naturally a pitiful chicken feed: shunned and tasteless.

‘I’m already a Player who doesn’t fear death. What good is a shield that could only be used three times a day!?’ was the general opinion of the Mages.

But in the end, it was Edward who had yet to change his class who borrowed 15,000 game coins from Princess Leah to buy Happy Flames.

“Are you really buying that?”

Leah couldn’t stop herself from asking Edward just after the money changed hands. “Even if you hadn’t change class, isn’t there only a handful of fire-type spells?”

“You may be the Princess of Tierra, but you clearly don’t understand the wisdom of the God of Games.” Edward grinned in response. “I may be smart for a human and might conceitedly presume that I partially understand his plans, I know that our lord wouldn’t bestow something useless for us believers! He definitely had planned for the next step, and would hence display his grand divine feat…”

As soon as the words left Edward’s mouth and as if to support his point, all Players received a system notification.

[New Mage class-change: Skyblaze Herald]

[Introduction: Skyblaze Heralds open paths into the plane of fire elements to summon fire elementals—they are pyromancers who cast various powerful attacks through the combined flows of different flames and their manipulation over it.]

[Click here for video]

[Class change requirements: Level 15 Mages and above, clearing class change quests.]

***

The reason Xi Wei didn’t grant the Players ability to directly create flames was because he didn’t dare to use his Fire authority out in the open. Instead, he made it so that they could summon flames out from fire aspects just like summoners.

It was advantageous even though such a mechanic increased the time Players needed to cast their spells, because it meant that the power of the flames wouldn’t be equal to the Player’s level. Even at lower levels, Skyblaze Heralds would be able to summon powerful fire elementals to do the offensive work for them despite the long chanting that was required.

As usual, there were three skill branches for the new class.

The first was the Blazers who directly burn their enemies into ash through specialization in unleashing fires of extreme heat. This route had many active skills in store, most of which would increase the heat of the fire elementals that were matched with passive increased the intensity of its flames, causing burn damage and ruthless fires which befits the name of ‘flame’ itself!

The second was the Exploders. To them, fire was support—the art was in the explosions! This path was not concerned with the intensity of the flames or if the temperature were enough to destroy their foes. Either way, they would start blasting, and reduce their enemies to dust even if they can’t burn them out! Simple, direct and devastatingly powerful, Xi Wei was looking forward to see what the Players taking this route would eventually become…

The last was the Firelords: since there’s a path to the fire-element plane, why stop at summoning flames? Wouldn’t summoning a horde of fire-type creatures and fighting alongside them while yelling about how awesome that feels. There was basically nothing to explain here—Players taking this route are basically summoners, and at the early game they were the strongest in terms of combat ability alone of all three branches, although the Player themselves would become a vulnerable aspect in return.

Either way, the update of the new class left the Players beside themselves in shock. The Mages who watched as Edward bought off Happy Flames were hitting their own chest and stamping their feet, feeling that they had missed out on a golden opportunity.

Only Princess Leah stared in shock at Edward who bowed at her, his placid smile remaining on his face as if to say ‘Don’t be surprised, things are working as intended’.

[1] hahaha evil, pure evil