“Brother Jue, you came right on time. We just finished a scenario,” Wang Tanzhi said after having Feng Bujue join the team. It was around 2 am. Once Feng Bujue logged into the game, he received the team invitation from Xiao Tan.
“Someone’s been hard at training.” Feng Bujue glanced at the level of the three members in the team. During their last gaming session, Xiao Tan had only been level twelve, but now, he was on the same level as Laughing Soul and Passing Rain, level fourteen.
“I’ve bought the EXP buff card, and we’ve just cleared a rather long scenario,” Xiao Tan answered.
“That’s brilliant. You should keep this up. I’ll go take a look around at the Killing Game before joining you guys,” Feng Bujue said.
Laughing Soul’s voice echoed in the team chat channel. “Don’t forget about the signatures.”
“Oh, right. It makes more sense to establish the guild first. After all, we stand to benefit from the guild EXP buff,” Feng Bujue said. “How about this? I’ll open a conference and invite all of you, and we can talk about this in person.”
After getting the confirmation from the rest, Feng Bujue started to operate the system. After he sent out the invite, he changed the menu and clicked open the link related to the guild. Following the instructions, he was soon told, “Before you carry on with this process, please ensure that you have at least one empty space in your inventory.”
Feng Bujue clicked confirm, and then another announcement came. “Please enter the name of the guild you wish to build and collect the signature sheet.”
At this point, he paused, thinking to himself, Hmm… I should ask their opinion about this. If I come up with a random name… Xiao Tan should be easy to persuade, but the girls might not be willing to give me their signatures.
Feng Bujue stepped away from the screen and turned to click the button for the conference room. After the elevator doors opened, he stepped out and saw that the other three were already waiting. By then, Xiao Tan and Laughing Soul had both updated their apparel.
Laughing Soul was wearing a black, assault costume. If she showed the black cotton face mask and helmet, she would probably look similar to a character from Counter-Strike. From afar, you would not be able to tell her gender. It seemed that she had already decided to focus on the mastery of marksmanship.
Xiao Tan’s apparel came from Assassin’s Creed. He had selected a dark-red jacket, with golden lapels and a hoodie, which could cover half of his face when worn. There were pockets around the upper body, waist, and legs that could be used to store small items like daggers, bullets, and medicine. He also wore a pair of fingerless gloves and a pair of deer-skin boots. Just from appearance alone, he did look like a formidable assassin.
They looked impressive, but what they were doing then was completely incongruent with their appearance. The strike team member, Laughing Soul, was licking on a soft-serve ice-cream while the assassin, Xiao Tan, was chomping on a bag of chips.
“By the way… what’s with the snacks?” Feng Bujue asked.
“They can be bought at the system shop,” Xiao Tan explained. “Even though they are virtual, they mimic the sense of taste perfectly, and they can be used to stave off the feeling of hunger.”
He offered the open bag of chips toward Feng Bujue. “Brother Jue, you want some?”
“I know where you can buy them, I’m just wondering why you would buy them,” Feng Bujue said.
“Er… If you really want an answer, I guess it’s because there’s a fifty percent sale on chips to celebrate the first day of the open beta,” Xiao Tan replied.
“Half your head! You’re just wasting inventory space!” Feng Bujue berated.
“Speaking of which,” Laughing Soul added, “you can purchase inventory space as well. It costs around 1,000,000 Game Coins to increase ten spaces to fifteen spaces.”
“That’s around one hundred RMB for one inventory space.” Feng Bujue instantly made the conversion at the 1:2,000 weekly rate in his mind. “Hmm… I still think we should be more cautious with how we spend our Game Coins. After all, there are quite a lot of things that we need to purchase.”
Feng Bujue did not have any disposable income to top up his Game Coins, and the man hoped to earn some cash from playing the game. Therefore, there was no reason to continue this conversation. When he turned around, he saw Passing Rain leaning against the wall next to the door. Naturally, Passing Rain was not the type of person who would purchase snacks in-game. After their eyes met, it was the girl who started the conversation first. “I’m sorry about what happened this afternoon.”
“Oh… It’s fine,” Feng Bujue replied. “You already explained the situation in the mail this afternoon, right?”
“Oh…” Passing Rain said with some interest. “So, you’re this type of person…”
“Hmm… What are you talking about?” Feng Bujue sensed that there was another layer to her words that he did not grasp.
Laughing Soul, who sat at the table, laughed. “Sis probably has categorized you as the type of boyfriend who can be broken up with via a message.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Passing Rain said. “I merely thought you’re someone who is good-natured and permissive.”
“Hey… how come they sound the same?” Feng Bujue grumbled.
Xiao Tan clapped his hands together, and the chips in his mouth flew out from his lips as he guffawed. “Ouch, first blood!”
“You’ll also see first blood when I poke you with a knife,” Feng Bujue warned.
“Alrighty, boys,” Laughing Soul interrupted, “you’ll have more chances in the future to kill one another. Let’s get to business. Where’s the signature sheet for the guild?”
“I haven’t acquired one,” Feng Bujue replied. “That’s because I wish to know what you want to call the guild.”
“Oh? You’re quite democratic,” Laughing Soul observed. “But… I sincerely haven’t even considered this problem before.”
“Let’s discuss this now,” Passing Rain said. “You’ll come up with the suggestions, and I’ll veto those that sound horrible.”
“Big Sister Rain, we haven’t even started the discussion. How did you know there will be horrible-sounding ones?” Xiao Tan complained.
“Huh? In just a few hours, you’re already calling her Big Sister?” Feng Bujue turned to look at Passing Rain.
“Do you wish to call me that as well?” Passing Rain answered coldly in her usual detached tone.
“I did once, but didn’t you say you find it inappropriate since I’m older than you?” Feng Bujue replied. “And you feel like I’m taking advantage of you when I refer to you as little sister… right?”
“I’d forgotten all about that, but since you’ve reminded me,” Passing Rain said, “I’ll consider it as you’ve voluntarily given up on this opportunity.”
“Pfft… Who was asking for that opportunity?” Feng Bujue said. “Even since the beginning of time, those who called themselves emperor died nine out ten times, and those who referred to themselves as little brother were set up to fall. I personally would not willingly do something like that. In any case, I think Passing Rain is quite okay for me to use.”
“Sis is playing hard to get.” There was always a smile on Laughing Soul’s face, and her tone was always playful, but that was merely to hide how cutting her words normally were. “She wants you to call her Rainie.”
“If you don’t speak, no one will think you’re mute.” Passing Rain glared at her cousin who did not hesitate to sell her out and slowly walked to sit beside her.
Laughing Soul stuck out her tongue and quickly changed the subject. “I suggest that the guild is called… Soul Rain Tan Feng!” When she started the sentence, she had no idea what she was going to end it with, but the girl was good at thinking on her feet.
“How come your names are in front of ours?” Xiao Tan complained.
“You have a problem with that?”
“Er… we might have other players join us in the future, right? For example, Brother Long, so using this as the guild name is quite questionable.” Since Xiao Tan did not dare say that he really had a problem, he used a more roundabout way to voice his concern.
Feng Bujue crossed his hands before his chest and, after a while, said, “My suggestion is… Abnormal Human Research Center.”
“Denied,” Passing Rain announced calmly zero point one seconds after Feng Bujue gave his suggestion.
“Why?” Feng Bujue asked shamelessly.
“It makes my ears bleed.” It was not Passing Rain who answered but both Laughing Soul and Xiao Tan in unison.
“Then, you come up with something better.” Feng Bujue was not going to find trouble with the girls, so he levelled his threatening gaze at Wang Tanzhi. “If your suggestion is not better… I’ll cut you up to feed the pigs.”
“What’s with the sudden threat? What kind of character are you playing now‽” Xiao Tan yelped. “At least give me some time to think!”
“This is nothing too serious. We don’t need to hurry.” Passing Rain leaned against the chair.
“Firstly, we should discern the nature of our guild. For example, Regulations and Brahman, they’re both names of gaming studios. There are also those who are meant to show off how powerful they are like Invincible, Unrivalled Kings, Top of the World, and so on. It is clear that they wish to make a name for themselves in game. For a small guild like ours, we won’t rival them in terms of wealth and guild members, so it’s pointless and quite illogical for us to have names like that,” Feng Bujue said as he walked to the conference table and assumed famous pose of Ikari Gendou from EVA. He crossed the fingers of his hands and placed them under his nose.
“Secondly, it’s best for us to stay away from names that confuse others and are overly complicated. The best example is something like ’Eastern Magic Daylight Dream Society of Communion’. Using names like that will only attract players whose actual age is close to Xiao Tan’s psychological age.”
“Hey!” Xiao Tan exclaimed. “You’re the one who has been thinking the most about this! The amount of information you just dropped is ginormous!”
“Finally, names that contain foreign languages and esoteric words are easily mistaken and might be blocked by the system, so there’s no need for us to consider them,” Feng Bujue said.
“Those are all the conditions that we should consider. Let’s start this brainstorm session. Whoever fails will cause Xiao Tan to be cut into pieces and fed to the pigs.”
“Hey, what am I the only one getting punished‽” Xiao Tan grabbed his chips and threw them at Feng Bujue. “Even if my suggestion is not good, that’s no reason to turn me into pig feed! This setting is not even something that’s available in the game!”
Coming up with a guild name was something troublesome. Other than the few points that Feng Bujue had mentioned, one had to consider many other problems. Everyone had different interests, and it was hard to satisfy everyone with a single name, but at the very least, no member should have deep resentment against it. Other than that, using too uncouth or too esoteric a name was impossible. After all, the guild name would be displayed on their apparel. If they really used Abnormal Human Research Center—Feng Bujue had thought that it was nothing serious and, in fact, suited the man quite well—would the girls have to carry a name like that on their apparel? Other players might get the wrong impression of them.