Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 18 Romance Between Two Men

Just when Jie Ran couldn't hold on any longer and climbed back up the tree, deciding to ignore everyone else's fate, Han Tiaotiao finally arrived.

In an instant, Wang Ergou felt as if he had seen a savior and immediately shouted into the group microphone, "Old Han, hurry up! Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

Without saying a word, Han Tiaotiao took her spear and slashed at the BOSS.

That's when everyone realized that Han Tiaotiao had somehow gotten hold of a long spear!
Although he wasn't skilled with a gun, he used the length of his weapon to poke the BOSS several times, even piercing the BOSS's tough, iron-like skin that clung tightly to the bone. Accompanied by a stench, an even thicker black mist emanated from the BOSS's wounds.

Seeing the BOSS looking at him, Han Tiaojuan activated [Swiftness] and turned to run away, managing to pull the aggro back from a player who was about to be scratched to death.

"Holy crap, so handsome!"

"That was a critical hit!?"

"Old Han is so handsome!"

In the team chat, a group of players exclaimed in awe of the pro player. Even Wang Ergou was overjoyed to see the BOSS's health bar drop to the size of a fingernail in an instant: "Old Han, where did you get that gun? It's so awesome!"

"Senior Sister Guan asked for it; she enchanted the spearhead!"

"Holy crap, is that amazing? Enchantment?"

"I also want to ask my senior sister to help me enchant my weapon..."

"Me too!"

This brings us to the fact that the weapons used by the players were all handcrafted by Fang Xianyu herself, including swords, spears, halberds, and all sorts of weapons. Considering the players' tendency to sell off their inheritance without a second thought, she even crafted several hundred of them.

Last time, she had spent over a hundred years in the number one sect of the Ten Continents and Three Islands, so she had some basic weapon-forging skills. With the added boost from the system's energy, mining some ore and crafting some low-level weapons by hand was nothing special. In particular, these weapons were at most equivalent to those made in ordinary mortal settlements. At most, they were sharper and more durable because they had been nurtured by spiritual energy for a few days, but they were not particularly powerful... cough cough, mainly to save energy.

As for why I didn't just buy it for convenience...

It's because we don't have money!

As the head of a sect, she couldn't possibly dig up spiritual plants and herbs to exchange for spirit stones, could she? That would be so undignified!

Anyway, once there are more "leeks" (victims), they can easily create a sect shop and have as many spirit stones as they want. Let the "leeks" deduct money from other factions, and she will harvest the "leeks"—what a perfect ecological cycle!
Of course, Fang Xianyu had already noticed the unexpected incident caused by the players. The spear in Han Tiaotiao's hand had a trace of lightning-attribute spiritual energy drawn onto it by Baili Shuang's disguise, resulting in the effect that the players jokingly called "enchantment." The correct term should actually be "spirit sealing" or "spirit drawing," something even Foundation Establishment cultivators could do. However, the duration of the effect depended on the strength of the attached spiritual energy; for lower cultivation levels, the effect might only last for ten minutes. Baili Shuang's disguise was only at the Foundation Establishment stage, so the lightning spiritual energy on Han Tiaotiao's spear only lasted for 15 minutes. This was already the greatest help the players could receive besides Fang Xianyu directly dealing with the Yin Corpse.

After all, her original plan was to wait until the players reached the mid-stage of Qi Refining, so that they could withstand the Yin Wind with their cultivation, then trigger the Huang Gong storyline, fight Huang Gong, gain Huang Gong's approval, receive his help, and then come to her alternate identity Baili Shuang to complete the quest and finally solve the problem of Yin Corpses.

But unexpectedly, the players didn't follow the usual path. When they couldn't defeat the enemy with their cultivation level and skill, they started using tricks, like black gunpowder, and managed to blow up the Huang Gong Temple, which was used to suppress the Yin Corpse!
The little temple that Master Huang painstakingly cultivated for over a hundred years was gone just like that, causing him great loss of vitality. Now he's still throwing a tantrum and crying like a stupid dog there!

Although theoretically, ghostly creatures like Yin Corpses, especially those transformed from Qi Refining stage cultivators, should be completely invincible to players at this stage, this group of players who only had half of the Qi Induction stage brought her a great surprise—they took advantage of the fact that Yin Corpses are ghostly creatures without intelligence but only instinct, and actually came up with a way to slowly wear them down by kiting them!
This prevented Fang Xianyu from immediately rushing to the rescue; instead, he secretly observed the situation. At that moment, Han Tiaotiao was putting on an epic performance, eliciting a chorus of "wows" from the players.

While the [Swiftness] skill was active, he would run two steps and then turn around to poke the BOSS, managing to deal damage equivalent to a group of people all by himself. After the skill was off cooldown, he started leading the BOSS around the tree, and even managed to poke the BOSS occasionally with ease between the tree runs!

"Is this the world of the big shots?"

"So strong!"

Some players expressed their admiration in the team chat, but many more people were even more enthusiastic about making trash talk.

"Don't you guys think that Han's ID, combined with his weapon and his skillful way of kiting the boss, really resembles that hero from the game Saint's Glory?"

"They look so alike!"

"Brother, stop poking the boss, poke me instead!"

"Put on some pants, you deadbeat!"

……

After about ten minutes of grinding, the BOSS's health bar finally dropped by nearly one-tenth, and even the originally thick black mist thinned out a bit.

Han Tiaotiao had been carefully controlling his mana consumption, only using his skills to dodge when he was about to be hit by the BOSS. Even so, his mana bar was almost empty. Just as his skills were on cooldown again, a lone figure appeared in the area illuminated by the torch. He immediately shouted, "Jieran! You take over! I'm going out to regenerate some mana! Let's switch aggro!"

Wang Ergou's eyes lit up, and he quickly gave instructions: "Great idea! The off-tanks of the first and second teams will keep up with the healing, and let Ziran and Lao Han be the main tanks!"

Jie Ran nodded, activated his skill, and thrust his longsword, which was faintly flashing with blue-purple lightning, towards the BOSS's rear.

"Holy crap! Even Master Cumin went to Senior Sister for enchanting!?"

"I want to go too..."

Wang Ergou noticed the chat in the team channel and hurriedly said, "Don't disengage from combat. If you die, go find Senior Sister to enchant your gear and then quickly respawn. Don't intentionally die, okay? If everyone disengages from combat, no one will attack the BOSS!"

As the saying goes, "an inch longer, an inch stronger," compared to Han Tiaotiao's choice of a spear, Jie Ran's longsword was somewhat inadequate. In order to deal more damage, he dodged in a very messy manner several times. Later, in order to play it safe, he had to give up the continuous output like Han Tiaotiao. He could only deal a couple of hits when his skills were on cooldown and he was about to be caught up, and then use [Swiftness] to run away in a mess.

But with Zhao Qing's mana fully restored, the BOSS's health bar dropped even faster. A lightning bolt, so cool it looked like something out of a movie, flashed by, and the BOSS's health bar dropped significantly. Just as the BOSS turned to chase after Zhao Qing, she unleashed another bolt of lightning. The combined damage of these two lightning bolts was higher than the combined damage output of everyone except Han Tiaotiao and Ziran!
However, Zhao Qing could only enjoy it for a couple of moments. After being struck by two bolts of lightning, she was out of mana again and had no choice but to run away and find a place to recover her mana after leaving the black mist area.

Ziran quickly seized the opportunity, slashed the BOSS several times, pulled back its aggro, and continued to kite the BOSS with [Swiftness].

Soon, Han Tiaotiao returned from outside the black mist with his mana fully restored. At this moment, the BOSS's health bar finally cheered everyone up—it had dropped by nearly one-fifth!
(End of this chapter)