"Fuck, we’re number three!"

My eyes were wide with cheer as I stared at the ranking on the screen. "Not bad at all! We weren’t even in the Top 100 before this, but now we’re the third best guild of China! Our hard work wasn’t in vain!"

He Yi was also smiling sweetly and triumphantly. "Hoho, this is wonderful. With this, we are now truly a super guild in China, both in name and in strength! We’re also qualified to fight top-tier guilds like Candle Dragon and Warsky Alliance as equals now!"

Murong Mingyue nodded smilingly. "Yes. I wasn’t expecting us to break through the ranks this quickly!"

Beiming Xue agreed with her. "Yeah. Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls has achieved so many great things for the past half a year or so that the committee will have to be blind to miss them."

It had been an entire year since the CGL Guild Ranking was updated. The old ranking was determined by the past one to three years of performance, and since Candle Dragon had reigned supreme for 3 years, they were still the leader of the Guild Ranking. Warsky Alliance was originally the fourth strongest guild on the Guild Ranking, and because they performed well during the war of Immortality City, they were able to climb to second place. This was within our expectations as well.

Purple Lily, the guild led by the 12th CGL Hall of Famer and peak mage, Luo River God of the Capital, sat at fourth place. Considering that they were able to stick to Candle Dragon’s shoes like gum and give them a good fight for three years straight, it made perfect sense that they were placed so high. Snowy Cathaya had been booming under the leadership of the Fruit Knife Goddess for the past half a year or so, and since there were almost no forces who could put up a good fight against the super alliance that was Snow Catahya, Ancient Sword and The Monarch Descends in Sky City, it made sense that they rose to the fifth place.

Snowy Cathaya was followed by Blazing Hot Lips, a Vanished God City guild led by the genius Stranger of Three Lifetimes. They shone like the sun despite having to compete against nine other equally powerful guilds, so they were able to climb up to the 6th place. Also from Vanished God City, Fate and Hunting Moon Dynasty sat at the 8th and 9th places respectively. Surprisingly, Hegemon Palace, the giant ship of RMB built by Wang Dongliang, was able to take the 7th spot. On the other hand, Wang Dongliang did spend a lot of money in the game, and the guild was manned by top-tier generals like Little Piglet and Shangguan Wan’er, as well as countless high-level players, so I supposed that it wasn’t that surprising. Still, their guild was developing in a completely different direction from Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. A war between us was inevitable.

Finally, the former first runner-up of the CGL Guild Ranking, Gods of Destruction, dropped all the way to the 10th place. Dominating Heaven Blade must be hurting right now, but considering their performance in the past year, it was a miracle they even got to stay in Top 10.

……

Of course, there were more names behind the Top 10 guilds. The 11th to 50th places were occupied by The Monarch Descends, Baidicheng, Peach Garden, Mad Dragon, Flower Room, Soul Battle Robes, Snow Moon, Immortal Sword Inn, Hall of Immortality, Rose of the Holy Domain, Throne Seeker, and more. Practically any guild that could be considered famous in the China server was listed here, and no one was left out.

Looking at all these competitors, I was once again overwhelmed by the fact that we, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, were among the Top 3. It had been a long and hard journey to arrive at this point!

I rubbed my palms together in excitement. "Alright, it’s time to make a recruitment post on the forums. With our new placement, we can finally call out to the first-rate players and not make them feel like we’re humiliating them. Eve, who do you think is the best candidate for this job?"

He Yi blinked her big eyes before falling into thought. "Hmm, we need someone with a good education and a silver tongue. With that in mind, I think Chaos Moon is our best choice. She’s a regular in the gaming base, and she’s also smart, good-looking, sensible, and well-behaved."

I nodded. "Alright, we’ll leave it to Chaos Moon. I’ll contact her right away!"

"Mn!"

I called Chaos Moon on the phone, and it connected in less than three seconds. As I thought, she wasn’t currently online. Everyone had been waiting for the Guild Ranking to refresh after all.

"Hello, Lu Chen. Why are you calling me this early?" Chaos Moon’s sweet voice entered my ears.

I replied, "Basically, we’re planning to clear out 1000 spots from the main guild and replace them with first-rate players, and we want you to do the recruitment and testing. Do I have your permission to put your contact details in the recruitment post later?"

Chaos Moon giggled before answering, "Sure! But I want to change my guild title. I want to be called the Chief of Human Resources!"

"Sure, no problem!"

……

After the short discussion was over, I finished breakfast and got ready to log into the game!

But before that, I logged into the forums—through the gaming helmet because it saved me the trouble from having to sign in—and made a recruitment post. The title of the post was: "Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls Is Recruiting!"

"After half a year of blood, sweat and tears, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls has finally become a Top 3 guild of the CGL Guild Ranking. It is thanks to the ambition, hard work, and bond of our members that we were able to accomplish this feat. Today, we would like to invite all players with outstanding dreams to join us! Our requirements are: Level 140+, 3 or more Spirit-grade pieces of equipment, excellent control and Top 1000 placement in the champion arena! Players who meet all these requirements will be given higher priority. Also, we welcome people who are willing to continuously improve themselves in the aspects of education, morality, intelligence, and physical fitness. In short, people who are both moral and beautiful also get higher priority. If you would like to join us, then please add "Chaos Moon" as a friend in the game and discuss the details with her. Please don’t bother applying if you don’t meet the requirements.

After that, I sent Chaos Moon a message and told her to restrict her friend requests to players who were Level 140 and above only. Otherwise, she would be accepting and rejecting friend requests all day. Even in Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls, we only had so many beautiful warrioresses, and Chaos Moon definitely fell under the category of girls with enough skirt chasers to make a fan club of her own.

Finally, it was time to log into the game!

Swhoosh!

After I returned to Sky City, the first thing I did was to check out the sales situation of Air Force One. The shop earned 10-30k RMB a day, which wasn’t bad all things considered. Last time, I was able to make a killing by selling Strength Supplements, but the sale opportunity was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. Most high-level players had enough high-level items to accrue 1400 Strength, so they no longer needed the potion to learn Barrier Break anymore. The days of massive profit were a memory of the past already.

Next, I checked my skill ranks. My Spirit Cooking had just reached Rank 9, so I was quite a ways away from hitting Rank 10. I wondered how much HP a Rank 10 Saint Spirit Potion would recover? A ton of players were about to hit Level 150 very soon, and high-level consumables were going to be in high demand as usual. Yeah, I should focus on getting Spirit Cooking to Rank 10 first before trying anything else!

……

Rank 10 Saint Spirit Potion: Required Ingredients: Dragon Meat x30, Green Pepper x20, Divine Dayflower x5, Skyspirit Water x10. Instantly recovers 15000 HP and 7500 MP, and gradually recovers 25% HP and MP over 60 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

My jaw hit the floor when I saw the stats of a Rank 10 Saint Spirit Potion. Previously, I wasn’t able to see the exact number of ingredients probably because I hadn’t completed my sixth promotion and entered the Earthfire Realm. I could kill Earth Dragons or buy the meat straight off the hands of high-level hunters to obtain Dragon Meat. The latter method would be expensive, but it was still within my limits. Green Pepper and Skyspirit Water could both be obtained by high-rank herbalists. I wasn’t sure about this "Divine Dayflower" though. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to create this Rank 10 Saint Spirit Potion.

I did a search in the forums, but couldn’t find anything related to the Divine Dayflower.

Next, I searched on Baidu, but the search results still returned nothing.

Finally I searched on Google, and this time I got a hit.

Divine Dayflower: A herb in Heavenblessed. It is an immortal plant that grows in snowy regions. A Divine Dayflower is formed when divine dew falls from the heavens and lands atop a snowy cliff. It cures thirst, sharpens one’s vision, and stimulates mental performance. A long time ago, it was a herb reserved for the emperor’s use only. All information regarding the herb is censored in China because its homophone happens to match with the name of the mistress of a certain Chinese official.

I nodded. Now I knew where to find this Divine Dayflower. It was a plant that grew on the cliffs of snowy regions, meaning that I should probably search for it near the peaks of Dragonbone Mountain Range. Summits of this mountain range were said to be so cold that not even high-level monsters could survive there. I heard that miracles still happen at the highest places of the world. Oh well, no way to verify if that’s true. I’ll have to go myself and take a look!

After making a quick resupply and confirming that everything was ready, I went to the teleportation formation and teleported to the bottom of Sky City. I let out a shout and summoned the Armored Ice Qilin Horse and the Phantom Wolf King. Then, I got up my mount and raced into the forest, drawing the gazes of countless players—

"Wow, that rider looks incredibly handsome! Hmm? He looks very familiar for some reason. Is it just me, or is that Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand?"

"Holy shit, that’s Falling Dust!"

"It really is him! Falling Dust is OP as of late, you know? I heard that he and his Earth Rank mount were fucking invincible during the battle of Immortality City. Not even Candlelight Shadow, Blue Sky Scar, and Tempest Shadow were able to stop him 3v1."

"Yeah. Without him, Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls wouldn’t have been able to enter the Top 3!"

……

I smiled. It was a good thing that our efforts were acknowledged by everyone. After all, a good reputation was a vital requirement to sit on the throne of kings. As the saying goes, the path to world domination lies in conquering the heart, not the city!

The Armored Ice Qilin Horse was so fast that it only took me a short while to reach the foot of Dragonbone Mountain Range. From there, it took me less than ten minutes to ride to the middle of the mountain. It was then I encountered a couple of Mad Dragon and Flower Room parties. Most parties grinding at high-level maps like these were at least 100 players strong, unless they harbored suicidal thoughts.

"Stop! This map belongs to Mad Dragon only!"

A Level 137 magic knight suddenly shouted while riding up to me on his Corrosive Armor Earth Dragon. Motherfucker, I hadn’t even gone up to the peak yet, and someone was trying to bully me already! Was it because I hid my ID and equipment visual effects?