After finishing his dailies, Xia Zichen headed out to the outskirts of the main city to mine ore. There were a lot of people online in the evenings, the main city was especially lively, and everyone in the guild was busy with their own things — he didn’t want to bother anyone.
He was in the middle of mining when a message popped up in the private chat channel. He glanced at it, and it was actually Canmo Wuhen.
“Busy?”
“Nope, idle enough to be mining.” Xia Zichen replied.
“Got a team for the arena?”
“No. My friends put together a separate team to carry their new members.” Even though Canmo Wuhen had said to hit him up if he didn’t have a team, Xia Zichen hadn’t taken the initiative to reach out. In that kind of thing, Xia Zichen always tended to hang back.
“Then team up with me.” Canmo Wuhen invited him again.
“Okay.” This time Xia Zichen agreed without hesitation, and that little bit of anticipation from before came bubbling back up.
“Want to go now?” Canmo Wuhen asked.
“Sure.” It wasn’t like he had anything going on anyway — one match wouldn’t hurt.
Canmo Wuhen quickly sent a party invite, and the two agreed to meet at the arena entrance.
Xia Zichen checked his gear and made his way to the arena entrance, where Canmo Wuhen was already waiting. Still in that all-white outfit, with a heavy sword gleaming with white light that stood out conspicuously and drew quite a few passersby to stop and stare. Without paying any attention to what the crowd was saying, Xia Zichen rode over on his horse, and immediately received a request from Canmo Wuhen to ride together.
The NPC for entering the arena was just inside the gate — a few steps away — so there was really no reason for Canmo Wuhen to get on a horse. But since he’d already sent the request, Xia Zichen just casually hit confirm. Might as well let him experience riding double since he apparently hadn’t done it before.
With permission granted, Canmo Wuhen swung up onto the horse. Xia Zichen sat in front, and Canmo Wuhen’s posture was like he was embracing Chenxi from behind — which genuinely made Xia Zichen a little awkward. In truth, ever since he’d equipped this black two-seater horse, he’d never ridden it with anyone else. Canmo Wuhen was the first person to ever get on his horse.
They clicked confirm at the NPC to enter the arena, and the two were quickly teleported in.
The moment they entered, Xia Zichen immediately stacked every heal-boosting buff he had onto Canmo Wuhen. Right after, a countdown appeared in the center of the screen. When it hit zero, the door in front of them swung open, and the arena match officially began.
The arena had six stage settings — snowfield, desert, palace, altar, bamboo forest, and waterfall — with each match’s setting assigned at random. Even though players in the heat of battle had no interest in admiring the scenery, the developers had still made every setting genuinely beautiful.
The moment the door opened, Canmo Wuhen charged to the front, shielding Chenxi behind him. Xia Zichen immediately used the position of their fight to identify the optimal spot to heal from.
There was no voice chat, and they’d never played together before, yet there was an unspoken understanding between the two of them that was hard to describe — as if words weren’t necessary, and each could already sense what the other was thinking.
Canmo Wuhen rushed forward and engaged in close combat, while Xia Zichen held his position at the farthest healing range behind him, keeping himself just outside the enemy’s kill zone while keeping Canmo Wuhen’s HP topped off.
Generally speaking, in the arena a DPS-and-healer combo — as long as neither player was terrible — had a much higher survival rate than a double DPS setup. So whenever they faced a double DPS team, the opponents’ priority would almost always be to kill the healer first.
In those situations, if Canmo Wuhen wasn’t crowd controlled, Xia Zichen would run to his side and throw out an AoE heal. If Canmo Wuhen got CC’d, Xia Zichen would stack two HoT effects on him to make sure he wouldn’t get killed while immobilized under attack, then use his movement skill to keep dodging back and forth on his own — and the moment his own HP dropped, he’d immediately hit himself with a large single-target heal, holding on until Canmo Wuhen broke free from the CC and charged over to pull the DPS chasing Xia Zichen off his back.
As a healer, Chenxi did have the ability to break crowd control effects — it’s just that given the cooldown, it made more sense to save it for herself. After all, if the healer got CC’d, she couldn’t use any skills and could easily get killed on the spot while the enemy took advantage.
Even when Xia Zichen needed to run for his own life, he never strayed too far from Canmo Wuhen. And Canmo Wuhen would time it just right — snapping his long whip to pull Chenxi back to his side, then releasing a large AoE attack skill that simultaneously protected Chenxi and shaved off a massive chunk of the enemy’s HP, sometimes even one-shotting them outright.
Xia Zichen had run more than a few arena sessions, with opponents enough to wrap around the main city three times over — but Canmo Wuhen was the most impressive arena player he had ever seen. That flash of white was always right there within his line of sight when he needed it most, each move flowing into the next without a single pause, every combo executed with stunning fluidity. His movement skill usage was completely natural — jumps, dashes, backflips, all perfectly timed and positioned. His raw attack power went without saying; within a few minutes every opponent was down and they were moving on to the next match.
Running the arena with Canmo Wuhen was a genuine pleasure for Xia Zichen. It was less like a competition and more like watching a one-man spectacular performance. Beyond the awe, it was also the first time Xia Zichen had ever felt that warm rush all through his body — eyes unblinking, fixed on Canmo Wuhen surrounded by sword energy.
Watching that figure on the screen who kept Chenxi completely protected, Xia Zichen couldn’t help wondering — how fast did your hands have to be to reach that level of play? He was pretty certain that at the very least, he himself could never pull it off.
Before long, the two had completed all ten matches and were teleported back out to the arena entrance in the main city. Xia Zichen checked his Sword Commendation Points — he had already passed the halfway mark for what was earnable this week. This was his first time going ten for ten in the arena, and he hadn’t expected to earn this many points from it. Usually, getting seven wins was already considered a solid result for him and his friends.
Canmo Wuhen walked a short distance ahead, then used his long whip to pull Chenxi along after him — seemingly gesturing for her to follow. Xia Zichen didn’t say anything; the warmth in his body still hadn’t cooled down, and he just followed alongside Canmo Wuhen as they headed out.
Canmo Wuhen led her to a bridge on the outskirts of the city before sitting down to rest. Compared to the packed crowds inside the main city, this spot was noticeably peaceful and quiet.
“One more session and this week’s points will be maxed out.” Canmo Wuhen said.
“Yeah.” Probably wouldn’t even take the full ten matches to cap it out, but they’d still have to play through all of them per the rules. “Do you PvP often? Your gameplay looks really smooth.”
“Not that often. Sometimes I’ll do open-world flag duels with Jianlang and the others at the city gate.” Canmo Wuhen replied, then asked, “Which other days are you free for the arena?”
“I’m flexible — the guild hasn’t had much going on lately.” Xia Zichen thought for a moment. “Day after tomorrow, I guess. Tomorrow I’ll probably be running a few lower-level members through dungeons to farm some gear.”
“Works for me. I’ll find you when I’m on. If we go ten for ten next session too, I’ll give you a gift.”
At his computer, Xia Zichen raised an eyebrow. “What kind of gift?”
“What do you want?”
With him asking it like that, a phrase that the girls in the guild always joked around with suddenly flashed through Xia Zichen’s mind. Without thinking too much about it, he smiled and typed: “Sponsorship, please.”
“Sure.” Without any hesitation at all, Canmo Wuhen immediately agreed.
Xia Zichen was taken aback for a second, then helplessly sent over a row of ellipses.
Whenever someone in the guild said that line in the past, the answers they’d get were usually things like “get out of here,” “broke myself, same — someone sponsor me too,” or “offer yourself up first, inspect the goods, negotiate later” — the usual trashy joke responses. So faced with an answer like Canmo Wuhen’s, Xia Zichen was momentarily at a complete loss for words.
To clear up any misunderstanding, Xia Zichen hurried to explain: “I was joking.”
Canmo Wuhen sent a smiling emoji. Xia Zichen thought the crisis was defused — but then Canmo Wuhen added: “I was serious.”
“…” Xia Zichen could only keep sending dots, feeling a bit of regret about having made that joke. Before this, Xia Zichen had simply treated Canmo Wuhen as just another player and hadn’t planned on there being any particular connection beyond that. But after today’s arena session, he genuinely wanted to be friends with him.
“If you intentionally throw the match the day after tomorrow, that’s leading someone on and then abandoning them.” Seeing that he had gone quiet, Canmo Wuhen added.
“…It really was a joke…” That line from Canmo Wuhen had completely cut off his escape route.
“Heh, I know.” Canmo Wuhen finally said something that let him breathe again. “It’s getting late, I’m logging off first. Get some rest.”
“Okay, good night.” Grateful to finally escape that awkward topic, Xia Zichen quickly said his goodbye.
Canmo Wuhen said “good night” and logged out of the game.
Xia Zichen quietly let out a breath, sat in place for a little while, decided there wasn’t much point in staying on, and logged off as well, heading to read a book.
The next day, the two went to the arena again. Without any surprises, ten matches, ten wins — both of their weekly Sword Commendation Points were maxed out. Canmo Wuhen didn’t bring up the “sponsorship” thing again either, which made Xia Zichen think that Canmo Wuhen’s agreement at the time must have been a joke too. That was for the best.
As for the gift, Canmo Wuhen mailed him a very high-quality healing gemstone. Xia Zichen thanked him and symbolically sent some gold back in return. Canmo Wuhen didn’t refuse, and Xia Zichen felt good about it.
That evening, Xia Zichen sat at his desk reading. The game was still running in the background but there wasn’t anything he needed to do — he figured he’d check later if anyone in the guild needed a carry and help out if so. Shen Yicheng had been too busy lately running Lian Feier around to manage much of the guild, and some of the newer members had already started showing signs of discontent. Looking around, Xia Zichen was clearly the most free of everyone, so he figured he’d pick up whatever slack he could.
“Little Zhen-zhen, did you do your arena matches yet? Let’s put together a 4v4 team and go — tomorrow’s already Friday.” An Jing turned his head and asked.
Xia Zichen didn’t look up from his book. “My points for the week are already maxed.”
“How’d you cap that so fast?” An Jing’s tone was genuinely surprised. It was true — Xia Zichen rarely ran the arena with anyone other than the four of them, and even when he did, he didn’t win many matches; it was more like going in to lie around. Nobody had expected his points to be capped already this week.
The other two glanced over at Xia Zichen as well, but didn’t ask further.
“Ran into a strong team, went ahead and played through it.” Xia Zichen didn’t plan to go into detail. It wasn’t that he couldn’t say anything — but considering the opposing guild situation, he decided to just leave it at that.
“Wonder if we’ll even be able to cap this week.” An Jing sighed, and started scouring the world channel for a team.
Originally An Jing and Tang Hui had been running 2v2 together, but last week Shen Yicheng had teamed up with Lian Feier and they’d gotten crushed — barely scraping any Sword Commendation Points. So this week, after one round, Shen Yicheng proposed joining up with An Jing and the others for 4v4. The more players on a team in the arena, the higher the difficulty and the more points you could earn per match. A four-person team would definitely have better win rates than the two-person setup of Shen Yicheng and Lian Feier.
At the time An Jing hadn’t thought too hard about it, and Tang Hui figured they were all friends so playing together was no big deal — originally with Xia Zichen, the four of them did occasionally run four-person arena together anyway.
It was a good idea in theory, but the result was that instead of boosting Shen Yicheng’s Sword Commendation Points by much, they’d managed to put themselves in a position where they might not cap their own points this week.
“Just gimme a strong team — even if it’s the enemy faction, I’ll take it at this point.” An Jing muttered as he kept scrolling through the world channel looking for a party.
Xia Zichen said nothing and kept reading his book.
Before long, a message popped up in the private chat window.
[PM] [Canmo Wuhen]: If you’re not busy, come to the Chang’an city gate.
Without thinking about it, the corners of Xia Zichen’s mouth curled up slightly. He mounted his horse and rode off toward the city gate.