Chapter 137: Frog Prince
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The trading fair on the Mysterious Little Island continued on in full swing. Countless players who had not partic.i.p.ated in the Fis.h.i.+ng Grand Prix bought what they needed here. Of course, there were many discordant voices here as well.
Thanks to King of Pantheon’s powerful internal settings that allowed real-time language interpretation, there was barely a barrier even when conversing with a foreign player.
At the same time, in celebration of the first Fis.h.i.+ng Grand Prix, the developers of Pantheon had exclusively invited a star who excelled in cinema, TV, and music, Xu Man, to perform a special concert right here on this mysterious sandy archipelago.
When Xu Man, dressed as a mermaid, descended onto the stage amidst the rain of flower petals, she instantly caught the attention of every player present. Xu Man’s beautiful voice was like the song of angels, to the point where many players who had never even heard her songs before were immediately captivated.
“Good day, fellow players of King of Pantheon. I play Pantheon too, y’know.” Xu Man’s softly-spoken words instantly caused a furor among the many players.
Countless players tried to squeeze their way to the front desperately, all to get a glimpse of that superstar’s face. Unfortunately, the Mysterious Little Island did not allow players to walk through each other. Now that there were several million people trying to squeeze their way inside at once, was it any wonder that something would go wrong?
Although they could not PK, they pushed and shoved each other back and forth, and this was actually allowed by the system. As a result, Xu Man was left performing her concert in the middle of the island while the other players launched into a special type of PK battle around the island.
[You have forcefully made contact with another player’s body without permission. Your actions have been considered a crime. The system will send you to a major city prison after 3 seconds to accept your punishment.]
Within a mere dozen seconds or so, the number of players on the Mysterious Little Island was reduced by a third. They had all been sent to prison by the system.
“I love Manman, I love Manman.”
“Manman, Manman, I love you. Manman, Manman, I love you…”
The fans’ enthusiasm was beyond imagination. They forced their way to the front, all so they could get a glimpse of Xu Man or yell out one line of encouragement.
“Thanks, thank you all, thank you to all the players of the Pantheon World. Xu Man loves you all as well. However, I do wish you can quiet down for a moment, my friends, and listen to me as I sing this song, t.i.tled Mermaid Princess.”
Xu Man placed her little finger on her lips and shushed them. The Little Island immediately fell quiet. As expected, the charisma of a superstar was unstoppable.
“For my performance of Mermaid Princess, I shall need the accompaniment of a prince. Hmm, tell me, who should I choose?”
“Me… Me, I’m a prince, a Frog Prince. O beautiful Princess Manman, choose me.” Sc.u.mbag w.a.n.g was the first to step out, and he kept blowing kisses at Xu Man. If it were not for the fact that Xu Man’s body was protected by a magic barrier, he would have long since rushed up to her.
“Hey, you motherf*cker, how dare you call yourself the Frog Prince with a face like that? The way I see it, you’re half a frog at most.” One of Xu Man’s superfans was immediately ticked off. He rushed up to Sc.u.mbag w.a.n.g and swung a fist at his eye.
“Whoomph!”
Just like that, Sc.u.mbag w.a.n.g received a black eye. However, the superfan that a.s.saulted him had it even worse as he was immediately sent to a major city prison.
Sc.u.mbag w.a.n.g spat onto the floor and yelled to the people around him, “Watch your manners!”
Xu Man looked around her and said with a smile, “Where’s the champion of the Fis.h.i.+ng Grand Prix? Do you hear Manman’s voice? Manman would like your cooperation.”
Li Yi froze on the spot.
All the players started searching with their gazes and they found Li Yi soon enough. Although he hid his name, that purple-colored fis.h.i.+ng rod he had equipped was the only one of its kind, so it was no wonder he was found out.
His stall was immediately canceled and a few superfans yanked Li Yi up to the magic barrier. The barrier was switched off temporarily, and Li Yi was shoved inside.
“Champion, could you be Manman’s prince for a while?” Xu Man winked at Li Yi mischievously.
“You’re denying such a perfect Frog Prince? What’s up with that taste.” Sc.u.mbag w.a.n.g was extremely depressed. In order to distract himself from that scene, he grabbed the chest of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed foreign Caucasian girl and was instantly sent to a major city prison.
No matter who she chose, there would surely be some dissidents. However, if she chose the champion of the Fis.h.i.+ng Grand Prix, there would be far fewer players who would be unable to accept the results. Besides, doing this would also act as further promotion for the game.
Li Yi mulled it over and nodded. “Sure.”
Xu Man smiled at him slightly. “Before you sing this song with me, is there anything you want to tell the other players?”
Li Yi immediately yelled, “I’m buying all sorts of gems and Soul Stones! I accept mail sales, and I’ll take the stock and pay the money instantly! Remember to send the goods to Dark Wing!”
Everyone below the stage fell silent. Even Xu Man was stunned for some time, completely unsure how to continue.
The superstar Xu Man was practically a household name, but Li Yi was no celebrity groupie. When Xu Man had gotten popular in the past life, he had only heard a few of her songs and did not even remember her name. As for celebrity gossip, he had no interest in that whatsoever and he never did care about what was going on in the entertainment world. It was only when Xu Man committed suicide by jumping from a building and countless people mourned for her that Li Yi finally remembered her name.
He was just the most average of all average players, and there was no way he could have any contact with that superstar. In that case, why should he pay her any attention?
“Thank you!” Xu Man laughed awkwardly. Just then, the music began and her concert started.
‘This voice… Why does it sound slightly familiar?’
Li Yi stood quite close to Xu Man and he suddenly realized that he seemed to have heard this voice somewhere before.
It was extremely melodious and wonderfully pleasing to the ear…
Xu Man’s singing skills were a thing to behold. Even after she completed Mermaid Princess, many people were still lost in the sound of her voice.
Xu Man did not hide her name, and she was called Xu Man even in-game. However, when Li Yi tried to add her as a friend, another unexpected incident occurred.
System notification: [This player is already your friend.]
Li Yi was shocked.
Since when had he become friends with Xu Man?
He glanced at his Friends Pane. He had more than ten thousand friends now, and not one of the ones who were online was called Xu Man. There was no need to consider the invisible ones since he could not check them even if he wanted to.
“Thank you, everyone. Thank you for your help, Champion. See you again next time!”
Xu Man waved at the players and retreated from the stage amidst the rain of petals.
Xu Man was gone now, but Li Yi was still frozen there. No matter how he racked his brain, he just could not remember when he had added a friend called Xu Man.
Unless she had not disclosed her name when he added her as a friend, meaning her name showed up in the Friends Pane as ???.
He had more than a thousand friends whose names were displayed as ???, so he still could not find out who she was.
‘Forget it, I’m not gonna harp on this.’
Li Yi shook his head and walked off stage. Ignoring the other players’ looks of envy, he set up his stall once more and continued to collect various gems.
The players were restless for a moment but order was slowly restored, and the trading fair went on.
Xu Man’s song was only a slight interlude. To many players, buying the things they needed here was the most pressing concern.
“Brother Yi, do you have money on you?” Fire Ice sent him a message.
“I do. What do you want to buy?”
“A Reinforced Resurrection Spell Skill Tome.”
“Sure, where are you? I’ll come find you.”
“Brother Yi, lend me some dough. I wanna buy a Sage Ring.” Chen Yang was back.
“Sure, where are you? I’ll come find you.”
“You there, Li Yi? Lend me some cash, I wanna buy a Wind Bind Skill Tome. I’ll return the money to you as soon as we get out.” Just after he sent Chen Yang away, Little Elf from the Magical Realm asked him instead.
“Sure, where are you? I’ll come find you.”
“Brother Yi, I wanna buy another foreign chick for a night, lend me some more cash.” Chen Yang was back.
“Sure, scram!”
Li Yi never refused his closest friends when they came asking for a loan, but if it was someone he was not that familiar with, he would not be so generous.
The benefit of fis.h.i.+ng on the same boat as Li Yi was that everyone had entered the map of the finals. In comparison, Chen Yang’s team did not fair very well. They could only go around the first map and could not even enter the second one by the time the compet.i.tion had ended.
Li Yi collected gems for a while and then he left the Water World map.
The gem collection was more or less done, and he still had many things he needed to do right now.
Once he got back home and deposited all his spoils into the inventory, Li Yi went to the official site to search up details about the little goldfish’s origins.
The Sea G.o.d’s Messenger had told him to treat the little goldfish well. This meant that the little goldfish had to be a creature from the Sea G.o.d’s Palace. Now that he had this as a clue, he just needed to search up everything he could find about the Sea G.o.d’s Palace.
The Sea G.o.d’s Palace was in the deep-sea area at the boundary between the Eastern and Southern Continents. It was a Level 90 map, so considering the current levels of the players, there was no way anyone could go there. Forget reaching the boss, if any shrimp soldier or crab general appeared, they would easily be able to annihilate a hundred-man party.
Li Yi started by investigating the NPCs all the way up to the Sea G.o.d’s Palace Dungeon’s big boss. However, even after checking through it a good 3 to 4 times, he still could not find anything about the little goldfish.
‘c.r.a.p, don’t tell me this little goldfish is just like the Ancient Language Scroll that unlucky summoner got, where we all know it’s valuable but since no one knows how to use it, it can only be thrown into the inventory as trash?
‘I rejected the Sea G.o.d’s Wrath for it too, this looks like a bad loss.’
He checked the official site for a good while but to no avail, and as a result, Li Yi could not help but be slightly frustrated. He took the little goldfish out of his Backpack and placed it in an aquarium in his house, frowning in deep thought as he watched it swim around.
The Sea G.o.d’s Messenger had offered to trade it for the Sea G.o.d’s Wrath, which meant that its value far surpa.s.sed that of the Sea G.o.d’s Wrath. That would not have happened otherwise.
But just what could this thing do?
Li Yi picked up the little goldfish, but the only information he saw was still three ??? question marks.
Li Yi muttered to himself, “Don’t tell me I gotta cook and eat it? Or should I just eat it raw?”
The little goldfish suddenly began to struggle violently, with so much force that Li Yi nearly lost his grip on it.
“Don’t move, don’t move!”
In his panic, Li Yi choked the little goldfish tightly with both hands in order to prevent it from bouncing about.
The little goldfish just struggled harder until suddenly there was a “poof”, and white smoke billowed quickly from the little goldfish’s body, blocking Li Yi’s view.
When the white smoke dissipated and Li Yu saw the little goldfish, he was instantly stunned.
“This… this… this…” Li Yi just repeated “this” for a good long while, unable to utter a complete sentence.
It was all because this phenomenon before his eyes was just too unbelievable…
…