Yin Xiu gave him a curt nod in response to the greeting, then looked towards his own front door.
There were many more things at the entrance of his house than when he left; boxes of all sizes were piled up at the doorway.
Yin Xiu glanced at the boxes. "Did you bring these?"
Ye Tianxuan shook his head, his smile full of teasing, "It was offered to you by other players in town."
"...What offerings? I'm not the Night Goddess." Yin Xiu was speechless, but he still opened the door and piled the clutter into the room.
Ye Tianxuan followed him into the room and sat down by the window with practiced ease. He made himself a cup of tea and watched Yin Xiu begin repairing the door while sipping it.
"After seeing your dungeon, the town's players have a much better impression of you." Ye Tianxuan sat at the table, propping his chin up, and rambled on. "I've been educating them for three years to get many players to stay away from you, but they all collapsed as soon as you entered the dungeon."
"Um."
"You have no idea how tiring it is to prevent players from doing stupid things. Veteran players tend to be arrogant and then rebellious, while new players are too clueless and prone to causing trouble. They can't avoid dying even when they live together, and they want to share a room with you, the most dangerous person in town. It's like taking a shortcut in life."
"The monsters in town can't kill you, so they all keep an eye on the people around you. If you're not careful, you'll die. They just don't understand."
"Um."
"Managing a town is still too difficult. All we do is go into dungeons to collect guides and then come out to teach players a lesson. The town environment is already so stable, but some people still inevitably court disaster." Ye Tianxuan's temper grew stronger as he complained, his furrowed brows completely contrary to his gentle demeanor. "Do you think they don't even read the rule sheets I have them hand out in town every day?"
"I just scolded a newbie who came here and asked him to mentor a newcomer. He readily agreed, but then he ruined the newcomer's career. I've lost another promising talent."
Yin Xiu knocked on the door with a cold expression, saying perfunctorily, "Hmm...you're right."
When Ye Tianxuan wasn't complaining, he was indeed gentle and kind, but he would become irritable when the topic of the town came up.
As the town's manager, he has perfected the operation of the town. Every newcomer grows up in a greenhouse, with rules and individual guidance, support from other players, and guidance from veteran players in dungeons. He has meticulously recorded all the strategies.
Compared to other towns, the town Ye Tianxuan cultivated has formed a completely new living environment with an extremely low mortality rate.
Newcomers to other towns enter without any rules or guidance on their first day, and most of them die on the first night. The rest survive entirely on luck and wit. It's survival of the fittest, and very few survive. That's why veteran players are particularly arrogant. They have the right to be arrogant, but they are also easily killed by that arrogance.
Ye Tianxuan's management of the town was completely the opposite.
Under his leadership, the first generation of players researched the rules, wrote down dungeon strategies, and passed them on to newcomers. After training the newcomers to become experts, this group of players would then guide the next group. Veteran players worked to educate and train new players, ensuring that newcomers could quickly adapt to the environment, understand the dangers of the dungeons, and reduce the death rate.
The dungeons are brutal, but this small town is indeed a refuge for newcomers in the midst of a snowstorm.
Ye Tianxuan's contribution was indispensable, and Yin Xiu was also being schemed against by him, thus adding to the town's achievements without anyone noticing.
He was the light of the town, while Yin Xiu was the darkness.
One person led the players, and another suppressed the monsters, which is why the town is now harmonious, reaching a level that other towns cannot achieve.
Ye Tianxuan is also the only person in town who can contact Yin Xiu without being targeted by monsters. He is special to both the town and the dungeon.
"Cough cough! I'm so angry!" Ye Tianxuan started coughing as he spoke, his already pale face turning even whiter. He hurriedly drank some water to calm his rapid breathing.
Yin Xiu stopped hammering nails and turned to look at him. "How have you been lately?"
"Let's keep it the same." Ye Tianxuan smiled calmly. "My life is nearing its end, but I won't die for now."
"Hmm." Yin Xiu nodded, then turned back to hammer nails.
His approach to clearing dungeons is ruthless; he relies on sheer strength to overpower everything, allowing him to easily conquer all the dungeons.
However, not everyone has such strength. Others always have to pay a price to smoothly pass the dungeon. Ye Tianxuan, in order to farm the town's strategy guide, frequently entered the dungeon and was able to come out unscathed, but the price he paid was burning his life.
But he didn't care, and no one could stop him.
Yin Xiu had grown accustomed to his increasingly frail health and was quite tolerant of him coming over to drink his precious tea.
"I've finished reading the last part of your dungeon. Your next dungeon is the prison dungeon you're forced to enter in three days, right?" After complaining about the trivial matters, Ye Tianxuan finally got to the point.
Yin Xiu glanced at the stamp on the back of his hand, a black prohibition symbol. He nodded. "I've never been to this instance before. I encountered a jailer after the instance ended, but the jailer before was different from this one. He would leave as soon as he saw me. I didn't even know there was such an instance."
"I've never killed any monsters in dungeons, so I'm even less likely to trigger this." Ye Tianxuan stared at Yin Xiu thoughtfully. "I want to gather some information about this special dungeon. Can you take me into the dungeon in three days?"
Yin Xiu thought about it and realized it didn't matter. Anyway, he didn't have a roommate right now. When the dungeon refreshed, he could just put Ye Tianxuan in the room and pull him in together.
Once inside the instance, the two, due to their different styles of doing things, went their separate ways without interfering with each other. Given their friendship, it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to act as each other's entrance ticket.
"It's possible… but are you sure you want to go?" Yin Xiu examined Ye Tianxuan's physical condition.
That was a high-risk instance, far more dangerous than ordinary instances. Given Ye Tianxuan's current precarious situation, there was a one in ten thousand chance he wouldn't make it out, which would be a huge loss for the town.
"I think I'm doing alright." Ye Tianxuan smiled and stroked the ring on his ring finger. "My goal is to complete all the dungeons. I can't do without this one, but I'm not really willing to kill a lot of monsters just for this one dungeon."
"Okay." Yin Xiu nodded, which was considered an agreement.
He could understand, after all, Ye Tianxuan was a kind-hearted person just like him.
The door was almost fixed, so it was time to fix the window. He picked up his toolbox and went to the window, shooing Ye Tianxuan to the side.
As Ye Tianxuan moved closer, he suddenly stared intently at the air next to Yin Xiu, "What's that next to you? Did you bring it back from the dungeon?"
Yin Xiu: ?
He turned to look at the spot next to him; there was nothing there, but he could clearly sense the presence of something.
"It's... a blurry, twisted black blob." Ye Tianxuan gestured, trying to describe it, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. "It has many tentacles surrounding you, encircling you, like it wants to touch you but doesn't. There are also eyes on the tentacles, constantly staring at you... this..."
He pondered, carefully analyzing the situation in his mind, "Is this your new pet?"