Immediately he landed in the room, he was in the process of activating his skill.
He threw what looked to be a cluster grenade in the middle of the room and ducked to the floor.
A lot of bullets came his way, but only a few managed to damage him before the smoke filled the building.
"Damnit, smoke class!"
While Bian was crouching, he shot at the first and second players, killing them in seconds, but the third player, who had kinetic armor, managed to find the window and escape while he was reloading.
Before the smoke lifted, Bian hastily fused everything he had so far.
The two metal plates became kinetic armor. The SMG was brought up to uncommon grade, and even the LMG and shotgun upgraded to an uncommon shotgun.
His fusions couldn't create something that did not exist in the game files. He felt at ease using the SMG, so he did not want to fuse it wantonly, as he couldn't control the outcomes of the fusion.
'Wait, what if I fuse the last common SMG with the uncommon shotgun.'
Bian knew if he fused two items of the same rank, the result would be an item of a higher rank. If one was of a lesser rank, though, it usually resulted in a stronger version of the higher-ranked one, but would not elevate it to a higher rank.
Here in this game, however, there were no stronger versions, only ranks. He reasoned the fusion would elevate it to a higher rank immediately.
"Sadly, the smoke is about to fade. I need to find smoke bombs or wait for my class skill to refresh before I can try again."
Bian looted the scattered crates and metal boxes. He got three assaults, two LMGs, one sniper, three grenades, seven metal plate armor, two assault materials, and one grenade material.
"Sadly, the default bag space is limited to ten spaces, including ammunition."
He picked up the ammo for SMG and shotguns alongside two metal plate armors. The materials and their correspondence were fused naturally before he put away two uncommon assaults and a molotov.
Before Bian could pick anything else, he heard footsteps at the door.
His body swerved as he dropped what he was doing and aimed his gun at the door. He heard the footsteps from behind him this time, and a gunshot went off behind the back of his head.
Bian got down on the floor lightning quick and looked behind him; however, the room was empty.
Nevertheless, he could still hear the footsteps coming for him.
"Sound disruptor class."
He didn't wait to find out. Bian jumped out the window, paraglided to a vertical zipline, and went to the top of another building.
He didn't stop there. He used a horizontal zip line to travel to the skyscraper where he had seen the sniper before.
Now the top of the building was on fire, and a green aura was visible.
"Pyro and medic classes. He's healing from the fire damage in real time, meaning the winner should be the more skilled."
His hand let go of the trolley, plummeting him to free fall, which he quickly adjusted to a paraglide into the observation deck.
"Most third parties prefer to kill steal, but since this qualifier depends on the last man standing and not most kills, I should just do a mop-up instead."
Bian checked what he had managed to gather and moved close to the steps that would take him to the helipad.
When the sounds of gunshots receded and a kill feed appeared, he ran up and saw a player looting the dead guy's crate.
"Asshole!"
Immediately, the player saw Bian, he cursed and ran towards the parapets, but how could Bian let him escape?
He ran after him while shooting. If he still had the basic uncommon SMG, the enemy might have escaped, but the uncommon type had less recoil, allowing him to finish him off.
Bian checked out both crates and had to admit they were quite loaded. He closed the door to the helipad, not to stop players but to alert him when someone approached.
"My class skill has recharged, let's see what I can get." Smoke spread out, shielding the helipad from any prying view.
...
"Get in or I'm leaving your ass!"
BigBear shouted at the player called Phantom.
Phantom left the box he was looting and entered the chopper, watching as a female biker walked out of the building.
He felt shivers as he saw her and yelled at BigBear to fly away faster.
"Damn it! Damn it all. How did she move like that? I couldn't hit her at all."
Phantom cursed like there was no tomorrow.
"Isn't it obvious? She must be a Viscount! There's no way a veteran like me would lose to another Baron." BigBear was fuming as he spoke.
"But even if she is a Viscount, isn't she supposed to have the same fitness as us? She was literally dodging bullets, damn it!"
Phantom was still quite shaken. He had been playing this game for some time now, but this was the first time he joined the tournament and the first time he met such a player.
BigBear just scoffed before he answered.
"What do you know? Let me tell you something, I once went to a Xenogeneic Space where everyone had the fitness of a commoner.
I offended a golden-haired there, thinking I could beat him because our fitness had been reduced to the same level."
"You offended a golden-haired!"
If before Phantom was just shaken, now his reality was collapsing. He brought up the game interface, preparing to quit.
A game was just a game, but offending a golden-haired saiyan was lifelong trouble, and those troubles were not usually long.
"Slow your horses. He defeated me using only one arm, and now I work for him. That was when I learnt that even at the same level, there are gaps that can't be breached."
Hearing that BigBear worked for the person now changed Phantom's opinion of him. He secretly started making plans on how to get closer to him after the game.
"Then should we just quit? After all, won't she be victorious in the end?"
No one wanted to play a game where they would lose.
"You're too narrow-minded. I only lost to the golden-haired saiyan because we had to fight using swords and hands. In here, we have more weapons to leverage."
BigBear said with an evil smile as he tilted the helicopter towards the metal crate that was falling out of the sky.
...
On planet Gumele, at the Tianxia no. 19 facility, a shuttle landed in a reserved space, and several people went forward to bow in front of that ship.
A saiyan whose body hair was gold like the sun walked out from the shuttle alongside a usual dark-haired secretary.
"Greeting, Mister Leek." Cicely joined the other receptionists as she bowed to Leek.
He spared her a glance for a moment before looking away and walking to the large blue light, which took him up to the main building.
After everyone had dispersed, the other receptionist poked Cicely and joked.
"Mister Leek was looking at you, Cicely. Why didn't you try to get close to him?"
Cicely just frowned as she said, "We are not on the same level. I don't want to be a gold digger."
"You're not a gold digger. His dad and your dad worked together before. You could totally use the chance to level up and have your own house."
Cicely didn't respond to her coworker anymore. Some things were better left unsaid.
Inside the building, the secretary whispered to Leek.
"Isn't that the daughter of that man?"
The female secretary waited for a confirming nod before she went on.
"He could have told her the importance of the ruins. Not even the Alphas know about it. We should silence her to prevent any mishaps."
Leek glared at the woman, causing her to shut up.
"The next time you talk about this, you will be the one who is silenced. If my father said there is no need, then there is no need.
Instead of focusing on that, we should be trying to find out why the ruins no longer open."
The two of them were led to the highest floor, where the secretary waited outside while Leek went in.
"Good day, President!"
He bowed down to the man behind the seat.
A man who looked to be in his forties was behind that seat. He held a cold gaze as if the world was beneath him.
"You still haven't advanced to Earl?"
The man said, but his gaze remained focused on the screen in front of him.
"Soon, Father, I will be an Earl before the end of the lunar month."
The room grew silent after Leek spoke.
"How many times have I told you to call me President in the office?"
The man's tone did not change, but a flash of red travelled through his body. Leek subconsciously took a step back out of fear.
"After wasting so many years living large and playing games, I wonder how you will advance so quickly."
When he was done speaking, he waved his hand as if he was shooing away a fly.
Leek bowed one more time and left the office with gritted teeth.