Chapter 003 Creating an Account

The Legend of the Mage—No Pop-Ups

The eldest, Xu Fangfang, born in 1981, naturally became the “big brother” among the “Vajra Gourd Siblings” due to her early birth month. Outgoing and brash, she was quite a tomboy. From her school days, she was already skipping classes with troublemakers like Lin Jia, sneaking out to play arcade games, watch movies, go skating, play billiards, and dance—a rare and unconventional girl indeed.

Second in line was Lin Jia, born mid-year, who ended up as the leader of the remaining five siblings. Quick-witted and clever, he was the schemer and mastermind of the revolutionary little group, the “Vajra Gourd Siblings.” He would always push the bold Xu Fangfang forward as a shield, though he was known for his short temper and his frequent, absurd antics. On graduation day, after he removed all the valve cores from the teachers’ and students’ bicycles in the school parking lot and sold them for five cents apiece to the repairman at the school gate, venting three years’ worth of pent-up frustration, he earned the nickname “Madman Lin.” It was rumored that the funds for the Gourd Siblings’ oath of brotherhood came from this “dirty money.”

The third, Cheng Bibo, was wiry and sharp, nicknamed “Chatterbox,” a rather troublesome fellow whose madness was said to rival that of “Madman Lin.”

The fourth, Xu Hongbin, was a gaming fanatic. To raise money for internet cafés, he once “quit” breakfast for half a year, obsessed with anything related to games.

The other three, after leaving school, quickly went their separate ways. Although they remained in the same city, apart from important gatherings, they no longer mingled with these four wayward souls and are best left unmentioned for now.

Under the guidance of the gaming maniac Xu Hongbin, Lin Jia and Xu Fangfang finally managed to register accounts for a new online game called “Legend” on the official website. Clicking the small square icon etched with a traditional “Dragon” character on the computer screen, they entered the game’s only server, “Thunder,” and began creating their own characters.

Speaking of online games, this Korean game, originally named “Dragon” and rebranded as “Legend” by Shanda in China, wasn’t the first graphic-based online game Lin Jia and his friends had tried. From the days of “Ultima Online,” Xu Hongbin, the gaming guru, had always been at the forefront of gaming trends. Since childhood, his passion for all kinds of games had never waned, from the primitive 4-bit Tetris to the 8-bit NES, the 16-bit Sega, the 32-bit Sony, and Saturn consoles, right up to the Pentium era. With four years of PC gaming experience, he naturally became one of the earliest players of online graphical games.

After “Ultima Online”—the grandfather of online games—he made a name for himself in classics like “The King of Kings,” “Millennium,” and “Stone Age.” Though not a professional player forming or joining guilds for a living, he was a well-known figure in all the major gaming guilds.

“Legend” had just entered public beta at 8 o’clock that morning, and most internet cafes hadn’t even installed it yet. Having heard about the new game from friends in various guilds, Xu Hongbin invited Lin Jia and Xu Fangfang, fellow enthusiasts, to the Longtai Internet Café, farther from their homes, to try something new.

“Hurry up! I’m already level 10! I’m waiting for you in the beginner’s village! I’ll help you level up faster!” Xu Hongbin boasted, glancing at the other two still fussing over their character names. “It’s quick to get from level 1 to 7—just an hour or two. It’s just that there are so many people, it’s hard to find monsters! Otherwise, I wouldn’t be stuck at level 10 after playing since eight this morning! I think I can change outfits at the next level…”

The other two, less versed in gaming than Xu Hongbin, ignored his endless advice and busied themselves with choosing their professions and names.

“What the heck do these Warrior, Mage, and Taoist classes do?” Unlike Lin Jia and Xu Hongbin, Xu Fangfang, though fond of games, wasn’t exactly an expert. Confronted with the three classes, she was stumped. In this small city, standard Mandarin wasn’t widespread, and she usually spoke in a crisp local dialect. Lin Jia, not a native, had moved here with his parents from Wuhan—a mere two-hour drive away—and with his mixed accent from frequent trips home, his Mandarin was fairly standard.

The expression she used in dialect meant, “What do they do?” and the local speech was peppered with unique modal particles that outsiders found hard to decipher.

“Warrior fights up close with blades, Mage attacks from a distance with spells, Taoist is like a Warrior but can heal themselves... I picked Warrior. Why don’t you each pick a different class? That way we’ll have a full party and benefit from it later!” Xu Hongbin explained, multitasking as he battled monsters to level up.

Xu Fangfang, evidently taken with the Taoist girl’s snowy white outfit, chose the female Taoist without hesitation and used her QQ handle, “Mist and Grace,” as her in-game ID.

Lin Jia had always preferred Mages, disliking standing around hacking at things and enjoying long-range sneak attacks instead. He created a Mage, using his QQ handle “Mad Lin Jia,” but, only familiar with pinyin input, he typed it in one go and hit confirm—resulting in his character being named “Mad Ling Jia,” with a character swapped in the process.

Leaning over to check whether Lin Jia was done, Xu Fangfang glanced at his Mage, standing in a stone-framed window on the screen, and scoffed at the fireball-wielding show-off: “Hey, your character is ugly! Dressed like a beggar! So is his! Like a giant green toad! Hurry up! I’m going in!” Her brothers nearly fell off their chairs in exasperation. Did she really pick her class solely based on the costume?

“Mad Ling Jia?” Lin Jia muttered to himself a couple of times, but, eager to dive into the game, abandoned the idea of deleting and recreating his character and hurriedly entered the world.