Chapter 400: The Wonderful Use of Soaring Dragon Cloud-Stealing Hand
Cheng Tian, unaware of where his legendary status and high charisma were once again making an impact, was leading his team on a random shopping spree through a bustling commercial street.
Although The King of Fighters '97 was released in '97, corresponding to the real world, perhaps due to nostalgia for the bubble economy era, the area around the main venue of The King of Fighters '97 still maintained the prosperity of the bubble economy's peak.
The organizers were very generous, stating that all regular expenses for seeded teams during the competition would be reimbursed by the organizers; they only needed to get a "receipt" when making purchases.
However, the prerequisite was that only the sixteen teams that entered the main competition would receive such preferential treatment.
With many girls in the team, combined with a bustling commercial district, it was inevitable to enter a shopping frenzy. After all, three days could be spent with constant mental tension, or three days could be spent eating, drinking, and having fun at public expense. It was better to relax, do what they wanted, and not worry.
Besides, Cheng Tian's humanoid radar was not to be underestimated.
While Cheng Tian's Dominator couldn't achieve the precise strength assessment of Ki Perception, it could easily distinguish between ordinary people and strong individuals. Trying to ambush him would be more reliable by looking for a dog or a bird than a human.
Indeed, while shopping, Cheng Tian had already noticed the same humanoid silhouettes lingering around multiple times, likely preliminary teams monitoring and looking for opportunities.
Moreover, there was currently a crucial point: Cheng Tian had not yet discovered any other players.
The dungeon entry stated that this mission involved player vs. player elements, and even offered two broad factions to choose from. This meant that besides his team, which received an invitation, an unknown number of other players were likely in the preliminary group, responsible for snatching items.
The King of Fighters was a relatively popular fighting dungeon in Heaven's Chosen Space, and its main quests were mostly tournament-based. As long as players didn't obsess over rankings, they could generally return to the Space successfully, so there was a good amount of related information. However, this time, with the MUGEN entry, the number of invading teams was as numerous as in the original work, and even the tournament format expanded from 8 to 16 teams, doubling the count. This severely tested players' knowledge.
He wondered if they could accurately identify him as a fellow player.
"Ah, sorry."
Suddenly, Cheng Tian bumped shoulders with the person in front of him. The other person was a typical Tokyo Japanese salaryman, dressed in a suit, walking in a hurry, and after the collision, he merely turned slightly, waved a hand, and quickly left.
But as soon as he walked two steps, a strong gust of wind came from behind.
Almost instinctively, the indifferent salaryman crouched, narrowly dodging a punch from an orange-gold fist.
"Give it back, the item."
Turning around, Cheng Tian looked at the salaryman with a half-smile.
"I don't know what you're talking about~~"
Though he said this, the salaryman, while maintaining eye contact with Cheng Tian, retreated nimbly and quickly, precisely dodging one pedestrian after another.
"Then I'll take you down."
Cheng Tian stopped talking nonsense. He formed a sword-finger with his right hand, lifted it upwards, and with a whoosh, an almost transparent regular hexahedron materialized out of thin air, directly blocking the salaryman's retreat path.
And as the salaryman, caught off guard, crashed into it, World had already accelerated and charged forward.
But just as World's fist was about to embed itself into the opponent's face, the opponent vanished into thin air. In Cheng Tian's humanoid radar, the opponent appeared at a distance of 15 meters, then actually threw a smoke bomb directly onto the ground, instantly disappearing from Cheng Tian's sight.
"Theft skill plus Blink skill plus Invisibility skill. Looks like a scout specialist player."
Cheng Tian, noticing that the invitation in his arms had disappeared, still clearly saw the invisible salaryman's body outline reflected in his Dominator radar.
"Tsk! Quick reaction! But I'm still one step ahead!"
The salaryman player, "Ren Xiaoyao," who had entered an invisible state by means of a smoke bomb, had already used a corner to break line of sight and slipped into a pitch-black alley. In his hand was precisely the invitation that had originally been in Cheng Tian's arms.
Soaring Dragon Cloud-Stealing Hand, B-rank skill Lv4, skill blueprint from "Legend of Sword and Fairy," can randomly steal items and valuables from players or NPCs with high probability, including equipment slots and item slots. You can only use Soaring Dragon Cloud-Stealing Hand when facing the target. When the skill is successfully cast, the stolen item will temporarily gain a "Guaranteed Drop" effect. When you are killed or fail the mission and withdraw from the dungeon, the item will inevitably drop; you can currently only steal 1 item from the same target; the Lv4 additional effect is that you can precisely steal a specific item from a player that you already know, and it will be 100% effective on the first theft.
Among many theft-type skills, the Soaring Dragon Cloud-Stealing Hand from the world of "Legend of Sword and Fairy" had a T0-level theft probability, but its greatest limitation was the condition that it had to be performed face-to-face, making the skill's execution very dangerous.
Not only that, but the act of theft would inevitably cause a very drastic fluctuation in personal reputation, even leading to factional shifts.
But with Ren Xiaoyao's good luck, he acquired two other skills that perfectly complemented it.
One was the Anti-Mage's Blink skill from the "Dota" dungeon, and the other was the Dwarf Ranger's Smoke Bomb Invisibility skill from "Warhammer: Vermintide 2."
Steal face-to-face, blink away, smoke bomb for invisibility, and escape.
It was perfect, rarely failing. Even if it did fail, it was mostly when facing powerful BOSS units.
Successful theft would not be counted in regular drops, so Ren Xiaoyao's dungeon gains were always slightly higher than other players. The only thing limiting his income was his meager item slots.
In fact, to put it plainly, the skill usage restrictions in this competition were not as strict as imagined. Soaring Dragon Cloud-Stealing Hand was recognized as a physical ability, Blink as a superpower. As for the smoke bomb, while a bit subtle, given that stuffing gunpowder into a stick was acceptable in The King of Fighters, and many MUGEN fighters had far more outrageous abilities, the invisibility judgment was also passed.
Of course, it was useless in the face of Cheng Tian and the organizers' rules.
Ren Xiaoyao's self-proclaimed seamless theft had already been exposed by the television station. To be precise, from the moment the invitation changed hands, the channel name switched to Ren Xiaoyao's wild team, and the live broadcast footage arrived as scheduled.
In the alley, with Blink on cooldown, the smile on Ren Xiaoyao's face didn't last for more than a few seconds before World's large hand, rushing from the side, pressed him directly against the wall.
"Meow meow meow? What are you doing, meow?"
Just then, Cheng Tian, who was in sync with World, suddenly heard a peculiar tone.
He instinctively searched left and right but saw no one. When he looked down again, he saw a bipedal, curious-looking… cat staring at him?