Chapter 1: Prologue: Your Luck is About to Explode

“Boss has a third of his HP left! MT, hold aggro! Hold aggro!”

“Hold your sister! Healers, heal! Heal! If you don’t heal now, we’re gonna wipe!”

“Heal my ass! Cooldowns! Didn’t we just top off the HP? Gone already!!!”

The weekly boss fight—a hundred-player raid that could only be attempted once a week—had devolved into chaos.

The boss, with a third of its HP remaining, switched attack patterns.

The front-line MTs, caught off guard, took heavy damage and had no choice but to fall back.

The DPS in the middle ranks, oblivious to the MTs’ plight, kept blasting away, causing the aggro to shift.

The healers in the back row panicked, staring helplessly at their healing spells still on cooldown.

The quicker ones slapped speed buffs on the mage DPS, hoping to kite the boss long enough for the MTs’ HP to recover.

At that moment, a healer in the back sighed.

‘What the hell? I thought I could slack off and take down the weekly boss. Guess so-called top 100 guilds on the server can’t be trusted after all.’

The weekly boss—only one attempt per week, literally.

Even a full wipe meant no retry, and failure came with penalties.

It was brutally difficult; usually, only well-coordinated large guilds could consistently clear it.

While ordinary players could join, the groups were often a mixed bag, and large guilds occasionally let in a few randoms to fill the roster.

But a hundred-player group made up entirely of ordinary players?

That was just asking to be slaughtered.

Take this weekly boss, for instance—the Flame-Head Demon of Death Valley, Carnathus.

As a high magic-damage boss, it required at least twenty heavy-armored knights with magic resistance shields to rotate tanking in the front.

Yet there were only twelve such knights, and four of them were using level 80 magic resistance shields.

Against a level 100 boss, those were practically useless.

Without proper rotation, the healers’ spells were stuck on cooldown.

This was exactly why only large guilds could reliably clear weekly bosses—good command was essential.

Weekly bosses typically had no time limit, so in theory, with enough MTs and healers, you could grind the boss down.

But that kind of endurance approach was rarely used except by the overly cautious; most teams hovered right at the critical threshold when challenging the boss.

So even a veteran like Yun Mo Tian Zhu, seeing a group claiming to be a top 100 server guild recruiting for a weekly boss raid, instinctively assumed they’d at least be near that threshold.

What she never expected was that this team was DPS-heavy.

Was the guild leader trying out some new strategy?

Whatever it was, it looked like a failure so far.

Things started off promising—the boss’s HP dropped fast.

But once it changed attack patterns and buffed itself, the balance shattered.

The rhythm broke.

DPS started dropping; people were pulling aggro.

Yun Mo sighed and opened her interface.

“Soul of Battle” had a multitude of classes.

At launch, you could only pick one, but to add variety and let players experience more roles, the game introduced subclasses in its first-anniversary update.

Anyone standing before a weekly boss had to be a veteran with at least two years of playtime.

Their subclasses would have some level of training, and they’d certainly have the corresponding gear.

But the game, aiming for realism, had a fairly accurate physics engine.

Every piece of equipment had a weight value, and the total weight greatly affected player performance.

So during weekly boss fights, few people brought gear for their subclasses; it was usually stored in their home’s warehouse.

Still, there were always exceptions.

Yun Mo’s main class was healer, but to avoid being completely helpless, she always kept a spear in her inventory when going out as a healer.

She swapped her healing staff for the spear.

She didn’t change her other equipment.

Compared to the flashy robes of other healers, her nun outfit looked simple, but that didn’t mean it was weak.

She wove through the chaotic crowd, spun the icy spear in her hand, and hurled it.

As the people around her stared as if she were crazy, she leaped into the air.

The spear struck squarely in the boss’s flaming right eye.

The ice element caused frost to bloom in the fire-type boss’s eye.

The critical hit from the elemental advantage shifted aggro.

Enraged, the boss pulled the spear from its eye and tossed it away.

Yun Mo caught it precisely, then followed up with a thrust that had a knockback effect.

The flame boss, struck, was pushed away from the main group.

There was a chance to regroup.

The healers’ cooldowns ended, and golden holy light bathed the MTs and the nearly dead mages.

But Yun Mo didn’t plan to retreat to the back.

She had to keep the boss busy.

She knew every move of this boss—what skills would trigger what reactions.

At that moment, someone seemed to realize what Yun Mo was doing.

She wasn’t using system-assisted skills to control the boss; she was using footwork—body movement technique.

Body movement players appeared every year, but “Soul of Battle” wasn’t a keyboard game.

It was a VRMMORPG where you entered a virtual world and controlled your own body in combat.

Among top-tier players, body movement specialists were extremely rare.

Controlling your own body to perform complex maneuvers required innate talent.

The players who noticed this didn’t understand why such a skilled body movement player would choose a healer class with no fancy moves.

But at least they understood one thing: with a body movement player in this weekly boss fight, they could basically just lie back and relax.

The biggest legend in “Soul of Battle” was about a body movement player who soloed a hundred-player weekly boss, spending over ten hours slowly grinding it down.

That person, of course, wasn’t Yun Mo.

She wasn’t that bored.

Though she did know that insanely boring person.

With her controlling the boss, its HP dropped fast.

Within minutes, the DPS team finished it off.

She hadn’t had to hold aggro for long, thanks to the DPS composition.

But she was still mentally exhausted.

So tired…

The game had no stamina bar, so her body didn’t feel fatigue.

But mental exhaustion was unavoidable.

Maintaining body movement required intense concentration; one wrong step and she, a squishy healer, could get killed by a boss’s glancing blow.

She stretched and looked at her clear rewards.

Her expression visibly fell.

Rewards were based on contribution—damage taken, damage dealt, healing done.

She had none of those.

Just basic gold coins and some common materials.

A wasted effort.

If not for the fear of failure penalties, who would bother with this?

Another day of failing to slack off.

After the rewards were distributed, she immediately chose to teleport back to the main city.

She had to escape before being swarmed.

A blue light enveloped her.

When it faded, the familiar, majestic Boseya Main City appeared before her.

She glanced around instinctively, then headed to the teleport hall.

Avoiding the portals to popular areas, she stopped at an obscure border-region portal.

Confirming the destination was correct, she stepped into the light.

A border town on the Soul of Battle continent, on the edge of player-populated areas.

Few came here except for specific quests.

She paid an NPC, and a carriage took her out of town to an even more remote village.

Just as she was about to head into the outskirts, several players in beginner gear surrounded her.

“Huh? No question mark? Shouldn’t there be a quest prompt? Is this a bug?”

“Didn’t they say this game’s been running for five years? How’s there still a bug like this? Maybe because it’s so remote?”

Yun Mo sighed and said flatly, “Look carefully. I’m a player, not an NPC.”

She pointed to the green icon above her head.

“Player icons are green. NPCs are white. Monsters are red. Got it?”

The newbies chuckled awkwardly and apologized repeatedly.

After giving them some quest guidance, she walked alone into the depths of the forest.

‘Maybe I should consider changing my look. This nun outfit might be too easily mistaken for an NPC.’

She passed through the dim forest, and the view opened up.

A lake.

Azure blue water, pale green grass, and a gentle breeze that calmed her heart.

Not far from the lake stood a lonely wooden cabin.

That was her home in this world.

Back when she was a newbie, she got lost in this forest during a quest.

When she saw this scenery and the dilapidated cabin, she decided to settle here.

After her renovations, the cabin had become quite cozy.

Few knew she lived here; most found it too remote and inconvenient.

She didn’t care about others’ opinions.

She stepped onto the grass and entered her beloved cabin.

Opening her warehouse, she checked the rare materials she’d accumulated.

Unfortunately, she’d gained almost nothing today, or she’d be one step closer to the equipment she coveted.

Ding!

Ding!

Ding!

The system flashed a red warning.

[Detected poor condition of player’s real body. Player must log out within ten minutes, or the system will force logout and ban play for twelve hours.]

Tch, how troublesome.

It was a full-dive game, after all.

The body’s sensations were isolated from consciousness; you couldn’t feel physical changes while inside the game.

People who played too long and forgot the time…

There were cases.

A year ago, someone died from overplaying, so the developers updated the hardware to monitor vital signs.

Any slight issue triggered a forced logout.

People complained, but it was for their own good, so no one said much.

Yun Mo closed the warehouse, lay down on her small bed in the room, glanced at the logout button, and finally pressed it.

…

The frail girl sat up in bed, removing the dive headset.

She touched her stomach.

Probably just hungry.

The digital clock showed 4:00 PM.

Time to start dinner.

In her small apartment, Xu Mo Mo opened the fridge, searching for edible ingredients.

Just two eggs and a pack of noodles.

She made a simple dinner, then sat at her computer.

She checked her novel’s click count, VIP chapter subscriptions, and this month’s income.

She sighed softly.

Opening a drawer that usually held instant coffee, she found it nearly empty.

So she grabbed her phone, threw on a jacket, and left the apartment.

She exhaled a puff of white steam and tightened her coat.

At the convenience store she frequented, she bought daily supplies.

As she stepped out, the biting wind hit her face, making her already pale face even paler.

The familiar clerk seemed afraid she’d be blown over any second.

She noticed something.

In the cold wind, a fortune-teller had set up a stall next to the convenience store.

He wasn’t there when she went in.

Xu Mo Mo planned to ignore him.

But as she passed, he suddenly spoke.

“Care for a fortune, friend?”

“No interest,” she replied coldly.

“Just trying to make a living out here. A fortune for you, miss?”

Xu Mo Mo said nothing.

She took a chocolate bar from her supplies, placed it on his bagua chart, and said, “No fortune.”

The fortune-teller adjusted his glasses, pocketed the chocolate bar, and said, “You seem kind-hearted. How about I tell your fortune for free?”

“…”

Fine, it’s free.

Better than having him pester me.

With that thought, she sat in the offered seat and asked, “How do you do it?”

The fortune-teller smiled.

“Just show me your palm.”

She extended her right hand.

Long fingers, but stiff from the cold.

The fortune-teller reached out and touched it.

His hand was softer than she expected.

She studied him—his head was wrapped up tight, the only visible part being his eyes behind sunglasses.

After a moment, he said, “Miss, congratulations. You’re about to hit the jackpot.”

“Heh, thanks.”

Xu Mo Mo gave a fake smile and withdrew her hand.

If not for her wasted day, she might have believed it.

By then, it was dark.

Snowflakes drifted in the air, and streetlights had long since turned on.

She waited at a crosswalk for a long time.

Finally, the light turned green.

No one else was around, so she walked straight across.

Then she heard a sharp honk.

She looked left.

A truck bearing the “Big Fortune” logo was barreling straight toward her.

My name is Xu Mo Mo.

I thought today was my unlucky day.

If not for being hit by a Big Fortune truck, I might have believed it.