Summary: Second Life gets another upgrade; Lan's a little bit happier with this one.

Swearing.

Set later in the manhua.

I have come to the conclusion that Lucathia Rykatu has a magical power where she can make plotbunnies grow out of nothing. XDD

Upgrade

By Dark Ice Dragon

Lan waited for Second Life to load, feeling exhausted, but satisfied. They'd swept the house thoroughly clean days before (she'd forgotten about all the places that dust could collect) and had a massivefeast before the New Year; she doubted she'd be able to eat anything for another couple of hours.

When Infinite City appeared in front of her, Lan stared. There had been another announcement before she'd logged on, wishing her a happy New Year and also informing her that a few changes had been done to Second Life. They hadn't said what.

Every single player Lan could see had had their gear dyed red – including herself, she realised when she glanced down.

She saw the rest of Odd Squad coming up towards her, their gear red as well. Just as Lan was opening her mouth, a thunderous roar echoed around them, loud enough to shake the ground. W-what? What was that?

Lan gaped when she saw something slither over and above the buildings. It was bigger than the castle! From her vantage point, Lan could see an almost dragon-like body and a mouth full of teeth.

"Is that the Nian?" Gui yelped in disbelief.

The Nian? She was old enough that it wouldn't eat her, right? Staring up at the mob, Lan could feel the adrenaline in her body racing through her, making her heart pound.

When the Nian roared again, Lan laughed. Fighting that would be so much fun! This was an awesome upgrade!

Nothing happened when Lan summoned her dao.

Lan stared at her hand blankly before the realisation hit her: you weren't supposed to use blades on New Year's.

Shiiiiit.

But then, how was she supposed to attack? Kick it to death?

Yulian was frowning, looking down at her staff. "I can't use my fire magic either."

So that left… Lan turned to Gui and Wolf, who glanced at each other, their eyes wide.

Wolf cleared his throat. "We are wearing red," he pointed out.

Which was supposed to scare the Nian away. "So, we run up to it." With pretty much no weapons or magic to back them up.

"While making lots of noise," Gui added, his voice nervous.

Lan ran a hand down her face. They really couldn't do much else anyway… Hopefully bashing her wrists together would be enough to do something other than making Nian laugh.

xOx

Several hours later, Lan flopped onto the grass, feeling like her limbs were never going to move again. Even without a weapon, Lan's attack power was still stronger than Gui's or Wolf's, and attacking it with a staff barely did any damage. The Nian really had died of a thousand hits.

{Nian dropped [Nian's reins]!}

That was nice. Lan didn't really care.

{Prince picked up [Nian's reins]!}

What? She hadn't – ooh, it was a boss drop.

A cheer went up around her.

"Our Lord is the best!"

"He got the drop!"

"They say it only drops once!"

"I want to see the mount!"

Right. As the fight had went on, more people had joined the fight. Lan hoped they didn't mind her lying down like she was, but she guessed they didn't, considering they weren't saying anything about it and were lying in similar positions anyway.

With a sigh, Lan heaved herself to her feet, opening her inventory. The reins were there and when she touched them, the Nian wavered into existence next to her.

There was a collective 'oooooh'.

"…You're smaller than I thought you'd be," Lan said.

Nian narrowed a glare at her. Up close, Lan could see every single hair that ran around their head, as well as the stubby horns that clustered around the top of Nian's snout. There were also the absurdly long claws at the end of their paws that were longer than her entire hand.

But how was she supposed to get on Nian? They were twice her height!

"I'm not bowing to you," Nian growled, his hair bristling.

Bow? Lan tilted her head at Nian. Oh - that was how she was supposed to get on him.

-'Prince,'- Lolidragon PM'd her, her voice dry, -'don't get on him yet – we don't want the City Lord's followers to see their 'perfect' City Lord gallop off in the wrong direction.'-

Haha… Right. (Was Nian going to listen to her anyway? It didn't seem like it.)

*Dies. Laughing*

The Nian is supposed to eat young children, which is why Lan's thinking about her age when she sees Nian. Using blades and lighting fires on New Year's Day are considered to be bad luck.

Aaaaaah, I wanna write more of Nian!

*sigh* ffdotnet strips the triangular brackets now. =/