Starting from Zero

I did not know that the lava cave had actually produced 8 different tunnels, and the lava was flowing through the 8 additional tunnels into their respective directions. I followed the river of lava further into the tunnel, in terms of physical damage, the powerful lava current was almost on par with the landslide, and I had no way to stop, and could only flow along with the lava.

After riding the lava for a period of time, I finally arrived at the end of the tunnel. It was not a huge cave and it was quickly filled with lava, but the churning lava was unwilling to stop as so and continued to assault various points of the rock walls with the intent of finding drainage openings. Very quickly, flaws started to appear on the ceiling of the cave and as the influx of lava grew more and more, the force gradually increased, and the cracks on the ceilings gradually grew larger.

Finally, the ceiling was not able to withstand the assault of the lava, the mountain started to tremble and shake intensely as the entire ceiling collapsed, but it did not stop there. The lava flow that had grown much faster continued through the ceiling to the surface. The high-pressure lava quickly found even more drainage passageways and excitedly surged out. I was forced out from one of the cave entrance, the intense pressure had produced an unimaginable power that pushed me out of the surface at an astonishing speed.

The pressure around suddenly decreased, I sensed that I had left the cave as the inertia of the flood pushed me up a few hundred meters into the air before there I gradually lost speed.

Japan, Black Dragon Force Base of Operations, Hira City* -

After reviving, Masayoshi Matsumoto headed over to the Guild Hall and sat down in anger.

"A bunch of trash, all of you were once again toyed with by that damn Chinese! Trash!" Seated with Masayoshi Matsumoto were the other heads of the various guilds and organizations that had formed an alliance.

One of the Ninja argued in defense: "You can\'t blame us, that Dragon was level 1000! Or were you expecting us to be able to kill Dragons?"

Another Warrior spoke up: "It is impossible for us to win against a Full Adult Dragon, didn\'t you die in an instant as well?"

"What are you trying to say?" Tanaka Shota stood up and pointed at the Warrior. "We are not Tanky Classes, it should be you Warriors, to hold the front and tank the damage for us!"

"But you have to factor in what we are up against! That was a Dragon! How do you expect us to tank that sort of damage? One tail of his was enough to sweep everyone into the sky, we are of completely different levels!"

"Alright, stop arguing, we are already in this state, there\'s no point pushing the blame!" Masayoshi Matsumoto immediately put a stop to the argument that was escalating.

Right when he was about to speak up, the ground started to tremble, causing the teacups at the center of the table to vibrate towards the edges.

CRASH!

The teacups dropped and smashed to the ground. Everyone stood up, although earthquakes were common in Japan, in the Game World of [Zero], Japan did not have earthquakes.

Masayoshi Matsumoto was the first to bolt out of the hall, the Black Dragon Force\'s conference hall was as tall as a Roman Palace hall, and at the entrance, Masayoshi Matsumoto had a clear panoramic view of the city, allowing him to check on the situation. The tremors of the ground grew more powerful, preventing them to stand properly. All of a sudden, the Tower of Truth in the distance started to tilt to one side. The holes on the Tower of Truth that I had destroyed after the last battle had not been completely restored and the incomplete Tower was unable to withstand the tremors. A few seconds later, the Tower of Truth lost its center of gravity and started to fall. The Tower twisted down towards the ground like a whip, causing all the Japanese Players below to panic to the point that they forgot to dodge.

After the fall of the Tower of Truth, the conference hall behind Masayoshi Matsumoto began to show signs of destruction, cracks quietly crawled their way up the stone pillars of the hall which extended to the ceilings.

BANG!

The ceiling collapsed amidst the smoke and dust from the explosion, even the Japanese Warrior Statue at the entrance of the hall had fallen and crumbled into pieces.

Masayoshi Matsumoto was so flustered and exasperated that he howled out loud: "What is going on? Who did this? I want to kill his family!"

Before Masayoshi Matsumoto could finish his sentence, a tall building in the city - the Resurrection Palace, collapsed with a loud bang. All the structures inside Hira City started to fall one after another, even the City walls were crumbling and chunks of it fell into the moat that surrounded the City. A low rumble suddenly occurred in the center of the city as the land that was roughly the size of Tiananmen Square (44 Hectares) rose in elevation, pulling the surrounding land around as well, flinging all the dilapidated buildings and people who were unable to run away in time into the air, followed by the scarlet red lava that sprinkled all around like a fountain.

The lava that spewed out caught up with the debris all over and increased their momentum while the main pillar of lava shooting into the sky reached a peak of 800 meters tall before turning into countless igneous rocks and fell in all directions. The dropping igneous rocks might be cooled down by the air, but it was just the outer shells that had turned into igneous rocks that were as tough as stones. The lava inside, on the other hand, continued to churn in liquid form. All of these \'Super\' fireballs smashed into the ground and rolled across the ruins filled with dilapidated houses, opening a trail of flames, and after colliding with the tall structures that had not fallen, the fireballs would explode into countless of pieces, scattering the lava from within all over.

It looked as though the entire Hira City was suffering from the baptism of a large scale meteor disaster, the entire City was burning, even the buildings that had survived through the earthquakes were not able to last as they were helplessly burnt into pieces from the great flames.

The eruption lasted for less than 10 minutes, but the entire Hira City had completely turned into ruins. The originally neat streets and houses no longer existed, replaced with smoke and ruins, the grey Amidst the gloomy rubble were the cooling lava that formed terrifying streaks of lines throughout the City. Within some of the rubble were survivors that were injured and screaming at the top of their lungs with endless white lights shining, representing that there were many Players dying, and the death count was still rising!

Masayoshi Matsumoto was completely dumbstruck, he stared at the City with his lifeless eyes that he had painstakingly established being burnt into ruins in less than 10 minutes. If not for the Black Dragon Force having other bases and thus not disbanded, Masayoshi Matsumoto would most likely have suicidal thoughts!

In reality, not all of the magma beneath the volcano had flowed towards Hira City, there were 8 different tunnels where the lava had flowed through. Aside from the one that had destroyed Hira City, there were others that found places to surge out of the surface.

Within them, 5 other tunnels found cracks in the grounds outside the City, and although they did not explode within the City, many Players training near the City were all burnt to death.

2 other lava tunnels flowed further away, one of which surged to a place called Saiping Harbor City and flowed out onto the surface. This port was not as huge as Hira City and was completely wiped out within 8 minutes, the lava had turned the entire place into a land of igneous rocks while the lava cooled by the seawater and had cast a black rock cliff. It was impossible for them to rebuild a Harbor City there in the future!

The last lava flow ran the furthest, and only found its goal an hour after Hira City and the Harbor City had met their demise - Heavenly Sovereign City, this small City was Kyoei Organisation\'s base of operations. The lava spewed out from beneath Keigo Shrine which was dead center in the City, elevating the entire land that Keigo Shrine was built on 450 meters up into the sky, after which it all crumbled down into billions of pieces that scattered through the entire City, all of those Idiots at Kyoei Organisation had to flee from their own ancestors\' memorial tablets that were smashing down onto them.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Back to me. I followed the lava and shot up from beneath Heavenly Sovereign City, and after flipping for a few times in midair, I quickly stabilized myself. I expanded my Dark Dragon Wings and flew out of the Lava\'s AOE, and quickly landed on the ground. All around me were Japs running away in panic, no one paid attention to me at all.

Upon landing, I noticed something that had dropped along with me and took it with ease.

A memorial tablet?

On this long plate was a portrait of a Jap, although I did not know who he was, but he was dressed in what seemed like the military uniform that the Japs wore when they invaded China in the 19th Century.

I looked up into the sky, a large build complex had unexpectedly been blown into the sky by the power of the lava. On one of the of the more intact memorial arch, the name Keigo Shrine could be seen.

Isn\'t that Kyoei Organisation\'s unique building, that Keigo Shrine? How did I got sent here?

While pondering about it, a rumble came out, the Keigo Shrine in the air had suddenly crumbled into countless of debris, and one of the rooms actually dropped many black dots. I guessed that the black dots were the memorial tablet like the one in my hand.

Fine, since you guys like to worship these war criminals, then I will help you guys worship them.

I switched on the Auto-Pickup function of the Bracelet Inventory and kept the memorial tablet inside it, then chose to pick up similar objects. What happened next was the memorial tablets falling from the sky swarmed at me like a swarm of bees and were absorbed into my Bracelet, although the lava had destroyed a few of them, 90% of the memorial tablets had landed in my hands.

When I saw the pile of memorial tablets inside the Bracelet, I broke out into an evil laugh.

When I return home, I will construct a "Keigo Toilet" for all of China Players to relieve themselves! Oh sh*t! The game doesn\'t seem to have the function for Players to relieve ourselves, but it doesn\'t matter, that doesn\'t mean I can\'t build a toilet! When I get back, I will build a magnificent and large toilet, then place all of the memorial tablets inside the manure as an offering, then I can collect entrance fees for people to view them! Otherwise, I can build a martyr monument and use these memorial tablets to pave the way that leads to the monument.

My actions with the memorial tablets were most probably spotted by everyone, as a group of people started running towards me. I quickly summoned the Phantom Knights and got them to bring me away. Because of the lava, the entire Heavenly Sovereign City was in complete chaos, which allowed us to throw off the pursuers quickly.

Once we were out of the City, it was my world. I stood on a hill in the distance and watched as the Heavenly Sovereign City burned into a city of ashes, it made me feel so accomplished!

"Boss? Where\'re you?" Felix had become impatient waiting for me, and private messaged to inquire about my status.

"I\'m outside of Kyoei Organisation\'s Heavenly Sovereign City, I\'ll let you watch the flaming scene!"

I opened the Video Chat and with my back facing the City, I acted like a News Reporter and explained: "We are coming live from Japan, at China\'s present time, Heavenly Sovereign City, Kyoei Organisation\'s headquarters has just met with a sudden volcanic eruption, the entrance of the lava seemed to have come from right below Keigo Shrine situated in the middle of the city, which resulted in the complete destruction of the Shrine. The citizens of the City have met with severe casualties and injuries, with the death toll increasing by the minute."

Listening to my report, Felix and Hope had their mouth wide opened into an \'O\' shape. "The two of you, stop doing crap there, quickly leave and wait for me at Shiromizu City, just let them know that I instructed the two of you to go."

"We left a long time ago!" Felix sensed that I had changed the topic, and immediately explained: "After you went down, Mt Fuji turned into a volcano and started erupting, the lava rushed down the side of the mountains, we were forced to leave!"

"That\'s perfect, then quickly move! I\'ll be there in a while!"

After closing the chat, I suddenly realized that my Stats Icon was flashing. Usually, the Stats Icon would only flash when the Player levels, Did I gain levels? I opened the Stats and took a look, I was actually already level 208.

Hold up, I didn\'t fight any mobs? How did I gain levels? That\'s right, I had killed Asmere after the reincarnation, and the EXP gained from him had been added to my new body. But something was still wrong! Killing higher leveled mobs or BOSSES do gave additional EXP, but for a Level 1 Player to kill a Level 1000 BOSS, the best EXP it would provide would be 3x EXP, and even if the EXP from killing Asmere was extremely high, 3x of it was still insufficient for me to jump from Level 1 to Level 208!

The ladder towards Level 200 is an extremely difficult level to climb! Unless….?

I quickly opened my Experience Bar and observed it carefully. As I had expected, my EXP was still increasing. Seems like the deaths of the Japs from the Volcanic Eruption was considered my kills! (Due to the fact that the other places were too far, the EXP from the deaths of the Japs there did not account to me, only the EXP from the deaths of the Japs in Heavenly Sovereign City, but at that time, I did not know that the Lava did not solely stop at one place.)

I sat pillion behind the Head of the Phantom Knights and sprinted towards the closest City. As we were in Japan, my Ring of Teleportation was unable to accurately pinpoint the coordinates, thus there was no way for me to use it. And because of the drop in levels, Night Shade could not be used as a mount, and I could only follow one of the Phantom Knights! I had to quickly find a place to grind levels, although my level had risen to over 200 because of the Volcano, the EXP was only given to me, kills by my Companions would provide a portion of EXP back to me, but my Companions could not take EXP from my kills, therefore although I was already Level 208, Night Shade and the rest were Level 20!

Luckily, the Phantom Knights were not slow and we rushed straight through the gates of a City. I had the thoughts to unsummon the Phantom Knights, but after taking into account my low level and the danger I would face without their protection, I could only let them lead me into the City. Fortunately, the Japanese people\'s nature of bullying the weak and running from the strong prevented them from finding trouble with me, the term \'taking a step back to attain new heights**\' could only be used in China, but in Japan, taking a step back would only allow them to take 10 steps forward, if you lowered yourself, the Japs would see themselves as your Grandfather, but if you acted slightly fiercer, they would become your grandsons! That was how the Phantom Knights were deterring them. 10 Horses lined into two files sprinting down the road, even when many of them were pushed off the streets, no one dared to say anything. As for those individuals who wanted to show off their strengths, they were stabbed by the Phantom Knights and hung on the signboard of the stores.

We rushed straight to the Teleport Station and used it to move to Shiromizu, where I found Felix, Hope, and Hiko standing right next to the station.

"Why are you guys here?"

Hiko was the first to speak up: "Your friends here said that you would be here, thus we came here to wait for you."

"Let\'s go, let\'s not stand here, we should find somewhere else to sit and talk!"

"Oh! Alright, please follow me!"

We followed Hiko and walked towards the room that we had talked in the previous time. Along the way, I never spoke about my drop in Levels, I did not wish to let other people know that I was currently weak. All my actions in Japan for the past few days were enough to scare the majority and deter them from taking revenge on me, but once they knew that I had dropped levels, they would definitely prevent me from running out of Japan!

When we arrived in the room, I briefly talked about my experience in obtaining the China National Treasure, of course, leaving my drop in levels part out. After that, Hiko and I discussed the arrangements for departure. "Have you assembled your people?"

"They are all ready."

"Then why didn\'t I see anyone on the way?"

"We informed them that we are leaving tomorrow afternoon, at the moment, everyone has logged out and are handling their requests for leave of absence, with their free time, they will be able to follow you from tomorrow till the following day!"

"That\'s fine. Then I\'ll log out too, I won\'t come on until tomorrow afternoon, wait for me to come online, then we will leave."

I turned to Felix: "Are you leaving?"

"I think I\'ll stay in Japan! If I return, we won\'t have a way to resist the Japs!"

"That\'s true! We will leave for now, since the Nation Wars Update will open in five to six months, I will PM you at that time!"

After bidding farewell to all of them, I went offline, my Level was too low and moving around outside was too dangerous, gaining Levels was a matter I could only consider back in China.

I regained consciousness outside. As usual, I floated inside the large Support Chamber, but there was a circle of people standing outside, with Mom and Dad as well. Dad picked up the handset: "You\'re finally out of the game? We were about to call you out!"

"What happened?"

The researcher by the side answered for my Dad: "Your recovery rate was much faster than what we had anticipated, you are already able to leave the Support Chamber already."

"I can get out now? That\'s great, after having liquid diet inside this place for so many days, I have already forgotten the taste of meat!"

"Alright, be prepared, we will drain the water, but because you\'ve been inside for too long, your muscles might be lacking strength, do your best to lean on the back support yourself."

"Alright!"

When the researcher saw that I was ready, he pressed the drainage button, allowing the liquid inside the Chamber to drop at a fast rate, allowing my legs touch the floor in the chamber. The sensation upon touching the ground felt extremely weird, it felt as though my legs were cramping up, I had no control over them, which resulted in me standing in an extremely strange posture. After the liquid had been completely cleared, the glass opened automatically while the researcher quickly entered and assisted me in pulling out all the various sized tubes.

When all the tubes were removed from my body, I was assisted out by the researcher while a wheelchair was quickly pushed over for me. I felt like a newborn infant with my difficult control over my arms and legs. With much difficulty, I finally sat down in the wheelchair, while my Dad pushed forward and personally pushed me out of the room.

I was sent to a resting room. Mom took out a set of clothes that she had prepared for me and helped me change, to find out that all the clothes had shrunk! The pants that Mom had prepared actually turned into a three-quarter pants as it only managed to cover until my calf. My shirt was the same, the originally well-fitted clothes had revealed my navel, while the sleeves had shortened by half!

"What happened?" I looked at the extremely small clothes. "Was it me, or did the clothes shrink?"

The researcher next to Dad spoke up: "Your reconstructed skeletal frame had most probably over-absorbed the nutrients, thus the elongation of your body, that is the reason why your muscles feel extremely tensed and for now, you are unable to control your body. But don\'t worry about this, your muscle tissues grow extremely fast, it will take two days tops for you to recover back to normal!"

"That\'s great! Who knows how tall I am now!" I was no longer a dwarf!

According to the researcher\'s words, I could not go out for the next few days and required recuperation. The transformation on the muscle tissues that the B13 have introduced was not over yet, and for the next few days, I was required to consume a large diet to nourish and match with the immense consumption from my body\'s extreme metabolism rate. Of course, it was not bad news for me, who would ever refuse overeating!

Of course, recuperating did not mean that I had to lie down and do nothing, I could return to the game. But I decided not to. After staying inside the chamber for so many days, I asked Mom to push me out for fresh air, the air pumped into the Chamber was mixed with a strange odor which had assailed my nose so much, it was unbearable! The feeling of leaving the underground base and being able to see the Sun that I had missed out on for so long, the feeling was too awesome!

After a casual roundabout, I was pushed back to the resting room where I talked to Mom for the entire day, where Rose joined in later. By the time they left, it was already night time. After enjoying a good night sleep, I finally realized that sleeping in a lying posture was the most comfortable thing in the world!

I was woken up by the researcher the next day morning, he had pushed a cart of good food to tempt me, of course, I finished everything up, I had no need to lose weight!

After sending the researcher away, I went onto the Forum with the desire to see the Japs\' reaction towards the Volcano, and what I saw truly shocked me. The front page\'s lead story of the International Forum\'s revealed that Japan had suffered from a rarely seen volcanic eruption, three cities were razed to the ground, 70k odd Players were burnt in the sea of flames, and two leveling spots had completely disappeared. On the same day, aside from Heavenly Sovereign City, even Hira City was completely destroyed! The picture of Hira City almost made me laugh out loud, the originally flourishing and bustling city now looked like the textbook pictures of Hiroshima that had been destroyed by the atomic bomb. The Japs finally received their retribution!

After the news, there was actually a message written by Masayoshi Matsumoto. He had opened a 1 million Crystal Piece reward for anyone who knows of my real location.

Hehe, truly an interesting person, you want to know my real location to kill me? You will only have a chance if you can employ Special Forces!

Behind the post were many other comments written by people of other Countries. Majority of them were from Asian countries flaming him, Japan\'s reputation was too terrible to the point of being comparable to the rats on the streets!

As I scrolled further, I saw a British user by the name Rezard who had left a comment stating that he wanted to compare as to who was eviler, he claimed that he had caused a great forest fire in the UK that had killed over 3000 people!

Seriously, there are all sorts of weird people all over the world!

I stayed on the forum all the way till midday, where the researched prepared yet another huge meal for me! After finishing the meal, it was already past 1 p.m (There were too many things to eat, I ate for 2 hours odd) when I quickly went online. When I appeared in the hall, there was a circle of people all around. Hiko, Hope and the five Captains of the Cherry Blossom Organisation had gathered. When I appeared, they were in the midst of a discussion, but when I appeared, they immediately kept quiet.

"Is everyone here?"

Hiko immediately ran over. "Everyone\'s here, we are just waiting for you. The Sisters are all very excited, and were already online waiting since a long time ago!"

"That\'s great, let us move out then!"

I rode on the Phantom Knight\'s horse with over a thousand girls following behind and I swear, the feeling was truly…..weird! We were not strolling around, and to reduce the danger, we were doing our best to prevent other people from noticing us, but it was a huge group of over a thousand people, not gaining attraction was easily said, not done!

Hiko already had the arrangements made. She followed me to locate the position of where the boat would be in the afternoon and we formulated three paths. Cherry Blossom Organisation had plenty of Elf Warriors who had servants as mounts. All of these horses followed me, while the other two groups moved towards their designated locations. Although it was still obvious, at least it was not like a thousand people flaunting off and moving together.

No one knew if it was because our two great enemies, the Black Dragon Force and the Kyoei Organisation had their cities burned down and were too busy or we were lucky, but everyone arrived at the designated meeting point on the beach. The beach had an area of shoal where there were plenty of Players grinding Levels. Cherry Blossom Organisation forcefully expelled them on the excuse of reserving the place, although there were more Players against the Cherry Blossom Organization, they were all of the different GUilds, of course, they did not dare to engage in an all-out battle against a large Guild themselves!

I brought Hope and the Leaders of Cherry Blossom Organisation as the advance party to scout and locate the motorboats that we had left behind (Don\'t ask me why the motorboats had not been refreshed away after so many days, the motorboats are considered boats, and there had never been an instance where constructed boats would be refreshed away after days of them being unused). Four motorboats got the 8 of us further out of the ocean, where Bi-Lin had stopped without any Flags. That was my request, this way, the Japs could not locate Bi-Lin that easily, seeing a flagless Ship, they would assume that it was other Jap Players.

As it was the first time for Hiko and the others on a motorboat, they were not used to it, thus I did not travel too quickly. When the people on board Bi-Lin located us, Bi-Lin slowly sailed over. By Bi-Lin\'s side, I got them to prepare a rope ladder and allowed the ladies to board first. It was their first time riding a motorboat, I did not dare to get them to jump into the water and enter Bi-Lin via the underwater entrance, it was a high-intensity movement that in their groggy states could not possibly perform, furthermore, they did not know where the door was!

We quickly boarded the boat, and Hawk who had not seen me for many days ran over to hug me. I quickly pushed him away.

"Wait, there are still many people behind, dispatch all the motorboats and follow me to pick them up!"

Bi-Lin was too big and the beach was too shallow, thus we could not get too close inland, and could only use the motorboats to transport the people. Luckily, we had sufficient motorboats and they were fast enough, allowing the transport to complete quickly. After receiving the last member on board Bi-Lin, Bi-Lin dexterously turned and left the beach. It was too dangerous staying at the Jap\'s side!

The members of Cherry Blossom Organisation had been arranged to the hold of the ship, leaving the Five Captains and Hiko. Anyone who saw Hiko\'s expression would truly understand what going wild with joy was, she was so happy she did not know what to do. Likewise, the other Five Captains were extremely happy, only Meigetsu Yuri had maintained herself, after all, she was much older.

All the old friends on board all asked about what I had been doing for the past few days, and of course, I had to share my glorious stories to them. When I told them about how I caused the Volcano eruption, all of them cheered in joy, that was when Zirai truly regretted not following me and had returned earlier.

I introduced Hiko and the other five to the rest when Hiko exclaimed emotionally: "So this the Chinese style of friendship?"

Everyone looked at her strangely: "What does Chinese style of friendship mean?"

"When Japanese friends meet, they are not as passionate, although everyone behaves extremely politely, in truth, their thoughts are completely opposite, all of those friends, rather than calling them friends, I think calling them cooperative partners is more appropriate! But all of you are different, I can sense the affections between all of you! It is truly too touching!"

All of us nodded in agreement, the Japanese people\'s formal etiquette was in fact known even more as being hypocritical and a sham.

"Oh! Right, Ziri, did something happen to you?" Hawk suddenly asked me.

"What do you mean?"

Hawk pointed to the Captain symbol on his shoulder. "Yesterday, the system suddenly informed me that the Captain\'s level was below level 50 and cannot continue holding the Captain position, thus the position of Captain was automatically transferred to me, the Deputy Captain. What happened to you? Aren\'t you level 400 plus? Why did the system suddenly say you that you aren\'t level 50?"

"I…." I was about to explain about my drop in levels when a cannonball suddenly exploded inside the water right beside us. A waterspout over 10 meters tall hot up, and the water sprinkled all over us!

"Enemies! To positions! Prepare for battle!" Hawk was familiar with command and had the strength to do so, he was truly more suited to be the Captain than me! I walked to the aft and looked at the fleet that had suddenly appeared in the waters.

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(*) This City was explained in chapter 128 Infiltration.

(**) The actual phrase is 忍一时风平浪静,退一步海阔天空, which roughly means \'a little something goes a long way, compromising allows both parties to attain new heights\'. But here, they only used the latter part, where Thunderstorm emphasized more on taking a step back (compromise) to point that the Japanese would push even further.