Sunraku, aiming to bring the ruins of Wethermon back to life, tackles a new dungeon in order to upgrade his friend Bilac into a full-fledged Ancient Craftsman! Teaming up with OiCazzo and Pencilgon once more, they plunge deep into the heart of SLF! Meanwhile, top players from across the game are swarming around Sunraku, looking for info on taking down a Unique Monster. Can the fledgling Wolf-Gang clan hold its own in a conference full of wily competitors?
As he tackles the "god-tier" game Shangri-La Frontier, Sunraku is thoroughly trashed by the powerful boss Lycaon. Even worse, now he's cursed and can't equip anything on his body or legs—but with Ellym, the vorpal bunny he recruited as part of a rare side quest, he's now storming his way through the game! He's doing so well, in fact, that his exploits are attracting the attention of certain very powerful players...but with the help of some old friends, Sunraku may just manage to live another day!
As Sunraku and Cazzo grind levels like crazy to prepare for taking on in-game "Colossus" Wezaemon the Tombguard, Pencilgon introduces them to Setsuna. She tells them about her and Wezaemon's regrets, and the vestiges of the game's age of Divinity...and after promising to help her, the party sets off to take down the boss! Can they be the first to defeat one of the Seven Colossi and achieve a feat nobody in Shangri-La Online's accomplished before?!
The battle against Wezaemon the Tombguard reaches its climax! As Sunraku taps all his equipment and breaks out everything he can, Wezaemon enters his third form, one that breaks him down even as it unleashes all of his powers as a Colossus! "As long as you cannot surpass my ultimate form, this body shall never perish..." The undefeated hero is about to give this party of explorers their toughest trial yet, as the myth ends and the legend begins!
After meeting up with three rival clans-Schwarz Vulf, SF-Zoo, and the Library-Sunraku is back in the crystal grotto in search of weapon materials when he encounters the all-powerful Golden Scorpion! Plus, now that Bilac?s a Master Craftsman, she can activate the Legacy Weapon he earned from Wethermon. What will Sunraku do with this long-anticipated windfall?
Making it through a gang of lethal player-killers, Sunraku prepares for a ten-battle gauntlet as part of the "Invitation from Lagonia" unique quest. Meanwhile, his friend (and fellow fan of awful games) Pencilgon approaches him with an offer: Help her defeat one of the Seven Colossi, a feat never achieved by anyone else in Shangri-La Frontier's thirty-million-strong player base! Now this band on the far outskirts of gaming fandom is about to carve their name into legend in the greatest RPG ever made!
Sunraku's found himself on a team taking on the world's best pro gamers at the GGC esports competition! Thanks to Towa (aka Pencilgon)'s remarkably violent exploits, the team's “stall for time” strategy seems to be paying off-but now Sylvia, the GOAT of the fighting-game scene, is taking the stage! As king of this realm, there isn't a pro who comes near her in ability…nobody except one person, that is! And in order to make that dream bout a reality, it's up to “NoFace” (Sunraku in cosplay) to take on this shooting star of pro gaming!
In 2001 the Chinese government announced that the precise location of Shangrila�a place that previously had existed only in fiction�had been identified in Zhongdian County, Yunnan. Since then, Sino-Tibetan borderlands in Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, and the Tibet Autonomous Region have been the sites of numerous state projects of tourism development and nature conservation, which have in turn attracted throngs of backpackers, environmentalists, and entrepreneurs who seek to experience, protect, and profit from the region�s landscapes. Mapping Shangrila advances a view of landscapes as media of governance, representation, and resistance, examining how they are reshaping cultural economies, political ecologies of resource use, subjectivities, and interethnic relations. Chapters illuminate topics such as the role of Han and Tibetan literary representations of border landscapes in the formation of ethnic identities; the remaking of Chinese national geographic imaginaries through tourism in the Yading Nature Reserve; the role of The Nature Conservancy and other transnational environmental organizations in struggles over culture and environmental governance; the way in which matsutake mushroom and caterpillar fungus commodity chains are reshaping montane landscapes; and contestations over the changing roles of mountain deities and their mediums as both interact with increasingly intensive nature conservation and state-sponsored capitalism.
Sunraku has emerged victorious against Lycaon the Nightslayer…or her shadow, anyway. Now he's teamed up with Rust and Mordo to take on another Unique Scenario-one that pits them against Ctarnidd of the Abyss. It's off to the high seas for our hero…or it would be, but OiCazzo's just sent him an invite to the real-life Global Games Convention! Between plumbing the depths of the ocean and taking on a professional esports team, Sunraku's summer just got a whole lot busier!
