Scourge Messenger

Chapter 163 Karma
The confusion that had been lingering in Yan Qing's mind for many days suddenly became clear.

When Yan Qing heard that Si Wuxie had left behind a legacy through the Fourth Transformation Secret Realm, he wondered if it was a bit too risky.

He could understand Si Wuxie's thoughts. If the inheritance was left outside, then any test would be meaningless. Other messengers could simply break through mountains and earth to seize the inheritance directly. Moreover, Si Wuxie was a renowned figure in the demonic path, and his enemies could probably stretch from the Shu Road Mountains all the way to Chang'an City.

In order to prevent his inheritance from being taken by his enemies, and in addition, since the secret realm is not affected by external natural disasters and man-made calamities, it is reasonable for Si Wuxie to choose the fourth-level secret realm as the place of inheritance.

But the problem is, how can Si Wuxie guarantee that his legacy won't be reset by the secret realm?

Once the secret realm is reset, everything inside will return to its original state. This characteristic gives the secret realm military town a near-inexhaustible supply of resources, but also ensures that any changes made to the secret realm can only take effect once. The strategy for conquering Xuanwu Lake Military Town, specifically Shichenxi, takes three hours, two of which are spent by engineers carrying out earthworks they've repeated hundreds of times.

The secret realm will reset as long as no one is there; this is an indisputable golden rule.

If Si Wuxie's legacy could have existed for nearly a hundred years, there can only be one explanation: the secret realm has never been reset, and there have always been people inside.

"This humble monk cannot deny your conjecture, Wolf Master Yao," Prajna said. "After all, no one has ever reached the deepest part of the Corpse Forest, so perhaps Si Wuxie really is waiting for us inside. However, we believe it is more likely that Si Wuxie left a spirit beast in the secret realm."

Spirit beast?

Yan Qing had no recollection of this term, but the pharmacist quickly cleared up his confusion: "It is indeed possible. After all, even Foundation Establishment Messengers have never been known to abstain from grains and consume the celestial mists. Moreover, Si Wuxie was active at the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period, on par with Emperor Taizu of Liang, Emperor Shenwu of Qi, and Emperor Taizu of Zhou. Even if he didn't die back then, he should be old and dead by now. But spirit beasts transformed from demons have no worries about lifespan or the hassle of eating, and can indeed remain in the secret realm for hundreds of years without changing."

"What kind of spirit beasts are you talking about?" the bunny girl asked.

"These are demons tamed by Foundation Establishment messengers using tokens," the Pharmacist explained. "Tokens from Foundation Establishment and above possess increasingly unpredictable powers, including the ability to alter the minds of demons and make them obey the messenger. All demons transformed in this way are called spirit beasts."

"However, most spirit beasts are at the third level, and there are very few fourth-level spirit beasts. It is said that there is a fourth-level spirit beast in the Qi Kingdom that was passed down by the Divine Martial Emperor, but I don't know if it's true or not."

Of course, only a third-tier spirit beast could be dominated for so long!
Yan Qing understood immediately; this was the 'confuse' or 'dominate' effect, which could temporarily convert enemies into neutral units or allies during battle.

These effects are all time-limited, except for those that allow you to easily defeat weaker opponents. To show that leveling up in the game isn't like "level 1 fighting a crayfish and level 99 fighting a kingly shrimp," the developers are preparing more and stronger mechanisms for advanced players, while also ensuring that these mechanisms provide almost abnormal boosts when high-level players defeat low-level players.

For example, Foundation Establishment Messengers have an exaggeratedly strong combat power suppression against those below the third job advancement. For instance, some powers that have a probability of triggering become 100% triggering, and effects with time limits become infinite duration. All skills with numerical ranges are guaranteed to be pushed to their extreme values.

The key isn't the numbers, but the mechanics. After all, what's the point of dealing 99999 damage in one hit? But if you can send a monster flying more than ten meters away and embed it in a wall with a simple push, and then casually use a slowing debuff skill, you can make the boss act like it's afraid of leaking shit and dare not move, that's what makes the player's leveling up worthwhile.

The more useless the ability, the more it is strengthened. The reason why the trend of experienced newbies leading newbies in "The Messenger" is so popular is because it is particularly interesting to lead newbies through low-level dungeons. Many people especially like this kind of "challenge to a higher level" and even discuss on forums how to "smash" low-level dungeons.

The 'Confusion' and 'Domination' effects are clearly the type that will be greatly strengthened. They are ineffective against elite monsters and bosses, and only work against regular monsters. What else can be called garbage? What player would be stumped by regular monsters? No wonder their duration has been strengthened to permanent.

When Yan Qing first heard about spirit beasts, he guessed that it might be the summon beast system. After all, the summon beasts in "The Messenger" were quite powerful, but you could only access them after you reached the Foundation Establishment stage. He didn't expect that what they were talking about was turning low-level demons into pet babies.

There's no pet-based strategy in "The Messenger" that involves capturing monsters as pets because there's an insurmountable problem: if you can defeat monsters, why would you need them as pets? If you were to capture monster cubs and raise them from a young age... then the summoner strategy would be the perfect superior alternative. Summoners are bound to tokens, can be summoned again after they die, and their appearance has been meticulously designed by the developers to be very cool and cute.

Yan Qing never expected that the pet system, which was almost non-existent in the game, would actually be created by the people of this world. Or rather, it was just a fun gameplay element in the game, but it had a different meaning in reality.

"It's not surprising that Foundation Establishment Messengers have spirit beasts. Many Foundation Establishment Messengers send spirit beasts to assist their families in attacking Third-Rank Secret Realms, which is equivalent to adding a Third-Rank combatant to the family," Bei You said. "It's just that most spirit beasts break free of control after the Foundation Establishment Messenger dies. I don't know how Si Wuxie keeps his spirit beasts so obedient."

"We'll find out once we get inside," Blood Prime said stiffly. "Even if Si Wuxie is still alive, so what? Since no fourth-rank demons have appeared in the secret realm, it means that what he left behind is at most third-rank. Third-rank spirit beasts or corpses will only turn into a lump of rotten flesh in my Blood Prime's hands."

"Wow, that's amazing!" Bunny Girl clapped her hands. "Then why don't you hurry up and break through the front hall, uncle? Are you unable to win?"

Blood Prime's face was grim. Demonic tokens were invincible against messengers, but they were ineffective against demons. It wouldn't have mattered in other secret realms, as Blood Prime was a top-tier third-rank cultivator after all. However, the demons in the Corpse Forest were all undead and corpses, which were perfect counters to his tokens.

The pharmacist looked past the six zombie demons and at the undead skull tower they guarded: "The difficulty in the front hall should be that skull tower, right?"

"That's right," Prajna nodded. "If there are just a lot of demons, it's not a big problem for us. We can just fight a little bit every day. Anyway, the secret realm won't reset, so we can slowly grind it out."

Yan Qing nodded repeatedly. Normally, it would be impossible to play like this because the distance of the demons' hatred in the secret realm is almost infinite. Once it is triggered, they will be chased to the ends of the earth. Unless they all leave the secret realm, they will never fight to the death. However, leaving the secret realm will reset the time, which means all the effort will be wasted.

But the situation is different in the Forest of Corpses, because there are unknown creatures inside that prevent the reset, so the strategy of attrition becomes a viable tactic. The messenger can simply go in, shoot an arrow, and jump out, then go in again and jump back in, since the demons won't rush out to beat you up...

"The Skull Tower won't attack, but as long as there are fewer than six zombie demons, it will start screaming in pain, and then new zombie demons will emerge from the ground," Prajna said. "If we don't deal with the Skull Tower, the demons in the front hall will be endless." The Medicine Master's eyes turned serious: "So, we need to find a way to kill the Skull Tower first, while it's surrounded by six third-tier demons?"

This is a test of the number of participants, Yan Qing thought to herself.

If a team of twenty third-tier messengers were formed, they could destroy the Skull Tower in one round of concentrated fire. The remaining zombies and demons would not be difficult to deal with, and they could even retreat to the gate and use the terrain to their advantage to slowly eliminate them.

But let alone the Shu Road Mountain, even the Central Plains Three Kingdoms would find it difficult to easily gather twenty third-tier players.

It's not that there aren't enough people, but rather that the cost-effectiveness is too low.

Even if all the rewards from the secret realm are divided equally, the benefits are far less than if a third-tier messenger leads a military town team to conquer the secret realm, because the military town can be filled with second-tier or even first-tier messengers, and the majority of the rewards go to the third-tier messenger himself.

In the game, you can easily find third-job players to team up with (actually, this is unlikely; it's more likely that fourth, fifth, or sixth-job players are helping newbies with guide quests, as there are very few low-level players), but in reality, first and second-job players can be used as consumables at will.

The fewer the number of people, the higher the output required from each individual. However...

"Didn't you try slowly wearing down the Skull Tower?" the Pharmacist asked curiously. "Although the distance is a bit far, with a little archery training, hitting the Skull Tower and retreating shouldn't be difficult, right?"

"I knew you'd think that way." Bei You pulled out a dart from his back waist; it appeared to be made of fine iron and not a token. "Prepare to retreat. I'll demonstrate for you."

Once everyone was ready, Bei You flicked his wrist, and the dart struck the skull tower, eliciting a mournful wail from it! The six zombie demons also looked over simultaneously, their eyes burning with intense ghostly flames, fueled by fierce resentment. They opened their mouths and let out a silent war roar!

The five immediately withdrew from the Corpse Forest Secret Realm. The Pharmacist remained completely focused throughout, gripping the Soul-Severing Spear tightly, clearly prepared for the three guardians' potential trouble. They escaped unscathed, though the overwhelming killing intent lingered behind them, leaving them with lingering fear even after their escape.

"See?" Blood Prime Minister mocked. "Do you still have the guts to go in again? If you're surrounded by these demons, you'll probably just use your Return Tokens to escape, won't you?"

The pharmacist ignored him and asked, "What is that golden light from the Skull Tower? Why is there a phantom lotus platform below it?"

The moment the dart struck the skull tower, a huge crack appeared in the middle of the tower, and a three-leaf lotus platform emerged from below. The Buddhist auspiciousness and the demonic energy of the skeleton were intertwined, creating an extremely eerie and malevolent scene.

"Who knows? But we all think it was Si Wuxie who cut it when he was setting up the inheritance," Prajna said with a wry smile. "As you can see, the Skull Tower was severely injured by the golden light, but for some reason, a lotus platform appeared to bless it and continuously repaired the Skull Tower."

"Moreover, if Buddhist relics are used to attack the skull pagoda, the lotus platform will continue to solidify, and the repair effect will increase accordingly. I was unaware of this before, which resulted in the lotus platform having an extra leaf forever. For this reason, I had to spend many years accumulating resources to obtain a rare three-turn long staff from the outside world to replace the Zen staff that had been with me for many years."

The Medicine Master then realized that Prajna was indeed holding a long staff, not the Zen staff he had seen that morning, and was certain that what Prajna had said was true.

No wonder no one has been able to breach the hall for so many years. A skull tower that continuously summons demons and can even self-repair is practically a trap, luring third-tier messengers to their deaths one after another. According to the Pharmacist's assessment, without a team of at least ten third-tier members, it would be difficult to quickly take down the skull tower.

As for the fourth level, it's even more impossible. If a Foundation Establishment messenger enters, the Skull Tower will immediately transform into a fourth level demon. Even if the Foundation Establishment messenger is powerful, it would probably take four or five Foundation Establishment messengers to break through the front hall.

Even the legacy of Si Wuxie wasn't enough for three or four Foundation Establishment Messengers.

No wonder they value their sister so much; the exceptionally powerful Storm Messenger is indeed the most likely candidate to break the deadlock.

The pharmacist pulled the bunny girl aside and asked, "Little sister, are you confident? If you think the risk is too great..."

"Big sister, do you know what karma is?" the bunny girl suddenly asked.

"What?" The pharmacist was taken aback. "Karma... isn't that a Buddhist term used to explain the cause and effect of all things? Is your family Buddhist, sister?"

"No, I just suddenly remembered my brother mentioning this word, and I thought it was quite interesting, so I just thought of it."

After making up an excuse, Yan Qing recalled what he had just seen. Besides the golden light and the lotus platform, he also saw two indicator bars appear on the Undying Skull Tower.

The monster's health bar was only at 70% of its maximum, probably what Si Wuxie had left. If a single hit could reduce this elite monster's health by more than half, which requires DPS detection, it could only be done by a Foundation Establishment Messenger.

The other was a long, blackish-gray strip that Yan Qing had never seen before, called 'Karma', and it had already been reduced by 36%!

(End of this chapter)