Scourge Messenger

Chapter 218 Team Ranking

Because it was really hard to tell which was better, Yan Qing didn't rush to choose the team skill right now.

Before transmigrating, one would have needed to consult the forum and rely on the amazing wisdom of netizens to carefully analyze the questions raised dozens of times. Yan Qing felt that she couldn't be too impulsive.

Putting everything else aside, if it were up to Yan Qing's own thinking, she would never choose Unyielding Will, as it offers no help in either offense or defense. Only a supernatural power or artifact with a self-destruct function could maximize the skill's potential. But reality isn't a game. Unyielding Will gives her a better chance of survival, and even if she never uses it, just one use is worth it, making it no worse than other skills.

He calmed down and continued to check the other functions of the Disaster Order. He found that the Disaster Order had very few functions. Pressing it hard would bring up a screen with a list of team members. Inside, you could perform four operations: "invite others to join the team", "dismiss team members", "manage team positions", and "view team skills". That was all.

He then realized a huge problem—he had just discovered he could create a team and immediately did so, but what if certain functions were only available to players? Creating a team isn't a one-time transaction; there are many more important gameplay elements to come!
He quickly clicked "Invite others to join the team", entered 'Jiang Shi', and a large number of people who could be invited popped up in the list. However, just by looking at their faces, Yan Qing could recognize Jiang Shi, whom he had created himself, and selected them to invite to join the team.

Then I turned on the game console and logged into my Jiang Shi account. Sure enough, a notification popped up in the lower right corner: "You have received an invitation message from 'Natural Disaster'."

After selecting to join, an icon named 'Team' immediately appears in the lower right corner of Jiang Shi's interface. Clicking on it reveals four sub-menus: 'Team Members', 'Team Skills', 'Team Tasks', and 'Team Ranking'.

Yan Qing breathed a sigh of relief; at least he could manage the team using a secondary account, and if necessary, he could transfer the team leader position to Jiang Shi. He first clicked on 'Team Tasks' and found that there were already two tasks, both of which were very simple:
[Recruiting three team members, reward: Team Experience +5]

[Upgrade a team skill by 1 level. Reward: Team Experience +5]

Both tasks are clearly reward-based beginner missions, easy to complete for anyone. Yan Qing isn't in a hurry, since he hasn't even chosen his team skills yet.

When Yan Qing opened the 'Team Ranking', even though she was mentally prepared, she couldn't help but be slightly taken aback when she saw the list on the screen.

He had considered many possibilities. For example, perhaps no one else in this world could obtain the guild creation token except him, so the team leaderboard was empty except for his newly created [Catastrophe]. Or perhaps there were already many powerful teams in this world. You have to know that the game "Messenger" has been running for less than ten years, while how many years has this world existed? Even the youngest team could spend tens, hundreds, or thousands of years leveling up. Yan Qing wouldn't be surprised if the leaderboard was full of max-level teams.

The only thing he hadn't expected was that almost everyone on the leaderboard was anonymous.

Yan Qing scrolled through the list and roughly estimated there were about forty teams on the leaderboard, surprisingly few. It seemed that people in this world could indeed obtain guild creation tokens from treasure chests, but the drop rate was abysmal. The vast majority of these teams were anonymous [???], their team level, member information, and skills all unknown. In this huge leaderboard, only two teams had names listed!

One is the [Natural Disaster] faction that Yan Qing just established and is ranked last, while the other is the team ranked first.

The Heavenly Court!
Level 10 guild, 5000 members, all full. Team introduction: Welcome everyone to join the Heavenly Court organization for exchange!
Well, your name and description don't quite match. When you created the team, you probably just randomly chose the first description and then realized there was nowhere to change it... But people in this world can't see the leaderboard, so it really doesn't matter whether you change it or not.

But why is it that only the [Heavenly Court] team's name is displayed, while all other teams are hidden? Yan Qing pondered for a moment, then took out the Natural Disaster Token to check the team management function, confirming his idea: the team token cannot remove team anonymity; this rarely used function can only be operated in the game.

In other words, if you choose not to disclose your team when you form it, then it will never be disclosed. Although disclosing your team grants you 1 team skill point, how could anyone in this world understand the importance of team skill points? Even Yan Qing wasn't entirely clear on this; he was simply in the habit of not missing out on any benefits.

In comparison, the message "Your team will be protected by privacy" is definitely more appealing to locals. Moreover, most organizations that start from scratch are relatively weak in their early stages, so they will naturally act cautiously. As a result, out of more than forty teams, only [Heavenly Court] chose to be public from the very beginning, while the others all chose to remain anonymous.

Although Yan Qing is not exactly well-informed, he has at least traveled through the Central Plains and the Three Kingdoms, and he has never heard of any team or gang organization.

Not only him, but even Shang Xinlei had no recollection of it. So where exactly did these forty-odd teams develop?
We can't just rely on friends and family and never hire from outside, can we?
'It seems the world is quite complex,' Yan Qing mused. 'Staying put up with the ways of thieves was definitely a wise choice.'

Now that he knew the location of the third mission was the Chang'an Military Prefecture, Yan Qing considered whether to create a new account to scout ahead, but after a little thought, he gave up on the idea.

Firstly, the Chang'an Military Government is heavily guarded, and the mission location is a secret realm at the core of the military government. The alt account can only explore from the outside, which is less effective than directly observing the sand table. Secondly, unless Yan Qing is determined to give up the power of natural disasters, he cannot waste the alt account's life. He must at least delete the account himself.

Most importantly, Yan Qing knew that Yao Shiyuan, this local bigwig, would definitely find out the most detailed information, so there was no need for him to waste his energy.

Thinking of this, Yan Qing logged into the Bunny Girl's account. It was still pitch black. Although the sandbox showed her surroundings to be the devastating forging factory, she couldn't see or hear anything on screen. This was all because of the "dormant" status on her health bar. While *The Messenger* is a third-person game, it exhibits some first-person characteristics in certain effects. For example, being hit by a flash will cause the entire screen to light up, being hit by a stun will freeze the screen as if the game has crashed, being hit by a chaos will cause the screen to be upside down and inverted, and being hit by a slow will cause a 0.5-second input delay… One of the skills PVP players must master is how to operate normally while enduring these negative statuses, because PVP players have two development paths: either pursuing strength, or pursuing cunning, or pursuing both strength and cunning.

This system offers no player intervention whatsoever, only a few status effects such as "Hibernation" and "Coma," and these effects last for a much shorter time than other negative status effects, making it difficult to be affected within the same cultivation level. A prolonged hibernation, like that of the Bunny Girl, is something only a Foundation Establishment cultivator could achieve when fighting a mortal.

In fact, upon seeing the Bunny Girl bound by the golden lock in the sand table, Yan Qing had already given up on the idea of ​​rescuing her. She was completely unable to save herself; only someone else could go in and destroy the golden lock to have any chance of escaping, but going in would require crossing the molten lava river... the risk was simply too great.

Besides, the Chang'an Military Government is outside; where could she possibly run to?

In truth, Yan Qing felt quite regretful. The Rabbit Girl's Killing Messenger combat power was at the peak of the third stage. Although it was not very useful for conquering the secret realm, it was indeed the high-end combat power that Yan Qing needed most right now. If he could take her out, Yan Qing would definitely be willing to help... After all, by the time he or the Pharmacist were willing to establish their foundation, the Rabbit Girl's combat power would no longer be of any use to him.

That's why Yan Qing set the next meeting for tomorrow morning. With a day and a half to buffer, Yao Shiyuan should be able to calm down by now. Compared to saving the bunny girl, what she should be doing now is leveling up and planning for the Foundation Establishment Pill. Once she has the strength, everything will fall into place naturally. Why rush things? Yan Qing can understand her feelings, but she doesn't understand her stubbornness.

It was almost time, and Yan Qing prepared to switch to the Rat Monk account to farm the secret realm. Before logging out, he suddenly remembered something and opened the Bunny Girl's personal inventory.

Three days ago, he only moved Bunny Girl's important items to the public warehouse, but there were still some miscellaneous items in the personal warehouse. Yan Qing now plans to clean it up completely, since he will most likely not use this account in the future.

First came a lot of candied hawthorns, roast chicken, and wine. Since these foods could be stacked, Yan Qing simply bought a huge pile and stored it in the bunny girl's warehouse. Actually, it was mainly for feeding the pharmacist Yuan. Once, the pharmacist Yuan discovered that the bunny girl was staring at the candied hawthorns without blinking, and when offered some, she would refuse, unless the bunny girl ate one skewer at a time... This woman is actually quite troublesome, and she also loves to drink.

Then there were four hair ribbons. They all felt that simply tying their hair into braids was too plain and not lively enough, so they made four hair ribbons from some fabric to use as decorations, which they usually kept with the bunny girl.

Further on, there was a small booklet that Yan Qing had no recollection of. He didn't know when he had received it, but it was most likely something that the bunny girl had taken in during her automatic transformation.

The booklet had no title, but upon opening it, I discovered it was a travel guide.
"Bashui County has delicious glutinous rice cakes. It's very comfortable to lie under the willow trees on the riverbank on a nice afternoon."

"The Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Chang'an County is very beautiful. The streets outside are lively with food and performances. You definitely shouldn't miss it when you pass by."

"The sunset at Mount Li is beautiful, but you might encounter wild animals if you camp at the foot of the mountain."

Inside, a list of over a dozen attractions and restaurants was presented—clearly a travel guide for the Zhou Kingdom. As Yan Qing read on, she realized that the Pharmacist probably thought she would part ways with the Bunny Girl in the future, so she wrote a guide in advance to tell her where to go. Yan Qing had thought she would keep pestering the Bunny Girl and not let her leave.

Turn to the back, and it says, "If you don't know how to get there, look at the map I've given you."

Yan Qing opened the warehouse and found an item called "Folded Paper". He extracted it into reality and opened it. Inside was a detailed topographical map of the Zhou Kingdom, which even depicted the roads and major cities. The way it was drawn was more like a military map than a tourist map.

There is a line of small print in the bottom right corner of the map: "If you can't understand the map, please turn to the back."

Yan Qing flipped to the back and found only one sentence:

Come with me.

Who would have thought that the seemingly carefree Pharmacist Yuan would use such a sophisticated and skillful approach to luring younger girls? With each move, she kept saying "Don't go!" "Don't go!" and "Don't go!" What little girl in the world could resist such an older sister's offensive?
Yan Qing finally understood the pharmacist's persistence... If you care about someone, you will want them to be happy every day.

Perhaps a day and a half isn't enough time for her to calm down.

Yan Qing rubbed his temples and looked down at the Calamity Token in his hand.

(End of this chapter)