Scourge Messenger

Chapter 435 Natural Disaster Organization Lv3
In addition to the karmic consequences of natural disasters, 'River Dragon Li Jun' also dropped the fourth-tier rare longsword "Moon in the Well", the Waterway Master's Proficiency Book "Raging Waves and raging torrents", and the amulet "Li Jun's Dice".

"Li Jun's Dice"

Grade: Rare

"Equipment effect: Loot drop rate +1% (same effects do not stack)."

"Use effect: Can be used on tokens of grade six or below Rare, randomly increasing one of the power values."

"Commentary: Li Jun was originally just a fisherman from the area around Liangshan. Later, he became addicted to gambling and squandered his family fortune. Desperate, he risked his life and made a desperate gamble at the Paradise Tower. Surprisingly, he stood out and achieved the Foundation Establishment stage. An immortal made a fortune because of him and, in his joy, gave him this little gadget. From then on, Li Jun had smooth sailing, winning every gamble and dominating Liangshan Marsh. However, the immortal once warned him: 'Sooner or later, you will lose your life because of this dice.'"

Increase drop rate by 1%!
This is probably the most valuable drop from 'Li Jun the River Dragon', and it's also a protective charm that takes effect immediately when placed in the inventory without taking up any space. Plus, this dungeon is only at the fourth-tier normal level, making it easy for Foundation Establishment players to farm – it's practically a freebie from the developers. If the game had a 'Liangshan Marsh' dungeon, it would undoubtedly be the top choice for Foundation Establishment players.

Yan Qing happily placed the dice in the public warehouse, so that whichever a lower-level account goes into a dungeon can take it; one would be enough.

In the past ten days or so, Yan Qing has already ventured into several fourth-level secret realms, including the "General's Tomb" and "Jade Buddha Temple" in Qi Kingdom, and the "Medicine King Valley" and "Hidden Dragon Cave" in Zhou Kingdom. These are all private secret realms belonging to the Ying family and the Pharmacist family. His Dao Foundation level hasn't improved much, but he has become more proficient in using supernatural abilities and tokens.

Aside from the secret realms of Liangshanbo and Happy Forest, Yan Qing didn't purify any of the other secret realms. It wasn't that he couldn't do it, but he felt there was no need to harm these ordinary secret realms.

In fact, with the "magic brush," purifying a level 4 ordinary secret realm was a piece of cake for him.

Yan Qing was right. If the two Foundation Establishment Pills were prepared for the Black Wolf and Red Serpent, the Glazed Dream Pearl was assumed to be the White Fox's reward, and the Guild Establishment Token and the Recruitment Stone were team rewards, then the "Miraculous Brush" was a reward specifically for him.

For him, the "masterful pen" was even more crucial than a wisp of gold.

In most normal dungeons, Yan Qing only needs to learn the basic information through the dungeon entrance to activate "Miracle Brush" and directly obtain information on the Demon King's weaknesses. Then, he can buy the corresponding strategy items through the Treasure Pavilion, and basically purify the Demon King in three runs. Of course, this won't work for difficult dungeons and above.

"Miracle Pen" sounds impressive, but it's actually just a built-in encyclopedia system in the game, and Yan Qing probably even incorporated the latest and trendiest AI at the time. In reality, this feature is quite useless for gamers, since players can easily find detailed guides that are "understandable even to a fool" from forums or Bilibili with just a few taps, so there's no need for "Miracle Pen" that can only ask three questions.

But it's different for Yan Qing. He wants to take the path of natural disasters, but the most troublesome thing is that all the messengers in this world are hiding their secrets—although he complains about this like a thief complains that everyone installs security doors—now that he has the "magic pen," Yan Qing finally has a stable way to obtain the karma of natural disasters, and his "path of natural disasters" is no longer a mirage.

After purifying the 'Water Margin Liangshan' secret realm, Yan Qing's karmic burden of natural disasters has reached 26 points. Therefore, his most urgent task is to buy a healing item with a long duration. This way, he only needs to refresh it for the female thieves every day and then exchange it for the [Secluded Blue] Dharma Image to increase the permanent enlightenment of all thieves by 26 points!
Yan Qing finally understood: comprehension in real life is completely different from comprehension in the game. The latter only adds experience, while the former provides almost limitless possibilities. Even Yan Qing himself can master the [Epitaph] and [Life and Death Together] skills to an extreme. The female thieves already have extremely high comprehension; if they are given even more, wouldn't they be able to take off?
However, the best healing item Yan Qing can currently buy only lasts for 15 minutes, making it difficult to maintain a constant buff. It can only be used to buff everyone when necessary.

He strongly suspected that in order to reduce the applicability of Dao Foundations such as the Four Phases of Natural Disasters, the authorities had directly shortened the duration of all healing tokens. Therefore, Yan Qing had basically no hope of being able to buy a suitable token. He had been studying the Epitaph these days to see if he could extract only the healing effect and extend its duration.

In the past, he would never have dared to have such arrogant thoughts, but now with 26 points of comprehension, Yan Qing felt that he had completely surpassed himself in his prime during his senior year of high school, and might even be able to solve math problems in a fit of anger.

Remembering something, Yan Qing took out the 'Calamity Token' and discovered that the team could indeed level up. These past few days, they had deliberately taken hits in the dungeon to trigger the [Heart Lock], and finally managed to farm enough experience for this team skill.

Yan Qing hadn't expected that this team skill would be the hardest to upgrade. After all, unlike game players, locals are extremely cautious when venturing into secret realms and rarely find themselves in dire straits. The last time the [Heart Lock] came into play was during Ying Ru Shi's battle against Ying Le, where both of their defensive barriers shattered together.

"Love Lock Lv2: When someone in the team takes damage that destroys their defensive barrier, this skill automatically triggers, linking them to the person in the team with the highest defensive barrier. The two then share damage taken and gain 2% damage reduction until both of their defensive barriers are completely destroyed. After this effect is triggered, all team skills have a 4-hour cooldown."

The cooldown time has been reduced from 6 hours to 4 hours, and the damage reduction has increased by 2%, which is just passable. However, if it is upgraded to the maximum level, it will have about 20% damage reduction, and the cooldown time can be reduced to less than 30 minutes, which would make it an undisputed god-tier team skill.

"Natural Disaster Organization promoted to Level 3"

You can choose one of the following three rewards:

"① Team members + 3"

"② When a team of more than three members gathers, experience gained is increased by 8%." "③ Team skill experience growth rate is increased by 10%."

So subtle.

Logically, the third option should be the best, since choosing this experience-boosting buff is definitely worthwhile. However, 10% is too low; it only translates to gaining experience once every ten team skill activations. Unless Yan Qing consistently chooses this experience buff for team leveling up, it's not very meaningful.

Therefore, Yan Qing chose the second option. They would have many opportunities to enter the secret realm in the future, making it easy to get the 8% experience buff. As for increasing the team size limit, he wasn't considering it for the time being. Currently, besides the four of them and Jiang Shi, other low-level accounts in the Calamity Organization could be pulled in as [Immortal Travel] coordinates when needed, and then kicked out to make room. There was no need to expand the team size for the time being.

Three new tasks appeared on the 'Team Tasks' screen:
[If more than five members in the team are above level 50, the reward is: Team Experience +30]

[Upgrade any team skill to level 4. Reward: Team Experience +20]

[Participate in three separate dungeons of 'Extreme' difficulty, consisting of teams of more than three members. Reward: Team EXP +50]

Yan Qing's eyelids twitched.

These tasks are exponentially more difficult, requiring five members to reach level 5, one level 4 team skill, and the completion of three different Extreme Dungeons. However, given the game's "quality changes every three" rule, a team reaching level 4 will likely experience a significant boost, so the increased difficulty of the tasks is understandable.

The game console beeped, indicating that a secondary automatic evolution program had encountered an intractable problem. Yan Qing glanced over, raised an eyebrow, and thought to himself that it was somehow related to him, but... it was quite a coincidence.

……

...

Qixia Mountain Military Town is the venue for the Jiangnan Martial Arts Gathering, which is held every five years.

Today is the final day of the Heroes' Gathering, featuring Ling Feihong, the younger brother of the head of Lingdong Martial Arts School, against Niu Xianke of Badao Martial Arts School. The former is a young prodigy ranked fourth on the Hidden Dragon List, having advanced to the third level at a young age and becoming famous throughout the country. He, along with Jie Yuanshao and Qun Yushu, are known as the "Three Heroes of Jiangnan." However, with the sudden rise of the fourth young lady of the Shang family, the "Four Pillars of the Southern Kingdom" have recently become a hot topic, with the four of them regarded as the leading figures of Liang Kingdom's martial arts for the next few decades.

Therefore, no one expected today's competition to be unexpected. Martial arts competitions do not prohibit the use of tokens. Ling Feihong is full of rare treasures and has the advantage of cultivation. On the other hand, Niu Xianke of Badao Martial Arts School is only a second-level messenger. No one knows how he managed to gather such rare tokens. However, it is said that he has been learning martial arts for no more than two months. Even if he is exceptionally talented, how can he defeat Ling Feihong, who has been famous for many years?
This doesn't even take into account the age difference between the two. Ling Feihong is only thirty years old, while Niu Xianke is clearly over forty. As the saying goes, youth has an edge in boxing. More importantly, the tournament format isn't one-on-one, but a five-person elimination tournament. Unfortunately, the Badao Martial Arts School only has Niu Xianke, so he has to defeat the first four opponents before facing Ling Feihong.

It was already a miracle that Badao Martial Arts School could make it to the finals with Niu Xianke alone. Although everyone liked to see the miracle continue, the gap between the two sides was just too big. By the time Ling Feihong took to the stage, Niu Xianke was covered in blood and steaming hot. Everyone thought he was just pushing himself to the limit and that he must be exhausted.

Of everyone present, only one person believed in Niu Xianke.

"Uncle, you'll definitely win!" Her voice echoed throughout the hall, but she only received laughter from many. Soon, however, the laughter in the hall turned to deathly silence, except for her, who continued to laugh.

Even as Ling Feihong was being beaten and hanging against the wall, he still couldn't understand where he had gone wrong. His cultivation was higher, his tokens were better—how could he possibly lose?
But I just can't beat them!

In a short period of time, the opponent actually had three bursts of blood energy in a row, which was a breakthrough and advancement in the midst of battle. It looked like he was about to reach the Great Perfection of the Second Stage! Ling Feihong had seen breakthroughs in the midst of battle before. He had tried it once before, but three times in a row was too outrageous!

Moreover, the opponent was surprisingly durable. Despite being only a second-tier rare defensive item, its performance was even stronger than his third-tier Heart Protection Mirror.

How could an old scoundrel in his forties be that strong!

I can't lose here, and I certainly can't lose to a second-tier student! Ling Feihong raised his head and looked at the two figures at the very top of the audience. Without further hesitation, he spat out a mouthful of blood and roared in shock, "This force... you are the murderer who killed Master Wu!"

(End of this chapter)