Episode 348

“Team Flying Clouds has six members and their capabilities are so-so, with only one veteran among them. An original member died a few months ago, so a newbie replaced him and proved to be extremely formidable. We did some investigations and found out that this newbie wasn’t a newbie at all. He’s an expert who’s ranked #321,” Miu Zhengtao gave Su Jin a rundown on the team that had challenged his.

“#321?” Su Jin nodded. An owner ranked that high could be considered an expert, since the total number of owners was beyond anyone’s imagination. Being ranked among the top 1,000 would already make you an expert. Team Boning Knife alone had three owners among the top 1,000, Su Jin, Wu Chen, and Chu Yi. After Ye Yun joined, she became the fourth member to be ranked among the top 1000.

Their existence was enough to push Team Boning Knife’s ranking into the top 100. It was very rare to find top ranking owners elsewhere.

“That expert’s name is Zhou Ying. He’s a veteran, has a strong physique, and is an all-rounder who’s able to take on almost every role in a team. He can fight, he can be a sniper, he can gather information, and it seems he can even be a medic. His Spirit Power is to steal Spirit Powers,” Miu Zhengtao went on.

“Steal Spirit Powers?” Su Jin was stunned. He hadn’t heard of this Spirit Power before, but to have something like that must make this guy pretty incredible. It was little wonder he was ranked so highly and could take on so many different roles without problems.

“His Spirit Power is very formidable. Legend has it he can store three different Spirit Powers for his own use, and some say he can temporarily give the Spirit Powers he has stolen to other people, so some people call him Magician Zhou Ying. With his help, Team Flying Cloud now looks like a team with three veterans.”

Su Jin was speechless for a moment. This guy was as incredible as he had expected. Being able to steal Spirit Powers from others was already amazing enough, but he was actually able to pass them on to other people. With a teammate like that, it would indeed feel like the team had gained a few veterans at the same time.

“There has to be a limit of sorts, right? No matter how you look at it, this sounds completely crazy, so there must be limits on either his stealing, and/or his giving of the Spirit Powers,” said Su Jin calmly. The Handbook didn’t give out useless Spirit Powers, but neither did it allow anybody to become OP overnight and become an undefeatable owner. Even his own Spirit Power, who was treated as one of the best Spirit Powers by true experts, came with a limiting factor, which was that it was very difficult to increase and improve.

Miu Zhengtao shook his head and said, “I’m not too sure about that. Team Flying Cloud has challenged many other teams before us, but all the other teams were killed, so… nobody can provide any accurate information on him.”

“Is that so… in order to prevent information on his abilities from spreading, he decided to kill everyone he fights?” Su Jin frowned. He now guessed that this Zhou Ying belonged to a powerful organization of sorts. No owner would do something like this if he were working solo.

Doing something like this was to make himself an enemy to all owners weaker than himself, which made the majority of owners. Besides, he was so merciless in killing others, which would make these weaker owners wary of him. But which owner wasn’t friends with other owners? Even top ranking experts could feel like they were in a dilemma if their friends were in danger or if their friends wanted them to explain their actions. So, Su Jin guessed that this fellow was backed by a very powerful group.

“Can you do it or not? He’s someone ranked among the 300s, after all. If you insist on fighting someone more powerful than yourself, then we’re all doomed,” grumbled Ke Tong. He was still very unhappy about Su Jin.

“When’s the fight?” Su Jin ignored Ke Tong and asked Zhou Xinyu a question instead.

“Tomorrow,” replied Zhou Xinyu.

“That’s fast!” Su Jin chuckled. These people probably couldn’t find anyone to help them at all, especially since their opponent was someone ranked among the top 1000. If they could find someone, they wouldn’t have waited till now. Also, Su Jin guessed that they must have run out of ideas and people, so they agreed to let Su Jin have a shot just because Zhou Xinyu recommended him.

“I’d like to ask though… if… I’m just saying, if I didn’t agree to help you guys, or if you couldn’t find anyone to help you, what would the team have done? Wait to get killed?” asked Su Jin curiously. “Also, I remember that if one team ends up losing more than half their members, they can choose to surrender. So, why didn’t those people surrender and allow that owner to kill the entire team instead?”

“Most teams would choose to surrender, of course, and that was our plan too. If we couldn’t fight him, we would choose to surrender. But… not too long ago, we heard that none of the teams that Team Flying Cloud challenged ever surrendered,” said Miu Zhengtao as he shook his head.

Su Jin raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying… Team Flying Cloud is able to make their opponents have no way to surrender?”

“I think that’s what happened,” Miu Zhengtao nodded.

Su Jin paused to think, then smiled. There was a big loophole in this inter-team challenge thing in the first place. Once a powerful owner joined a team weaker than themselves, the challenge would turn in favor of that powerful owner’s team, which would make the fight unfair right from the start. But Su Jin felt that the Handbook was doing this on purpose. From a long time ago, Su Jin noticed that the Handbook was using a very special method of filtering the owners, or rather, it was purposely grooming the best of owners.

To put it simply, the Handbook was creating gods. As long as it could select and groom just one top owner, sacrificing countless weaker owners in the process was fine. This inter-team challenge was proof of that. The weaker owners had become targets of the stronger owners.

If he did not agree to participate, Zhou Xinyu’s team would become the team that would be defeated. But since he was going to participate, then the other team was going to lose for sure, unless they had an owner at Xu Ran, Shen Wu, or Natasha’s level, which was almost impossible.

“See you tomorrow then.” Su Jin waved at the team, added Zhou Xinyu to his Handbook’s contacts, then left Hell’s Bar.

He returned to the real world to see that the Demon Lord was walking around the house. Su Jin rolled his eyes, because she was walking around stark naked. She probably did not care about the line between men and women, or perhaps she never saw Su Jin as a man in the first place.

“You can look all you want. Why are you shying away? I’m giving you special permission,” said the Demon Lord with a grin as she plonked down on the couch to watch TV.

Su Jin plonked down on the couch too and asked her, “I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead,” she nodded.

“The aim of the Handbook is to create gods. Or at least, that’s one of its aims. Am I right?” asked Su Jin.

The Demon Lord nodded without looking the least surprised. “Yep. That’s not hard to guess, is it?”

“It’s not hard to guess, since it’s clear that the Handbook is happy to sacrifice a huge number of weaker owners in order to create gods. But… what I want to know is, how many people can become gods in the end?” asked Su Jin.

She poked at the remote control a few times, then turned to look at him with a smile. “Let me put it this way. During my time, out of the top 1,000, less than ten became gods!”

“Only ten?” Su Jin was shocked. That number seemed way too small. He asked another question, “What happened to the rest?”

“The rest? They all died. I can tell you now – if an owner cannot become a god, then there’s only one ending for them, which is to become fertilizer for those who have become gods,” said the Demon Lord with a serious look on her face. “Do not think that you will definitely become a god just because you’re in the top ten. When I was an owner, my ranking was past #400, and only three of the top ten became gods…”

That shocked Su Jin even more. He paused to think for a few moments before saying, “Do you mean that… another period of chaos will strike again? And during this time, a large number of owners will die regardless of whether they’re weak or strong?”

“You can think of it like that.” After saying that, she returned to her room without saying any more.

After resting for the night, Su Jin returned to Hell’s Bar. Zhou Xinyu was already waiting for him with the team. They seemed a little anxious, as though they were afraid that Su Jin was not coming. They all let out a sigh of relief when they saw him.

“Am I late?” asked Su Jin when he noticed their expressions.

“No, no, you’re just in time,” said Miu Zhengtao as he nodded. He didn’t dare to offend Su Jin now. Regardless of how capable Su Jin was, he was now their only hope. Just like what Su Jin had guessed, they hadn’t been able to find any other sufficiently powerful owners to help them.

Miu Zhengtao retrieved a jade token and broke it. A door of light appeared in front of them and Miu Zhengtao held his Handbook out to Su Jin.

“Mr. Su, we need to go through the proper process first.”

“Got it.” Su Jin nodded before placing his hand on top of Miu Zhengtao’s Handbook. A drop of Miu Zhengtao’s blood fell on his hand after that. Su Jin was very familiar with this process, except that he was usually the one providing this drop of blood.

The symbol of Team Vast Ocean soon appeared on his arm, which was a blue droplet. Miu Zhengtao then walked through the door of light first.

This door of light was very similar to the one that the boss of Hell’s Bar had provided them the day before. After entering, they saw that Team Flying Cloud was already waiting for them. One of them was obviously more celebrated and well taken care of than the rest, so that person had to be Zhou Ying.

“Since everyone’s here, let’s start.” Zhou Ying got up and snapped his fingers. A screen appeared in front of everyone and there were options for terrain and buildings for one to choose from. Zhou Ying said to Team Vast Ocean, “You can pick what sort of terrain you want.”

Miu Zhengtao immediately turned toward Su Jin and allowed him to make the choice. Su Jin was the most powerful member of their team now, so they had to go with whatever was Su Jin’s preference. But to their dismay, Su Jin hit “cancel” and confirmed the default choice, which was an open field.

“You…” Team Vast Ocean was stunned by his choice, and Ke Tong’s eyes bulged from his anger. To weaker owners like themselves, the terrain was very important to them. If they had chosen something more complex, they could use it to escape and hide from their enemies. But now… that option had been destroyed by Su Jin.