Sorry for the Effort

It really wasn't surprising at all.

Yan Qing sighed inwardly. The moment he saw that the mission reward was only a Bingzi Jiaolin, he knew this would happen—but he couldn't even blame anyone else, because he had written all the rules for Thieves' Den himself.

Competing over the mission reward, scheming against one another, and even betraying their teammates were all part of the fun of Thieves' Den. When designing this dungeon, Yan Qing had drawn on elements from party games like Werewolf, striving to give players a tense and exciting experience even in a low-level dungeon.

But encountering teammates who started scheming against one another before they had even completed the mission was a little too tense and exciting in reality.

"Wow, the Brave General Sword, Qi Kingdom's standard rare token. They say only five can be synthesized each year, and every noble martial general in Qi Kingdom takes pride in wielding one. I never expected White Fox to possess such a precious token!" Shang Xin Lei gave her appraisal from the side. "Although Ascended rare tokens are generally stronger than synthesized rare tokens, the Divine Martial Emperor once led Qi Kingdom's brave generals to sweep across the world, while your Vidyaraja Armor leans more toward defense—"

Ying Ru Shi heard Shang Xin Lei's words and thought, This is bad.

Black Wolf was clearly of Zhou Kingdom's military nobility and hated hearing about the prestige of Qi Kingdom's brave generals!

Almost every sentence Red Snake spoke hit exactly the point that would anger Black Wolf!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Sure enough, after hearing Shang Xin Lei's words, Yaoshi Yuan's attacks grew even fiercer, forcing Ying Ru Shi to retaliate. Yet the more Ying Ru Shi fought back, the brighter the pale golden radiance around Yaoshi Yuan became. Ying Ru Shi knew that once that radiance accumulated to a certain point, Yaoshi Yuan would unleash an exceedingly terrifying counterattack. Thus, she had only two choices—surrender, or use an even stronger attack right now to shatter the defenses of the Vidyaraja Armor!

She could only—and had to—choose the latter!

Ying Ru Shi had played the smooth peacemaker, always smoothing things over, ever since joining Thieves' Den. But even a clay figurine had three parts temper, let alone a county duke of Qi Kingdom's imperial clan. Her relatives were the sort who casually killed and brutalized people in the streets. She refrained from doing such things only because she knew right from wrong, not because she was incapable of them!

The Brave General Sword glimmered with a faint azure light, its sharpness seeming capable of slicing even wounds into the air.

When Yaoshi Yuan saw the sword's spiritual radiance, her eyes lit up at once, and her blood surged through her body. The reason she wanted Thieves' Den so badly was not only to make Zhou Kingdom great again, but also to cross blades with powerful experts from all over the world!

Let me see whether my Unmoving as a Mountain can withstand your Brave General Sword's army-breaking, path-cutting strike!

"Enough."

A White Iron Straight Blade thrust between them. A flash of sharp light appeared in Yaoshi Yuan's and Ying Ru Shi's eyes, and they seemed unable to stop themselves as the Brave General Sword and Fine Steel Spear hacked out with all their strength!

Clang!

With an explosive crash, the three weapons crossed. Yet Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Ru Shi both changed expression at the same time.

Their weapons still radiated lingering fluctuations of spiritual power, showing that they had activated their tokens' power and infused it into their weapons.

But the White Iron Straight Blade blocking the way between them had no spiritual fluctuations at all!

A token without spiritual power driving it was no different from an ordinary object!

Their full-strength strikes could even dent the golden cabinet's doors, yet the White Iron Straight Blade that had taken both attacks head-on did not even have a nick.

How was that possible?!

Yan Qing had not even activated his token. He handled the situation with ease, as though he were separating two small animals that were fighting.

How had he done it?

Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Ru Shi could neither understand nor accept it, because this result could prove only one thing—

The gap between Yellow Dog and them was so immense that they could not even identify his methods!

Third Turn? Fourth Turn?

"Are you done making a scene?"

Yan Qing swept a cold glance over them, tightened his grip, and flicked his blade upward, knocking aside both their weapons. He had used little force, but Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Ru Shi were cowed by his presence and did not dare resist. They obediently withdrew their weapons.

"And you, Red Snake!"

Yan Qing raised his blade and pointed it at Shang Xin Lei.

"If you don't know how to speak, then don't open your mouth."

Shang Xin Lei immediately clutched her throat. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out, as though Yan Qing had banned her ability to speak with a single command. Her face was filled with terror, as if she had suddenly discovered she was mute, and she pleaded pitifully for Yan Qing's forgiveness.

What a little actress.

The same assessment surfaced in the minds of all three of them.

Under Ying Ru Shi's and Yaoshi Yuan's gazes, Yan Qing reached directly into the golden cabinet and took out the Bingzi Jiaolin.

"I'll keep this blade," he said after a pause, "until the mission is complete."

The two women were already intimidated by his presence. Upon hearing that he wasn't claiming it for himself but merely keeping it temporarily, they both accepted this arrangement.

Seeing that they had calmed down and stopped causing trouble, Yan Qing finally relaxed.

He hadn't dared interfere in Black Wolf and White Fox's conflict to begin with. Both of them were clearly at least Second Turn Messengers, and if they really fought, he was no match for them. But when he saw their weapons clash, Yan Qing suddenly remembered something—the two of them could attack each other, but the game system still classified them as teammates.

Thieves' Den was ultimately a cooperative PvE dungeon, not a PvP one. Although teammates could attack and even kill one another, a teammate's death would cause no equipment to drop and no experience to be lost. They would merely die for nothing and fail the mission.

Of course, in reality, there was no such thing as "dying for nothing." Once you died, you were truly dead.

As everyone knew, game programs tried to call on existing code whenever possible rather than adding an entirely new set of code every time a designer came up with a feature. After all, games gained more and more content. Constantly adding new code only created an ever-growing mess.

Game designers followed the same logic. Designers who came up with a brilliant idea on a whim and made programmers keep writing new features to support it would sooner or later be dragged out and flicked to death by those programmers. A qualified designer, when envisioning a new event, should refer to functions already present in the game and, whenever possible, have the programmers transform old functions into new gameplay.

To get his proposal approved, Yan Qing had made almost all the new gameplay in Thieves' Den based on existing game systems. The feature that allowed teammates in Thieves' Den to attack and betray one another, for instance, was based on the extremely common "teammate sparring mode." Players in the same party could fight one another simply by activating sparring mode, and dying incurred no loss whatsoever.

In sparring mode, players' weapons and armor did not lose durability, and tokens certainly could not be destroyed by an opponent's "shattering damage"—damage exceeding the weapon's durability.

Simply put, teammates in Thieves' Den could hurt one another, but they could not damage another person's token.

If things really worked as he expected, then even without sufficient strength, Yan Qing could still interfere in the battle between Black Wolf and White Fox!

Yan Qing admitted that he had been taking a gamble, but he had bet correctly.

Yaoshi Yuan and the others would only see Yan Qing block their attacks with a White Iron Straight Blade. Even if they guessed it had something to do with the "Heavenly God Rules," they would have a hard time uncovering the truth in a short period.

Before they figured it out, they would only overestimate Yan Qing's strength as much as possible.

When they left the treasury, Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Ru Shi both unconsciously fell a step behind, while Yan Qing naturally took the lead.

He carried a large sack in his right hand and the Bingzi Jiaolin in his left, leading everyone out of the inner hall.

Many people were waiting in the outer hall. They surrounded the exit in three layers. The outermost layer consisted of monks, the nobles stood inside them, and at the very center was An Wu, naturally blocking the exit. By then, his left arm was nearly burned away, its blackened, charred bones exposed to the air. The left half of his body was also severely burned, leaving him barely recognizable as human.

When they saw Yan Qing and the others emerge, the monks retreated in terror. Among them were no shortage of martial monks and even Second Turn Messengers of the Clear Insight level, yet none dared approach Yan Qing's group.

There were differences even among messengers. Truly powerful messengers rarely stayed in the main cities, even if they did not frequently enter secret realms. As for the martial monks stationed at Anguo Temple, where they faced no security pressure, how much fighting spirit could they possibly have, even if they were Second Turn?

"Should we kill them?" Yaoshi Yuan suddenly asked.

The monks panicked the moment they heard that and fled toward the depths of Anguo Temple, crawling and scrambling over one another.

"We're thieves, not serial killers," Yan Qing said calmly. "But if you want to kill me, I don't mind."

Yaoshi Yuan thought it over but ultimately did not act. The monks could run far too fast, and killing them one by one was inefficient. Once she returned home, she could purge such vermin in her capacity as the Embroidered Uniform Guard's commander.

Although the nobles such as Xue Yan saw them carrying large bags, they all seemed to have suddenly become blind and mute, closing their mouths and saying nothing. Under everyone's watchful eyes, Yan Qing walked up to An Wu, who looked like an evil spirit, and patted him on the shoulder.

"Thirty."

An Wu nodded. Instead of blocking the doorway, he began counting down. "Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight..."

Yan Qing turned to the nobles and monks and said, "If you don't want to die, leave Anguo Temple before he finishes counting down."

As he passed An Wu, Yan Qing paused and said softly,

"Thanks for the effort."