Chapter 305: The Limit of Endurance

Chapter 305: The Limit of Endurance

Zheng Yichen didn’t plan to waste any breath. The Mercenary Guild’s response had satisfied him. Although it took a little longer than he had expected, they ultimately agreed without putting forward any extra conditions. Since they had agreed, what followed were the detailed matters of cooperation.

His plan was simple: to make some of the Mercenary Guild’s quests network-based. This way, mercenaries or adventurers from other places could accept non-local quests, instead of being limited to quests only from their own region.

The Mercenary Guild certainly had no objections to such cooperation. The volume of completed quests was directly linked to the Guild’s development. Expanding quests onto the Magic Weapon Summoning Book would only bring benefits, no drawbacks!

Especially regarding the frequency of quest completion. Quests weren’t always conveniently available, and you couldn’t just open a quest panel to see them—this was reality, after all. Yet the Magic Weapon Summoning Book easily achieved this.

It could refresh and update newly posted commissions in real-time. This allowed mercenaries who were already on a quest, or those who had just finished one, to promptly discover lower-difficulty quests they could complete along the way. It saved time and also increased the number of quests completed.

Furthermore, there was a solid increase in efficiency, which was twofold. For example, for collection quests, after completion, mercenaries could submit them directly using the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Zheng Yichen only needed to make minor modifications based on the Trading Module, turning it into a quest submission module. Essentially, no major changes were required.

With such flexible quest acceptance and submission, how could the people at the Mercenary Guild not be tempted? Especially for investigative quests. Often, the mercenaries sent to complete them would succeed, but then meet with accidents on the way back, resulting in total loss of the team.

The investigation results would naturally be lost. That meant the investigation quest would have to remain posted for even longer. After cooperating with the Creator, such worries were unnecessary. Once the other party completed the quest, they could submit the investigation results immediately and then collect the reward via the pick-up function. As for them meeting with some unfortunate accident afterwards…

Well, the Mercenary Guild could only say they were unlucky. The Guild’s commission share was already collected. What happened to them afterwards had nothing to do with the Mercenary Guild.

After the cooperation was settled, what made Zheng Yichen even more pleased was that the other party didn’t try to interfere too much throughout the process. They also provided very thorough information regarding the regional data Zheng Yichen needed. This information was related to the search function. Coincidentally, the previous Trading Module had some shortcomings in this aspect. With the accurate and effective information provided by the Mercenary Guild, those gaps were directly filled.

“Just as I thought, people in high positions definitely wouldn’t do anything that would make others dislike them. Good, very good.” Because of their decisiveness, Zheng Yichen was in a great mood. When handling the content that needed updating, his efficiency was much higher, solving the problems an hour earlier than the planned time.

Then came the new update… The situation in the Trading Zone, which had just stabilized, stirred up waves again after a new icon quietly appeared. However, upon entering the area linked to the icon, the first to breathe a sigh of relief were the merchants. Phew, good, the new module wasn’t directly related to them. They didn’t have to worry about the landscape they had just fiercely carved out undergoing major changes again.

Since it wouldn’t alter the established situation they had fought for, these merchants began to think about the benefits this module could bring them. At a glance, this module was largely dominated by the Mercenary Guild. They couldn’t take away too much or fight for too much substantial benefit. But being able to gain some conveniences helpful to themselves from it would still be a win.

Trying it out wouldn’t cost them anything, so why fear it? Some people had already started thinking about what kind of interactive connections this Mercenary Quest Module could have with other modules in the Trading Zone.

“Hiss— The Mercenary Guild’s move this time is quite big,” a high-ranking member of a certain business association said as he looked at the mercenary quests that popped up in the new Quest Module. He immediately sent someone to verify the commission quests at the local Mercenary Guild branch. He tried searching, and indeed, he could find many corresponding quests!

Although high-level hiring quests weren’t open yet, at least over seventy percent of the commission quests from the local guild were covered… Just as he was looking at these quests, the quest viewing panel underwent a new change. Several quests were taken.

The executive thought for a moment, shook his head slightly, then nodded. Not all local mercenaries were suitable for accepting every quest. For example, quests for products only found in other regions could occasionally appear locally. Often, employers didn’t want to post the quest in the region that had the product, so the reward was slightly higher than for similar quests in that region. Actually, there were quite a few quests of this type!

At the same time, these quests also had a lower acceptance rate. Unless the reward was high enough, some mercenaries were willing to spend more time to take them. As for those who took any quest they saw, they were purely greenhorns new to the profession. Experienced mercenaries would consider factors like time cost.

Let the Mercenary Guild solve this problem? They had to consider many issues too, and it wasn’t necessarily smooth. So this problem had accumulated. And now, this long-standing, difficult-to-solve issue was resolved so easily.

Completing mercenary quests across regions was no longer a big deal. Mercenaries no longer needed to rack their brains extra about time costs when accepting quests. They could easily search for quests suitable for their current conditions. Even if not a perfect fit, making do was fine. It wouldn’t be like before, where in certain situations, they had no choice but to accept quests that wasted little time but also yielded low rewards.

Integrating all the commission quest resources of the Mercenary Guild also solved the problem of quest sources. The commission quests at each Mercenary Guild branch weren’t absolutely abundant. Some places suffered from insufficient quest sources, while others had an excess, often with a large backlog of commission quests. In more extreme cases, some moderately difficult commission quests could be backlogged for over a month!

For super-difficult quests, being backlogged for months or even a year was normal. But for quests that were only somewhat difficult, which capable mercenaries could complete, to be backlogged over a month was itself a rare occurrence. Yet in areas with excess quest sources, it wasn’t that strange.

After integration, quests were completely balanced out. Even though many mercenaries didn’t have the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, the people at the Mercenary Guild did. They could update the quest information from the Magic Weapon Summoning Book in real-time at the Guild branches. This allowed mercenaries who weren’t Magic Weapon Summoners, but who visited the Guild, to also accept commission quests from other regions.

This was a huge boon for mercenaries and adventurers. For the employers posting quests, it also brought great convenience and benefits. When posting cross-regional quests, they no longer needed to consider the problem of adding extra rewards. Local mercenaries might find the reward low, but for mercenaries in that other region, such a quest might be just right, so they would take it.

Not having to bear the payment of extra rewards meant these employers would certainly increase the frequency and number of quests they posted. This virtuous cycle made the executive deeply feel the powerful convenience of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. Moreover, he felt a strange sense of dread in his heart!

It was too convenient, really too convenient. If the Magic Weapon Summoning Book continued its current development, in a few years, after the number of Magic Weapon Summoners increased further, could the people on the Continent really live without the Magic Weapon Summoning Book? By then, if something went wrong with the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, the related industries built upon it would definitely suffer large-scale collapse. The impact it would bring to the market, even society, he dared not imagine!

Dread was dread, but the wheel of the trend had already started rolling. Even though he recognized a certain danger, he had no ability to stop it. He felt it wasn’t just him; others must have realized this problem too. But they were all helpless…

At this point, if you didn’t cling to this wheel, you would only be crushed by it. As for problems years later? If you didn’t get on the wagon now, there simply wouldn’t be a ‘years later.’

There were very few ways to resolve this situation. Either control the Creator, keep him well-fed while preventing him from causing trouble—just lock him in a little dark room to make updates. If done nicely, he would have food, drink, and girls, anything he wanted. Or, force the Creator to give up control of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book. If possible, make the Magic Weapon Summoning Book completely independent, unaffected by anyone. Even if the Creator died, it would only mean losing an updater whom most people would find a pity, without affecting the Magic Weapon Summoning Book itself.

After all, the functions the Magic Weapon Summoning Book already possessed had brought tremendous changes to the Continent. Unfortunately, neither method was currently achievable. Control him? Nonsense. Without absolute certainty, what if they provoked him and he used the Magic Weapon Summoning Book against them?

Therefore… the Creator absolutely must not come to any harm!!

What gave him some slight relief was that since the Creator had the ability to create such a Divine Artifact-like book, his own strength probably wasn’t poor. Additionally, analyzing some of the Creator’s comment activity on the Forum… Well, their business association had a team specifically dedicated to analyzing the Creator’s words and actions. Based on this judgment, the Creator wasn’t a serious person, even a bit ‘lively,’ and he didn’t really bully others relying on his status.

At most, things like ‘I’m the Creator, the top authority dog, show some respect!’ sounded more like jokes than threats. Of course, those who really caused trouble now faced permanent bans… In this regard, the Creator never showed mercy. Thinking about it, that made sense.

A powerful person being amiable and able to joke with you was fine, but that wasn’t a license for recklessness. Joking was okay, but if you courted death and got slapped to death, who could you blame? In summary, as long as you weren’t seeking death by provoking the Creator, the Creator was quite easy to get along with. You just couldn’t make an appointment with him!

“The new function modules on the Magic Weapon Summoning Book are temporarily sufficient for now,” Loris said. In the Underground Base, lying on the bed and leaning against a giant pillow over ten meters in size, Zheng Yichen rubbed his eyes. Hearing Loris, who was chatting with him, say this, he temporarily set aside the Magic Weapon Summoning Book he was holding.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” From the information on the Forum, the newly launched Quest Module was also very popular! It received unanimous praise from the mercenaries! Certain gains from Zheng Yichen’s usual down-to-earth, ‘one of the people’ forum activity became apparent.

While no one dared to post blatantly bad reviews yet, they weren’t too scared of the Creator to offer suggestions. Zheng Yichen noted down many of these suggestions. When he had time later to summarize them, he would directly ignore the ones that were just whining without cause.

During this period, the Mana accumulated within the Magic Weapon Summoning Book had been in a stage of crazy growth! When Zheng Yichen touched the main body of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, he could clearly feel the incredibly abundant Mana within. Combined with the fact that all the materials of the Magic Weapon Summoning Book were top-tier, influenced by the vast Mana, its quality was increasing at an extremely fast rate!

“If you take too big a step, you might slip. The functions on the Magic Weapon Summoning Book bring great convenience to Humans. But for those with a long-term view, so many convenient functions appearing at once will only cause extreme panic in them.” Loris lightly tapped her feet and jumped up to sit on the giant pillow Zheng Yichen was leaning against. “The convenience on it now is closely tied to Human society. It’s almost at the limit.”

A single Magic Weapon summoning could only be said to affect future combat styles. Even if the Magic Weapon Summoning Book disappeared, there wouldn’t be too much substantial impact. At most, those who had used Magic Arms might feel somewhat unaccustomed. As for the Forum function, honestly, its influence was higher than Magic Weapon summoning. It truly shortened the ‘distance’ between people, bringing a unique communication culture to this Otherworld.

But the later-appearing Trading Module, Pick-up Zone, and the latest Quest Module were absolutely influential. These were things that directly changed the course of the Continent’s situation. Once Humans fully adapted to these functions in the future, if the Magic Weapon Summoning Book suddenly disappeared, the impact would be sensational. It might not cause widespread devastation like a Magic Disaster erupting from the Abyss.

But the shock to the stability of Human society would be immeasurable.

“If your identity wasn’t kept secret enough, many people would already be planning to join forces to discuss how to deal with you. Don’t doubt it. The impact the functions recently appearing on the Magic Weapon Summoning Book will have on the future is absolutely enough to make many conflicting forces unite specifically against you.”

“This book has now reached the limit of others’ endurance. Apart from us, no one wants to see it completely controlled by one person.”