Chapter 125 – Special Mission

Chapter 125 – Special Mission

Cheng Yang raised his wrist and glanced at the watch on it.

This watch had been picked up by Yu Kai’s team during a rescue mission in the ruins of Xiangcheng City. Three watches had been found at the time, and one of them had been offered to Cheng Yang as tribute.

In this apocalyptic world, mobile phones were useless, and even electronic watches had stopped functioning. Only mechanical watches like this one continued to work tirelessly, becoming the sole standard for people to determine the current time.

The time now was 9:30 in the morning.

“Just half an hour left!” Cheng Yang muttered to himself, settling in to wait patiently. Half an hour wasn’t enough time to accomplish much. Even if he wanted to go out and kill monsters, it wouldn’t be enough time to reach the edge of the unexplored areas. As for the already explored regions, Cheng Yang had no interest in them.

Ten minutes passed…

Twenty minutes…

Twenty-five minutes…

As the thirtieth minute arrived, a voice that everyone in the world had become all too familiar with echoed in their ears once more.

“Lowly insects, seeing you live so comfortably displeases the gods. We gave you this great opportunity for evolution, and what have you done? Scheming against each other, fighting for power and profit? As punishment, the gods have decided to evolve the demonic beasts once more and make some adjustments to the rules of the main cities. Enjoy!”

Everyone in the mission hall froze upon hearing this voice. Their expressions were grim, for every time this voice appeared, something terrible followed.

The first time this voice had spoken, the apocalypse had begun. The second time, the monsters had undergone their first major evolution. Now, for the third time, it seemed the demonic beasts were about to evolve again. What changes would this bring?

Before they could ponder further, a blinding white light filled the mission hall, temporarily blinding everyone. When the light faded, a new virtual screen had appeared in the center of the hall.

Cheng Yang quickly moved to stand beneath the screen, carefully examining its contents.

This virtual screen displayed special missions, different from the usual territory and personal missions. These were divine missions, commonly referred to as system missions. As the name suggested, these missions were issued by the system of this game-like world. In the context of this world, they were tasks automatically generated by the rules set by the gods.

While the name “divine mission” sounded impressive, the missions themselves weren’t particularly special.

Generally, territory missions were related to the development of territories, including the main cities. These missions typically involved collecting raw materials or completing specific tasks.

The construction of outposts in the wild relied heavily on raw materials. Although the main cities were governed by divine rules and were defined as main cities from the start, they could still be upgraded. The upgrade process required a certain level of construction progress, which was measured by the amount of raw materials collected. However, upgrading a main city required an enormous amount of resources, making it far more difficult than upgrading a wild outpost in the early stages.

In reality, the benefits of upgrading a main city weren’t substantial. Aside from increasing the space within the protective barrier, there weren’t many additional functions. As for providing attribute bonuses to combatants, that was out of the question.

The system missions that had just appeared were also available in the taverns of the main cities.

Cheng Yang had been waiting here specifically for the appearance of these system missions. His target was one particular mission that offered a valuable treasure as a reward.

Every month, the system would release some special missions. These missions not only provided a significant amount of mercenary points but also had the potential to reward extremely rare treasures. Most importantly, these mercenary missions had no rank restrictions.

However, these special missions were notoriously difficult, often impossible to complete within the current timeframe.

For example, at the top of the screen were three special missions. One of them was to conquer an orc stronghold. In Cheng Yang’s previous life, this mission had remained on the screen for half a year before disappearing automatically. It wasn’t because someone had completed it, but because the gods deemed it no longer a special mission given the average strength of humanity at that time.

Special missions were called such not only because of their high difficulty and rewards but also because they were open to the entire world. In other words, during the same period, these three missions would appear on virtual screens worldwide. Everyone could accept and attempt them. These missions were displayed in striking red font, making them impossible to miss.

Cheng Yang was confident in his ability to complete one of these special missions. He knew that when system missions first appeared, there was always one mission that was relatively easier to complete.

**Frenzied Counterattack:** Special Mission – Within one day, individually kill 1,000 mid-tier first-order demonic beasts. Reward: 10,000 mercenary (military) points, one special item.

Without a doubt, the 10,000 mercenary or military points were valuable. Military points were particularly useful; 10,000 points could elevate someone from a level 1 private to level 3 or 4.

As for mercenary points, they not only determined the quality of missions one could accept but also influenced the rewards obtained from missions. 10,000 mercenary points could raise someone from a low-tier F-rank mercenary to a low-tier E-rank.

However, Cheng Yang wasn’t interested in the 10,000 mercenary points. What he truly coveted was the special item.

Without hesitation, Cheng Yang accepted the mission, and the system began its countdown.

Cheng Yang knew he couldn’t afford to waste any time. Although killing mid-tier first-order demonic beasts was easy for him at his current strength, finding and killing 1,000 of them within a single day would be challenging. The difficulty wasn’t in the killing itself but in locating enough targets.

Cheng Yang felt a strong sense of frustration because the mission required the demonic beasts to be killed in the wild. Those in dungeons didn’t count. Otherwise, Cheng Yang would have rushed to clear the Hell Valley dungeon on hard difficulty, even if it meant consuming some potions.

The dungeon contained over a thousand skeletons, and on hard difficulty, all the monsters were at least mid-tier first-order, perfectly meeting the mission’s requirements. Clearing the dungeon would have completed the mission.

Since that path was closed, Cheng Yang had no choice but to venture out and search for demonic beast hordes in the wild.

Fortunately, after the recent rule changes, the proportion of mid-tier first-order demonic beasts had increased from 5% to 20%, making his task slightly easier. Essentially, wiping out a horde of a thousand demonic beasts would complete one-fifth of the mission.

However, finding hordes of over a thousand demonic beasts wasn’t easy. Even during exploration, encountering two or three such hordes in a single day was considered lucky. More often than not, Cheng Yang would have to travel extensively to find suitable targets for slaughter.

…

While Cheng Yang considered encountering a horde of over a thousand demonic beasts as fortunate, for others, it was a disaster.

For the combatants of any main city, the sudden announcement of demonic beast evolution was nothing short of a nightmare.

Previously, having 5% of a demonic beast horde consist of mid-tier first-order beasts was already terrifying enough. Whenever combatants encountered a horde larger than their own, they had no choice but to detour, avoiding direct confrontation. Even when facing smaller hordes, they had to focus their fire on the mid-tier first-order beasts first before gradually dealing with the weaker ones.

Despite these precautions, casualties were inevitable when facing demonic beast hordes, and their efficiency in killing monsters was significantly reduced.

Now, with the demonic beasts evolving again, the number of mid-tier first-order beasts would undoubtedly increase. Whether some would even reach late-tier first-order was uncertain. Faced with such changes, how could they maintain their daily energy point gains?

While the average combatants worried about these common issues, the administrators of the main cities were more concerned about the changes to the city rules.

The rule changes weren’t extensive, merely adding a public opinion evaluation system and safety protections.

The safety protection was straightforward: within the main city, people could no longer kill each other.

As for the public opinion evaluation, every person in the main city would now have a public opinion evaluation list on their status panel. This list included two rankings: the Good Deeds List and the Evil Deeds List.

Anyone in the main city could nominate someone they believed to be good or evil to these lists, providing a reason for their nomination. The system would then judge the validity of the reason. If the nominator was found to have fabricated the reason, they would permanently lose the ability to nominate others.

Of course, being listed on the Good Deeds or Evil Deeds List wasn’t just for public display. Everyone in the main city could vote on the listed individuals. If one-third of the city’s population voted to expel someone on the Evil Deeds List, that person would be banished from the city and permanently barred from re-entering. As for the Good Deeds List, it offered rewards. Similarly, if one-third of the city’s population voted to reward someone, that person would receive 1,000 energy points.

There were restrictions on voting, however. If a person’s good or evil deeds didn’t affect the voter, they wouldn’t be able to cast a vote.

PS: Seeking subscriptions and monthly tickets. (To be continued…)