Chapter 203 – Huge Changes Arrive

Team Boning Knife had a surprisingly high rank. Even if a minority had understood the concept of multiple universes, the total number of teams should have been at least 10,000. After all, anyone who managed to survive Challenges was definitely no fool, so being ranked #91 among the best of the Handbook owners made them the cream of the crop.

“The points from the two Challenges that we completed perfectly were very high.” Su Jin checked the team’s total score for each Challenge and found that the scores for All Have Sinned and Zombie Frenzy were especially high. All Have Sinned, in particular, chalked up a score much higher than any of the Challenges before that.

Su Jin’s personal rank was #207, Wu Chen’s was #571, while Kano Mai and Situ Jin were way beyond #1000. Logically speaking, the team should have been at around #1000 or so.

“Is the Handbook trying to encourage these adventure types of Challenges?” wondered Su Jin. The scores for completing this Challenge perfectly was way too high. The Handbook was obviously rewarding owners who went through such Challenges more.

These changes did not bode well to Su Jin. The Handbook was doing its best to increase the chances of owners dying. Limiting one’s Spirit Power, physical strength and items were clear and very blatant efforts to weaken the best owners.

But Su Jin felt that these efforts were the most fatal to ordinary owners and low level veterans. For example, Su Jin’s psychokinesis’ upper limit was now at 2300. If he were to be allocated to a Level D Challenge, he would have an upper limit of 230, which wasn’t much less compared to his powers when he went through Rubble Village or Fairytales of Horror, yet he had been able to find a way to survive even under those circumstances.

Now, he understood the Handbook better, so his chances of succeeding were higher. Of course, limiting his items and physical body also affected him negatively. The chances of him dying had gone up.

Compared to low level veterans – the upper limit of a veteran was normally around 500, while those who were more powerful had around 1000. Reducing that by 90% would reduce their Spirit Power to the same level as when they had just received their Spirit Powers.

And with the limitations on the number of items and one’s physique, these owners had truly entered dark times. Su Jin figured that the number of Handbook owners was going to reduce drastically over a short period of time.

“Our team is ranked so highly… will anybody try to pick on us?” Situ Jin was a little uneasy. The teams close to their position were definitely extremely formidable teams, so if anyone decided to try and challenge them to a battle, they might end up getting wiped out.

But Su Jin shook his head. “I don’t think we’re in any danger at the moment. The battles between the teams are probably going to start among the lower ranked teams, since they’re closer in terms of prowess and would have more confidence in defeating other teams. The higher ranked teams, on the other hand, are all teams that are definitely formidable and would probably have some sort of trump card. Unless you know exactly what the team you’re up against has, you wouldn’t try to challenge such a high ranking team.”

Even though Su Jin said there was no need to worry, he was actually just as worried as Situ Jin was. Team Boning Knife was not like the other high ranking teams, who had high rank scores from accumulating points over many Challenges. His team got this rank because of two perfectly completed Challenges, so they were actually not as formidable as the teams around their rank. If any of these teams challenged them to a battle, things would end in disaster.

Also, in order to make the inter-team battles more exciting, the rewards for the winning team were really good. Even if owners died during the battle, they would be revived as long as their team won and the prizes they would win were extremely enticing.

That would be enough to motivate a team with powerful trump cards to initiate these battles in order to get the biggest reward. They just needed one really amazing owner to survive at the end, and the entire team would be revived. The promise of being revived would also encourage owners to fight with everything they had, including kamikaze types of attacks or using themselves as bait even if they ended up dying as a result.

Under such circumstances, the strategist of each team became even more important than before. Using the lives of their teammates to lay traps, scheme against others, deceive the enemy, and other similar tactics in order to secure the final victory would be needed, so formidable teams would try to invite owners with such capabilities to join their team.

Before this, strategists were always welcome in a team, but if these strategists were not also armed with any ability to defend themselves, they could end up dragging the rest of the team down. If the team found themselves in a Challenge that required sheer strength to survive, this strategist could very well cause the entire team to die in that Challenge.

But with the introduction of team battles as well as the weakening of owners in Challenges, the weaknesses of strategists had also been reduced. In any case, almost everyone would suffer a significant reduction in power, so the difference between veterans and non-veterans was no longer as great as before.

Since the new system helped to reduce the difference in fighting prowess, the benefits of having a good strategist would become more obvious. Teams would treasure their strategists more now.

“Strategists will become more important, and some of these owners might even get headhunted by other teams. Or crazier still, two teams might go into a Battle of Life and Death for the sake of such an owner.” Su Jin frowned deeply. The change in the system had made the Handbook universe full of dangers beyond the Challenges. These changes were really smart moves.

“Jin, what do you mean by that?” Wu Chen didn’t quite understand.

Su Jin paused to think, then explained, “Let’s say Team A’s overall prowess is higher than, or rather, it’s enough to completely overrun Team B. But Team B has an excellent strategist while Team A is in need of such a strategist. What do you think would happen?”

His teammates thought about this hypothetical situation for a moment and their eyes widened in horror. What would happen was obvious – Team A could defeat Team B easily in a fight even without a strategist, so they could challenge Team B to a Battle of Life and Death to threaten the strategist to either leave Team B so that they would have the chance to surrender, or get annihilated by Team A.

If faced with such a choice, the weaker team was definitely going to end up losing their strategist. Their team leader was an excellent strategist who thought very quickly on his feet and was able to calmly analyze and deal with every crisis that came his way. More importantly, Su Jin was also a formidable fighter on his own. Su Jin was pretty much the perfect strategist.

Team Boning Knife’s position on the list was a false reflection of their true prowess. If another team found out about this, the hypothetical situation that Su Jin just presented to them might actually happen.

With that in mind, Su Jin decided to make his ranking public. He was the leader of Team Boning Knife and his position was in the 200s, so that gave the impression that his team wasn’t far off in terms of overall prowess. If the team leader was at #207 while the team was at #91, it would make it seem like there was an even more powerful owner in the team.

“The good part is that we haven’t gone through a lot of Challenges, so there aren’t many people who know about our team. We’ll be safe for the time being,” said Su Jin to assure his team. He didn’t expect himself to become someone that his team had to worry about.

“There could also be teams that have very few extremely powerful members, and more weak members,” said Kano Mai suddenly.

Su Jin nodded. “Mai is right. That is definitely going to happen.”

“Why would anyone want to form such a team?” asked Wu Chen puzzledly.

Situ Jin glanced at Wu Chen and snorted. “Consider the changes from the point of view of that organization of robbers or people like that. The winning team can take any item they want from the losing team. Isn’t that a great opportunity for them? They can join a new team, then crush a low ranking team with that one strong person and get items without working for it.”

Su Jin nodded. “That’s right.”

“What? Isn’t that going to result in complete chaos? If the weaker teams keep getting robbed in this manner, then there’s no hope for the ordinary owner,” said Wu Chen with a frown.

But Su Jin shook his head. “That’s not necessarily true. There was mention of a Battle Declaring token in the notice and I don’t think it’ll be easy to get one of these. Those scenarios we talked about earlier are still going to happen, but these battles aren’t going to occur at uncontrollable levels.”

Everyone nodded in response. Su Jin looked through the rankings again and quickly located Shen Wu’s team. Court of Wrath was ranked at #6, which made Su Jin frown slightly. He wanted to rescue Ye Yun, which meant that he would eventually have to fight it out with Shen Wu as well as his team. Shen Wu was #8, but his team was at #6. That meant that he had other teammates who were also just as formidable. In fact, all of them were probably ranked above Su Jin.

Su Jin sighed as he wondered how Ye Yun was doing. Even though he guessed that her life wasn’t in danger since Shen Wu didn’t seem like he wanted to kill her when he captured her the last time, nobody knew if things would change over time.

“Unless… unless I break the seal… but no, Shen Wu is very formidable too. Who knows if he’s secretly as formidable as a god?” The more Su Jin thought about it, the more helpless he felt. While it was true that he had reached a stage where he could fight gods through a completely random chance encounter, Shen Wu and his team were considered the best of the best among the owners. It was hard to say if they had even greater powers than he did.

Given the circumstances, he needed his team to become strong enough to fight gods as well. Otherwise, it was simply impossible to go up against Team Court of Wrath.

Kano Mai seemed to sense what Su Jin was thinking about and tugged at his arm. She whispered, “Jin, I will always stand by your side, no matter what!”