Chapter 26: Thank You for Your Hard Work

This is hardly surprising.

Yan Qing sighed inwardly. The moment he saw that the only quest reward was a Bingzi Jiaolin blade, he knew this situation would arise—but he couldn't even blame anyone else, as he was the one who had written the settings for the "Thieves' Den."

Squabbling over quest rewards, backstabbing, and power struggles among teammates were all part of the intended fun of the Thieves' Den. When designing this dungeon, Yan Qing had drawn inspiration from social deduction games like Werewolf, aiming to provide players with a tense and exhilarating experience even in a low-level dungeon.

However, encountering teammates who started infighting before they had even completed the quest felt a bit too tense and exhilarating for reality.

"Wow, the Qi Kingdom's standardized rare heirloom, the Valiant General Sword. It’s said that only five can be forged each year, and every noble warrior of Qi takes pride in wielding one. I never expected you, White Fox, to possess such a precious artifact!" Shang Xinlei remarked sharply from the side. "Although refined rare heirlooms are generally stronger than forged ones, the late Divine Martial Emperor used to lead the Qi Valiant Generals to conquer the world, and Black Wolf, your Ming King Armor is oriented toward defense—"

Upon hearing Shang Xinlei’s words, Ying Rushi thought, "This is going to be trouble."

Black Wolf was clearly from a family of Zhou Kingdom military nobility and could not stand the sound of the Qi Valiant General Sword’s prestige!

Almost every word out of Red Snake’s mouth was hitting exactly the nerves that would make Black Wolf angry!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Sure enough, upon hearing Shang Xinlei, Yaoshi Yuan’s offensive grew even more fierce, forcing Ying Rushi to retaliate. Yet, the more Ying Rushi fought back, the more intense the pale golden glow on Yaoshi Yuan’s body became. Ying Rushi knew that once that pale golden glow accumulated to a certain point, Yaoshi Yuan could unleash a terrifying counterattack. She had only two choices: surrender, or use an even stronger attack now to shatter the Ming King Armor’s defense!

She had no choice but to choose the latter!

Ying Rushi had been playing the role of a slick mediator throughout her time in the Thieves' Den, but even a clay figurine has a temper, let alone a noble county duchess of the Qi Kingdom. Her own relatives were the type to kill and torture people in the streets without a second thought; she only refrained because she understood propriety and shame, not because she lacked the capacity!

The Valiant General Sword shimmered with a faint cyan light, so sharp it seemed as if it could slice a wound into the very wind.

Seeing the spiritual light of the Valiant General Sword, Yaoshi Yuan’s eyes brightened, and her blood surged. The reason she wanted to win the Thieves' Den, besides wanting to make the Zhou Kingdom great again, was to test her strength against experts from all over the world!

"Let me see if my Ming King Armor is as immovable as a mountain, or if your Valiant General Sword can truly break through armies and defy the path!"

"Enough."

A white iron straight blade intercepted them from the middle. A flash of brilliance crossed the eyes of Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Rushi. They seemed unable to hold back their momentum, and the Valiant General Sword and the steel spear struck out with full force!

Clang!

With a booming sound, the three weapons collided. However, the expressions of both Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Rushi changed simultaneously.

Their weapons were still radiating the lingering ripples of spiritual power, indicating that they had activated their heirlooms' abilities and infused them into their strikes. But the white iron straight blade blocking between them held no spiritual fluctuations at all!

An heirloom without spiritual activation is no different from an ordinary object!

They knew that their full-strength strikes were enough to dent the heavy golden vault door, yet the white iron blade that absorbed the full force of both their attacks didn't even have a single nick.

How could this be?!

Yan Qing hadn't even activated an heirloom; he moved with the ease of someone separating two fighting kittens.

How on earth did he do it?

Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Rushi could neither understand nor accept this, because this result could only prove one thing—the gap between Yellow Dog and them was so vast that they couldn't even discern his methods!

Third-tier? Fourth-tier?

"Have you two finished making a scene?"

Yan Qing swept a cold glance over them, tightened his grip on the blade, and flicked it upward, knocking their weapons aside. He didn't use much strength, but Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Rushi, cowed by his presence, didn't dare to resist and obediently withdrew their weapons.

"And you, Red Snake!"

Yan Qing pointed his blade at Shang Xinlei.

"If you don't know how to speak, keep your mouth shut."

Shang Xinlei immediately clutched her throat. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out, as if Yan Qing had disabled her ability to speak with a single command. Her expression was one of sheer terror, as if she had suddenly discovered she was mute, and she looked at Yan Qing with pathetic, pleading eyes.

*Little drama queen.*

The same thought occurred to all three of them.

Under the watchful eyes of Ying Rushi and Yaoshi Yuan, Yan Qing reached out and took the Bingzi Jiaolin from the vault.

"I will hold onto this blade," he paused, "until the quest is completed."

The two, already intimidated by his presence, accepted this arrangement when they realized he wasn't keeping it for himself but merely holding it in custody.

Seeing them quiet down and stop causing trouble, Yan Qing let out a sigh of relief.

He hadn't dared to intervene in the fight between Black Wolf and White Fox initially; both looked like second-tier messengers or higher, and he was no match for them in a real fight. But seeing their weapons clash, he suddenly remembered something: although they could attack each other, the game system still recognized them as teammates.

The Thieves' Den was ultimately a cooperative PvE dungeon, not a PvP one. While you could attack or even kill a teammate, a teammate's death wouldn't drop any equipment or cause an experience loss; it would simply be a wasted life and a failed quest.

Of course, in reality, there was no such thing as a "wasted life"—death was permanent.

It is well-known that game programs reuse existing code as much as possible rather than having developers add new code modules for every single minor function. Constantly adding new code just creates a mountain of technical debt.

The logic for a game designer is the same. A designer who forces programmers to write new features every time they have a whim will eventually be dragged out and beaten to death by those programmers. A competent designer, when conceiving a new activity, should draw from existing game functions, having programmers repurpose old features into new gameplay.

To get his design proposal approved, almost all the new mechanics Yan Qing prepared for the Thieves' Den had prototypes in the existing game. The mechanic where teammates could backstab or attack each other was based on the common "sparring mode"—players on the same team could fight each other if they enabled it, with no penalties for death.

In sparring mode, weapon and armor durability did not decrease, and heirlooms would not be destroyed by an opponent’s "shattering damage" (damage exceeding weapon durability).

Simply put, teammates in the Thieves' Den could hurt each other, but they couldn't destroy each other's heirlooms.

If his theory was correct, even if Yan Qing lacked the raw power, he could still interfere in the battle between Black Wolf and White Fox!

Yan Qing admitted he had taken a gamble, but he had won.

Yaoshi Yuan and the others would only see Yan Qing block their attacks with a plain white iron blade. Even if they suspected it had something to do with "divine rules," they would find it hard to uncover the truth in the short term.

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

When they left the vault, Yaoshi Yuan and Ying Rushi subconsciously fell a step behind, and Yan Qing stepped to the front without hesitation.

Carrying the large sack in his right hand and the Bingzi Jiaolin in his left, he led them out of the inner hall.

Many people were waiting in the outer hall, surrounding the entrance in three layers. The outermost were the monks, inside them were the nobles, and in the innermost layer stood An Wu, blocking the exit. By now, An Wu’s left arm was nearly burnt away, the charred black bone exposed, and his entire left side was so severely burned that he no longer looked human.

Seeing Yan Qing and the others emerge, the monks retreated in terror. Among them were martial monks and even second-tier messengers at the "Clear Insight" level, yet none dared to approach Yan Qing’s group.

There are gaps even among messengers; truly powerful messengers rarely stayed in the capital, let alone frequented secret realms. How much grit could these martial monks guarding An'guo Temple—even those at the second tier—possibly have?

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

The monks panicked at once, scrambling and crawling as they fled into the depths of An'guo Temple.

"We are thieves, not serial killers," Yan Qing said coolly. "Though if you want to kill them, I don't care."

Yaoshi Yuan thought about it and decided against it—the monks were too fast, and killing them one by one was inefficient. She would deal with such vermin in the name of the Embroidery Guard Commander once she returned home.

Although nobles like Xue Yan saw them laden with bags, they all acted as if they had suddenly become blind and mute. Under everyone’s gaze, Yan Qing walked up to the ghastly, demon-like An Wu and patted him on the shoulder.

"Thirty."

An Wu nodded, stopped blocking the door, and began to count down: "Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight..."

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

Passing by An Wu, Yan Qing paused and spoke softly.

"You've worked hard."