Battle Frenzy

However, those who were able to learn and train in the secret techniques from the Holy Land had endowments, good fortune, and power. At the same time, their background had to serve the interests of the Holy Land. A majority of them were Heavenly Souls. Thus, it was not easy to meet a Heroic Soul like Wolf King.

“Now that I have seen your power, I am at ease. There is nothing bad about leaving Hyde with you.” Alexander smiled. He would not back down, but he was not arrogant either. “Actually, we dimensional humans hope to be able to integrate with everyone else. However, the family system in the Federation is very rigid, and some old families in the Holy Land think too highly of themselves.”

From his words, it was evident that he was willing to work with the Wanderlust Team. This would be beneficial to the development of the Wanderlust Team and would bring many benefits.

“That system is not suitable for our current era. It will eventually be replaced.” Wang Zhong smiled.

Frankly speaking, his words were very arrogant. A Heroic Soul had dared to criticize the structure of the Holy Land and their current times. However, when Wolf King Alexander heard this, he did not feel that Wang Zhong was arrogant or had exaggerated. Those with power naturally had the right to say anything they wanted. “You were not trained in the top mysteries of the Holy Land, yet you have reached this power. You are the first.”

They jumped between topics as they chatted. Their replies seemed irrelevant, but this was how they transmitted their intentions to each other. Both of them were smart and skillful. They could easily understand the hidden meaning behind the other party’s words.

Working together meant that there was mutual respect between Wang Zhong and Alexander. Everything was built on the basis of equal strength. Alexander had respected and acknowledged Wang Zhong’s strength, and there was no doubt that this would be a sign of future cooperation. In the battlefield of the Holy Battle, the higher-ups asked for sincere cooperation among exploration teams. However, in reality, the allocation of resources resulted in uneven benefits. If you could not trust others, how could you trust your back to them?

This was the first step in their collaboration and was good news to the Wanderlust Team.

As for Hyde, he was still a dimensional human. However, Alexander did not care whether he was in the Wanderlust Team or the Seekers. This was simply a stop in his journey as a Heroic Soul Holy Disciple. Once he advanced to the Heavenly Soul Stage, he would eventually have to return to the dimensional humans and their camp.

Thus, Alexander was concerned about Hyde’s future development. If Wang Zhong did not have the ability to give Hyde enough room to develop, he would not allow Hyde to remain in the Wanderlust Team. Inversely, since Wang Zhong had the ability to do so, where Hyde spent his time during the Heroic Soul Stage was not a big concern for Alexander.

“I’m curious.” Wang Zhong did not delve too deep into the topic of their cooperation. Instead, he smiled and changed the subject. “Why have you only arrived now?”

He was talking about the exploration team leaders who had gone to meet the Sacred Teacher.

“Core members like us have a lot of power to make our own decisions in the Holy City. We do not lack training opportunities or training resources either. We did not intend on participating in the Holy Battle, but the fight has not seemed to be very successful. Reinforcements from every level are needed. If not, we would not have been called up for now.”

Alexander paused. Then, he slowly said, “You have to be careful of one person, Red Widow Faith Kelly. One of the people you attacked at the bar was one of her lovers. She is cruel and ruthless and will seize any opportunity available. She has many methods, and it is impossible to defend yourself effectively. However, if you provoke her, the results will not be pretty. Don’t count on the higher-ups either. We are all core members in the cultivation succession. The Holy Land will not care about any life-or-death fights between us. In fact, they will even add fuel to the fire. True experts will only emerge from fights!”

Red Widow Faith Kelly. Wang Zhong had seen her in the hall with Sacred Teacher Leyson. Her bewitching aura that was full of charm, as well as her remarkable reputation in the Holy City, was still fresh in Wang Zhong’s memory. “Thank you for the reminder.”

In the past, Wang Zhong might be worried. He would not be worried that the Red Widow would be able to do anything to him. Instead, he would be worried that when he was not with the exploration team, something like what happened with Sharmie and Mario would happen again. But now… he hoped that he did not cause any trouble for himself. Because… he himself was afraid!

He was already apprehensive about the consequences of him going wild[a]. However, for Mu Zi and Mo Wen, one tended to be negligent, while the other had powerful behind-the-scenes support. He would already be thankful if they did not cause any trouble for others. Furthermore, he had the help of Hyde, Vladimir, Scarlet, and the others. He would observe three minutes of silence for his enemies. Of course, Wolf King’s reminder was still very much needed. This was a very frustrating situation.

The Wanderlust Team could be considered the exploration team that was most loosely managed.

For the members of other large exploration teams, while they enjoyed the various welfare benefits of being in an exploration team, they would also have to await orders to be dispatched by the exploration team. However, the Wanderlust Team did not have such restrictions. Recently, they developed very rapidly and received many missions. They were also free to handle their own financial affairs. Thus, the well-being of the exploration team improved every single day. However, none of the members of the exploration team requested for any rules to be formed. They continued to operate the same way as they did when they only had a few people. All the missions were voluntary. If they did not want to go, they could simply ask for leave from the management.

Frankly speaking, this kind of ‘freedom’ was not appropriate. Their system was imperfect.

They did not feel this way when there were few people in their exploration team. After all, they were familiar with one another and were close friends. If they asked for leave and did not participate in the mission, it was definitely a special circumstance that everyone understood. Thus, they did not enforce any rules. Typically, the benefits in the exploration team were fairly distributed to the people they belonged to.

But now, as the fame of the exploration team continued to expand and their numbers continued to rise, freeloaders who had joined the exploration team just to obtain a minimum amount of benefits without doing anything had started to appear. Although the management — Feng and Oscar — could simply discharge them, this would only provide a temporary solution and would not tackle the root of the problem. Furthermore, it would be easy for the discharged members to voice their discontent. Those who had been discharged were likely to tarnish the reputation of the exploration team with hatred in their hearts. As a result, the Wanderlust Team desperately needed a set of effective rules.

Thus, while using the experiences and the rules of the great exploration teams as reference, they created new rules to target the special circumstances that the Wanderlust Team faced. After all, there were good and bad people mixed up in the Wanderlust Team. There was an almost equal number of dimensional humans and people from the Federation. There were even a few alien races who had come because they admired the dimensional humans.

They were the first exploration team among the Holy Disciples to be such a hodgepodge. This was not a simple matter. Although they were all humans, different races had completely different habits. Force alone would not solve these problems; they had to establish rules. Lao Wang and Oscar, the captain and the vice-captain, would not be able to create a perfect set of rules alone. Lao Wang was not adept at this, and Oscar was not much better either. If not, the Wanderlust Team would not have almost been destroyed back then.

Seven people sat in a small room. This was the first time an official meeting had been held since the exploration team was first established. Other than discussing the exploration team roles, they also reported the various work that had been done by the exploration team recently.

The allocation of roles among the Wanderlust Team management was still rather simple. Wang Zhong was the captain. Naturally, he had the final say for everything. When he was not around, Oscar, the glorious vice-captain, would take over the responsibilities of the captain. Feng was the manager. She mainly handled the financial affairs of the Wanderlust Team and was involved in the allocation of resources. Below them, everyone was divided into three groups, with the captains in charge of managing their team members.

Hyde was the captain of the first group, which was made up homogeneously of the dimensional humans. Needless to say, the dimensional humans had high endowments and combat levels. They had good cohesion and listened to orders. Their absolute strength was also outstanding. At the same time, this was also the turning point in the integration of dimensional humans with other races.

The captain of the second group was Vladimir, with Noraba as the vice-captain. They were all people from the Federation and had the power of the Vasilyevich Family behind them. Although they were not very strong, these Heroic Souls were rather influential. At the same time, the Vasilyevich Family in the Federation had started to work together with the New World. Perhaps Vladimir was being headstrong, but the family saw hope in other aspects.

Small Eyes was the captain of the third group, which was also the preparation group of the Wanderlust Team. Their main members were the old members who wanted to stick to the old ways, as well as a few new members who were not well-equipped, or members who were not very strong. Small Eyes was not that strong, but she was a veteran member of the Wanderlust Team. She had experienced adversity with everyone else and had a frank personality. Thus, she was suitable for this role. Napier was also part of this group.

In addition, there were a few special figures in the Wanderlust Team who were considered guests. They were independent and free and enjoyed good treatment. They did not have to take on any responsibilities either. They were Grai, Mu Zi, Mo Wen, and Mo Xingchen. This was a special request from Wang Zhong.

The four of them did not participate in today’s meeting. Grai was currently missing, while the other three were extremely busy.

Mo Wen and Mo Xingchen could almost not be found anywhere in this period of time. They had even.[b] Although they were new members, the Mo Family seemed to have a very special position and reputation in the Holy City. They had good relations with many ancient aristocratic families in the Holy City. It was fine even if they did not come. If they came, they would not be able to avoid the necessary etiquette. At the same time, Mo Wen and Mo Xingchen had to spend time familiarizing themselves with the system and resources of the Holy Land. It was evident that the two of them were special and could freely travel between the base and the Holy Land. Furthermore, and more importantly, they did not lack Holy Coins, which was something outsiders could not compare with. Of course, Mo Wen and Mo Xingchen would not take advantage of the Wanderlust Team. To be honest, Wang Zhong was not afraid that they would do so.

As for Mu Zi, he was too casual. Earlier on, he had enthusiastically followed the exploration team on missions and was commended for his diligence. He was definitely an outstanding comrade. But ever since he entered the library, it was as if his soul had been seized. Every day, he hung out at the library. This generated massive expenses… Earlier, when Mu Zi followed the exploration team on missions, he had earned a lot of money. However, he did not care about wealth. After all, he ate and lived with the exploration team and did not need the money that he had earned. He gave the money to the exploration team as funds.

At first, Feng was emotional that the great Mu Zi had such high political consciousness. She patted her chest and told Mu Zi that all his future expenses in the Holy City would be covered by the Wanderlust Team. However, every day, when she saw Mu Zi’s receipts from the library, Feng would feel that her heart disease would relapse.

He did not rent particularly expensive books and read books covering basic knowledge. The individual books were not very expensive, but you could not rule out the sheer number of books he borrowed. He could borrow 20 to 30 books that cost 10 Holy Coins each, such as Transmission Basics. However, this was under normal circumstances. On faster days, 40 to 50 books were not even enough for him.

Feng wanted to ask: were you reading books or just flipping through them? Even computers could not store information as quickly as you! He spent several hundred Holy Coins per day. Occasionally, when he encountered a slightly more expensive book, it could go up to a thousand Holy Coins. The Wanderlust Team was now a large and successful team, with three teams taking turns to do missions. Their success rate was high, and they had enough funds. However, they could not continue to bear such expenses. Recently, Feng even felt that their income could not cover their expenditure. She could not break this to Mu Zi and was at her wits’ end. Luckily, Wang Zhong had come back at the right time and had brought back the corpse of a Sword Saint and declared high expenses to the Exploration Team Department. If not, the Wanderlust Team, who was now unparalleled in the Exploration Team Department, would be in financial danger. This would be a massive joke.

Wang Zhong did not object to spending this money. No matter what Mu Zi wanted to do, he would fully support him. Furthermore, he was only spending some money. Earlier on, when they had just arrived on the battlefield, Wang Zhong and Scarlet could tell that Mu Zi was interested in various knowledge about the Holy Land, such as transmission arrays, airships, and so on. Now that he had the opportunity to access this information, he would naturally be tempted to learn. Furthermore, Mu Zi had a different method of cultivation from Wang Zhong. Thus, Wang Zhong would not be so foolish as to point fingers at Mu Zi. Even Aiolos rarely criticized Mu Zi and Wang Zhong. Aiolos always felt that Mu Zi and Wang Zhong would surpass him. The three of them were lonely travelers on their road of cultivation. They did not have to repeat what others did, or they would encounter even more difficulties. They would fail, and could possibly die. However, this was fate. Once they broke through, others could not compare to them.

“We were too tolerant when we were taking people in. We were able to rapidly expand our exploration team this way, but the problems that have occurred because of this are too numerous to be mentioned individually. I feel that we can bring in the recommendation system that the top exploration teams use. We should have strict checks on who we accept…”

Just as Feng was speaking, there was a sudden urgent knocking on the door from outside.

They were rather unhappy that their meeting had been interrupted, but the urgent voice from outside caused their expressions to turn solemn.

“Leader, leader! There is news about Grai! The person who has this information is in the hall and insists on meeting you!”

Information about Grai? It had been almost half a month since Wang Zhong had issued the mission in the Dimensional Hostel. There had been a lot of fake information, but no one had come to the Wanderlust Team and demanded to see Wang Zhong for their reward.

The person who was providing the information was a girl. She said that she was from the Kama Exploration Team, who had just returned from a mission from Warendoor Mountains at the frontlines. The girl said that she had seen Grai at the frontline.

“Rest assured, he was such a handsome person. I definitely would not have wrongly recognized him. Look, I even took a picture with him!” This girl was very pretty and seemed quite young. She had two ponytails, and seemed naive and love-struck. She flashed a picture on her Skylink, which was a selfie she had taken outside the barracks at the Warendoor frontline. Coincidentally, Grai’s figure was in the background. He even unconsciously looked at the camera with a lonely expression on his face.

“Did you talk to him?” Wang Zhong stared at the girl’s eyes. His gaze was sharp and pierced right through her soul.

“No.” The girl shook her head. “I only realized when I looked at the picture later on. I felt that he looked very similar to the person in the warrant at the hostel, so I went back to the campsite and looked through the namelist. As expected, there was someone called Grai in the assault team.”

The assault team. In reality, they were the frontline soldiers who were not afraid to die. They were treated extremely generously. Even if they were not part of the regular troops, as long as their strength met the standard, they could join the assault team. However, almost no one was willing to sign up as they would be the first to be sent on dangerous missions. When war broke out, the other teams had to tally the number of injuries and deaths, but the assault team did not have to. One did not even have to ponder long to figure out that the members of the assault team had definitely changed multiple times during the war. —Because their casualty rate was 100%.

[a]losing his mind to Cellular Cosmology?

[b]?