Who said this card is outrageous?

After arriving at the Adventurers' Guild, Zhang Che did not go to find Shen Yan immediately. Instead, he went to the quest wall first to see if there were any suitable quests to take on.

There were fewer people in the hall than usual, but it was still lively. Adventurers gathered in twos and threes, glancing at the latest quest list scrolling on the large screen on the wall from time to time.

Zhang Che stood in front of the mission wall and looked at it for a while.

Having learned from his recent experience, he now greatly appreciates the Adventurers' Guild's points. The guild is large and powerful, and there are indeed many good things it can exchange for; you can never have too many of these.

He scanned the list and found a few card-making tasks that suited him. The rewards weren't very high, but they were stable. He could earn points for each card he made, and little by little, it would add up to a decent income.

Just as he was about to take on a few jobs that caught his eye, he heard familiar footsteps behind him.

"You came without even saying a word."

Zhang Che turned around, and Shen Yan was walking over from the other end of the hall. Someone must have seen Zhang Che come to the guild and went to inform him.

Now, Shen Yan is wearing a dark blue uniform with the badge of the deputy head of the general affairs department pinned to his chest, and he looks much more energetic than before.

However, Zhang Che noticed that he had faint dark circles under his eyes, which meant he had been staying up late a lot lately.

"I was just afraid of disturbing your work," Zhang Che said with a smile.

Shen Yan walked up to him, looked him up and down, and said nothing more, just stepped aside and said, "Come on, let's talk in the back."

After passing through the lobby, the two entered a room at the end of the corridor. This was Shen Yan's office; it wasn't large, but it was very tidy.

A desk, two chairs, a map of the surrounding coastal city hanging on the wall, and a stack of documents piled on the desk. The window was half open, letting in sunlight that cast bright patches of light on the floor.

After they sat down, Shen Yan poured Zhang Che a cup of tea.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Zhang Che, holding his teacup, looked at Shen Yan and said with a smile, "Congratulations on advancing to the third rank."

He noticed something was off about Shen Yan's mental energy fluctuations as soon as they met; it was much stronger than before, clearly indicating a breakthrough.

Although Shen Yan maintained his calm and collected demeanor on the surface, the changes in his mental strength were undeniable.

Shen Yan smiled and replied, "I was lucky."

"Luck?" Zhang Che asked, somewhat curious.

Shen Yan remained silent for a moment before explaining, "Actually, it's because I used a spiritual crystal. Otherwise, given my previous situation, it would have taken me at least another year and a half to advance to the third rank."

"A crystallization of spiritual knowledge?"

When Zhang Che heard about this for the second time, he immediately showed a curious expression.

Previously at the hospital, Yu Renjia mentioned that the city hall had given him a spiritual crystal as a reward. He didn't expect Shen Yan to have one too.

Shen Yan then began to give Zhang Che a simple explanation of the science.

Spiritual crystals are artificially created alchemical artifacts, but the raw materials are quite rare. In addition, they can directly help users increase their spiritual power limit, so they have always been strategic resources controlled by the government and major forces, and are rarely seen on the market.

Occasionally, some will leak out, but the prices are outrageously high, making them unaffordable for the average person.

Zhang Che nodded. He could understand that. Anything that could enhance one's strength would be a treasure in the eyes of any superhuman, and it would never be cheap.

Of course, this thing has its limits. For someone like Zhang Che, who has already advanced to the third level of superhuman, its value is not so obvious.

After all, this thing is expensive, and many people buy it mainly to break through ranks. If it's just for improving mental strength, it would be a waste.

"Then where did you get this one from?" Zhang Che asked.

“When I went to the provincial adventurers’ guild to report for duty, I was favored by Mr. Lin.” Shen Yan’s tone was very calm, but when he mentioned the name “Mr. Lin”, Zhang Che noticed that there was a hint of respect in his eyes. “So I was lucky enough to receive this reward.”

"Mr. Lin?" Zhang Che was unfamiliar with this title.

Shen Yan glanced at him, seemingly considering how to introduce him. After a moment, he spoke, and his words were more numerous than usual.

"Mr. Lin's full name is Lin Jiming. He is a special advisor to the Adventurers' Guild headquarters. He is most famous for treasuring talent. Once you catch his eye, he will not hesitate to reward you. If he thinks you have potential and a future, he will give you generously."

Shen Yan paused, then added, "With your talent, if you ever have the chance to meet him, you should get something even better."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Che half-jokingly said, "I'm not a member of the Adventurers' Guild. Even if I met Mr. Lin, he wouldn't give me any rewards, would he?"

Shen Yan shook his head: "Mr. Lin is the least prejudiced. He has rewarded talents from all factions, and many of them are of good quality at the mid-level extraordinary level."

Zhang Che was genuinely surprised this time.

I thought to myself, "Isn't this incredibly generous? Just how wealthy must that person be to be able to afford to give away so much?"

To be honest, Zhang Che was genuinely curious about what kind of person Mr. Lin was. He could earn the respect of someone like Shen Yan, so he must be extraordinary.

However, Shen Yan did not answer Zhang Che's question directly, but just smiled and said, "You'll know when you see him in person in the future."

Seeing that he refused to talk, Zhang Che did not press him further and instead steered the conversation back to Shen Yan.

Shen Yan picked up his water glass, took a sip, leaned back in his chair, and said with a hint of fatigue in his voice that the battle between the guild and the Murlocs had been escalating recently, keeping the general affairs department extremely busy, and he himself was severely lacking in energy.

Now that I've been promoted to the third rank, I'm finally able to barely manage my current job.

Zhang Che glanced at the large stack of documents on the desk, then at the dark circles under Shen Yan's eyes, and nodded: "I can tell."

Despite this, Zhang Che could still tell from Shen Yan's tone that he was quite satisfied with the job.

The deputy head of the General Affairs Department is in charge of roughly a quarter of the Adventurers' Guild's resource allocation and mission assignments. He has considerable power and responsibility.

The fact that Shen Yan was able to take this position during such a turbulent time shows that the guild's upper management has great trust in his abilities.

"How's the battle situation outside the city lately?" Zhang Che asked casually.

He had been staying in the city for a while and had limited access to information from the outside world, which was mostly secondhand information that had been processed by the authorities.

Take the case of Fu Xing and Yu Renjia, for example. If Zhang Che hadn't known the people involved, he probably would have believed that the official announcement was the truth.

Faced with this question, Shen Yan's expression turned serious, and after a moment's thought, he slowly spoke...

Chapter 54 New Mission

Recently, the large-scale extermination campaign launched by humans against the fishmen has yielded fruitful results, with numerous fishmen nests and settlements in nearshore areas being destroyed.

Yu Renjia and Fu Xing's experiences are a microcosm of the entire crackdown operation.

As a result, the morale of the people in Binhai City is very high, and many people feel that the disaster will be quelled soon.

Zhang Che nodded; he had seen these things on the news as well.

Lately, the TV has been broadcasting reports on the front lines every day, showing how many murloc nests were destroyed today and how many murlocs were eliminated tomorrow—a picture of great success.

But then Shen Yan changed the subject, mentioning some anomalies in the intelligence recently gathered by the Adventurers' Guild.

Zhang Che frowned: "What's wrong?"

“Malnutrition was found in some of the captured fishmen.” Shen Yan pulled a document from the table and handed it to Zhang Che.

Zhang Che didn't care at first.

The number of murlocs was already excessive, and with the reappearance of the murloc king, their reproduction rate is expected to increase significantly according to records, making a large increase in population size in a short period of time inevitable.

However, there are other extraordinary creatures in the ocean, and the total amount of food they can obtain is limited, so it is not surprising that they suffer from malnutrition.

However, Shen Yan's next words made him frown.

“The problem isn’t there.” Shen Yan shook his head. “Besides some of them being malnourished in the conventional sense, some were so severely malnourished that they were completely unable to move. But when they were captured, these fishmen were fighting a bloody battle and showed no signs of malnutrition.”

This is very abnormal.

Even for extraordinary beings, the body is the foundation of everything, and physical damage cannot, in theory, be exempted by things like willpower or spirit.

Zhang Che remained silent for a moment without offering any opinion, but he made a mental note of the matter.

Seeing this, Shen Yan moved on to the next topic, saying that there was something even more worrying: the whereabouts of the Fishman King had not yet been found.

Finally, after several meetings between the city hall and the adventurers' guild, a consensus was reached—it was possible that the Fishman King had not yet reached his full potential, and given that the humans had been focusing their efforts on eliminating the Fishmen, he might be afraid and dared not show himself.

Zhang Che thought about it and felt that although the explanation was reasonable, some parts still didn't make sense. Would a king who could command the entire fish-man race hide out of fear?

However, this is clearly not something a card maker like him should be concerned with.

However, the Fishman King is ultimately a crucial factor in determining the outcome of this war. Therefore, in addition to sending out their own teams to search for him, the City Hall and the Adventurers' Guild have also offered a very high reward for information about the Fishman King.

Money can be a powerful motivator, and some superhumans who felt they had considerable strength began to try to venture deep into the ocean to find the King of Fishmen, but most of them returned empty-handed.

A few extraordinary individuals even disappeared completely after that, their fate unknown.

Those people were all classified as normal losses. After all, once they reached the deep sea, many native creatures of Earth had already begun to transcend due to the constant influence of energy leaking from various fissures hidden in the ocean, not to mention those transcendent creatures that migrated from other worlds.

The ocean's ecosystem is now far more complex than imagined, and venturing into it is inherently a highly dangerous activity; losses are to be expected.

Fortunately, many extraordinary creatures in the deep sea are generally unwilling or unable to live on land, with only amphibious species like fish-men being a few exceptions. Therefore, humans do not need to worry about being raided by extraordinary creatures in the sea.

"In order to eliminate the Fishman King as soon as possible, the City Hall and the Adventurers' Guild have decided to organize a second large-scale extermination operation." Shen Yan dropped another bombshell, "This time the target is the Fishman's lair in a deeper part of the sea, and it will officially begin in about half a month."

"Half a month?" Zhang Che calculated the time. "Is that enough?"

"Whether it's enough or not, we have to do it." Shen Yan's tone was calm. "The longer the Fishman King exists, the more dangerous it becomes for Binhai City. It will be too late once it's fully developed. We must strike first before it becomes too powerful!"

Zhang Che nodded; there was nothing wrong with the logic.

Shen Yan then looked at Zhang Che: "This operation requires a lot of supplies, and cards are a must. I am currently mainly in charge of this part."

Zhang Che understood what he meant.

Shen Yan took a sip of tea to moisten his throat before continuing, "The acquisition mission for card-type items has not yet been officially announced. As a friend, I can give you a little backdoor."

Zhang Che laughed: "Oh? This time we don't have to follow the rules?"

Shen Yan's expression remained unchanged as he calmly replied, "I am now the deputy head of the General Affairs Department, and I no longer need the title of outstanding employee to prove anything."

Zhang Che laughed heartily.

Shen Yan waited for him to finish laughing before speaking seriously: "Because this cleanup operation will most likely involve many battles deep in the ocean, the supplies the guild needs to acquire are mostly suitable for underwater combat, and the same goes for the cards."

Zhang Che nodded and made a note of it.

"You just happened to exchange a lot of shark-themed summoning cards with your points before, so you can try to work in that direction." Shen Yan continued, "Considering that not everyone has enough mental strength to control cards, the instructions from above are to focus on second-tier cards when acquiring them, and have some third-tier cards. Cards that are too high-level are generally unusable for ordinary adventurers."

Zhang Che thought about it and felt that this mission was indeed profitable. He immediately said that he had recently been using the fishman materials he had acquired at low prices on the market to research new cards, and that he had already made some progress. He should be able to make it in time for this operation.

Shen Yan glanced at him, a slight smile playing on her lips: "Then I'll wait for your good news."

Zhang Che looked at him, nodded, said nothing more, and turned to leave the office.

The corridor was quiet, with only the sound of his footsteps echoing.

He was still thinking about the strange fishmen that Shen Yan had mentioned earlier, those who were severely malnourished but still able to maintain sufficient fighting power.

This reminded Zhang Che of when he previously acquired fishman materials from the market and discovered that those materials still retained some mental fluctuations.