Chapter 33: Milestone Shared Across All Accounts
"One hundred thousand Spirit Jades—if I ever saw that bastard..."
"Then you’d be dead. That’s a thief who dares to rob people in Chang’an. Do you even know what Chang’an is? It’s a divine-blessed city on par with Buye Tian!"
"Only an idiot would ask for one hundred thousand Spirit Jades. If someone has a legendary token, who even needs Spirit Jades?"
"And what’s so great about a thief anyway? Could he even beat us Hundred-Ward?"
"Hah, a powerful Messenger can take on a thousand alone. Do you think you’re from the Loyal Battalion or something?"
"I think Captain Ye will eventually be promoted to the Loyal Battalion! Captain Ye, do you think we could beat that bastard?"
In the early morning, inside the mess hall of the Pingcheng Military Camp, the Northland soldiers who had just woken up gathered in small groups, holding their rice bowls and chatting.
Their conversation never strayed far from the key phrases: ‘Divine Marquis Estate,’ ‘Wanted Poster,’ and ‘Legendary Token.’
Although four or five days had passed, the proclamation from the Divine Marquis Estate remained the hottest and trendiest topic.
As the chatter continued, a curious soldier glanced over at Ye Si, who was recently in the limelight—he had changed professions in three days and become a squad captain in five. Even with the support of Gai Louxian, Ye Si’s promotion speed was astonishing.
However, everyone had genuine respect for him. He joined the secret realm squads daily and was always the first to charge in. Though silent and reserved, his strength was astounding.
The only drawback was that he still didn’t possess a token, so he couldn’t lead teams into the secret realms. But there was a merit system within the Hundred-Ward—every time a Messenger entered a secret realm, they earned a minor merit.
The easiest token to obtain, the Ghostly Mask, required only one hundred minor merits.
For others, earning one hundred minor merits might take a year or two, but for someone like Ye Si, who entered secret realms as often as one might visit a brothel, everyone believed he could fulfill the requirement within three months.
At this moment, Ye Si was slicing mutton with a small knife.
Nowadays, he had to eat nearly an entire sheep per meal just to maintain his condition.
And that was considered a small appetite—someone like Gai Louxian, a second-stage Messenger, could eat an entire cow per meal without exaggeration. Each meal would take half an hour.
They did have a better alternative: eating Healing Pills, which instantly satisfied the day’s Vital Energy and Blood requirements and didn’t even require bowel movements.
Yet even third-stage Messengers couldn’t bear to waste such sacred medicine as food.
Aside from that, the flesh and blood of powerful beasts from secret realms were the next best thing to Healing Pills.
Unfortunately, the Zhen Sanshan secret realm didn’t contain such beasts, and “Ye Si” wasn’t some nobleman who could access specially supplied meat.
"First of all, that’s not some bastard. That’s a Messenger wearing the Yellow Dog Mask. Secondly, I don’t need you all—I can beat him alone."
After a brief silence, the soldiers burst into laughter and jeers.
"Well said!"
"That’s our Captain Ye—destined for greatness!"
"Destined? He’s already made it!"
At that moment, an old general entered, and the noisy mess hall instantly fell silent.
It was the Hundred-Ward Banner Leader, Gai Louxian. He glanced around and called Ye Si outside.
When Ye Si returned, he was already wearing the item most coveted by all Hundred-Ward Knights—the Ghostly Mask.
Everyone asked him about it and learned that although he hadn’t accumulated enough minor merits, Gai Louxian had vouched for him and helped him redeem the Ghostly Mask in advance.
Of course, it came at a price.
Starting today, Ye Si had to lead squads into secret realms.
When encountering secret realm demon kings (BOSSes), he had to take the initiative to absorb damage and, over the next three months, lead at least sixty missions.
For others, that might be a challenge. But for Ye Si, it was practically a reward.
Word spread faster than the wind.
By the time Ye Si finished breakfast, he had become the hottest figure in the military camp.
Many captains came over to congratulate him and even invited him to have fun at the pleasure district next to the camp.
Naturally, Ye Si declined them all and then began his journey into today’s secret realm.
Unlike during the time with Wu Wanliu, many Hundred-Ward members now scrambled to enter secret realms, even fighting over spots.
Those who managed to snatch a place looked relaxed, chatting and laughing as if on an outing.
Ye Si, who led them, brought no weapons.
Once inside the secret realm, he instructed the Hundred-Ward not to engage in combat, only to fire from the perimeter.
Of course, none of them disobeyed.
And just like that, the Hundred-Ward watched with wide eyes as Ye Si kicked every demon in the secret realm to death using only footwork.
There was no risk at all—or rather, all the risk was borne by Ye Si.
Precisely because of this, entering secret realms had transformed from a dreaded task into a prized opportunity.
Aside from the Hundred-Ward who could easily earn reward money, even other squad and banner leaders were happy to see it happen.
Few people were willing to fight secret realm demons head-on.
As Messengers, they had plenty of other ways to make money and didn’t care about a bit of bonus pay.
Now that a battle-crazed martial arts freak had appeared to shoulder these troublesome duties, it was the perfect outcome.
"Didn’t expect Captain Ye’s legwork to be this good too."
"You better not copy that. Specialization is the right path. If you dabble in everything here and there..."
"Shouldn’t Captain Ye rest his body? Fighting in secret realms every day like that, won’t it wear him down?"
"You guys don’t understand. Captain Ye is this talented and driven for a reason. I heard his whole family was killed, and the murderer was a third-stage Messenger. That’s why he’s training for revenge..."
"What I heard was that Captain Ye was rejected in marriage. He made a three-year vow—not to marry until he became a third-stage Messenger?"
Of course, Yan Qing had no idea about the camp’s gossip and chaos.
He looked at the screen data, unable to suppress the smile at the corners of his mouth.
"I finally trained it up!"
"Ye Si"
"Level: 18"
"Vital Energy and Blood: 31"
"Spirit: 23"
"Agility: 15"
"Comprehension: 8"
"Mastered Basic Skills: Basic Blade Technique Lv.10, Basic Footwork Lv.10, Basic Spearmanship Lv.10, Basic Fist Technique Lv.10, Basic Sword Technique Lv.10, Basic Shield Technique Lv.10, Basic Leg Technique Lv.10, Basic Archery Lv.10"
"Mastered Advanced Skill: Advanced Blade Technique Lv.1"
"Activated Milestone Effects: Martial Arts Prodigy, Demolition Team"
The reason Yan Qing had "Ye Si" constantly change weapons to hone basic skills wasn’t just for the experience—it was for this Martial Arts Prodigy milestone!
Before introducing the Martial Arts Prodigy milestone, we need to start from the day Yan Qing returned from Chang’an.
That day, he saw "Demolition Team" in Ye Si’s status screen.
"Demolition Team"
"Milestone Requirement: Destroy any medium-sized building in a main city."
"Effect: Your token effects are more effective in demolishing buildings."
"Note: Bro, is your desire for destruction a bit too strong?"
"Follow-up milestone 'Destroyer' triggered: Destroy any large landmark in a main city."
"This milestone was completed by a Real Mode account and is effective across all Real Mode accounts."
When Yan Qing saw that last line, he was stunned.
But after thinking about it carefully, it made sense—normal accounts could pursue all achievements casually, with plenty of time and room for mistakes, while Real Mode accounts had none of that.
If milestones couldn’t be shared and a Real Mode account died resetting everything, then Real Mode players would simply abandon the milestone system.
After all, milestone effects were optional, but the time and effort to complete them were significant—players would rather just grind levels than bother.
Conversely, if milestone effects were shared across accounts, it would motivate Real Mode players to complete them, and even attract normal players into the Real Mode trap.
Think about it—if you grind several Real Mode accounts to stack up a bunch of milestones, then every new alt account you make will start with all those milestone bonuses.
That’s basically cheating in an MMORPG!
The joy of cheating in an online game is at least ten or even a hundred times greater than using cheats in a single-player game!
And normal players wouldn’t find it unfair.
First, Real Mode characters die permanently, so they usually avoid competing with normal players.
Second, if normal players get wrecked by Real Mode characters, they can always switch to Real Mode and grind milestones too.
Everyone can cheat—as long as you’re willing to invest time and take risks.
The more Yan Qing thought about it, the more brilliant he found the "milestone sharing" mechanism.
It was so fun that he wanted to use normal accounts to hunt Real Mode players, and use Real Mode accounts to accumulate milestones for his alts.
No wonder 《The Messenger》 could carve a bloody path in an era where MMORPGs were in decline.
Top players could still dominate, but even noobs could gain cheat-like benefits through sheer time investment.
Take a noob like Yan Qing for instance.
For him, the biggest reward from the Thief Mission wasn’t the Bingzi Pepper Forest.
It was discovering that titles could apply across all accounts.
So milestones from alt accounts could also apply on main accounts!
Thus, for the past few days, Yan Qing had done nothing but grind the Martial Arts Prodigy milestone.
After running secret realms in the morning, he trained various skills in the military camp the rest of the day, all through manual input—after all, "auto evolution" deducted 30% experience.
Others only saw Ye Si working hard, but the one truly suffering was Yan Qing!
But it was all worth it.
"Martial Arts Prodigy"
"Milestone Requirement: Master eight basic techniques."
"Effect: For each technique mastered, Comprehension +1 (only effective when Comprehension <10). Gain 100% additional experience from skill training."
"Note: What is a martial arts prodigy? Someone who understands at a glance, learns instantly, never forgets, and is certified forever? No, no. Even freeloaders like that are considered geniuses, so they don’t count.
A true martial arts prodigy excels at slow, clumsy training, but isn’t smart—because truly smart people wouldn’t bother practicing martial arts in the first place!"
"This milestone was completed by a Real Mode account and is effective across all Real Mode accounts."
This milestone required mastering eight basic techniques, but the effect was rather underwhelming.
Normal players rarely had Comprehension below 10, so the bonus Comprehension was irrelevant.
The training experience boost was nice, but monster-killing XP was ten times greater—there was no need to waste electricity auto-training.
So when Ye Si triggered this milestone, Yan Qing didn’t think much of it.
Until he discovered the milestone effects were shared.
To players, this milestone was "better than nothing"—but in the real world, it was a different story.
In this world, ordinary people training basic skills from scratch had to invest years just to reach level three or four before practical use.
Only in-game characters could level up through combat.
As a 3D creature who couldn’t evolve into a game avatar, Yan Qing had to rely on training to learn basic skills.
And unlike others, he would never leave the Thieves’ House for live combat.
Which meant training was his only viable leveling method.
With the Martial Arts Prodigy milestone, Yan Qing could finally train basic skills outside the game.
And after completing the Martial Arts Prodigy milestone, the game popped up a new milestone—
"Martial Arts Genius: Master five advanced techniques."
Advanced techniques weren’t as easy to grind as basics.
Even though the number dropped from eight to five, the required time started in the range of months.
Yan Qing had grinded for days and already felt burned out—he had no immediate plans for this milestone.
What’s more, he had made a firm resolution early on—once he got the Martial Arts Prodigy title, he’d start seriously training his basic skills and stop slacking off!
Today, the Messenger will not log in!
And just then, a new message popped up in the lower left chat box:
"Jiangnan regional event ‘Manshu Forest’ has begun."