Chapter 168 - 140: The 6 Major Teams of the Safe Zone

Chapter 168: Chapter 140: The 6 Major Teams of the Safe Zone

The moment news broke that the Advanced Member badges were about to be awarded, the entire Safe Zone erupted.

Advanced Membership symbolized honor!

Although the Safe Zone had only been established for a short time, it had already conquered countless Nightmares, sparking wave after wave of conquest fever. There were even major events like ’Answering the Call to Advance into the Nightmare Region,’ ’Repelling the Baijiang City Disaster,’ and ’Flattening Aberrant Hordes Under the Assembly Order.’

Many members already considered themselves citizens of the Safe Zone and shared in its glory.

Being a member was a status, but it was also a symbol of honor for those who had successfully conquered Nightmares and repelled the Nightmare tides many times.

This was true for ordinary members, and even more so for Advanced Members.

Not to mention, Advanced Membership also came with numerous benefits.

"Advanced Members can team up with nine other members at the same time, and these teams are long-term! With ten people working together, the selection of Nightmares we can conquer will be much larger! I have a feeling that after the Advanced Member badges are awarded, our Safe Zone will see an even more intense conquest fever!"

"That’s right. It’s foreseeable that the experts who get this first batch of Advanced Member qualifications will earn Contribution Points even faster in the future... It’s a snowballing advantage!"

"And that’s not all. Advanced Members also get the ’Dream Fall Omen’ half an hour in advance. It’s only half an hour, but that’s more than enough!"

Forget half an hour—members would be green with envy even if it was just ten minutes, or even five.

At least they wouldn’t have to worry about falling into a Nightmare halfway through taking a dump anymore.

However, many of the expert members were self-aware enough to know that they had no chance of ranking in the top six on the contribution leaderboard.

"We might not be able to compete for the first batch of Advanced Members, but we can try to join an Advanced Member’s team. Roughly speaking, we’d get to enjoy the ’Dream Fall Omen’ benefit too."

Some thought it wouldn’t be hard to join a team.

After all, the prerequisite for being bound to a team was that you had to be a member.

How many members were there in the entire Safe Zone? Just over a hundred.

Six Advanced Members, six teams—that would account for about half of all members.

But other experts weren’t so optimistic.

"These teams are long-term, so the Advanced Members probably won’t lower their standards just to fill slots. Besides, I heard that the Elder Level experts who are confident about competing for Advanced Membership have already scouted out their teammates."

...

The Advanced Members wouldn’t be announced immediately; there were still three days to go.

At midnight three days from now, the Manager would publicly award the badges in the task hall.

Many members already anticipated that these last three days would be the final sprint for the first and second-tier members to boost their Contribution Points.

And they were right!

The Advanced Members hadn’t been officially announced yet, but some independent experts had already gathered several members and begun forming permanent exploration squads.

Experts like Profound Sword, Xi Xue, and Chen Baichuan of the Countermeasures Bureau already had plenty of trustworthy teammates and partners.

Many members no longer had ’Cross-Domain Realm’ travel permissions, but they still had ways to ’team up’ and explore and fight together.

They could explore the Nightmares by using the Watchtower or Lighthouse Camp as a starting point.

However, there was an announcement in the task hall that clearly stated members could use these two locations for transit or resupply. But if a member’s exploration or conquest activities affected the camp, leading to an attack by aberrations, that member would be penalized with a deduction of Contribution Points.

And this deduction was from their ’Contribution Point cap’.

In severe cases, they could even have their membership revoked.

These were also the requirements that most Nightmare Camps had for their residents and temporary occupants. The camp’s inhabitants usually wouldn’t fight aberrations near the camp, even if it was an aberration they could handle and kill.

When members teamed up to explore from these two locations, they needed to travel a considerable distance away before they could let loose.

Furthermore, because far more than one exploration squad had set out from Lighthouse Camp, the surrounding area was now almost completely devoid of any treasures or small, conquerable Nightmare zones.

But even so, even if they couldn’t conquer a Nightmare, as long as they could find some rare items, they could still get Contribution Points as a reward.

—The rare material collection quest for Lighthouse Camp was still posted, after all. And these types of quests, issued officially by the Safe Zone, came with Contribution Point rewards.

...

’The members are making a final sprint, and more and more Nightmares are being conquered. Everyone is getting some pretty good rewards.’

The notification sound for a conquered Nightmare rang in Shi An’s ears from time to time.

He had muted it by now; otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on resting or training.

’But the loot from deep Nightmares is truly generous. Even when the conquest rewards aren’t ’pick three of five,’ but just ’pick two of five’ or even ’pick one of five,’ they’re still generous!’

Shi An looked over his loot options.

Advanced Member Card!

Rare Level Curse Object!

Spell Scroll!

Potion Blueprint!

Even the most common items among these would be enough to make experts at the Safe Zone auction house burn with envy and fight over them.

Among the loot he’d acquired these past few days, there were some things that Shi An coveted as well.

For example...

[Dragon Scale Blood Fruit (Rare)]

This was a Rare Level Treasure Medicine! Rare Level Treasure Medicines were even harder to find than Rare Level Curse Objects. At the very least, you had a chance of finding a Rare Level Curse Object in the shallow layers of a Nightmare, but you would absolutely never find a single Rare Treasure Medicine.

And this Dragon Scale Blood Fruit had the effect of greatly strengthening one’s physique.

It was one of the more potent types among Rare Level Treasure Medicines.