Hell's Handbook

Chapter 87: Full Team

Su Jin closed his Handbook and asked a question that had been on his mind since the Challenge ended. He wanted to know more about this Hell’s Bar.

“Blackie, what is the Hell’s Bar?”

“Hell’s Bar! Once an owner has completed 20 Challenges or a small team gets five members, access to Hell’s Bar will be granted. Hell’s Bar is a place where owners can gather to exchange items, recruit new members, ask for information and more. Entry into Hell’s Bar will cost 100 points. For teams, the team leader needs to pay 200 points and the whole team can enter the Bar,” explained Blackie in great detail.

Su Jin blinked in surprise. He didn’t expect such a place to exist. He thought that besides meeting other owners during a Challenge, the only other way was to run into them by chance in the real world.

“How do I get in there?” asked Su Jin.

“As long as you’re in a place that doesn’t have any non-owners, you can open your Handbook and choose to go in.”

Su Jin nodded. Entering the Bar was easy and this was a great place to have access to. Besides the possibilities of making exchanges of items and information, the fact that the team members had a physical place to gather besides the Challenges themselves was great for the team.

He also took a quick glance at his Spirit Power. After going through the last Challenge, his Psychokinesis had gone from a maximum of 100 points to 140 points. Demon Lord Spirit Power had clearly been of great use to the improving of his own Spirit Power. The only drawback was the terrible pain. Su Jin would never forget that sort of pain.

“Well, either way, at least I’ve found a way of pushing the limit upwards,” muttered Su Jin with a sigh. The process was painful, but the improvement was significant.

He suddenly shut his eyes. The Demon Lord’s Eye was now his heart, so if he wanted to check its status, he just needed to shut his eyes.

“It’s really recharging itself.” The Demon Lord’s Eye showed that it still contained about 2000 points of Demon Lord Spirit Power. During the Challenge, Su Jin had used Demon Lord Spirit Power several times and had definitely used way over 1000 points in the process. So, the fact that he had 2000 points left meant that the Demon Lord’s Eye was indeed regenerating Demon Lord Spirit Power.

After a few moments, he entered the Team Domain and saw that the other four were already waiting for him inside. They had obviously been waiting for some time.

“Boss!” Yang Mo waved excitedly at Su Jin. Kano Mai sat next to him and smiled faintly as she nodded at Su Jin.

Su Jin broke into a smile and walked over as he said to Kano Mai and Yang Mo, “How are both of you? Still alright?”

“I’m alright I guess! Just feeling a little tired.” Yang Mo scratched his head, looked himself over, then patted his chest to show that he was fine.

Su Jin turned to look at Kano Mai and she smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

“The more you insist you’re fine, the more worried I am,” said Su Jin with a sigh. Kano Mai was the type who didn’t want others to worry about her, so even if something was wrong, she probably wouldn’t mention it.

She smiled even more brightly and patted Su Jin’s head. “It’s alright, it’s alright. Mai-oneesan is standing in front of you in one good piece, isn’t she? Oh, and before I lost consciousness, I heard someone bawl REALLY loudly too!”

Su Jin rubbed his nose embarrassedly while everyone else tried hard not to laugh. He cleared his throat and said, “Well, that…hey, by the way, the team has activated a new function!”

“HAHAHA!”

“Jin, you’re SO cute!”

Everyone knew that Su Jin was just trying to change the topic, so they all burst out laughing, which made Su Jin even more embarrassed.

Kano Mai helped him to get out of the situation by saying, “Alright, alright! We’ve got a new function! Don’t you guys want to know what it is?”

“Yes!” the other three responded in unison. But they were still clearly laughing at him.

Su Jin proceeded to tell them about Hell’s Bar with a straight face.

“Well, I don’t know about anything else, but…” Chu Yi’s expression was serious as he spoke up and only broke into a smile when everyone looked at him. “That means Brother Su’s gonna give us a treat at the Bar!”

Su Jin laughed and nodded. It wasn’t always easy being a team leader after all.

“We need some items that can boost their soul strengths, so Hell’s Bar will definitely be of great help to us in this aspect. I hope we get some useful information there.” Su Jin sighed. Kano Mai and Yang Mo weren’t in the clear just yet. Their souls could fade anytime, so they had to find a way to boost their soul strength as soon as possible.

The only thing left to do was to strengthen the team. Kano Mai and Yang Mo couldn’t strengthen their bodies any further in order to conserve soul strength, but since one was a sniper and the other a healer, it was alright not to strengthen their bodies. They just needed to fortify their other characteristics.

Su Jin was still hoping to get the High Level Body Strengthening Elixir, but he didn’t have enough points, so he could only look at it.

Chu Yi, on the other hand, was going to rely on his Spirit Power.

“You might get involved in a physical fight, so why don’t you get some weapons?” suggested Su Jin.

But Chu Yi shook his head. “No need. The true meaning of martial arts is to fight with whatever you’ve been given. Weapons are what the weak and cowardly use to help them feel braver!”

The moment Chu Yi said such insulting words, everyone else started berating him. All of them needed to rely on weapons in some way or another besides himself.

“Hey, that’s a mean thing to say!” Yang Mo was very unhappy to hear these words. He had a healer’s role, but he too, needed some sort of weapon to defend himself.

Chu Yi quickly smiled and apologized to everyone as he said, “No, no that’s not what I meant! None of you are martial artists or have any innate ability to fight. I’m referring to martial artists! The ones who have to fight on the frontlines!”

“Excuse me?!” Su Jin narrowed his eyes. What Chu Yi said had eliminated everyone else except Su Jin, which made it personal now.

Chu Yi suddenly realized what he just said and apologized again, “Brother Su, I’m not talking about you! I’m talking about…oh, forget it! I won’t say anymore!”

Everyone burst out laughing again when they saw how miserable Chu Yi looked after all his attempts to explain himself had failed. When they were alone, they didn’t get a chance to laugh to their hearts content like this. This team wasn’t the most powerful right now, but it was a safe and assuring haven for them.

“Since we’re all set, then…Ning Meng, do you have any ideas on what sort of role you want to play?” Su Jin turned to look at Ning Meng. This was only her second Challenge, so she didn’t know what she wanted to strengthen herself in.

Ning Meng thought about it for a while, then said, “I’ll go with whatever the team needs and strengthen myself in any area we’re still lacking in.”

She was a very agreeable character, but Su Jin didn’t think it was appropriate to just pick something random for her either. Chu Yi and himself were the melee fighters, Kano Mai was their long distance expert, while Yang Mo was the medic. This team was actually considered an all rounded team with just four persons.

“You’d definitely need something that will help with your own survival, and as for what the team needs now…why not be the team’s stealth user?” Kano Mai suddenly piped up.

Everyone’s eyes lit up and Su Jin nodded. “That’s a good idea. Being able to go undercover or disguising yourself will help to keep yourself safe, and you’d also be able to help the team to conduct reconnaissance or assassinate someone. Ning Meng, what do you think?”

“I’m good with that!” Ning Meng was willing to do anything that would benefit the team, which was the smart thing to do. If she was useful to the team, the team would value her and protect her. She would become an indispensable member of the team and be in a safer position that way.

She only received the basic 1000 points from her first challenge and she had used most of it on various items already. Luckily, she had received high points this time round. After the system confirmed that everyone had destroyed the seven treasures, Ning Meng had received a total exceeding 3000 points.

“Speaking of which, can these supposed gods seriously become so powerful that they can change the world of the Handbook? If that’s the case, what should we do if we run into such characters again?” Kano Mai was really worried.

Su Jin shook his head and laughed sadly. “Our concept was wrong to begin with. I think, even the gods in these Challenges are not powerful enough to change anything in this universe.”

“So why did the actual mission differ from what we saw initially?” Chu Yi was still confused.

Su Jin pointed to his eyes and said, “Think about it in another way. They can’t change anything in this universe, so it means that they can change what we are able to see!”

Everyone was stunned by this possibility. They believed in Su Jin’s judgement, but this only made them feel even more terrified. If these gods could decide what they could see, then could they still believe what they saw in the Handbook the next time? What if they ran into a god again? How could they tell what was real and what wasn’t?

“Don’t worry too much about it. Even gods would be subject to certain parameters. We ran into two gods, the Mad Hatter and Pinocchio, yet all they could do was to alter what we saw very slightly. Also, I think it has something to do with their own personal characteristics,” Su Jin assured everyone.

Everyone was a little more assured after hearing these words.

Ning Meng proceeded to choose the items she needed under the guidance of the rest. She was quite lucky, so she managed to get a Camouflage Cloak, which could help the user to conceal themselves to a certain extent.

Once that was all done, everybody returned to their Personal Hell Domains to either spend some points on training or return to the real world immediately. That was not something Su Jin could interfere with.

As usual, Su Jin spent points on training. He wanted to see if using Demon Lord Spirit Power in this space would help him to gain more Psychokinetic Spirit Power.

After his training period was over and he returned to the real world, he noticed that the upper limit of his Spirit Power hadn’t increased by much. It was nowhere near the increase that he had gotten during the Challenge. It seemed like he was only able to increase it significantly when he was in great danger.

Now that he didn’t have to worry about a Challenge for the next month, Su Jin tried Ye Yun’s number again. She had gone missing for nearly a month now, so he couldn’t just let her be anymore.