The Falcon took slightly less time than Bone Two to learn how to use its skill.
After all, Mu Yuan urged it on every day and even fed it several extremely valuable Abundant Fruits.
His investment had not been wasted.
The Falcon paired with Shared Vision truly had immense strategic value.
"Falcon (Common Star ★★★)"
"Level: Tier Zero, Level 4"
The problem was that the Falcon's level was a little low. Even after eating several Abundant Fruits, it could use Shared Vision at most four or five times during a single outing.
Moreover, each use of Shared Vision did not last very long.
It was nowhere near enough to let the Falcon keep Shared Vision active while he sat there cracking sunflower seeds and watching videos.
There were limitations, after all.
However, as long as he issued some commands in advance—having the Falcon activate Shared Vision at intervals, or use the skill when it discovered large groups of monsters or encountered danger—it could still achieve the effect he wanted.
Soon, a prompt appeared, asking whether he wanted to connect to the Falcon's field of vision.
A smaller screen popped up in the center of the display. Mu Yuan could shrink it to the lower-right corner or enlarge it to fill the entire screen.
There was nothing unusual about that. It was basically just opening a small pop-up window.
After all, he and the Falcon were separated by an entire world.
"If I personally entered the Eternal World, or summoned the Falcon into reality before using Shared Vision, that would be an incredible supernatural experience."
Personally entering it was still rather distant for a newbie like him.
But experiencing it in the real world?
He could give it a try when the right opportunity arose.
He was not in a hurry. As a newbie, he still had to prioritize development and caution.
Wisps of white mist drifted past both sides of his vision. Below, one massive, verdant tree after another took root, forming an endless sea of forest.
Because of the white mist, along with the dense trees and complicated terrain, the Falcon could not fly too high while scouting.
During its previous outings, it had been attacked by monsters precisely because it flew too low, nearly dying a tragic death.
But times had changed. Ah Falcon was no longer what it had been.
Whoosh—
A two-star Monkey Monster suddenly burst from the dense canopy and pounced fiercely at the scouting Falcon.
The Falcon let out a cry and nimbly evaded with a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree turn. It did not get entangled with the Monkey Monster, instead climbing rapidly and flying away.
There had been danger, but no real peril. It truly lived up to its status as a Three-Star Troop.
However,
Watching the screen rotate two hundred and seventy degrees along with it, Mu Yuan felt a little dizzy. If he had not been viewing it through a medium but had experienced Shared Vision firsthand, and the Falcon performed a few more aerial two-and-a-half rotations, he would probably have stood up and spun around dancing on the spot.
Use with caution. Be especially cautious in reality.
The Falcon soared through the sea of mist, and Mu Yuan took in the vast land before him.
He saw a pack of wolves standing atop a mountain and howling at the sky. The pack leader seemed to have a crescent-shaped mark on its forehead, and even from a distance, its fierce aura seemed to rush toward him.
He saw a terrifying Ogre holding a huge club in a certain mountain forest, roaring so violently that the air trembled.
He saw a swamp to the southwest, where a monster with a human head and a snake's body lived.
Snakefolk.
He saw group after group of Goblins weaving through the mountains and forests. Farther away, there was also a Goblin Camp that was clearly much larger in scale—one the Falcon did not dare approach to observe.
Vaguely, Mu Yuan seemed to glimpse figures resembling iron towers walking out from it.
For the entire day, the Falcon flew, activated its skill, exhausted its energy, returned for supplies, and set out again, repeating the cycle without pause.
Mu Yuan had squeezed—cough, fully utilized—the Falcon's tactical value to the extreme.
Relying on this single Falcon, he had also scouted most of the situation in the area surrounding his territory.
"Although this is a wilderness, aren't there a few billion too many monsters?"
"We can indeed wipe out any single monster group, but if... if over a thousand Goblins rushed at us simultaneously, how would I deal with them?"
He could not deal with them!
In Deathbone's words, there were simply too many Goblins. They were far too dangerous. They had ten thousand reasons that demanded their deaths, and they had to be wiped out as soon as possible!
"No wonder the strategy posts on the forum keep emphasizing that players should wipe out as many surrounding monsters as possible. Otherwise, once the trial day arrived, they would suffer a great disaster."
Although Mu Yuan always felt that his circumstances were more troublesome than those of ordinary newbies by more than just a little.
He really was cursed with terrible luck.
At least there were no terrifying monsters near the territory—none so powerful that he would be helpless against them.
The strongest enemies discovered so far were probably the Wandering Ogre and the Gargoyles guarding the Ruined Tower.
Uh, those two seemed to be existences that most outstanding newbies would be powerless to resist no matter how much they developed.
"The Wandering Ogre can be left alone for now. After all, that thing is a rare two-star monster. Not only does it look ridiculously strong, it can also be identified at a glance as a penniless bastard."
Even if he defeated it, it probably would not drop much.
Besides, the Wandering Ogre was still relatively far from the territory. If he truly wanted to defeat it, he would first have to clear out the various monster groups blocking the way.
Troublesome and time-consuming!
It definitely had nothing to do with him being unable to beat the Ogre.
"As for the Gargoyles in front of the Ruined Tower..."
Mu Yuan frowned. Compared with the Ogre, the Gargoyles were much closer to the territory. After rounding things off, they were practically standing at the territory's front gate.
As a result, whenever they explored southward, they had no choice but to take a huge detour to avoid the area around the Ruined Tower.
The Ogre was a threat, but the Gargoyles were even more impossible to ignore.
After thinking it over, Mu Yuan ordered the Falcon to fly south and kept Shared Vision active throughout the entire journey.
Soon,
The Ruined Tower buried in the vast sea of forest appeared in his field of vision. Just as it had been that day, it was filled with the air of age and decay.
Around the tower, one hideous-faced Gargoyle after another crouched in slumber, their gray wings slightly folded.
Thanks to the Falcon's sharp eyes, Mu Yuan could see far more clearly than he had that day. Even the hair-like lines on the Gargoyles' bodies were visible in every detail.
The Falcon perched on a branch, its pupils fixed ahead.
Mu Yuan stared at the image and felt that something was off.
"These Gargoyles don't just look somewhat dilapidated. They also... seem to have shrunk?"
He had specifically purchased basic information on Gargoyles before.
Among them were images of Professional Grade and Elite Grade Gargoyles. By comparison, the Gargoyles before him looked rather small—two and a half times smaller than Gargoyles that had just entered the Professional Grade.
"Their levels seem... not to be as high as I imagined?"
"It's also possible that these Gargoyles once had fairly high levels, but after slumbering for countless years, their energy leaked away, and their levels continued to fall."
"That would make sense too. The Ruined Tower has clearly existed for a very long time."
Mu Yuan felt an itch to act. He wanted to conquer this Ruined Tower, which might contain valuable treasures. He could not allow his treasures to remain scattered outside.
But he still possessed a barely passable sense of caution, so he held himself back for now.
He would wait a little longer. At the very least, he had to scout out the Gargoyles' levels clearly before making a decision.
The Ruined Tower had been added to his conquest schedule, but his other exploration plans remained unchanged.
Thanks to the Falcon's scouting, the territory's exploration efficiency had improved noticeably. Whenever the squad went out, it could clear one or two monster groups.
Even after leaving Deathbone sufficient time for cultivation, the daily gains from exploration were still higher than before.
"Day 5: The territory's income was 246g of Soul Sand, four Random Remnant Souls, one two-star Goblin Spearman Remnant Soul, and several materials including Crimson Blood Fruits and Abundant Fruits."
"Also, through the forum's trading channels, I exchanged for six Little Skeleton Remnant Souls... Trading on the forum requires both shipping fees and a deposit. It's outrageously expensive. Half the resources shrink away in a single transaction, damn it!"
"Also++, I had no choice but to sell some Soul Sand for Xuan Country Coins. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had the money to buy the paid materials on the forum... Money, money, money. Everything requires money. I'm still far too poor."
"Day 6: Over the course of an entire day in the real world, the income was 303g of Soul Sand and six Random Remnant Souls. Some of them have already been sold, and I exchanged for another four Little Skeleton Remnant Souls and one Falcon Remnant Soul."
At dusk, the sunlight outside the window slanted low, draping the room in a golden veil.
In another world, thirty-five Skeletons of different grades were either patrolling, training, or chopping wood... diligently producing Evolution Points.
The constantly appearing "+0.01" made Mu Yuan exceptionally cheerful.
Thanks to the continuously increasing number of Skeletons and the successive battles against monsters, the Skeleton-type Evolution Points had now accumulated to 24.98 units.
It was time to spend them.
"With this many Evolution Points, I can completely evolve five Skeleton Warriors, or evolve all the Little Skeletons into Skeleton Soldiers, but..."
"I choose Deathbone."
Thanks to the generous reward from 'Ye Man Shuang Tian'~
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