Returning to Novice Village

"Huh? You guys are still alive?"

Wind Snow Traveler walked out from the Forest, carrying his white battle-axe.

He was followed by eight people; aside from the four novice Players who had fled, the remaining four were veteran novice Players from Zone 18.

Seeing that Xiao Fan and the others were unharmed, Wind Snow Traveler looked surprised.

Xiao Fan: ...So, did they come here to collect their corpses?

"You're still alive? That's great!"

The one who spoke was a person with the ID "Can't Understand," one of the four who had run away earlier.

No sooner had he finished speaking than Han the Person punched him square in the face.

He had allocated all his points into Strength, so his hits were brutal!

"You... why are you hitting people!" Can't Understand retreated two steps, clutching his instantly swollen face.

"We're hitting you spineless dogs who sold out your teammates. Everyone, get them!"

With a wave of Xiao Fan's hand, Garfield Without Fat and the other two rushed toward the four deserters, pinning them to the ground and beating them up.

Seeing this, Wind Snow Traveler and his group said nothing.

Can't Understand had already told them what happened, so it was only natural for Xiao Fan and his group to be angry.

Giving them a beating to vent their frustration was getting off easy.

"Alright, stop hitting them. It's about to get dark; let's head back to the village first."

After Han the Person and the others had beaten them for a while, Wind Snow Traveler finally spoke up to stop them.

The four of them stopped and glared fiercely at the other four.

"It's good that you're still alive," Wind Snow Traveler said.

Xiao Fan sneered, "Thanks to them, we haven't died yet."

A flicker of embarrassment and guilt flashed in the eyes of Can't Understand and his group.

What they did was indeed dishonorable.

However.

"That was a level four Fierce Beast, and we're only level one. How could we possibly fight it? We ran away to go back to the village and get reinforcements," Can't Understand tried to explain.

Swift as Wind snorted coldly, "What use would it have been to go back for reinforcements in that situation during the day? If Brother Chen hadn't led us to kill that Fierce Beast, the grass on our graves would be a meter high by the time you came back."

Can't Understand: ...It wouldn't have been that fast, surely.

Wait!

No!

What did they just say?

They killed that Diamond Behemoth?

Impossible! That is absolutely impossible!

Can't Understand widened his eyes and shook his head, refusing to believe what Swift as Wind had said.

"You're saying you guys killed that Diamond Behemoth? What kind of joke is that? How is that even possible!"

"Who the hell is joking with you? Can you bunch of losers even imagine how powerful Brother Chen is?" Garfield Without Fat said, raising his fist to jab Can't Understand in the chest again.

Wind Snow Traveler and his group were also stunned.

What did they just hear? These five novice Players killed a level four Diamond Behemoth?

Could it be any more fake!

That was a Diamond Behemoth, known for its sheer brutality! Who would dare provoke one without being at least level four?

Wind Snow Traveler looked at Xiao Fan, hoping to see that this was a joke in his eyes, but his peripheral vision caught the massive corpse of the Diamond Behemoth not far behind him.

At this moment, what he thought was absurd became reality.

Behind him, Can't Understand and the others noticed the corpse of the Diamond Behemoth.

The voices that were just expressing disbelief seemed to get stuck, unable to make another sound.

It wasn't that there were no cross-level challenges in Cloud Sea, but those people were all the pride of the game, the big shots on the Leaderboard.

What about Xiao Fan and his group? They were just novice Players who hadn't even been in the game for two days!

And they had skipped two levels!

It was simply unheard of.

At this moment, only one thought remained in Wind Snow Traveler's mind.

Why would a Player with this kind of talent be assigned to Zone 18?

Watching the shocked expressions of the crowd, Han the Person and the others held their heads high, looking proud.

Look, look, this is what we killed.

"It's time to go back."

Xiao Fan reminded them.

Wind Snow Traveler and the others finally snapped out of their shock, looking up to see that the sun had already set; it wouldn't be long before the sky turned completely dark.

"Take them to find the body of Purple Charm and bring it with you," Wind Snow Traveler instructed Cannot Understand.

Only then did Xiao Fan and the others realize that the girl, Purple Charm, had been killed by the Diamond Behemoth before they arrived to provide rescue.

No wonder only the four members of Cannot Understand had managed to escape.

On the way back, the atmosphere of the team was heavy.

The twenty novice Players had only entered the Novice Zone yesterday, and on this first day of hunting Magic Beasts, a living person had already been left behind forever.

At this moment, they truly felt the cruelty of Cloud Sea.

"Didn't the map say that the outer edge of the Forest only had Red-Eyed Rabbit, with an occasional Level 2 Beast? Why did a Level 4 Beast appear today?"

Cannot Understand's voice was laced with a sob. When he heard Purple Charm's cries for help during the day, he hadn't even dared to turn his head; the sense of powerlessness he felt then still haunted him now.

Wind Snow Traveler didn't even look back: "I told you before, nothing in Cloud Sea is absolute. The Beasts here aren't restricted to staying in any specific area. Today's incident can only be considered your bad luck."

The team fell into a sudden silence, and no one spoke for the rest of the journey.

That Level 4 Beast, the Diamond Behemoth, contributed 16 Core Power to the Xiao Fan Team. Xiao Fan received four points of Core Power, while the other four received three points each.

ID: Jiu Chen

Level: 3 (0/1000)

HP: 310/310

MP: 1011/1011 (+666)

Strength: 10

Intelligence: 14

Spirit: 14

Agility: 12

Physique: 10

Trait: Saint

Skills: Halo of the Saint, Gift of the Saint 3

Equipment: None

Core Power: 447

Today's battle had permanently increased his mana by another 115 points, and now his mana had broken through the one-thousand mark.

Additionally, reaching Level 4 required 1000 experience points, which was also 1000 Core Power.

Xiao Fan frowned; he had harvested less than twenty points of Core Power throughout the entire day.

"The Core Power gained from killing Beasts is too little!"

At this very moment, Xiao Fan deeply missed the Core Power rewarded by the game system when he created his skills.

He had previously complained that the second skill creation only gave 200 Core Power, but thinking about it now, he had truly been ungrateful.

"Perhaps tomorrow I can take them to check out the Level 2 Beast area."

Xiao Fan urgently needed to reach Level 5 to create an offensive skill; he was currently too reliant on the team.

The sky turned completely dark, and the team finally stepped through the night back to the Novice Village.

The barrier at the village entrance hadn't been blocked yet, and under the lamplight, everyone from Zone 18 was there.

"You're finally back."

A man around thirty years old with the ID "Blade Shadow" let out a visible sigh of relief upon seeing them.

Once the group entered the village, the entrance was immediately blocked off by others.

Blade Shadow glanced at the group behind Wind Snow Traveler, his gaze pausing noticeably when it landed on the tragic corpse of Purple Charm, and he finally let out a sigh.

"It's already very good that you encountered a Level 4 Beast and survived."

This was Blade Shadow's most honest thought; he had originally assumed that all five of Xiao Fan's group would die in the Forest, and he hadn't expected them to all make it back alive.

If the atmosphere hadn't been so somber, he would have wanted to ask about the specifics.