Gregarious Animals

"Xiao Chen, there's so much dust on the floor. We don't have anything to do right now anyway. How about we sweep the classroom?"

After the two finished looking at the photos on the wall and were about to leave the classroom, Shen Qinghan noticed how dusty the floor was. Her obsessive-compulsive tendencies kicked in, and she wanted to clean it.

Lin Zichen didn't mind.

So the two quickly found some brooms and silently started sweeping the classroom.

They hadn't been at it long when two girls walked in from outside.

One of them had her hair tied in a bun. Seeing someone sweeping inside, she hesitated before asking timidly, "Um... are you two new students too?"

At the sound of her voice, Lin Zichen stopped what he was doing and looked up at the two girls in the doorway. "Yeah, we're new students too. We just got here. The floor looked a little dusty, so we grabbed a broom to sweep it."

Huh? It was Lin Zichen! Oh my gosh... The instant the two girls saw his devastatingly handsome face, they grew excited.

The bun-haired girl in particular turned bright red. Her voice trembled with nerves as she said, "Th-then... Lin Zichen, I'm your fan."

"Fan?"

"Y-yes. I've watched every Eight-School League you competed in during middle school. I think you're amazing, so... so I became your fan." The bun-haired girl explained shyly.

Liar. You're not being honest. You only became his fan because he's handsome... As she listened to the bun-haired girl, the short-haired one silently complained to herself.

Then she looked at Lin Zichen, her cheeks tinged pink, and said bashfully,

"Lin Zichen, I'm your fan too. We both went to Shanhai No. 1 Middle School for middle school. We wanted to go to the same school as you, and we figured you'd move up to the high school division here, so we specifically took the entrance exam for Shanhai High School."

That part was true. The two girls were both Lin Zichen's devoted fans. They'd applied to Shanhai High School specifically to be at the same school as their idol, and maybe even in the same class.

Lin Zichen felt a little flattered. He hadn't expected his little fan club to have spread to other schools.

Still, he seemed to be attracting far too many girls.

That wasn't a good thing.

His desk drawer would be stuffed with love letters sooner or later, and then he'd have a whole heap of unnecessary trouble to deal with.

While the three chatted, Shen Qinghan kept sweeping silently beside them, like an invisible person with no presence at all.

She'd been lively for a little while back in the lower grades of elementary school, but for the rest of the time she'd been rather introverted and rarely spoke to people first.

Only when she was with Lin Zichen did she become talkative.

After all, they'd grown up together and knew each other well, so she felt much more at ease around him.

"There really is a lot of dust on this classroom floor. We don't have anything to do right now either, so we'll help you clean up."

As she spoke, the bun-haired girl went to a corner of the classroom, picked up a broom, and joined in.

Seeing that, the short-haired girl started sweeping too.

With the two girls pitching in, the entire classroom floor was clean in no time.

Just then, Lin Zichen noticed three lines of text appear in the Void.

[Achievement: Complete a task 1,000 times through cooperation with multiple people]

[Reward: Gain Biological Attribute—Gregarious Animal]

[Tasks completed: 1/1000]

After reading the text, Lin Zichen felt a surge of excitement. A fifth Achievement had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. What a pleasant surprise!

He wondered what effect the Gregarious Animal attribute would have.

He could hardly wait...

At that moment, homeroom teacher Han Yuanfeng passed by in the corridor outside the classroom, on his way to the restroom up ahead.

When he saw people cleaning the classroom, he immediately walked in with a smile. "You all swept the whole classroom? Nice work. It's really clean. You deserve some praise!"

The three girls were delighted. They'd made a good first impression on their homeroom teacher on the first day of school. What a win! It had been well worth sweeping the floor!

Unlike them, Lin Zichen felt nothing.

He'd been praised too often growing up, so he was immune to it by now.

Time flew by.

In the blink of an eye, it was time to eat.

When the time seemed right, Lin Zichen went home with Shen Qinghan for lunch.

After resting at home for a while, he soon left again.

He didn't ask Shen Qinghan along and went out by himself.

The Ghost Shadow Squid Atlas had already been unlocked. Next, he needed to unlock the atlas of another Exotic Beast.

It was time to go around the mall and see if there was any suitable Exotic Beast Meat he could buy and devour.

He pedaled his bike to the mall at top speed.

After parking, Lin Zichen headed straight to the top floor to see whether they had any Exotic Beast Meat at a reasonable price.

After looking around, he settled on Violent Roc meat.

The Violent Roc was a slightly more advanced Exotic Beast than the Ghost Shadow Squid, though its main use was still as food.

Its distinguishing feature was its exceptional eyesight.

An ordinary eagle's eyesight was generally eight times better than a human's, while the Violent Roc's could be thirty times better. It was incredibly powerful.

It also had outstanding visual tracking. It could even precisely catch a Strange Rabbit moving so fast it became a blur.

Based on his experience unlocking the Ghost Shadow Squid Atlas over summer vacation, Lin Zichen reckoned that unlocking the Violent Roc Atlas would probably grant him a Biological Attribute related to eyesight.

Eyesight was an extremely important Biological Attribute. If it was good enough, it could greatly improve a person's combat ability.

Take martial arts competitions, for example. People with good eyesight could more easily catch their opponents' movements, allowing them to better defend against attacks and strike back.

All things considered, the Violent Roc Atlas was undoubtedly worth unlocking.

Well, mostly because Violent Roc meat was cheap. It cost only 1,998 yuan per pound.

"Cheap" was relative to the price of other Exotic Beast Meats.

After all, on this entire floor, the only meat cheaper than Violent Roc meat was Ghost Shadow Squid meat, which cost only 998 yuan per pound.

The next-cheapest kind of Exotic Beast Meat cost 5,888 yuan per pound.

The price gap was enormous.

If devouring a pound raised the atlas progress by 1%, just like with Ghost Shadow Squid meat, then unlocking the atlas would cost nearly 900,000 yuan.

Nine hundred thousand!

Rounded up, that was almost a million!

He couldn't afford that!

After deciding to buy Violent Roc meat, Lin Zichen quickly found the landlord uncle and asked him to buy a pound of it on his behalf.

The meat arrived soon after.

His savings immediately shrank by 1,998 yuan.

Lin Zichen didn't worry about the small expense. He turned and found an empty spot where he began devouring the Violent Roc meat.

[You devoured a trace of the "Violent Roc" Life Origin]

[Violent Roc Atlas: 1%]

Just as he'd expected, devouring one pound of meat increased the atlas progress by 1%.

At that rate, unlocking the Violent Roc Atlas would cost almost 200,000 yuan.

"Two hundred thousand... Looks like I'll have to work even harder in high school, compete more, and save up. I'll try to unlock the Violent Roc Atlas before my second year."

Lin Zichen thought to himself, confident he could unlock the Violent Roc Atlas before his second year and gain another Biological Attribute.

Although unlocking the Violent Roc Atlas would cost a lot—twice as much as unlocking the Ghost Shadow Squid Atlas—the prize money for high school martial arts competitions was much higher than for middle school tournaments.