Gyrfalcon

Gyrfalcon

The familiar selection screen for familiars appeared, still offering three choices. Xu Zhi immediately set her sights on the one she wanted most.

[Falcon: Gyrfalcon Lv10]

Of the three hundred and sixty feathered birds, none were as majestic as the Gyrfalcon.

Xu Zhi had seen what it looked like on television before. It truly deserved to be called magnificent.

She remembered a nature program saying that the Gyrfalcon, also known as the gyrfalcon, was incredibly fast and stronger than other falcons of its kind. It was practically the ruler of the skies, even nicknamed the "God of Ten Thousand Eagles."

But Xu Zhi preferred one of its other nicknames: the messenger of the gods.

She directly passed on the other two options, a cow and a deer. She already had two land-based familiars. Even if this had not been a Gyrfalcon but a weaker falcon, she would still have chosen the one that could fly.

After pressing confirm, Xu Zhi's Gyrfalcon revealed itself on the pixel screen.

Its entire body was snow-white, with brown spots decorating its back and wings. Its beak and talons curved into razor-sharp hooks. One glance was enough to show that its killing power could not be underestimated.

"Absolutely beautiful."

Xu Zhi praised it, and the Gyrfalcon on the screen seemed to hear her compliment, tilting its head slightly.

[Your familiar has reached Level 10 and gained intelligence. You may now name it.]

The familiar prompt appeared. Xu Zhi racked her brains for around three minutes, but she really could not come up with a name. Looking at the book on the table, she said, "Since you're my third familiar and you just happen to be level ten, then the first character on page thirty of this book will be your name!"

What a genius idea!

She opened to page thirty. The first character she saw was the zhen from "truth."

"Alright, happily decided. Your name is Xiao Zhen!"

Having named it, Xu Zhi opened the Gyrfalcon's attribute page.

[Familiar: Falcon Lv10

Mental: 200

Physical: 600

Attribute: Winter

Traits: Sharpness Lv3, Agility Lv7, Endurance Lv4, Strength Lv2

Special Ability: None]

"Seven points of agility at level ten?"

Xu Zhi was somewhat surprised, but then she considered that agility might represent a combination of flight speed and reaction ability. Coupled with mutation and enhancement, seven points was not impossible to understand.

And although its physical stat was lower than Doggie's at level ten, its mental stat completely crushed both Little One and Doggie.

Besides, this was her first familiar without the [Blade] attribute.

Its strength and sharpness were not particularly high. Presumably, that was because falcons often relied on the impact force generated by high speed rather than brute force in battle. Prey targeted by them was often killed in a single strike, sometimes before it could even react.

With it, Xu Zhi could finally see what the sky above the city looked like.

She had always been curious about the city skies shrouded in black mist, so she controlled Xiao Zhen and sent it soaring upward.

On the game screen, she discovered that Xiao Zhen's vision was extraordinarily clear and could see incredibly far. Xu Zhi felt a little envious, but even with such powerful eyesight, it still could not see through the mist blanketing the sky.

When the snow-white Gyrfalcon climbed to a certain height, a line of narration popped up.

[Your familiar senses danger. Something untouchable above is preventing it from continuing.]

[Would you like your familiar to continue ascending?]

Xu Zhi chose no.

She was not an idiot. She had finally obtained a familiar capable of flight, so naturally she had to be more careful.

"Looks like there's no way out through the sky either."

What made her most suspicious was that even from Xiao Zhen's perspective, she could not see through the mist in the sky.

"Forget it."

It really seemed she was trapped in this city with no way up to heaven and no way down into the earth.

Still, with this Gyrfalcon, one of Xu Zhi's ideas could finally be put into practice.

The Gyrfalcon's speed and eyesight were enough to let her observe anywhere in the city she wanted to observe, with the exception of the city center.

She could not be sure whether the aberrations included ones that could fly, so she could not take that risk.

But she could take a look at the Nanshan Villa District, which she had always been curious about.

And with Xiao Zhen, there was no need to waste those two hours before dawn each day sending Little One and Doggie out to search for black fruit. When it came to locating prey on the ground, Xiao Zhen alone was more useful than the two of them combined.

"Talk about perfect timing."

The more she thought about it, the stranger Xu Zhi found this game. It always fulfilled her needs at exactly the right moment.

But whether it was strange or not was not something she needed to investigate right now. Xu Zhi controlled the Gyrfalcon toward the Nanshan villas, planning to first get a rough understanding of the terrain there. It would be even better if she could spot some people.

Before long, the Gyrfalcon reached the location Xu Zhi had designated. It then followed her instructions and began circling high above, observing the ground.

Since it was a pixel game screen, it could not fully reproduce Xiao Zhen's view. Furthermore, Xiao Zhen was incredibly fast, and many scenes flashed past in an instant. After watching for a while, Xu Zhi's eyes began to blur, so she could only have Xiao Zhen lock onto anyone it found before she could identify them properly.

Not long after, Xiao Zhen's high-speed patrol really did find people—and more than one.

When Xiao Zhen focused its gaze on the figures below, the image on the game screen enlarged and became clear. Three pixel figures appeared on the screen.

Two men and one woman. The men dragged the corpse of a mutated animal, while the woman held a knife. Their movements were clean and efficient, and they coordinated with each other well. The woman kept looking from side to side, seemingly standing guard.

From Xiao Zhen's perspective, the three dragged the dead prey into a sprawling garden villa at the back of the villa district. Before they entered, a figure flashed out from inside. It seemed to be someone in charge of guarding the place, who only granted them access after recognizing familiar faces.

"A gathering point."

And most likely the gathering place where that father and daughter were staying.

The garden villa was huge and had many rooms. Most of the windows were sealed shut, so Xiao Zhen could not see what was happening inside. Xu Zhi did not have Xiao Zhen linger there either. After changing its orders and telling it to hunt on its own, she withdrew her gaze.

For now, it was enough to confirm the location of the gathering point.

Now that there was no time limit, Xu Zhi directly had all three familiars finish hunting and return home before midnight.

With Xiao Zhen, she should soon be able to gather cores of three different attributes.

But Xu Zhi was somewhat hesitant. Regarding the Spirit Vessel, she currently had two possible plans.

The first was to invest only the minimum number of cores and randomly record as many locations in Cloud City as possible for later use, while also searching for more Transcendents and groups of survivors.

The second was to invest more cores and see whether she could randomly reach the outside world to learn about its current situation.

After thinking it over, Xu Zhi decided not to rush. She would stockpile cores for a week, see how many cores her three familiars brought back each day on average, and then make her decision. She also had to exclude cores with the [Moth] attribute.

If she had enough, she could try both.