"I see!"
Draco slapped his thigh; he truly hadn't expected that a battle between two Fantastic Beasts could involve so many aspects.
The Wizard Legend is a group battle where everyone takes turns attacking according to their speed, unleashing normal attacks or special moves. The Suitcase Beasts is a tag-team battle. Draco always thought that even with four skills, the Suitcase Beasts ' combat gameplay wouldn't be as complex as The Wizard Legend, since only one can be used at a time, so there's no strategy or teamwork involved.
But unexpectedly, the Suitcase Beasts created so many novel systems.
Type advantages/disadvantages, stat levels, gender, ability, move type, base stats, status moves, status conditions, baby and adult stages...
Having grasped some of the tricks of the trade, Draco embarked on his adventure with the Fantastic Beasts in his Suitcase Beasts once more. This time, he didn't underestimate any animal. After leaving his spawn point, he would check the stats and traits of every magical creature he encountered on the Cuckoo Forum, only letting them go if he was certain they couldn't join his party.
Before encountering Thestral, Draco had already passed three gyms through his own efforts and understanding.
A sense of accomplishment welled up within me.
Draco continued forward. After capturing Knarl, he didn't equip him with four powerful skills as the guide suggested. Instead, he chose two attack skills and two buff skills. Some Fantastic Beasts are faster than Knarl, so buffing his speed and attack would make it easier to push through the enemy team.
After that, it was a smooth push forward. Although there wasn't much that required thinking, the gold coins he got from defeating the NPCs along the way fully satisfied Draco's hoarding desires, and he didn't even want to spend a single one.
Draco suddenly began to find the game interesting, and his pace gradually slowed down. In each new map, he would patiently search for treasures, explore, and encounter different Fantastic Beasts, then capture them and put them in his suitcase to check their characteristics and skills.
Draco was increasingly amazed. The game seemed to offer many ways to play, with each Fantastic Beasts having dozens of skills to combine at will, and even traits that could sometimes be switched. He increasingly enjoyed mentally creating team compositions for the six Fantastic Beasts, feeling as if he were having a conversation with the game's creators.
Finally, Draco finished his eighth gym battle, making him eligible to challenge the previous champion.
Upon entering the battle interface, rhythmic and rousing music began to play, and the "lv100" displayed above the opponent's head made Draco gasp in surprise.
The eighth gym leader was only level 80, so how did it suddenly jump to level 100 when they reached the champion?
But Draco remained calm. Having a general understanding of the game, he knew that level didn't determine everything.
As usual, the Thestral was replaced by Knarl. The opponent's Zouwu scales shimmered, and a claw scratched Knarl's body, instantly reducing Knarl's health by nearly half.
This is not good.
With the opponent's level too high, Draco chose to have Knarl enhance his speed first to ensure his turn to attack.
In the second round, Knarl intensified his attacks, and his opponent Zouwu attacked with another claw. At this moment Knarl was left with only a thin layer of blood on his body.
An alarm sounds indicating that the Fantastic Beasts is low on health.
Seeing the Lumos glow on Zouwu's body, Draco knew that his opponent was at least a legendary beast. These Fantastic Beasts usually had very high base stats, and Draco felt that he might not be able to defeat him in one hit. If he couldn't, the Knarl would suffer a regrettable defeat. The other Fantastic Beasts in his inventory hadn't leveled up yet, so he would have to plan his way through the game much longer.
Draco stared intently at the screen, mentally vowing to kill Zou Wu in one fell swoop. The Knarl curled into a ball, charged forward for a second, and then rammed into Zouwu. Zou Wu's health plummeted, from a healthy green to an unhealthy yellow, then to a near-death red, and then...
It's locked!
Draco sighed in frustration, his tense back relaxing.
He knew it was impossible to defeat the champion in one go.
Zouwu's claws came at him, Draco was already prepared to flee.
At that very moment.
[Ding! Sensing your call, Knarl stubbornly held on.]
Draco's eyes widened, his face almost pressed against the arcade screen, but his hand on the stone slab didn't dare to linger for a moment, as he launched another attack.
After the initial excitement, Draco calmed down. The Knarl was still down to a sliver of health. If the opponent had a priority skill or was tanky enough to withstand an attack, Draco would still lose the battle.
But Draco wasn't discouraged at all. "It's okay, Knarl, you've done a great job."
Draco mechanically tapped the location of the most powerful skill, only to find that the skill selection interface, which should have appeared long ago, was still nowhere to be seen.
"Could it be a bug?"
As soon as he finished speaking, another word that Draco had never seen before appeared at the bottom of the screen.
[Huh? That Knarl looks a bit strange.]
[He has met the conditions for changing his form. Would you like to Transfiguration?]
Draco looked at the glow emanating from the Knarl —he knew this was the form some Fantastic Beasts took as they grew from infancy to adulthood, but didn't the Knarl not have an adult form?
Am I the first person to discover this?
Draco was overjoyed and quickly confirmed the Transfiguration.
Lorne did not copy the evolution mechanism of Fantastic Beasts from Pokémon. Instead, he chose three stages—baby, child, and adult—to correspond to the evolutionary forms in Pokémon. They will gradually grow as they spend more time in the suitcase and gain experience in battles.
Lorne also set some unique growth conditions. For example, Mooncalf can only survive their growth period by eating Ball Fruit at night, Knarl need to kill opponents that damage horse teammates 100 times to reach adulthood.
Players who started playing the game halfway through or changed their team composition haven't reached 100 runs yet. Unexpectedly, the first player to encounter Draco, a newbie who never changed his team composition, is the one who grows the Knarl to adulthood.
On the screen, a dazzling white light enveloped the small body of the Knarl -like creature. The Knarl slowly raised its forelegs from its crouching position, its eyes becoming confident and sharp, and a horse's reins appeared around its waist.
[As the Knarl Evolution reaches adulthood, the reins on its body are a gift from the horse in gratitude for its silent protection; having gained recognition, the Knarl becomes even stronger.]
"Well done, Knarl!"
Draco couldn't wait to share his joy on the Cuckoo Forum, but the thought of the Knarl still in the midst of a tense and exciting battle kept him focused on continuing to operate.
Knarl Draco, now fully grown, regained his full health and unleashed another attack buff. After that, no Fantastic Beasts could survive a single turn against the reined Knarl.
Draco was so excited he was practically dancing with joy. Before this, he had never imagined that he would get so excited and shout because of a short, not-so-handsome Knarl.
Alright, Suitcase Beasts, you win!