After contracting his third beast, Jiang Ziliu had a long talk with his parents and told them he was preparing to travel far away.
He left the base under his parents' watchful eyes.
But Jiang Ziliu did not actually go far. He had not told his parents his real plan.
Shortly after leaving the base, Jiang Ziliu reached the safe house he had prepared earlier. There, he took out another combat uniform and changed into it, even replacing his weapons.
Then his entire body shifted, transforming into another, rather stern-looking young man.
He intended to assume another identity and hunt beastmen for military merits from the base. Only after using those merits to raise all his beasts to a certain level within Bronze Rank would he truly leave Base No. 12.
All sorts of unexpected incidents were inevitable in battles against beastmen.
Jiang Ziliu did not want the trouble arising from those incidents to reach his parents, so he did this to make them believe he had truly left, leaving no flaws in the story.
On top of that, he changed his appearance and took another name, operating under the ordinary name of Zhang Feng and the appearance of this young man.
If anything goes wrong, what do the things he, Zhang Feng, did have to do with me, Jiang Ziliu?
After tidying up the safe house, Jiang Ziliu set off toward a certain place.
There was a special wilderness black market there where identities from other bases could be purchased. He then obtained an identity there under the name Zhang Feng.
He had previously believed that Contract Marks could not be forged.
But his current special flesh-and-blood transformation had actually changed even his Contract Mark.
This left Jiang Ziliu completely unafraid of the base's Contract Mark authentication. He had not known before, but now he understood that some things were not absolute after all.
The forces in the black market could use the special skills of contracted exotic beasts to alter certain electronic records and falsify identities.
The fee, however, was extremely steep-as much as 200,000 yuan!
The identity-forging operation was not a small faction, but a special organization that spanned all of humanity.
Among creatures such as humans, wherever there was demand, someone could satisfy it, provided you were willing to pay the price.
Ordinary people could only falsify documents and information; they could not change a Contract Mark.
Jiang Ziliu's transformation ability had adjusted even that.
But his Contract Mark itself had not changed at all. This was merely the result of changes at the level of flesh and blood.
For anyone else, a thorough investigation could still uncover the real person through their Contract Mark.
But in Jiang Ziliu's case, an investigation would absolutely only lead to Zhang Feng, never to him, Jiang Ziliu.
After making thorough preparations and purchasing detailed information about the beastmen from the black market, Jiang Ziliu returned to Base No. 12 to complete the necessary procedures and join the ranks hunting beastmen.
To his surprise, many people were signing up. With military merits as a lure, these beast tamers were quite enthusiastic.
Jiang Ziliu headed south from the base alone and began his operation.
Three days later, ninety kilometers southwest of the base, Jiang Ziliu lay halfway up a mountain, carefully observing the movements around him.
He had already been here for two days. For safety, he had built an underground safe house on a small hill three kilometers behind him, then established an observation post here, where the view was relatively good.
Jiang Ziliu had not dared establish his observation post in the spot with the best view.
The beastmen would also pay particular attention to such positions, making them a priority for reconnaissance during their operations.
Beastmen were no fools. Their intelligence was not much inferior to that of humans.
Yesterday, three groups of werewolves had passed through here, but he had not dared make a rash move against any of them.
Each of these werewolf groups numbered around thirty or more, and they traveled on their special beasts, riding wolves, making them a cavalry force with tremendous speed and terrifying combat strength.
These riding-wolf exotic beasts stood nearly two meters tall and measured almost four meters long. Every one was a Black Iron Grade wind-type beast, linked in mind with its master and extremely powerful in battle.
Moreover, the werewolves had scouts equipped with eagle-type beasts, so Jiang Ziliu did not dare act recklessly at all.
With so many of them, he simply could not win!
In fact, many beast tamers in this region had already formed large groups and were fighting werewolves everywhere.
Around Base No. 12, troops from Level Four Base No. 13, Level Four Base No. 10, and Level Four Base No. 9 had formed an outer defensive ring together, surrounding the location of this Dungeon Space of predominantly werewolf beastmen.
They were now inside this ring, hunting werewolves and other beastmen.
Military forces also deployed from time to time to deal with large werewolf groups, while ordinary beast tamers mainly handled smaller ones.
Fortunately, there were so many werewolves that there was no fear of there not being enough to go around among all the beast tamers.
What Jiang Ziliu was waiting for was a small group of fewer than ten werewolves.
As the sky was about to turn dusky yellow, Jiang Ziliu finally got his chance!
This small werewolf scouting force consisted of seven werewolves and their riding wolves, with a Black Iron Grade eagle flying overhead, though not very high.
They stopped not far from Jiang Ziliu and began to rest.
Jiang Ziliu extended his hand. A C+ grade metal dagger quietly rose into the air and flew slowly, soundlessly toward the eagle.
This was an application of metal manipulation, a derivative ability of Jiang Ziliu's Electromagnetic Manipulation.
He could control metal throwing knives and flying swords like a sword immortal; controlling a dagger was even less of a problem.
When the metal dagger was less than a hundred meters from the eagle, it suddenly accelerated, arriving in an instant and piercing clean through its body from behind.
Jiang Ziliu's first strike eliminated this werewolf group's reconnaissance force.
"Osa, kudu miya! ..."
A string of beastman speech burst from the werewolves' mouths. Jiang Ziliu had studied the language; it roughly meant that there was an enemy and everyone should stay alert.
They had not discovered who had attacked their eagle. Even the riding wolves, famed for their keen sense of smell, had failed to detect the enemy's scent.
But the next moment, Jiang Ziliu showed them what human treachery meant.
A slender metal wire suddenly emerged from underground, wound directly around the necks of nine werewolves, then tightened viciously inward, slicing the heads off all nine.
The werewolves' complete deaths also caused their eagle and wolf beasts to die amid anguished cries.
The dying screams of other small beasts also rang out nearby.
Clearly, this group of werewolves had also stationed other small beasts around them to keep watch, but none of these effective arrangements had been able to save their lives.
Ever since mastering the method of controlling metal through Electromagnetic Manipulation, Jiang Ziliu had been thinking about how to apply it.
Manipulating metal objects at long range through Electromagnetic Manipulation consumed a great deal of his Dark Energy.
Fortunately, he now had enough Dark Energy, and its quality was sufficiently high, allowing him to perform such long-distance operations.
After repeated consideration, Jiang Ziliu decided to focus on small metal objects such as small daggers, metal wire, and fine metal needles.
What he valued most was the use of metal wire.
Taking advantage of his powerful concealment ability, Jiang Ziliu developed an excellent hunting tactic against enemies out in the open through remotely controlled combat.
This was the tactic's first application.
He had prepared a kind of B-grade metal wire well before coming out on this adventure, and now it had finally proved useful.
Just now, while controlling the metal dagger to kill their reconnaissance beast, he had also had the Azurite Rock Man deliver this coil of metal wire near them, allowing him to control it remotely.
It was only because this coil of metal wire was extremely expensive and limited in length that Jiang Ziliu had not attacked beastman groups of more than ten.
His hunting strategy was to eliminate the enemy's aerial reconnaissance force first, then finish off all the enemies immediately afterward, avoiding a drawn-out battle as much as possible.
If he could finish all the enemies in a single strike, he could quickly collect the beastmen's heads that represented his military merits.
If the fight dragged on, how could he quickly get his spoils?
The enemy would probably launch ranged attacks on him before he even got close.
The beast-taming world had all sorts of strange skills. Being safe and steady was still best, and Jiang Ziliu always made caution the core of his actions.
If he took on a squad of more than ten, not only would it be difficult to retrieve his spoils, but he could also easily attract nearby roaming werewolf squads.
This hunt had been extremely successful. He quickly rushed over and collected the seven werewolves' corpses, the items on their bodies, and their riding wolves, putting them all into his spatial orb.
The materials from these riding wolves were also excellent goods that could fetch a good price.
After taking everything, Jiang Ziliu also retrieved the metal wire that had earned its keep and headed straight away from the area.
Less than half an hour after he left, a werewolf squad arrived. They discovered the traces and roared in fury.
To their disappointment, however, they found no trace whatsoever of the enemy and had no way to track him.
After they left, human military scouts and small beast-tamer groups also discovered this small battlefield with its lingering bloodstains, one after another.
The smell of blood here would quickly draw the attention of many forces.
Jiang Ziliu traveled under concealment all the way, quickly returning to the safe house he had established on the other side, and began inspecting his spoils.