Scouting the Target

When Xiao Yu came out of the watchtower, Invincible Hero and Killer Codename 38 were standing guard outside, both looking tense, like loyal followers ready to fight at any moment. They had heard the fighting inside the tower earlier, but Xiao Yu hadn't called them in because there wasn't much room. As soon as they saw him come out, they hurried over.

"How did it go, boss? Did you reach an agreement?"

"We did," Xiao Yu said, thinking, Why does this feel like a mob negotiation?

"Let's head home."

"Good evening, everyone. The animals in the forest are especially sensitive at night. How about I escort you on your way?" a slightly hoarse voice suddenly called from behind them.

"Who's there!" Everyone spun around. Xiao Yu was startled to see that the speaker was the black panther.

"You can talk?"

"It's an ability I just evolved. I didn't want to waste the evolution points on it, but talking like this makes things easier. Since we'll need to communicate during the Battle of the Five Armies the day after tomorrow, I decided to put a point into the speech talent," Deathclaw explained.

"You can evolve that too? Damn—that evolution system really is something else."

"Of course. It's not just the ability to speak. As long as I have enough evolution points, you can't imagine what I could evolve into. It's not impossible that I could even evolve into a Transformer from Beast Wars." Perhaps Deathclaw had been bottled up from not being able to talk normally, because once he started talking, he couldn't stop.

The goblin and the black panther walked side by side, with the others following behind.

The two chatted as they walked. Xiao Yu really was curious. Of all the monster templates, beasts could be considered one of the most unusual.

For one thing, they were the most widespread, found practically everywhere, and there were the most types to choose from. Wolves, dogs, tigers, leopards, deer, sheep, cattle, pigs, all kinds of birds, and even fish in the sea could fall under the beast template.

But although beasts were the most numerous, they had no particularly powerful faction. One could even say they had no concept of factions. The reason was simple: beasts were called beasts because their intelligence was too low.

Even beasts that lived in groups formed communities of no more than a few dozen at most.

Because they had no faction, beasts had enemies on all sides. Not only were they hostile to adventurers, but the various monster factions also hunted them, even though they were monsters too. Even other animals that were also beasts were one another's enemies.

For a player with a beast template, everything that could move was red-named, apart from beasts of the same type in the forest.

As compensation, beasts had higher starting attributes and received more attribute points on leveling up than the average goblin, gnoll, and the like. As a result, beasts were often the hardest wild monsters to deal with one-on-one early in the game. But they also had a drawback: they couldn't wear equipment. Instead, they had the evolution system.

But powerful as beasts were, they were no match for adventurers, much less groups of monsters.

So leveling up from a beast to an elite template couldn't have been easy. All of this made Xiao Yu curious about Deathclaw.

He had once created a beast-template character himself, but unfortunately, he couldn't get used to the controls at all. Sky World was an immersive game. In other words, once you played a beast template, everything you did had to be more like a beast, such as moving on all fours and biting enemies with your mouth. Elemental creatures were strange too, but at least they walked upright, and their perspective wasn't too different from that of humanoid creatures. Beasts, however, were something he couldn't get used to at all.

"By the way, doesn't it feel awkward being on all fours?"

Deathclaw nodded. "It did a little at first, but once you get used to it, you'll find it's much more comfortable than being on two feet. And playing a beast template is a very novel experience. When you race alone across the moonlit wilderness, when you lie on a tree watching for the slightest movement in the forest, when you quietly stalk through the dark, slowly closing in on your prey before launching a sudden, fatal strike, when you bite through your prey's throat in one bite, that feeling-ah, it's full of wild, primal charm. It gets your adrenaline pumping. Nothing could be more wonderful."

Deathclaw's vivid description filled Xiao Yu with an inexplicable admiration. Is this guy a genius or a pervert?

"Don't you feel disgusted when you bite people, either?"

"Of course not. It's only a game, after all. Besides, you can turn off the taste system in this game. By the way, if you want to experience a beast's wild lifestyle, I can show you the ropes."

All right, this guy really does have nerves of steel, Xiao Yu thought. He couldn't have handled it himself. But he did know that, with so many template types in this game, there was no shortage of people who wanted to experience an alternative lifestyle.

"I'll pass. Beasts are too troublesome to control, and there are too many restrictions later on. I'm a professional player. I don't have that kind of time."

"A professional player, huh? Heh, I see." Deathclaw smiled thoughtfully.

The goblin and the black panther said no more, walking along in silence. Night Whisper Forest really was eerie at night. A gust of night wind blew through, rustling the leaves as though someone were whispering. A sudden realization flashed through Xiao Yu's mind: so that was how Night Whisper Forest got its name.

More than ten minutes later, the goblin camp finally appeared before Xiao Yu. Thank goodness, they had finally arrived.

He breathed a sigh of relief for no particular reason. Having such a strange beast beside him really put him under a lot of pressure. The crude camp before him had never felt so welcoming. When he turned around, however, he found that the black panther had disappeared without him noticing when.

Tch, so he knows how to stealth. Does he have to be so mysterious about it?

Back at the camp, Xiao Yu saw that it was getting late, so he went to sleep.

The next morning, Xiao Yu didn't rush to enter the game. Everything was on track anyway, and there wasn't much to do in the game, so Xiao Yu decided to investigate the enemy instead-commonly known as scouting the target.

He chose to create a new character. This time, he chose the commoner template, race-night elf, birthplace-Nightwhisper Village, character name-Alucard Nightwhisper, a very ordinary night elf name. His principle in naming characters had always been to follow the game's style. Basically, they all looked like the kind of names NPCs used. To be thorough, he had even made a point of learning some lore about the races, so people could rarely tell from his names that he was a player.

He had found that players naturally felt a certain sense of superiority over NPCs and a desire to confide in them, often telling NPCs private things. There were great benefits to making others think he was an NPC, so Xiao Yu never chose overly peculiar names.