Chapter 24 - Mastermo Is Aggrieved

At the end of the day, The crying eagle was still a bunch of computer codes, however, it seems even the codes didn't recognize Zhihao's singing as music.

[Warning: The eagle is frightened! Players are advised to run!]

Not a second later; The eagle's earth-shattering cry was heard. If it were not for Zhihao who reacted fast, the small group of three would have been stripped off of their skin on the spot.

The moon goddess spellbook was once again activated and sucked inside its virtual space were three people; A shocked Zhou XinYi, a helpless Li Ling, and an alert Huang Zhihao.

Zhou XinYi, who was unaware and had not managed to catch up with everything that had transpired asked, "Are we dead?! What happened??"

Zhihao, "We are inside a book."

They were safe for now, However, there was another factor that could not help but make Zhihao sweat in worry; The moon goddess spellbook was meant for containing only one player at a time, and stuffing in three at the same time seemed to almost stretch the book to its maximum limit—threatening to tear and throw them out but thankfully by the time that they were thrown out, the crying eagle had already stopped its skin-stripping cry and looked at them curiously once again, shocked that they were still alive and standing.

[Congratulations on surviving the Crying eagle's attack! +50 T-points gained.]

[The eagle is curious the players have managed to survive]

[The eagle wants to interact with the player]

Zhou XinYi panicked, "What are we supposed to do now?"

Zhihao, "There is no way in hell, I'm gonna sing again!"

Li Ling shook his head, "System, play music!"

The system dinged

[As per the players request random music is playing]

The eagle seemed to be quite pleased with the sudden upbeat music that came out of nowhere and looked expectantly at the group with twinkling eyes.

Zhihao and Zhou XinYi were stunned as they looked at Li Ling in suspicion—they clearly had no idea that such a feature even existed in this game.

When noticing the sudden pair of eyes looking at him with suspicion, Li Ling decided to justify himself, "I did not know that would work. Honestly!"

It was a blatant lie, but the two seemed to be fooled by it.

[Warning: The eagle is unhappy that the players are not dancing.]

Zhou XinYi was the first to react this time as he took a hold of the hands of the other two and formed a chain to start his awkward dance with full confidence.

If the eagle hadn't been an in-game character that had preset orders, it would have certainly been angered to death at this sight. The victory dance done by illusion owls was better than this.

The group had zero co-ordination and strained efforts; often bumping into each other and kicking the other by mistake, but the eagle seemed to be satisfied with this pathetic excuse of a dance as it bobbed its head, happily, right and left to the beat.

Li Ling, "Am I the only one who thinks the beasts here are kinda cute?"

It was true. Although all the beasts were mysterious and deadly, their actions could only be deemed as extremely cute once you got to know them.

[Congratulations to the player! The eagle is satisfied with the player's performance and has decided to befriend you! +50 T-points gained for creative thinking.]

When the eagle saw that the group of its newfound friends were here for BBtrash it went up to its nest and brought him down with it, hence, the group was successful in saving their annoying companion.

After everything was said and done—the system dinged once again.

[Congratulations to player BBtrash! The crying eagle wants to form a spiritual pact with you!]

Li Ling seemed to have seen this coming as he spoke up, "Since we have successfully helped you, it's time to pay up what you promised us. Although this is too cheap, I think this eagle would suffice."

Zhihao felt a shiver go down his spine as he realized that this man had guessed the outcome beforehand and the real motive behind him agreeing to save BBtrash was exactly this; To catch the crying eagle. But he could not be blamed for having such selfish reasons as it would've been even more shocking if anybody actually wanted to save BBtrash and for this; only BBtrash could be blamed.

"Honeyyyyy!" Wang GuiYing—once out of the clutches of the eagle—jumped on Zhihao with open arms, but before he could touch the man his back collar was seized by another—it was his loyal partner, Zhou XinYi.

Zhou XinYi, who had previously considered LiLing as somebody not worthy of becoming Mastermo's partner was now extremely amused with the player, changing his perspective of him, "A promise is a promise. I dare not go back on my words."

And with that Zhihao had gained a new companion: The crying eagle, which formed a spiritual pact with him. Like his spiritual sword, this eagle was also a transferable item and could be taken out of this specific level. It was a lucky chance and such luck could be credited to Li Ling's analytical abilities and negotiation skills.

"This could possibly help us in the future." Li Ling whispered to Zhihao.

Wang GuiYing, who was stuck up on top of a tree the entire time was clueless as to what was happening and Zhou XinYi really didn't want him to know at the moment because if he knew that they were robbed by his so-called 'Honey' he would have certainly been devastated to no account.

Zhihao completed the spiritual pact with the crying eagle, "System, where is the Fox spirit?"

[Answering players question: Invalid search operation!]

Zhihao did not hope to get the answer in the first place, but there was no point in not trying so he took his chances.

As the group continued their journey to find the treasure, the in-game sun had already risen and with the rising of the sun came more chance encounters with other mystical beasts, but so far, these beasts were all small in size and harmless—that is until they came across a rather large angry mammal.

[New mystical beast discovered: Raging Bull]

[Raging Bull: With a body as big as an elephant and a head just as big, this mystical beast—much like a bull—depends on its two horns to attack when angered.]

The bull need not be angered by the group—as, by the looks of it, it was already pretty damn furious, shoving its hooves abruptly on the ground and getting ready to attack the group that seemed to cross paths with it.

Wang GuiYing hid behind Zhou XinYi and Zhihao summoned his sword Shuang to cut straight through the beast.

With a clean swing, the bull that came running furiously at them had its head detached from its body and landed in front of them with a loud thud.

This rather cold-blooded action of Zhihao indicated that the man was somewhat angry—maybe even more so than the bull

[Congratulations on defeating the raging bull!]

The cause behind Zhihao's anger was evident; It was because he had been forced to sing and dance in front of Li Ling and millions of his fans who were watching the live stream, This was certainly an embarrassing thing yet when faced with such embarrassment, Zhihao would instinctively mask it behind an aggressive emotion called anger.

He was simply done with all the bullshit. Rather than being forced to do something embarrassing again, he'd choose to straight-out kill the beast without hesitation.

Time passed fast and the in-game sun had set by the arrival of the night time.

By this time, Zhihao had already slaughtered his way through hordes of low-ranked beasts and even some high-ranked ones.

"roooooroooo" An all too familiar voice came.

Li Ling excitedly searched for the owner of the voice.

It was the same scene that they had come across the previous time. It was a white-colored fox with three tails and bright blue eyes that looked at them curiously.

This time we'll catch it!

Zhihao didn't want to play this level any longer. Like an ostrich, he just wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury his face in embarrassment.

The fox spirit was once again attracted to Li Ling and encircled the group with no ill-intentions, however, the second Li Ling made a move, it was ever ready to run away.

Zhihao exclaimed as if having noticed something, "Do not move!"

Wang GuiYing, "Huh? Why? Are you not going to catch it?"

Zhihao wanted to smack this guy the second he opened his mouth, but he suppressed the urge to do so, "Have you ever gone fishing?"

Wang GuiYing blinked, "No. Have you?"

Zhihao was silent, "No."

"...."

Wang GuiYing, "Then why the hell are you involving innocent fishes into this?"

"Cause when we go fishing we wait patiently for the fish to fall for the bait and willingly get caught by us."

Zhou XinYi was displeased as looked back at the creature and then at Zhihao, "But this is a fox."

"..."

Li Ling, "But it still makes sense. If we don't move, RoRo might come to us willingly."

And with the plan of patiently waiting without moving a muscle, the group stood their ground for over 10 minutes, However, RoRo was no fish and on the contrary, it was actually a fox so with its innate cleverness—how could it fall for this simple trick?

RoRo encircled them a few times before getting bored and running away. The small beast was teasing them—no doubt about it.

Unacceptable!

Zhihao grabbed Li Ling, mounted on Shuang, and gave chase to the fox only to discover another shocking fact about this beast.

The fox spirit could camouflage with the surrounding—or more like the white of their tail fur was the color of the moon that reflected off of it and the only pigment the fox had laid within the blue iris of its eye. No wonder they lost its trail the last time they gave chase.

This time with the amount of enthusiasm Zhihao showed, there was no way he going to let this beast slip away and so when it disappeared with the surrounding, Shuang followed the swaying leaves that were caused due to the fast motion of the sprinting fox.

The fox seemed to not only run away from them to evade the danger, but it seemed as if it had a set destination in mind, leading the two players to head straight towards it.

Zhou XinYi and Wang GuiYing stood on the spot where they were abandoned—waiting for the two to remember about their existence and come back.

The fox spirit entered a cave located deep in the forest and from there on—the chasing was done on feet as Zhihao and Li Ling went after it.

The cave didn't have anything in particular worth noting except for the eccentric carvings on the stone walls. These carvings seemed to be done by a human yet with no humans in sight, one could deduce that these were probably done by some sort of beast with cognitive abilities.

The carvings were probably done with a sharp object, something similar to claws perhaps, and they seemed to be portraying a certain story yet Zhihao could not decipher what the story was.

The duo stopped in their tracks and started to analyze the weird carvings. They were characters; A glowing globe, an angel, beasts, a fox, and many more characters that could hardly be understood.

Zhihao looked at Li Ling, his gaze asking the obvious question; do you recognize it?

Li Ling, "I'm not exactly sure if I'm interpreting this right, but I think the beasts here are connected to each other and with this land."

Zhihao, "This is their home. Isn't the connection obvious?"

Li Ling, "No. I meant literally connected as in they can feel each other and stuff."

"Why do you say that?"

Zhihao looked back at the carvings and it really could not be understood no matter how long he stared at it.

"This" Li Ling pointed towards a certain carved circle, "This represents the sun and this is the sun goddess"

Now that Zhihao took a closer look, the character really did seem to resemble a sun and the lady with a shiny head could possibly be a sun goddess.

Li Ling continued, "Now look at this." He pointed toward a more undecipherable character, "This here seems to be fire."

Zhihao, with the clues given, started to have a higher comprehension of the carvings, "If I'm guessing right, this represents that the region was burnt down?"

"Yes."Li Ling nodded, "And this right here shows the prayer the animals living here made."

Zhihao, "So the land was burnt down and the animals who resided here prayed to the sun goddess for help?"

Li Ling nodded, "And this seems to show that the sun goddess who pitied the poor animals granted their final wish."

[Congratulations on unlocking a side story +50 T-points gained.]

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