Mohai noticed their arrival soon enough and they made contact with the Reincarnation Pool.
A Reincarnation Pool was like a private respawn point for a monster. As long as a monster occupied a Reincarnation Pool within its range of activity for 30 minutes, it would be able to claim it for itself.
If the Reincarnation Pool was already occupied, a notification would pop up in the owner's activity log.
Mohai swapped places with No. 19 by occupying each other's Reincarnation Pools.
While players could not occupy the Reincarnation Pool, when players came in contact with the pool, the activity log would also notify the owner.
Unlike players who had constant reminders and notifications from the system, Mohai had adopted the habit of checking his activity log frequently in the past two days. A lot of things that he failed to notice were actually recorded in the activity log, and checking the log frequently could save him a lot of trouble.
All 15 of his goons already had increased [Loyalty]. Mohai waved at them and led them back. He wanted to see who had snuck into his den.
'Could it be The Richest?' Mohai wondered as he made his way back.
Because WhiteNightFirefly's Heart Of Nature was still in cooldown mode, she was not able to understand the situation through Bandit Leader No. 19 unless there was someone else who had the same title in The Richest, but the chances were slim.
Even after five years in the game, there were only so many players who got the title of the Heart Of Nature though they were really seen on the streets. Despite The Richest having the advantage of numbers, having two players from Guggenheim who possessed the Heart Of Nature in two to three days was impossible.
'So, who could it be then?' Mohai wondered.
After he was reborn into a monster, his knowledge and experience from his previous life helped him greatly, but they only benefited him as a monster.
If he had still been a player, he could do a lot more. However, as a monster, he was not able to do any of that at the moment.
In the future, he would gain some trustworthy friends as a player. Although he knew where his friends were during the early stage of the game, he could not get to them, and even if he could, he could only do so much.
He could not afford to expose his identity. Before the players possessed the Heart Of Nature, they were unable to understand monster language.
This situation could only be fixed when he got himself an NPC template or a humanoid monster template.
While a million thoughts were racing through his mind, Mohai came closer to his den.
Since he was afraid of an ambush, he waved at his goons and told them to be quiet before sneaking forward.
"It's her?!"
A group of players was fighting a bunch of black jackals further away from his den. There were not many of them, only 12 to be exact.
Mohai fixed his gaze on a familiar figure—an elegant lady Sorcerer.
His emotions fluctuated when he laid his eyes on her.
He expected to run into familiar acquaintances before he came back. In five years, his mission-centered guild had a certain number of players who possessed the Heart Of Nature, so it was not surprising for him to meet one of them now.
However, he did not expect to meet her right there and then. It was the lady Sorcerer, DeepSea.
As his emotions gradually calmed down, Mohai spotted another player that he had seen before beside DeepSea.
"Even Ruri, one of the Seven Lolis, is here? Do they know each other?"
The little girl with the twin ponytails was Ruri, one of the Seven Lolis of the future.
Mohai did not actually know Ruri. He had actually only seen her picture once in the virtual community. He also did not know a lot about her. All knew was that Ruri was the seventh in the ranking of the Seven Lolis.
After he made sure there was no ambush, Mohai walked out and returned to his den.
"Sister DeepSea, the bandit leader is back." One of the lady hunters spotted Mohai around the den and reported him to DeepSea.
"I've got this. You guys step back." DeepSea took a glance at Mohai and was soon enveloped by a layer of green glow.
The Heart Of Nature!
When Mohai saw DeepSea with her Heart Of Nature activated, the memories started to come afloat in his mind.
He had actually met DeepSea during a co-op mission.
Back when he was at 40-odd levels and had yet to form his own guild, the co-op missions that he usually undertook saw him group up with other players.
There was once whereby he and many other players accepted a Rank-A difficulty co-op mission. They were required to enter the extremely dangerous Skeleton Forest. During the introduction session of the party members, he met DeepSea whose unique presence and temperament attracted his attention.
Back then, there were only so many female players in the party, and the matured, elegant noble lady who sat by the fireplace aroused many of the male players.
Similar to the other male players, Mohai had a good first impression of DeepSea, but he was not as dumb as the others who went up to her and asked for a snub.
DeepSea might have spoken to them politely, but if she was a woman who could be picked up with a few flattering words, the male players of the same party still would not have gotten a chance.
Therefore, their attempts and efforts were futile. They were just wasting their time.
Mohai was never interested in wasting his time doing useless things. Unlike the horny male players, he buried himself in studying the possible outcomes of the co-op missions.
The mission started off smoothly with Mohai and DeepSea showing off their strengths during the mission.
In Chinese, Mohai's name meant "empty sea" and his name in Chinese shared the same character as the 'Sea' in DeepSea. Despite both of them sharing the Chinese character of 'Sea' in their names, Mohai's popularity was not even close to that of DeepSea's.
As a beautiful woman with a unique presence and astonishing strength, it aroused the male players even more and made them hot-blooded.
However, no one expected the nature of the co-op mission to change halfway. It transformed from a cooperative mission to a competitive mission.
Therefore, it was natural for Mohai and DeepSea to become the biggest competition to the other players.
With the two of them around, the other players had basically no chance of getting the mission reward, or even a tiny share.
Despite the male players having a lot of thoughts about DeepSea, they were not idiots. Most of them thought that it would be great if they could get her, but even if they could not, they would not lose anything either.
When the conflict of interest occurred, the other players turned and attacked the two of them.
To their surprise, Mohai and DeepSea both had killer moves with tremendous destructive power. Their skills might not have been effective against monsters, but it was super effective against players.
Mohai worked with DeepSea and annihilated all the party members who betrayed them. As a result, some of the survivors fled in fear.
However, after the battle, Mohai and DeepSea found themselves in a desperate situation.
The monsters of Skeleton Forest were too powerful for them. Even with their strength combined, they could barely venture forward and it was difficult for them to continue the mission. Nevertheless, they were at the final stage of the mission and were only a step shy from the lucrative rewards, so both of them did not want to give up.
A quick discussion later, both of them realized that they both had the Heart Of Nature, so they came up with a plan.
A single Heart Of Nature had a limited duration, but if they took turns to activate it and rest while the title skill was in cooldown mode, they would be able to move forward smoothly.
Their skills were no longer the low-level Broken Heart Of Nature though they were still quite far away from the complete version. A party member must be within a close range to be able to benefit from the effect of the skill.
Therefore, they stayed close together as they ventured into Skeleton Forest.
When a man and a woman spent intimate time together in a barren forest for a few days, it would only be natural for them to develop feelings for each other's attractive points.