[Once upon a time, this region—like any other land on earth was, plainly put; normal, and was home to many species of flora and fauna, however, when the whole forest was one day burnt down due to a forest fire, these living creatures burned along with it. The souls of the deceased all looked up at the glaring sun as they prayed together with their last breath: "Please have mercy on us". The sun goddess who was touched to see such united prayers took pity on their souls and blessed them. Under the blessing; The animals that perished in the forest fire were reborn as mystical beasts, the soil became rich in spiritual energy which gave birth to various spiritual plants and trees. This land became the first land in the human realm to be blessed like this and is now home to thousands of different species of spiritual beasts that cannot be found elsewhere.]
Zhihao was stunned, his random guess was on point.
Li Ling, "System, What is the side story of the fox spirit?"
The question was asked on a whim, to which they hadn't expected a solid response, however, not a second later, they got one as the system dinged.
[Answering players question: The fox spirit is different from the other beasts and is considered to be listed under the category of 'treasure'.]
Zhihao felt like something was amiss and so he inquired, "System, What is a treasure?"
[Answering players question: 'Treasure' is a division among the spiritual beasts that roam this land. It consists of the animals that had sacrificed themselves willingly to the sun goddess in order to preserve this land and by doing so, they had given up their mortal bodies. The treasure beasts you'll see are nothing more than the leftover souls of the animals that are preserved in this land with the blessing of the moon goddess.]
Zhihao finally understood a few things; these so-called few things were related to how illusion owls and the fox spirit had managed to disappear in plain sight—it wasn't that they could camouflage or run fast—it was because they didn't have a body to begin with. Suddenly he felt somewhat pity for these 'treasure' beasts; To have a soul with no body, it was indeed a pity.
A piece of the riddle they were given finally made sense; I'm alive, but you don't see me as so. These beasts were certainly alive—at least their souls were—they had only left their physical bodies and could still be classified under the category of 'alive'.
Before they could show their grievances or plan on what to do next, from inside the cave came the muted voice of humans.
Zhihao looked at Li Ling and the two nodded in unison—understanding one another without the need for verbal communication; they were going further inside the cave.
With light footsteps and instincts on alert, Zhihao and Li Ling made their way deeper into the cave.
As they moved deeper and deeper, the only light that illuminated their path came from the spiritual sword Shuang, however, the light emitted by the sword was dim and could only help so much. The whispers they had previously heard started becoming clearer and could now be deciphered.
"Shhhh..."
"I think I heard something."
"It's coming here."
"Is it the ghost?"
"Let's hide!"
"No! No! No! No!"
"Let's wait and attack."
Zhihao shook his head having an ominous feeling that the people whom they were going to meet at the moment were going to be no different than the BBtrash they had finally managed to dump. Yes! They had not forgotten the existence of those two, they had simply tried their hardest to get them off their back. Because of BBtrash, Zhihao had already danced and sang—thoroughly embarrassing himself in front of everyone and ruining his hard-earned reputation, there was no guarantee that the man would stop causing trouble for Zhihao and so BBtrash and Hulk0_0 were conveniently abandoned by the duo.
As they got closer, one of the voices seemed to belong to a female and the other two were probably males.
Zhihao stopped in his tracks; if they were to continue walking forward would they not be inviting unwanted trouble for themselves? but on further thought, the fox spirit had also seemed to go this way so Zhihao could somewhat guess that the ghost this group of anonymous players talked about was the fox spirit, this could be a good thing and the information could possibly aid them. But they could not just jump out and surprise the players, if they did that they were only looking forward to being mistakenly taken as a beast and getting attacked.
"Do not be alert!" Zhihao yelled out, loud enough for them to hear, and with the silence that followed, it seemed that the group of players did.
There was a turn in front of them and on the other side of the turn was light emitted from a fire, it seems this group of people had lit a fire to illuminate the dark cave and gain visibility.
A voice came from the other side, it was the voice of the female player, loud and clear, "Who is that?!"
"We are players as well." Zhihao and Li Ling turned the corner to be met face-to-face with a gun pointed at them by the one female of the group.
That premonition Zhihao felt? It was certainly right!
He should've turned and left the minute he heard that voice.
"You?!" Zhihao was shocked to the core.
"Mastermo??" The girl put down her gun as she saw the intruders who had barged in on their hiding place.
Li Ling, "A-Zhi, Do you know each other?"
Zhihao, by this time, had recovered from the initial shock and the first emotion that overtook his mind this time was anger, he glared at the girl and made a sharp U-turn, clearly unhappy, "Li Ling, Let's go!"
Li Ling had never seen Zhihao so furious before and decided to not question it any further as the two turned around and retraced their steps.
From behind them came the voice of that girl, "Zhihao! Wait! Where are you running off to now?"
Li Ling looked back but Zhihao didn't seem to care no matter how much the girl called after him, "Who is she?"
There was no answer—this was probably the first time Zhihao had ignored Li Ling like this.
The voice of the girl came once again this time followed by rushing footsteps.
Zhihao, "She's a woman I hate."
The girl by now had managed to catch up to them, "Zhihao! I told you to stop! Are you going to disrespect your aunt like this?"
This was Zhihao's aunt and also his gaming partner during the starting of his career—the partner who had given Zhihao a unique phobia of joining a team in online games.
During the starting years of his gaming career when his father heard that he wanted to become a professional gamer, he took Zhihao to his younger sister who at the time was only 22 and made them form a team. His father had initially thought that his sister who was mad about games was a hardcore pro-gamer and could help Zhihao succeed in the career, however, the so-called sister who was supposed to be a hardcore gamer had only recently started playing games herself and was in no way considered to be a specialist in the area.
At the time Zhihao had already been duped by his previous teammates and was afraid to join any new teams but now that he had a partner whom he knew and could trust—it could be said that he was rest assured. but who knew this woman would be such a pain in the ass. Every time, she would suggest raiding a monster's den and every single one of those times when a monster attacked them, she would throw Zhihao forward and scream at the top of her lungs. Zhihao had long grown tired of hearing her high pitched screaming and shamelessness.
After Zhihao had beaten the monsters, she would peek her head out and say that the monster was probably scared by her screams, forcing it to admit defeat and then she would shamelessly collect all the loot. At that time, this team was highly regarded as the best source of entertainment for the viewers who loved to see the hard working Zhihao and the shameless screaming lady hiding at the back. Hence, It came as no shock that they were offered a place in the pro-gamers list, however, this list was biased according to the viewer's preference and rather than the hard-working youth that was bullied, the viewers loved to watch the screaming aunt who hid behind his back and so it was clear whom they had voted for and his aunt after having received all the votes entered the pro-gamers list at the expense of his hard work.
This memory had haunted him for ages not only because of how wrong he had been treated but also because this shameless aunt of his seemed to not even realize what she had done wrong and in the end—when she finally entered the pro-gamers list—she was still shameless enough to tell Zhihao; "Now that I'm in the pro gamers list you have to work twice as hard and if you can't do that, you are fired."
Such arrogance!
Zhihao had been annoyed by her to the core. Really fed up!
Just what went inside this woman's head—only God could know.
This woman was loudbitchnextdoor—ranked 9th in the Top T.I.A.D. players list.
Yes! Her name was based off of the fact that in her early days whenever she screamed as she hid behind Huang Zhihao, among the fans—a joke was widespread; this joke was directly linked to her username. The joke: She sounds exactly like the crazy lady next door.
Zhihao spoke through gritted teeth, "Who is my aunt? Don't you dare follow me!"
But this warning seemed to have no effect on the woman as she continued to run after them.
When she got as near as to reach out to Zhihao's shoulder, Shuang instantly came to life and almost amputated her right arm.
"AAAAHHHhhhh!!" The woman screamed. It seems that due to the public having associated her with this inside joke—loved to hear her screaming for no reason at all and to satisfy the public, she grew accustomed to screaming over every small thing.
From behind her came two more players, both males. How did they handle this yelling woman? Only God knew.
Loudbitchnextdoor, "Sooo rude!!"
Zhihao sneered, "Who are you?! Why are you following us?!"
"Oh come on, don't be a baby! Refusing to even talk to me like this? What have I done to you?"
The question seemed to have angered Mastermo even more.
Just what had she done?! She should know better than anybody else what she had done!
One of the players who came here with her spoke, "Is this the nephew you talked about?"
She seemed to have been looking down on Zhihao as she spoke, "Yeah! This is the brat."
Zhihao's grip around the sword hilt grew tighter. He really could not handle this woman!
"Aunt Su, I don't understand why you are stalking me like this. Let me be the one to ask you, Just how have I offended you?"
Aunt Su seemed to be taken back by the words uttered by this rude nephew of hers, "Stalker?! Obnoxious brat, Who the hell is stalking you?"
Li Ling looked at the exchange between the two, he could feel the animosity in the air as it spread through, but unfortunately, he had no idea what the nasty past shared by these two was.
"rooooroooo?" It was the voice of the fox spirit who had come over to ruin the party.
The fox spirit seemed to once again be attracted to Li Ling as it stared up at him with sparkling eyes and this did not go unnoticed by Zhihao. Just why was the fox spirit always attracted to Li Ling and not anyone else?