With sparkly eyes, filled with unhidden excitement, Zhihao asked, "System, what is the beast conference?"
[Answering player's question: The beast conference is a once in a life event that takes place when the savior has come. The beasts believe in a prophecy of their land and according to that prophecy, the treasure beasts would be saved by the savior who would one day descend on this land. This is a grandiose event that takes place in the heart of the land, inviting each and every beast living here to come together and rejoice together for their salvation.]
"....."
Zhihao was speechless, on one hand, his guesses were somehow correct and the treasure beasts were really gathering somewhere together and on the other hand, their gathering wasn't something big or another clue but it was just them wanting to have a party together.
Wang GuiYing also seemed to understand something, "We are the saviors of this land?"
"...." Zhihao didn't feel like answering the question
"WE are. YOU are not." Li Ling scowled.
All players had contributed somewhat equally to catching the treasure beasts, all except for the three shameless players who ran away when faced with a beautiful glowing dear.
Andy's cheeks flushed red with embarrassment as he thought back to his nil contribution, however, the other two players, Aunt Su and BBtrash felt no such emotion—why should they be embarrassed? They could always just say that they had been so unlucky that they had never met any treasure beasts. They could lie and get out of it unharmed and unblamed.
"So what's the plan, captain?" Li Ling lovingly looked at Zhihao and asked.
Zhihao was somewhat taken back when he heard the word 'captain' being used to address him but the feeling wasn't too bad and on the contrary, it was quite pleasant to be addressed as such—maybe it could be even considered as one of his kinks but he would never agree to it being one—he was too proud to admit it.
"We crash the party." Zhihao answered with a mischievous smirk.
"And where is the party?" Kaoru asked enthusiastically, getting into the role of party crashers.
"..."
Zhihao, "Good question."
Li Ling chuckled as he heard this; finding the man so cute that he wanted to eat him up.
Zhou XinYi thought about the solution and spoke up after a solid two minutes, "Why don't we ask the system?"
Zhihao thought that the suggestion was stupid, why would the system help them? But then again, it wasn't as if they'd lose anything by asking so they just went along with the flow.
"System, where is the beast conference taking place?"
[Answering player's question: The beast conference is taking place in the heart of the land.]
"Where the hell is the heart?" Aunt Su cursed out in annoyance.
Zhihao, "Maybe the center?"
"Worth a try." Li Ling nodded, agreeing to the suggestion.
"We can't rule out that possibility, but how do we know the center of this region?" Zhou XinYi asked.
"We look at the map." Li Ling smiled as he answered the question.
"And where is the map?" Wang GuiYing was the first to sneer with a foul face.
"You guys didn't know?" Li Ling asked as he looked back at Wang GuiYing as if he was the dimmest person to ever walk on this planet, "It's in the hidden options bar."
"The what now?" Aunt Su asked as she looked through her settings, but failed to find such a thing.
Zhihao had known about this secret hidden feature, but he too—had forgotten about its existence or how to access it.
"You click on the top left button, then click on the last option that says more. From there you choose the second card displayed and it shows you an analyze button. Click on the button and wait." Li Ling instructed and the players carefully listened to his instructions as they tried to find the hidden feature.
Not more than a minute passed and Zhihao was the first to quickly finish getting the landscape blueprint, he looked at the odd topography and suddenly found something unusual about the place.
"Wait..." Kaoru also found the hidden map feature and saw the contents—visibly stunned as he did.
Wang GuiYing, "What the hell?! Is that a...?"
"Human." Aunt Su completed the sentence that he wasn't planning on completing
The region mapped out was shaped like a man; with two hands, two legs, a torso, a chest, a face, and everything there was to it. What really came as a shock was the pose of the man. Looking at the map, it somewhat looked like the man was sitting cross-legged in a Buddha position.
"What's going on?" Kaoru asked out in worry.
Zhihao felt as if he was on the verge of dying from all the excitement. Just when he thought that he had uncovered everything there was to it, he was suddenly slapped in the face with new earth-shattering clues—it was just what he had wanted; the game he had always looked for. At this moment, Zhihao could confidently say that even if he won or not at the end of the game, he would never abandon this game. Having felt a connection to the game—it almost made him feel like this game was meant for him—he was the targeted audience.
Zhou XinYi, "I guess we now know where the heart is."
"We do." Li Ling bobbed his head up and down, "If we want to go to the center of the region, we'll end up here, in the stomach of the Buddha, but since the clue said to go to the heart, I'd say we need to take the clue too literally."
Zhihao nodded in agreement to Li Ling's sharp mind, "We head here but..."
"But?"
"Where are we currently?"
"...."
Zhihao suddenly found this hidden useful feature to be flawed. What was the use of having a map if you didn't know where you were? In his mind, Zhihao made a mental note to go and suggest the game developers to update the feature and make it so that the players actually know where they are.
"We are here." Li Ling pointed at the head of the Buddha.
"Why do you say that?" Kaoru asked curiously.
"Because we just descended from a mountain and the only mountain here is in its temple."
Now that Zhihao looked at it closely, he could also see this difference in the topography of the map; Plain areas were colored light green, mountains colored a darker shade of green, and the rivers—there being only two were the eyes of the Buddha, looking almost as if the Buddha was crying—they were colored blue and the land without any plants or trees were lesser in size and colored in light brown.
Wang GuiYing was a directionless man so he asked, "So where are we going exactly?"
Zhihao mentally rolled his eyes to the back of his head, making sure that his head was alright and wasn't affected by the man, "We head there" Zhihao said as he pointed to the south-east direction ahead of them.
The team once again continued marching on their journey to catch some treasure beasts with no intention of cooking them for dinner but all intentions on becoming a party pooper. It would most certainly be a sight to see with their savior becoming the one to crush their celebration and abduct the beasts that had been released and whose freedom was being celebrated. As Zhihao thought about this, he found the idea both pitiful and funny somehow—suddenly finding himself obsessed with the idea of becoming the bad guy; it was thrilling.
The path they took was rocky—filled with uneven ground and trees that made it hard to see the direction they were headed towards. Thankfully the way was not difficult to trudge through as there were no beasts that were interested in obstructing their paths.
They happily walked for the next ten to twenty minutes finding it almost calming how peaceful the environment was—if this wasn't a game, they would have even considered taking small breaks as they walked through the thick forest.
As they kept on walking, Zhihao couldn't help but sometimes peak at the moon above them that could be seen through the gaps between the leaves, he didn't know if it was just his imagination or not, but it almost looked like, as they kept on walking, the moon was smiling more brightly at them—almost pleased with their decision. This was... Creepy!
Zhihao didn't want to look up anymore, but his mind would still make him glance at the moon—he could sense the smile growing wider; it was creepy and this uneasiness was the only thing he could feel at the moment. Could this be a trap?
They finally reached their destination and what they saw was far away from what they had expected to see. When they heard party, they thought it would be filled with lights, music, dancing and just a jolly atmosphere over the whole thing but they certainly didn't expect to see all the beasts standing together in a circle around something which could not be clearly seen. As the moonlight fell on them, their bodies started shining and slowly dispersed in the air. They were disappearing one by one—looking as if they were ascending to heaven. Even the most vicious of vicious beasts were in the same state; looking up at the moon with a docile expression—accepting what was to come with a happy smile.
"Where are the treasure beasts?" Wang GuiYing asked the most important question that affected them
"In the middle." Li Ling answered the question patiently, his eyes glued to the center of the circular chain of beasts.
In the middle of it was a stone plate—mimicking that of the one's in the caves, but bigger— much much much bigger!
Standing on top of this tone plate were the Five treasure beasts, forming a circle of their own—holding hands and praying.
"What type of ritual is this?" Aunt Su exclaimed in shock not understanding what was happening.
It was all too sudden. Just when the players thought they were done with the surprises, damn... Here it was, something that was so shocking that they could not even comprehend it fast enough.
Zhihao suddenly had the most bone-shrilling idea of what was happening, "It can't be."
"What is it, Mastermo?" Kaoru asked innocently.
"No." Zhihao dare not rashly state his ideas out loud, it was just not worth it.
Kaoru had suddenly realized that he was not fooled. In the end, Mastermo hadn't lied to him and hadn't tricked him. He was not bullshitting! These beasts were actually assembling somewhere.
Zhu XinYi also frowned as he saw the scene of the beasts disappearing one by one.
"They are dying." Li Ling was the first to say it out loud.
Zhihao suddenly found that all his ideas were shattered to the ground. He thought he knew almost everything but he came to the shocking realization that in reality—he understood nothing.
The sun goddess wasn't generous at all!
Zhihao, "The treasure beasts are sacrificing the others."
"Huh?" Andy and Kaoru asked at the same time, not having their mental state be fast enough to comprehend what was going on.
"They tricked them." Li Ling commented.
Zhihao, "They lied to them and tricked them."
"What are you talking about?" Wang GuiYing asked with a twisted expression.
"We are seeing a cold-blooded ritual." Zhihao spoke, not wanting to say anything more—finding it hard to explain the situation.
One of the beasts noticed the arrival of the players and looked at them. When it saw them, it broke away from the circle and came up to them, this beast was familiar with them and they had met it before—it was none other than their friendly beast who liked music and dancing; the crying eagle.
The crying eagle who was always looking after and guarding her eggs was now here, attending this sacrificial conference from where it would never return. The beast walked up to Zhihao and happily chirped.