[System Notification: Spend 20,000 kill points to upgrade.]
[Stealth Lv2: You can now hide within rocks and move through them.]
[Spend 10,000 kill points to upgrade.]
Seeing the effects of Stealth Lv2, Xu Yuan couldn't help but feel excited.
He had decided to upgrade this skill because it was incredibly useful.
Now that he could move through rocks, it would make things even easier.
After closing the system interface, Xu Yuan set off on his journey to find the remaining monsters in the main world.
———
Meanwhile, in the forest near the grassland base.
A group of players stood atop the trees, watching the newly built foot-scrubbing shelter on a small hill below. They whispered among themselves as they observed the scene.
Monsters from all directions were gathering around the shelter, but once inside, they just stood there dumbly.
As the monsters crowded in, they were quickly taken down one by one.
Even Creepers were among them, but even when the shelter's slope attacked them, none of the Creepers showed any signs of exploding.
The players couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"Holy crap! This is amazing! We can farm mobs without taking any damage?"
"Man, Xiao po's got some tricks! How did we not notice he was this smart before?"
"If we had this thing yesterday, that fight would've been so much easier!"
"This is awesome! Now we've got something to do at night!"
The footwork trick was blowing everyone's minds. After all, a method for farming mobs without getting hurt? That meant they wouldn't be short on supplies anymore, and they'd be able to grow stronger even at night.
With this method, they could finally control the monsters for good.
Every player was thrilled with this breakthrough.
Even Steve wasn't an exception.
However, he was puzzled.
Although Steve hadn't spent much time with Xiao po, he had a general understanding of him.
Xiao po came here with a few friends and was barely considered a squad leader.
But he wasn't particularly capable—just an average player.
That's why Steve hadn't given him any significant responsibilities in the previous battle.
Steve couldn't figure out how Xiao po had suddenly come up with such an ingenious strategy.
It wasn't that Steve was underestimating him; he trusted his own judgment of people.
If Xiao po had this kind of ability, Steve would've promoted him long ago.
His friends seemed to share his confusion.
"I didn't know Xiao po had it in him."
"Feels like he's trying to win people over."
"Winning people over? Does he really have the skills to manage them though?"
"Yeah, but how did he suddenly get so smart?"
"No idea. We sent him to mine rocks today, and when he came back, he had this whole strategy ready. And he didn't even bring back that many rocks…"
Hearing their discussion, Steve quickly caught onto the key point.
"He went out?"
"Where did he go?"
Steve's friends realized what was going on when they heard the tone in his voice.
There was no way someone like Xiao po could come up with such a tactic.
So, the answer had to lie in whatever happened while he was out.
"He went to the spot where we were mining rocks earlier!"
Once Steve and his crew got this information, they quietly slipped out of the woods. They immediately started heading toward the rock-mining site.
About ten minutes later, they arrived at the cave where Xiao po had first discovered the footwork shelter.
As soon as they got there, Steve noticed two trapdoors—one outside the cave and one inside.
Seeing those trapdoors, Steve quickly pieced most of the situation together.
"The trapdoor outside must lead into the cave. The one inside must've had something built on top of it before, probably the same foot-scrubbing shelter that Xiao po demonstrated."
His friends nodded in agreement. This explanation made a lot more sense than the idea that Xiao po had figured out the trick on his own.
Still, there were some things they couldn't wrap their heads around.
"If they already tore down the shelter, why leave the passage behind?"
"And if Xiao po didn't come up with this, then someone else must've. So who was it?"
Steve had his own set of questions swirling in his mind.
Something about this didn't add up.
After thinking it over for a moment, he started talking through his thoughts.
"Let's say someone else built the shelter. When Xiao po and his crew got here, they found it but didn't see anyone else around. That would mean the person had already left, right?"
"And if even Xiao po and his friends knew to dismantle the shelter before leaving, wouldn't the builder also know that?"
"It just doesn't make sense!"
"And here's another thing: Xiao po must've used the passage to get into the shelter and figure out how it worked. So, the passage must've been left behind by whoever built the shelter in the first place."
"But why would the person who built it need the passage? They already knew how to make a footwork shelter. They could just kill the monsters and leave. This isn't some base or permanent location, so why go through the trouble of digging a passage?"
"It's too illogical!"
Steve's friends agreed that something felt off.
If they had known how to build a footwork shelter, they wouldn't bother with a passage either.
Once the monsters were dead, they'd just destroy the shelter and leave. No need to dig anything extra.
And this wasn't a base or a spot where monsters spawned regularly.
There was absolutely no reason to leave a passage here.
Even if they had to leave quickly, they'd at least replace the trapdoors with stone blocks.
No matter how you looked at it, the current setup didn't make any sense.
Steve thought long and hard, but he couldn't figure out the logic behind it.
It was almost as if the whole thing had been deliberately staged.
But why would someone do that? Why give away such an effective strategy?
Was it intentional, or just an accident?
If it was intentional, they could've just posted the strategy on the forums. Wouldn't that have been faster?
And if it was an accident, that's a pretty big mistake to make, right?
"Strange! This is just too strange!"
Steve felt like this whole thing had something to do with the White-Eyed Monster.
It wasn't a baseless suspicion, though. The cave was so close to the player base, and with the players livestreaming their progress, pretty much everyone knew what was going on.
If another player had been here, they'd know that people would soon discover the shelter.
So why would they leave it intact?
That's why Steve thought the White-Eyed Monster might be behind it all.
But he couldn't figure out why.
If the monster had done this, there was no benefit for him. He controlled the mobs, after all—they were like his little minions.
Why would he send his minions right into the players' hands?
Plus, now that players could farm mobs, they would grow stronger faster, which would make things even worse for him.
Steve just couldn't make sense of it.
"Forget it. Overthinking won't help."
"Maybe I'm just being paranoid…"
The more Steve thought about it, the more frustrated he got. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being played.
Maybe he was just overthinking everything, developing a persecution complex.
If he kept going like this, it might mess with his mind.
Might as well take things one step at a time.
Steve and his friends didn't stick around much longer and returned to the base.
By the time they got back, Xiao po had already formed a guild.
It wasn't that hard to create a guild in the game. Once you applied, all you needed was 50 people to join within a day, and the guild would be officially established.
Xiao po had already gathered more than 50 players.
Nobody had any objections to him becoming the guild leader, either.
Even though most players had originally wanted Steve to take the position, Xiao po had brought them more benefits lately, so he made sense as the leader.
As soon as Xiao po saw Steve and the others return, he rushed over to greet them.
"Steve! I've been looking for you. Just now, I set up a guild for the players, and I wanted to officially invite you to be the vice president of our Triumph Guild!"
Xiao po didn't have much in the way of skills, but he certainly knew how to work people.
He understood very well that there was no way he could manage a guild on his own.
But Steve had a lot of trust among the players.
That's why Xiao po had come up with this plan.
He'd be the guild leader, and Steve would be the vice president. The players would have no problem with that.
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