Chapter 326: Broken Graduation, Get-Rich Scheme

"Who can spare 20 Shou Shou Jili for a teleport gate? Thanks, big brother."

"Graduating senior needs 20 Shou Shou Jili urgently—teleport gate is one point short. Good people live long."

"Can anyone respond? Lend me 20 Shou Shou Jili, I'll pay you back double."

After shouting in the regional channel, Yu Chuan finally understood one thing.

Why did the regional channel always have beggars shouting for Shou Shou Jili to use teleport gates?

After having all his Shou Shou Jili deducted, he had become one of them.

This login, he opened his spatial inventory—his balance stared back at him: 0.

He wanted to teleport to the Sen Luo Forest Region, but lacked Shou Shou Jili and couldn't activate the teleport function.

He originally thought that even if he had no Shou Shou Jili, stepping out meant going to Ah Le's training.

There, he'd engage in a thrilling battle—how could he possibly lack Shou Shou Jili?

But he hadn't realized that the last big battle at Ah Le's training camp had been the final feast of combat.

Now, he had been forcibly graduated from Ah Le's training camp.

If he went to Ah Le's training camp now, the gatekeeper old man would glare menacingly and bar him entry—any attempt earned him a one-hour black room voucher.

Trying to continue classes under the gatekeeper's perception was utterly unrealistic.

Too many graduated seniors had entertained similar ideas—every single one ended up swept into the black room, no exceptions, no negotiation.

The rules of Ah Le's training camp were this cruel and merciless.

And the gatekeeper's authority brooked no challenge.

This time, being swept out the door left him with a Shou Shou Jili balance of: -10 Shou Shou Jili.

So now he was trapped in the Phantom Spirit Wasteland space node.

This problem wasn't without a solution.

He just needed to exit the space node, detour to another region of the Phantom Spirit Wasteland, and hunt monsters to earn Shou Shou Jili.

But the process was tedious.

In comparison, simply begging in the regional channel was clearly more convenient.

If a kind soul gifted him 20 Shou Shou Jili, his current predicament would be easily resolved.

Seeing no players respond to him, Yu Chuan couldn't help shouting again in the regional voice channel.

"Where'd this beggar come from? Get lost and stop hogging regional channel resources."

At that moment, a player sent him a private message.

Yu Chuan had once entertained similar thoughts.

He'd always seen people in the regional channel begging for Shou Shou Jili, and he'd looked down on them—thought they'd be better off hunting instead of wasting time.

But though he thought it, he'd never insulted those players begging in the regional channel.

Yet now he himself had fallen to being called a "beggar."

He'd even considered buying Shou Shou Jili directly with real cash.

But the price of Shou Shou Jili had been inflated to 1:1000, and few players were willing to sell.

The reason wasn't hard to understand.

Shou Shou Jili, as a currency, had been endorsed by the Eclipse Clan and was officially certified by them as a "cross-virtual hard currency."

The dominant currency in the real world was the Earth Alliance's universal currency: Earth Coins.

All clans used Earth Coins not only for inter-clan trade, but also to purchase Eclipse Clan's cutting-edge technology and other tech products.

Shou Shou Jili could do the same—and in some aspects, even possessed privileges Earth Coins lacked.

For example, the Eclipse Clan's newly developed game pod required a waiting queue to purchase via Earth Coins through normal channels.

But if purchased with Shou Shou Jili, one could skip the wait and buy immediately.

Secondly, medical services in Eclipse City had fixed quotas for each clan, and access required advance booking and queuing.

Each clan used its quota differently, and it wasn't always allocated to those in need.

For instance, in the Human Federation, Eclipse Clan medical slots were prioritized for individuals with special real-world jobs.

But Shou Shou Jili could bypass the tedious booking process entirely by contacting Eclipse Clan members within the game.

One could even board an Eclipse Clan shuttle the same day and fly to the Moon for treatment.

This meant Shou Shou Jili carried, beyond its monetary value, a "privilege" attribute.

Yu Chuan's original plan had been to gamble his own savings and his parents' savings—all-in on Monster World's Shou Shou Jili currency.

This wasn't really gambling—it was more like strategic positioning after learning the truth, since Shou Shou Jili's future price rise was certain.

By the day the game fed back into reality, Shou Shou Jili would completely replace real-world currency.

And most things in the real world would become worthless.

Yet players unaware of the truth craved Shou Shou Jili just as desperately.

Especially those without game access but desperate for Eclipse Clan medical services.

Their solution: pay high prices to qualified players to contact Eclipse Clan members and use Shou Shou Jili to purchase medical services.

This caused every clan in the Earth Alliance to hoard Shou Shou Jili, driving prices ever higher.

The foreseeable future meant these Shou Shou Jili sellers would inevitably regret it.

But currently, Shou Shou Jili simply couldn't be bought.

Even the Shou Shou Jili produced by grind players was sold exclusively to stable-buying major guilds—no shortage of buyers.

Though the official rate remained 1:1000, the real price was unguessable and certainly far higher.

To buy Shou Shou Jili, he needed to research actual prices and procurement channels first.

Charging in blind without knowledge couldn't maximize profit.

Secondly, acquiring Shou Shou Jili also depends on fate.

Just now, he shouted twice on the World and Regional channels, but not a single player responded to his request to buy Shou Shou Jili.

Identical buy requests for Shou Shou Jili were everywhere on the World channel.

Realizing this approach wouldn't work, he opened his spatial sack and began sorting through his supplies.

Some items purchased from Shangcheng could only be sacrificed to Beneath Di Zhao at half price.

For example, healing potions.

He would have to repurchase them at full price later.

Selling them now at a discount was sheer foolishness.

When his balance reached 100 Shou Shou Jili, he decisively summoned the teleport panel and appeared in the Sen Luo Forest Region the next second.

Entering a new space, the player population presented to him a completely different face.

Players within this space generally had vehicles and wore armored gear.

In contrast, players in the Phantom Spirit Wasteland space node still wore only the most primitive black cloth attire.

At this moment, Yu Chuan desperately wanted to hunt and grow stronger.

He was still at the North Pole Space Monitoring Station and could not predict when the next Hei Chao Xie Sui would arrive.

He might very well be the next unlucky one.

Whether celestial beings could rush to provide emergency support was unknown.

Next time, he might not be so lucky—he could die horribly at the hands of Hei Chao Xie Sui.

So he had to seize the time to grow stronger and earn Shou Shou Jili.

All early sacrifices would, on the day the game fed back into reality, transform into endless joy.

Imagining himself, in his real-world body as a player, charging in and out of Hei Chao Xie Sui seven times, he felt boundless motivation to fight.

But before beginning his exploration, he still needed to thoroughly understand regional intelligence.

Arriving at an open area, he summoned the forum and began researching player guild information for the Sen Luo Forest Region.

Before coming, he had only studied the environmental conditions of the Sen Luo Forest Region.

He knew this region primarily featured plant-type monsters, and players active here generally had the "Extraction" Painful Painful Minghun embedded.

This title, considered bottom-tier trash by players in other regions, was here regarded as a regional-tier T0 divine Painful Painful Minghun—capable of dealing massive damage to plant life when paired with any other Painful Painful Minghun.

The greatest difference from other zones was that the Sen Luo Forest Region had a god-tier mascot guarding it.

It was the ultimate challenge in the eyes of Sen Luo Forest Region players.

The forum had seen many players swear they would capture this ninth-generation Meng Yuan Chu in their lifetime.

Having learned the truth, his perception of the Great Mushroom differed entirely from that of ordinary players.

Only a player's mindset could dismiss the Great Mushroom as nothing—but in the real world, it was a terrifying lifeform whose sneeze could wipe out the world.

As he browsed, Yu Chuan gradually learned the guild intelligence of the Sen Luo Forest Region.

The basic players active in this region were mostly medium-to-large guilds aiming to contain space nodes and seize resource nodes.

There were many guilds with considerable strength.

Among the more famous were:

Steel Bastion Guild.

This was the universally recognized first tanking guild in the Sen Luo Forest Region; it was currently negotiating with Starlight Guild and would soon head to Beneath Di Zhao Mountain Range to join Starlight Guild's united battle force.

This guild had a very distinctive composition: over 80% were heavy warriors and tanking players, the remaining 20% were support units.

By activating the Life Link trait, the entire guild shared a single health bar, evenly distributing damage.

Each battle employed a brute-force advance strategy, surrounding support players at the center, eliminating the need to worry about rear-line spellcasters, charging forward like an iron flood.

Its signature achievement was holding off a monster flood at the "Shattered Abyss" resource node for 42 consecutive hours, capturing the node with zero casualties.

The core members of this guild were already famous in other games.

Guildmaster "Shield Mountain" was a legendary main tank in the Land of Sin, exceptionally skilled at timing taunt releases—a charismatic guild leader.

Vice Guildmaster Anvil was someone Yu Chuan had watched in his Warrior Build tutorial videos when playing the Land of Sin.

This guild did not accept spellcasters, making it suitable for him to join.

Most importantly, this guild would soon enter the united battle force and head to what players considered the pinnacle: Beneath Di Zhao Mountain Range.

But the problem was, his overall Painful Painful Minghun rank was too low—this guild would never accept him.

The second guild was: Shadow Arcana.

This guild was renowned as an output alliance, specializing in various beheading tactics.

Guildmaster "No Light" was a member of the Breaker Clan; his guild centered on assassin and spellcaster players.

All members maximized spell damage and physical damage, abandoning survivability to pursue extreme burst.

The guild was divided into Shadow and Arcana squads; every member was a glass cannon type, fighting with respawn mechanics.

They pursued delivering the most terrifying damage in the shortest possible time.

This guild had sparked heated debate on the forum.

Its classic battle occurred at the "Eye of the Earth" resource node in the Sen Luo Forest Region.

The video title was: Shadow Dance in Harmony.

When he watched this video, he had also been stunned.

In the video, all guild members had embedded the "Star Shift" Painful Painful Minghun, including the spellcasters.

Through assassin players creating numerous clones, guild members continuously swapped positions at high frequency, leaving the node's monsters exhausted chasing them but rarely able to land a hit.

In the final collective burst, they unleashed extreme damage, beheading the strongest guardian creature before the entire guild was wiped out, successfully containing the node.

Others included: Eternal Day Council, Natural Resonance, Chaos Equation, Future No. 1 Guild, Wandering Poet, and more.

These guilds each have their own characteristics and are all representatives of the strongest guilds in the Senluo Forest Realm region.

In many battles to contain territory nodes, these guilds have cooperated with one another.

The research-oriented players who posted this collected the performance of major guilds, listed a ranking in the post, and provided detailed interpretations of the guilds on the leaderboard.

This information truly facilitated many players wishing to join a guild.

And this is precisely the charm of research-oriented players; their efforts seem meaningless, yet they actually bring various conveniences to other players.

Background data, intelligence gathering, and problem research—this is also the reason the research-oriented group's reputation on the forum keeps improving.

With intelligence in hand, the next step is to contact the person in charge of the guild.

He is not a lone-wolf type of player; he likes finding an organization to struggle with, and originally there was a small group for him at the A-Le Training Camp.

It's just that the small group graduated one step ahead of him.

Some became dungeon-focused players, some went to the Cangxing Sea Region, and some joined the guilds of their friends and family... they went their separate ways and scattered.

Now he has also left the Beginner Phase and must find an organization to continue struggling with.

Only with group cooperation can growth be more efficient.

He is the only special player currently stationed at the North Pole; growing is not only for happiness but also to survive better.

If a player's body dies, it can be reshaped at Imperial Tomb Village Weight; if the real body dies, then it is truly death.

On the way back from the Moon to the North Pole, he asked the Star Network's projection why a military base was not established near the North Pole monitoring station.

To defend in time when Hei Chao Xie Sui appear.

The Star Network's answer was that to avoid unnecessary suspicion, large-scale deployment of military forces would easily attract the attention of other races in the Earth Alliance.

Including the use of space seals: it is both ineffective and carries the risk of exposing Hei Chao rifts.

Therefore, the Moon Eclipse Clan will not make any changes to the North Pole monitoring station.

The only thing they can provide him is upgrades to weapons and equipment.

During this reconstruction of the North Pole monitoring station, the Moon Eclipse Clan upgraded his arsenal, equipping it with the most advanced single-soldier gear.

These pieces of equipment all require the crystal chip at the back of his neck to unlock and activate.

But whether they can resist Hei Chao is completely unknown.

If the incoming Hei Chao power is at the Evil Spirit level, this advanced technology is comparable to toys. The only thing that can protect him is the power feedback from his player body.

So guarding the North Pole, from now on, will still be just him alone.

Among the 300,000 spatial monitoring points worldwide, he is undoubtedly the most miserable one, needing to face the challenge of Hei Chao rifts directly.

He continued flipping through the guild intelligence post compiled by research-oriented players on the forum.

Based on the analysis of the content inside, Yu Chuan finally chose the "Gluttony Alliance" guild in the Senluo Forest Realm region.

Finding the recruitment post published by the Gluttony Guild on the forum, he sent a private message to the recruitment person in charge mentioned in the post.

North Pole Animal Protection Observer: Is the guild still recruiting? My main Painful Painful Minghun is a Warrior, level 34; my sub-Painful Painful Minghun are Spirit-Eating and Unyielding.

While waiting, the other party sent a reply.

I Don't Eat Beef: Your main Painful Painful Minghun level 34 is too low; sorry, our guild's minimum requirement for the Warrior path is level 45, for Mages it's level 55, for Healers it's level 47; Tank levels can be negotiated. Have you considered switching to Tank?

North Pole Animal Protection Observer: Alright, sorry to bother you.

Ending the conversation, the other party disliked his low level; persisting in chatting would be meaningless.

He decisively switched to another guild to continue talking.

In the following hour, Yu Chuan talked to the recruitment heads of several guilds, and the results were all about the same.

Every guild sets level limits for different paths.

The most tolerant requirement is for Tank players; there is basically no level limit, and they can even receive guild support and training.

After all, this is the rarest path in the game; every guild is short on them and won't consider the problem of having too many.

The United Warband led by the God King has already proven the core status of Tank teams in war.

In the future, if one wants to participate in large-scale battlefields, without the aid of a Tank team, even with the highest damage output, one will only be swept away by a single offensive.

Yu Chuan approached several guilds in a row, and every one of them refused after learning his level.

They felt his level couldn't keep up with the intensity of the guild's battles against monsters; staying in the warband would only be a burden.

Yu Chuan completely agreed with the statements of these guild recruitment heads.

After all, his combat power made him a senior student at the A-Le Training Camp, but at other spatial nodes, he appeared somewhat insufficient.

Calling himself a Warrior, he fundamentally couldn't reach the very front line of confrontation.

Engaging high-level monsters would inevitably mean shattering upon the first touch.

There were quite a few guilds asking about his leaderboard level during the Beginner Phase; if he had a screenshot of the top ten thousand, they could recruit and train him additionally.

Unfortunately, he had work at the North Pole; after obtaining this round of qualifications, he couldn't maintain a high-intensity 24-hour online presence during the early-leveling activities.

So there was simply no chance to enter the top ten thousand leaderboard.

Helplessly, he could only choose to contact medium-sized guilds.

But during the subsequent contacts, he continued to face rejection, which made Yu Chuan feel very depressed.

Originally, he had saved over 30,000 Shou Shou Jili to use after graduating from the A-Le Training Camp, to bring a massive boost to his own strength.

But a real-world accident cleared his Shou Shou Jili, causing his combat power to fall completely short of the minimum requirements for the Senluo Forest Realm region.

With no other way, he had to lower his requirements again.

He filtered the recruitment posts for the Senluo Forest Realm region in the recruitment section, looking for those small guilds and small groups to seek warmth by huddling together.

The number of such groups is huge, but they are generally friend-and-family teams and fixed squads; wanting to join isn't easy either.

After wandering around the recruitment section for a long time, he scrolled to a newly published recruitment post:

【Senluo Forest Realm Region: Recruiting A-Le Academy graduates with Spirit Strength and Mental Strength below 850 points. Preferably Warriors or Assassins. Those with combat power higher than this, do not come.】

This recruitment post made Yu Chuan feel very puzzled.

Recruitment has always favored higher combat power; this is the first time he's seen a recruitment post with an upper combat power limit.

As for the Blood Qi intensity and Spirit Power intensity attributes mentioned in the post, they can be checked on the status panel.

His attributes don't yet reach that intensity; he's afraid he'll need to break through to level 40 to meet the standard.

Confused, he opened the post, found the contact inside, selected private chat, and then sent a screenshot of his attributes.

Not long after, a friend request came from the other side.

Pig Teammate: Brother, you fit our squad's needs; add me as a friend and join the group.

Northern Beast Protection Observer: I want to know your team's composition; I don't understand why you're recruiting players with low combat power levels?

Pig Teammate: No harm in telling you; we found a method to generate rewards by exploiting a scene bug. That place can only be entered by players with low Blood Qi intensity and low Spirit Power intensity. Want to get rich together (Explorer hands on hips. jpg)?

Hearing the other's reply, Yu Chuan immediately perked up.

Already knowing the truth that the Monster World is the real world, he did not believe bugs existed in the real world.

The greater possibility was that the other party had found a place of opportunity and treasure.

Without hesitation, he decisively agreed.

After passing the friend request, the other party sent a party invitation.

Entering the party, he discovered it was a 19-person squad, and the captain was indeed the "Pig Teammate" who had just chatted with him privately.

Seeing this game ID, Yu Chuan felt ashamed.

As long as the High-Dimensional Gods don't change the setting to modify game IDs, this name is afraid it will follow him for a lifetime.

Even if one day in the future, power feedbacks to reality, he would still have this game ID hovering over his head.

If players' lifespans become infinite in the future, this ID will also accompany him for a lifetime.

Just thinking about it felt awkward, especially once he had descendants; letting them see the "Pig Teammate" ID over his head would make an elder's coolness drop to the ground.

"Brother, look at the mini-map coordinates and come straight to assemble; our team is just missing you."

A robust middle-aged male voice came through the party channel, sounding like a veteran soldier who had smoked for years, carrying a warm, lively energy.

"Okay, coming right now." After giving the reply, Yu Chuan immediately set off.

The moment he left the space node, it felt as if he stepped into a jade dream soaked in moonlight.

They say the scenery of the Senluo Forest Realm is unparalleled; Yu Chuan has now seen it with his own eyes.

As far as the eye could see, there were glowing plants everywhere.

One could see tiny glowing spores drifting in the air; the scene of them wandering with the wind was like a silent meteor shower.

Not far ahead, colorful vines hung down from a hundred-meter-high crystallized ancient tree, like a solidified seven-colored waterfall.

Underfoot was a breathing tundra; with every step, semi-transparent glowing moss would ripple with spreading colors.

The air was also filled with a mixed fragrance emitted by various plants, making his spirit perk up instantly.

No wonder the Senluo Forest Realm is the region where players leak out the least.

Among the environments players have encountered at this stage, the most hostile is the Di Zong Mountain Range.

The highest-rated is the Colorful Mist Coast, followed by the Senluo Forest Realm region where he currently stands.

Every inch of land here seemed endowed with spirituality by nature; even the wind blowing carried the whisper of grass and trees.

Compared to the oppressive desolation of the Di Zong Mountain Range or the brilliant vibrancy of the Colorful Mist Coast, the Senluo Forest Realm brought a dreamlike, tranquil beauty.

Taking a deep breath of "delicious" air, Yu Chuan summoned the map and set off toward the blue cursor area where his teammates were located.

Not long after, a clear female voice rang out in the party voice channel, carrying a hint of teasing laughter:

"Hey, big shot, you're over level 30, yet you can't even bear to buy a basic vehicle? Judging by your movement speed on the map, are you still taking the '11-bus'?"

This made Yu Chuan feel somewhat embarrassed.

The Huanling Wasteland region is quite special; stepping out means entering a scene of fighting, so vehicles are simply not needed.

But every player prioritizes equipping a basic vehicle after graduation.

His situation was quite special; all the Shou Shou Jili he had saved up before graduation was wiped clean, and his travel expenses were exchanged by selling medicine.

Now he could only measure the earth with his legs; let alone vehicles, he couldn't even afford medicine.

"Haha, brother, it's fine; we're not in a hurry; we'll just hunt nearby and wait for you," the captain, Pig Teammate, immediately replied.

"Sorry, I'll speed up right now."

As Yu Chuan spoke, his feet flowed with righteous energy, and his figure instantly became a bit faster.

After passing through the lush glowing jungle, the view ahead suddenly opened up.

A vast, blue glowing plain spread out beneath his feet.

The most shocking thing was the huge mushroom at the end of the horizon, piercing the sky and touching the earth.

Its cap's diameter was probably ten thousand meters; the whole body flowed with a dreamlike blue-purple halo, standing like a living lighthouse between heaven and earth.

Glowing mycelium hanging down from the mushroom cap was like an inverted galaxy waterfall, swaying in the night wind.

Even from such a far distance, Yu Chuan could still clearly see the golden patterns naturally formed on the cap.

The nearby plant-type monsters had already been cleared by veteran players, so there was no need to worry about encountering danger; Yu Chuan ran toward the direction of the predicted giant mushroom.

Along the way, he discovered that the giant mushroom would spew large patches of glowing spores at regular intervals.

It was like a reverse meteor shower rising toward the night sky, illuminating the entire plain like an underwater Illusion.

Some of the drifting spores collided and burst in the air, emitting a crisp sound like wind chimes.

"Too beautiful."

Accustomed to the ruin scenes of the Huanling Wasteland region, suddenly arriving in the Senluo Forest Realm region brought him a dual enjoyment of vision and body.

The recovery efficiency of breathing Qi in this region was several times stronger than in the Huanling Wasteland region.

"After seeing it so much, one gets used to it; we still want to go outside and take a look. Once we handle this opportunity and save up enough Shou Shou Jili, we'll join the army attacking the Ming Mist Clan at the Colorful Mist Coast."

Hearing the captain talk about the opportunity, Yu Chuan couldn't help but ask curiously what exactly this opportunity was.

The captain chuckled softly over the voice channel, his tone tinged with pride:

"Brother, you've asked the right question. While you're still on your way, let me give you the full details. You probably know the Senluo Forest Region is right next to the battlefield between the Counterflow Legion and the Soul Return Clan, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Yu Chuan nodded.

Before coming, he had thoroughly reviewed the situation in the Senluo Forest Region—he naturally knew the players' location lay just beside a core war legion of the Soul Return Clan, dangerously close to the battlefield.

He'd even seen a video on the forum where the director of the Toddler Squad was cultivating a Dark Descendant Legion in the Senluo Forest Region, only to be sent straight back to the penalty room by a sudden attack from Soul Return Clan warriors.

It was certain that future players would pass through the Senluo Forest Region to enter the battlefield between the Counterflow Legion and the Soul Return Clan.

Becoming a third-party force.

Some players had already proposed that student-stream players contact the Counterflow Legion and form an alliance to fight the Soul Return Clan together.

Although the Counterflow Legion was a local faction, it had the God of Wealth in front of it and many student-stream players from the Wanjiajia Alliance behind it.

So players generally viewed the Counterflow Legion as a viable ally.

Upon receiving his reply, the captain continued:

"What we're targeting is a secret breeding base of the Soul Return Clan. They're raising large numbers of Soul Beast seeds inside, and there's also a life-intensity detection array. Creatures weaker than Soul Beasts are allowed to pass—after all, they'd just become food for the Soul Beast swarm—but any lifeform exceeding the array's strength threshold gets instantly killed… By the way, you know what Soul Beast seeds are, right?"

"I know—I've watched early videos from the Liver Emperor Squad. Soul Beasts can devour targets to absorb their power and memories; they're extremely troublesome monsters… So does killing them yield high Shou Shou Jili?" Yu Chuan asked, puzzled.

"Idiot, the Shou Shou Jili yield from killing them isn't much different from killing monsters of the same level. Killing them is the most wasteful thing you can do… Think carefully—what's the greatest use of a Soul Beast's ability to our players?"

What was the use of a Soul Beast to players?

Yu Chuan's mind raced, flashing through countless pieces of information.

Suddenly, his pupils contracted.

"Cao Kong Lao Yin?"

This Painful Painful Minghun formed its own school, known on the forum as the Pet Stream.

Its effect was to imprint a Jing Shen Lao Yin onto a living being, granting perfect control authority over it.

Thinking of Cao Kong Lao Yin, he suddenly understood what this squad intended to do.

The greatest strength of a Soul Beast lies in its devouring and evolution, while the biggest weakness of Cao Kong Lao Yin is that the controlled pet cannot grow—it remains at the same hunting rank it was when the Cao Kong Lao Yin was applied.

After all, no player would invest Shou Shou Jili or any spiritual materials into a controlled beast.

Investing in yourself is always the right choice.

Compared to your own infinitely revivable, growing pet, a controlled beast is more like a Xiao Hao Pin.

But a Soul Beast is different—if you can control one, you gain an infinitely evolving combat pet.

Its growth isn't just in physical stats and spiritual strength—it includes the combat talents, survival skills, and other memories of whatever it devours.

At that moment, the captain's laugh came through:

"Exactly. Looks like you've figured it out. Soul Beasts are currently the perfect pets—far better suited for Pet Stream players than Shu Yan Warriors… No player uses Soul Beasts as pets yet, because no one can enter the Counterflow and Soul Return Clan battlefield, and Soul Beasts are nearly impossible to find outside."

"So we can build a Soul Beast production line: capture them, then sell them to other guilds' Pet Stream players. We'll get top prices—just by flipping them, we'll make a fortune."

Yu Chuan's eyes lit up:

"Brilliant!"

After hearing the captain's explanation, the value of Soul Beasts became crystal clear in his mind.

This thing was literally the perfect combat pet designed for Pet Stream players.

Ordinary controlled beasts are like fixed templates—what they are when captured, they remain forever.

But Soul Beasts are different—they evolve by continuously devouring targets, essentially becoming living combat databases.

Every devour is an update to their combat system.

Even better, a mature Soul Beast can freely switch forms.

Today it devours a tank-type lifeform, and it becomes a tank.

Tomorrow it eats a stealth assassin or warrior-type, and it switches to damage output.

The day after, it swallows a healer-type, and suddenly it can double as a support.

And unlike Shu Yan Warriors, this switching doesn't require expensive Shou Shou Jili to reset or modify—it can be done instantly mid-battle.

It can be considered an all-in-one pet.

He finally understood why the captain was so excited.

Right now, many Pet Stream players on the market are spending tens of thousands of Shou Shou Jili to acquire a single top-tier Shu Yan Warrior. Under the same level, the value of a Soul Beast is clearly far higher.

Yu Chuan could already picture the scene: wealthy Pet Stream players fighting over them like mad.

This squad hadn't found a growth opportunity—they'd found a sustainable gold mine.

(End of Chapter)