George didn't swing the Heavy Wooden Sword. He grabbed the wild, uncontrolled crow with his bare hand — he wanted to study it. The crow imdiately punched a deep gash in his palm, and even that brief contact made it clear: its strength and attack power had jumped by several tis.
That, actually, made him more interested rather than alard. This could help him trace the origin of how Magic Zombies were created — or at the very least, might reveal a thod for producing Blood Crows in volu. He only had one Blood Crow right now, and aerial opponents could potentially take it down.
His Two-Star Blood Crow, truth be told, was genuinely useful.
He ignored the crow's fighting, and ran his first experint: he summoned his own Two-Star Blood Crow to see if the two birds would share any resonance.
Nothing happened. His Blood Crow stayed calm. The berserk crow stayed berserk — actively chaotic, brain seemingly scrambled.
He moved to the second experint: Tracker Title activated. Perception 2.
And in that state, he could clearly perceive what was happening inside the berserk crow — inside its skull specifically. A dense crimson knot of life-energy was thrashing violently, hamring left and right, as if trying to liquidize whatever was left of the bird's cognition.
He checked his own Blood Crow by comparison: similar crimson concentration in the skull, but arranged — smoothed, optimized, settled into an ordered pattern by so governing force.
That was the key.
George understood imdiately. He focused his Perception and attempted to intervene — to calm the crow. There was no ti to hesitate. The crow's mind was either going to detonate or cross so threshold and convert into a small Magic Zombie.
He had no real idea what he was doing, just — reached out, tried to soothe, tried to smooth what was turbulent. And it worked: ten seconds in, the crow stopped thrashing.
George began spinning.
He switched off the Tracker Title instantly, swapped to Rat Exterminator — and the world tilted entirely. He sat down hard, and sat there for several minutes in a full vertigo blackout, completely out.
When awareness ca back, the large crow was standing on his chest. Solid and weighty.
It had recovered.
George noticed that notifications had already loaded while he was unconscious:
【You have acquired a new, strong, and more agile hunting pet crow.】
【Your Pet Card was already bound to a Blood Crow ford from a magical tool. A contest occurred between them. Your hunting pet crow defeated and absorbed the magical-tool Blood Crow. Binding has been released.】
【Bind this new hunting pet crow?】
Wait — what?
That's possible?
George was genuinely stunned — and confird the binding imdiately. Sha about the Two-Star Blood Crow. And the Parabolic Positioning technique.
Without Parabolic Positioning, what was he as a marksman? Just average.
【Binding successful. You have acquired a Three-Star Blood Crow hunting pet.】
【Note: This is a properly ford hunting pet. It can remain present at all tis without any upkeep cost — it will find its own food and avoid danger independently.】
【You may share vision with it within a straight-line range of five kiloters, and receive auxiliary firing assistance. Ballistic accuracy 50%.】
【You may still use the Parabolic Positioning skill, but only once per day. When used, it may be subject to magical interference from similar opponents — do not over-rely on any single tactic.】
【When wearing the Tracker Title, you can understand simple ssages conveyed by this hunting pet.】
【This hunting pet can be carried out of this world.】
【Hunter Destiny Grid 1. Current value: 50.】
【Warning: Both your Hunter Destiny Grid and Woodcutter Destiny Grid have reached 50. You may now voluntarily trigger the new special attribute Perception. Ensure you are at peak physical condition, that your surroundings are secure, and that you have at least ten units of One-Star food available for energy replenishnt. Otherwise, this is not recomnded.】
—
Oh. Really?
And that can be triggered manually?
George felt sothing stir. The three profession cards at his brow surfaced naturally, and he watched the Destiny Grid light from the Hunter Card and Woodcutter Card beginning to converge — but they didn't move without him, because the switch was his to flip.
Not now, obviously. He didn't have ten units of One-Star food. The mutant rat jerky only counted as ordinary at.
Would he have to wait until the wheat harvest?
"Stupid — move."
George stood up. Still dizzy. Nosebleed too — which confird that the Tracker Title's consumption wasn't sothing his body could absorb casually at this stage. He needed to get back to the Scavenger Camp, settle in, and wait for the month-end summary. As for the basent — the contents weren't hard to guess. So fragnt of magical radiation, probably, at a low enough concentration that the Four-Star Rat King hadn't beco significantly more dangerous because of it. Now absorbed by Stupid, which was honestly a fine outco.
No further surprises. George returned to the building and stayed flat on his back for two full days before he felt right again.
—
Late afternoon. Long shadows.
On George's shoulder sat a large crow with nothing to say, occasionally ruffling its wings and looking around in a vague, thoroughly unengaged way.
The na fit. Even as a Three-Star hunting pet, it spent most of its ti doing absolutely nothing. Didn't go hunting. Didn't do anything active. Just stole his dried rat in complete silence, ate it without comnt, and proceeded to be lazier than before.
Within a few days it had consud at least fifteen kilograms of his jerky stockpile. No visible weight gain. Just more pronounced lethargy.
Its current favorite activity was standing on George's shoulder, facing into the breeze, apparently reminiscing about when it used to actually fly. This activity sotis resulted in it falling asleep mid-reminiscence and tumbling off the shoulder onto the floor — where it would lie completely still for a few seconds in what could only be described as performance art pretending to be sudden death, to cover the embarrassnt.
"Get out, Stupid."
George shooed it off without ceremony. He was trying to watch the sunset. You're blocking the view.
Today was the last day of the month. The Month-End Summary was coming — but the correct approach, as established, was to make a decent al first.
It had beco a tradition of sorts.
George wasn't good at cooking, so he took the direct approach: laid wooden boards out on the rooftop as a table, let the blazing sunset serve as backdrop, used the evening wind as his accompanint. Stars for wine, moonlight for food — that taphor stopped working sowhere early, but the mood was right.
He ate with full composure and genuine solemnity. Ceremony mattered.
The notifications ca in unhurried:
【This was a sorrowful month, and a month of repeated disasters. Your family ca very close to total collapse. Only you survived — and you did well enough.】
【You killed the Four-Star Mutant Rat King that had haunted the camp's vicinity and terrorized the surrounding area for years. This is proof of your ability. It will add aningfully to your reputation. And it will provide your family's developnt with a remarkably stable foundation — for a long ti ahead, within twenty li in all directions, you can consider yourselves safe.】
【You cultivated four valuable farmplots without missing the planting window. You dug a well — inconveniently placed, but functional. Through your effort, you and your family have firmly established yourselves here.】
【You have been formally appointed Head of Household. You earned 58 Pioneering Points this month. Current rank: 6th. You may now view the Pioneering Scoreboard at each Month-End Summary.】
【Your second auntie Liang Yuzhi and your younger sister Li Yue beca lost while foraging outside previously — but they will certainly find their way back to the family within twenty-four hours.】
【Your childhood classmate, City Builder Thomas, has heard that you've been doing well here and is coming to join you.】
【Zhao Xuanxuan, the college campus beauty you once quietly admired, recently escaped from another survivor camp and hopes you'll take her in.】
【Your distant relative — specifically, the son of your third aunt on your father's side's fourth uncle's son — also known as your elder cousin, the Executioner Leon, is coming to join you.】
【Note: All of them are coming to you as a last resort. Under current plot logic, they cannot donate pre-existing property unless they acquire new private assets within the mission. However, they may trade or gift items freely.】
【Note: Donation is a virtue. However, if donated external materials exceed a certain threshold, it may trigger early dangerous events. Such excess donations will typically be treated as void. Specific thresholds must be determined through your own judgnt.】
—
Leon.
Executioner Leon — from the Rookie Mission. And Thomas?
Ha! Finally, friendly forces.
George let out a genuine breath of relief. He wasn't certain about all of them, but Executioner Leon was Internal Affairs through and through — a dependable allied placent. Thomas was also Internal Affairs.
Very good.
The camp's developnt could now actually begin in earnest.
Plans surfaced in a rush. Building a territory from nothing — genuinely exciting.
'That said — I think exploration is still the priority. Scavenge-strike-withdraw might be where the real returns are.'
If he could find a warehouse sowhere with a few hundred tonnes of concrete in usable condition, everything would beco exponentially simpler. Concrete walls directly. Reinforced concrete for the building. Hardened road surfaces.
Best not to dream about finding sothing like a functional electric Gatling cannon — magical radiation would have rendered any electronics nonfunctional long ago.
After considerable deliberation, George assigned himself a set of Monthly Main Tasks:
One: logging. Two: clear ruins from the town and open the building basent. Three: explore the estate north of town. Four: search for larger cities — scavenge and scout.
Their camp was called the Scavenger Camp, after all. Salvaging was clearly the correct thematic approach.
Farming remained important, but he'd used up all his seeds, and a donation threshold had been established, so further agricultural planning would have to wait.
【You have spent 50 Contribution to issue next month's Monthly Main Tasks. Completing them will reward no fewer than 300 Family Contribution points.】
Ha!
He couldn't handle that task list alone, obviously — but next month he'd have five people to share the load.
This ti, there wouldn't be players deliberately lying flat and sabotaging the mission. Probably.
George ntally requested to view the Pioneering Scoreboard. No obvious response. He stood, half-expecting so elaborate ritual to be required — when a gust of wind deposited an entirely unremarkable A4 sheet of paper directly in front of him.
The paper had a large boot print on it. Greasy handprints at the edges. A torn corner. It looked like it had been passed around a room full of people before arriving here.
Fifteen nas on it. His own was sixth.
First place: Zhao Kewu. (Tactics Departnt.) Pioneering Points: 78.
Second: Socrates. (Resource Departnt.) Pioneering Points: 74.
Third: Hathaway the Witch. (Internal Affairs Departnt.) Pioneering Points: 71.
Fourth: Knight Ron. (Logistics Departnt.) Pioneering Points: 70.
Fifth: Scar Glenn. (Comrce Departnt.) Pioneering Points: 65.
Those five were clearly this cycle's genuine flagships — one from each departnt. Just considering Hathaway and Ron's known capabilities, and they were third and fourth. The gap was real. All five nas were almost certainly aliases.
And those five had probably each killed a Four-Star mutant near their starting position within the first few days of the mission.
George had spent an entire month killing one Four-Star Rat King using everything he had — and ca away with 58 Pioneering Points. The gap was considerable.
Seventh: unrecognized na. Pioneering Points: 52.
Eighth: Little John. Pioneering Points: 50.
Wait — no Clyde.
He got eliminated in the first month?
George was briefly surprised, then not. His own situation had been extre enough — other teams must have gone through their own versions of chaos. Five eliminated teams, with one from each departnt in the lowest tier. Everyone tearing into each other equally.
Was this the setup for a team phase later?
As he was thinking, he noticed a dark smudge on the A4 paper that hadn't been there before — a charcoal fingerprint from where he'd touched it. Then a gust caught the paper and carried it off.
Almost simultaneously, sothing registered in his chest. A feeling. Then a grey mist blood across the rooftop surface — and within seconds, a familiar figure materialized out of it.
Leon. Executioner Leon, from the Rookie Mission.
Now — in the context of everything — his elder cousin.
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