Monster Paradise

Lin Huang had an odd expression on his face after reading the thread.

Among the Top 10 Most Deceptive Missions listed, there were three that suited him very well.

Apart from the Wine Ant Queen mission that ranked No.1, there were two other similar missions.

One was the Spider Empress mission in the No.2 spot, while another was No.4, the Tyrant Bug King mission.

The situation with the Spider Empress was more or less the same as that of the Wine Ant Queen. However, the tribe that the Empress produced was smaller. Despite that, preliminary estimation put the number of the tribe at about 50 million spiders.

Not only that, there were countless spider web traps all over the Spider Empress’ lair. Many of the spider fighters harbored deadly toxins in their bodies. Overall, hunting the Spider Empress was no easier than hunting the Ant Queen.

The Tyrant Bug King on the No.4 spot was a male Bug King which could not reproduce.

However, this Bug King possessed powerful abilities and could face off in battle against a first-rank True God when it went into berserk mode.

It had conquered dozens of powerful Bug Kings on its own and formed an army with over 30 million bugs.

Although it could not reproduce to replenish its army, this Bug King had the tyrant’s divine ability. Under its God Territory coverage, all Protoss fighters would go into berserk mode. Their combat strength would elevate at least two ranks higher, while some could even elevate three ranks higher.

Apart from the Tyrant Bug King itself, the 30-over bug kings under it were all high-level Virtual Gods, including seven first-rank True Gods.

Other people had no second thoughts about skipping over these three missions. After all, bug hordes were no joke. Even a True God would die on the spot if he was smothered in the bug horde with his Divine Power exhausted.

However, Lin Huang was secretly elated.

His main goal in coming to the great world was to hunt a great many virtual god-level monsters so he could retrieve Godheads and refine a sea of them to elevate his combat strength. At the same time, the spiritual energy that he gained from killing Virtual Gods could be given to the Combat Souls of the God’s Figurines within him.

“I’m imperial-level grade-3 now. I’ll need at least ten Virtual God rank-4 monster Godheads to elevate to imperial-level grade-4, which means I need 10,000 Virtual God rank-1 Godheads. If I calculate it like that, even if all Bug Tribe fighters are on Virtual God rank-1, 100 million Bug Tribe fighters are sufficient to get me to imperial-level grade-8…”

The reason Lin Huang calculated things this way was not because of the 1,000-fold difference in power between Virtual God rank-1 and Virtual God rank-4 Godheads. It was because the effectiveness of the conversion rate for lower-level Godheads would drop each time his combat strength elevated a rank.

If not for the conversion rate, the most that could happen was that he experienced threefold more Godheads exhaustion each rank he elevated, instead of the current tenfold.

Naturally, Lin Huang based his calculations on the most conservative estimate possible.

It was unlikely that all the Bug Tribe fighters under the Bug Queen and Bug King would be at Virtual God rank-1. It was even more unlikely that they were all at beginner-stage virtual god-level. There must be at least quite a few mid-level Virtual Gods and a lesser number of high-level Virtual Gods among them.

Lin Huang only needed a few preliminary calculations to realize that he would be able to elevate to imperial-level grade-9 as long as he completed all three of these missions.

Having considered things to this point, Lin Huang went into the missions section again. It did not take him long to find the three missions, once he had accessed the Black Sickle section.

After making sure that everything was alright, he accepted the three missions without hesitation.

Once he had done this, the number of times these missions had been accepted was updated on the missions list.

Very soon, people noticed the unusual activity and a heated discussion broke out on the forum.

“I remember the Wine Ant Queen mission. There used to be 13 acceptances before, why is it 14 now? Could someone have accepted this mission today? I also seem to remember that the number of acceptances for the Spider Empress was 21, but it’s 22 today…”

“What’s happening? Someone has fallen into the trap of the No.1 Most Deceptive Mission, the Wine Ant Queen one again?! I wonder if some rookie was tempted by the reward points and took it.”

“It’s not just the Wine Ant Queen mission, even the Spider Empress and Tyrant Bug King missions have been taken! Three of the most deceptive missions taken on the same day! It’s impossible that the same person accepted them all, right?”

“Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, rookies nowadays are very bold! Best wishes to him, so he comes back in one piece to give up on those missions, hahaha…”

“The ID of the poster above is rather familiar…”

“I think he’s the one who took on the Tyrant Bug King mission last year. He was the guy who ran out of the battleground in only his underwear after the bug horde ripped his clothes to shreds.”

“Hey! It’s been over a year since that happened, why do you have to bring it up in so much detail?!”

…

The forum aside, even some of Death Sickle’s upper echelons were discussing Lin Huang.

“Someone accepted the Wine Ant Queen mission on the Black Sickle missions list? I suppose it’s a rookie again?” The question came from an old man with a gray beard. He wore a red robe and sat at the head of a long table.

“It’s a kid named Xie Lin. He just registered a Death Sickle account today and took less than half a day to complete three reserve missions. He’s been promoted to Black Sickle level,” an alluring lady in a red dress responded. She wore a black hat with a veil, and through the veil, one could see her faint smile.

“There’s nothing so impressive about completing three reserve missions within half a day. The most I can say is that he is highly capable,” answered a grim-looking man sitting opposite the lady in the red dress. His face was expressionless.

“Out of curiosity, I looked at this kid’s mission record. The three reserve missions that he took on were rather difficult. What’s more interesting is that not only did he take on just the Wine Ant Queen mission after being elevated to Black Sickle, he took on three missions at once. The other two are the Spider Empress and Tyrant Bug King ones,” the lady in the red dress commented.

“He picked the missions with the highest reward points. That only indicates he’s a person who is greedy for points,” the grim man said after a moment of silence.

“Haven’t you noticed? The targets of the three missions he accepted have the ability to control bug hordes,” the lady in the red dress said with some emphasis.

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence, it doesn’t prove anything.” The grim man’s face remained expressionless.

“I think he picked them intentionally.”

“You’re overthinking this.”

“Alright, let’s end this discussion here. We’ll start the meeting,” the old man with the gray beard interrupted. Seeing that the pair were going to continue bickering, there was nothing much that he could do except to halt the discussion.

…

Lin Huang had no idea that he was being discussed by the Death Sickle’s upper echelons, neither did he check out the heated discussions he had caused on the forum.

This was primarily because he had departed right away as soon as he had accepted the three missions, heading straight for the Wine Ant Queen’s colony.

After traveling for a night, it was past 10 the next morning when Lin Huang finally arrived at the area where his intended destination lay—the Bloody Battleground!

To avoid unnecessary trouble, he did a temporary identity registration at the garrison of the Combat God Temple.

“Name?”

“Xie Lin.”

“Combat strength?”

“Virtual God rank-3.” This was the answer that Lin Huang gave, having used his god rule relic to camouflage his combat strength,

“Organization that you belong to?”

“Death Sickle.”