To be able to reach the fourth Vile Marionettes foothold before the dark and skinny man did, Lin Huang summoned the Alexandrian Eagle. They arrived at their destination within minutes. "It should be somewhere around here, let’s look for it." Lin Huang recalled Alexandrian Eagle and said to Fatty.
"How would you know the fourth foothold is around here?" Fatty asked. He then saw a tall fir tree not too far away and recognized that as a landmark for the fourth foothold.
"I was afraid that we might be lost here so before the trip, I checked out all the locations of the footholds," Lin Huang said to him, which was actually just an excuse.
"If I knew you had checked out the locations, I wouldn’t have had to lead the way…" Fatty whined. Doing extra work was always a burden to him and he did not deny how lazy he was. However, since he encountered Lin Huang who was as responsible a person could be, he knew could trust him with his life. That was the reason he slept soundly in a wild zone like this. If he was not looking for the Life Seeds himself, he would not have looked at the map at all and Lin Huang would have lead the way.
"There’s a fork on the left of the fir tree, if we walk along it for another two or three minutes, there should be a fork to the right. We should see the fourth foothold once we turn right," Lin Huang said as he pointed at the fir tree.
"That’s the same route I saw on the map," Fatty replied and nodded in response.
Lin Huang activated Boundless Vision and saw a couple Vile Marionettes gathered not far from where they were. All of them had rectangular heads while everything below their heads was similar to a human. However, their limbs were longer than humans and they were two meters tall. They walked on both legs. Their bodies seemed to be made of wood. If they were many times smaller, they would look exactly like dolls.
Lin Huang finally knew why would they were called Vile Marionettes when he saw their faces. Their eyes, nose, and lips were all messed up like toy parts which were displaced. What was even weirder was the placement of their eyes, nose, and lips. Each one puppet's face arranged differently. They each had different characteristics to their own vile features.
"If they were shrunk and sold at toy stores, I don’t think anybody would want to buy them. They look scary," Lin Huang thought to himself.
"Fatty, you wait here. I’ll get Bai to catch one of them from over here," Lin Huang said to Fatty as he led Bai into the fog.
In the fog, the Vile Marionettes did not sense that danger was closing in as they wandered around. Suddenly, a couple of red beams flashed by and one of the Vile Marionettes disappeared. Soon, Lin Huang was back with Bai with a Vile Marionette that was locked in a pair of Blood Power wings.
"Fatty, I have brought this back for you. You can just stab it to death," Lin Huang provided Fatty with a full-service treatment.
Fatty smirked when he saw a Vile Marionette tied up like a dumpling, "This could be the easiest upgrade in history!" He said.
The level-4 equipment in his hand transformed into a battle sword and he slashed the Vile Marionette’s neck. The puppet’s head fell to the ground. However, the body turned into a pice of wood and appeared from the Blood Power wings. Lin Huang and Fatty were stunned. The Blood Power back extended again and captured the body. Fatty did the same thing and slashed at the piece of wood but it turned into another piece of wood again and began to run away.
No matter how fast it was, it could not beat Bai. It was then captured by Bai again while Fatty repeated the same thing he did…
Five attempts later, the Vile Marionettes's body no longer transformed into a piece of wood. After that, Bai let go of its body and white Life Light splashed out of the Vile Marionette towards Fatty. The Life Light Baptism took three minutes, and then Fatty was finally bronze-level.
"So how is your Life Seed?" Lin Huang walked towards him and asked.
"It’s all good. Exactly the same as what I read on the network," Fatty nodded. "I have done what I came to do, we can head back to Fog City now. We'll head back to Baqi City once you have settled your stuff," he continued.
"You don’t have to wait for me. I'll be needing quite a few days here," Lin Huang said. He did not expect Fatty to stay with him.
"It’s okay. Since I have already upgraded to bronze level, there’s no need for me to leave immediately. If that’s not convenient for you, I will stay in the hotel to train my Life Skills. Let me know once you have settled your stuff and we will leave Fog City together," Fatty said. He did that out of kindness. He thought since Lin Huang had helped him so it would be bad if he left him alone.
"I think you should head back to Baqi City on your own. Honestly, I’m not sure how long would I take," Lin Huang explained.
Lin Huang did not want to head back to Baqi City with Fatty as he only managed to partially hide his abilities. Once he got to bronze-level, Fatty who was now also bronze-level would definitely sense the changes in his combat strength. By then, he would not able to hide his secret anymore.
Fatty was a nice person but Lin Huang did not think that he could keep a secret. He tried not to let him know too much about himself.
"Then I’ll wait for a month, since I don't have much going on," Fatty insisted. "If you take longer than a month, then I’ll leave on my own," he said.
"Alright then…" Lin Huang obliged and nodded.
"So do we go back to the city now?" Fatty asked.
"I’ll get Alexandrian Eagle to send you back. I have something to do here. I won’t be going back just yet," Lin Huang said as he summoned the Alexandrian Eagle.
Fatty had many questions but thinking he might intrude on Lin Huang’s privacy, he decided not to ask.
Lin Huang instructed Alexandrian Eagle after Fatty got on its back. It flapped its wings and headed to Fog City with Fatty. Lin Huang turned around into the fog again. He got Bai to look for another mutated Vile Marionette but there was not a single one around. He decided to capture a regular Vile Marionette and killed it after six attempts. The white Life Light was transferred from the puppet to Lin Huang.
Enveloped in a white glow, there were changes to his Life Wheel. His iron Life Wheel turned to bronze. It was a Life Wheel transformation that follows with every level up. After the Iron Life Wheel was replaced by a bronze Life Wheel, another three rounds of white columns appeared. It was the same as before, 360 columns on each circle.
As his Life Wheel changed, the two Life Wheels that he got from the Life Power storage cards started changing too. Soon, all three bronze Life Wheels in his body were fully formed.
As his Life Wheels formed, the Life Light Baptism ended. A greyish black bead the size of a thumb dropped from the Vile Marionette’s dead body and went into Lin Huang’s body and then into his newly formed Life Wheel.
"New Life Seed has been detected, would you like to turn it into a card?" Xiao Hei said.
"Yes please," Lin Huang answered and nodded.
A moment later, Xiao Hei spoke again.
"I have turned it into a card."
Lin Huang looked at the new Life Seed Card that he just acquired. The card looked the same as Sly Hands with a Black Furry Ball. He turned the card around to read the description.
"Life Species Card"
"Life Species Name: Substitute"
"Rarity: Normal"
"Type: Psychic "
"Skill Effects: Substitute your body with a faux body to divert fatal attacks. Limited to three uses per day."
"Card Remarks: Rubbish"
Lin Huang was speechless at the card remark that Xiao Hei gave it. It had been awhile since Xiao Hei had given such a horrible card remark. He then kept the card and mumbled to himself, "I can’t be meeting Fatty now or else he would find out how powerful I am. I'll stay in this canyon and accumulate my life Power to bronze-level rank-3."
He then looked at Bai beside him. The vampire was now a silver-level rank-1. Under normal circumstance, monsters that went through two mutations would have basic combat strengths that were higher than transcendents. Just like the Demonic Dandelion Vine, it was one example that completed two mutations before it achieved transcendence. Aside from the Demonic Dandelion Vine, all the epic monster cards that Lin Huang possessed would be upgraded automatically before Lin Huang leveled up to transcendent. Before Lin Huang arrived at gold-level, their combat strength would only be one rank higher than his
Now that Bai was a silver-level rank-1, his ability might be more powerful than most gold-level rank-1 monsters. In level-4 wildzones like this, he could kill most of the monsters in the area on his own. Lin Huang was anticipating the upgrade of his combat strengths too.
Just when Lin Huang was thinking about it, a man and lady appeared out of the fog. The man was 2.2 meters tall while the lady was 1.7 meters tall. Standing next to the man, she looked small. Both of them were wearing black coats with black hats. They were walking briskly in Lin Huang’s direction. He had his guard up as he could not sense the aura from their beings at all.
"Hi, little kid." The lady greeted Lin Huang as they approached him.
"Anything I can help you with?" Lin Huang asked. He had a feeling they were both transcendents.
"Nothing, I just thought your vampire seemed cool, so I’m here to take a look." The lady replied with a smile.
"Two mutations?" The man mumbled under his breath to the lady and he felt it was rather strange.
"It really is mutated twice!" the lady with red lips confirmed as she walked around Bai. "This is my first time seeing a vampire with a double mutation," she continued.
Just then, Lin Huang noticed the Purple Crow logo on her coat. His heart sank, "It’s the Purple Crow…"