GOR Chapter 121: Strongest Pet Beneath [S] Class

“Since we are making a deal, there will be giving and taking,” Nicole softly said. “By entering your guild, I can borrow the identity as a member of your team to complete the first phase of the quest and avoid the system punishment. That is the advantage that I will get.

“Likewise, I will bring an advantage to you all. The difficulty level of this instance dungeon is not low. I believe that the second or subsequent phases of the quest will be more difficult.

“My strength is not bad. After entering your guild, I will help you complete the second and subsequent phases of the quest. We all share the same goal after all. With my participation, I believe the level of difficulty for your team will be lessened.”

“How would I know that you are not trying to buy time in order to backstab us?” Chen Xiaolian asked coldly. “Perhaps you only require a few more hours to restore your battle strength… if so, you would be able to restore your battle strength before the first phase’s countdown ends and attack us to snatch away our energy sources.”

“What benefit would I get from doing so?” Nicole replied softly. “My objective is simply to complete the quest. Since I can do so by joining your guild, why would I want to start a fight?

“Well then, to allay your fears, I will tell you this… within a minimum of eighteen hours, I will not be able to restore my battle strength. My Floater… there is a restriction to his usage.”

Next, Nicole explained.

As a mechanical life form, the Floater was a type of War Pet.

The Floater was unquestionably very powerful!

According to the classification by the system, the Floater’s initial class was [A] Class. However, the Awakened ones and Players have their own classification for the Floater and they granted it a special name: The King of machines beneath [S] Class!

As a mechanical life form, the Floater possessed countless advantages that other types of pets do not.

First and foremost, its outstanding cost performance: Mechanical pets do not require pet food and the Floater could recharge itself. Should it receive injuries, as a mechanical silicon-based life form, it also possessed self-mitotic division ability. Thus, a Floater can repair itself when harmed.

Next was its extensive application: As a silicon-based life form, the Floater possessed the ability to fuse with almost all forms of electrical and mechanical equipment. In other words, the Floater was a mechanical life form with transformation capabilities. It could ‘fuse’ with nearly all electronic and mechanical devices! For example, the scene that they witnessed earlier where Nicole had ‘transformed’ was also the Floater ‘fusing’ with the Mech armour on her body. The Floater’s powerful mechanical ability allowed it to control and strengthen Nicole’s own soldier-type mech armour. Of course, the Floater was not limited to only fusing with the soldier-type mech armour. When the need arose, it could also integrate with all other electronic and mechanical devices! From objects as small as an electronic watch to objects as big as aircrafts, tanks or even a spaceship… in simple terms, it was an electronic and mechanical artificial intelligent life form!

“In other words, if you let your Floater fuse with a car, you would be able to transform the car into a Transformer?” Chen Xiaolian’s eyes were bulging widely.

“Theoretically speaking, there is nothing wrong… but I would advise you to once again, watch less movies,” Nicole rolled up her eyes. “The volume of the fusion target and the complexity involved in the restructuring will limit the Floater’s fusion ability. If the Floater’s class is insufficient, it will only be able to fuse with some low-level electronic and mechanical devices.”

Additionally, Floater also came equipped with the ability to repair all electronic and mechanical equipment. For example, Nicole’s ruined soldier-type War Mech armour. As long as the Floater can integrate with it, it will be repaired – naturally, this will lead to a loss of energy for the Floater.

The factor that aroused Chen Xiaolian’s utmost envy was the Floater’s personal ability.

As a mechanical life form, the Floater’s initial setting was: All-rounder war-type mechanical life form.

In all weathers and all terrains! Versatility!

It could attack and defend, possessing the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) wave and firepower! When the need arose, it could fuse with other electronic and mechanical equipment, transforming at any moment into a war fortress or a mode of transport.

“This type of pet is only [A] Class?” Chen Xiaolian’s eyes were wide-open. “From your description, it should have the qualification to be an [S] Class!”

“Pets of the mechanical life form type face a huge limitation in the increment of their Growth Capacity! The number of options for the Devouring process is very limited. In addition, the number of mechanical life form pets within the system has always been scarce. The Floater is an [A] Class mechanical life form. The act of Devouring other mechanical life forms to upgrade its class is an extremely expensive move!”

Chen Xiaolian was puzzled.

When he was upgrading his Garfield, he did feel terrible; however, it was not unbearably expensive.

The present Garfield was at [A-] Class.

The items consumed for Garfield to upgrade itself through the Devouring process were:

From [B] to [B+], he used two [B] Class pet souls. (1 success, 1 failure.)

From [B+] to [A-], he used two [B] Class pet souls. (2 successes.)

From [A-] to [A], he still needed two more [B] Class souls. At present, Garfield’s progress bar was at 50% and could not be fully upgraded. (2 successes, 1 failure.)

According to Chen Xiaolian’s judgement, following this scale of Devouring process, to upgrade from [A] to [A+], eight pet souls would be sufficient. ^[1]

Theoretically speaking, for an [A+] Class pet to class up to [S-] Class ([S-] is considered close enough to the bottleneck of [S] Class, right?), it would require a total sum of only twelve [B] Class pet souls.

According to the market price of the flea market, the price of a [B] Class pet was somewhere in the range of 300 to 500 points.

For twelve [B] Class pets, the cost would only be at a maximum of 6,000 points.

For an expert veteran like Nicole, 6,000 points should not be too much, right?

Chen Xiaolian shared out his calculations with Nicole. After listening to him, Nicole’s eyes were bulging out as she looked at him. Her expression even conveyed a certain amusement towards his words. “Your mind is really naïve. Have you never considered this one issue… if it’s that easy to class up, why are [S] Class pets so scarce? For many players, gathering twelve [B] Class pets may not be an easy task, but it is not very hard either. As long as they can find some methods to participate in more instance dungeons and save up more, they will eventually achieve that target. If that is the case, don’t you think [S] Class would become excessively cheap?”

“… err…” Chen Xiaolian was dumbfounded.

“Let me enlighten you! Upgrading from [A-] to [A] Class by Devouring four pets of the [B] Class is indeed possible.

“However, once [A] Class is reached, the restriction on the Devouring method to upgrade a pet’s class will be increased!

“From [B] Class to [A] Class, you can use [B] Class pet souls for the Devouring process. However, above that, the system will not accept the Devouring of souls from the preceding class!

“This is the system’s rule for the upgrading process of pets.

“Upgrading through the Devouring process requires pet souls, and the lowest acceptable soul is the soul of the preceding class. Souls from an even lower class cannot be Devoured!

“From [A] Class to [A+] Class, you can forget about Devouring [B] Class pet souls! You will need nothing less than [A] Class pet souls!”

Next, Nicole informed Chen Xiaolian the required amount for the Devouring process to upgrade a pet from [A] Class to [S] Class, causing Chen Xiaolian to be severely shocked.

To upgrade [A] Class to [A+] Class, two [A] Class mechanical pet souls must be Devoured. To upgrade from [A+] Class to [S-] Class, four [A] Class souls must be Devoured! And from [S-] Class to [S] Class, eight [A] Class souls must be Devoured!

Chen Xiaolian was flabbergasted!

His Garfield was currently at [A-] Class. In order to upgrade it to [A] Class, he will only need to gather up another two Gryphon souls of the [B] Class.

Unexpectedly, for [A] Class and above, Gryphon souls would become useless! All pet souls from the [B] Class would become useless! The Devouring process required [A] Class to work!

According to this formula, to upgrade from [A] Class to [S] Class would require a total of fourteen [A] Class pet souls!

Fourteen argh!

According to the market price, an [A] Class pet was probably priced at around 2,000 points. Fourteen times that would be… 28,000 points!!!

Even for a veteran, this was an unbearably huge sum of expense! Perhaps, some veterans could save up that much after going through countless instance dungeons… but, can you spend all your points on pet alone? Your own equipment, strength and others… do they not require enhancement? You can’t simply rely on your pet to conquer the world!

Furthermore… theoretically speaking, fourteen [A] Class pets were needed; theoretically speaking, the price was at 2,000 points each.

But do not forget, [A] Class pets are not something you can buy just because you want to buy them!

Within Zero City, Chen Xiaolian had strolled around the flea market for two days and saw only one Black Widow for sale! Other [A] Class pets for sale were simply not found!

In other words, even if you are filthy rich, capable of forking out 28,000 points, you won’t even be able to buy that many [A] Class pets!

Chen Xiaolian was disappointed. Originally, he had assumed he could quickly upgrade Garfield to become [S] Class… but now, his dream has been shattered.

Observing the highly shocked expression on Chen Xiaolian’s face, Nicole softly said. “The cruelty of this game is something that you will slowly come to terms with. Enough, now is not the time for nonsense. Back to the main topic, will you accept my proposal?”

Chen Xiaolian sighed. He kept aside the distracting thoughts within his mind and focused himself. “I need to discuss this with my members for a while.”

Nicole nodded her head. “I will wait for 15 minutes…I am not trying to urge you. It is just that my time is limited. If you reject my proposal, then I need to leave immediately and think of a method to complete my own quest. There is not much time left on the countdown.”

This request from her was very reasonable. Chen Xiaolian nodded and moved out of the room.

…

“I feel that that is not a problem.”

Chen Xiaolian was surprised. After he gathered the team and relayed Nicole’s proposal, agreement for the proposal was immediately obtained – contrary to his expectations, there was no opposition to it.

The first to agree was Lun Tai.

As a veteran, Lun Tai gave a very good reason. “This game is a cruel one. Personal grudges and feelings is not that important. Theoretically speaking, as long as our common goal is the same, anyone could be accepted as allies in order to ensure our survival. Our biggest objective is to survive this instance dungeon! As for the conflicts from our earlier fight, that is simple the result of being on different sides. Since the system randomly assigned her to be our enemy, there was no way around it.

“Most importantly, we did not suffer any casualties. As such, I personally feel that this grudge can be put aside for now.

“Having an expert, a Floating Angel join us as a temporary team member will give our team’s battle strength a huge boost!

“Just recall that scene where she hacked the Thunderstorm Tank apart with just one swing of her sword! Rather than make an enemy out of her, it is better to have someone like that as a comrade. The grudge between us is not that big anyways.”

1 Considering how the lightly damaged Gryphon soul gave a success rate of 98.5% in Chapter 105, an undamaged soul should ‘probably’ have a success rate of 99% or more. So, unless you are someone that RNG hates to the core, or if you’re playing Impossible Ironman mode, each Devouring process should be successful.↩