"No!"
As soon as he made this proposal, all three of the kids jumped forward to reject it.
Xiao Huo was the first to say, "Big brother Lin, it's too dangerous for you to go alone."
Xiao Lei added, "Not to mention that we don't know anything about the monster, so who knows what you'll be facing."
Yan'er then said, "Plus, we don't have a way to communicate with each other long distance, so we won't be able to help you once you go in by yourself."
Lin Fan nodded in agreement with all of these arguments, but then he said, "But I'm strong enough to take care of myself, so there won't be a problem."
All three of them knitted their brows, but they weren't able to refute this because they knew that this was the truth.
When they had split apart, the three of them had talked to the owner of the bar about this and tried to change his mind without alerting Lin Fan. But all the owner of the bar told them was that Lin Fan was even stronger than him, so there was nothing for them to worry about.
They knew how strong the owner of the bar was since they had known him for a long time and for him to say that Lin Fan was even stronger than him…Then it would mean that Lin Fan really was powerful.
Not to mention that he was an A Rank Mercenary.
To be an A Rank Mercenary, one had to be at least in the Fifth Qi Gathering Realm!
But that was only a normal A Rank Mercenary and Lin Fan wasn't that.
The owner of the bar had recognized the special symbol that was on Lin Fan's Mercenary License. It was a symbol that was only used for certain A Rank Mercenaries when they met a special qualification.
One needed to be in the Foundation Realm to qualify as a S Rank Mercenary and since Lin Fan hadn't reached the Foundation Realm yet, he wasn't qualified to become one. But there was a need to recognize these A Rank Mercenaries that were much stronger than normal A Rank Mercenaries, which was the reason this symbol was created.
It was a special symbol for those that had received special permission from headquarters to take on high A Rank missions. It was the equivalent of being promoted to A+ Rank.
So he knew that Lin Fan wouldn't just be in the Fifth Qi Gathering Realm. At the very least, he would have to be in the Seventh Qi Gathering Realm, a High Qi Gathering Realm Cultivator!
Seeing that none of them were refuting them, Lin Fan accepted this as silent agreement. So he turned around to head into the cave.
However, before he could go, all three of the kids suddenly stepped forward.
Lin Fan was caught off guard and couldn't help taking a step back as he asked, "What's wrong?"
All three of them looked at each other before awkwardly saying, "Big brother Lin, be careful."
Lin Fan couldn't help smiling when he saw how the three of them were acting. It was like he had suddenly gained three younger siblings.
He reached out his hand to pat the three of them on the head before saying, "Relax, I'll be back in a jiffy."
The three of them had worried looks on their faces as they gave a nod in response.
Lin Fan patted their heads again before heading to the cave.
This feeling…really wasn't that bad.
But that feeling quickly disappeared when he arrived in front of the cave. It was blown away by the smell that was coming from the cave.
He had already experienced it a bit through the puppets with the shared senses, but experiencing it personally with his own senses was a whole other story. The disgusting smell hit him like a truck and he almost couldn't help stumbling back when he smelled it.
However, he stood firm and faced the stench of the rotting corpses all around him.
He carefully made his way into the cave, not only to avoid making too much noise, but also to avoid all the different corpses that were on the ground around him. After all, it was quite disgusting for him if he had to walk through all these rotting corpses.
Since the cave wasn't that big, it didn't take him long to reach the center of the cave, but he still didn't go in since he could see the pile of bones from where he was.
As for the layer of blood on the floor, Lin Fan had made sure to surround his feet with spiritual energy which not only muffled the sound, but also made sure that it didn't touch his shoes.
From this distance, he was able to focus his eyes and use his Appraisal Eyes on this creature in the center.
But the moment that the status screen for this creature showed up, he couldn't help deeply knitting his brows.
Chimera: Synthesized Creature
Cultivation: Sixth Qi Gathering Realm
An amalgamation that was formed when a spirit beast's bloodline was injected into a human (Zhou Wu). It has limited intelligence and can follow simple orders. The clash between the spirit beast bloodline and the human body creates a madness in the host that is only solved by slaughter.
Zhou Wu…
That was a name that Lin Fan recognized…
Before leaving Brilliant Light City, he had asked the owner of the bar about the people that had disappeared and the owner of the bar had shown him a list of the people that had disappeared. It wasn't just mercenaries that were disappearing, but also people from nearby villages that were disappearing as well.
Lin Fan had only taken a quick look at the list, so he didn't memorize all the different things like features of the missing people, but he had generally remembered most of the names. That was just the increase to his brain power after cultivating.
Zhou Wu was one of the names on the list…
With just this, it wasn't hard for him to guess what had happened to the people that had been kidnapped by the Mercenary Guild branch's president. The most likely thing was that they had all ended up like this person here…
He hadn't felt much emotion towards this disappearance of people before, but after learning this fact…he couldn't stop a strong sense of disgust and anger suddenly boiling inside of him.
He had thought that he had seen plenty of disgusting things in this ancient world, but this…
However, after that feeling of disgust and anger faded a bit and his reasoning came back, he found that something was off.
Where had the Mercenary Guild branch's president found the technology to combine a spirit beast's bloodline with a human?
While it sounded simple, like all that it would take was just injecting the blood of a spirit beast into a human, it wasn't as simple as that. There were many different things to consider in this kind of experiment, such as rejection of the bloodline or how to isolate the bloodline in the first place.
This was something that one needed proper knowledge for or needed to do plenty of experimenting until they got it right.
Lin Fan really had to wonder which one it was in this case.
But he quickly shook those thoughts out of his mind.
What was most important right now was deciding how to take care of this beast.
His first thought was to save it, but then he quickly changed his mind just as quickly. After all, it was unknown if he could even save this person from this fate.
The description that the Appraisal Eyes gave him didn't say that this person was still even in control of his own mind, or if Zhou Wu who was used to make this chimera was still inside of this body. It just said that this creature had limited intelligence and could follow simple orders.
At the same time, it also said that this creature had a defect where its madness could only be solved by slaughtering…Along with the blood and corpses that lay scattered around this cave, it was clear that this creature was very violent.
He didn't know how or if he could even turn this person back to normal and it would be very hard to keep this creature with how violent it was.
Perhaps it was better to just put this person out of their misery instead of trying to capture them.
But then he also thought of something else.
The owner of the bar would most likely want to see this creature and see what kind of things the Mercenary Guild was doing. Though based on the information that the owner of the bar had given him, it was likely that the owner of the bar already had some information on this that he didn't share with Lin Fan…
Lin Fan couldn't help cursing the owner of the bar under his breath.
So after considering all these different angles, Lin Fan still decided to capture this creature.
But it was too bad that he had taken too much time to think this through.
Right when Lin Fan made up his mind, he suddenly heard a faint noise from in front of him.
As soon as he heard this, he raised his guard and hid himself in the darkness of the cave behind some of the corpses as he looked at the pile of bones in the center where the noise came from.
There was a slight shift from the pile of bones and there were some bones that fell off the top, landing on the ground. However, none of that was important. The only important thing was the creature that was lying on the pile of bones.
That was because this creature had suddenly started moving.
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