Game of the World Tree
chapter-209

▪️MAGICAL PET CRAZE

Evé extended an olive branch to the unicorn while simultaneously directing half of her consciousness back to her main body, as she adjusted the game system.

Rather than forming a soul contract with the unicorn, Evé instead proceeded her own plan. She assigned the game’s system to stand in as her middle-man and created a coordinate for her consciousness within the system.

Of course, if this coordinate could manifest, it would correspond to the world tree in the heart of the Elven Forest!

And after Evé expressed her intent to form a contract with it, the unicorn behaved as if it couldn’t wait any longer. Before she could even prepare, it already eagerly released its own magic.

While dipping its head and revealing its horn, the unicorn voluntarily activated the contract and was just merely waiting for Eve to imprint her own magic into it.

After Alice’s reminder, Evé proceeded accordingly by biting her finger and smearing a small amount of her blood onto the unicorn’s spiral horn to mark it.

This was the necessary process for magical beasts to establish a contract with a person. Unless they reached the legendary rank, lower-ranking creatures wouldn’t be able to harness the power of the soul. As a result, they could only employ intermediaries to link the contract to their souls, and their own blood was an excellent choice for that purpose.

Eve’s modification to the entire contract binding process is to redirect the contract’s recipient towards the game system instead.

The entire process unexpectedly proceeded smoothly, and she quickly succeeded in forming a companionship contract with the young unicorn.

Or rather, the Unicorn had successfully signed a contract with the game system itself.

This also meant that Eve’s concept for the magical pet system was entirely feasible!

With elation filling her, Evé promptly redirected her attention back to her main body. She then activated her divine power, establishing a connection between the original mount system and the contract system. This connection was then enhanced through her efforts to merge the two systems together, resulting in further optimization and birth of a new magical pet system…

A divine being’s computational ability were truly formidable as in just a matter of seconds, Evé had already modified the game system.

With the new magical pet system, the unicorn’s status information have also been smoothly integrated into the game system!

From the perspective of other players, once the unicorn had successfully signed the contract, it also acquired a status screen similar to those of NPCs. Displayed on this screen is the inscription, [Unicorn Companion of the player: “Féng”]

Moreover, the game system even gave the unicorn a class status, designating it as an epic purple-class magical beast.

Strictly speaking, the unicorn’s power wasn’t particularly strong amongst magical beasts.

However, once the contract was formed, Unicorns became extremely loyal and displayed a relatively high growth potential. They were also capable of easily breaking through the gold rank, not to mention possessing a rare healing-type ability.

Not only that, they looked quite attractive as well!

So… giving them an epic ranking wasn’t an exaggeration.

Since beauty is justice, after all!

“It really succeeded!”

“Amazing!”

“It’s also a purple-class!”

Upon appraising the unicorn’s status screen, the players in the vicinity were filled with envy.

With a thought, Evé then issued a new system message throughout all the players currently online.

【❗】

【Player “Féng” had successfully signed a contract with a unicorn, becoming the first player to acquire a pet companion.】

【❗】

【Activation conditions have been met. Mount System is now being upgraded into Magical Pet System. Players can now form companionship contract with some magical beasts!】

【Magical Beast: ‘Unicorn’ information has been added to the magical beast database.】

Seeing the new system messages, players were momentarily surprised, then instinctively checked their in-game menu.

And sure enough, the original basic mount menu interface had now been transformed into a much more in-depth Magical Pet Interface.

Not only that, but two new options appeared: one initiates a contract, allowing the players themselves to form a contract with a magical beast, and the other is to accept a contract, which lets players decide whether to accept or deny a contract offered by a magical beast.

Of course, the prerequisite for these two options to appear is that the magical beast has already recognized the player, and that the companionship ritual had already been performed beforehand.

However currently, each player is limited to just one slot for a magical beast.

Evé had set this limit because she was concerned that the players might abuse the pet system and form contracts with a bunch of weak magical beasts without restraint. This wouldn’t just have hindered her from reaping benefits, but would also have somewhat use more of her divine power which is not what she wants.

Of course, Evé eventually intended to introduce an additional Magical Beast Slot in the exchange store. If players really wanted more pet slots, they would then need to purchase them with contribution points instead.

In addition to the implementation of the magical pet system, there is also now an additional column underneath the pet section which shows various magical pet information.

It is a public database, similar to a Pokédex, featuring various magical beast information that is automatically updated once players successfully tame a magical beast for the very first time.

Of course, currently, there was only one beast listed in this database which is about Unicorns.

Evé herself had filled in these information regarding the Unicorn during the whole contract signing process based on what Alice’s explanation.

Furthermore, there was a small acknowledgement note beneath the Unicorn section that read, [ Unicorn’s First Tamer: “Féng”]

In truth, due to Eve’s World Tree inheritance, she was able to fill this database with all sorts of magical beast information. But Eve had decided that she wouldn’t provide all this detailed information just yet and instead would just wait until a player successfully tamed a magical beast before releasing the information to the public.

She planned to do it in this manner so that it could effectively stimulate the players’ enthusiasm to discover various unique magical beasts and experience the accomplishment of filling up these database themselves, similar to that one particular anime on Earth where a trainer would tour the world finding all sorts of brand new Pokémon.

Observing the newly expanded magical pet system, the players were curious and excited.

Li Mu, who already possessed a Crypt Spider, discovered that his mount had also been included in the magical pet system.

However, to his surprise, he discovered that his Crypt Spider still had not formed its own status screen, similar to Féng’s Unicorn.

Furthermore, it was also marked as “Uncontracted.”

Li Mu’s interest was piqued.

He thrn glanced at his Spider mount idling nearby and activated his skill, [Nature’s Whisper].

“Are you willing to form a contract with me?”

The Crypt Spider slightly lowered its head.

Li Mu felt a surge of joy within himself and promptly followed the instructions in the magical pet system. He pricked his finger and applied a smear of his blood directly onto the spider’s carapace.

Simultaneously, he then initiated the application for a companionship contract.

Soon, Li Mu sensed a distinct connection between himself and the Crypt Spider. Shortly afterward, the “Uncontracted” status on it had finally vanished.

【❗】

【Player “Li Mu” has signed a contract with a Crypt Spider (Juvenile), becoming the first player with a Crypt Spider (Juvenile) pet companion.】

【Magical Beast: Crypt Spider’s information has now been added to the magical beast database.】

These two messages flashed across the view of all the players currently online.

At the same time, Li Mu realized that he had been granted the authority to edit the information entry for [Crypt Spider] in the database.

Not only that, but after forming the contract, his Crypt Spider had also finally gained a status screen similar to Féng’s Unicorn!

Li Mu also delightedly found that he could use his pet’s status screen to see the detailed status of the Crypt Spider.

Furthermore, he could also now issue more complex commands to the magical beast compared to before!

For instance, he could now summon the Crypt Spider from a distant location to his side or command it to transport items, or assist in battles, and so on…

Additionally, as the strength of the Crypt Spider improves, a small portion of the EXP it gains will then be fed back to his side. Additionally, his own level advancement would, to some extent, also contribute to enhancing the Crypt Spider’s strength!

Overall, this new pet system was much better than the old mount system!

However, somewhat regretfully, the system only rated the status of the Crypt Spider as blue-class, evaluating it as blue rarity beasts.

Considering that his pet was merely a juvenile of the Spider Queen, Li Mu had accepted this.

According to the Black Dragon, these little spiders didn’t even possess complete souls; their lives were entirely bound to Rose, the Spider Queen herself.

From this perspective, being able to receive a blue rating was already a testament to the impressive nature of Crypt Spiders.

The system’s assessment of the Crypt Spider’s full potential could reach, at most, the level of upper-tier silver.

For today’s players, this already represented an incredibly formidable strength…

The sudden appearance of the magical pet feature quickly ignited the players’ interest.

Especially the veteran players who didn’t feel much pressure to advance their current levels!

Thus many people began studying this new magical pet system.

Meanwhile, after signing the contract with the unicorn, Evé excused herself, citing real-life matters, and quickly “logged out” since didn’t want to face the enthusiastic onslaught of questions from players regarding her new pet.

As for the little unicorn, she entrusted it to Little Salty Cat. It was left to freely roam within the guild garden of Moe Moe Committee…

Over the next few days, Evé fully witnessed the players’ enthusiasm for magical beasts.

The heated debates about the revival mechanism on the official website’s forum had quickly faded away, now replaced by numerous hot threads discussing about the magical pet system.

There were discussions about the types of magical beasts, their abilities, how to gain their recognition, which kind of magical beasts were best suited as companions, and so on…

And in just three in-game days, Evé noticed that over a thousand magical beast contracts had already been recorded in the database!

Regarding the types of magical beasts being contracted, they were incredibly diverse, with the majority being creatures from the Elven Forest.

These magical beasts were either lured by players or subdued by them. Some were cute, some were powerful, and some even have unique abilities…

Mountain Mouse, wind deer, black-headed eagles, giant bears… Virtually every common species inhabiting the Elven Forest had been contracted already.

Their strengths ranged from the weakest, which were at apprentice level, to the strongest, being at upper iron-rank.

Of course, upper iron-rank creatures were few in number, either being Adult Crypt Spiders or Iron-ranked beasts that players had hunted in the wild.

However, the majority of these magical beast status were just white and common-class. Blue rarity was still quite rare, and there was only one with a purple epic rating—the unicorn…

Given these circumstances, a significant number of veteran players opted to take a break from grinding levels underground and instead ventured to the north of the Elven Forest to track down the herds of unicorns.

There was no way around it…as the only magical beast the system evaluated as epic purple-class, the temptation of owning a pet unicorn was too overwhelming.

Whether for flaunting or for power enhancement, having a unicorn as pet was the dream of any player as of late.

Unfortunately, the players’ efforts didn’t go smoothly.

The unicorns were too swift and much stronger than the players. Although people sporadically saw them in the forest, they couldn’t catch up at all.

With Alice’s advice, players understood that unicorns were not easily swayed by force. Convincing them without coercion proved to be even more difficult.

Relatively speaking, Moe Moe’s progress in this aspect was a bit smoother.

Using the young unicorn left by Evé, they spent two days searching the northern forest and finally found a migrating herd…

However, these unicorns were cautious around players. Even with the little unicorn in the lead, they remained indifferent to most players’ attempts.

This led players to once again marvel at how lucky the first unicorn tamer, the girl directly recognized by a unicorn, had been.

That girl must have had a huge dose of luck! It was a mix of envy, jealousy, and hatred…

Nonetheless, with the discovery of this particular unicorn herd, players finally had a target.

The rest was just a matter of patience.

The fact that a player had managed to subdue a unicorn at the very least demonstrated that these creatures could acknowledge the players.

With this thought in mind, many veteran players opted to stay in the northern forest, accompanying these unicorns, lowering themselves to the role of bootlickers, while attempting to win their recognition through gestures of goodwill…

The scene was even unbearable for Evé, who observed it through the players’ perspective.

And as a multitude of players brainstormed methods to subdue these unicorns, the Rageblaze Elves who had gone out to find their fellow elves have finally returned.

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