Chapter 4

"Your previous performance was excellent, and I am very satisfied. Where there is merit, there must be reward. From today on, you will no longer be a beast slave. I will summon you into my army to become a glorious half-orc warrior." Just as Zhou Tian was unsure about how to deal with the half-orc warrior, whether it was because the half-orc warrior had no intention of communicating with Zhou Tian or simply considered him one of the less intelligent beast slaves, he started giving Zhou Tian instructions as soon as he saw him, without even waiting for Zhou Tian to speak.

After hearing the half-orc warrior's words, Zhou Tian had not even had time to react when a corresponding prompt appeared in his mind.

Unlike the evolution prompt given for gaining enough experience, after hearing the half-orc warrior's words, the information that appeared in Zhou Tian's mind indicated that the half-orc warrior, as a half-orc leader, had the power to unconditionally evolve him into a half-orc warrior. As soon as the half-orc warrior made his decision, regardless of what Zhou Tian thought, he was already in the countdown for evolution.

As a result, even before Zhou Tian could fully recover from the sudden change, his body began to transform shortly after the half-orc warrior finished speaking. His originally slender body suddenly became robust, as if it had been inflated. The simple loincloth he was wearing turned into a one-piece garment, and a wooden club appeared at his waist. At that moment, Zhou Tian, compared to the ordinary half-orcs, seemed to have no significant difference in appearance.

Evolving from the lowest-level wild beast slave to a half-orc warrior, this change in status should have been a good thing. However, Zhou Tian's mood was far from good. If not for his limited strength, Zhou Tian would have had the urge to kill the half-orc warrior.

Even though the half-orc warrior's actions were meant to help Zhou Tian, the feeling of losing control over his future was extremely uncomfortable for him. If the half-orc warrior's intelligence, though higher than that of a beast slave, were not so low, he might have noticed Zhou Tian's unusual behavior.

In the end, with the situation as it was, no matter how many thoughts Zhou Tian had, he still had to suppress them. After silently stepping back from the half-orc warrior, he focused on his own transformation.

As the information in his mind had mentioned, after evolving under the half-orc warrior's arrangement, Zhou Tian did not consume the hard-earned experience he had gained. The talent he had obtained from evolving into an elite beast slave also did not disappear. However, possibly due to the change in race, Zhou Tian's originally special rapid talent was downgraded to a regular speed talent after he became a half-orc warrior.

Zhou Tian was not surprised by the downgrade of his talent. After all, half-orcs were naturally faster than beast slaves, so it was not unexpected that the same auxiliary power would have a weaker effect when applied to a different subject. On the contrary, the current situation at least proved that the talents he gained from evolution would not disappear when he evolved into a higher-level monster.

After accepting his new identity, Zhou Tian quickly integrated into the half-orc team.

Unlike the situations described in most novels, the environment in the world where Zhou Tian was located was very similar to a game. Beast slaves, including half-orcs, did not possess much intelligence. Their usual task was to patrol a specific area and kill any NPCs that appeared. Apart from that patrol task, they were like real data beings, with no need to solve any of the problems that normal living beings would face.

Even the reproduction methods of beast slaves and half-orcs were quite peculiar. Through Zhou Tian's careful observation, new beast slaves and half-orc warriors were directly transferred in from outside. At first, Zhou Tian thought these 'newcomers' were transferred from other territories. However, after interacting with the half-orcs and beast slaves and probing for information, Zhou Tian managed to extract some details from the half-orcs.

It turned out that monsters did not reproduce sexually. The few lords and high priests at the top of the monster hierarchy each had a Demon Transformation Pool. After offering sacrifices, millions of new monsters could be born from the pool each month. It was because of these Demon Transformation Pools that the monster population, which had no natural reproductive ability, could still fight and dominate the NPCs in this world.

Of course, while the reproduction methods of monsters were not entirely irrelevant to Zhou Tian, they were still quite distant from his current situation. At this point, instead of worrying about those things, Zhou Tian should focus on how to improve his own strength.

What made Zhou Tian somewhat anxious was that, as he had feared, although monsters and NPCs were mortal enemies, the kind of battle that had occurred before was indeed quite rare. At least since becoming a half-orc, Zhou Tian had not encountered another war during his months of patrolling.

After the initial restlessness, Zhou Tian eventually came to terms with it. If battles were hard to come by, he would have to bide his time. When the next opportunity arose, he would find a way to improve his strength.

With this mindset, the time that had seemed so unbearable before now passed much more quickly.

As a result, Zhou Tian continued patrolling for nearly another month.

Just as Zhou Tian was unsure how long he would have to patrol like this, an unexpected discovery gave him another chance to improve his strength.

"There are clearly no enemies, so why are we constantly ordered to patrol our activity areas? Is it all just because of the rules of the game world?" While Zhou Tian's mind wandered, considering other matters, he continued to follow his usual path as usual.

After patrolling an area, Zhou Tian suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"That's not right. I remember there were more half-orc warriors in this area yesterday." Noticing the decrease in the number of half-orc warriors in his patrol area immediately raised Zhou Tian's alertness.

Zhou Tian was very different from the ordinary half-orc warriors. Ordinary half-orc warriors acted purely on instinct and never thought about problems. However, Zhou Tian, with his intelligence, knew to think when faced with certain situations, and to see more issues from small events.

For example, the decrease in the number of half-orc warriors in the patrol area was something other half-orc warriors would not notice. Even the half-orc warrior leader might not think about where the half-orc warriors had gone or why they had disappeared. But Zhou Tian, with his intelligence, immediately paid attention to this situation when he realized that some half-orc warriors had suddenly disappeared.

Without the ability to think, Zhou Tian did not believe that the half-orc warriors would act on their own. Since they would not act on their own, unless they encountered something irresistible, they would not disappear.

And that was the problem.

Since the half-orc warriors must have encountered something irresistible to disappear, what could make them vanish without a trace?