Pretending To Be A Boss

"Ah! Human, you are truly a great 'sugary salty'!" the mynah bird blurted out excitedly.

Tang Xian furrowed his brows; that statement sounded somewhat awkward to him.

"So, we are friends now, you see," he said. "In human rules, as long as everyone has shared grilled fish, we are friends for life and death. Do you know what it means to be friends for life and death? It means no matter what danger you face, I will help you out, and of course, the reverse is true as well."

The mynah bird nodded incessantly, resembling a woodpecker pecking at wood.

"Good, later on, Qing JiuYu will come to find me," Tang Xian went on. "I'll talk to her about helping you teach those bats a lesson. You're trying to curry favor with her for this reason, right?"

"Chirp-chirp! That's right, that's right!" In the eyes of the mynah bird, the selfless image of Tang Xian grew taller and mightier.

"However, you'll have to do some things for me too," said Tang Xian with a smile. "After all, in a life-and-death friendship, there should be give and take, don't you agree?"

"Definitely, definitely."

"Tonight, you can go to the canyon first to check if the Glow Mushrooms are there. If they are, you can pick one for me. Don't worry about killing it. In three days, I'll bring the thing you want, and I'll also ask you some questions then. We are best friends, and I won't let you down, so you will surely answer me truthfully, right?"

"Yes! You're my good brother! Chirp-chirp!" the mynah bird nodded vigorously.

[Current Honesty Level: 61 (Candid)]

[Current Affection Level: 55 (Sharing Weal and Woe)]

Looking at the data before his eyes, Tang Xian couldn't help but laugh; the creature with the highest affection for him in the mining area turned out to be a bird.

Regarding the Court of Thousand Beasts, and even some situations within the upper circles of the mining area's creatures, the mynah bird likely knew. The mynah bird was very useful, and what Tang Xian currently wanted to know the most was about the level of civilization advancement among those upper circles.

These were things he couldn't ask Qing JiuYu.

He had to play the role of a mysterious and powerful boss creature, even though he didn't know exactly what creature he was pretending to be.

...

...

Having finished the grilled fish, the mynah bird flew south with high spirits, preparing to fly to YiSu Canyon.

That place was in the blue zone but rarely visited because the compulsory path went through the forest sea. Tang Xian thought, as long as he helped the mynah bird with the problem of the cat-eared bats, this mischievous yet pure-hearted little bird would likely become a great help to him.

In the afternoon, Tang Xian began to survey the surroundings as he really planned on setting up a private base in the forest sea. After all, the land here cost nothing, and he only needed to maintain a good relationship with the group of foxes.

However, at this time, the scent in the air began to indicate that some changes were taking place.

Tang Xian then stopped what he was doing and waited patiently.

A few minutes later, Qing JiuYu arrived quickly.

According to the agreement, he would give her several Jiuye Biphasic Orchids, and she would bring the corpse of a hellhound.

But Qing JiuYu did not look natural.

Without even looking at the data, Tang Xian knew what had happened.

He opened his item bag and spoke calmly,

"Here are your Jiuye Biphasic Orchids. Though the hellhound got away, you made an effort to capture it, and that's fulfilling our agreement."

Qing JiuYu was taken aback.

"You knew?"

Tang Xian nodded and said, "Yes. A calamity-level creature visiting an elite-level creature, at a time of crucial evolution, would be extremely cautious. Its choice to escape shows the creature isn't dumb; to have survived until its evolutionary period, it must have consumed many preys."

"I'm sorry... Although my fox clan has always been called cunning, we aren't untrustworthy... but this time I..."

Qing JiuYu did feel somewhat uneasy. The fox clan's sense of smell was not weak, but it couldn't compare to that of dogs. Upon smelling her scent, the hellhound had started to run away, and when she arrived, she couldn't even determine in which direction it had fled.

Tang Xian, looking at Qing JiuYu, suddenly had a bold idea.

"Now you are just like me, having a strong desire to kill the hellhound. You can run faster than it, but you can't detect it. However, I can."

Qing JiuYu didn't doubt how Tang Xian knew she now wanted to kill the hellhound, as it wasn't hard to guess.

She looked at Tang Xian curiously and asked, "You can detect it?"

"My nose is no worse than its own, so we might as well cooperate," he suggested.

```

"How should we cooperate?"

"I want to ride you."

```

The character for "ride," both in its construction and its true meaning, is a proper word. Much like Tang Xian, who was a proper person. His expression was serious.

Qing JiuYu was stunned for a few seconds, but then her face turned red.

"You tell me the direction, and I'll go catch it for you?"

"Yes, so you need to turn into a fox, and then I'll ride on you."

"Even if I don't revert to my true form, I am still faster than that dog."

Tang Xian didn't doubt Qing JiuYu's word.

...

...

The border between the Red Soil Forest and the Sea of Trees was indeed quite vast.

It would take Tang Xian almost half a day to travel the distance.

After the Sea of Trees was marked as a red zone, few teams dared to loiter nearby.

Normally, there wouldn't be any quests in an uninhabited zone.

But at this time, an elite hunting team, ranked around fiftieth with all its members being experts, was slowly approaching the Sea of Trees.

"Boss, although the hellhound with three heads is ridiculously expensive, are we really going to risk entering the red zone?" asked someone in the squad wielding a crossbow.

The captain, whose weapon was a greatsword transformed from armed minerals and who had a burly figure, said, "That buyer originally offered a hundred pieces of purple minerals, which already was an astronomical price. I can determine that the person is a high-ranking official from some fortress.

Now that he has raised the price to one hundred and fifty, it goes to show how much he wants that hellhound dead. Let's just do the deal; even if it's in the red zone, if we keep a low profile, we surely won't run into the nine-tailed fox, right?"

A team ranked around fiftieth, with all members having around five talents, consisted of experts among experts. They were capable of hunting the hellhound cooperatively, as long as they didn't make any significant mistakes.

The crossbowman nodded his head.

Indeed, even though cataclysmic level bosses were unbeatable, they were rare species. If one could encounter them just by walking on the road, humanity would probably only dare to stay in the newbie villages.

However, the team's scout suddenly said, "It seems like the temperature has changed."

"Nonsense, the temperature is always changing." The captain didn't speak to the scout with the same courtesy as he did to the crossbowman because of the scout's lesser strength.

Although after leaving the Red Soil Forest, the captain also felt it was somewhat hotter.

"My ability is to sense changes in temperature, boss. We should leave. Although the hellhound is a heat-flame type creature, it shouldn't be causing such a significant rise in temperature over this large area," said the scout, shaking his head.

"Coward. It's normal for it to be hotter here since there are fewer trees than in the Red Soil Forest. It's not like we could possibly run into the nine—"

The crossbowman didn't finish his sentence and suddenly stopped with his mouth agape.

Everyone's mouths fell open when, in the distance of their line of sight, a hellhound that was far larger than anything they understood to be possible suddenly appeared.

They were battle-hardened experts. Even though the hellhound seemed unusually large, with good teamwork, they might still win.

But what shocked them to the point they forgot to draw their weapons wasn't the hellhound.

The hellhound was running towards them, and a hundred meters behind it, a fiery red fox—not the least bit smaller than the hellhound—was pursuing it at an even faster pace.

The captain, the crossbowman, the scout, the healer, and the other two warriors were all dumbfounded.

At that moment, they couldn't count how many tails the fox had, but it was certainly more than six.

In this world, there were no seven or eight-tailed foxes, so what appeared in front of them, they all knew what creature it must be.

The breath of the Grim Reaper seemed to land instantly on each person's neck.

"Is... is that... the nine-tailed fox?" stammered the crossbowman, trembling all over.

The terrifying aura emitted by the cataclysmic level creature, which also happened to be a boss, left them without even the thought of resisting.

But as the two massive creatures charged their way, they noticed something even more shocking.

"Good heavens! Boss, look, there's someone... on the back of the nine-tailed fox!"