ARIWLBBC Chapter 55

Beneath him was a living leopard, and feeling the warmth of the big cat through his legs was a strange but thrilling sensation for Gugu.

Holding onto the big cat’s fur, the black leopard slowed its pace a bit. Bo Ge slowly straightened his body and even stretched out a hand to feel the shrubs and leaves brushing past.

The big cat carried Gugu to the edge of a small lake. The lake wasn’t very large, surrounded by scattered flowers and grass. The water’s surface was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the blue sky above. A few small insects with transparent wings hovered over the lake, as if dancing in the sky.

The big cat stopped at the lake’s edge, and Bo Ge carefully slid down from its back, standing by the lake, quietly observing everything in front of him.

The insects made a pleasant chirping sound, reminiscent of the bugs Bo Ge heard when he was a child doing homework at his grandfather’s countryside home.

The big cat stood by the lake, its large paw gently tapping the water’s surface, causing ripples to spread out. The reflected sky seemed to ripple and break into the water.

“What are you doing?” Gugu curiously stood beside the big cat, looking down at the water.

“Watch this.” The big cat stopped its paw, rubbed its wet pads on the shore, and a shadow appeared under the water, coming closer and closer.

Bo Ge bent down curiously, trying to see what was underwater. Something quickly swam up and sprayed a stream of lake water right at Gugu’s face.

Suddenly having his face washed for no reason, Gugu wiped his cheek and turned to look at the big cat, which was sitting properly and blinking innocently.

“Is that a fish?” Gugu asked, tugging at his now-wet collar.

When the creature in the lake sprayed water at Gugu, Bo Ge got a clear look at the strange creature underwater: small black bean-like eyes, an indistinct lower jaw, a plump body, and two fin-like appendages with a very short tail.

“Yes,” the big cat replied, standing beside Gugu and looking down at the scenery inside the boy’s collar.

“This is a primitive vertebrate,” the big cat lowered its head. “According to records from over a thousand years ago, the evolution of animals on the ancestral planet Earth generally progressed from invertebrates to vertebrates. Hagfish or amphioxus were the starting point for vertebrate evolution, followed by fish, amphibians, and reptiles.”

“What about humans?” Gugu tilted his head and asked.

“Reptiles evolved into birds and mammals, and humans evolved from primitive mammals.”

“So now, the evolution of animals on planet NGC7331 has reached the fish stage?” Gugu guessed simply.

“Not necessarily,” the big cat wagged its tail. “This simulation is based on preliminary scans by the exploration team, and many details haven’t been fully presented yet.”

Gugu looked at the big cat, pondering something.

“You must have known what this simulation was testing all along, right?”

The big cat lowered its body, resting its paw on its face, and tilted its head at Gugu, its fluffy long tail swaying.

Seeing the familiar scene before him, Bo Ge remembered the orange cat’s cute behavior from not long ago, which was strikingly similar.

However, the orange cat had a cute round face, while the leopard had a majestic face. The same actions were naturally cute on the orange cat, but seemed forced on the leopard.

Staring into the big leopard’s golden-red eyes, Gugu sighed inwardly, fine, I’ll humor you.

“Cute,” Gugu said, raising his hand to rub the big cat’s head, dutifully petting the leopard.

The insects flying above the lake seemed attracted by something and flew around the person and the leopard. Gugu carefully collected the leopard’s shed fur, not wanting to disrupt the environment here.

The big cat watched Bo Ge collecting its fur with eyes full of tenderness.

Isn’t poking a felt ball in reality enough?

My human really likes me.

After inhaling the second bottle of breathing liquid, Bo Ge also tried patting the water’s surface. When the strange fish tried to spray him, he quickly dodged, leaving the fish spraying at nothing, and Gugu smiled with satisfaction.

Before the breathing liquid wore off, Gugu rode the black leopard back to the spaceship. With each ride, he became more skilled, feeling by the third and fourth time that he could ride the big cat and shoot arrows from horseback.

After disinfection in the spaceship, Bo Ge entered the command room. He had barely sat down when Amber arrived, successfully returning with the surface lander and survey probe, completing her task.

The orange cat was the third to return, covered in dirt and looking like a proper “mud cat.” During cleaning, it was as if cleaning a dirty gray blanket; wherever the cleaning ball touched, the original bright color was restored.

One minute before the mission’s time limit, Fange Zongji dragged back a piece of ore taller than himself. He looked even more miserable than the orange cat, with sweat mixed with dust leaving muddy streaks on his face, a pitiful sight.

“What a pain,” Fange Zongji collapsed on the spot after handing in his task, cursing weakly. “This ore is impossibly hard to mine. It’s super tough and huge. I broke one of my collection tools and only managed to drag back a relatively smaller piece!”

“Looks like the mechanical exoskeleton was put to good use,” Amber raised an eyebrow and glanced at Gugu.

“Everyone worked hard, thank you!” Bo Ge bowed to the team members, feeling embarrassed as the captain who had gone out playing on the big cat’s back.

Bo Ge had just realized that the big cat probably knew what the entire mission was about from the start. Despite there being little information about the new mission on the Wanshang Forum, the big cat’s profession likely gave him access to information unknown to regular players.

That’s why he was able to answer all the questions in the knowledge quiz effortlessly, choose the most useful tools, and assign the hard labor equipment to Fange Zongji without hesitation.

Poor Fange Zongji, thinking the big cat had keen insight, not knowing he was being set up to do the heavy lifting with the mechanical exoskeleton.

All part of the plan.

Gugu glanced at the big cat, now in human form. The man gave him a natural and sincere wink.

【Congratulations to the players for completing the exploration of the NGC7331 planet instance in 5:54:12.

– Phase 1 “Orbiting” Score: 92.5 points.
– Phase 2 “Landing” Score: 94.6 points.
– Phase 3 “Surveying” Score: 93.0 points.
– Total Score: 280.1 points (click to view deductions).

Contribution Breakdown:
– Captain: Gugu Chi (22.1%).
– Team Members: Today I Didn’t Eat Enough (12.4%), Amber (19.0%), Fange Zongji (18.1%), Mimi (28.4%).

MVP: Team Member Mimi.】

【Congratulations to the players for receiving the instance completion rewards: 30,000 star coins, 30 D-level items, 10 C-level items, 5 B-level accessories, 3 A-level accessories, and 2 S-level accessories (MVP guaranteed one). The system will auto-allocate these in 5 seconds.】

【Congratulations to the players for entering the instance leaderboard. Click to view the leaderboard details.】

After 5 seconds, Gugu received an S-level accessory, an A-level accessory, two C-level items, six D-level items, and 6,630 star coins.

Everyone looked at the system notification and showed expressions of “as expected.”

“With someone as lucky as SSS here, I don’t even have to guess where the other S-level accessory went,” Fange Zongji sighed.

“Even so, giving me two B-level accessories? Am I that unlucky?”

Amber silently put away an A-level accessory and a B-level accessory, and seriously opened the leaderboard.

“We’re actually in the top five!”

“No way!” Everyone crowded around to see the ranking.

“The first and second places are alliance professional teams, and we’re third!” Amber was so excited she almost let out a fox-like yelp.

“I knew it, I’m awesome,” the orange cat puffed up its little chest and placed a paw on Gugu’s arm, “Gugu is awesome too.”

“Of course, with me here!” Fange Zongji proudly wiped his nose and quickly grabbed his optical brain to start editing, “This is my first time making it into the top five for instance scores, I have to post this on StarNet, hehe.”

“The fourth place is also an alliance professional team, with a total score of 280.0 points, just 0.1 points less than us,” Amber was amazed by the competitiveness, “The fifth place is from Cauchy Research Institute, 279.8 points, also very impressive.”

“This is our first time completing the instance, and getting this score is already very good,” Gugu was also happy, “We can keep working hard to improve our score next time!”

“By the way, there’s a detailed list of point deductions.” Amber clicked on the page behind the total score, and everyone began to read through it.

“Wow, in the ‘Orbiting’ phase, two players had violations, costing us three points!” Fange Zongji discovered the biggest deduction and was puzzled, “What did we do?”

The orbiting phase, two players…

Gugu guiltily glanced at the big cat.

“Two players?” The orange cat suddenly remembered and raised its paw, “It should be Gugu and this Liete beastman fighting on the spaceship!”

“There’s a video of the violation.” Fange Zongji reached out to click on it.

“Wait!” Gugu, moving at his fastest speed, grabbed Fange Zongji’s hand, breaking out in a cold sweat, “Don’t watch it!”

“Hmm?” Fange Zongji looked confused.

“Humans shouldn’t watch such bloody scenes,” the orange cat smugly waved its paw, secretly glancing at the silent man. The blood mark on the man’s lip had already turned into a tiny scar.

“Give the beastman some dignity, after all, it’s not honorable to be beaten by a human.”

Gugu felt very guilty, but he didn’t say anything.

“Next time we run an instance, let’s try not to fight,” Amber calculated the scores. “The rankings are constantly changing, and we could be pushed out of the top five at any moment. But there’s a lot of room for improvement in our score. I’ll go back and look up some information. You all should study as well. Maybe next time, we can perform even better.”

“Okay,” the orange cat replied softly, “My mom is calling me to log off and eat, bye-bye, meow.”

“I’ve been playing for too long, I’ll definitely go back and research more,” Fange Zongji yawned, showing signs of fatigue. Nearly six hours straight is a lot for a human’s stamina.

Amber left the instance to improve herself, leaving Gugu and the big cat sitting face to face in the control room.

Lie Beishuang raised his hand, lightly touching the scar on his lip with his fingertips, then handed the S-level accessory he had just received to Gugu.

“What’s this for?” Gugu was taken aback.

“Handing it over,” the big cat answered confidently.

“I don’t want it,” Gugu shook his head. “You earned this as the MVP.”

“I don’t need accessories,” the big cat insisted on handing over the newly acquired accessory. “Lie Lanyang’s entire salary goes to Lady Anmei without fail. It’s a Lie family tradition.”

“Really?” Bo Ge remembered the expensive water Lie Lanyang had once treated him to. “He even bought me some very expensive water.”

“He might have stashed away some private credits,” Lie Beishuang said seriously. “He has some ideological issues. I won’t be like him.”

With that, the big cat took out all the rewards he had received and placed them on the console one by one for Gugu to inspect.

This is… unnecessary.

¹TL: YSIAD “You can support me if you like my translations by leaving a comment below, or by sending me a Ko-fi. Thank you and Enjoy reading ❤️”

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  TL: YSIAD “You can support me if you like my translations by leaving a comment below, or by sending me a Ko-fi. Thank you and Enjoy reading ❤️”