62: The easiest little brother

Zhou Xing fell into deep thought, watching the line of people slowly emerging.

He had only assumed Cheng Zhen and Old Xu had formed an alliance, not realizing that others were also here.

Cheng Zhen enthusiastically introduced, "It's all thanks to the beast skin scroll you sent, which made me consider the possibility of other ways to clear the instance. As expected of an official guide, you can easily find ways to achieve special endings!"

Zhou Xing: ...No, I just wanted to gather guides to fight against the NPCs, I really don't know about special endings!

And when the Lesser Spotted Eagle Tribe carried their leader over, Zhou Xing was even more bewildered.

This Rookie, isn't he a bit too outstanding???

You even took down the NPC's three hundred strong army?!

Zhou Xing looked dazed, as if his experience of being chased by the NPC tribe was a dream.

"So what's next? The prerequisite for a special ending is an instance upgrade, right? Are you able to tell me the upgrade conditions?"

Cheng Zhen looked at Zhou Xing with anticipation.

Zhou Xing felt a little guilty under his gaze.

"Uh, sorry, I don't know the upgrade conditions."

Zhou Xing sighed, "Although my colleague cleared the instance with his team, the actual victors were the NPC tribes, so he didn't discover any upgrade conditions at all..."

"The NPCs won and they could still clear it?!" Cheng Zhen was surprised.

"...Yes, his ability is [Acknowledge Thief as Father], which allows him to designate an enemy as his father. After he recognized the NPC tribe's chieftain as his dad, he joined the NPC tribe, and incidentally brought the other guides into the tribe under the guise of a harem."

"Even though the other guides were all male, the NPC chieftain still reluctantly accepted them. Perhaps this is the greatness of paternal love..."

Cheng Zhen: ( ; ◑ ⌓ ◑ )???

He was greatly shocked.

This statement wasn't even blocked by the instance barrier, which showed just how difficult and unorthodox this path was to replicate.

"Although I don't know the conditions for an instance upgrade, instances don't have useless settings."

Zhou Xing, through experience, expressed the same thought as Cheng Zhen: "I think the upgrade conditions have already been grasped by you."

Subsequently, he sent a surrender request to Cheng Zhen.

Cheng Zhen was stunned; he truly hadn't expected the other party to be so cooperative. So much so that he even suspected he was the male lead of a novel, emanating an aura of dominance that made subordinates willingly surrender...

Zhou Xing, however, looked calm, because his goal of clearing the instance while preserving as many people as possible aligned perfectly with Cheng Zhen's objective.

The fact that other guides were living well under Cheng Zhen's command proved that Cheng Zhen wasn't a violent, murderous person. Allowing such an excellent guide to grow would surely enable him to conquer many high-difficulty instances in the future.

[Beep, the leader of the 'Black Eagle Tribe' has surrendered to you.]

[75 members of this tribe have merged into the 'Sand Fox Tribe'.]

[Congratulations on successfully merging the fifth tribe. You have gained a new function: Panel Function Lock.]

[Panel Lock: Locks the tribe's peak state. All currently acquired buff statuses, attribute enhancements, and other effects are permanently locked and will not disappear if members leave.]

In just one day, Cheng Zhen's gains were more than in the previous few days combined, and he was beaming with joy.

Now, even if those low-loyalty NPCs from the Lesser Spotted Eagle Tribe ran away, he could track their location via the red dots on the map.

Cheng Zhen guessed that perhaps when he unified all six directions, that would be the moment he fulfilled the upgrade conditions.

He was already eager to let the remaining Golden Scorpion Tribe experience the warmth of a big family!

"Although you have many subordinates, please be careful. The Golden Scorpion Tribe has the ability to poison."

Zhou Xing reminded him.

When they fought earlier, they were chased all the way.

Zhou Xing originally thought it was due to insufficient numbers, but when they were running, he discovered that many Warriors were experiencing various problems, and then the instance messages suddenly flooded the screen. Only then did Zhou Xing realize that the Golden Scorpion Tribe could poison.

Most of the injured Warriors showed signs of poisoning, so Zhou Xing speculated that the enemy had poisoned their weapons.

Unfortunately, his antidote was locked in his inventory, making it impossible to cure, so he regretfully had to abandon some people.

"What about the people from the Golden Scorpion Tribe?" Cheng Zhen asked.

"A portion of them have been chasing us for two or three days," Zhou Xing said helplessly.

Having run for so long, their fatigue levels were incredibly high, and their attribute bars were almost at rock bottom.

"As for the chieftain of the Golden Scorpion Tribe, he might still be at the No. 3 Oasis? Although they set a fire when they left, there was still a little water source. It's entirely possible that after resting sufficiently at the Green Oasis, they would follow the markings left by their own people to hunt me down."

"Moreover, the Green Oasis shows signs of drying up, so they can't stay there indefinitely."

Zhou Xing's deduction was very reasonable. After hearing it, Cheng Zhen felt that he could just stand here and wait for them, lying in ambush.

With a large number of people under his command, Cheng Zhen naturally wasn't afraid of the enemy.

However, considering that the NPCs in this instance weren't unintelligent, there was a possibility that if they saw so many people here, they wouldn't dare to approach.

Cheng Zhen didn't want the duck he had caught to fly away, so he opened his map to make some deployments.

Several miles away, dozens of Warriors from the Golden Scorpion Tribe hurried on their way.

Although the wind blew the sand, burying their tracks, they had already figured out the Black Eagle Tribe's escape route.

The forbidden area had been sealed off, so they couldn't leave; going outwards would only lead to their demise.

So they could only try their luck at other Green Oases.

The Golden Scorpion Tribe had been chasing them all the way and were very certain that their target was heading towards the 2nd Oasis.

As for whether there would be other enemies at the 2nd Oasis...

They weren't worried, because all tribes were enemies. Perhaps when the Golden Scorpion Tribe ran into others, they would just be delivering themselves as a meal.

"It should be this direction."

A Warrior used the sun to determine the direction.

The NPCs had excellent memories; they remembered the map of the Green Oases and could accurately find locations.

They habitually left markings and then continued to follow the route, pursuing their target.

The Desert was vast and boundless.

But precisely because there were no obstructions, after crossing a sand dune, they easily saw a dark mass of people ahead with their eyes.

"Is that the Black Eagle Tribe?"

"Who else could it be? We haven't encountered any other tribes on this entire chase."

Excitement flickered in the eyes of the Golden Scorpion Tribe Warriors.

The target they had been chasing for so long was finally caught, and they naturally didn't want to let them go.

Moreover, judging by their stationary appearance, they were clearly exhausted from their journey.

They charged forward without hesitation, wanting to tear their exhausted prey to shreds.

As they got closer, the people of the Black Eagle Tribe's faces were filled with 'terror', and they scrambled down the side of the sand dune with loud cries.

The enemies' fear made the Golden Scorpion Tribe even more excited, and without another word, they followed in hot pursuit.

"Hahaha, die—gah?!"

The Golden Scorpion Tribe Warriors, who had crossed the sand dune, stopped laughing halfway through their cheer.

They stared with wide eyes at the dense crowd of people at the bottom of the sand dune, suspecting they were seeing a mirage.

The 'illusion' Cheng Zhen smiled at them and waved:

"Hello~"