208: Exploration mission

The commotion here naturally attracted the attention of many passersby, and some passing Beast Tamers spontaneously came over to help, greatly reducing the pressure on Lin Chen and his group.

In the Abyss City, attacks by Abyssal Monsters are very common, and all residents living here will spontaneously participate in fighting the Abyssal Monsters.

Although most of them were just Beast Tamers with only one or two Spirit Beasts, their accumulated numbers were a force that could not be ignored, and they were at least much stronger than these First-year Freshmen.

With everyone's help, Yun Mengyao quickly repaired the array pattern, followed by strong firepower coverage, completely killing this group of Abyssal Crawlers.

"Thank you all for your help!" Lin Chen thanked the people around him.

"Don't mention it! This is the Abyss Battlefield. Besides humans and Spirit Beasts, everyone else is the enemy!" A middle-aged man laughed loudly. He seemed to be on his way to work, as he was still wearing an ill-fitting suit.

He was not a Beast Tamer; he merely raised one or two Spirit Beasts, barely qualifying as a Beast Tamer, and primarily engaged in ordinary civilian work.

But his Big Chrysanthemum Sunflower had already reached Four-Star strength, and he often helped deal with some Abyssal Monsters that broke into the city on weekdays to earn extra money.

This was also the reason why most ordinary people were willing to stay in the Abyss City. Although it was dangerous here, it offered greater opportunities than Blue Star.

The reward for killing an Abyssal Crawler was equivalent to one or two weeks' salary in a small city.

"Please take this batch of Abyssal Crawlers to collect the reward!" Lin Chen said, looking at the crowd.

Yu Ping had told them all about these things during Military Training, and today's incident was indeed thanks to the help of these passersby; otherwise, it might have caused significant trouble.

Zhang Lingyu had no objections to this. Although he was a bit reluctant, he was always generous. Since others had helped him, he certainly wouldn't let them suffer a loss.

However, when the crowd dispersed, Lin Chen and the others who remained felt a bit troubled looking at the sewer pipe entrance.

"There must be other Abyssal Monsters below. We can hear their roars just by getting close. But... should we go down and investigate?" Leng Yi asked, looking at the group.

"This?"

Upon hearing this question, even Zhang Lingyu fell silent.

Although he was reckless, he wasn't stupid. Who knew what monsters they would encounter if he went down? If they ran into one or two high-level monsters, they wouldn't even have a place to run.

"You guys count our gains first. I'll contact the Patrol Bureau and ask about the situation!" Zhang Lingyu thought for a moment and said, walking aside to call the Clerk Miss from before.

Lin Chen and the others shrugged. Even if the bodies at the back were given to the passersby who helped, they still had hundreds of Abyssal Crawler corpses in front of them. This was a large sum of military merit and assessment points.

As for other things, there wasn't much. Abyssal Crawlers were dime-a-dozen trash on the Abyss Battlefield, and the so-called reward was merely a subsidy given by the authorities to ordinary people.

This was done hoping that ordinary Beast Tamers could also help fight and alleviate the pressure on the Abyss Battlefield.

"A total of one hundred and twenty-three Abyssal Crawlers. We've taken photos and submitted them." After finishing the count, a tall, thin boy wearing glasses said.

His name was Zeng Ran, and he served as the team's clerk. Besides Zhang Lingyu, he was mainly responsible for gathering and analyzing mission intelligence, submitting missions, and handling various documentation tasks.

Few Beast Tamers wore glasses, as cultivation was usually sufficient to repair most physical injuries. Generally, this situation indicated either a major talent flaw or some special effect.

"Easy peasy, 12 merit points plus 120 military merit points. Awesome~~~" Yan Shan laughed loudly.

The minimum standard for passing Military Training was 100 assessment points. They had already completed one-tenth of that on their very first day, not to mention what they had accumulated previously.

However, this was just for them. For those ordinary Beast Tamers and Beast Tamers, passing the Military Training assessment was a significant challenge; at the very least, they couldn't pass by slacking off.

"At this rate? Won't we be able to accumulate five or six hundred merit points in a month and a half?" Ming Yu asked excitedly.

"Five or six hundred points? Why not be bolder? The speed of accumulating merit points will definitely get faster and faster later on. A thousand points will be easy!" Leng Yi said, patting her shoulder.

"I remember that in previous years' Military Training, the highest score was only around two hundred merit points, right? Although the system has been reformed this time, a thousand merit points should definitely secure a spot in the top hundred, shouldn't it?"

However, he did not get a reply. Instead, he saw Zhang Lingyu walking back with a grim expression. Seeing this, Lin Chen's heart sank. It seemed there was no good news.

"The Patrol Bureau requires us to investigate the situation in the sewer clearly, or to garrison here and wait for other inspectors to investigate!"

"However, there have been many monster riots in Huaxia City recently, and the Patrol Bureau is already overwhelmed. If we want to wait for someone to investigate, it will take at least two or three days."

Sure enough, as Zhang Lingyu's voice fell, everyone froze. The joy of their harvest instantly vanished, replaced by worry and confusion.

What was the Patrol Bureau thinking? Asking this group of New Students to investigate an unknown sewer? Did they truly have confidence in them, or were they hoping they would die here?

As for the order to garrison and wait, how could they possibly waste several days here? They still needed to earn military merit and assessment points. This clearly meant forcing them to go down and investigate!

"What does everyone think?" Lin Chen asked the group.

"Investigating below is too dangerous, but there might be rewards; garrisoning is a pure waste of time. But given our current strength, we probably can only garrison." Ming Yu said first, her gaze turning toward Leng Yi.

It was obvious that if they truly had to go down and investigate, Leng Yi, being specialized in reconnaissance, would definitely have to be on the front line, and his risk would be far greater than everyone else's.

"The main thing is, we don't really know the situation down there. Why don't we first send a Spirit Beast down to investigate and see if we can lure out any overlooked Abyssal Crawlers nearby?" Yan Shan suggested after thinking for a moment.

"That's a good idea. If we lure out and eliminate the nearby Abyssal Crawlers first, we'll at least have a foothold and won't be ambushed as soon as we go down."

"But it's all sewage down there. It would be difficult for ordinary Spirit Beasts to display their strength, right? Do we have any Water-type Spirit Beasts? Uh... excluding the silly goose!"

Everyone's eyes involuntarily turned towards Zeng Ran. He was the only one present who had a Water-type Spirit Beast, but this Water-type Spirit Beast was precisely the silly goose that had been excluded.

"I do have a Golden-backed Toad, but as you know, that thing is just a mascot for attracting wealth; its combat power is really quite..." Zhang Ping raised his hand and said, sounding a bit lacking in confidence.

Lin Chen rubbed his temples helplessly.

"It seems our team is missing a combat-capable Water-type Spirit Beast!"