CHAPTER 203: PURPOSEFULLY LAZY 1

By somehow twisting his words, Oliver diverted the attention from himself to his brother. This allowed him to escape scot-free.

Despite there being many questionable points in his explanation, none of them focused on it.

As a result, the entire family decided to have dinner.

Oliver had eaten his fill, so he climbed onto the sofa and powered on the TV.

Fortunately, his parents reacted mildly to the entire pregnancy fiasco. He had the leisure to be lazy again.

Switching on the TV, he swiftly pressed the remote to go through the channels.

Most of the channels were focused on entertainment shows like movies, dramas, reality shows, and music shows. The rest were focused on Hero work, Second Earth, Hunts, Raids, News, and documentaries. Occasionally, he also noticed some religious channels popping up here and there.

Oliver glanced through it all with a mix of apathy and slothful indifference.

There was nothing new being shown.

Almost everything he saw was stuff he had already seen.

It was pretty dull.

Only the news and Second Earth-related shows were passably entertaining.

’Imagine news being the most entertaining thing...’

Oliver released a hollow laugh.

’Anyways, the content about the second Earth is limited, and there are no live streams. This is an opportunity.’

Oliver switched the channel to one showing a herd of Silvertailed cows grazing.

The cows were giant, comparable to modern trucks. And the grass they were eating was also quite big.

Grazing through the dense grass, the herd of silver-tailed cows was moving to the other side of the lush grassland.

The camera was following closely behind them while hovering in the sky.

’The drone pilot did a good job.’

Oliver commented as he noticed the camera adjusting its position and zooming in occasionally to perfectly position the image of the herd within the frame.

’It would have taken them a lot of time and effort to capture the video.’

’And it would have taken an even longer time to transport it all out through the gate.’

No signal could be transmitted through the gate. Because of that, there existed no connected communication system with Second Earth.

Therefore, the video he was seeing would have been transferred out through the gate after being stored in optical drives.

It was a slow and arduous process.

’Every time they send data, they have to encode the data and store it in high-capacity optical drives specially designed to transport data.’

’Each video I see is the combined effort of many people.’

Oliver said in his mind.

The cows grazing through the field of grass suddenly stopped. They raised their heads simultaneously.

The wind blowing through the grass tingled their nose as a smell of danger wafted in.

The camera of the drone switched.

A video from another drone was shown.

Hundreds of meters away, a large beast was moving through the tall grass.

The grass twisted and turned as the long, scaly, yellow body weaved through it. The drone camera could barely capture the image of the beast, hiding under the grass, moving through it by hugging the ground.

’It’s a monitor lizard variant. Considering the environment, it must be an Earth-type Ironclaw.’ Oliver deduced.

Ironclaw was a C-rank mana beast, known for its razor-sharp claws curved like a sickle.

From what Oliver had seen, the weapons made by the claw of the beast could be considered one of the best in C-rank.

So, it was a rare resource that would fetch a hefty price.

Oliver watched it curiously and quickly calculated the amount of money he could make by selling it.

’Five claws on each hand. Four hands in total. A total of twenty claws. Ignoring everything else, just the claws would fetch a price of 100,000 creds.’

’That’s almost the two-year income of a normal worker.’

’Once made into weapons like swords or bows, it would fetch even more.’

’If sold to mech manufacturers, it would be worth even more.’

’Second Earth is literally a money bag. If you have strength, you could be as rich as you want by exploiting just the natural resources.’

Oliver watched the C-ranker beast closely as it moved through the grass, covering the majority of its body.

From the way the video was being played, Oliver knew the Ironclaw was moving towards the herd of Silvertailed cows.

In a few minutes, it will begin its hunt.

The Silvertailed cows were the prey, and the Ironclaw was the hunter.

Silvertailed cows were rank D beasts. Though they are larger in size, they stand no chance against a rank C beast like the Ironclaw.

’...unless they worked together to defeat it. But that is asking for too much...’

Just as he thought, the camera panned to show the herd raising their heads.

They seemed to have sensed the presence of the predator nearby.

Lifting their heads together, the cows sniffed the air. The bulls amongst the group scanned the area with their eyes and ears.

However, the grass was tall.

They couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of the predator.

Spooked, they began to huddle together.

’It’s a done deal.’

Oliver said as he saw the Ironclaw sneak up to them.

It was somehow using mana to mask its presence and the sound it made.

’One, two, three.’

The moment it reached within 30 meters of the herd, it pressed its body to the ground and stood stationary. Then a thin line of mana began to seep from its body into the ground.

The mana was so weak and similar to the natural mana of the ground that it went unnoticed by the herd.

Controlling this line of mana, the Ironclaw sent it under the ground where the herd stood.

Everything was visually represented through CGI, allowing viewers to see what was really happening.

’It’s selecting the target.’ Oliver commented.

Mana beasts were somewhat intelligent. Anything over rank D could show intelligence greater than a dog.

Currently, the Ironclaw is using its intelligence to improve its success in hunting the Silvertailed cow.

As Oliver was lost in thought, something surprising occurred. The CGI lines showing the mana line suddenly expanded and split into eight branches. Then it encircled the herd.

Without waiting for Oliver, the Ironclaw suddenly channeled thousands of units of mana into the eight endpoints of the mana line.

The silvertailed cows panicked, sensing the mana burrowing under them.

Together, they tried to jump away.

Immediately, eight earthen spikes sprouted from the ground, stabbing at the herd.

’Oh! That’s surprising.’

All eight earthen spikes missed the target.

’That’s really surprising.’

Oliver muttered again as he examined the earthen spikes in detail.