"Haha, driving this boat is really exhilarating, just like speeding on a motorboat, it’s truly thrilling!"

"You’re not even considering how much money I spent! This is a high-class model, the VIP among regular boats!"

"Can you make it sound any more impressive? It’s just 300 gold coins, is it really worth showing off like that?"

"Damn it, do you have any idea what you’re talking about? If you don’t know, then shut up! This thing consumes 300 gold coins a day, it’s freaking expensive! I thought using a more expensive boat would give us a speed advantage, which would make it worth the cost. But who would’ve thought so many people would buy advanced boats, they all had the same idea as me!"

...

The chatter of the players carried by the sea breeze reached Su Ran’s ears, clear and uninterrupted due to the close distance. Su Ran now understood that all these boats were hired from system NPCs by the players.

"Damn, the system knows how to make money, turning the New Year event into a boat rental business. You’ve got to admire that cunning!"

Su Ran felt admiration for the commercial savvy of the game planners from the bottom of his heart. They were cheating so openly, yet the players were still willing to pay, even glad to be swindled. The presence of these boats made travelling convenient for the players without causing prices of items like Underwater Breathing potions to skyrocket. This strategy was indeed elegant.

The game merchants who had hoarded goods in anticipation must be crying in the bathroom right about now...

"Tsk tsk, 300 gold coins a day, there really are quite a few suckers in this game!"

Su Ran watched as the boats, like wild horses released from their reins, sped towards the front. He was surprised, yet he couldn’t help but wonder—these players didn’t show any hesitation in their direction. Could it be...

They all had the coordinates for Pet Island?

If that was the case, it was a big problem!

"Let’s just follow them for now and see!"

Once the fleet had left, Su Ran followed at a distance, keeping a low profile while he attempted to ascertain whether these people indeed had information about Pet Island.

After about ten minutes, the group arrived at a barren island, stopping their boats and rushing onto the island with a scramble reminiscent of ducks being released. In a flash, the place was deserted.

"These people can really distinguish which is Pet Island!"

Su Ran’s expression turned very serious. Mindlessly searching like a headless fly, compared to this group who had a clear destination, the disparity was enormous.

The damn system, this was too unfair!!!

"No, I have to figure out where these people are getting their information from."

Without rushing to the island to compete with the players for Pets, Su Ran immediately opened his friend interface.

After a moment’s thought, Su Ran sent a message to Big Blood Bull.

"Haha, big bro, I’m at Pet Island busy catching pets. Where are you? Want to team up?"

Big Blood Bull replied quickly, his enthusiasm evident between the lines.

"Big Bull, I want to ask you something. How did you guys determine the coordinates of Pet Island?"

Seeing that Big Blood Bull was on Pet Island, Su Ran knew he had asked the right person. If he could just get him to reveal the secret, he could avoid unnecessary trouble.

"Ah? Big bro, you don’t know about this? When you buy boats from the New Year event NPC, they all come with radar function. As long as you get close to Pet Island, the radar will automatically signal. It’s all explained by the NPC."

Big Blood Bull’s voice was full of surprise. After pausing, he then said, "Big bro, if there’s nothing else, I gotta go. A Pet just spawned here, and it’ll be gone if I’m too slow!"

"Alright, you go ahead and be busy. We’ll chat another time when you’re free."

After closing the friend interface, Su Ran couldn’t help but laugh at himself. Not being human, he hardly visited the Imperial City, which inevitably left him lagging behind ordinary players in terms of information; this led to his passive situation later on.

"A ship... aren’t there ready-made ones right in front of me?"

Su Ran chuckled to himself, eyeing the row of ships. He wasn’t clear on what these people were thinking—those ships cost 300 gold coins, yet here they were, abandoned by the seaside. If someone stole them, wouldn’t that be awkward?

However.

As it turned out, Su Ran was thinking too much. When he approached the ships, the system issued a warning sound, alerting him that the ships were rented with system contracts protecting them. They couldn’t be used, taken, or destroyed without the owner’s permission.

"Great, the system really thought of everything, even this."

With no choice left, Su Ran abandoned the idea of seizing the ships. No wonder those guys were so carefree about leaving their ships around—with system contracts in place, there was no fear of theft!

"That being said, I’ll have to make a trip to the Imperial City myself."

After weighing the pros and cons, Su Ran decided he had to visit the Imperial City for the radar feature on those ships. But there was no rush; right in front of him was an accessible Pet Island. He planned to venture inside before anything else!

If the pets spawning here were Undead, that would be perfect.

Since there were players on the island, Su Ran, not wanting to reveal his whereabouts, went to summon Wang Cai to activate the Luck Concealment skill. Realizing the summon failed because Wang Cai was still digesting, Su Ran had no choice but to boldly proceed forward.

Su Ran needed to determine the type of pets on the island—if they weren’t Ice-type, there was no point in notifying Wu Qing to make a wasted trip.

...

The Rock Pile.

This place was almost entirely built of stones, without a speck of soil to be seen, let alone vegetation.

A group of players were vigorously fighting the Rock Monsters, the scene was intense. Judging from the situation, the players had the upper hand with no sign of tension, all chatting and laughing amidst the battle.

"Haha, we’re really in luck to have found special-type pets. If we can get a Pet Egg, we’ll make a fortune!"

"Yeah, these rock-type pets don’t conflict with any class and meet the demands of the general player base. They really sell well."

"What we need to do now is to each nab a pet for ourselves, then hunt for Pet Eggs to sell and split the money!"

"Haha, what a generous team leader!"

Hearing this, the players fought even harder, pushing the Rock Monsters back to a defensive position and beating them down.

"No Undead pets here, no need to get into a conflict with these people."

Su Ran observed the battlefield with no further interest.

Just as Su Ran was planning to leave the island quietly, he remembered that a strange occurrence had happened at the top of the mountain on the Wood-type Pet Island. Maybe this Pet Island could also hold hidden opportunities!

With this thought, Su Ran lost the desire to continue watching the battle. He bypassed the players and rushed toward the mountaintop.

Meanwhile, the players were all focused on the Rock Monsters in front of them and didn’t notice someone passing by not far away, which spared Su Ran a lot of potential trouble.