Above the mage!

Chapter 526 Third-Order Yugathira

They are gregarious, docile, adept at detection and speed, and can change their size. Although the name capybara doesn't sound very imposing, they are natural-born helpers in the water.

Being gregarious indicates that they have a strong ability to cooperate and coordinate as a team, and being docile means they are easy to tame.

Their excellent detection capabilities and ability to change their size allow them to accurately locate hidden prey or treasures in complex aquatic environments and freely move in and out of various complex terrains.

In the Plantagenet Dynasty, the water system was extremely extensive.

The area is dotted with vast lakes and crisscrossed by tributaries, forming a huge water network that covers the land.

These waterways not only irrigate fertile fields and nourish the people on both banks, but also nurture billions of aquatic creatures and hold countless undiscovered treasures.

Not to mention that the dynasty's coastline was incredibly long, with a sea area several times larger than the mainland, and its resources were immeasurable.

If one can command a powerful capybara herd, it's like holding the "key" to an underwater treasure trove, making treasure hunting and resource development much easier.

Of course, Gaode's expectations for these capybaras go far beyond simply being an "underwater treasure hunt team."

His gaze swept over the young piglets eating jewel berries, and a smile played at the corners of his lips:
If this capybara population can be cultivated, wouldn't the basic tasks of the sea sentinels be completely eliminated?

Among the missions posted by the Sea Sentinels, the majority are basic missions, the most common being eliminating aquatic beasts that attack humans in the water and patrolling the security of designated waters.

These two types of basic tasks are not difficult for Gao De to complete; in fact, they can be considered quite simple, since his strength is more than enough to deal with low-level water beasts. However, they still take a considerable amount of time.

The difficulty of these two types of missions lies not in combat, but in finding the target aquatic beasts lurking in the vast waters.

Sea Sentinel Mages often need to spend one or two weeks searching designated waters to find their mission targets.

Even so, the final military merit award was only a few third-class merits.

The time and effort required for this task are disproportionate to the rewards, at least for Gaode – spending a week working hard only earns one or two third-class merits, which is not very meaningful.

Most of the supplies that can be exchanged for a third-class merit can be bought with money.

Now that Gaode Maps has opened up routes between the North and Black Sails, it can be said that it is not short of money.

The things available on the market no longer require the third-class merit award.

Only those tasks that reward him with a second-class merit or higher are worth his time and effort.

Because the items that can be redeemed with a second-class merit and a first-class merit are things that money can't buy, and they are related to his evaluation and promotion in the Sea Sentinel system.

However, high-reward missions are relatively limited, and he can't always have high-reward missions to take on.

Moreover, in order to be promoted in the military, in addition to major merits, the accumulation of these basic minor merits is also indispensable.

Moreover, the assessment of sea sentries is conducted every year.

In other words, Gaode will definitely still need to perform these routine tasks.

However, doing these tasks is a waste of time.

And this group of capybaras is the key to breaking this predicament.

This is not wishful thinking, but a promising idea.

Gao De's gaze swept over the little capybaras who were happily eating. Although they were young, they had already shown a strong sense of obedience, intelligence and teamwork.

Faced with the temptation of the jewel berries, none of them dared to act without the leader's order;

With training and the assistance of [Beast Link+], they can execute commands with perfect precision.

In the future, when he encounters a mission to "clean up low-level water beasts", he will not need to personally guard the area. He can simply use the mind link to have the capybara leader lead the tribe to the target area to search.

Capybaras are naturally adept at underwater tracking and group cooperation. When dealing with low-level aquatic beasts, they can easily capture them by ganging up on them.
As for the "water patrol" mission, capybaras are already known for their excellent detection capabilities.

More importantly, [Beast Link+] can perfectly solve the core problem of "command transmission".

Through the mind link, even if the task is complex, Gaode can directly transmit the task details and precautions into clear information to Yuanzi and Tuanzi.

Letting them take the lead in carrying out the task will be just as efficient as him going into the water himself.

In this way, he can be completely freed from basic tasks, and only needs to accept and complete tasks, thus "winning while idling".

Thinking about it this way, Gao De suddenly felt that the future was bright.

As for the first step to achieving the "AFK Grand Plan", we still need to help Yuanzi advance to the third tier.

Only when Yuanzi becomes a third-tier capybara can he better lead the tribe, deal with stronger low-tier water beasts, and also entrust the mission to others with more confidence.

This is not difficult for Gaode Maps.

Given the size of the Northern Territory, it could easily provide for ten more high-level blood food, let alone the high-level blood food needed to feed one Yuanzi.

After carefully storing the water lotus root, Gao De returned to the shore and retrieved all the blood food he had brought from the Northern Territory, distributing it to Yuanzi.

Because he hadn't anticipated this situation, he didn't bring much blood food.

However, it's not a big problem. Gao De was just about to return to the North to "go into seclusion" after completing his current task.

When the time comes, we can simply have the cargo ships that travel between the Plantagenet Dynasty and the Northern Territory transport a large quantity of blood food over.

After Yuanzi had eaten and drunk her fill, he thought for a moment and decided to bring Yuanzi's tribe along on this mission.

On the one hand, it's because the task that Gaode took on this time was to eliminate the water monsters, and every additional dolphin means more strength.

On the other hand, he was about to return to the North, and for more than two months.

Having just subdued Yuanzi and then been away for such a long time, even capybaras, which are known for their docile nature, are bound to become wild.

Doing a task together can save time and also help build rapport and understanding—a win-win situation.

The mission that Gaode accepted this time was located within the territory of Dorne City.

The quest comes from a small town called Zekou, near Dorne.

This is a small place nestled along a winding river, where people make a living by fishing and drying seafood.

Recently, the townspeople have been attacked while hauling in their nets, resulting in seven deaths, four serious injuries, and even two fishing boats being dragged into deep water, with only a few pieces of driftwood drifting back.

The survivors' descriptions were limited to vague features such as "green scales, a mouth like a crocodile, and a tail that could smash wood."

Based on the reported information, the description of the residual poison in the victim's wounds, and the scale of the damage, the sea sentinels concluded that the water beast should be a second-tier swamp crocodile.

This is a common aquatic creature in the waters of Dorne, which feeds on ambushing small and medium-sized creatures.

Adult individuals can reach a length of five meters, and their scales can easily withstand first-level spell attacks.

The force of its tail strikes is enough to shatter ordinary oak planks, but the most dangerous part is its "venomous bite" from its jaws.

Since the mission location was in Dorne, there was no need to take an airship; Goddard went directly by boat.

Meanwhile, Yuanzi led her entire tribe and the dumplings, following behind the ship like a nimble escort, cutting through the ripples at the stern. Their backs traced silver streaks in the sunlight, like a string of moving floating islands.

There are seventeen juvenile capybaras in Yuanzi's group. With Yuanzi and Tuanzi added, that makes nineteen capybaras.

Upon arriving in Zekou Town, Gao De led the capybara herd to conduct a search and investigation, focusing on the location where the residents of Zekou Town were attacked.

Under normal circumstances, this search will take about a week to yield results, and that's only if the sea sentinel mage is quite experienced.

If you don't know enough about the habits of aquatic animals, your observation skills aren't sharp enough, and you're unlucky, it's normal to spend more than half a month.

With the help of the nineteen capybaras, Gao De was confident that he should be able to make progress within two or three days.

He himself never expected that Yuanzi would catch the culprit that very afternoon.

After receiving a signal from Yuanzi, Gaode activated his Mandora's Eye and indeed discovered an unusual disturbance in the water flow beneath the reeds in the distance, as well as a shadow more than four meters long.

The shadow was moving slowly, and the surrounding water was slightly disturbed by the friction of the scales.

"Gather the tribe and prepare to attack," Gao De ordered Yuanzi, but instead of stepping forward, he remained in a spectator's posture.

This was the decision he made on his way here:
Although Yuanzi is a second-tier character, she hadn't experienced much combat under the protection of her father, who was the leader, and the young pigs were even less of a threat.

On the contrary, the youngest one, Tuanzi, had the most combat experience because he had been with him for a while.

Combat is a skill that can only be mastered through real combat.

Since he intends to entrust the basic tasks of the sea sentinels to them in the future, he must now spend some time and effort training their combat skills.

Otherwise, simply dumping tasks on them would be extremely irresponsible.

This second-tier swamp crocodile is an excellent training subject for actual combat.

The second-tier beings are powerful enough to put pressure and danger on them, thus honing their combat skills.

However, this strength is still within Gao De's control, and he is confident that he can take control of the situation and prevent the capybaras from dying in the event of a crisis.

Yuanzi clearly had no experience with "commanding a battle" and stood in the water somewhat at a loss, her fins swaying gently, her eyes occasionally glancing at Gaode, as if seeking instructions.

Seeing this, Tuanzi immediately swam to Yuanzi's side, rubbed her neck with its head, and then bared its teeth in the direction of the swamp crocodile, making a few short "chirp" sounds, as if to encourage her.

When Gao De saw this, he couldn't help but sigh that Tuanzi was such a good child.

He had clearly just been beaten up by Yuanzi not long ago.
Perhaps it was Tuanzi's certainty that gave Yuanzi confidence. She took a deep breath, and the hesitation in her round eyes gradually faded away. She slowly raised her head.

The battle began with a low cry from Yuanzi.

Seventeen juvenile dolphins launched the first attack. Instead of approaching rashly, they spread out in a fan shape and swam quickly around the swamp crocodile, stirring up the water with their bodies to interfere with its vision and judgment. At the same time, they controlled the water flow to form water cannons to restrict its movement.

This is the tactic devised by Yuanzi.

The first-tier baby pig has limited attack power and lacks experience, so it is suitable for support. The main attackers are the second-tier her and the bold dumpling.

Enraged, the swamp crocodile lashed out with its tail, attempting to swat away the approaching baby dolphin, but by then, Tuanzi and Yuanzi had already charged forward.

Dumpling draws the attention of the swamp crocodile from the left, deliberately creating an opening to provoke it into opening its mouth and biting; Dumpling then seizes the opportunity to launch an attack from the right.
Although the battle was somewhat complicated, several young dolphins were injured when they were hit by the tails of the swamp crocodiles due to their lack of experience, but fortunately their injuries were not serious.

While dodging the venomous spit, Yuanzi was scratched on the back by the claws of the swamp crocodile, and blood stained the area.

But each setback only made the capybaras' teamwork more and more seamless.

The juvenile piglets have learned to anticipate the attack trajectory of the swamp crocodile, and the offensive and defensive coordination between Yuanzi and Tuanzi is becoming increasingly smooth.

Finally, Tuanzi seized the opportunity and bit the swamp crocodile's tail, restricting its movement.

Yuanzi then took the opportunity to circle around to the back of the swamp crocodile's neck and used her sharp teeth to bite through its artery.

As a gushing stream of blood spurted out, the swamp crocodile's body convulsed violently a few times before finally becoming powerless to struggle. Its massive body, like a puppet with its strings cut, slowly sank into the water.

"Well done!" Gao De praised generously, and ordered the capybaras to drag the swamp crocodile carcass to the shore.

He first had the capybaras that had been injured in the battle line up. The three young capybaras and Yuanzi were all wounded. He cast a healing spell on each of them and distributed gem berries.

With this two-pronged approach, the wounds of these injured capybaras healed at a visible speed, and they unconsciously became more affectionate towards Gaode, rubbing their little heads against Gaode's palm.

After finishing his work, Gao De finally came to the body of the swamp crocodile.

He first cut open the jaw of the swamp crocodile and removed the dark green venom sac inside, and then peeled off the entire scales on its back.

The former is the mission certificate, and the latter is its most valuable extraordinary material.

After dealing with these matters, Gao De's gaze fell upon the massive body of the swamp crocodile.

With such a large size, and being a second-tier aquatic beast, it is perfect as prey for the capybara tribe, helping them to improve their strength.

A faint gray-black light emanated from Gao De's fingertips as he cast a spell.

The moment the spell was activated, a gray-black light enveloped the swamp crocodile's corpse like mist.

Within the light, countless tiny energy threads moved rapidly, like sharp blades, precisely cutting through the flesh along the muscle texture of the swamp crocodile.

There was no bloody scene, nor any ear-piercing cutting sound. The muscles and fat of the swamp crocodile seemed to be peeled away by an invisible force, slowly separating from the bones and automatically gathering into neat chunks of meat.

After the light faded, only a clean and intact skeleton of a swamp crocodile remained on the beach:

The bones are pure white, the joints are intact, and even the tiny finger bones are clearly visible, as if they have been carefully cleaned and polished, with no trace of flesh or fascia remaining.

[Decompose Corpses] (Necromancer, First Ring):

Through this spell, the caster can rapidly dissect the flesh of a corpse, whether it is enormous or smaller, leaving behind a perfectly clean skeleton.

This spell was originally used by necromancers to obtain perfect skeletons, which were then used to summon skeleton warriors or create necromancer items.

But Gao De uses it as a gathering technique, saving him the trouble and effort of manually cutting meat into pieces and avoiding waste.

“These are all yours,” Gao De said to Yuanzi and Tuanzi, pointing to the pile of crocodile meat.

Yuanzi immediately let out a cheerful chirp, while Tuanzi, who had seen the world, was noticeably calm.

The mission was completed easily. Gao De did not linger in Zekou Town. He immediately sailed back to Dorne City, submitted the mission at the White Tower of the Abyss, and updated his latest "attendance" time.

After submitting the task, Gaode went straight to the Walmart Magic Materials Store and activated the astral teleportation he had prepared beforehand.

Colorful astral energy emerged, forming a portal.

Gaode strode into it.

Return to the North!

(End of this chapter)