The robot paced back and forth before them with its hands behind its back. “This was a perilous battle that dragged on for over a decade. Countless comrades of mine set foot into that unknown Savage Lands. By the time we found them again, they had forgotten everything.”
“Two rookies! Are you prepared?” the robot asked Tao Fangyi in a lowered voice.
This robot could see Wang?
Tao Fangyi was stunned. “Are you a Senior?”
“Of course I am your Senior.” The robot’s voice was especially deep, truly like a veteran weathered by many storms.
“But why would this Mission Target send so many reserves to carry out the mission?” Tao Fangyi was puzzled.
“Because this mission is extremely dangerous!” The robot raised both hands high. “There’s more than just me here!”
Before Tao Fangyi could figure it out, the toy box in the corner rustled and stirred, and the toys inside began crawling out again.
Unprepared, Tao Fangyi was nearly knocked over by their sudden movement.
“Hey!” Wang caught Tao Fangyi, frowning in reproach at those toys.
The toys burst out laughing.
The robot that had crawled out first laughed twice. “Soldier, you can’t let us scare you.”
“They’re definitely not from the Nineteenth Level,” Wang said.
“Why?” Tao Fangyi was confused.
“It’s obvious. Who in the Nineteenth Level calls their colleagues ‘soldier’?” Wang told Tao Fangyi.
Tao Fangyi gripped the edge of the toy box, jumped down, and rolled once across the floor.
He still hadn’t gotten used to balancing with an extra tail.
“You don’t look particularly formidable.” The robot sized Tao Fangyi up and down.
Then the robot looked at Wang. “This recruit is formidable. He’s even more powerful than our master, Liu Xuanyong.”
“Who’s Liu Xuanyong?” Wang asked Tao Fangyi.
“Oh, he’s my new Mission Target.” Tao Fangyi knew Wang had never looked into the other party’s information. “The reincarnation of that blade.”
“That little flat-headed catfish?” Wang understood.
“Don’t be so harsh!” Tao Fangyi ran over to Wang, wanting to pat him, but his forelimbs were too short.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex’s large head got in the way of his patting motion.
Tao Fangyi tilted his head up and tried to reach Wang with his front claws, but failed; he couldn’t lift his head high enough.
Then Tao Fangyi turned his body sideways, attempting to touch Wang.
But Wang took a small step in the opposite direction, rendering all of Tao Fangyi’s efforts useless.
Tao Fangyi: …
He looked up at Wang’s face.
Wang’s lips curled upward uncontrollably, as if waiting for Tao Fangyi’s next move.
Tao Fangyi did a Tyrannosaurus tail swing, lashing his tail against Wang’s ankle.
Now that Tao Fangyi was made of plastic, his tail had some heft and actually stung quite a bit when it hit someone.
“Soldiers! No fighting!” The robot raised its hand and waved it twice.
“I’m not a toy.” Wang crouched down to look at the little toy.
“Then what are you?” The robot took a step back. It already found Wang terrifying to look at, and seeing his face up close felt even more horrifying.
“I’m a Fierce Ghost who died a miserable death,” Wang said.
The toys all stared at Wang, showing no reaction.
Wang suddenly stretched his mouth to its widest, and a low roar rumbled from his throat. “Roar!!”
The toys: …
“Ahhhh!!!!”
“Ah! A ghost! There’s a ghost!!”
“I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!”
“Help! I just knew there were ghosts in this world! Mom and Dad lied to me!”
Mom and Dad?
Tao Fangyi was a bit confused, but before he could react, these toys had all hidden behind him.
“Don’t be too scared.” Tao Fangyi comforted the toys. “I am this child’s guardian.”
“What does ‘guardian’ mean?” the robot asked.
“It means I have the responsibility to supervise and protect his legal rights,” Tao Fangyi explained.
The robot still didn’t understand.
Tao Fangyi could only put it in less precise terms. “I’m his father, just not by blood.”
The toys collectively gasped, “Whoa!”
“You’re the Fierce Ghost’s dad? Are you a Fierce Ghost?” a plastic Triceratops asked him.
“No, I’m a doll,” Tao Fangyi said.
“But a doll can be a Fierce Ghost’s dad!” An excavator exclaimed. After exclaiming, he asked Wang if he could be Wang’s mom.
After all, the dad position was already taken.
“Do you want to be tortured to death?” Wang said flatly.
The excavator wailed loudly.
“Wang! Don’t scare him!” Tao Fangyi gestured with his stubby little hands, pretending he had patted Wang.
“They really aren’t Seniors from the Nineteenth Level, but why are they ‘alive’?” Tao Fangyi was puzzled. He examined the toys’ bodies but found they had no cultivation either.
“Maybe they’re under the influence of some other Magical Artifact.” Wang recalled the Savage Lands the robot had mentioned.
It seemed these toys couldn’t set foot in the “Savage Lands,” or they would lose all their memories.
Wang asked the robot where the Savage Lands were.
The robot trembled and didn’t answer Wang.
Wang: “If you don’t speak, I’ll eat you.” He opened his mouth, revealing terrifying fangs.
The robot let out a kettle-boiling screech that completely clashed with its deep voice, then hurriedly explained the whole story to Wang.
“That is a Death Gate.” The robot pointed at the door to the toy room. “Once we cross it, we lose consciousness.”
“Countless comrades were taken by our master Liu Xuanyong to carry out missions, but we are nowhere near as powerful as our master. When our warriors return, they always forget everything.” The robot acted deeply solemn.
Tao Fangyi understood. “So there’s something wrong with this toy room.”
The so-called missions were likely just the toys’ delusions; in reality, Liu Xuanyong simply brought his toys out of the toy room.
The robot walked up to Tao Fangyi and tried to take his stubby little hand.
But the robot’s hand was too bulky, had no fingers, like a pincer, and was not at all dextrous.
The robot tried several times without success.
Finally, the robot wanted to hold Tao Fangyi’s face, but with a huge round shell for a head, its hand couldn’t reach that high.
“You are able to be the father of a Fierce Ghost; you are stronger than all of us.” The robot simply gave up on touching Tao Fangyi.
Originally, the robot also wanted to pick up Tao Fangyi’s big tail, but Tao Fangyi dodged.
Clearly, casually touching the tail was somewhat inappropriate for Tao Fangyi.
“I’ve decided to make you our boss,” the robot said.
Tao Fangyi: “Huh?”
“No, no, no, I can’t accept this.” Tao Fangyi repeatedly waved his hands in refusal. He had been someone else’s boss when he was young and naive, but now this was far too embarrassing for him.
“Don’t refuse; you are our boss!” The robot declared loudly, then turned to the other toys and shouted, “From now on, the Tyrannosaurus Rex is our boss!”
“But former boss.” A palm-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex raised its front claw. “I’m also a Tyrannosaurus Rex. How should I distinguish myself from the boss?”
Wang chimed in: “His name is Tao Fangyi.”
“Just call him Tao Fangyi!” the robot seconded.
“Wang!!” Tao Fangyi slapped the ground hard with his tail.
He didn’t want to be any boss, but these toys had already started calling him by name.
“Boss Tao Fangyi is angry!”
“Why is Boss Tao Fangyi angry?”
“How do you write the characters for Tao Fangyi?”
“How many characters have you learned so far?”
“I’ve learned all the first-grade characters!”
Tao Fangyi poked his forelimbs together anxiously. “I can’t be the boss.”
“Is it because you don’t have a military rank?” The robot thought it understood Tao Fangyi. “No problem, now you are the Commander-in-Chief!”
The toys exclaimed in unison: “Whoa! Commander-in-Chief!”
“No, no, no! It’s not about military ranks!” Tao Fangyi felt even more embarrassed.
“Commander-in-Chief.” Wang crouched down and poked Tao Fangyi. “Try speaking with your real voice.”
Tao Fangyi subconsciously did as Wang said. “What’s wrong with my real voice?”
The moment Tao Fangyi’s resonant baritone voice emerged, the toys let out a collective gasp.
“That’s the Commander-in-Chief’s voice!” the Stegosaurus declared loudly.
Wang burst out laughing, “Hahaha.”
The cultural level of this bunch of toys was clearly influenced by their master; they were likely born from Liu Xuanyong’s imagination.
But this probably had little to do with Liu Xuanyong’s True Form from several lifetimes ago, since these toys lost their “life” once they left this room.
There had to be something extraordinary in this room, but Wang couldn’t sense it.
Tao Fangyi couldn’t sense it either; he was still completely baffled.
“We need a Commander!” The robot continued to persuade Tao Fangyi. “We need a Commander to defend us from foreign enemies!”
Foreign enemies? What foreign enemies?
The robot told Tao Fangyi a story.
Originally, the sole purpose of these toys was to explore the Savage Lands; they wanted to know why the Savage Lands caused them such great harm.
But suddenly one day, their tiny territory was encroached upon.
There were two tall, strong giants, and their master called those two giants “Older Male Cousin” and “Older Female Cousin”
It was said that those two giants had come to stay long before their master had even gained consciousness, and their belongings had been stored in the toy room by their master’s father and mother.
“Right there!” The robot pointed to a high shelf, and on that shelf were two large plastic boxes.
The moment the robot pointed at the shelf, the two plastic boxes began to tremble.
Then with a snap, the latches of the boxes flew open.
Two palm-sized, semi-transparent figures gradually emerged.
The figures became more and more solid, eventually turning into a man and a woman in Human Form.
“They’re not toys, are they?” Was there such a high-end toy in the world?
Wang tilted his head.
The man and woman climbed out of their respective boxes.
The woman had colorful hair, eyes that took up almost half her face, and was surrounded by sparkling star-burst effects.
The woman held a feather fan; as she jumped down, she covered half her face with it. She had an exaggerated long curly hairstyle and wore an extravagant hat.
The man was fat and short, his face covered in acne, with a prominent hook nose, a slicked-back middle part, and small round sunglasses perched on his nose.
“Commander-in-Chief, don’t worry. These two are traitors from their faction,” the robot reassured Tao Fangyi.
Tao Fangyi was a bit confused.
The man and woman walked up to Tao Fangyi.
“Commander-in-Chief?” The woman scrutinized Tao Fangyi up and down. Her eyes, like car headlights, were so exaggerated that Tao Fangyi couldn’t help but step back.
Then the woman snapped her fan shut with a pop. “My name is Sophia.”
“A foreigner?” Tao Fangyi blinked.
“No, she looks more like an alien.” Wang had never seen such exaggerated headlight eyes before, and the amount of color on Lady Sophia was so over the top, like a peacock.
“I am a Ten-Nation Mixed-Blood, the heiress of the world’s second largest enterprise.” Sophia lifted her head. “And I am the fiancée of Huangfu Yuan, heir to the world’s largest business empire.”
Tao Fangyi didn’t understand. He clenched his front claws and looked at Wang for help.
He was a bit slow; these terms were all too trendy for him.
Wang covered his mouth and couldn’t help but let out a hiss.
Before they could ask anything, Sophia spoke again: “If it weren’t for that penniless commoner, how would I have been forced to this point and have to cooperate with you?” She continued sizing Tao Fangyi up.
“Ah!” Wang clapped his forehead in delight.
Then Wang sent a Sound Transmission to Tao Fangyi: 【She’s the evil supporting female character! Such a textbook evil supporting female character!】
On the other side of the shelf, a row of figures appeared.
At the front, the most square-jawed one, was a man.
The man wore a suit, with even more exaggerated star-burst effects around him than Sophia, and a large backdrop of rose special effects behind him.
The man’s eyebrows were thick, his eyes somewhat narrow and long, and his lips extremely full.
The man spoke, his voice also a deep baritone. “Sophia! You actually allied with them to go against Wenwen. I won’t let you succeed.”
Sophia: “Huangfu Yuan! You’ve been deceived by that commoner!”
The man angrily rebuked Sophia. “Shut up! I see my woman clearly! And even without her, I would never marry a venomous person like you!”
Soon, four more men appeared beside him, each with a different style, some with long hair and some short, one even holding a rose in his mouth.
These men also had their own star-burst effects, with various flowers blooming behind them.
Tao Fangyi silently hugged himself with his stubby little claws; he felt so helpless.
Although he was now a piece of plastic, he felt his goosebumps about to rise.
Meanwhile, the short, fat man started fanning Tao Fangyi. While fanning, he asked, “Does Your Excellency the Commander-in-Chief feel unwell? Shall I give you a massage?” When he smiled, his two front teeth were especially prominent, like a big fat rat.
Before Tao Fangyi could answer, he heard a super loud “Hey!”
Tao Fangyi: ?
Hey?
He looked at the box under the shelf; there was also a group of people standing there.
The style below the shelf was completely different from above. The one who had shouted at the short, fat man was a big man with a full beard. “My Big Brother treated you well, and you actually betrayed him?!”
“I spit! He stole my Junior Sister, and says he treated me well?!” The short, fat man’s features nearly crumpled together.
And soon, a bunch of people appeared around the bearded big man.
The men were all oddly shaped, with a few white-bearded old men. The women were basically cast from the same mold, differing only in hair length and clothes color, with figures so perfect they didn’t seem real, and dressed very lightly.
“I think I know which ones are the older male cousin’s fantasies and which ones are the older female cousin’s fantasies.” Wang looked around, then ran off to the side and burst out laughing.
“Don’t argue first; let me figure out what’s going on.” Tao Fangyi had a bit of a headache.
But these toys and that bunch of fantasy creatures wouldn’t listen to him.
The several overbearing CEOs and campus idols began attacking the toys for being bizarrely shaped, and the bunch of burly “men” also called the toys barbarians and Demonic Beasts.
The toys directly started arguing with the two groups.
Tao Fangyi was caught in the middle trying to mediate several times, but none of the three sides stopped.
Even the two groups of fantasy creatures attacked his Tyrannosaurus Rex appearance.
And when the toys heard these two groups of invaders attacking their Commander-in-Chief, they angrily rushed forward to beat them up.
Seeing the situation getting more and more chaotic, Tao Fangyi gently patted the gleeful Wang with his tail.
Wang looked down at Tao Fangyi.
“Scare them a bit,” Tao Fangyi said. “Use your most terrifying form to scare them.”
Wang: “Are you sure?”
Tao Fangyi nodded.
So Wang’s throat let out a crackling sound, the crackling slowly turning dull, like cutting into flesh.
The arguing slowly quieted down, and everyone looked toward Wang’s direction.
By now, black Ghostly Aura had spread throughout the whole room, nearly swallowing all light.
Wang’s bandages fell to the ground and began slowly crawling and wriggling. His mouth also widened, and blood mixed with unknown liquid dripped from his body.
The toys stood still for a moment, then burst out crying with a “Wah!”
Right after, the glittering fantasy group also cried.
The martial world fantasies cried too.
Everyone cried.
Wang retracted his state, spreading his hands.
It was time for Tao Fangyi to calm them down. “Alright, now everyone has calmed down.”
The fantasy creatures continued wailing loudly.
Tao Fangyi: …
Tao Fangyi: “Can you calm down?”
They cried even louder.
Wang covered his ears. “Cry again, and I’ll tear you apart.”
They immediately lowered their voices, beginning to sob, occasionally letting out a cracked sound.
Wang fiercely pointed at Tao Fangyi and said to the fantasy creatures: “Whoever among you just insulted our Commander-in-Chief, come over and apologize!”
Tao Fangyi: “Don’t get so into character!” Why did Wang naturally blend into this game?
