Shen Xingyan's thoughts continued to swirl in his head: if the little skeletons were going to continue losing health like this, did that mean his loyal assistant, Wangcai, would also soon leave him? This thought caused him genuine horror—such an outcome was completely unacceptable to him.
In the time they had spent together, Shen Xingyan had long since come to see Wangcai as a real person. This was noticeable from the fact that he had even bought him a hat—his attitude toward Wangcai was significantly different from his attitude toward the other skeletons.
Realizing that his anxiety was preventing him from thinking clearly, Shen Xingyan cast aside the grim thoughts and forced himself to calm down.
After taking a deep breath and coming to his senses, he focused on the main point—he needed to find out the true reason for the skeletons' health loss and find a solution to the problem.
If he could successfully solve this problem, then all this would turn out to be nothing more than a false alarm.
Shen Xingyan carefully inspected his surroundings, trying to understand if any monsters had appeared that were causing this situation.
Earlier, while studying the materials, he had read that when a farmer reached a certain level, monsters would begin to appear and destroy fields. Usually, these monsters were quite weak, and farmers could deal with them on their own.
At the time, Shen Xingyan had decided that with his current level, he wouldn't face such problems yet, so he didn't delve into the topic. But the current situation forced him to consider such a possibility. Given that the fertilizer application task also appeared earlier than the materials had indicated, Shen Xingyan assumed that the information was once again inaccurate.
Perhaps it wasn't a matter of character level, but of seed level. If his Level 2 seeds had attracted some monsters that were damaging the little skeletons, it would be logical—after all, all the skeletons' stats were equal to one, so even the weakest monsters could harm them.
With this thought, Shen Xingyan began to inspect the surroundings, checking his hunch, but after a thorough search, he found no traces of any monsters.
The absence of monsters meant that his assumption was wrong, and this caused Shen Xingyan to frown even more deeply.
"If the reason isn't monsters, and I don't see anything around that could be threatening the skeletons, then the reason must be with the skeletons themselves," he thought.
At that moment, a thought came to Shen Xingyan's mind, and his heart sank.
"What if the skeletons' time here is coming to an end, and they are disappearing in this way—through a gradual loss of health?" This thought made his heart tighten with pain.
If the reason were external, he could find a way to prevent it. Even if it were monsters, he could spend money to buy a safe haven in the Star Source store, where the skeletons could hide when danger appeared.
But if his assumption was correct, there was nothing he could do, no matter how hard he tried.
Those incredible surprises that his skeleton summoning skill had brought him had filled him with confidence and ambition for a long time. But if it was now time to say goodbye, all of it would turn out to be just a beautiful fantasy from which it was time to wake up.
This thought made Shen Xingyan fall into dejection. He stopped paying attention to the field care tasks and slowly walked up to Wangcai, gently stroking his little skull, feeling overcome with sadness.
Seeing the "-1" indicator appear over Wangcai's head again, Shen Xingyan felt the pain of his friend's impending loss.
Overcome with sorrow, he slowly opened Wangcai's stats panel to take another look at him:
Name: Wangcai (can be changed) Master: Shen Xingyan Race: Undead Skill: Berserk (hidden skill, not displayed in a normal state) Strength: 2 points (temporary) Agility: 2 points (temporary) Constitution: 2 points (temporary) Spirit: 2 points (temporary) Health: 18/20 points (temporary) (recovers 1 point every 10 hours) Physical Attack: 2 points (temporary) Magic Attack: 2 points (temporary) Defense: 2 points (temporary) Speed: 2 points (temporary) Note: Can perform various combat actions as instructed by the summoner. Status: Berserk Mode (consumes 1 health point per minute, increases all stats by 1 point, stops when minimal health value is reached, 4-hour cooldown)
Shen Xingyan, who was ready to cry from grief, saw Wangcai's stats, suddenly lifted his head, and froze in place.
Wiping his eyes and carefully rereading the description on Wangcai's stats panel, he felt his mood, which had just plummeted to rock bottom, rocket toward the heavens.
His gloomy mood was instantly illuminated by sunlight and became unusually beautiful!
"You little rascal! You scared me to death, you know that? When did you get a hidden skill? I didn't even tell you to work at full capacity, and you used it anyway!"
Shen Xingyan, laughing and scolding at the same time, wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. At that moment, he wasn't thinking about anything else—he hugged the little skeleton and began to shake it, unable to contain his joy.
Wangcai looked sweetly at his "insane" master, his small skull seeming not to fully understand the meaning of these actions.
Shen Xingyan continued to express his delight until a "-2" indicator appeared above Wangcai's head, which made him stop in fright.
"Danger, danger! I almost finished you off from sheer joy!" Shen Xingyan released Wangcai and hastily stepped back, patting his chest with relief. The loss of two health points had truly scared him.
After this small incident, Shen Xingyan remembered his strange actions and realized that this was a perfect example of a person scaring himself.
Fortunately, there were no outsiders here, otherwise, he would have wanted to sink into the ground from shame—it was so awkward!
"I wasn't just worried; I literally went insane! How could I have made up so much stuff? I should have checked Wangcai's stats right away, and this awkward situation wouldn't have happened!"
At this thought, Shen Xingyan felt such shame that he wanted to sink into the ground. He returned to his work, trying to distract himself from the embarrassment with farming tasks.
Only after some time did his flushed face return to its normal color.