Chapter 362: Red Pterodactyl Elder's Free Flight Ticket
The duration of this Armored Warrior instance was around the average median, so by this time, about half of the players had returned, whether they completed it or evacuated. Thus, the player market was quite lively.
Cheng Tian casually put on a Kamen Rider V3 helmet, not even bothering to disguise his physique, and appeared directly in the market, observing everything as he strolled around.
Most of the vendors here were individual sellers. What they sold today completely depended on what they obtained and what they swapped out in the last instance, with no regularity. Naturally, it was difficult to form integrated groups like "Cat and Dog Markets" or "Flower, Bird, Fish, and Insect Markets." If you wanted to find something, you could only diligently browse every stall.
This was something Cheng Tian actually quite enjoyed doing.
When he played World of Warcraft, he would often go to the auction house for no reason, pulling up lists to check prices. This satisfied his desire to look at different instance items and also allowed him to actively understand prices and market conditions.
There were countless people like him, as there was always a possibility of finding a bargain, especially since Heaven's Chosen Space constantly had new players joining.
However, before he started browsing, Cheng Tian already had some preset targets in mind.
Cheng Tian was 100% sure that as long as the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs instance was opened, he would definitely be able to get a Triceratops, and possibly even a "five-star" mutated unit.
Brontosaurus or Brachiosaurus were also units present in the original game's flow; they were those large-footed creatures that stomped on players. Even if he couldn't find a live one, he would definitely find a corpse.
Only the Saber-toothed Tiger was relatively difficult to find.
Cheng Tian had deliberately searched, and there were actually quite a few in-game units related to Saber-toothed Tigers.
For example, the Saber-toothed Tiger from ARK: Survival Evolved and the Swift Zulian Tiger from World of Warcraft should be the individuals closest to the actual Saber-toothed Tiger in terms of tags, requiring almost no additional modification.
As for other individuals whose origins involved Saber-toothed Tigers, things were a bit more subtle.
For instance, Pokémon's Sneasler, Monster Hunter's Barioth, and Digimon's SaberLeomon.
They clearly no longer belonged to the category of "tiger," retaining only the "saber-toothed" attribute, which was quite far from Cheng Tian's needs... Of course, including them, especially SaberLeomon, in the scope of consideration was a bit of wishful thinking.
Considering everything, it really was the ARK Saber-toothed Tiger that wasn't rare and was most likely to be acquired by more players.
Facts proved that Cheng Tian's analysis was very accurate. After a round of browsing, he indeed saw more than one vendor selling Saber-toothed Tiger reins.
And no matter how eloquently they spoke, they couldn't hide a very serious fundamental problem—
That is, the ARK Saber-toothed Tiger was too weak!
It was so weak that Cheng Tian couldn't help but frown when he saw its attributes.
Agility was in the low 20s, strength was around 20, and the strength-to-health ratio was very poor. Mental attributes were not even worth hoping for, and its inherent biological trait was basically just "accelerated bleeding," making it quite an inferior unit.
Of course, Cheng Tian immediately began to reflect after realizing his emerging emotions. He had unconsciously compared this ordinary Saber-toothed Tiger to his war elephants, Mammoth, original Pterodactyl, and Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex, which was quite unfair to this unremarkable, inferior tiger.
However, with his combat mounts all being of such strength, acquiring an overly ordinary Saber-toothed Tiger made Cheng Tian feel a very instinctive resistance.
Most importantly, a combat mount was different from a vehicle; it was a living creature, not a collectible. Cheng Tian was not the kind of irresponsible owner who would completely neglect it. Once he bought it, he would definitely take full responsibility. But the act of purchasing it with a discriminatory mindset itself was something Cheng Tian couldn't overcome, which made him very conflicted about whether to secure one for now.
But while he was in a state of indecision, Cheng Tian saw such an item at a nearby stall—
"Red Pterodactyl Elder's Free Flight Ticket."
"Red Pterodactyl Elder's Free Flight Ticket: Consumable, special item. A voucher personally issued by the Red Pterodactyl Elder. With it, the Red Pterodactyl Elder will give you a free ride.
After use in an instance, the Red Pterodactyl Elder will appear out of thin air and carry you to your desired area. This action can skip certain areas and BOSS units that must be cleared in the process.
Depending on the instance's difficulty, the span of areas that can be flown over will vary. The lower the instance difficulty, the greater the area span; the higher the instance difficulty, the smaller the area span.
Note that this action may also lead to the forced interruption of the main quest due to the lack of critical BOSS drops. At that time, you may need to find and trigger a new quest yourself, or find a way to return to the original path to resume the main quest.
If the original main quest is not resumed or a new main quest is not triggered within a certain period, you will be forced into the evacuation phase."
"Detected that you have a save related to the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs spin-off independent instance, "Adventurer's Dinosaur New World"—
"Detected that you maintain a good personal reputation with the "Purple Dragon Elder" in this instance—
"Detected that you have 1 permission to unconditionally replace the main instance with "Adventurer's Dinosaur New World"—
"When you use the "Red Pterodactyl Elder's Free Flight Ticket" in the Space, this item will trigger a special effect—
You can directly open the "Adventurer's Dinosaur New World" extra instance during your stay in the Space. This operation will not occupy your original monthly trial main instance."
Cheng Tian's eyes widened slightly upon seeing this series of prompts, but he immediately suppressed his reaction.
In the Adventure Island 3 instance, the Purple Dragon Elder was responsible for guarding dragon eggs and distributing them to players who found him, while the Red Pterodactyl Elder was responsible for transporting players who found him to other areas, which was commonly known as skipping levels.
And this item could actually modify his main instance access, which clearly gave Cheng Tian some conjectures. The stall owner opposite happened to be there, so he chose to pump him for information.
When he heard the other party use the excuse of "protecting the Red Pterodactyl Elder while being chased by a fire-breathing Tyrannosaurus Rex" to increase the item's selling price, Cheng Tian was basically certain that this stall owner was one of the players from the Dinosaur Protection Association in the same mission at that time.
It seemed that after being sprayed by the Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex itself, they also had their own serendipitous encounters; at least, this Red Pterodactyl Elder's Free Flight Ticket was a genuine item.
With a plan in mind, Cheng Tian no longer hesitated and decisively spent two W to acquire this flight ticket, which actually had a rather subtle use.
After obtaining it, Cheng Tian temporarily set aside the Saber-toothed Tiger issue and instead directly called Bazett to go to Makaimura to start stocking up.