As long as they could level up in the game, that was all that mattered!
Morris Chow was thoroughly satisfied.
He already had a few ideas regarding his Hunter pets in the real world.
There were plenty of amazing animals in the real world.
Since he could bring them into the game to level up, he might as well bring a full set right off the bat!
Luckily, a Warlock’s summoned minions used Soulstones and didn’t need leveling, which saved him a lot of trouble.
After thinking it over for a long time, Morris decided to get a few ordinary real-world pets.
For felines, he already had Mimi.
He ruled out bears and gorillas—they were too hard to get his hands on.
He could get a dog, though.
Sticking to his old preference, he decided on a local Chinese village dog—it felt familiar and nostalgic!
As for birds, after some thought, he decided on two: a peregrine falcon for speed, and an owl for its night vision advantage.
He passed on bats; real-world bats struck him as a bit gross.
Turtles existed in the real world too.
After browsing species, a sea turtle seemed like a solid choice.
For fresh water, an alligator was a great option.
Counting it all up, out of eight active pet slots, that left only two open.
Morris pondered for a moment and decided to find a companion of the same species for each pet—one male and one female to make balanced pairs.
After all, his total pet inventory slots were twice his active pet count, giving him sixteen available pet slots in total.
Although unlocking additional pet slots would get expensive in terms of gold later on, he had already unlocked five extra slots.
Twelve pets—eight active and four stashed in reserve—would be more than enough for now.
Unlocking the fifth pet slot cost a whole 1,000 gold.
Luckily, the price plateaued after that, though unlocking the rest would still be no easy feat.
Even so, unlocking every last pet slot would require over 10,000 gold.
It definitely wasn’t cheap.
Having made his decision, Morris took action immediately.
Right after lunch, he dragged Daisy and Jessica along to hunt for suitable pets.
After visiting a slew of pet stores, they actually managed to source a pair for every single pet type.
The toughest turned out to be the most unassuming: the native Chinese village dogs, also known as Chinese Rural Dogs.
The pair of puppies didn’t come cheap, either.
As for the alligators, he actually managed to find two Yangtze alligators!
Call it a stroke of luck—using his Hunter skill [Track Beasts], he accidentally spotted two small Yangtze alligators kept in a tank in the back kitchen of a high-end restaurant.
As for how he acquired them, best not to dwell on the details.
After all, what Morris did—and what the high-end restaurant was doing—was illegal on both ends!
He pulled off the job after dark anyway, and with Morris’s current strength, it wasn’t particularly difficult.
Some might mock that a Yangtze alligator couldn’t even beat a domestic goose, so what good could it be?
Morris wasn’t worried in the slightest.
Once he leveled it up to level 70 in the game, let’s see which goose dared to pick a fight with it!
However, it wasn’t time to power-level them just yet.
After a half-day of feeding, even the two Chinese Rural Dogs—the ones with the highest initial affinity—had only reached Level 3 Loyalty.
The others were even lower, a long way off from maxing out!
Based on the game’s mechanics, it would take at least a day or two of feeding and bonding in the real world to raise the little critters’ affinity to maximum.
Time flies when you’re busy.
In less than a week, all twelve of Morris’s pets had reached max affinity.
On the surface, these real-world pets preparing to enter the game looked completely unchanged after reaching max affinity.
However, the moment Morris switched their status from Follow Mode to Guard Mode, their appearance shifted into Battle Form.
In this form, their body sizes ballooned into full-grown adult beasts from the game!
Big Mi (the second cat) and Mimi transformed into “big cats” over half a person tall and two meters long, looking terrifyingly ferocious.
Wangcai and Laifu grew even larger; even a wild tiger would think twice before tangling with them.
The sea turtles underwent an even more dramatic transformation, expanding from palm-sized hatchlings to the size of small yachts—standing ten people on their shells would be a breeze.
The enlarged Yangtze alligators stretched a whopping four to five meters long, absurdly massive.
The peregrine falcon’s change was relatively modest, looking like a large eagle at most.
The owl, however, was mind-blowing: its wingspan reached over seven meters, rivaling the largest prehistoric birds in recorded Earth history.
First, he nailed down the deal schedules for both factions, naturally aiming to maximize profits from his upcoming move.
Second, using stealth-capable Mimi, he observed Tanaka’s frequently used passcodes—especially the one for the private safe at his house.
Ever since Mimi learned stealth, whenever she wasn’t in the game, Morris dispatched her there on surveillance duty.
Fortunately, Tanaka used this safe quite often, so Mimi caught the passcode on the very second day.
Having leveled up significantly, Mimi was much smarter now; memorizing a multi-digit passcode was a piece of cake for her.
As for intelligence on The Hand, Morris gathered some information on the side as well.
Currently, The Hand held considerable power around Hell’s Kitchen.
Three of its Five Fingers were right here in New York.
Namely, Madame Gao, Bakuto, and Alexandra!
Madame Gao ran the drug trade; Bakuto handled recruitment, child exploitation, and illicit street operations; while Alexandra managed money laundering and financial affairs.
Alexandra’s role was to legitimize Madame Gao and the other members of The Hand—laundering not just their money, but also their identities.
After all, the major syndicates in Marvel were much like corporate capitalists; high-ranking figures all maintained public guises to some degree.
For instance, the famous underground kingpin of New York, Kingpin, was the chairman of Fisk Tower, a New York councilman, and would even run for mayor of New York in the future.
Madame Gao’s public identity was simple: a board member of a Little Japan multinational corporation.
Bakuto posed as the founder of an independent foundation and a philanthropist.
Their disguises were thoroughly convincing.
During this process, Morris also spotted several characters who appeared in Marvel spin-off shows, such as Luke Cage from *The Defenders* and Colleen Wing, the future girlfriend of Iron Fist.
Of course, it was still early days.
Jessica had just graduated from high school, Luke Cage was merely a bar owner, and Colleen Wing was just a college student enjoying a happy family life with both parents alive and well.
However, through Big Mi’s surveillance over the past few days, Colleen Wing’s parents appeared to have already been set up by someone—and the mastermind behind the scenes was none other than Bakuto of The Hand.
As a side note, Bakuto was close friends with Colleen Wing’s father and served as one of Colleen’s martial arts masters.
As for the underlying motive, Morris didn’t know.
After all, Big Mi couldn’t speak to describe the details.
Morris shared these findings with Daisy and Jessica.
Regarding his plan to target the local syndicate and potentially cross The Hand, the two girls held slightly different attitudes.
Daisy trusted him implicitly and fully supported his actions, adding that her future game development team would need financial backing anyway.
Jessica wasn’t against it, but she acted timidly and strongly insisted that whatever the two of them did, she would absolutely not participate!