King of Beasts

The preliminary rounds for the Beast Taming University’s Freshman Tournament will begin in two days.

Regarding the preliminaries, Lu Ran has no worries.

After all, he doesn’t need to defeat the examiner; he just needs his strength to be recognized.

With the power of Sudden Death King and General Ha, getting through this stage shouldn’t be a problem.

The main event is what Lu Ran needs to focus on.

Currently, the rewards for the Beast Taming University’s Freshman Tournament have been announced.

Besides a large quantity of crystal coins, the resources offered have even caught the eyes of many second-generation and third-generation beastmasters.

First place will receive one million crystal coins and a pet beast egg from the breakthrough secret realm. The species, attribute, and gender of this sovereign species are all unknown!

Second place will receive one million crystal coins and the exquisite-level resource, the ethereal flower.

The ethereal flower is a resource that can grant a pet beast a second attribute, helping it awaken to the Space attribute, which is extremely rare.

Similar to a trait crystal, which can help a pet beast awaken a second, third, or fourth attribute, such special resources only drop in secret realms of abyssal difficulty. Most of these are rare quality special resources, and those that can help awaken powerful attributes like Space are generally exquisite-level resources.

Since awakening a new attribute doesn’t bring any new species talent, only an additional attribute energy, most beastmasters still prefer fusion traits.

However, if compared to rare attributes like Space or Time, beastmasters would undoubtedly choose these attributes without hesitation, making this reward highly enticing.

Third place will receive six hundred thousand crystal coins, an upper commander species young pet beast, and two chances to select a trait crystal or a beast taming skill within a specified range.

Fourth place is similar but offers only one chance to select a trait crystal or a beast taming skill.

From fifth to sixteenth place, each participant will have one chance to select a resource. All these participants will receive a commander species young pet beast, but the species level of the young pet beast will decrease with the ranking, with the lower ranks receiving lower commander species young pet beasts. The amount of crystal coins also decreases progressively.

This selection process is quite sophisticated. At that time, the school will invite strong members from the official strategy team to retrieve the desired traits or beast taming skills for the freshmen.

It’s similar to how Lu Ran asked Gu Qingyi to obtain the Overlord Body trait and the nature control trait. The rewards are very personalized and custom-made.

As for the commander species young pet beasts, they don’t come from secret realms like the first-place reward. With the resurgence of spiritual energy, the world has seen the evolution of many supernatural beings. Just as there can be vast differences in talent between humans, the differences between supernatural beings can be even more pronounced. Some of these beings have become “rare species.”

Even without consuming any resources, simply by being bathed in natural energy and spiritual energy, their species level has reached that of commander species. These rare beings are extremely scarce, and many countries are attempting to capture and tame them.

In this regard, Xia Country has undoubtedly put in a lot of effort and has likely captured numerous commander species supernatural beings. Once these are tamed by professional beast tamers, such exceptionally talented pet beasts will undoubtedly be contracted to promising beastmasters.

Outstanding students at Beast Taming University will have the opportunity to secure these contracts.

These naturally commander species pet beasts are highly coveted by not only Fourth Generation but also second-generation and third-generation beastmasters. After all, a naturally commander species pet beast, with one stage of evolution, would find it hard not to reach the sovereign species level.

Such generous rewards are the reason Gu Qingyi urged Lu Ran not to miss this opportunity.

“The ethereal flower for second place is also very tempting.”

After dining with Fang Lan and her family, Lu Ran left them to have some family time. Although he wasn’t considered an outsider anymore, Lu Ran still wanted to return home and focus on his intensive training.

Like most beastmasters, he didn’t have a strong desire to awaken a second attribute for his pet beasts. He found the myriad of unique traits more interesting, especially now that he had the Flame Sprite, which could directly grant any contracted pet beast fire attribute powers, reducing his need for a second attribute.

However, if the second attribute were something like Time or Space, that would be a different story. For example, awakening the Space attribute for General Ha would be far more valuable than wind attribute sword qi, as Dimensional Slash is much more powerful.

But unfortunately, he could only obtain one of the first or second-place rewards, and he wanted that first-place egg as well.

After all, Dr. Gu had mentioned that it wasn’t an animal species. This made it quite intriguing—could it be a plant life, an elemental life, or some other bizarre life form?

For now, Lu Ran could only comfort himself with this thought. Getting first place would be ideal, but if an unknown formidable opponent appeared and he couldn’t get first place, then the second-place reward would still be acceptable. After all, currently, there are only a few dozen beastmasters worldwide who have Space attribute pet beasts.

Before long, Lu Ran arrived home. After a brief rest, he teleported into the Infinite City.

Upon entering Infinite City, he headed straight to the pillar platform in front of the secret realms and opened the new secret realm panel.

This time, all the previous novice secret realms had disappeared, replaced by level 1 breakthrough secret realms and dozens of level 1 ordinary secret realms.

Names like Corpse Beast Cavern and Dragon Roar Cliff suggested abyssal difficulty and sounded quite daunting.

However, the bosses inside weren’t too bad—they were just upper commander species at level 20. So, Lu Ran thought that with some further training for Sudden Death King and General Ha, and with the help of the divine deer pendant, soloing them was still hopeful.

If the bosses were sovereign species, there would be no chance. But sovereign species bosses wouldn’t appear in level 1 secret realms.

Right now, Lu Ran’s purpose in entering Infinite City wasn’t to clear secret realms. In the short term, grinding secret realms wouldn’t bring much improvement. He wasn’t lacking in trait crystals, crystal coins, or resources. Instead, he opened another special secret realm.

[Would you like to open the training secret realm?]

[Training secret realm activated: 10 crystal coins/day.]

“Yes.” Lu Ran chose the level 1 training secret realm. The cost of the training secret realm was still quite affordable. The novice training secret realm cost 1 crystal coin per day, and the level 1 training secret realm was only 10 crystal coins per day. For Lu Ran, this was a trivial expense.

However, the training secret realm didn’t offer any resources. It was simply a natural environment. If there was any benefit, it was probably the high natural energy content and the ability to self-repair.

This place was evidently designed by Infinite City specifically for beastmasters to conduct intensive training for their pet beasts.

Now, the simplest way to quickly improve Lu Ran’s strength was through basic training.

“Roar!!!”

“Woof!!”

Upon entering the level 1 training secret realm, Lu Ran noticed it was much larger than the novice level, with denser spiritual energy. Besides that, there weren’t many other significant differences.

He took out two contract cards and summoned Sudden Death King and General Ha. The expressions of the two pet beasts were quite different. General Ha was already very familiar with everything in Infinite City, while Sudden Death King, still in its curious phase, looked around inquisitively.

“Sudden Death King, from now on, you’ll be training here.”

“Rather than sending you to a power plant to get electrocuted, let’s start by learning some new skills.”

“Roar!!” Sudden Death King nodded, agreeing. Learning more defensive skills would be good… Its orange-red eyes looked at Lu Ran with anticipation, planning to study that sturdy energy shadow!

That shadow was much thicker than Thunder Armor and should be able to withstand a sword qi strike.

“Not defensive skills! Attack skills!” Lu Ran corrected. “You can focus mainly on training your defensive skills, but you also need to quickly master the basics of energy manipulation, release, flow, and compression.”

“Otherwise, if someone uses long-range techniques to control or knock you back, you won’t be able to retaliate even if you’re getting hit.” Lu Ran subtly hinted at its previous battles with General Ha.

Sudden Death King: QAQ

“Next, I want you to learn the basic Thunder release skill: Discharge, the basic Thunder flow skill: Thunder Flash, and energy compression techniques!”

Discharge was similar to spitting fire, spraying water, or General Ha’s Roar of the Wind. It involved releasing the pet beast’s thunder energy—a simple technique that Sudden Death King had yet to master.

Thunder Flash was akin to Gale, causing the thunder energy covering its body to flow rapidly. This rapid flow made the thunder energy flicker on its body, hence the skill’s name, Thunder Flash.

Mastering this would allow Sudden Death King to shape, repair Thunder Armor, and Thunder Shield more quickly. Additionally, if it had learned this skill earlier, it wouldn’t have been paralyzed for so long when Blizzard Sword Intent froze its body.

As for the energy compression technique, Lu Ran obviously didn’t expect Sudden Death King to enhance its attack power with this move. It didn’t match Sudden Death King’s personality and would affect its training efficiency.

Lu Ran’s idea was for Sudden Death King to learn energy compression and combine it with Thunder Armor, compressing ten times the thunder energy into the armor. This would surely greatly enhance its defense.

Well… if Sudden Death King lost control and the armor exploded, the destructive power would also be significantly increased. But that would be Sudden Death King’s problem. Lu Ran was indeed teaching it a technique to enhance its defense.

By mastering these basic advanced techniques, Sudden Death King’s strength could reach a new level. Unless it encountered a freak like General Ha, who had upgraded all its energy techniques to the second stage, its power at level 20 would be overwhelmingly strong.

While it couldn’t guarantee victory against every opponent, it would at least be invincible.

Of course, the current issue was that Sudden Death King’s comprehension was entirely focused on defensive skills like Thunder Armor and Thunder Shield shaping. Expecting it to be as proficient in various energy techniques as General Ha was unrealistic.

And using lucid fruits would be too extravagant.

“Fortunately, I’m a genius.” At this moment, Lu Ran couldn’t help but marvel at his own talent. Thanks to his earlier effort in developing Super Beast Mimicry to version 2.0 through telepathy.

Super Beast Mimicry 2.0 not only allowed Lu Ran to learn his pet beasts’ combat techniques but also enabled him to impart his knowledge back to them. This feedback, in the form of mental and spiritual memory, would help the pet beasts understand better.

“I’ll teach you seriously once, watch closely.” Lu Ran summoned Flame Sprite, and in the next instant, his entire body was enveloped in flames. The flames flowed continuously, forming a fiery cloak that turned his hair and pupils a bright red.

During his time in Dragon Valley, Lu Ran had consumed many lucid fruits. Although they didn’t greatly help him comprehend the Flame Dragon Artistic Conception, they significantly enhanced his development of Flame Sprite.

Back then, Lu Ran, like Sudden Death King, didn’t know many energy techniques. But through Super Beast Mimicry and the lucid fruits, Lu Ran could now effortlessly achieve “energy flow, release, shaping, and compression” through Flame Sprite, just like General Ha had learned.

Although their attributes differed, the techniques were similar. Now, Lu Ran planned to use reverse Super Beast Mimicry to transfer the skills he had learned from General Ha to Sudden Death King. It was like spoon-feeding the skills to it. If Sudden Death King couldn’t grasp all these techniques within a month, Lu Ran would have nothing more to say.

“Roar!!!”

The vast amount of technique knowledge being infused left Sudden Death King momentarily stunned, its brain caught in a storm of learning.

“Woof!” General Ha stood by, snorting lightly and displaying a profound expression.

This house would fall apart without it!

It might look like Lu Ran was teaching Sudden Death King, but in reality, it was General Ha doing the teaching!

The wise General Ha had unraveled the entire teaching chain.

However, as flames enveloped Lu Ran’s body, General Ha’s wise gaze gradually grew hazy, and it stopped thinking altogether.

“Let’s leave Sudden Death King to study on its own here. Later, I’ll replenish its resources… From now on, I have to take care of two pet beasts.”

Lu Ran stood still, observing Sudden Death King’s transformation. Additionally, he realized his Super Beast Mimicry shouldn’t just be linked with General Ha. It was time to sync with Sudden Death King as well. His synchronization with General Ha involved learning swordsmanship and sharing meals. So, what about with Sudden Death King?

Lu Ran felt that the best decision he had made was correcting Sudden Death King’s temperament. It no longer cowered before certain opponents. Under the guidance of himself and Dark Crow, it had even learned to talk trash and taunt its enemies.

This was quite satisfying. It allowed Lu Ran to synchronize with it verbally, effortlessly creating mental attacks that could drive opponents out of their minds.

Besides that… it was all about layering the armor!

As Lu Ran contemplated, the flame on his body began to spread out and take shape. With great effort, Lu Ran molded the flame into the form of a Loong-headed armor, enveloping himself.

“If it can layer armor, so can I.”

“The Red Lightning trait can enhance its physique by taking electrical hits. Moreover, Red Lightning can also help other beings with body forging through electric shocks. So, once Sudden Death King improves its energy control, I can undergo lightning body forging too. This way, our synchronization will be even greater.”

“It won’t be long before my defense sees a qualitative improvement through Super Beast Mimicry with Sudden Death King.”

Lu Ran felt that he was progressing further down the path of becoming a humanoid ferocious beast, learning energy manipulation techniques from General Ha and gaining physical defense from Sudden Death King.

So, should he contract another pet beast known for its speed to become more versatile? Lu Ran pondered. Although General Ha’s speed wasn’t slow, it was limited by its species and wasn’t the fastest. While its attributes were advantageous, they were only relatively so. There were faster attributes, such as light.

Additionally, to handle water environments in the future, he would need to contract a water pet beast. Through Super Beast Mimicry, he could then move freely in water. Thinking this way, Lu Ran realized that his contract cards were far from sufficient!

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