King of Beasts

Chapter 96: Lu Rans Fully Strengthened Squad

While the Sudden Death King was “battling” the crowd,

No one noticed that there were two people watching from the roof of the stadium.

“Aren’t you going to the training camp? I heard the chairman brought quite a few resources from Jinling.”

Lu Ran was sitting high up, resting his face in his hands, looking drowsy as he watched the Sudden Death King fight.

Standing behind him, Fang Lan shook her head. “I feel this kind of training is very inefficient. Compared to uniform training, I prefer self-study or one-on-one instruction from a renowned teacher.”

“Same here.” Lu Ran smiled.

“I’ve made up my mind. When the time comes, I want to enter the breakthrough secret realm too, and aim to be a level 1 beastmaster by the time the Freshman Tournament starts,” Fang Lan resolved.

Even though in such a national competition, ranking within the top 1000 was already an accolade for the most talented prodigies.

To rank in the top 1000, it wasn’t necessarily required to become a level 1 beastmaster.

However, Fang Lan decided to aim for a higher ranking, like the top 100, or even the top 50. At that level, the difference between an apprentice and a level 1 beastmaster would become apparent.

“I just wonder if we can be assigned to the same secret realm…” Lu Ran pondered.

He wasn’t worried about Fang Lan’s safety. In the breakthrough secret realms, the higher the beastmaster’s level, the higher the risk. The breakthrough secret realms for beginners, according to records, weren’t that daunting.

“Please no!” Fang Lan exclaimed. “I don’t want to be in the same secret realm as you. I’ll wait for you to enter first, then I’ll go in.”

The breakthrough secret realms assign multiple people randomly to the same secret realm to complete tasks.

However, even though they’re multiple people, they aren’t exactly teammates, but rather competitors!

If, for instance, 10 novice beastmasters enter a breakthrough secret realm, the slots available for promotion to level 1 beastmaster are limited.

There might be one spot, or two, or three.

When the time comes, it will depend on how well those who entered complete their tasks for them to be selected.

Generally speaking, in such scenarios, the tasks taken by different beastmasters are typically from opposing factions.

Thus, it’s not just PVE, but also has a PVP aspect!

So, it made sense for Fang Lan to say she didn’t want to be matched with Lu Ran in the same secret realm. With limited breakthrough slots, running into Lu Ran would be extremely unlucky.

She definitely didn’t want to face Lu Ran; having ventured into secret realms with him many times, she had a clear understanding of General Ha’s strength.

“Haha, I’m getting more and more excited. It’s a pity there are so many beastmasters in the country now.”

“I heard from veteran beastmasters on the forum that back when there were fewer beastmasters, they couldn’t even find enough people to match in a breakthrough secret realm. When they did, it was mostly foreign beastmasters, and that was thrilling.” Lu Ran stretched lazily.

“You’re confident because you have the strength… but overconfidence can lead to mistakes.” Fang Lan shook her head.

“Let’s not watch anymore. Come on, let’s go to my place.” Then she said, “I’ve prepared everything for the ‘Misty Wetlands’ secret realm. Let me take you through the strategy. Can we challenge it tomorrow?”

“Sure, you think we’re all set? Me and General Ha certainly don’t want to get poisoned in the secret realm.” Lu Ran looked at Fang Lan.

“Hmph, with me around, it’ll be hard for you to get poisoned.” Fang Lan had been looking forward to the poison enhancement skill and Toxin Healer trait for a long time.

With these two abilities, she wouldn’t worry about not making it through any breakthrough secret realm.

…

While the Sudden Death King was about to start a grueling 40-day training session,

Lu Ran and his team embarked on another journey into a secret realm.

That day, Lu Ran’s fully prepared squad began their challenge of the Misty Wetlands secret realm.

Their target: the Toxin Healer trait crystal and the poison enhancement skill.

Team configuration: Passerby A, Five Poisons Cult Holy Maiden, Pig Raiser, and Road Ahead Icy.

Due to the wetland environment being quite humid, Lu Bing, who had a contract with an ice wolf dog, was obviously more suitable as a teammate. In contrast, Lu Yi, with his thunder mastiff contract, had a high chance of becoming a liability.

Lu Ran had no choice but to kick him out of the team to avoid increasing the difficulty of the challenge. It was definitely not because he thought Lu Yi looked unlucky.

Thanks to Fang Lan’s thorough preparation, their journey in the Misty Wetlands secret realm went smoothly, and they passed on their first try with an SS rating.

Perhaps because it had been a long time since a trait crystal had appeared in the Lava Lake secret realm, this time they only took three attempts in the Misty Wetlands secret realm to acquire both the poison enhancement skill and the Toxin Healer trait crystal.

“Thank you, everyone!!!”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Dinner’s on me tonight.”

Fang Lan was exceptionally excited after getting the skill card and trait crystal.

“Congratulations, congratulations!” Lu Bing congratulated Fang Lan with an envious look. She felt that Lu Ran was really good to Fang Lan, taking them to the Misty Wetlands secret realm three times in one day.

What was their relationship, exactly? At this moment, Lu Bing and Pig Raiser still didn’t know that Fang Lan’s parents were also Lu Ran’s foster parents.

“Now you’re unstoppable!” Pig Raiser thought that Fang Lan would become even more terrifying next. The daxia wolf spider’s poison was already fearsome, and with the beastmaster’s poison enhancement skill, it would be even more formidable.

Most importantly, the Toxin Healer trait!

According to Fang Lan, after merging with the Toxin Healer trait, her daxia wolf spider would gain healing abilities. Then, it could learn the energy compression skill!

In other words, poison energy compression!

Once compressed, the skill’s toxicity would become even more terrifying. And because the daxia wolf spider had the Toxin Healer trait, it could somewhat self-heal and detoxify from backlash, making it even more invincible.

Of course, Lu Bing and Pig Raiser felt that Fang Lan’s most terrifying aspect wasn’t her pet beast, the daxia wolf spider, but Fang Lan herself.

Fang Lan also had a crossbow that she could coat with various types of poison, often displaying overwhelming power in the secret realm, even being able to specifically target and poison different prey.

Lu Ran’s use of a crossbow to hunt the Demon Bull Commander was also inspired by Fang Lan.

With the Toxin Healer trait, Fang Lan could now boldly research different poisons.

“Thanks for your hard work today.” Having resolved Fang Lan’s resource needs, Lu Ran was in a good mood and said with a smile, “Everyone, take a rest for now. You go and merge with the trait. I’m heading to the plaza to buy some resources. Let’s meet up tonight.”

“Got it!” Fang Lan nodded.

“See you tonight.” Lu Bing and Pig Raiser agreed.

Soon, the four-member team that had completed their tasks for the day dispersed. Fang Lan went to merge with the trait, while Lu Ran planned to check out loong-type resources for the Sudden Death King.

It was unfortunate that the Red Lightning trait couldn’t be merged before forming a contract. According to Dr. Gu, the Sudden Death King’s diet should be primarily loong-type resources. Previously, due to a lack of funds, Lu Ran hadn’t dared to look, as loong-type resources were prohibitively expensive.

Over the next ten days, his crystal coins would increase, so it was time to take a look.

The Sudden Death King’s performance in protecting him had made Lu Ran more willing to invest heavily in it.

Beastmaster Square.

Lu Ran made his way to the resource shop where he had previously bought dog food.

Walking up to the self-service counter, Lu Ran pondered for a moment.

Loong-type resources didn’t come in ordinary levels; the lowest quality was at the advanced level. Lu Ran searched for advanced ones and found himself wincing.

[Name]: Dragon Fish Meat

[Level]: Advanced

[Introduction]: The meat of a dragon fish with the potential to evolve into a flood dragon. Consuming it can increase vitality.

[Price]: 1000 crystal coins

“Are you kidding me? This is daylight robbery!” Lu Ran let out a string of complaints, much like Pig Raiser had done before, expressing his frustration.

To put it in perspective, General Ha’s rare dog food contained a day’s worth of beast meat, poultry, vegetables, and fruits, totaling just over 2000 crystal coins.

And here, one fish costs a whopping 1000 crystal coins.

Apparently, avoiding this earlier had been a wise choice.

Lu Ran turned to look at the rare resources.

[Name]: Dragon Blood Snake Gall

[Level]: Rare

[Introduction]: The gall of a snake-like creature containing a trace of dragon blood. Consuming it can significantly enhance energy intensity, improve physical constitution, and provide excellent poison resistance.

[Price]: 12000 crystal coins

“Great, the cheapest loong-type rare resource is over 10,000 crystal coins.” Lu Ran sighed as he glanced at his balance, which was nearly 140,000.

This dragon blood snake gall seemed pretty good. For Sudden Death King to achieve absolute defense, it needed more than physical strength and energy intensity; poison resistance was also crucial. After all, poison was one of the trickiest attributes to defend against.

Buying two or three of these could indeed supplement Sudden Death King’s poison resistance.

Lastly, considering Sudden Death King’s attributes, Lu Ran continued to search and found another resource.

[Name]: Dragon Turtle Meat

[Level]: Rare

[Introduction]: The meat of a turtle-like creature containing a trace of dragon blood. Consuming it can significantly increase vitality, energy intensity, and scale strength.

[Price]: 15000 crystal coins

“Alright, I’ll go with these two.” In the end, Lu Ran decided on the dragon blood snake gall and dragon turtle meat, planning to use these two resources primarily for strengthening Sudden Death King.

Of course, given the exorbitant price of loong-type resources, he couldn’t feed them to Sudden Death King as regular food.

Its daily diet would still need to consist mainly of advanced-level food, and Lu Ran intended to rely on the Green Sea Association for that. He planned to ask Zhao Chen to prepare some advanced loong-type meat for Sudden Death King every day.

After 40 days, this would amount to an estimated value of about 100,000 crystal coins, effectively serving as compensation for the time Sudden Death King spent training. Although it sounded like a lot, Zhao Chen would likely be more than happy to invest in Lu Ran.

As for rare resources, Lu Ran wouldn’t pressure the Green Sea Association too much on that front. Otherwise, Sudden Death King alone could deplete the resources intended to develop the beastmaster freshman talent of an entire city. Lu Ran couldn’t monopolize it all.

Instead, Lu Ran decided to personally purchase 3 dragon blood snake galls and 3 dragon turtle meats for Sudden Death King. He planned to use one every so often to enhance its capabilities, which would cost around 80,000 crystal coins.

Paired with advanced food, he was confident that Sudden Death King would reach level 20! However, he also needed Zhao Chen to monitor its growth carefully to avoid surpassing level 20; otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to form a contract with it.

A level 1 beastmaster could only contract with creatures ranging from level 1 to level 20.

He was banking on Sudden Death King to excel in the Freshman Tournament.

With the remaining crystal coins and what he would earn over the next 10 days, Lu Ran needed to focus on General Ha and himself. After all, their primary objective was still the breakthrough secret realm.

For General Ha, Lu Ran planned to prioritize preparing rare dog food.

The dog food he prepared for General Ha was a low-end version, as it needed to be consumed daily, and he couldn’t afford anything too expensive.

This dog food mainly aimed to boost wind energy intensity and physical strength, essentially making it food that would quickly elevate growth levels, with the goal of making General Ha level up faster.

Currently, there were 9 portions of rare dog food left. Lu Ran replenished it by adding 21 more portions and bought the dragon blood snake gall and dragon turtle meat. With that, his crystal coin stash hit rock bottom once again.

“In the next 10 days, I’ll use the crystal coins I earn to continue stocking up on General Ha’s food. We need to stay in the breakthrough secret realm for 30 days, so we can’t afford to run out of food. One portion per day, so we need to prepare enough for at least 60 days to avoid any unexpected situations.”

Regarding specialized resources for General Ha’s enhancement, Lu Ran had come up with a solution. This resource was beneficial not just for General Ha but also for himself, emphasizing human-pet synchronization.

[Name]: Lucid Fruit

[Level]: Rare-level

[Introduction]: Consuming it allows the user to have a clear mind for a period of time, increasing learning ability and comprehension.

[Price]: 10,000 crystal coins

This resource was primarily used to help some pet beasts learn skills.

Its effectiveness was actually not that great, making its cost performance quite low. When Lu Ran browsed the forum, he saw feedback from numerous previous-generation beastmasters who gave it to their pet beasts with little to no results. It was often wasted…

After all, abilities like learning and comprehension are quite elusive and intangible.

For pet beasts with low intelligence, even boosting their learning and comprehension abilities didn’t result in significant improvement.

However, beastmasters with primate pet beasts saw decent results with this resource.

In summary, the higher the comprehension, learning ability, and intelligence of the pet beast, the better the results when using this fruit.

Moreover, it also had miraculous effects for beastmasters learning or developing beast taming skills, or studying various knowledge.

General Ha already had strong learning capabilities, so Lu Ran planned to focus on targeted enhancement in this area.

Unlike Sudden Death King, General Ha followed more of a technical path… Of course, it also had elements of brute strength. Pairing the divine deer pendant with General Ha to train energy compression was Lu Ran’s ultimate strategy.

Additionally, Lu Ran intended to temporarily immerse himself in various beast taming knowledge. Considering he still hadn’t fully grasped Blizzard Sword Intent, he felt that, like General Ha, he could use some external assistance as well. Therefore, the lucid fruit was the best choice.

……

After finishing his shopping, Lu Ran prepared to head back. However, just as he was passing Beastmaster Square, his identity card’s communication feature prompted a notification.

Five Poisons Cult Holy Maiden: [Lu Ran! It successfully fused, and its species talent has awakened! It’s a perfect fusion!!

The new species name is Toxin Healer Spider.

Because its traits are mainly supportive, it’s still classified as an upper supernatural species, with only a small improvement. However, its constitution and toxicity have significantly enhanced. Using the words of a big shot on the forum, it has gone from an ordinary upper supernatural species to a quasi-commander species.

But that’s not the main point. Listen to me, its species talent is very strong and completely allows it to exceed species boundaries in battle!

The species talent is also called ‘Toxin Heal.’ The effect is that each time it gets poisoned and then recovers, it permanently increases its own toxicity.

Although it’s difficult to poison it, with the entire Green Sea City’s toxins as our resource pool, I feel I can always concoct a poison strong enough to affect it. Pairing this with its species talent, I believe its toxicity can be ramped up to terrifying levels quickly!]

Lu Ran read the message and was slightly stunned. He immediately replied:

[Take it easy, don’t poison it to death. We don’t need it becoming the first poison pet beast killed by its own beastmaster.]

Five Poisons Cult Holy Maiden: [Come on! I know what I’m doing; I’ll test the toxicity thoroughly beforehand.]

Lu Ran didn’t understand much about this, so he refrained from asking more. Judging by Fang Lan’s excitement, she was very pleased with this talent. As for the poisoning, if something went wrong, they could always have Dr. Gu send over a death revival skill card to turn it into an Undead Toxin Spider.

Toxin Heal talent, huh… It reminds me of the Red Lightning’s regular effect.

The Red Lightning trait enhances body strength when hit by electricity.

Just wonder what kind of species talent Sudden Death King might awaken after merging with Red Lightning…

……

In the next few days.

Lu Ran continued to lead his team into the secret realm as usual.

After Fang Lan received full enhancement, it took her only three days to climb to the fifth spot on the Infinite City No.3 divine beast leaderboard, shocking many people.

Lu Ran and the others witnessed firsthand how the Daxia Wolf Spider’s toxicity gradually increased. Unfortunately, it hadn’t yet learned the energy compression technique. Otherwise, paired with the Toxin Heal trait, its strength could certainly be elevated to a higher level.

Besides Fang Lan, Lu Ran also helped Pig Raiser unlock the rock enhancement skill and rock devouring trait.

Pig Raiser’s pet beast, Dahuang, also awakened its species talent, Big Eater. This talent increased its appetite, causing Pig Raiser to lament repeatedly.

Heaven bear witness, he wanted his pet beast to fuse with rock devouring to save on food costs. Awakening a Big Eater talent—what did that mean???

He felt betrayed by his pet beast.

However, to be fair, paired with the Big Eater talent, if enough quality rocks were provided as resources for the Rock Boar to consume, its strength could also progress rapidly. Ultimately, aside from spending money, another path was to frequently enter secret realms with mountains and rocks, to feed from the natural resources there.

Additionally, Lu Ran gradually helped Lu Bing obtain the ice enhancement skill and perpetual frost trait. He also helped Lu Yi unlock the thunder enhancement skill and the Golden Lightning trait, just like Pluto’s.

Lu Bing’s pet beast awakened the species talent, Non-Melting Ice, giving its ice formidable resistance against fire.

Lu Yi’s mastiff awakened the species talent, Paralysis Immunity, making it immune to thunder-based paralysis effects.

In comparison, Lu Ran increasingly felt the strength of General Ha’s King of Swords talent. No wonder Dr. Gu was so astonished at the time; she said it was one of the top-tier talents.

Over the past ten days, Lu Ran could say that he single-handedly strengthened Pig Raiser and the two from LuJia Village to a certain level.

However, due to their weaker foundations, they hadn’t yet achieved a breakthrough like Fang Lan, who fused a trait and successfully made it onto the divine beast leaderboard. But even without making the leaderboard, their combat power in Infinite City No.3 should be in the top 100.

In return, having received so many benefits from Lu Ran, any other resources they found over these days were turned over to him. They even felt indebted to Lu Ran, considering that although the number of resources was vast, they still didn’t compare in value to trait crystals.

But Lu Ran didn’t mind. Solo farming might not have netted him this much. Now, not only had he cultivated a batch of top fighters, but he also hadn’t significantly depleted his stock of crystal coins. He wasn’t greedy about it.

Pig Raiser, along with Lu Bing and Lu Yi, didn’t plan to enter the breakthrough secret realm too early.

Currently, Lu Bing and Lu Yi are considered the two strongest fourth-generation beastmasters from LuJia Village. They’re planning to leverage their current dominance over the novice secret realm to emulate Lu Ran’s strength. They aim to bring up the other beastmasters from their village by challenging the secret realms for a few months.

As they put it, they want to grow and strengthen the LuJia Village guild. By doing so, they hope the entire village’s collective power can support Lu Ran more effectively. After all, without Lu Ran, they wouldn’t have grown so strong so quickly.

As for Pig Raiser, he plans to spend a few more months feasting in the novice secret realm. After getting to know Lu Bing and Lu Yi, he also decided to team up with the beastmasters from LuJia Village.

With this arrangement, the only ones about to challenge the breakthrough secret realm were Lu Ran and Fang Lan.

“Are you sure you’re entering the breakthrough secret realm tomorrow morning?” Fang Lan contacted Lu Ran late at night to confirm his plans.

“Yes,” Lu Ran replied.

“I just got some insider information. Quite a few formidable novice beastmasters are also entering the breakthrough secret realm around these days. This means your chances of matching up against tough opponents have significantly increased!”

Apparently, not just Lu Ran and Fang Lan were planning to enter the breakthrough secret realm around the same time as the start of beast taming university; many others seemed to be doing the same!

“Not worried,” Lu Ran said confidently.

In the living room, Lu Ran watched General Ha wobble while standing atop the Ice Sky Greatsword, practicing his aerial sword flight.

“Anyone who encounters me is out of luck. Damn it, General Ha, steady yourself! Don’t crash into the TV!!!”