Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In the next few days, Gao Peng bought a huge amount of food with rich nutritional value to feed his familiars to prepare them for power leveling.
At the same time, he prepared for Stripey’s Perfect upgrade.
However, Gao Peng quickly discovered that leveling up was not a simple task. He excelled in grade increase, but leveling up was much harder for him.
It seemed like even if one had golden fingers, there were still things one could not take care of.
For a few days, Gao Peng purchased a lot of high-energy nutritious ingredients to feed his pets. And then a few more days passed. He discovered that…
They grew fat!
Da Zi was still all right. If it battled in the morning, it just grew longer more rapidly with the extra nutrition.
Stripey, on the other hand, went from having the body of a spider to the body of a crab. One could imagine just what it went through. The words “Grey” and “Fat” vividly appeared in Gao Peng’s mind.
Gao Peng helplessly spoke to the lazy Stripey, whose body shape had completely gone awry. “From tomorrow onwards, you will come outside with me.”
“Zhi?” Stripey looked up and made a sound, confused.
“Come with me to school tomorrow. You need to undergo combat training like Da Zi,” Gao Peng said, lecturing Stripey with a blank expression.
If he continued to let Stripey stay at home, he suspected that one day Stripey would turn into a pig.
As Stripey heard that, it lay on the ground like a wimp, all eight of its limbs spread outwards.
Gao Peng headed to the kitchen to continue preparing Stripey’s skin. At first, he could not get used to it. He felt odd; after all, he was eating Stripey’s leg skin. But it really tasted good! He kept wondering if he had some weird hobbies.
However, he reminded himself of his identity: a person from Huaxia.
Nothing is inedible for a person from the mighty celestial empire!
He felt relieved again.
…
The following day, Gao Peng brought Silly and Da Zi, whose diameter had grown to six feet, to school.
Stripey was now big enough to carry people. The only caveats were that it was uncomfortable and looked very weird.
It had rained the day before and the ground was still wet early in the morning. Stripey followed behind Gao Peng, looking up at its master before lowering its head and walking in silence.
Gao Peng reached the school and entered through the iron gate at the training ground. He then put the familiars in the specialized rest area.
He entered the classroom while it was still morning study period. Some students read and some handed in their homework. All sorts of sounds and voices filled the classroom.
“Eh, Gao Peng, I heard that you’re really going to take part in the Entrance Examination for College this year,” Tan Qianjin leaned in and whispered.
“Ugh, I’ll try,” Gao Peng said, chuckling. “Where did you hear that? Why do I feel like you’re an information bureau? Nothing gets past you.”
“Hehe. No, I just know a little bit more about people,” Tan Qianjin laughed.
It’s Chen Hanqiao, isn’t it? Isn’t he also prepared to sign up for the entrance exam this year? Gao Peng thought. He remembered that almost everyone who stayed back the day before was a senior year student. The only person who mixed with Tan Qianjian and himself was Chen Hanqiao.
After all, the Electric Luster Bear in Chen Hanqiao’s family was a monster that advanced to Commander tier upon maturing and was among the top familiars of the student body of the school.
However, Chen Hanqiao’s group was quite a distance away from Gao Peng’s group.
Although the two of them were classmates, interactions between the two were limited, which meant that they were simply acquaintances.
Gao Peng only ever vaguely heard from some of the students in his class that Chen Hanqiao’s father was the captain of a famous monster hunting squad in Chang’an.
It was unclear to him if there was truth in that as he was, after all, not the kind of person who gossiped.
“That’s right. Normal people like me can only prepare myself and sign up for the next exam,” Tan Qianjin said with a sigh. “I’m so envious, people like me can only work and suffer pathetically for another year.”
Gao Peng snapped back, “If you’re envious, just go sign yourself up. If you fail this year just go take the exam again.”
“Forget it, forget it,” Tan Qianjin laughed mockingly. Why would he take part in the exam? To take a beating and be overwhelmed?
“Is being a monster trainer cadet like you guys very tiring?” A student asked curiously He was close by and heard the conversation between Gao Peng and Tan Qianjin.
“No, it’s not tiring at all, it’s a bundle of fun. We play with our pets every afternoon, and we don’t have to go to the evening self-study session. It is the life,” Tan Qianjin responded with a smile.
The student was speechless and immediately turned back around to continue working on his homework.
That afternoon on the field, Instructor Zhang Renbai walked over and glanced over to the group of five familiars habitually.
One, two… five, six. Hmm?! Six familiars? Why is there one more?! He wondered, aghast.
A cowardly gray spider hiding among the group of monsters sized him up cautiously.
“Get out here!” Zhang Renbai’s expression became tight as he pointed to Stripey and asked, “Whose is it?”
Gao Peng raised his hand and said, “Reporting, Instructor. That is my familiar.”
Zhang Renbai glanced at Gao Peng and remembered that this kid had a centipede-type familiar. Among the batch of familiars, it was considered pretty strong. Moreover, the kid was only a sophomore. One could say that his potential was decent, but now he had another familiar.
Under normal circumstances, he would never be willing to say it. However, he could not bear to waste a good seedling.
“Under normal circumstances, monster trainers put everything into training their first familiar. They only begin training a second one after the first reaches Commander tier. That is because only Commander tier familiars have the ability to preserve one’s life genuinely,” Instructor Zhang Renbai advised Gao Peng.
“Training multiple familiars at the same time will waste a lot of your time and effort. It takes a lot of time to train all aspects of a familiar, especially during a crucial period like before the entrance exam. Your best option is to advance one of your familiar to the Commander tier so that you can obtain points from Commander tier monsters.”
The message that Instructor Zhang Renbai wanted to relay to Gao Peng was that he wanted him to focus on training Da Zi, and promote Da Zi to Commander tier before training that spider.
After all, the basic points for a Commander tier monster added up to 500. Even success in defeating an Elite tier monster of a Perfect grade would only get the examinee 100 points.
The huge difference in points was enough proof to show the difference in strength of monsters between Commander and Elite tier.
Gao Peng listened patiently to the words of Instructor Zhang Renbai. He smiled and nodded to indicate that he understood.
Instructor Zhang Renbai did not repeat himself. He had already said what he needed to say. Whether or not the person listened was not his business.
That day they were still fighting the Dead Leaf Locust. But Gao Peng did not let Da Zi fight this time. Instead, he put Stripey into the iron cage.
Instructor Zhang Renbai sighed. He felt disappointment fill his heart when saw that Gao Peng still did things according to his personal will.
The Dead Leaf Locust in the iron cage was big. It was a lot bigger than the one from a few days ago. It was 13 feet in length, and it sat on top of the iron cage, looming over it surroundings.
[Monster Name]: Dead Leaf Locust (Gigantificatied Variant)
[Monster Grade]: Excellent
[Monster Level]: Level 10 (Normal)
