King of Beasts

After class, the students gained a lot, and as soon as the bell rang, Lu Ran was the first to leave.

“Not a bad lecture.”

Just as Lu Ran reached the corner, a woman leaning against the other side of the wall spoke slowly, causing Lu Ran to stop in his tracks.

“Dr. Gu, you’re eavesdropping too?”

“Too?”

“Yeah, there are quite a few people eavesdropping,” Lu Ran shrugged. “For example, Shi Zhen and Manager Ying… They are a bit more blatant about it.”

“After all, it’s your first class. They obviously want to know what you’re teaching,” Gu Qingyi smiled.

“But your perception is quite good.”

“Of course,” Lu Ran said confidently. To be precise, it was the dark crow’s perception that was superb. As the scout of the team, besides the ability to scout from a great distance with its eyes, it had another bug-level ability.

As an overlord species necromancy creature, its sensitivity to souls was currently unmatched.

Some powerful beings could hide their breath, but due to their limited understanding of their own souls, their soul fluctuations were still very revealing. At this stage, the dark crow, with its acute sense of soul power, could easily detect them.

By letting the crow of death possess him and playing the “big king and general” game with the dark crow, Lu Ran had learned many techniques for sensing soul fluctuations.

“By the way, Dr. Gu, how many levels is your vast sea azure dragon away from level 60?” Lu Ran asked while walking alongside Gu Qingyi.

“It’s currently at level 58, and those last two levels are really tough to climb. I have no idea how long it will take,” Gu Qingyi said helplessly.

“I recall it was already level 58 before the Freshman Tournament,” said Lu Ran. “Is it that hard to level up now?”

“The scarcity of advanced Loong-type resources also plays a part,” Gu Qingyi explained.

“Then I’ll help you cultivate the Dragon Soul of your vast sea azure dragon once General Ha completes its evolution before entering the breakthrough secret realm,” Lu Ran said. “And I’ll make more artistic conception of the dragon cuisine too.”

Gu Qingyi said with a cheerful smile, “I actually came over to ask you for help in cultivating the vast sea azure dragon using dragon culinary intent and soul culinary intent. But there’s no rush; I won’t catch the first second-stage evolution secret realm this time.”

“Moreover, the ‘blessing slots’ for the second-stage evolution secret realm are limited to just ‘one.’ I’ll let the former guild leader and others compete for it this time; I won’t get involved.”

“After you break through to level 3 and come out of the breakthrough secret realm, we can talk about it then.”

“At that time, I’ll trouble you to be my personal chef for a while.”

“No problem… Infinite City is getting stingier,” Lu Ran nodded. During the first-stage evolution secret realm, there were 10 star blessing slots. For the second-stage evolution secret realm, there’s only one.

Clearly, achieving perfect evolution under Infinite City’s blessing now demands higher potential from the evolvers.

“Maybe it’s to focus their energies on cultivating ‘legendary species’?” Gu Qingyi suggested.

“Legendary species…” Lu Ran shook his head. “I really don’t know what Infinite City is planning. With this level of cultivation support, I’d believe they were preparing reserve forces to invade other worlds.”

“If it’s just for preserving the beast taming system, this level of support seems excessive.”

“Let’s take it one step at a time,” Gu Qingyi pondered. “Currently, the global number of beastmasters is estimated to exceed 9 million.”

“It shouldn’t take long to reach 10 million. At that point, Infinite City will roll out its next update. Maybe we’ll gain some insights or new discoveries then.”

“But for now, the focus of the international alliance has temporarily shifted away from Infinite City.”

“Infinite City is too advanced; researching it is incredibly challenging. On the other hand, ancient creatures are the primary threat to humanity right now.”

Lu Ran and Gu Qingyi exchanged glances. “Have other ancient creatures awakened?”

“Yes, recently there’s been frequent anomalies worldwide. Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, there were strong energy reactions and combat fluctuations a few days ago. It’s suspected that two overlord creatures over level 60 were fighting.”

“The international beast taming alliance headquarters, deep in the Antarctic glaciers, recently detected several terrifying energy waves awakening. It’s suspected that ancient creatures frozen in the glaciers are reviving. However, due to the extreme depth of the freezing locations, it’s impossible to investigate further.”

“In addition, an expedition team consisting of four level 5 beastmasters has been missing in the Sahara Desert for a long time. With their strength, they should be able to escape from even level 60 overlord species creatures, unless the danger they faced was beyond that level…”

“Also, the situation in the deep sea is dire. The Fishman Empire has even relaxed its terms, seeking to ally with humanity. The Fishman King doesn’t dare to invade the land for a reason. The situation in the deep sea is likely more severe than on land. This so-called Fishman Empire’s ability to dominate the deep sea is questionable. Perhaps, the recent resurgence of deep-sea monsters has put them under immense pressure.”

“In the face of spiritual energy revitalization, humanity has a three-year head start and decades of accumulated military weapons as a foundation. Those newly evolved creatures won’t pose a significant threat in the short term.”

“But the resurgence of ancient ferocious beasts is a serious concern. It’s understandable for the international beast taming alliance to be troubled,” Gu Qingyi sighed. “This is a crisis that could bring about an existential disaster for humanity.”

“You don’t think that strange dream you had was about ancient creatures invading human cities, do you?” she asked, looking at Lu Ran.

“This…” Lu Ran hesitated. “I can’t rule out that possibility. If that’s the case, then it’s serious trouble.”

Why doesn’t Lu Ran, like other beastmasters, cultivate just two or three pet beasts? Wouldn’t that be easier?

It’s because he anticipates many unknown dangers in the future.

Preparing for that, Lu Ran tries to arm himself with as much strength as possible, relying not just on quality but also on quantity.

Now, after learning from Dr. Gu about the escalating severity of ancient creatures’ revival, Lu Ran exhaled deeply, feeling that his rate of increasing strength was still too slow.

Moreover, the most painful problem is that if humanity and ferocious beasts indeed go to war over the sovereignty of the blue star, Lu Ran would be in great danger.

Being the Strongest Fourth Generation, the pioneer of the overlord era, and the father of necromancy… If the ferocious beast forces target humanity, they’ll certainly go after potential and talented fourth-generation beastmasters like Lu Ran first.

With a twitch at the corner of his mouth, Lu Ran said, “Let’s not talk about it anymore. I’m going to take General Ha for training!”

Gu Qingyi smiled slightly, indeed sensing Lu Ran’s predicament. In her era, geniuses only had to worry about enemy nations. In Lu Ran’s era, although conditions have improved, it seems that the risks of growing up have increased too. Now, there’s the added worry of threats from other species.

Yesterday, Lu Ran obtained numerous ice ferocious beasts’ corpses through his connections at the beast taming university. These were almost all between levels 20 and 30, with none being too low-level.

He separated their souls and stored them in the Soul Capturing Bottle.

With resources in hand, Lu Ran headed back to the training secret realm, while letting the sudden death king and dark crow roam freely, he focused on training General Ha and the winter sword spirit.

In the few remaining days, his priority was domain-specific practice.

Although General Ha could easily activate the domain when possessed by the winter sword spirit, relying solely on its own strength was still challenging.

The training goal for the next few days was for General Ha to activate the sword domain solely with its own power, without the need for the winter sword spirit’s possession.

To achieve this, Lu Ran used his second enhancement card to amplify the effects of the lucid fruit, which he then gave to General Ha to use.

Additionally, Lu Ran made a well-considered decision: wasn’t space-type weaponry supposed to enhance General Ha’s domain?

He took out the “exquisite resource – ethereal flower,” which can help pet beasts awaken their space attributes.

Of course, this resource wasn’t for General Ha. Instead, Lu Ran gave it to the puzzled winter sword spirit directly.

[Species]: Winter Sword Spirit

[Attributes]: Necromancy, Ice, Space

[Species Level]: Middle Sovereign

[Growth Level]: Level 17

The goal was quite straightforward: to lay a stronger space-type foundation for General Ha and accelerate its domain proficiency process.

Although using the ethereal flower now meant there wouldn’t be any awakening resources left for General Ha at level 40, there was still plenty of time until then. Lu Ran was confident that he could find another ethereal flower before General Ha reached level 40.

Lu Ran entrusted this task to Manager Ying.

After all, Manager Ying still owed Lu Ran for the queen ant egg. Although the ethereal flower was just as valuable, Lu Ran could always offer a bit more in additional resources to balance things out.

This significantly enhanced General Ha’s evolution configuration once again.

With only three or four days left, Lu Ran had practically exhausted all the resources he could leverage. General Ha, being his first pet beast, held a special place in his heart.

Even though Lu Ran had once entertained the idea of cooking General Ha when it was particularly disobedient, since embarking on his journey as a beastmaster, General Ha’s companionship had undeniably made it his most important partner.

There were four days remaining until the final Evolution Secret Realm opened. With the possession of the space sword spirit and the boost from the enhanced lucid fruit, General Ha could now activate its domain with just a thought.

With three days remaining, the effects of the lucid fruit had worn off, but the mastery of the domain skill, honed through the sword spirit’s possession, was perfectly retained by General Ha.

With two days left, even without relying on the sword spirit’s possession, General Ha could now normally activate its domain using its sword of wind. Though the effect was slightly weaker, it had genuinely mastered the domain as its own ability.

With one day remaining… The winter sword spirit, under Lu Ran’s meticulous cultivation, had reached level 20. Lu Ran felt adequately prepared.

He exited the training secret realm with General Ha and contacted Dr. Gu and Manager Ying, informing them of his intent to head to the Evolution Secret Realm for General Ha’s evolution.

“Evolving again, huh? How high do you estimate the species level will be??” Shi Zhen and others queried one by one during the communication.

They hoped to get a sense of what to expect this time, unlike the surprises they’d encountered with the dark crow.

“I’m not sure either,” Lu Ran muttered. Although he had the sudden death king and dark crow as comparisons, General Ha’s evolution method was quite unique. Considering General Ha’s king of swords talent, he wasn’t aiming too high; getting it to a normal state lower overlord would already be a substantial gain.