Chapter 46

Lu Ai collapsed onto the ground, staring blankly at the fallen Guava Flower, still unable to recover from the shock.

Having Little Cloud Dog use Shadow Step to tie Guava’s roots into a knot…

Could such a level of strategy and execution really be achieved by a high school Beast Tamer and a growing pet?

And the final Moon Burst… Even though the Guava Flower wasn’t a particularly sturdy creature, it had undergone C-grade Wood-type enhancement, yet it was still taken down by a single blow.

Lu Ai’s proud Absorb strategy had no room to be used against Mu Huiyue. The top spot on the first day’s leaderboard seemed like a fluke, as he was completely powerless in front of competitors ranked outside the top twenty.

But upon further reflection, it was clear that contestants like Mu Huiyue and Wen Li had deliberately lowered their rankings.

Knowing this, Lu Ai had pushed himself hard to secure an advantage on the first day, only to realize that the defensive line built by his Guava Flower couldn’t withstand a single blow from these monstrously strong competitors.

“… I lost.” Lu Ai sighed and walked forward to pick up his contracted pet.

“Compared to Guava Fruit, I think the Absorb strategy is more interesting.” Mu Huiyue also picked up Little Cloud Dog, patting its head and giving it praise.

She looked at the Guava Flower in Lu Ai’s hands, thought for a moment, and then said, “Perhaps you should consider teaching Guava Flower stronger defensive skills, Lu Ai.”

Lu Ai looked up, a bit surprised. In the earlier battle, he had also realized the limitations of Absorb. Mu Huiyue’s suggestion was the improvement he had overlooked—enhancing Guava Flower’s defense to avoid being taken down in one hit during battles.

“Thank you—”

Before he could finish, his body suddenly stiffened in place. The Guava Flower also sensed the sudden danger, struggling to open its eyes and extending its thick roots in an attempt to protect its Beast Tamer.

A sharp beam of light narrowly grazed Lu Ai, heading straight toward the black-haired girl standing in front of him. However, Mu Huiyue was even faster. The shadow beneath her feet suddenly surged into a large mass, transforming into a hard substance that blocked the beam of light.

Bang!

The sharp beam struck the ground, its metallic color gradually fading to reveal a smooth interior—an elongated plant leaf.

C-level Wood-type attack skill: Flying Leaf Shuriken, with a very high proficiency, as seen from the hardened leaf.

Mu Huiyue’s expression darkened as she looked toward the source of the attack.

“Sorry, sorry, did I interrupt your post-battle conversation?”

A cheerful female voice rang out as a girl in outdoor training gear approached. Her chest bore the logo of the Yunzhou Timber Research Institute, along with her participant number, “5”.

She was accompanied by a frail Forget-Me-Not, its leaves still glowing faintly from the use of a skill. Upon being noticed by the crowd, it immediately shuddered, moving its delicate roots to hide behind its Beast Master.

Mu Huiyue recognized her. She was a seed contender who had appeared in the Kumaxi inventory video—Lin Lin, a genius researcher from the Yunzhou Timber Research Institute.

Her contracted beast was not any of the creatures featured in the video, but rather the most common and weakest Wood-type extraordinary creature in Yunzhou, the Forget-Me-Not.

[Name]: Forget-Me-Not
[Attribute]: Wood-type
[Race Level]: Low-tier Elite
[Growth Tier]: Stage 6 of the Juvenile Period
[Talent Core]: Growth (Wood-type D-level)
[Normal Hidden Energy Value]: 869P
[Description]: A Wood-type extraordinary creature widely distributed in Yunzhou. It grows by absorbing energy through its Growth skill and typically gathers in areas with ample sunlight.

After reading the information on the wristband’s database, Mu Huiyue was slightly surprised.

To be honest, aside from the little skeleton, this was the first time she had encountered someone using a low-tier elite race extraordinary creature as a contracted beast, especially in a competition that gathered the nation’s high school elites.

Lin Lin smiled and continued, “But after watching the battle just now, I’m feeling really fired up… Can you battle me, Mu Huiyue?”

“Don’t agree to her, Huiyue!” Wen Li shouted indignantly.

What fiery enthusiasm? If she really wanted a good battle, she wouldn’t have challenged Mu Huiyue right after her previous fight, knowing she hadn’t had time to recover!

“Meow!” Flame Strike Meow arched its back, emitting a battle cry.

Even before her fight with Lu Ai, Mu Huiyue had secretly had Ellen send over Fire-type fruits. At this point, Flame Strike Meow had recovered most of its energy. Though another Fire Meteor might be a bit of a stretch, battling was no problem at all.

“I wasn’t planning to take advantage of this, you know? Besides the little cloud dog, you have another contracted beast, right, Mu Huiyue?”

Lin Lin’s gaze was pointed towards her shadow, the one that had blocked the flying leaf darts earlier. Clearly, it wasn’t the little cloud dog.

“If I’m not mistaken, that one is your main force.”

Upon hearing this, everyone present showed a look of surprise. Two contracted beasts in their growth phase meant Mu Huiyue was already a level 3 Beast Master. No wonder she could so cleanly and swiftly defeat Lu Ai.

Wen Li was also stunned. There had indeed been a beast hidden in the shadows that delivered the fruit that helped Flame Strike Meow recover. She had thought it was a stealthy support-type beast, but Lin Lin said that was Mu Huiyue’s main force?

Mu Huiyue looked at Lin Lin, and her shadow rippled, darkening slightly.

Ellen wasn’t afraid of any challenge, but Lin Lin’s attitude was a bit strange, as if she had appeared specifically at this moment to provoke her into using her strongest beast in the battle.

Looking at the data alone, this Forget-Me-Not Grass was even weaker than Ellen back in the secret realm, with a pitiful normal latent energy value of only 869P, not even enough to use up the energy of a C-level skill.

But it clearly had other hidden cards.

The Bureau’s guidebook couldn’t detect skills outside of the talent core, so if Forget-Me-Not Grass could learn the C-level skill Flying Leaf Darts, its normal latent energy value definitely wasn’t just in the three-digit range.

Mu Huiyue speculated that the 869P figure was likely influenced by some special skill that could alter the normal latent energy value.

“Woof.” The little dog in her arms suddenly nudged her with its nose and jumped to the ground.

Mu Huiyue was slightly taken aback. “White Fang… you want to continue fighting?”

White Fang stood with all four paws on the ground, its body upright and its fluffy tail swirling like drifting clouds behind it. It turned its head and gave Mu Huiyue a determined and cool look.

“Woof!”

(My turn isn’t over yet, it’s not time for Ellen-senpai to appear!)

White Fang possesses the D-level status skill Strengthen Body, making its physique far stronger than others of its kind. The previous battle didn’t consume as much of its energy as it might have seemed.

Mu Huiyue gave it a brief thought and followed White Fang’s wishes.

Although she didn’t know what Lin Lin was planning, disrupting the opponent’s intentions was always a good choice.

The two Beastmasters agreed to engage in battle, and the small-winged recording terminal flew over again, displaying a video frame for the match with the avatars of Mu Huiyue and Lin Lin.

Without any time for rest, the second battle began immediately.

“Let’s begin.” Lin Lin still wore a smile, snapping her fingers into the air.

“Forget-Me-Not Grass, invert space, Switch on!”

At her command, the five-petaled leaves above Forget-Me-Not Grass opened up, emitting an angelic halo. The halo gradually expanded until it enveloped the entire battlefield, then dissolved into specks of light.

Everyone present felt an indescribable change, and for a moment, it was as though all prior perceptions became blurry… even reversed.

Weakness became strength, strength became weakness, and the dimensions of judgment and the standards of measurement were completely inverted within this special space.

White Fang shook its head uncomfortably, appearing unaffected, but Mu Huiyue’s heart sank.

The feedback from her bracelet’s encyclopedia showed [Unknown], meaning the skill Lin Lin referred to as [Inverted Space] had never been registered in the Bureau’s database—an entirely new skill!

The skill’s level, effects, and attributes were all unknown, and she could only make judgments based on the phenomena before her.

Recalling the strange shift in perception earlier, Mu Huiyue adjusted her bracelet and once again scanned the battlefield’s two contracted beasts. The results caused her eyes to widen slightly.

White Fang had become a low-level elite species, with a regular hidden energy value of less than 2000P.

Meanwhile, Forget-Me-Not Grass had transformed into a mid-tier battle general species, with a regular hidden energy value of 9980P, nearly five times that of White Fang.

It was as if their power levels had been completely reversed.

Fortunately, the attributes and skill lists hadn’t changed. Mu Huiyue frowned slightly and looked ahead, “White Fang, can you still use Moon Blast?”

“Woof?” The little cloud dog, confused, immediately tried to activate the Moon Blast skill.

However, the surrounding dark energy gathered up with great difficulty, like trying to ignite a stubborn lighter—it snapped several times but couldn’t form the energy ball for Moon Blast.

“Woof!?”

(Why can’t I release Moon Blast!?)

The white-furred dog became a little flustered. Mu Huiyue understood, and she spoke to reassure it, “It’s okay, White Fang. You should still be able to use your other skills. Just think of it like you’re back at the breeding base.”

“Woof…” White Fang turned back to look at its Beastmaster, quickly calming itself.

The sudden power regression left it disoriented, but just as Mu Huiyue had said, even in its early juvenile stage, it had never feared battle or challenges.

Mu Huiyue let out a quiet breath. As it stood, the effect of the Reversed Space skill had only altered their species levels.

White Fang’s skills should be more numerous than Forget-Me-Not Grass’s, so even with the species reversal, White Fang’s regular hidden energy value was still higher than Forget-Me-Not Grass’s at the same level.

And even though Forget-Me-Not Grass had become a mid-tier battle general species, its regular hidden energy value still hadn’t reached 10,000.

However, with the decline in its regular hidden energy value, the energy inside White Fang was insufficient to support the use of B-grade skills, which is why it couldn’t use Moon Blast.

“You found the key point so quickly… No wonder you’re an excellent student,” Lin Lin observed the changes in Mu Huiyue’s expression. “But the gap in talent isn’t so easy to bridge. As the son of a legend, you should understand this better than anyone, right?”

“Forget-Me-Not Grass, use Flying Leaf Blades!”

Numerous spinning flying leaves appeared in mid-air, more than ten in total, and they shot toward the small cloud dog at high speed.

“White Fang, Shadow Step, dodge!”

Before Mu Huiyue’s words had even finished, the small cloud dog’s figure disappeared from its original spot and then reappeared, jumping through the shadows on the battlefield.

The final leaf came from a particularly tricky angle. White Fang, seeing it couldn’t dodge in time, turned around and used its Ice Claw. With a cold, frosty aura, its claw struck the metallic-glimmering leaf, sending it crashing to the ground.

Even with the regression of energy and species level, the battle awareness and skills already developed wouldn’t disappear. Achieving victory by overcoming species levels was still possible.

White Fang had already experienced this. After all, before evolving, Senior Ellen was just a low-level elite species skeleton, yet White Fang had never truly defeated him in a battle, except when deliberately avoiding combat to avoid being chewed on.

“Use Howl!” Mu Huiyue commanded.

The small cloud dog tilted its head and let out a long howl, boosting its own state while also exerting a certain degree of pressure on the enemy.

Although in the reversed species level state, the Howl from a low-level elite species had little effect on the medium-tier battle general species, Forget-Me-Not Grass.

Lin Lin’s voice came: “Use Flying Leaf Blades again.”

The sharp, metallic-glimmering leaves sliced through the Howl’s aura and sliced straight toward White Fang.

Having already dodged once, White Fang expertly used Shadow Step, cleverly moving to the side of Forget-Me-Not Grass using the shadow created by the falling Flying Leaf Blades.

“Dark Strike!”

As soon as the attack was prepared, Mu Huiyue’s command was delivered simultaneously.

The feeling of being in perfect harmony with her contracted beast was exhilarating. White Fang transformed into a dark-colored blur, rushing toward Forget-Me-Not Grass with the speed of lightning.

The seemingly weak little grass trembled, but it did not retreat. Instead, it braced itself and took the full force of the dark strike head-on.

White Fang’s sharp claws almost severed the delicate grass stems, but the break did not release any sap. Instead, darker-colored stems emerged from the severed ends.

These frail roots spread out like blood vessels and eventually coalesced into thick vines.

A massive, vibrant flower bloomed from the break in Forget-Me-Not Grass, growing rapidly beyond its original size. The closed petals unfolded, revealing a large empty cavity inside, with a ring of salivary-covered fangs visible.

More grass stems formed a mottled root system, supporting the massive and deformed king flower.

“Hmm, as expected, the flower form is much cuter,” Lin Lin nodded with satisfaction.

“White Fang—” Mu Huiyue called out sharply.

The moment the flower extended, White Fang had already sensed something was wrong and tried to retreat with Shadow Step.

However, Forget-Me-Not Grass—now should be called Forget-Me-Not King Flower—was faster. Its thick vines, like snakes, shot out and swiftly wrapped around the close-proximity little cloud dog.