Chapter 4

Regarding the training of the little Swiftwind Dog, Xia Muqing mainly had two ideas.

Originally, she could decide on her own, but after watching the little Swiftwind Dog’s performance during the day, Xia Muqing brought over two chairs and carefully placed the little white ball on one.

“Come, come, let’s have a family meeting.”

The little Swiftwind Dog: “…?”

The little Swiftwind Dog was confused but, seeing Xia Muqing’s serious expression, sat properly with its small tail pressed against the chair seat.

Xia Muqing said, “Today’s meeting is mainly to discuss your future training direction. I have two ideas. The first is that you, Xiao Feng, work hard to overcome your fears, improve your attack and defense abilities, and become a powerful pentagon-shaped combat mystical beast.”

“The second is to play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses, continuing to train your speed and reaction skills, learning wind and spirit-type abilities. In all martial arts under heaven, speed is invincible — as long as you’re fast enough, your opponent’s moves can’t hit you. As for attack… we’ll find a way.”

“So, what do you think? Which do you choose?”

The little Swiftwind Dog: “…Awooo?”

The little Swiftwind Dog was very puzzled.

Is this something the mystical beast decides?

Isn’t it usually the owner who tells it what to learn?

But when it looked up, it met Xia Muqing’s encouraging eyes.

“Tell me your thoughts, your wishes are very important to me.”

Xia Muqing smiled at little Swiftwind Dog, “I have only one requirement: once you choose your path, you must stick to it. But don’t worry, I will always be by your side.”

After a few seconds of silence, the little Swiftwind Dog raised its paw and placed it on the table.

“Awooo.”

It wanted to choose the second option!

“The second option?” Xia Muqing nodded knowingly. “No problem. Then we’ll have to work hard on speed.”

“Don’t think this path is easy. Compared to the first one, this road might be even tougher…”

The little Swiftwind Dog: “…?”

Wait, is it still too late to change my mind?

Xia Muqing shifted tone, “But if you succeed, you’ll be even stronger.”

She stretched out her hands and gestured in the air repeatedly, “Who says a Swiftwind Dog has to be melee, learning ‘Fierce Bite’ and ‘Charge’?”

“If your speed reaches the extreme, you could even become a ranged mage — you know what a mage is, right? They don’t have to get close, they just cast spells from afar, bombarding enemies one after another.”

Xia Muqing painted a bright future, and little Swiftwind Dog listened with eyes shining.

Ranged! Mage!

Great! It wanted to learn that—it didn’t like close combat!

Xia Muqing made the decision: “Then it’s settled!”

“We’ll first train your speed to the max, then learn the skill ‘Wind Vortex’!”

The little Swiftwind Dog raised its head and cheered, “Awoo!”

Wind Vortex! Wind Vortex!

Watching little Swiftwind Dog’s excited expression, Xia Muqing smiled warmly.

Actually, from the start, she had planned to choose the second training path.

Unlike ordinary Swiftwind Dogs, Xiao Feng not only had outstanding speed stats but also had spirit stats exceeding 90, which was excellent.

This was thanks to its talent for danger premonition, which also formed the basis for learning more wind-type skills and wide-area attack abilities.

Although unconventional, this approach perfectly matched little Swiftwind Dog’s “extremely specialized” five-dimensional attributes and corresponded to a hidden divine beast-level evolution path in the future.

Of course, divine beast-level evolution was still far off, but at least it was on the right track.

Other Swiftwind Dogs didn’t have such high spirit stats.

They might not even be able to learn ‘Wind Vortex.’

—

For the next week, Xia Muqing took little Swiftwind Dog to various training sessions every day.

Zhu Ning knew she needed to prepare for exams and gave her a long leave so she could prepare without worries, with her salary uninterrupted.

To be honest, Xia Muqing felt a bit guilty.

Xiao Feng was also very hardworking. It had great talent and, since this training path was its own choice, it practiced with extra effort.

Worried that it might lack nutrition, Xia Muqing fed it plenty of nutritious milk daily, along with other nutritious food and stamina potions. Adding the cost of renting training venues and skill training fees, nearly all of the 30,000 star coins saved in her bank card were spent on Xiao Feng.

Raising a mystical beast was truly a money burner.

Fortunately, after a week, little Swiftwind Dog finally learned a new skill.

In the training arena, Xia Muqing pointed her hand.

“Wind Vortex!”

The little Swiftwind Dog leapt into the air, surrounded by a faint cyan aura. It howled, “Awoo!”

A rapidly swirling blue-green vortex of energy shot out from its mouth. About half a meter away from its body, the vortex quickly expanded into a wind spiral about an arm’s width across, whipping up fierce winds around the arena.

The target in the simulated battle was caught in the vortex and quickly dispersed into nothingness.

A line of text appeared on the display screen:

【Congratulations on your victory in the D-level simulation battle! This attack scored: 3098 points.】

“Over three thousand points now?” Xia Muqing raised her hand, “Xiao Feng, well done!”

The little Swiftwind Dog happily rushed over and tapped its small paw on her palm—a sort of high-five.

The staff nearby watched for a while and couldn’t help but clap, “Not bad, an attack score over three thousand. Most ordinary mystical beasts can’t even withstand this move.”

“I really didn’t expect your little dog to learn the Wind Vortex skill. I misjudged it a few days ago.”

Xia Muqing smiled, “This is just the beginning.”

Actually, besides mastering Wind Vortex, little Swiftwind Dog’s movement speed had also improved significantly, breaking a high score of 10,000 on the dodge machine in the arcade.

Now it jumped and moved around the arena so fast it looked like a streak of white snowlight. Xia Muqing’s eyes could barely keep up.

She was very pleased with this rapid progress.

But she couldn’t be complacent.

Xia Muqing waved to little Swiftwind Dog. When it wagged its tail and ran over, she reached out to gently stroke its soft head encouragingly: “Xiao Feng, let’s keep going.”

“Next, try condensing two wind spirals. You’ll need to focus on controlling your attention. Can you do that?”

—

“Back to school the day after tomorrow? Submit the training plan to the teacher for review tonight?”

At home that evening, Xia Muqing received a school notification and immediately got a call from Xu Ling.

Xu Ling sounded a bit nervous: “What do I do, Muqing? My head’s spinning! I didn’t expect to write a training plan so soon, and I still haven’t decided. Do you think my Bright Moon Oriole should go down the attack path or the support path?”

Xia Muqing: “Uh, why not try both?”

Xu Ling: “No, they’re different evolution paths!”

“If it’s attack, I should train it to learn ‘Bewitch’, ‘Sound Demon’, and those skills, so it can evolve into the Onimaru Bird. If it’s support, it should learn ‘Comfort’ and ‘Enhance’, aiming to evolve into the Bright Moon Oriole…”

“Stop, stop,” Xia Muqing said, half laughing, half crying, “Don’t be so ungrateful. Many mystical beasts’ evolution paths aren’t even known by humans yet. For most known mystical beasts, there’s basically only one evolution path. Your Bright Moon Oriole already has two known evolutions and can choose between them—that’s really lucky.”

Xu Ling: “Sure, it’s lucky, but I’m just so conflicted.”

Xia Muqing thought for a moment and said, “If that’s the case, why not ask Bright Moon Oriole what it wants?”

Xu Ling: “…?”

You can do that?

Xia Muqing’s suggestion opened a whole new world for her.

Xu Ling excitedly went to ask, but a few minutes later called back with a distressed voice, “It’s over, Bright Moon Oriole said that little birds don’t have to choose — it wants both.”

Xia Muqing: “…?”

What have you been showing it recently?

Xia Muqing pondered, “Actually wanting both… isn’t impossible…”

Bright moon oriole indeed has another evolution path—extremely powerful, able to both attack and support, with strength surpassing the other two paths.

But the conditions are stricter, and it hasn’t been discovered by anyone yet.

However, the conditions are clearly written in her “Mystical Beast Encyclopedia.”

One of the requirements is dual-type training.

“This training method shouldn’t be a problem. Isn’t there a divine beast tamer named Cheng who has a dual-type Bright Moon Oriole too?”

Xia Muqing gave Xu Ling some advice: “Just let it learn both first. Tell it since it’s its own choice, it will need to spend double the training time and must work twice as hard every day.”

Xu Ling: “???”

Wow, so you can actually talk your mystical beast into that?

Lesson learned!

After advising Xu Ling, Xia Muqing opened a form and started filling out little Swiftwind Dog’s training plan.

Unlike conflicted Xu Ling, Xia Muqing had long been clear about Xiao Feng’s training direction, so she wrote quickly and finished the form in no time.

Saved, sent.

Over, task complete!

—

Late at night that day.

In an apartment building in the city, Teacher Li finally finished gathering all the students’ training plans and sat at his desk to start reviewing them.

His wife, holding their sleepy child, stood at the study door, somewhat annoyed as she pushed it open: “The little one is already asleep. Can’t you review the assignments tomorrow?”

Teacher Li sighed, “Time is tight. There’s less than a month before the subject division exams. If any student takes the wrong path, that would be a big problem.”

“If I review earlier and find issues sooner, they still have time to make corrections. Every day counts.”

“Alright, don’t worry about me. You and the baby go ahead and sleep. I’ll keep it quiet—oh, and honey, please make me a cup of tea before bed, make it strong.”

His wife rolled her eyes but said nothing more, turning away to make the tea.

Teacher Li opened the training plans and carefully reviewed each one, occasionally jotting down notes.

He had been a teacher for nearly ten years. Although he never became a powerful beast tamer, his years of experience gave him deep knowledge about mystical beast training.

He knew the most common contracted mystical beast types each year, the most cost-effective training methods, the recommended skill learning order, and even the preferences of the exam judges when scoring — all like the back of his hand.

Reviewing the students’ plans was routine for him, and he was sharp and direct in his feedback.

Most students’ plans were fairly normal—after all, specialization was a big deal, so everyone was cautious. But as he continued, Teacher Li frowned at one particular plan.

“This mystical beast…”

It was a bit beyond his knowledge.

Glancing at the student’s name, Teacher Li nodded slightly in understanding: “So this is Liu Pan’s.”

This student came from a wealthy family, naturally able to afford better and rarer mystical beasts.

Teacher Li set this plan aside to study the details more thoroughly later before giving advice.

Next plan… Bright Moon Oriole?

Teacher Li frowned again.

Although this mystical beast wasn’t very common, he was somewhat familiar with it. But this training plan… dual focus on attack and support? Isn’t that a bit too greedy?

He worried it might end up producing a confused, ineffective result.

Teacher Li felt conflicted. He was about to mark it wrong, but then noticed Xu Ling had included a reasoned explanation at the end—

—one revised with help from Xia Muqing, well-founded and logical.

“Chengcheng, the divine beast tamer? He also has a dual-type Bright Moon Oriole, so this training direction is feasible?”

Teacher Li sighed in helplessness.

He really didn’t know that.

Without investigating, he had no right to speak. So Teacher Li had to set this plan aside as well and wait to study it further.

After going through two more tough cases in a row, Teacher Li tiredly pinched the bridge of his nose and took a sip of strong tea to refresh himself.

“Students nowadays… they really have their own ideas…”

Thinking that, he opened the next plan.

Three seconds later.

“Pfft!”

He spat the tea all over his keyboard, his hand trembling as he hurried to wipe it off. He recognized every word on this plan, yet couldn’t understand a single sentence as a whole!

A Swiftwind Dog, right? That he was familiar with, but what the heck was this “ranged mage” class?

It was one thing not to learn Fierce Bite and Charge, but Wind Vortex he could tolerate since the Swiftwind Dog counted as wind-type — but what were “Wind Force,” “Cloudfall,” and “Moonstep”?

Was this kid training the Swiftwind Dog like some kind of wind spirit?

And the evolution path — obviously a Swiftwind Dog should evolve into a Berserk Giant Hound! But what she wrote was “Lord Fengluo (Lord Wind Luo)“?

That has got to be a made-up name!

“Who wrote this plan? Xia Muqing?!”

Teacher Li slammed the desk angrily.

He seriously suspected that everything he had taught over the past year had gone completely in one ear and out the other.

“Out of all the assignments, yours is the most ridiculous!”