"Where is the award ceremony?"
Back in Sky City, Lu Ran saw the news. Fortunately, no one accused him of cheating, allowing him to feel at ease. He didn't care how he won. His opponents surrendering just made his life easier, and he didn’t want to fight all day in the first place.
However, after the freshman competition ended and the three deans gave their speeches, no one mentioned the prize at all, which put Lu Ran on edge.
Hence, he pressured his bodyguard—his only connection with the principal.
"Cut it out! They’re not going to cheat you out of your reward. There was just a small hiccup that pushed the award ceremony back," Manager Ying explained.
"Why didn’t anyone tell me?" Lu Ran questioned.
"Because of Lin Nian's sister." Manager Ying's lips twitched.
I did tell you to pray for her to drop dead, but don’t tell me you actually did it!
The situation was still under wraps, but Manager Ying clearly had the inside scoop.
"I see. What happened to Lin Yin after she fainted?" Lu Ran asked.
She withdrew from the competition, so it must be quite serious. Did her ability go out of control and hurt herself? If so, then telekinesis sure sounds dangerous! Looks like telepathy is a much safer ability. The worst I get are occasional nightmares.
"Since you also have a similar ability, I'm being upfront with you so you can be more careful," Manager Ying said. "A powerful Spirit-attribute creature reached out to her in a dream and chose her."
Manager Ying then went on to tell him about the beastmaster version of the “Nigerian Prince.”
"She got a scam dream?” Lu Ran had gotten scam calls and scam messages before, but now that he heard about what happened to Lin Yin, did he have to beware of scam dreams as well?
Manager Ying rolled its eyes. "Who knows?"
"I don't know about any legendary foxes or legendary creatures being reincarnated. At least it’s creative. The only believable part is that it's hibernating. Legendary creature? How corny!
"Not only that, but it's asking for too much. Epic-grade Spirit-attribute resources? Forget the Xia Empire. There might not be a single one in the entire world.”
“So whether it’s a scam or not, the government couldn’t pay up even if it wanted to?” Lu Ran summarized.
Poverty was certainly the best way to defend against scams. The key point here was to make sure her sister didn’t get scammed.
"That’s the situation. The first-generation beastmasters are all of the opinion that they should prepare as if the dreams are credible, so they’re actually trying to find an Epic Spirit-attribute resource.”
"They don't actually want to wake it up until they can verify its identity and confirm its intentions.” Manager Ying shook its head. “Anyway, this is all her sister’s problem."
"By the way, are there still no clues about the sleeping ancient creatures that we are looking for?" Lu Ran inquired.
Whether good or bad, an ancient creature straight up offered itself to Lin Yin. Here he was, looking for one, but with nothing to show for it.
"I'm looking into it, but it’s not going to happen overnight. Even if you find one right now, you don't have room for another familiar. That King-species egg is already teed up as your next one," Manager Ying reminded.
"That egg is enough to make several first-generations jealous. They have been asking the president for it, but the old man didn't cave. You already lucked out."
"Really?" Lu Ran grinned. He hoped that whatever hatched from the egg would be super powerful!
"So since the award ceremony is canceled, where do I go to collect the award?"
"I'll message Qingyi to bring it to you. She is with the president, Shi Zhen, and the others."
"Okay." Lu Ran was relieved.
While Lu Ran was chatting with Manger Ying, there was someone else who was also thinking about the prize: Fang Lan!
She performed exceptionally well and ranked 15th. Many beastmasters from Limitless City #3 were shocked by how powerful the Five Poison Saintess had become.
Lu Ran could only sigh. She turned an entire city into a poison research facility and was anointed as a saintess. She had a major advantage that wasn’t easy for others to overcome.
Fang Lan was clearly on pace to become the strongest fourth-generation Poison beastmaster. Her rewards included a Low-Champion familiar cub, a trait crystal or beastmaster skill of her choice, and 100,000 crystal coins.
Thinking about the prize, she couldn’t resist texting Lu Ran.
[Fang Lan: What trait or skill do you want? Where’s the familiar they promised?]
Before the competition, Lu Ran gave Fang Lan the Fusion skill, so Fang Lan promised that if she placed well in the competition, then she would repay him using the prizes she got.
Lu Ran had forgotten about it since they hadn't brought it up again, but after a little hesitation, Lu Ran finally texted her back.
[Lu Ran: It’s ok, I don’t need anything. You need to catch up! Once we start challenging the high-level Hell-difficulty secret realms, Overlord-ranked bosses will start appearing. I won’t be able to beat them by myself, so I'm counting on your poison for support.]
Lu Ran wasn’t being modest. The Hell-difficulty secret realms that first-generation beastmaster challenged in the later stages were guarded by Overlord bosses and were quite the ordeal.
The first generation was far ahead of Lu Ran. Dr. Gu already even had a top-tier dragon familiar. Nevertheless, even as a team, they still struggled against the Overlord species before the spiritual energy revival. That made it clear how challenging the secret realms could be.
Lu Ran was strong largely thanks to the investment of the bigwigs. For one, the Endurance and Nature Manipulation trait crystals that Dr. Gu had given him were precious items that were only dropped by Overlord bosses. They were obviously sourced from the first-generation teams.
Very few fourth-generation beastmasters could enjoy such treatment. As time went on, the gap between Lu Ran and his peers would gradually shrink, and others would eventually be able to get trait crystals on par with his.
When that time came, Lu Ran would need a lot more help conquering high-level secret realms. It would be no different from when he took Captain Doofus to challenge the Abandoned Laboratory for the first time, which proved very difficult even though he had the Divine Deer Pendant. Ultimately, he relied on the poison that Fang Lan had given him to clear it.
Lu Ran didn’t really need the things that Fang Lan had at the moment. After all, he was the one and only Dragon Chef. He might be lacking some top-tier resources, but there were many ways for him to obtain more conventional items. Therefore, it was better to let Fang Lan have them so she could catch up quickly. Being friends with a poison expert could come in handy.
[Really? Then I won't insist. Instead, within a year, I will become a Poison-attribute expert and create a poison that can put down an Overlord for you.]
Lu Ran smiled. The two of them were old acquaintances, so they didn’t hold back.
His attention quickly shifted when he received a message from Manager Ying that Dr. Gu had arrived to personally deliver his prizes.
"This is yours." Dr. Gu handed over a huge egg. She probably came as soon as she heard from Manager Ying.
Gu Qingyi didn't expect Lu Ran to grab his grand prize even faster than she could finish what she was saying.
"Don’t drop it!" Dr. Gu warned.
"Dr. Gu, thank you for coming personally! And sorry for making you come all this way.”
"It's okay. I teleported, so it wasn’t that much of a hassle."
Did everyone have a Space-attribute familiar for transport?
"This is also for you. Shi Zhen wanted me to tell you that you did a great job. We're striving to beat the Eagle Federation in fully researching the Dragon attribute."
Gu Qingyi took out the Ethereal Flower, which made Lu Ran's eyes light up. It seemed that he would also have a Space-attribute familiar soon.
Lu Ran thought about what the first skill for it would be.
It has to be Teleport.
"No problem. The egg will take about two months to hatch. The offspring of King species are very strong even before they hatch, and they naturally absorb external energy on their own, so you don't need to take special care of it. Just remember not to put it in storage. Also, don't mistake it for food and cook it by accident."
"I’m not that careless!" Lu Ran countered.
He wasn't so extravagant as to cook a King-species egg.
"I'll enter the level 1 ascension realm in the next month. When I come out, I’ll have an additional contract slot ready for it by the time it hatches," Lu Ran replied. "What do you think?"
"Sounds like a plan. During this period, you should concentrate on studying dragon cuisine here. I will arrange for the university to prepare enough dragon-related ingredients for you."
Lu Ran had thought about that too since he didn’t have any immediate plans for Captain Doofus anyway. Other than energy acceleration, it had progressed its three other energy techniques to the second stage already. It also had a solid foundation even when compared to the familiars of third-generation beastmasters. Hence, it shouldn’t be easier for it to make any more progress in the short term.
On the other hand, Sudden Death King still had huge room for improvement.
It mastered energy projection and formation, and it also had the Dragon Intent Formation, which was certainly special. However, it still hadn’t learned energy acceleration or compression.
Its specie’s talent wasn’t inferior to Captain Doofus’. The reason it couldn’t beat Captain Doofus was that its energy usage still wasn’t refined enough.
Various top-tier dragon dishes combined with Reverse Super Beast Mimicry should be able to make up for its shortcomings. It should balance it out with Captain Doofus as well, making them a powerful “sword and shield” combo.
If it couldn’t catch up to Captain Doofus, how could it expect to evolve into a dragon at level 30?
Once it had turned into a dragon, Lu Ran planned to challenge the level 1 ascension realm. By that point, no matter what the ascension realm threw at him, it should be a breeze. He just hoped that there wouldn’t be any more weird ascension missions.
Dr. Gu didn’t stay for very long. She had been in the deep sea for so long that a bunch of work had piled up, leaving her no time to babysit Lu Ran.
Lu Ran gave the King familiar egg to Manager Ying to take care of. He then entered the Limitless City to clear a few level 1 secret realms before the dragon-related ingredients at Beastmaster University were ready.
There were some worthwhile resources in them, such as the Spirit Gem that could awaken the spirit attribute. It dropped from the level 1 secret realm Land of the Fallen.
Unlike trait crystals, these attribute-awakening resources didn’t have usage restrictions. Lu Ran planned to pull one to awaken Dark Crow’s second attribute back in Green Sea City.
If he was lucky and pulled some other similar resources, then the second attribute of each of the Seven Beast Generals could be taken care of. Lu Ran still had a preference for PVE over PVP. After all, the speed of resource acquisition through PVE was much higher.
"My main focus is still the Champion rankings. In public secret realms, Captain Doofus is comparable to a Low King species, but it is only ranked second on LImitless City’s public Champion Heavenly Familiar Rankings.
“It’s either Limitless City’s public leaderboard is too competitive since it encompasses every country or Captain Doofus’ ranking was affected because it didn’t go all out against the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
"Let's see, this time I’ll stay in the local Limitless City and see how high Sudden Death King can rank. I’ll just have to step on a few unlucky Joes."
Lu Ran was now officially starting to compete for rankings against third-generation beastmasters. Compared to the fourth generation, the third-generation Champion rankings were like a pool of stagnant water. There was essentially no movement at all; someone had to throw a rock into it and stir up some waves.