After Lu Ran finished speaking, Dark Crow fell deep into its thought.
One more year of hard work, then everything will be easier? The good days will come?
“Why does this sound so familiar?”
Dark Crow pondered, glancing toward Green Sea High School under the gazes of Captain Doofus and Sudden Death King.
Forget it; it’s probably just a coincidence. Nothing important!
“Forget one year; even if it takes a hundred million years, I am willing to serve the king!”
Dark Crow was the first to declare loyalty, making Lu Ran feel gratified.
Captain Doofus turned away indifferently upon hearing Lu Ran’s words.
It had caught the key point.
It wasn’t interested in rewards, and it wasn’t interested in retirement. It only wanted to quickly verify how strong its evolved self had become. Its sword was thirsting for battle.
Even Sudden Death King remained calm this time.
What a joke. Could anything be tougher than its special training of flying high into the sky and free-falling every few days? It didn’t believe so. As for battles, aside from a slight fear of Captain Doofus, Sudden Death King wasn’t too concerned about others.
It was confident that as long as its level increased, its defense would become invincible. In battle, the enemy’s attacks would result in nothing more than a light scratch.
“Very well. Since you have no objections, then it’s settled.” Lu Ran smiled.
With such understanding familiars, how could his strength not improve?
“Lu Ran. Stop making empty promises and come over here. The specific rules for the World War have been updated.”
As Lu Ran was inspiring his familiars, Manager Ying, his bodyguard and caretaker, walked out of the Weather Sprite’s nursery. It seemed it had just put the Weather Sprite to sleep after serving as a means of transportation the entire journey.
Now that the Weather Sprite was one month old, Lu Ran estimated that by the time he returned from the ascension realm, forming a contract with it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Two months should be more than enough time for it to get strong enough to participate in battle.
“Ahem, you guys return first.” Lu Ran quickly recalled Captain Doofus, Dark Crow, and Sudden Death King into their contract cards.
Then, he walked toward Manager Ying and looked at its tablet. Manager Ying then tapped the screen with its paw.
“The selection process for the top ten spots seems to be a tournament.”
“A tournament? I thought they’d gather a large number of beastmasters for an elimination match.” Lu Ran was surprised.
Manager Ying rolled its eyes. “How would that be possible? That would waste too much time. Now, every arena in Limitless City has opened a registration channel. As long as you pass the preliminaries, beastmasters can teleport through the arena to a place called King’s Domain.
“In King’s Domain, there are ten floating islands, each with an arena. The first ten to enter King’s Domain will automatically become the arena masters. If no one challenges them afterward, they will officially become Blue Planet’s top ten one year later.
“If someone defeats them, the loser will be replaced. However, as long as the season isn’t over, the displaced arena master can seek revenge or challenge another arena master to reclaim their position.”
“Oh.” Lu Ran nodded in thought. “Are there any restrictions on challenges? Being constantly challenged would be annoying.”
“Yeah, the preliminaries seem quite difficult. Even though the update just came out, some have already started attempting it. The preliminaries involve challenging a phantom boss generated by Limitless City, similar to fighting in a Public Secret Realm.
“According to reports, the first boss is a level 50 Superior-Overlord vicious beast. This first stage alone should filter out a huge number of people. Take you, for example. Right now, even if all three of your familiars fought together, you wouldn’t be able to defeat that thing.”
“Damn, the first stage is a level 50 Superior Overlord?”
Lu Ran immediately recognized the weight of this preliminary round. Most beastmasters wouldn’t even dare look at such a creature unless their familiars had undergone phase two evolution. Without several Overlord familiars above that level, ordinary beastmasters wouldn’t even have a chance.
“Exactly. So this Preliminary: Road to Kingship event will likely keep Blue Planet’s top elites occupied for a while.” Manager Ying shrugged.
“We won’t be seeing the top ten anytime soon. In short, only a few beastmasters worldwide will pass these preliminaries, meaning even fewer will reach King’s Domain for the main tournament. Additionally, there are conditions for challenging an arena master.”
“Each person can only challenge twice per month. Each loss costs 10 million crystal coins.”
Lu Ran nodded again. “That’s reasonable. For these top-tier contestants, 10 million is something they can afford, but losing it would still sting.”
“Also, after each battle, Limitless City will provide a certain degree of healing. Right now, Blue Planet’s top elites rarely fight at full strength because high-level familiars are difficult to heal. No one wants to deal with the aftermath, so they usually hold back.
“With Limitless City offering healing services, arena masters won’t mind frequent battles. After all, high-level fights help improve their own strength.”
“That makes sense.” Lu Ran said.
It seemed that over the next year, this arena and King’s Domain would become the battleground for Blue Planet’s strongest. The only question was, how long would it take for him to break into that realm and fight them as a fourth-generation beastmaster...?
“Oh, right.” Lu Ran turned to Manager Ying. “Are there any other battle rules?”
“There are. During the challenge phase, all matches are 3v3 battles. The beastmaster can summon any three familiars from their contract. If they have fewer than three contracted familiars, they can fight 1v3 or 2v3. Additionally, beastmasters themselves can participate in the battle. The battles have no restrictions on life or death.”
Manager Ying looked at Lu Ran seriously. “Kid, if you’re not absolutely sure, don’t go challenging foreign beastmasters whose abilities are unknown. During a fight, they absolutely won’t hold back. If you want to challenge someone, start with the president or Lin Nian. If they enter the top ten, use them as your training dummies. At least they won’t beat you to death.”
Lu Ran was speechless.
“3v3, huh.” Lu Ran stroked his chin. “Limitless City is clearly encouraging beastmasters to concentrate their resources on their three strongest familiars. Does the number three have any special significance?”
“Not the three strongest.” Manager Ying corrected. “The three that work best together. A team of the three individually strongest familiars might not be as powerful as a team of three well-matched familiars.
“But well, first-generation beastmasters don’t have much choice anymore. Their teams are already set. Comparatively, second and third-generation beastmasters have more flexibility in forming their teams since they still have opportunities to contract new familiars. As for why it’s three, I have a theory. Have you heard of Fusion Domain?”
“On Stellar Moon Continent, some powerful beastmasters can make two familiars with domain abilities merge their domains, forming a Fusion Domain. And according to records, the highest achievement so far is the fusion of three familiars’ domains.
“The power they can unleash is something that mere numbers cannot compete with, even among familiars of the same rank. I wonder if Limitless City is trying to push Blue Planet’s top beastmasters in this direction.”
Lu Ran pondered for a moment. “Maybe. But that sounds incredibly difficult. Most people can’t even use a single domain properly. But considering the massive resources provided by the Overlord Familiar Ranking, a few people might achieve rapid growth soon.”
“True. If this really is about training beastmasters to master Fusion Domain, then first-generation beastmasters from Xia have a huge advantage.”
Manager Ying shrugged. “Even the Eagle Federation has fewer first-generation beastmasters who can wield domains than you guys. Anyway, when do you plan to enter the ascension realm? Once inside, you might find a Legendary master and squeeze some benefits out of them, and you might even get a domain for Sudden Death King and Dark Crow.”
“Soon! You think Legendary-grade masters are as common as cabbages?”
“You’re bold enough to consider acquiring a portable secret realm, but not brave enough to eat cabbage?” Manager Ying snorted.
“Enough talking.” Lu Ran changed the topic. “By the way, once I enter the ascension realm, I’ll leave the Weather Sprite and Winter Sword Spirit with you for a month.”
Manager Ying was taken aback.
“The fuck?” Manager Ying scowled. “Why is there another one? Wait, isn’t the Winter Sword Spirit unique? It can enter Limitless City and secret realms alongside that dog. You should take it with you!”
Lu Ran said impatiently, “You forgot that ascension realms aren’t like regular secret realms. For Limitless City or regular secret realms, even if a familiar isn’t recalled into a contract card, it can still teleport alongside its beastmaster.
“But for ascension realms, Limitless City forcibly recalls all familiars into their contract cards before teleportation. Even though the sword spirit can possess Captain Doofus and enter a regular secret realm, they can’t share the same contract card. When I teleport, the system will separate them, leaving the sword spirit behind in the personal room.”
Lu Ran understood why ascension realms had this rule. Upon entering an ascension realm, Limitless City generated an identity background for the trial participant. If a familiar remained outside, it would limit the plausibility of that background.
For example, when Lu Ran entered an ascension realm as a necromancer, he had been listening to a missionary’s indoctrination. Everyone there had no familiars summoned. If he had suddenly arrived with Sudden Death King at his side, it would have been way too conspicuous.
Regular secret realms didn’t have this issue. Ultimately, although he couldn’t bring the sword spirit into the ascension realm, Lu Ran could accept that. At least he still had the swordgrass.
Worse came to worst, even if Captain Doofus just formed a Wind Blade by itself, it would still have an Intermediate-Overlord species rank. Although it wouldn’t be as strong as when the sword spirit possessed it, it should be enough for a level 2 ascension realm.
“Fine, fine. A cat babysitting two kids, huh?”
Manager Ying had completely given up. Seeing Lu Ran’s unlimited potential, it enjoyed working with him as he always brought surprises. It wanted to see what this Limitless City’s bastard son gained from this ascension realm.
With the new ascension realm approaching, Lu Ran began making preparations. He needed to set things up outside so that this month wouldn’t be wasted. For instance, by the time he returned from the ascension realm, Dark Crow would reach level 40 and could fuse with the Legion Domination trait.
At that point, all the ordinary crows would become part of its combat force. So this month, they couldn’t just loaf around. They needed rigorous training. To raise these crows properly, Lu Ran planned to use a secret realm card to create a Real Secret Realm in Green Sea.
Then, he would invest a fortune into modifying it into a bird’s nest for them to rest in. First, he’d improve their living conditions. As for food, Lu Ran would allocate a large sum of crystal coins and leave the purchasing to Manager Ying.
“My king, the crow flock currently numbers 5,173. 520 are above level 10. 12 are above level 20. 90% of them have awakened the Wind attribute. The remaining crows mostly have common attributes. As for the more powerful ones, five are of the Dark attribute like me, and seven have the Spirit attribute like me.”
“5,000? That many already?” When he heard Dark Crow’s report, Lu Ran was astonished.
“Did you recruit every transcendent crow in the entire province?” Lu Ran asked.
Dark Crow flapped its wings repeatedly. “Not quite. But, my king, should I?”
“Forget it... This should be enough for now.”