"Hey, Sudden Death King. Were you wishing for tough armored scales?"
Sudden Death King was in the midst of a battle of wits and courage with some wild grasshoppers when Lu Ran asked it this question. It was surprised, but Lu Ran was right. Hunting grasshoppers was much easier now.
Its enemies seemed incredibly slow. To Sudden Death King, they were barely moving. When the enemy struck back, it could hardly feel the blows land on its body. It felt as though it could easily suppress and crush them in an instant.
In just a few minutes, Sudden Death King had devoured three grasshoppers. The fierce fight almost made Captain Doofus fall asleep.
Sudden Death King poked its head out of the bushes. It carefully thought about what Lu Ran said and croaked again.
If my scales are hard, then I won’t get hurt. If my scales are soft, then I’ll die easily!
Lu Ran rubbed his head.
"Why do you want a stronger defense, anyway? If you have absolute power, can't you just easily kill anything that stands in your way?"
The pain. The pain will kill me.
Lu Ran was speechless.
Forget it. I’m going to ignore this little idiot.
He understood what Sudden Death King was saying, though. Upon gaining greater power, even if one could easily kill their enemy, there was always the risk of painful injuries. But with a powerful defense, the enemy couldn’t do anything to you even if they were unbeatable. Ideally, the enemy's attacks wouldn’t hurt one bit. A barrage of attacks might end up feeling like a massage.
Lu Ran didn't quite understand this kind of thinking, but considering that it was just a lizard and had the intelligence of a three-year-old combined with its instincts, there wasn’t much to be expected.
On the contrary, Captain Doofus was the polar opposite. Even if injured, it wanted to take down the enemy and maintain peak aggression.
The two of you are quite a pair, both abnormal. Can't y’all be more normal? However, it does feel nice to max out defense.
If I mimic a giant dragon with maxed-out defense, wouldn't I also become very tough, almost to the point of being impervious to attacks?
Combined with the offensive power and speed of his other familiar, a powerful shield could also become a powerful weapon. Do I have to utilize the second beastmaster style of strengthening myself?
"Keep doing what you’re doing."
Lu Ran continued to browse the forum with nothing to do. Based on what he knew, if Sudden Death King only ate ordinary insects, it would take a long time for it to become full since it had evolved into a transcendent creature.
Lu Ran started searching for keywords when he saw that the forum added a search function.
Lu Ran's eyes lit up when the search results pulled up.
[Nylon Knot: Help! Why do other people's familiars grow bigger after getting contracted, but my hedgehog shrank instead?
This is urgent! I only have an hour left before entering the Beginner Trial Secret Realm. Although it said that a suitable secret realm would be arranged according to the familiar I chose, I still think that it’s too small. Will I be ok?]
"Sure enough, it's just like Sudden Death King. Let's see if there are any experts who know what's going on."
Lu Ran quickly skimmed the comments.
There were many replies to this post, so he sorted the comments by the most liked.
[Huntsman: Lol, I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first? Let me start with the good news. Your hedgehog familiar has great talent. Aren’t you glad?
But don’t get too excited. The bad news is that your own talent is pretty bad. After forming the contract, both beastmaster and familiar will become stronger. However, this power doesn’t come out of thin air.
A part of it comes from the contract card, another part is transferred from the familiar to the beastmaster, and finally, the last part is transferred from the beastmaster to the familiar.
The power transferred between the two parties, combined with the power from the contract card, will produce a wondrous reaction, and both parties will reach new heights—provided they can offer each other high-quality power.
For instance, if a beastmaster contracts a dying mouse, the beastmaster gains little. Conversely, if a level 5 beastmaster contracts an ordinary animal, the animal would benefit far more than the beastmaster.
In other words, since you couldn’t provide enough high-quality power, your familiar could not absorb enough nutrients during its awakening, so how could it grow in size?
As for why it shrank, it’s the familiar’s protection mechanism that fully utilizes the limited power it has to optimally strengthen itself. If it maintained its original size, it is likely that it would not have fully evolved, resulting in defects.
OP, don't take this the wrong way, but is there something wrong with you? You should see a doctor.
Don't worry about your familiar. It has strong talents. Not every familiar can shrink to achieve a perfect evolution. This requires a certain amount of talent.
There used to be a trend amongst beastmasters where they used a resource called awakening leaves to test the qualifications of a familiar. Because transcendent creatures awakened by awakening leaves do not have energy from a contract card or the beastmaster, the initial boost in power they obtain is minimal.
Most of them won’t grow any bigger and remain the same size or shrink to achieve a more complete evolution. This situation is very common and can be used to judge the qualifications of pets to a certain extent.
When supplied with enough nutrients and it reaches a high level, its size will gradually return to normal.
Do you understand now? Instead of worrying about your familiar, worry about your own condition first. You’re pretty young. Have you been overdoing the five-finger shuffle?]
Lu Ran understood everything the moment he read this.
It turned out that the awakening leaf couldn’t provide enough power, so Sudden Death King could only shrink to allow itself to complete its evolution.
There wasn’t enough transcendent power available in the leaf. If it wanted to grow bigger, it would probably end up missing an arm or a leg and unable to strengthen itself properly.
That means Sudden Death King’s miniature size wasn’t because it was condensed down but rather due to malnutrition.
That’s such a basic reason.
Lu Ran remained silent.
My knowledge of beastmasters is still inadequate.
Lu Ran gave a moment of silence to the beastmaster called Nylon Knot before looking down at Sudden Death King with a little guilt.
"Sudden Death King, just bear with me a little. Just eat what you have for now. We will feed you properly when Captain Doofus and I make some money.”
It would be a better meat shield if it were big and tough!
I didn't realize that there was so much informative content on the forum before. It seems that I can sometimes take a break from training to browse the forums and brush up on new information.
Just like that, Lu Ran scrolled for half an hour. Sudden Death King appeared to be extremely hungry and ate several times its body weight, but its size didn't significantly change.
That's right, its body was tough, so if it wanted to grow without any deficits, it needed to absorb a huge amount of nutrients. It was something that grasshoppers simply couldn’t provide.
Lu Ran was still in the middle of walking Captain Doofus and Sudden Death King when he heard the inner voices of wild animals.
Mhm, they kill each other.
And command scary monsters.
This situation was very common. Ever since Lu Ran obtained his telepathy, he would often hear the inner voices of wild animals.
However, it was still rare to hear them so clearly, which meant that the ones he heard had high intelligence. Lu Ran looked around and soon found three squirrels on a tree holding fruits and staring at him.
It turned out to be these three squirrels!
The average intelligence of squirrels wasn’t particularly high, but it wasn’t low either. Based on the communication abilities of these three, they seemed to be exceptional individuals, with intelligence comparable to the crow in Green Sea City.
Normally, Lu Ran rarely responded to animals. This time, however, Lu Ran couldn't help but stop because the things these three squirrels said were too outrageous.
People? Killing each other? Commanding scary monsters?
When the three squirrels realized that Lu Ran had stopped to stare at them, they were shocked and dropped the fruits in their hands. It was almost like they were pretending to act normal.
"Sudden Death King, let me test you. Catch those three squirrels for me!"
Sudden Death King looked at the squirrels and fell into deep thought. It was his time to show off his courage and absolute defense. It gritted its teeth and charged forward!
Catching a squirrel won’t kill me, but disobeying Lu Ran definitely will!
The three squirrels ran faster with horrified expressions.