Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Gao Peng did not know what had happened in the outskirts. He also did not know that his grandfather had appeared the previous night just outside the villa he bought.
The next morning, he woke up and finished preparing breakfast. The fragrance of kelp rib soup filled the entire living room.
Da Zi got up in excitement. A familiar aroma, a familiar recipe. It waddled towards the kitchen, shaking its feelers along the way, looking at its master excitedly.
Stripey also smelled the aroma. It jumped and leaped towards the kitchen, only to find Da Zi blocking its path like a bully with a vicious look.
Stripey took two steps backward in fear. It tried crying out in a low voice.
Da Zi turned around at a moderate speed. Its head was high up in the air, its feet tapping on the ground lightly, like an older brother lecturing a younger brother.
Stripey laid on the ground, listening to the teachings of its big brother.
Then, Da Zi leaned over the stainless steel bowl and ate the kelp rib soup in excitement while Stripey stood on the side with an extremely envious gaze. Only after Da Zi had its fill could it eat the thin film of leftovers.
Gao Peng made a Tsk, tsk, tsk, sound in amusement. Stripey is having it way too tough, Gao Peng thought and lowered his head to take a bite of his noodles. I guess only I dislike eating kelp ribs. He cleaned and tidied the dishes before turning around to leave.
Another day of rigorous training.
It was almost May. There were only two months left before the Entrance Examinations for college.
Truth be told, the training wasn’t exactly fair to Gao Peng. Although the concept of monster trainer cadet did not exist before, most families would purchase a familiar for their children once they reached the stipulated minimum age requirement.
Normally, these people would train their familiars during the weekends or holidays. Cadets in their senior year of high school would basically have one more year to cultivate and train their familiars compared to cadets in their sophomore year of high school.
On the training ground, Gao Peng noticed that many of the familiars belonging to senior high school monster trainer cadets were several levels higher than the familiars of sophomore year cadets. Moreover, many of those familiar that had already reached Elite tier belonged to senior year cadets.
Walking into school, Gao Peng saw that the people on the training ground formed a circle. Even more were observing from the periphery, grouping into twos and threes and discussing things in whispers.
The siren of an ambulance came from behind, and several medical professionals carried a stretcher and moved into the crowd. “Please move out of the way, move out of the way.”
The crowd made way to allow the medical professionals to enter. After a short moment, they carried a stretcher covered by a piece of white cloth out of the crowd. A boy with a bloodied face and his eyes squeezed shut lay on the stretcher.
Gao Peng was a little dumbfounded. Were things already so intense so early in the morning?
It didn’t take long for teachers to appear as they separated groups of students and attempted to disperse the crowd. There were also instructors with their phones out, walking by with hurried looks on their faces.
After entering the classrooms, students listened to the lectures of the teachers. Although they were monster trainer cadets, they still had to attend class. They had lectures in the morning and training in the afternoon. As for Gao Peng who had long since finished teaching himself all the content of three years of high school, he was reading through a book called Illustrations of New Monsters in South America, Seventh Edition. Gao Peng was enjoying the book thoroughly, pondering the wonders of the world.
In this newest edition, a new type of monster was the cover and introduction of the book.
In the picture, the monster was over 98 feet tall. Its muscular arms were like two towers, its yellowish fur was extremely coarse, and its eyes were calm but full of luster. The most impressive feature of the monster was its arms. They were amazingly large and thick, and the sharp claws had a metallic shine. It looked ridiculously uncoordinated.
On the shoulder of this monster stood a smaller monster of the same species that was only around 16 feet.
On top of the head of the smaller monster was its name, written in golden letters: [Giant Sloth].
Below it on top of the head of the large monster was another set of golden letters with was the name of the monster: [Behemoth Sloth].
A Behemoth was a gigantic monster in Western mythology that possessed godlike strength, and this monster was given the name.
It seemed to evolve from sloths. Gao Peng could only lament the mystifying nature of evolution.
“Hey, Scholar Gao,” Tan Qianjin who sat in front of him said in a low voice while turning around.
“Do you think we will change training grounds?” Tan Qianjin said.
What? Gao Peng thought. He looked confused.
Tan Qianjin felt a little awkward and said, “Alright, I thought you read the discussion in the group. They are currently talking about the incident that happened below the teaching building this morning. The school won’t stay quiet and do nothing after a huge incident like that. I heard that the student who was sent to the hospital was deemed to have a grade one disability. I’m afraid he will have to spend the rest of his life in a hospital bed.”
“What happened this morning?” Gao Peng only saw the student being rushed to the ambulance when he arrived. He had not asked around for the details of the incident.
“You are indeed a scholar! You’re never bothered about the things outside yourself. You’re only focused on reading your holy book,” Tan Qianjin said, teasing him.
“I heard that these two students have always had problems with one another. One of them became a monster trainer cadet while the other student did not. This morning, the two of them had a verbal spat in front of the school gate. The monster trainer cadet used his familiar to attack the other student. The student was almost killed; it was only thanks to the other monster trainer cadet intervening and urging him to stop that he is still alive,” Tan Qianjin said. When Tan Qianjin mentioned the monster trainer cadet, he seemed to be filled with pride. Perhaps he did not even notice the emotional change within himself.
“They are just students! Although they are adults legally, that doesn’t change the fact that they are adolescents!” the principal shouted loudly in his office. Seated in front of him was Chief Instructor Chen.
“This doesn’t concern the others. The nature of adolescents makes it so that they are impulsive at this age!” The principal then realized his loss of composure and apologized to Chief Instructor Chen. “I’m sorry, I lost my cool just now.”
“It’s alright, I understand,” Chief Instructor Chen said with a nod.
“Why did schools prohibit students from carrying sharp tools like knives? Because their age and mentality make them impulsive. These familiars are way more dangerous than knives. If they continue training inside the campus, it’s unreasonable in terms of safety,” the principal said seriously. “And it is unfair to the students who do not have familiars.”
Chief Instructor Chen fell silent. He then nodded and said, “I’ll seriously consider your suggestion. I will also relay it to the higher-ups. However, we also have our own predicament. I hope you can understand that we’re only following orders from the top.” After finishing his sentence, Chief Instructor Chen looked helpless and resigned.
After Chief Instructor Chen left, the principal sighed, took off his reading glasses, and cleaned them with a piece of cloth.