Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Edited by Aelryinth

Not a single piece of rock was cut by his slash.

Zhang Che stood there, stunned.

Those mysterious crystals could actually form a defensive layer of energy and stop Zhang Che from attacking them!

It was really strange, so strange that it left him speechless.

They were obviously lifeless, inanimate objects. Zhang Che didn't sense any spiritual fluctuations or whatnot from them, either, but they could somehow produce mental attacks, and could even come together to stop his attack!

“But, doesn't this mean that if I can destroy the rocks here, those crystals would lose the link between one another?” Zhang Che instantly conjectured.

-Right! If I can destroy the link between those strange crystals, wouldn't I be able to pry one of those crystals off and test if they were beneficial to the golden vortex?

-Mhm, it's decided then!-

So, Zhang Che raised the Scarlet Meteorite Huge Sword up high again and exerted all his strength, swinging down heavily.

As he swung down, he lamented inside, -A pity I can't summon my babies. Otherwise, it'd be nice to have the Purple Crystal Tortoise, or the Steel-Armored Tyrannosaurus with devastating force. They should be able to break the rocks here easily, right?-

Alas, now he could only rely on himself.

Bam! A dull noise rang out. The surrounding strange crystals worked together once more against Zhang Che's slash, forming a layer of defensive barrier at the surface of the rocks, blocking his attack.

Zhang Che stopped what he was doing.

Continuing like this wasn't a solution. If he couldn't destroy the link between those crystals, it'd be useless even if he exhausted himself.

“I'll try one more time. If it still doesn't work, then there's really nothing I can do.” Zhang Che shook his head. He raised the sword once more and activated the Scarlet Meteorite Huge Sword's Unparalleled Sharpness skill. Afterwards, he mustered all the strength he could and slashed downwards.

In the end, his efforts remained futile.

The defensive barrier formed by those mysterious crystals wasn't a type of physical defense. Despite activating the Scarlet Meteorite Huge Sword's skill, allowing it to penetrate all non-divine-quality defenses, Zhang Che still couldn't do a thing to the barrier.

“I have no way about this. It's up to yourself…” Zhang Che had completely given up. The golden vortex could only rely on itself now. Since this fellow had a reaction towards those crystals, just maybe, perhaps, it should be able to handle the matter by itself?

Unexpectedly, as Zhang Che thought of this, the golden vortex in his spiritual sea really erupted all of a sudden.

Zhang Che felt an incredibly powerful suction born from within the golden vortex. Afterwards, in the surrounding area, wave after wave of mysterious energy that resembled mental energy spread from the strange crystals uncontrollably, and was directly devoured by the golden vortex.

Zhang Che: …

-If you could settle it by yourself, why didn't you make a sound earlier?-

Thus, he took his hands off of this matter.

The golden vortex's suction grew increasingly stronger. In the end, the smaller crystals directly exploded into bits with a loud bang, and they directly turned into waves of pure energy as the golden vortex devoured them.

Zhang Che stood leisurely on the spot, feeling the golden vortex slowly recovering. From the tiny origin that seemed like it would extinguish at any moment it was in the beginning, it grew bigger and stronger, and gradually turned into a dense golden nebula.

At that time, Zhang Che saw that nearly all the strange crystals had shattered. All of them had turned into waves of energy and were absorbed by the golden vortex.

“This…this is simply a super tonic pill, and it came in such a huge form!”

Zhang Che's eyes were narrowed into slits from excitement. If the golden vortex could devour all of the strange crystals here, it would recover to the strength it had before at the very least, and perhaps grow even stronger!

With that, achieving Tier Six would be much faster and easier for Zhang Che!

The end results were as he had expected.

When the large spread of strange rocks suddenly collapsed in the end with a loud rumble and turned into a pile of extremely fine sand powder, all of the strange crystals were consumed by the golden vortex.

The golden vortex at this moment finally looked the part.

Zhang Che felt an inexplicable joy inside. He tried to sense the two swords, and the feeling that he could control them as he wished had finally came back!

“Lucky!”

A scarlet ray suddenly shot out from Zhang Che's brow, hovering around him cheerfully.

This fellow had been left alone in silence all this time. It must be feeling sick from the solitude.

A fire-attributed sword was rather active to begin with. Being unable to come out to roam around had truly left it uncomfortable, unlike the ice-attributed white sword. It had basically no chance to come out, but it didn't show any signs of discomfort at all.

“Hmm? Right, let's see if I can control both the swords at the same time?”

Zhang Che felt that the golden vortex had improved greatly. Would he be able to wield both swords at the same time, like when it erupted?

If he could control both swords at the same time, Zhang Che's combat strength would have more than doubled!

Alas, the white sword showed no reaction at all.

Obviously, under normal circ.u.mstances, the golden vortex was not at the level where it could enable Zhang Che to control both swords at the same time.

Zhang Che sighed helplessly. He tested out the scarlet sword's furthest range, and in the end, he discovered it nearly reached a hundred and fifty meters!

Its attack range had directly increased by close to half!

Not only that, Zhang Che's sharp senses let him realize that not only did the sword's range increase, even the it's speed had risen by quite a bit. Although it wasn't very obvious, it did increase by a certain margin.

-Hehe, if I encounter another epic-quality exotic beast right now, I can go fight it without much care!- Zhang Che crooned to himself in satisfaction. Afterwards, he immediately summoned the Darkfiend Abyssal Dragon. He turned around and began searching for mid-tier exotic beasts.

With his combat strength recovered to as it was, and even improved greatly, what was he waiting for if not to hurry up and push for Tier Six beastmaster?

—–

Time pa.s.sed bit by bit. The news of the Zhen family duelling Zhang Che in an arena deathmatch had spread everywhere in Bei Du.

As the one month deadline came closer, many people couldn't help but grew curious about it.

Why did Zhang Che seem to have vanished from the world? He hadn't appeared in public all this time!

Word was going around saying that that kid had disappeared ever since he killed the Zhen family's descendent, Zhen Long, in the beast world. Was he working hard in the beast world and hunting exotic beasts, or was he avoiding the battle and choosing to hide himself?

All kinds of theories started floating around.

Most of them were saying that Zhang Che was scared of dying and he didn't dare to accept the Zhen family's arena deathmatch. He had decided to live in seclusion and to never appear again. Some were even saying that in his pursuit for stronger power, he had already lost his life in the beast world, but the Huang family didn't make a statement about it.

Of course, those who had insider information scoffed at such rumors.

At the very least, Huang Juyun knew that it was impossible for someone as lucky as this future son-in-law of his to lose his life in the beast world.

As for saying Zhang Che was avoiding the battle and living in seclusion? Hehe, such rumors could only bluff the ignorant fools at best.

If a mid-tier beastmaster with a future as bright as Zhang Che was scared of a battle, it was unlikely he'd ever improve anymore. If that was true, it was better that he died.

The Huang family wasn't worried. Sun Lan, however, was all fl.u.s.tered from worry, afraid that something had happened to Zhang Che in the beast world. She couldn't eat or rest in peace every day, and her recovered complexion quickly took a turn for the worse again.

If it wasn't for the medicinal pills Zhang Che brought back for her from the Huang family which she was still taking religiously, perhaps she would be bedridden by now.

In the end, Miss Tienan often came back from school to visit her, keeping her company and talking to her. She consoled Sun Lan, saying that nothing would happen to Zhang Che. He was only trying to get stronger in the beast world in order to claim victory easily during the deathmatch.

With Miss Tienan's consolation, Sun Lan was much more a.s.sured. Although she couldn't help but worry for Zhang Che's safety, she was much better than before, and stopped losing sleep and missing meals.

——

Naturally Zhang Che had no idea that he had become the focus of the whole of Bei Du.

During the past two weeks or so, he had been in the depths of the beast world, searching for places where mid-tier exotic beasts gathered in great numbers and harvesting those pitiful beasts' lives.

“Almost there! I should be able to rise to Tier Six in another week or so, and I can finally return to Bei Du!”

During these dozen days, the three-star gold-quality Gale Wolf King had risen to dark gold-quality. However, this fellow's strength was still underwhelming, and Zhang Che had selectively chose to forget about it.

On the other hand, the Myriad Transformation Lizard card, which had just advanced to dark gold-quality today, gave Zhang Che an extremely huge surprise.

[Myriad Transformation Lizard]

Level: Two Star (Level 20)

Quality: Dark Gold

Type: Fusion Transformation Type

Characteristics: When Using This Beast Card, One Can Freely Transform Their Physical Features (Limited to User's Race), Alter Their Vocal Features, and Perfectly Disguise Themselves as Others. Can Also Transform into Exotic Beasts, Obtaining the Basic Attributes and Abilities of the Template Exotic Beast. (Can Only Construct 3 Templates, and the Template's Original Form Cannot Exceed the Myriad Transformation Lizard's Level and Quality.)

Skill: Invisibility. Grants User the Ability of Invisibility for a Period of Time After Activation, Lasts 30 Minutes, Cooldown Time: 10 Minutes

Potential: C Rank

As of now, the Myriad Transformation Lizard had used up all its quality upgrades.

However, the dark gold-quality Myriad Transformation Lizard had made Zhang Che incredibly happy.

First, the Invisibility skill's duration had extended to half an hour, and its cooldown time was reduced to only ten minutes. Its practicality had increased countless times over.

Also, the Myriad Transformation Lizard now allowed Zhang Che to make templates of exotic beasts and transform into them, even gaining their basic attributes and abilities. It was truly an unexpected delight.

Although he had no idea what this ability was useful for right now, Zhang Che could faintly think of the ability being very useful in some special situations!

Regrettably, the exotic beasts he chose as templates couldn't have a higher level and quality than the Myriad Transformation Lizard. Otherwise, Zhang Che would simply become invincible!

“If this limitation didn't exist, I could directly turn into an epic, or even divine-quality exotic beast. Even if I couldn't get their skills and Domain, my strength would increase by countless times just by relying on their defense and basic attacks!”

Zhang Che felt it was a pity.

Regrettably, the Myriad Transformation Lizard's quality could no longer be upgraded. Even its level could only increase to five-stars at the most.

How strong of a defense and combat strength could a five-star dark gold-quality exotic beast have?

Zhang Che was very dissatisfied with this.

“I wonder if the rainbow crystal can allow my babies to overcome their original potential in the future? I don't ask for much; I'll be very satisfied if they can break through a level or two and allow the Myriad Transformation Lizard to rise to mid-tier epic-quality!”