Chapter 3 – Mythical Beast’s Special Ability

Translated by: s.h.i.+royukineko

TLN: Hey guys, here’s some update and stuff.

I’m changing Yue Yang’s Inherent Skill to [Counterfeit] instead of [Camouflage]. I have very bad naming sense, sorry…

Si Niang is not actually her real name. It technically means Fourth G.o.dmother, but it sounds weird if I used that every time Si Niang is mentioned…

Hearing Yue Yang’s question, the beautiful woman was startled.

From her point of view, below San-Er’s portrait, the summoning grimoire only showed a blank s.p.a.ce.

There were not even a single picture or words. But San-er did not look like he was lying, could it be that his Inherent Skill was actually active? An Inherent Skill that she couldn’t see?

“San-er, don’t lie to Si Niang. Do you really, really have an Inherent Skill? Si Niang can’t see it, what kind of Inherent Skill is it?” The beautiful woman felt like her heart was at her throat and her eyes almost popping out as she nervously held Yue Yang’s hands.

“Uh…It’s [Camouflage], my Inherent Skill is [Camouflage]!” Yue Yang rubbed the back of his head as he told a lie. He realised that he was really as cunning as a fox.

“It’s good if you really have an Inherent Skill. Oh my, I was so scared!” The beautiful woman was relieved.

Her pale hands patted her chest as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Every grimoire user would have awakened their own Inherent Skill. If San-er didn’t have it, then he would definitely be looked down upon and be labeled as a good for nothing. No matter what Inherent Skill it was, it was fine as long as you had one.

San-er’s unseen [Camouflage] Inherent Skill could even be an extremely good Inherent Skill!

The beautiful woman happily reached out her hands and patted Yue Yang’s head, “San-er, Si Niang is really happy for you. With this [Camouflage] Inherent Skill, you would definitely be successful in the future!”

The small girl, watching her mother patting Yue Yang’s head, also reached out her soft, white and small hands towards his head.

The moment she saw her causing trouble, the beautiful woman quickly put her down from her arms.

The beautiful woman calmed her heart and then signaled Yue Yang to turn the page of his summoning grimoire, “Turn over to the next page, San-er, look at your Guardian Beast… Shuang-er, stay still, let your older brother turn the page. Be good, stand here beside me okay? Aih, is this mist? It’s all white… Is your Guardian Beast a mist-type beast? Not bad, although element-type beasts take a long time to grow, they are really strong. Although in the beginning it is not as strong as the strengthening-type and fighting-type beasts, at a later stage, they would become much stronger. As long as it is not the special-type beast then it’s okay! Aih, San-er, your Guardian Beast is really good!”

(TLN: so there’s element-type, strengthening-type, fighting-type, and special-type beasts)

The beautiful woman happily clapped her hands, smiling excitedly.

Yue Yang was dumbfounded instead.

Because what he saw was definitely not a white fog, but a dark shadow of a figure.

A shadow that looked exactly like his shadow!

Below the shadow, there were a few lines of description. It was the description of his [Guardian Beast].

Phantom Shadow: Special-type, level 1. You can control your own shadow. Each shadow will have half of your strength. Shadows can be joined together to increase their size.

lls2-4Yue Yang slowly put his hands on the [Phantom Shadow] picture as a golden light began to glow underneath his fingers.

“Is that so…”

At the same time, a knowledge about summoning the [Guardian Beast] flashed across his mind.

In the Soaring Dragon continent, as long as you train hard, you would still be able to learn one or two summoning skills or make a contract with Beasts, even if you were a normal warrior. But because they don’t have a summoning grimoire, the number of beasts they could summon is limited. Normally, a warrior could only make a contract with one Beast. Only a handful of talented warriors might be able to make a contract with two.

However, a grimoire user would not have a limit in making contracts.

Every page in the summoning grimoire was open for a Beasts contract, until all pages were full.

However, the best thing about a summoning grimoire was not the limit in making contracts, but allowing a grimoire user to have his own [Guardian Beast]. This type of [Guardian Beasts] were not the same as the normal Beasts. They would never die nor betray their master. Guardian Beasts would also grow alongside its master, there was no need for other conditions to be met. As long the user’s power increased, or that the summoning grimoire level increased, the [Guardian Beast] would also be stronger.

“Eh?”

Yue Yang had actually wanted to summon a shadow, to see what it looked like.

But what confused him was that he couldn’t summon them out.

……

From the knowledge in his memories, the reason that the summoning failed was because his mana wasn’t enough. Yue Yang could also feel it in his heart that summoning his [Phantom Shadow] would need at least ten times as much mana as the normal Beasts.

“What’s wrong?” the beautiful woman looked at Yue Yang’s surprised expression and asked with concern, “What happened?”

“It’s nothing. My mana is not enough to summon my Guardian Beast right now.” Yue Yang shook his head as a thought flashed across his mind. This Guardian Beast Phantom Shadow should be kept a secret. Even if he could summon it later on, he shouldn’t summon it in front of others that easily.

That Beast should remain his secret weapon.

“Ah? San-er, don’t worry. Summoning an element-type Beasts require quite a lot of mana, it’s normal if you can’t summon it in the beginning. Your Guardian Beasts will definitely help you as you grow!” The beautiful woman quickly comforted Yue Yang.

“Yes, I will train hard so that I could summon it quickly!” Yue Yang said that but he had a different thought in his heart.

Through the knowledge in his memories, he knew the normal mana required for summoning Beasts.

If it was simply summoning a normal element-type Beast, Yue Yang was confident that he could definitely summon them.

However, his own [Phantom Shadow] had required ten times more mana than a normal Beast. It was simply too high! Right now it was only level one, if it leveled up more, he was afraid that the mana requirement will be even more….However, this was not really a bad thing, because the more mana it required, the more powerful his summoned [Guardian Beast] would be. For example, Yue Yang’s [Guardian Beast Phantom Shadow] that required ten times more mana compared to normal Beasts, would have a power difference like a rifle compared to an arrow. Although both weapons are long ranged, they had a great difference in power!

Through the knowledge in his memory, Yue Yang also found out that the biggest difference between his [Phantom Shadow] and other people’s Guardian Beasts was not its power.

It’s the summoning duration!

A normal warrior’s Beast summon would disappear within 1 hour every time they were summoned.

On the other hand, talented warriors might last up to 2 to 3 hours.

And then, there were a handful of talents who could manage to summon for up to 5 hours. But this type of people were extremely rare.

Yue Yang touched the picture of [Phantom Shadow] on his grimoire. Although he could not summon the beast, he could still feel the shadow’s power. He could feel its power resonating within his heart. After closely feeling the shadow, he was surprised to find out that his shadow could last up to 10 days if it was summoned.

“Wo Cao…” (TLN: Similar to wtf) Yue Yang was suddenly nervous. This secret must never be known by others. Otherwise he could be regarded as a monster and kidnapped to be experimented on in a laboratory.

“Xiao San-gege, what does “wo cao” mean?” the little girl blinked her curious doe-eyes and asked innocently.

“Ah, that is a special ability of an extremely strong Mythical Beast. It is extremely strong, when unleashed, it would intimidate the enemies. It could even cause the enemy to get crazy, demented, beat their chest wildly, grab people’s hair, stomp their feet, bang their heads on the walls and other sorts of stuff mentally challenged people will do. This ability will be more effective against ladies, but it won’t be effective against people who have really thick skins or high mental defense… You know, this kind Mythical Beast usually lived in the depths of a desert. They love to eat gra.s.ses and bask under the sun. They would especially love to lie (wo) in a deep troughs (cao) and eat the gra.s.ses that grew there… Such a Beast, why is it so powerful then? It is extremely powerful! Other than the peerless Mythical Beasts such as the Celestial Crab*, it won’t lose to anyone. It can even be on par with Mythical Beasts such as the Jacques Lizard* and the Elegant b.u.t.terfly*! Alright, I will only explain so much, it’s not good if we talk too much into detail!”

(*TLN: 天朝河蟹 tian chao he xie (lit. Celestial Crab). However, it was actually a pun for 天朝和諧 – China’s internet censors.h.i.+p. Forums and internet are heavily regulated in China, making it very hard for people to curse. For example, if you write “f.u.c.k” in the chinese forums (in chinese of course) it would appear as “****”. Hence various slangs have appeared, such as 雅蠛蝶 ya mie die (lit. Elegant b.u.t.terfly) – yamete~.

雅克蜥 ya ke xi (lit. Jacques Lizard) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yax_Lizard)

Yue Yang explained tirelessly to the curious little girl.

The beautiful woman had thought that this boy had been so nervous that he accidentally cursed in the beginning.

But after watching him explaining sincerely and decently, she had almost thought that there were really such a weirdly-named Mythical Beast in this world. Furthermore what he said had made sense.

Of course, she also knew that Mythical Beast were not that easy to summon. Even top summoners could only manage to summon a few of these Mythical Beast, let alone a level 1 apprentice. Thus such a high ambition is intolerable.

She quickly warned Yue Yang, “San-er, all these Mythical Beast are all powerful beasts, so they won’t make a contract with a weak summoner. Don’t think about them now, train your summoning abilities first and work hard to increase your mana… It may be too late this year, but next year, your uncle and I will send you to a school. You should work hard, I know that you’ll be successful in the future!”

“Yes, yes.” Yue Yang wiped off his cold sweat. Luckily she didn’t hear him curse, otherwise he would receive a slap across his mouth.

After he sent away the beautiful woman who was in good mood and the small girl who was reluctant to leave, Yue Yang could finally sigh a breath of relief.

He had managed to hide his ident.i.ty. She didn’t recognize him as ‘fake goods’.

However, what will happen to him in the future?