Beast Taming: I'm Really Not a Cultivation Master

Chapter 435: Chapter 404: Five-tailed Cat’s Evolution Method

Li Qian had seen this roommate of his before during a video call with Fatty An.

There was a slight difference now that he saw him in person.

’Hmm, he looks a bit older than he did in the video...’

Li Qian walked over with a smile and shook Zahar’s hand. ”Hello, my name is—”

”Li Qian!”

Before he could finish, Zahar cut in, ”I’ve heard all about you from Fatty An!”

”The genius freshman from the Cultivation College!”

”He’s just exaggerating!”

”...”

The group chatted casually for a bit before heading toward the back gate.

A few moments later, they arrived at the rumored restaurant with a great reputation.

It was the dinner rush, so the restaurant was quite crowded.

The restaurant’s name was ”Sha City People.”

The name made the corner of Li Qian’s mouth twitch. He couldn’t help but think of a certain game from his past life with a cheesy ”Come chop me, bro!” type of slogan.

It was packed, and there weren’t enough tables, so Li Qian and the others waited by the entrance.

While waiting, they struck up a conversation.

”Fatty An, let me tell you, my Spiritual Power has already advanced to the Commander Level. I borrowed some Points from a few guys from my hometown and some upperclassmen I know, so I can go directly to the Third Secret Realm to redeem a Pet Beast,” Zahar said, quite pleased with himself.

Zahar’s words piqued Li Qian’s interest. ”Zahar, what are the requirements for redeeming a Pet Beast from our university’s Third Secret Realm?”

Zahar smiled. ”Of course there are conditions. The three most obvious ones are academic credits, Points, and Spiritual Power Level.”

”Besides that, daily class performance and a student’s personal conduct are also important factors.”

”You have to submit an application, and the relevant university departments will review it. Only after it’s approved can you use Points to redeem a Pet Beast from the Third Secret Realm or...”

He paused before continuing, ”Have a Breeder in the Third Secret Realm evolve one of your already-contracted Pet Beasts.”

”Can’t you do that at the Pet Beast Center in Shazhou City?” Li Qian was still a little confused.

Zahar shook his head. ”It’s different. Evolving or buying a Pet Beast at an outside Pet Beast Center is much more expensive than doing it at the university. Plus, there are some rare Pet Beasts that you can’t evolve or purchase at outside centers.”

”Well, congratulations in advance, then.” After getting a general idea of how to evolve or purchase Pet Beasts in the Third Secret Realm, Li Qian gave a faint smile.

To put it bluntly, the Third Secret Realm wasn’t just a place for certain Breeders at Shazhou Beast Taming University to conduct research. It was also a place for students and faculty of all levels to redeem and evolve Pet Beasts.

’This kind of setup is quite well-thought-out,’ Li Qian thought.

It allowed some talented students to obtain high-Potential Pet Beasts at a more reasonable cost.

It was a form of indirect cultivation.

The Breeders earned Points that they could then use for subsequent research, creating a positive feedback loop.

Previously, Dean Fei had mentioned to him that the Jade Research Base had already met the conditions to be added to the redemption list.

Before, Li Qian only had a partial understanding of it, but after listening to Zahar’s explanation, it was much clearer.

’After I get back, I’ll open up the redemption channels for the Rock Giant and the Five-tailed Cat.’

That way, outstanding students who met the requirements could directly redeem the Pet Beasts from his research base.

As for the other types of Pet Beasts, like the Cyan-Scaled Flood Dragon and the Frostfire Salamander, he would open up channels for them later.

However, since he didn’t currently have any of those Pet Beasts on hand, Li Qian didn’t plan to open their redemption paths just yet.

The four of them continued to chat while they waited.

Because Li Qian hadn’t yet revealed his situation to anyone.

Even Fatty An and Lu Tianjiao didn’t know that he had taken over the Jade Research Base in the Third Secret Realm.

So, they didn’t find his questions suspicious in the slightest.

Soon, after waiting for about ten minutes, their number was called.

The four wasted no time and walked straight in.

Lu Tianjiao boldly sat down in the spot to pay the bill, putting on the air of someone rolling in money.

He took the menu and grandly started pointing at things.

After ordering a feast, he handed the menu to the waiter, then puffed out his chest and declared, ”We three went through life and death together during the freshman challenge at Kansai Beast Taming University, and Zahar is one of us too. So tonight’s on me! Eat and drink as much as you want! Don’t feel sorry for my wallet!”

Lu Tianjiao wasn’t just pretending to be rich; he really was loaded. Li Qian didn’t stand on ceremony with him. He unwrapped his chopsticks and utensils, getting ready to eat and drink.

He was the type of person who loved freeloading the most. How could he pass up an opportunity for a free meal?!

The four of them had ordered ten dishes, filling the small table. Since they were still students and couldn’t drink alcohol, they ordered a dozen sodas.

Even so, after they devoured the meal, they were all extremely satisfied.

The food here lived up to its reputation; it was truly delicious.

It was nearly 9:30 PM when they finally finished their dinner and returned to their dorms.

「The next day」

While the other students went to class, Li Qian leisurely made his way back to the Third Secret Realm.

He had gotten back quite late last night, and on top of that, the recent work with combat evolutions had left him exhausted. So, he hadn’t checked his messages and had just collapsed into bed.

When he woke up this morning and put on his VR glasses to check, Li Qian discovered a new email in his inbox.

Li Qian didn’t open the email right away. Instead, he strolled into the Jade Research Base in the Third Secret Realm, found a lounge chair, and only began to read it after he had settled in.

As he expected, the email contained the evolution method for the Four-tailed Cat to the Five-tailed Cat.

Li Qian wasn’t in a hurry. He read it carefully, word by word.

It took him nearly an hour to read through the entire thing.

After he finished reading, an expression of ecstasy had already appeared on his face.

The contents of this email were truly beyond his expectations.

The most important part, of course, was the evolution method from the Four-tailed Cat to the Five-tailed Cat.

This was the subsequent Evolutionary Form for the Four-tailed Cat that had evolved by eating Starfish.

The evolution method was very clever, but the difficulty wasn’t actually that high.

The evolution method didn’t just require meeting a standard for Spiritual Energy; it also had requirements for the physical body.

The Four-tailed Cat needed to learn a Skill called ”Leaping Dance.”

It was a dodging and buffing Skill.

After a Pet Beast used it, it would move rapidly in a specific pattern for a short period.

After the movement ended, the Pet Beast’s physical attributes would be greatly enhanced for a period of time.

After mastering this Skill, it could then consume the evolved form of the Starfish—the Silver-scaled Starfish—to complete its evolution.

This was the information given in the email, and it was one of the surprises.

There was also a second surprise... the email also provided some theories on the evolution from the Five-tailed Cat to the Six-tailed Cat.

There were two hypothesized paths. One was to continue along the evolution path of the Four-tailed Cat to the Five-tailed Cat by further increasing the Level of ”Leaping Dance” and consuming the evolved form of the Silver-scaled Starfish—the Starlight Fish.

The second path was to use a Spirit Summoning Array to channel the Energy from a Dust-Subduing Pearl into the body of a Five-tailed Cat to complete the evolution.

After reading the information, Li Qian thought about it for a while and felt that both evolutionary theories made a certain amount of sense.

Both were extremely useful to him.

As soon as he submitted the task for the Four-tailed Cat to Five-tailed Cat evolution, Li Qian could then create a new task for the Five-tailed Cat to Six-tailed Cat evolution.

At that point, he could use the task’s Progress Value to determine whether these two evolutionary theories were reasonable and if they had any flaws.

Of course, there were bound to be flaws.

If there were no flaws, the university would have already evolved a Six-tailed Cat.

But even with flaws, Li Qian believed these theories would definitely raise his task’s Progress Value to a respectable level.

And that was enough!

After finishing the email, he closed his eyes and immersed himself in the information, contemplating it for a while.

Just then, a digital notification sound suddenly rang in Li Qian’s mind.

[+32 Inspiration Value. Current Task Progress: 104%. Submit task?]

Originally, after this period of study and contemplation, Li Qian had already pushed Task Two—the evolution method from Four-tailed Cat to Five-tailed Cat—to seventy-two percent.

Now, with these thirty-two Inspiration Value points, it instantly jumped to one hundred and four percent.

Back then, using the Starfish and the Snake-Eyed Tree Fruit, Li Qian had already determined that the Four-tailed Cat was a divergence point.

Once it evolved to this stage, there were actually two subsequent paths...

One was to continue evolving by increasing the number of tails.

The final Evolutionary Form would be the Legendary Level Nine-tailed Cat.

As for the other evolutionary path, Li Qian had no idea what it would ultimately evolve into.

And now, this extra four percent Progress Value was very likely accumulated from that other evolutionary path.

Li Qian didn’t hesitate. He silently thought the word ”Submit.”

As he thought the word, another notification appeared in his mind.

[Task Two: Evolution method from Four-tailed Cat to Five-tailed Cat, submitted successfully. Received 2 Achievement Points!]

When he saw he had only received two Achievement Points, Li Qian was a bit stunned.

But he quickly figured it out and a wry, helpless smile appeared on his face.

’It seems trying to complete the task and get Achievement Points by directly obtaining the evolution method won’t work.’

Li Qian could understand why.

After all, strictly speaking, these results weren’t his.

They were discovered by the university’s breeding institutions.

He was merely one of the recipients of the results.

Shaking his head, Li Qian stopped overthinking it.

’Getting two Achievement Points is already pretty good.’

He didn’t rush to create a task for the second evolution method from the Four-tailed Cat to the Five-tailed Cat.

Nor did he create an evolution task for the Five-tailed Cat to the Six-tailed Cat.

Because just then, Feifei flew over and said in a cute, girlish voice, ”Master, a student wants to redeem a Rock Giant from our base. They’re already outside!”

Hearing this, a faint smile appeared on Li Qian’s face.