Astral Pet Store

After Gu Beichen left, Su Ping took the confused Fantasy Beast to the nursing pen in the pet room. Three groups of pets had been sent away that day. Many nursing pens were unoccupied.

When the Fantasy Beast entered the nursing pen, its tension was calmed down as it was immersed in the comfort brought by the anima.

Su Ping looked at the Fantasy Beast and smiled.

Turning back to the store, Su Ping pulled the shutter door down, and then, he immediately murmured the words for upgrading the store in his mind.

“Twenty-five nursing pens established. Spirit Pool for Incubation is at level three. Requirements to upgrade the store to the second level have been met. Initiating upgrade…”

As the system recited those words, almost all of the 10,000 or so energy points that Su Ping had worked hard to accumulate were gone.

“Time for the upgrade is one hour. During this time, the store will be closed for business,” the system added.

Having nothing else to do, Su Ping stayed in the store to cultivate.

An hour went by and with a ding, the system announced that the upgrade was complete.

At the same time, information about the two new functions that came with the upgrade appeared in Su Ping’s mind. Su Ping’s eyes glowed. He pulled up the window of cultivation planes. Next to the “enter” button under the list of cultivation planes, there was another button that read “training with the dummy” and its related icon was a small purple man.

According to the system, when Su Ping selected a suitable cultivation plane, he could choose to cultivate with the dummy; a clone would be created to enter the cultivation plane to train the pets.

However, this function was not free of charge. The fee was one-tenth of the admission price of the corresponding cultivation plane. This was the same price as buying times of deaths in the cultivation planes.

Su Ping felt this was a trap. That being said, he had become used to how the system would skin a flea for its hide.

He closed the cultivation plane’s window, entered the pet room, and murmured the words for the training space.

A whirlpool like a miniature black hole suddenly appeared, and inside it was the training space, similar to the summoning space.

The size of the training space was linked to the store level. Currently, only 50 pets could be stored inside it.

With this training space, the nursing pens Su Ping had in the store could be freed. But, since he didn’t have many pets set for the boarding service, and he had some unoccupied nursing pens, he decided to let the pets stay there for now and send them later to the training space after the nursing pens became full.

He finished checking the function of the training space and the training with his dummy. Then, he pulled up the system’s shop.

Currently, his store was at the second level and the system’s shop had also been upgraded to the same level. When it was a first-level shop, only Awakening Potions and elementary beast catching rings were on sale.

That Awakening Potion was an exception that the system had prepared for him, the host. The Awakening Potion was never on sale for a second time and he couldn’t see it again, no matter how many times he refreshed the shop. On the other hand, the elementary beast catching ring was a good thing. It could catch all pets below the seventh rank with absolute certainty.

As for advanced pets, there was a slim chance that they could be captured with an elementary beast catching ring; such an artifact had a miraculous nature.

Usually, when people were hoping to catch pets, they had to have a corresponding strength to defeat the pet. But with the beast catching ring, this was not needed. Even an average person could catch a sixth-rank beast with this beast catching ring.

Of course, if an average person were to enter an uncultivated land, he would probably be killed by the beasts within an instant, without even having the chance to use the beast catching ring.

That being said, the highlight of the beast catching ring itself was that it didn’t have to rely on its owner’s strength. It was unrealistic to have average people go and catch beasts, to begin with. But if a third or fourth-rank battle pet warrior could use it, as long as they could find a target with accuracy, they could catch a sixth-rank beast for sure with this.

Besides, the beast catching ring could still be useful for sixth-rank battle pet warriors. Generally speaking, the sixth-rank battle pet warriors weren’t necessarily able to defeat a sixth-rank pet if it was too powerful.

Su Ping had high expectations for the shop after its upgrade to the second level. As soon as he opened the shop, he saw five items on display. At the first level, the shop only presented three items; two more items were added, to raise the options to five items.

The shop would be refreshed after 24 hours. There might be new items or the same as before. Of course, if he was willing to pay 100 energy points per time, he could refresh the shop at once.

Well, well.

The system was tricking him into spending money.

Su Ping would not spend energy points to refresh it no matter how badly he wanted to. One hundred energy points came from 10,000 coins. He just had to wait for a day. He could afford that. Spending money? Not a chance.

He glanced through the five items. The first thing that leaped into his eyes was the beast catching ring. Only this time, it was a middle-level one, instead of the usual elementary rings!

Middle-level beast catching ring

Catches beasts of the seventh rank with 100% certainty.

Catches beasts of the eighth rank with 80% certainty.

Catches beasts of the ninth rank with 50% certainty.

Catches beast kings with 1.25% certainty.

Su Ping’s eyes were glowing. This was awesome! The effect was powerful!

He threw a look at the price quickly. The number relieved him. Good, it was 1000 energy points, just 10 times the price of elementary beast catching rings. It would have been a scam if the price increased by 100 times.

The 1000 energy points were equal to 100,000 coins. However, any average seventh-rank beast would be sold at over half a million. The eight-rank beasts would have a price of two to three million at the very least, not to mention ninth rank beasts. Even the bad ones at the ninth rank could be sold at tens of millions.

Of course, those prices were for adult beasts. Infant beasts would be much cheaper because they had to be raised and trained.

On the other hand, for some extremely rare pets, such as those of the dragon family, or genie pets of the demon family, the infant ones would be more expensive. It was because such pets were born with natural gifts. If those pets could be trained carefully by a master trainer, they could become ninth-rank pets of the highest grade and even beast kings!

They would be much stronger than pets that had to grow up in the wild by themselves.

This middle-level beast catching ring is such a good deal. If I use it to catch a ninth-rank beast, there’s a 50% chance of success. Say I am unlucky and I can only catch one after using three rings, that could still generate a huge profit. This middle-level beast catching ring is also effective to catch beast kings. But the chances of success are so slim that I can just look over it.

Su Ping was practically drooling. However, he didn’t even have 1000 energy points. He could not afford it at the moment.

He then looked at the other four items. There was no Awakening Potion, which he expected, not even after the upgrade. But there were Original Force Pellets! Middle-level ones!

Previously, when Su Ping finished a quest, he was given three Original Force Pellets and each enabled him to rise one rank in his astral power cultivation.

Now, middle-level Original Force Pellets were on sale!

If they were as potent as the elementary ones, could they help a middle-level battle pet warrior rise a whole rank directly?

But the Original Force Pellets were being sold at 10,000 energy points; they were quite pricey.

That was one million astral coins.

Considering the effects of the Original Force Pellets, the price was high but it was worthwhile. The rich students of large financial groups would fight each other to buy this pellet if they were to know. For those that had over a billion coins, they could earn a million, or even more, by doing nothing all day.

Su Ping had to admit that, while the system was a penny pincher, the items it offered were amazing. That being said, he thought this probably had something to do with the system’s wealth of knowledge. Maybe something he deemed precious was garbage to the system. It was too bad that Su Ping didn’t have enough energy points while such amazing merchandise was on sale. The more than 20,000 energy points he made that day had been spent on the store’s upgrade and the Spirit Pool for Incubation. If he wanted to buy those items, he had to wait until he made more energy points.

“Energy points…” Su Ping sighed with regret. A chance that could help him move up one rank was right in front of him and yet lacked the energy points to buy it. This was such a misery.

After 24 hours, the shop would be refreshed.

For once, a perfect chance had been presented to him but he had to give it away because he was just poor.

If he had another chance to see those items, Su Ping yearned to say to them (with tears in his eyes), “I have the money to get you!”

Apart from the Original Force Pellet, among the other three items, there was a middle-level pet food and two peculiar things. One was the feather of a Cloud Dream Bird and the other a scale fragment of the deep-sea Thunder Fish. The effects were unclear.

Su Ping assumed they had to be materials of special effects to certain pets. Price-wise, they weren’t cheaper than the Original Force Pellet.

Su Ping closed the system’s shop, crestfallen. It was just like having a girl he loved waiting for him and yet he just couldn’t perform.

The most painful thing in the world was to face this ‘near but far’ distance.

Low-spirited, Su Ping opened the shutter door to wait for more business, but it was already getting late. No other customer showed up and it was close to nine in the evening. He thought all the students that were attracted by the flyers had paid a visit already.