"School... I actually feel a little nostalgic for it." On the day of the monthly exam, Luo Yu arrived at the front gates of Jingyue High School dressed in his battle garb—an orca-patterned short-sleeved shirt and shorts under a researcher's lab coat.
From what Luo Yu understood, Jingyue High School had 512 freshmen this year, but only 30 slots were available to become student representatives, take the stage at the Jingyue Festival, and showcase their abilities before the major fleets and the guardian deity.
Thus, for orphans like Bing Liang, breaking into the top thirty among the freshmen was quite a challenge. Even with Teacher Wang giving them special lessons, which of the top-performing students didn't have someone providing private coaching?
"Scholar Luo Yu, over here, over here!" Teacher Wang had been waiting for Luo Yu at the school gates since early morning, carrying a bag of breakfast in his hand.
"Crab roe soup dumplings and soy milk. Eat them while they're hot."
"Thanks." Luo Yu really hadn't eaten breakfast yet. After all, the exam schedule at this damn high school was brutally early, kicking off at six in the morning. Even the Honey-Water Bees back home had it better than these students.
Teacher Wang chuckled. "Let me take you inside now."
The two took an internal passageway to reach the playground bleachers ahead of time. Calling it a playground was a stretch—it looked more like an aquatic center. The standard football field had been replaced by a series of pools, making it much easier for Water-system mutated beasts to maneuver.
"What format does this monthly exam take? Battles between students?" Luo Yu asked, popping a soup dumpling into his mouth with every question.
"No," Wang Ze shook his head. "They will battle 'zombie sea beasts', and a panel of teachers will score them."
"Battling zombie sea beasts?" Luo Yu was slightly startled. "Quite a lavish setup. A dry run for the Jingyue Festival, is it?"
At the Jingyue Festival, the way the new generation of Beast Masters proved themselves was by fighting captured zombie sea beasts during the celebration to demonstrate they could hold their own.
"Zombie sea beasts have been very active lately, and the island captured quite a lot," Wang Ze said with a smile. "Might as well put them to good use and give these students a taste of real combat."
Before long, the crowd swelled as the students filed in one after another, taking their assigned seats like spectators at a sports meet.
"Still not starting? It's past time," Luo Yu remarked. Having had his eyesight enhanced, he had already spotted Bing Liang and the others in the crowd.
"The leadership hasn't arrived yet," Wang Ze said helplessly.
Finally, after waiting a few more minutes, the school leadership arrived at the rostrum, gathered around Director Yu Lei. Education, healthcare, agriculture, trade... Director Yu Lei had a hand in practically everything, so it was no wonder Luo Yu felt the man looked half-asleep every time they met.
Much to Luo Yu's relief, none of the officials delivered long-winded speeches for this freshmen monthly exam. The school administrators merely flattered Director Yu Lei with a few pleasantries, and the exam commenced shortly after.
"About half the students forfeited the combat assessment... intending to just settle for the baseline score..." Wang Ze said. "Xiaoyu was originally going to forfeit too, since she contracted a Coiling Wind Worm, which has zero combat capability early on. But since it learned an Ice-system ability, she might actually put on an impressive show."
Luo Yu understood. After all, not everyone wanted to be a combatant. Plenty of students simply wished to live peacefully on the island, and in those cases, they would likely contract working-type pet beasts.
Pitting a working-type pet beast against a zombie sea beast was simply asking too much.
Of course, while the island respected personal choices, combat strength remained the primary metric by which talent was selected, carrying the heaviest weight.
Soon, the examination began. Luo Yu saw a teacher wheeling an iron cage onto the main arena.
The zombie beast inside had dark, rotting flesh and bloated, twisted limbs. Its eyes had no pupils, its tongue was covered in sharp barbs, and saliva corrosive enough to eat away at the ground dribbled from its mouth. It was utterly repulsive; many students felt nauseous just looking at it.
The lower the rank of a zombie sea beast, the uglier it was.
"A zombie frog, huh..." Seeing it stirred up some unpleasant memories for Luo Yu.
Then...
[Species]: Licker
[Attribute]: Virus
[Species Rank]: Lower Common Species
[Life Level]: Level 5
[Species Ability]: Tongue Thrust
[Individual Talent]: Aberrant Body (Advanced talent: berserk movements, immunity to pain; can only be eliminated by destroying the central nervous system.)
Through the Data Eye, the zombie sea frog was classified under the Virus attribute. It possessed a species rank and life level, and most notably, an advanced talent seemed to be standard issue for zombie beasts.
Furthermore, its talent wasn't dormant or suppressed; it was an overtly expressed, clearly active talent ability.
"I heard over a thousand zombie frogs tried to make landfall on the island a while back, and some were captured," Wang Ze remarked.
"The combat strength on this thing doesn't look half bad," Luo Yu mused, feeling a bead of sweat for the students.
The student holding Candidate Number 1 took the stage.
Their pet beast was a Thunderbolt Shrimp, a Mid-tier Common Species at Level 5.
Among the mid-tier species sold on the island, this was one of Luo Yu's favorites, mastering an electrical discharge ability.
As the assessment commenced, the zombie frog's cage was opened, and it lunged out like a mad creature.
Facing a zombie sea beast for what was likely the first time, the student was visibly rattled, directing the Thunderbolt Shrimp to repeatedly discharge electricity from a distance. However...
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Fully unleashing its Aberrant Body talent, the Licker was frankly terrifying. Its movements were frighteningly agile as it effortlessly evaded every attack. Leaping more than a dozen meters into the air, it exerted an overwhelming pressure. High above the ground, it snapped open its maw and shot out a tongue more than a dozen meters long, thrusting forward like a spear!
Bang!
The Thunderbolt Shrimp was knocked clean off its feet, tumbling across the ground.
However, the electricity coating the Thunderbolt Shrimp traveled up the tongue, shocking the zombie frog senseless and causing it to plummet from midair.
Yet the shock failed to neutralize it. It scrambled back to its feet in no time and lunged straight at the student! While the knocked-over Thunderbolt Shrimp was still trying to right itself, the Beast Master was already in grave danger!
Just as the zombie frog's tongue was about to impale the student, the Water Arrow Sparrow belonging to the supervising teacher who had released the beast spat out a jet of water, blowing the zombie frog's head apart in an instant.
"Candidate Number 2." A new cage was wheeled up, calling Candidate Number 2 to the stage.
This opening bout sent a wave of nervousness through most of the students. The Thunderbolt Shrimp was considered relatively potent, yet against a zombie beast, it had been thoroughly humiliated.
"Handling zombie beasts is still too difficult for these freshmen..." on the rostrum, a vice principal observed. "After all, the ferocity of mutated corpse beasts... is something even top predators in nature do not possess."
"The main issue is their pain immunity, which makes ordinary attacks completely useless. These students lack experience, so hitting vital spots isn't easy."
"Then again, it's also because this student's cultivation of the Thunderbolt Shrimp was rather mediocre. The electric discharge was far too slow—first time I've ever seen a discharge that sluggish, like a water gun... clearly inadequate training."
The school officials chimed in one after another, keeping an eye on Director Yu Lei's expression.
"In the future, we can gather more zombie beasts for these students to practice on," Yu Lei remarked.
Over the subsequent rounds, the zombie sea frogs, utterly impervious to pain, displayed overwhelming dominance.
After quite some time, only a single top student who had contracted a High-Rank Species managed to successfully kill a zombie frog.
"These students..." Luo Yu scratched his cheek. Out of ten, being able to find even one who discovered their pet beast's individual talent was lucky.
"Nothing we can do. At the same level, zombie beasts are naturally much stronger in combat. Without experience, even someone a notch higher in level can end up in serious trouble," Wang Ze said helplessly beside him. Still, he wasn't worried about his own three students; he had already witnessed firsthand how brilliantly Luo Yu had trained them.
"Candidate Number 36."
Before long, it was finally time for one of the trio to take the field: Mi Xiaoyu.
"Xiaoyu...?" Teachers and students who knew Mi Xiaoyu were stunned. They hadn't expected her to register for the exam. Hadn't this girl contracted a Coiling Wind Worm?!
With a Coiling Wind Worm's strength, wouldn't the Licker punch right through its body in a split second?
Its Coiling Wind skill was far weaker than the Thunderbolt Shrimp's electric discharge. While the discharge could travel down the tongue to shock a zombie frog senseless, the petty scrapes from Coiling Wind would likely be ignored completely.
Fortunately, the proctoring teachers were keeping watch, so she wouldn't be in any real danger...
The next moment, the zombie frog was released, and the battle commenced. The new zombie frog was just as berserk and nimble as the last, immediately locking onto the larger target—Mi Xiaoyu herself.
*Girl. Smells sweet. Delicious.*
Whoosh!
It bounced erratically across the arena, shifting positions in flashes, making it exceptionally difficult to pin down. Yet what happened next caught every teacher and student off guard.
Mi Xiaoyu's Coiling Wind Worm moved as if it had anticipated the zombie frog's trajectory in advance. Its senses were extraordinarily sharp, and its physical strength was astonishing!
With a slap of its tail, it launched itself upward, kicking up a cloud of dust and soaring several meters into the air, blocking the zombie frog right in its path!
"Huh?!"
Many students who had contracted Coiling Wind Worms gaped in shock. Never had they seen a Coiling Wind Worm jump that high, nor one capable of whipping up dust from the ground with a tail slap. What kind of insane strength was that?!
And what followed was even more absurd. As the worm activated its Coiling Wind ability, the wind it gathered looked entirely different—instead of being colorless and invisible, it was an azure whirlwind swirling with dancing ice crystals!
Whoosh!
With the Coiling Wind Worm at its epicenter, the icy wind swirled outward. A whirlwind that should have done nothing more than tickle the zombie frog with light scrapes instantly froze its entire body solid. In the span of a single breath, the zombie frog turned into a block of ice and crashed heavily to the ground!
An Ice-system ability! This Coiling Wind Worm had upgraded its species skill into an Ice-system move?!
Realizing this, many teachers and students froze in astonishment. Mi Xiaoyu had always been a nobody, completely unremarkable, yet her current performance...
"Who is this girl?" On the rostrum, Director Yu Lei's eyes lit up as he asked involuntarily.
A prodigy! Precise anticipation of the battlefield, monstrous jumping strength, and mastering an Ice-system ability outside its native attributes—this Coiling Wind Worm had been cultivated to absolute perfection!
"This..." The school leadership racked their brains over the roster of honor students, certain that Mi Xiaoyu was just an ordinary student. How could an ordinary student suddenly become so formidable?
"Heh, not bad at all."
Standing on the bleachers, Luo Yu looked upon the little worm's performance with mild approval. He had spent the most effort on this tiny creature. After all, it was so small that he genuinely feared a single bee sting would kill it on the spot. Every time, he had to first extract the Honey-Water Bee venom with a standard syringe and inject it using an even finer tool. Of course, this also meant its enhancement was the weakest among the trio's pet beasts, as it lacked the superior results of direct stings from the bee's natural barb.
When Mi Xiaoyu stepped off the field, her homeroom teacher approached her and said, "Xiaoyu, how did you get so strong all of a sudden? Did Teacher Wang train you? Come with me, the Director wants to have a word with you. An opportunity like this is rare... Wait, why is your face so swollen?!"
"Ah... it's nothing... just from injections. The swelling will go down in a couple of days." Mi Xiaoyu was taken aback, then nodded quickly and followed her teacher over to Director Yu Lei.
Director Yu Lei had already learned of Mi Xiaoyu's background and knew that a certain Teacher Wang had been tutoring her outside of class. He smiled warmly and asked, "Student Xiaoyu, your pet beast has been cultivated remarkably well. Was that Ice-system ability developed with the help of a school teacher?"
The other school leaders beamed proudly. See? The school's teaching produced real results!
Mi Xiaoyu quickly replied, "No, it was taught by Teacher Luo Yu from an extracurricular tutoring class..."
Yu Lei: "?"
The school leadership's expressions darkened instantly: *Oh no, he's coming for the school's educational budget!*
Chapter 34