Astral Pet Store (WN)

Chapter 338 Enlightening Guide

Since Su Ping remained impartial and incorruptible, Xu Kuang had not dared to ask if he could cut the line. He headed to the back of the line at once. Su Ping continued to serve the other customers. Soon, Joanna went to alert Su Ping that all the spots had been taken. “All full. Sorry, guys.” Su Ping apologized to the other customers waiting in line.

The customers moaned in disappointment. The one who was at the head of the line and about to get his turn sighed with regret.

Su Ping was embarrassed. All those people had waited for a long time for nothing. He thought about getting a signboard later, to write down the number of spots available every day. That way, when customers came and saw that the number of people waiting had exceeded the limit, they could leave for the day instead of wasting time there.

Su Ping was wondering about the plan when Xu Kuang ran over. After the other customers had left, he threw himself to the counter and whispered, “Teacher, have you saved me a spot?”

Su Ping answered, “No.”

That wasn’t the answer Xu Kuang expected. He complained, “Ah, I’m your student. You cannot treat me like the others!”

Su Ping darted him a look. There was nothing he could do. According to the system, he had to treat every customer equally, without discrimination. Otherwise, he would have chosen to serve people buying professional training first; that way, he wouldn’t turn down so many wealthy customers because of the limited spots.

“I told you. You’re not my student. You can say it but it won’t work.”

“Teacher… You are ruthless!”

Su Ping didn’t reply to this comment. All of a sudden, some customers that had not gone away let out a shout. Su Ping noticed that they had returned and gathered around the large LCD TV in the store.

At the moment, the day’s matches were being live streamed. The matches from the other five groups had begun.

The LCD TV had just been installed the day before. Su Ping marveled at his mom’s high efficiency, since she had taken care of the matter the same day he had asked her!

“The other five groups.”

Xu Kuang noticed it as well. A glint of seriousness passed over his eyes. He walked to the crowd and watched intently.

Su Ping glanced at the TV, still uninterested. Since no one was at the counter, he sat down and summoned the system to continue the dialogue which had been cut off by Qin Shaotian.

The system seemed to be extra patient at this; it went back to its previous explanation.

Strengthening, enlightening! Those abilities were a must for elementary trainers!

The strengthening ability had detailed categories and a trainer had to master all aspects!

As for Enlightening, it was to enlighten the pets’ intelligence. According to the system, even a blade of grass could evolve to become a first-rank pet when enlightened by a trainer.

A being with already developed intelligence could have a chance to learn a talent skill after enlightenment!

It wasn’t the first time Su Ping had heard about the words “talent skill”. Not long before, when Qin Shuhai was giving him the invitation to the Supremacy League, he had mentioned something named the Talent Stone, one of the many prizes which could be claimed after winning the Supremacy League. “System, what is a talent skill? I remember you mentioned it when I was upgrading the nursing pens. You said that after being nurtured by the anima in the nursing pens, the pets could enjoy a certain possibility of learning a talent skill.”

Su Ping was curious.

“That’s right. The more advanced the nursing pens are, the more profound the anima will be. The anima can increase the pets’ intelligence. Long term nurturing by the anima, there’s a chance that the pet can learn a talent skill but that chance is slim. The percentage is 0.005% after being nurtured with anima for a month!”

Su Ping was speechless.

The chance was so slim after staying in a middle-rank nursing pen for a month… Really?

“Talent skills are unique and have different special effects of various strengths. The stronger talent skills can better a certain pet attribute by ten times within a short time. The weaker talent skills can only help the pet in perception or disguise. The more intelligent pets can pick up several talent skills and they can be combined in the application!” the system calmly explained.

But Su Ping’s eyes widened in surprise.

The strong talent skills could better a certain attribute by ten times!

He wondered if the system had made a mistake as it explained this. Ten times? If the attribute was the pet’s physical strength, that level of increase would mean the pet could smash a well-matched being into a pile of dust! “Are you being serious?” The system: “(#~#)”

Su Ping saw an expression of annoyance popping out in his mind. Clearly, that was the system. Su Ping wondered… Since when could the system communicate with kaomoji?

Su Ping dissed the system a bit and then calmed down. He no longer had any doubts about the system’s words. He knew the system was always prudent when it came to pets.

“The talent skill is so awesome. No wonder Little Skeleton and the other pets have died so many deaths but none has learned a talent skill. It seems that death cannot be the trigger,” Su Ping said to himself. The harder the talent was to master, the more powerful the talent skill should be.

1ore

“System, how can I learn Enlightening?” Su Ping asked a follow-up question.

“There are three ways,” the system answered, “First, buy the Guide of Enlightening in the shop. “Second, take someone as a teacher.

“Third, self-learning.”

Su Ping was once again speechless. Learning from a teacher? How many could know this? Say someone did have this knowledge, they would never teach him, not a chance.

Anyway, wasn’t this a must for elementary trainers? Why did he have the feeling that he had never seen this on the Blue Planet?

Then Su Ping remembered the standard the system had set up. How distressing.

The system was not measuring the trainers’ level using standards of a special period, was it?

Did you have to… set such a high starting point for me?

Su Ping was crying inside. It was like he had to become a master, skipping past the elementary and basic levels directly, while having no textbooks. That was so hard!

Of the three ways the system mentioned, Su Ping believed the only feasible way was the first one.

And yet, he had a feeling that he was falling into another trap.

He pulled up the system’s shop. Having upgraded his pet store to LV3, the system’s shop had been upgraded to LV3 as well.

He would rarely see elementary beast-catching rings in the shop. Most of the time, he would see middle-level ones, and on the rare occasion, advanced beast-catching rings!

Su Ping would buy all the advanced beast-catching rings he laid his eyes on. The price was one hundred thousand energy points, one hundred times that of middle-level beast-catching rings, but it was well worth it.

The chance of catching ninth-rank beasts with advanced beast-catching rings was 100%!

And 10% when it came to catching beast kings!

Whenever he used it, he would certainly catch a beast, provided that it wasn’t a beast king!

If he was extremely lucky, he could even catch a beast king!

Imagine that… One hundred thousand energy points, i.e. ten million coins, could give him a 10% chance of catching a beast king. How awesome was that!

That was to say, he could get a beast king with about one hundred million coins.

Of course, theoretically speaking, he might not even get one after 10 times. With a 90% failure rate, it meant that he might not be able to get one beast king after using ninety rings! Nevertheless, there was no harm in stocking up some goods. Even catching a beast at the peak of the ninth-rank would have been worthwhile!

After the store was upgraded, Su Ping would check the system’s shop every day. The shop would be refreshed every 24 hours. However, he had never seen anything like the Enlightening Guide.

“System, what does the Enlightening Guide look like?”

“You will know it when you see it.” The system sounded cool.

Su Ping found no words to reply. He saw the “refresh” button and heaved a sigh. Good. He had to spend money again. Who knew when he could run into that Enlightening Guide by waiting for the automatic refreshing?

Since he could make enough money with the store, he was no longer as stingy. He refreshed the shop five times in a row and bought the beast-catching ring that came up. Su Ping bought two middle-level beast-catching rings as well. All the beast-catching rings were consumables and they would always come in handy. He saw some rare materials but he would not use them at the moment. He didn’t buy those materials because they were very expensive. He had to prioritize where to spend his energy points. Granted, he was making good money. But he had to save up some energy points to upgrade the store and the Chaos Spirit Pool for Incubation; that upgrade was one million energy points per time, a huge sum.

IO

After five times, the cost of refreshing had increased to over one thousand energy points. That was no longer acceptable. Su Ping had to give up for the day.

Su Ping closed the store with a bitter mood and asked, “System, is there anything that can improve my luck?”

The system was just as indifferent as before. “Nothing can change fate. The only thing to do here is…”

“What?”

“Pray.”

Su Ping was about to explode.

He could only count on the system’s shop to get the Enlightening Guide. As such, he shifted his mind to strengthening. “Are the three ways applicable to strengthening as well?”

“That is correct.”

Su Ping heaved a sigh. He had refreshed five times but he saw no book nor guide. The possibility had to be very low.

Do I have to study by himself?

Su Ping clenched his teeth.

Hmm, so be it. Look at how handsome I am. No way I can’t work on strengthening! He was planning on going to the cultivation site that day.

That was when he heard someone shouting.

Su Ping pulled his mind back from his communication with the system. It was the customers who were shouting as they watched the live stream. He saw two battle pets with ninth-rank bloodlines. Of course, the two pets had merely reached the seventh-rank at the moment.

Su Ping shook his head and looked away.

He tapped the table with his pen, wondering how he could train the pets in a more targeted way.

He lost himself in his thoughts. Time flew away. Suddenly, a person came. “Teacher.”

Su Ping frowned. He looked up at Xu Kuang and noticed that half the customers who had gathered in front of the TV were gone. The matches were still ongoing but the battle pets were not as powerful.

“Teacher, Ye Hao and Su Yanying also bought the Top 10 package in your store, right?” Xu Kuang asked.

Su Ping saw how serious Xu Kuang was. “Yes.” Su Ping nodded.

Disappointment came over Xu Kuang’s face. “I was thinking about teaching Ye Hao a lesson… Teacher, do you have any other way to empower my battle pet again?”

“I don’t have any open spots today. Come back early tomorrow. I will train your pets,” Su Ping said.

Xu Kuang forced a bitter smile. “Tomorrow is my turn to try to reach the Top 10 again. I cannot train my pets tomorrow. I also noticed that those in the Top 10 are powerful and I have to avoid Ye Hao and Su Yanying, so I have to challenge someone else.

“Aside from your sister in the Top 10, there is Qin Shaotian that freak and the one I lost to yesterday, and the one from the Mu Family is not to be trifled with, either.”

He had just seen the battles. All the ones in the Top 10 that he could challenge were tough guys.

He still had a chance if the Top 10 were his goal.

But he was aiming at the Top 5…

That was to say, he had to perform really well!

Su Ping seemed to have been taken aback. He realized that he might have neglected Xu Kuang a bit. Su Ping gave it a careful thought and noticed that Xu Kuang was truly in a dangerous place. He should be okay to make it to the Top 10, but Su Ping had promised Xu Kuang a spot in the Top 5, which was a bit hard based on the performance shown by the other participants.

Xu Kuang had looked for him a bit late and his pets had not been trained for many rounds, and there was no divine energy in them. If Xu Kuang was unlucky and encountered Su Lingyue, or Qin Shaotian, or any of the other tough guys, he would never make it to the Top 5.

“That… is a problem.” Su Ping frowned.

He had just done some calculations. Given Xu Kuang’s strength, reaching the Top 10 would be fine, and he could make it to the Top 5 provided that Su Ping was commanding the pets, which was not an option. Xu Kuang’s ability to command and his reactions were not outstanding Besides, on the off chance everyone Xu Kuang challenged were strong, he would not make it. Fortune mattered as well, which was proven by the unlucky dude, Liu Jianxin.

Xu Kuang realized that his request must have been troublesome. He said in haste, “Nevermind. Don’t worry about it. I was just saying. Anyways, I have already demonstrated my ability and I’m happy already.”

Su Ping came back to his senses. He shook his head and patted Xu Kuang’s shoulder. “You’re right. Thanks for reminding me. Or else my store’s reputation will be in danger.” “Huh??”

“It may be too late for training. How about renting a pet?” Su Ping asked. “Renting one?” Xu Kuang was surprised. “Sir, do you have pet renting services? How come I’ve never heard of it?”

“Now you heard it.”