Chapter 69: Venturing into Stellar Rift (Part-8)
The little wolf pup jumped out of the pet inventory and landed on the ground. As he pointed at the corpse, Black grew slightly bigger as it rushed forward to the corpse before digging out its spirit core and handing it back to its master, who ingested it right away.
*Ding!
[You acquired Skill: Fireball]
[Affinity with Fire element monsters increased by 6%]
[Redundant skill is found. Converting it into coins.]
[You received 820 coins]
"Fuu... another redundant skill..." He could only sigh, but in the end, shrugging his shoulders, Lin Fang stared at the distant portal away, his face turned serious as his fists clenched. "Only two days left, but I’m nowhere near my goal. I wonder when I would be able to find some legendary grade beasts."
"System, Open Character Interface.
Store Level: 1 (Bound)
Character Interface:
Name: Lin Fang
Age: 24
Ethnicity: Manchu
Citizenship: Northern Yan
Profession: Summoner, Store Owner
Element: Fire, Dark, Water, Light, Lightning, Wind
Business name: Fang Fang Pets
Rank: C
Bank Balance: 7,888,612 Credits
Store Balance: 611,490 coins
Monsters: Luminous Direwolf, Lightning Pterosaur, Blazing Smilodon
DEBT: 0
[Exchange]
*
[SKILLS]
Active:
Summon: The host can summon soul-bound monsters from anywhere in the world. Cooldown: 24 hours
Shared Vision Link: The host can momentarily share a monster’s vision from any place in the world. Duration: 1 minute Cooldown: 2 hours Limitation: During this skill’s active state, the host’s body will be in the state of stasis.
Combat Merge: The host can temporarily put one of the soul-bound monsters into a hibernation state and gain their stats for a temporary period, without any side effects afterward. Duration: 3 minutes. Cooldown: 6 hours. Limitation: The Host can only use a sound-bound monster’s skill if he possesses mana. Without mana, the host can only gain raw physical strength.
Soul Fusion: Any two soul-bound monsters can temporarily fuse into a new, combined entity with enhanced abilities, traits, and appearance. The fused monster inherits both of their elements and skills. Note: It also inherits both of their weaknesses. Duration: 5 minutes. Cooldown: 12 hours. Limitation: The monsters cannot have a level gap of more than 10.
Rise of the Undead – The host can summon the monsters that he killed personally for 60 seconds (monsters killed by other monsters do not count). Current Rank: Maximum 5. Cost: None. Cooldown: 60 minutes.
Fireball — The host can summon a fireball to attack the enemies. Cooldown: 300 seconds. Effect: the more mana consumption, the stronger the attack damage.
Fire Tornado — The host can summon a three-hundred-foot mini fire tornado to incinerate the targets caught up inside. Cost: 1000 points of mana to initiate and 100 points of mana every second to maintain. Cooldown: 36 hours.
Rainfall — The host can alter the cloud positions to create rainfall to any severe degree for 60 minutes. Cooldown: 24 hours
Stealth — The host can turn invisible temporarily up to 60 seconds. Cost: 1000 points of mana to initiate the skill and 10 points of mana per second.
Passive:
Lord of the Summons: The soul-bound monsters will listen to every command of the host. They have, forever, true loyalty to their master, regardless of the treatment the host gives them.
True bond: The tighter the emotional bond the host has with soul-bound monsters, the greater the probability of them willingly protecting the host from any sight of danger, regardless of the command.
Echo of the Soul: Whenever a soul-bound monster reaches its maximum level, the host will receive one of its skills to use as his own.
*
[Quests]
Main Quest: Become a Rank-B summoner
Reward: Beast World (unlock)
Side Quests:
Side Quest 1: Obtain all basic elements of monsters (Fire, Water, Lightning, Wind, Earth, Light, and Dark)
Reward: 1000 coins
Side Quest 2: Raise atleast 5 monsters you possess to Level 30.
Reward: 2500 coins.
Side Quest 3: Earn 10,000,000 credits from selling the monster eggs.
Reward: Coin Bonus (Passive Skill)
Side Quest 4: Raise all pets to Max level.
Reward: x11 Lottery pick ticket for each monster companion.
Side Quest 5: Hunt down 1000 wild monster (33.2%)
Reward: Varies (monster’s rank and grade)
Side Quest 6: Clear your first dungeon, solo
Reward: Evolution Ticket
Hidden Quest: Kill and Absorb 100,000 common-grade spirits.
Progress: 42,220/100,000
Reward: Guardian Spirit
*
For the past few days, Lin Fang was actively hunting down rare or epic-grade commander-tier monsters with the help of his three beast team, constantly absorbing their spirits and earning coins. While he wasn’t even halfway to activating the guardian spirit, he still managed to amass a large number of coins and earned quite a number of new skills as he swallowed their spirit cores.
And now, with only 2 days left till this rift opens, Lin Fang sped up the hunting even more.
With direwolf and Smilodon continuing to rest in pet inventory, the lightning Pterosaur roamed the skies while Lin Fang’s sharp gaze was down below, his system’s inspection skill was at full swing, scanning every monster on the way nonstop.
As for his so-called teammates, he couldn’t care less about their whereabouts much less reuniting with them.
After killing the Flame Fox, Lin Fang once again set out to find his next target.
However, due to the fact that he wiped out almost the entire central plains, or atleast, almost every rare and epic grade monsters, the job only became harder for him to find rare ones.
Still, Lin Fang didn’t leave the plains to venture into another region. He continued to search and search.
And several hours later, Lin Fang landed at the shores of a stream and let his pterosaur quench its thirst. Leaving it there, he then walked toward a cave nearby, where a blue glow was emanating from. As he walked into it, the glow revealed a cave with its walls lined with shimmering crystals. Stepping inside, Lin Fang felt the energy in the air. His fingers brushed against one of the blue ores.
Ding!
[You found Mythril Ore]
He casually waved it away and reached out to his inventory to take out his daggers of Xuanwu and slashed at the ore. It cleaved cleanly, falling to the ground with a soft thud. He picked it up and threw it into the inventory.
*Ding!
[Mythril Ore is added to inventory]
For the next four hours, Lin Fang worked tirelessly, slashing through ore and gathering over 563 fist-sized pieces of Mythril. Sweat dripped down his forehead, but he didn’t stop until he was satisfied.
"Okay, with this... a total of 2500 mythril ores were collected. A total of 5 tons was gathered. Even with a marginal 40% efficiency, I could have 2000 kgs of mythril metal, which would be enough to make a few hundred entire sets of armor and weapons."
Sitting down, he took out the pet bowls and placed food for his companions. Direwolf and Smilodon were happy to eat their commercial dry food. However, Pterosaur didn’t eat today, the fish-flavored commercial pet food.
"What’s the matter? Don’t like it?" Lin Fang asked, slightly taken aback by its action.
In response, the Pterosaur let out a low screech, sending a telepathic message to its master. Lin Fang’s eyes widened in realization. "Hmm, yeah, I guess you worked very hard today. You deserve better food."
Caressing its back, he said, "Tempest, how about we hunt some fish monsters, and you can eat their meat?"
The Lightning Pterosaur’s eyes immediately lit up like a child seeing a feast.. Lin Fang smiled faintly at Tempest’s excitement, and stowed away the snacks he had prepared for himself. "Alright. Let’s find some dinner for you before sunset.
An hour had passed since Lin Fang and his companions resumed their hunt. Tempest eagerly glided high in the sky, its hunger only increased as it spent more energy flying with Lin Fang on its back as it flew above the river, following its stream to find some decent quality fish.
Eventually, he ended up encountering a herd of water buffalo grazing near a marsh, their massive bodies moving slowly through the shallow water. Lin Fang activated his inspection skill. Most were between level-10 and level-29, clearly Normal Tier creatures, which he spotted a couple of days ago, but ignored them because they are too weak for his attention. But now, seeing Tempest’s nostrils flare at the scent of fresh, plump meat, rather than for fish in the river, Lin Fang commanded calmly. "Tempest, don’t land yet."
As they circled, Lin Fang’s attention was caught by a single buffalo slightly apart from the rest. Its frame was larger than the others, and its swollen belly marked it as pregnant. Commander Tier... rare grade, Lin Fang noted with a frown on his face. The beast was resting peacefully.
Tempest, however, in hunger and excited, couldn’t hold back until his order. Without waiting, it dove from the sky, with lightning sparks licking from its wings.
"Stop. It’s pregnant!" Lin Fang shouted, trying to seize control.
But Tempest ignored him, letting out a concentrated lightning beam that struck the water buffalo’s neck. The rare-grade creature bellowed in pain, thrashing violently.
Lin Fang stumbled backward, hitting the swampy ground. Only a bruise marked the impact on his arm, but his heart pounded in shock.
"Stop! Stop! Don’t!" he yelled again in a cracking voice.
Tempest didn’t listen at all. Going out of control, the pterosaur lunged forward and sank its teeth into the buffalo’s neck. Panic surged in Lin Fang’s chest. Frantically, he activated Lord of the Summons, enforcing the passive skill. The Lightning Pterosaur froze, stiffened, and moved back a few steps from the fray, eyes wary of the now hostile target.
But it was already too late for the monster.