King of Beasts

“Finally, it’s time to settle up.”

In his private room, Lu Ran stretched lazily.

He had been waiting for this moment for what felt like an eternity.

Currently, the number one spot on the Supernatural Divine Beast Leaderboard in Infinite City No. 3 was undisputedly his.

As for the second place, it was Pluto.

Previously, after asking Lu Ran whether he would visit Infinite City No. 5 again and receiving a positive response, Pluto breathed a sigh of relief and headed back to Infinite City No. 5.

However, shortly after Pluto ascended to the top spot in Infinite City No. 5, Sister White Tiger made her move and knocked him down a notch.

Pluto became second again.

After many attempts without success, it was quite a frustrating experience.

Eventually, he returned to his base, establishing a harmonious connection between the two cities.

…

Among the top ten, aside from the mysterious Passerby A, the identities of the other nine were no longer a secret.

Pluto hailed from Star Cluster, one of the four major guilds in Infinite City No. 3.

The tenth, Fang Lan, was a freelancer from Green Sea City with a background in veterinary medicine and a well-known cute pet blogger.

She was the only beastmaster on the leaderboard in Infinite City No. 3 who had not fused traits with her pet beast.

Of course, she owed much of her success to managing the poison territory in Green Sea City, utilizing abundant wild poison resources to continuously enhance her pet beasts.

Among the remaining top ten, three were from the four major guilds.

The four major guilds in Infinite City No. 3: Star Cluster, Dragon Palace, Circus, and Mountains and Rivers.

Judging by the leaderboard, each of these guilds held one spot in the top ten.

As for the other guilds, lacking the strength of these four, they naturally failed to attract top talents or nurture fourth-generation beastmasters capable of making the list.

The remaining individuals, unsurprisingly, had joined the official ranks, becoming reserve members of the official strategy team.

These talents emerged from the grassroots level and had careers intimately connected to animals before becoming beastmasters.

The primary mission of the official strategy team was to unravel newly emerging and unexplored secret realms, in addition to tackling the highest-level secret realms and exploring the limits of Infinite City.

These secret realms were extremely dangerous due to the unknown information.

Thus, the official strategy team experienced a high sacrifice rate and required constant replenishment of fresh blood.

Currently, among the 70 individuals on the Supernatural Divine Beast Leaderboard from the seven Infinite Cities of Xia Country, at least half are reserve members of the official strategy team.

The official authorities have long established a training system for these genius fourth-generation beastmasters, allowing them to team up and hone their skills within secret realms.

If Lu Ran and Fang Lan hadn’t encountered Gu Qingyi, they likely would have joined the strategy team upon the official invitation due to their abilities. However, meeting a top-tier big shot like Gu Qingyi gave them far more options in life.

…

Infinite City No. 3, Beastmaster Square.

The system was announcing the results of the various leaderboards.

Countless people looked enviously at the top player of the Supernatural Divine Beast Leaderboard, Passerby A.

“We’re all fourth-generation rookies, so why are you so exceptional?”

“Of course, it ended up being Passerby A as number one. No surprises or suspense there.”

“Yeah, a dog wielding a sword is pretty spectacular across all seven Infinite Cities.”

“But this Passerby A is just too mysterious. He’s never even been to the arena, right?”

“And it seems he hasn’t joined any guilds or the strategy team… A lone big shot? That’s terrifying.”

“I wonder if he’ll apply to Beast Taming University. I heard there’s a tournament among the new students! Curious if he’ll get a chance to face off against top players from the other Infinite Cities.”

Fourth-generation beastmasters loved to discuss such matters.

Meanwhile…

[Congratulations, you have retained the number one spot on the Supernatural Divine Beast Leaderboard.]

[Now issuing reward: 100,000 crystal coins.]

Lu Ran was momentarily stunned. Hearing how many crystal coins the top spot on the Supernatural Divine Beast Leaderboard awarded, he felt a jolt through his body.

“Are you serious???”

He quickly checked his backpack, and sure enough, his balance had increased from 29,878 to 129,878.

How could it be this much?!

Lu Ran was astonished. He had initially thought that getting twenty or thirty thousand would be quite good.

He had even prepared himself mentally for a reward of just ten thousand crystal coins.

After all, the Divine Beast Leaderboard resets every month, so giving too much wouldn’t be sustainable.

But seeing a sudden reward of 100,000 crystal coins, Lu Ran was absolutely thrilled.

If he could maintain first place for a year, wouldn’t he be looking at an annual income of a million crystal coins?

Earlier this morning, Lu Ran had been arduously collecting materials in a secret realm. But now, he immediately knew what it felt like to have money.

Thirteen thousand crystal coins! Lu Ran’s eyes gleamed.

He quickly sent a message to Pluto: [How much crystal coins do you have?]

After a moment of silence, the reply came: [Eighty thousand.]

So, even the second place on the leaderboard gets eighty thousand…

Great, once he contracts with the Sudden Death King and nurtures it to the second spot, that would be an income of eighteen thousand crystal coins a month!

Luckily for Pluto, he didn’t know Lu Ran’s thoughts; otherwise, he would certainly have cursed. Why did he bother responding to Lu Ran?

This guy is so conniving.

[Ask your brother too.]

Lu Ran remembered that the divine beast leaderboards were divided into four categories. A reward of one hundred thousand or even a million crystal coins is a huge sum for rookie beastmasters, enabling rapid growth and advancement. However, for advanced beastmasters, it might not be as significant.

He speculated that the rewards for the Commander Divine Beast Leaderboard and the Sovereign Divine Beast Leaderboard should be different from the Supernatural Divine Beast Leaderboard, likely offering higher amounts!

[He’s not online.]

[Alright.]

After their brief exchange, Lu Ran shrugged. Seeing so many crystal coins solidified his decision to quickly contract with the Sudden Death King.

When the time comes, having two pet beasts on the leaderboard means more prize money.

Moreover, the Supernatural Divine Beast Leaderboard can help assess the potential ranking of different pet beasts within a team…

This leaderboard is fantastic. Initially, Lu Ran had some resistance towards it, but now, it’s irresistible.

Lu Ran took a closer look at his backpack.

Crystal Coins Balance: 129,878

Equipment: Divine Deer Pendant (epic), Ice Sky Greatsword (rare-level), Wind Cutter Sword (advanced), Crossbow (advanced), Night Cloak (advanced)

Resources: Dog Food x66 (advanced), Dog Food x10 (rare-level), Ice Honey Tea x15 bottles, Thunder Enhancement Skill Card, Fire Enhancement Skill Card x2, Upgrade Card x11, Trait Crystal (Red Lightning), Flame Fruit x14, Fire Star Grass x21, Fire Scales x3, Heart of Lava x2.

At this moment, Lu Ran’s equipment and items hadn’t been updated much; they were still the same.

The crossbow and night cloak were items he had purchased before challenging the Abandoned Testing Ground.

Regarding resources, Lu Ran had been selling his secret realm acquisitions almost immediately after retrieving them. Although he had accumulated a reasonable amount of crystal coins during this time, General Ha’s rare dog food was so expensive that Lu Ran could only afford half a month’s supply, causing his crystal coins balance to dwindle again.

Although paying off debts is important, General Ha’s food supply is equally crucial. As a second-generation beastmaster advised, pet beasts need to continue receiving nutrients even during level bottlenecks at levels 10, 20, and 30. The absorbed nutrition isn’t wasted but instead hides within the body as potential, enabling a rapid level-up once the breakthrough occurs.

Hence, it’s best not to neglect their nutritional needs just because the pet beast is currently at a bottleneck.

Lu Ran, eager to expedite General Ha’s leveling, had started investing heavily in an upgraded diet in the past few days. He switched General Ha to rare-level beast meat and poultry, complemented with advanced dog food.

On this foundation, Lu Ran also managed to save enough for the Ice Sky Greatsword, indicating significant effort.

“Now that I’ve got some money, I can sell the skill card and the resources I just acquired. Today’s crystal coins will easily surpass the 150,000 mark.”

“After clearing Master Lin’s debt, I’ll still have over 100,000 crystal coins left.”

“Before entering the breakthrough secret realm, I can use this amount to significantly strengthen myself.”

Just as Lu Ran was about to head out to sell his beast taming skills, he noticed that the number of upgrade cards had reached ten. He stopped in his tracks and took out General Ha’s contract card.

Previously, he had used upgrade cards obtained from the Abandoned Testing Ground to upgrade the iron-level contract card to a silver-level contract card.

Now, with another ten upgrade cards in hand, he could upgrade the silver-level contract card to a gold-level contract card.

[Would you like to use 10 upgrade cards to upgrade the contract card?]

As Lu Ran held the ten upgrade cards against General Ha’s contract card, the Infinite City system prompt appeared.

[Confirm.] Lu Ran selected.

Soon,

A glow appeared, and the eleven cards began to merge.

Shortly thereafter, the silver-edged contract card transformed into a gold-edged, black-faced contract card.

[Upgrade successful.

Contract card space expanded.

New special function added: Slow Healing.]

“As expected, it’s a healing ability…”

“Better than nothing, I suppose.”

Lu Ran remained unperturbed about the new function added to the contract card after the upgrade.

The previous upgrade had added a stamina recovery function to the contract card, but the recovery speed was comparable to eating a few ordinary resources like wood scale fruits. It wasn’t useless, but its utility was quite limited.

This time, the slow healing function sounds like a healing ability and is quite rare, but its actual effect is similar to the advanced healing potions sold in Infinite City.

It couldn’t heal severe injuries, and minor injuries didn’t need urgent healing.

In short, for someone like Lu Ran who possesses the Divine Deer Pendant, the new ability was pretty redundant. However, contract cards need to be upgraded gradually. The next special function, “Growth Acceleration,” would be much more useful, though it required collecting 100 upgrade cards, which would take time.

Moreover, once he acquired the Sudden Death King’s contract card, he would have to upgrade that card too. If he relied solely on his gains, it would take a very long time.

“It’s still alright, at least in situations like the public secret realm, if there’s no time to treat General Ha’s injuries, this function can alleviate its pain a bit while it’s in the card…”

“And after upgrading the card, General Ha should be grateful to me.”

Next, Lu Ran went out and skillfully made his way to a store. He sold three skill cards and all the materials he had acquired from Lava Lake.

Altogether, he earned about 56,000 crystal coins.

Lu Ran’s crystal coin balance: 185,878.

Nearing the 200,000 mark.

With this amount of crystal coins, paying off Master Lin’s debt shouldn’t be a problem. He just wasn’t sure if he could clear his debt to Dr. Gu.

Lu Ran felt it might be a tough task since the Mental Flower, Dokarona, dropped from a level 50+ sovereign species BOSS. Such resources were usually only accessible to the original big shots, and their value was undoubtedly high.

House of Forging.

“You’re here,” Master Lin said calmly, as if he already knew Lu Ran would come today.

“The divine beast leaderboard was settled today, so I knew you’d come to pay your debt. Here are your resources.” With that, Master Lin placed the Dragon Blood Crystal on the counter.

He then added with a chuckle, “Kid, want to upgrade the Ice Sky Greatsword? Last time, you didn’t have the money, so I only added one rare ore. This sword isn’t top-tier among rare weapons…”

“No need,” Lu Ran said, his tone dismissive as he walked up and slapped the counter with his palm, signaling his payment. “I finally saved some money, so forget it; the Ice Sky Greatsword is good enough for now.”

Even though he felt that upgrading it and forging a top-tier rare sword might elevate General Ha’s species level to an upper commander species and remove the weapon’s shortcomings,

Top-tier rare equipment would easily cost over a hundred thousand crystal coins, probably nearing a million, and Lu Ran didn’t want to go into debt again.

“Haha, alright then. It’s good to save some crystal coins. You’ll need them for various purposes after your breakthrough,” Master Lin laughed heartily.

“See you later~” Lu Ran said, waving as he picked up the Dragon Blood Crystal. He also sent a message to Lu Bing and others, informing them that he wouldn’t be exploring secret realms this afternoon.

It’s been a while since he had been back to reality.

He wanted to check on Green Sea City’s situation and, incidentally, use the Red Lightning and Dragon Blood Crystal to strengthen the Sudden Death King.

He wondered if, after the enhancement, it would be stronger than General Ha or how much weaker it would still be.

Lu Ran had heard from Fang Lan that lately, the Thunder Dragon General had been quite arrogant in Green Sea City. Strutting around with its one-eared stance, maintaining the calm of a black turtle, showing the fire snake’s hunger for resources, and spouting dark crow-like sleazy talk, it had picked up a lot of weird habits…