Chapter 101 - The Most Arduous Method of Advancement

Zhang Che’s question could only be solved when he advanced to Tier Four, after all.

Thinking about it, so be it if it was an Original Combat Body-type. This was still a gold-quality beast! Even if it was slow, it possessed outstanding defenses. Moreover, it could shoot rock projectiles, which could be counted as a long-distance attack.

As for the Rock Tortoise’s skill, the Rock Bullet Gatling, its might didn’t have to be mentioned; Zhang Che was nearly unfortunate enough to experience it firsthand. The tree trunk, as thick as his thigh, was reduced to countless bits and pieces in the blink of an eye. It went to show that the force contained in those projectiles was off the charts.

After his feeling of surprise faded, Zhang Che’s gaze fell back onto the Rotten Ent Prowler whip, and his heart grew excited again.

He didn’t think that this was actually how the whip should be used!

It seemed like no matter how strong an exotic beast was, their internal defenses would always be much more fragile. As long as he found the timing and opportunity and shot the whip into their mouths, there was a high chance of him directly killing them!

“But, this kind of opportunity should be extremely rare. It can’t be that every exotic beast would stand in front of me obediently and open their mouths for me to violate with the whip, right?”

After calming down, Zhang Che felt that this was too risky. It wouldn’t be that easy to chance upon such a great opportunity.

He collected himself and looked at the cliff.

-This time, there shouldn’t be another Rock Tortoise hiding in the cliff, right?-

He made the Purple Jade Condor carefully scout the situation again, before climbing upwards once more. After switching back and forth between the remaining few trees left on the cliff, Zhang Che finally climbed to the top of this hundred-plus meter cliff, arriving at the waist of the mountain range.

The terrain here was much more level, compared to below.

In order to prepare for any unexpected dangers after entering the mountain range officially, Zhang Che summoned all of his subdued beasts. The frisky monkey was armed with the Falling Star Model X, as well. Only Hanxue was kept in his spiritual sea due to his lack of combat strength, and to keep himself from being distracted trying to keep him safe.

As things would have it, Zhang Che’s decision was very much necessary.

Not long after he set off from the cliff, he encountered many poisonous insects that came crawling out of bushes or gaps between rocks. Although these beasts weren’t strong, they were well concealed. If they didn’t move, even the Purple Jade Condor couldn’t detect them from the sky.

For the current Zhang Che, there wasn’t any pressure for him to deal with these weak insects. The Purple Jade Condor could slice a beast in two with every dive.

Moreover, the frisky monkey was wielding the Falling Star Model X. He could make every shot of his count, be it severely injuring the beast or nailing them to the ground. None of them were able to get near Zhang Che.

After crossing two mountains, Zhang Che harvested several poison insects’ beast cards. A pity, however, there weren’t any identical cards among them, or he could have fused them into a higher level card using Fusion, and their prices would have doubled.

“It seems like it is no easy feat to rely purely on hunting exotic beasts by myself to level up Fusion…” Zhang Che couldn’t help but sigh. Unless he came across some exotic beast species that gathered in groups, it was still too difficult a hurdle to obtain two identical beast cards.

He was considering whether he should check things out in larger cities, to see if he could buy beast cards of the same species and level.

After all, Qian Wei City was a little too small. First, it wasn’t easy to buy identical beast cards, and second, it was too easy to attract the attention of others. It might prove problematic when it came time to sell the cards.

The levels of beast cards were common knowledge. If he brought out large amounts of beast cards that were one level higher than usual in one go, what did that imply?

It would be almost impossible for others to not notice it!

A large city was different, however. With a larger population, naturally there would be more beastmasters, and there would be more beast cards circulating in the market every day.

As long as he didn’t make any obvious moves and acted cautiously, he shouldn’t draw any attention from others. With that, he could level up the Fusion skill much faster.

“Though, what Teacher Han Sheqing said was right. The exotic beasts aren’t the most dangerous creatures in this world, but humans. It’s best that I advance to Tier Four before heading to those large cities. It should be something to consider only when I’m strong enough to protect myself.”

Zhang Che wasn’t that afraid of humans in the beast world, however. He could ride on the Purple Jade Condor and fly away if he was no match for others; could mid and low-tier beastmasters stop him?

In the real world, however, there were too many elements of danger.

Let alone other methods, all it would take was a sniper rifle bullet to claim his life.

Zhang Che grew distracted thinking about all this. He suddenly heard the frisky monkey crying out loud from the side. When he came back to himself, he realized that a colorful poisonous snake was pouncing towards him from the bush to the side.

Zhang Che was surprised. Just as he was about to defend himself with his whip, a cold streak flashed by his side. An arrow shot out and entered the snake’s mouth, exiting its body from the middle of its body, before digging deeply into the soil.

The Gluttony Monkey was actually a very reliable companion during crucial times!

The poisonous snake died instantly after being penetrated by the arrow, fresh blood flowing out of its corpse.

“Zhizhi!” The frisky monkey shrugged at Zhang Che innocently, indicating that he didn’t kill this snake on purpose, but he was too concerned with saving his master’s life and forgot about Zhang Che’s instructions in the heat of the moment.

Right, in order to obtain more beast cards, Zhang Che instructed the frisky monkey not to aim for the vitals to prevent killing them. Otherwise, only a corpse would be left behind.

What use did Zhang Che have for the corpse of a poison-type exotic beast?

As he was about to sigh, Zhang Che suddenly noticed the Fiery Scorpion rushing up and opened its mouth, biting on the snake’s head and starting to eat it.

“Hmm? Don’t subdued beasts have no need for food?”

Zhang Che found it strange. Supposedly, subdued beasts only needed to absorb some spiritual energy in his spiritual sea to sustain themselves. Did they actually need to eat?

Of course, devouring the rainbow crystal’s energy didn’t count. That was unique to Zhang Che alone.

While he wondered about this question, the Fiery Scorpion devoured the entire corpse of the snake, and waved its pincers in satisfaction afterwards.

-Could it be that subdued beasts could advance in level and quality by eating other beasts?- Zhang Che suddenly thought of this possibility. He immediately checked on the Fiery Scorpion’s attributes and focused his gaze on ‘Cultivating Directions’. As expected, more information was revealed afterwards.

-It really is like this!-

In the Cultivating Directions column, several methods for the subdued beast to advance suddenly appeared.

The best method was, of course, to have the subdued beast consume the natural treasures found in the beast world. The chances of advancing via this method were the greatest. It was like when the Purple Jade Condor consumed the Five-Colored Spiritual Flower and successfully advanced to dark gold-quality.

Next was gathering a few, or even dozens of complementary ingredients according to the attributes and characteristics of different subdued beasts, and concocting a beast card cultivating fluid from them, soaking the beast card in it to absorb the essence of the fluid, achieving the desired result of advancement.

The beast card cultivators on Mercury were doing exactly this.

The most arduous method was also the only method which beastmasters could attempt with their own abilities: devouring the corpse of an exotic beast of similar properties and absorbing the components that were useful to the subdued beast. There was a chance of advancing from that!