Chapter 30: The First Skill

“The sword has been forged, food has been purchased; for the next half month, I’ll diligently assist General Ha in developing skills within the training secret realm of my private room! Sword qi, Blade Storm, Swordsmanship… I’ll research them all.”After parting with Pig Raiser, Lu Ran returned to his private room in high spirits. As for Fang Lan, she ran off to the arena, saying she wanted to watch for a while to understand the rules. Lu Ran didn’t accompany her; he had little interest in beastmaster battles. Even in gaming, he was a dedicated PvE player.

“Fang Lan also mentioned letting General Ha spar with that wolf spider… Forget it, better not bring that up and risk dampening her spirits.” Inside the room, Lu Ran released General Ha.

“Roar~~~” As soon as it emerged, General Ha was eager to test its mettle with the Wind Meteor Sword. Clearly, it hadn’t had its fill during the time at the forge house.

“What is there to battle now? Let’s train for half a month first; our level is still too low. After all, we’re soloing; I doubt we could even get through a simple-level novice secret realm!”

“Whimper!!” General Ha became anxious, trying to communicate something urgently.

The gist was: Does the Divine Deer Pendant still have energy? Why not find a forest secret realm to replenish some energy first? That way, we’d be in better shape for the intense training later. It’d be troublesome if we got injured during training without any healing power left!

Lu Ran: ?

“Holy smokes.” Lu Ran stared at his dog, doubting whether General Ha was possessed by someone else. Could it really grasp such complex logical relationships? To think of fighting, its intelligence seemed to have skyrocketed all of a sudden.

“You don’t need to worry about that. I feel the energy in the Divine Deer Pendant is quite sufficient,” Lu Ran said. The pendant was a rechargeable resource, drawing on the force of nature from forests to convert it into healing power. Although he felt it hadn’t charged much in the Forest of the Demon Cat, it was still enough to treat General Ha’s routine training injuries.

“Whimper~” General Ha appeared disheartened.

“However.” Lu Ran glanced at General Ha. He hadn’t yet mentioned the “Flowfruit” to it; that thing was akin to a self-harm training method. He wondered if General Ha could accept that…

Healing the self-inflicted damage caused by consuming flowfruits does indeed require an abundance of healing power. The remaining amount might be uncertain, but it’s probably best to err on the side of caution. It wouldn’t hurt to visit a simple difficulty level forest secret realm to stock up on more energy.

As long as they avoided provoking any level 10 bosses, there shouldn’t be any danger in merely replenishing energy.

On their way, Lu Ran planned to find a couple of low-level monsters for General Ha to enjoy a trial run with the Wind Meteor Sword. It would be a way to satisfy its combat desires.

“Alright, I’ll indulge you. We’ll find a secret realm for you to enjoy, but once we’re back, you need to practice swordsmanship with me. We’ll undergo some rigorous training,” Lu Ran said.

“Roar!!” General Ha was thrilled. Boss Lu was truly considerate! Its tail shot up into the air with excitement.

“Let’s pick a secret realm then,” Lu Ran said with a smile, walking over to the pillar platform to select an appropriate secret realm. Since they needed to replenish the energy of the Divine Deer Pendant, they’d definitely need to choose a forest environment.

After looking around, Lu Ran’s eyes finally settled on a particular secret realm.

Name: Forest of the Demon Cat

Secret Realm Level: Novice

Difficulty: Simple

Challenge Crystal Coins: Lu Ran’s previous novice trial secret realm was also the Forest of the Demon Cat. However, that realm only encompassed a small area of the larger forest and lacked truly formidable creatures.

Re-entering could mean encountering beasts above level 5, and perhaps even some Demon Cats with awakened attributes.

“Maybe we should go with this one again,” Lu Ran thought to himself. They were already familiar with the environment, and the wood scale fruits found there were an excellent resource for replenishing stamina. Gathering some for the upcoming half-month of intensive training wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“Back to the Forest of the Demon Cat, how does that sound? You’ve made quite a few enemies there, haven’t you?” Lu Ran asked.

“!” General Ha paused for a moment. Ah, had it? It couldn’t quite remember.

“Woof!” No matter, it would assume it had. Time for revenge. General Ha was eager to try, taking a go-with-the-flow approach!

“That settles it then,” Lu Ran shrugged.

Would you like to spend 200 crystal coins to challenge the Forest of the Demon Cat secret realm?

Yes.

Lu Ran thought to himself.

Teleportation countdown 10…9…

…

Ten seconds later, Lu Ran and General Ha opened their eyes to the familiar environment, accompanied by familiar sounds.

Teleportation complete.

Current location: Forest of the Demon Cat (novice secret realm)

Difficulty: Simple

Challenge mission: Slay the leader of the Forest of the Demon Cat.

Secret realm introduction: …

Prompt 1: The maximum stay in a novice secret realm is 8 hours. Challengers can choose to return at any time; teleportation takes 10 seconds.

Prompt 2: Granted the blessing of the novice secret realm, challengers temporarily obtain the Eye of Data, which can detect internal resources and information about creatures within the realm.

Prompt 3: …

Upon returning to the Forest of the Demon Cat, Lu Ran noticed several changes, such as the “novice trial secret realm” label being updated to “novice secret realm” and the trial mission “survive one day” being replaced by the challenge mission “slay the leader of the Forest of the Demon Cat.”

The leader of the Forest of the Demon Cat is a level 10 demon cat with an awakened grass-type attribute, experienced in combat and difficult to deal with. The level 10 demon cat that was easily slain by a single swipe from the black bear on the Divine Beast Leaderboard was likely not this realm’s leader.

In any case, General Ha is currently only level 4, and since it’s a solo run, it would be unwise to provoke that creature.

Even though teleportation takes just 10 seconds, the leader is not alone, and who knows how many minions might come to harass them.

“Woof! (Sword!)” Inside the secret realm, General Ha looked towards Lu Ran.

“Here you go.” Lu Ran sighed, taking out the Wind Meteor Sword and the Wind Cutter Sword from his backpack, handing the former to General Ha to hold in its mouth, and gripping the latter himself.

Now armed, Lu Ran felt… facing those demon cats again, he could take them down one by one with a single swing!

“Same strategy as before, we stay put, replenish the pendant’s energy for a few hours, and then consider whether to venture deeper to collect resources,” Lu Ran said. “If any enemies approach in the meantime, you handle them.”

Lu Ran looked around and noticed that their spawn point still had some wood scale fruits. He decided to start by gathering them right there.

“Roar~” General Ha was obedient this time, mainly because it now had a new toy. Eagerly fiddling with the Wind Meteor Sword, it was intent on mastering it and was still preoccupied with its inability to release sword qi.

Meanwhile, Lu Ran, wielding the Wind Cutter Sword, began to chop down trees, transforming into Logger Vick

1

.

Whether it was just Lu Ran and General Ha’s luck or something else, just minutes into the secret realm, the bushes started rustling with a familiar sound…

Indeed, as Lu Ran picked fruit from the tree and General Ha stood on the ground, a demon cat emerged from the bushes.

Species: Demon Cat

Attribute: Unawakened

Species Level: Middle Supernatural

Growth Level: Level 8

“Meow-ao!!!” The demon cat strutted out, much stronger than any other demon cat Lu Ran had encountered in the novice trial secret realm. However, despite being 4 growth levels above General Ha, neither General Ha nor Lu Ran showed any sign of weakness.

After all, it was just an unawakened demon cat. Whether its combat power exceeded that of the Manchurian Chinchilla they once faced was debatable. Even if it did, it probably wouldn’t be by much.

General Ha, now upgraded with new equipment, should have no trouble defeating it.

“General Ha, take care of it,” Lu Ran ordered, continuing to pick fruit.

Below.

General Ha gripped the Wind Meteor Sword in its mouth, eyes sharp with determination.

An enemy had finally arrived.

It wanted to give Lu Ran a surprise.

General Ha clenched the Wind Meteor Sword tightly, channeling and amplifying the power of the wind, focusing it entirely on the blade!

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General Ha swung the sword, and a remarkable “storm” of energy was flung from the blade, transforming into a blade of wind, a sword qi!

Whoosh!

The sword qi, carrying the force of a tempest, caught the newly emerged demon cat completely off guard—it was the first time it had seen an attack that flew out like that.

As the gale approached, the demon cat had no time to react before the wind blade struck, cutting its body in two and causing it to burst apart on the ground.

The sword qi, after decapitating the demon cat, continued to move, speeding away and slicing another giant tree in half. The tree fell to the ground with a loud “bang” before the energy finally dissipated!

After some careful consideration, General Ha had finally managed to release sword qi.

“Woof!” General Ha turned to look at Lu Ran in the tree. Was this the energy release technique? Was this sword qi? It had done it!

“Incredible…” Meanwhile, Lu Ran, still picking fruit in the tree, was dumbfounded, feeling a tingling sensation on his scalp. What exactly was the origin of this dog? He couldn’t believe an Erha could be this powerful!

Others might need half a month just to grasp the basics of a talent like this, yet it had mastered it in a day or two? What kind of dog had he found!

Lu Ran was astonished by its learning ability. The defeat of the demon cat by General Ha didn’t surprise him much, after all, Master Lin had said that with the power of the Wind Meteor Sword enhancing wind-type energy, even a level 10 creature would be seriously injured if struck.

At the same time.

The Contract Card exclusive to General Ha.

Underwent a slight change.

Species: Snowfield Dog

Attribute: Wind-Type

Species Level: Middle Supernatural

Growth Level: Level 4

Skill: Sword Qi (A basic skill formed when wind-type energy is released through a sword-class supernatural weapon!)

…

Currently, the liveliest place was actually Beastmaster Square.

In a short span of time, many beastmasters had ascended the Divine Beast Leaderboard.

The Commander Leaderboard’s ten spots were already filled, the Supernatural Leaderboard had nine divine beasts, and the Sovereign Leaderboard had the fewest listed.

Many were watching for the last spot on the Supernatural Divine Beast Leaderboard.

Until…

Regional Announcement: The Divine Beast Leaderboard, Supernatural Species Leaderboard has been updated.

Leaderboard Divine Beast, Species: Snowfield Dog.

Attribute: Wind-Type

Species Level: Middle Supernatural

Growth Level: Level 4

Beastmaster: Passerby A

Reason for Leaderboard: Evolved and mutated from the Snowfield Dog species, extremely intelligent, awakened the Force of the Storm, and in the Novice Secret Realm, Forest of the Demon Cat, released sword qi across a distance, instantly killing a Middle Supernatural species level 8 Demon Cat!

Once the Supernatural Leaderboard was updated, Beastmaster Square was shaken, countless newcomers were baffled, Sword Qi? What the heck?

Footnote:

Logger Vick(强哥):

This reference comes from the famous Chinese animated series “Boonie Bears,” where the antagonist character appears as a bald lumberjack.