"I’m done."

"Okay~"

Shao Ya took the wrapper from Su Zhi’s hand like a doting mother.

"Where do you want to go next?"

Su Zhi glanced at Xu Mingzhi. "This isn’t very interesting. Want to head back?"

"Sure, let’s head back."

"...Wait a minute!"

After being on the receiving end for five solid minutes, Xu Mingzhi finally snapped.

He looked at Shao Ya, pointing a trembling, incoherent finger at Su Zhi. "Do you... Do you even know? He’s just some country bumpkin who got in on a wildcard! Don’t let him fool you!"

"Of course, I know."

Shao Ya still offered a gentle smile, but it was now laced with an icy coldness that pushed him away.

"This independent contestant and I have some private matters to discuss. Could you please stop bothering us? You, the student from No. 3 High?"

"I..."

Shao Ya said no more, turning and walking away shoulder-to-shoulder with Su Zhi.

"Yu Bao, say goodbye to Xu," Su Zhi said without looking back.

Yu Bao bid him farewell with a placid smile. ⌓‿⌓

Xiaoyue, on the other hand, hadn’t glanced at Xu Mingzhi even once from the very beginning.

The moment Xiaoyue had sensed the guy’s improper gaze on its master, it had been ready to strike.

’He’s lucky he knew his place and didn’t try anything.’

Xu Mingzhi watched, petrified, as the two pairs walked away.

After who knows how long, the voices of two people drifted over from a short distance away:

"Old Cao, why do you think that student from No. 3 High is just standing there all alone? He looks kinda pathetic."

"Brother Yuhang, you’re mistaken. Based on my social experience, this man is a simp who just got shot down and is now lost in his own world."

"Ah... simps never prosper. Let’s go find Brother Shu and the others."

"My thoughts exactly!"

After an unknown amount of time, his phone vibrated. Xu Mingzhi looked at the screen, and his eyes shot wide open.

His opponent for the first round of the group stage tomorrow morning: "(Independent) Su Zhi / Yu Bao".

’Good. Very good...’

A twisted smile appeared on Xu Mingzhi’s face.

He, a top-four contestant from the No. 3 High qualifiers, had been utterly humiliated today by some country bumpkin of an independent contestant.

’If I don’t avenge this humiliation, I’m not worthy of being called a man!’

’Thankfully, it seems even the heavens couldn’t stand it and have given me this chance to prove myself.’

’Su Zhi, is it?’

’I’ll see you in the ring tomorrow!’

·

That evening, Su Zhi and Yu Bao remained in their room.

After nearly a month of revisions and improvements, "Yu Bao’s Specialized Skill Path" was now mostly complete and officially in use.

Liu Junpo had specifically warned Su Zhi not to blindly trust the final version he’d laid out. The exploration of a Skill System is a never-ending journey. There was still a long road ahead, filled with vast numbers of academic papers, cutting-edge resources, and even unknown evolutions...

One day, Su Zhi would surpass him and reach new heights.

But for the current Su Zhi, that was still too far away.

Fortunately, this Skill System was already quite complete. For now, at least, it didn’t require any major changes.

A part of the path forward had been scouted. Now, all that was left was to walk it, one steady step at a time!

"Woof..." Yu Bao shook its head, looking dejected.

It still couldn’t use Thick Earth Blessing.

While it was normal for a Pet Beast at this stage to have not yet awakened its Core Skill, that was just for the average ones.

Yu Bao had observed the other competing Pet Beasts they’d met that afternoon. Basically all of them had already awakened their Core Skills.

"Maybe you really are just missing that one trigger. After all, a Core Skill is different from a regular skill. Maybe you can’t grasp it just through hard training alone."

Su Zhi rubbed Yu Bao’s head, comforting it.

"It’s okay, you’ve already done so well! The skills we have now are more than enough."

After returning to the room in the afternoon, Yu Bao had immediately started training its skills.

Su Zhi would sometimes help it train, acting as a human weight for the Yellow Earth Wall practice, or as a pillar-like obstacle for the Desert Concealment practice...

And when his participation wasn’t needed, Su Zhi would watch the complete analysis series of the Classic 1000 Tournament, absorbing knowledge from the masters’ battle strategies. When he got tired of that, he’d switch gears and browse through a couple of Beast Taming academic papers.

’Even if I don’t understand them...’ To truly walk his own path, this step was indispensable.

When Yu Bao got tired, it would lie in his arms and watch with him for a while, and they would even exchange ideas from time to time.

Once it regained its strength, it would jump out of his arms and resume training.

The two of them, master and pet, had been repeating this cycle all the way until now.

TAP TAP TAP

Deep in concentration, they were startled by a sudden knock on the door.

Recognizing the force and rhythm of her knock, Su Zhi got up to open the door—

At the doorway stood the young woman, her hands behind her back and her head tilted.

She had undone her ponytail, and her waterfall of white hair fell naturally; she was no longer wearing high-top canvas shoes but slippers, revealing the graceful lines of her ankles wrapped in white socks.

’Something’s off about her expression...’ Su Zhi asked quietly, "Is something wrong?"

"Are you not eating dinner?" the young woman asked him back, her face expressionless.

"Ah."

Su Zhi quickly glanced at the time on his phone—it was already eleven o’clock at night.

He and Yu Bao had been so focused that eight hours had flown by without them even noticing.

The cafeteria was closed by now, and there probably weren’t many restaurants on the street still open.

"I forgot."

Su Zhi lowered his head as if admitting his mistake.

Shao Ya smiled and sighed.

Then, she brought out the takeout box she had been hiding behind her back. "Here."

Su Zhi’s eyes lit up as he took the food. "Thank you!"

Stir-fried tomato and egg, and Kung Pao chicken—they happened to be his two favorite dishes, served with fluffy white rice. It looked incredibly appetizing.

The moment he opened the box, a wave of hunger, long-ignored, crashed over him.

"I just picked two random dishes, so don’t expect too much from the cafeteria’s cooking... Eat slowly! No one’s going to steal it from you."

Shao Ya rested her chin in her hands and sat beside Su Zhi, watching him wolf down his food with an exasperated smile.

Xiaoyue patrolled the room, rubbing its scent on things and thus claiming it as new territory.

Then, it curled up on the sofa, tucking its paws in, to observe Yu Bao, who was busy training its Sandstorm skill.

Sandstorm was clearly an area-of-effect Output Skill, but from the way Yu Bao was training, it seemed to be intentionally trying to condense it.

But it wasn’t like Furious Sand Blade; this "condensed version" of Sandstorm was still fundamentally an AoE that would explode outwards.

"Meow?" Xiaoyue tilted its head.

’So what’s this for? What’s the point of practicing this?’

’Something’s not right...’

’The silly little dog isn’t clinging to its master anymore. It’s not even excited about food.’

Shao Ya looked from Yu Bao to Su Zhi, the smile in her eyes growing even warmer.

As Su Zhi ate, she asked leisurely, "Still thinking about what happened this afternoon?"

"Of course not," Su Zhi mumbled, burying his face in his food.

Shao Ya watched him, smiling without saying a word.

"Okay, fine. I admit it."

Su Zhi finished his meal and put down his chopsticks.

"I’m Yu Bao’s Beast Tamer, and Yu Bao is my Pet Beast. He looked down on Yu Bao. Who the hell does he think he is?"

Having finally voiced his inner thoughts, Su Zhi suddenly felt a little better.

He looked at the empty food container.

"Um, thank you."

"I’m glad you were able to say it out loud instead of bottling it up inside."

Shao Ya gave a sweet smile and slowly stood up.

"Oh, right, the tournament schedule has been posted. We’re in adjacent brackets, so if all goes as expected, we’ll meet in the semifinals!"

Su Zhi paused for a moment. "Really?"

He had been busy all afternoon and hadn’t paid any attention to it.

"Remember what I said last night? That I had a surprise for you?"

Shao Ya gave a mischievous wink. "I’ll give it to you when we meet in the semifinals."

"What if I get knocked out before then?"

"Then you don’t get it."

"Damn it."

"Good night~ Good luck tomorrow!"

Shao Ya opened the door and ran off.

Hearing the door across the hall close, Su Zhi glanced at the tournament schedule, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

’It’s a date. See you in the semifinals!’

·

·