Beast Taming: My System is Bugged-Chapter 111 - 110: Am I Blind?

Time flew by in the blink of an eye.

On March 22nd, Qing Lake High School held the new semester’s first round of monthly exams.

On this day, the third-year students in every class were rubbing their hands together, eager to prove themselves.

This was especially true for the students of Class 1 and Class 2, both of which were filled with top students who took the competition the most seriously.

Defeating just one of them could raise a student’s grade-wide ranking by one, or even several, places.

Gu Ming’s own ranking within the class hadn’t changed much for now. Although Cyan Treasure had undergone Evolution, its data hadn’t been updated.

Because of this, no one was quite sure where Gu Ming’s true ranking stood.

Moreover, Gu Ming rarely trained in the classroom.

He only showed up in the classroom for theory lessons; the rest of the time, he trained privately with Teacher Zhang.

It wasn’t uncommon for students like Gu Ming to do this. The top-ranked students who had signed "genius contracts" all had teachers for private, one-on-one instruction.

Wealthier students would even hire off-campus teachers to come to the school, carving out a private space for instruction in the training rooms.

It might seem absurd that off-campus teachers could enter the school to teach.

But hey, there’s no shame in making money.

When a student’s family had connections and power, the school naturally couldn’t stop them. In fact, they had to give them the green light.

As for those without connections or power, they naturally couldn’t afford to hire such tutors and could only watch on in envy.

However, what no one expected was that in one of the regular classes, a student was also quietly preparing to storm the rankings.

This was none other than Lu You. Her Mouse Treasure was silently doing its warm-up exercises, its chubby body jiggling. It was the only One-star Pet Beast from the regular classes to have evolved before the first round of monthly exams, making it quite the eye-catcher.

After its last battle with Cyan Treasure, the Sunflower Seed-eating Hamster’s combat ability had improved by leaps and bounds.

It trained every day until its Mana was completely depleted. As a result, its effective training time was far greater than that of other Pet Beasts.

Lu You’s confidence was much greater than others’. Her goal wasn’t just to be first in her class, but to break into the top fifty of the entire grade.

After all, other Pet Beasts would burn through their Mana after just a few minutes of high-intensity combat, and it would take at least a few hours of rest to recover it.

If they consumed Elixirs, they could shorten this rest period.

But compared to Cyan Treasure and Mouse Treasure, their training duration still fell a bit short.

However, Mouse Treasure’s One-star strength wasn’t particularly dazzling in the top students’ classes.

Gu Ming’s Pet Beast had reached the One-star Realm because the Little Cyan Snake has a short breeding cycle, and because he’d gotten lucky and run into Ma Tianba.

Mouse Treasure reaching One-star was just an explosion of good luck.

Other students didn’t have such an opportunity, but with enough resources piled on, they could achieve the same.

Thus, in the top students’ classes, many of their Pet Beasts had evolved to the One-star Realm in the past few days.

Of course, the Pet Beasts that had evolved quickly were mostly those that had been raised for a few months and had short breeding cycles.

A Pet Beast with High-star Potential like Wang Teng’s, for example, hadn’t reached the point of Evolution yet.

Those who weren’t in a hurry to evolve didn’t care, but the students who had a chance to evolve before the monthly exams felt the pressure from Gu Ming and used pills to accelerate the process.

If they didn’t speed things up and ran into Gu Ming’s Little Cyan Snake, a match they could have won might turn into a loss. Who could they complain to then?

They just didn’t know that Gu Ming’s Little Cyan Snake was no pushover.

At 8:00 AM, the students arrived at the school’s training dojo for a detailed physical assessment.

As the student ahead of him finished updating their three-dimensional scores, Gu Ming saw that the top-ranked students’ scores had all climbed above 400 points.

The most outstanding was the current class leader, Zhou Ruoyun, who ranked first in their class with a dazzling 506 points.

The grade-wide scores hadn’t been compiled yet, as the grade-level competition hadn’t begun.

Therefore, everyone only knew the scores within their own class for the time being.

However, some students had already snuck over to Class 2 to ask for the latest score of their top student.

After comparing the data, they were shocked to find that while Zhou Ruoyun’s score was indeed impressive, a student in the next class was even more formidable, having reached a score of 530.

When this score was revealed, the students of their class could only sigh in awe and admiration.

That was very close to 600 points, only seventy points shy.

Currently, the scoring was 300 points max for the written exam, 300 points max for the three-dimensional scores, and 400 points for the combat and nurturing composite score, for a grand total of 1000 points.

The combat and nurturing exams hadn’t started yet, so 600 was the current maximum possible score.

After the monthly exams were completed, the maximum total score would rise to 1000 points.

Thus, it was already becoming clear who had a solid foundation and where they might rank.

Everyone’s gaze simultaneously focused on Gu Ming, who was about to go on stage to test Cyan Treasure.

Gu Ming’s rank within the class hadn’t been updated, so no one could guess what his current score was.

Originally, seeing that Cyan Treasure had evolved into a One-star Beast, they thought its score would be impressive.

But after seeing the newly released score rankings, it was clear that a top-ten spot in the grade required a score approaching 500.

To take first place, one’s three-dimensional score plus written score had to exceed 530.

Even if the Little Cyan Snake’s three-dimensional scores were good, there was a limit to how good they could be.

After all, these scores weren’t calculated based on the Little Cyan Snake’s absolute maximum potential, but were graded on a curve against the three-dimensional scores of all Pet Beasts in the grade. Your score reflected your position relative to everyone else.

The last time Gu Ming’s three-dimensional scores were measured, they were assessed based on the database from the previous third-year class at the start of school in February.

Now, a month had passed. Everyone’s strength had increased, so the database for the three-dimensional scores had naturally been updated to the latest version in real-time.

As Cyan Treasure sprinted down the track and back, everyone nodded.

’Has its speed increased?’

’It’s definitely a lot faster, but still within a reasonable range.’

The Z-shaped Shaking Body Technique was, at its core, a combat Body Technique used to evade attacks by shaking during a fight.

This technique couldn’t turn Cyan Treasure into a master sprinter. At best, it boosted its explosive power over a short distance of three or four meters. Once the track lengthened, the advantage from the shaking movement diminished.

"100-meter dash in 30 seconds. Speed score, a provisional 20 points," homeroom teacher Ling Jun said, shaking his head.

’So this is a One-star Little Cyan Snake. Even after Evolution, its physical Talent is still terrible. That’s a fact.’

Next was the Power test. The Little Cyan Snake swung its head, imagining it weighed hundreds of pounds, and slammed it into the Power Stake with a BOOM.

The pillar of the Power Stake shuddered violently, and a Power measurement popped up.

"Power: 199 jin!"

"Power Points, a provisional 36!"

This time, Ling Jun was a little surprised. ’I think it scored 15 points at the start of the semester,’ he recalled. ’It’s more than doubled in a month.’

Gu Ming, however, knew that its Master Level Head Hammer had previously registered ninety jin of Power for 28 points. Now, after Evolution, it had only gone up by 8 points. This showed just how much everyone else’s Power had increased for this monthly exam.

"Alright, time for the Mana test."

Cyan Treasure then stood before the Crystal Ball, touched it with the tip of its tail, and silently circulated the Magic Power Inner Core within its body.

Then, a miracle happened. The light that burst from the Crystal Ball was so dazzling that no one could keep their eyes open.

In the blink of an eye, they saw the Mana Points displayed on the Crystal Ball: 99.

"Huh?"

"Am I seeing things?"

"99 points? For real?"

’Those Mana Points... that’s practically a perfect score, number one in the Mana test, right?’

"By the way, what was the Mana score for that student from Class 2 who got 530 points?"

"One hundred points," someone answered.

"So that means Cyan Treasure is second, right? That’s insane!"

The crowd burst into a clamor of discussion.

No one had ever imagined that a Little Cyan Snake, with its weak constitution, could rank so close to first place in the school’s Mana rankings.

Even Gu Ming was a little surprised.

’I thought the Little Cyan Snake getting 100 Mana Points was a sure thing.’

’But it’s normal not to get first place.’

’After all, some Pet Beasts naturally excel in Mana, and with their high Star Level Potential, the quality of their Mana becomes exceptionally high through Cultivation.’

’On top of that, the wealthier students have a lot of resources to nurture their Pet Beasts.’

’So even though the Little Cyan Snake had been pushing hard to catch up, it had barely managed to keep pace with them.’