Beast Taming: My System is Bugged-Chapter 48 - 47: Epiphany

Lu You looked at the new contact on her phone. The person hadn’t set a nickname, using their real name as their ID instead.

She muttered the two words "Gu Ming," finding the name very familiar. She’d heard it during school assemblies.

After a moment’s thought, she quickly remembered who Gu Ming was.

’The top student in the grade, Gu Ming!’

’It’s really him!’

She never imagined she’d get the contact information of the top student in her grade. She was just the most ordinary, bottom-of-the-barrel student in a regular class. Her exam scores were average, and her contracted Pet Beast was the lowest of the low.

The trajectory of her life was already set. With her family’s financial means, just getting her through the college entrance exams was their absolute limit.

After that, her days would surely be spent entering the workforce to earn money. She’d raise her Sunflower Seed-eating Hamster to be a Cultivation Element Pet Beast and find commissioned jobs tending to Spirit Plants or searching for Spirit Medicine, just scraping by.

Thinking about this, she felt a vast distance between herself and Gu Ming.

Gu Ming was at the pinnacle of the student body. He was definitely destined for great things.

She looked at Gu Ming’s profile picture: an adorable close-up of the Little Cyan Snake next to an Old Ban fish.

’Wait, why would the top student contract a Little Cyan Snake?’

’And Gu Ming works at a small community shop.’

As Lu You considered these facts, the image she had just built up of him shattered with a CLANG.

She stroked the Sunflower Seed-eating Hamster beside her, asking about its memories of Gu Ming.

And as it turned out, the hamster, born with heterochromia, had an outstanding memory. It actually remembered all the little details of how Gu Ming had cared for it.

The two of them instantly had a topic in common. The Sunflower Seed-eating Hamster chattered away with gossip about Gu Ming, all while cracking open its seeds.

In the little hamster’s heart, Gu Ming was as great as a stay-at-home dad—a Daddy Gu. He bustled about the shop tirelessly, his work always meticulous.

Back then, many of the Juvenile Stage Pet Beasts that Gu Ming had personally raised wanted to become his partner.

And Lu You had just seen what his choice was.

He had chosen the shop’s Little Cyan Snake.

The Sunflower Seed-eating Hamster knew that Little Cyan Snake—it was the one from the cage next door.

Before the contract, it barely had any Mana. But now, under Gu Ming’s care, it possessed such a dense Mana fluctuation.

Mana fluctuation... Lu You remembered it instantly. The Little Cyan Snake’s Mana was clearly not at a level a Juvenile Stage pet should possess.

It was at least on the scale of an eight or nine-month-old in its Adolescent Stage.

’As expected of the top student,’ she thought. ’He can even work wonders cultivating a Little Cyan Snake.’

Seeing that the top student wasn’t too proud to contract a basic Pet Beast and had even raised it to be so powerful...

...Lu You suddenly felt that contracting a Sunflower Seed-eating Hamster wasn’t as hopeless as she’d imagined. Perhaps her little hamster also had a Cultivation path to climb higher.

"Mouse Treasure, how about we start our Cultivation in earnest today?" Lu You said to her pet.

The Sunflower Seed-eating Hamster nodded repeatedly.

Don’t be fooled by its love for seeds. Influenced by Gu Ming, it secretly harbored a desire to soar. It wanted to keep evolving, gain a longer lifespan, and accompany its master into her old age.

It was well aware of its own limited potential; Cultivation wouldn’t be that easy.

The possibility of it even cultivating to the Two-star level was minuscule. Its master had already searched online for all the known Two-star Evolution paths, and all of them required a unique mutated Talent. Otherwise, One-star was its limit.

Just then, Mouse Treasure thought of Gu Ming.

’Daddy Gu is so smart and capable,’ it thought. ’Maybe he could give me some pointers.’

’My master has his contact info, but knowing her personality, she’d never want to bother him.’

Cracking a seed, it buried its head in thought. It seemed the only way was to wait for its master to leave her phone behind while showering, then secretly message Gu Ming for help.

...

「Meanwhile.」

After getting the book, Gu Ming found a table in the library and started flipping through it, page by page.

Cyan Treasure read the book alongside Gu Ming, thinking it was the Ultimate Skill its master had found for it.

But after about a class period’s worth of reading, Cyan Treasure grew suspicious.

’Is this... really the Ultimate Skill he found for me?’

Its intelligence wasn’t high, so it couldn’t understand the contents. However, it could understand the Attribute requirements for the Ultimate Skill.

Only an Earth Attribute Pet Beast could learn this Ultimate Skill.

The Earth Escape Technique required a Pet Beast to possess an Earth Attribute Spiritual Root and to master several prerequisite Cultivation Techniques. These included a foundational Transformation Technique for the Refinement of soil.

The second prerequisite was the Incorporation Method, which allowed the user’s body to merge with the earth. The third was a Generative Skill for compressing soil into rock. There were also various physical training and potion-making requirements.

Cyan Treasure could only remember these general points; it had no idea about the specific Cultivation details.

Gu Ming, on the other hand, was reading it over and over.

He found that as he read the book, insights that shouldn’t have been there began to surface.

They weren’t memories, yet they were more profound than memories.

As you look at this book, you inadvertently recall events from two months ago.

You were once in the Land of the Far North. You and Ah Chai crossed the Beast Taming Arena and witnessed with your own eyes an indestructible sea of trees tear open the earth and entangle a giant beast wreathed in divine fire.

That year, you had just turned fifty. Your blood boiled with excitement after watching a Pet Beast duel between young prodigies.

[Great Dao Insights +1]

[Great Dao Insights +1] x99!

When theory combines with memory, the battle scenes you once witnessed now transform into Great Dao Insights.

Your understanding of the Ultimate Skill: Mastery of Wood Escape has risen to a new level.

The cultivation experience you accumulated over decades was not wasted. You have an epiphany, suddenly understanding how to enable a Grass Attribute Time Dragon to practice cross-Attribute Cultivation.

As Gu Ming read these lines from the system notifications, his emotions slowly began to well up.

The more he read, the more engrossed he became. An indescribable Great Dao Insight sprouted like a seed within him, rapidly growing into a towering tree.

He took it back to his classroom and kept reading during the lecture. He read on the bus ride home after class, completely engrossed, going over it again and again.

His awareness of his surroundings plummeted. The Little Cyan Snake sensed that its master had entered a profound state of epiphany. It wisely stopped its own Cultivation. Instead, it kept track of their route, and when it was time to get off the bus, it extended its tail to gently tap the back of its master’s neck.

When Gu Ming got home, he didn’t even shower, reading straight through until nine o’clock.

Just as Cyan Treasure was thinking that tonight’s Dream Realm Cultivation would have to wait for another day...

"I’ve got it."

Gu Ming opened his eyes just as a breeze drifted in through the window.

The wind rustled his hair, carrying the loamy scent of the earth. It sparked all sorts of possibilities in Gu Ming’s mind. He could see particles of Earth and Grass Attribute Spiritual Qi drifting in the air, visible to the naked eye.

Gu Ming closed the book, savoring the insights in his mind—a fusion of old and new knowledge. He had a premonition that he could now directly guide the Little Cyan Snake to cultivate this Ultimate Skill.

The book had served its purpose. He didn’t need to read it any more, though he could always borrow it again if necessary.

Gu Ming casually picked up his phone and sent a message to his "Seed-Cracker" classmate.

"I’m finished with it. You can have it tomorrow."

He was about to put his phone down when an instant reply came through.

"That fast? [Shocked face]"

"Umm, I guess so."

"Senior, can you teach me? I want to learn too."

A thousand inspirations flashed through Gu Ming’s mind. For a fleeting moment, he worried he might lead her astray.

But in his state of epiphany, he felt that he needed an Earth Attribute Pet Beast to serve as a reference point for Cyan Treasure.

With that thought, he typed his reply: "Alright. See you tomorrow."

...

Lu You had just finished washing her hair. When she returned to her bedroom, she saw her hamster scooting across her phone screen, wiggling its chubby little butt.

She walked over and patted the little hamster’s bottom. Her eyes drifted to the chat on her phone’s screen, and she froze, utterly dumbfounded, as if she’d been struck by lightning.