The mark of the contract appeared in Bai Chen's consciousness.
As a demon god, a being of higher standing, he could change it into a master-servant contract with a casual gesture.
A master-servant contract would give him unilateral control over the other party's life and death, and even their every action.
But looking at the obedient, pitiful girl before him, Bai Chen hesitated for a moment and chose a different contract, one between equals.
The instant the contract was established, Bai Chen heard a ding in his mind.
[Congratulations, host, on completing your first contract!]
[Contract partner: Lin Luoluo (S-Rank mental strength)]
[Talent: Ten Thousand Arts Sovereign (S-Rank): Makes it easier to comprehend Life Skills, and any Life Skill comprehended is guaranteed to be S-Rank!]
[Reward: One complete Devour opportunity (can directly raise the progress and level of any Life Skill with Devour progress to 100%)]
[The host currently has only one ability, and it is already at maximum level. The reward opportunity will be saved for now and can be activated by the host after acquiring a new ability.]
!
The moment Bai Chen saw the notifications, he was thrilled.
With this beginner's bonus, he could take his time picking his next ability!
Normally, each Contract Spirit could have only one Life Skill, and each ability had a different focus.
His current Shadow Touch came from Slimes, a relatively weak race to begin with. The ability leaned more toward control, with passable defense but insufficient attack power.
And when he saw the girl's talent, it gave him a huge shock!
Ten Thousand Arts Sovereign? Any Life Skill she comprehended was guaranteed to be S-Rank?!
One reason he had come to the human world was that humans found it easier to comprehend Life Skills.
In the Devil Creature forest, although many powerful Devil Creatures also had a number of powerful Life Skills, they were often hundreds or thousands of years old, so it still took them decades on average to comprehend a single Life Skill.
More Devil Creatures were born with certain Life Skills because of the races they belonged to.
The girl Bai Chen had casually contracted with actually possessed such a powerful talent. It was another enormous surprise!
Lin Luoluo, meanwhile, was utterly dumbfounded.
Her large eyes stared blankly at the virtual panel that had appeared before her. A line of gleaming gold stood out.
[Attribute: Shadow System]
[Ability: (S-Rank Shadow Tentacles)]
Weren't Slimes... all Water Element?
And its Life Skill was S-Rank?! Wasn't it supposed to be only F-Rank?
Lin Luoluo rubbed her big, watery eyes hard and looked again in disbelief, only to find the panel still displaying the same words.
"It really, really is an S... S-Rank Slime..."
Lin Luoluo murmured to herself, the stray lock of white hair atop her head trembling violently with shock.
Bai Chen couldn't help laughing at Lin Luoluo's astonishment.
This silly girl was immediately scared by the Life Skill's rank. Hadn't she seen his true race yet?
Bai Chen felt quite a thrill at successfully playing the pig to eat the tiger.
Just as Bai Chen was about to speak, a voice came from behind him.
"S-Rank? Where did an S-Rank come from?"
The voice carried a note of impatience.
Jiang Ruoxue walked over, her heels clicking against the square's blue flagstones.
She looked Lin Luoluo up and down, her expression saying, "What delusion are you having?"
"Lin Luoluo, is there something wrong with your head?"
She tilted her chin up, her gaze falling on Bai Chen.
"What S-Rank Slime? A Slime's upper limit is F-Rank. Weren't you always in the top three of your year? Don't you even know something that basic?"
Lin Luoluo had naturally gone to school, and her grades had been excellent. She had dropped out half a year ago because her younger sister's medical treatment kept growing more expensive.
Lin Luoluo instinctively held Bai Chen tighter.
That squeeze pinned his entire body between the two things on her chest.
In his former human body, nerve endings might have been concentrated in places like his hands, making sensation there more pronounced.
But his current body had no fixed physical form, and every part of it was extremely sensitive.
Hiss!! Was this the legendary facial cleanser?!
Bai Chen, who had been single for more than twenty years in his previous life, sucked in a breath and gave Lin Luoluo an extremely high score in his mind. Then he forcibly dragged his thoughts away from the pleasant physical phenomenon.
His gaze shifted to Jiang Ruoxue, wanting to see what this woman was plotting now.
"What are you doing here?"
Lin Luoluo held Bai Chen protectively against her chest and looked up at Jiang Ruoxue, her voice a little frightened.
Seeing how terrified Lin Luoluo looked, Jiang Ruoxue couldn't help letting a mocking smile curl across her lips.
"I've suddenly changed my mind."
"I summoned that Slime. I had a moment of weakness and gave him to you, but now I've changed my mind.
Give him back to me now, and I'll pretend nothing happened."
"What, you're not willing?"
Jiang Ruoxue really had changed her mind on the spur of the moment, because as she was leaving, the old servant beside her had said something to her.
Don't go too far in anything you do. But if you do, go even further!
When a Contract Spirit died, its master's mental channel would suffer a severe shock. In mild cases, the master would be unable to form another contract for months; in severe cases, their mind would be permanently damaged.
In other words, Jiang Ruoxue wasn't asking for the Slime back because she'd had a change of heart. She wanted to kill Bai Chen and thereby cripple Lin Luoluo!
Hearing Jiang Ruoxue's words, a trace of anger appeared on Lin Luoluo's delicate, soft features, and flames ignited for the first time in her usually timid eyes.
He was the hope for her and her sister's future. How could she let Jiang Ruoxue destroy him?
She opened her little mouth, and her tender cherry lips stubbornly spat out a few words, one by one:
"I! Refuse!"
No matter how gentle or timid Lin Luoluo's temperament was,
faced with someone who wanted to take away her family and utterly destroy her future, Lin Luoluo was furious.
Once a contract was signed, a Contract Spirit and its master became like family, the closest partners in each other's lives.
If Jiang Ruoxue wanted to bully the little fellow who had just formed a bond with her, she would have to step over her first!
Jiang Ruoxue was somewhat surprised to see Lin Luoluo, a universally acknowledged pushover, dare to defy her in public.
But that surprise quickly turned into an even more mocking smile.
A crippled orphan—even if she had stumbled into a pile of dog shit and found luck, it couldn't change her lowly birth or her pathetic circumstances.
Resist? What an enormous joke.
She turned and tilted her chin at the Cold Moon Fox nestled affectionately on her shoulder.
"Yueyue, go kill that Slime."
The next second, the silver-white figure sprang into the air, becoming a streak of silver light as it pounced straight at Bai Chen in Lin Luoluo's arms.
Jiang Ruoxue wasn't worried in the slightest that the Cold Moon Fox would fail. Although the Cold Moon Fox was nine levels below Bai Chen, in her eyes, a Slime posed no threat whatsoever, regardless of its level.
Bai Chen felt the pressure of the wind rushing toward him, threaded with wisps of cold.
Then he sighed.
What a nuisance.
He had originally planned to get to know the soft, sweet-smelling, kindhearted white-haired loli he had just contracted with, and share some amusing stories from their childhoods.
But before he'd managed half a sentence, this spoiled young lady had come looking for trouble again.
Bai Chen had never been a soft persimmon anyone could squeeze and trample at will.
Back in that damned other world, there had been countless Devil Creatures on the continent as weak as Slimes. Why had he chosen to start with Slimes of all things?
Because when he had first transmigrated, at his weakest, a few hateful Slimes had bullied him the worst!
Later, though, Bai Chen ate every Slime that had bullied him.
Every Slime in the entire Dark Forest had either become his food or prostrated itself at his feet, submitting to him.
That was Bai Chen's nature and his usual way of doing things: he repaid every grievance, and returned it twofold.
Before level ten, a Cold Moon Fox could only achieve the most rudimentary control over the power of ice.
And the Cold Moon Fox Lin Luoluo had summoned was exceptionally clever. In such a short time, it had already learned to coat its claws in the power of ice.
Under normal circumstances, a Contract Spirit with S-Rank potential would have absolutely no trouble dealing with a level-nine F-Rank Contract Spirit!
That was also why Jiang Ruoxue felt confident letting the Cold Moon Fox attack.
Jiang Ruoxue folded her arms, a cold smile on her face as she looked down at Lin Luoluo.
"If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for being a commoner girl who awakened a talent higher than mine.
Crippling your Contract Spirit is just a lesson, to make you understand that there are some people you can never afford to offend."
Seeing the sharp claws gleaming with cold light about to strike Bai Chen, Lin Luoluo was filled with terror.
Almost instinctively, she stretched out her arms, trying to use her small, frail body to block the Cold Moon Fox's attack.
She knew that Slimes had very weak defenses and were naturally countered by ice-attribute Contract Spirits. One swipe of those claws would surely kill the little fellow who had just contracted with her!
Because of her disabled legs, she leaned too far forward, lost her balance, and toppled out of her wheelchair.
This strange Slime Contract Spirit was not only family she had just formed a contract with, but also the only hope she and her gravely ill younger sister had of staying alive!
"If you want to hurt Little Black, you'll have to kill me first!"
Lin Luoluo's body trembled uncontrollably with fear, and her trademark stray lock of hair stood on end along with its owner's mounting tension.
But she held Bai Chen even tighter, turning her back to meet the deadly attack!
Bai Chen was pressed tightly against her chest, and its astonishing softness and springiness gave him a deeper appreciation of the girl's bosom.
But at the same time, a long-forgotten warmth erupted in his heart.
In that instant, Bai Chen's emotions turned into a towering blaze of rage, all of it directed at the Cold Moon Fox.
Lin Luoluo's trembling, delicate body slipped from the wheelchair, but the expected impact with the cold stone never came.
Instead of falling to the ground, she was caught securely by something like a soft cushion.
Bai Chen had changed shape in an instant, coiling his tentacles into a huge soft cushion to support her.
And at that very moment, just as the Cold Moon Fox's claws were about to tear through the clothes on Lin Luoluo's back,
another tentacle, black as ink,
lashed straight at the Cold Moon Fox in midair, with no need to wind up.
"Bang!"
With a dull impact, a scene no one had expected unfolded.
The arrogant silver figure, which had seemed to look down on the world, didn't even have time to let out a whimper before the thick black tentacle struck it head-on in midair.
Then it flew backward even faster than it had come.
"Whoosh—clang!"
The silver-white figure traced an arc through the air and plunged headfirst into a filthy trash can at the edge of the square with pinpoint accuracy.
Only two short legs covered in silver-white fur stuck out, kicking feebly back and forth.
The entire square fell deathly silent in an instant.