Knowledge from the Textbook

Knowledge from the textbook...

Zhou Lu mulled over what Xiao Xi had said before leaving.

The next second, it was as if his brain had been jolted by electricity, and the memories in his mind were stirred awake.

This was all knowledge and memories he had inherited from the original owner of this body, but they were like cold data stored on a hard drive. Unless they were read and rewritten, one would always subconsciously overlook their existence.

Zhou Lu searched through the room for a while before finally finding the textbooks from his memories among the books his father had collected.

Looking at the pile of books before him, Zhou Lu felt that he ought to read every last one of them.

He probably would not understand most of the research materials, but even the parts he could understand would benefit him greatly.

Among his father's inheritance, books were the least valuable and yet the most priceless part. If he wanted to go far down the path of beast taming, knowledge would be the staircase that carried him upward.

With that thought, Zhou Lu opened the copy of Basic Methods for Spirit Beast Cultivation in his hands.

This was one of the five compulsory core courses for first-year students. It mainly taught knowledge related to spirit pet cultivation and training, covering nearly everything about spirit beasts, even including breeding and delivery.

It also touched upon spirit pets' mental health, reward systems, and skill training.

To the present Zhou Lu, it was practically a manual for dual-use military and civilian talent.

The other core courses were Wilderness Survival, Physical Combat, Spirit Beast Identification, and the Beast Tamer Code.

The first three courses were meant to teach students how to survive within secret realms.

Wilderness Survival went without saying. If one wanted better resources, one would certainly have to venture into places untouched by human footprints.

Secret realm exploration was not a competition, where Beast Tamers could stand safely outside the ring and command their spirit pets to fight. Many wild spirit beasts had no sense of martial virtue, so when necessary, one had to possess some means of fighting back. That was the value of the Physical Combat course. Still, Zhou Lu guessed that most students could only barely pass it, because the standard for full marks was holding one's own against a non-spirit-beast Iron-Eating Beast for five minutes.

The Class Monitor seemed to have fought an Iron-Eating Beast barehanded... As expected of a family famed for producing fierce men.

Of course, the best way to avoid risk was to know where danger lay, which spirit beasts were especially dangerous, and avoid the risk of encountering them. That was the value of Spirit Beast Identification.

Yet among these core courses, the truly important one was the Beast Tamer Code.

This world was extremely strict about granting Beast Tamer status. One had to be an adult and pass the Beast Tamer Code examination held by the Beast Tamer Association before becoming an official Beast Tamer and contracting one's own spirit beast. Otherwise, it counted as illegally possessing a spirit beast as a private individual—a grave crime among grave crimes.

There had originally been no such rule. Only after several consecutive cases in which minors used spirit beasts to commit major heinous crimes did these restrictions emerge amid calls from society as a whole. Of course, that did not mean such criminals no longer existed.

He had heard that at the very beginning of this era, one could contract a spirit pet as an infant. Later, it was restricted to middle school, then high school, and finally, one could only contract a spirit pet in university.

All he could say was that the Minor Protection Law combined with the beast-taming supernatural system was simply too invincible. Without a nerf, there was no way to play.

After finishing his complaints, Zhou Lu quickly found what he wanted in Basic Methods for Spirit Beast Cultivation.

This book's content was simply too extensive and miscellaneous. Moreover, the original owner had poured all his energy into passing the exams and had not carefully studied anything outside the test points. As a university core-course textbook written twenty-six years ago, its content had actually fallen somewhat behind the times. Its teaching approach even still assumed that students had already contracted spirit pets. He had heard that, under the leadership of major education companies, the textbook for this core course would be revised for the class after next.

Now that students had to pass the Code examination before contracting spirit pets, they had no spirit pets when taking this course. Naturally, they could not learn much skill training. Though the teacher had covered it in class, this material was completely outside the exam scope, so Zhou Lu had not paid attention to learning it at the time.

No wonder the teacher for this course had repeatedly told us not to throw away the textbook even after passing the exam.

He opened the skill-training section. The third chapter covered the training of headbutt-type skills.

As one of the most universally applicable skills for spirit pets, headbutt-type techniques could be used by all spirit pets with physical bodies, and the training was very simple:

Have a hard head, then keep ramming things.

It looked like the kind of skill anyone with a head could learn, but whether one could truly master it depended entirely on the spirit pet's aptitude.

The textbook also specifically mentioned several pieces of knowledge that could increase the success rate of training. Among them, the method that increased the success rate the most was using a harder object as the target for the spirit pet to strike.

A harder object...

The first thing Zhou Lu thought of was the facilities at the training hall. There should be rocks specifically meant for practicing impacts there.

Then, was there anything harder than the rocks at the training hall...?

Zhou Lu silently raised his head and looked at the wall before him.

It seemed there really was.

Zhou Lu quickly withdrew his gaze. Though he was somewhat impatient to have Huohuo start practicing tonight, Xiao Xi was next door, so he should not disturb the neighbors late at night.

Rustle, rustle. Rustle, rustle.

A faint sound came from beside him.

Looking down, he saw Huohuo practicing Entangling Vines against the corner of the desk.

It could already use Vine Step and Mad Growth fairly skillfully, but Entangling Vines was not a simple combination of those two skills. What it tested most was the individual spirit pet's experience.

Against different enemies, what sort of binding method should be used to control them better? This was absolutely not something one could learn by building a cart behind closed doors.

If he wanted Huohuo to master this skill proficiently, he would have to take it to a place in a secret realm's safe zone where spirit beasts appeared frequently but were not too dangerous, then use a large number of spirit beasts as practice targets.

He just did not know whether such a suitable place existed.

He would ask Sister Xiaoqing later.

Thinking this, Zhou Lu opened the Spirit Beast Compendium beside him.

This book was the textbook for Spirit Beast Identification, and it could also serve as a reference book. However, now that faster and more convenient electronic compendiums existed, few people would carry such a thick Spirit Beast Compendium while exploring secret realms.

But having electronic compendiums did not mean this course was no longer important.

At the most urgent and dangerous moments, the human brain was more efficient than any tool. When facing a sudden attack from an unknown spirit beast, one might not have time to pull out an electronic compendium and look it up.

Unlike Basic Methods for Spirit Beast Cultivation, which had not changed in over a decade, the Spirit Beast Compendium was updated every year.

Zhou Lu flipped through the compendium in his hands, searching for the contents he remembered.

Very quickly, he found what he wanted.

******

Name: Jade Snail

Attributes: Water, Steel

Racial Skill: Shell Impact

Secret Realm: C0032 (Linxi Secret Realm)

Description: A large snail carrying an enormous white shell. Its shell is as beautiful as white jade and exceptionally sturdy, making it the favorite shell of the Jade Hermit Crab. Their natural enemy, the Iron Fist Wombat, likes to use their shells as boxing gloves.

******

The Jade Snail's shell was a famously sturdy object found in nature. Since he intended to use headbutt-type skills as his main means of attack, it was very necessary to give Huohuo a sturdy "home."

And it had to be beautiful.

The Jade Snail's shell perfectly met both requirements. It was just right as Huohuo's flowerpot.

Yet precisely because it was beautiful and sturdy, Jade Snail shells were highly sought after. Their prices remained high, while their population in secret realms kept shrinking.

If he remembered correctly, the C0032 secret realm should have a safe zone. However, as a C-Class Secret Realm, entering it required obtaining a C-Class Exploration Permit.

Once Huohuo learned the headbutt skill and Entangling Vines, he could go to the safe zone there and try his luck.