"Damn it! Damn it! Don't run!"
Above the D0153 Grassland Secret Realm, a purple mouse darted through grass half a man tall, while a Gale Wolf gave chase at full speed behind it.
Behind the Gale Wolf, a panting man braced his hands on his knees and shouted with all his strength.
He was completely numb. He had thought he'd snatched up an excellent mission—just clearing out some Tier 2 mice in the grasslands. His Gale Wolf might only be Tier 1, but dealing with Tier 2 green-striped chipmunks should have been easy, shouldn't it?
Which little bastard had dumped their pet Electric Mouse into the Grassland Secret Realm?!
Didn't they know casually releasing spirit beasts was against the law?!
He was almost certain that this Electric Mouse had been an abandoned pet from some dormitory.
Although Electric Mice were Tier 2 Spirit Beasts, their attributes were weak and they weren't very bright. Other than being fast and cute, they were good for nothing. They were generally kept only as pets; practically no one treated them as spirit pets.
Yet once such a mouse was released into the Grassland Secret Realm, it became an existence that struck like a blow from another dimension.
According to the mission information, this Electric Mouse had become the overlord of the grassland mice, gathering all the chipmunk packs in the secret realm and wreaking massive destruction upon the grasslands around the safe zone.
The man waited where he was for a while. His spirit pet, the Gale Wolf, eventually jogged back dejectedly with several dead chipmunks clamped in its jaws.
Clearly, it hadn't managed to catch the Electric Mouse and could only kill a few chipmunks to prove it hadn't been slacking off.
Damn it... In an environment like this, ordinary spirit pets simply couldn't catch an Electric Mouse, could they?!
The man grumbled helplessly to himself.
A higher-tier speed-type spirit pet might have been able to catch the Electric Mouse, but anyone with such a high-tier pet would never come to a secret realm like this for such a worthless mission.
Having escaped the Gale Wolf's pursuit, the Electric Mouse strutted through the grass on its short little legs.
Ever since its little master had casually abandoned it on this grassland, the pet life that had once seemed like heaven now tasted as bland as chewed wax in its memories.
Here, it had endless delicious food to feast on and countless concubines to enjoy.
On this grassland, it was the undisputed tyrant!
My beloved concubines! Your emperor has returned!
The Electric Mouse held its head high as it entered its kingdom.
Yet at that moment, the mouse kingdom was utterly empty.
What the hell? Where are my wives?
The Electric Mouse instinctively looked around. It seemed to sense something, then raised its head and finally found where its harem had gone...
They were all flying through the sky!
Green vines coiled around their bodies, yanking them one by one from the ground and underground and sending them flying in a single direction.
Watching the mouse swarm rush toward them, Li Yi clicked his tongue in admiration. "Even though I've seen this so many times over the past few days, the sight is still far too shocking. Is your spirit pet really a plant-type spirit pet? Since when did Tier 1 plant-type spirit pets become this strong?"
"My Huohuo is rather talented," Zhou Lu said with a smile.
His gaze was fixed on the card in his hand. A string of numbers on it kept jumping—this was the Skill Card Body Feed, and those numbers were the countdown for Huohuo's luck bonus.
After activating Body Feed, Zhou Lu felt limp all over, unable to muster any strength. Even his head had become groggy and heavy.
Fortunately, the returns from Body Feed were astonishing.
With the 100% luck bonus, Huohuo's Drain was rapidly extracting attributes from the captured chipmunks.
During the previous few days of testing, Zhou Lu had estimated that Huohuo had roughly a thirty percent chance of extracting permanent attributes. The odds of extracting permanent skills, however, were extremely low. Even now, he had yet to make Huohuo farm out the chipmunks' Racial Skill.
But after activating Body Feed's bonus, based on the current statistics, Huohuo's chance of extracting permanent attributes had directly doubled. The boost from luck was clearly astonishing.
Moreover, compared with the Strength attribute, which could only be boosted for thirty seconds, and the Speed attribute, which could be boosted for forty-five seconds, Luck—an attribute that seemed to have little impact on combat—could be boosted for a full five minutes.
After several days of training, Huohuo had thoroughly become a qualified mouse hunter. Before activating Body Feed, Zhou Lu had also made ample preparations, having Huohuo set up a huge number of traps in advance.
Thus, during the five minutes after Body Feed was activated, Huohuo began its most efficient hunt.
The vines accurately stuffed the captured chipmunks into the cages behind Zhou Lu.
Perhaps because he had already witnessed Huohuo's hunting speed, the traveling merchant Li Yi had contacted had specifically brought a huge number of cages, piling them into a small mountain directly behind them.
It's here!
Zhou Lu, who had been constantly watching Huohuo's Beast Taming Card, narrowed his eyes.
A brand-new skill suddenly appeared on it: Earth Escape.
Earth Escape: Chipmunk Racial Skill. Your body, or a part of your body, can enter the ground and move beneath it.
In fact, many spirit pets possessed the ability to burrow underground, but most of those were innate abilities of their respective species. Only a few species, such as chipmunks, formed them into Racial Skills.
It was precisely because so many spirit pets possessed similar traits that chipmunks, whose Racial Skills were all Earth Escape, had no cultivation value whatsoever.
But when Zhou Lu saw this skill, he was overjoyed.
With Earth Escape, Huohuo could continue moving even after rooting herself in the soil. Or she could extend her vines underground and launch concealed sneak attacks.
Their chances of getting a high score in the preliminary combat exam had risen again.
Only...
At that thought, Zhou Lu hesitated again.
After this round of testing, Body Feed was undoubtedly extremely suitable for Huohuo, allowing her to rapidly stack attributes within five minutes.
However, judging from the system's previous behavior, if he wanted to obtain the permanent Body Feed skill, he would have to fail his exam at the very least.
For a moment, Zhou Lu found himself wavering.
Just then, Huohuo seemed to sense something through her vines. She poked Zhou Lu with a vine wrapped around him.
Zhou Lu came back to his senses and looked in the direction Huohuo had indicated.
A mouse crackling with electricity was darting swiftly through the grass.
"An Electric Mouse?! Why is there an Electric Mouse in the Grassland Secret Realm?!" Xu Wuhu, who had noticed it as well, cried out in surprise. "This is definitely an invasive species!"
Capturing invasive-species spirit pets earned Academic Credits based on their tier.
The Electric Mouse was Tier 2. Catching it would earn them five Academic Credits!
That might not amount to much for second- and third-year students, but to them, it was a fortune!
"Catch it!" Zhou Lu gave the order decisively.
Huohuo, who was already in perfect sync with Zhou Lu, had begun moving long ago.
But the Electric Mouse was simply too fast. Huohuo's vines couldn't keep up with its fleeing speed, and more than a dozen casts of Entangling Vines all missed their mark.
Squeak, squeak.
Sticky Baby, perched atop Li Yi's bald head, let out a mocking cry at Huohuo.
Ever since Huohuo had thrown it onto its master's head last time, the two of them had been at odds.
Who would have thought that Sticky Baby's cry would draw Huohuo's attention instead?
Huohuo suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
Before Sticky Baby could react, it felt its body soar into the air.
Amid tremendous acceleration, Huohuo flung it out.
The sudden stimulation made Sticky Baby's Sticky Slime secrete rapidly.
Seeing Sticky Baby in the air, Li Yi immediately understood Huohuo's intention and shouted at it, "Sticky! Use Quadruple Fragmentation!"
Smack!
Sticky Baby activated the skill it had learned not long ago, splitting itself into four pieces in midair.
Countless globs of Sticky Slime fell like rain, landing on the sprinting Electric Mouse and across the vast stretch of grass around it.
The Electric Mouse, which had been racing at breakneck speed just moments ago, stepped onto Sticky Baby's slime and instantly found itself as though it had stepped onto a mouse trap. After several tumbles, it was firmly stuck to the ground.
Huohuo seized the opportunity and wrapped the Electric Mouse in vines.
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