The Day I Became a Bug-Catching Boy Too (33)

Huohuo was not quite used to this curved shell and entered it cautiously.

Fortunately, its grass-like flexibility allowed it to quickly adapt to the environment inside.

Huohuo loved the vast space provided by the giant snail shell.

However, considering that there were still many things to move, Huohuo retracted some of its wildly spreading roots.

Then it extended its vines and transferred its collection from the old pot into its new home.

Calling it a flowerpot was a stretch. By size alone, it already counted as a vat. It had to be said, Transport really was a miraculous skill.

Watching Huohuo rapidly adapt to its new home nearby, Zhou Lu found himself filled with hope for the future.

As the most important skills of spirit beasts, Racial Skills were one of the standards Beast Tamers used to judge whether they were worth cultivating.

As the most important skills, Racial Skills generally could not be copied by Copy-type skills, but Dream Rain Flower's Drain was an exception.

No wonder there were so few Dream Rain Flowers. With such a freakish skill hanging over their heads, heaven naturally had to make them pay a price.

Some Racial Skills were very powerful, but were dragged down by the weakness of the spirit beasts themselves, leaving them unable to display their original strength at all.

Take Transport, for example. Because Flying Jade Bees were so weak, few people thought this skill was particularly impressive.

But when placed on Huohuo, it showed absurd practicality. It could even be said to be Zhou Lu's favorite skill so far.

Unfortunately, Transport affected mass and could not alter an object's volume. This meant that the things Huohuo could carry were ultimately limited.

Even the Racial Skill of a bee that could not become a spirit pet had such high practicality. This gave Zhou Lu the idea of plucking Racial Skills from spirit beasts that others considered weak, like bugs, mice, and flowers.

For instance, that Electric Mouse they had encountered in the prairie secret realm before.

If Huohuo could obtain its Racial Skill, then under the effects of Skill Acceleration, Huohuo's vines would definitely become even stronger than they were now.

And Sticky Baby's Racial Skill might allow Huohuo to secrete Sticky Slime with waterproof, fireproof, and powerful adhesive properties.

Wait!

Speaking of that...

A spark of inspiration seemed to flash through Zhou Lu's mind.

At the academy, Academic Credits were currency. Therefore, every student who spent five Academic Credits to enter a secret realm thought about earning their money back.

Aside from information obtained through personal channels by people like Li Yi, the academy forums had long since researched strategies for recouping costs in every secret realm.

This time, Zhou Lu was acting alone. Before entering the Linxi Secret Realm, he had specifically studied its cost-recovery strategy.

So-called cost recovery was nothing more than capturing some spirit beasts to exchange for money. The academy also released missions from time to time.

However, missions were highly sought after and were basically gone in an instant.

As for the spirit beasts purchased on a long-term basis, they were generally consumables for major companies or laboratories.

For example, chipmunks were bought as experimental animals, while many spirit beasts were bought as raw materials.

Zhou Lu took out his electronic compendium, tapped the Linxi Secret Realm distribution section, and searched through the vast Spirit Beast Compendium for the flash of inspiration in his mind.

The Linxi Secret Realm had no large spirit beasts. It was a type of secret realm dominated by grass and trees.

Around its near-tropical-rainforest forest lived a great number of small animals.

Insects.

Zhou Lu's finger stopped over an entry in the compendium.

Name: Ghost Face Nightmare Butterfly

Attribute: Unknown

Racial Skill: Lilliput

Secret Realm: C0032 (Linxi Secret Realm)

Introduction: One of the few confirmed Fantasy Species spirit beasts. It could emit white light and shrink objects. Humans used its light to shrink components for assembly, creating the modern precision instrument industry.

Fantasy Species spirit beasts were spirit beasts that existed in human myths and legends. They were the origin of many tales and had long existed only as legends.

It was not until a biologist found the Ghost Face Nightmare Butterfly in the Linxi Secret Realm that the existence of Fantasy Species spirit beasts was confirmed.

It was the spirit beast that appeared in the fairy tale "Lilliput," the culprit behind the creation of that tiny kingdom.

The Ghost Face Nightmare Butterfly in reality did indeed possess the Racial Skill capable of shrinking objects.

However, the items it shrank had limits. It was one of the methods it used to forage for food or avoid natural enemies.

It was generally believed that humanity's ancestors had inadvertently encountered Ghost Face Nightmare Butterflies, which was how they created the story of "Lilliput."

The attributes of Fantasy Species spirit beasts were extremely special and could not be summed up by any known attribute.

This type of spirit beast could not be restrained by any known attribute other than the divine attribute, nor did it restrain any known attribute.

Because there were too few samples to define them, and they had not shown any special restraining relationship toward other attributes, they could only be labeled Unknown and await further research for more detailed classification.

Many professional competitors in Beast Taming matches wanted a Fantasy Species spirit beast. Their attribute traits allowed them to stand evenly matched on the battlefield, letting competitors fight without considering attribute relationships.

Unfortunately, aside from the Ghost Face Nightmare Butterfly, nearly all other known Fantasy Species were difficult to capture.

And this fantasy butterfly itself was far too weak to serve as a competitive spirit pet. However, people soon discovered another use for it: shrinking components.

But in Zhou Lu's eyes, the Lilliput skill had another use.

Thinking of this, he glanced at Huohuo beside him.

With Lilliput, Huohuo could store even more things in its own "home."

Huohuo, carrying its snail shell on its back, crawled forward beside Zhou Lu. The two soon arrived at the Linxi Secret Realm camp, where they stored the selected white jade snail shell and Red Jade Orb, then disposed of the remaining shells.

Because Ghost Face Nightmare Butterflies were widely used in precision equipment manufacturing, there were always merchants in the Linxi Secret Realm camp buying this type of butterfly.

Without lifting a finger, Zhou Lu found a traveling merchant and arranged for him to follow him to the Ghost Face Nightmare Butterflies' habitat.

Raising spirit beasts was actually far more difficult than imagined. Their extraordinary attributes gave them extremely demanding environmental requirements.

This meant that even when spirit beasts had breeding industries, many companies still chose the relatively cheaper option of capturing them in the wild.

Ghost Face Nightmare Butterflies, as Fantasy Species, were even more so.

Following the stream upstream, Zhou Lu soon arrived at the Nightmare Butterfly habitat located at the edge of the upstream safe zone.

Ghost Face Nightmare Butterflies filled the sky, emitting a faint ghostly glow beneath the setting sun.

Looking at the ghost faces on their wings, Zhou Lu seriously suspected that their true attribute might be Ghost. After all, Fantasy was merely a temporary umbrella classification.

"Are you ready, Huohuo?"

Zhou Lu looked at Huohuo beside him.

He had never expected that one day, he too would become a bug-catching boy.

But no matter what, he was determined to obtain the Lilliput skill!

Huohuo: o(*^▽^*)┛

Huohuo had long been ready.

Using Entangling Vines, it had woven one of its vines into the shape of a bug-catching net.

Then, Huohuo carefully coated the vines of the bug-catching net with Sticky Baby's Sticky Slime, giving the net the properties of a spiderweb.

Huohuo had made a total of five such bug-catching nets!

"Then let's begin!"

A Skill Card appeared in Zhou Lu's hand.

Body Feed! Activate!

Huohuo's Luck doubled!

Third update complete!