To be honest, the moment he jumped down, Zhou Lu had actually regretted it a little.
If Huohuo had failed to save him in time, then even if the safety teacher had stepped in, he would still have been placing his life in someone else's hands.
Zhou Lu did not like that feeling.
The feeling of having one's fate controlled by others was something anyone would hate when they had a chance to resist.
Perhaps it was that thought that gave Zhou Lu a faint grasp of the true meaning behind Body Feed.
I wagered my life in search of that single ray of hope.
A Skill Card appeared before Zhou Lu.
Without hesitation, he activated the one-time Skill Card on his body.
Body Feed, activate!
Under the acceleration of gravity, Zhou Lu felt himself falling faster and faster.
The roar of the wind by his ears had completely drowned out every other sound around him.
His classmates' cries of alarm, the shrieks of the little mountain sparrows startled into flight.
The cliff top grew farther and farther away, while death drew closer and closer.
At that moment, he finally understood Xiao Xi's assessment.
Fuck, anyone who voluntarily trains Body Feed has to be completely insane!
I'm insane too!
But almost immediately, his gaze turned resolute.
He had to obtain Body Feed.
Because it was the foundation that would allow Huohuo to grow endlessly stronger!
Though Huohuo was no longer within his sight, he still firmly believed that it could accomplish what the two of them had planned.
Taking a deep breath, Zhou Lu swiftly calmed his heart.
Then he suddenly felt an itch all over his body.
Green vines shot out from his body one after another, burrowing into the cliff wall to take root.
These were vines grown from Huohuo's offshoot.
When had this little grass planted them on him?
Before Zhou Lu could figure it out, pain from the vines' tugging reached him. Zhou Lu nearly thought his entire arm was about to be torn off.
He had no doubt that if his falling speed continued to increase, then even if Huohuo caught up to him, he would still pay the price of severe injury.
Pulled by the vines, his body successfully came to a stop in midair.
Below him remained a bottomless abyss, while above him, the cliff top was no longer visible.
He was hanging there halfway down the mountain.
The exhaustion brought by his lowered attributes surged into his heart.
Just as Zhou Lu was considering how to get back up, several vines grew out from the cliff wall and precisely bound his body.
Huohuo's vines had finally caught up to the falling Zhou Lu.
It seemed that even with its speed doubled, a plant's vines still could not compare to those truly high-speed spirit beasts.
As Zhou Lu was thinking this, Huohuo swayed into view before him and extended its vines to inspect his body.
Huohuo had woven its vines and leaves into a parachute, jumping down alongside Zhou Lu.
After confirming that its master was uninjured, Little Grass visibly breathed a sigh of relief.
It angrily smacked the back of Zhou Lu's hand, expressing its dissatisfaction.
Although Zhou Lu had told it about the training plan, he had given it no warning at all when he jumped down just now.
"Alright, alright. I won't do this again next time." Zhou Lu soothed Huohuo. "You can let me go now. At least free my hands."
Only then did Huohuo realize that its vines had bound all four of its master's limbs.
Huohuo mischievously extended a vine.
"Huohuo!" Zhou Lu seemed to sense Huohuo's mischievous thoughts and immediately issued a warning.
Huohuo was obedient in the end. It released the vines binding Zhou Lu's hands, then swiftly burrowed into his arms.
Hugging the clingy Huohuo, Zhou Lu finally had the mood to observe his surroundings.
He had not jumped down simply to risk his life practicing Body Feed. Capturing little mountain sparrows truly had to be done on the cliff face.
It was just that nobody else would leap straight down like Zhou Lu without any safety measures.
Recalling the danger from just now, Zhou Lu still felt lingering fear.
If he had to do it again, he really might not have had the courage.
But whether he had it or not no longer mattered, because Zhou Lu no longer needed to take such risks.
After comprehending the true meaning of Body Feed, he had already touched the threshold of the skill. He estimated that after using it a few more times, he would be able to fully master it.
And he still had plenty of one-time Body Feed Skill Cards on him.
Looking at the vines behind Huohuo, they were clearly the safety rope it had left behind to pull the two of them back up.
After continuously absorbing the attributes of large chestnut squirrels and Nightmare Butterflies, Huohuo's vines had reached a level of toughness beyond what ordinary first-tier spirit beasts could attain. Pulling both itself and Zhou Lu back up would absolutely not be a problem.
Zhou Lu was not in a hurry to return.
He glanced around.
The little mountain sparrows that had just been startled into flight were gradually returning to their nests.
As spirit beasts that lived on cliff faces, little mountain sparrows were not large, but they had tough and stubborn temperaments. Combined with the agility of flying spirit beasts, the speed and long-range attack abilities of wind-element spirit beasts, they counted as quite excellent spirit pets.
Although little mountain sparrows were indeed not especially strong compared to other rare spirit beasts, raising them was relatively inexpensive. Most importantly, their evolution route was one of the few openly available plans, making them one of the preferred spirit pets for many commoner Beast Tamers.
Little mountain sparrows had originally been raised on many farms as spirit pets with a stable supply.
But with the elite-focused development of beast taming cultivation in recent years, these spirit beasts—with low selling prices, slim profits, and Evolution Materials that offered little room for profit—had gradually disappeared from major spirit pet shops, replaced by more expensive spirit pets.
The related farms had gradually vanished as well, turning instead to cultivating and breeding more valuable spirit pets.
Little mountain sparrows had always been one of the initial spirit pets freely provided by the Beast Taming Academy, yet now there was no stable source of supply at all.
Though low profits and high sales volume could still bring decent returns, the vast majority of spirit beast cultivation companies simply refused such orders.
Left with no alternative, the academy could only obtain them through Secret Realms.
The main source was the Pioneer Army, followed by Academic Credit missions that had students capture little mountain sparrows from the Mountain River Secret Realm.
Since he was already down here, he might as well catch a few little mountain sparrows first.
Zhou Lu thought.
And let Huohuo pluck some more attributes along the way.
With that thought, another one-time Body Feed Skill Card appeared in Zhou Lu's hand.
Yes, the Skill Card did indeed state that it could only be used once a day.
Under normal circumstances, there was no ambiguity in that statement, because a person could only possess one Body Feed Skill Card.
But Zhou Lu was different.
So he was curious whether the once-per-day restriction applied to the Skill Card or to the Body Feed skill itself.
A bold idea suddenly occurred to him.
And as the Body Feed card in his hand activated, that bold idea was confirmed.
Holy shit!
As long as I stockpiled one-time Skill Cards, then even skills with usage limits could be activated several times a day!
At least, Beast Tamer Skill Cards worked that way.
"Huohuo, time to work!" Zhou Lu knocked on Huohuo's shell, reminding it.
Huohuo: o(*^▽^*)┛
Huohuo once again brought out the vine net it had used to capture Nightmare Butterflies.
This time, it was more experienced.
Before you continue