Huohuo's Means of Attack

Huohuo learned very quickly.

By evening, it had already mastered this way of moving and raised its speed to that of a normal person walking.

This had a great deal to do with the hauling skill it had snatched from the Flying Jade Bee. Without that skill's boost, ordinary plant vines simply could not support the weight of both the flowerpot and the plant itself, much less achieve the effect of walking.

Zhou Lu estimated that if Huohuo's body grew a little stronger, it should be able to walk even faster.

Having learned to walk, Huohuo was thrilled. It raced wildly all over the room, trying to leave traces of its footsteps in every corner.

Thanks to the characteristics of the Vine Step skill, Huohuo could walk across any flat surface. The floor, walls, and even the ceiling all bore traces of Huohuo's travels.

Watching Huohuo dart around the room, Zhou Lu suddenly felt as though SpongeBob had a little snail at home.

Still, even if Huohuo had learned to walk, it would not be much use in his combat exam. If he wanted to stand out in the exam, he still needed more useful skills.

He still had three Fairy Coins on hand, enough to exchange for several new skills. Universal skills were easy to learn, but to suit every Spirit Beast that met the requirements, their attribute bonuses were very ordinary.

With skills like Vine Step and Mad Growth, which had no bonuses, that flaw was not particularly obvious.

But attack skills were different. The gap in attributes could sometimes be as vast as heaven and earth.

For that reason, many Beast Tamers devoted to combat preferred letting their Spirit Beasts learn offensive skills on their own. But that demanded far too much comprehension from the Spirit Beast. Even with someone's guidance, learning a skill was no easy task.

Skills gained through personal comprehension or study often suited a Spirit Beast's constitution and attributes better, and thus provided greater bonuses. Because they could not be directly taught, they were called innate skills.

Once certain techniques of a Spirit Beast reached a sufficient level of proficiency, they would transform into innate skills and appear on its Beast Taming Card.

Zhou Lu guessed that once Huohuo practiced walking to a certain extent, it might generate a skill.

The Racial Skills Spirit Beasts were born with, the innate skills they acquired through learning and comprehension, and the universal skills exchanged from Knowledge Fairies made up nearly the entire skill system of Spirit Beasts in the Beast Taming system.

At that thought, Zhou Lu slowly gave up on exchanging for skills. Fairy Coins were extremely scarce and should be spent where they were most useful.

He would need to obtain attack skills through some other means.

What if... he put Huohuo somewhere where the upperclassmen raised their Spirit Beasts? Maybe, just like with the Flying Jade Bee, Huohuo could fight weaker Spirit Beasts and use Drain to gain more skills.

But the odds of Drain obtaining a permanent skill were extremely low. That method relied far too much on luck.

Right... there seemed to be another system reward.

Zhou Lu suddenly remembered that after he had fed Wu Xiaoqing mushrooms, the system had given him ninety percent of the mission reward.

The mission to kill Wu Xiaoqing rewarded a random permanent Spirit Beast Skill Card from an A-rank skill pool. He wondered what ninety percent of that reward would be.

Thinking this, Zhou Lu opened the system and saw: three random permanent Spirit Beast Skill Cards (B-rank).

Holy shit!

The instant he saw the reward, Zhou Lu was utterly startled. These were B-rank skills—and three of them at that. For the vast majority of people in this world, this was a windfall falling from the sky.

Unfortunately, Huohuo could not yet learn B-rank skills, which required at least the second rank. Still, with three random B-rank Skill Cards in hand, Zhou Lu felt a little more confident about the future.

The system's mission rewards were so generous that if this system fell into someone else's hands, his friends and family would probably suffer devastating blows.

Fortunately, this system had fallen into his hands.

Though the system rewards were incredibly tempting, Zhou Lu would not do something that destroyed his own foundation.

Since it offered such a price for the lives of his friends and family, their value to him absolutely far exceeded the system's rewards.

After taking several deep breaths, Zhou Lu had just begun to settle his emotions when a loud crash came from beside him the next second.

Amid the spray of flowerpot shards, Zhou Lu helplessly looked at Huohuo, which was sprawled on the ground once more.

This time, it had not fallen over.

Looking at the mark the flowerpot had smashed into the wall, Zhou Lu began to analyze the situation.

Judging from Huohuo's trajectory, something had yanked it into the air and sent it crashing hard into the wall.

He raised a hand and touched the faint dent in the wall.

That was quite a bit of force.

Taking out a new flowerpot and settling the aggrieved Huohuo inside again, Zhou Lu stroked its fresh sprout. "What happened?"

Huohuo waved its leaves, intending to explain to Zhou Lu. But seeing that Zhou Lu did not quite understand, it grew vines and gestured wildly.

Naturally, Zhou Lu could not understand plant language, and Huohuo's emotions were a complete mess.

A flash of inspiration struck Huohuo. Since it could not explain, it would just reenact the process!

Thus, Huohuo used its vines to guide Zhou Lu to one side, then backed away itself.

However, as it walked forward, Huohuo forgot to retract one of its Vine Steps, leaving it stretched far into the distance.

Smack, smack! Huohuo slapped its leaves together, signaling Zhou Lu to watch.

The next second, it withdrew the growth bonus granted by Mad Growth from that Vine Step. The entire Vine Step returned to its original form.

And in that instant, Huohuo's whole body was flung into the air by the recoiling Vine Step.

In midair, it released the Vine Step's original attachment point, sending its body hurtling toward the wall.

Bang!

The flowerpot smashed firmly into the wall. As it shattered, Huohuo sprawled on the floor just as it had before.

The entire process flowed like drifting clouds and running water, leaving Zhou Lu dumbfounded.

Huohuo raised its head. Seeing Zhou Lu standing there in a daze, it assumed its owner still did not understand the process. So it stretched out a vine, took a new flowerpot from the table, skillfully sat inside it, and reenacted the process once more.

Bang!

Huohuo lay on the ground for the third time.

It raised its new sprout toward Zhou Lu, then extended its vines again.

"No need! No need!" Zhou Lu hurriedly stopped it. At this rate, Huohuo would smash every flowerpot to pieces. "I understand what happened. You don't need to demonstrate again."

Only then did Huohuo sit contentedly inside the flowerpot.

But this time, it refused to walk. It slapped its leaves together, insisting that Zhou Lu carry it.

Zhou Lu held Huohuo with a laugh that was half tears, half amusement, but another idea arose in his mind.

The construction materials here were all top-grade. Even with such a flimsy flowerpot, Huohuo could leave marks on the wall this way. If it switched to sturdier material, could it deal even more damage?

If he remembered correctly, Spirit Beast skills seemed to include headbutt-type skills.

Maybe he should let Huohuo practice that skill!

Just as Zhou Lu was thinking, someone knocked on the door.

Puzzled, Zhou Lu opened it.

A little fairy in pajamas floated in midair with both hands on her hips, shouting angrily, "What are you smashing walls for in the middle of the night? Don't you know I need to sleep on schedule? This is the key to sprouting!"

"Teacher Xiao Xi?" Zhou Lu froze when he saw the little fairy.

Hearing the familiar voice, Xiao Xi looked inside. "Huh? Zhou..."

Before she could finish speaking, a vine wrapped around her slender waist.

With a whoosh, Xiao Xi was yanked away from where she had been.

Huohuo angrily waved Xiao Xi around on its vine.

Knocking on the door at night, plotting mischief!

I have to protect my owner!