Beast-Taming World

"Gei gei gei."

A burst of strange laughter suddenly rang out in the classroom!

Everyone's gaze involuntarily turned toward the corner of the back row.

There sat a handsome young man of average height and a lean build, with a high nose bridge, large eyes, and short hair tied back, laughing without restraint.

The fat boy beside him felt both embarrassed and increasingly pressured. He had no choice but to nudge his deskmate with an elbow and whisper, "Hao, Miss Liao's coming!"

Smack!

Jiang Hao snapped his textbook shut a little too forcefully in a reflexive movement.

"Hand it over." The icy tone could not conceal her anger.

"Sure thing!"

Jiang Hao promptly handed the closed textbook to the woman before him, who was nominally his teacher but also his older sister.

He watched calmly as she opened it.

There was neither a dirty book nor any other "contraband" unrelated to class tucked inside, so he had nothing to fear from an inspection!

Liao Yunxiao flipped through the textbook and found nothing. Unable to suppress her anger, she stared at Jiang Hao. This younger brother of hers behaved just like every other academic failure, disrupting lessons and ignoring classroom rules. He was a real headache.

He especially liked doing bizarre things during her lessons. She taught War Pet Potential Development and theory, talking herself hoarse at the front of the room. Fine if he had no respect for her, but he could at least stop kicking the stage out from under her and making her look bad.

"Don't rush home after school. Come see me in the office."

She returned Jiang Hao's textbook, left him with that classic line, and went back to the podium to continue teaching.

But her eyes kept flicking his way. If Jiang Hao made so much as another suspicious move, she would not mind fulfilling her duty as a teacher and teaching him a proper lesson.

Jiang Hao did indeed behave himself, his eyes fixed on the blackboard ahead. A closer look, however, would have revealed that his gaze had already gone vacant. His mind was nowhere near the classroom.

His thoughts had long since sunk into a serialized webnovel about wilderness survival in his mind, and he could not pull himself away.

"Ed's freaking awesome, gei gei gei."

Another burst of strange laughter escaped him, then cut off abruptly. Realizing he was in trouble, Jiang Hao hurriedly clapped a hand over his mouth.

Sure enough, Liao Yunxiao's eyes blazed like those of a raging she-dragon baring her fangs and claws. No, that really was a dragon. Behind Liao Yunxiao, a Blazing Flame Dragon King with a pair of leathery wings opened his enormous mouth, where crimson flames faintly glimmered with the power to destroy heaven and earth and burn everything to ash.

The bell rang at just the right moment, saving Jiang Hao's life.

"Class dismissed!"

Liao Yunxiao left the classroom without looking back, and the oppressive atmosphere instantly vanished.

"Phew."

The classroom erupted with excitement. Everyone packed their things to head home, while Jiang Hao breathed a sigh of relief and slumped in his seat.

His mind drifted off again, though this time he was not reading a serialized novel.

Last night, he had had a strange dream. In it, he entered a parallel world, a place called Earth, which differed greatly from his Beast-Taming World in many ways. The biggest difference was that his world revolved around beast taming. Fighting, daily life, and work all required Beast Pets. There was little advanced technology; it was more like a blend of ancient and early modern times. Earth was precisely the opposite: an atheistic, civilized world that believed in and relied solely on advanced technology for its development.

When he woke from the dream, Jiang Hao discovered a strange, phone-like object in his mind. But it was not a phone. It was called the Survival Simulator.

Among its features was a particularly bizarre one called the Simulation Modification Function.

The Simulation Modification Function could modify his Beast Pet's attributes and skills, but he had to run a survival simulation. If the Beast Pet completed the task within the allotted time and remained alive, the simulation succeeded. Death meant failure.

Failure would cost attribute values or skill points.

How was this a simulator? It was a cheat, through and through.

He did not know whether this thing had anything to do with last night's dream.

Nor did he know how it had appeared in his mind, or whether it might cause him needless harm. None of that mattered, though. He was someone who took things as they came and adapted remarkably well.

Sure enough, after fiddling with the Survival Simulator during class, he soon discovered that he could actually simulate an Earthling browsing information online. But none of that mattered to an academic failure. What interested him most were those wildly imaginative webnovels and videos.

He had never encountered such entertaining things before, and before he knew it, he had become utterly absorbed. This was exactly what it meant to neglect one's proper duties.

"Hao, Hao, stop spacing out. Want to head home together?"

His fat deskmate was called Guo Dundun. He looked just as his name suggested: solid and honest, though he occasionally had a fiery temper. His only friend and closest buddy was Jiang Hao, who liked calling him Chubby Dundun. Naturally, anyone who sat beside Jiang Hao was no model student. If Jiang Hao dared rank second from the bottom, Guo Dundun dared take last place.

"Home, my ass. I still have to go to the office." Jiang Hao casually tossed out some internet slang he had just learned, and it sounded perfectly natural.

He did not bother checking whether the other boy understood.

Jiang Hao looked as though he had nothing left to live for. Outsiders did not know about his relationship with Liao Yunxiao, but that did not mean he was not afraid of that female tyrannosaurus.

Liao Yunxiao was not merely a teacher at this War Academy. At twenty-five, she was also one of the Shenzhou Kingdom's ten Transcendent Masters, and the youngest of them all. Though she ranked toward the bottom, she had already left countless people chasing her shadow. Her Beast Pet was that red Blazing Flame Dragon King who breathed fire at the slightest provocation.

The Blazing Flame Dragon King resembled a dragon from the Western world. He could fly and breathe fire, had a bad temper, and had already reached the Transcendence Realm.

"But didn't we agree to go party at the Disco? It's your birthday today! Your little buddy here is opening his wallet for once to celebrate. Miss this, and you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

Jiang Hao thought it over. This fatty was usually pretty stingy. It really would be a shame to miss such a rare display of generosity, so he nodded. "All right. Since you've invited me, refusing would mean not giving you face. Let's go!"

As for going to the office, he had already tossed that to the back of his mind.

The two walked out through the academy gates with their arms around each other's shoulders, laughing and chatting as they headed toward the nearest Disco.

But before they had gone even a hundred meters, Jiang Hao sensed a wave of killing intent coming from behind.

He instinctively ducked. Before he could react further, a chilling gale bore down on the back of his neck. Something seized his collar firmly, and an instant later, he soared away as though riding clouds and mist, vanishing from before Chubby Dundun!

Chubby Dundun: ???

Where did he go?

He was left standing alone, bewildered in the wind!

"Aah!"

Jiang Hao screamed. Soon, an enormous estate appeared beneath his feet.

At the center of the estate stood a massive castle, Dragonkeep.

Upon reaching the estate entrance, Jiang Hao was unceremoniously dropped from several meters up.

Another scream followed.

"Scream again and I'll kill you! Believe me, I'll turn your birthday into your death anniversary!"

Can't mess with her. Absolutely can't mess with her!

Jiang Hao hurriedly shut his mouth and struggled to his feet through the searing pain.

Liao Yunxiao recalled her Beast Pet into her Beast Taming Space, pushed open the estate gates without looking back, and walked inside. Dusty and bedraggled, Jiang Hao hurried after her.

They entered the castle's grand living room, which was lavishly decorated. Expensive furniture stood in just the right places, lending it both elegance and grandeur.

A costly carpet covered the marble floor. A huge crystal chandelier hung overhead, with a long dining table beneath it.

At the head of the table sat a dignified old man with white hair and a white beard. He was already over two hundred and thirty years old. Despite his white hair and beard, his face did not look old at all, and his vigorous appearance suggested he could live for at least another few decades.

This was the most miraculous thing about beast tamers: they could share their Beast Pets' lifespans.

This man was Dragon Venerable, the master of Dragonkeep.

Dragon Venerable had never married, but he had adopted five children, including Liao Yunxiao and Jiang Hao.

Seated immediately to Dragon Venerable's left was their eldest brother, Long Yun. Like Liao Yunxiao, he was one of the Shenzhou Kingdom's ten Transcendent Masters. In the Beast-Taming World, the Shenzhou Kingdom could only be considered an upper-middle-ranking nation. Above it stood the Chaoyun Kingdom, the Ten Thousand Beasts Kingdom, the Cangling Kingdom, the North Sea Kingdom, the Nanmu Kingdom, and others. Without exception, these nations each had more than one Saint among their powerhouses, to say nothing of Transcendent Masters.

Without a Saint holding the fort, a nation could not join the ranks of the great powers. That was an acknowledged fact.

Without a Saint holding the fort, other nations could bully you however they pleased.

Yet all those nations combined occupied less than one percent of the Beast-Taming World. The remaining ninety-nine percent belonged to forbidden zones for humanity. Beside those forbidden zones, human nations were mere little brothers. Legends said that some of those zones might even harbor Myriad Forms Divine Beasts.

"Father, we're home." Liao Yunxiao respectfully bowed to Dragon Venerable, then sat opposite Long Yun.

Two other young people the same age as Jiang Hao sat at the dining table: a boy and a girl, Luo En and Luo Su. Dragon Venerable had adopted all three of them from the same orphanage.