Beast tamers had countless rules for survival.
One of them was that beast tamers had to put their own lives first.
After entering a dangerous area, they had to release their beasts immediately to protect themselves.
For a beast tamer, the core of their offensive strength was the exotic beasts they commanded, but the core of their defense was the beast tamer themselves.
Yet Jiang Ziliu had previously possessed nothing but countless theories and facts. Once he actually entered the unfamiliar territory and survival environment of Dungeon Space, nervousness and curiosity had made him forget this extremely important point.
Having knowledge did not mean you actually knew how to use it, or remembered to use it.
Experiencing an instance for the first time, he was inevitably a little nervous, which had caused him to make such a mistake.
After all, he had looked forward to exploring Dungeon Space under his own power for over ten years.
After reflecting on his behavior, Jiang Ziliu quickly summoned the Azurite Rock Man as well.
Both of his summoned beasts had concealed their auras, looking entirely appropriate for a rookie beast tamer like him.
He merely set his own aura at two-star gray rock grade, raising it a little.
Then Jiang Ziliu took two short blades and a small shield out of his backpack.
He held one short blade and the small shield himself, while giving the other short blade to his beast, the Azurite Rock Man.
The Azurite Rock Man could travel through soil and conceal its presence, but it lacked any powerful offensive abilities.
Once Jiang Ziliu equipped it with a blade, it could grip and wield it as a roughly humanoid beast.
Combined with its Rock and Earth Evasion skill, it could emerge from underground with a blade in hand and stab.
This assassin-style fighting method was the offensive tactic Jiang Ziliu had devised as the most suitable for the Azurite Rock Man in its current state.
Ordinary beast tamers would never think of equipping their beasts with weapons for combat. They instinctively believed that their beasts' own claws, fangs, and skills were the best way to fight.
But Jiang Ziliu's thinking leaped beyond that, and he directly equipped the Azurite Rock Man with a short blade, giving it offensive power.
Long weapons could not be used carelessly in this Dungeon Space.
Dungeon Space itself was thick with aquatic plants, and vines grew in tangles in many places.
The aquatic plants and vines here were unlike those on Blue Water Star. They were all extremely tough.
Using a long blade in such a place would easily get it tangled in aquatic plants and vines, unless it was a high-quality treasured blade.
The horror of a weapon becoming useless at a critical moment needed no explanation.
A short blade, flexible and less restricted, could instead serve as an excellent auxiliary weapon for a beast tamer.
Of course, a beast tamer's true combat strength still lay in their beasts!
Jiang Ziliu had the Azurite Rock Man lurk beneath the soil, scouting stealthily ahead of him and watching for enemies.
It happened to possess the Rock and Earth Evasion skill, making it perfectly suited to this job.
Together with its SSS-rank Life Aura Concealment skill, almost no exotic beast or beast tamer could notice the Azurite Rock Man underground ahead of Jiang Ziliu.
The Azurite Rock Man was an excellent scout.
The Mutated Lightning Snake stayed behind him, guarding against possible surprise attacks from the rear while preparing to charge forward and support the Azurite Rock Man.
Before long, he and his two beasts left the rocky road and headed deeper into the swamp on the right.
The swamp areas on either side of the rocky road were regularly cleared by the military, so there would be little to gain there.
The entire Dungeon Space contained numerous swamps and wetlands, along with stretches of hills and low forests.
The main exotic beasts in this Dungeon Space were slimes and goblins, with smaller numbers of fish-headed monsters, swamp crocodiles, and water pythons.
For a beast tamer like Jiang Ziliu, the most dangerous enemies were not stronger, vicious creatures such as fish-headed monsters and swamp crocodiles, but timid, weak goblins.
An individual goblin stood only as high as an adult's thigh and was not particularly strong.
But in groups, they became extremely bold, and every one of them was thoroughly insidious, specifically attacking humans' vulnerable lower parts and favoring targets such as their Achilles tendons.
When encountering beast tamers, they would generally split off a portion of their numbers to harass the beasts, while the rest launched a surprise attack on the beast tamers themselves.
Some goblins would even lurk beneath filthy, foul sludge to ambush their targets, making them extremely insidious.
During combat, some goblins would deliberately lure or force beast tamers onto seemingly harmless patches of dry ground, but the tamers did not know that true layers of swamp sludge lay beneath, and that once they sank in, escape would be difficult.
This happened frequently in battles between humans and goblins.
They often relied on their familiarity with the terrain, exploiting the advantage of the land to kill careless beast tamers.
Many young beast tamers overlooked their treachery, thinking only that they were weak, and ended up becoming meals for goblins.
Everyone knew this lesson from experience, yet people still fell for the same tricks from time to time.
Jiang Ziliu knew all this and took precautions early.
After leaving the main road, he had the Azurite Rock Man scout ahead and find suitable paths through the swamp, preventing him from inadvertently sinking into dangerous swamp sludge.
After all, some places in the swamp looked like firm ground on the surface, but layers of sludge lay beneath.
Many young beast tamers had suffered badly after falling into sludge because they had not watched their footing.
Before walking much farther, he encountered his second slime.
It hid beneath a patch of swamp sludge, preparing to attack Jiang Ziliu as he approached.
But the next moment, a blade pierced it from below, instantly puncturing its heart.
Its tenacious vitality kept it struggling for a while before it finally died.
Jiang Ziliu had the Azurite Rock Man employ its underground ambush tactic, and its first success earned him his first spoils.
Jiang Ziliu had the Azurite Rock Man and the Lightning Snake guard their surroundings, then took out poison-resistant leather gloves and carefully separated the slime's skin and subcutaneous gel tissue with his blade.
These were the two most valuable parts of a slime.
He discarded the other internal organs, while feeding its soybean-sized earth-attribute beast core directly to the Azurite Rock Man.
A beast core of this level did not even qualify for a D- rating and would fetch virtually nothing. It could only serve as a snack for the Azurite Rock Man.
Slime skin provided some physical protection and resistance to poison and corrosion, and could be made into the most basic protective clothing.
He gathered these materials and packed them into his backpack.
Then the man and his two beasts continued onward.
This swamp space was as large as a county in his previous life, and contained nearly a million slimes.
Moreover, slimes reproduced prolifically. Despite being constantly captured by beast tamers, their numbers had never declined.
They were omnivorous exotic beasts that also ate decaying plant matter, and their numbers remained extremely high.
The skin and gel produced by slimes were among the entire base's largest basic resources, playing a very important role in sustaining its beast-taming economy.
Jiang Ziyuan continued onward, constantly having the Azurite Rock Man familiarize itself with its underground stabbing technique along the way, gradually honing this ability to considerable proficiency.
Sure enough, this skill had already appeared in the personal panel information.
Azurite Rock Man: Life Aura Concealment (SSS rank), Rock and Earth Evasion (C rank), Rock and Earth Concealment (D+ rank), Rock and Earth Sneak Stab (D-), Earth Space Evasion (unawakened)
The information panel officially named this ability Rock and Earth Sneak Stab.
Only then did Jiang Ziliu learn that beasts could also acquire new skills through learning.
His previous textbooks had never mentioned this.
Perhaps humanity's higher-ups knew about this but had not made it public.
After thinking carefully, Jiang Ziliu understood. Ordinary beast tamers could not even make proper use of their beasts' existing skills. Rather than learning and mastering an unfamiliar skill, they would be better off devoting all their efforts to mastering the skills their beasts already possessed.
Making this information public might do more harm than good to human beast tamers as a whole!
The Azurite Rock Man successfully developed the Rock and Earth Thrust skill, and also earned Jiang Ziliu nearly twenty portions each of slime gel and slime skin.
He fed all the other earth-attribute beast cores to the Azurite Rock Man.
It was a beast of the higher black iron grade, so eating a dozen or so gray rock grade slime Beast Cores would not make it burst from overeating.
Moreover, the Azurite Rock Man could store these beast cores inside its body, slowly absorbing and digesting them.
Jiang Ziliu then turned back and sold these things at the resource purchasing station by the instance space entrance.
Although the prices were a little lower than those at the open market, it saved trouble.
He earned 6,000 yuan this time, since slime skin was somewhat more expensive than gel.
And there was still nearly half a day until nightfall.
He could earn at least over 10,000 yuan a day. This made Jiang Ziliu realize that although beast tamers spent a great deal, they seemed to earn even more!
However, with this sort of life, a single careless mistake could cost him his life one day.
After eating lunch at the public dining hall by the Dungeon Space entrance, he continued working hard inside the space that afternoon.
Now Jiang Ziliu badly wanted spatial equipment.
Although the beast-taming space was large, it could only hold beasts, not anything else.
Yet even the lowest-grade spatial equipment cost over a million yuan, and buying it also required an equivalent amount of Elemental Crystals!
If he was lucky enough to find and contract a special exotic beast with its own storage space, that could also solve the problem.
Next, Jiang Ziliu stopped troubling the slimes.
He had never forgotten that his main objective was to train his beasts' combat abilities.
Jiang Ziliu set his sights on the larger forests in the swamp.
There were goblins there, whose individual combat strength was similarly unimpressive.
They were the same size as his Azurite Rock Man, and were also the best targets for training its actual combat abilities.
Long before preparing to venture into Dungeon Space, he had already given the Azurite Rock Man blade training.
He had taught the Azurite Rock Man basic blade-wielding combat movements suited to it, such as leaping chops, horizontal cuts, and stepping back into a straight block.
Unfortunately, the Azurite Rock Man had poor aptitude and had only barely grasped them outside combat.
Now, after experiencing a few real battles, the Azurite Rock Man had mastered the Rock and Earth Thrust skill. This made him realize that real combat was the best way for it to master blade-wielding combat skills.
Now, he intended to hone the Azurite Rock Man's blade attacks through actual combat.
As for raising the Lightning Snake, he had another plan.