After the battle ended, Shi Yu looked at the referee, Bai Shi. He wondered if the referee was a temp. Bai Shi had stood there in a daze for a moment before remembering to announce the result. Very unprofessional.
Hurry up and announce it! The Ice Armor Beast must be in so much pain. Its beast tamer is waiting to take it for treatment.
"The Ice Armor Beast is unable to continue fighting, so the winner is Shi Yu!"
After coming to his senses, the referee Bai Shi hurriedly made the announcement.
"We won!"
As soon as the referee announced the result, Shi Yu called Eleven over and vigorously rubbed its head in a spiral motion to encourage it.
Though there were rumors that having your head petted would stunt your growth, Shi Yu rubbed it hard anyway, mainly because it felt so nice.
"Ying-"
Eleven shook its head and gave a cry before Shi Yu recalled it into the Beast Taming Space.
On the other side, Chen Kai also recalled his pet beast. Unable to accept the result, he walked over and asked, "Are you a beast tamer from Ping City?"
"Are you a student... or?" He wanted to understand why he had lost.
"I'm a beast tamer from Ping City. I just graduated this year, but I went to school in Icefield City proper." Shi Yu smiled slightly, knowing that Chen Kai wanted to find out more about him.
At his words, Chen Kai was taken aback, as was the referee Bai Shi, who had walked over.
Pingcheng District was a suburb of Icefield City, and its standard of education was naturally lower than that in the city proper.
When applying to schools at the next stage of their education, some students with excellent grades would do everything they could to get into schools in the city, hoping for better educational resources.
So although Chen Kai was considered a relatively outstanding student in Ping City, it was hard to say who would come out ahead if he were compared with students from the city proper.
Now Chen Kai knew why he had lost so badly, but he still found the gap hard to understand.
He could only fill in the blanks instinctively: even in the city proper, Shi Yu must have been among the most outstanding young beast tamers.
In a sense, Chen Kai's assumption wasn't wrong.
Appearances aside, Shi Yu was a top student.
Even at a key school in Icefield City, his grades had ranked near the top, and he had excelled in every written examination.
Otherwise, he couldn't have studied in the city and gone to the Icefield City breeding base for an internship.
Being a beast tamer was actually a lot of trouble. Just memorizing the species, appearances, and skills of the tens of thousands of common pet beasts was enough to give the average student a hard time.
And that was only the foundation. Students also had to learn to infer a pet beast's growth level from its appearance and condition, as well as the weaknesses, habits, and food preferences of different pet beasts.
Whenever Shi Yu saw a new pet beast, the relevant information would involuntarily surface in his mind. That, too, had to do with his status as a top student.
It could be said that if Shi Yu hadn't been so poor and failed to meet certain other conditions, his grades would have been more than enough to continue his studies at a higher institution instead of applying to graduate right after his internship.
This world had no path to higher education like the college entrance exam, and the vast majority of students could enter society at eighteen, like Shi Yu. Examinations such as those for professional beast tamers and professional breeders were more like an alternative college entrance exam, though graduates of each specialty had to register for them on their own.
Passing these examinations not only gave one a stepping stone to a more comfortable job, but also a chance to enter a higher institution. That was why Shi Yu had his eye on certificates from examinations such as those for professional beast tamers and professional breeders.
Without a professional certificate, I can't even afford to raise a pet beast. Sigh.
"Nothing else, right? Then I'll be going."
After saying goodbye to Bai Shi and Chen Kai, Shi Yu left.
"Oh..." Chen Kai nodded blankly.
He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong...
Wait, I'm also due to graduate this year. Isn't graduation still a month away? Chen Kai suddenly thought.
How could Shi Yu say he had just graduated?
"The graduation date you're talking about is for the battle specialty. Students in other specialties, like refereeing, medical care, and breeding, graduate a little earlier because of internships and other arrangements," the referee Bai Shi added from beside him.
Chen Kai: ???
He watched Shi Yu's departing figure, cursing inwardly. Shi Yu wasn't a battle specialty student?
"Student Chen Kai, do you need to take your Ice Armor Beast to the infirmary? Also, since yours was a battle with a wager, please pay the arena fees for both of you afterward."
Chen Kai's head ached. "I'll go to the infirmary first."
The Beast Taming Space not only promoted growth; when an injured pet beast was inside, the deterioration and spread of its injuries would also slow to a crawl. Once the Beast Taming Space reached a high enough level, it could even speed up the healing of injuries.
However, except for beast tamers with special medical talents, the Beast Taming Space generally healed injuries very slowly and could only provide relief. Since he had already spent 200 yuan, Chen Kai couldn't possibly choose not to use the infirmary here.
After leaving the battle venue, Shi Yu felt a little bored.
He might have underestimated the boost to combat strength that Expert Level Hardening provided. It seemed that unless he entered the venue's level-seven-to-ten bracket, it would be hard to find an opponent.
But he had asked before leaving: beast tamers could only choose a bracket based on their pet beast's growth level and couldn't enter one above their level, since their opponents might not want to fight someone weaker than themselves.
Unless Shi Yu brought his own opponent to the venue and only rented an arena, but the problem was that he had nowhere to look for an opponent... He didn't know anyone.
"Forget it. I'll go check out the Beast Tamer Association."
The battle had ended faster than he had expected, and Shi Yu didn't think there was any need to waste more time at the battle venue, so he decided to look elsewhere for a suitable place to get some combat practice.
After some time, he arrived at the Beast Tamer Association in Pingcheng District.
It was a vast building complex in the center of the district, with a sizable thirteen-story building at its heart.
Shi Yu had come here before to handle various formalities, so this wasn't his first visit. Familiar with the place, he easily found his destination: the mission hall.
The Beast Tamer Association also accepted and posted mission bounties. Beast tamers could take missions here and receive rewards upon completing them.
These missions were carefully selected by the Beast Tamer Association for apprentice beast tamers. In some respects, they could all help train a beast tamer's various abilities.
They were similar in nature to the wilderness training the Ping City Beast Tamer Association organized for apprentice beast tamers every three months. Both were essentially ways of cultivating local apprentice beast tamers.
Every city wanted more professional beast tamers of its own and wanted its beast tamers to be stronger. Missions and training alike were all intended to lay a foundation for apprentices.
Shi Yu hadn't initially planned to come here because the Beast Tamer Association's missions below Transcendent Level were mainly meant to train beast tamers and their pet beasts, with the primary purpose of providing places to train. They were a classic case of hard work for little money. In the same amount of time, he might earn more by having the Iron-Eating Beast carry bricks...
But this time, he wasn't here to make money. He simply wanted to see whether he could find a suitable opponent for combat practice among the missions.
Even if there were no opponents, other missions suitable for training Eleven would do. Considering Eleven's physical and mental health, Shi Yu felt he couldn't keep it cooped up at home training all the time.
If it jumped off buildings every day, sooner or later it would jump its brain into trouble.
Getting more exposure to the outside world was beneficial. Having brought Eleven out to battle this time, Shi Yu could clearly tell it was very happy.
[One-star mission]: Capture stray cats. [Requirements]: Recently, an organized, large-scale gang of stray cat thieves has appeared in this district...
In the mission hall, Shi Yu stood before the mission board, his face full of question marks.
Stray cats can be organized?
Hmm, considering that some transcendent creatures are quite intelligent, they really could be organized.
What did they steal? Seafood, cat food... Oh, never mind.
[One-star mission]: Battle sparring partner. [Requirements]: A wind-type pet beast at growth level six or above is required as a sparring partner...
The pay for this mission is decent... Too bad Eleven can't fly. Pass, pass, pass.
[One-star mission]: Wilderness escort. [One-star mission]: Capture live Wind Locusts. [One-star mission]: Eliminate Earth-Burrowing Rats...
There were over a hundred densely packed missions, and Shi Yu began studying them carefully.