Alliance Year 177, July.
The recent abnormalities among the snow mountain's savage beasts had put every Beast Tamer Association in Icefield City on high alert.
The professional Beast Tamers of the Ping City Beast Tamer Association in particular had long since entered a state of combat readiness.
The beast tide ten years ago had already dealt Ping City a crippling blow, and it had taken enormous manpower and resources from all sides in Icefield City to rebuild Pingcheng District. This time, no matter what, they couldn't let the savage beasts get inside the city walls and wreak havoc again.
In such a state, the Beast Tamers were naturally highly sensitive to any disturbance outside.
Boom!
At this tense moment, a tremendous crack of air rang out over Pingcheng District, and the taut string in some Beast Tamers' hearts snapped with a "crack."
"Fuck, is a beast tide attacking the city?"
"How come there wasn't any warning?"
"Look on the bright side. Maybe it's just an earthquake."
"What on earth happened?"
The sound was so loud that not only the Beast Tamers but even ordinary people heard it clearly.
Everyone instinctively stepped out of their homes and looked outside.
Yet there had been nothing but that tremendous crack of air. Afterward, nothing else unusual happened.
On the rooftop of the Ping City Beast Tamer Association's headquarters building.
A middle-aged man in a gray suit stood there, looking up at the sky, which had shattered like a mirror. He sank into thought.
"President, what was that just now?"
"The associations in the other districts and counties and in the city also sensed something unusual."
The door to the rooftop opened, and a tall secretary hurried over, anxious. The disturbance had affected Icefield City far more than expected!
Even the other areas had sensed a slight change.
The president in the gray suit said, "I've only heard of something like this. I can't be sure whether it's what I think it is..."
"If it is, it might not be a bad thing."
All of Icefield City had been shaken to varying degrees. News of the change there gradually spread beyond Icefield City to other places.
Meanwhile, the person responsible for the incident had returned home in trepidation. Wearing an apron, he set about preparing a meal.
"Eleven, eat more."
"Grow up quickly. This world is too damned strange. You need to get stronger so you can protect us."
"Mmm-" The little Iron-Eating Beast took a pile of bamboo shoots, bewildered.
He didn't know what had happened, but Shi Yu was unusually generous today.
Hooray!
At home, Shi Yu naturally didn't yet know what was happening outside. But after listening to passersby talking on the way back, he couldn't shake the feeling that things weren't so simple.
The commotion had been a bit too big.
Ah, Shi Yu, why did you have to run your mouth!
Why chat with a rock?
Now look, something's gone wrong.
Until he figured out what was going on, Shi Yu decided to stay home and keep his head down.
Other than buying groceries and medicine, he wasn't going anywhere.
"Chirp-"
Just as Shi Yu made up his mind, a cry came from the persimmon tree beside him.
Seeing Shi Yu give the Iron-Eating Beast so much good food today, the Green Silkworm in the birdcage immediately cried out for food.
"You eat more too."
"Eat until you're nice and plump, and you'll be able to spin more silk."
Then Shi Yu also got a pile of leftover vegetable leaves for the Green Silkworm. At the sight of the food, the Green Silkworm happily began eating.
Much easier to look after than Eleven.
"Sigh, I've finished feeding them too. I'd better sleep first... What a tiring day."
Shi Yu still hadn't recovered from the aftereffects of teaching Super Vision yesterday, and now this had happened too. He really had no strength left.
He planned to get some sleep first. Maybe when he woke up tomorrow, it would be another day full of hope.
Once he recovered, he would teach Eleven more skills and quickly strengthen his combat power!
[Name]: Iron-Eating Beast [Attribute]: Metal [Species Level]: Mid-Level Transcendent [Growth Level]: Awakening Level Five [Skills]: Hardening (expert), High-Speed Healing (basic), Super Vision (basic)
Shi Yu was fairly satisfied with Eleven's current panel. Of the six skills he had collected, Intimidation and Absolute Sleep were the two he hadn't taught yet.
Both were high-level skills and would surely cost him even more, so Shi Yu planned to wait a while before dealing with them...
For now, he should probably focus on improving proficiency in the skills Eleven had already learned.
The next day, Shi Yu rested and recuperated.
To make use of every resource, he took the Green Silkworm out of the birdcage and assigned it a task, leaving it with a dumbfounded expression.
"You're in charge of sparring with Eleven today."
"If you spar well, you can have extra food."
Shi Yu divided the courtyard into two areas, with the Green Silkworm on one side and Eleven on the other.
After raising the Green Silkworm's Worm Silk to Expert Level, the silk could actually be used in all sorts of ways.
For example, Worm Silk: Ray.
For this technique, the Green Silkworm condensed a length of silk about as long as a finger in front of itself, then shot it out forcefully like an arrow, using it like a hidden weapon.
Although its current power couldn't even pierce the clothes Shi Yu had bought from a street stall, its speed was still decent.
When the Green Silkworm fired, the silk could zip from one end to the other in an instant.
Moreover, having mastered Expert Level Worm Silk, the Green Silkworm could fire rays in succession, making them fall like a dense rain of arrows.
Shi Yu had arranged this obviously because he wanted Eleven to continue practicing Super Vision by using Worm Silk this way.
Whether dodging the tiny, inconspicuous, high-speed rays or judging exactly where they would land and using Hardening on a tiny area in advance, both were good ways to train.
Most importantly... it didn't make much noise!
Shi Yu knew the Green Silkworm wasn't very intelligent, so he did his best to communicate with it through Telepathy and gave it all sorts of examples.
Green Silkworm: @.@
In the end, Shi Yu didn't know whether it had understood, but Eleven certainly had.
"Roar-"
Eleven clearly thought this was a good way to train.
He promptly grabbed the Green Silkworm and made it train with him.
How can you sleep in a birdcage every day?
The meaning of life is training. Come on, let's do it together.
"Chirp-"
The Green Silkworm let out an innocent cry.
Then Shi Yu went out with a smile to buy groceries. While he was out, he asked around about what had happened yesterday.
Although he still didn't know what was going on, he heard that the Ping City Beast Tamer Association had suspended many of its services and was under heavy lockdown.
Even tasks like whacking gophers were unavailable now.
Shi Yu panicked a little. The stone statue in the grounds had shattered, so it must have been noticed...
They won't trace it back to me in the end, will they?
There weren't many people around at the time, and installing cameras isn't common in this world. They probably won't...
But Shi Yu couldn't be certain. After all, this was a world with transcendent powers.
Before he knew what had happened, he didn't dare turn himself in. He could only keep pretending he knew nothing.
That day, the presidents of the Beast Tamer Associations from Icefield City's various districts and counties all came to Pingcheng District.
In a valley somewhere in Pingcheng District.
Nine master-level Beast Tamers of varying ages gazed with a hint of wonder at the spatial portal formed by the cracks spreading down from the sky.
"It really is a secret realm space."
"You could also call it an ancient ruins space." Besides the nine of them, there was a tenth person present.
The youngest of the nine master-level Beast Tamers was over thirty. Unlike them, the tenth person present was very young.
She was a woman in her early twenties with short, tea-brown hair.
She wore a white shirt and a black short skirt, with a knee-length white lab coat over them. Her expression was cool, and her gaze behind her glasses was exceptionally serious and focused.
"Dr. Lu, what do you think?" several of them asked respectfully.
Lu Qingyi said, "I once tried to decipher the Ice Dragon Ruins, but unfortunately I failed. We still have too little information to reconstruct the truth of Icefield's history."
"Now that these ruins have appeared, perhaps what's inside can provide more information."
"By the way, when the ruins descended yesterday, did anything unusual happen anywhere else in Ping City?"
The president of the Ping City Beast Tamer Association said, "An ancient stone statue in our association's grounds collapsed."
"That stone giant statue?"
"Yes."
Lu Qingyi's expression didn't change, but she had reached a judgment in her heart. It seemed this ruin space hadn't descended by accident; someone had touched a trace of history.
Has another person with the special Telepathy talent to 'listen to the voice of history' appeared?
Who is it...?