Chen Bo thought Luo Yu ought to be strung up on a streetlamp.
What did he mean, work for free? If Chen Bo worked for him, shouldn't he pay him wages?!
As for feeding fish... Chen Bo was the future heir to a biological research institute, for goodness' sake. Just how bored out of his skull would he have to be to do something as mindless as feeding fish?
"What are you two standing around here for?"
Chen Bo was just about to say something when a voice came from beside them. Yu Wan walked over with a stack of documents, looking at them in puzzlement.
"Nothing. Researcher Chen Zhuo's son was asking me how he could become as outstanding as I am," Luo Yu said.
"I wasn't!" Chen Bo stared. When had he ever asked that?!
"As expected of Researcher Chen Zhuo's child. He's quite eager to learn," Yu Wan said approvingly.
"..." Chen Bo felt as though his heart had been stabbed several times, leaving him struggling to breathe.
Luo Yu chuckled. "We can talk about work later. Didn't you want a beast battle? We're just about to go to the arena, so why don't you come along and take a look?"
"What are you going to the arena for...?" Chen Bo asked.
"We have a medical partnership with the infirmary there. We're going over to discuss it," Luo Yu said.
Chen Bo: "..."
"Then shall we set off?" Yu Wan looked weary. "I'm a little busy with work today, so I might have to leave as soon as I drop you off."
"Oh, right, Luo Yu... about the security personnel for the research institute you mentioned before... the director has already started screening candidates. Do you have any special requirements, like gender or age?"
Security personnel?
Chen Bo remained silent at their side, feeling as though the whole world had become unfamiliar.
They were even assigning Luo Yu a bodyguard...?
The three of them then took a fine horse to the beast arena.
Yu Wan had also brought a driver, who was waiting nearby with a carriage drawn by a Wave-Treading Horse, a mutated beast.
Once they boarded the carriage, Chen Bo became the third wheel, with nothing to do but listen to Luo Yu and Yu Wan discuss work.
"Finally..." After a long while, Chen Bo pulled back the curtain and let out a heavy breath. What an ordeal.
The beast arena was enormous. Its architecture wasn't ancient Roman in style, but resembled an open-air stadium. It had several sections, each with a battle arena built around a huge pool.
Since most Beast Tamers now contracted water-type pet beasts, places like this, where they could spar, naturally provided an abundance of water.
By the time Luo Yu and the others arrived, the head of the arena's infirmary had already been waiting for quite a while. He was a middle-aged man with a bald crown... one look told them his medical skills were superb.
"Secretary Yu, uh..." He greeted her warmly and was just about to greet Luo Yu as well when he discovered that "two Luo Yus" had stepped out of the carriage.
He studied them. Chen Bo had an even build and the typical face of a top student, looking very much like an elite child raised by two researchers.
As for Luo Yu, thanks to his needle-stabbing training over the past month, he had grown rapidly of late. He was tall and strongly built, like a young sailor of eighteen or nineteen... one look told him that he had done plenty of hard work.
"This is Luo Yu, and this is Researcher Chen Zhuo's son. He's come along for a friendly match with Scholar Luo Yu," Yu Wan introduced them.
"Scholar Luo Yu, you really are a fine-looking young man, haha..." The infirmary head wiped away his sweat and hurriedly greeted him. Why did the real Luo Yu look less like a researcher and more like a fighter?
"This is Director Zhang, the current head of the arena's infirmary and also the deputy director of Mirror Moon Hospital," Yu Wan said, introducing him to Luo Yu.
"Director Zhang." The two shook hands.
Once again, Chen Bo was left standing off to the side.
Then Director Zhang spoke. "Why don't I show you around the arena, Scholar Luo Yu? We can discuss the partnership the director mentioned as we go."
"Sounds good." Luo Yu nodded.
"Then I'll leave you to it. Director Zhang, I'll leave Luo Yu and Chen Bo in your care," Yu Wan said wearily. "I still have dozens of documents to deal with today, so I won't be joining you."
"No problem," Director Zhang said with a genial smile. He then took Luo Yu and Chen Bo around the arena, introducing its facilities.
"Our arena has sixteen battlefields in total. Fourteen are ordinary fields where apprentice and Junior Level Beast Tamers can spar. There's one advanced field that can withstand a match between Intermediate Level Beast Tamers, and one main field used for special events on Mirror Moon Island. It has a lot of spectator seating."
"Besides the battlefields, there are also three training grounds..."
"The director told me everything. Scholar Luo Yu, you're free to use these training facilities whenever you like from now on. Shall I show you around?"
Inside the arena, the three training grounds included the "Raging Current Maze," which was full of reefs and swift currents and could train pet beasts to contend with turbulent water and dodge obstacles.
The "Artificial Waterfall" delivered a powerful impact, allowing them to practice resisting pressure and water-type abilities.
The "Sniper Room" had numerous moving targets for honing the accuracy of water attacks.
While none of them were especially suited to July, they weren't entirely useless. Water was, after all, a "weakness" the little penguin had to overcome.
"Not bad. We can come here often from now on." Chen Bo had only ever come here as a spectator to watch others battle their beasts. Since becoming a Beast Tamer himself, he hadn't visited much.
"Didn't you want a beast battle?" Luo Yu said. "Let's have our match first. Once we're done, I'll take care of my private business with Director Zhang."
"Let's go." Chen Bo nodded, though he was a little puzzled.
Wait.
Why wasn't Luo Yu afraid of him?
Now that he had calmed down, even he felt that he was bullying someone weaker. After all, he had become a Beast Tamer several months before Luo Yu, and Luo Yu could have refused him perfectly reasonably. So why had he accepted so readily?
Chen Bo felt that something wasn't quite right...
But he had already issued the challenge, and it would be awkward to take it back.
Forget it. It was just an Earth Penguin. What could it do, fly?
"If you want to spar, I'll take you to a field," Director Zhang said after they had finished looking at the training grounds.
"Thank you." Luo Yu smiled. Come to think of it, July had never really experienced PvP before. Fishing certainly didn't count, and Luo Yu was quite curious to see how he would perform in battle.
Chen Bo would probably make a good opponent...
The three continued on. There weren't many people in the arena at the moment, and only one field was in use. Judging by their ages, the two people battling their beasts were about the same age as Luo Yu and Chen Bo.
"They seem to be freshmen at the Beast Taming school. They've only just become Beast Tamers, so they're very enthusiastic about beast battles and come here to spar almost every day." Director Zhang seemed to recognize them when he saw their faces from a distance.
"By the way, Scholar Luo Yu, aren't you attending school...? Uh, I suppose there's not much need." He chuckled as soon as he asked.
After all, Luo Yu was a genius whom the director had personally asked him to look after. Someone like that really had no need to attend school with ordinary people his age.
After graduating from Beast Taming school, students would simply find a job. Those who didn't do as well performed ordinary labor on the island, while those who did better joined large fleets and went out to sea on missions.
By comparison, neither could match the achievements of Luo Yu, who had bred a medical Ink Fish.
Never mind Luo Yu-even Chen Bo, who stood beside him, apparently didn't attend school and had always worked as an assistant at his father's research institute.
"Those two pet beasts have been raised fairly well." Chen Bo did have good reason to be confident in his judgment. After all, he was a top student raised in a highly educated family.
Luo Yu was also observing the battle. By the pool, the two opponents were a Low-Rank Ordinary Species Wave Dog at life level 6, and a Mid-Rank Ordinary Species Cold Mist Lizard at life level 4.
On the field, the Wave Dog dodged at high speed while the Cold Mist Lizard, like an artillery turret, continuously spat ice-blue arrows of Qi from its mouth.
The ability Ice Mist!
Unlike formless, diffuse ice mist, however, this Cold Mist Lizard, despite being only level 4, had already trained its ability to the point where it could condense the mist into arrows and fire them rapidly.
Thus, despite being two levels lower than the Wave Dog, it wasn't at a disadvantage.
Judging by how easily the ice mist arrows froze the spots where they landed... if the Wave Dog were hit, it would probably suffer frostbite in an instant and be unable to move.
The Wave Dog therefore had to dodge, but its ability, Flowing Fang, was a close-range skill. It had to keep closing in on the Cold Mist Lizard as it dodged, and only by biting its opponent would it have a chance of winning.
"Yes, they've both been trained very well. The Wave Dog is quick and agile, and the Cold Mist Lizard is proficient with its ability," Director Zhang commented.
Are they really that good...? Luo Yu said nothing and continued observing the standard at which his peers raised their beasts.
A moment later, the Wave Dog used its agility to close in on the Cold Mist Lizard and sink its teeth into it, but at such close range, it had also become a sitting duck.
At this point, the outcome came down to whose ability was more powerful.
And the result... was that the Wave Dog's Flowing Fang failed to bite through its opponent's scales immediately, while the cold mist froze the Wave Dog in an instant.
The match was decided.
After watching, Luo Yu analyzed what he had seen. Both had indeed been raised fairly well, but their methods were too rigid.
It was true that the Wave Dog excelled at hunting on water and land, was agile, and used its teeth as its main weapon. It was also true that the Cold Mist Lizard's most formidable feature was its Ice Mist ability. Thus, both Beast Tamers had focused on training their beasts' strengths.
There was nothing wrong with that. Most people who contracted Wave Dogs and Cold Mist Lizards trained them this way, but Luo Yu noticed that the individual talents of these two pet beasts... didn't seem to have been developed at all.
For example, he could see that the Wave Dog possessed "Ordinary Talent: Steel Claws."
The Steel Claws talent gave its claws a powerful armor-piercing effect...
With that talent, its claws had greater potential than its teeth. It ran counter to common sense, since a canine's teeth were far more powerful than its claws, but mutated beasts couldn't all be judged by the same standard...
Luo Yu didn't know whether the Wave Dog would have done better if it had trained its Steel Claws from a young age and developed its ability toward gathering the water element around its claws. But at least for now, it had certainly lost because it had failed to break through its opponent's defenses.
"They're finished. It looks like this Cold Mist Lizard is a little stronger," Director Zhang said.
"Mm." Luo Yu nodded. Although the Cold Mist Lizard had won, in his eyes, it too could have done better.
Its talent was "Ordinary Talent: Agile."
Yet throughout the battle, it had stood in place like an artillery turret, continually releasing skills. When its opponent closed in, Luo Yu had clearly seen the Cold Mist Lizard try to dodge in a panic, only to fail. There was nothing "agile" about it.
Clearly, its Beast Tamer hadn't trained its speed attribute, instead raising it as an artillery turret all along.
Its ability was powerful, but its reactions weren't agile at all. If its Beast Tamer had devoted even a little effort to developing its talent for speed, it might have dodged that final attack while delivering the finishing blow to its opponent at close range, instead of getting bitten.
With the battle over, the two students recalled their pet beasts and planned to take them to the infirmary for treatment. Just then, however, the Cold Mist Lizard's Beast Tamer spotted Director Zhang and walked over.
"Uncle Zhang, you're here!"
"Xiao Liang, good match. You both did very well," Director Zhang said with a smile.
"Are you going to the infirmary? Bring your pet beasts out. I'll have mine treat them right here."
"Thank you!" The two were overjoyed. Opportunities like this didn't come often.
With that, Director Zhang brought out his pet beast, a sea turtle with a healing ability, and gave their pet beasts some basic treatment...
"It's you?!" During the treatment, the Cold Mist Lizard's Beast Tamer had been glancing from time to time at Luo Yu, whom he didn't know very well. He hadn't recognized him at first, but soon he suddenly spoke up in surprise.
"Do you know me?" Luo Yu looked at him and remembered as well. "Oh, I remember. We met when I was catching Honey Water Bees."
"It's him?!" Zhuang Feng, the Wave Dog's Beast Tamer, also looked at Luo Yu in surprise. He was the one who had mistaken Luo Yu for a savage back then.
"What a coincidence..."
Luo Yu was surprised. These two were the students that teacher had brought along back then... Where was the girl? Weren't they including her?
"Are you here for a beast battle too?" Bing Liang asked.
"No, I'm discussing a partnership with Director Zhang."
"A partnership??"
"Hehe." Director Zhang smiled. "That's right."
"..." The two fell silent.
"Luo Yu, can I call you Luo Yu?" Bing Liang suddenly said. "How about a beast battle with me?"
He was truly curious about Luo Yu. After all, even his teacher didn't know how strong Luo Yu was.
"Xiao Liang," Director Zhang chided from the side. "Luo Yu doesn't have time to play with you..."
If he remembered correctly, Luo Yu's pet beast was an Earth Penguin. That pet beast was even worse than a Wave Dog, so how could it possibly defeat a Cold Mist Lizard?
A talent for research was one thing; battling was another matter entirely.
As for Luo Yu's match with Chen Bo, he figured it wasn't a normal spar either. Chen Bo was probably just there to be Luo Yu's training partner. The two looked like friends, but Bing Liang's challenge was far too abrupt.
"I don't mind," Luo Yu said. "My pet beast happens to be about the same level as yours..."
After half a month of training, July had gained two more levels and was now level 4 as well.
"You'll do it?!" Bing Liang was delighted.
"This..." Beside them, Director Zhang looked dumbfounded.
"Yes, I will." Luo Yu nodded.
"W-wait a minute?" Chen Bo looked equally dumbfounded. I was first, wasn't I...?
Luo Yu patted Chen Bo on the shoulder. "Don't rush. You're next."
Chen Bo was probably quite strong, so Luo Yu had to let the little penguin warm up against a rookie first.