Chapter 260 - Dawn of the Age of Overlords

Two days flew by in the blink of an eye.

Lu Ran did as he promised and settled down in the Other Shore’s secret realm for special training.

A day prior, there was another uproar in the forums when news broke about the third evolution realm opening soon.

After explosive news following the first and second evolution realms, the third was bound to attract large amounts of attention.

The attention included much speculation regarding Lu Ran as many beastmasters were curious about whether Lu Ran would show up again.

Lu Ran was the center of attention during both of the last two evolution realms, but the man of the hour had actually disappeared from the public eye. Lu Ran didn’t show up to the third evolution realm at all.

In spite of his absence, the third evolution realm was still a world-shattering event, as it birthed five Low Overlords.

Overlord species were originally considered rare, but with the most recent additions, that was no longer the case.

There was actually a good reason for this. When evolution realms first appeared, many beastmasters still had unused contract cards and couldn’t find suitable familiars.

Those that appeared in the earlier realms were all beastmasters that just so happened to have contracted a new familiar.

Seeing the earlier adopters achieve success, everyone seized the opportunity to contract familiars with high potentials and gather resources. These efforts finally yielded results.

All worthwhile pursuits took time.

The third evolution realm just so happened to come in the nick of time for a bunch of first-generation beastmasters to swoop in and evolve a batch of new Overlords.

The first-generation beastmasters weren’t the only ones in the spotlight, however. There were many of the Golden Generation in the second and third evolution realms.

For example, Youxiong Anlin and Du Yuan of Xia evolved a powerful Superior King and a quasi-Overlord, respectively, in the third evolution realm.

Therefore, although Lu Ran, the walking breaking news generator, was absent, the media still had a field day.

[The age of Overlords has dawned!]

[Estimates suggest that after the fourth evolution realm, there will be more than ten Overlords on Blue Planet.]

During said field day, many forums didn’t overlook Lu Ran’s decision to skip this secret realm.

Foreign beastmasters unanimously agreed that although the Gale Sword Dog was strong, it didn’t have unique advantages such as the dragon or Undead-attribute crow did. It obviously encountered a bottleneck.

Lu Ran had luckily obtained Yan Sizhen’s inheritance, the Flame Spirit beastmaster skill, and became a Dragon Chef. This gave him an edge in cultivating a Dragon familiar.

He was also able to raise a formidable Undead familiar because he entered the Undead Cult which allowed him to obtain a more profound understanding of the attribute—in turn, developing a suitable cultivation method for it.

These two experiences clearly demonstrated Lu Ran's amazing talent and potential, but neither could change the fact that his Gale Sword Dog was originally a Intermediate-Transcendent husky. On top of that, it only had the easily obtainable traits, Weapon Control and Nature Manipulation.

It simply couldn’t compete with Lu Ran’s other two familiars.

The Weapon Control trait had been researched by the Beastmaster Empire, but was ultimately abandoned. If Lu Ran had entered an ascension realm that was from that era and participated in the original research, many people believed that he could’ve pioneered some new application of the trait given his talent.

However, the reality was that he didn't, which led the public to believe that Lu Ran was stuck at a bottleneck.

Of course, some people sneered at the idea, such as Youxiong Anlin. Although his Dark-Light Panda evolved into a Superior King, whenever he thought back to his sparring match with that husky, he still couldn’t fully imagine the limits of its power.

Having failed to evolve an Overlord, Youxiong Anlin once again fell in awe of Lu Ran.

As a celebrity, Lu Ran already knew that he would be a constant hot topic. He didn't pay any attention to it and continued to take Captain Doofus to clear the Undead secret realm.

During the process, Lu Ran made an amazing discovery.

After Captain Doofus had infused Winter Fang with Soul Sword Intent, he found that destroying souls had a nourishing effect.

This made Lu Ran double their efforts within the secret realm.

Time continued to gradually pass.

While Lu Ran was practicing hard, there was constant news from Limitless City.

Two days after the third evolution realm was closed, Antarctica’s Limitless City once again had an evolution realm scheduled.

[Name: Evolution Realm (Stage 2)]

[Entry Level Requirement: Level 5+]

[Introduction: On a special planet, there is an area that is extremely suitable for the evolution of transcendent creatures. The evolution realm will periodically release a large amount of high-concentration evolutionary energy.

If a transcendent creature times its evolution to coincide with the eruption of energy, they can stimulate their hidden potential. The familiar with the highest potential will receive the Stellar Blessing to further increase their power.]

[Enter fee: 1 million crystal coin]

[Countdown to the next energy eruption: 18 days]

The so-called “Age of Overlords” was previously somewhat over exaggerated. Everyone that evolved an Overlord in a Stage 1 evolution realm, other than Lu Ran, all had something in common.

They all had familiars that were originally Superior Champions before they fused with any traits or awakened attributes. Most of them even had Low Kings, like the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Tundra Mammoth.

Only with an adequately high starting point would a familiar have hopes of becoming an Overlord.

Even though Xiong Anlin's Dark-Light Panda was a Low Champion, it still could become an Overlord.

Therefore, it was relatively difficult to say that Stage 1 of evolution realms would usher in the Age of Overlords. There just weren’t enough high-level familiars.

Besides the Eagle Federation, everyone could only obtain high-ranking familiar cubs as ascension realm and Legendary secret realm rewards.

However, with the appearance of Stage 2 evolution realms, the situation changed drastically. Although many first-generation familiars had low starting species ranks, after having such a long time to develop, many of them were already Superior Kings.

Low starting points would limit the results one could achieve in Stage 1 evolution realms but now there was a second chance.

A large number of Overlord familiars were bound to appear very soon.

That would truly be the dawn of the Age of Overlords.

"Lu Ran is probably crying to himself right now,” Gu Qingyi commented when she saw the information on the new evolution realm.

This was because while Overlords were rare, Lu Ran could fight across realms using his level 30 Overlord.

Once his familiar reached level 40, it wasn’t impossible for him to challenge first-generation familiars that were past level 50.

This was the so-called Overlord bonus.

But now that first generations would also have Overlord familiars, Lu Ran’s edge would be eliminated and the gap between each generation would be widened once again.

However, Gu Qingyi knew that any gap would only be temporary. If Lu Ran’s familiar became an Overlord in a Stage 1 evolution realm, what would it achieve once he entered a Stage 2 realm?

Perhaps it would evolve into a Superior Overlord?

Only time could tell.

Therefore, if the first generation didn’t want the fourth generation to catch up or even surpass them, they needed to make the most of their current advantages to cultivate powerful familiars.

First-generation beastmasters quickly soon became a hot topic.

For instance, the old president from Xia and his Qilin war beast that once suppressed his entire generation. The Heavenly Familiar Ranking revealed that it was level 60, and it most likely hadn’t evolved yet.

There was also the cyborg of the Heavenly Eagle Federation that entered the ascension realm related to mechanical familiars. He was injured during that expedition and forced to retreat from the front lines, but after the spiritual energy revival, he reappeared as an cyborg and had multiple familiars on the rankings.

In fact, he was ranked even higher than the federation’s president. Of his familiars, there was one at level 60 that had yet to evolve.

If not for the fact that his familiars were still normal creatures, people would’ve assumed that he had unlocked the secrets of mechanical lifeforms. However, it was still terrifying that he was able to transform himself into a cyborg.

Many people had failed in that same ascension realm, but all of them were able return and recover from their injuries. The world could only sigh at the Eagle Federations technological prowess.

Of course, Xia and the Eagle Federation weren’t the only ones in the spotlight. Several major countries had familiars at level 60. Most of those leading first-generation beastmasters had reached a tacit understanding and weren’t in a hurry to evolve their familiars.

They conjectured that a Stage 2 evolution realm had to exist after seeing Stage 1 realms appear. It turned out they were right on the money.

“This is so frustrating!"

With the Age of Overlords approaching, Lu Ran continued to train the bozo, Captain Doofus. Unfortunately, besides its first successful attempt at a sword domain, it hadn’t been able to unleash it a second time.

Even after compression energy down to 50 times concentration, they still couldn’t make it work.

After some analysis, there were two major differences in their condition compared to their last successful attempt.

One, they lacked a Space weapon, and two, they weren’t using items that enhanced comprehension.

As for the first issue, a Rare Space-attribute weapon was going for the same price as a low-end Treasure-grade weapon. Lu Ran couldn’t afford a replacement if Captain Doofus broke one during training.

As for the amplification card, he had one left. Lu Ran was planning on using it for when Captain Doofus comprehended a domain to increase its proficiency.

But given the current situation, it was a hard ask to even unleash a domain for a second time.

Uwuwu!

Captain Doofus was equally frustrated.

It held Winter Fang in its mouth as it charged through a herd of Undead creatures, almost appearing bloodthirsty.

Throughout the entire process, it continuously tried to unleash a domain.

Blood seeped out from between its teeth. Some of it flew through the air, while some stained the sword as proof of its efforts.

Just as Lu Ran was debating whether to use the last amplification card, an accident occurred.

The Death Crow possessed Captain Doofus and temporarily turned it into a four-legged version of a tengu. Captain Doofus was fighting with a Low-Overlord-rank crocodile-dragon when its sword exploded.

The sword was no longer able to keep up with the dog’s destructive campaign.

50x energy compression didn’t just extract a high toll on the user, but also the weapon.

Captain Doofus could be healed, but he didn’t possess any means of repairing the sword.

Lu Ran could only stare blankly at Captain Doofus.

“What the fuck? Breaking a Rare weapon was one thing, but how did you destroy a Treasure-grade one?”