Chapter 265 - Labor Strike

The Flood Dragon Squad’s debut wasn’t as shocking as the Tyrannosaurus Rex Squad’s, but many were still eager to apply for a spot in it.

Everyone dreamed about training their own dragon, but it was almost impossible to achieve that dream on their own. Even if they had the resources, they would still have to figure out the right evolutionary path.

If they joined the Flood Dragon Squad that Lu Ran was supposedly sponsored, however, it would save them a lot of trouble.

Lu Ran had an Overlord-rank dragon, so teaching others to raise King-rank dragons should be a breeze.

Although Lu Ran and Gu Qingyi didn’t publicize any information pertaining to the Flood Dragon Squad, they still inadvertently started the Great Dragon era.

Many beastmasters felt that the upcoming cooking class was an excellent opportunity to join this Flood Dragon Squad.

***

A total of "two hundred people" could see Lu Ran up close in class.

There was a huge turnout for the class, and everyone in attendance had top grades. There was a healthy mix of students from various majors who were all drawn in by Lu Ran’s reputation.

The morning of the lecture, Lu Ran showed up on time wearing a chef’s jacket. The classroom prepared for his class came equipped with a kitchen for demonstrations. Unfortunately, Lu Ran wasn’t quite ready to get that far just yet.

Leading up to the class, he researched what other professors did for their first days of class. It was actually pretty easy.

Instead of actually lecturing, most professors just bragged about themselves and their previous students. Finally, they would wrap up by selling the audience some pipedream to get them excited about the rest of the semester.

Lu Ran was actually pretty pissed off when he found out about this.

Cough.

The classroom was pretty rowdy as students murmured to each other, but with a cough, Lu Ran quickly brought the room to order.

Fang Lan looked at Lu Ran from a corner of the room while resting her chin in her hands. She wanted to see what Professor Lu had in store. Around the room, many young ladies looked at Lu Ran with admiration while daydreaming about what to name their kids.

Looking around the room, there was a wide variety of expressions on people’s faces. In one particular seat, a young man was grinding his teeth. When Lu Ran saw him, he was quite surprised to see Pluto was attending his class too

"Hello, everyone." Lu Ran greeted the class from the podium.

"Hello, Professor Lu!"

Everyone was eager for class to get started and someone quickly asked the first question.

"Professor Lu, what are we going to do in today’s class?"

"I actually discussed this with Dean Chu Yan and we decided that I should teach fire control and knife work for our first lesson. However, I changed my mind. Everyone here today is an elite so I think we should move on to something more advanced.”

Lu Ran paused and smiled before continuing.

"I’m sure that everyone is curious about how to become a Dragon Chef. Since that’s the case, this class will be an introduction to culinary intent."

The entire class burst out in cheers. They didn't expect Lu Ran to be so cool. Everyone assumed that the class would be covering some basics, but culinary intent was something not even all the professors had mastered. It was clearly a highly advanced topic.

"Let me get a gauge of the room. Out of everyone here, has anyone’s familiar achieved the second stage of energy formation, intent formation? Please raise your hands." Lu Ran requested.

Out of the two hundred people in attendance, more than forty raised their hands.

Lu Ran nodded seeing the response, feeling that this wasn’t a bad number. Back in the freshman competition, only he and Xia Ri had mastered intent formation, but in the span of a couple of months, the situation was drastically different.

It seemed that the university was quite effective at teaching students. Of course, some of those raising their hands were the students that he and Sudden Death King taught Dragon intent formation to.

"Intent formation, in essence, is the combination of spiritual will and attribute energy," Lu Ran explained. "Everyone's familiar is capable of utilizing attribute energy so the crux is learning how to use spiritual will. Everyone should also be aware that spiritual will is a distinguishing factor between King- and Champion-rank species!

"Once a familiar becomes a King-rank species, they can manifest their presence to inflict physical and spiritual damage. It allows them to easily suppress lower-ranked species. A powerful King-rank familiar could easily kill a Transcendent-rank familiar of the same level with a single glance.

"Of course, lower-rank familiars aren’t completely powerless against those of higher ranks. They could even the playing field using intent formation. So, to simplify, the key to intent formation is giving shape to your spiritual will. You can choose to convert it into some power of nature or a mythical beast. All in all, the goal is to reshape it into something more powerful.

"Culinary intent is simply the combination of special spiritual will and kitchen utensils."

Lu Ran finally began to touch on the main subject.

"When you perfectly integrate intent formation with your culinary intent, the user can master the ability to infuse the intent into food, which is a sub-category of intent formation.

"Eating food infused with culinary intent could have many benefits, such as improving understanding of the infused intent, attribute affinity, and in unique situations, have a minute impact on the familiar’s race.

"For example, Dragon intent could be infused into dishes which could aid in evolving into a dragon."

The students listened intently as Lu Ran finally doled out some trade secrets.

"Many of you will master intent formation in the next six months or a year. However, even if you master it, infusing it into food will be difficult without culinary experience.

“But if any of you want to learn cooking as an auxiliary skill, I would be more than happy to teach you.

Lu Ran turned around and wrote the words "Weapon Control" and "Fusion" on the blackboard.

"Technically, kitchenwares are also considered weapons. If you want to quickly gain proficiency with them then the Weapon Control trait could be a shortcut.

“I highly recommend those who are interested to contract a monkey familiar for this trait. They usually have a knack for using tools. With the Weapon Control trait and intent formation, familiars should be able to easily master culinary intent.

"Once that happens, the beastmaster could use the Fusion skill to learn the intent from their familiar. If you add in supplements like the Soul Cleansing Fruit to boost your comprehension, the entire process may take as little as a few months!"

Once Lu Ran was done speaking, the eyes of many of the students widened as they furiously scribbled down notes. The knowledge was truly practical. Many of them were already planning to find monkeys to contract.

Some low-level culinary students immediately felt enlightened by Lu Ran’s suggestion. Using Fusion on a familiar that knew culinary intent was the easiest way to master it themselves. It was cheating, but it was the results that mattered.

The Weapon Control trait wasn’t something out of reach either. Lu Ran really didn’t hold anything back!

Lu Ran chuckled when he saw the looks of admiration from the students. This was all based on his personal experience.

He simply replaced Super Beast Mimicry with Fusion since it had a similar effect and because Super Beast Mimicry was too rare and unattainable for most.

If the students followed his instructions, they might not have the same meteoric rise as himself, but it was still better than figuring it out on their own.

"Okay, the next part is the Q&A. Does anyone have any questions? You don’t have to raise your hands—just stand up and ask."

"Yes!"

Someone stood up right away.

"Professor Lu, did you establish the Flood Dragon Squad using Dragon cuisine? Is the squad still recruiting?"

"Huh? This question seems a bit off topic."

Everyone stared at him in curiosity as many of them were quite interested in the answer. Seeing this response, Lu Ran pondered for a moment before finally replying.

"Technically yes, and we are no longer recruiting."

"What if I pay to apply?"

This person wasn’t willing to give up.

Is this pay to win?

Lu Ran decided to ignore what the person just said.

"Well, there are some exceptions that can be made. Anyone who has a Dragon-attribute familiar or one of the dragon bloodline that can contribute resources will be taken into consideration.

"To be honest, I understand how everyone feels. Y’all are probably like me back in the day and want a dragon familiar. However, now that y’all have taken my class, each of you now has the opportunity to do so.

"If you follow my instructions and become a Dragon Chef, then you can raise your own dragon familiar.

"Of course, Dragon intent isn’t that easy to master. Since that’s the case, I will teach y’all a shortcut."

At first, many of the students were disappointed by the fact that the Flood Dragon Squad was no longer recruiting, but they perked up again since Lu Ran was willing to give them the inside track.

"There are actually only two ways to quickly and efficiently learn Dragon intent. One is to rely on resources, while the other is to rely on experience.

"I don’t think I need to explain relying on resources. This is the method utilized by the Tyrannosaurus Rex Squad from the Eagle Federation. Their research institute invested a mountain of resources on top of using scientific research to develop new resources to transform the squad members.

"This method is very expensive and not something the average beastmaster could afford.

"With that, I’ll focus on the second method, which is to have your familiar battle with dragons. As you battle them more and more, your familiar will get familiarized with their aura. This method is clearly the more dangerous of the two and has a steep requirement for talent."

Lu Ran continued in spite of the mixed reaction from the crowd.

"Additionally, there is an even faster way. You can have your familiars bathe in the aura of a high-rank dragon. It might sound dangerous, but don’t forget that my Shieldwing Dragon King is a purebred Overlord dragon."

Everyone was astonished.

"In my next class, I will use my Shieldwing Dragon King to temper the familiars of those that want to become Dragon Chefs in dragon aura. Of course, it would only be for a brief period of time. I recommend those that want to participate to prepare Soul Cleansing Fruits in advance."

What’s a Soul Cleansing Fruit? Is Lu Ran here to make money off of us?

"Everyone here is at the topic of the class and y’all need to learn how to negotiate with the administration. For instance, you can request that the professors from the Combat Academy take you out for a field trip and challenge a secret realm as part of your training.

"Just don’t tell anyone I gave you the idea."

At this point, Lu Ran truly drew out a roadmap for the fourth generation to create more Dragon Chefs.

However, this wasn’t his true purpose.

Lu Ran didn’t really care if more people became Dragon Chefs. His true goal was to find more people to become Soul Chefs.

Unfortunately, class was about to be over, and no one asked anything regarding the Undead attribute.

Lu Ran could only stay silent on the subject and just plant some seeds for now.

Swoosh.

Everyone watched Lu Ran write something on the blackboard again. Once he was done, there were two words on the blackboard: Soul Chef.

"Alright, class dismissed. However, I will leave a homework assignment.

"Please do some research into the Undead attribute. The solution to the attribute’s drawbacks that I discovered is based on culinary intent.

"The theory is just like removing the gaminess from certain meats.

"As for the specifics, that’s what I want each of you to find out. Think about it carefully. Oh, by the way, if any of you have any requests then reach out to the administration. Xia has access to a special Undead secret realm. The answer may lie in there."

“This guy...”

Manager Ying, who was eavesdropping on the roof, was astounded. Instead of actually teaching, Lu Ran was just luring talented students to change majors. He was obviously trying to turn them into his private labor force.

Even though they were students of Beastmaster University, they still were unable to escape the exploitation of capitalism.