Chapter 301 - Tracking the Turtle

Lu Ran couldn’t help but laugh at Captain Doofus.

“So, being a dog no longer satisfies you?”

“

Woof.

”

Captain Doofus turned its head dramatically toward the sky.

“Damn.” Lu Ran fell into deep thought, feeling like his authority had been challenged.

However, it didn’t matter. Captain Doofus was setting itself up for failure. There was no way it could beat him.

“Keep an eye on them. I’m going to rest for a bit.” Lu Ran smiled and walked onto the ice surface Captain Doofus had created.

He sat down cross-legged, letting the cool sensation invigorate his body and mind.

The sword spirit was an Intermediate King with Undead, Ice, and Space attributes. Weather Sprite was an Intermediate King with Water, Ice, and Lightning attributes. By species rank, the two were evenly matched. By attributes, the Sword Spirit had the advantage. By potential, the Weather Sprite had greater long-term growth.

After all, Lu Ran was the one who had contracted it. That meant it would benefit from fusion traits and the advantage of evolution, something the Sword Spirit—contracted by Captain Doofus—couldn’t enjoy. So, when Captain Doofus suggested a battle, Lu Ran immediately thought it was insane. If Captain Doofus actually won, Lu Ran might as well retire on the spot.

“Then again, Corpse Dog is supposed to train with Captain Doofus to master Sword Intent and Sword Domain, both of which are powerful offensive techniques. Meanwhile, Baby Cloud’s role is more support... Hmm.”

Lu Ran frowned.

Wait. Is Captain Doofus being sneaky by pitting a combat familiar against a support familiar?

But even then, it wasn’t a huge problem. Baby Cloud wasn’t just a support type—it was also a wide-range elemental mage. And not just any mage, either; it was a high-frequency damage-dealing elemental mage.

Its talent in energy acceleration was exceptional—so much so that it had naturally reached the second phase without much training. Maybe it was because Baby Cloud was an elemental lifeform.

This meant that, in the future, it would have the fastest skill-casting speed among all of Lu Ran’s familiars. With its high attack frequency and wide-range weather abilities, it could function as a heavy artillery turret, unleashing one spell after another to overwhelm opponents.

***

While resting, Lu Ran reorganized his storage and took out a silver-colored vial of blood.

[Name: Rhino blood]

[Grade: Rare]

[Description: Blood of the Golden-Horned Rhino, known for its ability to enhance the sharpness of metal.]

This was an awakening material given by the Swordgrass Clan. To be honest, that clan was always shrouded in mystery, keeping their blood sources a secret. But what they didn’t know was that Lu Ran could identify its origins the moment he received it. The Eye of Detection didn’t care for secrecy.

After getting his hands on the awakening resource, Lu Ran did some research and found out that the Golden-Horned Rhino Ox was a rare beast on the brink of extinction. Their numbers were incredibly low.

Although the swordgrass’ habitat overlapped with the Golden-Horned Rhino Ox’s territory, it was still difficult for swordgrass without intelligence to actually kill one. The only real chance was when a Rhino Ox mistakenly ate the swordgrass, leading to its tongue getting sliced off.

On the Divine Tree Continent, the Golden-Horned Rhino Oxen were nearly wiped out, but it seemed that the Swordgrass Clan had managed to raise a small number, ensuring that their swordgrass could still awaken intelligence.

“Three amplification cards... I’ll save one for this blood vial to awaken the swordgrass. But that can wait. For now, I’ll use them on Captain Doofus and Sudden Death King, boosting them to level 40. It won’t take long before I get three more amplification cards anyway.”

Lu Ran’s main objective for this return trip was to get Captain Doofus and Sudden Death King to level 40, and then re-enter an ascension realm. As for Baby Cloud, he wanted to push its level to as high as possible. However, he wasn’t in a rush to fuse its third trait, at least not until the Evolution Secret Realm’s cooldown ended.

For now, just unlocking a second trait or awakening a new attribute would be fine. The actual evolution could wait until the Evolution Secret Realm reopened.

“Later, I’ll exchange resources for crystal coins. Then, I’ll use those crystal coins to train the normal crows and see how much I can push their Legion Form. As for leveling resources for Captain Doofus and the others... I’ll handle that with amplification cards.

“Now, I just need to wait for Fang Lan to finish selecting her vicious plant. She entered the secret realm two days after me... It shouldn’t take too long, right?”

Just as Lu Ran was going over his plans, a faint but powerful dragon aura swept through the air.

It wasn’t as pure as Sudden Death King’s dragon aura, but its strength was far greater than Sudden Death King’s. The sea surface shimmered with a blue light.

Moments later, an enormous dragon burst from the ocean, sending water droplets scattering in all directions as it soared into the sky. It coiled in the clouds, its massive head emerging from the mist. A woman, dressed in a black skin-tight wetsuit that perfectly outlined her figure, sat on top of the dragon.

She removed her glasses, flicked water droplets from her hair, and smiled. “It’s been over a month, Lu Ran.”

“Dr. Gu, you got here fast. Oh? It finally reached level 60?” Lu Ran said as he tilted his head.

He examined the Azure Sea Dragon carefully. Sure enough, it had reached level 60.

“

RAWR!

”

The Azure Sea Dragon let out an imposing growl, but its expression was unusually friendly.

It wasn’t acting dignified at all because it knew that Lu Ran was an expert in Dragon Cuisine.

“Yeah. Unfortunately, only this one reached level 60. The other two in its team are still lagging behind.”

Lu Ran reassured her by saying, “You still have a whole year. The Stellar Moon Federation has limited resources, but over here, things are different. Now that more beastmasters are entering the Heavenly Familiar Ranking, we’ll soon have an endless supply of rare resources. Leveling up should become a lot easier.”

As Gu Qingyi rested her chin on her hand, she examined Lu Ran and his decently toned physique in his swimwear. “You’re practicing swimming, huh?”

Feeling flustered, Lu Ran quickly put on his Undead Robe.

“

Ahem

, give me just one more day. I’ll be fully adapted to underwater movement by then.”

He coughed awkwardly, his face slightly flushed.

“You know, I could just do this on my own. Using Super Beast Mimicry to gain a Water-attribute familiar’s underwater survival ability does let you move freely underwater, but if you get caught in a battle, it’ll still be dangerous. Most of the deep sea has distorted spatial fields, making Limitless City teleportation unreliable,” Gu Qingyi said.

“It’s not just about me. It’s about that turtle I mentioned on the phone earlier. It was captured by the Merfolk Kingdom, and now that the Merfolk Kingdom is at war with Dragon Palace, I’m worried about its safety. I want to track it down,” Lu Ran replied.

“The ocean is massive. Finding a single creature is like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Gu Qingyi pointed out.

“We’ll take it slow then. Right now, Dark Crow is working hard to scout,” Lu Ran said casually, turning to face Green Sea.

For an ordinary beastmaster, finding a specific creature in the deep sea was nearly impossible. But he was different. Dark Crow could use the Eye of the Evil Go to cast its gaze deep into the ocean—even across entire seabeds.

Even though the process strained its eyes, with the Broken Horn of the Divine Deer, he could just heal them afterward. As long as he could pinpoint Mystic Turtle’s location, he had the strength to bring it back. And this time, he’d make sure it wasn’t captured again. Letting it wander alone for this long already made him feel guilty.

“Alright, I’ll help you. Are you going to continue practicing then? My baby familiar specifically skipped a meal for this.” She teased Lu Ran while smirking.

“Let’s go! We’re heading back!” Lu Ran blurted out immediately.

***

Once they arrived at his place, Lu Ran’s first priority was feeding Dr. Gu. Only after that would he prepare meals for his familiars.

“WHAT?”

While they were at Lu Ran’s house, Dr. Gu casually asked about his experience in the ascension realm. Then, thanks to a nosy cat, she nearly spat out her juice.

“Y-You said... a ruin space?”

“Yeah. Which means my safety level has greatly increased. If I ever run into danger, I can just hide inside the ruin space,” Lu Ran replied from the kitchen, the sound of stir-frying filling the air.

This was another use for the ruin space. The holder could enter it themselves. Lu Ran had already tested this. Even inside the ruin space, he could still teleport to Limitless City, which meant that escaping danger had never been easier.

Gu Qingyi was in a daze as she was still trying to process the information.

Meanwhile, Manager Ying lazily patted her with a paw. “I get how you feel. But honestly, it’s fine. At least he didn’t bring back a Legendary Divine Beast cub or something.”

“Mm...” Gu Qingyi reluctantly nodded.

I guess it’s acceptable...

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Although Lu Ran wasn’t the first person to bring back an Epic-grade artifact from an ascension realm, in terms of quality, the Tree Monarch’s Ruin Space was probably the best of the best. If Lu Ran had been a first generation, things would have been different. With his Limitless City treatment, the Stellar Moon Federation might have had an absolute surprise.

Unfortunately, after Blue Planet learned that the World War involved Legendary opponents, hopes of the second, third, or fourth generations rising quickly were crushed. Even the first generations were under immense pressure. After all, not a single first-generation beastmaster had reached level 6 yet.

“Food’s ready!”

Lu Ran brought out a simple ten-dish meal with soup.

Once everything was set, the two humans and one cat settled down to talk about Lu Ran’s next level 3 Legendary Secret Realm.

“I haven’t decided yet. But I’m probably going to pick a Light or Dark-attribute Legendary Realm,” Lu Ran admitted.

Choosing an ascension realm meant picking rare attributes. Lu Ran’s main focus was Weather Sprite. If Manager Ying couldn’t find a suitable trait for it in the short run, then he’d have to gamble on the secret realm.

Awakening the Light attribute in it would further enhance the Weather Sprite’s speed. Awakening the Dark attribute would allow it to develop a new weather ability to support Dark Crow’s legion. Honestly, from a Blue Planet perspective, Lu Ran had no idea what kind of powerful Light or Dark clouds could exist.

But the Weather Sprite wasn’t a Blue Planet creature. It was a species from the Stellar Moon Continent’s Elemental Era. For all he knew, another world might have some weird and exotic weather elements. Since its Adaptive Transformation Talent allowed it to change freely, Lu Ran was confident enough to experiment with rare attributes.

“Light or Dark, huh..." Gu Qingyi picked up a bite of food.

Just as she was about to say something, a loud shout echoed from outside.

“My King! My King! I found General Mystic Turtle’s coordinates! But... something’s wrong! It’s surrounded by dragons. I think it’s inside Dragon Palace! I got spotted before I could investigate deeper—AAAHH! MY EYES!"