Chapter 34 - Worse Than a Dog

After stomping around like Godzilla, Captain Doofus collapsed on the ground like it was dead and went completely limp.

Lu Ran had to admit that the Divine Deer Pendant was very dependable. Under its golden green light, Captain Doofus, who was originally in so much pain that it didn't even have the strength to make a sound, underwent a rapid change.

Originally it was gritting its teeth, but now it was so relaxed that it almost appeared intoxicated.

"Woo..."

A few seconds later, Captain Doofus stretched its legs and flicked its ears. Then, it stood up excitedly while exuding vitality.

It was a complete recovery!

"

Awoo~!"

Captain Doofus furiously wagged its tail. It was willing to eat an Overflow Fruit before every battle going forward!

Lu Ran put away the trusty Divine Deer Pendant.

"All you think about is eating. Those fruits cost money, you know! Can you at least give me some feedback? How are you feeling? Do you remember how you felt after eating it?"

"Woof!"

Captain Doofus frowned and closed its eyes in an attempt to remember.

Hmm... It felt like getting blow-dried after a bath.

The next instant, a sky-blue energy wrapped around Captain Doofus, and a shocking scene unfolded. The energy began to become increasingly violent and started to tremble. Then, without warning, it erupted into a powerful gust of wind, which, like the earlier energy shroud, completely engulfed Captain Doofus!

Captain Doofus’ eyes opened wide. It successfully achieved energy acceleration!

Lu Ran was caught by surprise.

As this happened, Captain Doofus’ contract card, which had just been updated due to the upgrade, changed once again!

[Species: Husky]

[Attribute: Wind]

[Species Rank: Intermediate-Transcendent]

[Level: 5]

[Skills:

- Haste: Wind energy circulates at high speed around the user, enhancing both attack and movement speed.

- Sword Qi]

"Dang, Captain Doofus, you are my favorite dog!"

Seeing Captain Doofus’s display and the changes on the contract card, Lu Ran was ecstatic.

Now he finally understood why his teachers liked him so much. It was because he was a genius and could learn anything! He experienced the joys of a teacher because Captain Doofus was just like his younger self. Captain Doofus learned everything he wanted it to learn.

This felt amazing. In Lu Ran's opinion, strong comprehension was much more satisfying than having innate strength.

"Awoo~!"

Captain Doofus had a smug expression on its face.

It was too easy!

However, in the next moment, Captain Doofus' smug face quickly turned into one of horror when Lu Ran hugged its head and kissed it.

"Woof, woof, woof, woof!"

Captain Doofus broke free.

"Good job, keep working hard!"

Lu Ran was excited.

Very good. Captain Doofus now has two basic skills. Haste, derived from Acceleration, and Sword Qi, derived from the Cascading Wind Sword and Projection.

These two basic skills combined should be considered an advanced skill, right?

Rapid-fire sword qi... Hurricane Sword Qi?

Lu Ran scratched his chin and looked at Captain Doofus.

"Take a break. We will practice with moving targets later to increase your accuracy with sword qi."

"Woof."

Captain Doofus was indifferent.

It should be just like catching a frisbee, right?

Just like that, a week went by. It was a week that was both fulfilling and tedious for the duo. During this time, they had clearly undergone a transformation!

To start off, Captain Doofus reached level six!

Lu Ran had previously wondered how Captain Doofus reached level five so quickly, and it should have been due to the combined benefits of the Wind Fruit and the Overflow Fruit.

The Overflow Fruit seemed to be able to rapidly stimulate untapped potential absorbed through food and use it to fuel growth. With a week's worth of top-quality food and four Overflow Fruits, Captain Doofus was able to quickly reach level six on the fifth day.

Although it hadn’t caught up with first-tier fourth-generation familiars, it was about to. Upon reaching level six, its physique grew stronger, and it could generate more wind energy. Most importantly, it became more handsome and looked more like a wolf. It appeared that Captain Doofus' bloodline was very pure.

After eating five Overflow Fruits, Captain Doofus also gained a deeper understanding of energy acceleration. Compared to other Wind-attribute familiars, its Haste skill was more potent and controlled. The only trade-off was a bit of damage!

That was about it. As for Formation and Compression, Captain Doofus had a good understanding, but Lu Ran didn’t rush it to learn them. He let it focus on Acceleration and Projection first. Sometimes, more was less.

For seven days, Captain Doofus' daily routine started with destroying part of the training secret realm, leaving it in tatters. Then, in the wreckage, it did agility training. Following that, Lu Ran would hurl rocks as moving targets, helping Captain Doofus refine its accuracy with sword qi.

After a week of this, Captain Doofus' proficiency with Haste and sword qi improved greatly, much to Lu Ran’s satisfaction.

During this time, Lu Ran didn't go out much. He even ate and drank in his private room because he was too engrossed in training. He couldn’t slack off while Captain Doofus was working hard. He trained his physique by using his beastmaster skill to mimic Captain Doofus’. Before, he didn't feel anything because of the short exposure, but Lu Ran's physical fitness had doubled after a week.

He threw a rock, and it cleared a distance of two to three hundred meters at an astonishing speed. If he lightly jumped, he could’ve easily broken a world record, and a single punch had the power to kill a bull!

Lu Ran could enter a very special state by holding the Wind Slashing Sword. He could concentrate his spirit and drastically change his aura. While Captain Doofus was training with Lu Ran, its expression was very tense, as if Lu Ran had turned into a beast. It was struck with fear. This made Lu Ran think that he had at least achieved an initial mastery of Super Beast Mimicry and could now better protect himself in secret realms.

These, however, were actually not Lu Ran’s biggest gains. His biggest gain was that the Super Beast Mimicry 2.0 he wanted to develop actually made progress. Using telepathy, Lu Ran reverse-engineered the original Super Beast Mimicry and successfully conveyed his insights to Captain Doofus.

It seemed to have begun learning an ability similar to the sword momentum Lu Ran mastered, which was a manifestation of spiritual and mental will.

Sword momentum was the force, intent, and aura that a swordsman could transmit through his sword techniques. Momentum was real, especially in certain professions. For example, vicious bandits could scare people with a look by exhibiting an immature manifestation of sword momentum.

Lu Ran’s swordsmanship master once told him that in the past, many sword masters could practice sword momentum, but nowadays, there were only a few such masters left.

Lu Ran asked his master if he had mastered it. The master just smiled and told Lu Ran to work hard, that with his talent, he might be able to master it one day.

Right after that, Lu Ran left for a vacation in Hawaii with his father to learn shooting, which infuriated the old man.

Thinking back to this conversation, Lu Ran wondered if it was because Super Beast Mimicry changed his aura, gradually aligning it more with that of a beast, that he could wield sword momentum. Combined with his sword techniques, could this have resulted in a bestial sword momentum?

Well, that didn’t actually matter. No matter what, it was a good thing and made him stronger.

"That's all for today!"

After he collided fiercely with Captain Doofus, Lu Ran dropped his Wind Slashing Sword and stretched his numb arms.

"Ao."

Captain Doofus nodded.

Lu Ran trained with Captain Doofus to hone its strength control.

Since there was a risk of Lu Ran getting hurt if it wasn't careful, Captain Doofus exercised extreme caution, achieving 200% concentration. To put it bluntly, this made Captain Doofus into Lu Ran's punching bag.

"Let's go get food."

Lu Ran took Captain Doofus out of the training secret realm and headed out of his room. They had gone through all their food already and needed to go shopping again. Previously, Lu Ran bought enough food to feed Captain Doofus for half a month, but it only lasted a week.

This actually happened for a really simple reason: When Captain Doofus was eating, Lu Ran couldn't resist the impulse to taste it himself and found out that it was quite delicious.

To better mimic Captain Doofus and further develop Super Beast Mimicry, he ate the same food as Captain Doofus. This meant that he didn't need to separately prepare food for himself, killing two birds with one stone.

Maybe this was also part of the reason why Super Beast Mimicry progressed so well?

What the familiar ate, the beastmaster also ate! They ate together, slept together, bathed together, and trained together!

Besides cosplaying as husky and lying on the floor, Lu Ran did everything he could. If he took it any further, he felt that even Captain Doofus would look at him differently, and he wouldn’t be able to endure the embarrassment.

[Pig farmer: Hey, Pedestrian A, are you there?]

Before leaving, Lu Ran checked his messages. For the past week, Fang Lan, his resentful sister, handled his external affairs, and the two of them were in frequent contact. Between the two of them, one of them camped out in the arena, and the other was training in the secret realm. They had completely different styles.

[Pedestrian A: What's up?]

Lu Ran remembered that the last time he talked to Pig Farmer was when Captain Doofus made the rankings.

[Pig farmer: Um... I’m taking the guild assessment the day after tomorrow. Can you be my sparring partner? I won’t make you do it for free and will pay you in crystal coins.]

Pig Farmer’s plan was very simple. Lu Ran was like a big brother to him who was on the Heavenly Familiar Rankings and also close to his level, making Lu Ran the most suitable sparring partner for him.

[Pedestrian A: Why don’t you find an opponent in the arena?]

[Pig Farmer: Recently, there haven't been many people in the rookie arena. There is also that Five Poisons Saintess who camps there every day. She is very fierce. I was unlucky enough to get matched with her twice. Both times, my boar lost because it was poisoned. After the fight, not only did I have to buy medicine for its injuries, but I also had to buy antidotes. It was a hefty monetary loss. So, like me, a lot of rookies are unwilling to go there anymore.]

Lu Ran: (－‸ლ)

[Pedestrian A: Is she that strong?]

Pig Farmer was traumatized.

[Pig Farmer: Very strong. She took your spot on the Heavenly Familiar Ranking. Didn't you see that she is now sixth? Even some familiars that were more powerful than her spider couldn’t resist its poison. Long story short, there is little point in fighting her since it’s impossible to encounter a poisonous familiar in the guild assessment.]

Lu Ran was happy. He knew that Fang Lan had squeezed him out of the rankings recently. Fang Lan had come by to show off, but Lu Ran was focused on training, and the rankings were still far from final, so he didn't pay attention to them.

However, this venomous woman was actually ranked sixth now? It seems that I underestimated that odd-colored wolf spider.

[Pedestrian A: Lol, so, you want to challenge my husky because you can't beat the spider. If it turns out that you can’t beat me, then wouldn’t your wild boar be weaker than dogs and bugs?]

[Pig farmer: ??? ]

Why didn't he realize that Pedestrian A had such a sharp tongue? He was adding insult to injury.