Chapter 541 - Peak Perfection of Quasi-Epic Rank

Lu Ran didn’t have any plans for Lu Yao as of yet, but it seemed like the Tree Monarch already had her greedy eyes on it. Perhaps it sensed a disturbance in the force, but the Divine Deer appeared on the horizon right on cue.

As it approached, Lu Yao sensed the aura of its mother and jumped off the swing to look up into the sky. Lu Ran and Tree Monarch turned to look in the same direction. The Divine Deer galloped through the air with green ripples marking each step as it descended onto the ground. Although many people saw it arrive, they kept their distance, knowing that it probably had some business with Lu Ran.

"Lord Divine Deer, you're back. Any word of the Divine Tree?"

"I've personally handed the World Fruit to the Divine Tree’s guardians. According to them, the World Fruit will be very helpful for the Divine Tree. In fact, it should reawaken in the next ten days."

"Ten days..." Tree Monarch’s eyes lit up.

The Divine Tree's reawakening meant the Flower God's revival was also imminent. She had long anticipated reuniting with the Flower God again.

"Does that mean we’ll be returning to Stellar Moon in ten days?" Tree Monarch asked.

Lu Ran nodded.

"Ten days? It’ll be a little tight, but we should be able to make it work. Senior Tree Monarch, let's give it our all so I can try to reach Quasi-Epic before leaving."

Tree Monarch’s face dropped.

Quasi-Epic? He wants to reach the peak of the Legendary rank in the next 10 days?

"Lord Divine Deer, you got back just in the nick of time. Although the Tree Monarch’s familiars have healing abilities, none of them can compare to you. Can you please help look after Dark Crow for a few days?"

"I’m just here to give you an update.”

The Divine Deer didn’t know how to respond at first, but decided to give him some face since he was doing his best to improve for the sake of fighting the Beast God. Since it wasn’t going to fight next to Lu Ran on the frontlines, the least it could do was heal his familiars.

***

Since he only had ten days, Lu Ran increased his training intensity. For the first three days, with the Divine Deer's support, Dark Crow gouged out its eyes at an even greater speed than before. Even the creator of the War Soldier trait couldn’t have imagined the degree to which Dark Crow would exploit the ability.

In a very short period of time, Dark Crow amassed a hundred crow soldiers. This meant that it had sacrificed a hundred of its eyes. At its current level, its eyes were undoubtedly Epic-grade items.

As such, each of the soldiers it spawned was a level 80 Superior Overlord. They also had the Spiritual Speech attribute to boot. Ordinary Superior Overlords of the same level weren’t a match for them.

When combined with the hundred-thousand-strong Poison Crow Legion, whose average level was in the fifties, Dark Crow’s maximum power reached a completely new level. It was enough to boost it to level 100.

Just the crow soldiers were enough to carry it up to level 96, indicating how powerful they were. The best part was that the soldier could be brought into secret realms. This gave them what they needed to beat a Mythical secret realm.

Lu Ran naturally wouldn't pass up this opportunity to farm some more resources, so he quickly entered the Yellow Mountain secret realm.

[Name: Yellow Mountain Secret Realm]

[Recommended Level: 7-9]

[Difficulty: Mythical]

[Secret Realm Description: On Yellow Mountain, resides a flock of parrots with green feathers and a red beak that could speak human languages. Amongst them, there is a divine creature called the Sonic Parrot.

It is talented in both singing and speaking, which allowed it to create the Sonic attribute. The attribute gave it a set of unique and powerful abilities.]

[Sonic Parrot: Low-Legendary species of the same level as the challenger.]

This secret realm was obviously perfect for Dark Crow. Although the Sonic Parrot put up a good fight, it still fell before Dark Crow and its army. The rewards were quite a boon for Lu Ran.

[Congratulations on obtaining an Epic amplification card!]

[Congratulations on obtaining the Epic resource, Parrot Egg (An egg laid by one of the Sonic Parrot’s concubines. Once hatched, the chick will possess the Sonic Parrot’s bloodline and be a Wind-attribute Quasi-Legendary.)]

[Congratulations on obtaining the trait crystal: Parrot (There is a chance for the user to imitate and learn a skill by observing it. Skills copied are not restrained by attributes or species. Success rate depends on the user’s comprehension ability.)]

[Congratulations on obtaining the beastmaster skill: Encouraging Voice (Imbues the beastmaster’s voice with powers that can provide buffs to their familiars. For instance, if a familiar is unconscious, then the beastmaster can say “stand up” to wake it up.]

[Congratulations on obtaining the Legendary-grade enhancement resource: Sonic Parrot’s tongue (The tongue of the Legendary Sonic creature, the Sonic Parrot. It’s tender, delicious, and highly nutritious. For creatures proficient in sound-based skills, it gives the user powers of the Sonic attribute to increase the destructiveness of their attacks.)]

Lu Ran found the Parrot trait to be especially amazing. The Sonic Parrot’s tongue was also quite a rare find. Although the Sonic attribute appeared to be inferior to the Spirit Speech attribute, they both had their own advantages.

The Sonic attribute maximized the power of sound waves and could even utilize natural phenomena such as thunder and vibrations. In contrast, Spirit Speech placed more emphasis on skills. If Dark Crow could awaken and combine the two attributes, then its speech-based abilities would be greatly enhanced. Even if that didn’t work, the Sonic Parrot’s tongue alone was enough to help Dark Crow grow stronger.

Next was Baby Cloud’s turn to challenge a Mythic secret realm. After several days, Baby Cloud had already digested nine Epic calamity cores. If it weren’t level-capped, then it would’ve definitely gone past level 80.

When digesting the various calamities, Baby Cloud managed to master a hundredfold energy compression. This allowed its elemental powers to undergo a qualitative change.

For Baby Cloud, Lu Ran chose the Taotie Mythic secret realm. Lu Ran’s team had already become familiar with the Taotie, having killed it once already during their ascension realm. The only issue was that the resources they received all went to Manager Ying. Lu Ran needed the Taotie’s various abilities, such as its strong digestive capabilities, to realize his plans for Baby Cloud.

In the near future, his plan was to enter his ascension realm and look for the four Supreme Divine Dragons in the Elemental Era. While doing so, he would inevitably clash with the elemental gods that reigned over that era.

The fastest and easiest way for elemental beings to level up was by consuming natural forces corresponding to their own attributes. Baby Cloud consuming calamities was a prime example of this. Elemental gods technically could be considered a calamity since they were capable of unleashing devastating natural disasters.

If Baby Cloud could eat the nine Low-Legegendary elemental gods, then even Lu Ran couldn’t imagine how far Baby Cloud could rise in the future. Such things were common for that era. Every elemental god rose by fighting and devouring other powerful elementals.

Right now, Baby Cloud was still struggling to devour the Epic calamity cores. Its current digestive ability wasn't strong enough, and Lu Ran’s Time Acceleration skill wasn’t strong enough to support it without help from Manager Ying and Tree Monarch. This meant the only solution was to hunt down the Taotie.

Searching for the Divine Dragons was very important, but that didn’t mean he should pass up the opportunity to further evolve his familiar.

In the Taotie secret realm, Baby Cloud was engaged in a heated battle. Taotie's power was centered around its ability to consume anything. This, unfortunately, included Baby Clouds' attacks. It didn’t even need its mouth to do so. It could absorb the attacks directly through its skin.

The only thing in Baby Cloud’s favor was its rapid attack speed. It fired dozens of bombs every second, which was overwhelming even for the Taotie, but it wasn’t enough to turn the tide.

In the end, Lu Ran had to step in. Baby Cloud shape-shifted into the Nine-Attribute Calamity Sword, and once Lu Ran infused it with his sword intent along with various support skills, they launched a unified attack against the Taotie’s soul.

After all that effort, they were finally able to win. While it didn’t go as smoothly as Dark Crow’s secret realm challenge, they still managed to get everything they needed.

[Congratulations on obtaining an Epic amplification card!]

[Congratulations on obtaining the Epic resource, Jar of Magical Sauce (A sauce created by the Taotie that is crafted from hundreds of seasonings. It can transform even the most unpalatable food into a delicacy.]

[Congratulations on obtaining the trait crystal: Bottomless Stomach (Allows the user to have a bottomless appetite without causing a burden on the user’s body.)]

[Congratulations on obtaining the beastmaster skill: Gluttony (Allows the beastmaster to enhance their familiars through eating. Contracted familiars will be able to get twice the nutritional value from anything they eat.)]

[Congratulations on obtaining the Legendary-grade enhancement resource: Taotie’s Stomach (After consumption, the user is inflicted with a period of ravenous hunger that could only be alleviated with excessive eating. Insufficient nutritional intake can lead to death.

However, during this period, the user’s digestion and nutrient conversion abilities reach Legendary grade, allowing even Legendary resources to be perfectly metabolized. Surviving the ravenous phase grants Legendary-grade attribute boosts based on what was consumed.)]

With this fight under their belt, #18 was the only one of Lu Ran’s familiars that had yet to challenge a Legendary or Mythical realm. This was because it was still missing a suitable heroic spirit. During their upcoming trip to the Stellar Moon Federation, he hoped to find it a new grunt.

Clearing two Mythical secret realms also landed Lu Ran a sizable sum of crystal coins. This led to a huge shopping spree. With all the Epic-grade food they could ask for, it was no surprise that Captain Doofus and Sudden Death King easily reached level 80.

"That should be enough, right?"

"Yeah."

With Lu Ran’s prep work completed, the Divine Deer and Tree Monarch’s familiar were finally free to go.

"We still have a little time left. Is there anything else that you wanted to do?" the exhausted Divine Deer asked.

"Well, I want to take a look up there before heading to Stellar Moon." Lu Ran pointed up at the moon. He wanted to find some more information on aliens while having his familiars undergo a final tempering.

"Alright, off you go then."

The Tree Monarch sighed. Helping Lu Ran’s familiars level up was one of the most tiring things she had ever done.

She was actually fine since her familiars did most of the heavy lifting. She was mostly focused on raising the new familiar Lu Ran gifted her.

Since there weren't many good partners to choose from at first, Lu Ran used the forbidden Elemental Life Creation Device to help create a giant Grass-attribute slime for the Tree Monarch to contract using her Apprentice contract card.

She was quite intrigued by the slime and had been taking it to challenge Hell-difficulty level 8 and 9 secret realms. The newborn Grass slime had a hard time facing off against the enemies in the level 80 and 90 in Hell-difficulty secret realms, but even without a familiar, the Tree Monarch had no problem holding her own, so they didn’t run into any real problems.

With the Tree Monarch’s various beastmaster skills, a Grass slime that wasn’t even level 20 was able to defeat a level 100 Superior-Overlord boss. The Time-attribute was truly overpowered to the point of being unconscionable.

"I'll meet you in Stellar Moon," the Tree Monarch said. "I want to go meet the Flower God. Also, once we beat the beast gods, I’m going to sweep all of Stellar Moon’s Mythical secret realms. I’ll let you know if I find anything good."

"Okay." Lu Ran nodded. "I'll meet you there as soon as possible."

With that, Lu Ran and Tree Monarch went their separate ways under the watchful eye of the Divine Deer.

***

Up on the moon, a Legendary Golden Toad, widely known as the God of Wealth, and a Legendary rabbit, known as the God of Medicine, had been hiding there since the Blue Planet’s Mythological Era. Suddenly, they simultaneously opened their eyes.