Chapter 575 - No Breakthrough, Just Playing! (Part 2)

During this process, the other familiars were also assigned training tasks by Lu Ran. For #18, it had to continue replicating food resources to help the other familiars reach level 90. Except for Baby Cloud, none of Lu Ran’s other familiars had reached level 90 yet. Clearly, #18 was just responsible for cooking.

For Six-Path Flower, it was responsible for taking the grass element core that Baby Cloud didn’t want, absorbing it to strengthen itself, adapting to the stronger monarchic power, and expanding its domain range on Blue Planet.

For Baby Cloud, Lu Ran threw Captain Doofus’ new sword to it for cultivation, telling Baby Cloud to quickly cultivate the Nine-Colored Stone Sword to level 90.

As for Dark Crow and Sudden Death King, they were to cooperate with Lu Ran in cultivating the soul evolution skill.

As for Captain Doofus, it was a monstrous talent. Leveraging its heaven-defying comprehension, several major energy techniques like energy acceleration, projection, formation, and compression had all been cultivated to the third stage. It was strong in all aspects without any flaws.

Lu Ran decided to let it roam free. He wouldn’t give Captain Doofus fixed training content, leaving it entirely to its own comprehension to evolve. This often brought Lu Ran some surprises.

In the dark, starry sky, while researching soul evolution and cultivating new soul clones, Lu Ran planned his future path and the third-stage evolution of his familiars.

“After reaching Epic Legendary, I can learn a new beastmaster skill. During my month of travel in the Stellar Moon Continent, the Tree Monarch sought me out. During this time, she conquered all the Mythical secret realms in Stellar Moon, dropping many top-tier skills for me to choose from. Ultimately, I took this one.”

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

[Name: Beastmaster Skill Card (Scapegoat)]

[Description: Beastmasters who cultivate this skill can, upon their own death, sacrifice the life of one contracted familiar to resurrect themselves. After resurrection, depending on the quality of the sacrificed familiar, the beastmaster’s attributes will suffer a certain decline and weakness.]

“I chose this one because it can form a perfect combination with a skill card I obtained from my first challenge of a Mythical secret realm.”

[Name: Beastmaster Skill Card (Guardian’s Contract)]

[Effect: As long as the beastmaster does not die, the contracted familiar possesses undying vitality, making it extremely difficult to kill. If the beastmaster dies in battle, the familiar will showcase ten times its combat power, crushing all enemies. However, afterward, the familiar will bear corresponding strain.]

“The final secret realm is different from other realms, as the danger is extremely high. Death. I could really die. Even with Life Link, additional insurance is still needed. Thus, the Guardian’s Contract, which I hadn’t learned before, becomes the best choice. The most important point is that if the beastmaster dies in battle, the familiar will showcase ten times its combat power.

“I can’t truly die in battle, but if I learn Scapegoat, I can then contract two soul clones to act as scapegoats! If the situation turns dire, I can feign death, stimulating the combat power of all familiars. This might become a key moment to turn the tide. Then, I can resurrect via Scapegoat. I wonder if this bug exploit would allow the tenfold combat power to take effect.

“But regardless of whether the bug exploit works, Scapegoat and Guardian’s Contract are both for extra protection for challenging the final secret realm. As for combat power, exclusive soul evolution should be sufficient.”

Lu Ran thought for a long time. For the eighth and ninth skill slots, he decided to focus on survival. Only by staying alive could he inflict damage. He had pretty much arranged things on his end, unless he obtained even better beastmaster skills later.

As for the third-stage evolution of the familiars, Captain Doofus still lacked one trait. Lu Ran was still working hard to find a suitable one for it.

For Sudden Death King, the Sun-Moon Fusion trait was ready, but a suitable cultivation direction hadn’t been chosen yet. Sudden Death King’s Dragon attribute was almost entirely covered by the Lightning attribute, and its Star attribute was basically covered by the Rock attribute.

These two attributes weren’t compatible, so they couldn’t be evolved or fused through Sun-Moon Fusion. Lu Ran planned to take his time with Sudden Death King’s evolution. He intended to search for Sudden Death King’s third-stage evolution opportunity while seeking the Primary Divine encounter for #18 in the timeline of the Mechanical Era.

This was simply because the Mechanical Era was the peak of Stellar Moon’s aerospace exploration. Beyond the Stellar Moon World, many rare stars had already been developed by the Republic during the Mechanical Era and were destroyed in that great war.

That era must have had stars that could satisfy Sudden Death King, allowing it to cultivate its Dragon and Star attributes into compatible attributes for it to consume. The third-stage evolution trait for Dark Crow was also ready.

[Super Trait Crystal (Death Sacrifice): Familiars fused with this trait can sacrifice their own vitality. The closer their state is to death after sacrifice, the stronger the sacrificed vitality, and the more immense the soul power becomes.]

This was a super trait crystal obtained from the world war. Super trait crystals were generally very powerful. In Lu Ran’s team, if one had to say which familiar relied most on soul power, it was definitely Dark Crow. The core of its Spiritual Speech was soul power, the soul of language.

If it fuses this trait, then accompanied by the undying vitality of Guardian’s Contract and Six-Path Flower’s Life Link, it would have endless vitality to sacrifice. The effect of Spiritual Speech could be unleashed to the fullest.

Baby Cloud had already undergone third-stage evolution, while Six-Path Flower lacked the most traits for its third-stage evolution. #18 had a similar case, still lacking 2 traits.

Lu Ran already had several trait candidates—traits dropped from level 8 and level 9 Hell secret realms. If no more suitable ones appeared as the familiar evolution approached, and if Limitless City didn’t update new secret realms, Lu Ran planned to choose from the trait crystals dropped in ordinary secret realms.

“I should evolve Dark Crow first in the next ascension realm. However, in this ascension realm, I can only complete the legendary mission, not the ascension mission. Otherwise, I would break through to Mythical and wouldn’t be able to enter ascension realms again. That would mean I couldn’t enter the ancient Blue Planet or the Mechanical Era.

“This time, I need to control myself. Before I get enough resources for every familiar to step into the Primary-Divine level, I absolutely will not level up to Mythical. I’ll just go to various ascension realms to play around and farm for resources.”

Lu Ran’s next ascension realm was the era where evil gods ran rampant. Based on his archaeological chat with the Ghost Mother, he somewhat summarized the timeline.

At the end of the empire, it faced internal and external troubles. Among them, the evil god faction was a major external enemy of the empire. This situation had persisted for a long time. However, before the evil god faction could destroy the empire, the Wishful-Dream God awoke, and the empire was destroyed by the Dream God.

Although the empire fell, it didn’t mean the human race disappeared. After the empire’s fall, the continent instantly fell into extreme chaos. Humans returned to a state where they relied on sects, families, and various martial clans for warmth.

Due to the Dream God’s presence, no one dared to rebuild the empire. This state gave the evil god faction an opportunity. Although the imperial family in the late empire was incompetent, it could at least unite most forces to resist external enemies. Now, with everyone operating independently, humans were no match for the outsiders.

The evil god faction’s expansion speed doubled. Countless humans became slaves. It was at this time that the Ghost Mother felt the evil gods had overstepped.

The evil gods wanted to get through to the Primary-Divine level by expanding their evil god kin and faith, but if this continued, all species on the continent would become evil, affecting the ecological niche. Hence, the Ghost Mother eventually sealed the evil gods, cutting off their path to Primary Divine.

If there was anything interesting about this era, it was the birth of humanity’s second Mythical being, the Mythical beastmaster, Jiyuan.

Although his identity was kept a secret, through his kin, Lu Ran had figured it out. He was a genius born among the rebellion army, the resistance force during the late empire, the son of the first rebellion army leader.

He eventually achieved Mythical and became the new leader of the rebellion army. His talent suppressed his generation, even breaking through the limitations of the beast gods.

However, since the empire had already fallen, to avoid provoking the Dream God for the time being, the rebellion army did not immediately establish a country but renamed itself “Beastmaster Lodge.” It operated on the continent in the form of a sect, acting as the leader of humans.

When Lu Ran entered the ascension realm of the Plant Era, the identity Limitless City arranged for him was a disciple of the ancient beastmaster force, the Beastmaster Lodge. This Beastmaster Lodge was actually the rebellion army transformed into a sect.

However, although Lu Ran had used the Beastmaster Lodge’s identity, he didn’t actually like this guy. Even though he was also an enemy of the Chaos Dragon God, Lu Ran had no intention of resurrecting this Mythical beastmaster.

It was because he learned from his kin that the Undead Cult he had once joined was destroyed by the Beastmaster Lodge. Compared to the Beastmaster Lodge, Lu Ran obviously had deeper feelings for the Undead Cult.

The Undead Cult had always had a bad reputation on the Stellar Moon Continent. It was said that it was eventually destroyed by the Beastmaster Lodge, the leader of the human beastmaster forces. However, Lu Ran hadn’t forgotten his identity as the Holy Son of the Undead Cult.

If he encountered the Mythical beastmaster this time, Lu Ran was more inclined to get rid of him, considering it revenge for the Undead Cult.

Resurrection? Impossible. I might as well resurrect the undead master. As long as the timeline is chosen well, perhaps there’s a chance to meet again. The legendary mission resurrection opportunity can be saved for the undead master!

Lu Ran thought.