Chapter 109 — The Greenfluff Worm's Airborne Tactics
The Beast-Taming Craftsman Page 1 of 4
After that, Shi Jin squeezed in one more last-minute cram session over the noon hour.
By afternoon, he hoisted his beloved little backpack onto his shoulders and set off for the examination site.
Inside the beast-taming space, Eleven was shadowboxing, raring to go.
Buggy conjured up a "fight hard" headband and resolved to give it everything.
Because Shi Jin had declared: fail this year's written test, and they'd do nothing but drill for the next twelve months.
A whole year of practice papers, then wait for next year's assessment.
"Eep..." "Chirp..." That frightened Eleven and Buggy half to death.
Had they known Shi Tan could be this ruthless, they'd have absolutely buckled down when doing those practice questions!
...
The written test was scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. and run for a full 150 minutes, with early submission permitted.
When Shi Jin arrived outside the examination room, the examinees already present turned to stare at him—their gazes like flashlights, nearly blinding Shi Ying's eyes.
Those looks seemed to say: "Big shot, carry us!"
Shi Jin: "..."
So it was the same batch as Ground No. 10 this morning.
Even the proctors were the same three from the morning.
But why look at him... If this were the third stage—the wilderness trial—he might be able to carry the other examinees on a rampage. But this written test, he honestly couldn't carry anyone, no way...
He could barely save himself. If anyone wanted to cheat, they'd better not copy his answers—otherwise, good luck to them.
"Everyone inside. Sit according to your seat numbers."
Shi Jin had arrived right on time. The chief proctor, Zhuang Ping, stood outside the door and called out to the examinees waiting there.
Shi Jin walked straight into the examination room.
"It's actually pretty spacious."
The examination room had been converted from a battle room—more than enough for a hundred people. After finding his seat, Shi Jin looked up at the mechanical life-form on the ceiling handling surveillance and sank into thought, a faint headache coming on.
This feeling... so familiar.
Like being back in high school... not exactly a fond memory. He'd rather take Eleven and Buggy to challenge another juvenile dragon.
"Suppose an ancient legendary beast tamer with relatively limited access to information faced off against a modern, top-student-type legendary beast tamer—who would have the better odds in a fight?" Pen in hand, Shi Jin found himself curious about this question.
Just how much could all this beast-knowledge actually boost a tamer's strength?
Mastering it would certainly improve a tamer—that much was sure—but quantifying exactly how much was worth pondering.
And then there was the question of whether ancient beast-taming civilizations had their own peculiarities...
Generally speaking, no matter the civilization, things tended to grow more advanced over time.
Yet this world's history was a little strange: there existed a Mythic Era whose people had touched the world's source and its laws.
In that era, mythological creatures roamed freely, wielding the power of every law—undoubtedly the strongest.
And the Totem Era and the Beast-Taming Era were full of ruptures, hiding countless secrets—like that tribe that mastered the two-stage evolution of the Iron-Eating Beast, which looked absurdly powerful.
If only there were a beast that could travel through time and take him to see the ancient days...
"We're handing out the papers now. Everyone, check your test for any issues first, then fill in your information."
While Shi Jin was lost in wild speculation, the examination time arrived, and the three proctors began distributing the papers.
The instant Shi Jin received his test, he didn't fill in his information—he read through all the questions first!
The freebie politics and history questions could wait; what mattered was whether he'd correctly predicted the essay questions on those common beasts...
"Sure enough, there's an essay on the Greenfluff Worm—this round's in the bag!"
"Nobody understands the Greenfluff Worm better than me—"
...
Across the Ancient Capital's various professional assessment sites, the quiet written-test phase had begun.
At that moment, in a conference room of the Ancient Capital Beast Tamers Association, nine master-level beast tamers took their seats one after another.
They were the examiners for the next two stages of the assessment.
The first two tests of the professional assessment existed to screen out examinees whose fundamentals fell short; the real assessment actually began at the third stage.
"Per the Association's requirements, we have a task ahead: combining the results of the first and third stages, select sixteen key seed examinees—special arrangements will be made for them in the final ranking battle."
Among the nine master-level beast tamers, the only middle-aged man who held the title of top-tier beast tamer—Master Qu Li, the chief overseer of this year's professional assessment in the Ancient Capital—spoke up.
"The basic test data from every examination ground has now been compiled. Let us analyze it together."
With that, he pressed the remote, and the conference room's large screen displayed fifty names, spirit beast names, and a set of numerical values.
"These are ranked from highest to lowest according to the energy values detected in the basic test."
"The next sixteen key seed candidates—we will select them from this list."
Once Master Qu Li finished speaking, the assembled master examiners nodded and turned their eyes to the screen.
Then the very first entry made them freeze.
1. Yin Huan.
Beast-taming space grade: Level Two.
Test spirit beast: low-tier monarch race, transcendent-grade Maned Rock Behemoth.
Energy value: 3,991 points.
"Legend Yin's son actually entered this assessment???"
Among the seated examiners, a bald master spoke in astonishment.
"Seems so. Contracting a monarch-race spirit beast at twelve years old—absurd!"
Seeing that surname, seeing that utterly unreasonable spirit beast race, seeing that utterly unreasonable energy value, the whole group of masters was momentarily struck dumb.
Legend Yin had truly poured a fortune into this son of his!
To successfully contract a monarch-race spirit beast before even becoming a professional beast tamer—it seemed this young Yin Huan had perfectly inherited his father's beast-taming space enhancement talent!
"This young lad is indeed remarkable," Master Qu Li nodded. Rumor had it that apart from the Ancient Capital University, the other eight top academies had all contacted Legend Yin early on, hoping his son would come study and train with them.
After the professional assessment, the nine great academies would surely spare no expense to compete for this young Yin Huan...
The boy's talent was indeed terrifying, and he himself was quite curious—if this year's Ancient Capital assessment champion were taken by a twelve-year-old, just how would the outside world react?
In any case, faced with this entry, the examiners could think of no other word but absurd. Among the sixteen key seed candidates, Legend Yin's son certainly had to have a place.
2. Zhang Qianyi.
Beast-taming space grade: Level Three.
Test spirit beast: high-tier commander race, transcendent-grade Thundercloud Sprite.
Energy value: 3,567.
The second name was familiar to many of the examiners.
This girl was a genius from a small city—her parents were not even beast tamers.
Yet she had awakened an exceptionally powerful beast-taming talent: Elemental Coordination.
What made this talent monstrous was that it could ignore energy interference, assisting her spirit beasts in combining moves of different element types and different attributes into powerful combo techniques.
For instance, a thunder-and-fire combo, a light-and-dark combo—not only would nothing go wrong, but the result would be one plus one greater than two!