Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Something is strange.”
It was the morning three days later.
Mother Wang stared at the green caterpillar that had grown twice its size with a puzzled expression.
It wasn’t that the 20-centimeter green caterpillar was humongous.
The length of an adult’s palm was only 20 centimeters after all, so it could still fit in a palm.
Yet…
Feeling that something was amiss, Mother Wang quickly ran a search online.
“Can a green caterpillar grow up to 20 centimeters in three days?”
The screen was riddled with answers.
“After incubation, a green caterpillar will be about 10 centimetres in length. One centimeter represents a year’s worth of soul power cultivation base. Twenty centimeters is about ten years’ worth of soul power cultivation base.”
“Normally, it can grow up to 20 centimeters in a week or so, with the fastest recorded period being around five days. Please be cautious if you have noticed your green caterpillar growing at an even faster rate, as it could be suffering from a type of terminal illness.”
“Black blood cancer. If a soul pet suffers from this disease, the life force in their blood will be rapidly consumed leading to an abnormal increase in soul power cultivation! It will be difficult to see any symptoms in the short term. When their entire body starts to turn black, that’s a sign of it being in the late stage of this disease. By that point, it will explode and die…”
— Third People’s Hospital of Skyheart City, bug type soul pet specialist Zhang Qishan.
Mother Wang was speechless upon reading this article.
She scrolled down, but could not find any more explanations.
“I was just wondering how the little one could’ve grown to 20 centimeters in just three days… so it must have a terminal illness then…”
Mother Wang immediately closed the webpage.
“This is unreliable…
“Why do you search for such things online?” Father Wang asked. “Isn’t it good that the child is growing so fast? Why do you care about it so much?”
Ignoring his question, Mother Wang lifted the green caterpillar up to study its body, which made it look very awkward.
“Everything seems to be alright…” Mother Wang noted while shaking her head. “However, the child seems to have gotten stronger.”
Father Wang laughed at her comment. “Isn’t that obvious? With the increase in soul power cultivation, the child’s body will definitely be strengthened. Oh, I forgot. You didn’t graduate from high school. Your martial soul didn’t awaken and you didn’t pass a few subjects too. You’ve probably forgotten about it after all these years.”
Mother Wang instantly put down the green caterpillar and started to walk up to him with a spatula in hand.
“Hey, wait, don’t hit me. Honey, I was wrong… I’m the same, I didn’t graduate either!”
Wang Che shook his head while watching the scene in front him and left with the green caterpillar.
“I’m going out to buy something,” Wang Che said.
His parents were indeed suspicious of how the green caterpillar had grown so quickly.
However, seeing as they didn’t pay too much attention to it, Wang Che decided not to say anything.
They didn’t know much about soul pets anyway.
The truth was that Wang Che had been training the green caterpillar intensely for the past three days.
With the use of the White Birch Milk Leaf and the Beast Origin Skill, he could practically increase its soul power cultivation by three years in just one day.
Even by the most extreme standards, that was incredibly fast.
Furthermore, it had also enhanced the caterpillar’s physique greatly, though Wang Che did not know exactly how strong it was now.
I wonder if it can defeat an ordinary person like Dad…
Ordinary people in this world were generally considered to be strong…
“Ten years. It’s supposed to evolve already.”
He turned to look at the green caterpillar in his pocket.
Nevertheless, Wang Che had no intention of letting it evolve.
He had many reasons for that.
For instance, he knew that the green caterpillar’s ten-year evolution was the Green Nether Butterfly, which had a species potential of around 200. It wasn’t a rare soul pet by any means.
Moreover, the soul pet’s vital structure will also change after evolution, making it weaker, which means Wang Che would have to rethink his future plans.
Secondly, the Green Nether Butterfly was not good looking.
It would not suit his taste at all.
Of course, as a sign of respect, Wang Che had shown the caterpillar an example of the Green Nether Butterfly, and asked if it wished to evolve.
It refused.
Ever since the caterpillar saw the majestic dragon drawn by Wang Che three days ago, it had no intention of evolving into something as lowly as the Green Nether Butterfly.
“First, I’ll head to the soul pet market and purchase a Soul Stabilizing Stone. It’ll prevent a soul pet from evolving, and isn’t too expensive either. After that, I’ll visit a nearby training room and test this little one’s physical strength.”
The Soul Stabilizing Stone wasn’t actually a stone so to speak, but a special soul tool.
It wasn’t expensive at all, and besides stopping a soul pet’s evolution, the tool could also be used to stabilize soul power.
Since those were its only functions, a Soul Stabilising Soul was only worth around a few hundred dollars each.
To control the green caterpillar’s soul power and to stop it from evolving uncontrollably, Wang Che quickly went to the nearby soul pet market to buy one of them.
Then, without resting, he went to a nearby soul pet training room.
If Wang Che was to gain a clear understanding of his soul pet’s various stats, his only option was to test it in a special training.
After all, ten years of soul power cultivation was not a simple feat.
‘Green Wood Training Club’
He glanced at the name of the training room before walking in.
“Hello, would you like to train your soul pets?” asked a pretty girl standing at the front desk immediately, as she shot a professional smile at Wang Che.
“No, I want to test the soul pet’s body,” he replied.
The receptionist smiled and asked again, “Yes. Can I know about your soul pet’s soul power cultivation?”
“Ten years.”
“Ten years,” The girl repeated while pondering for a moment. “Are you still a student? If you can show me a student ID, I can give you a 30% discount on training. On top of that, you’ll be able to test the soul pet’s strength, speed, physique, and defense as well.”
“Discount?” Wang Che was stunned. “You give discounts?”
“Yes, for a ten year cultivation soul pet, each test costs only 200 dollars.”
“Alright, I’ll take it,” Wang Che quickly said.
“Yes, please follow me,” the girl instructed politely.
“Wait!”
A voice suddenly shouted from more than ten meters away. When the receptionist turned around, she found a burly, average-looking youth frowning at her. “Why didn’t you tell me about the student discount just now?”
A soul pet was perched on the man’s shoulder.
Kookamon.
It looked like a golden monkey, but had huge ears and no tail. This Kookamon in particular looked very smart.
“Sorry, I didn’t realise that you were a student,” the girl explained with a smile.
“Bullsh*t!” The burly youth shouted angrily, “I think you were just too lazy to ask. Or is it just because this guy is handsome? Did you not want to tell me just because you think I’m ugly?”
She replied sternly, “Sir, I won’t allow you to talk about yourself like that. Please believe me, I really didn’t think that you were a student earlier. Perhaps it’s because you look too mature.”
When the burly teenager heard this, he started to blush and point at the girl, not knowing what to say.
“Cut the crap and give me a discount!” He took out a document and said impatiently.
After taking a look at it, the receptionist coughed a few times before working on the discount.
As he watched their satirical conversation, Wang Che smiled to himself without saying anything.
“You’re Wang Che?” The burly teenager suddenly turned his attention to him. “No wonder you look so familiar. I was told that you’re the only one who can surpass me in terms of looks.”
Wang Che didn’t know how to react to his sudden remark.
Meanwhile, the receptionist who overheard this almost fell over from surprise.
Not only was he average-looking, but had such thick skin too…
“And you are?” Wang Che looked at him and asked.
“Hehe,” the man laughed. “I’m Yuan Xiaole from the seventh class. You may not know me, but I know about you. I heard the soul pet that you hatched was a green caterpillar? The news has been spreading across the various classes in our school for the past two days.”
“Hmm?” Wang Che stared at him.
A bright smile suddenly spread across the burly youth’s face. He walked over and patted Wang Che on the shoulder, saying patronisingly, “Brother, it’s fine. Be strong.”
“I’m pretty strong,” Wang Che replied calmly.
Yuan Xiaole laughed again. “Are you here to train your soul pet today? There’s no need for that. You shouldn’t waste your money on training a soul pet like a green caterpillar. Just feed it normally.”
“Thank you for your concern. I’ll be off now.”
With that, he walked away from the other student.
“Sigh, what a pity,” Yuan Xiaole turned and said to the girl. “Oh right, how much does he need to pay after the discount? I’m feeling happy today, so I’ll help him pay for it!”
The girl glanced at him and replied, “200.”
“200?” Yuan Xiaole frowned. “Even the basic training meals here cost at least 1,000. How can it be only 200? Is the discount that huge?”
“That handsome man is here to test his soul pet,” she explained.
“Test?” Yuan Xiaole shook his head repeatedly. “What’s so good about a green caterpillar? Forget it, let him test all he wants. Oh right, let me test too.”
“You?” The receptionist looked at him in confusion. “Sorry, we only test soul pets here.”
“I’m talking about my Kookamon!”
“…”
——
The club had two floors and was pretty huge overall.
However, only soul pets below the thousand-year soul power cultivation level were allowed to train here.
Anything higher would not be possible.
As such, the majority of the club’s customers were people who had just become Contract Soul Masters.
Meanwhile, Wang Che had just learned that he could choose to make the testing process data public, or keep it a secret.
The fact that it was up to him to decide was quite helpful, as he primarily wanted to test the changes brought about by the Beast Origin Skill.
“Wow, this young rock monster is so strong! A punch with a force of 500 kilograms! Whoever he punches will be sent to an ICU instantly, right?”
“That’s a rare soul pet! Among all the rock monsters’ species potential, the strength attribute is the most powerful. It’s normal for it to be strong, but to be able to unleash such strength at only twenty years of cultivation… it must have been nurtured exceptionally well.”
“However the weakness of the rock monster is its speed. Look, it only clocked 14 seconds per hundred meters for its speed test. It’s much slower than ordinary people.”
“To counter its strong physique, a psychic type soul pet has to be used in order to make it lose its ability to fight. Since its outer appearance is rock hard, it’s able to block most soul power attacks.”
As he listened in on the other customer’s appraisal, Wang Che glanced at the large screen in front of the training room on the first floor, which had many different soul pet tests displayed.
He then took the number he had reserved and walked to the testing room to line up.
Since he was only planning to test out relatively simple physical data, the process wouldn’t be complicated or take up much time.
In fact, the club was catered to much more detailed tests that could be conducted on the soul pets, ranging from strength, physique, speed, defense, and so on.
Even soul power control, reaction speed, casting of soul skills, and much more.
However, these were more troublesome, and with their expensive cost, it didn’t seem wise to conduct them on the green caterpillar.
After a few minutes, it was Wang Che’s turn.
He made his way into the training room.
“Come down, little one,” Wang Che comforted, while stroking its chest.
“Ssss…” the green caterpillar snored as if it was still asleep.
After walking around, he found some straps and tied them around the caterpillar.
The straps were protective gear, which would reduce the damage in the event of a full-blown attack.
“Go ahead and test your strength.”
Wang Che stood at the guardrail by the side to see what it could do.
Judging from the training over the past two days, he could roughly estimate the extent of the caterpillar’s strength.
However, using the equipment testing would definitely help him gain a more accurate gage of it.
The test Wang Che was planning to do was a strength test, which could analyse a soul pet’s all-out attack without using its soul power.
The green caterpillar, about the size of a palm, glanced at him after suddenly waking up.
Obeying its master’s wishes, it crawled over to the strength detector.
The machine looked quite similar to the one in Dragon Ball, but was much larger.
A three-meter-target was positioned right in the middle of it.
If a human was to attack the target with all his might, the result would be obvious.
Due to the physiological structure of humans, their bodies would not be able to withstand the tremendous force.
It would be detrimental.
By contrast, a soul beast’s body was much stronger innately, which means it would be able to endure the counter force.
As such, only soul beasts were allowed to take part in the test.
“Ssss!”
The green caterpillar looked around its surroundings curiously, then at its own tail, hesitant to attack.
It only had a head and a tail after all.
Wang Che advised it, “Use your tail. Jump up, spin around, and try swinging your tail.”
Then, he turned off the transmitter.
This was going to be a closed test, to observe its true abilities.
The green caterpillar nodded, understanding what it had to do now.
After a pause, it leaped up and bent its tail at a forty-five-degree angle.
Swish!
It aimed at the centre of the target.
Compared to the large circle in front of it, the green caterpillar looked extremely tiny.
However, the target shook slightly when it was struck by the caterpillar’s tail.
‘Ding… 180 kilograms.’
A bright red number appeared on the dashboard.
“180 kilograms.”
Wang Che thought about it for a few seconds. A punch thrown by an average person in this world, which could be considered strong, basically carried the same force as this.
In other words, this twenty centimeters green caterpillar with only ten years of soul power cultivation could go toe to toe with an all-out attack from an adult.
“It does seem a little weak…”
Wang Che suddenly said, “Try a few more times.”
Since he had turned off the transmitter, no one outside could see how his green caterpillar was performing.
Only the strength detector was currently recording the data.
Although there was no specific benchmark to compare to, Wang Che had still felt that the reading was slightly lower than expected.
Nevertheless, it was definitely still stronger than the other green caterpillars.
After all, it had cultivated the Beast Origin Skill.
“Wait, do as I say.”
Wang Che continued, “Remember those positions? When you swing, use one of those positions to hit with your tail. Remember, don’t use up all your soul power. Retain a portion of it.”
The green caterpillar nodded, understanding perfectly.
It started to twist in place.
As he watched the caterpillar prepare for the next attack, Wang Che’s eyes started to glimmer.
After all,the Beast Origin Skill did not just help in absorbing the spiritual energy of the world in order to strengthen the body.
It was considered the most stable basic body tempering cultivation technique, as it had also allowed the demonic beasts to control the spiritual energy in their bodies steadily.
Nevertheless, Wang Che kept the fact that the green caterpillar had only practiced for three days in mind.
As such, he instructed the caterpillar not to use up all its soul power and to keep a portion of it just in case, since its control was not sophisticated enough.
This time, the green caterpillar’s body curled up like a spring.
Then, it leaped up while emitting a green light!
As it floated in the air, the caterpillar adjusted its body until its tail reached a ninety degree angle and started to glow.
Pa!
The tail struck the bullseye.
The strength detector shook slightly.
A number suddenly appeared on the display.
“390 kilograms.”
When he saw this number, even Wang Che couldn’t help but be surprised.
This was indeed a huge improvement.
‘Is its soul power really this powerful?’
“No, wait, did you just…”
Wang Che paused as he vaguely recalled something. “Is that a soul skill?”