Chapter 346 — Breaking Through to Level Six

So it, too, fell into the swiftly-crushed camp alongside Susu. Even after using a Time-Brewing Fruit to temporarily step into Overlord tier, its speed and defense were still suppressed by Void Tan; only its destructive power surpassed the beast's. The problem was that its anti-Chongchong energy fruit had little effect on Void Tan at all.

Another reason was that this ruin had no ground at all — void force was everywhere, making it Void Tan's home turf, which restricted Ginseng Baby's earth escape. Otherwise, the two sides might have been able to hold out longer.

Chongchong fared no better. Its Fantasy Domain was directly overwritten by the Anti-Magic Domain, and the phantoms it conjured — such as that Fantasy Dragon body — could be deftly dismantled by Void Tan's near-perfect space control at the "technique level." There was simply no way around it; it was a case of technique countering technique.

Only after fighting Void Tan themselves did Chongchong and the others understand just how powerful the opponent Eleven had defeated truly was — and just how strong their leader had now become.

Even so, Void Tan gave Chongchong and the rest its acknowledgment: in terms of individual strength, these pets of Shi Tan's were inferior to it, but among the opponents it had faced over the past days, each of them could rank near the top.

That a level-five beast tamer like Shi Shuo could contract so many such powerful beasts — Void Tan found it absurd, and felt that the Void Emperor's princes and princesses were nothing but trash before Shi Jin.

This was exactly the situation Shi Jin delighted in.

He had been worrying about where to place his pets during meditation, and along came Void Tan, the perfect sparring partner.

Losing now did not matter. After all, Eleven and the others had lower base energy values and skill proficiency than their opponent — it would have been strange if they had won.

Even Eleven had only barely managed to win through an exceptional skill combination and attribute advantage.

At this point, Void Tan's situation could roughly be summarized as:

[Racial Skills]:

Super-tier: Space Control (Mastery+11), Anti-Magic Domain (Mastery+11), Space Rend (Mastery+11)...

As for Eleven and the others, their super-tier skills were uniformly at Entry or Proficiency level, at best just barely reaching Mastery. Losing was only natural.

But it was precisely opponents like this that could better train certain abilities in these pets.

Team coordination, for example.

If Susu alone could not win, then let Chi Tong possess Susu and fight together.

If Chongchong alone could not win, then let Chongchong and Ginseng Baby fight together.

Or all four at once — that way, Void Tan would feel more pressure and could better hone its skills...

"Awoo... (You lot, you have no martial honor!)" Void Tan was beside itself with fury.

……

Unlike the Martial Emperor Ruins, where he had been shut in a dark room completely, cultivating in the Void Emperor Ruins allowed Shi Yu to go out and get some air.

Generally speaking, though, his trips out amounted to only a few things.

From the Mechanical Department of the Ancient Capital University, fetching mechanical materials for Lin to experiment with; from Grandma Li, fetching all sorts of ancient fossils for Lin to experiment with.

Beyond that, he often bought food and nutritional supplements for Eleven and the others — and, of course, to eat himself.

Of course, the most satisfying thing Shi Jue experienced during his breaks was the approval of Eleven's legendary resource.

It was the legendary resource he had applied for when he became a member of the First Bureau and helped the Gem Cat break through to Totem tier.

Back then, Shi Ying's request had been for a metal-attribute enhancement-type legendary resource, ideally one that could boost a pet's vitality and energy value.

He planned to use it as the reward for Eleven winning first place in the team tournament, and now it had finally arrived.

"This is Aurora Magnetic Gold," Feng Jin said, handing Shi Jin a sealed grade-nine legendary metal resource.

"Aurora Magnetic Gold?" Shi Li said. "Sounds like metal and lightning dual-type?"

"Right — a legendary resource that reinforces life force and energy, pure metal-type. After searching, we couldn't find what you asked for, but we did find this one. If it's for the Iron-Eating Beast, this metal might actually suit your Eleven better."

"Aurora Magnetic Gold is a metal born when a special lodestone is influenced by both solar wind and Blue Star's magnetic field, and it contains powerful lightning energy."

"Its effect is this: a metal-type or lightning-type beast that carries it comes under a special magnetic field that strengthens its physique, similar to lightning body-tempering. When the constitution improves, it naturally drives up life force and energy values — so it does meet your requirements."

Hearing this, Shi Jin gave a bitter smile.

"From the look on your face, you're not satisfied?" Feng Jin was taken aback.

"It's not that." Shi Li said. "This... is very good."

Eleven's physique was already strong enough, so his idea had been to find a metal-type legendary resource that specifically reinforced either life force or energy value, to shore up Eleven's weak attribute — that way the reinforcement effect would be more pronounced. And now here came another one that strengthened physique...

A physique boost did indeed drive up life force and energy, but comparatively, the effect naturally wouldn't be as good as a single-attribute reinforcement. Still, Shi Shuo thought it was quite good — after all, physique, life, and energy could all be improved at once, which truly made it more precious than a legendary resource that only boosted life or energy alone.

The Association hadn't been fooling him; they had specifically found him the most suitable and rarer resource.

Ah... looks like Eleven would be continuing to strengthen its physique — and it was already strong enough... reinforce it again with a legendary resource, and once it broke through to Overlord tier, would it be able to tear apart same-tier savage beasts bare-handed without even using skills?

"This one's good." Feng Jin chuckled. "The place where Aurora Magnetic Gold was born didn't produce just one piece — it produced eight. This is merely the piece Donghuang obtained. Other factions have gotten Aurora Magnetic Gold too, and among them, some fortunate beasts even awakened new skills after using it."

"This counts as one of the more thoroughly researched legendary resources — extremely high cost-performance."

"What skill?" Shi Jin asked curiously.

"A super-tier lightning skill: special lightning, White Lightning."

"Uh." Shi Jin found the skill somewhat familiar.

Back then, that Glory brat who came to Ancient Capital University to challenge the dojo — wasn't his talent White Lightning?

"Haha, of course, I'm just mentioning it casually. Your Eleven has no affinity with the light element — rather, it has affinity with the dark element — so the chance of awakening White Lightning isn't high."

White Lightning has the property of containing, being compatible with, and aligning with the light element... you could call it lightning of light. As for Eleven, mastering lightning of darkness would be the reasonable outcome.

But Shi Jin didn't care. Not awakening was fine; awakening was fine too, he'd take it either way. He was easy.

"Got it." Shi Li said. "Then this piece it is."

Feng Jin's mouth twitched. What did he mean, "then this piece it is" — he said it as if he were reluctant. Damn it.

Old Feng even felt that in his entire life, he hadn't touched as many legendary resources as that brat Shi Tan had in a single year.

"By the way, Feng Jin, the Sequence ranking and the legendary resources from the Void Emperor Ruins... can they be applied for?" Shi Yu was still hung up on the legendary resource for Ginseng Baby.