Chapter 6: Chapter 6 Sister's Secret
[Health Inspection]After learning, you can check the current state of your beast taming, allowing you to understand your beast taming more intuitively. (Activated)
Chen Xing immediately performed a Health Inspection on Taotie.
A transparent frame appeared above Taotie's head.
[Species]Salty Bay Crocodile (Taotie)
[State]Healthy (Slightly Hungry)
[Attribute]Water Element
[Energy Level]Level 1
[Energy Level Limit]Level 38
[Skills]Unmastered
This panel seemed to radiate with tremendous potential.
After the Health Inspection skill was activated, two new grayed-out skills appeared below the tip of the tree branch, awaiting activation.
Basic Carnivorous Pet Food Preparation (0/2), Basic Herbivorous Pet Food Preparation (0/2).
Indeed, there were the abilities he wanted. Chen Xing breathed a sigh of relief after seeing these two pending skills.
His choice to use Health Inspection also contained a gamble. If the subsequent skills had nothing to do with pet food, his pace of cultivating pets would be slowed down.
At least for the first monthly exam, he couldn't expect to receive any rewards. One had to be in the top hundred of the grade to have a chance at extra rewards.
He could earn one Skill Point every three days, and with only twelve days left until the first monthly exam, he could gain a maximum of four Skill Points.
The Salty Bay Crocodile was a pure carnivore; for now, he just needed to learn Basic Carnivorous Pet Food Preparation.
In just five days, he could earn 2 Skill Points, and then he would have seven days left to prepare for the exams.
He didn't know if there would be enough time, or if the pet food would be effective or expensive to make.
But he had no more choices.
Three days after acquiring the Health Inspection ability, his sister returned.
His sister's return made Chen Xing very happy. On one hand, it was because his sister had come home safely as outdoor training was dangerous, and every semester, there would be news of students dying in accidents during school field training. On the other hand, her return meant he could continue to "liberate" Skill Point Fragments from Chi Yu.
While his sister took a shower, Chen Xing sneaked into her bedroom and took out the meat strips from their usual hiding place, "Here, have some jerky."
Chen Xing crouched on the floor, shaking the dried meat strip in his hand. Even though he was holding the jerky up to its mouth, Chi Yu just turned its head away, mouth firmly closed.
Noticing something was off, Chen Xing performed a Health Inspection on it.
[Species]Azure-eyed Snow Leopard (Chi Yu)
[State]Moderate Injury (Internal Bleeding *4) (Broken Bones *3) (Epidermal Cuts *12) (Loss of Appetite) (Healing)
[Attribute]Ice Element
[Energy Level]Level 39
[Energy Level Limit]Level 41
[Skills]
Beginner Skill: Frost Spike (Expert), Shadow Assault (Perfect), Frost Claw (Perfect)
Intermediate Skill: Snowfall Cascade (Expert), Soul-capturing Fear (Expert)
Advanced Skill: Blue Hell (Mastered)
Innate Skill: Traceless Step (Active) (Perfect)
Chen Xing: ???
When I put out question marks, it's not because there's something wrong with me, but because there's something wrong with you.
Chi Yu, who always seemed gentle, is actually this fierce?
No problem, one bite at a time, little Karami. I am this little Karami.
Let's not talk about the three perfect skills; it can be said that my sister has a natural talent for beast taming that's different from ordinary people, good at training beast taming skills.
But this Energy Level is a bit exaggerated.
Ever since he gained the new skill, he couldn't stop himself from testing it on beasts passing by the school, just like a student who had just gotten a power-level scanner who couldn't resist going "pew pew" at every stranger passing by. This ability to secretly glimpse at others' secrets was always fascinating at first.
However, Chen Xing soon lost interest because no matter how much he peeked, in the end, it was someone else's beast taming, and seeing beast taming panels that were more luxurious than Taotie's only spurred his competitive desire.
Instead of hiding in dark corners envying others, it'd be better to train his own beast taming to stand out in the sunlight proudly.
But so far, he had not found anyone in the school, besides teachers, whose beast taming Energy Level exceeded 35.
And those beast taming's skill panels were not as luxurious as Chi Yu's. So far, he had only seen one student's beast taming that had mastered skills to the perfect level.
Through these days of exploration, he had more or less figured out the level tiers of skill proficiency: Beginner, Mastered, Expert, Perfect.
He had never seen proficiency beyond perfect, not even among the teachers' tamed beasts.
In the school, the teachers were the highest-level Beast Tamers they could come into contact with in their daily lives, especially those who taught courses related to beast taming.
But this also made him understand why Chi Yu had lost its appetite.
Who would be in the mood for snacks after such severe injuries?
What made him even quieter was the evaluation standard in the state bar, considering such serious injuries only moderate. What kind of injury would then be considered severe?
Chen Lingya, with her hair wrapped in a bath towel and dressed in pajamas, entered the room, "Chi Yu doesn't feel like eating today, feed it tomorrow."
"It's injured?"
"Just a minor external injury, it's quite normal to get hurt during outdoor training."
Just an external injury? As the owner of Chi Yu, she couldn't possibly be unaware of its injuries. Chen Xing could feel his sister was hiding something.
Chen Xing wanted to say more, but at that moment, there was a knock at the living room door.
"Coming," Liu Yuzhen went to open the door, and soon seemed a bit flustered, "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Police Department, these are our IDs. Is Chen Lingya home?"
The action of Chen Lingya drying her hair paused for a moment, then she continued as if nothing had happened.
...
Liu Yuzhen poured some warm water for the two visitors, standing aside somewhat awkwardly.
Chen Lingya, now wearing a coat, sat on the couch, facing two officers from the Police Department seated on stools.
"Your classmates, You Kaihui, Huo Lu, and Zhou Hanxue, are dead. Their bodies were found an hour ago."
Chen Lingya first appeared surprised, then a smile of joy emerged, "That's really great."
"According to your classmates, you didn't get along with them," said the somewhat chubby officer on the left, his eyes sharp as he watched Chen Lingya.
Chen Lingya shook her head lightly and spoke indifferently, "They're all classmates, how can there be anything good or bad."
The chubby officer spoke bluntly, "But it's You Kaihui, Huo Lu, and Zhou Hanxue who have been bullying you in school for a long time! And we have found claw marks of the Snowfall Cascade Panther on their beasts' corpses, which is your tamed beast, right?"
"What?" Liu Yuzhen exclaimed in shock, her eyes nervously turning towards her daughter.
Liu Yuzhen, who busied herself with part-time work to earn money, only now discovered her daughter had been bullied at school.
Chen Lingya frowned slightly and looked at the officer with sarcasm, "Those were injuries from a public battle, witnessed by at least hundreds of students in the grade. They summoned their beasts to attack me, and I merely summoned my beast to defend myself as is normal. Furthermore, during the adventure afterward, I was with Xu Junbai's team the whole time, never leaving the group privately once."
Chen Lingya stressed the last sentence heavily.
The officer on the right, who had been taking notes all this time, continued to write something down.
"Could you explain your timeline?"
Chen Lingya confidently recounted her schedule during the training.
It sounded problem-free, but whether it was true required further investigation.
"I need to see your tamed beast," the chubby-faced officer said.
Chen Lingya glanced at him and scoffed, "Although you don't have a search warrant, there's no harm in showing you."
With a wave of her hand, the summoning Array of Light shone on the ground.
Moments later, when the light faded, a beast over two meters long, Chi Yu, glared menacingly at the chubby officer who was just an arm's length away.
The chubby officer's eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly, his neck retracting slightly since the Snowfall Cascade Panther kept staring at his neck.
This close...
He was about to summon his own beast when a hand stopped him. The tall and thin officer, who had been head-down taking notes, now looked up with a smile, "Young lady, my colleague isn't articulate, I apologize on his behalf. Sorry for the late disturbance, it's really quite regrettable.
May I quickly examine the wounds on your beast? It seems to have been injured, and we want to help clear your name. After all, you were schoolmates with You Kaihui and the others; you should know their backgrounds. Although protected by law within the city, proving your innocence should be beneficial for you."
"It's okay, go ahead and check," she responded.
"Thanks for your cooperation. We really didn't want to impose, but we had no choice, as soon as we clocked out, we were coerced into overtime. My colleague was a bit impatient," said the tall and thin officer, who stood up, walked over to Chi Yu, and crouched down to meticulously examine its wounds.
A short while later, after the examination, "All right, thank you for your cooperation. We'll take our leave now."
"No problem, take care," Chen Lingya nodded.
The two officers left the Chen residence and sat down in the police car parked on the side of the street; the chubby officer initiated, "What's the verdict? Was it her?"
"The wounds on her beast do have some high correlations with those that could've been inflicted by You Kaihui and their beasts, but they're mostly old wounds. The timing doesn't match the time of death. More importantly, my beast did not detect any deception when she was recounting her whereabouts."
The tall and thin officer's cap wriggled, and then was pushed up as a little creature with giant ears, resembling a puppet, lifted the hat and jumped into his arms.
The chubby officer fell silent for a while, then voiced his inner doubt, "But I feel she was too calm."
"Children of the poor take on responsibilities early! Being calm isn't necessarily a problem. Alright, alright, evidence speaks. Let's move on to the next house so we can finish up and go home earlier. There are only so many coins a month, why work so hard for nothing!
They won't see your effort no matter how hard you try!" The tall, thin officer floored the accelerator, and the police car roared off from the curb.