“Little Pink Chirpy, is what you guys are saying true? As long as I have a poop-scooper, can I just eat and sleep, and sleep when I am full?”
On a tree trunk as thick as an adult’s waist, a fluffy white creature, looking like a four-unlike, lay sprawled across a green leaf. Its round, purple eyes stared fixedly at dozens of nameless little beasts lined up on a neighboring branch.
The reason it was called a four-unlike was mainly because this white fluffy creature had ears like a lynx, a tail like a squirrel, a black nose like a fox, and soft, heart-shaped paw pads like a cat.
Its entire body was covered in snowy white, fluffy fur, and when its large purple eyes stared right at you, it was enough to make your heart melt with cuteness.
This fluffy white four-unlike was none other than Fang Jing, who had transmigrated from the cultivation world.
Fang Jing was a renowned cultivator in the cultivation realm. Of course, his fame wasn’t just due to his exceptionally high swordsmanship, but also because he was a notoriously lazy slacker, known all day long for nothing more than eating, sleeping, and sleeping some more once he woke up.
For a cultivator to be this remarkably lazy yet somehow manage to cultivate all the way to the Tribulation Stage inevitably provoked the public anger of his fellow sect disciples.
Compared to Fang Jing, other disciples who studied hard and practiced day and night felt deeply aggrieved, loudly crying out that the Heavenly Dao was unfair.
While undergoing his heavenly tribulation, Fang Jing was still fast asleep. Feeling looked down upon by a mere cultivator, the Heavenly Dao flew into a rage and struck his soul right into the interstellar era.
As the saying goes, a dog cannot change its habit of eating shit. Even though Fang Jing wasn’t a dog, he was still human upon arriving in the interstellar world, and his slacker mindset remained completely unchanged.
Back in his sect, he still had his master and senior martial brothers to hand-feed him. But after being reborn into this unfamiliar forest, Fang Jing was dumbfounded.
If his living quarters were gone, he could use the sky as his blanket and the earth as his mat to make do and sleep. But food, it simply wouldn’t fly into his mouth on its own!
Fang Jing was deeply troubled by this. In order to fill his stomach every day, he had already cut his sleep short by a full hour. How was he supposed to go on like this?
By sheer coincidence, Fang Jing overheard other little beasts talking about something called a poop-scooper.
What on earth was a poop-scooper?
Fang Jing didn’t understand, but he caught the gist of what the little beasts were saying: basically, as long as you had a poop-scooper, you would never have to worry about food and sleep again, and someone would wait on you hand and foot.
Eager to find out, Fang Jing urgently started confirming the details. If what the little beasts said was true, he would go find a poop-scooper and reach the absolute peak of being a slacker.
A squirrel holding a pinecone in its front paws didn’t even have time to eat it. “It’s true! Many of my friends who went out and found a poop-scooper said the exact same thing when they came back. Every day there are endless pinecones and dried fruits to eat, they live in luxury castles, and they sleep in fluffy, warm little nests. It’s so happy!”
“That’s right, that’s right!” a little pink bird chimed in. “My friends also live in great places with delicious food, and every day there are poop-scoopers bringing food and drinks right to their mouths to coax them into eating. It makes a bird so envious it could die.”
“Are your friends’ experiences like that too?”
A small white cat walked over with a proud and noble gait. “Xiao Bai, my friends said that whenever they go out, the poop-scoopers carry them around, massage them, and bathe them. Even when they poop, the poop-scoopers gladly clean up after them! Some of those poop-scoopers even call them son or daughter, or call them Lord Cat. Having a poop-scooper wait on you is truly the happiest thing ever. You don’t have to do a single thing; you just open your mouth and wait to be fed.”
The other little beasts joined in as well. After listening for a long time, Fang Jing tilted his fluffy little head and asked, “So where do you find this poop-scooper?”
Poop-scoopers sounded so wonderful; he wanted one, too.
“Poop-scoopers are humans!”
“Humans?” Fang Jing was surprised. “But the humans I’ve seen aren’t like that.”
“How could that be? My friends all said so.”
“My friends too.”
“Mine as well.”
Fang Jing began to have his doubts. Could it be that in this place without a single wisp of spiritual energy, the humans here had already become this friendly?
Regardless, since the little beasts spoke with such absolute certainty, he had better hurry up and find a poop-scooper. Without a poop-scooper waiting on him, how could he possibly continue being a slacker?
“Then how can I get myself a poop-scooper?”
“That’s easy! Just form a contract with a human, and you’ll get a personal poop-scooper. They’ll wait on you hand and foot, covering food, drink, excretion, and sleep. Once the contract is signed, we can finally stand up and become the masters! If we’re unhappy, they have to coax us; when we’re hungry or thirsty, they have to feed us; and when we go out, we even get a dedicated mount. In short, it is absolute bliss, and you will never have to worry about food like you do now.”
The more Fang Jing listened, the more tempted he became. Excitedly, he bounced up and down in place, flicking his fluffy tail back and forth while his short limbs moved so fast they practically blurred into motion.
Secretly, Fang Jing made up his mind: he was going to contract a poop-scooper, and he was going to reach the peak of a slacker beast’s life.
Having just arrived and listening blindly to these rumors, Fang Jing took them completely for truth, failing entirely to realize that this circle of little beasts he had gotten to know were, in the words of interstellar humans, nothing more than a group of useless trash meant solely to be kept as pets.
This category of useless trash had a unified designation: Tier 10 Pet Beasts.
And the humans who contracted this type of pet beast mostly had mental power ratings below Level F. Truly high-level contracted beasts, such as Tier 1 Ice Tigers or Tier 2 Water Foxes capable of assisting their masters in combat, could not even be touched unless your mental power rating reached above Level C. If you dared to touch them anyway, there was only one possible outcome: your brain would blow up like an overripe watermelon!
Humans in the interstellar era had evolved spiritual power. Through this mental power, they could contract beasts possessing special abilities, collectively referred to as contracted beasts, to assist and cooperate in battle.
With good reason, the interstellar era was simply too dangerous. Not only were there various types of ferocious beasts never seen before, but there were also terrifying Zerg that loved to hunt and feed on humans.
Wild beasts evolve, and humans naturally do as well.
Interstellar humans not only gained mental power to contract beasts, but they also evolved supernatural abilities.
At this point, it must be mentioned that mental power and abilities are divided into six grades: A, B, C, D, E, and F. Level F and below are all uniformly classified as Level F.
Ability attributes are divided into the five common elements of Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth, along with three rare mutated attributes: Wind, Ice, and Lightning.
As for contracted beasts, they are divided into a total of ten tiers, from Tier 1 to Tier 10, with the lowest being Tier 10 Pet Beasts.
To put it bluntly, a human could crush these Tier 10 Pet Beasts with a single finger. Aside from keeping them as pets after contracting them, they were completely useless for anything else!
In the interstellar era, contracting a Tier 10 Pet Beast meant that person’s mental power was exceptionally poor, to the point where they weren’t even qualified to enter military academies enjoying the highest honors.
Yet, there are always exceptions.
The youngest son of the Marshal’s family on Capital Star, hailed as a rising star and genius, became this astonishing, jaw-dropping, and mind-boggling exception.
“Dear viewers, it’s time once again for the once-every-three-years entry of military academy students into Huoyun Star to select their contracted beasts. Which geniuses will be able to bring back a Tier 1 contracted beast to Capital Star this year?”
“There are a total of 6,700 military academy students heading to Huoyun Star this time to select their contracted beasts. This journey of contracts will be broadcast live throughout by Capital Star’s SDTV station. I am your host, Lili.”
In the interstellar era, there were mainly three planets inhabited by humans. Among them, Capital Star was the location where the population was densest, and economic development and educational resources were primarily concentrated.
Every year, the First Military Academy of Capital Star would spend a massive amount of capital to organize an expedition to Huoyun Star for contracting beasts.
Such major and significant events naturally garnered intense attention from the citizens of the Three Stars. Therefore, Capital Star’s most authoritative live-broadcasting team had to broadcast the entire process from start to finish.
For no other reason than that these several thousand military academy students capable of heading to Huoyun Star were geniuses who crushed other students in every aspect.
In a few years or decades, these geniuses might well become high-ranking military officials tasked with the heavy responsibility of defending their country.
As for the current Marshal and the generals, lieutenant generals, and major generals from the 1st Army Corps to the 36th Army Corps, which one of them hadn’t participated? And which of their contracted beasts hadn’t come straight from Huoyun Star?
Consequently, these 6,000-plus military academy students were naturally objects of widespread public attention.
Dressed in a blue-and-white school uniform, Lu Hao stood among several close friends, his ears ringing with their endless chatter.
Pei Sui: “Ah-Hao, have you decided which contracted beast you’re going to contract?”
Lin Shen: “My dad told me not to think about anything else. Once we get to Huoyun Star, head straight to the plains and swamps to find a Three-Horned Rhinoceros.”
Xie Zhinian: “My dad also told me to contract a Fire Fox and bring it back. If I randomly contract anything else, he’s going to cripple half my leg!”
Signing a contract with a beast didn’t mean everything was smooth sailing once it was done. Even with Tier 1 contracted beasts, one undeniable fact remained: a beast was still a beast, and its intelligence was far inferior to that of humans. For this reason, contracted beasts brought back had to go through a period of adjustment and training to build up mutual understanding and combat coordination before they could be considered qualified contracted beasts.
Why did many large aristocratic families usually limit their contracted beasts to only one or two species? Why did these elite families forbid their descendants from recklessly contracting beasts?
First, according to past precedent, even with Level A mental power, a person could only contract a single beast in their lifetime.
Second, cultivating a contracted beast and training its combat style required massive amounts of manpower, material resources, and time.
Some contracted beasts, due to a fiery temper or low intelligence, remained stubborn blockheads who only knew how to charge blindly even after years of training. On the battlefield, failing to distinguish between friend and foe meant absolute doom.
Through centuries or even millennia of experience, many families had already developed their own training systems and methods for their family’s designated contracted beasts. When descendants contracted beasts of the same species, the family could train them in the shortest possible time. That way, once they graduated from the military academy and headed to the battlefield, having such a contracted beast could grant them an extra life.
The contracted beasts historically contracted by the Lin family were all Three-Horned Rhinoceroses; the Xie family contracted Fire Foxes; the Pei family contracted Fire Lions; and the Lu family contracted the king of all beasts, the Ice Tiger.
Contracting a beast actually depended heavily on the contractor’s own abilities. If the human’s ability attribute differed from the beast’s attribute, the failure rate of the contract was eighty percent.
Abilities were hereditary, and everyone in the Lu family possessed Ice-type abilities. Before Lu Hao set out to gather with the others, his older brother and second brother had already instructed him: “I’m looking for an Ice Tiger.”
With different goals, the four of them would inevitably part ways once they reached Huoyun Star. After all, contracted beasts possessed strong territorial awareness; the territory of an Ice Tiger naturally wouldn’t allow other contracted beasts to enter.
As the youngest son of the Marshal’s family, Lu Hao could be said to be the most watched presence among the 6,700 students.
The 6,700 military academy students were sent in batches onto the transport ships bound for Huoyun Star. Once the students landed and the transport ships withdrew, the over 6,000 live-streaming orbs deployed by SDTV were activated simultaneously.
As soon as the broadcast went live, netizens across the Three Stars, who had been waiting eagerly for a long time, scrambled to flood into the live-streaming rooms of the military academy students they followed.
[Crap, isn’t Junior Lu only a sophomore? Heading to Huoyun Star at a time like this, does he really have what it takes?]
Generally speaking, the vast majority of military academy students heading to Huoyun Star were juniors. Because students at that stage, after rigorous training and the consolidation of their mental power, had truly reached the optimal phase for contracting a beast, yielding a much higher success rate.
As for sophomore students, if they fought for and secured the opportunity but failed the contract, they would essentially be cut off from ever getting a Huoyun Star contracted beast for the rest of their lives. Those with money and connections could buy one from elsewhere, but for ordinary families, buying even a Tier 3 contracted beast was a struggle, let alone Tier 1 or Tier 2 beasts.
Contracted beasts on Huoyun Star were limited and generally open only to military academy students. Outsiders attempting to steal a Tier 1 contracted beast from Huoyun Star would find it as difficult as ascending to heaven.
Although other regions also had contracted beasts, their tiers and overall quality rarely matched those coming out of Huoyun Star.
It was hardly surprising that netizens reacted with astonishment to Lu Hao’s appearance.