Regarding whether Lu Hao was confident about completing the contract, netizens were engaged in heated discussions online.
[Why wouldn’t he be? Don’t forget, Senior Lu possesses the rare Grade-A spiritual power, and his ability is also the rare ice element. He is an outstanding student at the First Military Academy, so what could possibly go wrong?]
[Exactly. Aside from being an outstanding student, who is Junior Lu? He is the Third Young Master of Marshal Lu’s family! Do you really think Marshal Lu would let him run wild without a hundred percent certainty?]
[This is the gap between us. By our junior year, it takes teaching, training, and more for us to master our spiritual power, stabilize it, and thoroughly understand the contracting process and ability combat skills. But he is different from us; he started training for his spiritual power and abilities when he was just a kid.]
Not everyone has special abilities, nor do all schools offer ability-training courses.
Military academy students must study for six years. Most students secure qualifications during their junior year, through selection processes, to head to Fire Cloud Star and choose a contract beast. The remaining three years are spent grinding and harmonizing with the contract beast before graduating directly into the military department.
Of course, if someone fails to get selected in their junior year, they can either stay back a grade to wait for another opportunity or spend a fortune to purchase a contract beast. However, that would put them far behind their peers.
For military scions like Lu Hao, senior family members had long since mapped out their futures from birth.
Entering the military for internships directly in their sixth year allowed them to stay a step ahead. In many matters, being a step ahead means being ahead at every step, making it extremely difficult for others to catch up.
[Is Junior Lu Hao planning to contract an ice tiger? That’s going to be very dangerous.]
[What are you talking about upstairs? What danger? He has helpers, didn’t he? Did you see the ice tiger by Third Young Master Lu’s side? That’s his second older brother’s contract beast! Tsk tsk tsk, I have to say, some people just know how to exploit loopholes and play privileges. While others have to rely solely on themselves without parental support or family contract beasts, some people are practically playing foul!]
[What is this brother upstairs whining about?]
[Naturally, he’s whining because his family doesn’t even have a single contract beast!]
[I really don’t understand why people are whining about this. First, Third Young Master Lu didn’t break any rules, did he? Not just this year, but what about last time, and the time before that? Did no military academy students do this when going to Fire Cloud Star? If it were against the rules, it would have been banned long ago. Second, who is the Lu family? Generation after generation, descendants rushed to the front lines, and in the end, only Old Marshal Lu and a few others returned. When your grandfathers and great-grandfathers were under the protection of others, where were you? Without their grandfathers, where would you even be? Now you suddenly know how to accuse others of using privileges? Let me spit a twenty-three-year-old ball of thick phlegm right across your face, do you believe me?]
[Stop getting angry. Some people are just like that. What was that? With great power comes great responsibility? What absolute nonsense. You must understand that there is no law in the interstellar era stating that the strong must protect the weak. Don’t go accepting favors and then turn around to accuse others of possessing privileges you lack. Biting the hand that feeds you like this, arguing with people like that just lowers your own status.]
[Stop arguing. Look! The contract beast brought by Third Young Master Lu is going head-to-head with a wild ice tiger.]
[As expected of my Third Young Master Lu! How many days has it been? While others haven’t even found a single hair, he has already discovered an ice tiger. It seems this tiger is destined to be his.]
Lu Hao had no idea that tens of millions of viewers in the livestream room were watching his every move. He only knew that once his second brother’s contract beast suppressed the ice tiger, it would be his turn to step up.
Lu Hao knew he had to seize the exact moment.
Early in the morning, while Fang Jing was still fast asleep, the little pink bird flew straight over and began chattering noisily.
What?!
A human had come to choose a contract beast!
Fang Jing instantly swept away his sleepiness, flipped over, bounded straight up, and began jumping back and forth excitedly. “Where is my pooper scooper? Little Pinkie, can you take me there?”
“Come with me. I’ve already seen a few humans, and you can pick whichever one you want.”
The moment he thought about how he would soon be living a good life, Fang Jing was overjoyed. He hopped continuously between tree trunks, following closely behind the little pink bird.
“How about this one?” The little pink bird was already very tired. It had taken Xiao Bai to see several humans, but Xiao Bai was not satisfied with any of them.
Fang Jing looked at the man on the ground gathering firewood to start a fire for the night, shook his tail in disgust, and said, “This one won’t do. He’s too ugly. Looking at that face will make me lose my appetite for meat.”
In his past life in the cultivation world, Fang Jing had seen every kind of handsome man and beautiful woman. As the most handsome cultivator in the cultivation world himself, his standards were naturally high.
Everyone pursues beautiful things, and Fang Jing was no exception. He naturally pursued the salted-fish lifestyle that everyone dreamed of, along with a good appearance and good aptitude.
Who wouldn’t want to wake up, open their eyes for the very first time, and see a gorgeous man who could anger both gods and men lying right beside them?
He wanted that too.
“Little Pinkie, what about over there? Are there no people over there? Why didn’t you take me that way?” Fang Jing pointed in a certain direction and asked the little pink bird curiously.
The little pink bird opened its eyes wide, and only then did it notice the short little legs sticking out from under the white ball’s belly. Following the direction pointed by those short legs, the little pink bird’s pink feathers instantly ruffled out in shock. “Xiao Bai, that’s the ice tiger’s territory! We can’t go over there, or we’ll be eaten whole by the ice tiger.”
“But I have a premonition that my pooper scooper is right over there. I’m going over.” A cultivator’s premonition is never wrong.
Unable to persuade him, the little pink bird could only say, “Then go by yourself, oh! I wouldn’t dare go.”
Fang Jing nodded. “Mm, I’ll go by myself. Little Pinkie, I’m off to find my pooper scooper then. See you around.”
As his voice trailed off, Fang Jing’s figure was already gone from the tree trunk. The little pink bird flapped its wings and changed directions, while a small white shadow had already appeared half a mile away. In the blink of an eye, it vanished once more, moving with a ghost-like speed that was hard for a bird to believe.
After the two ice tigers fought six hundred rounds, the wild ice tiger fell into a disadvantageous position. Seizing the opportunity, Lu Hao quickly executed a set of hand seals.
A powerful gale erupted from beneath the feet of both the ice tiger and Lu Hao as the contract was activated, enveloping the tiger and the human within it.
The high-speed revolving gale blasted the livestream camera hundreds of meters away. Enduring the splitting headache and discomfort, Lu Hao tried his best to finish the final contracting hand seals.
Almost there, almost there!
Just as the final hand seal was about to be completed, an accident struck!
Outside the barrier generated by the contracting power, Second Brother Lu’s contract beast seemed to have discovered something terrifying. It suddenly burst out with an earth-shaking roar, stood up on its hind legs, and slammed its front paws repeatedly against the barrier in an attempt to stop the contracting process.
Just when the wild ice tiger felt disheartened, thinking it would lose its freedom and become a human’s contract beast, and just when Lu Hao was overjoyed that the contract was about to be completed, the scene that unfolded before his eyes almost made Lu Hao vomit a mouthful of old blood and pass out on the spot.
A pure white, palm-sized fluffy beast he had never seen before dropped from the sky. With a kick of its hind legs, it actually booted the ice tiger out of the contracting circle ten meters away!
Lu Hao was dumbfounded, watching helplessly as his designated contract beast flew out of the contracting circle. He wanted to stop, but this little fluffy ball seemed to have plotted this long ago, flying straight in front of him.
And then, two soft, fleshy paws grabbed his face, and a wet sensation spread across his lips.
Lu Hao: “…”
Someone!
Someone, come quickly!
There’s a beast committing indecent assault!
Help!
Lu Hao wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but to his despair, he found he couldn’t make a sound. He could only open his eyes wide and watch helplessly as the white ball, its snow-white fur bristling upward toward the sky due to the contracting energy, shielding even its eyes from view, slowly established a contract with him.
What on earth is this ghost thing?!
Lu Hao considered himself a very diligent student, but the books had never recorded any small white fluffy beast that would actively kiss people or even initiate a contract with a human!
This guy got reverse-contracted by me.
Fang Jing was immensely pleased. Although a slight problem occurred during the contracting process, the mark that finally appeared in his sea of consciousness proved that the contract was successfully completed.
As a sword cultivator and the head of the laziest sword cultivators in the cultivation world, Fang Jing had never contracted a contract beast before, nor had he ever formed a companion contract with anyone, so he naturally did not know the difference between the two types of contracts.
The little beast that used the wrong contract was immensely pleased at the moment. Landing steadily in his pooper scooper’s embrace, it excitedly bounced back and forth across his knees.
When the gale triggered by the contract abruptly dissipated, not only were Lu Hao and Second Brother Lu’s contract beast frozen in utter astonishment, but the viewers in the livestream room were also dumbstruck. For a split second, the screen was completely clean, without a single subtitle.
Everyone stared in shock and uncertainty as their Lu genius engaged in a blank stare-down with the white ball on his thighs, as if his soul had left his body.
After a long while, someone finally couldn’t help breaking the silence.
[What the hell! What is going on here?]
[What the hell, did the contract fail?]
[Regrettably, the contract succeeded.]
[Since the contract succeeded, why call it regrettable?]
[Did you have your eyes closed just now upstairs? Didn’t you see that Senior Lu succeeded in his contract, but he didn’t contract an ice tiger, he contracted a Tier-10 pet beast!]
[Holy crap, what is going on? Where did this Tier-10 pet beast come from? Clearly, before the contract, there wasn’t a single living creature within the line of sight of the livestream camera. How could this be?]
[That’s right, something’s wrong, it’s too bizarre! As everyone knows, ice tigers are Tier-1 contract beasts. This type of contract beast has an extremely strong sense of territory, not to mention their deterrent power. Just now, when the two ice tigers fought, the released coercion was multiplied. Due to animal instinct, trashy creatures like a Tier-10 pet beast shouldn’t even dare to approach. Yet it managed to do so, and the contract actually succeeded in the end. I can only haha at this.]
[Such a coincidence, dropping the ball at a critical moment? I don’t believe Junior Lu would make such a low-level mistake. So, was he targeted and set up because he blocked someone’s path?]
[Hey upstairs, you can eat your words casually, but you shouldn’t speak carelessly. Watch out for trouble stemming from what you say.]
[I honestly haha his whole family. Anyone with discerning eyes can see that this is a conspiracy targeting Third Young Master Lu.]
It wasn’t just the people in the livestream room who thought this way; when the Lu family members saw this scene, they thought the exact same thing.
Lu Huan slammed his fist onto the desk in anger. “Dad, someone must have played dirty.”
“Second Brother, we can’t talk nonsense without evidence.” Although Lu Chen said this, he was actually suspecting the Jiang and Fang families as well.
The Jiang family controlled the Second Military Legion, while the Fang family managed the Third Military Legion. Both major generals coveted the position of Marshal. Ever since Lu Father’s abilities ran into trouble, the Jiang and Fang families had made one petty move after another.
This time, sending Lu Hao to Fire Cloud Star ahead of schedule to contract a beast was, on one hand, an arrangement the Lu family had long made for him, and on the other hand, the military department was safer than the military academy. If Lu Hao contracted a beast early, they could help him train it sooner. With the protection of a contract beast, when the time came for the battlefield in the future, Lu Hao would have an extra shred of advantage whether facing the enemy or inner traitors.
Yet now, an accident had occurred with the contract!