Chapter 327 — Frantically Copying Skills
The Beast-Taming Craftsman Page 4 of 5
Rare as these high-tier skills were, finding and touching them was easy enough for Shi Jin at his present strength.
Not like the Shi Jin who had just transmigrated, when even copying a healing skill meant injuring himself first to create an opening.
Yet despite the smooth progress, Shi Jin was soon blocked by the most important skill on his list.
[Name]: Undying Golden Body
[Attribute]: Metal
[Description]: A super-tier Metal-element skill that reforges the body into an undying golden body. When damage is taken, it converts that damage into life force to heal the injury.
Like Sheathed Edge, this was a top-grade skill among Metal-element skills — exceedingly rare, mastered by very few Metal-element pet beasts.
It was said that trained to the level of mastery, it could bring "damage" and "recovery" into near-perfect balance; unless one were killed in a single instant or slain by special means, the bearer would be undying and unkillable.
According to Shi Jin's investigations, no beast tamer's pet beast in the Eastern Radiance Ancient Kingdom had mastered this skill.
Among wild vicious beasts, only three races possessed the Undying Golden Body.
One: the Prison-Suppressing Divine Elephant.
It was the sovereign of a Totem Kingdom bordering the Eastern Radiance — a Totem-level divine elephant — and it commanded the Undying Golden Body at the consummate level. Which was to say, every Totem that had weathered the Totem War was an old codger who simply refused to die, each with an ace hidden up its sleeve.
Shi Jin could certainly not go marching into a Totem Kingdom. Even taking the cat along, the cat's paltry skills might just barely suffice against a weakened Vortex Demon Beast, but against a Prison-Suppressing Divine Elephant that commanded a consummate-level Undying Golden Body and boasted monstrous strength and defense of its own, it would be like scratching an itch — the damage dealt probably would not even keep pace with the healing.
Far too dangerous. Even with the cat's teleportation, darting in for a quick touch and fleeing, its life would still be on the line...
Second: the Golden Phoenix Dragon-Sparrow.
A creature of mid-tier Overlord race, carrying both phoenix and dragon bloodlines at once — exceedingly powerful. But such a thing did not exist anywhere within the Eastern Radiance Ancient Kingdom.
It was a species of the Minghua Ancient Kingdom, and even there it was a rare Overlord; only Legendaries were qualified to contract one. Shi Jin had no way of finding one at present.
The trouble was that this Undying Golden Body was absolutely vital to Eleven's combat system...
Third: a high-tier Monarch race, the Undying Earth Dragon.
This fellow, despite the name, was really just an earthworm, belonging to the earth and metal dual elements. It lived underground feeding on metal ore veins and seldom surfaced, which made it hard to find. It too possessed the Undying Golden Body skill, and in the ancient history of the Eastern Radiance there were records of Undying Earth Dragons appearing — perhaps Shi Jin's only chance at present.
So Shi Jin's approach was to help Ginseng Baby max out its Earth Escape skill, then roam the whole of the Eastern Radiance, slowly searching the places where earthworm-type extraordinary creatures gathered in greatest numbers.
Such creatures did not live on the surface, which made them hard to find; but as long as one fixed one's gaze underground, there might be a chance. Shi Jin planned to spend a month searching first. He would not be idle in the meantime — he would first set other skills in order for his pet beasts, and any other rare skills encountered along the way could be copied as well.
If he truly could not find one no matter what, then he would simply have to go abroad and try his luck later.
Another half month or so passed.
More than twenty days had now gone by since Shi Jin left the Ancient Capital.
Over in the Ancient Capital, the professional examination was about to be held any day now, and Shi Jin was rather looking forward to seeing how a certain someone would perform.
As for his own side, his head was pounding badly enough. Though along the way he had copied three more rare low-level skills for Ginseng Baby, Buggy, and Crimson Pupil, he still had not found an Undying Earth Dragon.
In the more than two thousand years of recorded history in the Eastern Radiance, this fellow had been discovered only twice — clearly an ultra-rare creature. It had Shi Jin spitting mad.
At a high-end restaurant in the Divine Capital.
Having traveled here, Shi Jin — made up so as not to be recognized — heaved a long sigh. Who knew what year or month he would finally find that wretched little bastard, the Undying Earth Dragon.
After ordering something good, he took out his phone while waiting for the food and began scrolling through trending news.
The National Tournament had ended some time ago. The current hot topics were mostly the shifts in the Sequence Contest rankings, but Shi Jin was not involved in that. He figured that what mattered right now was raising his strength; the rankings could be chased at the very end, no rush — the settlement period for legendary resources had not arrived yet anyway.
[Breaking News!! The Fifth Sequence, 'Ji Feng', fails in his challenge against the Fourth Sequence, 'Jiang Tianyang'!! The Legendary Young Master returns to the scene!!]
"Ji Feng?" Shi Jin was a little surprised to see this news.
Fifth Sequence, Ji Feng — a national individual champion from some year, a graduate of Imperial Capital University, an elite of the Intelligence Bureau, possessing the beast-taming talent Myriad Affinity, a Grade Six beast-taming space, a top-tier Master. He could attune not only to all manner of vicious beasts but also to the forces of nature, letting his pet beasts draw upon natural power with greater ease.
Back then, at the National Tournament, Lu Yan had lost to this very fellow.
But that was also because Lu Yan had not yet mastered the Mythical Revival skill at the time. Now, Lu Yan's strength was no longer what it once had been.
Still, judging by the sequence rankings, Ji Feng's rank remained above Lu Yan's — he had surely grown stronger than a few years ago as well.
The main thing was that this fellow's beast-taming talent was exceedingly formidable, essentially a fusion of the special type and the enhancement type: it carried special effects and could also strengthen a pet beast's command of natural power. Thus every one of his Monarch-level pet beasts could, through a vast influx of natural power, unleash might comparable to Overlord-level — and without any side effects. The only thing that limited him was the stamina drain of using the talent.
"Fifth, is it." Judging by the present situation, without using the Time Fruit Shi Jin had no confidence of beating this fellow; and even with the Time Fruit, whether he could finish the opponent off in a short span was hard to say.
"So this fellow lost, did he." After seeing the news, Shi Jin opened the details. The one Ji Feng had challenged was a genius Legendary beast tamer under thirty.
The top four of the Sequence Contest were all Legendary beast tamers.
Among them, the Legendary Young Master, Jiang Tianyang, was by identity the son of the helmsman of one of the Eastern Radiance's five great financial conglomerates — a super-rich second generation.
Despite his vast wealth, he kept a very low profile, entering no public competitions and rarely appearing before others. But there had once been rumors that while Jiang Tianyang was still a Master-level beast tamer, the base energy value of every one of his Monarch-level pet beasts had already stood above five million — all of it piled up with enhancement resources.
It was not until he signed up for the Sequence Contest that people learned this exceedingly low-profile young master had already reached the Legendary level.