Chapter 452 - 420: Information in the Wreckage
"By the way, Teacher Liang, do you know what the situation is with the third stone chamber in the Earth Palace?" After returning to camp, Li Qian thought for a moment before asking.
"As you saw, a battle of a fairly high level must have taken place there, causing the statues and stone murals to be almost completely destroyed," Teacher Liang said. "However, based on the statue fragments, we’ve deduced that the Pet Beast was most likely the Nine-tailed Cat."
Li Qian nodded upon hearing this. In fact, that was his guess as well, which was precisely why he felt it was such a pity.
If that stone chamber had been intact, especially the stone murals, it wouldn’t have been impossible to deduce the Nine-tailed Cat’s evolution method from them. But now, all hope was lost.
As for finding information about the Nine-tailed Cat in the stone chamber, Li Qian wasn’t surprised in the slightest. The earliest Pet Beast evolutions, and even the entire human Pet Beast civilization, were actually pioneered by excavating ruins from previous epochs.
Therefore, discovering a statue of the Nine-tailed Cat in the ruins of an ancient city from the Fourth Epoch was actually quite normal.
"The Nine-tailed Cat is a Legendary Level Pet Beast. If you can really figure out its evolution, it would be a major breakthrough for both you and the university." Teacher Liang’s voice grew gentler. "So the destruction of that stone chamber is indeed a great shame. However, since we were the first wave of archeologists to enter the Earth Palace, we did preserve some fragments that we thought might be valuable."
"That’s great! In that case, I’ll have to trouble you to take me to see them, Teacher Liang," Li Qian said instinctively, a look of delight instantly appearing on his face.
In his view, Teacher Liang must have collected those statue and mural fragments and stored them somewhere.
"Follow me," Teacher Liang said coolly. With that, she headed toward her tent, and Li Qian naturally followed close behind.
Teacher Liang continued, "Although we’ve collected some fragments, you shouldn’t get your hopes up too high. The fragments are all severely damaged, so there isn’t much information to be gleaned from them. Furthermore..."
"You’ve seen for yourself that even the relatively intact first and second stone chambers didn’t record much evolutionary information," Teacher Liang said as she walked. "Most of it consists of scenes depicting major events from their time. I suspect that secrets like evolution were passed down orally from generation to generation by the Rong People."
"Mm," Li Qian nodded. He found Teacher Liang’s explanation quite reasonable.
Just as the two were about to head toward the tent, Bai Bingbing’s voice suddenly called out from behind them, "Li Qian!"
Li Qian turned to see that Bai Bingbing had tidied herself up and emerged from her tent, looking exceptionally beautiful and captivating.
Around the same time, Irina also stepped out of her tent. All around them, other tents were gradually being unzipped one after another.
Seeing Bai Bingbing walk toward Li Qian with a smile, the onlookers’ expressions all turned a little strange.
One of them, also one of Teacher Liang’s students, couldn’t help but whisper to the classmate next to him, "Chen Ke, look. Bai Bingbing hasn’t smiled as much in all the days she’s been with us as she has in less than a day with that kid. Looks like you’re completely out of luck."
The young man named Chen Ke gave a wry smile. "I never really had much hope to begin with. It’s just that everyone appreciates beauty; I was only admiring her. If I get her, it’s my luck; if I lose her, it’s my fate. I’m pretty open-minded about it. It’s that fool from Shazhou Defense University whose eyes are practically glued to Bai Bingbing who’s probably feeling a bit miserable right now..."
Soon, more students joined the discussion, and they all started gossiping. After a while, one of the girls suddenly poked the girl next to her in the side.
The girl looked confused and gave her friend a questioning glance. Her friend pointed in a certain direction, and the girl looked over.
"Isn’t that... what’s-his-name... Liuqing Garden? He looks a little pathetic, aww!" the girl said with a sigh, spotting a lonely figure walking away.
Her friend, however, pursed her lips. "Him? He’s a toad trying to eat swan meat. A goddess like Bai Bingbing is completely out of his league!"
"I think that new guy is pretty great. He can joke around with Teacher Liang, so his status and abilities must be outstanding... If only he’d take a liking to me..." the girl said, her voice full of longing.
Just then, a third girl chimed in, ruthlessly crushing her hopes, "With the way you are? Just go wash up and go to sleep..."
While everyone was whispering amongst themselves, Li Qian had already followed Teacher Liang into her tent.
Bai Bingbing and Irina followed close behind them. Seeing this, Teacher Liang didn’t say anything.
Once inside, Li Qian discovered that Teacher Liang’s tent was anything but ordinary. From the outside, it looked about the same as his own and some of the students’, but the interior space was actually much larger.
Li Qian figured there was more than enough room to partition it into a three-bedroom, two-living-room apartment.
With a wave of her hand, Teacher Liang made some of the fragments recovered from the Earth Palace ruins appear before Li Qian.
Li Qian was slightly taken aback by this. He hadn’t expected Teacher Liang to actually store the ruin fragments inside her Spatial Equipment.
But on second thought, it made sense. After all, her Spatial Equipment was the safest place for them.
Seeing the fragments, Li Qian didn’t hesitate for a second. He immediately went over and began to observe them intently, circling around them.
After observing for a moment, he shifted his gaze to Teacher Liang. "Teacher Liang, may I handle these?"
"You may!" Teacher Liang held out her hand, and another item appeared in her palm—a pair of gloves. She tossed them over.
Li Qian caught the gloves and put them on unhurriedly, reciting to himself in his mind.
[Quest 2: Evolution Method from Six-tailed Cat to Seven-tailed Cat. Successfully established. Current progress: 30%!]
Li Qian felt that observing these ruin fragments would definitely yield some results, so he had established the quest in advance.
He wasn’t too worried about all three of his quest slots being used up, as he was confident that it wouldn’t be long before he completed Quest 3: the second evolution method for the Four-tailed Cat.
Once the gloves were on, he squatted down and began to examine the fragments patiently, his gaze fixed on them. Seeing this, Teacher Liang stepped out of the tent, while Bai Bingbing and Irina remained motionless inside.
With his gloves on, Li Qian observed, occasionally picking up some of the ruin fragments to study them from all angles.
Seeing how engrossed Li Qian was, Bai Bingbing spoke up from the side to remind him, "Um, Li Qian, I asked Teacher Liang earlier. You can take photos of these ruin fragments for your records, including the statues and stone murals we saw yesterday."
Upon hearing this, a look of delight immediately crossed Li Qian’s face. Without hesitation, he took his VR glasses out of his Space Necklace.
By scanning with the VR glasses, he quickly recorded all the ruin fragments into his personal database.
Before long, Li Qian spotted a peculiar stone chip. Carved on it was a unique Pet Beast with nine tails.
𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
Although the image was slightly damaged and not very clear, he could still identify it as a feline-type Pet Beast.
’This must be it.’ Li Qian stared at the stone fragment for a long time before finally confirming something.
’Teacher Liang must have been able to confirm the identity of the Pet Beast in the third stone chamber because of this stone chip.’
Soon after, Li Qian had scanned all the ruin fragments, and a series of prompt tones sounded in his mind from time to time.
When the scanning was complete, Li Qian checked and saw that the progress for the newly established Quest 2 had already reached fifty percent.
In addition, Li Qian confirmed that the evolution from a Six-tailed Cat to a Seven-tailed Cat was definitely related to the patterns of little figures in strange poses he had seen earlier, which resembled a shamanistic dance.
Li Qian decided he would ask Teacher Liang later what those figures’ movements were and, if possible, see if he could learn them.
With the observation and scanning complete, Li Qian didn’t linger any longer and prepared to leave Teacher Liang’s tent.
Just then, Bai Bingbing suddenly asked, "Li Qian, can the Six-tailed Cat begin to evolve now?"
Hearing this, Li Qian smiled faintly. "It can, but there’s no need." As he spoke, he tossed out a Beast Taming Ball.
The Beast Taming Ball opened, and a magnificent Pet Beast, about the size of a tiger, appeared before the three of them. It had primarily white fur, accented with a few purple patterns.
"This is... a Six-tailed Cat! A Six-tailed Cat with Dominator Peak Potential?!" Seeing the Six-tailed Cat, a look of profound shock instantly flooded Bai Bingbing’s face.
She looked at Li Qian, her voice filled with disbelief. "How was it so fast? When did you complete the evolution?"
Li Qian explained casually, "This morning, I went back to the temple to take another look and happened to run into Teacher Liang. With her help, I completed the evolution."
Li Qian spoke matter-of-factly, as if describing something as trivial as eating or drinking, but his words sent shockwaves through the two women’s minds, completely subverting their understanding of the world.
This was especially true for Irina. All her previous doubts were thrown to the wind. Li Qian wasn’t some breeding prodigy; he was a monster.
Even though she wasn’t a Breeder, she knew a little about the research on the Nine-tailed Cat’s evolution method because it was simply too famous.
Many private, official, and corporate Cultivation Bases were researching it, yet she had never heard of anyone advancing to the Six-tailed Cat stage.
And yet, Li Qian had just solved a popular and extremely difficult research topic that had stumped numerous Cultivation Masters and even Cultivation Grandmasters.
The fact that he had already evolved an actual Pet Beast made the whole thing feel dreamlike and unreal to her.