Beastmaster King

This is someone suspected of coming from a future timeline, attempting to return to the past. This person, upon reincarnating on Blue Planet, should undoubtedly possess psychic abilities.

Lu Ran pondered for a moment, his lips twitching slightly. Although he denied it himself, he suddenly felt that Six-Path Flower's guess wasn't entirely off the mark.

From the perspective of Shadow's founder, the messenger of the Time Dragon's kin, it was perfectly normal to suspect Lu Ran as the most likely candidate. After all, Lu Ran's rise had been crazy, making him the most dazzling psychic of the current era. Moreover, there was still one glaring unanswered question that even Lu Ran couldn't figure out.

If Lin Nian, Almi, and the others' psychic abilities were actually special abilities bestowed upon their ancestors by quasi-Legendary beings from ancient times, and they were merely experiencing a generational awakening of these latent abilities, then Lu Ran's special telepathic ability should also fall under this category, being granted by the Divine Deer.

However, telepathy wasn't the entirety of Lu Ran's psychic abilities. Beyond communicating with animals, he also possessed a strange precognitive dream ability.

Initially, Lu Ran had assumed this was part of his telepathy, as other psychics also occasionally experienced bizarre dreams of transforming into animals or plants. But now, he had learned from the Divine Deer itself that, as the God of Life, it had no precognitive abilities.

Even if it occasionally had a sixth sense to perceive danger, that was just a common trait among powerful beings. In short, the Divine Deer's messengers did not inherit any precognitive dream abilities. This meant there were still hidden secrets within Lu Ran.

Previously, Lu Ran had racked his brain trying to figure this out, but to no avail. Now, after hearing Six-Path Flower's words, he couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy.

Could I really be the reincarnator?

The large-scale monster invasion of Blue Planet from his precognitive dreams had not occurred yet. Of course, given Lu Ran's current strength, even if it did happen, resisting it would likely be no issue. This had been one of his initial motivations for becoming a beastmaster.

Now, if his past self had truly been a legendary powerhouse, capable of time travel and having experienced future events, it would make sense for him to have precognitive dreams about future disasters.

"Why do you look so serious? Could it really be you? Don't worry. From my perspective, whether it's you or not doesn't matter." Six-Path Flower studied Lu Ran thoughtfully.

Lu Ran said, "It can't be me. There must be someone else. Regardless, let's not mention this to the Divine Deer for now. If it also suspects me, I'll become a prime suspect in the murder of the Time Dragon's kin.

"Besides, while my methods might be unconventional, if time travel could cause historical chaos or spacetime collapse, I would never do it. So that person definitely isn't me."

Six-Path Flower rolled its eyes. "I already said you might have lost your past memories. Who knows what that person went through? Anyway, I'll detain that individual in a secret location for further study later."

"Fine, fine. Also, I'll leave Captain Doofus and the others to you. From now on, aside from training, I'll need to focus on recovering my physical condition." Lu Ran shook his head.

After Lu Ran learned Manager Ying's clone technique, Manager Ying had been eager to dissolve its clones' contract with him. According to Manager Ying, each of its clones was a significant investment with their own tasks to fulfill. It couldn't afford to be entirely tied down to Lu Ran.

However, perhaps out of pity, or feeling it had already been tainted and might as well go all the way, it decided to leave one clone behind to accompany Lu Ran.

The main reason was that this time, it wanted to witness firsthand how Lu Ran would spice things up in the ascension realm. It wanted a clone to follow him into the ascension realm and watch him break through from level 5 to level 6.

Of course, the other reason was that Manager Ying feared Lu Ran might not keep his promise to help it find resources to reach the Legendary rank, so it wanted to supervise him for a while.

Naturally, Lu Ran had no reason to refuse such a small request. After all, Manager Ying had helped him immensely. Without its cloning technique, his soul clone wouldn't have been contractible. It might not even have been able to possess other lifeforms.

***

Time passed quickly, and the deadline for the Divine Turtle's requested return was approaching. Over the past month, Lu Ran's familiars had suffered under Six-Path Flower's grueling training.

Six-Path Flower had harvested a considerable amount of evil and virtuous energy recently, giving it enough power to create a Time Hell for them to train in. While the Time Hell only provided extended training time, it was still invaluable.

However, Six-Path Flower was somewhat exasperated because the potential of Lu Ran's familiars was simply too absurd. It had just given them more time to build their foundations, but were they really just building foundations?

For example, Baby Cloud. Excluding research-type #18 and also Six-Path Flower, which had its memories and experience, Baby Cloud was the latest addition to the team. Whether it was energy techniques or domains, it was the last to master them. Yet after training in its Nine-Tailed Cloud Cat form, its improvement was terrifyingly rapid.

In energy projection, it immediately reached the third stage, which was likely due to its nature as an elemental lifeform and its fusion with Natural Manipulation.

Now, Baby Cloud could effortlessly alter the natural environment of an entire area with a single skill and maintain it for an extended period. In one experiment, it randomly selected a deserted island and unleashed a fusion bomb, combining lightning, wind, and rain. The result was a storm-ravaged island.

According to Six-Path Flower's observations, the dark clouds continued to cycle natural energy, meaning the island would remain in a perpetual storm for decades, if not centuries, unless external forces intervened. It was hard to believe such power came from a level 60 familiar.

Additionally, Baby Cloud could achieve a safe seventyfold energy compression. However, this number wasn't particularly high because it hadn't focused on single-element compression.

Instead, it trained in nine-element fusion energy compression, mastering sixtyfold compression. It was a significant breakthrough. Nine-element fusion compressed to sixtyfold far surpassed single-element compression at seventyfold.

Much of this was thanks to Sudden Death King's defensive halo. During training, initial attempts at forty to fiftyfold compression frequently resulted in self-detonation. Without Sudden Death King, Baby Cloud might have been reduced to scattered mist.

As for energy formation, Baby Cloud excelled due to its transformation trait and elemental nature. By the time it learned the Kunpeng Intent, it had already achieved mastery.

Now, it aimed for the third stage of energy formation, life formation, or rather, the art of creation. It created puppet clones without self-awareness and programmed them to recharge the Mechanical City's systems. That already counted as basic practice.

When Lu Ran created the Mechanical City, he had anticipated this moment. He asked #18 to integrate the Elemental Life Creation Device into the city, increasing Baby Cloud's chance of mastering life formation through creative practice.

As for energy acceleration, Baby Cloud wasn't lacking either. As an elemental-type familiar, energy acceleration was one of its strengths. After all, it was a form of energy control, and it excelled at that. Still, it hadn't devoted much time to this aspect recently, focusing more on other techniques.

That was because the true strength of energy acceleration's third stage, life acceleration, lay in maintaining eternal youth. A familiar that mastered life acceleration could keep its body at peak condition indefinitely, avoiding any decline due to aging.

Humans grew weaker with age, and even transcendent lifeforms weren't immune. Aside from special species, most familiars lost physical functions as they aged. However, with mastery of life acceleration, they could remain at their peak forever. It also greatly sped up healing.

While undeniably powerful, this technique wasn't essential for Baby Cloud as it was a newborn elemental lifeform. Even doing nothing, it already had an incredibly long lifespan.

Moreover, the four major energy techniques were constructs of the Beastmaster Era. As an elemental lifeform born before that time, Baby Cloud wasn't bound to them. Some powerful elemental beings achieved immortality simply by merging with nature.

In short, Baby Cloud focused on mixed nine-elemental energy compression, and all of its other progress, like reaching stage three in energy projection, had come as a byproduct. Even Six-Path Flower felt speechless.

Baby Cloud's domain was the standard Catastrophe Domain, where the power of natural disasters grew stronger. However, because it wasn't good with Space-attribute energy, it disliked domain techniques.

When enemies trapped it inside a domain, it simply hurled a nine-element compressed energy bomb and blew it all up. Who was trapping whom at that point?

Like Baby Cloud, Captain Doofus also put domain training aside temporarily. With its killing domain trait, it could slice through any enemy domain in a single strike. Its strongest domain, Limitless Sword Domain, activated its "I Think Therefore I Am" power, turning everything into swords.

Previously, combining it with the Broken Horn of the Divine Deer worked wonders. It transformed Captain Doofus into a quasi-Legendary puppy. But now, with the sword spirit, he could become a well-rounded quasi-Legendary without relying on the broken horn, so the Limitless Sword Domain had become redundant.

Only if Lu Ran acquired stronger resources could the Limitless Sword Domain regain its value. However, after Captain Doofus undergoes its second evolution, finding such powerful resources, especially sword-related ones, would become nearly impossible.

In energy acceleration, formation, and projection, Captain Doofus had all reached the peak of stage two. But energy compression was where it exploded in growth. With help from the Flame Spirit and the defensive halo, it achieved eightyfold compression without injury, ninetyfold compression with injury, and hundredfold compression near-death.

It was already close to perfecting 100x compression. Even Six-Path Flower had to admit that Captain Doofus was going all out. But for it, that was just how it always trained. Nothing felt out of the ordinary.

Unfortunately, hundredfold compression likely marked the limit of its pre-evolutionary state. While stage three of energy compression was incredibly powerful, there was no hope of achieving it before its evolution.

The third stage of energy compression was triggered once compression exceeded hundredfold. At that point, the energy transformed into divine power, allowing even non-Legendary species to fight on equal footing with Low Legendary beings.

Divine power subtly transformed a familiar's body, raising its species rank to Legendary. Lu Ran learned all of this from Six-Path Flower. Most beings broke through from quasi-Legendary to Legendary using this method. After all, evolution opportunities were rare, and Limitless City was still new.

However, attempting more than hundredfold energy compression was far more dangerous than previous stages. Lu Ran would never let Captain Doofus try it as an Intermediate Overlord. They would only try once Captain Doofus reached a stable quasi-Legendary state. If he could evolve directly into Low Legendary, that would be even better.

In addition to his nearly-maxed compression, Lu Ran made a breakthrough in his kinship beastmaster skill, allowing Captain Doofus to form a contract with Little Light. Lu Ran also integrated the Critical Trait, though he preferred calling it the Insight Trait, into Captain Doofus.

As a result, even as a normal Intermediate Overlord, Captain Doofus awakened a great new trait—the One-Slash Insight trait. This trait increased critical strike chance after countering an enemy's attack with a sword skill.

This trait essentially fused the Critical Trait with Captain Doofus' swordsmanship talent. Its claws, fangs, and body had now fully evolved into a living sword. Lu Ran guessed that it only triggered after an enemy's attack because it helped Captain Doofus detect weaknesses and exploit them for more devastating counterattacks.

Moving forward, Lu Ran planned to focus its training on perfecting the triple sword domain combo with the sword spirit and swordgrass. Recently, the swordgrass finally mastered its domain, so Captain Doofus' sword retinue only needed the mechanical lightsaber to catch up.

Next came Sudden Death King. Its training focus was also on energy compression. The other three techniques, projection, formation, and acceleration, had limited impact on its short-term combat strength. Their third stages were more utility-focused. To quickly increase its power, compression was key.

As the team's top tank, Sudden Death King had the best conditions for compression training. After consuming many nine-colored meteorites, it became the only other familiar besides Six-Path Flower capable of potentially mastering hundredfold compression, even 40 levels ahead of its current grade.

Unfortunately, its energy control wasn't as refined as Captain Doofus or Baby Cloud's. It had high defense but couldn't fully leverage it. Ultimately, it only managed eightfold compression without injury, and ninetyfold compression with injury. On paper, this matched Captain Doofus, but the latter could go near-death for hundredfold.

Sudden Death King hit a wall at ninetyfold. It wanted to trigger a hundredfold in a near-death state, too, but neither its body nor brain could handle it. At ninety onefold, its energy went unstable, and it nearly exploded. That was its foundation. As for technique, it had also abandoned domain training.

Its Meteor Domain no longer suited it. Because of its Drunken Dragon Mode, Sudden Death King now loved drinking. Besides cooking, Lu Ran had to learn how to brew alcohol. Sudden Death King combined its shield with Drunken Dragon Mode to create a unique and brutal fighting style called the Drunken Dragon Shield Style. When paired with its Planet Intent, it became a master of both offense and defense.