My starting summon is a small skeleton

Quan City, Underground Cave Secret Realm Management Backend.

Several managers responsible for backend maintenance were staring dumbfounded at the surveillance footage of the third floor: on one side, dozens of summoned beasts crowded in the smoke; on the other, Lu Wu was rapidly advancing through the third floor with Little Skeleton beside him.

These managers were almost on their knees watching the monitors.

From the moment Lu Wu had entered the secret realm, his clever maneuvers had never ceased.

At the outset, he had taken only 5 minutes to find the guardian boss of the second floor without encountering any summoned beasts and had easily exploited a bug to defeat the guardian boss.

It took him less than 8 minutes to rapidly clear the second floor, making him the second fastest to pass the initial trial in history (the fastest was a king of luck who had landed right next to the guardian boss).

After entering the third floor, he used bug exploits to effortlessly defeat fifteen 3-star summoned beasts in just half an hour.

With this tactic, he had shot into the top 100 of the ranking board.

The top 100 of the ranking board—consider that this secret realm had seen tens of thousands of people each year and had been in operation for decades; achieving a top 100 ranking was exceptionally challenging.

Yet Lu Wu had breezed into it within half an hour by exploiting bugs.

This forced the managers to take action to clean up the bugs.

They arranged for dozens of summoned beasts to converge from three different directions.

While they did leave room for Lu Wu to escape in their plan, they did not expect Lu Wu to escape so effortlessly.

He easily found the only way out and even left tricks behind to restrict the summoned beasts.

Without any trouble for him, he cheerfully prepared to confront the third-floor guardian.

These secret realm caretakers had been guarding the realm for over a decade, and it was their first time witnessing a challenger like this.

"Keep this up, aren't we really going to let him take down the third-floor boss?

He's already scored 200 points, if he defeats the third-floor boss and enters the fourth floor, that girl who just topped the rankings won't have warmed her seat before relinquishing it."

"It's highly unlikely, the third-floor guardian boss is of elite level. Though it's of ordinary quality at the elite level, it's not something he can defeat, considering his summoned beast is just Little Skeleton."

Indeed, Little Skeleton was considered one of the worst summoned beasts—it was almost a consensus, so Little Skeleton shouldn't be able to defeat the guardian boss.

At that moment, a young staffer spoke up hesitantly, "Have you seen a 2-star Little Skeleton with an electric attribute skill take on a 3-star before?

Besides, how can you be so sure he doesn't have some other strange plan up his sleeve to handle the guardian boss?"

At this remark, the caretakers recalled the objects Lu Wu had used to lure monsters and the last orb; reflecting on Lu Wu's identity and remembering their own experiences of being tricked by cultivation masters, they couldn't help but spit out,

"Indeed, those who play the cultivation game are all crafty!"

...

Meanwhile, Lu Wu was blissfully unaware that his trial was being monitored from the backend the whole time.

He was currently making a rapid advance through the third floor with Little Skeleton.

In his past life, when he'd watched "The Strongest Brain," Lu Wu always felt the TV was full of deceptions.

Everyone was human, and brains couldn't possibly be as exaggeratedly effective as depicted on TV.

Memory Palaces, Microscopic Water Identification—all had to be fabricated.

But experiencing it firsthand, Lu Wu found that people with sharp minds really were extraordinary.

For example, right now, by gathering information, he could effortlessly construct a holographic map of the third floor in his mind, with an accuracy of approximately 95%.

Relying on his exceptional brain, Lu Wu led Little Skeleton to the third floor's guardian within 10 minutes.

The backend staff perked up as soon as they saw Lu Wu face the guardian boss.

Each of them was eager to see what unexpected maneuvers Lu Wu would pull off confronting the guardian boss.

Indeed, Lu Wu didn't disappoint them; he truly performed actions they hadn't anticipated.

Instead of attacking the summoned beast first, he pulled a black metal object from his backpack.

Then, a person walked towards the guardian boss.

Several Secret Realm Managers were baffled, "What is he trying to do, poison the boss with food?"

"That shouldn't be the case, right? Poisoning is definitely prohibited in our realm, right?"

"Well, it's actually not prohibited!" The young man raised his hand again, "Because some Summoned Beasts' attribute is poison, and no one typically uses power beyond their Summoned Beasts to clear levels, so there's no ruling on it."

The backend fell silent, then burst into rage, but they were helpless and could only curse, "Typical Cultivation Masters, all dirty-minded!"

However, they were wrongly accusing Lu Wu this time, as he wasn't planning to poison the boss.

He was just preparing to feed it.

On the monitor, Lu Wu had already approached the guardian boss, Little Rock, "Little Rock, I'll give you this to eat, will you let me touch you?"

Lu Wu's proposal was tempting.

Wait, no, it was rock-tempting!

Little Rock agreed without a second thought and hopped to the edge of the safe zone.

This Little Rock was about a meter tall, made up of 7 rocks, with facial features on the rocks and two arms made from three rocks each, but no legs.

With big eyes and a small mouth but no nose, it looked quite adorable!

As it came over, Lu Wu handed it the black metal, and while it was eating, Lu Wu got a chance to touch the little guy.

...

Name: Little Rock

Power: 0 stars [Elite]

Attribute: Rock

State: Happy (This human is nice, gave me yummy food)

Weakness: Grass, Ice

Skills: Roll (Master), Crash (Master), Defense (Master)

Flying Stone (Master)

Talent: Basic Physical Defense Enhancement

Description: Although it has strong defense, it's not very smart, just a little glutton. You can try to abduct it, deceive it, play with its feelings.

...

Lu Wu was annoyed by the description in the system.

What kind of person did this crappy system think he was? Was he, Lu Wu, the type to play with Summoned Beasts' feelings?

Well, he could still negotiate to deepen their connection, that much he was good at.

"Hey, Little Rock, how about we make a deal?

Later when you fight my Little Skeleton, pretend you can't win and just give up, okay?

If you do, next time I come, I'll bring more of this yummy stuff for you!"

When Little Rock heard this, it was immediately tempted; however, before Little Rock could agree, Lu Wu's Secret Realm Bracelet started sounding an alarm.

[WARNING! WARNING!

Do not deceive, abduct, or bribe guardian bosses!]

Well, abduction failed, fake match plan failed, Lu Wu was somewhat helpless.

"Originally, I wanted to interact with you as an ordinary Summoner, but this is what I got.

I can't help it then, I give up, I'm laying my cards on the table. Go on, Little Skeleton, finish it off!"

At Lu Wu's command, he picked up his phone, and with a smash, he broke it…