Was this really something humans had come up with?
Su Ping was utterly baffled.
He stared at the latest TV drama playing on his computer—a wuxia series titled My Sword Spirit Pet Beast Girlfriend.
Strangely enough, it felt pretty similar to the shows from his previous life.
No matter the genre, everything had to involve romance.
The only difference was that in this world, one more rule had been added: no matter what kind of show it was, it had to include pet beasts.
Of course, Blue Star itself was a Beast Tamer world, so that part at least made some sense.
But still…
Su Ping looked at the so-called "fresh-faced idol" male lead on the screen—someone who wasn't even as handsome as him—yet was somehow triggering endless lines of "AAAAAAH!" screams in the barrage comments.
In the actor's hand was a sword, with an aggressively enlarged, blatant product placement stamped across the screen:
"Produced by Ouyezi Corporation."
And from that sword emerged a female sword spirit.
Su Ping felt his scalp go numb.
Sure, spirit-weapon–type pet beasts existed. But these were famously among the hardest types of pet beasts to cultivate—on par with mechanical pet beasts.
The Beast Tamer Association even had two corresponding subsidiary branches: the Refiner Association and the Mechanist Association.
Compared to elemental, plant, beast, and undead pet beasts, these two categories were exceedingly rare.
But a weapon capable of giving birth to a weapon spirit—was that really something some damn metal-resource manufacturing company could produce?
If they truly had that ability, Su Ping would absolutely refuse to believe that the President of the Imperial Capital's Refiner Association wouldn't already be their company's chairman.
Sure enough, there was no reason for him to expect anything sensible from modern TV dramas that were determined to fry viewers' brains.
That said, there were a few highly rated films whose performances were passable.
But as for providing any deeper interpretation of swordsmanship skills for Beast Tamers—or anything of that sort—there was nothing at all.
The overall content wasn't much different from the swordsman movies and novels of his previous life, just with pet beasts forcibly shoehorned in.
And the swords wielded by the protagonists were invariably top-tier spirit weapons, which explained why these films were almost always sponsored by the Refiner Association.
Compared to other Beast Tamers, weapon-type Beast Tamers were rare indeed. If they didn't boost their presence through entertainment media, they were liable to be forgotten entirely.
And Dragon Nation's long-standing concepts of xia and jianghu were undoubtedly the perfect narrative vessels for that.
Shaking his head, Su Ping a few memorable lines and bits of dialogue from the films. He also compiled some experience-sharing posts by Undead-type breeders about the habits of Paper Effigies—posts that were only visible on internal breeder forums.
Only after that did he begin meditating.
He had to speed things up.
Sleep could be compressed a little, but his own realm had to rise as quickly as possible.
Putting aside his agreement with Qin Xiaoxue regarding the professional Beast Tamer assessment, just for the sake of breaking through to the Elite tier as soon as possible—and then finding a way to contract that little paper man without any lingering risks—Su Ping had to push himself.
The night passed swiftly.
Another repetitive day followed.
After finishing the day's Forest Wolf training and squeezing in more meditation for himself, Su Ping headed to the side residence.
Almost the moment he opened the door, spatial ripples appeared, and the little paper man popped into existence before him.
"Uwa!"
It was just a simple greeting—nothing more.
Su Ping smiled warmly and took out a thick stack of items, handing them over to the little paper man.
It was a stack of stiff paper sheets, prepared days ago when Su Ping had first started plotting to win over this little fellow.
Paper Effigies needed to eat too—and what they ate was paper.
And Su Ping's stack was premium-grade.
Hard paper made from low-tier Ironwood. The texture was absolutely top-notch.
The result spoke for itself.
The little paper man tore off a piece and stuffed it into its mouth.
"Uwa! (Tasty!)"
At the same time, its face instantly switched to a matching expression:
()!
Paired with the faint blush on its cheeks, it was oddly expressive.
Still, it was clear this little fellow wasn't that easy to fool. After chomping everything down, it looked at Su Ping expectantly.
At that point, Su Ping began his "lesson," drawing from what he'd watched the night before and the lines he'd carefully prepared during the day.
"A swordsman—what's most important is starting from the basics. And for a swordsman, the most important thing is sword technique. So tell me, what is sword technique?"
"Uwa?! (What is it?!)"
Looking at the little paper man—barely reaching his calf—with its eyes wide open, a bold black question mark clearly appearing beside its forehead, Su Ping finally smiled.
"Sword techniques have many forms, but the most important ones are slash and thrust. These are the two most fundamental basics of swordsmanship. What you need to practice now is exactly these two moves. Only after you've mastered them can you move on to other fundamentals."
"Uwa?"
The question mark above its head didn't disappear—in fact, more of them popped up.
Su Ping didn't rush. He took out a practice longsword he had prepared long ago and led the little paper man into the garden outside.
To his own surprise, after a bit of impromptu practice, Su Ping's demonstration actually looked fairly convincing.
"This is a thrust. This is a slash. A slash like this is perfect when drawing from the scabbard—this move is called… Draw-Sword Slash!"
Soon enough, the little paper man began practicing as well.
And very clearly, it had astonishing talent in this area.
Or perhaps the battles it had experienced in that secret realm—or something else entirely—had already honed its swordsmanship to an exceptional level.
"Very good."
Watching the little paper man execute each strike with precision—several times faster than himself—Su Ping nodded in satisfaction.
"Don't think this is simple. Let me tell you—every famous swordsman's techniques all start from these most basic movements. Only by mastering these fundamentals can you learn more advanced sword techniques later. Understand?"
"Uwa!"
After receiving its affirmative response, Su Ping continued:
"Of course, no need to rush. Tonight and every night after this, you'll practice these two moves slowly. Practice each of them ten thousand times. Got it?"
"Uwa!"
"Good. Now I'll show you what a true swordsman looks like—so you can properly understand what being a real swordsman means."
With that, Su Ping led the eagerly anticipating little paper man back into the guest living room. He plugged the USB drive containing the pre-downloaded films into the TV and set them to loop.
The story unfolded slowly…
Half an hour later, the moment finally arrived.
Su Ping and the little paper man watched as the white-robed male protagonist on screen transformed into a streak of light.
Time seemed to freeze.
In the next instant, the protagonist calmly sheathed his so-called, absurdly hyped Holy Spirit–tier weapon-type pet beast—
Snowfall Divine Sword.
Then the entire world zoomed out, turning ash-gray.
Over-the-top special effects exploded outward as torrents of sword qi poured forth.
Forget cleaving mountains or splitting rivers—this cinematic strike looked powerful enough to split heaven and earth itself.
In the end, under these ludicrous effects, the gigantic beast villain—who had made the little paper man shriek nonstop—was instantly killed by that single sword.
And the protagonist didn't even look back.
He casually adjusted his perfectly untouched hairstyle, gazed at the snowflakes drifting down from the sky, and murmured softly:
"Invincible… how lonely it truly is."
Then he drifted away, leaving behind only the monster's corpse, the stunned onlookers—
And the still-lingering, outrageously excessive visual effects.
"Uwa! Uwa! Uwa!"
The little paper man pointed excitedly at the screen, hopping straight onto the coffee table. Its hand had already gripped the hilt of its paper sword, as if it were about to draw and imitate the scene in the very next second.
Su Ping hurriedly stopped it.
He might be earning money now, but he had no desire to pay for renovations.
Still, it was obvious—his grand brainwashing plan was professional and effective.
The little paper man's motivation had been completely ignited.
With a sigh of relief, Su Ping said:
"Alright. To become a swordsman like that requires immense strength. Even such swordsmen are forged one sword strike at a time. Understand?"
"Uwa!"
Immediately, without any further prompting, the little paper man gleefully ran out into the side garden and began practicing its thrusts and slashes over and over again.
Watching the diligent little paper man, Su Ping smiled and nodded—
Then said a sentence he would later regret for the rest of his life:
"Very good. How about this—after you train for more than four hours, you can watch some recordings of famous swordsmen. Study the way of the sword properly."
Little Paper Man: ヾ(▽)ノ
"Uwa! (Yay!)"
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