「The tenth day of Dream Training.」
Just as Gu Ming thought his Cultivation would proceed steadily, the prompts for "Devouring Secret Technique EXP +1" from Ah Kun had stopped appearing for a long time.
Gu Ming had to pause his own Cultivation and walk over to check on Ah Kun.
"What's wrong? Are you full?" Gu Ming asked.
Ah Kun paused in the Fish Tank and shook its head.
It was still eating the Fish Food, but it was starting to get tired of it.
'But I can't possibly tell Master I'm sick of it.'
'I'm not some young Pet Beast; I have no reason to throw a tantrum at my master.'
'It's rare enough to have earned my master's approval. I can't let him think I'm a picky eater.'
It flapped its fins, gobbled down a few more pellets of Fish Food in the tank, and resumed chanting the Seven-Word Mantra to digest them.
Gu Ming didn't have a Pet Beast Contract with Ah Kun, so he couldn't perceive the energy changes inside its body. He could only stand by the Fish Tank and observe with his own eyes.
The long-awaited Devouring Secret Technique experience didn't budge. The progress bar was stuck at 1999/2000.
'What's going on?'
Gu Ming pinched a piece of Fish Food and thought for a moment.
'Could this be Ah Kun's bottleneck?'
Ah Kun's original body was an old Grouper Fish with poor racial Talent. To treat it as a true Kunpeng would mean the Beastmaster was completely deluding themselves.
So the current situation was that Ah Kun's Skill Level progress bar was stuck, unable to break through that last point of experience.
Faced with this situation, Gu Ming could only end the Dream Training and wait until he returned to school the next day to ask his teacher what was going on.
Additionally, the Little Cyan Snake's Headbutt Skills had reached Entry Level. There was no need to train them further, as Head Hammer was not one of the Little Cyan Snake's Core Techniques.
'It's meant to follow the Poison Attack route, so the focus should be on cultivating its poison damage, Speed, and Biting Skills.'
'Training it any further would be detrimental to the Little Cyan Snake. Besides, my Achievement Points are limited, so it's better to be frugal.'
With that thought, Gu Ming ended his Cultivation in the dream and returned to reality.
The two Pet Beasts blinked their eyes, quickly feeling their surroundings become real again, no longer with the ethereal quality of the dream.
Gu Ming immediately took stock of the results from ten days of Dream Training. First, his Cyan Pine Skill hadn't been fully refined. It had unfortunately stopped at a progress bar of "80/500," with five-sixths of the way still to go.
The Headbutt Skills the Little Cyan Snake had comprehended would probably score some decent Power Points in a strength test.
However, he had never tested it, so he didn't know the exact numbers.
Then there was the progress of Ah Kun's Devouring Secret Technique, which was stuck at the very last point of the Entry Level Skill Level.
It was just one point away from reaching the next stage—Master Level.
It was enough to drive a perfectionist crazy.
'No, I have to try having it Devour other things.'
'Just eating Fish Food has reached its limit, but eating something else will probably still increase it.'
Gu Ming scanned everything in the room. There was nothing edible.
He left the room and found a large, cold shrimp in the kitchen refrigerator. It had a hard, red shell, a tough texture, an imposing appearance, and was bursting with Spiritual Qi.
He wondered how such a high-quality shrimp had ended up in the fridge. 'Perhaps my parents siphoned off some of the extra money from that multi-million check,' he thought.
Gu Ming grabbed the red shrimp and brought it back to his room. "Can you eat this?" he asked.
Ah Kun stared at the palm-sized red shrimp. It was a whole size bigger than Ah Kun itself. Its clear eyes instantly clouded over, and its fish mouth hung slightly open, releasing a series of "blub, blub, blub" bubbles.
Ah Kun was playing dumb.
Gu Ming could tell. The little guy was scared.
'A Spirit Stone was one thing,' it thought. 'It wasn't bigger than me, and I could stuff it in my mouth.'
'But this shrimp was clearly too much. No matter how it tried, it could never swallow the whole thing.'
"Ah Kun, do you know what kind of creature a Kunpeng is?" Gu Ming pulled up a stool, sat down by the Fish Tank, and broke off the shrimp's right pincer with his hand.
Ah Kun shook its head. The Little Cyan Snake also cast a curious gaze, tilting its head to listen to Gu Ming's story.
"In the North Netherworld there is a fish, and its name is Kun. The Kun is so enormous, it is not known how many thousands of miles it spans. It transforms into a bird, and its name is Peng..."
Gu Ming recited a passage from an ancient text. It was something he had learned in his past life. He had no memory of it in his early childhood; only after his brain developed into the Adolescent Stage did he slowly begin to recall memories from his previous life.
'I thought the texts I learned in my past life would be useless in this one, but I never expected them to come in handy now.'
Neither Ah Kun nor the Little Cyan Snake had ever heard the story of the Kunpeng, much less knew that the name "Kunpeng" represented such a powerful existence.
'What Star Level Pet Beast must that be?'
'An unattainable Eight-star Pet Beast?'
'Or a Nine-star Divine Beast that lives only in legend?'
Gu Ming perceived Cyan Treasure's thoughts and shook his head.
"It's neither."
"If you absolutely had to assign the Kunpeng a level, I would say it's a Pet Beast that lives in Ancient Mythology."
HISS!
Cyan Treasure was stunned. Its eyes went wide, and its serpentine body trembled.
Ah Kun, on the other hand, was completely bewildered.
'What? I'm a Kunpeng?'
For a split second, Ah Kun suspected its master was messing with it.
'How could I be a Kunpeng? I'm just a Grouper Fish, completely ordinary, with no Talent whatsoever.'
'If I were the Kunpeng Gu Ming described, why would I have been left ignored in the store?'
"Ah Kun, don't doubt it. You are a Kunpeng.
"Others didn't see it, but that's only because they don't have the eyes to see inner beauty.
"Deep down, you must have an unyielding heart. Otherwise, you wouldn't have asked me for help, wanting to leave that shop.
"Since you've escaped that hopeless place, you should look forward boldly and unearth your potential.
"Come on, listen to me. Eat this pincer. You can even digest a Spirit Stone; there's no reason you can't digest other things."
As Gu Ming finished speaking, he revealed his true motive, placing the red shrimp's pincer into the water.
Ah Kun's head was buzzing.
Its master's motivational speech was so enchanting it couldn't help but want to believe him.
'I am Ah Kun! I possess the bloodline of the mythological Kunpeng!'
However, when it opened its mouth, it discovered its mouth was too small to swallow the entire pincer.
Gu Ming noticed this as well. It seemed that for the Grouper Fish to walk the path of the Kunpeng, a lot of prep work was still needed.
He thought about the Big Fish Stomach and Biting Skills that a Grouper Fish absolutely had to learn. 'Once it learns those two Skills, it can probably swallow it,' he mused.
"Alright, forget it. Just eat the red shrimp's eye," Gu Ming said, prying out the frozen eye with his fingers and placing it in the water.
Ah Kun looked over. This, at least, it could finally eat.
It opened its mouth and gobbled down the black shrimp eye, then began to use the Seven-Word Mantra for Refinement.
Heat immediately spread from its stomach. Its aging organs worked desperately, putting all their effort into the Refinement and letting out waves of mournful groans from the overload.
Ah Kun was astonished. It could feel its body changing.
The Mana remaining in its body began to circulate on its own, flowing throughout its system and into every groaning organ, reducing their workload.
The shrimp eye also rapidly transformed into Life Power, surging into the stomach walls before slowly flowing into its eyes.
「Devouring Secret Technique EXP +1」
「Juvenile Kunpeng Vision +2」
「Juvenile Kunpeng's Devouring Secret Technique has been promoted to Master Level!」
「Progress: 0/10000」
'It worked?'
Gu Ming felt a flicker of joy. It seemed his intuition was correct.
'Devouring too much Fish Food can no longer grant Ah Kun experience. It has to Devour something else to gain more.'
Speaking of which, after Ah Kun devoured the shrimp's eye, its vision had actually increased by two points.
'Eating the ordinary Fish Food from the Pet Beast Store didn't increase its Attributes at all.'
'If it eats other high-quality Spiritual Materials, couldn't it also gain other Attributes?'
'In other words, there's still more to explore with Ah Kun's Devouring Evolution Talent.'