King of Beasts

In the Forest of the Demon Cat secret realm, Lu Ran and his companions were yet unaware of the situation in the outside world.

However, both Lu Ran and General Ha had anticipated that they must have reclaimed their positions on the divine beast leaderboard! If they couldn’t ascend to the top ranks of the leaderboard, Lu Ran supported the idea of dismantling it in the future. “Not only are the resources trash, but the crystal coins given are also scanty,” Lu Ran sighed as he collected their rewards. Perfect completion was merely enough to break even… It wasn’t easy. “Let’s not return yet.”

Lu Ran then made his decision.

After clearing the secret realm, challengers could choose to stay until they reached the maximum allowed duration.

“General Ha, let’s gather more resources,” Lu Ran called out to General Ha.

Since there was still plenty of time, Lu Ran felt they could still extract more from this secret realm. “Woof~” General Ha’s tail wagged eagerly; it wanted to eat wood scale fruits!

“Eat, I’ll go pick them for you.”

Beyond wanting to squeeze more resources, Lu Ran was also preoccupied with another matter.

It was about the tent he had encountered in the novice secret realm.

He had once thought there might be hidden missions within the secret realm, but up to now, there had been no follow-up. Now that they were invincible within the Forest of the Demon Cat, it was worth a thorough search to see if there were truly no clues left.

…

Several hours later.

In their private room, the figures of Lu Ran and General Ha appeared.

Lu Ran looked exhausted, and General Ha, initially weary as well, recovered quickly and was soon brimming with energy again.

Lu Ran’s stamina was commendable, largely because of walking General Ha. Before its evolution to the supernatural, its stamina was extraordinarily robust, making walking it quite a skillful task. “What a pity.”

After some exploration, Lu Ran felt a bit of regret; he had perhaps expected too much, as an SSS rating was indeed just a perfect completion.

He and General Ha had nearly plowed through the entire secret realm, yet no hidden missions were triggered.

“I don’t believe it,” Lu Ran, stubborn and unconvinced, felt that it might be because the map level of the Forest of the Demon Cat was too low.

Perhaps, once he entered other secret realms, larger maps might unlock the next steps in their exploration.

Secret realms are nested within one another, such as the novice secret realm Lu Ran can currently challenge, which might be included within the larger map of a secret realm that only advanced beastmasters can enter. All secret realms are partial projections of another world, naturally overlapping in some places.

“Bark bark bark!!!” Compared to Lu Ran, General Ha didn’t care about any hidden missions. After emerging, it looked at Lu Ran expectantly, asking what its current rank was on the divine beast leaderboard…

Last time it was tenth, surely it couldn’t still be tenth.

“Let me check…” Lu Ran didn’t need to go to the beastmaster square; he simply opened his communication device.

Sure enough, his few friends had bombarded him with private messages again.

Waves Xiaobailong: Holy shit! Are you my brother? Xiaobailong was shocked. Lu Ran had just disentangled himself from the affairs in Jinling, and the next thing he knew, he was number one on the divine beast leaderboard. What happened?

Lu Ran’s growth speed was terrifying.

Pig Raiser: Ah… Fengyu Piaoling: Big shot! I was blind before and didn’t recognize Mount Tai! Need a girlfriend? We just hired a lot of single newcomers at our shop; I can introduce you to some! This time, even Little Ling from the cat-eared maid café couldn’t resist sending Lu Ran a message.

Lu Ran chuckled and said to General Ha, “First place, taken!” General Ha scoffed disdainfully. The divine beast leaderboard, that’s it? It felt there was no challenge at all.

“But I feel you won’t stay there long. Once there are pet beasts on the leaderboard that reach level 10, integrate traits, or awaken new attributes, they might surpass you.” General Ha: ?

“Awo?”

“Besides, the divine beast leaderboard is just a potential list that judges overall performance in battle. Although it represents strength to some extent, it doesn’t mean that the top ranker is the strongest on the leaderboard, so don’t get cocky,” Lu Ran lectured the dog.

“Bark!”

General Ha showed a wise expression. It didn’t care; it was number one now and wouldn’t be undermined. “Yes, yes, maintain it! There’s still more than half a month until the leaderboard is finalized. If we want to be number one at that time, we also need to quickly reach level 10 and integrate traits to secure it.” “Not sure if we have enough time…” Lu Ran pondered. “Let’s go to the cat-eared maid café and buy some intelligence on secret realms.”

“Let’s see if there’s a secret realm that can quickly boost your growth level.”

Infinite City No.3, Cat-Eared Maid Café.

Lu Ran found himself back at this familiar venue.

Manager Ying had mentioned that it would collect the bonus on Lu Ran’s behalf and then transfer it to him here.

However, upon entering, Lu Ran only saw several young cat-eared maids laughing and chatting. Manager Ying was nowhere to be seen.

“Ask Little Ling…” As soon as Lu Ran stepped in, the maids inside the café also noticed him.

“Welcome~~~” Most of the people here didn’t recognize Lu Ran and simply treated him as an ordinary customer, welcoming him with warmth and enthusiasm. Fortunately, Little Ling was in the café, and her eyes widened when she noticed him.

“No way, you actually came!” She had only meant to show her face in a private message, and here was Lu Ran, actually turning up. Was he really here to pick up a girlfriend? “Little Ling, you know him? You handle this,” the other maids said, seeing that Little Ling seemed to know Lu Ran.

Dropping her broom, Little Ling hurried over to Lu Ran, her face flushed, whispering, “Incredible! First place! I never saw that coming.”

“Forget it, I say what I mean. Let me secretly tell you the intelligence on the maids here without boyfriends… no charge!” Lu Ran: ??

“No, that’s not it.” Seeing Little Ling’s excited demeanor, Lu Ran knew she had misunderstood something. “I’m here to find someone.”

“What, you already have a target?! Who is it?” “It’s your Manager Ying, but it has nothing to do with that private chat. I need to see it; is it here?”

“Ah…” Little Ling was slightly taken aback, looking for Manager Ying?

She hadn’t even seen the actual Manager Ying herself! She had only heard the name.

“No need to look further, I’m here.” Just then, a ragdoll cat appeared seemingly out of nowhere on a bookshelf, blending naturally among the pet beasts of the maid café without attracting any other maid’s attention, looking calmly at Lu Ran.

Hearing the haughty voice, Lu Ran immediately flashed a smile.

Meanwhile, Little Ling, who had been attending to Lu Ran, was flustered and shocked as she watched the speaking ragdoll cat. Damn it! Whispering secrets about other employees during work hours and getting caught by the boss! And she hadn’t even charged for the intelligence! This was dangerous!

Manager Ying glanced at Little Ling and said, “Go attend to your own duties. Lu Ran, come with me.” With that, it vanished, and Lu Ran also disappeared from his spot, teleported to another location.

Staring at the spot where Lu Ran had disappeared, Little Ling was dumbfounded.

At that moment, inside a VIP room of the Cat-Eared Maid Café, Lu Ran found himself suddenly teleported onto a sofa, where he plopped down.

“Manager Ying… a heads-up before teleporting next time would be nice. It’s quite startling,” Lu Ran said with a wry smile.

“Will do next time,” huffed Manager Ying. “Alright, your bounty for capturing the necromancer has been processed. It totals 10,000 crystal coins.” “That much???” Lu Ran was astonished. “Not bad, right? Catching a necromancer in the country, even just an apprentice, pays many times more than entering a secret realm. After all, necromancers are rare, and scarcity increases value…”

Is that really how the phrase is used??? Lu Ran thought to himself, somewhat bemused.

As Manager Ying’s lips curled into a smile, it said, “However, taking these crystal coins might not be so straightforward…”

Lu Ran: ???

“What do you mean…” Lu Ran’s face twitched. Was it actually considering withholding the money? Hadn’t it been agreed that all would be given to him?

Though Lu Ran had no room to argue if it decided to keep them.

“Don’t worry, I’m not interested in keeping these 10,000 crystal coins. If I said they’re yours, they’re yours,” Manager Ying reassured. “However, I have some intelligence that you’ll definitely find interesting…”

“But it won’t come cheap.”

“What intelligence?” Lu Ran was taken aback.

“I was actually planning to buy some intelligence while I’m here…”

Manager Ying continued, “No rush. First, about your Erha—you found it, right?”

“Yes…” Lu Ran frowned, this cat… had it been investigating him?

One night, even General Ha was picked up, had Manager Ying investigated all this?

“Your Erha must have some unique traits compared to other pet dogs, right? For instance, entering combat makes it prone to a frenzied state, losing its rationality and gaining tremendous strength, making it more formidable than some large breeds or fighting dogs, comparable to an adult wolf king, correct?”

Lu Ran was at a loss for words; how had this cat gathered so much detailed information?

“So, what exactly is the intelligence you want to sell me?” Lu Ran asked.

Manager Ying smiled and said, “You’ve certainly tried to trace the origins of that Erha yourself, but came up empty-handed, right? Aren’t you curious why, when it enters a frenzied state, it can attain the combat power of an adult wolf king?”

“Are you saying you know its origins?” Lu Ran stood up, his expression turning serious. This had indeed been a question Lu Ran had investigated without success.

Even though General Ha was exceptionally gifted, Lu Ran could only attribute it to special lineage or atavism to explain it, but the specific reasons were beyond his judgment. However, there was no doubt that if he knew where General Ha came from, he would understand much more clearly.

“Are you buying it?”

“Buy.” Lu Ran gritted his teeth; he naturally had to buy it. Curse these intelligence dealers.

“Good, I’ll charge you 1000 crystal coins then. After all, this intelligence wasn’t easy to come by. I’ll deduct it from the 10,000 crystal coins.”

“Okay.” Lu Ran nodded, relieved. He had thought the other party would make an exorbitant demand, but it seemed that it was just maintaining the basic integrity of an intelligence dealer.

“Now can you tell me about General Ha’s origins?”

Manager Ying said, “First of all, its genes are indeed excellent, not bred as a pet dog. It was born in the northern ice fields as a youth, so its wild nature is stronger.”

Lu Ran said, “I could have guessed that. Its lineage is indeed very close to that of an Arctic wolf. The intelligence you speak of, it’s not just this, right?”

“Of course not, this background is just the reason it could come to Xia Country.”

“Both your parents are PhDs in biology, so you must have heard the name ‘Yunhan’.”

Lu Ran was startled and said, “Dr. Yunhan?”

He remembered, knowing this person, said to be a genius scientist, even Lu Ran’s parents held him in high esteem.

As a child, Lu Ran often heard his parents mention Dr. Yunhan, who notably is a native of Green Sea City.

“Indeed, two years ago, Dr. Yunhan became aware of the beastmaster occupation and has since dedicated himself to animal research, hoping to create the most powerful pet beasts through biotechnology and genetic modification.”

“He leveraged his connections to collect a batch of animals with promising qualities from around the world. Your Erha is one of them.”

“Are you saying General Ha is a test subject?” Lu Ran’s expression hardened, shocked to learn that General Ha was a product of genetic engineering experiments.

“Why would General Ha end up on the streets?” Lu Ran asked, puzzled.

“Such an important test subject should be well-guarded, shouldn’t it?”

Manager Ying replied, “Who told you it was important? Is it possible that it was considered a failure, and that’s why it wasn’t valued? If you didn’t have superpowers, who could tame a dog that often enters a frenzied state? Clearly, it’s not suitable for forming a contract.”

“There was a major accident at Dr. Yunhan’s Green Sea Research Institute, which allowed many test subjects to escape. Although most have been recaptured, some slipped through the net.”

Lu Ran fell silent, then asked, “Dr. Yunhan, is he still in Green Sea City?”

“That’s old news now. He has become a foreign national and joined the technologically advanced Eagle Federation with his research achievements. He’s even started working on a dinosaur revival project. He probably doesn’t have the time or interest to worry about a failed experiment like this. You can keep it without concerns.”

Lu Ran thought to himself, “To underestimate General Ha, I’ll remember this slight on its behalf. Someday, I’ll take it to overturn those dinosaurs.”