Monster Pet Evolution

“This is for you.” Old Ji took a black plastic bag out of his pocket. From the shape of the bag, he could guess that it was something like a notebook or a cell phone.

Gao Peng took it and opened it in front of Old Ji. The bag contained a beige map that felt coarse, though it was unclear what it was made of. There was also a tablet and a very precise compass.

“This tablet is solar powered. There’s an electronic version of the map on it. You can also use it to make calls… if there’s a signal. I’ll teach you how to use the map and compass in the next few days. It’s a map of the interior regions that shows the terrain of Yuzhou. It also shows where the dangerous places are. You should refer to it often.

“You have a flying type monster, so you have more protection than most monster trainers on expeditions… You need to learn to make the correct decisions when facing danger. As long as I’m here, I’ll always be there to be your shield. Just do everything that you want to do with confidence.” Ji Hanwu’s usual stern disposition suddenly seemed to have softened. A warm smile appeared on his face.

Gao Peng turned his head and looked up at his grandfather. His grandpa’s silver-white hair was neatly groomed.

Gao Peng remembered that his hair had once been black.

“Okay,” Gao Peng said.

It was worth mentioning that Silly had finally been promoted to the Commander tier in the last half month. Its portable space had grown massive in size, as it was as big as the containers that were carried by trucks. It could have been said that the qualitative change had finally ushered in the quantitative change. It had also finally become what Gao Peng wanted it to be, a moving warehouse.

After the portable space was filled with food, medicine, tents, and a series of items that were essential to surviving in the wild, Gao Peng waved at Old Ji, then turned and strode away.

Ji Hanwu stared at Gao Peng’s back. He wanted Gao Peng to turn around once more, but he didn’t know what to say. In the end, he could only sigh softly, turn around, and leave.

…

Gao Peng opened the map and tried to figure out where he was.

“I should be here right now…” Gao Peng frowned and muttered to himself.

Before the Cataclysm, Yuzhou City had held the nickname of mountain city since it was located between the mountains. It kept changing after the Cataclysm. The mountains grew even higher and became even more majestic. It was a serene and tranquil place.

On the map, the Yuzhou city was located at the center. With Yuzhou at the center, the map extended towards the four corners of the paper. Many of the peaks were painted with portraits of monsters, along with a description of those monsters.

Red circles were drawn on certain areas of the map, and inside the circles were red crosses. They marked the presence of a Lord tier monster!

The red crosses were locations that Lord tier monsters regularly appeared in.

Gao Peng had a headache from looking at the map… There are way too many red circles on the map, and they’re located so close together. I think I can see at least ten of them in one glance.

Gao Peng continued to scan through the map carefully. Just a week ago, Gao Peng had discovered an interesting new feature in the data frame. If he put his focus on certain materials, he would be able to learn where the materials came from.

However, he remembered that he hadn’t possessed such an ability before.

Gao Peng couldn’t figure it out. He just assumed that it was his increase in soul strength that allowed him to use a new ability with the data frame. As his soul strength increased, so would the ability of the data frame.

Besides Silly, who was an Excellent grade Commander tier familiar, all of Gao Peng’s other familiars were Perfect grade Commander tier familiars.

Gao Peng’s main goal right then was to have Stripey and Da Zi move up to Epic grade so that they could awaken their special characteristics.

“In order for Stripey to get promoted to the Epic grade, it would need to swallow an Earth Spirit Core, then sleep for 72 hours in black soil. After that, it would evolve into an Earth Shield Spider.” Gao Peng kept looking at the map. He was trying to look for a place where there might have been an Earth Spirit Core.

Earth Spirit Core, Earth Spirit Core…

Here, here, and here. These three places have the right conditions to contain Earth Spirit Cores.

After thinking for a while, Gao Peng decided to go to the one that was closest to him.

“Slow down! Flamy, fly slower!

“Da Zi! Don’t run too far, and that’s a smelly fruit, you can’t eat that!

“Stripey! Get up quickly! That’s just a normal Iron Boar, not some sort of god boar! You better not kneel in front of it!”

Throughout the journey, Gao Peng had to put in a lot of effort to take care of each of them. It was extremely tiring, as he felt like he was both their dad and their mom. Each familiar had their own thoughts. As they grew older, their personalities also became more lively. They wouldn’t just roll around and act cute as they had before. However, Gao Peng would rather they just continued rolling around and acting cute…

After half a day of traveling, they hadn’t even traveled more than three miles.

Gao Peng wiped the sweat from his forehead. If they kept going at this pace, he didn’t know when they would reach their destination.

Fortunately, the trees were tall and the leaves were big. All of the sunlight was blocked by the trees and leaves, plus the air was quite cool.

Usually, such a cool environment would have a lot of mosquitos. However, there were no mosquitos around. Gao Peng wasn’t used to this.

Flap, flap, flap.

The sounds of wings flapping came from the distance.

Flamy, who was flying above the forest, said to Gao Peng through the Blood Contract, “Master, there are a lot of mosquitos. A lot of very big mosquitos!”

A lot of very big mosquitos? Gao Peng felt a thump in his heart. Could it be that he had jinxed it when he had thought about mosquitos earlier?

There were usually a lot of mosquitos in a group. They were some of the more difficult monsters to deal with. He had just been randomly thinking mosquitos before, but he didn’t actually want any mosquitos to be there.

The dark jungle was full of thick trunks and dense shrubs that were stacked on top of one another. He could only determine the position of the mosquitoes from where the sound was coming from.

“Flamy, come down first,” Gao Peng ordered Flamy.

Flamy pierced through the treetops and landed next to Gao Peng. It turned around and stared intensely in the direction the mosquitos were coming from.

Flamy then opened its beak. Yellow flames started to condense around its throat.

“There’s no need to do that,” Gao Peng said as he gently stroked Flamy’s back.

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

Flamy swallowed down the flames.

Flamy had recently had a crazy growth spurt. It was six and a half feet tall while standing on the ground. Gao Peng had to stand on his toes and really stretch out his hand just to pat Flamy on the head.

“We need to be smart when dealing with such monsters,” Gao Peng took out a giant sachet from the portable space that was a foot and a half tall.

“This is a mixture that was made with the telosma cordata plant after the Cataclysm, including purple gold lavender, scorpio gold sunflower, giant citron, and orange jessamine. They’re mixed to become a super mosquito repellent.” Gao Peng lifted up the sachet and the strong scent of different flowers started to spread around.

“Now, it’s time to witness a miracle.”

In the distance, the Giant Black Iron Mosquito that was flying at the front suddenly smelled a strange smell in the distance. The Giant Black Iron Mosquito almost fainted when it got a whiff.

Its wings shook violently, its bones almost broken by this stench.

“Blargh.” After vomiting, the Giant Black Iron Mosquitos quickly turned around.

The Giant Black Iron Mosquito leading the group was the spearhead of the mosquito army. The direction of its flight was the direction the other giant mosquitoes would follow.

The sounds of the mosquitos slowly disappeared. Gao Peng grinned and put away the sachet with the mixture. He looked at the familiars, who were gazing at him with admiring eyes, and said, “This is elementary. Simply elementary.”