Astral Pet Store

Su Ping sat down behind the counter to train his skills while waiting for more customers. Or in other words, more energy point batteries.

The shop was far from being crowded, but he could still see that his “propaganda” was working. Every now and then, a few students of Phoenix Peak Academy would come to visit and occasionally buy services.

Thanks to all the piled-up orders, he finally realized that there was a limit to how many nursing pens he could have in the shop. According to the system, the shop was currently level 1, which was allowed to hold 25 nursing pens in total.

Getting the shop to the next level would increase the upper limit to 50, as well as updating the “system shop”, which might allow him to buy better items and services.

A level-2 shop also came with two important functions: Nursing Space and Dummy Trainer.

The Nursing Space allowed him to keep customers’ pets inside, instead of occupying the available nursing pens, in case those customers didn’t come to retrieve their pets in time. Previously, he had to keep neglected pets inside nursing pens since the system wouldn’t allow him to randomly throw them here and there. With a Nursing Space, however, he could toss pets that didn’t need to receive any more services inside and forget about them.

“Dummy Trainer” was a very handy function that allowed him to order his “clones” to train pets in his stead. These clones, or dummies, would carry a portion of his character and skills, and could go on training sessions in different cultivation planes by themselves. While waiting, Su Ping could either give them more specific orders or leave them to commence ordinary training.

At this rate, he couldn’t possibly handle all customers by himself as the shop gained more fame. This new function would solve a major problem.

But to level up the shop, he needed 10,000 energy points. He didn’t have enough, even after all the subsequent sales of the day.

He already had 25 elementary nursing pens filled up. Thankfully, those were only 10 energy points each. As for intermediate ones, each one was worth 1,000 energy points to maintain. To go with the elevated price, an intermediate pen also had a “x100” nursing efficiency. A random pet that stayed inside for 24 hours could gain a visible improvement in strength.

A pet could get stronger both by staying inside an energy-rich nursing pen and undergoing training. The latter required Su Ping’s personal effort and was obviously optimal. Also, training was the way to go if he wished to finish the “specialized training mission.” Keeping a pet inside a nursing pen was not enough.

Before he could open up more nursing pens, he had to decline some orders, although he could still earn some energy points by selling pet food as there was no limit to that.

He felt a headache when looking at nearly twenty pets waiting to be nursed in the pet room.

At noon, he bought a cheap lunch box and closed the shop. He planned to get the first group of pets trained as quickly as possible so he could accept more and get enough energy points to level up the shop. That would free up a lot of his time.

With several quick moves, he purchased enough temporary pet contracts from the system, found four fire-type pets in the pet room, and used the contracts on them in one go.

He felt his head getting heavier the moment he finished the contracts. As an upper third-rank battle pet warrior, keeping seven pets under his control was almost his limit.

Luckily, dying multiple times in cultivation planes contributed to the growth of his spirit and endurance somewhat.

“Ugh, my head… That’s all of the fire-types? Good. I can train all four of them in one trip.”

He sat down and scrolled through the cultivation plane list to look for one suitable for fire-type pets. In the end, he chose a place called “Stellar Shard #9527,” which would cost him 5 energy points to enter. This looked like a pretty good one among all the elementary cultivation planes.

Like before, a dimensional vortex appeared in the pet room and drew him inside.

“The host has been connected to Stellar Shard #9527.”

“Time limit: 24 hours.”

“Under beginner’s protection, the host will receive 30 free death allowances.”

“Please begin your exploration, and good luck.”

Su Ping’s eyes were still closed when he felt a scorching heat assaulting his skin. When he opened them, he saw flames and burning lava everywhere. He was standing on a floating rock in the middle of a lava pool. His arrival caused the rock to dangerously sink several inches, bursting several giant bubbles of hot carbon dioxide.

Where the heck am I?

Su Ping scouted around while trying to find a better footing. He managed to see a higher landscape up ahead where there was less lava.

Fire-types were a popular choice among students, especially proud ones, because all the pets of this category knew some flashy moves, even though they might not be very useful.

People didn’t often find wild fire-type pets, however, because these creatures tended to make a big scene by burning things up. Predators could easily detect them from a distance and kill them.

None of the four pets Su Ping took with him could fly, so they had to proceed by jumping between the floating rocks. He feared that some of the rocks were not as sturdy as they appeared to be. Stepping on them might not be a good idea.

Man. Without Solar Bulwark, the air would be enough to roast me alive. Is there anything living around here at all?

The system did tell him that certain abandoned cultivation planes were inhabitable. He could have stumbled into one if he was unlucky.

“Hey, you four. Try jumping into the lava,” he ordered the pets.

The pets looked at each other with terrified looks. Despite being of the fire-type, they couldn’t actually survive in the lava. Powerful fire-based attacks could still hurt them, let alone such bright magma that looked at least a thousand Celsius hot.

However, they couldn’t oppose Su Ping’s order with their pet contracts in effect.

As carefully as possible, they moved to the edge of the platform and reached with their paws below.

Fizz!

It smelled like burnt fur.

As one, the creatures turned back and stared at Su Ping with watery eyes.

Su Ping didn’t care about them getting hurt though, since pets being trained in a cultivation plane could get revived countless times.

He walked to the pets, and without any forewarning, he booted one of them—a Pyro Canine—over the edge.

“Wuff?? AHROOOOO—”