Astral Pet Store

Chapter 530 Three Abilities – Dragon Mountain

“Dragons feed on dragons.”

Su Ping could not believe what he had just seen.

He quickly raised his astral shield as blood dripped down, so that it wouldn’t fall on him. Otherwise, the smell of blood on him would invite unwanted troubles.

As if feeling an energy disturbance, the huge dragon with a small dragon’s head in its mouth turned its eyes down. A tiny figure leaped into the dragon’s sight; the dragon looked away and flew out of there.

“Did the dragon just find me? I don’t think it was interested in me.”

What a relief.

He was able to tell that the dragon was as overwhelming as the Otherworld Heavenly King; it had to be at the Fate State. The Otherworld Heavenly King might even be weaker than the dragon. After all, dragons were the top creatures among all creatures in the world.

Su Ping looked around. He was at a complete loss.

“Now tell me, how large is the realm? Where should I find the dragon origin?”

He had to speak up after some time passed, since the system didn’t seem to detect his thoughts.

“The system does not provide GPS inside the cultivation sites. The host shall explore all by his lonesome.” The system didn’t hesitate in the slightest when it turned Su Ping down.

Su Ping was speechless.

He thought about it. That was a realm of dragons but the dragons found there were generally of high rank. Those that had reached the legendary rank would have learned the language of other species. He could communicate with those dragons.

He would probably find out where he should go if he asked around.

He jumped down from the rock he was standing on and hurried toward the forest from where that dragon flew out from. The rocks and trees were so large that Su Ping felt he was like a puny insect found in the distant past.

Soon, Su Ping found some dragon footprints and smelled the pungent odor of their droppings.

Su Ping followed the traces of those footprints and the droppings in the forest like an experienced hunter.

He saw some remains along the way; they had been left in the wild unattended. The flesh had been bitten off, leaving weathered bones.

That primitive feeling stimulated Su Ping. He was constantly at the ready.

Not long afterward, Su Ping suddenly saw a huge monster with extremely thick, yet proportionately thin legs, like steel needles. The wings on the back of that insect-like creature were translucent. With several blood-red eyes, the insect was extremely horrible, and the whole body exuded a fierce and bloody smell. The strange insect noticed Su Ping and flew towards him as if he were its prey.

That creature was several meters long; it wasn’t surprising that it would hunt a game like Su Ping.

It approached Su Ping, leaving behind a very lifelike virtual image of where the insect was. Su Ping was almost fooled by this. Su Ping summoned the Little Skeleton as the insect moved closer. Instead of merging with the Little Skeleton, Su Ping told it to finish the insect by itself.

The Little Skeleton’s reaction was fast. It drew its blade the moment it received Su Ping’s order. After a blur, the strange insect had been halved; blood gushed out.

The strange insect was at the Ocean State. While fast, it was still slower than the Little Skeleton.

“Beast core.”

Su Ping dug out an energy crystal from the remains of the strange insect. The beast core was the thing that controlled energy flows inside the beast and would crystalize after some time. A beast core had a high pharmaceutical value and could also be administered to other beasts of the same family to attain stronger powers.

If someone wasn’t fond of beast cores, they could still be used as energy bombs. Beast cores had a lethality close to that of small missiles and could hurt seventh-rank beasts.

Su Ping put away the beast core; he was going to take it back to his store to sell it. That strange insect was of the wind family. So, he could sell the beast core to someone with a pet of similar stock.

Su Ping continued exploring after having finished the insect.

He then understood that there were other creatures in the world of dragons, but they probably weren’t commonly seen.

At the same time, Su Ping took his time to check the Little Skeleton.

Su Ping had not had the time to inspect the Little Skeleton carefully after its recovery. He had been busy with battles and other matters.

He cast an identification spell to read the Little Skeleton’s information.

Little Skeleton

Property: pet of the demon family

Rank: the intermediate position of the ninth rank

Combat Strength: 39

Aptitude: above average.

Talent Skill: elementary agility talent

Bloodline Skills: Bone Demon, Eternal Revenant, Descent of the Bone King

Abilities Mastered: Regeneration, Undead Enslaving, Advanced Saberplay, Puppetry, Demon Whispers, Nightmare Space, Punishment of Sins, Darkness Teleportation, Realm of Death…

Su Ping was deeply impressed.

The Little Skeleton’s aptitude, combat strength, and new abilities had astounded him.

The Little Skeleton was merely at the seventh rank before, with an average aptitude. But, once it had completely consumed the blood crystal, it jumped up by two ranks! From the seventh to the ninth rank!

It would have taken years at a normal rate for the Little Skeleton to climb those two ranks, to say the least.

The more shocking thing was the Little Skeleton’s combat strength, which was at 39!

In usual cases, a ninth-rank beast would only have a combat strength of nine points! But the Little Skeleton’s combat strength was 39 points!

Even a legendary rank creature at the Void State would merely have a combat strength of 20 points!

The Little Skeleton’s combat strength was nearly double in comparison!! The Little Skeleton had also acquired three bloodline skills, which came as a complete surprise to Su Ping. It was true that the pet had gained the Skeleton King’s bloodline, but even the average members of the Skeleton King’s family would merely have one or two bloodline skills; the extremely talented would have three or four bloodline skills.

Since the Little Skeleton was able to acquire three bloodline skills as the new bloodline had just been awakened, the Little Skeleton was more than gifted!

No wonder its aptitude didn’t drop. That was to say that, of all the creatures with the Skeleton King’s bloodline, the Little Skeleton was above average!

Of course, it would be basically impossible for the other common skeletons to achieve such results. The Little Skeleton merely achieved such accomplishments because it had been trained in a special way, while leveraging the Skeleton King’s bloodline.

It would be like asking for the moon to have the Little Skeleton have such strength without the Skeleton King’s bloodline.

The Little Skeleton should be still comparable to the Void State. I wonder how far away it is from the Fate State… Su Ping asked himself. As of that moment, the Little Skeleton’s combat strength was higher than Joanna’s.

Of course, that would be the girl who was working for him, not Joanna’s original self.

Joanna’s original self was a truly powerful being, even taking the universe as a whole, someone that Su Ping couldn’t even imagine.

The combat strength of her employee self was 29.6 points.

The Little Skeleton’s combat strength was almost 10 points higher. That being said, Su Ping was fully aware that his employee’s major focus was on her mind. She could have improved her combat strength at any time if she wanted to.

That merging must be the Bone Demon skill. Su Ping understood that the three bloodline skills had to be the core skills for the Little Skeleton.

There were simple descriptions of each of the three bloodline skills.

The first was the Bone Demon, which was the one that enabled the Little Skeleton to merge with Su Ping. In that state, the Little Skeleton would share all of its strength with Su Ping and the pet itself would become an unbreakable armor for him.

That skill didn’t mean much for the wild Skeleton Kings, but it was truly meaningful for those that entered into contracts with humans.

That was why Skeleton Kings were favored as battle pets by battle pet warriors at the Star Rank.

The second bloodline skill, Eternal Revenant, would enable the Little Skeleton to draw dark energy from the void to recover its body no matter how bad it had been wounded.

The Little Skeleton would be practically unkillable!

When a creature died, it would usually be pulled into the Realm of the Undead…

But when a Skeleton King was in a fatal state and the Realm of the Undead tried to suck it in, the Skeleton King would be able to draw energy from the Realm of the Undead and come back to life!

Almost immortal!

Of course, as informed as Su Ping was, he was able to tell that such a skill wasn’t infallible.

Some creatures were able to freeze time and space, and isolate all energy. In such a case, using that skill would be more than difficult.

He would rather wait for his death if he were to run into such a creature. That would make things easier for him.

As for the last of the three bloodline skills, the Descent of the Bone King was an assault skill. Descent of the Bone King was able to summon the forefather of all Skeleton Kings and leverage the forefather’s strength to wield outstanding powers!

Only the forefathers of major species that had Star Rank bloodlines could have created such skills, leaving such skills to help their offspring!

Apart from the three bloodline skills, the other skills were quite stunning. The long list of new skills dazzled him. How amazing!

The Little Skeleton had become impressive in every way after that awakening.

No wonder it had attained such combat strength. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say it had been blessed with too many skills!

I wonder what the best of the Skeleton Kings would be like, Su Ping wondered.

The Little Skeleton was at the ninth rank but had a combat strength comparable to the Void State. As such, the pet was able to kill average Void State creatures.

That was shocking!

Right then, Su Ping heard a noise.

Roar!

Su Ping came back to his senses. He was bold enough to stop and check the Little Skeleton because he knew he could return to life at the cultivation site.

That roar evidently belonged to a dragon. Su Ping took the Little Skeleton and found their way forward.

Soon, he heard an earth-shaking noise coming from a certain point in the forest. It seemed that a battle was in progress.

Su Ping and the Little Skeleton stole their way over. Su Ping could then see that two dragons were fighting!

One of the dragons had purple scales, quite elegant, while ferocious at the same time.

The other dragon, clearly from another breed, had dark green scales. The dragon had two thick legs and four shorter paws, but each claw was quite sharp.

The two dragons were of different size. The one with the purple scales was more than two hundred meters tall, while the other was less than one hundred meters tall. Right then, while the latter was very aggressive, it wasn’t gaining an upper hand in that battle.

Another hunt. Su Ping was startled.

The dragons were more violent than he had expected. First, he had seen a dragon eating another dragon; then he witnessed a dragon hunting another dragon.

Su Ping kept quiet.

Both dragons were at the legendary rank. Su Ping was planning to wait for one of them to be defeated; he would then capture the winner to ask about the dragon origin.

The battle was intense and neither dragon had noticed the uninvited party. That, or, even if they had noticed the presence of a human male, they wouldn’t care because Su Ping seemed to be too weak. He wasn’t even at the legendary rank. Compared to the two dragons, at best, Su Ping was a puny bug.

Boom!

With a blast, the dragon with the dark green scales was swept away. The one with the purple scales bit the former’s neck; the former let out a cry of pain.

That was a cry filled with desperation and it carried a begging tone. However, coldblooded hunters would never let go of their game. Soon, the cry died down and the dragon with the purple scales tore off its game’s head. Blood gushed out.

That primitive and bloody view startled Su

Ping.

He lurked in waiting.

That purple scaled dragon tossed the dragon head aside and then feasted on the neck of the dragon corpse.

The blood tainted its neck, its fangs, and its mouth, which made the purple scaled dragon all the more horrifying.

Then, the dragon turned around toward the place where Su Ping was hiding.

The dragon opened its mouth; energy began to gather in its mouth and the beam was aiming at Su Ping.

He was not surprised; he told the Little Skeleton to use Bone Demon at once.

Boom!

An incredible blast of energy continuously surged out from Su Ping. He was getting an urge to cry into the sky, but he pushed down that desire. Red glow was bursting out from his eyes. He dashed over toward the purple scaled dragon.

The dragon was taken aback after witnessing how Su Ping had changed into a different person. The dragon appeared to be frightened upon noticing the energy bursting out from that human.

The dragon groaned, as a threat and demonstration of its power.

However, Su Ping was immune to the dragon’s roar. He would use the roar from the Heaven Expansion Dragon as background music to relax. At the moment, Su Ping was charging toward the dragon like a bullet and he punched with his Fist of Exorcist.

Boom!!

The purple dragon gathered its energy to fight back, but regardless of that, Su Ping landed a punch on its wing, piercing right through. Su Ping rushed on and jumped onto the dragon’s neck. He placed his foot on that neck, ready to stomp on it forcefully at any time. “Behave if you want to live.” Su Ping sent a mental message to the dragon, carrying a cold tone.

The purple dragon stared at Su Ping in fear and fury but didn’t take any action. It understood Su Ping’s message; he heard a message back soon after. “What do you want? You can have my food.”

The dragon used the language of dragons but the message was translated into the human language as it was mentally conveyed, so that Su Ping could understand. “I don’t want your food.” Su Ping snorted. “What do you know about the dragon origin?”.

“Dragon origin?” That question was unexpected. “Why?”

“I see that you do know about it.” Su Ping pressed the dragon, “Where is it? Do you know where to find it? Show me the way!” The purple scaled dragon shouted in alarm, “Dragon origin is the source for us purple-blood dragons. Why are you, a lowlife, asking about it?” “Purple-blood dragons?” Su Ping looked at the dragon’s scales and remembered the name of that cultivation site. The system had once told him that there would be a major species in each dragon realm. The purple-blood dragons seemed to be the owners of this realm.

“Show me the way since you know about it. Or else, you’re going to be just like that one over there!” Su Ping threatened the dragon.

The dragon felt humiliated. It was cooking up a vicious plan; the dragon origin was at a place that held the utmost importance for purple-blood dragons. That person would be hurling himself willingly into the trap.

The dragon swallowed down the insult and promised Su Ping, “Fine, I’ll show you the way.”

Su Ping jumped onto the dragon’s back. He turned his palm and the bone blade that the Little Skeleton had once picked up from the Chaotic Realm of the Undead appeared in his hand. He stuck the blade against the dragon’s back. “Move it!”

The bone blade was much sharper than he had expected. The dark energy around the blade was able to cut through the hard dragon scales with ease.

Su Ping put his hand on the handle as if it were the steering wheel. If he wanted, he could immediately cut the dragon open.

After feeling that cold sensation, the frightened purple dragon flapped its wings and flew away.

The dragon was only able to rely on merely one wing, since one of its wings had been broken by Su Ping. Soon after, the dragon had submerged deep into the clouds.

The massive forest was becoming smaller and smaller. Su Ping was finally able to have a clear view of the realm.

On the ground, in addition to the endless forest, there were winding mountains, swamps, and a primitive mountain peak standing in the forest.

The whole world was barren.

Wind swept across the land. Su Ping spurred the dragon forward; they soared above the exotic land.

He soon heard some dragon’s cries. It seemed that several dragons were battling against something and were crying for help.

The dragon that Su Ping stood on was about to cry out when he snorted. The dragon felt a chill running down its spine. Although furious, the dragon did the smart thing of forgoing the idea of shouting for help.

They pressed on.

They passed by mountain peaks and extensive forests, including several large rivers in which some things were moving about; Su Ping had a clear view: there were some bones and remains by the side of the river.

After a long, long while.

Su Ping began to see a gigantic mountain.

That was indeed a “huge” mountain!

Even while being in that world of dragons, such a mountain was able to pierce into the clouds.

Those large peaks and forests he had seen were like small blades of grass in front of that colossal mountain.

Su Ping was able to feel something quite stressful coming off from that mountain.

Su Ping saw that other purple dragons in the sky were also hurrying toward that mountain.

“Is that where the dragon origin is found?” Su Ping questioned.

The dragon answered, “That is a sacred place for us and yes, that is where the dragon origin is found.”

Su Ping nodded. He gazed at the mountain for a long while.

The dragon took him closer and closer to the mountain until he was able to see the rocks and boulders on the mountain.

The dragon landed by the hillside.

There were many purple-blood dragons gathered there, as well as other dragons, which was a surprise for Su Ping. All of those dragons were even more intimidating than the Otherworld Heavenly King. Su Ping had a feeling that he was standing in front of Star-rank creatures.

“What are the dragons doing here?” Su Ping asked.

He thought he was going to see another view of a dragon eating dragons. But wouldn’t the other dragons serve themselves as food for the purple-blood dragons? “They’re here to pay tribute and some of the dragons are after the dragon origin, like you,” the dragon answered with contempt. As they landed, the other purple dragons noticed the person standing on a dragon. All the dragons became livid with rage. “How audacious!”

“How dare you ride on one of us!” “What is that? Kill him!”

The purple-blood dragons bellowed. Dragons of other kinds eyed Su Ping in amazement.

What creature would dare to ride on a purple-blood dragon? The dragon that was still under Su Ping’s feet cried out for help at once. “Help me. This lowlife snuck on me and kidnapped me. He’s after the dragon origin!”

Su Ping glanced over the other purple-blood dragons. All of them were at the legendary rank, but their strengths varied.

He didn’t wish to do things the hard way. He hopped off from the dragon, stood in the air, and cupped his fists. “I am Su Ping, a human being. I’m here to ask for the dragon origin. I hope you can let me have a share and I’m more than willing to trade that with anything!”

“Shut up!”

A bulky purple-blood dragon stepped forward and shouted at Su Ping, “You insulted one of us. And how do you even dare ask for the dragon origin? You’re not worthy to speak of the dragon’s origin. Guards, finish him!” The other purple-blood dragons were all riled up.

The dragons of other kinds could not believe what they had just heard. They were dragons and they could use the dragon origin, but there was nothing about Su Ping that was even remotely connected to dragons. Why would he ask for the dragon origin?

Not to mention that he had kidnapped a purple-blood dragon!

“Human? I think I’ve heard of such things.”

“They’re creatures from the past. I thought they had gone extinct.”

“Do you mean the vermin that were once here in the distant past?”

The dragons of other kinds whispered to each other.

While those dragons were quite powerful and even more so than the purple-blood dragons present, they were afraid to take any impulsive actions, and were quite respectful to the purple-blood dragons.