Beast Taming: I Can Add Points

A faint white light enveloped Wu Bao’s body.

Doubling: Magnify—activated!

The next moment, Wu Bao’s body rapidly expanded, instantly transforming from a housecat-sized bug into a behemoth comparable to a mammoth.

Yu Bao seemed to freeze, its brain short-circuiting for a moment. It failed to react in time and was slammed head-on by the enlarged Wu Bao.

”HUMMM!” The next moment, Wu Bao’s carapace turned a gleaming jet-black.

Black Fighting Emperor Racial Skill, Perfect Block, activated!

The high-frequency vibrations of the carapace shook Yu Bao along with it, blasting the beast into the air.

Then, Wu Bao leaped high into the air and, with a swing of its horn like a home-run batter, sent Yu Bao flying!

Yu Bao let out a pained howl and disintegrated into a cloud of sand in midair.

As if it had expected this, Wu Bao showed no sign of surprise. It then spun around agilely, shattering a Furious Sand Blade that was flying toward it with its horn.

Sure enough, Yu Bao’s real body was sitting a few paces away. It had already secretly relocated back when it first unleashed the Sandstorm.

In the first exchange, the two were evenly matched.

”AMAZING!!!” Su Mao and Wang Sujuan clapped proudly, acting as the designated hype squad.

”Wooo~!” Wu Bao raised one of its middle legs and smugly gave itself a thumbs-up.

’Bet you didn’t see that coming! My Doubling completely foiled your scheme!’

”...” Yu Bao stared at Wu Bao, a look of utter exasperation on its face.

As its name suggested, Doubling actually included two abilities: magnification and shrinking. It was just that the skill was most often used by large Pet Beasts, so the shrinking version was the one most commonly seen in daily life.

Of course, it wasn’t unheard of for some small, cute Pet Beasts to use magnification Doubling to become life-sized, just to satisfy the... peculiar... curiosity of their Beast Tamers.

While there was no conflict in learning both applications of Doubling, most just mastered one and called it a day...

’What the hell kind of psycho was Wu Bao to have learned both types?’

’Yu Bao admitted it had been careless during its first wave of attacks. It had overlooked the fact that Wu Bao could use Doubling.’

’Thinking about it, this was actually quite a pain. When Wu Bao used shrinking Doubling, its size was more than halved, causing the hit rate of single-target Skills to plummet. Even if a Skill landed, its effect wouldn’t be as good as on a normal-sized target. The effects of crowd-control Skills were also greatly diminished.’

’And if they got into a close-quarters brawl, Wu Bao could suddenly pop magnification Doubling and then Perfect Block. That was enough to give any opponent a world of pain...’

’Damn it! My Energy Value is a full thousand higher than his. I can cut down a Thunder Qilin Beast like it’s nothing, so why is this Wu Bao so damn hard to fight?’

’Of course, none of that really mattered. What truly bothered Yu Bao was that Wu Bao had seen through its plan and managed to pull off a massive flex...’

’He was always the one who got to flex on others. Who the hell did this guy think he was, flexing on him?!’

”AWOOF!”

This time, Yu Bao decided to attack first to seize the initiative. Burning Sand Blades rapidly formed and struck at Wu Bao from all angles, while layers of Yellow Earth Walls erupted to block any comfortable lines of attack.

The Burning Sand Blades were indeed effective. If Wu Bao didn’t possess the Perfect Block Skill, the battle would have already ended.

You could really be reckless when you had a damage-locking Skill. A finishing move that should have been a one-hit kill landed on Wu Bao and felt no different than a basic attack...

In reality, Wu Bao wasn’t having an easy time of it, either.

Realizing Wu Bao was shamelessly relying on Perfect Block, Yu Bao adapted its strategy: it stopped looking for weak points. Instead, all of its Burning Sand Blades focused on attacking a single point on the carapace, repeatedly stacking damage onto that limited area.

This was an operation that was almost purely theoretical. Everyone understood the principle, but actually focusing attacks on a single point in the heat of battle was considered next to impossible...

But this Yu Bao was simply absurd.

It could control Energy with a sickening, silky smoothness, and with its unparalleled Energy Control Ability, it could hit the predetermined target point.

It was an overt strategy. Banking on its outstanding Elemental Perception Ability, Yu Bao could execute tactics that other Pet Beasts of the Same Tier simply couldn’t.

Wu Bao understood that dragging this out was not a long-term solution; after all, it was still the weaker one overall.

So, it continued to dodge the Burning Sand Blades as best it could, while actively charging Yu Bao’s Yellow Earth Wall defensive line.

Before, such a bull-headed tactic would have been practically suicidal against Yu Bao. But now it had Doubling, giving it the advantage of a smaller surface area whether it was dodging or charging...

”BOOM!”

A Burning Sand Blade was only halfway to its target when a massive Light Array suddenly bloomed in mid-air. A giant meteor, its surface etched with molten patterns, shot out from the huge, interwoven array of yellow and crimson light.

”Huh?” Having used its shrinking ability to narrowly escape, a still-shaken Wu Bao looked up and let loose a string of Black Fighting Emperor profanities at Yu Bao.

’Weren’t you going to torture me with Burning Sand Blades? Why switch to dropping a meteor halfway through the fight?!’

’Master Yu, you’d better watch it! Have you no Martial Virtue?!’

”Awoof.” Yu Bao said, imitating Su Zhi by crossing its forelegs.

’This is a spar. Who gives a crap about Martial Virtue? All that matters is winning.’

’Wait, that’s not right. Why is this guy suddenly talking so much? Don’t tell me...’

”SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!”

As it was pondering, countless vines burst from the earth and entangled Yu Bao’s four paws.

Wood Element Low Level Elite Skill, Silent Vine.

Effect: For a set period, it seals the entangled target’s ability to use Skills. The Effect depends on the difference in Energy Value between both sides and any applicable Attribute Suppression.

Yu Bao’s Real-time Energy Value was over a thousand points higher than Wu Bao’s. Combined with the fact that their Attributes countered each other, Silent Vine’s sealing ability could only last for one or two seconds. Aside from that effect, Silent Vine was no different from a watered-down version of Vine Fury...