Instantly, Lin Jiusan felt that Li Cunxu, this young man, was unreliable.
"The Evil Dragon Curse, you can look it up yourself. By the way, don't let anyone else know about her being cursed by the Evil Dragon, or she'll be locked up by the Human Crisis Response Bureau, never to see the light of day again."
With that, Li Cunxu left.
On his way home, Li Cunxu kept recalling the girl's face. He felt like he had seen her somewhere before.
"They called their daughter Qingwei, and the ranch owner is Lin Xiaoxuan's Third Uncle, so she should have the surname Lin. That girl's name must be 'Lin Qingwei.'"
Lin Qingwei? Lin Qingwei!
Huh?
Suddenly, Li Cunxu's mind exploded.
He remembered.
Lin Qingwei was his original body's classmate.
From kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school.
No wonder Li Cunxu found that black car so familiar. He would catch a glimpse of it every day after school at the gate. How could he not be familiar with it?
The original body and Lin Qingwei weren't childhood sweethearts who grew up together; instead, they were enemies.
The original body hated Lin Qingwei to the core because, from kindergarten to middle school, she had bullied him relentlessly and driven away all his friends, leaving him without a single close friend throughout his childhood.
"She's become thinner due to the Evil Dragon Curse, no wonder I didn't recognize her."
Lin Qingwei was very chubby as a child, a little fatty with immense strength, and the original body couldn't beat her.
"No wonder she avoided eye contact and didn't dare to look at me."
Li Cunxu snorted coldly.
His desire to help her break the Evil Dragon Curse faded significantly.
Even if the reward was substantial.
Li Cunxu pedaled his bicycle hard when suddenly, a young man riding a Ghost Fire Skull Horse with eerie blue flames blazing past him at lightning speed, the gust of wind nearly knocking Li Cunxu off his bike.
Li Cunxu gazed at the Ghost Fire Skull Horse with a hint of envy in his eyes.
He wanted a mount too. Mounts were so convenient, much faster than this rickety bicycle.
"Maybe I should choose a mount for my next Pet Beast."
After some thought, Li Cunxu dismissed the idea.
Contract Slots were too scarce to waste on a mount.
Besides, mounts didn't necessarily have to be Contracted Pet Beasts; ordinary Pet Beasts could also serve as mounts.
"Should I buy a Ghost Fire Skull Horse? Although it's uncomfortable to sit on and not particularly fast, the way it emits blue flames is really cool!"
"Lately, it seems like Ghost Fire Skull Horses are all the rage as mounts."
Li Cunxu thought about the hassle of riding a non-Contracted Pet Beast and dismissed the idea again.
Non-Contracted Pet Beasts couldn't be stored in the Beast Taming Space and had to be carried in Pet Pouches, which were extremely expensive, especially the ones designed for mounts.
Moreover, riding a non-Contracted Pet Beast required a license, and that license was notoriously difficult to obtain.
Riding a Contracted Pet Beast also required a license, but it was much easier to obtain than the non-Contracted one.
Contracted Pet Beasts shared a mental connection with their Beast Tamers, making riding them almost foolproof. Non-Contracted Pet Beasts, lacking such a bond, couldn't achieve that level of synchronization. Unless you were an experienced rider, riding a non-Contracted Pet Beast was prone to accidents.
Therefore, the Alliance strictly regulated the use of non-Contracted Pet Beasts on public roads.
Li Cunxu often came across videos of people who had failed the non-Contracted Pet Beast riding license exam over a dozen times, breaking down in tears, or those who lost their temper and hurled insults at the examiners.
At the crossroads leading back to the ranch or Pupil City, Li Cunxu paused, recalling an important matter.
He turned around and headed back to Pupil City.
He went to a store and bought a five-cubic-meter Pet Pouch.
It cost him eighteen hundred, which was relatively cheap because the Pet Pouch only had a one-year usage period. After that, the space inside would collapse, and if there were any Pet Beasts inside, they would be automatically ejected.
He also bought an Eight-Clove Rainbow Garlic.
It cost him two hundred thousand. The Eight-Clove Rainbow Garlic could temporarily destabilize a Pet Beast's genes and was commonly used as a supplementary ingredient in Pet Evolution Elixirs.
The Eight-Clove Rainbow Garlic couldn't be used recklessly, as misuse could lead to mutations in the Pet Beast.
Li Cunxu bought the Eight-Clove Rainbow Garlic with the intention of making a Slime Mutation Needle.
The Slime Mutation Needle had a chance to cause a Slime to mutate.
It was invented by a player in a game from his past life, and Li Cunxu had bought it from him.
Li Cunxu wanted to use the Slime Mutation Needle to mutate a Curse Slime.
The Curse attribute was one of the most niche in Divine Taming. Even those who played the Poison attribute, which was also niche, outnumbered Curse players by a thousand times. The Curse attribute had its strengths, but the cost was too high.
The Curse attribute had a flaw: casting curses came with a price. The stronger the curse, the greater the cost, and these costs would accumulate in the body until they erupted one day.
This was why Curse Pet Beasts and Curse Masters were often sickly and weak.
In the game, the cost manifested as permanent negative buffs.
In the game, Li Cunxu had a Pet Beast with a divine-level Curse talent, [Cost Sharing (Blue)], which could share the cost of curses.
However, this talent had a limitation: the target of the cost-sharing had to be a Curse Pet Beast.
The Curse attribute was so niche partly because Curse Pet Beasts were extremely rare, even rarer than Pureblood Dragons.
To fully utilize the [Cost Sharing] talent, Li Cunxu came up with the idea of mutating a Curse Slime.
As it turned out, Li Cunxu's idea was correct. He successfully mutated a Curse Slime and elevated the Curse attribute to new heights.
Returning to the ranch cabin, Li Cunxu took one clove from the Eight-Clove Rainbow Garlic, squeezed out its juice, and mixed it with gray stone powder, old tree roots, and other ingredients. After stirring and letting it sit for half an hour, he extracted the clear liquid from the top and divided it into ten doses.
The Slime Mutation Needle was ready, and it had to be used immediately, as the potency would dissipate within half a day.
He injected the Slime Mutation Needle into ten Slimes, six of which had the Digestion Talent.
Li Cunxu didn't inject Xiao Ruan, as it would be useless for her. No matter how she mutated, it wouldn't surpass her [Slime's Soul Kingdom] talent.
He placed the six Slimes with the Digestion Talent into the Pet Pouch and then rode his bike to an environmental organization next to the Environmental Protection Bureau, where he joined the organization.
After completing the membership procedures, Li Cunxu approached the receptionist and requested environmental tasks.
"Sister, could you show me the simpler environmental tasks?"
The receptionist filtered out the simpler tasks, and Li Cunxu glanced at them, feeling they were all quite straightforward.
Select all?
No, he wasn't yet sure about the digestive capabilities of the Slimes with the Digestion Talent. It was better to play it safe and complete one task first.
He chose the simplest task: [Cleaning Up a Trash-Clogged River].
"Are you going to do the task now?"
"Yes."
The receptionist turned her head and spoke to the row of Recording Parrots reading by the bookshelf:
"One parrot, follow him."
Among the reading Recording Parrots, one flew onto Li Cunxu's shoulder, but he didn't feel any weight at all.
Li Cunxu speculated in his heart: "This Recording Parrot's talent must be as light as a swallow."
Following the directions on his phone, Li Cunxu arrived at the mission location.
This section of the river wasn't long, with bridges on both sides, about fifteen meters in length.
The river was piled with all sorts of garbage: soda cans, plastic bottles, white plastic lunch boxes, shopping bags, milk cartons...
"Time to eat, Slimes."
Li Cunxu released six Slimes with Digestion Talent. Under Xiao Ruan's command, the Slimes jumped into the river and began cleaning up the trash.
One by one, the garbage was swallowed by the Slimes, and in no time, it was decomposed and digested.
"A bit slow."
The Slimes' digestion speed was indeed not great, but Li Cunxu didn't mind. Digestion Talent needed practice; the more they digested, the more stomach acid they would produce, and the faster their digestion would become.
Sure enough, after an hour, the Slimes' digestion speed increased, and the garbage in the river disappeared at a visible rate.
By the time the garbage was cleaned up, it was already dark.
"Mission complete, Recording Parrot, time for inspection!"
The Recording Parrot stopped reading and tucked the book into the feathers on its belly.
(End of Chapter)