Chapter 37: House of the Beast Master

Leaving the villa area.

Lu Yu had originally planned to return home to rest and prepare for the unpredictable arrival of the nightmare after he completed the secret ritual. Unexpectedly, he received magical replenishment from a pure-blooded succubus named Lilith, and now he felt as though he had just been cured and walked out of a men’s health clinic, brimming with vitality.

“Ying?”

Should he head home for training?

Little Spider, the Scroll King, submitted an overtime request.

“……”

The haunting memory of today’s lethargy and being drained by Little Spider sent shivers down Lu Yu’s spine. Would returning home only to feel depleted for another entire day be worth it?

But, he lacked the money to buy magical potions for replenishing his spirit…

Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to admit this. So Lu Yu earnestly said, “Since we’re already out, we can’t spend all day thinking about going back to dream. Life is not just about scraping by; there are also poems and distant lands to explore. Let’s enjoy the scenery outside and take on some tasks to earn a little extra. We’ll bring out your Void Mother Nest ability!”

“Ying…” Little Spider nodded with a slightly disappointed expression. Getting addicted to proficiency training was one thing, but she still energetically raised her hand, eager to earn money for the household!

“Good girl.”

This adorable expression filled Lu Yu with a sense of guilt. Why did it feel like being a person couldn’t compare to the efficiency of a pet beast?

Ugh, I’m done being human…

Just kidding, one must be human and live life too!

The most urgent task at hand was making money. Since there was also a task target for exchanging Golden Medals, he might as well accomplish it all at once.

The first step to earning money was to take out his cell phone.

The second step, he opened up an app called “House of the Beast Master”.

Because Dayuan City was located on the frontier, both the League and the Pet Beast Association had their offices within the Star Beast Tower, sharing the same office building, and the systems were interconnected.

When Lu Yu registered to use his Golden Medal, he automatically became a Bronze-level Pet Beast Master with the Pet Beast Association, and his ID was “Wolf”.

In the past, taking on tasks required going to a specific counter to handle the procedures, which was cumbersome. With the development of modern technology and the upgrade in information and communication technology, plus the proactive measures by the League President to streamline processes.

Aiming to create a “hand-protection center at your fingertips” centered around the people, based on credit to serve the citizens and pet beast masters of Dayuan City, to cover government services, public services, and convenience services, with the goal of completing tasks online without stepping out of one’s home.

After facial verification, you could accept tasks through the APP. Although there were only Bronze and Silver-level tasks available, it was still a significant advancement and had begun to be promoted across the entire League.

This suited Lu Yu perfectly, who was too lazy to go through processes.

However, since he was a new pet beast master, after setting his location to Dayuan City, there were only one-star Bronze-level tasks on the panel, which required completion of a sufficient number before promotion, and also included a rating system.

【★ Help the Farmers, Their Crops are in Peril: A swarm of earth-eating worms has invaded the fields of New Leaf Village to the west of the city, almost devouring our fertile black soil. Please eradicate them promptly. Reward: 15,000 yuan】

【★ Craving for Soup: Please catch a bamboo spirit from the Dark Bamboo Forest, it’s said to be aromatic when used to make marinated and stewed dishes. It’s my lifelong wish… Reward: 10,000 yuan】

【★ Doctor is Out: The blood-leech doctors at the Third Hospital in White Deer District have died from overfeeding on stagnant blood. Please help in capturing a blood-leech for patients to continue the leech therapy. Reward: 20,000 yuan】

【★☆ Hyenas Are Here: There has been unrest recently in the Abandoned City District. A large number of delirious blood hyenas are threatening the city’s edges, jeopardizing the safety of the Emerald Community. Hence, all homeowners have pooled their money to find capable individuals.

Reward Task: Kill at least ten delirious blood hyenas residing at the border between the western city and the Abandoned City District. Base payment is 40,000 yuan, with an extra bounty based on the number of hyena teeth over ten. A pair of delirious blood hyena teeth can be exchanged for 10,000 yuan. (PS: Delirious blood hyenas are gregarious; danger level is 1.5 stars. It’s recommended to go in a group, requiring at least three people, and no more than four. Currently, three people have signed up, and there is one spot left. As delirious blood hyenas only act after dusk, the meeting is set for 5 PM sharp.)】

【……】

A series of Bronze tasks, some of which were officially posted and others private, thus, there were some oddballs trying to take advantage of the confusion, necessitating filtering by oneself.

For example, the task to catch a bamboo spirit seemed normal enough but was essentially a trap.

Bamboo spirits, being middle-rank servant creatures, weren’t strong, nor were they good at fighting. But these plant-type pet beasts, akin to ginseng spirits, were extremely timid, dashing away at the slightest disturbance and could hide their presence in the bamboo forests or even shrink into the ground.

Difficult to catch and delicious, they were considered a mountain delicacy, thus much favored by the elite with high prices. On the black market, they could fetch up to 50,000 yuan apiece, while this person was only offering 10,000 yuan, demonstrating their utter ruthlessness.

They were just trying to deceive new pet beast masters into capturing the bamboo spirits through much hardship, thinking they were helping others, when actually these villains would directly resell the captured bamboo spirits for a tidy profit of 40,000 yuan, mocking the naive for how easy it was to exploit them.

There were many such cases but the League only cracked down on those incidents that posed a threat to life, not comprehensively prohibiting all cases, or perhaps it was impossible to stop them.

Lu Yu guessed the League also wanted to ensure that new pet beast masters could gain social experience and mature quickly through such losses – without threatening their lives.

You may not always remember kind acts, but you’ll never forget the time you were overcharged by five yuan at a kebab stand and came home to find you were short a stick of rice cake.

With a kind heart, Lu Yu could not stand to watch the scalpers’ shameless deeds.

So, he made a report, watched them get restricted, and then posted his own bamboo spirit-seeking task. He directly copied the scalpers’ copywriting but raised the reward to 15,000 yuan.

The scalpers were just scamming people, whereas he was contributing to the training of new era pet beast masters.

The People’s Pet Beast Master.

Tears filled his eyes!

Besides, he looked around and realized the rewards for Bronze tasks weren’t high.

The blood-leech task’s reward ratio seemed decent, but it involved going to and from the Vampire Marsh, which would take a whole day, and he would have to search through marsh mud – and risk being drained of blood in return. It was simply laborious.

Furthermore, he had a psychological shadow from when leech therapy was applied to his eyes when he was injured; he didn’t want to see the creatures again.

The best task out of them all was hunting delirious blood hyenas. If there were enough hyenas, one could easily earn tens of thousands of yuan.

However, there was only one spot left…

Lu Yu stroked his chin, where no stubble actually lay, feeling that the efficiency of earning money was still too low.

Completing a task might yield ten or twenty thousand, but task verification was required for submission, and taking on new tasks also took time, with half an hour gone in-between, and not many tasks could be done before it got dark.

He’d be better off killing a few more delirious blood hyenas.

As Lu Yu pondered, just about to accept the hyena task, he suddenly noticed the authentication tag next to his avatar, the Golden Medal’s certification, which came with an introduction to two special permissions.

They were: the upper limit of tasks that could be accepted at the same time was 5, and within a day, the limit for undertaken tasks was 20.

An idea struck Lu Yu:

“I’ve got it!”

……………………

Elsewhere, within the Star Beast Tower, it was Ms. Xu Xiaotao’s first day at work. Wearing gold-rimmed glasses and an OL (office lady) uniform, she was full of energy as she clocked in and then settled down with a big peach on her desk.

After a morning of dream-inducing training, she had a beautiful vision for her future, in stark contrast to her yawning colleagues sitting next to her.

“Starting today, when I wear this uniform, I become a screw in society’s machine. From now on, aside from my figure, everything else won’t be seen as childlike!”

Xiaotao was inwardly overjoyed, and then she turned on her computer, ready to handle the orders for the afternoon.

However, when she logged into the administrator backend, within her responsibility list, an ID named “Wolf” immediately caught her attention.

First, she glanced at it, then she froze, and finally, her eyes widened as she scrutinized it more closely, becoming frightened:

“This… is this a system bug?”