"Whoa."
W lightly jumped off the car, raising her head: "It's quite big."
Lin Guang looked in the same direction: "Actually, it's my first time here too."
From the outside, it appeared to be a large gymnasium-style square building, its main structure a shade of blue, shimmering with a watery sheen. This was due to the Spirit Rune Array that covered the entire training ground, serving to protect the building and slightly increase the internal concentration of ether.
This was a practice field that marketed itself with water attribute venues, located just two kilometers next to Zhen Sheng Experimental Middle School. Many novice Spirit Beast Masters without wilderness exploration experience would come here for initial training with their partner Spirit Beasts.
Lin Guang and W walked inside through the entrance, where everything was painted blue, and various species of fish swam freely in the built-in aquariums.
It felt more like an aquarium than a training ground.
W stared at a colorful eel-like ornamental spirit beast, pressing her face against the glass. When it curiously swam over, she suddenly made a mischievous expression.
Skill [Fearful Face] activated.
The next moment, a very subtle yet sinister etheric ripple spread slowly outward from W's eyes, scaring the creature into a frantic swim.
She laughed heartily, "Hahaha! So this thing called a skill is quite fun... uh."
Before finishing her sentence, W was dragged away by Lin Guang, who grabbed her collar: "Don't embarrass us. If you scare it to death, we'll be broke for months."
Once pulling her to his side, Lin Guang glanced at the staff at the front desk. After confirming they hadn't noticed W's skill use, he said, "Open a one-star practice room for me, no attribute requirement, but basic targets and equipment must be there."
"Deposit the fee for three hours first. We'll refund if you leave early."
Although W wasn't some newly hatched Spirit Beast baby, considering there were many things to experiment with today, Lin Guang booked three hours.
"Alright, one-star is 150 Daxia Coins per hour, 400 for three hours. Are your two Spirit Beasts not large-sized?"
The staff apparently didn't recognize W's Spirit Beast identity, thinking the horn on her head was a headpiece or some cosplay, and they didn't look closely for contract markings on her hand, assuming they had stored the Spirit Beasts in the Spirit Beast Space via contract spirit patterns.
"Yes, medium to small-sized."
"Okay, room b31."
Shortly after, the two walked down the corridor into the training room.
This was an extremely spacious room, over twenty meters in both length and width, and about five or six meters high. The walls were made of stone slabs, with no special arrangements. If anything, it was considered a "general element venue."
At the other end of the training room were various fitness equipment suitable for any type of Spirit Beast, be it elephant-type or insect-type, along with a variety of cold weapons and protective gear for human use, plus a rest room and bathroom.
Lin Guang closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded slightly.
It was very stable, without the damp smell of the water attribute ether from the corridor. The isolation and cleaning here were well done.
After forming a contract with W and raising his Spirit Master's level, Lin Guang could vaguely perceive the surrounding ether environment.
According to average data, clearer ether perception usually requires a Spirit Master to reach level fifteen, though there is no rigid threshold. The fact that Lin Guang could vaguely detect it at level seven was both due to his mastery level in the Meditation Contract Technique and his extraordinary perception.
Generally, after a Spirit Master uses a training room, the training hall needs to clean the ether inside, as, for example, after a Fire Spirit Beast trains a skill here, the fire attribute ether in the air becomes particularly active, making it difficult for a Water Attribute Spirit Beast to train water skills effectively in such an environment, and even causing the Spirit Beast itself to feel mentally fatigued.
Cleaning the ether environment requires special Spiritual Artifacts or Spirit Beasts, and their use incurs significant expense. Some unscrupulous training halls claim thorough cleaning, but in reality, they either do a cursory job or skip it altogether, as most Spirit Masters below one-star level can't tell the difference.
Lin Guang didn't come here just because it was close; the online reviews of this training hall were quite good. The ether cleaning rate of ordinary training rooms could reach 80-90%, which was consistent with reality.
Raising his hand, Lin Guang scanned the QR code on the wall with his phone, revealing various services offered by the training hall.
He selected "Kruk Kruk Strawman."
This was a gray, inferior-level Spirit Beast, resembling a scarecrow in a field, with no attack power whatsoever, capable only of learning some auxiliary and self-recovery skills.
Shortly after placing the order, a hidden door on the side of the room opened, and a Kruk Kruk Strawman was brought in on a conveyor, dressed in somewhat tattered red clothes, wearing a straw hat, with crudely drawn eyes and nose on its face using a black marker, looking comically ridiculous.
"This is your training target, Kruk Kruk Strawman."
"Ha?" She raised an eyebrow, glancing at the scarecrow tied to the pole, unmoving. "You're going to test me with this? Test a veteran Sakaz mercenary?"
Lin Guang shook his head with a smile, "That was in the past, wasn't it?"
"..."
W felt a bit choked. Her current strength was indeed not what it used to be. Not only had her physical strength, power, and reaction speed declined, but her explosive Source Stone skills as an offensive method had vanished, and even her familiar weapons were no longer by her side.
A bit disgruntled, W did not continue to argue. She selected a forearm-length dagger from the training facilities in the corner of the room, weighing it in her hand before skillfully tossing it up and catching it in a reverse grip.
W took a deep breath.
In the next instant, her body suddenly crouched, like a leopard entering hunting mode. With a sudden step, she dashed behind the Kruk Kruk Strawman, aiming to strike it in the back with a deft thrust.
The steel blade unmistakably plunged into the strawman's back, and simultaneously, Lin Guang raised his hands.
But he wasn't applauding W's clean and swift strike; he was quietly covering his ears.
"Waaah!!!"
A soul-piercing wail echoed throughout the training room, reverberating through the empty space. Even W, a battle-hardened mercenary, was startled by the noise, her tail standing upright like an antenna. She jumped back three or four meters, dropping her weapon as her muscles tensed, ready to respond to any sudden developments until she saw that the crying stopped and the Kruk Kruk Strawman remained motionless. She finally relaxed.
She clicked her tongue, looking back at Lin Guang with dissatisfaction written all over her face, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"