"Returning home at fifty, you gaze upon your parents' memorial portraits. Grief wells up from within. You slam your hand on the coffee table, hating your past self for taking out a loan to raise a pet."
"The blow accidentally shatters the tabletop, revealing a ten-million check inside. You stare at the yellowed bank check, wondering how it's still here, and get lost in memories."
"In your past life, you haughtily rejected Elder Ruan Jing's kind offer. Upon returning home, you walked in just as your parents won the ten-million-dollar grand prize."
"You snatched it up and, in an instant, refined it into your own purchasing power."
"The Pet Beasts you once couldn't afford were now within reach. You listened to your family's advice and purchased an Iron Gall Lone Dragon with a Sub-dragon Bloodline. Little did you know, that was the beginning of the Gu Family's downfall."
...
He had a few things to say to the system.
'What is this ridiculous plotline?'
'The New Year just passed. Can't the system say something a little more auspicious? My parents are still alive, you know.'
'Then again, this check looks pretty realistic. Could it actually be real?'
He looked down at the check in his hand.
From outside, a heart-rending cry pierced the air.
"Son, oh, my son—"
"WAAAH— It's all your fault! Insisting on raising him poor! Look at what you've done to our son! How is he supposed to compete with his peers now?!"
Gu Ming sat in his room, ignoring the dreadful wailing outside his door.
In truth, he couldn't hear their voices clearly anyway. It was as if they were separated by a film, the sound muffled into nothingness.
No matter how tragically they cried, it was all just crocodile tears.
They weren't crying because they realized their mistake, but because they knew the check for the ten-million grand prize was in Gu Ming's hands.
There was no way he was letting this ten million go to a pair of gamblers to be squandered.
He had to control this money himself and not let it disappear onto some gambling table.
It was almost laughable; the scholarship money he'd worked so hard to save was nothing compared to this bank check.
'Sigh, if only I had come back sooner.'
With ten million in cash, he could scrap all his previous Pet Beast plans and aim for a much higher starting point.
But there's no use crying over spilled milk.
Since this was the situation, he would have to make peace with it.
"The money from this check will be deposited into my dad's bank account, so I can't withdraw it myself.
"I'll have to bring my dad along to withdraw the money. Tsk, what a pain..."
Gu Ming clutched the bank check, looking it over again and again, unable to suppress his excitement.
He could feel his own excitement; after all, he'd never held such immense wealth before.
But the memory of his family's struggles and the hardships of being at the bottom sobered him in an instant. Now was not the time to indulge.
He let out a long breath and put the check away.
He didn't need the resources of a ten-million check to raise the Little Cyan Snake.
'I'll have to find some time to take Dad and withdraw the money first. I'll see if I can get it transferred to my own bank account.'
'If that's not possible, I'd rather tear up the check than give Dad a single cent for gambling.'
He then turned to the Little Cyan Snake in front of him. The snake was about thirty centimeters long, though it didn't seem that long when coiled up, fitting snugly in his palm.
Following what he'd learned in his Beastmaster textbook, he played with the Little Cyan Snake for a bit, using a series of finger exercises to wear out its Physical Strength.
The Little Cyan Snake was very excited, its tongue flicking as it wound and unwound itself around Gu Ming's fingers in a lively back-and-forth struggle.
After playing for about ten minutes, the Little Cyan Snake got tired and wanted to rest.
But Gu Ming said, "You can't rest yet. Hurry and start your breathing exercises."
A question mark popped over the Little Cyan Snake's head: "?"
'It was already exhausted, yet its master was telling it to practice its breathing and cultivate now.'
The Little Cyan Snake already possessed a simple level of intelligence; while it couldn't understand complex language, it knew the basics of good and bad.
'Its simple consciousness told it that its body was already exhausted. If it kept cultivating, it would break.'
However, Gu Ming pulled out his sophomore year textbook, volume one, and flipped to page one hundred fifty-six, the page on raising Snake Species Pet Beasts.
"After intense exercise, your pores open up and your body is low on energy. Breathing Spiritual Qi at a time like this will double the effects of your Cultivation with half the effort.
"Our family is poor. We can't compete with those classmates who use pills to cultivate, so we have to seize this chance for double efficiency."
Gu Ming's tone wasn't harsh; he was just stating the facts.
He kept repeating this, emphasizing it again and again.
The Little Cyan Snake lowered its head, feeling a heavy pressure settle on it.
It was the pressure that came with poverty.
But its master's unwillingness to give up and his competitive spirit were infectious, causing it to raise its head once more.
"Lift your head, Xiaqing. I believe you can do it!" Gu Ming encouraged.
It looked into its master's sincere eyes, which seemed to shine with an inner light.
It remembered the sight of its master working so hard at the store.
While other kids brought their parents to pick out Pet Beasts, he had come to the store to work. Every day, he worked diligently, unafraid of the stench and grime.
When it came to hard work, its master truly led by example.
'As its master's first Pet Beast, how could it dare to slack off?'
It steeled its resolve, flicking its tongue to capture the flowing Spiritual Qi in the air and beginning its diligent Cultivation.
Gu Ming couldn't see Spiritual Qi before.
Now that he had formed a contract with a Pet Beast and become a Beastmaster, he could perceive his Pet Beast's Cultivation status. As such, he could vaguely sense the presence of Spiritual Qi.
Spiritual Qi.
'If only I had something to increase the ambient Spiritual Qi.'
He subconsciously reached into his pocket. Inside was the red envelope Sister Ruan had given him as his pay.
Just then, three lines of system text scrolled past his vision.
Your Time Dragon, having endured a trial of nine lives and nine deaths, has begun Breathing the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi.
Unfortunately, the surrounding Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi is insufficient to meet the Time Dragon's Cultivation needs.
At this moment, you recall the ten Spirit Stones issued by the Hidden Sect, "Qing Lake Community Pet Beast Store."
Gu Ming paused in surprise.
'Why is this red envelope so stiff?'
He took out the red envelope and opened it.
'Where's my money?'
'Why are there ten small, transparent, crystal-like stones inside instead?'
He took out the transparent, crystal-like stones and vaguely sensed a flow of "qi."
The Little Cyan Snake's eyes, however, went wide. It scurried over, coiling its entire body around the crystal-like stones and intimately kissing them with its tongue.
With every "kiss" of a Spirit Stone, a strange blush would creep across the Little Cyan Snake's face, making it look like a drunken man.
"This..."
Gu Ming watched the Little Cyan Snake's behavior, shocked and uncertain. Judging by its reaction, it wasn't going crazy; the stones really did aid in Cultivation.
He closed his eyes, carefully sensing the Little Cyan Snake's Cultivation progress.
Gu Ming had only just become a Beastmaster and his Divine Sense wasn't open yet, so he could only vaguely perceive things from the Little Cyan Snake's point of view.
Thick clouds of Spiritual Qi swirled around the stones like a dense fog.
The Little Cyan Snake lay in that sea of mist, breathing in vast quantities of Spiritual Qi at an astonishing rate.
The Little Cyan Snake's Cultivation speed skyrocketed.
"Could it be... these are Spirit Stones?!"
Gu Ming had read novels about Cultivation Immortality, so he knew what Spirit Stones were.
But Spirit Stones clearly didn't exist in this world. He had even searched the national academic database for papers on Beast Taming and confirmed that Spirit Stones were not a known phenomenon.
Afraid he might have missed something, or that Spirit Stones went by another name, he had even privately asked his high school teachers.
Their answer was unanimous: no, such a thing didn't exist.
The beast-taming wave brought about by the Spiritual Qi Revival began sixty years ago. In all the years of development since, research papers related to Pet Beasts had become as numerous as the hairs on an ox.
Any concept Gu Ming could think of had already been researched by someone else long ago.
If Spirit Stone mines truly existed in the world, they wouldn't have remained undiscovered for this long.
'Could it be that Beastmasters from a future timeline discovered Spirit Stones?'
「Two minutes later.」
Gu Ming sensed that the Little Cyan Snake was completely full, unable to absorb even another wisp of Spiritual Qi. Meanwhile, the Spirit Stone itself had lost most of its luster.
This rate of Cultivation was clearly not normal.
Normally, a Little Cyan Snake would need to perform its breathing exercises for at least half an hour to an hour after a workout.
Gu Ming had planned a full thirty-minute motivational speech and even had his lines prepared.
But it was all for nothing. The snake hugged the Spirit Stone and, in two minutes, accomplished what would normally take an hour.
The Little Cyan Snake closed its eyes and coiled its body up tight like a mosquito coil, silently digesting the Spiritual Qi inside it and converting it into Mana.
The Time Dragon was stunned. It had absorbed only a single Spirit Stone, yet it had already completed its first full Circulation. It gave Gu Ming a profound look.
It then fell into a deep slumber, refining and purifying its Mana in its dreams.
The lines of system text flashed by.
This time, Gu Ming wasn't in the mood to complain about the system's unreliability.
'He was secretly thrilled. He was finally starting to understand how this thing worked.'
'So that's how it is... So this is the kind of system you are.'