21: I want to be a salted fish

As the day of distributing initial Contract Beasts approached, comparable to the annual national college entrance examination, everyone was busy.

Students were busy communicating with their Contract Beasts, getting to know each other, and building relationships so that future training would be more harmonious.

Staff members were busy registering and directing, assisting students with their Contracts.

Everyone could only spare time to confront the crew-cut boy and others to a limited extent. Under the condition that the other party didn't continue to provoke, the crowd in the entire auditorium quickly dispersed, just there to watch the excitement.

Han Zhou glanced at the dispersed crowd, withdrew his gaze from Song Yu, patted his buddy's shoulder, and said, "Our school flower's acting skills are really good! If I hadn't learned a thing or two from my dad, I might have genuinely believed she deeply respects and admires the Qin family. But all in all, the Qin family was indeed very respectable back then."

Bai Yuhan glanced at Han Zhou, expressionless, and brushed off Han Zhou's hand on his shoulder, saying coldly, "You go contract with your Beast, I'm going back."

"?" Han Zhou widened his eyes, instantly dissatisfied, "Really? Bro, didn't you say you don't need to work today? The store manager specifically gave you three days off, can't you wait for me in the auditorium? Are we not brothers anymore?"

Han Zhou beat his chest in grief, "For so many years, we haven't gone to the bathroom together! Don't other friends have a few times of the camaraderie of going to the bathroom together?!"

Bai Yuhan: "..."

Expressionless, Bai Yuhan's eyes were full of complicated emotions.

Han Zhou unwillingly said, "No, you have to wait for me here today. My mom even said she wants to invite you home for dinner! Besides... take a look at my future partner, handsome, charming, and elegant, naturally emitting a colorful glow."

"Okay, I'll wait for you." Bai Yuhan remained silent for two seconds, looking at the proud and chest-puffed colorful parrot covered in feathers, eventually compromising.

Sometimes, he really didn't know if his friend was truly foolish or pretending to be foolish.

Han Zhou and he met in their first year of high school. They were deskmates at the time. Unlike Bai Yuhan, who lost his parents early, although Han's family wasn't wealthy, his parents loved him dearly. Unfortunately, perhaps due to too much happiness, he was not only easy-going but also a bit foolish...

Bai Yuhan was requested by Han Zhou to stay and wait, and the two found a casual place to chat.

After all, they were just high school students. Although Bai Yuhan was cautious due to his parents' murder and had a reserved personality, soon under Han Zhou's banter, they discussed their Contract Beasts and their thoughts on future cultivation.

Song Yu, tucked away in a corner, occasionally looked vigilantly at Bai Yuhan. Seeing the change from his initially furrowed brow and deep gaze gradually turning into a slight smile, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

In the original novel, the author, to ensure the main character's moral standards and to follow the style of the times, portrayed Bai Yuhan as a person with high vigilance but not fond of killing. However, to maintain the excitement of the novel, numerous people and Contract Beasts directly or indirectly suffered injuries or death at Bai Yuhan's hands.

Especially those antagonists who had offended the male lead, wanting to gouge out the eyes of the Qin family's offspring. They always ended up being humiliated in various ways, ultimately facing a tragic fate.

In the world of martial arts, the ways to be humiliated...

Lightly injuring tendons and bones or causing complete destruction of families and individuals, with corpses lying on the ground...

In short, none of them had a good ending.

Looking at Bai Yuhan's handsome profile, high and straight nose, and calm and self-possessed attitude, Song Yu couldn't help but marvel at him as the male lead of a typical male-oriented novel. Although he didn't possess the delicate and slender appearance of some fresh meat in the entertainment industry she had seen in her past life, he was tall, with a well-built back, and muscular arms showing explosive strength. Coupled with his facial features that could rival those of entertainment industry stars, he appeared like a sharp military knife.

Song Yu believed that with a slight turn of Bai Yuhan's profound eyes, this sharp knife would be enough to pierce the hearts of countless boys and girls.

Unfortunately...

The sharp blade on him only wanted to pierce all the enemies and antagonists.

And she... well, the antagonist among the antagonists.

"Like just now, when someone suddenly said in front of the male lead that they wanted to gouge out the eyes of the Qin family.”

For students with high Contract Beast Space levels, the abundant resources and powerful beasts in the wilderness are excellent tools for honing themselves and enhancing the strength of their Contract Beasts.

"But I... I'd better not!"

"However, the Qin family is really unlucky..."

Originally, with the Rule Eyes, the Qin family directly established multiple beast breeding bases globally, earning a considerable fortune. Unexpectedly, in the end, the family faced destruction, and the last surviving member of the clan wandered around in escape.

It's a pity; the reader's favorite tragic series didn't spare Bai Yuhan in reality.

Song Yu rubbed her eyes. After the crisis was averted, she felt a bit drowsy. She yawned, wanting to lie back on the chair. Early in the morning today, she was awakened by the nervous housekeeper and her mother at five or six in the morning... She had no choice but to get up and get ready.

However...

Before Song Yu could take the next action.

The broadcast ahead had already started.

"00444: Student Song Yu, come over here with your Contract Beast to form a contract!"

The broadcast echoed from the second Contract table on the right side of the auditorium, different from the announcements at high-speed train stations shouting 1234 platforms.

There were a total of nine professional Beastmasters currently helping with contracts in the auditorium, but each only called their respective numbers. Some would announce the number of their Contract table, but some Beastmasters wouldn't. Once someone misheard or missed it...

Well, then you had to wait until everyone else finished their contracts.

Whose fault is it that you can't even hear such a loud broadcast? Can you still make mistakes? And you still want to go to the dangerous wilderness and secret realms? You might as well wash up and sleep early.

In the wilderness forest, there were countless beasts, walking silently with padded paws and making no sound. They could also hide and attack stealthily.

So, in the entire auditorium, except for Song Yu, there were really not many people daring to yawn and feel drowsy. Everyone focused on the broadcast.

"Contract Beast Space F level, contracted with the Snow Spirit Cat with a potential score of 3, right?"

The professional Beastmaster at table 2 held Song Yu and Qiuqiu's information and performed an on-site comparison and confirmation.

"Yes, teacher!" Song Yu took two steps forward and nodded.

Qiuqiu shook its white ears, meowing cutely, soft and adorable.

Watching the girl's clean and clear smile and recalling what she said in the auditorium just now, the professional Beastmaster smiled friendly and consoled, "With an F-level Contract Beast Space, you might not be able to form a contract with your Contract Beast in one go. Don't worry; you can try a few more times later."

As he spoke, the Beastmaster began to introduce to Song Yu how to use the Contract Beast Space as a springboard, look inside the Dantian, and form a contract with the beast.

As an Earthling, Song Yu didn't understand the inner view of the Contract Beast Space or what spiritual power was, even with the memories of her previous life. She was a bit confused about these things.

Fortunately, as a yoga enthusiast.

Focusing scattered attention on the Dantian, she could still do it quickly...

However—

Just as Song Yu closed her eyes and concentrated on the Dantian, directing her attention to the beast, an invisible and intangible energy wave that she could clearly feel suddenly filled her lower abdomen.

That kind of energy was like a warm jade, lingering in her lower abdomen, warming her limbs and bones, dispelling the summer heat...

It was a magical experience that Song Yu had never felt before.

Click! Click! —Click!

However, for some reason, just as Song Yu held her breath and concentrated, trying to follow the professional Beastmaster's instructions for inner viewing of the Dantian.

Sounds, much like the breaking of eggshells, suddenly rang in Song Yu's ears!

Song Yu was stunned, not reacting in time. However, that inexplicable spiritual power fluctuation carried her consciousness and suddenly plunged into the Contract Beast Space!

At the same time...

Subconsciously scanning the entire auditorium, her gaze instinctively stopped at Bai Yuhan in front of the Contract table on the right side of the auditorium, and his pupils suddenly contracted!!

This time, Bai Yuhan was thoroughly shocked!

A strong surge of shock and waves of amazement almost submerged Bai Yuhan.

——[Name: Song Yu (mentally abnormal)]

【Race: Human】

【Contract Beast Space Level: SSSSSS】

【Description: High Contract Beast Space level, extremely talented, and awakened powerful talent ability. Currently: Unable to detect the type of talent ability.】

"6S level? How is such a level possible?"

"For thousands of years in human history, hasn't the highest Contract Beast Space level been only 4S?"

Bai Yuhan frowned. In fact, he himself possessed an SSSS Contract Beast Space, which could boost the training speed of the contracted beast by a hundred times when it entered the space.

According to historical records, the last person with an SSSS-level Contract Beast Space had already been dead for more than eighty years.

So, he always thought that his Contract Beast Space level, even if not the first in the world, could at least rank among the top three globally.

But now...

Bai Yuhan became uncertain.

In a small Jianghuai City First High School, there were owners of SSSS and SSSSSS-level Contract Beast Spaces.

So...

What about those with Level 3, Level 2, and Level 1 main cities? What about those with super-level main cities?

Were there even higher-level Contract Beast Spaces? Did people intentionally conceal these high-level Contract Beast Spaces to avoid causing chaos and coveting? If that's the case, how many people with Level 4 and above Contract Beast Spaces are there?

Bai Yuhan's heart sank, and he stared at Song Yu, his eyes not blinking. The relaxed atmosphere around him also became tense.

The corners of the boy's mouth involuntarily tightened, and there was something he couldn't quite understand.

"Can a person, after experiencing split personality, awaken an even more powerful Contract Beast Space? Clearly, the other party had awakened an F-level Contract Beast Space before."

"With Song Yu's background, if she had awakened a 6S-level Contract Beast Space before, she wouldn't have flaunted it everywhere, and certainly wouldn't have ended up with a high fever requiring a hospital visit."

Bai Yuhan's eyes were deep, his brows furrowed.

Compared to the currently utterly shocked Bai Yuhan, Song Yu, at the moment she opened her eyes, was equally dumbfounded.

Each Beastmaster had absolute control over their Contract Beast Space, so when Song Yu's spiritual power entered the Contract Beast Space, she immediately knew all the information inside.

Compared to the chaotic F-level Contract Beast Space, which was pitch-black darkness, her awakened Contract Beast Space not only possessed a rich original energy but also had extremely high spatial integrity!

Inside the space were grasslands, rivers, oceans, and even the leaves in the forest had exceptionally clear textures!

To understand, even though a regular C-level Contract Beast Space had a basic world, and the original energy was sufficient, the plants and trees in a C-level space were like mosaic and filter effects. You couldn't distinguish where the plant leaves and stems were, let alone compare to Song Yu's Contract Beast Space, which was so vivid and realistic.

"It's over, it's over, it's over!" Song Yu's throat was dry. Looking at her newly awakened Contract Beast Space, the more she looked, the more familiar it became.

Isn't this all the various places she went to in her previous life for acting, shooting advertisements, and so on?

Here were the X Studio's film and television city shooting base, the Hollywood real-life shooting factory area, the variety show team Y's mountain activity area, desert camping area, and countless large and small scenic spots, forests, lakes, seas, and cities that she had visited for shooting advertisements, magazines, and TV dramas. They all seemed to appear in this Contract Beast Space. Even the ocean areas she flew over on airplanes, the hotel she stayed in before her death, and the red carpet couldn't escape. They were reorganized and condensed into a magical space with the characteristics of various countries, environments, climates, and seasons from around the world!

Song Yu's throat was dry, and the atmosphere momentarily became stagnant.

Song Yu was almost scared to death by her awakened Contract Beast Space!

In the original novel, an SSSSS-level Contract Beast Space had always been one of the male lead's three major trump cards! The space was comparable to Hainan Island, with a huge Contract Beast Space of about 35,000 square kilometers, capable of achieving a hundredfold training speed boost for the contracted beast, striking enemies and villains with rocket-like speed.

But now...

Song Yu's eyes were vacant, her head a bit dizzy. The Contract Beast Space she awakened turned out to be about half the size of Longguo.

A whole 4.685 million square kilometers!

The training speed had even reached a super acceleration of 1:444 days!

"444 Contract number, 444 Space training speed... it's over, is this not a novel plot assassination, trying to find a chance to kill me? What happened to the F-level Contract Beast Space? How can it betray me again?" Song Yu grimaced.

If others had such a powerful Contract Beast Space, they would surely be delighted. But Song Yu was different. As a transmigrator, she had read the plot of the original novel.

No matter how powerful the villains were initially, with some unique talents surpassing the male lead, in the plot, they always ended up being compared to the male lead's strengths and weaknesses, ultimately becoming a stepping stone. Either that or the novel's plot burdened these villains with various conditions, preventing them from confronting the protagonist and ending up in tragic failure.

Take a simple example: In many alchemy novels, the male lead might only have the level of a third-level alchemist, and when competing against a fourth-level alchemist, it was obvious the male lead would lose.

However, the topic drawn during the competition happened to be a type of pill that the male lead had previously refined, and the fourth-level alchemist had never encountered this obscure pill due to certain reasons. In the end, the fourth-level alchemist suffered a miserable defeat in the hands of the protagonist.

Song Yu found that she was currently in such a situation.

After awakening the super-large Contract Beast Space, she suddenly acquired a talent ability - 'Peak Acting.'

Peak Acting: Peak acting skills, imitating anyone perfectly. Your acting proficiency increases by 300%, and even god-level beasts cannot see through your disguise.

Song Yu: "..."

Regarding acting skills... if she had this skill in her previous life, she felt that she wouldn't be worthy of the 300% acting proficiency boost unless she aimed for five Oscars.

However, as a new member in the high martial world, even if her acting skills were superb, she would still be beaten to the ground crying by the male lead's fist.

Ah~

Song Yu sighed. She had said...

As a villain, even if she possessed the world's top Contract Beast Space, even with a 444-fold super training speed, she couldn't resist the male lead who possessed the skill 'Level Shackles Breakthrough.' This skill could assist the contracted beast in breaking through level barriers and shackles.

Just awakened the Contract Beast Space, and it immediately put a layer of conditional shackles on her?

What's the use of practicing quickly?

Creatures like the Snow Spirit Cat, this beast, could at most break through to the third rank.

"What's wrong? Her complexion looks so bad... Could it be that the contract failed?" The girl holding number 445 and her friend stood on the side whispering. They both had sympathetic expressions. They heard it clearly just now; the girl in front awakened an F-level Contract Beast Space.

It was normal for an F-level space to fail.

But just thinking about her own D-level Contract Beast Space, which wasn't much better than the other party's, the girl sighed quietly to her friend, "Forget it, I probably won't be able to succeed in one go either... You know, if I awaken the legendary SSSSS-level Contract Beast Space with a hundredfold training speed, can I cultivate a top-tier ninth-rank beast?"

"Sister, calm down!"

The other person glanced at the girl and quipped, "What's the use of having an SSSSS-level Contract Beast Space? It's useless if the contracted beast's talent is not good. Even with an SSSSS-level Contract Beast Space, it's all in vain... There are so many beastmasters in the world who have defeated beastmasters with high talent in the arena. If you just pay more attention, you won't say such absurd things."

Song Yu looked at the person, and her eyes were full of approval.

"You're right, isn't it just like this?

Advanced Contract Beast Spaces can only represent that his future lower limit won't be too low, but there's no way to guarantee the upper limit he can reach.

Effort, opportunities, talent abilities, beast potential... on this thorny path of a professional Beastmaster, none can be lacking.

"How about it? Feeling a bit dizzy after the failure? It's okay, take a two-minute break, and we'll start the next round of contracts..." The professional Beastmaster, looking at the worry on Song Yu's face, comforted her with a few simple words.

F-level Contract Beast Spaces are like this, especially prone to failure when contracting with beasts. On average, every F-level Contract Beast Space owner experiences failure four or five times. The professional Beastmaster sympathetically looked at Song Yu, then encouraged her again, "Your Contract Beast is still waiting for you! You have to keep going!"

Song Yu: "..."

Looking at the little Qiuqiu, she replied weakly, "Okay, teacher."

If it weren't for the fear of being hit if she regretted it now, she would have wanted to rush back to the Northwest District now and see if she could find a low potential beast with a score of 0.

Holding the Qiuqiu, this time, in less than a minute, the contract was successful. To make herself not look too abrupt, Song Yu specifically waited for another three minutes.

Turning around, Song Yu was about to leave, but happened to run into the serious expression of Bai Yuhan.

The other party's eyes were deep, as if casually scanning her face, but it instantly made Song Yu, who was already alert, tense.

Song Yu, on guard: ...??

Why is this person looking at her? Could it be that the Eye of Rules detected something?

But on second thought, Song Yu felt she was being overly suspicious.

"In the novel, it's written that the eyes can only read beast data. But Qiuqiu is just an ordinary low-potential little cat, definitely won't attract attention..."

"Indeed, I'm just overthinking, right?"

Seeing that Bai Yuhan had already turned around and left, Song Yu breathed a sigh of relief, and also walked towards the exit while holding the cat.

But what Song Yu didn't know was that after she turned around, Bai Yuhan turned his head and looked at her deeply again...

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