Chapter Six
Cheng Yuan placed the little tiger in the bicycle basket. Perhaps it had leveled up, or perhaps it was the passive effect of the golden enchantment talent, but Cheng Yuan felt the little tiger had grown heavier. The little tiger was still using its Golden Armor in the basket—it could use it, but activation was slow. Cheng Yuan waited at the door for a while, then called out toward the window across the hallway, “Ningning, time for school!”
At that moment, the door swung open and a woman appeared, saying, “Yuan, Ningning has already gone to school with Xu Hao.” Cheng Yuan was momentarily taken aback before he remembered that Wang Ningning was his childhood friend, but not his girlfriend—he’d grown accustomed to it over more than ten years. “Auntie, I’ll be heading off then.”
Not long after Cheng Yuan turned away, the woman sighed. She had watched Cheng Yuan grow up; his temperament was much like her own daughter’s, and since they lived next door, she knew him well—good character, too. What a pity he was too slow to act.
Unaware of Wang Ningning’s mother’s thoughts, Cheng Yuan pedaled swiftly toward the school. A dozen minutes later, he arrived at the school gate, parked his bicycle in the designated area, and then picked up the little tiger, whose belly was already covered in golden scales. The fully activated Golden Armor would cover the entire body, but in actual combat, most monsters only covered their most vulnerable or vital spots with it. For example, a golden dragon would protect its reverse scale, a snake its deadly weak point, and so on. Of course, there were exceptions: the Ironclad King Turtle, which regarded the Golden Armor as its signature skill, not only achieved full-body coverage but, since that would block its breathing holes, even mastered the miraculous ability to survive without oxygen.
To put it simply, the Ironclad King Turtle wasn’t focused on defense—it was nothing but defense. As an adult, it could be thrown into outer space and still survive; in some respects, it was truly extraordinary.
Cheng Yuan looked at the little tiger, still struggling, and casually lifted it like a plush toy, its face hanging backward. “You don’t need to cover everything with the Golden Armor—just the belly and back will do. Any more and it's too heavy, you’ll have trouble moving.”
When he reached the classroom, he remembered the ninth-level Claw Sharpening skill. “Practice Claw Sharpening when you have time; it holds a surprise as well.” The little tiger nodded and continued working on its Golden Armor. As expected of a skill usable only by adults—the casting time was truly long.
The Golden Armor didn’t usually require such a long preparation; most monsters who could use it completed activation in a second or two. For the little tiger, who had been at it for over ten minutes and still hadn’t finished transforming, it could only be blamed on its cub-level status and lack of skill proficiency.
Upon entering the classroom, Cheng Yuan saw Xu Hao and Wang Ningning chatting and laughing together. When Xu Hao noticed Cheng Yuan, he waved, then left. Not long after class began, a tiger’s paw reached out from the desk drawer and patted Cheng Yuan. Through their contract link, Cheng Yuan asked, “What’s wrong?” “I’ve finished the Golden Armor,” came the reply. Cheng Yuan glanced at the clock above the blackboard—half an hour had finally done it. He patted the tiger’s head. “You worked hard training for so long. Take a break.”
As he stroked the little tiger’s chin, he soon felt its head relax. The little tiger must have been practicing skills since it woke. Normally, the little tiger got up later than Cheng Yuan; he’d never experienced being licked awake in the morning. In fact, before it had been carried off yesterday, Cheng Yuan had checked its stats: the gold element enchantment was still stuck at level nine, and its own level at four.
Since his system wasn’t an idle one, there was only one possibility: this little fellow had trained on its own that morning—a behavior worth rewarding. Cheng Yuan decided to take it out to play during the weekend break.
During the lecture, the teacher discussed the interplay of the Five Elements among monsters and their corresponding phenomena in the ecosystem. The Ironwall Vajra was hunted by the Six-tailed Fire Fox: on the projection screen, a giant Vajra was blown apart, its flesh torn, and in the end, a Six-tailed Fire Fox—less than a fifth its weight—dragged it away by the neck, disemboweled it alive, and devoured it. Even though both belonged to the adult class, there was no way to resist the predatory advantage of a counter-element monster.
However, in the wild, all kinds of monsters existed. Unless unlucky, one might never encounter a counter-element monster in a lifetime. And if an individual’s strength far outstripped its peers or even counter-element monsters, the phenomenon of countering would manifest differently.
There were mutual counteraction cases, such as between the Light and Dark types—it was simply the strong suppressing the weak, regardless of alignment. Most peculiar were the dragon-type monsters, who exhibited intra-species counteraction: when dragons fought dragons, everyone countered each other. If you became truly powerful, you’d even counter yourself.
As Cheng Yuan listened to these all-too-familiar examples, he couldn’t help but feel that transmigrating into a straight-A student was wonderful; he knew everything the teacher taught and felt as if he had the answer key for every exam.
At lunchtime, Cheng Yuan pulled the little tiger out of the drawer. By then, the little tiger looked as if it were wearing a golden vest. Poking the vest with his finger, he found it wasn’t indestructible—still somewhat soft, with spots that felt like they could be punctured with a jab. After considering for a moment, he thought, “Better than nothing. Time to practice something else.” The ninth-level Claw Sharpening skill, once maxed out, would probably turn into another passive talent and unlock a higher-level skill. That was the most advantageous path for now.
After lunch, Cheng Yuan took the little tiger to the sports field, found a quiet spot, and began letting it practice claw sharpening. Meanwhile, he started reading books about the Mighty Gold White Tiger. From ecological niche to breeding methods, although the Mighty Gold White Tiger wasn’t as popular as the Dragon Scale Carp, there was still considerable research and breeding literature, which would help with the little tiger’s future training.
First, regarding its niche: the Mighty Gold White Tiger was a high-level king-class monster. Besides the original species, three regional subspecies were known, each possessing an extra element: ice, fire, or wind. As a tiger-type monster, in the wild, except for a few top-tier king-class monsters with more brawn than brains, no peer dared to cross its path.
Thanks to their robust physiques and some gigantic individuals, along with typical feline behaviors, adult Mighty Gold White Tigers in the wild possessed formidable combat abilities. There were even records of a giant Mighty Gold White Tiger driving off a Frostwing Ice Dragon during the release of its ecological force field—one of the rare instances where a king-class monster directly expelled a calamity-level monster.
Training for the Mighty Gold White Tiger generally focused on explosive injury output. Some trainers, taking an extreme route, honed stealth and ambush tactics—a method well-suited to feline habits. The main approach emphasized burst damage, typically involving high-level skills like Catwalk, Stealth, and Ambush. These ensured that, as long as the tiger wasn’t detected beforehand, it could approach to the optimal distance, then unleash a flurry of attacks: backstab, pounce, one-hit throat lock, heavy strike, and so forth, executing a chain of deadly combos. Even if the enemy was lucky enough to evade the fatal throat lock, it would still be gravely injured, and follow-up skills like Piercing Claw would make it hard to hold out for long. Thanks to the tiger’s powerful physique, it didn’t fear prolonged combat, either.