Astral Pet Store (WN)

Mia didn’t think about the academy troubles anymore at the mention of Su Ping’s shop; she quickly nodded and said, “Yes, and two fruits! Also, the training effect is wondrous in that shop…”

She instantly elaborated on what had happened in Su Ping’s shop.

“Little White grasped three skills in only a few hours?” The other speaker was quite surprised. She had obviously never seen such efficiency either.

“Sister Offit, I left all my battle pets in the shop, I’ll be checking the effects tomorrow. You can take your own battle pets if their results are just as good.

“It’s also great that the shop’s training prices aren’t high, definitely not high for you. It’ll be great if your battle pets are further strengthened!”

“What? You left all your battle pets in that shop?” The girl named Offit was dazed for a moment and then became serious. “That’s too reckless. Something must be wrong. Weren’t you afraid that the shop would use any special tricks?”

Mia ducked her head on the couch.

“I thought about it, but I did tell the boss my family name. I don’t think he would dare to mess with our family, right? By the way, I unfortunately happened upon a classmate today. He’s from the Ryan family; he kept me company and nearly started a fight with the boss…”

Mia told her sister about her encounter and then concluded, “I don’t think the boss would be bold enough to deceive both me and the guy from the Ryan family, but he was a bit of an eccentric. Right, there’s something else… The shop is so weird, I couldn’t even beat the employees there!”

“Huh? Did you fight?” Offit suddenly turned cold and aggressive upon hearing that.

Mia shook her head quickly and said, “No, we practiced in a virtual combat arena. There were two clerks in the shop. The first one, whom I only defeated eight times in five minutes, was already shocking enough. She was just a clerk! The second one was even more unbelievable. We set up the matches with equal level and the same battle pets, and we fought for three hours straight, but then I was suddenly defeated the moment the boss came out with my pet after the training. It’s obvious that she went easy on me…

“I couldn’t have been a match for her if she hadn’t. Isn’t it crazy? I didn’t see her use any battle tricks or skills, but her every attack was so right on time as if she had known what move I would make. It was—It was almost like I was fighting you!”

Mia was rather amazed as she retold the experience.

Yes, she had felt exactly the same when she practiced with Offit, the one who was on the other side of the call.

She had always had a hard time dealing with Offit’s attacks and could never display her full strength. Even if she went on a mad rampage, she still wasn’t able to touch her, because she was nowhere nearly as skilled as her sister!

However… her sister Offit was a well-renowned warrior, whereas the woman who had sparred with her was only an insignificant clerk bossed around by Su Ping. It was hard to imagine that a person as strong as her would be willing to work as a clerk!

The phone was silent for a moment.

“Are you serious?” said Offit suspiciously.

After all, what Mia said sounded too far-fetched. A shop able to teach a Void State battle pet three powerful skills after only three hours of training, with clerks who could easily beat Mia, making her think they were as strong as her sister? Such a shop couldn’t possibly exist!

Even if it did, it couldn’t have been found on a small planet such as Rhea.

It could have been found on the Federation’s capital planet, or the super giant planets supervised by those in the Ascendant State. Rhea was like a pebble in the presence of a crystal when compared to those places.

Mia shook her head. “Sister, I’m not lying! It’s real! I’ll check the training effects of my pets tomorrow. You can come and have a look yourself if their progress is as good as Little White’s, or maybe even practice with the clerk. She’s really good!”

“…”

Offit was silent for a moment before she said, “We’ll talk about that later. I’m sure that something is wrong with the shop. They may have used some sort of deception; don’t fall for their tricks. You’ve already surrendered your pets, so we can only let things take their course. Examine carefully when you claim them tomorrow!

“If anything happens, humph, they’ll regret ever being born for messing up with the Laiyefa family!”

“No, you’re just being paranoid, sis. I think the shop might be owned by a major family and is used to train their juniors. I say this because the owner of the shop looked rather awe-inspiring; I think he’s probably a student in one of the five most renowned academies. But I don’t know which academy he’s from…”

Mia didn’t think that Su Ping’s shop was a shady business as her sister claimed. There was also that moment, when Su Ping had a conflict with Layne: his eyes and the aura he released left a deep impression on her. She didn’t think he was just a normal battle pet merchant.

“You’ve been training in the family for too long. You don’t know how treacherous the world can be.” Offit heaved a helpless sigh. “Enough about that. We’ll find out the result tomorrow.”

Seeing that it was impossible to convince her sister, Mia could only say, “Okay, I’ll be careful.”

…

At the same time.

Inside a certain extravagant battle pet arena.

Several men were seated in a private room; Layne had taken the center seat.

Mia had excused herself and returned to her hotel as soon as they came out of Su Ping’s shop.

It wasn’t easy for him to find chances to meet with her. However, none of the plans he had prepared proved useful and he suffered a major setback because of Su Ping. He had failed to intimidate and humiliate the latter in front of Mia by using his family name.

“Fu*cking bastard!”

Ryan quenched his fury with liquor as he watched the battle pets fight.

It was then that someone opened the private room’s door; a young man entered with careful steps upon seeing how pissed Layne was. He said in a low voice, “Young master, we found that the shop has been in operation for three years with a license; it was relocated from a distant solar system. The shopkeeper is not a local, although we still haven’t found out where he’s from…”

Layne asked coldly, “Why not?”

“His files are classified. If we want to investigate, we—we would have to use the family master’s authority…” replied the young man nervously.

Layne narrowed his eyes with an awful expression.

He remembered the moment when he was about to burst into an outrage inside the shop; Su Ping had simply looked at him… and left him awed. It was then that he felt that Su Ping wasn’t ordinary. As it turned out, the guy truly came from a powerful background.

That made perfect sense. How else could he have presented two seven-thousand-year Heaven Frost Crystal Fruits and sell them so cheaply?

Even though he hated Su Ping, he was more worldly than Mia and knew that Su Ping’s background couldn’t be simple, based on the Heaven Frost Crystal Fruits, the training, and Mia’s defeat by Su Ping’s gorgeous employee in the virtual combat arena.

Not everybody could have hired an employee who was as beautiful as her, not to mention one who could defeat Mia…

Mia was a sophomore student in the Amir Royal Academy!

She wasn’t exactly one of the honor students in her class, but every student in the Amir Royal Academy was a genius amongst geniuses.

It wouldn’t be a bad result if four or five students of an entire planet were able to be admitted by the five most renowned academies!

“Damn it, damn it!”

Layne’s anger was only intensified. Not just her talent, the look of Su Ping’s employee had already made him greedy and jealous!

She was even more beautiful than Mia, whom he was busy pursuing, and yet she was being bossed around by Su Ping, which made him feel exasperated!

A young man with purple short hair made a brutal proposal. “Young master, we learned that the kid is an Ocean State warrior. However talented he is, he hasn’t grown up yet. Should we hire an assassin…?”

Layne narrowed his eyes and slapped the young man in the face after hearing that.

The young man was quite stunned by the slap; the brutality on his face was replaced by confusion.

“Are you trying to get me killed?” Layne burst into an outrage and roared, “Do you not see the background of the shop? The conflict between me and him is just verbal, but things will get physical once we piss off the family behind him. My entire family may fall if the guy’s family is supported by a Star Lord. Do you want my family to be destroyed?!”

The young man was dazed at first, but he sweated hard and paled as the thought sunk in. He slid off from the couch and knelt on the ground. “Y-Young master, I didn’t mean it, not at all. I didn’t think carefully about the matter. How could I possibly…”

He was too scared to talk. The Ryan family was the sky on that planet, and Layne was exactly one of their descendants!

Layne slapped him again and yelled, “Get lost!”

The young man quickly crawled away and shuddered on his knees, not daring to raise his head.

The other sidekicks were also too shocked and on edge to talk, fearing that their master would vent his fury on them.

Layne was grim. There were reasons why he was wary of Su Ping, and the biggest one was that the latter’s behavior made him feel like the force backing that shop owner was too powerful for him!

After all, Su Ping remained expressionless when he heard the name “Laiyefa” from Mia, as if it meant nothing… Anyone on the dozens of planets in the Zeruprun solar system would have been shocked to hear the name. Su Ping might have kept his cool out of ignorance if he were new to Zeruprun, but the intelligence report said he had been there for three years already!

Anybody who had stayed for that long should know by then how powerful the Laiyefa family was!

His only conclusion was that Su Ping’s origin was on par, or was even superior to that of the Laiyefa family!

Although Su Ping had embarrassed him and ruined his plans, he wasn’t at all intent on retaliating. Rather, he wondered if he should go to Su Ping’s shop and apologize.

“Sh*t!!”

Layne was even more infuriated by that sudden thought in his head. The whole thing was too embarrassing!

…

Inside the shop.

Su Ping returned to the shop and then headed to the Demigod Burial with Joanna, taking Mia’s many battle pets and his own pets, including the Inferno Dragon and the Dark Dragon Hound.

Mia had entrusted him with too many pets to train; he couldn’t take them all at once, so he separated them in two batches.

After all, he would never leave his own battle pets behind when he went on training trips.

The Demigod Burial was an advanced cultivation site anyway, good enough to train the Little Skeleton and the others. Even the Star State battle pets could be well-trained there.

After all, the Star State wasn’t a big deal on that site; most of the God Warriors were at that level.

There were also Major Gods above the God Warriors, who were the bigshots in the Demigod Burial.

Gods of Rules were above the Major Gods. Joanna’s original self was exactly one of them.

Joanna cleared up his doubts; Su Ping found that the Major Gods in the Demigod Burial were equal to the Star Lord warriors in the Federation, and the Gods of Rules were on par with those at the Ascendant State!

It meant that Joanna’s original self would be an Ascendant State bigshot in the Federation!

The Ascendant State was the apex in the entire Silvy Galaxy; they were experts who supervised major solar systems!

Superior Gods were further above…

Su Ping suspected that the Superior Gods in the Demigod Burial might not be stronger than those living in the Archean Divinity. It was like the Ocean State being considered Legendary on the Blue Planet, while it was commonplace in the Federation, no longer considered anything special.

The title rank was only meant to address apprentices in the Federation…

“I’ll take you to the Archean Divinity when you’re ready,” said Su Ping to Joanna on her divine mountain.

Joanna had previously captured a lot of Void State beasts for him, thus completing one of the quests issued by the system. She had been acknowledged as an Outstanding Employee and given the privilege to travel to any world.

Su Ping was willing to help if she wanted to go to the Archean Divinity and find a chance to reach higher levels.

“Okay.” Joanna nodded.