Chapter 11: Chapter 11 Skills Pool

The reading room of Azure Dragon Middle School No. 8 may only claim to be a reading room, yet it is actually a three-story building, reportedly donated by an alumni from a previous graduating class.

Although school had already let out, there were still many students flipping through books in the reading room.

As the best public high school in the new district, the study atmosphere here is quite impressive.

After searching for a while, Chen Xing finally found the book he wanted—”One Hundred Ways to Cook Salty Bay Crocodile.”

The pages were slightly yellowed and curled, emanating a rich, old-book scent.

Chen Xing sat down on the floor and leaned against a bookshelf, opening up “Three Thousand Questions about the Salty Bay Crocodile.”

The cover featured an immense Salty Bay Crocodile lurking in the marshes, confronting the camera. On the rippling water surface, two eyes peered out, dark and depthless, showing cold indifference. The animal’s massive body was partially visible in the water, with the murky green depths concealing untold terror.

The title page recorded a line: Written by a 60-year-old Royal Emissary who raised three Salty Bay Crocodile familiars.

‘My uncle owns a large aquaculture farm, where he raises many Salty Bay Crocodiles. When I was a child, he told me that Salty Bay Crocodiles were a delicacy. I once had a skewer, and it tasted fantastic. It’s because of that skewer that I formed an unbreakable bond with Salty Bay Crocodiles.’

‘In fact, before eating it, I didn’t even know it was crocodile meat. At first, I thought it was chicken, but after learning it was crocodile meat, I was so scared that I cried, fearing that these colossal crocodiles might sneak in through the window at night and eat me.’

‘Later, when I was twelve, my uncle personally selected the strongest offspring from the first litter of a female crocodile at the farm. It was from that day on that I became fascinated by the charm of Salty Bay Crocodiles.’

‘Before becoming a Beast Tamer, I thought Salty Bay Crocodiles were cold-blooded, heartless creatures without emotions, which fit my stereotype of all cold-blooded beast tamers.’

‘However, as I interacted with them longer, I discovered that Salty Bay Crocodiles were more interesting than I had imagined. They are sly, like to ambush their prey in swamps and on the water surface, and are extremely cautious, never making a move without the certainty of a one-hit kill. But that is all just their external disguise. Once they get to know you, the crocodiles will reveal their lovably clumsy side.’

‘In my lifetime, I have raised three Salty Bay Crocodile beast tamers and managed a farm with over a thousand Salty Bay Crocodiles. I wrote this book to record everything about Salty Bay Crocodiles as a gift to all those who love them.’

Chen Xing noticed that some of the content overlapped significantly with the school textbooks, but considering the publication date of the textbooks and this book, it seemed that some of the content in the textbooks probably came from this book.

However, there wasn’t time to read slowly today, so he registered to borrow the book at the front desk on the first floor.

After returning home, the living room was filled with the aroma of food, and his mother was about to finish cooking.

“Mom, don’t work overtime too late recently,” he said.

“Why?”

“The school said that some illegal organizations have been causing trouble in the city recently; it’s not very safe at night.”

“Alright, I’ll talk to Sister Liu, and we won’t work overtime at night,” Liu Yuzhen said with a smile born out of being cared for at the corner of her mouth.

After dinner, Chen Xing immediately opened the book upon returning to his room.

Taotie, lying on the bedroom floor, looked up at Chen Xing on the bed with some confusion. Unfortunately, from its angle, it couldn’t see the person, only the edge of the bed.

It became so anxious that it tried to stand up and made several attempts to jump but still couldn’t reach the edge of the bed.

Out of frustration, it burst into anger.

Chen Xing, lying on the bed, let out exclamations from time to time.

I didn’t expect the pool of skills that Salty Bay Crocodiles could awaken to be so broad!

According to the author’s records, based on his sixty years of extensive observation of thousands of Salty Bay Crocodiles, he confirmed that the pool of skills Salty Bay Crocodiles could awaken contained a total of 29 skills!

There were 14 Primary Skills, 9 Intermediate Skills, 5 Advanced Skills, 1 Passive Skill, and 1 Innate Skill.

According to statistics, the higher the Beast Taming Level, the higher the probability of awakening rare skills. At Energy Level 5, the probability of Salty Bay Crocodiles awakening an Advanced Skill was 0%, a Primary Skill 88.9%, an Intermediate Skill 10.1%, a Passive Skill 0.5%, and an Innate Skill 0.5%.

Chen Xing focused on the passive and innate skills of the Salty Bay Crocodile.

A passive skill, as the name suggests, is a skill that only appears under certain conditions or probabilities. Of course, that condition might be “satisfied under all circumstances,” and the probability could be 100%. A passive skill might be a permanent increase in some aspect of a beast’s characteristics, such as a permanent increase in energy recovery speed or strength. It could also grant the beast the ability to trigger effects under specific conditions, like inflicting rebound damage on an enemy when attacked.

The passive skill of the Salty Bay Crocodile is called—Water Stealth.

As one would guess, it allows the body to blend perfectly with the water when lurking beneath the surface. According to the author’s tests, a Salty Bay Crocodile with this passive skill gains a certain amount of additional resistance to water element abilities, roughly between 10% to 15%.

This passive skill is very suitable for the Salty Bay Crocodile, which primarily relies on ambush tactics.

The innate skill of the Salty Bay Crocodile, on the other hand, is named—Death Roll.

This innate skill is not a water element ability but a normal-type skill, also known as a combat skill.

Thanks to the Salty Bay Crocodile’s incredibly strong bite force, which according to the author’s tests, ranks near the top among beasts of the same weight class. The innate skill, combined with the species’ innate talents, makes this Death Roll extremely lethal, capable of tearing off the bitten part of the prey almost instantly, with a disability rate of 99% among the same energy level.

Besides these two skills, Chen Xing looked through all the other twenty-three primary and intermediate skills.

Not all skills are suitable for Taotie; some are only effective when combined with other skills, and on their own, they’re rather mediocre in power.

Chen Xing could only hope that Taotie would awaken a more useful skill when the time came. If its skill turned out to be pretty useless, he feared he wouldn’t have the money to buy a skill orb for a while. Moreover, it was said that to replace skills, one had to erase the original skills first and then use the skill orbs, and there was also something about a success rate for the skill orbs.

Just thinking about it gave him a headache.

So how was he going to make money… Maybe sell pet food?

The idea flashed through Chen Xing’s mind but was quickly dismissed.

It was too dangerous.

The effects of the pet food were very noticeable; if he fed it to a beast, others would definitely be able to tell.

He wasn’t strong enough to protect this secret yet.

The best course of action now was to turn this ability into strength!

But buying materials to make pet food also cost money… He couldn’t always ask his sister for money, and besides, she wasn’t rich, just as poor as he was.

Perhaps taking Taotie to competitions?

Some malls or enterprises often host small-scale events to generate buzz.

The prize money for these events was insignificant to real experts, but to ordinary people, they were quite tempting.

Of course, these competitions were also a significant challenge for Taotie, which hadn’t been born for even a month.

But if they couldn’t compete in the adult category, they could do the student category! And if the student category proved too hard, there was still the children’s category! As long as one sets their goals low enough, there are always cubs to bully!

Chen Xing couldn’t help but admire his own cleverness and wisdom. He immediately reached out from the side of his bed, scooped up the fuming Taotie from the floor into his arms.

Taotie, still angrily flicking its tail on the floor, suddenly found itself hovering in midair. After instinctively kicking its legs a couple of times, it realized that it was being held by its master and glared at Chen Xing with fury, “Aoo aoo aoo!” protesting why it hadn’t been picked up and put on the bed earlier.

Mua!

Chen Xing planted a kiss on Taotie’s cool forehead, finding it more adorable by the second, “You’re already a half-month-old crocodile, you should start learning how to earn your keep!”

Taotie didn’t understand what earning a keep was, but something in its gut told it that a huge mountain called life was slowly approaching.