Monster Pet Evolution

This was the first time Gao Peng had actually lost a familiar.

While it wasn't quite as painful as losing say, a family member, they had spent more than half a year together. What they'd had was real, and all he could think of now were memories of them together.

All of a sudden, Gao Peng had a thought. "Grandfather, can you send the White Dragon to go kill a couple of Mountain Spirits?"

"Kill them?" Ji Hanwu raised an eyebrow. There were quite a few of them there.

It wasn't that he couldn't; even before the White Dragon hit Emperor-tier, he had already been able to take down Mountain Spirits with ease. Now, it would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. It was just that with so many of them there, it was possible Gao Peng and the others could get caught up in the clash and hurt.

"Let's go." Knowing that they would only be in the way, Gao Peng motioned at Huang Ya to leave.

Before he left, he told his grandfather, "If you do kill the Mountain Spirits, please throw their hearts into the Mountain Spirit King." This was all he could do for Stripey. The rest was in God's hands. Then he strapped the dying Wooden Peacock and the corpse of the Winged Thunder Ape to the back of the Female Spider and left.

He didn't bring the rest of the Commander-tier corpses with him, because it would lower the effectiveness of what he was about to do.

...

The White Dragon unleashed a thick cloud of white fog on the Mountain Spirits that gradually engulfed them all. There was zero visibility.

A long shadow could be seen flickering in and out of the fog, each flicker accompanied by a crack of lightning. The sound of Mountain Spirits slowly crumbling into the ground followed.

The fog lingered for another 30 minutes or so before fully dissipating.

Some of the spirits tried escaping somewhat awkwardly, but it wasn't meant to be.

As chunks of them fell off amidst the slaughter, smaller mountains formed.

Sweeping over the remains of the Mountain Spirits with his razor sharp eyes, the White Dragon quickly picked eight nuggets of gold the size of ostrich eggs out from the rubble and threw them onto the slumbering Mountain Spirit King.

Strangely, the moment that the hearts of the Mountain Spirits landed on the Mountain Spirit King, the surface opened up where they landed, and they were swallowed into the depths of the Mountain Spirit King, who rumbled mildly before settling back down…

After a while, Gao Peng had to turn back for Stripey. He couldn't just leave like this. He told Huang Ya to head back to the Southern Sky Group ahead of him. He motioned for Dumby to stick close to him while they went back to check on Stripey one last time.

It was hard to let go, after all...

When he got back there, his grandfather had already left. All that was left was a mountain of black granite towering imposingly across the landscape. As he craned his neck to look at the peak, he noticed that most of the entrances to the cavern that had been there before were now sealed off. If it wasn't for the fact that he had incurred this mountain's wrath earlier, he would have thought it was a perfectly normal mountain.

Upon a closer look, Gao Peng was struck with a strange sensation. He could feel something growing within the mountain. It was barely existent, but he could feel a tiny yet crystal-clear pulse of energy crying out, alive.

Was it Stripey? He couldn't tell.

All he knew was that Stripey was alive...

But whether he was trapped within some part of the Mountain Spirit King or somewhere else, Gao Peng couldn't tell. Sighing, he turned to leave. His face darkened.

"If you die, I'll kill every last Mountain Spirit here to avenge you."

Back in Yuzhou, Gao Peng was still glum. He blamed himself for what had happened to Stripey. He had grown cocky and paid the price.

Then Gao Peng had a sudden realization.

Didn't he pride himself on keeping a low profile? He hadn't been himself lately when it came to that.

"Gao Peng, where's the big crab?" Back at the mansion, Da Zi wasn't used to not having Stripey around.

Gao Peng didn't know what to say, so he forced a smile as he gently stroked Da Zi's head.

Da Zi's antennae twitched in pleasure. It could tell that Gao Peng was unhappy, so it dropped the subject.

When Da Zi couldn't find Stripey around the next day, it stared wistfully in the distance as it rested before resuming its training.

The third day after Gao Peng had returned, it still saw no sign of Stripey. Sitting by itself on the swing, it was bored out of its mind.

"Gao Peng, will the crab be back?"

"Yes, it will."

"When is it coming back?"

"In a bit."

"Oh… But I miss him."

"..."

"Gao Peng, I promise not to steal his food anymore. Can you bring him back?"

"..."

Half a month came and went in the blink of an eye. Gao Peng was slowly returning to normal, even though he preferred to be alone way more than he had before. He would rarely do anything with others, instead spending all his time either training his familiars or brewing potions.

His familiars were training with startling intensity. Maybe it was the shock of losing Stripey, but Goldie was training even harder than the others. It had even cut its own rest time from eight hours to six hours a day.

Even though Stripey had been quiet and sometimes lazy by nature, it had gotten along very well with the other familiars. They were all good friends. Losing him may have galvanized the other familiars to work harder in honor of his memory.

He had thought that this might be just be a flash in the pan, but he was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was not.

...

On the outskirts of Yuzhou, a Monster Hunting Squad was on the prowl.

"Captain, a Commander-tier monster is approaching us from the northeast."

"Avoid it. Our mission this time is to capture the Golden Dire Wolf. Let's not cause any unnecessary trouble." The captain was a woman in her thirties, which was very rare, as there weren't many female captains. Even though they were more sensitive and had better observational skills than men, they were also more apt to let their judgment be clouded by emotion.

Avoiding the monster, they cut through a thick group of trees before they saw a majestic mountain of pure black rising up in front of them...