Cyan Treasure didn't notice Ah Kun's improvement; it was just envious of Ah Kun's Devouring ability.
It wanted to learn it, too.
Gu Ming didn't stop feeding them. Instead, he figured the shrimp was too big and decided to chop it up into small pieces of shredded meat and broken shell to feed the Grouper Fish.
Gu Ming looked at Cyan Treasure beside him. "Cyan Treasure, use your Head Hammer attack on the big shrimp."
Hearing its master's command, Cyan Treasure was a bit reluctant.
'This big shrimp must be for me.'
But it was its master's wish, after all. After a moment's hesitation, it used its Head Hammer Skill.
It imagined its serpentine head weighing a hundred jin as it smashed down on the shrimp's shell.
With a CRACK, the shell easily shattered, sending small fragments flying around the room. The meat inside, however, was undamaged—the Power was just right.
The Entry Level Head Hammer Skill was already showing some impressive force.
"Good work, Cyan Treasure. You can have a couple of bites too."
Gu Ming scooped out two pieces of light-cyan shrimp meat. Despite the red shell, the meat inside was a greenish-blue, emitting a faint, cool mist. It was still very fresh.
What Gu Ming saw as cool mist, Cyan Treasure saw as Spiritual Qi.
It beamed with joy. 'Master still cares about me after all.'
It had never eaten such beautiful Spiritual Flesh, so full of Spiritual Qi, back in the Pet Beast Store. Today, it was finally having a proper meal.
It crawled over, took a gentle bite, and gobbled it down to digest.
'Huh? It's actually Grass Attribute Spiritual Qi.'
The shrimp meat was incredibly tender, just the right kind of flesh to be easily digested by a Snake Pet's secretions.
In less than a minute, Cyan Treasure felt a large amount of Grass Attribute Spiritual Qi invade its organs and permeate its meridians.
Gu Ming had just tossed in the Broken Shell, letting Ah Kun try to eat the red shell fragments from the large shrimp.
He turned his head and immediately sensed the change in Spiritual Qi within Cyan Treasure's body.
"Hm? This meat is a perfect match for your body," Gu Ming said in surprise.
It was the first time he'd ever seen meat like this.
"Quick, start your Cultivating Technique! Don't let it go to waste."
Cyan Treasure snapped out of its daze, coiled its body up like an incense spiral, and activated the Snake Swallowing Elephant Technique. It guided the Spiritual Qi roaming its body into its meridians, then used Visualization of the Snake Swallowing Elephant Diagram to convert it into Mana.
Cyan Treasure only had to cultivate for two minutes before all the Spiritual Qi was converted, completing a pure refinement and boost to its Mana.
The efficiency of this round of Cultivation was only slightly slower than eating a Spirit Stone.
'Such delicious meat.'
Cyan Treasure opened its eyes, its heart pounding with excitement.
It looked at the remaining shrimp meat in its master's hand, greedily crawled onto his hand, and began flicking its tongue against the back of Gu Ming's hand, hoping he would give it the rest of the meat.
"Alright, alright. I'll just take a little for Ah Kun to try, and you can have the rest." Gu Ming wasn't an idiot; he knew this meat was a huge boost for Cyan Treasure, so there was no way he'd feed it all to Ah Kun.
Just now, Ah Kun had successfully digested the hard outer shell of the large shrimp.
And guess what?
「Juvenile Kunpeng Skin Hardness +1」
It really was evolving by devouring all things.
With the Devouring Secret Technique, Ah Kun's diet was no longer limited to Spiritual Flesh; exoskeletons were now on the menu.
He actually had an even bolder idea—he wondered if it could eat things like rubber or wood.
There was no rush to test that. Gu Ming tossed the rest of the shrimp's outer shell into the water, and Ah Kun quickly ate until it was full, unable to consume any more.
Meanwhile, Cyan Treasure, having gotten its master's permission, devoured the entire portion of shrimp meat like a whirlwind sweeping away clouds.
This caused its serpentine body to swell by several sizes, making it look like a fat earthworm.
Both Pet Beasts would need a good while to digest, so he'd check on them in the morning.
Gu Ming placed it in its little nest in the room and went to bed.
But after lying down, he couldn't stop thinking about the red shrimp meat.
'That shrimp is too perfect for Cyan Treasure.'
Ah Kun had also eaten a piece of the shrimp meat just now, but its Attributes didn't increase, which meant it wasn't compatible with Ah Kun.
"That shrimp wasn't one I bought, so Mom must have gotten it. I need to ask her what kind of shrimp it is," Gu Ming muttered to himself, picking up his phone to send a message.
It was already past midnight, but in theory, the old couple shouldn't be asleep yet.
However, after he sent the message, a long while passed with no reply. He had no choice but to go to sleep and ask again tomorrow.
...
「In the next room.」
Mrs. Gu saw the query on her phone and smiled smugly.
"Looks like the improvement was significant, otherwise why would he go out of his way to ask me."
She murmured, secretly nudging Mr. Gu beside her with her elbow.
'The secret "enrichment" plan has begun. The first step is a complete dietary upgrade.'
Cyan Treasure was a Basic Pet Beast. It couldn't digest meat that was too High-Level, but low-end meat wouldn't work either because the efficiency was too low.
They had to find something that was just right without being wasteful. The two of them had gone to great lengths to pick out a piece of Spiritual Flesh that the Little Cyan Snake could digest quickly.
They thought he wouldn't use it until making lunch tomorrow, not expecting their son to give his Pet Beast a late-night snack.
"Don't you blow our cover. Just say his grandpa got it, and don't say anything else."
"Hah, I know. I'll tell him face-to-face tomorrow morning. With the Hidden Mist Butterfly's hint, we don't have to worry about him getting suspicious."
...
The night passed without incident.
The next day, Gu Ming left the house in a daze.
Apparently, the shrimp was something his grandfather had found while foraging by the sea, and he didn't know what it was called.
Because of that, he didn't press them further about what kind of shrimp it was.
The old couple were just ordinary people. What could they possibly know about shrimp? Being able to recognize an Iron Gall Lone Dragon was already their limit.
Cyan Treasure was coiled around Gu Ming's neck, flicking its tongue and begging him to teach it the Kunpeng Devouring Secret Technique.
"You've already learned the Elephant-Swallowing Demon Technique. The next step is the Heaven-Devouring Demon Technique. Don't be impatient; your future won't be any worse than Ah Kun's," Gu Ming comforted it.
Cyan Treasure: ???
'What the hell is the Elephant-Swallowing Demon Technique? Is that the real name for the Snake Swallowing Elephant Technique?'
Gu Ming didn't know how to explain, so he just said, "You just need to know that you can learn the Heaven-Devouring Demon Technique later."
The Little Cyan Snake had poor aptitude to begin with. If it wanted to advance to a High-star rank, what it needed wasn't just to eat, eat, eat, nor was it to force itself to learn the Kunpeng Secret Technique that it couldn't comprehend.
It needed an Evolution Method that could change the very essence of its life and break through its biological limits.
Back at school, Gu Ming didn't return to his classroom but went to the training room to test Cyan Treasure's Power.
He got up at five every morning for a run, so he was always one of the first students to arrive at school.
When he entered the training room, there were no other students yet. Gu Ming could let Cyan Treasure use its Head Hammer Skill at full strength without worrying about being seen.
"Cyan Treasure, use your Head Hammer Skill on the Power Stake!"
Cyan Treasure obeyed and charged forward, imagining its serpentine head was as heavy as a hundred jin. With immense, sinking force, it smashed into the face of the Power Stake with a THUD.
SWISH! A string of numbers popped up from the Power Stake, which was made of composite material.
「Power: 56 jin」
「Power Points: 15!」
'Wow, just learning the Entry Level Head Hammer boosted it by ten points.'
'If I keep leveling up the Skill Level of the Head Hammer Skill to the Master Level, that number could go even higher.'
During the ten days of Dream Training last night, Cyan Treasure had used its Head Hammer over six thousand times.
It was still a few hundred repetitions short of reaching the Master Level for its Head Hammer.
Not all Skills had the same training requirements as the Devouring Secret Technique's experience bar.
The Head Hammer Skill required two thousand repetitions to reach Entry Level, and another five thousand to reach Master Level. It would only take until tonight... no, it could advance right now.
Gu Ming hadn't yet tested the time-flow comparison between Dream Training and reality.
He had used it too abruptly last night and wasn't prepared.
Gu Ming checked the time on his phone. It was only 6:05 AM, and most students wouldn't arrive until seven.
And last night's ten days of training hadn't even seemed to take an hour.
Thinking of this, he immediately took Cyan Treasure to the rest area, sat down against a wall, started the timer on his phone, and closed his eyes to enter the Dream Training Space.
A minute later, he opened his eyes.
He glanced down at the time, a little surprised. Then, he said to the simultaneously awakening Cyan Treasure, "Cyan Treasure, use a Master Level Head Hammer on the Power Stake!"