Qiao Mei remembered that Ao Cang only had fifty points of defense, and her blood-red eyes showed a complicated expression: "It's hard to say."

Shang Duojin asked in confusion, "Why? With such high attack and speed, the defense shouldn't be too bad either."

Qiao Mei shook her head: "Let's see. I think getting a C rating would be pretty good."

The rating you get depends on how long you can withstand the destructive energy from the defense machine.

According to Shang Duojin, you can usually get a C if you hold out for ten minutes, a B if you hold out for twenty minutes, an A if you hold out for thirty minutes, and an S if you hold out for fifty minutes.

Qiao Mei looked at Ao Cang's dragon body, which was missing scale after scale, and her red eyes were filled with worry that was about to overflow.

As usual, she gave Ao Cang a small test tube of recovery fluid to drink, and after he had rested, she watched him walk into the coverage area of ​​the defense machine.

The amount of destructive energy released can be adjusted, but the smaller the amount, the longer it takes to endure. Thinking that a short pain is worse than a long one, she adjusted the destructive energy of Ao Cang to a normal range.

Then wait for the destructive energy beam to prepare.

[Destructive energy is about to be launched. Please prepare your familiars...]

As the mechanical voice of "3, 2, 1" faded, a dark blue-black light shield enveloped Ao Cang's dragon body.

The light shield initially covered a very large area, almost completely enveloping the entire area covered by the defense machine.

But as time went by, the light barrier began to slowly shrink.

Qiao Mei wasn't inside, so she didn't know what its shrinkage represented. However, judging from Ao Cang's somewhat strained appearance, she could roughly guess that the light shield must have put a lot of pressure on his dragon body.

And indeed, that is the case.

Ao Cang felt as if someone had stuffed his dragon body into a very narrow box, and the box was constantly squeezing his dragon body, causing him to go from feeling physically uncomfortable at first, to having difficulty breathing, and then to becoming delirious.

Five minutes had passed when Qiao Mei, seeing Ao Cang's dragon body unable to stand upright and the blood seeping from his mouth and nose, anxiously urged him to give up resisting.

"Cangcang, that's enough. You can't keep going like this. We'll train slowly later. Don't push yourself!"

Upon hearing Qiao Mei's voice, Ao Cang raised his golden dragon eyes to glance at the rating of the defense machine. He realized that only five minutes had passed, and he hadn't even gotten a C rating. He ignored what Qiao Mei said and continued to resist.

Seeing more blood gushing from his mouth and nose, Qiao Mei's eyes reddened with anxiety, and she urged Shang Duojin to stop the machine immediately.

Shang Duojin hadn't expected Ao Cang's defenses to be so weak. He shook his head and told her that to stop the machine, the familiar beast itself had to agree.

Otherwise, stopping abruptly would cause great harm to the summoned beasts.

Qiao Mei was stunned. She looked at the little black dragon, whose condition was even weaker than before and whose eyes were bleeding. She hurriedly went outside the range of the destructive energy and, for the first time, shouted at him by his full name in a very angry voice:

"Ao Cang, give up resisting! Did you hear me?! It's okay if you don't get a C this time, we can practice again later. You don't need to be in such a hurry!!"

Ao Cang was still checking the time. Seeing that he was only a minute away from reaching C, he closed his dragon eyes and continued to hold on.

Only when he finally saw a rating of C appear on the machine did he vomit a mouthful of dragon blood and faint.

At this moment, the machine completely stopped working. Qiao Mei, her mind blank, quickly stepped forward and picked up the little black dragon whose head was covered in blood. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at Shang Duojin, who was still in a daze, and said, "Family veterinarian, do you have a family veterinarian here?!"

Shang Duojin finally came to his senses and quickly used his computer bracelet to contact the family doctor to examine Ao Cang and feed him a lot of expensive recovery fluid to help him recover.

After nearly an hour of struggle, the blood that was still flowing from Ao Cang's eyes, mouth, and nose finally stopped, and an IV drip to replenish his blood was put on.

"Is this all? Is there anything else we need to do?" Shang Duojin looked at Ao Cang, who was still unconscious, with concern. The doctor replied confidently, "Young Master, this is all you need to do. He should wake up once the IV drip is finished."

With the doctor's words, Qiao Mei and Shang Duojin finally felt relieved.

The machine is managed by Shang Duojin, so he needs to personally operate it to input the speed, attack, and defense ratings for Ao Cang.

So he asked Qiao Mei to look after Ao Cang herself while he went to help her enter the rating.

Qiao Mei's eyes were still red, her red eyes fixed on Ao Cang's dragon body. Upon hearing this, she gave a low, nasal "hmm" without even glancing at Shang Duojin.

The feeling that Shang Duojin and Leiting gave her was as if Qiao Mei didn't just treat Ao Cang as an ordinary familiar beast.

As Shang Duojin's footsteps faded into the distance until they were no longer audible, Qiao Mei took out all the remaining money from her savings, intending to offer it to Ao Cang as a sacrifice. However, she suddenly remembered that she had already used up the amount of money she could offer that day, so she could only take back her interstellar coins and stare at him again.

She couldn't understand why he was so insistent. This rating could be refreshed and changed later, couldn't it?

Puzzled, Qiao Mei reached out her right hand to gently stroke Ao Cang's dragon back. She had accidentally touched his dragon scales before and found that touching this area made him feel much more comfortable. She wondered if it would work this time.

After stroking her for about five minutes, when Qiao Mei felt her hand getting a little sore, the little black dragon, which had been motionless, trembled its long, thick eyelashes and slowly lifted its eyelids to look at her.

The gentle caress from the dragon's back was not to be ignored, Ao Cang felt. His body, which had been in excruciating pain, felt as if it had been given a painkiller, with a tingling sensation running from the dragon's head to its tail.

Seeing that he was awake, Qiao Mei's tightly furrowed brows relaxed, and she asked him with concern and anxiety, "Cang Cang, how are you feeling? Is there anything that's uncomfortable? Besides the pain you're experiencing right now?"

Ao Cang shook his head and noticed that the girl's eyes were a little red and moist, and the tip of her nose was also red, as if she had just been crying. He asked her in surprise, "Have you been crying?"

It would have been better if he hadn't brought it up, because the moment he did, Qiao Mei was reminded of the way he lay on the ground, his life hanging in the balance. Her chest was filled with fear and lingering dread, and her eyes welled up with tears again. She leaned closer to Ao Cang, nuzzling her forehead against his, and whispered, "Yes, I was afraid you would die, so afraid..."

Ao Cang looked into her wet, red eyes and remained silent for a long time before nuzzling her with his dragon head and saying in a hoarse voice, "I'm sorry, I just... wanted to save you some money."

"The machine costs 10,000 interstellar coins to use. I know you work hard to earn money, so I didn't want to waste this opportunity to use it for free. But I didn't expect you to be so worried and upset about this..."

I never imagined that I would see someone shed tears for him for the first time.