Chapter 053 Chapter 53 (Update 1)

Ten minutes later.

Xia Muqing removed the signal jammer and decisively called the police. Then, before the security officer arrived, she tied up Boss Zhao tightly with the rope she found in the store.

Boss Zhao looked ashen and collapsed in the corner.

He couldn't even activate the Beast Taming Space because the Gale Dog was staring at him intently, its claws pressed tightly on the carotid artery on the side of his neck. The tip of the claws had pierced the skin, oozing bright red blood. If Boss Zhao made the slightest movement, it would tear open the blood vessels underneath without hesitation.

The koi fish flapped its tail vigorously, spitting out a long string of bubbles.

“Gurgle gurgle!”

That was so scary just now, the fish were scared to death!

Xia Muqing touched her chest and recalled what had just happened, still feeling a lingering fear.

It was all so thrilling.

If the little koi hadn't won the prize, they wouldn't have entered the dark room; if she hadn't been practicing martial arts for a while, she would have been able to hold off Boss Zhao for a while; if the little caterpillar hadn't taken a risky move and attached its emotional energy to Xia Muqing's fist...

They simply couldn't wait until the moment when the Swift Dog and the Little Koi broke free from their restraints and turned the situation around.

However, besides the thrills, there were also some big surprises. Xia Muqing never knew that the emotional energy absorbed by the little caterpillar could not only be attached to other mysterious beasts, but also to humans.

She touched the little caterpillar in her sleeve and whispered, "Xiao Zi, thank you."

The little caterpillar waved its short antennae, hugged her fingertips, pressed its warm cheek against the soft fingertips, and rubbed them affectionately.

On the other side, the little koi fish quietly moved to the counter while Xia Muqing was not paying attention, and stretched out its fins to hook the gift box on the shelf.

Those who survive a great disaster will surely be blessed in the future - since Boss Zhao is a bad guy, can he take this collector's card away as a trophy?

The little koi was nervous and excited, and the golden patterns on its scales became much more dazzling.

But when it finally took the gift box off the shelf and excitedly tore it open, it was surprised to find that there was nothing inside.

Boss Zhao was fooling it from the beginning to the end. The prize was fake and was just a show for it to see.

"Bang!"

The koi fish angrily threw the gift box to the ground, slammed the counter door open, rushed forward and swung its tail left and right, hitting Boss Zhao several times, causing the man's cheeks to swell up.

“Gurgle gurgle!”

Liar, big liar!

Beside him, the Swift Dog rolled his eyes: "Ouch!"

It’s already this time, and you’re still thinking about those broken cards?

Ultimately, today, it was all the koi's fault. If it hadn't been playful and wanted to draw some anime character card, they wouldn't have fallen into the enemy's trap and nearly injured their owner.

Hearing this, the koi fish shrank its tail and lowered its head guiltily.

It also knew that the main responsibility for today's incident lay on it. If it had not been so overwhelmed by the collector's card and ignored the various abnormalities in the small shop, the Beastmaster would not have been in danger.

Seeing the two mysterious beasts blaming themselves and feeling depressed, Xia Muqing patted their heads and said, "Well, today's not entirely your fault. I have my faults too. I shouldn't have taken the secluded path."

"Alas, Sister Wenxue warned me about the poaching gang today, but I still didn't take it seriously."

The main thing is that I didn’t expect that something like this that I only see on the news would actually happen to me.

"You better be more vigilant next time... huh?"

Suddenly, Xia Muqing caught sight of the lottery box on the ground out of the corner of her eye.

Just now, when the little koi rushed over angrily, it accidentally hit the lid of the box. Now the lottery box fell to the ground, and all the lottery tickets inside spilled out, covering the ground in colorful colors.

She subconsciously picked up one: "...First prize?"

Pick up another one: "Special Prize?"

"Second prize, first prize... and special prize?"

"Why are all the tickets in this lottery ticket filled with prizes?"

Little Koi: “???”

Impossible, it clearly didn’t draw anything just now!

The little koi rushed over aggressively, dived into the lottery tickets on the ground, picked up one at random, and looked up: it was the grand prize.

Little Koi: “…”

Damn, why?

Xia Muqing touched her chin, looking thoughtful.

"I see, this is the luck of the koi..."

In a sense, it's really lucky.

As the man and the beast were discussing, a shrill siren sounded from far away outside the store.

The security guard finally arrived.

…

As Xia Muqing walked out of the store, she saw Sister Wenxue in the security guard's convoy, rolling down the window, sticking her head out and waving at her vigorously.

"Xia, are you okay?"

Xia Muqing was a little surprised: "I'm fine. Sister Wenxue, why are you here?"

"Social practice." Wenxue sister also looked at her curiously. "I can't believe that we searched everywhere for clues about the poaching gang and made no progress, but you ran into them first."

"If I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have left at noon. It would have been so much better to go with you. We could have just run into the poaching gang... Oh, Xia, we'd have to trouble you to go with us to the safe house and tell us the details of what happened."

Xia Muqing nodded.

Following the convoy back to the safe house, Xia Muqing explained in detail everything that happened in the store, especially the mechanism activated by Boss Zhao. The powerful pressure that made it difficult for the mysterious beasts to move could be said to be the main factor causing today's crisis.

The security guard also carefully checked the inside and outside of the store, and later told Xia Muqing disappointedly that due to the rebound of the mysterious power, the equipment was severely damaged, and the mechanism arranged in the dark room was reduced to powder on the ground.

It was even difficult for them to restore the original appearance of those mechanisms. They could only infer based on the texture of the powder that they were a mysterious force circuit composed of some special crystals, which had a certain inhibitory effect on mysterious beasts.

"However, this type of circuit is only effective for a very short time and can be easily destroyed by powerful profound beasts. Furthermore, it often uses disposable materials and is extremely expensive to manufacture."

While telling Xia Muqing the news she had received from the security guard, Sister Wenxue sighed sincerely, "Xia, you really need to be careful these days. This group of people is coming for you."

"The poacher you captured had his communicator activated on its self-destruct sequence, but our technicians used some special methods to decrypt some of the communication records. See."

Xia Muqing took the photo, glanced at it, and her expression suddenly became serious.

[That’s her… the prototype of a divine skill… a rare trait… the doctor’s experimental subject…]

The words are few and disjointed, but the content revealed seems to hide a huge conspiracy that is shocking.

"There's something even scarier," Wenxue handed over another picture. "Look at this one, it was taken in the basement of that store."

Xia Muqing turned her head and shuddered subconsciously.

The photo was actually a wall covered with over a dozen photos, all depicting her daily life with the mysterious beasts. There were pictures of her and Xu Ling chatting and laughing as they walked out of the schoolyard, pictures of her riding her bike with the Swift Dog and Koi Fish to the training grounds, and pictures of her passing the entrance to the training center and greeting Zhu Ning with a beaming smile...

There are even records of her mobile phone usage, among which the number of video views of "Legend of the Divine Carp" is prominently listed.

Xia Muqing: "...Are they here for the prototype of the divine skill?"

Wenxue stood up and patted her shoulder: "It's very likely."

"After all, the others who possess quasi-divine beasts are either long-established divine beast masters, or adventurers who have grown to a certain level and possess considerable strength."

“Only you, whose initial profound beast is a quasi-divine beast, don’t even have a second-level profound beast at hand.”

"They all think you're a soft persimmon, easy to bite."

Xia Muqing held her forehead with her hand and smiled bitterly.

It seems that she will have to be more careful for a long time until she has stronger self-protection capabilities.

"What kind of organization are they? What are their characteristics?" Xia Muqing asked. "Since they're a gang, they should have their own code name and leader. I saw a pattern on the shop owner's arm. Is that their logo?"

Since she has been targeted by the other party, Xia Muqing feels that she must have a full understanding of the enemy so that she can know herself and the enemy and win every battle.

Also, she had encountered a fleeing poacher at the bus stop before. Was that guy the same group as the shop owner?

"this……"

Wenxuejie obviously didn't know that much information. She smiled awkwardly at Xia Muqing and said, "I only know that this poaching gang is very large and the turnover of personnel is very frequent. I don't know anything else."

"I'm just an intern, so I don't have access to a lot of the internal information of the Security Bureau. I'll tell you after I ask my mentor."

…

J Province, Xijiao City.

This is a medium-sized city, only 400 kilometers away from S City. Because it is located in the central part of J Province, the transportation conditions are very convenient and it has developed rapidly in recent years.

In the eastern part of the city, there's a massive 23-story office building, where dozens of workers busily work on drafting documents, running code, and preparing reports. As the night deepens, the lights in the building gradually dim, leaving only a few windows still lit.

The workers who worked overtime until late at night yawned and dragged their tired bodies out of the building, but no one knew that more than ten meters below their feet, there was a larger and more magnificent underground research institute, with hundreds of rooms busy and lights on all night.

Someone trotted along and knocked on the door of the central laboratory. Seeing the young man in a white coat inside, he subconsciously swallowed in fear. "Doc, Mission 156 failed. He's been captured by Security."

"Should we...save them?"

The man in the lab turned around, as if he had heard something very interesting, and raised his eyebrows slightly: "Save?"

"He's a mediocre fellow, unable to complete even the simplest of tasks. He's consumed so many of my crystals, and even the isolation array I worked so hard to create has been broken. I don't know the point of saving him. Perhaps you could explain it to me?"

He spoke slowly and the person reporting at the door was sweating profusely. He didn't dare to say a word. He bowed hurriedly and turned to walk out.

Inside the room, the man in the white coat pushed up his glasses and returned his attention to the screen in front of him.

The screen was showing the scene inside Lab 37. A young man in his twenties was standing inside, clenching his fists and squeezing them hard out of curiosity.

A burst of sparks instantly shot out from between his fingers, burning brightly and illuminating the young man's eyes of surprise and joy.

"Spark? This is Flame Chicken's skill, Spark?"

"I, I can also use the skills of the mysterious beast?"

"Wow, that's awesome, Doc! You're awesome! This is so cool!!"

The young people screamed excitedly, jumping and dancing around the room, their eyes and brows filled with unconcealable joy.

In the central laboratory, the man in the white coat remained unmoved, counting calmly: "10, 9, 8..."

When the countdown reached "1", the young man on the screen suddenly froze.

He hunched his back in pain, hugged his arms tightly, dug his fingers into his arms, and screamed miserably: "Doctor, something is wrong, Doctor, I'm in so much pain, my body is so hot——"

The young man tore off his outer shirt. On his exposed back, one could clearly see the congested and twisted meridians and blood vessels, like inflated balloons or wandering lizards, scurrying around under his skin.

His skin began to bleed, bright red and miserable, but upon closer inspection, it was not blood, but balls of liquid mysterious energy, hot and strong, burning on the young man's back, just like the "Spark" skill he had just activated!

“Ah—Ahhh!!”

The young man screamed and shouted, "Doc, Doc, save me!!"

The man in the white coat watched the scene quietly without any reaction, until the flames broke out completely from the inside out, burning the young man into a ball of melted grease that dripped wetly to the ground. Then he sighed regretfully.

He pulled up the experimental records and wrote down a line of small words:

[On x month x day, No. 37 matched the "Spark" skill. The recipient's energy carrying capacity did not exceed the 10-second mark. The mysterious beast and the experimenter were all scrapped.]

At the same time, the door of the laboratory on the screen was opened, and the staff wearing thick protective clothing cleaned up the blood and dry bones on the ground.

There was a secret door on the side of the room, and two other people pushed out a small cart from inside the door. On the cart lay a flame chicken that had been drained of its mystical power and was seriously injured and on the verge of death.

"The experiment's failure rate is too high," the man in the white coat muttered to himself. "No, we need to find more advanced receptors or mysterious beasts with special characteristics."

"It seems that mission No. 156 needs to be continued by another person."