The night passed quickly.
After meditating for an entire night, Ji An didn't show any signs of fatigue. Instead, he was full of energy.
This was also one of the uses of meditation. It could speed up the recovery of energy and physical strength.
The effects of a night's meditation didn't surprise Ji An in any way. The improvement in his soul power was pitifully small.
On the other hand, the winter bear cub had brought Ji An a new surprise.
After he woke up and checked on the winter bear cub that was still sleeping in the soul domain, he found that its energy level had increased by 0.5 again, reaching 20.8.
As for the winter bear cub's Hibernation skill, its mastery had also increased by 2 points, reaching 202.
This discovery made Ji An jump for joy.
This showed that his guess was not wrong.
The winter bear cub could become stronger by sleeping!
In his previous life, the winter bear cub's energy level had probably gradually increased as it continued to hibernate.
It was only then that its abnormality was discovered. In the end, it was subdued by the Little Bear King, Yang Sheng, establishing the other party's awe-inspiring reputation.
Ji An didn't find it strange that Li Ya did not discover the winter bear cub's abnormal energy level.
Li Ya wasn't a combat beastmaster, so she naturally didn't have the habit of carrying around a combat instrument that could detect a target's energy level.
It was impossible to accurately determine a familiar's specific energy level with just the naked eye and perception, especially for familiar cubs in the Morphing level. Their energy levels weren't high, to begin with, so it was even more difficult to judge accurately.
Li Ya would never have thought that the winter bear cub's mastery of the Hibernation skill was close to the level of some adult winter bears.
Aside from the increase in its energy level, another change in the winter bear cub made Ji An even happier.
With the Eye of Insight, he saw that there was a new skill in the winter bear cub's skill column. Yesterday, there had only been one Hibernation skill, but now there were two skills.
The additional skill was Hard Ice.
Hibernation, Hard Oce, and Ice-breaking Palm were the three major skills that were currently recognized in the beast world as the racial skills of the winter bears.
The manual that Li Ya had given him had also recorded these three racial skills.
The so-called racial skill was such that when a winter bear reached adulthood, it would definitely be able to master these skills, and there would be no individual differences in its skills from the other winter bears.
Among them, Hard Ice and Ice-breaking Palm were elementary skills, while Hibernation was an intermediate skill.
However, unlike Hibernation which was more of a support-type skill, Hard Ice and Ice-breaking palm were both combat skills.
Its mastery of Hard Ice also meant that the winter bear cub now had certain combat power.
The information Ji An saw about Hard Ice was also very simple: The familiar can cover its body with a layer of hard ice. Covering the claws, paws, and other parts will increase the destructive power of the winter bear's attacks. It can also cover the familiar's chest, abdomen, back, head, and other parts to increase defense.
Not only could it turn the winter bear's body into a weapon to increase its destructive power, but it could also equip the winter bear with armor to increase its defense.
In other words, this was a skill that could both attack and defend.
Ji An first hurriedly cooked a bowl of soup noodles to fill his stomach.
Then, he woke up the winter bear cub and excitedly brought it to the rooftop to train the skill it had just mastered.
it was late autumn when all living things were withering.
Ji An's original business of growing vegetables and selling fruits had thus been cut off.
The rooftop seemed a lot emptier.
He was preparing to move the junk on the rooftop to the side to make space for the winter bear cub to train.
The junk was quite heavy. When the winter bear cub saw its beastmaster's actions, it went forward to help.
Despite its short limbs, the winter bear cub, whose energy level was 20.8, was much stronger than Ji An.
Some researchers had calculated that when converted to energy level, the physical functions of a healthy adult male human at the age of 18 were equivalent to that of a familiar that had gone through its first Morphing and had an energy level of 7-9.
The flowerbed Ji An used to cultivate vegetables was made up of bricks and discarded plastic.
He was pushing a plastic parterre filled with soil towards a corner with great difficulty.
The bear cub, which was only as tall as Ji An's knees, saw this and walked to his side. It stood up on its hind legs and used all four of its limbs to push the parterre away.
With that, the plastic parterre, which was full of soil, was suddenly sent flying.
Bang!
The flowerbed hit the wall in the corner and soil splashed out.
With the help of the shockingly strong winter bear cub, the debris on the roof was soon cleared, leaving a large empty space.
Ji An patted the bear cub's head in satisfaction and complimented, "Not bad. Thanks to your help, it saved me a lot of effort."
based on Ji An's experience in doing manual labor, if it weren't for the winter bear cub's help, it would have taken at least two to three times longer to clean up the heavy debris.
"Roar! Roar!"
It was a small matter! It had the strength!
Ji An beamed at the smug-looking little guy in front of him, "Winter bear cub, I've seen your strength. Next, let me see your Hard Ice skill! "
"Roar?" The winter bear cub was confused. Hard, Hard Ice?
It was obvious that this little fellow still didn't understand the changes it had undergone in one night.
In Ji An's eyes, the winter bear cub's current skill was displayed as Hard Ice (3/785).
It meant that the winter bear cub could already use this skill.
However, the winter bear cub clearly had come to terms with this fact and still needed some guidance.
"That's right, Hard Ice. Focus your attention on this claw and try to mobilize the ice attribute energy in your body," Ji An began to guide the winter bear cub and slowly released his soul force in his palm, teaching it through words and actions.
"Roar!" Looking at the white light in Ji An's palm, the winter bear cub nodded, not fully understanding what he meant.
Its bean-like eyes were focused as it mimicked Ji An's actions, raising its right palm.
Ji An also looked at it with rapt attention.
However, after staring at its palm for a long time, there was no reaction at all.
Let alone forming Hard Ice, there was not even the slightest hint of an energy glow.
"Roar..." The winter bear cub suddenly felt dejected.
"It's okay, winter bear cub. Everything is difficult at the beginning. What's important is persistence. Let's continue," Ji An quickly consoled.
With the winter bear cub's talent, it was only a matter of time before it could cast Hard Ice.
As expected, the winter bear cub tried again after being comforted by Ji An.
Soon, traces of icy blue energy light appeared. Within the icy blue light, a weak cold air suddenly began to spread in the winter bear cub's palm.
Then, a thin layer of frost slowly formed on the bear's paw.
Even though the frost was thin, it was extremely hard.
Ji An knocked on the layer of ice, and a crisp sound rang out as if he had knocked on a layer of iron.
"That's right. This hard texture is a special characteristic of Hard Ice!" A smile appeared on Ji An's face.
That being said, Hard Ice with a mastery value of 3 was only at the Entry level.
It was difficult to even maintain it for a certain amount of time, let alone create a lethal and destructive force.
After the thin layer of ice covered a small half of the bear cub's palm, it was difficult to expand further.
On top of that, it only lasted for less than ten seconds before completely shattering as cracks appeared on the ice covering the bear cub's paw with cracking sounds.
"This is already very good. Our main training content this morning will be the Hard Ice skill," Ji An announced the day's plans to the equally happy winter bear cub.
Hearing this, the bear cub's chubby face fell.
To the winter bear cub, sleeping was the most important thing.
Ji An's next words made its heart burst with joy though, "You can train until the afternoon and have your sweetgrass milk. After that, you can go back to the soul domain and continue your Hibernation. If the results of your training are good, you can even eat and sleep at noon."
Seeing that the bear cub was tempted, Ji An continued to encourage it.
These words immediately made the winter bear cub full of energy.
Without waiting for Ji An's instructions, it automatically began to form Hard Ice on its paw again.
The ice layer only lasted for a short time.
However, just as the layer of ice on its palm cracked, the winter bear cub formed another layer of Hard Ice again.
Seeing the winter bear cub so full of energy, Ji An felt rather relieved.
It seemed that even the winter bear cub that was fond of sleep could not resist the temptation of good food.