The effects of the ice demon blood lasted much longer than Ji An had expected.
The amazing energy contained in the ice demon blood transformed and upgraded the winter bear cub Ping An for an entire day.
Until the evening of the next day, only then did Ping An slowly awake from its Hibernation.
After bursting through the dark blue layer of ice covering its body, the winter bear cub appeared in front of Ji An.
A day ago, it had been 1.23 meters. But now, it had grown to a height of nearly 1.4 meters.
Compared to Ji An, who wasn't very tall, it was only a head and a half shorter.
However, the winter bear cub's body was muscular and round, something the skinny Ji An couldn't compare to at all.
At this time, the winter bear cub Ping An, from its appearance alone, looked quite similar to the muscular adult winter bear that Ji An had seen at the breeding base.
However, as it was still extremely round, its cuteness no less than before.
At that moment, Ping An's attributes and information had also undergone a shocking change.
[Name]: Ping An
[Race]: Winter Bear
[Race Level]: Lower Extraordinary level
[Evolution Level]: Sixth Morphing
[Energy Level]: 80.7
[Acquired Skills]: Hibernation (343/800), Hard Ice (227/785), Ice-breaking Palm (205/720), Monstrous Strength (228/695), Cold Air (48/682)
[Potential Skill]: Avalanche Impact (0/553)
Under the effects of the ice demon blood, the winter bear cub's evolution level naturally increased by one level.
It had thus completed its sixth Morphing.
The Morphing level of Transcendent creatures was not only divided into ten Morphing stages, but these ten stages were further classified into four: early-stage Morphing, middle-stage Morphing, late-stage Morphing, and final-stage Morphing transformation.
The early stage corresponded to the first, second, and third Morphing, the middle stage corresponded to the fourth, fifth, and sixth Morphing, and so on. The final stage corresponded to the tenth Morphing.
Ping An, who had gone through its sixth Morphing, was now at the final step of its middle-stage Morphing.
This also meant that Ping An was about to enter the late-stage Morphing.
If a familiar in the early-stage Morphing was like a child, then one in its middle stage was like a teenager, one in its late stage was like a youth, and one in its final stage was like a young adult who was close to maturity.
Ping An, who had gone through its sixth Morphing, could thus be considered to be somewhere between a teenager and a youth.
The increase in evolution level was within Ji An's expectations.
As for the increase in its energy level, it was more or less beyond his expectations.
Ji An had already gotten used to the improvements in Hibernation.
After all, Ping An's talent and potential in Hibernation were the highest.
As a skill that would, sooner or later, be naturally improved to the four divine realms, Ji An wouldn't be surprised no matter how outrageous the speed at which its realm improved when the bear had completed its sixth Morphing.
However, the fact that both Hard Ice and Ice-breaking Palm had broken through to the Proficient realm was somewhat beyond Ji An's expectations.
It should be known that some of the winter bears with dull aptitudes might not be able to train these two skills to such an extent even when they were adults, which was when their evolutionary level entered the Extraordinary level.
In contrast, Ping An was only in its middle-stage Morphing, yet its skills had already reached this realm.
Ping An's improvement this time could be considered winning at the starting line.
Compared to Hard Ice and Ice-breaking Palm that improved substantially, Monstrous Strength had only increased by 5 mastery points, which was much more normal.
After all, the ice demon blood contained ice attribute energy.
For it to have been able to increase the mastery of a completely different skill by five points was already an additional effect.
What surprised Ji An the most wasn't the increase in Ping An's evolution level, nor its breakthrough in Hard Ice and Ice-breaking Palm.
After all, in Ji An's opinion, these improvements and breakthroughs were only a matter of time for Ping An.
The time had merely been brought forward.
What really surprised Ji An was the winter bear cub's awakening and mastery of Cold Air.
Ping An had a total of six skills that it had the potential of mastering naturally.
Two were elementary skills, three intermediate skills, and one advanced skill.
Never mind the advanced skill, Avalanche Impact.
For Transcendent creatures, it was usually the upper-class Transcendent races' exclusive right to master advanced skills.
Whether or not there were advanced skills among the racial skills was often an important criterion when evaluating the racial level of Transcendent creatures.
The winter bear was originally a lower Extraordinary-level race, so its race skills would definitely not include advanced skills.
The reason why Ping An had such potential could only be attributed to its talent.
However, even if it had the potential, it couldn't possibly master an advanced skill in a short time.
The black bear that had fought with the winter bear cub a month ago was from an upper-class race, so it naturally had advanced skills among its race skills.
However, the black bear had not even mastered a single intermediate skill, and it was still far from mastering any advanced skills.
If not for that, the outcome of that battle could very well have been rewritten.
If the black bear had also mastered Monstrous Strength, Ping An's chances of winning would be very low.
The difference between an intermediate skill and an advanced skill, whether it was in terms of power or the difficulty of mastering, was extremely huge.
Even among intermediate skills, they were divided into different grades.
Hibernation was a purely auxiliary skill, and could thus only be considered a relatively ordinary intermediate skill.
Monstrous Strength was slightly stronger.
As for Cold Air, it was undoubtedly one of the better intermediate skills, and could even be considered among the top.
The main usage of Cold Air was to allow Ping An to release a wave of cold air of an extremely low temperature that could shroud an entire area by consuming its physical strength and energy. The cold air would freeze the target's body, causing them to suffer from frostbite and become extremely stiff. The targets' speed and agility would be greatly reduced. If trained to a high realm, the air could even freeze the target into an ice block or to death.
Cold Air was not only an area-of-effect skill, but it could also attack and slow the target.
If Ping An had mastered Cold Air during the battle with the black bear, even if it had just learned it, there would've been no need for Monstrous Strength to slow the black bear.
Its attacks would've been able to hit the black bear more easily.
To Ping An, who wasn't fast and didn't have much combat experience, this was a huge advantage.
It was definitely a godly skill in actual combat.
As soon as the battle began, it would just have to release Cold Air and the enemy would gradually be inflicted with frostbite. Eventually, the enemy's body would become stiff, and their reactions and movements would become slow. In the end, the other party could only be killed by Ping An.
Thinking about the effect of the Ice-breaking Palm that contained Monstrous Strength on a frozen target who couldn't dodge in time, it would definitely be powerful.
What surprised Ji An, even more, was that the winter bear cub had not only awakened and mastered Cold Air, but its mastery of Cold Air had increased by nearly 50 points in one go.
For a Morphing-level familiar, this was not a low mastery value.
Considering that the ice demon was a lower Sovereign-level creature, and its race skills seemed to include Cold Air, the ice demon's blood would naturally be beneficial for familiars to master the skill.
As such, Ping An's improvement did not seem so unacceptable.
"With this, we'll have a better chance of hunting the rats in the sewers," Ji An retracted his gaze from Ping An with a satisfied expression.
Ping An's current energy level was enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the lower-class Extraordinary-level races who had just completed their ninth Morphing.
As for its skill mastery, it was even more ridiculous than many adult Transcendent familiars.
Just looking at its overall attributes, Ping An would not be inferior even when facing a middle-class Extraordinary-level race that had completed its ninth Morphing.
Ji An suddenly thought about Dai Na's main pet. It seemed to be a middle-class Extraordinary-level creature that had undergone its ninth Morphing.
That being said, the bear cub's actual combat strength could only be seen through actual combat.
What Ji An didn't expect was that his chance to inspect Ping An's actual combat strength would come so quickly.
Two short days later, Ji An, who had heard a piece of news from the Association, set off with the little bear.
Their destination was Encircle Town's sewer.
That was a place the Entry-level beastmasters of Encircle Town jokingly called the underground world of Encircle Town.