Su Yuan took a slight breath and looked at the corpse of the Big-eared Steel-toothed Dog, but his heart was not as calm as it appeared on the surface.
After all, practice was just practice, and this was Su Yuan's first real battle with a Star Beast.
"Fortunately, the result was as expected. With the Six-dimensional Qualification boost from the Azure Sky Phoenix, my physical constitution has become strong enough to overpower ordinary Star Beasts of the same level, not to mention that these two Big-eared Steel-toothed Dogs were only Seventh Stage and had a single attack method, which wasn't tricky."
The only difficulty in this battle was the number. The two Big-eared Steel-toothed Dogs were very synchronized. If you resisted the first one hard, it would be difficult to dodge the second one's lunge and bite.
Therefore, Su Yuan let the first Big-eared Steel-toothed Dog that pounced on him go and killed the one behind first.
After thoroughly reflecting on the battle for a while, Su Yuan walked over to the Big-eared Steel-toothed Dog with its body split open and cut out a chicken egg-sized white Crystal Core with his knife.
"Is this a Star Core?"
Su Yuan held the Star Core and probed into it with his spiritual power, as taught in the Star Apprentice Class and soon, a faint glow lit upon the Star Core.
"There's a reaction!" Su Yuan's eyes brightened, and he continued to maintain the output of his spiritual power.
Before long, the Star Core gradually disintegrated from the outside in into specks of bluish glow dust until finally, it turned into a Star Card quietly lying in Su Yuan's hand.
The Star Card had a white back, and the card face depicted a Big-eared Steel-toothed Dog with silver-grey sharp teeth, its mouth wide open as if biting.
[Steel Teeth Bite]
[Element: None]
[Grade: Ordinary]
[Introduction: Strengthens the hardness, sharpness, and bite force of the teeth to deliver a bite attack with considerable lethality.]
"It could only be the Steel Teeth Bite, as expected."
According to the school curriculum, extracting a Star Card from a Star Core is a random draw from the existing skills of the Star Beast.
The Big-eared Steel-toothed Dog only had the Steel Teeth Bite skill, so naturally, that was the only one that could be extracted.
"There's no way I'm learning it... I'm just a Star Apprentice, and I can only have a maximum of five Star Card Skill Slots."
The more Star Cards are embedded, the greater the burden on the Soul Card. Typically, a Star Apprentice can embed three to four Star Cards outside their Soul Card, and even if the Azure Sky Phoenix has a high Grade, it definitely won't exceed five.
Already embedded Star Cards cannot be destroyed, but each time one levels up, more Skill Slots become available.
While "quality is better than quantity," and having too many skills isn't necessarily better, and the Skill Slots might not even be used up, they should still not be wasted arbitrarily.
Space Star Cards are rare, and even if Su Yuan couldn't find a Space Star Card for the time being, he would still choose the best skills from the White Cards.
"However, since I won't be using it, it's the perfect opportunity to try the 'Decompose' feature of the system."
Looking at the [Steel Teeth Bite] Star Card in his hand, Su Yuan tried calling out in his mind, "System, decompose this Star Card!"
Half a second later, the [Steel Teeth Bite] lit up with another faint glow and then turned into specks of light dust that seeped into Su Yuan's palm and disappeared.
At the same time, the Starlight Dust count on the system panel jumped from 0 to 10.
"It really turned into Star Dust, and it's 10 points!" Su Yuan was full of surprise!
Just as he had guessed, the card decomposition did turn the Star Card into System Required Starlight Dust, and this Ordinary Grade [Steel Teeth Bite] was decomposed into a full 10 points of Star Dust, which was precisely the amount needed to enhance a White Card with one point!
"Now... I'm really taking off!" Su Yuan couldn't help but swallow.
If he had gone at the original natural recovery rate of Star Dust, recovering 1 point per day, then it would take 10 days to level up an Entry-Level White Card Skill to Skilled, 30 days to Master, and 70 days to Perfect.
This was already a lot faster than most people, since after embedding a Star Card Skill, improving the Skill Level wasn't easy.
Take Guangchuan Fourth Middle School, for example, most of the awakened Star Apprentice students have only one Master Level skill, and there are very few with two to three Master Level skills, let alone Perfect Level.
But now, with just 1 White Card, I can advance to Skilled, with 3 cards to Master, and with 7 cards to Perfect!
What kind of speed is this?
Not to mention Perfect, even someone at the Transformation Realm could reach it in an extremely short time!
Su Yuan walked over to the corpse of another Big-eared Steel-toothed Dog, repeated the process, extracted the Star Card from its Star Core, and decomposed it into Star Dust.
In this way, he had a total of 20 points of Star Dust in hand!
"With such speed…" Su Yuan looked at the undulating forest ahead, his eyes filled with ardent fervor, "this Great Barbarian Mountain Area is like a treasure trove of skill proficiency for me!"
Su Yuan picked up his long knife and headed deeper into the forest without stopping…
Half a day later, Su Yuan encountered four more types of Star Beasts on his way: the Wild Lizard, the Earth Ground Pangolin, the Little Tree Demon, and the Double Ringed Patterned Snake.
All of these Star Beasts had only one skill and were Sixth or Seventh Stage Star Beasts, posing no threat to Su Yuan. He crushed them one by one with his physical fitness alone, resulting in four White Cards:
Monster Power Punch from the Wild Lizard, Ground Boring Assault from the Earth Ground Pangolin, Beginner Stage Vine Dance from the Little Tree Demon, and Poison Kiss from the Double Ringed Patterned Snake.
These skills did not meet Su Yuan's expectations and were all decomposed by him.
"Finding a barely satisfactory White Card skill is not easy..."
Su Yuan walked on the hillside, gazing at the sun that was about to set, and couldn't help but sigh. He opened his backpack, took out his water bottle, and drank a few sips.
"I can move around for at most another hour, then I'll have to find a relatively safe place to spend the night."
For a Star Card Master, it was common to stay in dangerous zones or secret realms for up to ten days or half a month.
Although Su Yuan was just a Star Apprentice, skills such as finding water sources, establishing alarm systems, and light sleeping—all essentials for wilderness survival—had been practiced multiple times in school simulations. As long as he had enough supplies, there would be no problem staying in the outskirts of the Great Barbarian Mountain Area for a week.
But if he was alone, he needed to be extra careful and cautious.
As Su Yuan pondered, he suddenly detected some subtle yet intense Star Power fluctuations ahead. He snapped to attention and looked forward with caution.
In the distance, by a large grey-black stone, a Star Beast half the height of a man was leaning against the rock.
This was a humanoid Star Beast, standing on two legs, its entire body made of black rocks, with only its two pupils shining a fiery red.
Seeing the appearance of this Star Beast, Su Yuan's eyes lit up: "It's actually a Rock Melt Beast, seems my luck isn't all that bad!"
[Rock Melt Beast]
[Grade: Ordinary]
[Species: Elemental Life]
[Element: Earth, Fire]
[Talent: Solid Rock, significantly increases the density and hardness of the body's black rock]
[Six Dimensions: Strength E, Agility F, Defense E, Constitution F, Spirit F, Star Power E]
[Skills: Black Rock Punch (Ordinary), Steel Flame Finger (Ordinary)]
This Rock Melt Beast was precisely the target Su Yuan had noted earlier in the "Low Stage Star Beast Skill Evaluation."
Its Steel Flame Finger was considered an above-average skill even among ordinary White Card skills. It had great power, high explosiveness, and, as it was a skill from a humanoid Star Beast, it perfectly fit human use. Its market value was around 20 to 30 thousand.
The other skill, Black Rock Punch, might only be worth seven or eight thousand yuan, and as for the Steel Teeth Bite, which Su Yuan first obtained from the Big-eared Steel-toothed Dog, it was extremely unpopular, fetching less than four thousand on the market!
"That said, up to this point, all White Cards decompose into 10 points of Star Dust, but selling one [Steel Flame Finger] card could buy several [Steel Teeth Bite] cards. It seems like this method could allow me to gain a large amount of Star Dust for nothing..."
Su Yuan pondered in his mind. Could this be some kind of bug?
However, Su Yuan later discovered that only the Star Cards extracted from the Star Cores of the Star Beasts he personally defeated could be decomposed. Star Cards given by others or purchased couldn't be decomposed.