After the Passive Skill changed to "Water Mimicry: Stillness," the Proficiency Level progress bar disappeared, suggesting it had reached the maximum level.
Does it mean it can no longer be upgraded, or is this passive state already at its highest form?
But it seems that I've never heard of this skill before. It would be helpful to have an active skill to refer to.
Through observation over time, he discovered that active skills do have a Mastery Level of proficiency displayed, but Passive Skills do not; once mastered, a Passive seemed to remain constant.
However, Chen Xing soon encountered a problem—it seemed impossible to catch a cab around here.
After asking the fishpond owner, he learned that this place was called Xinghua Road, which used to be a village before being incorporated into a new district a few years ago.
"To go to the city, you can take the bus. The Xinghua Road bus stop is just over there, with buses every half hour. But the last one is at seven in the evening, and it's already seven-thirty, so I think there are no buses now. How about I drive you back?" the fishpond owner offered readily.
Having just made some money, and since it was indeed difficult to hail a cab at that time, he did not mind lending a hand.
Chen Xing thanked him, "Thanks, Uncle, but there's no need to go that far—just drop me off somewhere it's easy to get a cab."
"No problem at all."
The fishpond owner turned and shouted towards the house, "Wife, I'm going to give this young man a lift."
"Come back early, and pick up two bottles of soy sauce from the supermarket on the way; we've run out at home," came the reply.
Just as he started the engine of the van, a woman came running down the slope in a panic, crying out, "Lao Liu, Lao Liu, come quickly and help! The Li family's child has been dragged into the reservoir by a water monster!"
Lao Liu was stunned. Dragged into the reservoir by a water monster?
He turned and said apologetically to Chen Xing, who was seated in the back, "Young man, could you wait a bit longer if it's not urgent for you?"
Chen Xing shook his head. "I'm not in a rush."
Humans' lives were of utmost importance; he was not in a hurry for the moment.
The woman got into the van, panting heavily, and said, "Downstream at the reservoir, Huang Mazhi's son, Huang Liang, and Li Xiaoshu went swimming in the water. Huang Liang felt something moving under his feet, saying it was slippery, and then he saw Li Xiaoshu, who was swimming nearby, dragged into the water by something."
Lao Liu quickly drove the van towards the downstream of the reservoir.
Quite a few people were gathered on the embankment outside the reservoir.
Seeing the fishpond owner, someone hurriedly shouted, "Xi Ge, there's a water monster in the reservoir!"
"Nonsense, there's no such thing as water monsters."
Li Xi stood on the embankment, spreading his hands to summon his Beast Taming.
Chen Xing was somewhat surprised; this fishpond owner actually turned out to be a Beast Tamer.
After the Array of Light faded, a gigantic frog, over a meter long, lay in its place.
The muscles on its two hind legs were extremely exaggerated, with green skin stretched over blue-purple veins visible underneath.
This seemed to be... the Taotie, a Beast Taming frog.
The Taotie's Energy Level Limit wasn't high, with 24 being the Species Limit.
The books had mentioned that this kind of frog had a big appetite, fond of consuming various insects, birds, and even small mammals.
It used to be that many rural villages liked to raise a few Taoties.
On the one hand, they were easy to raise, and on the other, they could eat pests. At night, they could be placed in the fields to protect the crops; some places even used them to drive away or even hunt wild boars.
However, in the ever-changing cities, this type of Beast Taming creature had become increasingly rare. One reason was that they didn't have the required aesthetic appeal—after all, they had to be either cute or fierce. Another reason was the initial low Energy Level Limit of their species.
"Bring Li Xiaoshu's clothes over," Li Xi extended his hand.
A woman with swollen red eyes handed over the clothes that were prepared in advance.
Li Xi gave the clothes to the Taotie to sniff.
The Taotie's throat swelled, emitting a sound like thunder.
The next moment, with a powerful leap, it jumped over twenty meters and plunged into the reservoir with a splash.
The water stirred up waves of ripples, and after about ten minutes, there was a sudden splash on the surface, and the Taotie emerged from the water.
In its mouth, it held a child whose skin had turned pale from being in the water.
After identifying the child, it was confirmed to be Li Xiaoshu; his mother let out a cry and knelt down, throwing herself on top of Li Xiaoshu.
"See if he can still be resuscitated," someone stepped forward to compress the chest.
Some also sighed, fearing that after such a long time, the child was probably long gone...
After spitting out the child, the fish-eating frog leapt back into the reservoir.
A few minutes later, the water surface suddenly splashed up vigorously.
Someone took a flashlight and shone it towards the source of the noise, observing two things wrestling near the surface of the water.
Sounds of water being agitated echoed intermittently, and after a while, the noises ceased.
One minute later, the fish-eating frog dragged the corpse of a large fish to the shore, croaking several times at Li Xi.
"Is this the thing that dragged Xiaoshu into the water?"
"Such a big fish, it must be nearly two meters long."
"I'd believe it if you said it eats people."
Chen Xing was also standing among the crowd, observing the large fish which was even longer than Taotie.
Extremely plump, it resembled a fat catfish with a very large mouth. Its dorsal side lacked scales and was covered with dark green spots that spread across its back like moss.
(Approximate picture)
"Green Baby said it only saw this big thing in the reservoir," said Li Xi.
Chen Xing realized that this fat catfish was not any Beast Taming species he recognized; of course, his not recognizing it didn't mean it definitely wasn't a Beast Taming creature, given that the world was full of all sorts of strange creatures.
The middle school textbooks only taught about some more common species.
"Didn't the government just clean the reservoir last year? How could such a big fish suddenly appear? Can it really grow this big in a year?"
"Yeah, where did this fish come from? Is there an underground river beneath the reservoir?"
Li Xi shook his head; he didn't know the answers to these questions either. He looked at the wound on the fish-eating frog's back that was oozing blood and advised the other villagers, "Don't let the children play near the reservoir anymore. Although Green Baby has patrolled the reservoir, it could still overlook something. Today this fish appeared, next time something else might."
The street office personnel had also arrived upon hearing the news and reported the situation to their superiors.
Li Xi apologizingly said, "Let's go, young man, I'll take you to the city. Given what just happened here, it might not be convenient to take you all the way home."
Chen Xing nodded, "Understood, just drop me off somewhere convenient to hail a cab."
After taking Li Xi's car to the city, Chen Xing got out and hailed a taxi home. On the way, he received a call from his worried mother, reminding him to be careful. It was only after hearing that he was nearly home that she relaxed.
Putting down his phone, Chen Xing looked out the window, the events that had just unfolded were sudden; a life had vanished just like that.
Sitting in the back of the taxi with his eyes closed, Chen Xing checked the Stone Booklet for three new skills that had appeared.
After activating Beast Taming Linguistics in the Pet Trainer career tree, a passive skill waiting to be unlocked appeared.
It was the first passive skill to appear in any of the three career trees, called – Quantitative Skills Guidance.
[Quantitative Skills Guidance](Passive) Your skill training techniques always lead to unexpected gains for your pets, allowing them to gain double the Proficiency Level during active skill practice and mini-games. (0/10)
After activating Affinity Knowledge in the Pet Caretaker career tree, two new active skills waiting to be unlocked appeared.
[Basic Polishing Technique]You can polish the rough, dull leather of your pets. After polishing, their bodies will become light, slightly increasing their movement speed and agility. (0/5)
[Basic Waxing Technique]You can wax your pets' unkept fur. After waxing, the fur will shine and gleam, slightly increasing elemental resistance during the duration of the wax effect. (0/5)
It really was polishing and waxing...
His previous guess had been correct.
There are six skills waiting to be activated now.
[Large Jar of Pet Carnivore Freeze-dried Food][Intermediate Carnivore Pet Food Making][Basic Herbivore Pet Food Making][Quantitative Skills Guidance][Basic Polishing Technique][Basic Waxing Technique].
Drumming his fingers on his thigh, Chen Xing fell into hesitation, considering that his main task now was to focus on cultivating Beast Taming creatures; the last two skills for polishing and waxing could be put on hold for the time being.
After all, the skills were cheap.
There was no need to unlock Basic Herbivore Pet Food Making either, as he had only one Beast Taming creature, and nobody would eat the herbivore food he made.
As for using this craft to make money... He had also thought about it.
But in the end, he rejected the idea, mainly because the pet food was too effective and would certainly attract envy from wrongdoers, especially since he had no means of protecting himself. In all likelihood, he would be coerced and threatened by various means to surrender the pet food-making skills.
If certain people learned that he was the only one who could make this pet food, the rest of his life would most likely become that of a heartless cooking machine, probably even without a salary.