She crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the trash can beside her desk.
The night breeze stirred, rustling the leaves of the evergreen trees outside her window.
Ash stood up, walked to the window, and gently pulled aside the curtain.
Through the glass, she gazed outside.
The night sky hung low, and the entire town was shrouded in darkness.
Only a few dim streetlights stood lonely and scattered, casting faint pools of yellow light.
This was Solvale Town—a small, remote, and desolate town.
Ash stared at the night view outside for a while, lost in thought.
Then she let go of the curtain she had drawn aside, turned around and returned to her desk.
On the desk, her notebook—now missing the torn-out page—had flipped back to its first page, which was filled with detailed notes.
That page was a chart Ash had drawn shortly after she transmigrated to Gaia, a reference to help her remember the strange distribution of elemental attributes in this world.
The chart included five primary attributes: Metallum, Lignum (Metal), Aqua (Water), Ignis (Fire), and Terra (Earth), along with six secondary attributes derived from them: Lux (Light), Tenebrae (Darkness), Venenum (Poison), Tonitrus (Lightning), Glacies (Ice), and Aer (Wind).
Ash had categorized and marked them with different colored pens.
However, lacking a purple pen, she had written Tenebrae, Venenum, and Tonitrus in black ink, making them particularly striking against the lighter-colored notes.
Venenum…
Ash's gaze lingered on that word for a long time.
It was Sunny's derived secondary attribute.
Among the six secondary attributes—Lux, Tenebrae, Venenum, Tonitrus, Glacies, and Aer—Venenum was the most common.
However, Venenum had a unique feature that set it apart from all other attributes.
A Venenum-type Spirit Beast didn't need to know any Venenum-tyoe skills.
As long as it could inject the Poison energy from its core into the body of the creature it attacked, that creature would become poisoned and suffering continuous damage over time.
This was a negative effect that required no skills to trigger.
The same principle applied to Ignis-type Spirit Beast, which could cause burning, Tonitrus-typr Spirit Beast, which could induce paralysis, and Glacies-type Spirit Beast, which could inflict frostbite.
Of these four status effects, paralysis, which restricted movement, was the most advantageous in battle.
But given her current circumstances, Ash was content with the ability to inflict the poisoned status without relying on skills.
After all, the damage from poison, burning, and frostbite scaled with the strength of the Spirit Beast's corresponding attribute.
If utilized correctly, these effects offered immense strategic potential.
With this realization, Ash immediately grabbed the ballpoint pen she had tossed aside earlier and began writing furiously in her notebook.
In less than half an hour, Ash had confidently drafted a nearly 3,000-word plan.
As she gazed at the still-drying ink on the notebook's pages, a smile finally appeared on her face.
She knew that this alone wouldn't be enough.
To secure a spot within the top 30% of applicants to the Beast Master Department, she and Sunny would have to work several times harder than anyone else.
But at least now, they had a clear direction.
Although much of the plan would require Ash to slowly test its feasibility, that didn't bother her.
She firmly believed that she and Sunny would eventually leave everyone astounded!
The following week was a whirlwind of activity for Ash.
On one hand, she had to adapt to the flow of spiritual energy within her body, attempting to communicate with Larvanine through the mark on the back of her hand.
She practiced channeling her spiritual energy into the Larvavine, enabling it to use her spiritual energy in battle.
On the other hand, Ash had reached out to several online intermediaries, claiming she wanted to contract a Spirit Beast.
She tasked them with compiling comprehensive data on all the Spirit Beasts housed in the breeding facilities and Spirit Beast Reserve in the Verdantia region.
This endeavor cost her 3,000 Beastdollar, a sum that made her heart ache for quite some time.
However, Ash understood that this was an unavoidable expense.
Only by doing so could she thoroughly study the weaknesses of every potential Spirit Beast she might encounter during the practical exams.
The saying "Know yourself and your enemy, and you'll never lose a hundred battles" wasn't without merit.
Since Ash couldn't compete with others on natural advantages, she could only rely on relentless effort to catch up!
"Today, we'll train your Silk Shooting skill."
On another sunny day, Ash stood in an abandoned construction site behind the Solvale Town Library while carrying a bundle of plastic bottles she had scavenged from trash bins.
She tied them to ropes and hung them from a large tree in the corner.
With her hands on her hips, she turned to Larvanine in front of her and declared, "See the bottles behind me? Starting today, your goal is to pierce through all of them with your silk."
"Larvanine!"
Larvanine nodded energetically.
But soon, it tilted its head, looking at Ash with a face full of confusion.
Pierce through plastic bottles?
With silk?
"That's right, with your silk," Ash said confidently, noticing the Larvavine's puzzled expression.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of smooth stones she had cleaned earlier at home.
Crouching down, she held her palm out to show the stones to the Larvavine.
"See the shape of these stones? This is what your silk should look like in the future."
Larvanine's skill pool was painfully shallow.
Other than [ Silk Thread ], it had no other way to attack opponents from a distance.
After pondering the problem for a long time, Ash decided to take inspiration from the Pokémon series and work together with the Larvavine to develop their own moves.
The first idea that came to her was a modification of the [ Bullet Seed ] Grass-type attack from Pokémon.
She envisioned creating [Bullet Seed Modified: Silk Version], a skill adapted specifically for her Larvanine.
This idea stemmed from an episode of Pokémon she had once watched, where Ash Ketchum taught his Treecko how to use Bullet Seed by mimicking the motion of spitting watermelon seeds.