Beast Taming: My System is Bugged

[You have entered a state of epiphany.]

[You have successfully compressed the Old Deng’s Health Array Pattern. Your Perception Power has greatly increased! You have perceived a butterfly and an ape whose souls have returned to their homeland.]

[You are utterly shocked. You perceive your mother’s aura from the transparent ghost and your father’s aura from the transparent ape.]

[Through a telepathic exchange, you learn of the desperate struggle the Gu Family undertook when they were driven into a corner.]

[They tried their best but ultimately failed, only managing to save a single descendant: you.]

[After hearing the Hidden Mist Butterfly’s story, tears stream down your face. You face the direction of your parents’ graves, drop to your knees, and kowtow deeply.]

[The Hidden Mist Butterfly had long since passed away. But its lingering attachment was so strong that its fragmented soul reformed in the ancestral land, awaiting your awakening.]

[Now that you’ve had an awakening and turned over a new leaf, the Hidden Mist Butterfly is gratified. Your family’s efforts were not in vain.]

[As a light breeze blows by, the Hidden Mist Butterfly’s soul wavers, nearly dispersing completely. You rush forward to help, allowing it to take residence in your Sea of Consciousness.]

[The one that once burned an entire expanse of Space with the beat of its wings is now just a flickering ember. It doesn’t know how many days it has left; it might just dissipate within your Sea of Consciousness tomorrow. The Hidden Mist Butterfly doesn’t want to see you so heartbroken—none of them have any regrets.]

[You get back on your feet and set out again with Cyan Treasure.]

[The Black and White Long-Armed Ape’s remnant soul is much larger than the Hidden Mist Butterfly’s. It remains outside, not entering your Sea of Consciousness. Instead, it possesses your body, vowing to put Cyan Treasure through 24-hour military-style training and make the Gu Family great again.]

Gu Ming finished reading the long passage of plot text, took a deep breath, and remained silent for a long time.

Even though it was something that hadn’t happened, something from another timeline, Gu Ming felt his eyes grow hot.

"Sigh—"

Gu Ming let out a long sigh, closed his eyes, and continued his Cultivation of Cyan Pine.

After a good while, Gu Ming managed to quell the emotional turmoil in his heart and began to analyze the new plot from the system again.

First, the system’s plot was related to reality, but not entirely equivalent.

Therefore, Gu Ming had to ignore the text about his family being dead and focus on the form in which the Black and White Long-Armed Ape and Hidden Mist Butterfly now existed, according to the system update.

They had become spirits of the dead. Because of their immense Power and deep-seated attachments, their fragmented souls had reformed in the ancestral land and had been dormant ever since.

They were only activated when Gu Ming sensed their presence.

The Hidden Mist Butterfly’s spirit took up residence in his Sea of Consciousness, while the Black and White Long-Armed Ape attached itself to Gu Ming’s physical body.

In other words, it was possible that a similar remnant soul had already taken up residence in Gu Ming’s Sea of Consciousness, and that his body might also be possessed by a spirit.

Gu Ming sank his consciousness into his Sea of Consciousness and pushed his Cyan Pine Skill to its limits, using the five miniaturized Old Deng’s Health Arrays to scan every corner of it.

He didn’t find anything.

Next, he scanned his body again, combing through every blood vessel and piece of flesh, but he still didn’t detect anything resembling a spirit.

Speaking of which, Gu Ming had never seen a real Ghost Pet before; he had only heard that such Pet Beasts existed.

No one at school had a contract with such a Pet Beast. There might be some in the city, but not many, and Gu Ming had never encountered one.

Gu Ming needed to find that feeling, or it would be difficult to draw them out.

He carefully recalled his past. He had been to so many places and seen so many Pet Beasts as a child; perhaps he had seen one before.

His parents’ "poor-upbringing plan" wasn’t just aimless neglect. They moved around constantly when he was a child with the goal of traveling the country to broaden Gu Ming’s horizons.

Those stories he’d heard and wild beasts he’d seen might have actually been powerful three or four-star Spirit Beasts.

Soon, Gu Ming remembered an incident from when he was five. During a field trip in a forest, he had encountered a parade of translucent ghosts.

He was just an ignorant kid back then. He thought the ghosts were strangely cute, each with a round head, a large white sheet, and feet that didn’t touch the ground as they floated in the air and made funny faces at him.

Perhaps the sheet-ghosts thought they were scaring Gu Ming, but he just found them adorable, and they made him giggle with delight.

This memory had been buried deep within his mind. Even after becoming a Beastmaster, Gu Ming hadn’t been able to recall it.

However, after his Spiritual Technique advanced to the Master Level, Gu Ming could unearth more of his memories. As a result, the various details of that experience became a stream of memories, replaying quickly in his mind.

Ghosts were empty, ethereal, and without physical bodies—a stark contrast to humans. They were two opposite extremes.

As long as they didn’t want to be seen by humans, they most likely couldn’t be.

The only exception was if a Beastmaster themselves had an extremely high spiritual perception and could actively capture the ghosts’ Spiritual nature, or if their Pet Beast had exceptionally high awareness.

At the time, Gu Ming was just a child and naturally lacked the ability to perceive the sheet-ghosts. He didn’t know if it was with his family’s help or if the ghosts in the mountain forest had deliberately revealed themselves.

’I must have stumbled into a temple fair being held by the Ghost Race Spirit Pets. I wandered through it in a daze, and when I came out, I saw my parents, who had been crying with worry...’

Gu Ming recalled awkwardly stumbling out of the dream-like forest. The memory of seeing the sky again and his parents’ tear-streaked faces made him fall silent for several seconds once more.

The "poor-upbringing plan" was certainly a frustrating ordeal, but as Gu Ming recalled the past, he had to admit they had succeeded.

Gu Ming didn’t want to be a good-for-nothing, nor did he want to give up on himself.

In the world after the Spiritual Qi Revival, extraordinary Pet Beasts could shake the heavens and move the earth. Beastmasters grew more tyrannical by the day, and the law that the strong are to be revered had long since blanketed the universe.

There was nothing wrong with being a "lie-flatter," of course. No one is born loving hardship.

Being born into the Gu Family, his family had placed their hopes in him, pressing the burden onto the younger generation. There was nothing to complain about.

Gu Ming’s choice was to take up this burden, shoulder his parents’ expectations, and climb upward with all his might.

This wasn’t the result of being brainwashed.

Rather, it was a choice he made after repeatedly revisiting his memories and questioning his own heart.

But besides the thought of growing stronger, Gu Ming also had an idea of his own.

He wanted to revisit the places he had traveled in his childhood. Back then, he didn’t understand anything. Now that he was a Beastmaster, he realized there was much more to those places, and the scenery was anything but ordinary.

Revisiting them might even lead to another epiphany.

All sorts of thoughts flashed through Gu Ming’s mind, finally converging into a single, unique idea.

This idea was Gu Ming’s will, the voice of his soul, his most precious possession.

The moment this idea formed, it whipped up raging winds and waves in his Sea of Consciousness.

One had to understand that the waves in the Sea of Consciousness were a manifestation of Spiritual Power. The greater the storm, the greater the consumption of Spiritual Power, and likewise, the greater the Spiritual Power produced.

Gu Ming felt something stir within him. He forged this idea into a sharp sword and thrust it into the very center of his Sea of Consciousness, stirring up a thousand layers of waves.

The waves crashed one upon another, forming endless Spiritual Waves. Like a Divine Sense, they swept through his Sea of Consciousness and his entire body.

Gu Ming’s eyes snapped open. Just a moment ago, he had sensed something ghost-like waver in his Sea of Consciousness, and an indistinct specter had flashed across his back.

The sensation was faint, like an illusion. Gu Ming wanted to try again, but he felt his Sea of Consciousness was depleted. That single sword strike had consumed a great deal of power. He couldn’t muster that same intention again, so he had no choice but to give up.

’So there really is something residing in my body. Could it be my parents’ ghosts?’

Gu Ming felt it was unlikely. When the old couple apologized just now, they had confessed everything, including what Pet Beasts they owned. They didn’t have any Ghost Element Pet Beasts.

’It couldn’t be ghosts from the other timeline, could it?’