Beast Taming: My System is Bugged

Customizing the cultivation formulas was quite a hassle. Cyan Treasure’s daily regimen was split into several types of medicinal baths and soups.

To prevent the effects of the various baths from interfering with each other, Cyan Treasure took one in the morning, one at noon, and one in the evening. The evening slot was reserved for the medicinal formula used for *Flood Dragon Tail Swing*.

When the medicinal ingredients arrived, Gu Ming glanced at the money deducted from his account—one hundred thousand for a single package.

According to Teacher Zhong, one package of ingredients could be divided into seven portions, enough for one week.

Buying four packages a month meant an expenditure of four hundred thousand.

If he had to buy them weekly from now on, the annual cost would be four million.

And this was only for the medicine Cyan Treasure needed to learn *Flood Dragon Tail Swing*.

Training other new Skills also required consuming various medicinal ingredients. All told, the costs had long since surpassed the typical expenses for raising a normal Snake Pet.

At this moment, Gu Ming had already embarked on the path of lavishly raising his Little Cyan Snake. It was a path that only grew more expensive, a point of no return.

Gu Ming opened the package of ingredients and set his phone aside. As he took out each transparent, plastic-sealed pouch of herbs, he cross-referenced it with the names on his phone.

The surfaces of these transparent pouches were painted with an Array Pattern coating, giving them a simple sealing ability that prevented the Medicinal Power from dissipating.

For example, the label on the pouch in front of him read Flood Dragon Blood Spirit Mushroom.

The picture on his phone also showed that it had a plump cap, shaped like a red umbrella.

The underside of the cap was covered in red mycelia as thin as a cicada’s wing, which remained dormant while sealed.

Once the seal was broken, it would "breathe" like a Flood Dragon, causing the blood of Pet Beasts like Flood Dragons to boil and inducing a sense of intense hunger.

The reality, however, was that the mushroom was greenish all over. The underside of its green cap had long, dangling strands, not mycelia. It couldn’t possibly be a Flood Dragon Blood Spirit Mushroom.

’This is a Spiritual Green Mushroom, a Three-star Level primary ingredient. The mushroom body is Spiritual and possesses a powerful medicinal effect for regulating soul-breath. The dosage depends on the Pet Beast’s soul strength...’

The rest was a series of technical terms and units that Gu Ming didn’t understand. Fortunately, the system had specified the standard dosage for Cyan Treasure. As long as he followed the weight it indicated, there shouldn’t be any problems.

As Gu Ming continued to sort through the ingredients, he found they had all changed into the herbs used for future Techniques. Every single ingredient was different from what the current formula called for.

This also meant that Gu Ming could never brew the medicinal soup in front of Teacher Zhong in the future. That would be a disaster.

Secondly, Gu Ming noticed that the medicinal formula used for the future Technique was completely different from the current one for *Flood Dragon Tail Swing*.

The medicinal ingredients were completely different. The middle-aged Teacher Zhong’s strategy for the formula was a Blood Qi conditioning plan.

He intended to first replenish the Snake Pet’s abundant Flood Dragon Blood Qi, then gradually transform its Snake Bones and muscles, raising its physical performance through repeated cycles of injury and training.

And the process of overcoming these difficulties would be the catalyst for Cyan Treasure’s next Evolution.

However, ’Elder Zhong’s’ medicinal philosophy started from the soul. It ignored the Snake Pet’s physical potential, instead using the soul’s influence to affect Cyan Treasure’s body, thereby stimulating the Origin Power of a Grass and Wood Flood Dragon and allowing it to master the Power of Wood Escape.

Furthermore, engraving the Array also required materials with higher Spirituality, which ordinary Blood Qi-type ingredients couldn’t compare to.

Gu Ming mulled over the new knowledge that had appeared in his mind and understood the theoretical difference between the two approaches.

’The Elder Zhong of the future timeline saw a Grass and Wood Flood Dragon. It’s already very similar to a Wood Escape Flood Dragon, so directly stimulating its Origin Power would allow it to learn Mastery of Wood Escape much faster.’

Origin... Origin Power. It was the fundamental power within a Pet Beast’s body.

It was buried deep within the bloodline and the spiritual world. To stimulate this Origin Power, one had to either practice Body Refining or Divine Cultivation.

High-end Techniques always required training in both. Elder Zhong believed that Cyan Treasure’s body already possessed a powerful Life Breath, making Body Refining easy. The focus was on Divine Cultivation, which could be assisted by medicinal baths.

By the time Gu Ming finished taking inventory of all the ingredients, Cyan Treasure was already drooling, hugging one of the herbs and flicking its forked tongue against it.

HISSS...

*I really want to eat it, Master.*

Cyan Treasure wriggled its tail, growing impatient.

"Alright, alright. I’ll start brewing it for you now."

Gu Ming carefully set up a stove in his bedroom to brew the soup. He brought the water to a boil, then took out a stack of Fire Talismans that came with the ingredient package and read the instructions for a moment.

This was the modern method for brewing precious medicinal ingredients. Ordinary fire couldn’t fully cook the herbs; it often required a Fire Element Pill Pet to assist in the refining process.

But not everyone raised a Pill Pet.

Pharmaceutical companies had developed convenient Fire Talismans to address this situation.

The Fire Talismans used for brewing could channel the power of Spiritual Fire through the bottom of the pot, further releasing the ingredients’ Spirituality and Medicinal Power to produce a wondrous reaction of the Great Dao.

Gu Ming had never used anything like this before; he had only heard that mid-to-high-end ingredient packages came with such Talismans.

He unwrapped the packaging and took out a Fire Talisman. On it were scrawled crooked talismanic characters he couldn’t decipher.

However, when he swept it with his Spiritual Waves, he could feel a scorching heat. This was no ordinary flame, but a Spiritual Fire capable of burning even Spirituality itself.

He immediately withdrew the ripple of Divine Sense that had formed in his Sea of Consciousness and breathed a small sigh of relief. Then, he stuck the Talisman onto the side of the pot.

Soon, without even needing to be lit, Gu Ming saw steam begin to rise from the pot.

The ingredients he had tossed in all rapidly melted into a purplish-green liquid, swirling continuously in the pot and emitting puffs of white smoke.

Gu Ming reached his hand toward it but felt no heat. Instead, he was met with a bone-chilling cold—a cold that seeped into his very marrow, capable of making one’s soul tremble.

"This is..."

Gu Ming looked at the red Talisman. It had now turned a deep blue.

Its eerie blue glow looked as if a soul were burning.

’So that’s how it is. The system had replaced the Fire Talisman with a future version as well.’

After thirty-two years of iteration, these Fire Talismans seemed to have developed an adaptive function.

After being stuck to the pot, it had brewed these soul-type ingredients with a frigid Soul Fire, creating a pot of Soul Soup.

Cyan Treasure had already slithered to the edge of the pot and taken a deep sniff.

The Ice Qi entered its body, traveling straight to its soul.

Its eyes widened, and it recoiled slightly, its scales trembling as a shiver ran through its body.

It hadn’t been burned by the heat; it had been chilled by the Soul Soup.

This fierce chill was nothing like something brewed with fire. It was clearly the product of Fusion Refining with frigid Soul Fire. This was already a technique of Alchemy.

At the same time, Cyan Treasure began to wonder, ’Is this still the formula Teacher Zhong prescribed?’

’It can’t be that Master’s skills are just too poor and he missed a key step, right?’

But Gu Ming said, "There’s no problem. Go on, drink it."

Gu Ming reached out and gently nudged Cyan Treasure.

Although Cyan Treasure felt the soup was very cold, it still obeyed its master’s command.

It moved to the edge of the pot, extended its head, and drank. The soup felt like an icy blade sliding down its throat.

The soup chilled it to the core, a bone-deep cold spreading through its entire body.

And under the touch of this icy sensation, the internal muscle injuries it had sustained during today’s training seemed to go numb.

’Is this an anesthetic?’

Just as Cyan Treasure was pondering this, its head tilted, and it fell asleep right there in the pot.

Gu Ming wasn’t surprised that Cyan Treasure fell asleep so quickly.

The knowledge he had acquired mentioned that soul Cultivation was generally related to sleep.

’This is when the Dream Training Space should come into play.’

Gu Ming lifted Cyan Treasure, walked over to the Fish Tank, and reached out to stroke Ah Kun.

"Tonight, we’ll train in our dreams,"

Gu Ming said, activating the system’s training function. He brought both Pet Beasts into the Dream Training Space, beginning their journey of accelerated training.