One represented the process, the other the result. Eleven thought this photo business was truly wonderful—with such records, the rewards of its effort felt doubled.

Every time training ended and every time battle ended, Eleven always felt something was missing. Now it had finally figured it out—a record-keeper!

Shi Jin: "..."

Damn it, I was just casually snapping a few shots to document life—you want me to film during battles too?

Other beastmasters desperately command their beasts, even amplifying them with talents, while I stand there with a phone recording and taking pictures? Is that even proper? I'd probably get beaten to death!

Shi Jin felt he was doomed. Under his influence, this panda seemed to be developing narcissistic tendencies...

"Don't know, no idea, haven't a clue. I'm going to sleep."

Shi Jin brushed it off decisively and ran off to sleep, leaving behind a little panda utterly bewildered.

...

August 29th.

Upholding the fine principle of one high-tier skill a day for a healthy body, Shi Jin planned to spend six days bringing the Green Silk Worm's two high-tier skills up to Mastery level.

As for the remaining time, he also had to carve out some time to meditate and study.

With such a large quantity of empty spirit stones, upgrading the beast space within four months should be no problem. What Shi Jin needed to worry about now was the written exam in the professional assessment!

The professional assessment was divided into four parts: the basic test, the written exam, wilderness survival, and the ranking battles.

The basic test simply checked whether the beastmaster's rank and the beast's rank met the standard. It was machine-tested, fairly easy, and so was placed first.

Next came the written exam, which all examinees loathed with a passion. A professional beastmaster was by no means a brute who knew only how to fight; the role demanded extremely high professional competence. The appearance, skills, and species of several thousand common beasts—even if not remembered flawlessly, at least 95 percent had to be correct to pass.

Beyond that, there were assessments of common beasts' habits and weaknesses, plus comprehensive battle essay questions. This stage alone tended to eliminate a whole crowd.

To avoid capsizing on this exam, Shi Jin felt as if he had returned to his high school days.

Fortunately, he found this stuff far easier to memorize than English vocabulary—mainly because he was interested in it, and besides, his mental strength and memory were much better than in his previous life.

In this state, study efficiency was bound to be high—provided he didn't add too many points, otherwise efficiency would soon drop...

"Restraint... restraint..."

Chanting restraint all the while, Shi Jin nonetheless brought the Green Silk Worm's Absolute Sleep up to Proficiency level.

With Absolute Sleep upgraded, the Green Silk Worm's mental strength and sleep state improved once more. And after staring at the ice dragon photos and models for so long, the ice dragon it materialized looked a little more like the real thing than yesterday.

August 30th.

Shi Jin began adding points to Phantasmal Illusion.

At Entry level, Phantasmal Illusion meant one could simply materialize phantoms from one's dreams.

At Proficiency level, beyond the improved quality of the materialized phantoms, it could already materialize fairly complex illusions—for instance, summoning phantoms of dozens of creatures, as on the fourth and fifth floors of the ruins.

However, that number of materializations meant little to the Green Silk Worm. After all, Shi Jin intended to take it down the elite path; what mattered for the materialized objects was power and quality.

As far as the Green Silk Worm's skills went, all were still developing steadily. What would truly bring about a qualitative change was Mastery-level Phantasmal Illusion.

Shi Jin had investigated the Phantasmal Illusion skill. Very few creatures possessed this racial skill, and their origins were all formidable.

The most approachable was the Nine-Tailed Phantom Fox of the monarch race. The others were things like the Dream Shell of the overlord race, and Nightmare Lords—creatures that ordinary people could never even come into contact with.

Shi Jin guessed that the shell phantom in the ruins was a Dream Shell, an ultra-rare creature whose recorded appearances across all nations totaled fewer than ten.

At Mastery-level Phantasmal Illusion—once that proficiency was reached—a beast could draw on external aids, such as items, to perfect the quality of its phantoms. By then, if it transformed into the ice dragon again, those ice-attribute energy crystals might come in handy. Even more absurdly, that ice dragon's whisker might also be usable.

And it was on this very day that the scales of victory between Mini Eleven and the Green Silk Worm tipped completely in the Green Silk Worm's favor...

Phantasmal Illusion, put plainly, was the ability to reinforce reality through spirit and space.

As long as one's spiritual power and mastery of space were strong enough, there was hope of rewriting reality.

Once Absolute Sleep and Phantom Shift—both at the proficient tier—had been mastered, Shi Jin developed a Dream Mode for the Green Silk Worm.

That is, a combo technique of Absolute Sleep and Phantom Shift: the worm first enters a sleeping state, then dreams of itself, projecting its own phantom onto itself, layering one inside another like nesting dolls.

In this way, the worm was effectively clad in a layer of Green Silk Worm phantom. Because it was affected by psychic and spatial power, under Dream Mode the might of the Green Silk Worm's transparent silk and its own physical strength both received an enormous boost.

At the same time, since it remained in a state of Absolute Sleep the whole while, its stamina recovery in this state was extraordinarily fast.

Inside the relic pearl, the worm unleashed its full might, chasing Eleven around and beating it.

"Chirp!!!"

The worm had finally risen to its feet—suppressing and shrinking Eleven was no trouble at all now!

"Awooo!!!" Eleven was furious, unable to understand why it could no longer beat even a single bug.

Facing the dream-mode worm of imagination, tiny pocket-sized Eleven could only be described as utterly miserable, crushed under the weight of it all.

So it simply had to grow a little bigger and one-shot the Green Silk Worm.

Green Silk Worm: Chirp QAQ???

Eleven: Whine... to punish myself, I'll double my training volume today...