Registering for Assessment

Back then, after Gao Peng's parents had their mishap, the government had given a sum of money as compensation. Apparently, as long as one met with some mishap during the cataclysm, they would be given a pension of 10 Alliance Credits.

One Alliance Credit was equivalent to 10 thousand Alliance Dollars. This did not seem like a large number, but taking into account the huge number of people that encountered mishaps during the initial periods of the cataclysm, the amount of money spent was absolutely terrifying.

Initially, the only countries that were willing to give out such pensions were the Chinese. As such, China became the country with the lowest crime rates after the cataclysm, and also the country that responded the most positively to the government's rebuilding of order.

This stunned many western countries, who quickly began to emulate the Chinese. The pension of Alliance Credits would not have let many people live their lives in comfort, but they at least let them live, and not be driven off the deep end.

Gao Peng had already used most of the 20 Alliance Credits that were given by the government as compensation. He only had had 11 Alliance Credits left. If he used them sparingly he could probably cobble together enough to afford the materials needed to raise Da Zi's grade.

But that was not how the math worked out. If he spent all that money, what would he use to pay water and electricity bills, as well as his living expenses? Because of that, Gao Peng did not immediately head off to the market to buy the materials.

But that was Gao Peng's worry before. After the trip to the outskirts, he could spend the money with a lot more ease.

After battling monsters with Da Zi continually for a few days, they had hunted down quite a few. On the way back home, he had sold off the monster carcasses at a shop with good reviews, earning him a total of two Alliance Credits.

That would be enough to cover living expenses for a good half a year.

Right now, the most profitable job in the world would be that of a Monster Trainer. The costs of maintaining the profession were high, but money came quick and, if one was lucky, it would not be impossible to become rich overnight by discovering some amazing treasure in the wild.

The only drawback was that hunting monsters in the wild carried a large risk. If one had the bad luck of encountering a high-levelled monster, their survival would be simply up to fate.

But for those who made up their minds to become Monster Trainers specialized in battle, they would have to face such risks sooner or later. There was no such thing as a job that allowed one to get rich and get strong simply by lying in bed.

Sitting on the couch, with Da Zi lying by his side, Gao Peng turned on the television and absentmindedly scrolled through the different channels.

Currently, there were many programs that had to do with Familiars. Even those that originally had nothing to do with Familiars would forcefully add in some elements of things related to Familiars. Such a huge change in a mere three years was the best testament to the adaptability of humankind.

"Welcome everyone, to the second season of Jiangnan King of Familiars! I am you host, Zhu Dazhang."

The venue of the programme seemed to be an open-air stage. There were a couple of tens of contestants, each with a number tag on their waist.

Opposite each contestant was a metal cage each with a different kind of monster.

The monsters were all restless. Some were ramming against the cage and others were making deep growling sounds. The most ferocious of them all was Familiar that looked like a lion. It looked wondrous, as though someone had poured liquid silver into a lion-shaped mould. It was madly attacking the grills of the cage with its paws, giving out a roar each time that could shake the heavens.

But the cage seemed to be made of some special metal alloy that did not bend or break no matter how that silver lion attacked it.

What shocked Gao Peng most, however, was not this but the rows of information that appeared before him.

[Monster Name]: Silver Demon Lion

[Monster Level]: Level 22 (Commander tier)

[Monster Grade]: Excellent

[Monster Attribute]: Ice

[Monster Condition]: Healthy (Maniacal)

[Monster Weakness]: Electric

To think that he could even see monster attributes from a television screen…

Gao Peng was dumbstruck.

If that were the case, the ways that this skill could be used were a lot broader.

Turning off the television, Gao Peng rested his jaw on both his hands and fell into deep thought.

Now that Da Zi had become his Familiar, he could more or less consider himself to have taken the first step to becoming a Monster Trainer.

But he still had a long way to go from becoming a real Combat Monster Trainer. There still was no fixed criteria for becoming one, but it would seem that having an excellent grade Familiar or an elite tier Familiar would be the bare minimum.

It was also worth noting that after the few crazy days of battle training at the Mirror Lake, Da Zi's monster level had risen by one, and it was now a level 7 monster.

Combat was indeed the fastest way for a monster to level-up.

Other than hunting down monsters in the outskirts to cover living expenses, there was another possible route. That was to become a Monster Breeder.

Monster Breeding was a new type of profession. The standards for assessing Monster Breeders were different from place to place. Even the assessment methods were different based on the region.

If it were a practical assessment that would be alright, but if they were to assess theory and knowledge… It should be alright, I guess. Gao Peng was a little unsure.

He checked the internet for previous assessment methods for Monster Breeders. All kinds of strange methods turned up.

Some simply gave each applicant a monster at the assessment venue. If the applicant could raise the grade of the monster within the allocated time, he or she would successfully receive a Monster Breeder qualification certificate.

This sort of assessment method was known to be the hardest, as the monsters were allocated randomly. No one had any idea what kind of strange monster they would get! If one ended up with a type of monster they were not familiar with, they could be at a total loss. After all, there was no Monster Breeder that could claim to know everything.

These monsters had only appeared within the last three years. Humankind was still in the process of exploration. Even in the present, less than 20% of the Earth's surface after the cataclysm consisted of explored territories. The remaining 80% were all dangerous, unexplored lands. Even within the explored 20%, there existed many dangerous areas, prohibited areas, and so on…

The greatest change after the cataclysm occurred to the oceans. Before the cataclysm, the oceans took up 70% of the Earth's surface, but that shrank after the cataclysm. They now only took up 60%, while the land took up 40%.

In other words, this meant that humans had only explored half of the land area on Earth, while the other half was still unknown. No one knew what kind of new and unfamiliar monsters were hidden in those areas. The oceans were even more of an unknown, prohibited area, with totally new monster species discovered there every day.

For Gao Peng, however, this difficult assessment was the easiest to pass. In a theory assessment, there was no guarantee that he would make mistakes as he had not systematically studied everything and he could very well waste the money he spent on registration fees.

Gao Peng logged onto the Monster Breeder website and chose to register. The registration fees were expensive, coming up to a total of 1000 Alliance Dollars. This amount could feed him and Da Zi for a month.

After registering successfully, he received a notification. According to his registration location, he had been allocated to Chang'an City Monster Breeder Division for his assessment, which would happen on the 15th of the month. The current date was the 14th, which meant that it would be happening tomorrow.

He called his form teacher to inform her of his registering for a Monster Breeder assessment. Murong Qiuye was pleased. Having Monster Breeding qualification was like having a golden rice bowl. She definitely would give her full support for a student that had plans for his future so early in life.

At once, Murong Qiuye approved Gao Peng's short leave from school, as Monster Breeding assessments could take varying amounts of time based on the assessment method. Gao Peng could always come back and attend school after finishing the assessment. After all, he had always been an obedient student, which put her mind at ease.

At the end of the conversation, Murong Qiuye even took the effort to comfort Gao Peng, saying things such as "failure is the mother of success,""you are still young, the future will eventually belong to you," and so on. Gao Peng did not know whether to laugh or cry when he listened to this kind of chicken soup.

He realized that sometimes, Ms. Murong was actually pretty adorable.