Astral Pet Store (WN)

Chapter 97: Pool Level Up

Yu Yuanyuan followed her friend’s hint; she checked the goods on sale, rubbed her eyes, and looked again to make sure that she wasn’t seeing more zeros than there actually were.

“Which pet do you have in mind?” Su Ping stood up and walked around the counter.

Yu Yuanyuan looked at the approaching man again. She would have run already if she wasn’t born braver than her friends.

“Ahem, Mister! I want to get a really bad-ass pet trained here. But it’s bad-tempered, I wonder if you can handle it. And for how much.”

“Ten thousand for low-rank, and a hundred thousand for middle-rank.” Su Ping offered a friendly smile.

That smile only made her think it was the cocky smirk of a scheming broker in Yu Yuanyuan’s view, even though such a price wasn’t too far from her comfort zone. When checking the goods on sale, she expected to hear more insane numbers than that.

“How much did you charge for training that Lightning Rat?”

Su Ping’s smile disappeared. “One million.”

The girls were surprised but soon recovered because a million was pretty cheap in exchange for such a deadly Lightning Rat.

She needed to make sure Su Ping was speaking the truth, though.

“You know which Lightning Rat I’m talking about, right?” asked Yu Yuanyuan. “Do you know who’s its master?”

Su Ping gave her a side-glance. “I’m obliged to protect the privacy of my customers but… I can tell you this: she’s from the Phoenix Peak Academy. Miss Su.”

Yu Yuanyuan breathed a sigh of relief. “What can my pet gain if I pay ten thousand?”

“Ten thousand, huh? It’s hard to say. There will be some sort of improvement, that I can assure you. Either a rank, half a rank, or battle experience. Either way, your pet will be better than before.” Su Ping returned to his seat while speaking.

Woah, he lost interest already, the girls thought. Talk about businessmen…

They were curious to find out what the result of the training would be. They might not be able to raise a million even if they worked together, but paying ten thousand was not as problematic.

“I’ll put a middle-rank plus a low-rank pet here,” said Yu Yuanyuan.

Her partner, who seemed pretty timid, also spoke up, “I—I’ll also leave a pet here. My Spider Queen.”

Spider Queen?? Su Ping glanced at the second girl again. For such a cutie to use that kind of scary pet? Don’t tell me this girl has a personality disorder or something.

He wasn’t going to refuse the business, though. “That’ll be two hundred ‘n ten thousand for both of you.”

“Sure.” Yu Yuanyuan nodded and paid as she asked. “How long do we need to wait?”

“Come tomorrow.”

Su Ping smiled brightly as he had just earned 2,100 energy points on his account. His advertisement tactic was paying off!

“Tomorrow?? That’s fast! Are you like—”

… tricking us? Is this guy even dependable?

Su Ping knew what they were thinking about but didn’t have anything to prove himself at the moment.

“If I don’t finish the request by tomorrow, I’ll refund you.”

“Okay…”

In fact, the girls had just planned to ask for a refund. But they both decided to see how things would turn out, after seeing Su Ping being so positive.

“I’m recording, mind you.” Yu Yuanyuan showed her phone. “Make sure you don’t go back on your word. It won’t work.”

Su Ping’s improved eyesight already allowed him to see that the girl was bluffing; her camera was not even on. Though he wasn’t going to point it out.

“I’m not going to damage my reputation just to earn such a small amount of money. Summon your pets and leave if you don’t have anything else to say.”

The girls knew Su Ping was getting angry and quickly did as told. They were unwilling to part with their pets, but being away for one day was no biggie.

When the girls left, Su Ping placed the three new pets into the pet room, filling up the vacant nursing pens.

He checked one of the pens in which the Managarm was still kept. According to their contract, the pick-up deadline for this creature was long overdue. Its master was either dead, or he decided to abandon the hound.

Either way, it was for the shop to decide how to deal with the hound at the moment.

Su Ping bit his finger and tried making a pet contract with it. Soon, a spiritual connection was established between them, which meant he guessed correctly.

“Oof. Poor guy.” He patted the hound on the head and returned to the front room.

The contract was only meant to check whether the hound’s master still wanted it. Though he wasn’t going to terminate it soon. A Managarm would not take away much of his spiritual power. He might try taking it with the other pets when training them and make it stronger, so he could rent it out to other customers. Or he could sell it, if the system allowed him to do so one day.

Soon, more students from the academy showed up. They were either famous ones on the ranking list or curious students who just wanted to check the shop out. Of course, most of them were scared away by Su Ping’s prices, leaving only a few brave ones who purchased care or training services.

As for pet food… no sale at all.

This was to be expected, because the students were there because of Su Yanying’s Lightning Rat. The food was too expensive to their liking.

Apart from what he had gained from Jiang Hanbing and the two girls that followed, Su Ping had earned a total of five thousand energy points during the day. He had broken his daily sales record.

Without a second thought, he spent ten thousand points to get the Chaotic Spirit Pool to level 3. Such a level would then have a small chance of directly giving birth to a Beast King.