Beast Taming: Starting From Zero

"Yap!"

The Fire fang Dog barked happily, seemingly very pleased with the name.

"That name is overused. My neighbor’s daughter’s boyfriend has a Fire fang Dog named the same thing." Bai Yunmiao commented.

Qiao Sang fell into deep thought nearby.

She hadn't really thought much about naming.

In this society, not all Beast Masters gave names to their beasts.

Some would give their pets usernames, not proper names, just to stand out from the crowd and grab attention.

Others would hire professionals to name their beasts, based on attributes, birth date, or birthplace.

But most people just picked a name by repeating part of the species’ name.

Beasts evolved.

Regardless of how the Beast Master felt, many beasts became dissatisfied with their old names after evolving.

Take the Cottonbug, for example.

Many Beast Masters call their Cottonbug Wormie, but once it evolves into a perfect transformation like a Snow Butterfly or Venomous Butterfly, continuing to call it Wormie doesn’t sit well with them.

By then, changing the name to Butterfly would feel awkward as well.

Because of this, some Beast Masters just referred to their pets by their species name. After all, through their contract, the pets clearly understood who was calling them.

This was fine most of the time, but when the beast became a spokesperson or representative, having a unique name became essential.

"Let’s call it Yabao." Qiao Sang suggested.

If she was going to give a name, she might as well choose something that wouldn’t sound weird even after the Fire fang Dog evolved.

"Yap Yap!" The Fire fang Dog protested loudly.

It still preferred to be called The Most Handsome Fire Fang Dog in Hanggang.

Qiao Sang: ...

"Yabao means you're my precious. Don’t you like it?" Qiao Sang pretended to look disappointed.

The Fire fang Dog hesitated, then quickly tried to comfort its Beast Master.

"Yap!"

"Yap-Yap!"

"Yap!"

It liked it. Yabao was fine!

"Good." Qiao Sang’s disappointed expression vanished instantly.

Bai Yunmiao watched the scene, unfazed.

Song Yuan, on the other hand, was stunned.

This was the same person who dared to contract a fire-type beast first, and now she was even getting the fire-type beast to comfort her... Genius.

And so, the name was decided.

---

At Qingcheng Garden.

Ye Xiangting returned home to find the table filled with dishes, along with a fruit that flying-type beasts absolutely loved, Swifttempt Fruit.

Each Swifttempt Fruit cost 1,500 Alliance Coins, and she normally couldn’t bring herself to buy them.

Ye Xiangting frowned. Her first thought was that her ex-husband somehow found out their daughter got accepted to Shengshui High School and contacted her.

As her thoughts spiraled, Qiao Sang emerged from her room.

"Mom, you’re finally back. The food I made is cold."

Ye Xiangting froze for a moment, hesitantly asking, "You made all of this?"

"Yeah, to celebrate winning first place in the Bai Xin Competition." Qiao Sang sat down at the table, pulling out a chair.

"Yap."

The Fire fang Dog ran out of the room and jumped onto Qiao Sang's lap.

First place in the Bai Xin Competition...

Ye Xiangting was stunned again.

She knew her daughter had been participating in the Bai Xin Competition, but she thought she was just going for fun.

She won first place?!

Were all the participants as young as her daughter, just fresh out of middle school?

Even so, winning first place was still impressive...

"I won a prize of 200,000 coins, so I bought some Swifttempt Fruit. Go ahead, Fat Dove, eat up." Qiao Sang pushed the fruit towards Fat Dove.

"Dove!"

Fat Dove flapped its wings happily.

It had been eyeing the Swifttempt Fruit since they arrived, but it hadn’t touched it because it didn’t know who bought it.

Now that it knew its little master bought it, Fat Dove wasted no time and picked up a fruit to eat.

Throughout dinner, Ye Xiangting listened to her daughter talk, feeling as if everything was surreal.

200,000 Alliance Coins... A beast egg worth less than 500,000...

Should she tell someone about this?

At 7:22 PM.

Qiao Sang returned to her room, opened her computer, and prepared to research her second pet. As usual, she glanced at the trending topics first.

The hot searches were all about the Interstellar Cup.

[The Real Dark Horse: Felinus!]

[Yuki Akane’s Bitter Farewell to the Interstellar Cup]

[Dreamphantasm Beast’s Epic Three-in-a-Row Victory!]

[All Blue Star Beast Masters Eliminated]

[Eight People from Blue Star Arrested for Smuggling onto Tianyuan Star]

Tianyuan Star was where this year's Interstellar Cup was being held.

Every year, a few people would try to smuggle themselves onto the competition planet, and this year was no exception.

This time, though, the smugglers were from Blue Star.

Without even clicking in, Qiao Sang knew the comments would be filled with curses, probably scolding the smugglers for embarrassing Blue Star.

The Interstellar Cup was a sensitive time.

There weren’t enough Beast Masters competing to represent even a whole country.

Honor was no longer just between nations; it had become a competition between planets.

Qiao Sang kept scrolling, and soon, her eyes paused on one line.

Among all the Interstellar Cup-related topics, one completely unrelated stood out.

[A-Rank Warrant: The Most Handsome Fugitive]

Qiao Sang clicked in.

She swore, it wasn’t the word handsome that made her curious.

The man in the wanted poster had no beauty filters, but his skin was pale, his eyes deep-set, with a pair of sharp phoenix eyes that were cold as ice, like dead water.

His thin red lips were tightly pressed, giving off a vibe of stay away from me. Undeniably, he had an extraordinarily handsome face.

Among wanted criminals, he definitely lived up to the most handsome title.

Qiao Sang read on.

[Zhou Xian (Male, 28, from Zhehai Xianglin), along with accomplices, murdered Researcher Qin Yuxin and stole classified research data.]

Further down.

Qiao Sang's breath caught.

5 million Alliance Coins!

This guy was worth a lot!

Qiao Sang couldn’t help but scroll back up to look at the wanted poster again.

Since this guy was from Zhehai Xianglin, there was a chance he might return home.

They were from the same province, after all. What if she ran into him...

Someone worth that much was surely dangerous, but if she encountered him, she could just call the police.

There might even be a reward for useful information.

Though the odds of that were as slim as winning the lottery, it didn’t hurt to dream.

After memorizing the man’s face, Qiao Sang went back to researching water, grass, and flying-type beasts.

Her preference order for her second pet was grass-type first, water-type second, and flying-type last.

Grass-type beasts were excellent, aside from being a bit expensive.

Water-type beasts, while not always able to perform their best on land, could learn healing moves, which was something Qiao Sang currently wanted.

As for flying-type beasts, they were purely to satisfy her desire to fly.