Chapter 17 – Speculations on Achievements

The effect of Soul Guardian is to consume Soul Power and create a protective barrier that envelops the entire body.

It can block any damage from all 360 degrees, including but not limited to physical damage, elemental damage, and mental attacks.

It could be called all-around protection with no blind spots!

The only drawback is that it consumes a considerable amount of Soul Power.

Besides the fixed cost of casting the Soul Art, offsetting damage also consumes Soul Power.

The higher the damage, the more Soul Power is consumed.

Once a battle becomes too intense, a Beast Tamer with insufficient Soul Power will have their reserves drained in no time, making it difficult even to maintain the existence of their Pet Beast.

However, for Lin Ze, this was clearly not a problem.

He glanced at his Personal Panel, and in the Soul Power column, the strikingly high number of 880 stood out prominently.

This amount of Soul Power was even higher than that of some Bronze Beast Tamers.

Among those of the same rank, he was far ahead of the curve.

“This Soul Art suits me quite well.”

Lin Ze quickly made his decision—his First Soul Art would be Soul Guardian.

Thinking it, he did it, and immediately began to study it carefully.

Over ten minutes later.

Lin Ze had firmly committed the cultivation methods and techniques of Soul Guardian to memory.

Then.

He summoned his panel and looked closely, pleasantly surprised to find that a new Soul Art had appeared on it.

【Soul Guardian (Not Yet Started), Upgrade requires 50 Achievement Points】

“Just as I thought—the system works on Soul Arts too!”

Lin Ze was overjoyed.

This way, with the system’s help, he could quickly master a large number of Soul Arts.

No need to spend a great deal of time and effort cultivating like ordinary Beast Tamers.

Without hesitation, Lin Ze decisively spent 50 Achievement Points to upgrade the Soul Art.

The text on the panel instantly changed.

【Soul Guardian (Level 1), Upgrade requires 100 Achievement Points】

Before Lin Ze could snap out of his delight, a mechanical notification sound suddenly emerged in his mind.

【Achievement Unlocked!】

【First Soul Art】: Successfully master any Soul Art. Reaching this achievement grants 100 Achievement Points (Already achieved, reward pending claim).

A slight smile curled at the corner of Lin Ze’s mouth.

Over this period of time, he had gradually figured out the pattern behind achievements.

Basically, any action related to beast taming—including contracting Pet Beasts, cultivating Soul Arts, commanding Pet Beasts in battle, and so on—would come with corresponding achievements.

Suddenly.

A thought struck Lin Ze.

“Come to think of it, there are achievements for the number of times a Pet Beast uses its Skills. Following that pattern, Soul Arts should have corresponding achievements too.”

The more Lin Ze thought about it, the more it made sense. Without another word, he put it to the test directly.

With a subtle shift of his mind, a translucent barrier emitting a faint glow condensed out of thin air, enveloping his entire body.

The barrier was as thin as a cicada’s wing, yet it unexpectedly carried a texture of indestructibility.

“The base cost is 10 points of Soul Power.”

Lin Ze glanced at his panel, canceled the Soul Art, and immediately cast it again.

Over and over.

His Soul Power reserve of 880 was more than enough for him to cast Soul Guardian 88 times.

It turned out Lin Ze’s guess was right.

On the 10th cast of Soul Guardian, the familiar notification sound indeed rang in his mind.

【Achievement Unlocked!】

【Soul Art · Novice】: Accumulate 10 casts of any Soul Art. Reaching this achievement grants 100 Achievement Points and Soul Replenishing Potion X1 (Already achieved, reward pending claim).

“Just as I thought, I knew it.”

A hint of joy appeared on Lin Ze’s face.

It was obvious.

Soul Arts and Pet Beast skills each had corresponding achievements tied to their number of uses.

Moreover, judging from the text descriptions, these achievements were clearly not singular—they were most likely part of achievement series.

As long as the number of uses reached a new threshold, it was highly probable that the second achievement in the same series would be activated.

Lin Ze’s heart was filled with joy.

Achievement Points were the key to rapidly increasing his strength.

However, up until now, he had mostly relied on luck to obtain Achievement Points.

After all, he had no idea what achievements the system had.

But now, things were different.

After verifying his hypothesis, he had a preliminary understanding of how to obtain Achievement Points.

Not to mention anything else, the two achievement series—Soul Arts and Pet Beast skills—had plenty of room for exploration.

It took Lin Ze a while to calm the surging excitement within him before he continued reading the Complete Guide to Basic Soul Arts.

After carefully browsing through it, he selected two more Soul Arts.

‘Soul Arrow’ and ‘Soul Power Impact.’

Both were offensive-type Soul Arts.

The difference was that the former was a single-target attack, while the latter was an area-of-effect attack.

Lin Ze directly consumed 100 Achievement Points to level both Soul Arts up to Level 1.

Afterwards, he spent another 100 Achievement Points to raise Soul Guardian to Level 2.

After this series of operations, the Achievement Points he had just obtained were all used up before they even had time to warm his pockets.

[Lin Ze]

[Constitution 5.0 / Soul 8.8]

[Level: Apprentice]

[Soul Power: 780/880]

[Soul Arts: Soul Guardian (Level 2), Soul Arrow (Level 1), Soul Power Impact (Level 1)]

[Pet Beast: Ice Crystal Soul]

[Achievement Points: 3]

Lin Ze then checked the Soul Replenishing Potion rewarded by the [Soul Art · Novice] achievement.

Its effect was to instantly restore all Soul Power to full.

“A very practical effect.”

Lin Ze happily put away the potion.

Anything produced by the system was bound to be of the finest quality.

This kind of potion was equivalent to an extra life at a critical moment.

Its preciousness went without saying.

Considering that he would need to go to the Beast Tamer Association to accept Bounty Missions later, and might even need to leave the city, Lin Ze suppressed the urge to grind out Soul Art usage counts.

He sent Guan Ning a message, telling her that he had matters to attend to and needed to leave first, then departed from the school.

After returning home and putting away his books, Lin Ze hurried without pause to the Beast Tamer Association.

About half an hour later.

Lin Ze stepped through the doors of the Association building.

The bright and spacious first-floor lobby was bustling with people coming and going. Beast Tamers gathered in small groups of two or three, discussing in low voices.

Many Beast Tamers were dressed in easy-to-move-in clothing, carrying tactical backpacks, looking like adventurers.

Lin Ze scanned his surroundings and quickly found his target.

Located at the deepest part of the lobby was a row of neatly arranged self-service kiosks.

Aside from submitting and delivering missions, which required registration and verification at the manual counter, searching for and accepting missions could all be done through the self-service kiosks.

This greatly saved Beast Tamers’ time.

Lin Ze quickly walked over to a vacant self-service kiosk and tapped open the electronic screen.

A dense array of mission options instantly popped up on the display.

According to the regulations of the Beast Tamer Association, Apprentice Beast Tamers could only accept Apprentice-level Bounty Missions (team missions being the exception).

In addition.

Bounty Missions, based on their content, could be roughly divided into three major categories.

Subjugation-type missions involving hunting and eliminating Ferocious Beasts.

Collection-type missions involving gathering certain materials.

Intelligence-type missions involving investigating the conditions of a certain area, or exploring a certain ruin, cave, and so on.

Among these, Collection-type and Intelligence-type missions were relatively low-risk but extremely time-consuming.

Subjugation-type missions were the opposite.

Of the three types, Lin Ze preferred Subjugation-type missions for their efficiency.

They allowed him to earn enough Credit Points more quickly.

After setting the filter criteria, the densely packed list of missions thinned out by more than half in an instant.

Lin Ze’s spirits lifted, and he focused his attention, carefully scanning through the remaining options.