As environments shift and change, living beings must always adapt and evolve.

Consequently, organs that are no longer needed will atrophy over generations.

In the last era, the Beastmaster civilization had its glory, but it was all buried in history.

Nearly eighty to ninety percent of Pet Beasts worldwide underwent devolution based on the principle of "use it or lose it."

It wasn’t until sixty years ago, with the Spiritual Qi Revival, that Beastmasters and Pet Beasts returned to the public eye.

By this point, an entire epoch had passed since the last Beastmaster civilization.

This epoch doesn’t refer to a century, but rather a Beastmaster epoch, dating back a distant ten thousand years.

As a result, most new-generation Pet Beasts no longer possess the organ characteristics of the ancient Beast Taming Era.

They are vastly different from their ancestors. If they wish to undergo atavistic evolution, they must first devolve their current organs and revert to the physical state of their ancient forebears to walk their ancestors’ evolutionary path again.

But are the ancient evolutionary paths necessarily better?

Not necessarily.

Each era has its own peak.

If an ancient civilization had stable High-star evolutionary paths, and a Pet Beast in the current era is unable to evolve further, it is highly likely to choose organ devolution, retread its ancestors’ path, and expand its own potential.

This is why the "devolution" ritual has become popular in modern society and has grown into a major category of its own.

After listening to the two teachers’ explanation, Gu Ming gained a general understanding of atavistic evolution.

However, Teacher Zhong himself wasn’t optimistic about atavistic evolution.

Teacher Zhong belonged to the school of thought that believed in technological progress and didn’t blindly worship ancient evolutionary paths.

He believed that just as the era was advancing, so too were Pet Beasts.

Atavistic evolution was tantamount to turning back the clock of history, cutting off one’s own future. It wasn’t something to be advocated.

Teacher Zhang wasn’t a traditionalist either, but he was more flexible. He felt that any evolution was good, so there was no need to be so absolute.

"That Faceless Ice Crystal Spider you asked about can cast nets across heaven and earth and freeze monsters solid.

"However, to suppress Cyan Treasure’s Light Element Poison, you don’t need something of such a High-star Level. A Four-star Ice Element Pet Beast could probably extinguish it easily.

"After all, your Pet Beast is only One-star Level. Even if you’ve cultivated its Poison Fangs well, it’s only been a month. The toxicity is limited.

"Your poison was able to incapacitate the Red Flame Flood Dragon mainly because of the Plant Life Light Wave.

"If I saw correctly, that Laser directly shortened the poison’s progression by several days, plunging your opponent into the late stages of poisoning."

The two teachers reviewed the battle and found that the effect of Cyan Treasure’s poison had been elevated, subtly becoming the main key to victory.

Previously, the Earth Shifting Technique was designated as the core Cultivation Technique, mainly because the gains from its Origin Power were too great.

It was worth sacrificing practice in other Cultivation Techniques just to raise the Skill Level of the Earth Shifting Technique.

Now, after entering actual combat, the Origin Power was barely applicable, while the key to victory lay with the "poison."

Cyan Treasure’s Flood Dragon Tail Swing was also a good winning strategy, but they both felt the risk was too great and didn’t match the reward.

If Cyan Treasure had a powerful physique and could go head-to-head with opponents, the payoff from Flood Dragon Tail Swing would certainly be greater than using poison.

Unfortunately, there were no ’ifs’. Cyan Treasure’s body couldn’t withstand destructive attacks like the Red Flame Flood Dragon’s, so it had to play to its strengths and avoid its weaknesses by following a Poison Attack route.

"Can the poison formula be upgraded further? The Laser Skills consume too much Mana. It’s impossible to have it in reserve every time. The competition lasts for several days, and continuous battles will leave Cyan Treasure without its Laser ability."

Both of them analyzed Cyan Treasure’s fatal flaw: its Light Element Poison was too dependent on the catalytic effect of the Plant Life Light Wave.

Without this time-bending super-catalyst, Cyan Treasure’s poison had a very limited effect on Pet Beasts with such High-star Potential.

Take the fight against the Red Flame Flood Dragon, for example.

If Cyan Treasure hadn’t used its Laser Skill, the Red Flame Flood Dragon could have just forced out its Pill Fire, flown continuously through the air, and let the flames burn its skin, evaporating all the poison.

The time needed for evaporation would have been only about ten seconds.

Even if Cyan Treasure continued to apply pressure with Storm Balls afterward, the opponent’s Body Technique was nothing to scoff at.

Especially in the upcoming competition, enemy Pet Beasts’ Body Techniques would basically be top-tier, giving you no chance to land a ranged hit.

If it encountered an enemy Pet Beast with high poison resistance, it would be even worse. Without the Laser catalyst, its only option would be to flee.

If it switched to close combat, that would be another story entirely, which they wouldn’t discuss for now.

Therefore, both of them realized:

They either had to increase the toxicity of Cyan Treasure’s poison or develop another offensive system.

But an offensive system wasn’t so easy to develop. With Cyan Treasure’s current foundation of Cultivation Techniques and core abilities, they could only build around its snake venom, supplemented by aids like the Foundation Establishment Platform and the Magic Power Inner Core.

When all was said and done, the Little Cyan Snake’s foundation was simply too weak.

If it were any other Snake Pet with High-star Potential, Cyan Treasure would already have the makings of a Snake King, born to rule.

"Teachers, my Cyan Treasure has another offensive system it hasn’t used yet. It can grow poison trees to entangle opponents. It doesn’t necessarily need the Laser to catalyze the poison."

Poison trees were the ultimate application of Mastery of Wood Escape, and also the future envisioned in the system’s description.

At the Great Success Realm, Mastery of Wood Escape could summon a vast sea of trees to cover the entire field and bury the enemy. The prospect was quite incredible.

However, the two teachers hadn’t seen its combat effectiveness yet. They had only seen Cyan Treasure use its Earth Shifting Technique to grow a single poison tree.

It was hard to judge. This was just a theoretical Combat Technique Gu Ming had come up with. The small tree it summoned was truly difficult to evaluate, and both teachers felt it had little practical use in combat.

"No, the poison tree’s seeds sprout and grow far too slowly.

"Look at the Grass Seeds planted by the Turtle Wood Flood Dragon. Now that’s what you call fast growth.

"If your poison tree had that kind of efficiency, then you could bring it to the battlefield," a teacher said, shaking his head.

When Cyan Treasure demonstrated its tree-growing ability, everyone was pleasantly surprised.

But it took a full minute for the poison tree to grow. By then, it was already too late.

Gu Ming opened his mouth, wanting to say that it was only at the Entry Level and would be different once its Skill Level increased.

But in the end, he kept it shut.

People only believed what they could see. No matter how well Gu Ming described something that hadn’t been mastered yet, his words were empty.

As the two teachers continued their discussion, they concluded that Cyan Treasure should learn a Poison Technique.

Cultivating poison just to develop its Poison Fangs was too much of a waste.

Only by practicing a corresponding Poison Technique could the Power of this Light Element Poison be developed to a whole new level.

After they finished their review, they prepared to go look for some snake-type Poison Techniques.

Meanwhile, the two students returned to the training grounds to continue challenging others, racking up points to climb the rankings.

Gu Ming, now with the experience of two battles, continued to fight. Several top-ranking students successively faced off against Cyan Treasure.

More or less, they all felt a bit self-important, believing that Akagi Shu’s and Square Heaven Turtle’s defeats were merely due to them underestimating their opponent.

It wasn’t until Gu Ming defeated five opponents in a row that morning that the others started to get scared.

The top-ranking students would take a detour whenever they saw Gu Ming’s Little Cyan Snake, not daring to face him directly at all.