Chapter 9

Zhao Yao pouted and said, "I, your master, am now rich. From now on, you will also be considered a high, handsome, and wealthy cat in the cat world."

Beside him, Matcha’s eyes sparkled as he heard this, and he started rubbing against Zhao Yao’s calf, "Then can you top up some money for my Honor of Kings? I want to buy some skins."

Zhao Yao shook his head and earnestly educated him, "Why buy skins? Let me tell you, skins are things that only noobs buy. Real experts don’t need skins; they can defeat enemies without them."

Matcha retorted unhappily, "But I am a noob."

"Damn... Can’t you have a little ambition? You’re a noob now, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always be one. Think about it, in the future, everyone will have skins, but only you won’t. Wouldn’t that make you stand out even more? It’s like only you are wearing a skin."

"But I still want to buy skins. I can wait until everyone has skins and then take mine off."

Zhao Yao’s lips twitched, and he kicked Matcha away, "Forget about Honor of Kings. First, try all these cat foods and see which one is the best."

So, Zhao Yao opened each bag of cat food one by one, pouring a little bit in front of Matcha for him to taste.

There were ten brands and fifteen flavors of cat food. Some Matcha sniffed and refused to eat, while others he finished in a few bites, still looking unsatisfied.

However, after Matcha tried all the cat foods, the book in Zhao Yao’s mind trembled and shone brightly again.

At this moment, when Zhao Yao looked at the cat foods, he immediately noticed the difference.

As soon as he looked at the cat food, a series of evaluations appeared in his mind.

"Rough cat food, barely enough to fill the stomach, but don’t expect it to benefit the cat’s health."

Zhao Yao then looked at another bag of cat food.

"Ordinary cat food, fills the stomach while providing some nutrients and trace elements. Eating it for a month can add one point of experience."

Zhao Yao looked back and forth, scanning all the cat foods, and immediately found that they were divided into four grades: rough, ordinary, excellent, and fine.

Among them, rough cat food only filled the stomach, while ordinary cat food provided some nutrients, adding one point of experience for every month eaten.

Excellent and fine cat foods contained more nutrients needed by adult cats. Excellent cat food added one point of experience for every ten days eaten, while fine cat food added one point of experience for every day eaten.

Zhao Yao also noticed that the cat foods Matcha liked were not necessarily of the excellent or fine grades; they might have added flavor enhancers.

And the ones he didn’t like were not necessarily rough or ordinary cat foods; they just didn’t suit his taste.

Looking at the Orijen cat food in his hand, the only fine-grade cat food among the ten brands and the most expensive one, Zhao Yao smiled.

"Haha, fine cat food, adding one point of experience for every day eaten. This means that without doing any tasks, Matcha can level up in ten days."

Although this cat food costs about 70 to 80 yuan per pound, it wasn’t a big deal for Zhao Yao now.

"Matcha, it’s decided. You will eat Orijen every day from now on."

Zhao Yao then thought, "Since there is fine cat food, could there be epic or mythic cat food? Wouldn’t that add even more experience? But looking at the cat foods on Taobao, Orijen is already one of the most expensive."

Thinking about this, Zhao Yao made a decision to try to find even better cat foods to speed up Matcha’s growth.

At the same time, a crisp sound rang in Zhao Yao’s mind, indicating the completion of the task.

Instantly, ten points of experience fell, and the data on the first page of the book changed to:

BOOK: Lv1 (10/100)

Pet (1/1): Matcha

Level: Lv1 (0/10)

Loyalty: 100

Ability: Time Stop, Duration 3s, Cooldown 3s

The experience was added to the BOOK, but the plus sign behind Matcha also lit up.

Zhao Yao thought to himself, "The experience is added to my ability BOOK, but it looks like this experience can also be used to level up the pet."

Thinking this, Zhao Yao immediately pressed the plus sign behind Matcha, instantly adding ten points of experience to him. Matcha’s attributes immediately changed to:

Pet: Matcha

Level: Lv2 (0/100)

Loyalty: 100

Ability: Time Stop, Duration 3s, Cooldown 3s

Seeing that the experience required for the second level had increased to 100 points, Zhao Yao felt a bit frustrated. However, as Matcha leveled up to the second level, the plus sign behind his ability also lit up.

Zhao Yao clicked it, and a skill panel immediately popped up.

Zhao Yao carefully examined it and found a long skill tree. For each level Matcha gained, he could choose one of two skills. The only skill at level one was Time Stop, which was already selected by default and could not be chosen again.

With Matcha now at level two, the level two skill tree opened, and he could immediately choose one of two skills.

However, the skills for higher levels were blurry and completely unreadable.

Looking at the two skills for level two, they were:

Time Vortex: The duration of Time Stop is doubled.

Void Serenity: The cooldown of Time Stop is halved.

Looking at the two skills on the skill tree, Zhao Yao frowned and thought for a moment. One increased the duration, and the other shortened the cooldown. The former allowed more actions during the Time Stop, while the latter made the Time Stop more frequent.

But he thought that to truly utilize the power of a shorter cooldown, it would mean more frequent and shorter Time Stops, which would be harder to control, especially when the time entered the sub-second range.

Thinking this, Zhao Yao added the skill point to Time Vortex.

Instantly, the symbol representing Time Vortex lit up, and Zhao Yao exited the skill tree interface.

Now, looking at Matcha’s skill data, it had changed to a duration of 6 seconds and a cooldown of 6 seconds.

"Hmm? The cooldown is also longer?" Zhao Yao was slightly stunned, "It seems that even with the increased duration, the ratio of one second of duration to one second of cooldown remains. In that case, reducing the cooldown might be more useful."

However, since he had already made his choice, Zhao Yao didn’t regret it.

Looking at the level two Matcha, Zhao Yao’s lips curled into a smile.

But at that moment, the task panel lit up again.

Task: To become stronger, a comfortable environment is also important.

Objective: Within a month, buy a property worth over ten million yuan for your cat, equipped with an automatic cat toilet, automatic cat waterer, and automatic feeder. Only such a good environment can cultivate a sufficiently strong super cat.

Task Reward: 20 points of experience

Failure Punishment: The cat cannot gain experience for half a year.

"This punishment... is a bit too harsh." Zhao Yao’s lips twitched as he looked at the requirement of a ten million yuan property, and he couldn’t help but sigh.

"Ten million yuan, how long have I been holding onto this money, and now I have to spend it all." Zhao Yao glanced at Matcha, who was still happily eating the cat food, and couldn’t help but complain, "What cat needs a ten million yuan mansion? People don’t even live that well. This isn’t just a high, handsome, and wealthy cat; this is a cat version of Jack Ma."

Despite his reluctance, Zhao Yao understood that he couldn’t refuse this task. Not only for the 20 points of experience reward, but also to prevent Matcha from being unable to level up for half a year.

"Speaking of which, a ten million yuan property..." Zhao Yao immediately thought of the Heavenly City neighborhood he had seen in a QQ group.

Many of the apartments there were priced over ten million yuan. Zhao Yao had always liked them, but he hadn’t planned to buy one because of the high price. Now, it was the perfect opportunity to get one.

Thinking this, Zhao Yao logged into QQ, found Xiao Shiyu, and sent her a message.

"Are you there? I want to buy one of the apartments in Heavenly City."

...

Ding, Xiao Shiyu looked at the QQ message and was surprised.

"Zhao Yao?"

She still remembered Zhao Yao. He seemed ordinary, and during college, he didn’t stand out in any way. As far as she knew, his family background was also very ordinary. After working for two or three years, it was unreasonable for him to be able to afford a ten million yuan property.

"Is he trying to pursue me?"

After becoming a real estate salesperson, she had encountered people who used similar methods to pursue her, so she immediately thought Zhao Yao might be one of them.

But just as she was about to ignore him, she thought of her sales performance for the month. Xiao Shiyu bit her lip, "I’ll give you one chance. If I find out you can’t afford it and are wasting my time, I’ll scold you to death."