My starting summon is a small skeleton

Dudu was slapped by Lu Wu every time he tried to slim down.

Last time it was Lu Haikong, this time it was Dudu's Dad.

It was only after this experience that Lu Wu realized how much his dad loved him!

When Lu Haikong had hit him before, considering it was his own son and with Dudu intervening, he hardly swung a few times and didn't use much strength. But this time it was different.

Dudu's Dad brought out all his strength.

A scumbag dares to cheat on his daughter?

Dudu's Dad felt like chopping up Lu Wu's heart, and he didn't hold back at all!

Facing the furious Dudu's Dad, Lu Wu could only explain with a look of grievance, telling Dudu's Dad that the person lying there was indeed Dudu.

Unfortunately, it was to no avail. How could Dudu's Dad believe that?

Even after the explanation, he got even angrier and hit Lu Wu with even more force.

Who are you trying to fool? This woman is so ugly, how could she possibly be their Dudu?

Such a ferocious attack, and now Lu Wu was being taken away.

Fortunately, Little Skeleton charged out from under a pig's butt in time to rescue Lu Wu, and just as Dudu awoke, Lu Wu managed to get through this ordeal.

Ten minutes later!

Dudu's Dad watched from across the way, tenderly applying ointment to Lu Wu, while occasionally glancing over at Dudu, who returned his gaze with a glare.

Dudu's Dad felt both dreamy and a bit sour.

He hadn't expected his little padded jacket to actually slim down.

She had lost half her weight in just a few hours. If it weren't for Dudu's face vaguely resembling his younger self, he would have hardly recognized her as his own daughter.

However, for Dudu's Dad, his daughter slimming down wasn't too much to handle.

He could accept it, but what really hit him hard was the resentful look his little padded jacket gave him, along with the cautious movements she made to avoid hurting Lu Wu.

With things going like this, if he didn't keep a closer eye, his little jacket might end up belonging to someone else.

Dudu's Dad, worried that Lu Wu might snatch up his homegrown cabbage, pulled Dudu back home after she finished applying ointment to Lu Wu.

His daughter was too vulnerable staying at Lu Wu's house – it was absolutely not safe to leave her there.

Otherwise, by the next morning, nothing would be left.

Lu Wu was particularly reluctant, but he was helpless.

He could only watch as Dudu was taken away.

After Dudu went home, Lu Wu, having not eaten all day and having been beaten up, couldn't sleep and had to take Little Skeleton out to find something to eat.

He casually found a snack bar nearby to appease his hunger and then went to the supermarket to grab a box of instant noodles, some bread, and drinks.

Yeah, now he was alone at home.

Thinking of Dudu, Lu Wu recalled the look her dad had given him when he left, as if watching out for a wolf; he figured he couldn't expect Dudu to cook for him three times a day, so he had to stock up some food for himself.

After buying the stuff, Lu Wu hung the bags on Little Skeleton and was about to head home when another person entered the supermarket. He looked up to find that it was Lin Jianying.

Lu Wu glanced at Lin Jianying and focused briefly on the goblin's Status Bar behind him, asking, "Just got back from training?"

"Yeah!" Lin Jianying nodded.

"Why so late?"

"Because I've been a bit behind my teammates recently, so I've got to push myself harder!"

"How's Granny Li's health?"

"It's been improving over the past few days!"

"That's good to hear!"

...

The relationship between the two was a bit awkward, and the conversation felt forced. Plus, Lin Jianying was quite reserved in front of Lu Wu, making the chat even more stilted.

Lu Wu didn't insist on continuing the conversation and, after patting Lin Jianying on the shoulder, took Little Skeleton and went home.

But before leaving, Lu Wu gave Lin Jianying's goblin a meaningful glance. Startled by Lu Wu's look, the goblin shivered and instinctively stepped back, hiding behind Lin Jianying to stay away from someone who enjoyed touching goblins indiscriminately.

If only the goblin knew, Lu Wu was no longer interested in touching it.

Partly because Lu Wu could now see its attributes without touching, and partly because it simply couldn't keep up with Little Skeleton's pace anymore.

In past encounters with the goblin, every time Little Skeleton's Quality and Power advanced, it used to be a blow to Lu Wu.

Now, the goblin was nothing compared to Little Skeleton.

This made Lu Wu particularly reflective.

"Indeed, as long as one works hard, keeps learning, and has a cheat code, there's no rival one can't surpass!"

After returning home from the supermarket, whether it was because of his advanced spiritual power or some other reason, Lu Wu couldn't tell.

Lu Wu felt exceedingly spirited and just couldn't fall asleep, so he decided to mull over his forthcoming plans.

"Now it's already January, and even though Lunar New Year hasn't arrived yet, the new year has passed.

This year, there are two important events, one is the high school competition, and the other is the Cultivation Master Contest mentioned by Jiangnan University.

The former starts in February or March, while the latter is probably around August or September.

So the focus in the near future is still on preparing for the high school competition."

Originally, there wasn't much for Lu Wu to worry about concerning the high school competition.

Now that his Little Skeleton had advanced to Elite, and Tuantuan as well, having two Elite Summoned Beasts meant they would absolutely dominate the city competition. Lu Wu was confident that the Hengheng Monster would be forced to cry once again.

But the problem was, he was still short one teammate.

That was somewhat awkward.

"Still, this isn't a big problem, there's time yet, and I can slowly look for one. If push comes to shove, I'll just pull in anyone at the last minute.

With two Elite teammates, even bringing along a pig, we could still make it into the provincial competition."

That being said, if they actually brought a pig into the provincial competition, how would they fight the subsequent matches?

Lu Wu was now getting ahead of himself; he didn't even consider the city competition or the Hengheng Monster, only how to ensure that Dudu performed well in the provincial competition to get him some benefits.

In that case, he couldn't be too casual about selecting this one teammate.

"It looks like the only way is to keep searching for a teammate while trying to enhance Little Skeleton's power as much as possible.

If we really end up with a pig, having a more powerful Little Skeleton might still allow us to perform well in the provincial competition.

Right, if Little Skeleton shines in the provincial competition, the sales of the cultivation and advancement plans I've drafted might also take off."

Speaking of this, Lu Wu suddenly remembered that he hadn't uploaded the evolution plan for Little Skeleton.

Recently, he'd shelled out quite a bit of money for Little Skeleton's evolution, and now he was down to just over three hundred Internal Network Points.

Three hundred might seem a lot, but considering Lu Wu's pace of learning, it was uncertain whether this sum would last one or two months.

After all, Lu Wu's approach to studying was indeed quite costly.

So, just thinking about the evolution plans, Lu Wu could no longer care less about doing any planning.

What's the use of planning?

The crux of the matter was to make money!

Money leads to plans!

With money, Little Skeleton could continue to grow more powerful!

Lu Wu hurriedly logged into the internal network and posted the initial plan for evolving Little Skeleton into a Skeleton Mage.

Such a plan was unprecedented, and if validated successfully, Lu Wu could at least earn a thousand points.

Plus, adding in a couple of optimized versions, earning several thousand points shouldn't be a problem.

However, this kind of evolutionary plan wasn't the same as the cultivation plans, and the validation of such plans wasn't quick. After Lu Wu uploaded it, the Fu City Professional Center immediately took over the task of validation.

But at the same time, they sent Lu Wu a message informing that the quickest validation result would take at least half a month, and longer cases might take several months.

After all, this was an evolution plan, and Fu City needed time to cultivate Little Skeleton to the level where it could evolve.

This was no easy task, but there was no other choice; finding a wild Little Skeleton fit for evolution was even harder!

This meant Lu Wu had to wait at least half a month before he could see any points credited to his account, and it could possibly be several months.

This left Lu Wu somewhat disappointed, but there was nothing he could do about it and had to think of other ways to make money.

And sure enough, there were other methods.

Two directions to go.

One was Skill optimization.

Just like the optimization of cultivation plans, there were rewards for Skill optimization, and training plans created after optimization could be sold, although at a relatively lower price.

Lu Wu had sold packages of Little Skeleton's optimized skills "Charge," "Dodge," and "Block," but after incremental exploitation of each version, he had earned only a few dozen points.

Although the training plans were also on the internal network for sale, which could give Lu Wu a cut, he had no expectations about it.

The few cultivation plans he posted last time had only netted him a mere 10 points over the course of more than a month. Unless he became well-known or he was counting on this, he would starve to death.

"In that case, I'm out of options!

I'll have to pivot to another approach for research!

After all, I've hit a bottleneck with the quality improvement plans for Little Skeleton further development would call for too much time and effort, and I can't expect results for several months.

If I want to make money, I need to change direction and focus on another Summoned Beast to develop a few new cultivation plans for a windfall.

Once I have money, I can funnel resources back into my research on cultivating Little Skeleton."

This was the best way Lu Wu had thought of to make money.

After some consideration and searching for more information on the internal network, Lu Wu finally selected his next main focus, the Summoned Beast he would use to earn money.