Chapter 121 Upgrade Failed It was almost noon. There were a few customers outside Su Ping’s store. Only some students would show up occasionally. The warm sun in the early winter shone through the glass door and into the store, driving away the cold in the air. Since Su Ping was practicing the Solar Bulwark, he wasn’t afraid of the cold. At the moment, he was sitting in the store, with legs crossed and shaking his feet. In front of him was the system’s panel showing his energy points. He had 213,692 energy points! This was the turnover for the day. To be exact, for that morning! If converted to astral coins, that would be over 20 million! That was such a stunning number. Who could have thought that such a little store could have a turnover of over 20 million Federation’s astral coins in one morning?! The other stores on the same street were envious of the sheer number of customers outside Su Ping’s store. Even so, they would have never imagined how much money he had made! Not even some companies that had gone public could make money that quickly! All the people who wanted their middle-rank pets trained would pay 100,000 coins. In that morning alone, around sixty to seventy students had made a transaction. The majority of those who showed up had brought low-rank pets, and the training rate was 10,000 coins. After all, amongst all the students, the ones with middle-rank pets were among the most outstanding To Su Ping, outstanding students were fat lambs... honorable guests! Su Ping felt his heart pounding after seeing so many energy points for the first time. His blood was boiling because of the excitement! Yet, he knew that he could only regard those energy points as deposits for now. He had to train all the pets to have those energy points in his account. When he reached the fourth-rank, his spirit grew as well. At the current rate, his dummy trainer could train five pets at a time. One round would take one hour. Ten rounds could have 50 pets trained. Currently, there were over 40 pets in his training space which was almost stuffed. The nursing pens were fully occupied as well. He had to train for over 10 hours without any rest to take care of all the pets. Su Ping was glad that he had the dummy training function. He would have been spent if he had to rely just on himself. “That is the benefit of having fame. More will come pouring in as long as my services are of high-quality!” Su Ping’s eyes were kindling. At this rate, he could accumulate one million energy points in a few days. With that, he would have a chance to upgrade the Chaos Spirit Pool for Incubation to the fourth level! A fourth-level Spirit Pool had a relatively high chance to breed beast kings! If he had a beast king pet, putting it at the door alone could earn him the most popularity; he would catch the attention of all the spheres of influence. By then, the amount of customers could easily wear out his doorstep. But everything in his store, even broken, would be repaired by the system. That being said, if someone were to vandalize the place, that person would face severe consequences. “It seems that I also have to improve my abilities as quickly as possible. I am undefeatable inside the store, thanks to the system’s protection. But it’s a whole different thing once I’m outside.” Su Ping blinked. He felt the urgency to enhance his skills. He was outstanding when you considered people of the same age group. However, he was still lacking when compared to the truly powerful warriors. Su Ping desired to become more powerful. Anyone could imagine what would happen to a weak child carrying gold bricks and swaggering across the city. Su Ping wasn’t that afraid for the time being. If he messed with some tough people that he couldn’t handle, worst-case scenario, he could hole up in the store with his mother and sister. He would be able to go out once he grew strong enough thanks to training in cultivation planes. It was just that life would be tough to endure. It would be better if he could walk outside freely thanks to being strong enough. е Su Ping was thinking as he stared at those energy points. Should he save them or use them and save more later? After much deliberation, Su Ping decided that improving his strength was the priority. Upgrading the Spirit Pool was important, but he couldn’t pass away on a chance to enhance his strength. He pulled up the system’s shop. The Original Force Pellet wasn’t offered. But he saw two middle-rank beast catching rings and two other peculiar materials. Su Ping noticed all of a sudden that of the two, one was what he needed. “Fire Phoenix Feather?” Su Ping looked at this material. The Fire Phoenix seemed to be a beast king. Could this be its feather? He looked at the price, 35,000 energy points. Su Ping pulled the corner of his mouth. So expensive. If it weren’t for the fact that he had made enough money that day, he would have skipped over the material given the price. Su Ping made up his mind and bought it since it would be beneficial to his Solar Bulwark. No matter how expensive it was, he was just spending energy points. Using this would end up becoming part of his actual strength which was all that mattered. “I need many rare materials and elixirs to cultivate the Solar Bulwark’s second rank. The Fire Phoenix Feather contains a pure fire element, just what I need.” Su Ping blinked. He remembered Ye Chenshan’s invitation. If he had another chance to visit the barren area, apart from searching for herbs to cure his mother’s illness once and for all, he would surely look for materials useful for his cultivation. He took a look at the other merchandise. Naturally, he bought the middle-rank beast-catching rings as well. They would always come in handy. There was nothing else he needed. Su Ping threw a glance at the refresh button at the bottom. He was hesitating. One hundred energy points per refresh. Should he do it? Su Ping’s eyes moved up to the energy points he had. After he bought the middle-rank beast-catching ring and the Fire Phoenix Feather, he had roughly one hundred and seventy thousand energy points left. The refresh was just one hundred energy points... sure! He made up his mind and chose to refresh. The gamble would be worthwhile if he could get the Original Force Pellet! Soon, the page was refreshed. A mass of mist covered the five slots, and then receded to reveal the new items. There was no Original Force Pellet. The middle-rank beast-catching rings that were sold were no longer available, and in their place were low-rank beast-catching rings. The other items were three low-rank pet foods and some unfamiliar material of no use to him. Su Ping looked at them, feeling quite distressed. One hundred energy points had been wasted just like that! That was 10,000 coins! In the end, Su Ping didn’t dare to refresh the store a second time. He had a feeling that he might see some useful items next time... but, given his many years of money spending experience, he knew this feeling was often deceptive. People say that things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme, and out of the depths of misfortune came bliss... Those were just words people used to comfort themselves! “Never mind. Spending money won’t change my fate. This is just a game of luck. I will become a gambler if I become too obsessed...” Su Ping persuaded himself to keep calm. He took a few deep breaths and closed the shop. Taking a look at the remaining energy points, he decided it was good to spend one hundred thousand on upgrading the store to the third level. If the store was upgraded to the third level, he could have a larger training space and more nursing pens. More importantly, advanced training and pet sales would become available. In the future, he could put the inferior pets he bred up for sale. Also, a third-level store could have a test space where pets could display their skills at will without damaging the store at all. All those benefits demonstrated that spending one hundred thousand energy points was well worth it. Even though the one hundred thousand energy points were 10 million coins in reality... “Upgrade failed!” All of a sudden, the system cautioned him, “The host has not completed the prerequisites for upgrading to a third-level store: first, the advanced training service is not completed; second, the store size is not big enough. Please obtain more space for the store (the store size should be expanded to 3,000 square meters.)” Su Ping was startled. He almost jumped up when he heard the words “upgrade failed.” He hurried to check the energy points. He felt he could breathe again when he saw the energy points still there. He would have gone ballistic if those energy points had been deducted when the upgrade failed. “There are prerequisites?” Su Ping frowned. He thought of the advanced training task previously assigned by the system. Was that task set up to prepare himself for the upgrade to a third-level store? As for the store size... He looked around his little store. It was small indeed and not enough if he had a built-in test space, even though the system had the ability to transfer the test space to another place, like a cultivation plane. However, the pets’ abilities had to be tested right in their masters’ presence. Therefore, the test space had to be built inside the store. “To expand to three thousand square meters, the store will be about the size of six basketball fields. Currently, the store is about 200 square meters. That is to say, I have to buy all the other stores nearby...” Su Ping frowned. This wasn’t a difficult task but it was troublesome. “Although I don’t know if the other store owners nearby are willing to rent or transfer their stores, it should be okay as long as I can give them enough money. The problem is that my money is converted into energy points, and there aren’t many astral coins of transactions that can’t be converted. “Seems like I have to find a way to make dozens of millions of astral coins first.” To the general public, making money was hard. But to Su Ping, it would just just involve wasting some time. He closed the panel and sat in the store, as he brooded about money-making plans. To make money, he had to rely on his advantages. Su Ping began to review his advantages. Soon, he figured out something. Private tutoring. Su Ping believed that all his expertise and skill was related to pets. Exploring the uncultivated lands, while profitable, was too risky. Besides, coming and going was too much work, and it would get in the way of his store’s business. Besides that, he remembered he had been hired as a teacher. Since he could teach students of the Phoenix Peak Academy, naturally, he could teach other people as well. Having combed through his thoughts, Su Ping went to search for private tutoring websites. Soon, he found a large number of such websites. However, the rate for private tutoring was too low. At the same time, the requirement for private tutors was low. Middle-rank battle pet warriors would suffice. Usually, they would teach kids of middle-class families, and the rate was calculated by the hour. Generally speaking, the rate for one hour would be over 1000 coins or two to three thousand coins for the more expensive private tutors. This was already expensive for middle-class families. Many of those families couldn’t even afford this. But for Su Ping, this price was way too low. His lecture at the Phoenix Peak Academy was one hour per session. He was given teachers’ points for his lectures, but those points were worth more than a few thousand coins. Su Ping searched on. All of a sudden, he remembered his identity as an explorer. He thought of an idea. He logged into the explorers’ website and used the explorer’s official search engine to look for information. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚 Soon, he saw many private tutoring websites he had not seen before. Su Ping clicked into the most popular one. On the front page was the recommendation of tutors and requirements from students. Under the tutors’ introduction, there was the information about their rates as well: XX Wang (Profile Picture): senior seventh-rank advanced battle pet warrior. 120000/hour.