After a while, the golden light slowly faded. Wen Yu suddenly felt a tremendous force push him out of the Promotion Space. As the dizziness from the teleportation passed, Wen Yu found himself beside the Exchange Stone Pillar.

The Pitch-dark Barrier remained as solid as ever. The short few minutes of the promotion trial were indeed not enough for the Demon Tribe to break through the defenses Wen Yu had set up. The three little ones followed Wen Yu's instructions, each one guarding a direction inside the Pitch-dark Barrier, keeping watch over the New Hope Assembly Place's defenses—even though they weren't needed.

When the Level Lock was just broken, all three soul pets had already been promoted. The situation arrived too suddenly, and Wen Yu had not yet checked the promotion skills acquired by the little ones.

Demonic Qi continued to flow from the Demon Realm's Gate, transforming Earth's atmospheric environment. Before the Demonic Qi achieved balance, level-six demon fiends could not enter Earth—a temporary buffer stage.

Noticing that no unforeseen situations would occur in the short term, Wen Yu could not abandon the plan for his sixth soul pet or the New Hope Assembly Place despite the Level Lock being broken. After some quick calculations, Wen Yu supplemented the energy of the Pitch-dark Barrier and then began to check the promotion skills of his three soul pets.

"Wild Nature Augmentation (SS-Class, Passive Skill): The power of savagery enhances oneself, improving all physical attributes by fifty percent while providing high-speed regeneration, high resistance to curses (below SS-Class), high resistance to negative effects (below SS-Class), and resistance to psychic attacks (below S-Class)."

"Why fear? The power of the wild is with you!"

The sixth skill that Cyclops automatically awakened seemed quite good. The troublesome aspect was that its skill level was neither high nor low; though the effect was decent, it wasn't exceptional—something unremarkable but hard to discard.

With this skill, Wen Yu also realized his own vision had indeed improved significantly—ordinary life forms would be grateful to automatically awaken an SS-Class skill, but Wen Yu found it unimpressive.

Now, Wen Yu had a bunch of Esoteric Level skills on hand, waiting for himself or his soul pets to have skill slots available. Compared to these automatically awakened skills, the Esoteric Level skills that he obtained through significant efforts were more aligned with Wen Yu's skill system for soul pets.

Comparing Wild Nature Augmentation (SS-Class, Passive Skill) with Cyclops's fifth skill, Destruction (SS-Class, Passive Skill), Wen Yu thought for a long time and decided to cleanse Destruction (SS-Class, Passive Skill)—Destruction enhances attack ability, but with the presence of Ultra Mortal Combat, Cyclops's attack strength has always been good. Instead, Wild Nature Augmentation's (SS-Class, Passive Skill) high-speed regeneration, immunity to curses, psychic attacks, and negative effects would provide Cyclops with stronger survival traits.

As for Cyclops's sixth skill, it was naturally the Esoteric Level Blood and Flesh Balance Scale (Species-specific Esoteric Level, Active Skill).

With this skill, Cyclops now had a decisive ace up its sleeve!

...

"Ancient Dragon's Wrath (SSS-Class, Passive Ability): The host gains the Power of Ancient Dragon, immune to instant death (cannot be killed in one strike by any skill before being severely injured)! Immune to curses, immune to toxins, to some extent immune to psychic attacks, and gains eighty percent damage reduction from any source. Simultaneously, the host's attacks include the Power of Ancient Dragon, inflicted damage cannot be healed by any SSS-Class or lower recovery abilities until death."

"With the Dragon Clan's Wrath, the Ancient Dragon's will shall bestow upon you the mightiest power!"

"Heh, should I say, as expected of a Dragon Race divine beast..."

Wen Yu sighed. The skill that Star awakened was among the strongest even within SSS-Class. This skill and Cyclops's Wild Nature Augmentation (SS-Class, Passive Skill) somewhat overlapped in functionality, but the attributes of immunity to instant death and attacks with additional Power of Ancient Dragon were extremely powerful!

No need to elaborate, this skill was undoubtedly going to be one of Star's main skills.

On top of that, Wen Yu still had a Limit Breakthrough Level Esoteric Level skill scroll: Mountain Observing Technique (Species-specific Esoteric Level, Passive Skill). This was definitely going to be for Star.

After much thought, Wen Yu decisively cleansed Star's original fifth skill: Shell Breaking Storm (S-Class, Active Ability).

Shell Breaking Storm (S-Class, Active Ability) was merely a wide-ranging attack ability. With Star possessing Dragon Flame and a massive body, such a skill with only the area attack capability really failed to attract Wen Yu's interest now.

Having settled the skill configurations for Cyclops and Star, Wen Yu turned his attention to Victor.

The journey to the Heavenly Palace resulted in enormous gains for Wen Yu. However, an awkward point was that, whether directly or through trades with the military, Wen Yu did not obtain skills matching Victor's abilities.

Cyclops had Blood and Flesh Balance Scale (Species-specific Esoteric Level, Active Skill), and Star had Mountain Observing Technique (Species-specific Esoteric Level, Passive Skill), yet Victor had nothing…

Now, Wen Yu could only hope that Victor's automatically awakened skills would be potent enough!

As his gaze swept over Victor's newly awakened skills, when Wen Yu saw the words Species-specific Esoteric Level, he indeed felt a sense of relief.

And as Wen Yu carefully read through Victor's new skill, the relaxed look on his face gradually transformed into one of surprise, ultimately turning into delight!

...

"Reality and Illusion: Nine Lives (Netherworld-derived Ability) (Soul Master-derived Ability) (Species-specific Esoteric Level, Active Skill): This skill requires Netherworld as a prerequisite, with the host being contracted by a Soul Master as a precondition!"

"It has been said since ancient times that cats have nine lives. Due to the host experiencing the fantasy and trials between life and death, this skill, which can only be realized in moments of life and death, was awakened."

"Waking as an ability based on Netherworld, it grants the host a certain degree of an immortal body. Each time the host dies, they will be reborn within the Netherworld, with a total of nine resurrections. Additionally, since the host is contracted with a Soul Master, this ability can be applied to the Soul Master and other soul pets, allowing the Soul Master and all soul pets to share the effect of nine lives!"

"Note: Each death consumes one life, and no method can add more resurrection chances to Reality and Illusion: Nine Lives. Once the nine resurrection chances are exhausted, Reality and Illusion: Nine Lives will mutate into an unknown skill at the same Esoteric Level!"

"There is tremendous fear between life and death, but I am a being that crawled out alive from the depths of hell! Isn't it fair to give nine lives as a reward? Meow~~"

After reading Victor's new skill in detail, Wen Yu exhaled heavily…

This skill, it's basically insurance within insurance, a trump card among trump cards—although it doesn't significantly enhance combat ability, a skill that provides nine lives, with potential mutation into other skills once exhausted, being rated as an Esoteric Level skill is fully deserved!