The common octopus is a kind of octopus.

Octopuses are the most intelligent of their close relatives, the cuttlefish and the squid. They can change color, squirt ink and camouflage themselves. It's said that after a young octopus hatches, its parents don't teach it how to hunt. It works things out on its own, and by adulthood every octopus has its own way of surviving.

They'll even carry coconut shells around and use them as armor, the only known case of an invertebrate using tools.

Judging by its appearance, the particle-grade common octopus Shen Cong now faced had probably finished the changes of the Lv4 — Nebula Era, making it a particle-grade common octopus beast.

It was intelligent, no question: it flatly refused to swim over and kept trying to provoke Shen Cong into coming down into the lake to fight it.

Most of the emotions it gave off were "eat you," "pushover," "rip you apart," "hungry," "kill," "you taste good," "that bug's too small," and "you're big enough to eat."

Strictly speaking, it had decided the Vajra was food.

Shen Cong kept learning octopus–Cicada Language, trying to get far enough to talk with it. Unfortunately, everything the common octopus beast gave off was negative and violent, so there weren't many words he could actually use. After several minutes of standoff, they were still talking at cross-purposes. Maybe the common octopus beast had sensed Shen Cong's goodwill, but it still chose to answer with violence.

If you go looking for death, you'll find it.

Facing a predator, the common octopus beast was plainly working to stir up Shen Cong's urge to kill.

And it had succeeded. "Very good. You're dead set on getting yourself killed, so I'll oblige you! Once I have your Talent-raising method, I'll turn you into dog food and feed you to Brother Dao."

Off to one side.

Brother Dao had no idea it had just been promised a feast.

Seeing Shen Cong and the common octopus glaring at each other with no sign of a fight, it barked again and taunted the common octopus beast. "Come…