Chapter 16: A Three-Year Limit

This time, Wang Mu exchanged contact information with Teacher Zhu Tao. It was not through the backend account system of the Breeders Association, but through a Shenzhou Myriad Goods Network number.

Shenzhou was vast, and the abilities of the spirit beasts, demon beasts, and savage beasts in the wilderness were all strange and varied. In most cases, the contact methods of one city became useless the moment one reached another. There were no satellites here to launch into the sky for convenience.

After the rise of the Construct Heavenly King, a great many advanced technologies were developed, and among them, the Shenzhou Myriad Goods Network deservedly ranked first. Within the human heartland cities, it could be used for shopping and communication with ease, much like the internet of Wang Mu's previous life.

Once one reached a Frontier City, however, those functions could still be used only if one was a Fifth-Rank Beast Tamer or a Breeder and had successfully applied for cross-city access.

For ordinary people, meeting those requirements was difficult.

For Wang Mu, though, all of those obstacles would be resolved in the near future.

By now, he had already returned to the breeding center. After tending to the Greenleaf Caterpillars, he went to the living quarters, where two people were waiting to eat with him.

Wang Mu glanced at the box set beside them, then asked only after sitting down, "Dad, Mom, is that what Uncle Guo sent over?"

Wang Lingfeng nodded. "Your share's inside. Open it yourself later. You called us over, so what's the matter?"

As he ate, Wang Mu explained, "I'm planning to pass the Breeder assessment within three years. After that, what do you think about our family moving to the Frontier City where Uncle Guo lives?"

His parents both set down their bowls at once. Wang Lingfeng was both delighted and shocked. "Did I hear that right? You'll make it in three years?"

Jiang Meiqin, on the other hand, said, "Moving there wouldn't be bad..."

Wang Mu smiled. "I'm confident. Teacher said Shanhai City won't stay peaceful in the future, so it would be better to move out and develop elsewhere first. If I remember correctly, the Frontier City where Uncle Guo lives has officially been named Leihai City now. That also shows the resolve of the Overlord there. It's a good choice."

At first, both of them had felt some reluctance. After all, they had lived here for over fifty years. But the moment they heard the words "won't stay peaceful," they exchanged glances, and Wang Lingfeng nodded.

"All right. Then once you pass the assessment, we'll move."

"If there's anything you need help with, just say it. After Xiao Jin evolved, I also reached the Fourth Rank. And Little Jade will reach the Fourth Rank soon as well."

Little Jade?

Wang Mu froze for a second, then realized his father meant the Azure Jade Butterfly. At once, he was left speechless at his father's naming sense.

Still, he really did have something he needed. "Dad, outside Shanhai City there's a demon beast called the Devil Leech. Gather as many corpses as you can. I have a use for them."

The Devil Leech possessed an Excellent-rank bloodline and looked much like a leech. It liked to suck blood, but it was far too vicious, burrowing directly into a host's body and reproducing while feeding. It could devour a person completely in an instant. Even so, it was not particularly strong—only Third Rank.

Moreover, even during breeding season, there were never more than two in any given area, so there was no real danger in collecting them.

"All right." Wang Lingfeng agreed, though he was quite curious what sort of spirit beast Wang Mu intended to breed from such a thing.

After the meal, Wang Mu opened the box. Because cross-city shipping to a Frontier City came with many restrictions, everything inside was limited to materials below the Fourth Rank, all specialties of Leihai City: dissolving fluid from the Lightning Jellyfish, metal pincers from the Steel-Claw Giant Crab, and pearls from the Five-Colored Scallop.

The most precious item among them, however, was the sealed seed.

Wang Mu only learned what it was after reading the letter. It was a seed of Thunderlight Grass, and its parent plant was a Fifth-Rank spirit plant.

Uncle Guo's family had gone out of their way to find it after hearing that Wang Mu had become a breeder and had also been breeding Greenleaf Butterflies. In Leihai City, there was a special evolved form of the Greenleaf Butterfly that underwent metamorphosis only after eating Thunderlight Grass. They had sent it specifically so Wang Mu could use it as a reference.

The letter even described in detail how Thunderlight Grass should be cultivated. Those materials alone would have cost at least hundreds of thousands to buy. It could only be said that even though the two families had not seen each other for many years, their correspondence had never ceased, and their feelings had grown richer with time, like wine aging in a cellar.

...

By the very next day, Wang Lingfeng had already delivered seven Devil Leech corpses.

Wang Mu took out a loan and spent a full three billion to purchase a basic Bloodline Extractor.

This device could extract the bloodline contained within a creature's body, and it counted as one of the essential instruments of a breeder. When one encountered the corpse of a rare creature that could not be bred, one could use it to extract the bloodline and then cultivate a new variety within a similar species.

In the early years, there had not been many spirit beasts that humans could contract. The profusion seen today had mostly been created by breeders using demon beast bloodlines.

The problem, however, was that demon beast ferocity ran deep. Wang Mu roughly estimated the cost. By the time he finished analyzing the Devil Leech's bloodline and researching a way to neutralize its viciousness, he would likely need to breed and sell two full batches of spirit butterflies just to cover the expense.

There was another option as well: deal directly with the military. The spirit beasts under their command were usually even more ferocious, because they deliberately preserved part of a demon beast’s savage nature, giving them tremendous combat power. Their research into Bloodline Purification Elixirs was also exceptionally advanced.

After thinking it over, Wang Mu decided against any long-term supply contract with the Shanhai City military. He would only be staying here a few years before leaving, so signing such an agreement would be rather unfair. Better to simply buy a few doses of the elixir. In any case, he did not need to breed many new spirit beasts. What he truly needed were the Devil Leech's spells.

This demon beast possessed the innate spell Bloodline Plunder. By absorbing a higher bloodline, it could seize the target's innate spell. Yet in the natural world, it could not possibly defeat high-rank demon beasts, while feeding on lower-rank ones brought little benefit, so it never amounted to much.

Breeders had already researched the Devil Leech long ago and had even bred similar spirit beasts from it. Unfortunately, the results were far from ideal. The records Wang Mu had read showed that once a new spirit beast tried to absorb a bloodline more than two levels above its own, the attempt would fail.

That... was uselessly mediocre.

Truly mediocre.

But it suited Qingling perfectly.

Wang Mu needed a great many spells in reserve. The Greenwood Treant remained herbivorous only before the Fourth Rank. After that, it would begin hunting on its own, because otherwise the energy required for growth simply would not be enough.

At that point, Wang Mu would certainly be buying all sorts of demon beast corpses and burying them in the soil for Qingling to absorb. If that was the case, then giving it Bloodline Plunder would absolutely bring Wang Mu a great many unique innate spells.

After finishing the transaction with the military representative the next day, Wang Mu immersed himself in breeding once more.

The Bloodline Extractor drew the Devil Leech's bloodline out, and Wang Mu then fed it to the Serpent Vines. Spirit beasts were rather strange creatures. Though different species had reproductive isolation, the fusion of their bloodlines could still produce bizarre effects.

Take the Serpent Vine, for example. After fusing with a demon beast bloodline, some specimens would fail outright and show no change at all. Others would endure it, fall into a slumbering evolution, and awaken with a new ability. That process required time, or else one needed to use a Catalyst.

But for Wang Mu, that was not very practical. He intended to go straight to the finished result and simply obtain a secret realm one day—not because it was too expensive, of course.

Bloodline fusion was a matter of luck. One could not force it.

Fortunately, the Serpent Vines in the breeding center had already reproduced on their own, leaving Wang Mu enough specimens for his experiments.

Wang Mu was thankful to have been born in a comparatively good era. There were references for so many things now, and the literature he had read gave him ample confidence.

About twenty days later, the Serpent Vines finished evolving one after another. Two of them had both gained the Bloodline Plunder talent. Wang Mu immediately shared it with Qingling. With that spell in hand, he could now skip the whole process of first breeding a spirit beast and then fusing its bloodline. He could go straight to the result.

During that same stretch of time, Wang Mu also purchased all kinds of demon beast corpses. He intended to become a Breeder within three years, and if he wanted to continue progressing quickly afterward, then a vast store of spells would be his foundation. The basic conditions had already been met.

It was time to start building up his forces.

Shanhai City's geographical conditions were excellent. Nearby stood high mountains and great rivers. Though the region was dangerous, when the city was first founded, the Shanhai Overlord had already cleared out every demon beast above the Seventh Rank. After that, every year, Sixth- and Seventh-Rank Beast Tamers would continue eliminating those that reached those levels. Because of that, the area remained very safe.

Every day, Beast Tamers went out into the wild for training, and their spoils were sold to all kinds of shops.

In only four short days, Wang Mu pushed Qingling all the way to the Fourth Rank while also gathering the common spells of the common attributes. At the same time, two thousand new Greenleaf Butterfly eggs began hatching.

This time, the number of spell combinations Wang Mu arranged was much larger, and the number of experimental subjects also increased accordingly, leaving him almost endlessly busy.

In truth, however, the scale of the operation did not look all that large. For two thousand Greenleaf Caterpillars, all he needed were a few layers of mesh screens, divided into sections by attribute and fed different foods.

The intelligent network marked each individual, Wang Mu mentally input the spells to be shared, and then everything proceeded under ordinary feeding and care. After that, all he needed to do was wait half a month for the results.

The purpose of doing it this way was first to筛选 out the more outstanding varieties on a massive scale, then choose the best of the best and use them to breed Commander-rank spirit butterflies.

As for the contract he had with the Association, Contract One had already been completed outright. As for Contract Two, some Beast Tamers had already brought their Silver Butterflies over. Unfortunately, they had not treated those Silver Butterflies as primary contracted pets, so they had raised only their levels. They had reached the Third Rank, but their spells had hardly changed at all.

There was good news too, however.

It had been nearly two months since the first batch of spirit butterflies had been sold. Veteran Beast Tamers were as steady as old hounds, but novice Beast Tamers came eagerly for their follow-up visits, and most of their spirit butterflies had already advanced one spell from Beginner to Proficient.

Among the novices who bought spirit beasts from Wang Mu, almost all of them had a Beast Tamer parent behind them. The early stage of raising a spirit beast was not difficult. So long as Wang Mu could harvest three Mastery-level spells over the next three years, he would profit greatly. At a normal pace, even working alone, he might not have been able to match that progress himself.

And if other people's spirit butterflies had reached the Third Rank, that also meant most of Wang Mu's own spirit butterflies had arrived there as well.

So Wang Mu began browsing the spell crystal exchange list in the Association.

He had 1,500 points.

A mid-tier spell cost 100 points, and only one crystal of each kind could be bought. High-tier spells were also available for exchange, each costing 1,000 points. Wang Mu was deeply tempted, and he acted on that temptation as well.

The high-tier spell Mental Interference could, if used skillfully, render one invisible and undetectable, mislead an enemy's judgment, or even create illusions. At deeper levels, it could directly rewrite the target's perception.

The high-tier spell Mental Crush was a purely offensive spell. Against an opponent of the same rank who lacked mental resistance, it could kill instantly.

The high-tier spell Deception was another mental spell. It disguised a target and produced a deceptive effect—for example, disguising a powerful spell as an ordinary one.

Wang Mu's eyes were dazzled. He wanted everything, but he could only buy one.

After weighing it over and over, he could only reluctantly give up on the mental path and choose a wood-attribute spell instead. That was Qingling's native element, and it also suited both the Greenleaf Butterfly and the Oddshroom.

The Greenleaf Butterfly was clearly the breakthrough that would make him a Breeder.