Chapter 8: The Drunkard

Only after Wang Mu had brought him to the living quarters did he begin explaining, "This one counts as an internal benefit. Anyone who buys a spirit beast from the Qingmu Breeding Center and meets the requirements can earn the qualification through completing tasks."

Wang Lingfeng had no objections to this arrangement at all. He had no intention of interfering. After all, he was only older, not someone from within the breeding profession, and giving blind advice in a field he did not understand would only do harm.

Now, with Xiao Jin in his arms, all he wanted was to wait for it to emerge from the cocoon.

Wang Mu watched him for a moment, then shook his head slightly and had a robot bring over an Azure Jade Butterfly cocoon. "This Azure Jade Butterfly will emerge the morning after tomorrow. Take it first as a temporary transition."

"Ordinarily, only odd-numbered levels grant an additional spirit beast contract slot. But if your mental power is strong enough, you can contract a few more. Xiao Jin is a mental-type spirit beast, so it can strengthen your mental power."

"In a few years, I should be able to breed Commander-rank spirit beasts."

Wang Lingfeng's feelings grew even more complicated. What he had been thinking about on the way home had indeed become reality. His own son had already arranged everything for him. How should he put it? It felt wonderful. In other families, children lived off their elders. In his case, it had reversed completely.

Wang Mu cast another glance at Xiao Jin, said nothing, and left the room directly.

To be honest, the parents he had in this life had truly treated him beyond reproach. They were such an ordinary family, yet when he had been only five or six years old, they had still been willing to spend tens of thousands to support his experiments.

They had also been willing to let him keep all manner of spirit beasts at home. That had been inside the house itself. If even the slightest accident had happened, prison would have been the only possible outcome.

And yet, they had placed absolute trust in Wang Mu. They had never interfered in fields they did not understand, never raised him through suppression, and once Wang Mu succeeded, they had actively helped him think of solutions, sell spirit beasts, and even let him keep his own savings. Had Wang Mu not been someone living a second life instead of a real child, he probably would have shown his feelings far more openly long ago.

Still, Wang Mu had his own way of expressing such things.

In this world, extraordinary power truly existed. The lives of ordinary people had not changed all that much, but the moment beast-taming resources were involved, everything became exceedingly precious. Wang Mu intended to use the path of the breeder as his breakthrough point, seize resources, and raise the strength of his family.

Power was the eternal refrain.

Breeders sounded like a support profession, but in truth, once one reached the Breeder tier and established a secret realm of one's own, one could raise spirit beasts on a massive scale. Even setting aside a Breeder's network of connections, they themselves possessed tremendous strength.

Otherwise, why would those Beast Tamers show such respect to Breeders?

Personal strength mattered, but one also needed someone to stand as the public face of one's brand. At the initial stage, Wang Lingfeng would do just fine. No matter how ordinary his aptitude might be, if enough resources were piled onto him, reaching the Fifth Rank would still be possible.

Inside the incubation room, a new batch of Greenleaf Caterpillars had already begun developing. In most professions, the initial stage always required a great deal of toil, and Wang Mu was no exception. He sold off his entire first batch in exchange for funds, ensuring that the account books would always hold enough money to purchase whatever materials he needed.

As for the second batch, half would be sold, and half would be handed over to the Association.

After a child was born, every family could choose to pay into the fund for fifteen consecutive years. Then, in the year that child turned sixteen, they could go to the Breeders Association and receive a spirit beast of their own. The starting point was always an Elite-rank spirit beast, one capable of breaking through to Level 4 on its own.

Wang Mu's Azure Jade Butterfly and Silver Butterfly had only reached that qualification after sharing mid-tier skills. The Association would never "accept trash." One had to understand that spirit beasts handed over to the Association were converted into points, which could then be exchanged for internally restricted resources.

Things like spell crystals could only be obtained that way.

Under normal circumstances, the Association did not accept insect-type spirit beasts, because any family capable of paying that enormous price would never choose such a spirit beast in the first place. But a mental-type spirit beast with Mental Scan was another matter entirely. Even Beast Tamers of the Sixth or Seventh Rank would deliberately keep one.

One should never underestimate the place of support-types in the lineup of a mature Beast Tamer.

If Wang Mu could acquire the spell Mental Link as well, allowing a spirit beast to directly share what it saw with other targets, then even an Elite-rank Silver Butterfly could be sold for the price of an ordinary Beast King-rank cub.

Wang Mu still remembered that when he was twelve years old, a spirit beast with spatial abilities had been discovered in the neighboring Yunmeng Marsh. A full seven Breeding Masters had descended upon the place. Wang Mu never learned what the final outcome had been, but during that period, the flow of people through Shanhai City had surged dramatically, and his mother Jiang Meiqin had ended up working continuous overtime.

His father, on the other hand, had been unusually free those few days, because the demon beasts outside the city had all been casually killed by the powerful experts passing through.

Wang Mu was currently considering which secret realm to choose. Now that he had passed the assessment, he possessed one opportunity to enter a secret realm, though there were not many options. Only three.

Secret Realm No. 1 was a water domain, filled with large numbers of water-attribute spirit beasts.

Secret Realm No. 2 was a constantly active volcano, home to many earth- and fire-attribute spirit beasts, as well as some elemental-type spirit beasts.

Secret Realm No. 3 was known as Little Shanhai. It was a forest, and practically every attribute of spirit beast could be found there. One could even obtain fairy-type spirit beasts there. It was a good place, but Wang Mu had not chosen them as targets. Their growth cycle was far too long. For a Grass Sprite to evolve into a Flower Sprite took at least ten years. Without a secret realm of one's own, he had no business coveting them.

Wang Mu's goal was clear. Based on his own current circumstances, he had decided to bring out one pair of Jadefeather Birds and one Hundred-Flower Bee Queen.

The Jadefeather Bird was a large avian spirit beast, emerald green from head to tail, as bright as jade, and thus it had earned its name. An adult could grow to five meters in height, making it more than capable of carrying a person in flight. At the same time, it possessed Tree Armor and Storm of Pear Blossom Needles, one defensive spell and one offensive spell. Among Excellent-rank spirit beasts, it was considered outstanding.

Most importantly, it could fly and was immune to most toxins. That alone made it enough to rival an Elite-rank spirit beast.

If Wang Mu took them in hand and raised them properly, elevating their bloodline to Elite rank would pose no problem at all. At that point, on the strength of their ability to fly and carry riders alone, the Qingmu Breeding Center would rise to a new level, and the breeding center would no longer be seen as a place that sold nothing but insect-type spirit beasts. It would shed the labels of "cheap" and "low-end."

There was no helping it. If a Beast Tamer had the means, they generally would not choose insect-type spirit beasts.

As for the Hundred-Flower Bee Queen, so long as it was already an adult, it would almost certainly have mated. After that, it no longer needed male bees for reproduction, and it could even produce new queen bees. The Hundred-Flower Honey it brewed could specialize attributes and allow most insect-type spirit beasts to evolve.

The Greenleaf Butterfly lineage's Adaptability talent was simply too powerful. One could almost throw together random combinations and still evolve new variants. What Wang Mu coveted from them were the spells they produced. For him, those were a unique kind of breeding material. Unless he one day mastered every spell in existence, the Greenleaf Butterfly would never become obsolete.

However, both the strength and weakness of the Greenleaf Butterfly lineage lay in Adaptability. No matter what form it evolved into, its descendants would always revert to the original Greenleaf Caterpillar constitution. Wang Mu still needed a spirit beast whose inheritance was stable.

Most elemental-type spirit beasts were like that. They reproduced through fission, and their offspring inherited nearly everything the parent possessed, though the offspring's aptitude almost never surpassed the main body.

Wang Mu scheduled his entry into the secret realm for the day after tomorrow. By then, the first batch of spirit butterflies would mostly have been sold. Entering a secret realm of this kind was completely safe. The spirit beasts inside would not attack humans. One only needed to communicate a little, and they could be taken away. After all, this was a benefit that was being handed out.

In truth, there were even Lord-rank spirit beasts inside the secret realm. But most of them required specific matching foods to be raised properly, and Wang Mu still could not afford such a burden, unless they happened to be plant-type spirit beasts.

Before going to sleep, Wang Mu added an after-sales service clause to the Azure Jade Butterfly and the Silver Butterfly. That was to say, once they reached the Third Rank, they could return and be taught a mid-tier skill, but there were certain conditions.

1. They must have participated in follow-up visits.

2. Their own spirit beast had to bring the skill to the Mastery level. The higher the skill level, the lower the fee.

The requirements were simple to the point of seeming perfunctory. After all, by the time a spirit beast reached the Third Rank, its skills would generally be at least at the Proficient level. To evolve further, it usually needed at least one or two skills to reach Mastery. Wang Mu's purpose was just as simple. He wanted to share those skills.

He still needed to study. Where would he find the time to personally train every spell? By the time that day arrived, his own skill levels would most likely still remain around where they were now. He could only take this sort of clever shortcut.

If even one out of a hundred spirit butterflies handed over to Beast Tamers could bring a skill to a new height, Wang Mu would already profit from it. That meant he would be able to share high-level spells with newly bred spirit beasts.

Now that he had clearly confirmed that highly mastered spells could trigger evolution, he naturally intended to develop that advantage with all his strength.

A few years ago, when Wang Mu first understood this, he had once considered buying aged spirit beasts. He had not needed their combat power, only their high spell attainments. But if a wild spirit beast possessed high-level skills, then it would inevitably be very powerful.

And spirit beasts raised by Beast Tamers would not be sold even when they grew old.

Some spirit beasts whose masters had fallen in battle would instead guard their master's family, while others would be taken in by the authorities.

High-grade spirit beasts possessed no small degree of intelligence. It was entirely natural for them to give certain privileges to their own kind. True Breeders could apply to foster such spirit beasts that had lost their masters, but by the time Wang Mu reached that level, he would no longer need them.

He slept dreamlessly.

At four o'clock the next morning, because of the special nature of the Greenleaf Butterfly lineage, the breeding center opened for business. The normally deserted western district suddenly filled with vehicles, all of them parking in the lot near the Qingmu Breeding Center.

That was considered standard. Every breeding center could drive the development of an entire district, so the public facilities were always complete. This, too, existed for the convenience of breeders.

Because it was so early, Wang Mu still had not gotten up. Wang Lingfeng was watching over Xiao Jin, and, with Wang Mu's prior instructions in mind, he did not personally receive any guests. Intelligent robots handled all navigation, issuing each customer a numbered token according to the order of arrival.

In truth, none of the spirit butterflies would emerge from their cocoons today. This was merely to let the buyers become familiar with the process. Of course, if someone made their selection today, the deal could still be completed immediately, and they could return tomorrow to contract the spirit beast on site.

When Zhang Tiancheng arrived with his daughter, he discovered that there were already more than a hundred people waiting in the reception hall. Most of them were parents who had brought their children, though there were also some who had come alone to make a purchase.

Zhang Wenting looked at the crowd and whispered, "Dad, we didn't come too late, did we? It's only five o'clock, and we're already number ninety-two. They're only up to number twenty-six right now."

Zhang Tiancheng looked toward the service counter run by the intelligent robots. One could see the displayed qualifications there, among them Wang Mu's portrait, registered with the Breeders Association as a High-Level Breeder at the age of only sixteen.

So, in answer to his daughter's question, he said, "Not late, but not early either. Some people came early for reasons that had nothing to do with the spirit beasts alone."