[Beast Tamer]: Mutated Green-Red Tiger
[Attribute]: Metal
[Current Age]: Thirty-five years
[Species Potential]: Thousand years
[Species Skill]: Metal Spirit Power (Locked)
[Evolution Direction]: None
[Soul Beasts Recorded in the Manual]: 1 (View)
The instant he saw these things, Xu Bai instinctively understood some of the Manual's functions.
It had two functions. The first was recording Soul Beasts.
It could record any Soul Beast he saw and touched, and the Manual would display basic information about the recorded Soul Beast.
Each time he recorded a new kind of Soul Beast, Xu Bai would also be rewarded with increased spiritual power.
The second function was deduction. Xu Bai could spend spiritual power to deduce the evolution paths of contracted Soul Beasts and recorded Soul Beasts, as well as ways to increase their cultivation speed.
It was an absurdly powerful ability.
With this ability, combined with the special nature of his Beast Taming Space Martial Soul, his path to godhood would probably be just a little easier than an ordinary person's.
My second Beast Taming talent really is my cheat, Xu Bai thought.
As someone who was technically a native of Douluo Continent but not quite, he hadn't received the protagonist treatment of awakening Twin Martial Souls.
But he had received the protagonist treatment of the Beast Taming World. When he awakened his Beast Taming Space Martial Soul, he had also awakened two Beast Taming talents.
The first was "Telepathy," a talent that let him communicate normally with any living creature.
The second was this Manual floating in his Sea of Consciousness. It was practically an alternative kind of system.
According to Douluo Continent's rules for Soul Beasts, without the Manual, the only way for him to grow stronger would be to contract Soul Beasts that were already fully grown and combat-ready as pets. At every stage, he would also need someone's help to capture them.
Otherwise, if he waited for the Soul Beasts to grow naturally, even with his Beast Taming Space Martial Soul slightly accelerating their cultivation, he might never live to see a single one reach a thousand years.
Now, things were different. The Manual could not only deduce a Soul Beast's evolution path, but also ways to speed up its cultivation.
Even if he was unlucky and didn't find another "first come, first served" creature, and ended up choosing low-intelligence, slow-growing plant Soul Beasts as pets, he could still grow stronger.
It would simply take longer and be more troublesome.
"Time to get out of here. If I dawdle any longer, it'll be dark."
Steeling himself, Xu Bai glanced at the sky and saw the sunset hanging low, casting a yellow glow across the horizon.
He quickly turned around and carefully retraced his steps out.
Half an hour later, Xu Bai finally made it out of the Hengduan Mountain Range and spotted signs of human habitation.
Only after crossing over had he learned that Star Dou Great Forest, Sunset Forest, and the Far North weren't the only places in Douluo Continent where wild Soul Beasts gathered.
There were many other medium- and small-sized wild Soul Beast habitats scattered throughout the continent.
The Hengduan Mountain Range, where he had just been, was one of the medium-sized habitats.
Thankfully, there were places like these. Otherwise, to contract his first pet, he would have had to make do with Blue Silver Grass or risk venturing into Star Dou Great Forest.
But that would have been far too dangerous.
In medium- and small-sized Soul Beast habitats like this one, the Soul Beasts on the outskirts were no more than a hundred years old.
But in large habitats like Star Dou Great Forest, it wasn't impossible to encounter a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast on the outskirts. Thousand-year Soul Beasts were everywhere, and if you were unlucky enough to run into a stampede, you were done for.
Given how much Xu Bai valued his own life, if not for his good Second Uncle, he would have started wondering whether he should first throw in his lot with Spirit Hall.
After hurrying all the way, Xu Bai finally arrived home.
Fortunately, the old butler had prepared plenty of valuables before they fled.
After pawning them, young Xu Bai had nearly a thousand Gold Soul Coins.
He had bought this little courtyard and covered two years of food, drink, and other expenses. Now, he figured he had only six or seven hundred left.
But that was still a substantial sum. It was about as much as a Soul Grandmaster received in five or six years of subsidies.
Still, for a profession as money-hungry as Beast Tamer sounded, those Gold Soul Coins seemed like a drop in the ocean.
"I'll worry about money later. The priority now is to raise the little guy's strength."
Thinking this, Xu Bai opened the panel with a thought.
Then he tapped "View" beside "Soul Beasts Recorded in the Manual."
The Manual's display changed:
[Current Soul Beasts Recorded in the Manual]: 5
Mutated Green-Red Tiger (Expand)
Blue Silver Grass (Expand)
Green Vine (Expand)
The four additions were naturally the Soul Beasts Xu Bai had recorded while leaving the Hengduan Mountain Range.
The rewards were generous. Just by recording these five Soul Beasts, Xu Bai felt his spiritual power had increased by twenty or thirty percent.
Unfortunately, the prerequisites for recording a Soul Beast included having to touch it. Otherwise, he would have recorded far more than these five on his way back.
He shook his head slightly, then tapped the Mutated Green-Red Tiger's entry to expand its details.
[Name]: Mutated Green-Red Tiger
[Attribute]: Metal
[Species Potential]: Thousand years
[Evolution Path]: None
[Introduction]: Its bloodline may have reverted to an ancestral form. It lost its original wood attribute and gained the more aggressively lethal metal attribute.
Note: Spend a large amount of spiritual power to deduce its evolution path and method? (Yes/No)
Spend a small amount of spiritual power to deduce its cultivation method? (Yes/No)
Seeing this, Xu Bai didn't hesitate. With a thought, he tapped "Yes" beside the option to deduce its cultivation method.
The next moment, the display changed:
[Note]: Begin deducing the first-stage cultivation method? (Yes/No)
Xu Bai tapped "Yes" again.
The display changed once more. This time, a screen resembling a webpage loading appeared, with a line of small text beneath it.
Cultivation method deduction in progress...
As time passed, Xu Bai felt his spiritual power being drained away. The lively look he'd had after his spiritual power increased gradually faded, and he became listless.
He didn't know how long it took. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and sharp, tearing pains came and went in his head. At last, the cultivation method finished loading.
[First Stage]: Unlock the species skill, Metal Spirit Power.
[Method]: Magnets seem to contain a trace of metallic energy. Grind them into powder and apply it to the Soul Beast. This can effectively increase the chance of awakening its species skill. Apply once in the morning and once at night; one hour each time works best.
Xu Bai: ????
Xu Bai: !!!!
No, I spent this much spiritual power, and all you deduced was one sentence?
The "small amount" of spiritual power mentioned in the Manual had drained nearly half of his reserves. What about deducing an evolution path, which was marked as costing a large amount?
Wouldn't that drain him completely dry?
Xu Bai's mouth twitched. He felt like cursing.
But in the end, he held back all those refined and courteous words, because he realized he was being a little ungrateful.
Thinking it over, if he'd had to figure out that one sentence himself, even working quickly, it would probably have taken him ten days or half a month. If he was slow, he might never have thought of it in his entire life.
He'd been unable to see the forest for the trees.
Take artemisinin, for example. Who would have thought that malaria—which could kill tens of thousands of people in a single outbreak—could be cured with artemisinin extracted from sweet wormwood?
And yet it had taken a full five years to discover and develop artemisinin.