"Great, the courtyard's quiet again."
Looking at the sleeping Little Blue and First, who was cultivating inside the Beast Taming Space, Xu Bai gave a self-mocking smile.
"Since you two have things to do, I can't just sit around either."
After tidying up the courtyard, Xu Bai left home and headed straight to the Spirit Hall Branch in Qinghe City.
Ever since his spiritual power had improved, he hadn't read any books about Soul Beasts for quite some time. Now that he had nothing else to do, it was the perfect chance to get back to his old hobby.
The Spirit Hall in Qinghe City wasn't much different from the one in Qingshan City. It felt like they'd both been built from the same designer's plans.
After showing his Soul Master certification, Xu Bai easily found the library, having done this sort of thing before.
The library's furnishings and decorations were exactly like those in Huangshan City. The books, of course, were different.
And the books that differed were precisely the ones Xu Bai needed: books about Soul Beasts. The books about Soul Masters were still limited to basic common knowledge.
It really was a dark, corrupt feudal society.
Even a force like Spirit Hall, whose original purpose was to serve Soul Masters everywhere, kept the books Soul Masters truly needed locked away, for fear of undermining its leadership in the Soul Master World.
"The greater your ability, the greater your responsibility. The reverse is also true: the less ability you have, the less responsibility you bear. I'm just a Soul Grandmaster right now. Why worry about all that? I should take care of myself before thinking about anything else."
Xu Bai slowly shook his head, took an unread book from the shelf, found a seat, and spent the whole day reading in silence.
At dusk, he returned home.
Xu Bai glanced at Little Blue in the corner. It was still asleep, faint fluorescent light spilling from the silver stripes on its leaves.
The glow flickered gently, like steady breathing.
Cultivation hadn't stopped in the Beast Taming Space either. The energy vortex above First showed no sign of dissipating; if anything, it seemed ready to grow larger.
"Looks like the Spirit Life Liquid worked pretty well. It even kept First from eating for a whole day."
Xu Bai clicked his tongue, then went to the kitchen and put together a simple dinner.
After eating his fill, he went to bed.
The days trickled by like this, and in the blink of an eye, the seventh day arrived.
Xu Bai had just opened his eyes when he felt an urgent emotion coming from First in the Beast Taming Space, as if it had something important to say.
He'd been quite happy at the thought of First waking up, but the situation made him feel a little uneasy. He hurriedly summoned First.
"What's wrong, First? What could you possibly need to say that you couldn't tell me through the Contract Mark?"
When First appeared and saw its surroundings, its eyes lit up. Then it gave a somewhat bashful cry.
'Um, Beast Tamer, I want something to eat. Could you make me a meal...'
Xu Bai: ?????
"So you were acting all urgent because you wanted to come out and eat?"
'Nothing matters more than eating!'
The Little White Tiger looked righteous.jpg
Xu Bai put a hand to his forehead. "Couldn't you have said that inside the Beast Taming Space? You made me think something terrible had happened."
First blushed. 'I just woke up and wanted to eat. I was afraid you'd get mad, then shut me in the Beast Taming Space and refuse to feed me...'
"So you do know."
Xu Bai shot First, whose face looked a bit like Gong Baiwan's, an exasperated glance. "If I really didn't want to cook for you, would coming out make me change my mind?"
At that, First immediately put on a pitiful expression. 'Beast Tamer, please, I'm hungry...'
Seeing this, Xu Bai shook his head helplessly and gave the Little White Tiger a hard smack on the head. "With a face like that, you don't look anything like the king of all beasts."
'Even if I become the king of Soul Beasts someday, I'll still be like this in front of you, Beast Tamer.' First smiled obsequiously.
Xu Bai narrowed his eyes, satisfied enough with First's flattery. "Fine. I'll let you off today for saying that."
With that, he left the bedroom and headed straight for the kitchen.
First trotted after him happily, its tail swaying gently. It looked like it was about to evolve from a feline into a big yellow dog.
Only after breakfast, when he finally had a moment to himself, did Xu Bai suddenly remember something important.
He glanced at First, who was lying in the courtyard, basking in the sun with a contented look. Then, with a thought, he opened the Manual in his mind:
[Beast Tamer top 1]: Mutated Green-Red Tiger (First) [Attribute]: Metal [Current Age]: 121 years [Species Potential]: 1,000 years [Species Skill]: Metal Spirit Power (Mastery) [Evolution Direction]: Metal Spirit Saint Tiger [Beast Tamer top 2]: Mutated Blue Silver Grass (Little Blue) [Attribute]: ... ... [Current Soul Beasts Recorded in the Manual]: 183 (view)
"An age of 121 years. How old was it before? I think it was 100."
Xu Bai rubbed his chin, his eyes brightening. "So the Spirit Ascension Liquid can increase First's age by about twenty years in seven days..."
At an increase of twenty years every seven days, by that calculation, First would need less than a year to become a thousand-year Soul Beast!
The only cost was the steep price. If everything went smoothly, he'd probably need to invest sixty or seventy thousand Gold Soul Coins.
Sixty or seventy thousand Gold Soul Coins could buy the corpses of dozens of thousand-year Soul Beasts.
But that wasn't important. Those sixty or seventy thousand Gold Soul Coins were buying time for Xu Bai, and time was money!
With First's aptitude, if it cultivated normally, it might take four or five hundred years to reach a thousand years.
But now, Xu Bai only had to spend sixty or seventy thousand Gold Soul Coins to use one year to make up for those four or five hundred years. Wasn't that a huge profit?
Thinking this, Xu Bai shifted his gaze to Little Blue in the corner.
The Manual's instructions for using Thousand Wood Spirit Powder were: "Once every three months, one portion each time."
In other words, Little Blue might remain asleep for three months this time.
Three months... He wondered how many years of age Thousand Wood Spirit Powder, which cost around a thousand Gold Soul Coins, could add to Little Blue.
"I hope the Manual comes through..."
Xu Bai silently prayed to himself.
The days that followed were still simple.
After letting First rest for a day or two, Xu Bai brewed another bottle of Spirit Ascension Liquid for it and sent it back to cultivate in the Beast Taming Space. Meanwhile, Xu Bai, a devoted scholar, continued to lose himself in the ocean of knowledge.
Just like that, three months passed.
The three months should have flown by in a blur, but a minor incident occurred during that time.
A few of the more than three hundred Clear Heart Orange Trees Xu Bai had planted in the Beast Taming Space had advanced into hundred-year Soul Beasts.
There weren't many, but it meant that the rest of the Clear Heart Orange Trees would gradually advance into hundred-year Soul Beasts too.
For other families, this would probably count as good news. For Xu Bai, though, it was bad news.
After all, Hundred Herb Liquid only worked on plant Soul Beasts under a hundred years old. Without it, the trees would no longer bear fruit every six days, and that would affect Xu Bai's little stash of money.
Right at this critical moment, Xu Bai had a sudden flash of inspiration and realized that his cheat might not only be able to deduce things about the Soul Beasts he had contracted...
Looking at the book in his hands, Xu Bai's mouth twitched. He abruptly shut it and tossed it aside.
"Damn it, I've really read myself stupid lately. How did I only just realize this!"