When Xu Bai got home, he brought First out again. It was still asleep, its body rising and falling in a steady rhythm. It was rather amusing to watch.
He didn't disturb it and instead continued studying the Manual in his mind.
He opened the entry for the Mutated Green-Red Tiger among the recorded Soul Beasts. After staring for a long while at the "Yes" beside "Deduce Evolution Route," he finally decided not to do anything reckless and left it untouched.
Then he opened the option for deducing a cultivation method. The screen displayed:
[Begin Second-Stage Cultivation Deduction]
[Condition]: Complete at least one first-stage cultivation.
"Ugh, why does the second stage have an unlock condition too?"
Xu Bai sighed and glanced once more at First, sleeping by his feet. "I wonder how long it'll take First to unlock its racial skill. What if it takes ten days or half a month? Wouldn't all the extra mental power I recover each day go to waste?"
Yesterday, deducing the first stage had consumed most of his mental power. But, to Xu Bai's astonishment, after just one night's sleep, it had recovered nearly all the way by morning, and he'd woken up feeling full of energy.
He didn't know why a single night's sleep was enough to restore most of his depleted mental power, but he did know that he couldn't store the power he recovered.
If he didn't use it all up today, he'd have just as much tomorrow. It was a downright bloodbath for his wallet!
"Forget it, forget it. A loss is a loss. I can't risk my life by deducing an evolution route."
Xu Bai shook his head and was about to get up and prepare lunch when a childish voice sounded by his ear. "It's so dark and ugly."
Xu Bai started and spun around, but there wasn't a Soul Beast behind him.
That voice had come through his Telepathy talent. In other words, a Soul Beast had just spoken.
He'd activated Telepathy as soon as he arrived. He'd originally wanted to have a heart-to-heart with First, but while their life talk hadn't panned out, he'd unexpectedly discovered an uninvited guest.
His gaze swept over the entire courtyard, but he didn't see a thing.
Xu Bai furrowed his brow slightly.
What was going on? How could there be another Soul Beast in his home? This was a human city, wasn't it? How dare that Soul Beast come here?
Even if it could turn invisible, it shouldn't be this brazen. If a One-Ring Soul Master like him couldn't sense it, did that mean Soul Kings and Soul Emperors couldn't either?
Huangshan City was a medium-sized city. Both the city lord and the head of the Spirit Hall Branch were Soul Emperors, and there were plenty of Soul Kings. As far as Xu Bai knew, at least two Soul Kings guarded the city wall.
"Whatever the reason, I should make myself scarce first..."
Xu Bai muttered to himself. He raised his hand and put First back into the Beast Taming Space, then prepared to leave as if nothing were wrong.
He hadn't gone far when the childish voice sounded by his ear again. "Why did the ugly guy suddenly disappear? And what's that bad guy going to do?"
"Bad guy? Is it talking about me?" Xu Bai stopped, his expression turning playful.
This Soul Beast knew him, and from the way it sounded, he'd even managed to offend it?
But when had he ever offended another Soul Beast?
Had he done it by accident in the Hengduan Mountain Range, or...
Xu Bai suddenly thought of something. His gaze snapped to the corner of the courtyard in the southwest, where a tender sprig of Blue Silver Grass had just emerged from the soil.
"It grew back?" Xu Bai raised his brows slightly.
When he'd first bought this little courtyard, it had been covered in weeds. There'd also been a clump of Blue Silver Grass in that spot. When he'd cleared the weeds, he'd pulled it up without a second thought.
He hadn't expected Blue Silver Grass to be so resilient. Even after being pulled up by the roots, it had grown back.
"But was it really the one speaking?" Xu Bai wasn't convinced.
Blue Silver Grass was the most common Soul Beast on the Douluo Continent. He'd never seen a hundred-year-old one, but, as a Beast Tamer with the Telepathy talent, he knew better than anyone what a ten-year-old Blue Silver Grass could understand.
They could only express simple things like "I'm cold," "I'm hot," or "I'm thirsty." Anything more complicated was beyond them.
But whoever had spoken just now had been far more articulate than that.
Just then, the voice sounded again. "Is that bad guy looking at me? From his expression, does he want to pull me up again?
"Waaah, that bad guy is so mean. It took me forever to grow back..."
"It really is you!" Xu Bai exclaimed, hurrying over.
Blue Silver Grass was common, but he'd never seen one with such high intelligence before.
Xu Bai crouched down in front of it and reached out.
"Waaah~ don't..."
As the large hand drew closer, the Blue Silver Grass let out a despairing wail.
But the pain of being pulled out by the roots never came. Instead, it felt a push, and it swayed in place a few times against its will.
"So it's another mutant. No wonder it's so intelligent. I thought it might be the Blue Silver King or the Blue Silver Emperor."
Xu Bai drew his hand back and focused his thoughts on the Manual in the Sea of Divine Consciousness.
[Name]: Mutated Blue Silver Grass.
[Attribute]: Wood, Life
[Racial Potential]: Millennium
[Evolution Route]: None
[Introduction]: Even in the depths of despair, a spark of life remains. This is a mutated variety of Blue Silver Grass that has been reborn from death, with a terrifyingly low occurrence rate of one in ten million.
Note: Consume a small amount of mental power to deduce an evolution route and method? (Yes/No).
Consume a small amount of mental power to deduce a cultivation method? (Yes/No).
"No wonder I never noticed it before. Its intelligence must have only improved recently."
Xu Bai clicked his tongue in amazement as he studied the Manual. "Its racial potential has improved too. The Manual gives ordinary Blue Silver Grass a potential of ten years, but this one's jumped straight to a millennium. It's almost caught up with the Blue Silver King."
Blue Silver Grass became a king at ten thousand years and an emperor at a hundred thousand. Xu Bai reckoned that Blue Silver Grass, the Blue Silver King, and the Blue Silver Emperor probably weren't all the same species. At the very least, the Manual would surely list them separately.
"But I guess my luck's pretty good. It hasn't even been that long, and I've already run into two mutated Soul Beasts. If this were a Beast Taming novel, I'd be the protagonist, no question."
Xu Bai felt rather pleased with himself, and even his gaze toward the Blue Silver Grass grew much kinder.
"Forget it. I'm free anyway, so I'll spend today's mental power on you."
With that thought, Xu Bai shifted his gaze to the Manual. He was about to tap the option for deducing a cultivation method when he suddenly noticed something was off.
"Consume a small amount of mental power to deduce an evolution route and method..."
Xu Bai read the line word by word and confirmed he hadn't misread it.
Wasn't deducing an evolution route supposed to consume a large amount of mental power? Why had it become a small amount?
As soon as the question arose in his mind, some information inexplicably appeared in his head.
The information was about the Manual's other functions—or, more precisely, its instructions.
Only then did he learn that the mental power consumed by deduction depended on how much Xu Bai knew about the Soul Beast being studied.
Xu Bai might not know much about other Soul Beasts, but he knew Blue Silver Grass all too well.
That said, his knowledge was purely theoretical. He knew what direction Blue Silver Grass could evolve in, but he knew nothing about how to actually cultivate it.
That was why the mental power cost of deducing an evolution route and method had decreased, while the cost of deducing a cultivation method had stayed the same.