The Feeling of Poverty

The next morning, at dawn.

Xu Bai opened his eyes, feeling refreshed. After a night of sleep, his mental energy, which had been nearly exhausted, had miraculously returned to a full state.

"That was close, I almost did myself in. Good thing I'm lucky."

He felt a lingering fear; he felt that yesterday's situation was the closest he had come to death since transmigrating.

"I can't be that careless in the future."

Xu Bai made a silent resolution to himself, then took a deep breath, instantly casting those unpleasant feelings to the back of his mind.

One shouldn't let such messy things ruin a perfectly good day.

"Speaking of which, my mental energy recovered so quickly—could I have some kind of special constitution in this life?"

Having cast aside the fear of death, Xu Bai's mind began to wander again.

Douluo Continent was a world that emphasized bloodlines, and there didn't seem to be any concept of a "special constitution."

If one had to look for a special constitution, one could only think in terms of Body Martial Souls.

Just like the protagonist of the next version, Huo Yuhao, whose Body Martial Soul was the Spirit Eyes—wasn't he born with powerful mental energy?

Yet, he could state with certainty that he only had one martial soul, including any that had yet to form.

"Could it be because I'm a transmigrator?"

Thinking of this, Xu Bai couldn't help but smile.

The excuse of being a transmigrator was just as versatile as quantum mechanics.

When you couldn't find the reason for something, you just pushed it onto that; regardless of anything else, it at least made things relatively reasonable.

Lost in thought, Xu Bai got up and was about to step off the bed when his gaze lowered. He saw Diyi quietly lying by the bedside, dozing, as if it had been guarding him.

Hearing movement, Diyi suddenly lifted its head. When it saw Xu Bai sitting up, a look of surprise and joy erupted in its eyes.

'Beast Tamer, what happened to you yesterday...'

Diyi let out a worried whimper.

Yesterday, when it saw Xu Bai rush into the bedroom, it assumed the Beast Tamer was going to rest.

It wasn't until late at night, when it was starving and wanted to ask the Beast Tamer for some food, that it realized something was wrong. No matter how it called, he wouldn't wake up, and his face was frighteningly pale.

It was only a soul beast, and its awakened racial skill was merely the control of metal elements; it had no way to help an unconscious Beast Tamer.

Helpless, it could only guard his side, praying for him to wake up.

Even if the worst happened and the Beast Tamer didn't make it, it wanted to be there to hear his final wishes during his last moments of clarity.

Fortunately, it had worried for nothing. Not only was the Beast Tamer fine, but looking at him now, he was as full of life as ever.

"This was an accident; it won't happen again." Xu Bai offered a grateful smile.

Last night, his mental energy had been nearly depleted. If Diyi had wanted to, it could have easily broken free from the shackles of the contract and acted like an ingrate.

However, the result was clear: Diyi hadn't betrayed him, but had instead guarded him the entire time. It was worth the effort he had spent exhausting his mental energy to deduce its training methods.

After briefly comforting Diyi, Xu Bai turned his attention to the notebook.

Last night, he had been too desperate to save his life to look at the results of the deduction. Now, he wanted to see what kind of result could have cost him his life.

[Second Stage]: Produce Spirit Ascension Liquid, which can accelerate the cultivation speed of soul beasts under a thousand years.

[Required Materials]: Fire Soul Crystal, Blood Crystal Flower, Century Spirit Ascension Grass, Century Docile Ox Milk...

[Production Method]: Calcine the Blood Crystal Flower with the Fire Soul Crystal until impurities are removed...

[Usage Method]: Once every seven days, one portion at a time.

After briefly reading through the entire contents of the notebook, Xu Bai fell silent.

There was one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.

The good news was that he recognized all the required materials and generally knew their market prices.

The bad news was that he couldn't afford to play this game; he couldn't even afford the materials for a single portion of the liquid.

Even the cheapest items on the list cost ten gold soul coins each, and those were only a few.

To gather the dozens of different materials on the list, he roughly estimated that he would need at least fifteen hundred gold soul coins.

'What's wrong, Beast Tamer?'

Noticing Xu Bai's inexplicably bitter expression, Diyi looked at him with confusion.

"It's nothing." Xu Bai smiled helplessly and reached out to rub Diyi's head. "I'm planning to go order some training equipment for you. Is there anything else you need right now?"

Upon hearing this, Diyi first showed a look of surprise, which then turned into shyness as its tail swept slightly.

'Well, Beast Tamer, I haven't eaten for almost a day...'

It tried to use this indirect way of expressing itself to hide the fact that it was a glutton.

But its longing eyes and twitching nose honestly betrayed it.

Xu Bai was stunned, only then remembering that he hadn't prepared any food for Diyi yesterday.

Under normal circumstances, skipping a meal or two wouldn't matter; he could just treat it as dieting.

But during a rapid growth phase like the one Diyi was experiencing, a constant supply of external energy was essential. If that supply were interrupted, the body would be forced to consume its own source energy to compensate for the deficit caused by the rapid growth.

This was a conclusion Xu Bai had read in a fragmented experimental notebook at the branch hall.

However, the subject of the experiments recorded in the notebook was a Soul Master, and Xu Bai felt that it should be roughly the same when applied to a Soul Beast.

It was a pity that the notebook wasn't complete; it only contained a few sets of experimental data and conclusions, without any of the actual experimental processes.

If it had been complete, it might well have been a cultivation technique for accelerating a Soul Master's progress.

Xu Bai shook his head to clear his mind of distracting thoughts and looked at Diyi gently. "Let's go. I'll go make you some food right now. After you eat, I'll give you a good wash. Look at how dirty you are; you've made my room all black."

Finally, I get to eat! I'm starving to death!

Diyi's eyes lit up, and it followed its Beastmaster closely into the kitchen, terrified that if it lost focus for even a second, he might slip away.

After a hearty meal and scrubbing Diyi clean, Xu Bai returned it to his Beast Space at its request.

Compared to being outside, Diyi felt that sleeping in the Beast Space was much more comfortable. Not only could it recover its energy, but it could also slowly accelerate its growth rate—truly living the life of eating until full and sleeping until satisfied.

The only drawback was that the Beast Space was empty and monotonous, lacking a bit of life's color.

Xu Bai looked over at the Blue Silver Grass in the corner. Compared to yesterday, it was clearly much more lush, its verdant leaves swaying in the breeze and looking exceptionally eye-catching.

However, it seemed that because it needed to absorb the Hundred Herb Liquid, the Blue Silver Grass had also fallen into a deep slumber.

After Xu Bai deactivated his telepathy, the courtyard lacked its usual cheerful sounds. The environment was so quiet that he found himself a bit unaccustomed to it.

He withdrew his gaze and, without further delay, stepped out of the small courtyard and headed straight for the blacksmith shop in the west of the city.

Equipment for training "Metal Spirit Power" naturally had to start with ironware.

Xu Bai planned to have the blacksmith forge iron balls of various weights, along with iron spikes and throwing knives.

Clearly, the iron balls were for training Diyi's control, while the iron spikes and throwing knives were, naturally, intended as early-stage offensive means—a little cosplay of a certain hidden-weapon master surnamed Tang.