The next morning, at dawn.
Xu Bai opened his eyes, refreshed. After a night's sleep, his nearly depleted spiritual power had miraculously recovered to full strength.
"Damn, I almost got myself killed. Good thing I'm lucky."
He still felt shaken. The situation yesterday had brought him closer to death than anything else since he'd crossed over.
"I can't be so careless again."
Xu Bai silently made up his mind, then took a deep breath and cast all those unpleasant feelings aside.
Nothing should spoil a good day's mood—not this kind of nonsense.
"Come to think of it, my spiritual power recovered so quickly. Could I have some kind of special constitution in this life?"
Once his fear of death had passed, Xu Bai's thoughts started running wild again.
Douluo Continent was a world that valued bloodlines. As far as he knew, there was no such thing as a special constitution.
If he had to find something unusual, the only possibility was his Body Martial Soul.
Take Huo Yuhao, the next version's chosen child of destiny. His Spirit Eyes were his Body Martial Soul, and didn't that mean he'd been born with powerful spiritual power?
But Xu Bai was certain he had only one Martial Soul. Even the one that hadn't yet manifested counted.
"Could it be because I'm a transmigrator?"
At the thought, Xu Bai couldn't help smiling.
"Transmigrator" was as useful an excuse as quantum mechanics.
Whenever something happened and he couldn't figure out why, he could just blame it on that. Never mind the details; it at least made things seem somewhat reasonable.
As Xu Bai's thoughts wandered, he got up and was about to climb out of bed. Lowering his gaze, he saw First curled quietly by the bedside, dozing. It must have been keeping watch over him.
At the sound, First suddenly lifted its head. When it saw Xu Bai sitting up, delight burst into its eyes.
'Beast Tamer, what happened to you yesterday...'
First let out a worried whimper.
Yesterday, when it saw Xu Bai hurry back to his bedroom, it had assumed its Beast Tamer was going to rest.
It wasn't until the middle of the night, when hunger got the better of it and it wanted its Beast Tamer to get it something to eat, that it realized something seemed to have happened. No matter how much it called, it couldn't wake him, and his face was frighteningly pale.
It was only a Soul Beast. Its awakened racial skill could only control metal elements, so it was completely helpless in the face of its unconscious Beast Tamer.
With no other option, it could only stay by its Beast Tamer's side and pray that he would wake up.
Even if the worst happened and its Beast Tamer didn't make it, it could at least learn his final wishes while he was having a brief resurgence before death.
Fortunately, it had been worrying over nothing. Its Beast Tamer was fine—and judging by the way he looked now, he was still full of life.
"This time was an accident. It won't happen again." Xu Bai smiled warmly.
His spiritual power had been nearly depleted last night. If First had wanted to, it could have broken free of the Contract Mark and turned into an ungrateful wretch.
But the outcome was clear. First hadn't betrayed him; instead, it had stayed by his side and guarded him. That made all the spiritual power he'd spent working out a way to raise it well worth it.
After briefly reassuring First, Xu Bai turned his attention to the Manual.
He'd been so busy trying to save his life last night that he hadn't had a chance to read the Manual after completing the deduction. Now he wanted to see what the deduction that had almost cost him his life had produced.
[Second Stage]: Make Spirit Ascension Liquid. It can accelerate the cultivation of Soul Beasts under a thousand years old.
[Required Materials]: Fire Soul Crystal, Blood Crystal Flower, Century Spirit Ascension Grass, Century Docile Ox Milk...
[Method]: Use the Fire Soul Crystal to burn the Blood Crystal Flower until all impurities have been removed...
[Directions]: Once every seven days, one dose each time.
After quickly reading the entire Manual, 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 knew roughly what they cost on the market.
The bad news was that he couldn't afford to play this game. He couldn't even afford the materials for a single dose of Spirit Ascension Liquid.
Even the cheapest ingredients cost ten Gold Soul Coins apiece, and there were only a few of those.
He roughly estimated that gathering the dozens of materials on the list would cost at least fifteen hundred Gold Soul Coins.
'What's wrong, Beast Tamer?'
Noticing the bitter look that had come over Xu Bai's face, First gazed at him in confusion.
"Nothing." Xu Bai smiled helplessly and reached out to rub First's head. "I'm going to have some training equipment made for you. Is there anything you need right now?"
At that, First's eyes lit up with delight, but then the delight turned to shyness, and its tail swished gently.
'Um, Beast Tamer, I haven't eaten in almost a day...'
It tried to phrase it delicately, hoping to hide the fact that it seemed to be a glutton.
But its eager eyes and twitching nose gave it away.
Xu Bai froze, only then remembering that he hadn't prepared any food for First yesterday.
Normally, missing a meal or two wouldn't matter. It would be like going on a diet.
But First was growing rapidly these days, and it needed a constant supply of energy from outside. If that supply fell short, its body would have to consume its own reserves to make up for the energy deficit caused by its rapid growth.
That was the conclusion Xu Bai had found in a damaged experiment log at the branch hall.
However, the experiments recorded in the notebook had been conducted on Soul Masters. Xu Bai figured the results should apply to Soul Beasts as well.
Unfortunately, the notebook was incomplete. It contained only a few sets of experimental data and their conclusions, with none of the experimental procedures.
If it had been complete, it might have been a cultivation method for accelerating Soul Master training.
Xu Bai shook off his stray thoughts and gazed gently at First. "Come on, I'll make you something to eat. After you've finished, I'll give you a good wash. Look how filthy you are—you've made my room filthy too."
I finally get to eat! I was starving to death!
First's eyes shone as it followed its Beast Tamer to the kitchen, afraid that if it let its guard down for even a moment, he might run off.
After a hearty meal and a thorough wash for First, Xu Bai put it back in the Beast Taming Space at its request.
Compared to being outside, First still found it more comfortable to sleep in the Beast Taming Space. There, it could recover its energy and slowly grow faster. It really was eat, sleep, and eat again.
The only downside was that the Beast Taming Space was empty and monotonous, lacking a little color of life.
Xu Bai looked again at the Blue Silver Grass in the corner. Compared to yesterday, it had grown noticeably fuller. Its emerald leaves swayed in the breeze, catching the eye.
However, perhaps because it needed to absorb Hundred Herb Liquid, the Blue Silver Grass had also fallen asleep.
After Xu Bai activated Telepathy, the courtyard was missing its cheerful sounds. The quiet surroundings left him feeling a little unaccustomed to the silence.
He looked away and set off without delay, hurrying out of the courtyard and straight toward the blacksmith's shop in the west of the city.
Naturally, he would start with iron equipment to train his Metal Spirit Power.
Xu Bai planned to have the blacksmith make iron balls of different weights, along with Iron Skewers, throwing knives, and the like.
The iron balls would obviously be for training First's control, while the Iron Skewers and throwing knives would serve as its early offensive weapons—letting it cosplay as some Tang-named Hidden Weapon expert.