Golden-Crowned Thorn Flower Queen

"Haha!" Yue Yang chuckled wickedly to himself. He had only used swallowing live mice as an example; he had not revealed a single bit of Thorn Flower's true secrets.

When a Thorn Flower devoured creatures with different attributes, it would not evolve.

But it could recover a great deal of energy. Especially after feeding for a long time, it could store vast amounts of excess energy and form fruit-like "Thorn Flower Fruit Bottles," hanging one by one from the Thorn Flower and replenishing the main body's energy consumption at any time. If a Thorn Flower wanted to evolve by devouring creatures, it had to consume creatures of the same attribute—the higher their rank, the better.

There was also an unknown taboo in the process of devouring creatures of the same attribute.

If it began by devouring large numbers of same-attribute creatures, then the Thorn Flower was destined never to "mutate"; it could only level up.

Conversely, if the Thorn Flower's first prey was not creatures of the same attribute, but human corpses, then that Thorn Flower would not level up and would only evolve through "mutation"!

The vast majority of creatures on the Dragon Soaring Continent were Ordinary rank. Only a very small number of creatures mutated due to various conditions.

Mutated creatures were far more powerful than ordinary creatures.

Such mutated creatures were also more likely to evolve into Elite-rank monsters. Once they evolved into Elite-rank monsters, their strength would rise terrifyingly. Just like the Summoning Codex, people divided Elite-rank creatures into five major grades: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. With every grade an Elite creature crossed, its strength surged by more than tenfold. Forget Platinum- and Diamond-rank battle beasts—even owning a Bronze-rank battle beast was the dream of countless ordinary people.

"Eating corpses is out of the question. My Life Guardian Beast isn't a Thorn Flower but a War Treant. I only use the Thorn Flower to practice my control techniques for plant-type beasts; I don't use it for combat training." Yue Bing, dressed in black, hurriedly waved her hands in refusal. She could not bear the thought of swallowing a bristly mouse—just imagining it was unbearable!

"What a pity!" Yue Yang secretly laughed. He knew this little girl had no interest in corpse-eating skills.

"Third Brother, tell me more about the 'spore' skill!" Yue Bing in black was definitely a clever, studious child. Unlike the transmigrator, she did not have so many wicked thoughts.

"This is a special skill that only appears when a Thorn Flower advances into a Level Four Overlord Thorn Flower. When a Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flower evolves into a Level Two Carnivorous Thorn Flower or a Level Three Giant Thorn Flower, it does not possess the ability to release spores. Only upon reaching Level Four and becoming an Overlord Thorn Flower can it release spores for parasitism, turning a dead host into a Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flower. If the target is a living person, the spores will burrow directly into their internal organs, drink their fresh blood, then burst from their body and evolve into Carnivorous Thorn Flowers." After Yue Yang explained it like that, little Yue Bing could bear it even less.

All she had to do was imagine a spore floating over, burrowing into someone's mouth, swiftly devouring their organs, then bursting out of their body.

A perfectly healthy living person would quickly sprout an ugly Carnivorous Thorn Flower from their body and die miserably on the spot...

Th-that was simply too terrifying!

Although Yue Bing in black was a genius girl, mentally she was still only a fifteen-year-old girl. Her pure heart fiercely rejected such bloody things!

Of course, Yue Yang had deliberately made it sound so bloody.

The spores' true purpose was not to kill living people. Who would be stupid enough to stand there and watch spores parasitize their body? The spores' main purpose was to destroy battle beast corpses. Some special battle beasts could turn into zombies after death, or perhaps revive under certain conditions. For instance, water-type or fire-type battle beasts might be revived through their master's special summoning skills when in water brimming with energy or roaring flames.

When the Thorn Flower's master could not attend to such things during battle,

the Thorn Flower's spores would become immensely useful.

They could parasitize animal corpses, turning all of them into Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flowers and preventing the enemy's battle beasts from reviving. That invisibly weakened the opponent's combat strength.

As for parasitizing living people, that was actually an extremely difficult thing to do.

And rather than parasitizing them with spores, it would be better to have the Overlord Thorn Flower swallow that unlucky fellow directly. It might even evolve again that way!

"Thank you, Third Brother. Thorn Flowers are very weak plant-type battle beasts, and plant-type battle beasts are weak to begin with. Thorn Flowers are practically the weakest kind among them. Cultivating one into a Level Four Overlord Thorn Flower is extremely difficult, so it's best not to entertain such thoughts. You should focus on cultivating your Life Guardian Beast, because that is what best suits your growth... What? You can't summon your own Life Guardian Beast? Ah... perhaps, like me, you're one of those people with the most obscure type of summoning talent. What a pity! If you had the talent to summon Thorn Flowers with other battle beasts as well, your future would be boundless. What a pity!" The moment Yue Bing in black heard Yue Yang say he could not summon his Life Guardian Beast, she immediately felt sorry for him.

Then she kindly comforted him, saying that a Life Guardian Beast was surely the one best suited to its master's growth.

Perhaps he could not summon it now because his spiritual energy and level were insufficient.

Once he improved in the future, there would definitely be no problem.

Finally, little Yue Bing comforted him by saying that elemental summons had especially high requirements. She had heard at the academy of certain students with elemental types who could not summon their Life Guardian Beasts in the early stages. She wanted Yue Yang to cast aside his mental burden, never knowing that the transmigrator's Life Guardian Beast was not elemental mist at all, but the special-type Phantom.

Moreover, with the spiritual energy currently within Yue Yang's body, it was not as though he could not summon Phantom!

He had been able to summon it two days ago; he had merely kept it hidden.

"What a pity. Third Brother, your talent is as obscure as mine—both of us are in the plant type with no future, and it's even Thorn Flowers..." Yue Bing in black shook her head and sighed. In her mind, Thorn Flowers were the weakest battle beasts, battle beasts used as "teaching aids" at the academy, fated never to achieve much development.

"It's all right. As long as one works hard, no matter what kind of battle beast it is—even a Thorn Flower—it will become very powerful after reaching Level Ten."

Seeing the little girl feeling sorry for him, Yue Yang could not help but comfort her in return.

In truth, based on the knowledge transmitted by the Bronze Codex, he understood one very important point: plant-type battle beasts appeared weak on the surface, but they were not weak at all. They were in no way inferior to the beast-type and bird-type battle beasts currently so highly sought after! And although Thorn Flowers seemed to be among the weakest of plant-type beasts, the opposite was true—they possessed enormous growth potential that other plant-type beasts did not have.

If one were to choose an emperor among all plant-type battle beasts, it would be the Thorn Flower that everyone looked down upon.

Three thousand years ago, there had been a powerful woman known as the "Thorn Flower Fairy." She evolved a Thorn Flower to its utmost limit, transforming it into the Golden-Crowned Thorn Flower Queen, a "humanoid divine beast" almost identical to a human. During the defensive war against the Demon Abyss invasion of the Dragon Soaring Continent, this Thorn Flower Fairy and her Thorn Flower Queen joined forces to kill three Blood-Prison Demon Kings and devour more than five thousand demons from the ghost army. The boundless sea of flowers she created became the nightmare of every creature in the Demon Abyss. Even the Hell Black Dragon King, reputed to be invincible on the battlefield, would swiftly retreat at the sight of her, avoiding battle entirely.

That Thorn Flower Fairy was the only powerhouse among humanity at the time capable of single-handedly resisting and slaughtering an entire legion of the Demon Abyss invasion coalition.

Sadly, her lover died in battle, and the Thorn Flower Fairy committed suicide for love in her loneliness.

Afterward, no one understood the Thorn Flower's true secrets any longer.

Countless powerhouses had tried, but no one could ever again mutate and evolve a Thorn Flower into a divine-beast-rank "humanoid divine beast." In the end, people helplessly abandoned their research into Thorn Flowers. Beast-type and bird-type battle beasts, which possessed tremendous advantages in the early stages, swiftly rose to prominence and became deeply favored by people. Three thousand years later, the plant-type Thorn Flower had long been forgotten as the most terrifying "humanoid divine beast," reduced instead to the weakest battle beast, even becoming a teaching tool in academies.

"Yes. A warrior must strive unceasingly and persevere. Third Brother, thank you!" Yue Bing in black nodded, then, like a polite elementary school student, gave Yue Yang a slight bow. "Third Brother, I'll go back first today. I'll come practice again tomorrow!"

Watching the little girl's retreating back, Yue Yang murmured to himself, "Since the world does not value Thorn Flowers, then I'll raise a Golden-Crowned Thorn Flower Queen!"