The open market was the lowest-tier trading market for beast tamers in Base No. 12.
It offered a wide variety of items related to exotic beasts and dungeon spaces, and was the main trading spot for lone beast tamers and small groups. It was rather like a street of stalls in Jiang Ziliu's previous life.
Jiang Ziliu arrived at the open market and began searching for what he needed.
He had been diligently studying all kinds of beast-taming knowledge. With the help of Probability Judgment, he had worked out an initial resource formula to improve and strengthen the Azurite Rock Man:
21% petrifying lantern fruit, 35% slime gel, 17% black marsh salt mud, 24% Decapod Ground-Crawling Shell Beetle bone shell, 3% beast tamer blood, and, most importantly, 100 grams of earth-attribute Elemental Crystal.
Elemental Crystals were crystals of dark energy solidified with a specific attribute.
Earth-attribute Elemental Crystals were dark energy crystals solidified with the earth attribute.
They were both high-grade universal currency and consumable resources. Based on impurities and energy density, their quality was ranked from low to high as D, C, B, A, S, SS, and SSS.
Before awakening his contract mark, he had spent nearly a year combining his knowledge with his Probability Judgment ability to put together this strengthening potion formula.
For this, Jiang Ziliu had paid a considerable price in his health.
A potion made from this formula could also accelerate and optimize the Azurite Rock Man's hatching. There was even a 96% chance that it would undergo a substantial improvement during the process.
The moment he decided to make the Azurite Rock Man his first tamed beast, he had begun making extensive preparations.
He had long since prepared the petrifying lantern fruit, black marsh salt mud, Decapod Ground-Crawling Insect bone shell, and earth-attribute Elemental Crystal.
What he lacked now was slime gel!
Slime gel had a very short shelf life, lasting less than ten days.
Fortunately, slimes were extremely common exotic beasts. Their gel had a wide range of uses, but production was also very high.
Jiang Ziliu walked cautiously through the open market, carefully examining the slime gel at different stalls and comparing it using what he had learned.
There were plenty of fakes in this market. Once money and goods changed hands, the seller bore no further responsibility.
In the end, Jiang Ziliu chose the stall of a young man in black who looked very cold.
The man's bearing was frightening, but his goods were the best.
"How much for a kilogram of slime gel?"
Jiang Ziliu stepped forward to ask the price.
"500 yuan!"
The man spoke as though each word were worth its weight in gold.
Jiang Ziliu silently compared prices. This was slightly expensive, but the man's goods really were better. At the very least, this gel could only have come from a C- grade slime.
The man seemed unapproachable, but people with this sort of bearing generally seldom cheated others.
"I'll take a kilogram!"
Jiang Ziliu readily paid and collected his purchase. A kilogram left him with plenty to spare, but he preferred to be prepared rather than caught wanting.
After buying what he needed, Jiang Ziliu's gaze suddenly landed on a black, ram's-horn-like object at the same stall.
The young man might not recognize it, but he did.
It was the horn of a demonic creature, something relatively rare around Chang'an Base. Demons were special creatures that were half soul and half energy.
It looked as though it had been severed in a single stroke, and mud still clung to it.
Apparently, a demon had fled after someone cut off its horn. The horn had fallen into the mud, and this young man had eventually picked it up as an incidental find.
A demon's horn could increase a beast tamer's soul strength, but it had terrifying side effects, frequently causing negative conditions such as madness and bloodlust.
He instinctively used Probability Judgment on it.
"What is the success rate of this item substantially increasing my soul strength?"
Probability Judgment took effect immediately, and a figure appeared before Jiang Ziliu's eyes:
99%!
"What is the probability that this item has side effects on the soul?"
70%!
"What is the chance of eliminating this item's side effects with D-grade materials?"
87%!
Three consecutive judgments left Jiang Ziliu somewhat pale. He immediately clutched his chest, feigning discomfort and putting on the appearance of someone with a heart condition.
Then he quickly took out a pill and swallowed it. In fact, it was a pill that greatly replenished blood and Qi, not medicine for heart disease.
But to an outsider, the youngster simply looked as though he had been born with a weak heart.
Jiang Ziliu rested for a while, then pretended to examine the other items with curiosity before picking up the demon horn. "How much for this?"
Hesitation crossed the cold stallholder's face. Clearly, he really did not know what this horn was or what it could do.
"500!"
Jiang Ziliu bargained, "I'll take it for 100. I can't figure out what it is, so I'm buying it as a gamble!"
"400, minimum."
"Then I'll raise my offer a little. 200. Any higher and I won't take it!"
Jiang Ziliu acted as though he was simply taking a gamble.
In the end, the cold stallholder's expression grew colder still, but he agreed.
He was not particularly good at doing business. Otherwise, Jiang Ziliu would not have bought his goods.
His icy bearing alone could scare off plenty of people and keep them from daring to buy from him.
After all, dragons and fish mingled in this open market. No one knew whether powerful beast tamers might be moving about here, so no one dared stir up trouble lightly.
The strength of a beast tamer's presence was not the key. Their abilities lay in their tamed beasts, not in the beast tamers themselves.
Their tamed beasts were all hidden in their beast-taming spaces. No one knew what anyone else had concealed inside.
The stallholder did not want to miss this rare business opportunity, so he reluctantly agreed.
With the demon horn in hand, Jiang Ziliu quickly left the open market.
He had reaped a tremendous harvest this time. Used well, this demon horn could greatly improve his soul.
By now, Jiang Ziliu had completely spent all his pocket money.
Although his parents' tamed beasts had suffered irreparable injuries and fallen into slumber, the beast-taming skills they had fed back remained.
Jiang Ziliu's father had once focused on the path of strength enhancement. Although he was now a commoner, the feedback remained, and he was very strong.
He now made a living running a weapon-forging shop in Base No. 12, with Jiang Ziliu's mother as his assistant.
Among commoners whose tamed beasts had fallen into slumber, their household income was average.
All beast tamers whose tamed beasts fell into an unrecoverable slumber were reduced to the bases' commoner class.
Meanwhile, the wilderness outside the base cities belonged entirely to exotic beasts, and the many kinds of dungeon spaces held both opportunities and disasters.
The history of humanity's rise as beast tamers was also the history of humanity's struggle against exotic beasts.
Dungeon spaces were opportunities, but also the source of disasters.
All exotic beasts in the wilderness originated from exotic creatures that had broken out of dungeon spaces. Of course, other races also appeared in dungeon spaces, and those were truly intelligent races.
Conflict was inevitable!
As a result, at least 30% of tamed beasts were injured and fell into slumber every year.
Among these beast tamers, nearly 20% were reduced to commoners.
As the years accumulated, commoners unable to continue down the beast-taming path came to make up most of the population of every human base.
The beast-taming path was not an easy one. It was a road paved with blood and bone, but it was also the inevitable path humanity had to take in its struggle to survive.
Jiang Ziliu returned home. He was the only one there at the time.
It was a small home with just two bedrooms and a living room. Owning such a place in the densely populated base was an achievement Jiang Ziliu's parents had secured before their misfortune.
He also had an older brother, who had now been admitted to a beast-taming academy and was considered the family's hope.
As soon as he arrived home, Jiang Ziliu began his preparations.
He poured the slime gel into a mortar and heated it, then carefully added the petrifying lantern fruit, black marsh salt mud, and Decapod Ground-Crawling Insect bone shell. Finally, he placed the earth-attribute Elemental Crystal inside.
The energy of the earth-attribute Elemental Crystal was drawn out by the slime gel, forming a special high-energy environment that began fusing the materials on its own.
Slimes were exotic beasts that could eat anything, so their gel had excellent adsorption and neutralizing properties. It allowed the energy in Elemental Crystals to be released gently, making it the best supplementary ingredient for many evolution, strengthening, and nutritional potions for exotic beasts.
Jiang Ziliu carefully controlled the small flame lamp underneath.
This type of lamp contained a Fire-Spitting Rat's beast core and could produce a steady flame. A single fire-spitting beast's core could last around a year.
It was one of countless general-use products made from beast materials.
As for electric lights, those were resources only Black Iron Grade beast tamers could afford to use.
Gray Rock Grade beast tamers, who had only just entered the beast-taming ranks, were also called apprentice beast tamers. Only at Black Iron Grade did they truly cross the threshold and gain access to some of the resources enjoyed by official beast tamers.
After 67 minutes of processing, all the materials in the mortar turned into a mass of transparent gel.
It bore a faint gray-rock hue, along with a light, fresh fragrance of life.
The appearance of this color meant that the potion had been successfully made.
Only then did Jiang Ziliu add his own blood.
This step would give the potion the beast tamer's aura, deepening the bond between tamed beast and beast tamer and increasing the beast's affection toward its tamer.
Jiang Ziliu immediately summoned his Azurite Rock Man egg, then carefully spread the gelatinous potion evenly over its shell.
The coating of gel was then rapidly absorbed by the Azurite Rock Man's egg, taking less than twenty minutes.
In the time that followed, the signs of life within the egg grew stronger and stronger.
Three hours later, the eggshell quietly shattered!
A half-meter-tall rock man, composed entirely of sky-blue stone, appeared before Jiang Ziliu.
The Azurite Rock Man had successfully hatched.
An ordinary Azurite Rock Man took the form of a completely rough stone humanoid, like a crudely carved statue covered in little pits.
But Jiang Ziliu's was different. It was far more finely formed, like an adorable porcelain doll.
The Azurite Rock Man's large eyes brimmed with an ethereal liveliness. It looked full of spirit and utterly adorable!
Just then, Jiang Ziliu's expression changed, and he immediately brought the little fellow into his beast-taming space.
The tamed beast's feedback swiftly appeared!
A force emerged from the contract mark and surged into Jiang Ziliu's body!
This force was dark energy.
The dark energy flowed through the meridians throughout his body, continuously strengthening it. Finally, it gathered between his brows and entered his sea of consciousness there, lighting up the first star on the first stellar ring within.
His sea of consciousness held countless dim stellar rings, with dead, silent stars attached to them.
Then the second, third, and fourth stars were lit and activated by the dark energy in succession, giving off faint starlight!
At the fifth star, its momentum faltered, and it failed to light it.
These stars were soul stars!
They were manifestations of a beast tamer's soul, as well as representations of a beast tamer's level of strength.
Every illuminated soul star stored a certain amount of dark energy.
These soul stars were also the source of a beast tamer's strength.
They were closely tied to the strength and condition of the tamed beast. When a tamed beast died and caused a backlash against its tamer, that backlash also began with the soul stars.
A Gray Rock Grade beast tamer needed to light at least nine stars before attempting a breakthrough to the higher Black Iron Grade.
Jiang Ziliu now had four illuminated soul stars, meaning he had risen to a four-star Gray Rock Grade beast tamer in one go!
If word of this result reached his class, it would absolutely leave a crowd of people dumbfounded.
Such a tremendous improvement meant that his tamed beast, the Azurite Rock Man, was already formidable upon hatching, which was why its feedback had been so substantial.
At the same time, Jiang Ziliu chose Life Aura Concealment as his beast tamer feedback skill.
Then he activated the skill.
His aura rapidly receded, finally dropping to the level of One-Star Gray Rock Rank.
With this SSS-grade skill, others would find it very difficult to learn his true strength and level.
Jiang Ziliu had gone to all this trouble precisely for this sneaky sixth-brother skill, which would let him hide himself and develop by following the Dao of lying low!
Then he opened his panel to examine the fruits of his efforts.
Jiang Ziliu: Class: Four-star Gray Rock Grade beast tamer Lifespan: 16 (125) Life status: Healthy Soul strength: 5.2 Life tier: Gray Rock Grade life-form Dark energy level: 4.6 Personal skills: Probability Judgment (innate skill): Can judge the probability of a specified outcome occurring at any time Feedback skill: Life Aura Concealment (SSS grade) Tamed beast: Black Iron Grade Azurite Rock Man Tamed beast skills: Life Aura Concealment (SSS grade), Rock and Earth Evasion (C grade), Rock and Earth Concealment (D+ grade), Earth Space Evasion (unawakened) Tamed beast grade: Black Iron Grade Tamed beast status: Extremely healthy, effectively strengthened by the beast tamer's potion, affection toward beast tamer: 80%.
Just as expected, Jiang Ziliu thought.
The feedback to the beast tamer had not only enhanced his life tier, but also increased his lifespan.
While accelerating the Azurite Rock Man's hatching, his potion had successfully raised its life tier to Black Iron Grade. With his own B- grade feedback rate of 40%, it could indeed raise him to four-star Gray Rock Grade.
Moreover, not only had the Azurite Rock Man's initial life tier increased, but its skill grades had also been strengthened.
Rock and Earth Evasion had risen two minor levels, from D+ grade to C grade.
Rock and Earth Concealment had risen from D- grade to D+ grade, also two minor levels. Unfortunately, it had not reached C- grade.
The Azurite Rock Man's most important skill, Earth Space Evasion, had not awakened because he lacked space-attribute resources.
This skill could allow the Azurite Rock Man to escape through earth-attribute dark energy spaces containing the power of the earth. It was one of its supreme life-saving abilities.
However, the probability of an Azurite Rock Man awakening this skill might not even reach one in ten thousand.
This was also one reason why Azurite Rock Men were not particularly popular despite having such a powerful skill.
The life feedback had made him a Gray Rock Grade life-form.
Now his strength, agility, and soul strength had all improved tremendously.
It could be said that he alone could now defeat ten ordinary humans.
His 4.6 energy represented the dark energy value of his physical fitness. If he wanted to advance to Five-Star Gray Rock Rank, he would have to raise his dark energy to 5.0 before he could light up his fifth Soul Star and cross into the next minor realm.
Sensing that his outward signs showed only One-Star Gray Rock Rank, Jiang Ziliu was very satisfied.
Moreover, helping the Azurite Rock Man evolve this time had raised its favorability toward him to 80%!
With this level of favorability, when he commanded his tamed beast, it would obediently follow his various reasonable instructions.
The level of coordination between him and his tamed beast would also reach excellent.
Now everything was ready.
Starting today, the path of a beast tamer had officially opened to Jiang Ziliu!