The next day.
Luo Yu began putting the little penguin through special training.
The Earth Penguin's racial ability was Digging. To put it bluntly, the skill had practically no killing power.
Whether it was the Ink Fish's Ink Spray, the Earth Penguin's Digging, or the Wind-Entwining Worm's Wind Gathering, they were all low-level abilities that helped them evade predators.
By comparison, the Wave Dog was also a Low-Rank Species, but its skill, Flowing Fang, had considerable killing power. A bite to a vital spot could kill many kinds of prey in one strike.
That was why Mirror Moon Island had selected the Wave Dog as one of the three pet beasts suitable for novice Beast Tamers to form contracts with. At the very least, it had some fighting ability.
Then again, an ordinary Earth Penguin's Digging might be weak, but that didn't seem to apply to July...
He had a top-tier earth-element talent and an innately profound resonance with the earth. As a result, even a mere low-level ability like Digging produced an absurd effect in his hands!
Boom!!!
Luo Yu fell silent as he watched the ground beneath July's feet turn soft in an instant, like a whirlpool of quicksand. July himself looked as though he were diving into an ocean of earth.
"Are you sure that's Digging?"
If Luo Yu remembered correctly, other low-level mutated beasts using Digging still had to help with their bodies, just like moles. Only by combining the ability with physical digging could they burrow underground quickly, and even then, all they did was dig a tunnel.
But when July, with his top-tier talent, used Digging for the first time, that didn't seem to be the case. He created a huge pit in an instant!
It wasn't digging. It was creation.
That pit could be used as a trap to bury enemies!
"Good, good, good..." Looking at the hole covered in sand and soil and the little penguin who had poked his head out, half his body underground as he waited for further instructions, Luo Yu pondered for a moment.
"I think we need to change the direction of your Digging training."
"Since you have this talent, there's no need to use Digging solely to escape."
"Wuji?" July tilted his head.
"It would be best if you could clap your hands and make a hole appear right beneath an enemy's feet, drop them underground, and bury them in sand and soil!"
After saying that, Luo Yu felt that, going by his description, the Digging skill was more than a little overpowered. But judging from July's first use of the ability, it was clear that his Digging could indeed reach that level...
Heh... Beast Tamers had better not fight him on the ground in the future. Otherwise, he could make the opposing Beast Tamer fall underground from a distance...
That same day.
While July practiced Digging, Luo Yu also tried to draw out the true power of his talent, Walking Volcano.
To put it bluntly, the greatly enhanced Digging was merely a basic side effect of Walking Volcano. The talent's true power lay in the searing magma that came from communicating and resonating with the power of the earth's veins.
But after a simple attempt, Luo Yu also discovered that a top-tier talent was not so easy to unlock.
Even with the "talent," a certain "opportunity" was needed to activate its core ability.
Take an Ink Fish with the Dark Affinity talent, for example. Even if it had an aptitude for the dark element, it couldn't awaken a dark ability out of thin air.
If no one taught it and it had no fortuitous encounter of its own, then clearly, it would never discover its talent in its entire life.
Still, something good did happen over the course of the day.
During that time, the Dark Octopus and the Eight-Sword Style Octopus also mated!
With that, both of Luo Yu's breeding pairs had finished mating. But immediately afterward, Luo Yu faced a serious problem...
He was running out of money from ensuring the Ink Fish got enough nutrition.
July could still obtain the essential nutrients needed for growth from the Beast-Taming Space during his juvenile growth stage. But for the Ink Fish, continuing to eat ordinary feed at this critical stage of breeding was clearly not conducive to egg-laying...
Insufficient nutrition would most likely affect their offspring's talents...
He needed to make money to do research, but to do research, he had to invest money. He seemed to be stuck!
"Doesn't Chen Bo still owe me a hundred?"
Luo Yu stood outside the research institute getting some air when he remembered the debt. Just then, a familiar figure approached from the distance.
"Luo Yu!"
Business attire, black stockings... Luo Yu was slightly taken aback when he noticed her. It was that divination genius!
When Yu Wan saw Luo Yu, she quickened her pace and came up to him.
"Teacher Yu Wan, is that research funding you've got tucked under your arm... Does that mean I passed the assessment?" Luo Yu felt she had arrived at just the right time.
"Do you have a dog's nose?" Yu Wan was taken aback. He could even sniff that out?
The Luo Shui Research Institute... It should be called the Luo Yu Research Institute now.
Inside the institute, Yu Wan handed him the relevant documents and said, "Congratulations. You did pass the breeding assessment. From now on, this research institute is yours."
"According to the decision reached by the higher-ups at their meeting, you can continue using the Luo Shui Research Institute for another year. If the institute makes significant progress in its research on Ink Fish, you can continue using it indefinitely."
"Thanks for the effort, and for making the trip yourself, Teacher," Luo Yu said with a smile. "I thought a Long-Feathered Gull would deliver it to me."
Yu Wan shook her head. "You set a record for Mirror Moon Island's breeding qualification assessment as the youngest person to pass... How could we have a mutated seagull deliver it?"
"Besides, there's also your research funding for the coming year. What if it got lost, given the Long-Feathered Gull's level of security..."
Research funding!
The institute alone certainly had plenty of valuable research equipment that could help him train and study pet beasts, but that wasn't what Luo Yu cared about most.
What mattered was that every research institute came with a fixed allocation of research funding, issued once a year.
Yu Wan took out a stack of money bags and handed them to Luo Yu. She had prepared them in advance.
As she handed them over, she asked, "By the way, why did you end up contracting an Earth Penguin? It couldn't be because, like the pet beasts I divined for you... it's black and white, could it?"
Luo Yu had long expected someone to ask him this question. He said, "Mirror Moon Island has fishing and agriculture. For those farmers, earth-element mutated beasts are actually suitable contract partners too."
"But earth-element mutated beasts hide deep underground and are hard to catch. On top of that, some abilities of grass- and water-element mutated beasts also help with farming, so very, very few of them contract earth-element mutated beasts."
"I think that part of the market is relatively untapped. I want to specialize in breeding earth-element mutated beasts and studying agriculture in the future. I contracted an Earth Penguin with the Digging ability because I wanted it to learn about the underground ecosystem on my behalf once it grew up."
"The water-element field is too competitive. Switching to a less popular field of research isn't a bad idea."
"But after contracting him, I discovered his talent was unexpectedly good. I suppose it was fate."
"Is that so?" Yu Wan was slightly taken aback. That explanation...
Though the explanation was far-fetched, it wasn't impossible for a fifteen-year-old boy's mind to work that way.
With his parents' example before him, it also made sense that Luo Yu wouldn't want to go near the ocean and would study the land instead.
"I thought you knew about that matter," Yu Wan said.
"What matter?" Luo Yu was taken aback.
"That's the other reason I came in person. Take a look at this first."
She took off her backpack, then...
Pulled a cyan snake out of it!
"Hee-hee~" The cyan snake cried out, staring intently at Luo Yu.
"An Azure-Scaled Snake!" Luo Yu wasn't afraid. He had kept pet snakes before, and once he got used to them, they were quite cute.
It was a Low-Rank Ordinary Species mutated beast with good defense and potent venom.
Its information appeared before Luo Yu's eyes.
[Species]: Azure-Scaled Snake [Element]: Water [Species rank]: Low-Rank Ordinary Species [Life level]: Level 1 [Racial ability]: Venom Injection [Individual talent]: Dragon Blood (common talent. Influenced by the earth's veins, it has a faint ancient dragon bloodline in its body.)
Luo Yu looked at her. What did this mean...?
"Xiao Yu, take a look at this snake. Is there anything special about it?" Yu Wan smiled.
"You can pick it up and examine it. It won't attack."
Is this a test for me?
"All right." Luo Yu took hold of the Azure-Scaled Snake and examined it from top to bottom. Then he pried open its mouth and examined it inside and out as well.
About five minutes later...
Luo Yu put the Azure-Scaled Snake down and let out a long breath.
He looked at Yu Wan and said, "A normal Azure-Scaled Snake's gums and the lining inside its mouth should be a healthy pink, a sign of ample vitality."
"But this one's are a little pale. Normally, that's a sign of anemia, weakness, or blood loss."
Yu Wan said, "So you mean it developed very poorly?"
"No," Luo Yu said. "If it were anemic, the Azure-Scaled Snake's behavior should also be very weak."
"But judging by its pupils, development, and range of movement, it's not much different from an Azure-Scaled Snake with normal vigor and vitality. Since it isn't weak, but its gums and the lining of its mouth are pale, that's very unusual."
"Oh?" Yu Wan put away her smile. Wait, this kid really knows a lot...
"And your conclusion?"
"I deduce that although it looks as though its vitality is weak, its vigor hasn't diminished. It probably has a rather special bloodline that requires a great deal of nourishment, so it has drawn the nutrients out of its blood, making it look deficient in vitality. But that remarkable bloodline has also given it extraordinary strength in return, allowing it to move normally without being greatly affected."
"However, as for what bloodline it actually has, I can't really determine that without testing it with specialized equipment. If you don't mind and aren't in a hurry, Teacher, I can use the institute's equipment to conduct a thorough examination now."
"In short, this Azure-Scaled Snake probably isn't simply deficient in vitality or poorly developed. Rather, its bloodline is unique."
After Luo Yu finished, Yu Wan took a deep breath.
"That's my student for you!!!"
"You're right."
Luo Yu: ?
You only taught me to swim. What does appraising pet beasts have to do with you...
I worked backward from the result!
"Teacher Yu Wan, can you tell me what this is all about now?"
"All right... Speaking of which, this matter also has to do with the Earth Penguin's evolution path..."
"It has to do with the Earth Penguin's evolution?!"