After Yu Wan left, Luo Yu began looking for food in the research institute. He wondered if it had been robbed, though: after searching for ages, all he found besides octopus feed was a bag of bread.
"This is pretty good too." Luo Yu wasn't picky. After all, even this had been in high demand during the apocalypse, hard to get even for a fortune, and this bag was crab roe-flavored to boot.
After eating, he lay on the sofa like a salted fish, staring at the ceiling.
"It's so nice to have something to eat..."
He never wanted to go back to the days when he couldn't even get premade meals.
Even though zombies were still a threat here, Luo Yu didn't mind much anymore.
"Oh, the scientific name now should be 'Aberrant Corpse Beasts,'" Luo Yu thought.
The only zombies left now were beast-shaped.
Humanoid zombies hadn't mutated quickly enough to adapt to the sea and had been eliminated long ago. Now, they could only be seen in museums.
"I still need to digest more of these memories..." Luo Yu closed his eyes, feeling that he needed to learn more about this era.
Digesting them took half a day, and he fell asleep in the middle of it...
Luo Yu didn't wake until Yu Wan came back.
"Teacher Yu Wan... you're here."
After inviting her inside, he asked, "What did the higher-ups say?"
"The director said... if you're confident you can complete your parents' research on Ink Fish, there's no problem with letting you use the institute for a while longer, but..." Yu Wan paused thoughtfully.
"But what?" Luo Yu asked.
"But we have to follow the rules and go through the proper procedures... you have to meet the minimum requirements for using the Mutant Lifeform Research Institute."
"The person in charge of the institute has to be a Beast Taming master and have a 'breeding qualification certificate.' That's the bare minimum." She looked at Luo Yu, wanting to see what he planned to do.
Luo Yu nodded.
Really, they weren't making things difficult for him.
In fact, they had already given him quite a few green lights. All he had to do was meet the "minimum threshold"; he didn't have to worry about any unwritten rules.
"A Beast Taming master and a breeding qualification certificate...?"
Luo Yu thought it over. To become a Beast Taming master, one had to awaken the Beast-Taming Space ability and contract a mutant beast...
He had already awakened his Beast-Taming Space, but hadn't yet contracted a pet beast, so he was only one crucial step away from becoming a Beast Taming master.
That was simple. He could just go find a pet beast with an exceptional talent and contract it.
As for the "breeding qualification certificate"...
On Mirror Moon Island, many important jobs related to beast taming required a "breeding qualification certificate."
Opening a pet beast hospital, running a Beast Taming training facility, or setting up a breeding farm, for example. It was a kind of "business qualification."
And there was only one way to obtain a "breeding qualification" officially recognized by Mirror Moon Island...
The breeding qualification assessment administered by the Mirror Moon Island Beast Tamer Administration Bureau on the twentieth of every month.
As he recalled, the assessment seemed to be divided into two rounds.
The first tested basic knowledge about Beast Taming masters and mutant beasts.
In the second, candidates had to assess and analyze the development of dozens of wild mutant beasts, then accurately pick out the one with the best aptitude and the greatest suitability for a contract.
In short, only those who knew all kinds of mutant beasts extremely well and had a certain ability to analyze and appraise them were qualified to work in Beast Taming-related industries on Mirror Moon Island.
As the child of biologists, "Luo Yu" actually had a very solid grounding in Beast Taming knowledge, thanks to his parents' elite education.
So the first round shouldn't be much of a problem. What Luo Yu lacked was experience appraising mutant beasts, something Beast Taming masters generally acquired only after years of practice.
But now that he had the Eye of Data... it wasn't as though he couldn't give it a try.
"No problem." Luo Yu agreed at once.
"You're pretty confident." Seeing that even the breeding qualification assessment hadn't made Luo Yu back down, Yu Wan couldn't help smiling. "I look forward to seeing how you do. But I think this month's assessment is the day after tomorrow, and you haven't contracted a pet beast yet, have you? Will you have enough time?"
"Only Beast Taming masters can sign up for the assessment... why not wait until next time?"
"I should have enough time," Luo Yu said after thinking it over.
"...Then have you decided what pet beast to contract? You're not planning to contract one of those Ink Fish, are you?" Yu Wan asked.
She thought Luo Yu's parents must have taken a lot of money with them to buy a pet beast.
Even if they had left Luo Yu some, it probably wasn't much. Could he afford a suitable pet beast to contract...?
"I haven't decided yet, but I probably won't contract an Ink Fish."
Luo Yu added, "I'm planning to have a look at a pet beast shop. Do you have any recommendations, Teacher Yu Wan?"
Yu Wan had only asked casually, but Luo Yu's words instantly piqued her interest. "Want me to tell your fortune? We can see what kind of pet beast suits you."
"Divination?" Luo Yu was surprised.
Divination sounded rather unscientific, but this world was already magical enough, and things like astrology had also become real through supernatural powers.
Yu Wan nodded calmly. "Don't be fooled by the fact that I'm just a clerk now. A few years ago, I went on adventures at sea and served as a navigator. Astronomy and astrology... those are my specialties."
"More than once, I used the stars to help the fleet find the right route... in the old era, I think that would have been called a celestial navigator."
"Then I'll leave it to you." Luo Yu's eyes lit up.
Next, Yu Wan excitedly took a huge pearl out of her backpack...
Seeing her expression, Luo Yu paused. Why did she seem... rather unprofessional?
"This is a pearl left behind when a Star Shell died. It has the power to communicate with the starry sky," Yu Wan explained.
Star Shells were an upper-tier common species, but their attribute was rare, and they could use the power of the stars to create illusions. They were among the most expensive common species, their value approaching that of monarch species.
Luo Yu's parents had gone to Azure Waves Island precisely because they wanted to buy an exceptional pet beast like that.
Luo Yu cooperated in every way, answering every question she asked.
Yu Wan fiddled around for quite a while, then stared intently at the glowing pearl like some charlatan.
Finally, the phantom image of a black-and-white animal appeared on the pearl.
It looked like some kind of bovine.
"Is that... a dairy cow?! How could it be a dairy cow? Didn't I narrow the range down to Mirror Moon Island...? There probably aren't many places with dairy cows anymore." Yu Wan was baffled.
Luo Yu looked at her. It was confirmed: she really was unprofessional. She had wanted to tell his fortune purely because she had an itch to scratch.
If she were really accurate, would she have ended up running errands for the Beast Management Bureau?
A dairy cow as a pet beast... was he supposed to open a ranch?
Yu Wan fell into thought, then apologized. "Sorry... let's try one more time."
"Okay..."
Before long, another black-and-white animal appeared on the large pearl.
Luo Yu fell silent, and so did Yu Wan.
It was a mutant orca.
Luo Yu smiled. Orcas were among the top predators in the sea, and after mutating, one would have to be a monarch species at the very least. Was he worthy of contracting one?!
"Third time's the charm. We're almost there-look, we've already got a marine creature..."
"One last time!" Yu Wan said seriously. "This time it'll definitely work."
Refusing to accept defeat, she performed the divination again. Sweat had already soaked her hair and clothes.
A moment later, another black-and-white figure appeared on the pearl...
This time, it was the phantom image of an Ink Fish, each of its eight tentacles gripping a white ice blade...
Finally, something a little more credible! But not entirely!
It was more credible because it was finally a marine creature that could be found on Mirror Moon Island, but it was... the trash-tier octopus with a combat power of five that Luo Yu had ruled out early on... and its appearance was so bizarre, too.
"I understand now..." Yu Wan looked at Luo Yu sheepishly. "The ocean's magnetic field might have been too chaotic lately. You can tell from the strange signs of activity among those zombies."
"The magnetic field has affected the astrology... with my current mental strength... I don't seem able to eliminate the interference..."
"It's fine, it's fine," Luo Yu said. "That damn magnetic field, holding back my progress."
"Good luck. I won't keep bothering you." Having failed at the divination, Yu Wan slunk away.
What an oddball. I knew it wouldn't work, but... Watching her retreating figure, Luo Yu suddenly narrowed his eyes.
The last divination...
An Eight-Sword Style Ink Fish?
Wasn't there one with an Eight-Sword Style talent in the backyard pond...?
What are you doing, Luo Yu? Don't tell me you actually believe that divination? A moment later, Luo Yu shook his head.
Forget it. He had more important things to do... next... it was time to find his pet beast.
Then came the breeding qualification assessment.
The whole process was a bit of a hassle, but at least he had a way to keep the institute...
Before long, Luo Yu had thrown the divination results to the back of his mind.
Eight-Sword Style was only an advanced talent. Although that was already a talent one in a hundred possessed, he still hoped to find a top-tier talent and give himself a higher starting point.
"I'll try buying one first."
Before long, Luo Yu dug up a "fortune" in the institute: about 1,100 Alliance Coins.
Although he was poor now, he wasn't entirely penniless. His parents had left him some living expenses.
He calculated inwardly. In this era, mutant beasts' species bloodlines had long since been divided into strict ranks.
Common species, monarch species, abyss species, calamity species... an almost insurmountable gulf lay between each rank.
Within each species rank, there were also low, middle, and upper tiers.
The higher the species rank, the greater the potential and the more powerful the abilities.
On the scarce land that remained, powerful wild mutant beasts had long since been cleared out for humanity's safety. Those left were basically common species.
As for Monarch Level pet beasts... there seemed to be only a few on the whole of Mirror Moon Island.
The white whale he had seen when he first transmigrated was one of them.
But even among common species, this much money seemed enough to buy only a low-rank ordinary species with the weakest potential.
The problem was, there was no need to buy a low-rank ordinary species. The pet beasts the island distributed for free were all low-rank ordinary species.
"Water-type mutant beast: Dripping Waterfall Spider."
"Water-type mutant beast: Green Water Turtle."
"And the water-type mutant beast: Wave Dog."
As three species specially selected by the island, they were far better suited to contracts than low-rank mutant beasts in the wild.
"A low-rank species is still a low-rank species. If I have a choice, a higher species rank is definitely better..."
"If I remember right, there's a rather unusual pet beast shop that sells Mid-Rank Species fairly cheaply."
There were three pet beast shops on the island that sold Mid-Rank Species mutant beasts.
The Mid-Rank Species sold by one of them was a rare kind of pet beast whose species could evolve as its life level rose.
In other words, it had a preliminary form, a low-rank stage, and could only evolve into a Mid-Rank Species after meeting certain conditions. As such, only the evolution resources were expensive; the beast itself didn't cost much. He could go take a look.
Luo Yu wheeled a Fathead Fish-brand bicycle out of the institute, entered the island-ring road, and pedaled along according to the map...
At the same time, everything on Mirror Moon Island struck him as especially novel.
Memories were memories, after all. Only as he rode along the road and saw flocks of mutant seagulls delivering letters beneath the blue sky and white clouds, and Dripping Rain Butterflies watering roadside plants, did he truly feel alive again.
The new era...
"It's so much better... than the early days of the apocalypse."
Luo Yu sighed. Just looking at the streets, one couldn't tell at all that this was a post-apocalyptic world.
But he understood that this era was still dangerous.
The tidal corpse transformation Yu Wan had mentioned concerned Luo Yu greatly.
If a large number of zombies really did break through the island's defenses, he wouldn't even be able to escape across the boundless sea.
"Once I become a Beast Taming master, I need to get stronger quickly..."
"First, make money from research results, then use what I earn to raise a powerful pet beast."
"When the time comes, even if I can't stay on Mirror Moon Island, I'll be capable of heading out to sea and leaving for somewhere else that's safe..."
"But raising a powerful pet beast takes quite a while... besides that, becoming a biologist of strategic value as soon as possible might also make me safer."
Luo Yu had lived through the apocalypse and felt this deeply. During the rainstorm apocalypse, apart from high-ranking officials and the wealthy, the first people rescued and taken out of the disaster zone were leading talents in various fields. Ordinary people, naturally, were the last to be helped.
And zombie sea beasts were only one of many threats. For example, when Luo Yu passed near the square at the harbor, he saw many wanted posters on the walls along the street.
The yellowed posters offered rewards for many highly threatening pirates and mutant creatures in the surrounding area...
Luo Yu gave them a quick glance. There were far too many things that could be considered threats...
But suddenly, he braked and stopped in front of one wanted poster.
The poster bore a portrait of a lion-like mutant beast with wavy blue fur and two tails.
Its eyes were different colors, one azure and the other gold.
Its name was the Two-Tailed Azure Lion.
The description said the beast was suspected to have mutated and evolved from a Maine Coon. Its species rank and life level were unknown.
It was wanted by a merchant association for destroying an Azure Waves Island merchant ship loaded with cargo.
"It looks just like it, too much like it," Luo Yu couldn't help saying.
The place where he had worked before had bred a Maine Coon, but a genetic mutation had left it with a congenital deformity: two tails.
That Maine Coon had also had one blue eye and one gold eye. Although nothing seemed wrong with its appearance, its hearing and movement had been severely affected by its genetic defects.
In the end, a young female employee at the shop had adopted the Maine Coon and cared for it. Luo Yu had also often examined it and fed it...
"It's probably the same one... with different-colored eyes and two tails, you might not find a second one in the whole world."
A thought stirred in Luo Yu's mind. Could this Two-Tailed Azure Lion be his destined pet beast? It looked strong at a glance...
But he soon abandoned that bold idea.
Because Luo Yu was the one who had neutered the cat.