"Everyone, I'll leave it to you to examine the physical data of these new evolved forms."
"My head feels a little uncomfortable, so I won't stay here long." After Luo Yu said that, the researchers expressed their understanding.
After all, Luo Yu wasn't even a Junior Level Beast Taming Master yet. He certainly couldn't withstand the chaotic magnetic field here for long.
After going over the important matters, Luo Yu left with the little penguin.
At last, he could go back and try his new technique, and July was especially excited. For July, the process of using the ley line magnetic field in the Ancient Grotto to strengthen his body had been a process of learning fishing techniques.
After all, this was a research site, so it wasn't suitable for ability training. But learning fishing techniques wouldn't disturb anyone, and he could stretch, move around, and exercise his body!
"Wu ji!!!"
As soon as they left the grotto, July's eyelids began to droop.
He was sleepy after reading for so long.
"Go back to the Beast-Taming Space and get some sleep first." Luo Yu chuckled and looked at the little penguin following at his heels.
"Wu ji!" The little penguin handed Luo Yu the fishing rod, then obediently entered the Beast-Taming Space and quickly drifted off to sleep.
But he woke up again before he had slept for long.
When he opened his eyes, however, he wasn't in the Beast-Taming Space.
His surroundings had turned into an apocalyptic landscape completely unfamiliar to him.
Billowing volcanic smoke covered the sky. There was no sun in sight, only a dark red glow of fire.
There were no plants or living creatures, only scorched earth and raging flames.
"!!!" The little penguin froze, quickly searched for Luo Yu, and began running across the ash-covered plain.
He couldn't see anything. Everything had been burned to the ground.
He hadn't found no creatures at all along the way, but they were all dead.
Countless enormous creatures, monsters over ten meters long, all lay lifeless among the ruins.
July recognized these creatures. He had seen them in books.
They were dinosaurs, one of the overlords of ancient times.
Even without the mutations brought about by the torrential rain, these ancient overlords, with their weight of over ten tons and terrifying bodies, could easily tear most present-day mutated beasts to shreds.
And yet, now they were all dead.
July stopped where he was and put the superintelligence granted by his ordinary talent, Intelligence, to use.
He frowned and scratched his head. If nothing unexpected had happened... was I dreaming?!
Since it's a dream, there's no rush.
July strolled leisurely across the scorched earth, waddling along with the swagger of a penguin who acknowledged nobody.
As he walked, he finally found a living creature. It was at a volcanic crater where lava was still flowing, the crimson molten rock churning without cease.
An enormous dinosaur, seemingly clad in lava armor, shone with a dark red light. Completely unlike the dinosaurs that had died in the apocalypse, it looked as though its body had undergone some kind of mutation. It stood over fifty meters tall by eye, weighed at least tens of thousands of tons, and dragged its massive body through the lava.
With every step it took, the earth trembled and sparks flew. It was like an overlord of the earth, descending from the lava of hell into this scarred and battered age in its final days...
The little penguin stared in a daze.
So awe-inspiring?
If I were that big, I could go fishing for orcas!
July had had enough of the little fish and shrimp on the island. Catching them gave him no sense of accomplishment at all.
"Roar!!!!!" The next moment, the giant lava dragon raised its head. Its savage gaze swept over him, and it opened its bloody maw and roared. A scorching, foul-smelling wind swallowed July in an instant-
"Wake up."
Luo Yu had returned to the research institute by then. He shook July awake, breaking the dream as the penguin rolled around in the Beast-Taming Space, looking as though he was having a nightmare.
After waking, the little penguin shook his head in a daze.
"You... had a nightmare, didn't you...?" Luo Yu soothed the little penguin, gently stroking his head.
"Chirp!! Chirp! Chirp? Chirp! Wu ji! Gu ga! Roar!" As he gradually calmed down and recovered, the little penguin began gesticulating wildly as he described the bizarre dream to Luo Yu.
"Dinosaurs...?" Luo Yu was startled. July had actually dreamed of dinosaurs?
And apparently, they were dinosaurs from that apocalyptic period after the asteroid struck Earth, when volcanoes erupted ceaselessly?
The little penguin had seen pictures of dinosaurs, so it wasn't strange for him to dream about them, but...
What on earth was a dinosaur clad in lava armor, walking out of a volcano...? A fantasy creature woven by the dream?
That was normal. Dreams were strange and bizarre. He had once dreamed of Ultraman fighting Godzilla too-the kind of battle for the cause of breeding that took place in bed.
"Why would you suddenly dream about dinosaurs? Didn't you always dream about fishing before?" Luo Yu muttered.
A good dream was catching a big fish that he could roast and eat.
A nightmare was fishing up a swarm of Honey Water Bees that stung him.
"Forget it. Maybe it has something to do with the geomagnetic field."
Some strong magnetic fields could certainly stimulate the brain, alter the content of dreams, increase dream recall, and even induce hallucinations and strange dreams.
The Ancient Grotto was an area with an exceptionally chaotic ley line magnetic field. After spending so long here, it made sense that the little penguin had suddenly had a strange dream.
On top of that, the memory of the ley lines here bore the imprint of the age of dinosaurs. Perhaps the magnetic field had induced it.
"As for why he dreamed of a dinosaur that had mastered the power of lava... was it because he has that talent himself and is a direct descendant of dinosaurs, so he was imagining what he'd look like after evolving...?"
This time, after returning to the research institute, Luo Yu began a new round of breeding.
Luo Yu had raised the highly talented offspring of the two Breeding Paragons for several days after they hatched. They had all leveled up by now, and their bodies had matured.
Luo Yu immediately found a male third-generation Breeding Paragon and put him together with the Dominion individual, who had already been fattened up, to raise them together.
"One month at most."
"Then a batch of Dominion individuals will be born."
"By then, with more Dominion individuals breeding with more Breeding Paragons, there'll be more and more individuals qualified to evolve into Water Devil Beasts."
"I'm going to strike it rich..."
The two Paragons' inbreeding had produced six Paragon offspring. One had been paired with the Dominion individual to breed more Water Devil Beast cores. Luo Yu chose not to inbreed the other five a second time, instead separating them to introduce some outside genes first, lest the quality of their offspring grow worse and worse.
For these five Breeding Paragons, Luo Yu selected Mental Overload Ink Fish as mates, intending to sell Yu Wan an octopus doctor proficient in psychic powers when the time came. After all, the research institute's security couldn't be too weak.
The second was paired with an Eight-Sword Style individual. The Eight-Sword Style talent allowed an Ink Fish to flexibly control eight implements or abilities. Luo Yu felt that this talent was also well suited to a Water Devil Beast, allowing it to make perfect use of its species' eight tentacles.
The remaining three were all paired with Ink Fish that had "ordinary talent: Stone Formation."
[Individual talent]: Stone Formation (ordinary talent. An individual with this talent undergoes a rock-type mutation in its mouth, gaining a petrified beak and increased bite force.)
This was the only ordinary talent related to "rock" among these thousands of Ink Fish.
Luo Yu needed them to produce an outstanding offspring with the Rock Element Affinity Talent. After all, not one of the many Ink Fish currently had an advanced rock talent, and this talent was also essential for evolving a rock Devil Beast.
Luo Yu already had a preliminary idea of the talents he wanted for the Water Devil Beast that might become July's dependent, though he would have to make adjustments later as circumstances required.
1. Dominion. This seemed to be an essential core talent that couldn't be omitted.
2. A rock-type talent. July needed to use this to increase his rock affinity and resonate with the Ancient Evolution Stone in the Ancient Grotto.
3. The Eight-Sword Style talent. For the master of the bloodline to draw on a dependent's power, the dependent's cooperation was also needed. Usually, at such times, the dependent couldn't fight independently.
Luo Yu felt it would be somewhat wasteful to contract only a tool dependent to serve as a "supporting act."
If the dependent could multitask, providing July with power while also fighting on its own, that would naturally be ideal. The Eight-Sword Style talent was well suited to that.
Moreover, Luo Yu had confirmed that a Monarch Species should be able to have at least four talents.
That was because he had seen the island lord's big white whale flying through the sky again these past few days. This time he had taken a careful look and found that it had one advanced talent and three ordinary ones, four in total!
So for the fourth, Luo Yu was considering Ice Element Affinity.
Turning ley line power into high temperatures as a fighting method placed a considerable burden on the little penguin's body. After all, he was still made of flesh and blood. At present, every time he finished using his ability, he had to run to the pond to cool off.
If the dependent possessed the power of frost, the little penguin could use it to cool himself down in battle and avoid overheating. There were other options, of course. Ink Fish with talents such as Heat Resistance or Fire Element Affinity might also be able to help the little penguin absorb heat, but the compatibility between the talent itself and the Ink Fish also had to be considered.
The dependent was also a combat unit in its own right, a Beast Taming Master's secondary pet.
A fire-type Water Devil Beast... just from the sound of it, it wasn't as promising as an ice-type Water Devil Beast.
When his planning reached this point, Luo Yu hesitated.
Eight-Sword Style plus ice element-isn't that the frost Eight-Sword Style Ink Fish from Yu Wan's divination?
Damn, she really is a divination genius!
Just how far had those eyes of hers seen?
"Could you do another divination for me?" Luo Yu sought out Yu Wan again, a little more convinced of her power of divination.
"?" Yu Wan.
"What, do you want to know if you'll have luck in love?" She looked at Luo Yu suspiciously.
"I want to know whether July can evolve into a big dinosaur someday. He even had a dinosaur dream today. Maybe it was a prophetic dream?"
Luo Yu told Yu Wan about the dream.
"A lava dinosaur?"
Yu Wan hesitated. "Why does that sound a little familiar? I've seen it somewhere."
"You've heard of that too?" Luo Yu was startled.
"A few months ago, right after the grotto was discovered, my uncle asked me to look into information about ancient times. I came across a report," Yu Wan recalled.
"An archaeologist claimed that since all evolution in Earth's creatures was caused by a virus from space brought by the torrential rain... then... who could guarantee that the asteroid that destroyed the age of dinosaurs hadn't carried some power from space too?"
"This archaeologist maintained that there was also a period of supernatural history in ancient times. Although most dinosaurs died because of the meteorite, a small number mutated. The archaeologist also said that, if they did exist, they might have been lava behemoths capable of adapting to the environment at the time!"
"Of course, the archaeologist's views haven't been accepted by the mainstream."
"But looking at it now, maybe it really is possible? After all, the Ancient Grotto excavated on Mirror Moon Island contains supernatural power... My uncle even asked me to contact the archaeologist to come investigate Mirror Moon Island, but I still haven't managed to get in touch."
"..." Luo Yu pondered. Why did that sound somewhat reasonable? Perhaps a hidden supernatural age really had existed in ancient times.
Then could July have had that dream because the chaotic geomagnetic field caused his brain to resonate with the memory of the ley lines? After all, he had the top-tier Ley Line Resonance talent... and the earth recorded everything that happened in the world.
"Are you still trying to contact that archaeologist?" Luo Yu asked. The person might know something but hadn't revealed much in the interview.
When he formed a fleet in the future, he would have to recruit an archaeologist one way or another.