Chapter 209: Bloodline Restrictions
In just half a year, the Qinghui Base—once praised as one of the Blue Star Alliance’s northern Twin Stars—had already lost its former prosperity.
A desolate, bleak scene gradually appeared throughout Qinghui Base.
However, compared to the outer city, the inner city still retained a trace of bustle.
Under the conscription orders issued by the Alliance, the various factions generally would not be conscripted in full—roughly only one-third of their professional Beast Tamers would be called up.
This did not mean that these factions did not need to contribute. Apart from supplying various materials, professional Beast Tamers were not allowed to leave the base they belonged to.
That was to say, once Qinghui Base reached a moment of life and death, without the Alliance’s permission, these factions could only choose to share the base’s fate, or abandon their Alliance citizen status.
The reason such regulations existed was also the result of mutual compromise between the various factions and the Alliance.
If everyone were fully conscripted, it was possible that one faction might be completely wiped out in missions dispatched by the Alliance conscription, while another faction might only suffer minor casualties.
Total annihilation was something everyone might still be able to accept, but with high probability only partial casualties would occur, and each faction feared that the one suffering the heaviest losses would be their own.
Therefore, during the early stages of Alliance conscription, usually only one-third of each faction’s professional Beast Tamers would be conscripted.
When the true moment of life and death arrived, however, there was no need for further discussion—every professional Beast Tamer would be conscripted.
After all, if these factions wanted to flee, other bases’ factions would not accept them either.
The cake was only so big; if one more faction came to take a bite, the local factions would get less.
It was precisely because all Alliance factions fought for this together that such a tacit understanding with the Alliance was reached.
Platinum Grand Hotel, the best hotel in Qinghui Base’s inner city.
Inside the top-floor luxury suite, Scorpion-Lion sat before the floor-to-ceiling window, leisurely savoring the top-grade red wine in his hand, gazing down with a lofty взгляд at the gradually declining Qinghui Base.
“Young Master, shouldn’t we be heading back?”
“Young Master Ten Thousand Snakes hasn’t sent any reply for so long, it’s possible that…”
When Uncle Leng spoke to this point, he hesitated for a moment and did not continue, instead changing his words to express concern for Scorpion-Lion’s safety.
“The situation in the Panlong Mountain Range is dangerous right now. If you continue staying here, the old master will also inquire about it.”
Scorpion-Lion set down the red wine in his hand, his expression sinking slightly.
“I don’t believe that fellow Ten Thousand Snakes would die in the Panlong Mountain Range. His life is tough.”
“That guy has secrets on him. He probably doesn’t want to reveal too much of his strength, which is why he’s dragged it out for so long.”
Toward Ten Thousand Snakes, Scorpion-Lion always felt there was a layer of mist shrouding him; even he found it hard to see clearly.
But he could be certain—given the other party’s ability, he definitely would not die in the Panlong Mountain Range.
“Indeed, you truly know me well, Scorpion-Lion.”
As a teasing voice sounded out, the shadows in a corner of the suite writhed slightly, and Zhou Ming’s figure quietly appeared.
After learning from Su Mei that Scorpion-Lion was looking for him, Zhou Ming immediately rushed to Qinghui Base, temporarily setting aside his other matters.
“Truly a cockroach snake that just won’t die.”
Hearing Zhou Ming’s voice, a hint of a smile appeared at the corner of Scorpion-Lion’s mouth as he lifted the red wine and continued tasting it.
“Still better than you, you arrogant lion. An old friend comes to visit, and you’re still leisurely drinking red wine.”
“Intermediate Professional Rank.”
Just as the two were bantering with each other, Uncle Leng at the side suddenly let out an exclamation.
Hearing this, Scorpion-Lion immediately stood up and looked toward Zhou Ming.
“So you really did deceive me back then.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Back then, when you said the Sapphire Fish population wasn’t below five hundred, I didn’t deny it at all.”
Hearing Zhou Ming’s rebuttal, the corner of Scorpion-Lion’s mouth twitched slightly.
Not below five hundred—one thousand or even ten thousand was also not below five hundred, but the implications were completely different.
However, Scorpion-Lion did not want to play word games with Zhou Ming and directly asked him.
“Did you bring the hundred Sapphire Fish I wanted?”
“You’re really not polite. Just opening your mouth and asking me for a hundred Sapphire Fish.”
Before Zhou Ming could continue, Scorpion-Lion directly tossed out two items.
“A low-tier Original Meditation Method, and one hundred milliliters of Star-glow Spirit Liquid. These are what you wanted most before.”
“Heh heh, you really do understand me.”
After obtaining the Moon Lake Meditation Method, Zhou Ming borrowed from it for comprehension, allowing the White Bone Body Meditation Method he cultivated to gain deeper insights.
Together with resources such as Sapphire Fish, this was how he could advance so quickly to Intermediate Professional Rank.
As for the Star-glow Spirit Liquid, this resource was related to the Ironthread Snake swarm.
For a Beast Tamer to advance from Apprentice Professional Rank to Professional Rank, the probability was roughly one percent. But the probability of advancing from Professional Rank to Transcendent suddenly dropped to one in a thousand.
The reason, aside from compatibility during advancement, mainly lay with the Beast Taming.
The power of ferocious beasts was inherited through bloodlines. As long as a high-tier ferocious beast reached adulthood, under normal circumstances it would also be a high-tier ferocious beast. Even if the resources required for growth were insufficient, upon adulthood it could still rival the overlords among low-tier ferocious beasts.
Ferocious beasts of other tiers were roughly the same.
If cultivated with abundant resources, according to the ferocious beast’s potential, it could generally be raised another major tier.
Due to the innate limitations of humans’ origin spiritual power, they could generally only contract low-tier ferocious beasts. Only a portion of heaven-defying geniuses could contract the cubs of high-tier ferocious beasts.
Even if their strength improved and their spiritual origin was enhanced, they still could not directly contract ferocious beasts of the same tier.
This led to a problem: after most Beast Tamers’ strength advanced to the Professional Rank, once their beasts advanced to high-tier, it became very difficult to further increase their strength.
The only way was to find methods to enhance the bloodline potential of their beasts.
Therefore, as long as the requirements for Phantasmal Tamer class advancement were met, advancement would generally prioritize choosing Phantasmal Tamer.
Next was Beast Knight. Because the Beast Tamer and the beast were integrated as one, sharing life and death, the Beast Tamer could use spiritual power to nourish the beast in return—just as the beast nourished the Beast Knight—though certain resource support was still required.
As for Shepherds, although they were extremely powerful in the early stage and could at most cultivate nine beasts of the same tier, if they wanted to advance to Transcendent Master, either their core beast’s bloodline was originally that of a high-tier ferocious beast, or they had to find ways to enhance bloodline potential.
Thus, even Transcendent-level legion commanders generally only had their core beast reach the Lord tier. For high-tier beasts to display their strength, they could only rely on formations formed through Beast Taming command.
Therefore, generally only the military would choose Shepherds, or those who had low compatibility with the first two class advancements and could not complete advancement, would be forced to choose the Shepherd profession.
This was also why most of the enemies Zhou Ming had encountered previously were Phantasmal Tamers.
Zhou Ming himself was even more unfortunate. His Spiritual Seed had shattered, yet his origin was unified. Not only could he contract only mutated animals, but they also had to be of the same race.
The upper limit of bloodline potential for mutated animals was at most that of low-tier ferocious beasts.
Inkband, Vermilion Jade, and Silver Scale were able to transform into high-tier beasts not only because the secondary mutation brought changes to their bloodlines, but also because, during the Snake Valley experimental project, Star-glow Spirit Liquid had been used to enhance their bloodline potential.
As for Colorful Scales, Golden Horn, and Iron Block, because their bloodline potential was restricted, they only possessed half-step high-tier ferocious beast strength and were unable to complete the transformation into high-tier beasts for a long time.
That was why Zhou Ming said Scorpion-Lion was very considerate—the resources used to trade for the Sapphire Fish were precisely the two resources he needed most.