Chapter 244 - Chimera and The Four Species.
Felix placed the piece with a dazed expression. He didn't want to believe it...No, he didn't dare to as he understood the gravity of this issue.
Chimera was a term that could be used for humans, beasts, and even some races.
In the case of humans, Chimera was more of a nasty insult that was thrown at humans with major mutations from multiple beasts.,
Some could have a leg for an alligator beast species, a leopard tail, and arms belonging to another beast.
This mix and mismatched mutations were unappealing in the public, and some bloodliners would pick on anyone who was spotted with those mutations.
Meanwhile for beasts, Chimeras were to be feared and avoided at all cost by hunters and bloodliners.
Those beasts were infamous for three things; Rarity, Strength, and lastly their mismatched body, which was made with different beasts parts.
Felix read in the UVR that Chimera's beasts have resulted from interspecies mating.
For example, a winged beast mating with a reptile beast five generations ago would result in creating a chimera beast with half a reptile body and half a winged body.
The numbers quite different from one to another as in some cases, chimeras wouldn't even get born after tens upon tens of generations.
However, the moment they come into existence, they become one of the top predators in their beastial tier.
Chimeras were at minimum five times stronger than their peers in the same rank and tier.
This meant Chimeras for hunters were an abomination that shouldn't be marked for hunting unless the damn price was beyond worth it.
After all, a fully equipped hunter squad was needed to slay epic beasts. Yet, for the chimeras, even a rare ranked one would need a squad as well.
The hunters would not risk their lives on taking down such an abomination unless they were commissioned by their patron, who was commissioned by the client.
Needless to say, if the price didn't light up their greed fuse, they wouldn't bother to address the commission.
Felix didn't know if he was going to be dealing with this or not, as for the Sphinx to be a Chimera, it didn't mean that all beastial chimeras would be having her bloodline essence.
After all, Chimera was just a term not a species.
Felix was extremely gloomy because for the Sphinx to be a Chimera was the same as not having a single species but multiple ones.
This signified that he would need to target all the species, which the Sphinx was made of.
It was obviously not going to be as efficient as targeting one species like he did with the J?rmungandr.
"Elder, may I know how the Sphinx looked like?" Felix asked.
Instead of responding, the J?rmungandr waved his hand and a mirror-like screen was manifested in front of Felix.
Then, it started to brighten up until a detailed clear picture of the Sphinx was displayed.
The Sphinx had the body of a lion with a golden silky fur, the tail of a golden scaled serpent, the wings of a great Eagle, and lastly the head of a woman with a cat's facial features.
Though her face was resembling a cat, her eyes weren't as the pupils were actually golden triangles!
Felix couldn't say a word after his eyes landed on this fascinating and captivating creation.
Each body part was harmonizing with the rest in such a fine scrupulous manner, Felix was beginning to doubt the J?rmungandr's words, that she was a chimera instead of being a unique separate species.
"She is a beauty right?" The J?rmungandr showed an una.d.u.l.terated gaze of desire at the image of the Sphinx for a second before sighing in dejection, "If only her personality wasn't weird, I would have chased after her."
"Tsk, I doubt that you had an actual shot with her." Asna clicked her tongue in mockery.
Before the J?rmungandr could respond to her taunt, Felix interfered by asking, "Can the primogenitors have children between each other?"
"No." The J?rmungandr shook his head firmly, "Some of us have even married each other and been trying to have children worthy of being called the sons and daughters of two primogenitors. Alas, no matter what they did, it was just impossible."
Felix didn't bother to ask why so.
He understood that if the J?rmungandr knew about the reason, the primogenitors would have tackled the issue long ago.
This meant, no one knew why exactly were the primogenitors unable to bear children with each other.
If it wasn't for the fact that they were able to mate with those of lower status as them, they would have honestly believed that they were sterilized or something.
Felix didn't want to dive into this subject as it was probably quite touchy and sensitive for the J?rmungandr.
Thus, he steered back into the Sphinx by asking, "Elder, do you have any idea, which species she had the most descendants in her territory?"
Felix had to try and lower the species that he needed to start targeting since the Sphinx was clearly a chimera of four species.
Alas, his attempt ended in failure as the J?rmungandr replied, "I wasn't that bored to take a close look into the followers in her territory."
"Sigh, I guess I can only buy multiple bloodlines from those species and see which one gave me the biggest percentages in a consistent manner."
This plan might cost him a leg, but for now, it was the only one that he had. Felix turned his head back on the board and knocked the Queen, declaring his surrender.
He was about to lose in two moves anyway. He gestured for Asna to take his seat as he went to take a closer look at the Sphinx.
As he was peering at its creation, Felix suddenly was reminded that he still had another element affinity that was collecting dust for two lifelines.
He swiftly turned around and asked in agitation, "Elder, do you know the species of the illusion primogenitor?"
"Heh, if we could see his real body, he wouldn't be the illusion primogenitor." The J?rmungandr gave him a side-glance aimed for morons.
Felix coughed in embarrassment, as he figured that the J?rmungandr had a point.
For the primogenitor of illusion, shapeshifting into whatever he desired was supposed to be the norm.
The few number and species of beasts in the universe that uses illusion were the only clue he had to find out.
If only they were not low tiered not reaching even tier 5 and so damn expensive, Felix would have invested in illusion first before sand element.
Alas, he knew that if he went in this route with his tragic capital that was barely enough to find 99% essence of the J?rmungandr, he would be eating dirt and still not manage to gather even a proper 15% essence.
This without mentioning the fact that he needed to reach 100% illusion affinity, which had its energy stones only in auctions, even the medium-graded ones.
Illusion stones weren't even used that much by the bloodliners to fuel their energy but as a basic material for illusion based items.
It went without saying that those illusion items were extremely useful and competed for by everyone.
For Felix, who would need probably up to ten thousand high-grade stones to reach a 100% affinity rating, that would be sheer impossible unless he spent years jumping from one auction to another to secure small batch by batch.
The grades of elements, from common, uncommon, to rare weren't there just to separate them based on their utility or uniqueness.
They were separated based on the rarity of their natural resources in the universe!
For a rare element like an illusion, it was extremely difficult to find environments in the universe, which had its elemental energy.
Felix didn't want to waste his already limited resources on an element that wasn't applicable in his current state.
Though he was still not giving up on it yet, as the moment he finds a solution to tackling those issues, he wouldn't hesitate to start hunting for illusion bloodlines no matter how expensive it was going to cost him.
"Elder, you carry on with Asna, I will be heading to the markets." Felix said politely while breaking into misty particles.
...
Not bothering to even open his eyes, Felix straightaway requested for the Queen to log him in. A few seconds later, his body was constructed in his Androxa house.
Felix looked at the time and realized that Mr. Goati was probably still sleeping, and if he went to his shop, he would find only his assistance, who had no idea about the contract and the huge discount between them.
Still, Felix decided to go take a look at the bloodlines in his shop and choose a couple of ones during those two hours until Mr. Goati wakes up.
He picked up the car keys on the table and went to his garage. After riding his car, he drove it to the teleportation circle. When he arrived, he sent the car to park itself and entered the building.
After a while...
Felix could be seen inside Goati's humongous shop, sitting on a couch and browsing through a holographic list with furrowed eyebrows.
The list was displaying the prices of tier 5 epic bloodlines. Obviously, those bloodlines were from the four species of the Sphinx.
Felix wasn't pleased in the slightest with the prices of the eagle species, as they were 20% expensive than the rest.
But it was quite understandable as flying beasts were popular within the ranks of the bloodliners, due to having a chance of unlocking wings morphing abilities.
'Whatever, it will be sold again.' Felix thought to himself.
After a couple of minutes, Felix closed down the list. He already marked the bloodlines that he wanted and now he could only wait for Goati to wake up and conclude the deal.
'Better check for Chemira bloodlines.'
Instead of leaving the shop, Felix opened another search bar, that was exclusive for the items in this shop, and starting typing >Chimera beasts, sand element, tier 4 to 7, rare and epic rank.<
A split second later, he found only one result, and it was a tier 4 rare beast, which was being bided on for the past week or so.
The other bottles were probably already sold out or needed to make a commission first to get them.
Felix clicked on the image of the beast, enlarging it.
After seeing that it had the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion, he shook his head in disappointment.
He knew that the bloodline of the scorpion, which almost had zero relation to the Sphinx, was going to make it even more diffecult to find her essence inside.
He didn't want to do experiments right now when he was broke. The one billion and the three hundred million that he had was soon going to be only 300 million SC after paying for those bottles.
Felix had this much only due to Looby pulling through and giving him the money for four bottles from the seven bottles that he had given him.
This meant, Looby still needed to pay back for those three bottles.
However, this time Felix gave him only two weeks delay instead of a month and if he didn't manage to pay him back in time, he would be switching to using a non-exclusive contract with multiple shops.
Honestly, Felix hoped that Looby could manage to pull through and find a way to bring his shop into public and start getting enough liquidity. His items' quality deserved that much attention.
...
Two hours later...
After a vicious negotiation with Goati, Felix was able to leave the shop with the serial code of the bottles.
They weren't negotiating the prices but the delayed payment!
Just like Felix had enough of Looby's delays, Goati also had enough of Felix asking to pay later every god damn time.
But, Felix managed to pacify him by mentioning that after this transaction, he would be always paying upfront in his next purchases.
Shortly after, Felix sent the serial codes to Bodidi and told him to be on hold about the coordination.
Felix still had no idea which hotel they would be staying in for the next four days in Berlin.