Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Mom, I'm back!"

Silem waved goodbye to his companions and shouted into the small courtyard of his home.

The courtyard was silent.

Silem: "?"

Today, Mother should be at home. Even if she's busy, she should at least respond from the window.

Isn't the first day of vacation usually filled with enthusiasm?

However, the expected warm smile did not appear.

Through the gaps in the wooden fence made from branches collected from the nearby forest, not only was the gate closed, but there was no movement even in the open windows.

Silem blinked a few times, then pushed off the fence and lightly jumped into the courtyard.

Meanwhile, in the stone house with a half-wall that was separated in the backyard,

Lorant and his mother Ruth were crouched outside an iron cage, watching the Claw Wolf inside with tense expressions.

Lorant held a wooden stick over a meter long with a round metal hoop at one end in one hand, and a bottle of sleeping potion he had concocted himself in the other, ready to subdue the Claw Wolf in the cage at any moment.

After all, a Claw Wolf is a Level Two beast. Even with a broken leg and about to give birth, it remains the most dangerous creature in their household.

As a boy with no physical strength, Lorant had barely faced this Claw Wolf while it was awake since it was brought directly into their backyard by mercenaries.

He worried that it might attack the cage if provoked.

If not for knowing that the Claw Wolf was currently at its weakest during childbirth, Lorant would not have agreed to help his mother with the delivery.

Even so, he remained vigilant against any sudden struggles.

At the first sign of the Claw Wolf trying to break out, he would need to choke it and spray it with the potion to knock it out.

"Bro! What are you guys doing?" Silem, having found no one in the house, circled around to the backyard and saw his mother and brother near the stone house where the Claw Wolf was kept. Curious, he leaned over Lorant's shoulder and whispered.

Completely focused, Lorant did not notice his brother's arrival, and the sudden voice startled him badly.

"You scared me!" Lorant slapped Silem's back loudly in surprise.

His equally startled mother also scolded and patted her younger son, "How old are you now? You're already a Knight Academy apprentice and still acting like a silly boy! Since you're here, come help your brother watch!"

Silem chuckled foolishly, scratched his head, and squatted between them. "Bro, is this wolf finally going to give birth?"

"Yes, my first batch of beast pets is about to arrive!"

Lorant tightened his grip on the wooden stick, his excitement evident. This Claw Wolf carried all his hopes.

"Here, take this stick. When the pups are born, keep the Claw Wolf's neck restrained so it doesn't move. I'll carry the pups out."

Lorant handed the stick to Silem, knowing that a Knight Academy apprentice's strength far exceeded his own.

He would be perfect for restraining the Claw Wolf.

Just as Lorant was explaining how to restrain the Claw Wolf without hurting it, the alert Claw Wolf let out a low whimper, turning its head to lick its shaved belly.

With its movement, an egg the size of a fist rolled out from under it.

"It's happening!" Lorant quickly forgot about his brother, leaning forward eagerly to examine the patterns on the egg.

It was the culmination of over a year's work.

"Bro, what is this? Claw Wolf eggs don't look like this..." Silem squinted and examined the egg closely.

Being a Knight Academy apprentice for a semester, he had some knowledge about the relatively common Claw Wolf.

"Claw Wolf eggs should be much larger than this, and they don't usually have this many at once!" Silem watched in amazement as more eggs rolled out from under the wolf, questioning the accuracy of his course on the habits and distribution of beasts.

"If I spent a whole year only to raise a few Claw Wolves, I might as well go work for Uncle Ain."

Uncle Ain is the town's herbalist. He studied alchemy for a long time in the city of Sakoren, where the Congress of Magic is located, but ultimately lacked the talent to become a mage. So, he returned to his hometown and opened a small apothecary shop.

People in the town often visit him for remedies for minor ailments, which usually work.

He is considered a respected figure in the town.

Lorant had sought herbs from him several times to prepare potions for taming and anesthetizing beasts.

Ain, understanding the purpose of these herbs, always believed Lorant was a genius in alchemy and wanted him to become his apprentice and help in the herb shop.

"Working for Uncle Ain is a great opportunity; others would love to have it!" Silem swiftly used the stick to restrain the exhausted Claw Wolf after it finished giving birth.

Lorant did not envy his brother's strength as a Knight apprentice. He quickly entered the cage, despite the Claw Wolf's roaring, and gathered the twelve eggs in his arms.

"Compared to these precious ones, nothing else matters." Lorant lifted an egg, holding it up to the light to check for signs of life.

He sat on the ground, wiping each egg clean with a cloth and carefully wrapping them before carrying them together.

Leaving his brother to clean up, Lorant took the eggs to a special nursery he had prepared in his room.

Called a nursery, it was simply a cleared space with a soft floor made from scraps of cloth.

Lorant carefully placed each egg in its own soft cloth, finally letting out a sigh of relief.

According to the guidebook, the hatching time for the Luli Bingxuan Dogs is 3 to 5 days. During this period, aside from applying nutritional potions at fixed times every day, there's nothing else to do.

Happily humming a tune, Lorant applied the prepared nutritional liquid to each of the twelve eggs one by one, muttering, "Come out quickly, I've prepared delicious food for you. Whoever comes out first gets to eat!"

After finishing these tasks, a wave of fatigue washed over him. Lorant drew the curtains shut and collapsed onto his bed, flipping open the guidebook in his mind.

The guidebook's index was divided into six levels: S, A, B, C, D, and E. Above these were three additional levels glowing with a golden light: SR, SSR, and UR.

Before today, all these entries were dull black. Now, after the B-level entry, an additional small entry had appeared.

"Luli Bingxuan Dog"………………………………0001.

Excitedly rubbing his hands together, Lorant clicked on this page.

A majestic large dog appeared before Lorant's eyes.

It had thick limbs, a wide mouth, and strong paws, with a beautiful aquamarine gem embedded in the center of its forehead.

Its long, gray-blue fur looked soft and smooth, while the fluffy white chest hair formed a beautiful arc. Around its paws floated several strands of ice-blue flames.

A fluffy tail almost as long as its body draped over its back, with ice-blue flames swirling around it and its paws.

Originally squatting on the ground, it seemed to sense Lorant's attention, stood up, circled around, came closer to sniff, then turned back and lay down with its back facing him.

After the image of this mighty dog faded, a list of skills appeared in the guidebook.

Skills of the Luli Bingxuan Dog:

1. "Flame Ball": The Tuli Bingxuan Dog flicks its tail to launch a blue high-temperature flame ball about 50 cm in diameter with a range of approximately 200 meters to attack prey.

2. "Flaming Bite": The Tuli Bingxuan Dog covers its mouth with ice flames, injecting them into the enemy's body through biting, melting the opponent from within.

3. "Flame Step": Wherever the Tuli Bingxuan Dog steps, it can choose to leave behind blue flames that continuously burn enemies. When passing through these flames, the Tuli Bingxuan Dog can increase its movement speed.

4. "Fire Seed": All the ice flames of the Tuli Bingxuan Dog can serve as fire seeds. It has a strong sense of where its fire seeds are, even if they are extinguished, it can still feel their location within a few days.

5. "Endurance": The Tuli Bingxuan Dog has extremely high temperature tolerance and can maintain good mobility in most temperatures.

Seeing this long list of skills again, Lorant still found it hard to contain his excitement.

A B-level beast pet with five innate skills is enough to rival a level 5 to 7 beast when placed on those irrational beasts.

Moreover, the Tuli Bingxuan Dog possesses considerable intelligence, capable of outsmarting a level 7 beast even when facing it alone.

With twelve Tuli Bingxuan Dogs, properly commanded, Lorant was confident he could take on even an eighth-level beast.

Of course, for now, Lorant could only look longingly at the twelve eggs in the room and fantasize about the future when he would lead a pack of dogs into battle against beasts.

It has been fourteen years since Lorant arrived in this wondrous world of elves, orcs, magic, and martial qi, and he has spent those same fourteen years drooling over the Compendium in his mind.

The Compendium comes with a built-in "Breeding Simulation" function. By placing two exotic beasts inside, assigning their genders, and adding the necessary potions, one can simulate the breeding outcome of these two creatures.

When the result is a beast pet rather than an exotic beast, the Compendium records this breeding route with a gray avatar.

However, fourteen years have not yielded many successful beast pet breeding routes for Lorant.

Firstly, even though he frequently visits the libraries of the church or the Mage Association to find exotic beast or demonic beast compendiums, very few of the exotic beasts described in books can be placed into the simulator.

This makes Lorant question the accuracy of these books.

Apart from the dubious compendiums, during his fourteen years of life, Lorant has only had access to some of the lowest-level exotic beasts.

For example, creatures like Spring Rabbits and Fluff Monsters, which ordinary people can easily handle.

Moreover, the breeding routes for these beast pets are far from what any normal human could imagine.

Lorant still believes that without his Compendium, no one would ever think to breed a male Crystal Rabbit with a female Claw Wolf.

Similarly, no one would conceive of breeding a Bomb Cat with an Ice Beak Bird to produce a Crystal Rabbit.

Even more unimaginable are breeding a Fire Squirrel with a Fluff Monster to get a Bomb Cat, or a Spring Rabbit with a Fire Tail Rat to produce a Fire Squirrel...

Even if someone were twisted enough to attempt these combinations, without specific potions, the offspring would simply be either the mother or the father.

After four generations of bizarre breeding, each involving partners that would make anyone call them insane, the miraculous Crystal Ice Flame Hound was finally born under Lorant's hands.

And this is just the beginning.

In addition to the Crystal Ice Flame Hound, a B-grade beast pet, Lorant also has a B-grade breeding route, three C-grade routes, two E-grade routes, two D-grade routes, and one A-grade route.

For these routes, Lorant is stuck at either the final step or the penultimate step, always lacking some higher-level exotic beasts he cannot obtain.

Even this Claw Wolf, obtained by Silem through the academy's trading platform using his contribution points, was a discounted cripple.

Higher-level exotic beasts are not something money can buy; they rarely appear on the public trading platforms of the Adventurer Guild.

Captured exotic beasts are usually listed on the internal trading platforms of mages or knight-priests, where ordinary people have no access.

Now, Lorant glanced at the Crystal Ice Flame Hound egg by his bed and fell asleep peacefully.