Chapter 263

Chapter 263

The entire Beast Tower, being underground, was completely covered by temperature control magic and lighting spells.

Ideally, the temperature and lighting should remain constant throughout the tower. However, the further down he went, the greater the pressure Lorant felt.

The temperature change around him became more intense, and even the lighting spell above his head seemed to be affected, starting to dim.

Lorant felt an invisible weight pressing down on him, growing heavier with each step. If it weren’t for Baby lying in his arms easing his tension, Lorant would never have come here alone.

When powerful live beasts gathered together, the aura they emitted affected the surroundings.

That effect, though intangible, was very real, making the surrounding air seem thick and heavy.

At this moment, Lorant stood before a cage holding a level fourteen live beast.

If it were a healthy and intact level fourteen live beast, even if it were trapped by layers of magic, Lorant would never dare to face it alone with just Baby.

Baby, due to its unique nature, had the ability to fight above its level against most live beasts or practitioners.

However, this particular live beast was especially challenging for Baby.

Lorant felt confident standing here because most of the live beasts in the Beast Tower had been imprisoned for years.

During this time, the weaker live beasts were fed regularly to keep them from dying, ensuring they remained in decent condition.

The higher the level of the live beast, the more advanced its life force. Some high-level live beasts could survive for decades without food.

To keep them docile and prevent escape attempts, the Beast Tower’s solution was quite simple and brutal.

They controlled how these live beasts obtained energy. Since they wouldn’t easily starve to death, food was given only once every few years or even decades, forcing the live beasts to use their stored energy for survival.

This method kept the live beasts barely alive but effectively imprisoned in their cages, with no beast uprisings ever occurring. It was quite successful.

As a result, the higher-level live beasts at the bottom appeared even weaker than the lower-level ones above.

Even in their weakened state, Lorant knew Baby would need to stay vigilant and prepared to stand a chance against them.

After all, Baby was just an A-rank live beast companion. It could hold its own against level eleven or twelve live beasts but could only barely survive against higher-level ones.

In front of Lorant was a massive cage about twenty meters tall.

At first glance, the cage looked like an ordinary iron enclosure. However, the iron bars were actually just markers to identify the range of the protective magic array, preventing any unaware members of the Beast Tower from entering.

The real control came from the magic arrays maintained by the Beast Tower’s leaders over the years.

Even though the corridor was brightly lit by a lighting charm, the interior of the cage was pitch black.

Lorant knew this wasn’t due to any protective charm. In the cages on either side of the corridor, where other live beasts were held, many pairs of eyes were now glued to the iron bars, staring intently at him.

The overwhelming malice from those pairs of eyes, each belonging to different kinds of live beasts, flowed out unconcealed.

Several bloodshot, red eyes gleamed with hunger, sending a cold shiver down Lorant’s spine.

Live beasts were still beasts, after all. Even level fourteen live beasts, which had some level of intelligence, lacked normal emotions.

They are born with the sole purpose of tearing apart all the beauty in this world. The innate violence in their bones is something that these beasts can never change.

The black fog inside the cage before him is actually a characteristic of the beast he needs.

This is a type of beast called the "Soul-stealing Fog."

One of the most iconic abilities of this beast is the black fog that fills the entire cage.

When it appears, the black fog follows its body and spreads, expanding endlessly as it devours each soul. It will continue to expand indefinitely, covering the entire battlefield until the area becomes a forbidden zone for all living things.

Lorant had read the records in the Beast Tower about how this Soul-stealing Fog was captured.

It was during a beast tide at the Lopulo frontlines. In that level-four beast tide, one of the most powerful beasts to appear on the battlefield was the Soul-stealing Fog before him.

According to the records, it took less than three breaths for the Soul-stealing Fog to engulf half the battlefield.

The dense black fog covered several kilometers of the battlefield, and the moment humans and beasts were swallowed by the fog, the cries of agony were instantly silenced.

In that instant, all practitioners below level eight who were caught by the black fog on the battlefield had their souls sucked out, leaving behind shriveled corpses.

Later, with the combined efforts of fifteen level-thirteen practitioners, five level-fourteen practitioners, and three legendary mages—a force powerful enough to topple an entire human empire—they managed to capture the Soul-stealing Fog alive after nearly a week of intense battle.

Of course, the opportunity to capture it alive mainly arose because two of the three legendary mages leading the operation were formidable warriors from the Beast Tower.

During that peak period of the Beast Tower, Lorant could hardly imagine the immense power that the Mage Tower once possessed, a prosperity that allowed it to guard two Lopulo Mountains canyons. Lorant could only catch a glimpse of that prosperity from various ancient records.

While keeping his guard up and preparing for any possible emergencies, Lorant had his hand on the teleportation stone at his waist, ready to teleport away at a moment's notice.

Nothing mattered more than his own survival!

At the same time, Lorant gently placed his hand on the cage holding the Soul-stealing Fog.

The dense black fog seemed to take on a life of its own. The previously still fog suddenly gathered into a ferocious monster inside the cage and slammed into the barrier before Lorant with a thunderous boom.

Ignoring the terrifying black fog exploding before him, Lorant kept his hand on the cage. After about ten seconds, a control panel appeared in front of him.

Lorant had seen this control panel before. He had already familiarized himself with the related operations many times, with Jacqueline’s guidance, before preparing to activate the Grimoire.

He swiped across the panel a couple of times, and immediately, a circular funnel-like object appeared in front of him. Lorant took out two giant wooden barrels from his spatial storage, each as tall as he was, and had his beast pour every last drop of the liquid inside into the funnel.

This was a concentrated high-level beast sedative with a significant proportion of aphrodisiac mixed in.

It was a new concoction that Lorant had specifically tailored for this Soul-stealing Fog.

Hopefully, it would enjoy it.

The Soul-stealing Fog, perhaps because it had been locked up for too long, didn’t seem to appreciate the new scent of the concoction. But Lorant didn’t care about its preferences.

As the concoction slowly flowed in, a layer of light mist silently blended in, obscured by the black fog. Lorant clearly saw that the force with which the Soul-stealing Fog slammed into the cage had increased significantly.

This process lasted for over half an hour. The Soul-stealing Fog had already been starved for many years and was now extremely weak.

So under Lorant’s large-scale, high-potency mixture, the black fog soon weakened and became paler.

Seeing this, Lorant calmly lowered his head and had his beast pull over a secondary beast that had been tied up and swung over on silk threads.

Breeding this secondary beast was more complex than raising an A-grade beast pet. It had taken Lorant a great deal of effort to cultivate it.

Its size wasn't large, only reaching Lorant's calf. From the outside, it looked like a perfectly proportionate miniature fire dragon, but it was merely a secondary beast with the strength of a level two.

Moreover, due to its size, even though it had a fierce expression, it still appeared cute and endearing.

This secondary beast emitted a strong fragrance from its entire body. When Lorant had Baby drag it out from a distance and punctured the bubble-like membrane surrounding it, the other level fourteen beasts in the vicinity became more agitated.

They squeezed against the edges of the cage, their greedy eyes fixed on Lorant and the secondary beast beside him, drooling everywhere. Although they couldn't eat it, they tried to sniff more of the aroma by opening their nostrils wide.

The black fog in the cage, which had started to dissipate, couldn't help but stir. It had initially intended to pretend to be affected by the intoxicating agent to lure the small snack outside, but now it rolled up a dense fog, accompanied by wailing sounds, and slammed against the barrier again.

Lorant didn't spare these creatures any extra attention. He had Baby hang the secondary beast outside the Soul Stealer Fog's cage and watched as the black fog churned for over an hour before it truly lost strength, the impacts becoming weaker and the fog starting to calm down and dissipate.

He then summoned the control panel on the cage again.

This time, a cube as tall as a person appeared. He had Baby stuff the secondary beast inside, pressed a few buttons on the control panel, and the secondary beast was teleported in.

The moment the secondary beast was sent into the cage, the black fog, which had been continually dissipating and was about to reveal its true form—a strange beast seemingly completely incapacitated—suddenly flashed a look of triumph in its scarlet eyes. It teleported to the front of the cage and swallowed the unprepared secondary beast in one gulp.

It turned out that the two previous instances of fainting were just deceptions to trick Lorant. Its cunning far exceeded Lorant's expectations.

However, this was within Lorant's expectations. He hadn't really counted on a level two beast to do anything significant to a level fourteen beast, even if it was completely unconscious or dead. The aura of dominance of a high-level beast was enough to prevent this secondary beast from harboring any other intentions when facing the Soul Stealer Fog.

Therefore, to breed, this beast would need something more than an ordinary procedure.

At this point, the Soul Stealer Fog finally revealed its true form. Hidden beneath the thick black fog was a small beast, no taller than Lorant.

From a distance, the Soul Stealer Fog's true form resembled a small, delicately proportioned deer, with a sleek and graceful body that, at first glance, appeared quite beautiful.

However, upon closer inspection, one could see that from the neck up, the Soul Stealer Fog looked like a rotting corpse. Bones protruded from its flesh, and pus constantly dripped from the corners of its mouth and eyes.

The head of the Soul Stealer Fog was disproportionately large, resembling the head of a baboon, and its mouth could split wide enough to nearly cleave its head in two.

When Lorant noticed that the normal fur on its body, upon closer inspection, was actually composed of tiny screaming heads constantly spewing black fog, the somewhat squeamish Lorant couldn't help but take a few disgusted steps back.

The Soul Stealer Fog had swallowed most of the small fire dragon in one bite and was trying to open its jaw even wider. With its powerful bite force, it crushed the secondary beast into pieces, consuming it bone and all.

Feeling its strength returning from the long-awaited meal, the Soul Stealer Fog, looking at the human before it, couldn't help but want to charge at the barrier again.

However, its advanced intelligence prevented it from engaging in such meaningless actions. It knew clearly that this time, it had squeezed all the energy it could from the human. The next step was to store all this energy bit by bit until the day it could break out of this cage and kill all those annoying creatures.

As it ate the secondary beast's body, it also extracted its soul, forming a dark spot on its fur.

However, the next moment, contrary to the Soul Stealer Fog's expectations, the soul of the secondary beast, which it had assumed to be just ordinary food, mutated after being extracted. Instead of being absorbed into the Soul Stealer Fog's body as it had hoped, the soul suddenly expanded upon extraction, becoming active and escaping from its mouth.

The soul of the secondary beast rapidly expanded in the cage, soon turning into a gigantic soul form Dragon Beast.

Fortunately, the soul didn't have a physical form and wasn't restricted by the size of the cage, though it twisted its body, it didn't affect its actions.

In the eyes of the Soul Stealer Fog, which was both terrified and resentful, its legs already weakened by the combined effects of the intoxicating agent and aphrodisiac, the giant soul form Dragon Beast pounced and began its breeding mission.

This time, Lorant didn't mind the visually unsettling breeding process. He watched the entire unusual breeding process intently, recording it with a crystal stone.

Even for him, such a scene was rare. Lorant planned to keep the recording and study the grimoire breeding process later, trying to summarize the patterns and attempt to create another top-tier beast pet.

While watching the adult film on site, Lorant sighed to himself, acknowledging that he was indeed a greedy human at heart. He hadn't even officially bred his first S-class beast pet, and he was already thinking about acquiring a second one.

But that's the nature of humans—greed for survival, greed for knowledge, all driving them forward ceaselessly.

The process concluded swiftly. The massive soul-like dragon beast did not display the breeding capabilities one might expect from its size. It quickly finished its task and climbed off the Soul Stealer, who had fainted from rage and lost consciousness.

Then the soul began to solidify. The giant soul dragon beast had emerged from the Soul Stealer's mouth, and now, having completed its breeding work, it returned through the same path.

The Soul Stealer's body swelled, its nauseating fur expanding. Each spot on its body that spewed black mist began to emit a dreamlike blue smoke.

This smoke gradually seeped out of the Soul Stealer's body and, under some unknown influence, coalesced beside it into a beast pet egg as tall as Lorant's thigh.

Lorant hurriedly operated the control panel, instructing Baby to extend its silk threads to carefully retrieve the ethereal, dreamlike egg.

The beast pet egg, composed of pale blue smoke, lacked a tangible form. Fortunately, Baby was adept with soul energy and wrapped its spectral silk thickly around the egg, gently cradling it.

Lorant glanced at the Soul Stealer, which had completely lost consciousness. After this round of forced breeding, the number of faces on its fur had significantly decreased, and its aura was exceptionally weak.

The Soul Stealer now looked quite pitiful, its vital energy severely depleted, even more so than when it was initially captured alive.

Given its current state, if they wanted the Soul Stealer to complete another breeding cycle, it would roughly take about ten years of proper care to recover to a breedable condition.

In the environment of the Beast Tower, this time frame might be even longer.

Seeing the Soul Stealer's wretched state, the other beasts in the surrounding cages, which had been drooling over Lorant, became somewhat more restrained.

They had never seen anyone reduce a fellow high-level beast to such a state before.

Though this two-legged creature seemed to lack formidable strength and had a weak aura, it must be a new type of powerful being that had emerged among those accursed creatures, not to be provoked lightly.

Look at the creature that emerged from the Soul Stealer Fog; it might be the energy that the Soul Stealer Fog had been hoarding for hundreds of years, stripped away from it in one go!

Humans have actually mastered such abilities! That's just terrifying!

On his way back, Lorant didn't notice that the powerful beasts on the top floor of the Beast Tower had subtly shifted their attitude toward him.

He stared at the floating soul beast egg, his heart pounding, and hurriedly rushed to the lab with Baby.

He gently placed this unique soul beast egg on a soft cushion woven from carefully selected cloud flowers and sky grass, and then covered it with a huge crystal dome. Afterward, Lorant quickly adjusted the environment inside the crystal dome, including temperature, humidity, and light levels, to the optimal conditions for the soul beast egg.

Immediately after, he began his next step without wasting any time.

According to the ability chart, he spread out the hides of the beasts one by one and screened them using the chart's unique method.

From them, he selected the most suitable one hundred hides, the smoothest and freshest ones, and carefully cut them into one hundred identical pieces using a silver knife forged under the moonlight, soaked in the juice of the soul-stealing grass.

These hides each measured two meters by four meters, and some still retained their original fine feathers or scales. The hides of different beasts displayed astonishing consistency at this moment.

After cutting these one hundred pieces of leather, Lorant used a mithril scraper dipped in a solidifying potion to carefully scrape the inside of each piece of leather.

Even though the hides had been processed, they still contained microscopic, invisible tissues. Only after treating them with this specialized potion were the hides considered ready for use.

Then, Lorant used the central feathers of a double-headed ghost crane to carefully coat both sides of the hides with that precious starlight juice.

The liquid, which looked deep black in the silver container with countless shimmering light points like the night sky, became transparent when touched by the feather.

But when applied to the hides, the starlight juice turned the leather a deep black, dotted with twinkling stars, much like a night sky reflected in water.

With the help of several floating octopuses, Lorant quickly finished applying the starlight juice to all one hundred pieces of the 'starry sky' hides.

Afterward, a long spider silk spanned the entire laboratory, suspending those valuable 'starry sky' hides.