In his sleep, Zheng Dong was woken by his pet treasure-hunting rat.
Treasure-hunting rats were a common type of extraordinary creature, fond of finding and collecting various special metals, gems, and other resources. They were not strong in attack.
Zheng Dong’s treasure-hunting rat was a mutant. It had been brought back by Zheng Dong’s parents shortly after birth, and it shared a deep bond with Zheng Dong.
Seeing the treasure-hunting rat standing on his quilt, Zheng Dong was taken aback.
“Little Purple, where did you go? How did you suddenly grow bigger than the gem cat next door?”
Little Purple, the treasure-hunting rat, always brought back surprises whenever it went out.
This time, not only had it grown considerably, but it was also holding a green fruit in its mouth.
The treasure-hunting rat, covered in purplish-gold fur, was plump, resembling a beaver. It didn't look scary at all; rather, it was rather cute.
Hearing Zheng Dong’s words, its eyes, like purple gemstones, showed a hint of excitement, as if it planned to find the gem cat next door and spar with it later.
“Squeak, squeak…” Little Purple spat the green fruit in front of Zheng Dong and chirped a few times.
Zheng Dong picked up the green fruit, about the size of a green date, with a puzzled expression. “You’re saying you ate this kind of fruit and suddenly grew bigger?”
The green fruit didn’t look particularly special, appearing to be a type of fruit Zheng Dong had never seen before.
Zheng Dong didn’t notice the occasional golden light flowing within the green flesh.
“Squeak, squeak!”
Little Purple nodded humanely, extended its front paws, and waved them urgently, as if urging Zheng Dong to quickly eat the remaining green fruit.
“You want me to eat it too?”
Zheng Dong hesitated. He wasn’t an extraordinary creature like the treasure-hunting rat. He was still an ordinary person who hadn’t even opened a beast-taming space.
“Don’t rush, let me check if it’s edible first!” Zheng Dong pulled his phone from under his pillow and went online to search.
This was an extraordinary world called Blue Star, centered around beast-taming.
Zheng Dong had been reborn into a family where both parents were beast-tamers after a car accident. He could have lived a life of leisure as a second-generation beast-tamer, without worries about food or clothing.
However, six months ago, a conflict occurred on the border between their Yanhuang Kingdom and the Qingqiu Totem Kingdom. His parents’ beast-taming team, engaged in research on mixed-blood pets, was collecting experimental data near the conflict zone and was forced into the battlefield.
His parents never returned, possibly having gone missing or perhaps perishing in the war.
Fortunately, many of the items Little Purple brought back were quite valuable. Zheng Dong sold them, which was enough to cover his and Little Purple’s living expenses for this period.
Before long, Zheng Dong found information about what seemed to be the green fruit.
“Primordial Fruit?!”
The Primordial Fruit, also known as the Talent Fruit or Bloodline Fruit, could strengthen the bloodline power of extraordinary creatures and awaken stronger racial skills.
Most importantly, ordinary people could also eat it, and after eating it, they had a chance to awaken stronger beast-taming talents.
Primordial Fruits originated from the Primordial Ancient Tree of the Divine Tree Totem Kingdom.
The Primordial Ancient Tree bore twelve Primordial Fruits every thirty years.
However, the Divine Tree Totem Kingdom was separated from the Yanhuang Kingdom by the Qingqiu Totem Kingdom, and almost all totem kingdoms were hostile towards human nations. Therefore, the probability of Primordial Fruits reaching the Yanhuang Kingdom was infinitesimally close to zero.
It was hard to imagine that Little Purple had found two Primordial Fruits in just one night.
Zheng Dong looked at Little Purple in disbelief.
“This isn’t a Primordial Fruit, is it?”
“Squeak, squeak…” Little Purple waved its paws and squeaked forcefully.
Eat it when I tell you to! If you don’t eat it soon, it will be wasted.
Little Purple was about to pounce and stuff the green fruit into Zheng Dong’s mouth.
Seeing Little Purple’s anxious look, Zheng Dong felt that Little Purple wouldn’t harm him. Besides, infinitely close to zero wasn’t the same as zero. What if this was indeed a Primordial Fruit?
With a glimmer of hope, Zheng Dong put the green fruit into his mouth.
“Don’t give me extra meals anymore, I want to sleep a little longer!”
As Zheng Dong spoke, he stroked Little Purple’s soft purplish-gold fur, then crunched the green fruit in his mouth.
Immediately, a warm current surged through his body, feeling incredibly comfortable.
Zheng Dong suddenly felt that the bottleneck he had been unable to break through seemed to be on the verge of being overcome.
“Holy cow, could this really be a Primordial Fruit!”
Feeling the immense power contained within the green fruit, Zheng Dong didn’t hesitate and immediately began to meditate.
He had already learned the method of meditating to cultivate a beast-taming space.
In his spiritual world, a transparent bead, like a glass ball, continuously flashed and changed, surrounded by a dazzling array of colorful light.
As the power contained within the green fruit surged in, with a bang, the bead seemed to explode as if the world was being created, and a vast beast-taming space slowly formed.
Before long, Zheng Dong’s beast-taming space was successfully opened.
It was nearly ten times larger than a normally opened beast-taming space.
At the same time, he also awakened his beast-taming talent.
Beast-taming talents could generally be divided into two categories: Enhancement Talents and Special Talents.
Enhancement Talents could strengthen the attack or defense attributes of one’s own pets.
Special Talents were more complex.
For example, the Fusion Talent allowed one to fuse with their pets; the Telepathy Talent allowed telepathic communication with all intelligent beings; the Emotion Control Talent allowed one to manipulate the emotions of almost all living beings.
Different Special Talents had different effects.
While Special Talents were not necessarily better than Enhancement Talents, the best beast-taming talents were definitely Special Talents.
However, beast-tamers at level nine and above awakened Enhancement Talents.
Perhaps due to the green fruit, Zheng Dong awakened a Special Talent that had never been recorded in the history of Yanhuang Kingdom beast-tamers.
He temporarily called it Skill Domain.
Skill Domain had two functions.
First, it rapidly improved a pet’s proficiency in mastering skills.
Pet skill proficiency could be roughly divided into Novice, Proficient, Expert, Perfect, and Masterful.
Taking low-level skills as an example, a pet could reach Novice proficiency by cultivating for one hour under Zheng Dong’s beast-taming talent, and then reach Proficient by cultivating for another six hours.
It could even cultivate a low-level skill directly from Novice to Masterful in less than four days.
However, activating the beast-taming talent consumed a large amount of physical energy.
With Zheng Dong’s current physical condition, he needed to rest and replenish his energy after activating the Skill Domain talent for six hours.
Second, it imprinted the pet’s skills onto the beast-taming space, allowing Zheng Dong to master and use the pet’s skills. He could also combine multiple imprinted pet skills to form more powerful combination skills.
The number and quality of imprinted pet skills were related to the level and strength of the beast-taming space.
Currently, he could only imprint five low-level skills, three mid-level skills, and one high-level skill.
However, using combination skills placed a heavy burden on the beast-taming space, and he was not yet able to use them.
In the future, as Zheng Dong’s beast-taming realm and beast-taming space improved, his talent would also be continuously strengthened.
This was definitely a good beast-taming talent. Zheng Dong had never heard of anyone awakening a similar beast-taming talent.
However, he still needed to experiment to figure out how to use it.
Zheng Dong stopped meditating and looked excitedly at Little Purple, the treasure-hunting rat.
He could finally become a beast-tamer.
Even if he contracted a pet now, he was only a novice beast-tamer.
But he was a beast-tamer nonetheless!
The status of beast-tamers in the Yanhuang Kingdom was very high. Almost all important positions were held by beast-tamers, and even opening a company required beast-tamer qualifications.
Moreover, as long as he became a novice beast-tamer, he could receive a fixed living allowance from the Beast-Tamer Association every month.
This could completely solve his current predicament.
He wouldn’t have to rely on Little Purple to support him anymore.
Excited, Zheng Dong picked up Little Purple and jumped off the bed.
“Heh heh, Little Purple, let’s contract. I’ll show you how powerful my beast-taming talent is!” Zheng Dong said with a smile.
The ritual for contracting a pet was simple.
Zheng Dong summoned his beast-taming space, and a colorless, transparent, flowing contract formation appeared out of thin air at his feet.
A golden contract ring flew out from the contract formation and flew towards Little Purple.
Little Purple did not resist, allowing the contract ring to merge into its body, agreeing to contract with Zheng Dong. Through the contract formation, it entered Zheng Dong’s beast-taming space.
Immediately, a voice echoed in Zheng Dong’s mind.
“Wow, not bad, it’s quite spacious here, and it feels very comfortable!”
After completing the contract, Zheng Dong could communicate directly with Little Purple through telepathy.
At the same time, Zheng Dong also received Little Purple’s basic information.
[Name] Mutant Treasure-Hunting Rat
[Attribute] Gold, Earth, Dark
[Race Level] High-Grade Extraordinary
[Growth Level] Awakened Level 6
[Skills]:
Low-Level: Harden (Novice), Earth Evasion (Proficient), Shadow Form (Novice)
High-Level: Magnify (Not yet Novice)
Special Skill: Treasure Sense (Expert)
Harden, as the name suggests, could release hardened substances to cover the body, forming a metallic armor. The higher the proficiency, the larger the hardened coverage area and the greater the hardening strength.
Earth Evasion allowed it to burrow into the ground, merge with the earth, move rapidly, and evade attacks.
Shadow Form could transform the body into shadows, suitable for lurking in darkness, and could also effectively evade physical attacks.
Magnify was a support skill that could enlarge or shrink the body.
Treasure Sense granted the treasure-hunting rat the ability to perceive the energy fluctuations and approximate locations of various resources and treasures.
“It doesn’t have a single attack skill!”
Zheng Dong felt that Little Purple’s skills were entirely geared towards treasure hunting.
When encountering danger, there was only one word: run!
It was impossible to rely on Little Purple to protect him.
Inside the beast-taming space, Little Purple looked lazy.
Master, what’s so good about fighting? Treasure hunting is much more interesting!
Little Purple had a lazy personality and a simple mind, like a blank slate, needing taming and guidance.
Zheng Dong thought for a moment and said:
“Do you want to become the strongest treasure-hunting rat? You can collect any kind of treasure or resource, roam freely through all sorts of secret realms and ruins, and the universe is so vast, there’s nowhere you can’t go!”
Zheng Dong painted a grand picture, making Little Purple’s head buzz, as if countless dazzling treasures and divine-level resources were beckoning it.
“Squeak, squeak…” Little Purple’s eyes lit up. Of course, I do! I will definitely become the strongest treasure-hunting rat!
Zheng Dong nodded with satisfaction.
This guy is quite easy to fool!
“Then starting today, we will train together. I will make you the strongest treasure-hunting rat, conquer all the ruins and secret realms on Blue Star, and collect all the treasures in the world!” Zheng Dong said.
“Squeak, squeak!” Little Purple was full of excitement.
Afterward, Zheng Dong planned to try activating his Skill Domain talent to have Little Purple train.
As for attack skills, Zheng Dong wasn’t too concerned.
He could buy skill inheritance pearls in the future to let Little Purple learn suitable attack skills.
“By the way, where did you find that green fruit? I feel like it’s thanks to that green fruit that I awakened my Special Beast-Taming Talent. It might be a Primordial Fruit!”
“Squeak, squeak, on Sky Monkey Mountain, under a rock, there was a yellow stone box containing two green fruits. I felt it was very unusual, so I ate one.”
Little Purple didn’t recognize the Primordial Fruit either. It found the green fruit purely through its treasure-hunting talent.
At the time, the yellow stone box was too heavy, so Little Purple could only carry the green fruit back.
And once the green fruit was separated from the yellow stone box, its energy would continuously leak, which was why Little Purple urged Zheng Dong to eat it quickly.
Zheng Dong was stunned.
This was clearly hidden by someone under the rock.
This green fruit was of extraordinary value.
If the other party came looking for it, things might get complicated.