King of Beasts

“Sudden Death King, thank you for your hard work.”

“Roar…”

After the secret realm ended, Lu Ran began to treat Sudden Death King’s injuries.

The impact was enough to instantly kill an overlord of the same level, indicating how terrifying it was.

At this moment, the queen ant could no longer be found in one piece…

Although Sudden Death King was also in a sorry state, thanks to the Dragon King’s Shield, its injuries were quickly healing upon impact.

Combined with its strong defense, it only suffered ordinary heavy injuries and successfully completed the “assassination.”

After Lu Ran used the divine deer pendant to treat Sudden Death King, it soon recovered completely.

“Woof.”

During this time, General Ha and Dark Crow were also inspecting this gigantic meteor crater with a diameter of several hundred meters, shaking their heads slightly.

Queen Ant, what a miserable death you had.

“Let’s withdraw.”

Lu Ran smiled. At this moment, he couldn’t wait to go back and divide the spoils-uh, I mean distribute the rewards.

As for this secret realm, honestly, Lu Ran already knew through Dark Crow’s scouting earlier that there was nothing valuable left.

Everything had been consumed by the queen ant for propagating the Ant Colony.

…

Exclusive Room.

Sudden Death King sat on the floor, exhaling deeply.

A moment of fear.

Fortunately, the queen ant didn’t have strong defense. Otherwise, after falling, it might have faced a second round of battle.

This outcome was pretty good.

It didn’t want to fight any ant demon.

A swarm of ants can bite a dragon to death-this principle it understood well. No one knew how powerful an ant demon’s outburst could be. Better not to take that gamble.

“Roar~~”

Squinting its eyes, Sudden Death King inquired Lu Ran if there were any resources suitable for it.

“This blood drop stone… Sudden Death King, would you consider having a Dragon King’s son?”

At this moment, leafing through the rewards, Lu Ran paused before speaking.

“How about this for you?”

This round of exquisite resources… so strange!

“Huh?” Sudden Death King froze, its voice cracking in surprise.

Beside it, both General Ha and Dark Crow also looked shocked. Wo Cao, could there really be such a resource?

“Roar!!”

Hearing that Lu Ran wanted to give it a resource, Sudden Death King waved its hands and shook its head vigorously.

What a joke, it’s a male lizard. How could it rely on something like this to reproduce?

Lu Ran then looked at General Ha and Dark Crow.

These two guys also shook their heads repeatedly. They were both males too; they couldn’t accept it, not at all.

“Although this thing might seem a bit unconventional, it really is quite valuable!” Lu Ran said.

“According to breeding knowledge, the higher the species level and growth level of a pet beast, the harder it is to breed, but the offspring produced are also much stronger.”

“If this thing is used on a high species level creature, its effects can be maximized!”

“Even giving it to a legendary divine beast, wouldn’t it produce a baby divine beast?” Lu Ran quickly started thinking wildly and shook his head. That’s unlikely-after all, it’s just an exquisite resource.

Even in the best-case scenario, it wouldn’t inherit the complete bloodline strength of a divine beast.

In summary, all Lu Ran could think of at the moment was that Sudden Death King was the most suitable for this blood drop stone.

Dragon King bloodline, unique species, high species level… But Sudden Death King didn’t like it, and Lu Ran couldn’t force it.

He’d keep it for now.

Who knows, maybe later he’d encounter an older, single, and rare species?

Making a good connection could possibly bring back an offspring.

At that moment, Manager Ying’s image flashed in Lu Ran’s mind for some reason.

It was said its main body was a nine-tailed cat, presumably also an extremely rare species. Its clone was already so powerful, the main body must be even stronger…

“Let’s look at something else,” Lu Ran said, swallowing hard, and began to consider another beast taming skill: retainer!

At first glance, Lu Ran had made up his mind.

His next beast taming skill would be this one.

What is a retainer?

In essence, it’s like one life forming a “contract” with another life.

On the Star-Moon Continent, retainer life is a very special term.

Generally speaking, only extremely powerful legendary divine beasts can have retainers.

And only they possess the ability to “create retainers.”

Ancient myths say that legendary divine beasts can share a part of their power with other life forms, enabling them to undergo evolution.

These beings that evolve by receiving the legendary divine beast’s power form a special bond with it.

The relationship becomes closer, like comrades and generals with a shared bloodline.

Two of the Four Great Creator Divine Dragons, the Life Dragon and the Death Dragon, are each said to have three retainers who act on their behalf in the world, maintaining the balance of life and death.

This skill clearly counts as an unconventional “legion skill.”

But instead of training “ordinary soldiers,” it cultivates “high-level generals.”

Generally speaking, the stronger the divine beast, the stronger its retainers.

Evidently, this is essentially a skill for “recruiting subordinates.”

The most astonishing part for Lu Ran was that this wasn’t a trait crystal but a beast taming skill.

This means, if Lu Ran learns it, he could potentially assign one or even multiple retainers to each of his pet beasts with further development!!

For example, General Ha. If a sword-shaped life form became its retainer, undoubtedly, General Ha’s power would be significantly amplified!!

And it would be the kind of power that defies logic.

As General Ha grows stronger, its retainer grows stronger… and the stronger the retainer, the stronger General Ha gets.

Although unsure to what extent this “exploit” can be leveraged, having a sword closely linked to itself would unquestionably propel General Ha to new heights.

Then there’s the weather elf.

If several pet beasts wielding weather power became its retainers, its strength would undoubtedly make a qualitative leap.

Even for Sudden Death King, who’s relatively less suited to have retainers for joint combat, having a minion proficient in healing would make it invincible.

However…

Lu Ran shook his head, knowing that mastering this beast taming skill would be equivalent to a beastmaster managing an additional “team” of spirits, which would certainly require significant effort.

Moreover, retainer life forms most likely cannot be stored back inside contract cards, meaning they could only flaunt their power on the Blue Star and not be taken into the Infinite City.

Unless Lu Ran contracts retainer life forms as a second team of pet beasts, but that would make contract cards in extremely short supply.

“Sigh, if only someone could figure out a cultivation method for Beast Taming Space. If there were such a space plus contract cards, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.”

Aside from the challenge of carrying retainers, the “legion” part of the legion skill can’t just be carried around either.

Lu Ran looked at the trait crystal for Flock Dominion, thinking it was more suitable for Dark Crow.

He had been debating whether to give a legion skill crystal to Dark Crow or the Weather Elf if one ever dropped.

But now that the crystal had actually dropped, the decision was clear.

The Flock Dominion crystal can only govern creatures that share its bloodline or are of a similar species.

On Blue Star, the Weather Elf is a unique species.

Unless the clouds on Blue Star suddenly develop consciousness and evolve into elemental lifeforms, which is highly unrealistic.

Animal life, necromancy life, plant life, mechanical life, elemental life… each more far-fetched than the last.

So, this Flock Dominion trait crystal could only go to Dark Crow. After all, it still had a few thousand crow subordinates in Green Sea City.

“With this, General Ha and Dark Crow, you both have a bright future ahead.”

“Woof!”

“Caw!”

General Ha and Dark Crow both displayed intelligent expressions. Perfect-let Sudden Death King work hard to earn resources, then they could use those resources to grow stronger and surpass it. How delightful.

“Roar…” Sudden Death King grumbled from the side.

Wasn’t it supposed to help Cloud Baby earn resources?

In the end, neither it nor Cloud Baby got any benefits-all the rewards went to the dog and the crow.

“And this queen ant egg…”

Lu Ran saw that the secret realm had dropped another egg, and he pondered for a moment.

He felt this egg was much more valuable than the Stone Dragon Egg.

Although the Stone Dragon Egg is from a Sub-dragon Species, there are many sub-dragons, and unless it’s a pure Loong-type, it doesn’t hold much value.

But this queen ant egg, if it hatches into a little queen ant, would be a sovereign creature with inherent “legion attributes.” If fused with a few more traits, it could even evolve into the core of an overlord-species legion.

Such a pet beast hatchling indeed had immense potential. Yet, given that Lu Ran was already grappling with not having enough contract slots, he surely didn’t have the resources or time to raise a queen ant.

Pet beast retainers, Dark Crow’s legion, Weather Legion-he couldn’t even manage all of these.

Most of the resources Lu Ran acquired this time seemed quite useful and worth keeping. The only item he felt could be traded to obtain other, more needed resources was the queen ant egg.

Lu Ran believed that many First Generation tamers in the country would be interested in it, as it is a legion-type pet beast. Well, let’s see who offers the highest price.

Highest bidder wins!

…

[You act quickly…]

Soon after Lu Ran finished his challenge, private messages from Gu Qingyi and others started pouring in. Lu Ran chuckled and responded uniformly, [Pretty good haul].

Seeing that Lu Ran didn’t seem to want to go into detail, the others didn’t probe further about the specifics of his haul. Only Gu Qingyi asked an additional question.

Gu Qingyi: [What are your plans next? Waiting for the next Evolution Secret Realm?]

Passerby A: [Hmm, I haven’t decided whether to evolve Dark Crow or General Ha first. But their evolution resources are ready. Let’s see who will be better prepared in the coming days.]

Now, with another trait for Dark Crow, Lu Ran felt a bit conflicted about the third trait. Should he fuse necromancy clone or Flock Dominion?

After some thought, Lu Ran decided to go with necromancy clone first.

After all, trait crystals require “compatibility.”

Even though Dark Crow has a group of underlings right now, there’s no real connection between them and it.

They can’t accompany it into the Evolution Secret Realm, either.

Attempting to fuse Flock Dominion from scratch seemed risky and might not allow for optimal absorption.

However, if he first fused necromancy clone, by the time Dark Crow reached level 40, it could likely have mastered the clone ability.

At that point, ruling over its own clones would still count as dominion.

This way, Dark Crow’s compatibility with the Flock Dominion trait wouldn’t be completely zero.

Besides, if the trait crystal fusion doesn’t involve evolution, it can be done outside the secret realm. With the Flock of crows around, the fusion effect might even be better.

“Darn it, too bad Dark Crow’s mindset isn’t quite there yet; otherwise, the blood drop stone could be combined with the Dominion crystal and retainer ability.”

“Speaking of which… can elemental lifeforms have offspring through the blood drop stone?” Lu Ran’s mind started to wander again. But elemental lifeforms likely don’t possess bloodline power, and it feels doubtful. Besides, making a weather elf less than a month old have offspring makes Lu Ran feel a bit inhumane.