This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Chapter 177: Chapter 177: Radiant Salamander

After giving Yara some more royal jelly to ensure she could handle the training, Kain went to a private study in the Ashenclaw household that they were kind enough to lend to him.

Additionally, upon his request, they provided him with books about the Solarflare Drakeling and its pre-evolution forms.

The Solarflare Drakeling is a light and fire dual attribute spiritual creature. Similar to the Blazing Ember Wyrm it also had a small amount of dragon's blood. Looking at its appearance, it had radiant golden scales that transitioned to a fiery orange at its underbelly. However, its appearance is quite different from Yara's.

Kain turned to the portion of the text that talked about its two prior forms. They usually start as light and fire attribute Luminous Lizards as juveniles, which look like small lizards with scales that glow a soft light-yellow. The appearance of the Luminous Lizard more closely resembles Yara, and he could see why her scales were probably lighter.

Then the next evolutionary form is the Radiant Lizard, which closely resembles the Luminous Lizard but is larger and more robust and also has a large orange crest surrounding its head resembling the sun.

The predominant attribute for both of the earlier forms is the light-attribute, however the two attributes become more equal in the Solarflare Drakeling.

'So should I try to balance the attributes from now, since the light attribute is very weak right now? Should I have the fire-attribute continue to be the dominant one? Or should I have the light attribute become the dominant attribute?'

Kain had already requested to have living orange-grade spiritual creatures delivered to him to supposedly feed his contract. Thankfully, their good impression of him made them very agreeable to his request.

Moonstone City were not surrounded by as many woods rich in spiritual creatures as Dark Moon City, therefore they can't as easily hunt for the spiritual creatures they want for meat. Therefore, Moonstone City, not Dark Moon City, actually had the largest livestock industry in the eastern region by far.

It would be even easier to obtain living spiritual creatures for meat here than it would at Dark Moon.

Also, unlike Kain's hometown Brightstar City that rarely saw a spiritual creature above red-grade and didn't have much of a spiritual beast farming industry (the limited amount of decent quality spiritual creatures would be used to breed new contracts and not killed easily) there were many more orange-grade and even yellow grade spiritual creatures raised in captivity simply to supply food.

Of course, after generations in captivity they are among the weakest at their level and the benefits they provide upon consumption aren't even a quarter of their wild counterparts, but an orange-grade spiritual creature is still an orange-grade spiritual creature and it shouldn't matter to the System.

Three orange-grade spiritual creatures were delivered to Kain as requested. They were extremely old and would be on the verge of death anyway. Kain was told that they were recently retired members of breeding pairs that had been used to produce the next generation of spiritual creatures for food.

However, the remains of the body had to be returned back to the farmer, they had agreed under the condition that Kain would just need the brains.

Kain used them to finish his remaining mission, and put in a similar request for the next day. Kain had arrived here Friday, today was Saturday, and he would need to catch a train back tomorrow night in order to attend classes. Before then, he'd need to tie up as many loose ends as possible.

After finishing this mission and adding the 350 GP to the 50 he already had, Kain had enough GP for 4 Simulations. He'd still need to be very careful with each attempt.

Thankfully, the information on the evolution of Luminous Lizards was easy to obtain, and Kain was able to narrow down the required evolutionary material to the Radiant Flower, a spiritual plant with light and fire attributes.

Along with the Infernal Stone required by normal Glimmering Salamander for evolution, Kain only needs a suitable stabilizing material to reduce any negative reactions during an evolution with 2 or more elements. He eventually settled on a tear-shaped gem in the Ashenclaw inventory, the Sunblaze Tear which has just this property.

Kain put the necessary materials into the Simulator for the mutated Glimmering Salamander, and the light of evolution began. Fortunately, the light appeared stable. Much more stable and long-lasting than any of his previous tries.

Finally, Yara's future appearance was before him. Thankfully, it still closely resembles the appearance of the Infernal Salamanders. However, the difference in colour is very apparent.

Unlike most Infernal Salamanders with a deep red-gold scale colour, this evolutionary form had the stunning appearance of molten gold across most of the body and faded into a gradient of shimmering pale gold along the underbelly.

The name attributed to it by the System is also a combination of its two lineages—Radiant Salamander.

'However, it's the first of its kind that I know of, I guess I can just make up another name that doesn't so obviously hint at Yanna's infidelity. After all, there's no reason to stick my nose into a much more powerful family's business. What if I'm killed to keep this scandal a secret?'

Kain proudly exited the System and left the manor in the afternoon under the excuse that he needed a change of scenery to help him think. In actuality, he already had the evolutionary plan and just wanted to use the remainder of the day touring the city. And it was an enjoyable mini-vacation indeed.

Although the potency of spiritual beast meat is much lower here than at Dark Moon due to most of the meat coming from beasts raised in captivity, and was also more homogenous due to the limited number of spiritual creatures suited for being livestock, the food in the city made up for it with quantity and cost.

Kain could get a heaping stack of spiritual creature meat at most restaurants—ribs, steaks, and more—for only a fraction of the cost at Dark Moon City.

Stomach bulging slightly in contentment, Kain retired to his hotel room for the rest of the evening.

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Kain notified the Ashenclaw family that he had formulated an Evolutionary Plan he was confident in the next day.

Thankfully, their trust in him now was much greater than it was when he first arrived and they didn't make any snide remarks about needing to get it checked by another planner—especially since all of the planner's they'd previously requested couldn't even figure out what was wrong with Yara.

Yara's progress in learning the new skill was slow but steady. That also probably helped with their confidence in Kain since, although she hadn't learned Light Shroud yet, the trainer also supported Kain's claim that Yara definitely is able to manipulate the light attribute.

Unfortunately, since Yara hadn't yet met the requirements for evolution, Kain wasn't able to finish his mission.

"I gave you the plan. You can just have Yara evolve once she learns the necessary skill. You really don't need my presence here." Kain's lips twitched in irritation as Alaina once again refused to sign off on his completion of the mission and insisted he returned to oversee Yara's evolution.

Unfortunately, neither of her parents were currently in the manor otherwise he'd have had more success convincing them to not be so unreasonable.

Likely, because she knew how unfair of a request this was Kain was welcomed to 5 elderly orange-grade spiritual creatures this morning to contribute to the renewed System Mission and Bea's meal. He'd thought it was out of their appreciation for him, but he sees that it was more likely out of guilt.

"Ahem! The trainer says that Yara is making rapid progress. If you come back next weekend she should have completely learned the skill by then." Alaina said awkwardly.

Kain didn't even bother to reply. He stared unhappily at her to wordlessly express his protest with this arrangement. 'Now I have to put off evolving Bea for another week! Just great!'

"How about you take something from our inventory as a token of my apology? It can be anything orange-grade or lower."

The expression in Kain's eyes lightened up slightly. Likely seeing this Alaina pushed on.

"Really! I have full authority over any spiritual materials in that range. And I promise to have 5 more—no, 10!—orange-grade spiritual creatures waiting for you when you return."

"Sigh… fine." Kain finally relented and followed Alaina to the inventory, there was already a material he'd had his eyes on from the first time he'd entered. Although not for Yara or any of his own contracts—it was a breakthrough in the Lumifin evolution investigation.