Chapter 502 - World War? How About an Internal Team Battle (Part 1)

Aside from regular cultivation resources, the three things beastmasters loved the most were trait crystals, beastmaster skill cards, and familiar hatchlings. Trait crystals were something even Lu Ran desired, so he naturally had none to spare for trading.

As for beastmaster skill cards, although Lu Ran had plenty on him, he felt that even if he put up a skill card he considered good, the other party might not necessarily want to trade. Beastmaster skills were only the best when they suited the individual. The skill cards he provided might not match the other party’s needs.

For example, Lu Ran’s favorite Happy Beastmaster skill might not appeal to other beastmasters, but in his hands, it allowed him to more violently utilize time acceleration and the Legendary Flame Spirit, making it incredibly effective.

Unwilling to gamble with beastmaster skill cards, Lu Ran was left with only one thing the other party couldn’t refuse, which was unhatched high-rank familiar hatchlings. Lu Ran was confident no beastmaster could resist a Superior-Overlord species creature’s egg.

For Lu Ran, these were commonplace. After all, in the Beastmaster Empire, powerful Overlords were constantly reincarnating. Additionally, within the empire, there were plenty of top-tier vicious plants, which Six-Path Flower occasionally awakened, many of which were of Overlord rank.

While these things weren’t rare to Lu Ran, for other beastmasters, they were far more attractive than any top-tier trait crystal or top-tier beastmaster skill. They perfectly fit the market demand.

***

One day later, in Kimchi Nation’s Limitless City.

A diamond-adorned heiress of a conglomerate walked into the auction house. Her ID was Diamond Heart Heiress. She opened the list and scanned through the multiple resources she had listed on the cross-city auction, filtering them one by one.

“Where did this big spender come from?”

When she finally saw the bids for her Replication trait, her eyes widened. Among the piles of crystal coin bids and treasure resource offers, she spotted an unbelievable bidding resource. It was the Wind-attribute Superior-Overlord Wind God Falcon egg.

Her heart pounded as she stared at it, wondering if she was seeing things.

Someone is offering a Superior-Overlord species familiar egg for this Replication trait? Are they insane?

Although the Replication trait’s effect was also incredibly powerful, she had consulted experts who assessed that its value was significantly diminished due to its harsh usage requirements. There were probably no more than two people on the entire Blue Planet who could properly utilize this trait.

The only known suitable candidate was Pedestrian A, as he possessed the time acceleration beastmaster skill, which might synergize with the trait’s effects. However, due to past grievances, Diamond Heart Heiress had no intention of selling it to Pedestrian A.

It was because she had traded with him once before. Lu Ran had sold her a Diamond Dragon King egg, which turned out to be nothing more than a Stone Dragon Egg. It was a scam. A massive scam.

Back then, since Lu Ran was the first to solo a Legendary secret realm, the entire world assumed whatever he dropped had to be top-tier. Diamond Heart Heiress was no exception, so she traded a massive fortune and even threw in an Absolute Comprehension trait to get the Diamond Dragon King egg.

However, no matter how she cultivated it, the creature never evolved into anything resembling a Diamond Dragon King. Later, as the Overlord era arrived and more people soloed Legendary realms, she learned that eggs dropped in such realms didn’t necessarily have any blood relation to the boss. In short, she had been scammed by Manager Ying.

Because of this experience, even though the conglomerate’s experts assessed that Lu Ran would definitely covet this trait, Diamond Heart Heiress didn’t even consider the suggestion and instead listed the trait on the auction house. It was mostly because she was afraid of being scammed again, and also because she was afraid that Lu Ran might try to steal it outright.

“Wait... What if the bidder is Xia’s Pedestrian A?”

Just as she was about to finalize the transaction with the familiar egg bid, she froze. After all, there weren’t many people on Blue Planet capable of offering a Superior-Overlord species egg.

“Whatever. Even if it’s Lu Ran, it doesn’t matter. This time, it’s a genuine Superior-Overlord egg certified by Limitless City. There’s no way to fake that. Pedestrian A and Manager Ying might scam people, but would Limitless City lie?”

[Transaction complete!]

***

One day later, Lu Ran received the Replication trait crystal via system notification.

Holding the crystal, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Good. They really chose the familiar egg! That Wind God Falcon has been squeezed dry of all its value.”

The Wind God Falcon was one of the few powerful, ferocious beasts in the Amazon that resisted Lu Ran and Six-Path Flower’s rule. Unsurprisingly, Six-Path Flower enslaved it for empire construction, using it to intimidate other ferocious beasts without even feeding it properly.

After it died from exhaustion, Six-Path Flower originally planned to extract its soul for continued enslavement, but what a coincidence. Since trading for the trait required a familiar egg, it was sent off for reincarnation.

“That guy died pretty miserably. I wonder if it’ll affect its reincarnated potential... But since the Eye of Detection and Limitless City both rated it as still being a Superior Overlord after rebirth, it should be fine. You’re lucky you escaped eternal enslavement. I hope your new self has a better temper.”

With the trait in hand, Lu Ran left cheerfully.

***

This Replication trait crystal was intended for #18. #18 was the only non-combat familiar in the team, and this trait was clearly a support-type trait. Moreover, #18 could research built-in time accelerators to assist the replication process.

Among Lu Ran’s familiars, those with Time abilities included Dark Crow, Baby Cloud, Six-Path Flower, and #18, pending fusion with the Flower of Time.

#18 was undoubtedly the most suited for mass-producing materials. However, even after solving the time issue, there was still the energy problem. Replicating a resource would drain the replicator immensely, far exceeding the energy contained within the copied resource.

If the familiar lacked energy reserves, it wouldn’t be able to sustain the trait. Even if the replication time was shortened, the energy cost wouldn’t decrease.

#18 wasn’t exactly lacking in energy, but it wasn’t its strong suit either. For example, its ultimate move, Hall of Heroic Spirits, which allowed it to fight above its level, could only be used once a day before it needed to recharge. If Lu Ran wanted to replicate rare top-tier resources, the energy drain would likely exceed even that of the Hall of Heroic Spirits.

Lu Ran planned to compensate with a common trait, the Super Energy trait. It was a very common trait, dropped in a certain level 4 Hell secret realm, farmable by anyone. Its effect would double the user’s stamina and stamina recovery speed.

Although it was quite basic, after failing to find rare traits, Lu Ran re-evaluated these common ones and realized they weren’t bad either. For a weak familiar, even if you doubled its stamina, defense, or speed, it wouldn’t get much stronger. On the other hand, giving it a rare trait like Dragon King Bloodline might instantly transform its fate, boosting its power far beyond mere doubling.

However, for a familiar like Six-Path Flower, whose stats were already incredibly high, a rare trait might not provide significant enhancement. In that case, a seemingly ordinary trait that proportionally boosted a specific stat could have a miraculous effect.

This was the conclusion Lu Ran and Six-Path Flower reached after failing to find a suitable rare trait for it. If all else failed, they’d just fuse some basic common traits into it.

After shifting his perspective, Lu Ran stopped obsessing over rare ability traits for his other familiars. Traits that compensated for their weaknesses were also acceptable. After all, as a familiar’s base stats grew, the effects of these basic traits would only become stronger.

Captain Doofus fused plenty of common basic traits, and he was still plenty strong. A familiar’s strength ultimately depended on itself.

***

A few days later, Lu Ran used the Flower of Time, which Six-Path Flower had accelerated to maturity, to awaken #18’s time attribute. This granted it a new talent: Thought Acceleration. It seemed like a research-assisting talent.

Immediately after, Lu Ran tossed the Super Energy trait and Replication trait to #18.

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

“Master, I’m starting now~!”

For the past two days, Lu Ran had been busy preparing for #18, discussing upgrade paths with it. #18 was eager to evolve and boost its power. In the end, #18 still extracted Manager Ying’s Legendary blood as a resource.

The cost was that #18 had to build Manager Ying a top-tier incubation chamber based on the Mechanical Era’s Divine Research Institute’s technology. Although Lu Ran wasn’t sure what the cat was thinking, #18, who had scavenged countless research materials from the institute, agreed without hesitation.

Unfortunately, even with the Legendary blood, experiments showed that the Tree Monarch Heroic Spirit still lacked independent consciousness. Only its duration and strength had slightly improved.

#18 felt something was missing. Even with the Blood Dominance trait, its current strength wasn’t enough to fully decipher the mysteries of the Time Blood. Perhaps only after awakening the Time attribute and raising its species rank to quasi-Legendary could it unlock its full potential.

Lu Ran smiled. “Go ahead. Focus on your fusion. I’ll stand guard. No pressure. Just follow the Divine Research Institute’s data for evolution. If you could help Baby Cloud, an elemental lifeform, reach Quasi-Legendary, you’ll have no problem with yourself.”

Despite his reassurances, #18 was still nervous. Dissecting others and dissecting yourself were two very different things.

It took a deep breath, its gaze firm. Its mind replayed the structures of the Divine Research Institute’s top-tier machines, especially those used to analyze divine beast blood and rare attributes such as Time and Space.

As it began self-evolving, its level, already near level 70, slowly climbed. It became the third familiar after Six-Path Flower and Dark Crow to reach level 70.

Six-Path Flower had absorbed alignment energy. Dark Crow had feasted on the Nine-Tailed Fox God’s bones and flesh, consuming an entire Legendary. Only #18 had reached this point normally, relying on its research-based mechanical upgrade mechanics.

Studying Legendaries, divine beasts’ faith power, and Legendary blood, as well as integrating its own strength, had skyrocketed its research experience. Of course, while other familiars leveled rapidly, in Lu Ran’s eyes, #18 was the slowest evolver. Its evolution lasted two full days. To be precise, it took two days to fully integrate its power.

When it was over, Lu Ran’s eyes gleamed as he inspected its new status.

[Name: Mechanical Blood Angel]

[Attributes: Mechanical (Undead, Space, Time)]

[Species Rank: Quasi-Legendary]

[Level: 70]

[New Talent 1: Blood Researcher (Research efficiency for blood-related studies doubled.)]

[New Talent 2: Replication Proficiency (After repeatedly copying the same resource, replication time and energy cost decrease.)]

#18 had finally achieved its perfect form. The appearance of the Blood Researcher talent thrilled it. Perhaps now it could delve deeper into the Time Blood’s secrets.

Lu Ran smirked at the second talent.

“

Hmm...

I’ve been hesitant to fuse the dragon god’s blood into the Comical Shield, afraid it couldn’t handle it even with Sudden Death King’s support. But now, you can research ways to reduce the fusion burden from a mechanical perspective. After all, Little Circle is your creation.”

He rambled for a bit before realizing #18 was clenching its fists, ignoring him. “Hey, say something.”

#18 slowly looked up. “Master, can I keep one drop of the Chaos Dragon God’s blood for myself?”

“Sure. For replication?”

“Yes. After replicating it, I’ll see if I can clone a mini Chaos Dragon God. Even if cloning fails, the failed product can be used for breeding.

Oh,

and Dark Crow can use the blood to research blood curses, since we’ll inevitably face the Chaos Dragon God! I want in on this!”

#18’s eyes sparkled with excitement. Lu Ran facepalmed.

These kids really get cocky after evolving. It’s barely a quasi-Legendary, and it’s already plotting against a Primary Divine being.

“Dream on. Focus on real research first!”

“

Wuuu, wuu...

”