Chapter 213 — Yin Huan's Challenge

Shi Jin sank into deep thought.

[Buggy: ???]

As for plant-type beasts like the Ginseng Baby, they were actually fine.

Most plant-type beasts could reproduce on their own.

In most cases, though, reproducing would cause one to die or drop in rank, with power greatly reduced—the Tree of Life, for instance, could only bear new seeds after death.

As for undead-type and elemental-type beasts, their breeding difficulty was the highest of all, which was why such beasts were exceedingly rare in nature, and to this day breeders have never cracked the mystery of the birth and reproduction of undead and elemental beasts.

And mechanical-type beasts were even more hopeless—they weren't even allotted the right to reproduce on their own.

"Forget it, why worry about them? It's not like beastmasters find it easy to have kids just because they're high-ranked."

Shi Jin listened with relish to the effects of the conception aid.

The products developed by this biological breeding research team were improved versions of existing fertility drugs, capable of giving beast companions a higher chance of inheriting the innate talents of their parents. But the dense, crammed columns of experimental data that followed gave Shi Jin a splitting headache.

Just then, Shi Jin received a message.

Bai Xi: [Is the breeding convention going smoothly?]

[We're planning to visit the various training facilities at Imperial Capital University first. The exchange battles won't start for a couple more days. Focus on the convention—we'll be counting on you when the time comes.]

"Hmm..."

They're going to visit today?

Shi Jin glanced around, looked at the message again, and thought it over.

First place at the breeding convention was as good as secured. Staying here any longer held no meaning—after all, these breeders only published their results, never their secrets. Watching was useless. Better to go do something else.

He'd heard that Imperial Capital University had training grounds related to the time-essence element and the space element?

Did that mean there were time-essence beast companions there too?

Imperial Capital University's foundations far surpassed those of Ancient Capital University. Surely they had some.

Worth going to pay homage.

"Aunt Hua, Aunt Zuo, I have something to take care of—I'll be heading out. Call me if anything comes up," Shi Jin said to Hua Che and Zuo Heng.

"What are you off to do?" Hua Che asked, puzzled.

"Senior Bai told me to come find her once the presentation was over." Shi Jin smiled. "I don't know what it's about either..."

"That girl with the fusion talent?" Hua Che nodded in sudden understanding. "She's in the Imperial Capital too."

"Yeah." Shi Jin said briefly, then simply left.

"That kid..." Zuo Heng shook his head.

Watching Shi Jin's departing figure, Zuo Heng couldn't help but steal another glance at Xia Yan, who was watching the matches, and let out a long sigh.

Meanwhile, over at Imperial Capital University's presentation team.

Tang Yun, a member of the Battle Club, was also finding things here rather dull.

She thought of what Hong Xiao had told her.

Shi Jin should be part of this Ancient Capital University exchange delegation.

If that was the case, then Yin Huan would surely get to meet Shi Jin soon.

At the exchange event two days from now, they would definitely come face to face...

For Yin Huan, after all this hard work, this should have been a perfect chance to defeat his formidable rival...

But if, after all that effort, he still couldn't beat the one he was chasing, that would be a bit of a blow.

"Rather than letting Zhengfan find out after the battle, why not... tell him about the situation here first."

"Yeah."

Tang Yun decided that at noon today, she would head back to school and find Yin Huan to tell him everything about this place in person.

And while she was at it, she'd tell her Battle Club teammates to pay attention to this new student.

She had a feeling Shi Jin would absolutely be a wild card in this exchange between the two schools.

Normally, for this kind of exchange event, Master-level students and Monarch-level beast companions weren't sent out—the commotion would be too great.

It was basically ordinary members exchanging with each other—that is, high-level beast tamers.

At this level, everyone had Commander-level beast companions.

Originally, there was nothing unusual about that.

But for Ancient Capital University to suddenly produce a beast tamer with a mid-grade Overlord-race, Commander-level beast companion—was that even reasonable?

At that race grade, its energy value might well have reached 100,000. An ordinary Monarch-race, Commander-level beast would have only half that energy value—no way to fight it at all.

Shi Jin was suspected of possessing strength close to Master-level.

Even within Imperial Capital University's Battle Club, there were very few who could defeat Shi Jin—only a scant handful.

At the very least, she, an ordinary Battle Club member, had no confidence whatsoever.

Because she had come into contact with Overlord-race beast companions before, she knew very well that Overlord-race and Monarch-race already belonged to two different realms. At the same level, one was a tiger, the other a cat—there was simply no comparison.

They could probably only rely on those few quasi-Masters on the school team.

Though they didn't have Overlord-race beast companions, they had plenty of Monarch-race ones, along with all sorts of monstrous combat-type talents. Moreover, every single one of their beast companions could hold its own when brought out individually.

By comparison, she didn't believe that Shi Jin's other beast companions were all that strong, all reaching Overlord-race.

"Four months ago, he was clearly only a novice beast tamer, the same as Zhengfan."

"How could he become an advanced beast tamer in just four months, and have a commander-tier beast too..."

Four months, an advanced beast tamer, a sovereign-race beast—that was already outrageous enough. She refused to believe there was anything even more absurd.

She sighed and decided that as soon as the morning's program ended, she would slip away and head back to the Battle Club.

And at that very moment... Shi Jin had already slipped away, making straight for the Imperial Capital University.

...

Imperial Capital University.

Like Ancient Capital University, it was practically a campus city.

In a school this vast, apart from certain teaching zones and training zones, everything else was open to visitors.

As for the teaching and training zones, you would probably have to wait for an open day or pull some strings to get a look.

Unless, of course, a exchange delegation from another top-tier institution came to study—then there was basically no problem at all.

And so, not long after arriving in the Imperial Capital, Bai Xi brought the elite members of Ancient Capital University's Battle Club to Imperial Capital University, intending to take a look around their campus first.

"I came here once four years ago, and it's changed so much—completely different from what I remember." Among the eighteen-person group Bai Xi led, a tall girl with flowing long hair gazed at the huge, towering southern gate of Imperial Capital University.

Vice President Xu Ze chuckled. "Forget the gate—all of Imperial Capital University's facilities get upgraded once a year. What you're seeing now is several versions newer than what you'd have seen four years ago."

"Damn." Hearing the vice president's words, the other dozen or so all felt a pang of envy.

"President, how often do our school's training facilities get upgraded?" They all looked to Bai Xi.

"Since we enrolled, the training facilities haven't changed once."

Bai Xi frowned and said, "The training facilities aren't broken yet, so why update them? Can you handle the current facilities without any pressure?"