Chapter 5: Marketplace Shopping, a Teacher’s Advice

Adrian walked into his bedroom.

A simple single bed. Three bookshelves packed with books. Several green plants growing well, filling the room with a faint, fresh fragrance.

The computer desk was large, with three monitors on it.

Adrian turned on the computer with practiced ease and quickly logged into the official marketplace of the Beast Tamers’ League.

His identity information had already been updated.

Before, he had two tags: [One-Star Beast Tamer] and [One-Star Certified Beast Feed Shop Owner].

The first he had reached two months ago. In this world, once spiritual power reached 10 points, one could become a One-Star Beast Tamer.

At Westbrook Beast-Taming Academy, this was also something every Grade 10 student had to accomplish before the Awakening Ceremony.

The second tag had come to him after he inherited the beast feed shop his parents had left behind.

In this world, any shop related to beast companions had to undergo star-rank certification.

For specific beast products, one had to pass strict certification procedures to obtain a sales license.

After that, one could connect with official online channels and open an online shop.

Products that could be sold through the Beast Tamers’ League’s official channels had to be at least graded resources. Currently, the only thing Vale’s Beast Feed could sell online was the common-quality Violet Dew produced by Violet.

That was also why Adrian frequently used the official Beast Tamers’ League marketplace and needed three monitors—he had to multitask and confirm order information.

Violet Dew was also the most important product of their shop, both online and offline.

It was also why Adrian always strictly “controlled” Violet and refused to let her casually give them flower dew.

Now, two new tags had appeared in his identity information.

[Ember Seed] and [Westbrook Inheritor].

Under these four tags were corresponding links that led to different platforms and pages.

Adrian naturally clicked into the [Ember Seed] interface first.

All products were 5% off. That was the first thing he saw.

He searched for Exceptional-quality Sweet Rain Orb. Quite a few shops supplied it, with prices ranging from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand crowns.

That matched his previous expectations.

But when he searched for Exceptional-quality Spirit Treasure Liquid, the results were completely blank.

Clearly, just having the [Ember Seed] status from entering the Ember Class was not enough to access this product.

Adrian quickly clicked the link under the [Westbrook Inheritor] tag and entered another marketplace interface. After pulling the page to another screen, he immediately compared them.

Here, all products were 10% off.

He also saw a golden ingot icon, with the following information beside it:

“First purchase of products worth up to 100,000 crowns is free. If the purchase exceeds 100,000 crowns, after deducting 100,000 crowns, the remaining cost must still be paid personally.”

Compared to the [Ember Seed] marketplace, the [Westbrook Inheritor] marketplace had more shops supplying Sweet Rain Orbs, and some even had better quality ones.

When he searched for Exceptional-quality Spirit Treasure Liquid, he also saw information from three or four shops.

The prices were fairly even, basically around 150,000 crowns.

To be honest, that price startled Adrian a little.

Before his parents passed, their health had been poor. Most of the income from the small shop they had run for years went to medicine and medical treatment.

Even so, they had left Adrian about 80,000 crowns.

Over the past two years, with Arthur’s and Roxy’s help, Adrian had still kept Vale’s Beast Feed running in perfect order.

He had saved another 40,000 crowns.

In other words, he now had 120,000 crowns in savings.

After a quick calculation, with the Inheritor marketplace’s 10% discount, buying all the materials needed for Violet’s evolution would cost him a little over 70,000 crowns.

That was good news.

But there was one point Adrian could not ignore—the choice of his first contracted beast.

In the Kingdom of Draconis, as long as one became a One-Star Beast Tamer and awakened any rank of talent, one could register with the Beast Tamers’ League for free and receive an initial beast companion with fairly ordinary aptitude.

But being a beast tamer was, to some extent, a “money-burning” profession—at least in the early stages of development.

For students with good talent, the free initial beast companion was generally not enough.

In fact, when Mr. Caldwell had explained to the seven of them how to make good use of their first startup funding, he had vaguely hinted that for promising students from ordinary families, this was excellent money for buying their first initial beast companion.

Yes. The best first contracted beast cost around 100,000 crowns.

The initial quality of such beasts often reached Exceptional—Lower. Most were excellent combat-type beast companions, enough to support a high school beast tamer through all kinds of early competitions and practical battles.

Moreover, they often had public, mature evolution paths, making them the most suitable beasts for One-Star Beast Tamers to contract.

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This was also information Adrian had known two years ago.

On the day he saved up 100,000 crowns, he had celebrated specially. In a financial sense, he had already laid his first step firmly ahead of time.

But now, this plan might disrupt the balance he had built for himself.

With his current savings, after buying Violet’s materials, he would still have 50,000 crowns left.

Fifty thousand crowns could actually buy a decent initial beast companion, but the highest initial quality would only be Common—Upper.

For an ordinary Grade 11 student, that was definitely acceptable.

But as one of the top seven seeds of Westbrook Beast-Taming Academy’s Grade 11 Ember Class, it was a bit hard to justify.

Adrian had the experience of being a teacher in his past life. He himself knew that, with 100,000 crowns in startup funding, if his first contracted beast did not meet the “standard” of an outstanding student, the Ember Class teachers would be confused and disappointed.

But he had always been decisive and never one to agonize.

After analyzing for barely three more seconds, he made his decision.

Evolve Violet first!

Violet already met the prerequisites for evolution. As long as the materials arrived, after evolution, she would quickly fill the gap in his finances.

Yes. Adrian had long known that a single Exceptional—Mid Violet Rain Orchid was enough to upgrade any beast feed shop from one star to two stars.

Not to mention the higher-quality Violet Spirit Treasure Orchid.

Mr. Caldwell’s assignment for them was to contract their first beast companion within seven days.

Adrian naturally understood his teacher. On the surface, it was just about contracting the first beast companion. In reality, the teachers wanted to see what kind of rapport the students could build with their contracted beasts within that week.

But things had come to this, and Adrian had already prepared a backup plan.

With so many years of life experience, his vision was naturally longer-term.

He knew what talent he possessed, and he understood that his wealth would gradually accumulate after Violet evolved. In the end, he was unwilling to settle.

At this pace, even if he did not successfully contract his first beast companion after seven days and played the “bad student” once, it would not affect his future growth.

With that thought, he quickly began adding all the evolution materials Violet needed to his shopping cart.

He also chose materials with relatively better composition and quality from the available lists.

One drop of Exceptional-quality Spirit Treasure Liquid. One Exceptional-quality Sweet Rain Orb.

Plus more than a dozen other common-quality materials, including Orchid Rain Leaf, Purple Sweetbranch, and so on.

After the 10% discount, Adrian used the first 100,000-crown “subsidy” and paid an additional 71,863 crowns himself.

When “Payment Successful” appeared, Adrian let out a long breath.

Deliveries from the Beast Tamers’ League store were handled uniformly by Swiftwing Courier. Once the goods were prepared, he would receive them in about two hours.

At that moment.

In Mr. Caldwell’s home.

He looked at the Shadow Witch Cat, now quiet and completely satisfied, and his own face was full of delight.

“Over the past two days, I bought ten female cats one after another. Shadow finally stopped running out. Its overall energy has stabilized, and its level jumped from Exceptional 7, where it had been stuck for a while, straight to Exceptional 10.”

“Its power is full, and it’s adapting to its traits faster. At this rate, it will soon touch the threshold of its next evolution.”

“It’s just that with its personality, I’m not sure whether the ordinary evolution path still suits it.”

“Either way, a breakthrough is a good thing. I have that kid Adrian to thank.”

He thought for a moment, then also opened the official Beast Tamers’ League marketplace. “I should give that kid some advice and pick him an initial beast companion around 100,000 crowns with high future potential.”

At this moment, Adrian was sitting in front of his computer.

He was researching matters related to beast evolution.

After all, he was not yet a certified breeder. This kind of knowledge was not taught in Grade 10, and he had only lightly studied some of it on his own before.

Although the evolution paths, core materials, auxiliary materials, and evolution procedures on the Eye of All Spirits panel were explained in detail, the actual operation still depended on the joint efforts of him and Violet.

Fortunately, his memories contained many practical experiences from his past life doing experiments and cultivating plants and animals. Combined with this world’s beast-taming cultivation knowledge, he could understand things quickly.

While he was researching, a series of messages from Mr. Caldwell suddenly popped up in the lower right corner of the computer.

He clicked them open.

They were links to three beast companions Mr. Caldwell recommended.

Below them was a line of text:

“These three beasts suit you quite well. I’ve already spoken to the Beast Tamers’ League in our city for you. Tomorrow, you can go to the cultivation center there and take a look in person. If any of them feels right, you can choose the one you feel the strongest connection with on the spot.”