Chapter 40: The Potential to Become King (Two-in-one)
The habitat of the Silver Spirit tribe is located in a valley deep within the mountains, in the outskirts of the Royal Capital of the Azure Court Duchy.
A long mithril vein runs through the entire valley, with a small portion of the vein exposed on the surface.
Therefore, when Shaya passed through the magical array set up by the outer Brunnhildr Family for warning and entered the valley—
His emanating mental power perceived the incredibly dense free metal elements filling the atmosphere.
This is also the most preferred habitat for the metal elemental species, the Silver Spirit.
“If I were to take this entire mithril vein with ‘Spatial Pocket,’ I probably wouldn’t have to worry about extraordinary resources for both me and Little Ai until the Sixth Ring…”
Shaya pursed his lips and carefully put away this audacious thought.
Never mind whether Shiny’s Spatial Pocket could hold an entire mithril vein, but those high-level warning magic arrays were not just for show.
If he really did that, the entire Brunnhildr Family would probably come after him with their lives.
However, if he finished the novice mission someday, he might actually be able to pull off a big score…
After all, the Ancient Azure Court was destined to be destroyed in the future, so keeping this vein seemed useless. It might as well benefit me, the last descendant of the Brunnhildr Family.
Shaya retracted his scattered thoughts and then expanded his mental perception further.
It wasn’t long before Shaya detected the mental fluctuations of several other life forms within his mental perception.
There was no hostility in those mental fluctuations, only a trace of curiosity.
Shaya walked in the direction of his mental perception and soon saw several small Silver Spirits, surrounded by faint lights, peeking out and looking towards him.
Compared to the quasi-king Silver Spirit from the elder who conducted the assessment earlier, the Silver Spirits before Shaya were much smaller in size and aura, clearly still in their early or growth stages.
Unlike the majesty and dominance of the former, these young Silver Spirits possessed more exquisiteness and delicacy.
The two parties were separated by more than ten meters, sensing each other through mental perception.
This was Shaya’s consideration for choosing his third Soul Pact familiar.
At the same time, it was also the Silver Spirits’ consideration for their future Beast Tamers.
On the Western Continent, the relationship between Beast Tamers and familiars is complex.
Humans and some humanoid races can become Beast Tamers by cultivating mental power and opening up a Soul Pact Space.
Familiars, through their contract with the Beast Tamer, can enjoy various benefits of the Soul Pact Space.
Generally, the contract between familiars and Beast Tamers is a process of mutual consent and mutual benefit.
Beast Tamers can rely on their familiars to gain extraordinary power and strengthen themselves.
Familiars, on the other hand, can accelerate their originally long growth period through the contract, and also recover and heal in the Soul Pact Space when severely injured, enjoying the supply of extraordinary materials from the Beast Tamer.
Normally, the growth progress of familiars who have signed a contract is far superior to that of wild counterparts of the same age.
However, since it is the general situation, there are naturally exceptions.
There is no shortage of humans who are greedy for power and will do anything, forcing familiars to contract with them…
And among wild beasts and familiars, there is no shortage of those who are hostile to Beast Tamers, or even rely on their own strength to use the Beast Tamer’s Soul Pact as a tool, establishing lost beast kings that lead to a state of chaos.
Of course, as the guardian race of the Brunnhildr Family, the Silver Spirits naturally would not reject contracting with members of the Brunnhildr Family…
However, signing an equal contract is like marriage. The quality of the contracting partner will directly determine the development of the latter half of one’s life, so the selection process is naturally extremely cautious.
The mental contact between the two parties lasted for a moment.
Soon, friendly emotional fluctuations were transmitted through the mental perception.
This indicated that the young Silver Spirits had recognized Shaya and were willing to contract with him.
As elemental life forms naturally close to nature, Silver Spirits’ senses are more acute than humans’.
Therefore, they easily perceived that the soul strength of the black-haired youth before them was far deeper and more ardent than that of the Beast Tamers who had come before.
In other words, in front of Shaya, those elites carefully selected by the Brunnhildr Family had instantly become weaklings.
There’s no harm without comparison. Whether it’s familiars or Beast Tamers, who wouldn’t want their contracting partner to be as strong as possible?
This world is ultimately realistic and materialistic, and for familiars, Shaya, as a Beast Tamer, could be considered a pure rich handsome.
On the other side, Shaya was also choosing his contracting partner.
In his mind, streaks of blue information were fluctuating, displaying the specific attribute panels of the Silver Spirits before him.
[Race Name: Silver Spirit “Silver Armor Evolution Form”]
[Category: Elemental Species]
[Attribute: Metal]
[Stage: Growth Stage]
[Soul Pact Status: None]
[Combat Level: 26 (Second Tier)]
[Racial Level: High King (Fourth Tier)]
[Familiar Skills: Elementalization (Proficient), Rapid Healing (Proficient), Slash (Skilled), Elemental Fluctuation (Skilled), Metal Reinforcement (Skilled), Super Hardening (Skilled)]
A very excellent attribute panel, consistent with its high king racial level. Even in the growth stage, it has already reached the mid-Extraordinary Tier combat level.
As for familiar skills… “Elementalization” and the lower-tier skill of “Super Regeneration,” “Rapid Healing,” go without saying.
Slash and Elemental Fluctuation are standard damage skills in the magic and physical domains, respectively, roughly equivalent to a mage’s “Fireball” in traditional Western fantasy novels. Nothing special, but everyone has them.
The following two high-tier skills, “Metal Reinforcement” and “Super Hardening,” indicate that the growth tendency of the Silver Spirit before him will lean more towards physical combat. Both of these skills are deadly weapons in close combat.
All in all, this is a very standard front-line warrior, a veritable inspector of the frontline lane, perfectly meeting Shaya’s requirement of supplementing his frontal combat ability with his third Soul Pact.
However—it still feels a bit too standard.
Not weak, but lacking character. It feels a bit mismatched with the unique style of his familiars.
When they fight in groups, the Little Mink will wear a red cloud-embroidered black robe, Shiny will wear a Sage Robe patterned with the Fourth Hokage’s symbol, and the new familiar won’t even know what to wear.
Shaya silently added the Silver Spirit before him to the backup list and then looked at other Silver Spirits.
“Growth stage, Level 28, specially trained in spellcasting… Possesses the high-tier damage skill ‘Silver Meteor’ in common with the quasi-king Silver Spirit of the assessment elder.”
“It’s passable, but it doesn’t meet my third Soul Pact requirements. If it’s just a pure magic cannon, its role is basically the same as Silver’s.”
…
“Early stage, Level 19, specially trained in perception, possesses the high-tier passive skill ‘Omen,’ capable of intermittently receiving premonitions from the Astral Realm. The content of the premonition is random, meaning whether it’s good or bad is entirely up to luck…”
“If I were really a European Emperor, I might have chosen it. Perhaps I would have picked up some Tier 6 or 7 Extraordinary Materials through premonitions and achieved financial freedom overnight.”
“Unfortunately, no matter how many times I use Tsukuyomi on myself, I still know in my heart that I am indeed an African peasant…”
Shaya shed tears for the people of Africa in his heart and passed on the option before him.
He walked down the valley and encountered many Silver Spirits in their early or growth stages, suitable for contracting.
However, overall, there was nothing that particularly amazed or impressed Shaya.
“After looking around, it seems the most suitable one for me is the first Silver Spirit I encountered.”
“I just don’t know if it will reject me if I go back to it, thinking I treated it as a backup.”
Just as Shaya stretched and walked down the valley, preparing to go back and contract with the first Silver Spirit.
His gaze suddenly paused slightly.
He heard a faint clanging sound from the hillside not far away.
Shaya went down the hillside and entered a dense forest.
In the clearing before him, a petite Silver Spirit was wielding something at a huge metal ore.
The blade collided with the hard black iron ore, producing a resounding clang, and sparks flew.
When Shaya stopped at the foot of the hill, he discovered the difference between this little Silver Spirit and the others he had seen earlier.
Although there is no such thing as permanent disability for elemental life forms; injuries can be healed with time and energy replenishment… but for some reason, this little Silver Spirit’s left arm was empty.
The broken part was enveloped in a hazy yellow light, as if some kind of filthy, unknown power had corroded the wound on its left shoulder, preventing the silver element from regenerating there.
What was most concerning, however, was the body of this little Silver Spirit.
Although all Silver Spirits have pure and beautiful bright silver bodies… this little Silver Spirit’s entire body was stained with a crimson color, like blood.
Even the silver sword formed by flowing metal on its right arm was permeated with vermilion blood; every sword swing brought up a crimson glow.
Compared to its kin, who were darlings of nature and elements, this little red Silver Spirit’s appearance was no longer pure and flawless, but carried a trace of filthy evil.
In Shaya’s mind, lines of information different from before emerged.
[Race Name: Silver Spirit “Twilight Erosion Form”]
[Category: Abyss Species, Contaminated Species]
[Attribute: Metal, Dark, Sword]
[Stage: Early Stage]
[Soul Pact Status: None]
[Combat Level: 7 (First Tier)]
[Racial Level: High King (Fourth Tier)]
[Familiar Skills: Filthy Blood (Novice), Dark Scion (Novice), Slash (Extraordinary), Bone of Swords (Proficient), Blood Burn (Proficient), Heart of the Conqueror (Novice)]
A Silver Spirit with a combat level of only seven.
Given the Silver Spirit’s high king racial identity, even newly born Silver Spirits would generally have at least an Awakened Tier combat level. The little Silver Spirit before him could be called a unique among unique.
This means that the so-called “Twilight Erosion Form” is clearly not a good mutation direction. That filthy aura has greatly restricted the growth of this red Silver Spirit.
What made Shaya secretly tremble was the “Extraordinary” proficiency next to the “Slash” skill.
This was the first time Shaya had seen a skill with proficiency exceeding “Perfect” and reaching “Extraordinary” on a wild, ownerless familiar.
Although it was only “Slash,” a low-tier skill that was relatively easy to improve… reaching such a level required unimaginable tempering.
Shaya spent a full five years to help Silver develop Tsukuyomi, merely raising Silver’s “Charm” skill to Perfect. Even then, the final breakthrough depended on the system’s point allocation.
Moreover… this was an achievement accomplished solely through willpower, without the supervision and assistance of a Beast Tamer, and without the aid of extraordinary materials.
The little red Silver Spirit did not notice Shaya’s arrival.
It continued to swing its sword at the huge metal ore; amidst the flying sparks, a clear cut mark slowly appeared.
This was not a spur-of-the-moment impulse, but a daily, year-round habit.
Only in this way could the most ordinary, and often most overlooked, “Slash” be raised to such a height.
“Interesting.”
Shaya’s gaze fell on this little Silver Spirit swinging its sword.
He did not disturb it but continued to examine the little Silver Spirit’s skill panel.
[Filthy Blood]
[Attribute: Abyss, Curse]
[Rank: High Tier]
[Proficiency: Novice (0/100)]
[Skill Description: The elemental body is eroded by some higher-dimensional filthy power, thus losing its racial characteristics such as Elementalization and Elemental Affinity. The incomplete left arm also cannot heal due to the curse of twilight.]
[Dark Scion]
[Attribute: Abyss, Curse]
[Rank: High Tier]
[Proficiency: Novice (0/100)]
[Skill Description: The body and soul are corrupted together. Once one falls into it, they will lose themselves and become an apostle of the abyss.]
[Bone of Swords]
[Attribute: Metal]
[Rank: High Tier]
[Proficiency: Proficient (1193/10000)]
[Skill Description: After tens of thousands of sword swings, the mental image called “sword” has been imprinted into its origin.]
[Blood Burn]
[Attribute: Spirit]
[Rank: High Tier]
[Proficiency: Proficient (3018/10000)]
[Skill Description: Burns the body and mind, using the soul as fuel to greatly enhance all attributes in a short period.]
As for the last item in the skill list, “Heart of the Conqueror.”
Above the skill description, there was only a short line of text—
[Potential to become King]
