After the combat tactics class ended, Linus' thoughts became clear and refreshed compared to when he had been training. Instead of worrying about all the troubles around Nyx's evolution, he should just give it his all and be happy that Nyx's potential was great. As long as she successfully evolved, her power and potential would skyrocket.
Fairy pets are one of the most studied types of pets and a comprehensive system on how to evolve fairies has already developed that even new fairies can be evolved after reaching their racial peak by preparing a special evolution potion according to Mr Wellington and what he had learned at the library this day.
Fairies have potential equal to king rank or emperor rank pets as long as they successfully evolve one more time, while their power and control are known to be at the top of their respective elements and the world of plant type pets.
Linus was currently heading towards the practical combat class. After arriving it didn't take long for Ms Winter to arrive and start instructing the students. After a short warm-up, sparring was planned again and Linus had to face the top ten students again. Currently, Nyx could defeat the lower ranking students, but from the seventh ranking onward Nyx could only either reach a stalemate or be defeated.
This was all possible due to her extensive skill mastery and combat experience earned from enduring endless beatdowns against the pets of those top ten students combined with the daily failed challenges against her shadow avatar.
When Nyx was defeated within ten casual attacks from the number one student's bronze rank pet, the class finally came to an end and everyone started leaving the training grounds. Linus was making his way towards the canteen to eat dinner, but he was called to the side by Ms Winter.
After arriving in front of her, he didn't have to wait even for a second before she asked him some questions:
"Linus a full month remains before the National examination and after having observed your growth now during this entire period, I can see that your pet will reach the peak iron rank before the last mock survival test this Friday. I do, however, not know the state of your contract space and if you will be able to break through to the professional bronze rank before the National examination and contract a second pet.
Your dark rose is limited by its iron rank race and will not be able to improve any further unless it evolves aside from increasing its skill mastery, but its already extremely high and further improvement or learning new effective skills would be both slow and not yield any big results."
Linus understood why she had called him and honestly answered:
"Teacher, I currently am at the peak apprentice rank and am trying to break through before the National examination. If I succeed, I don't plan to contract a second pet due to my financial state not allowing me to procure any decent pets. My pet, however, has the opportunity to evolve as long as I manage to break through.
The research hasn't been published yet, but during the previous two months I worked as an assistant to the professional pet cultivator Mr Wellington who had started researching how to evolve iron rank dark roses and during the previous weekend a successful evolution method was found, even though it has certain risks.
At first, he had agreed to help me evolve my pet if the research succeeded, but due to some complications, we discovered that my pet has been nurtured to such a degree that more expensive and higher quality materials have to be used to concoct the necessary evolution potion. The potion's grade has also increased beyond Mr Wellington's capabilities only the current branch head in White Bone City can concoct the potion successfully. If the ordinary method were to be used it's almost certain that my pet's evolution would fail to result in her potential becoming exhausted which I don't want to happen or risk."
When Ms Winter listened to all of his words some shock could be seen on her face while she was internally thinking that Linus was both incredibly lucky and unlucky at the same time while also wondering at his talent for nurturing his pet to the point that even an evolution had to be personalised instead of following the regular methods.
After digesting everything she answered:
"It's good news that your pet has a chance to evolve together with your positivity that you will break through within this month. I will, however, not help with your problem of contracting a second pet as that's a pet trainer's responsibility. I am, however, willing to contribute a bit to your evolution dilemma by writing a letter to the branch head of White Bone City's Pet cultivator association to request him to help you concoct the necessary potions for your pet's evolution as long as you can provide the necessary materials.
Leveraging some of my connections to help you at least have a foot through the door is the least I can do for a student of mine as it doesn't require anything on my part. Wait for a couple of minutes to write this letter and deliver it to the Pet cultivator association's reception desk, do not forget to mention my name upon delivery as this will make sure that the branch head will certainly receive it as soon as possible.
The rest will depend on your efforts and luck, I wish you the best of luck and don't stop training or I will have to put you back on the right track. You have talent, don't waste it!"
Ms Winter then started to write the recommendation letter and five minutes later, Linus left with a letter in hand to have dinner before he met with Mr Wellington at the Pet cultivator association.
Linus had dinner which had again increased in the amount due to Nyx starting to challenge her avatar more than twenty times and having to recover more. Linus's current physique and endurance had increased a lot due to training, Nyx's feedback and excessive tempering due to his ability. This allowed Nyx to challenge her avatar more than the previous 20 times per day at the cost of more energy consumption for Linus. If this trend continued, he would have to start changing his diet to more nutritious food or nutritional supplements which are quite expensive, it seemed to Linus that in the future his financial state will not improve due to having to invest most into nutrition.
After dinner, he left for the association. When he arrived, he went towards the reception and handed over the letter written by Ms Winter while also stating her name. This made the receptionist react quite strange and her demeanour had instantly become more respectful.
Linus, however, didn't care and left after making sure that the branch head would receive the letter. Linus then met with Mr Wellington and the two started going through all the data from the weekend again while also discussing Nyx's evolution in great detail.
While Linus was working, the branch head received the letter written by Ms Winter with sweaty palms. Four years ago, when Ms Winter arrived at Withe Bone City to become a teacher at the local high school, he had received a message from the headquarters to always indulge her wishes if she contacted the local branch, but not to contact her without reason or try and please her by not following her exact demands and doing more.
From some sources, he learned through the years that she was connected to the military, Pet trainer association and Pet teacher association. All three interest groups addressed her as a young miss and even the Pet cultivator association had to indulge her wishes or they would earn the ire of the two other associations and the military.
Aside from that, her personality is as cold as ice and she doesn't want people-pleasing or bribing her. One time, the branch head of the Pet teacher association tried to do so and within a day, he was removed from his position and sent to assist the frontline on the Northern continent in its cold climate.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
He, a high-rank professional pet cultivator and respected professional diamond rank pet trainer, was anxious to open and read a letter addressed to him. When he opened the letter, he read every word with utmost care and at the end sighed with relief. The only request was to help one of her students concoct one or more potions to help him evolve his pet. She did, however, state that the boy had to provide the materials himself or find a way to procure them and that nothing done to help the boy would have anything to do with her.
He was also a bit interested as she had mentioned that this boy was an apprentice pet cultivator of their branch and that he and another pet cultivator had researched a new evolution previously unknown.
He called his secretary and ordered her to send him all the information he could find about Linus Black and who he was working as an assistant lately. Minutes later a map filled with Linus's information was sent to him. After he started reading, he recognised that the boy was that talented kid who had expertly answered his bonus answer on his exam and that he was working for the same person who had marked his exam's bonus question.
He was also surprised that the boy had contracted a dark rose as his pet and that he was participating in research related to the evolution of dark roses which was inspired by his exam question and answer. He remembered that the boy had intrigued him and that even the headquarters had shown some interest in the boy's talent as a pet cultivator. The benefactor that he had informed had even shown some intentions of accepting the boy as a disciple as long as he reached the bronze rank and performed decently in the National examination as the boy is still a high school student and hasn't proven his worth yet.
To both fulfil the young miss's demand and sate his curiosity, he ordered his secretary to bring both the boy and the pet cultivator who his working with to his office to learn about what they had discovered and what they needed his help.
Five minutes later, the boy, Linus Black, and the man named Gert Wellington entered his office. He gestured for them to sit down and introduced himself before stating his reason for calling them:
"Good evening, I am your local branch head and am called Robert Hampton. The reason I called you two here is due to a letter delivered to me by the boy stating a request for the concoction of some potions needed for his pet's evolution.
I also learned that his pet is an iron rank dark rose which you two found and researched a further evolution, but due to some reasons can't personally evolve due to limitations in being able in concocting the required potion.
Can you two inform me about your findings and the current situation so that I can judge if I can help you two? I could even correct some mistakes or slights that you might not have noticed."
When Mr Hampton finished stating his reasons, both Linus and Mr Wellington introduced their research findings and their current evaluation of Nyx's circumstances for evolution.
This took longer than the head expected, but he was both surprised and excited by what the boy and low-rank professional pet cultivator had discovered. After digesting everything about their research and their research results, he spoke up and evaluated what they had already achieved:
"I never expected the iron rank dark rose race to be capable of becoming fairies upon evolution. This will be a major discovery when announced to the public resulting in the iron rank dark roses rising in value equal to some gold and platinum race beast cubs.
Although the requirements for evolution are quite steep, the price for a potential fairy pet would make it more than worth it. The risks associated with evolution are also easily mitigated and are the same as other fairy birth evolutions.
Though you two have made some mistakes, you couldn't have known about them due to your lack of knowledge. Linus Black, your assistance in discovering this evolution was also indispensable as the unusual training requirement of pet skills from your exam answer was the key to this evolution from what I understand of the data you two have gathered.
Normally a fairy birth type evolution undergoes only two changes instead of three and the extra first change a dark rose has to undergo was only possible due to the learning and training of the extra skills dark enhanced cells and sharp blossoming.
Now if we want to talk about evolving your dark rose pet which has been nurtured by such high-quality darkness energy due to your ability then I have to partially agree with Gert's assumptions but he had still made some oversights due to the mistakes you two have made during this research.
First, we have to look at the aspects of general family birth evolutions. Fairy birth evolutions are characterised by the evolutions of plant beasts or pets at the silver rank or below. The lower the initial plant pet's race, the more elemental energy of at least pristine quality will be required during the evolution of the evolution will fail and the pet will exhaust its potential.
Another aspect is as you two had correctly assumed, the more high-quality energy absorbed during the evolution from both the environment and the evolution potions will result in the fairies bathed having higher strength and potential than other fairies. The better the initial plant pet was nurtured, the more energy they can absorb and the more energy will be required. The required energy will also have to be of the same quality and purity as the pet was nurtured with or higher. Otherwise, the evolution potions will not even kick start the evolution process.
The aspect you two don't know about and didn't pay enough attention to that could be detrimental for the boy and his pet's evolution if done wrong is that the personality and mental state of a fairy is influenced by the type of energy they absorb during evolution.
The reason why the dark rose fairies evolved solely using the abyssal rose potion is more temperamental and angry is due to the nature of the abyss energy. This isn't a big concern for normal evolutions, but the abyss energy you two planned on using for the boy's pet was of much higher purity and quantity that it could result in his pet becoming berserk, bloodthirsty and uncontrollable.
Normally this can be remedied by changing the high-quality elemental energy to another type of the same element before the evolution. The problem in this case, however, is that darkness elemental energy is both special and rare.
Not many types of darkness elemental energy exist that can be collected and even fewer are as high quality as abyss energy. Another problem is that even the other types are also quite violent and strange to the point that using them wouldn't be a better option.
This leaves only two options, the first is to still use the abyss energy and risk having the boy's pet go berserk. The second is to wait and search for a suitable alternative darkness type energy that isn't easily collected and wait until enough is collected to concoct ten potion doses which will guarantee a successful evolution.
I recommend the second option as the first is too risky, but I will leave that for the boy to decide. Though the risks of the first option can be minimised by increasing the pet's mental power and will through undergoing intense training and combat.
Okay now that everything has been analysed and brought onto the table, I will also summarize what materials would be required for the concoction of ten doses of the required evolution potion and how much these would cost even when my fees have been waived.
The following will be needed. 10 containers filled with enough perfect purity high-quality darkness energy, 100 mg bone dust from a platinum rank undead race, 10 hairs from a gold rank dark flame tiger, 10 scales from a gold rank underworld ice serpent and 20 small leaves from a diamond rank umbra lotus prince.
10 containers filled with the required abyss energy would cost 50 million FD, 100 mg bone dust will at least cost 10 million FD, 10 hairs will cost 3 million FD, 10 scales will cost 4 million FD and 20 small leaves will cost 80 million FD which will total to a minimum of at least 147 million FD. This is already cheap as my fees are waved and they would otherwise cost you another 50 million FD."
When Mr Hampton was finished, he found that the boy Linus was shocked and frozen while he had before been full of confidence and determination. Gert on the other hand had a bitter smile. He left them some time to let his words sink in and after 10 minutes, Linus had recovered his bearing.
His current problem and the biggest obstacle was that he could never gather the required money even if he were to sell his own life. It would then be better for him to break through and buy a silver rank race beast to contract as his second pet which would cost at most 5 million FD if he wasn't picky about the race like he had been with Nyx.
Linus didn't want to give up though, he had even asked Nyx for her opinion if she was willing to take the risk of absorbing the Abyss energy during the evolution to make evolving before the National examination a possibility as otherwise, it wouldn't be worth taking the risk. Nyx had agreed as she knew that both her and Linus's future would depend on that exam as they could never survive 8 hours with iron rank strength due to the nature of the test which increases the beasts' power bit by bit more time has passed.
Although knowledge and tricks can extend his survival time, the foundation of the Global Federation and the exam is strength and not anything else. Now that he had regained his bearing and confirmed Nyx's opinion, he did the only thing that could do in this situation.
Linus asked to Mr Hampton: "I and my pet would like to evolve and try before the National examination with Abyssal energy after I breakthrough as a pet trainer to the professional bronze rank. There is only one big problem, I don't have the required money nor the connections to procure the necessary materials. Senior Hampton do you know of a way for me to procure those materials without selling myself to a devil?"