Ryker sat in meditation right before the vat of blood. He took deep breaths, the bloody scene seemingly not bothering him in the slightest.

He communed with the immature soul within the egg. This process would have been almost impossible for most others, but Ryker was a talent that had managed to sign a contract with an unawakened soul when he was just three years old. Compared to that moment, not only was he far older and more experienced, but the target was much easier as well.

Although immature, the soul within the egg was at least a living, breathing existence that was only a few months away from hatching. Compared to that, the Silver Mirror couldn’t even compare.

As expected, Ryker succeeded in just a few seconds. It was so simple that he would have been stunned had he not already been prepared for such an inevitability.

In truth, he hadn’t really checked which of the two eggs was better. For one, he didn’t want to parse such things with Jaana. He treated her differently than he did his other women. Maybe in most cases he wouldn’t allow a woman to affect his path forward, but when it came to Jaana, he was willing to sacrifice for her, because she had sacrificed for him.

Even so, Ryker knew that they were in a terrible situation right now. He couldn’t allow sentimentality to get in the way of him improving as fast as he needed to. So there was also a second reason that he didn’t bother to check, and that was because one of them would be sacrificed to bring the other to the truest peak there was. They were so close to begin with that the one he picked didn’t matter in the slightest.

The moment Ryker established a contract with the beast, he felt an immature sort of curiosity and love coming from it. The Cyprus Seaking obviously thought Ryker to be its kin, and Ryker would always treat it as such.

He wouldn’t be worthy of rising up with the help of his beasts if he didn’t also help them to rise up.

Nine Circles in his body thrummed with life and vitality, and soon, a firm connection was formed. Just like that, Ryker began to direct the little one in its movements.

Before, the unborn Cyprus Seaking could only rely on its instincts to make progress. The energy came, and it passively absorbed it. But now, it had Ryker’s guidance and its efficiency reached a new realm entirely.

The blood it was surrounded by was quickly losing its color, floating and fluttering Spiritual Patterns that could be seen without a proper soul technique likewise began to vanish.

The egg grew at a speed visible to the naked eye, and from the side, Jaana could only watch in astonishment.

By this point, she was certain that this creature couldn’t be as simple as an 8th Circle beast… could it really be a legendary 9th Circle beast?

When she thought to this point, not only was she shocked, but she was feeling a bit apprehensive. That was because although no 9th Circle beasts had ever appeared in public record, there were stories about how arrogant and demanding they were.

If Ryker was still a 9th Circle Talent, maybe it wouldn’t be anything to worry about. But he no longer was… what if his creature became a werebeast in the future, betraying him and killing him?

She didn’t want to see something like that happen, but when she opened her mouth to speak, she bit back her word. Her teeth dug into the soft flesh of her cherry lips and she could only press her worry down to the core of her soul.

Werebeasts were creatures that everyone feared, Demonic Beasts even more so as their evolutionary partners. Not much was known about them… except for the fact that they were all extremely powerful, and they tended to appear more often in higher-ranked beasts. More specifically, the larger the gap in talent between beast and master, the more likely it was for a werebeast to appear.

This was why even though it was technically possible for a 3rd Circle Talent to contract two 9th Circle talents so long as they were patient enough, no one ever actually did this.

You would never find a 4th Circle Talent with a 7th Circle Talent even if they were born into a family affluent enough to allow it.

CRACK.

As Jaana was lost in her worry again, the egg began to crack.

An overwhelming light spread into the surroundings and then a huge surge of Spirit Energy came.

The skies above shook and it seemed as though a great phenomenon was about to occur when the Cyprus Seaking suddenly vanished.

Ryker stood with a smile on his face, patting his ass as he reached out and grabbed Jaana’s hand. "Come with me."

“But, Bluey—”

“Ah, it’ll be fine. Let it squirm.”

With that, they vanished.

…

Jaana looked around in shock. She had never sensed such dense Spirit Energy in her life, just what was this place?

Of course, Ryker had brought her into the prison. But rather than introducing it to her, he was a bit shocked as well.

‘Interesting… is it because I returned home? Or is it because I took it into that other world with Daos?’

The prison had a far higher concentration of Spirit Energy than Ryker remembered, and it was already ridiculously concentrated before.

But this change seemed to imply that the stronger the world the prison was placed in, the better it would be able to accomplish in gathering and storing energy.

Before, Ryker had reached a bottleneck in just how fast he could absorb energy at the Peak of the 8th Enlightenment Realm. He hadn’t even bothered to continue using the prison for the 9th Circle at that point, becoming more focused on a perfect breakthrough into Ascension instead.

But this… changed everything.

He felt that he could get away with cultivating at full speed even as a First Ascended. If he could keep up this pace, he might be able to become a Middle Ascended in just a day, and in a week, maybe he could knock on the door of Second Ascended status.

Just as he was having these fanciful thoughts, all of Ryker’s dreams were crushed. That was because his new contract moved again.

CRACK.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The egg of the Cyprus Seaking was as beautiful as their main bodies. The shell had patterns of scales in the shape of delicate golden and sapphire leaves. It almost looked like shells were layered on top of one another, and if you ran your hand in the wrong direction, let alone just harming yourself, you might lose a layer of your skin.

That said, it was incredibly cool to the touch and made you feel a closeness with the ocean that nothing Ryker had ever experienced could compare to.

Right now, however, there were lines of gold running all across the egg. But rather than fissuring randomly like one might expect, the egg only broke along the crevices of the leaf-shaped scales.

In that single instant of time, the egg swallowed up all the energy in the prison for it. But when it did this, Ryker couldn’t help but let out hearty laughter.

The better the egg was at causing him problems, the stronger it would be.

His own cultivation was less important than the cultivation of his beasts. Ultimately, the greatest weakness of a Mythical Master was themselves. If Ryker had to choose between his own progress and theirs… the answer was too obvious.

At the same time, because he was hatching this egg with a Tier 2, 33 Path Dao as its foundation, he was giving it just as much as he was gaining.

He felt his cultivation speed hit an entirely new tier, and by the same token, a strength that could forge tsunamis rushed through him.

He knew what it was immediately.

Water Type Spirit Energy.

But it wasn’t just any Water Type Spirit Energy, it was Water Type Spirit Energy supported by a Tier 2 Dao and a 9th Circle Spirit Beast.

Instantly, this both became Ryker’s strongest affinity and his strongest strength.

At that moment, the scales that formed the egg all separated and a bleeding light ran out. Then, to Ryker’s surprise, the scales began to condense, layering onto the body of a silhouette within.

Just as the lights were about to vanish, there was a change.

SHUUU!

Ryker’s brows barely had time to shoot up before a slithering figure rushed at him.

He chuckled and opened his arms, only for a gorgeous creature to plow its way into his chest.

Ryker looked down and got a good look at his new companion.

It was a creature about two meters in length despite having only just matured. It had immature horns on its head and its body was dotted into leaf and shell-shaped scales.

It was smooth and almost wet to the touch, and its eyes had pill-shaped pupils surrounded by a golden radiance.

Rather than the evolution of a seahorse, it looked more like an eastern dragon of legend. And yet, it was still unique enough to be its own existence.

“Hey little guy.” Ryker laughed at a lick to the face despite the fact it almost took a layer of his skin off. “I’ll call you… King.”

King wiggled about with delight, feeling an undying sort of closeness to Ryker. He was too much like the sea, and his Dao, not to mention the fact it thought Ryker had literally birthed it, made it feel like there was no one in the world worth getting closer to.

“Oh? Maybe I was wrong,” Ryker said with a hint of surprise. “Your name will be Queen instead.”

Ryker hadn’t bothered to check gender, but while he was examining “King’s” body and already planning their next steps, he happened to notice.

Queen seemed even happier now. Or, maybe it was just that it

didn’t matter what Ryker said at all. She was just happy to hear his voice.

Ryker couldn’t help but smile when he saw Queen’s jovial attitude. Compared to his other beasts, Queen was certainly the most expressive.

Phoenix had taken a while to get up to speed on things, while Prometheus was a little fool. The Silver Mirror didn’t even need to be mentioned because it would likely never have such an overtly outgoing personification.

Maybe this wasn’t just Queen’s uniqueness, but rather the fact that she was a 9th Circle Talent. She was naturally more intelligent than other Spirit Beasts and took much less time to mature to the point of having such outgoing displays.

By the same token, Ryker was a bit worried that Phoenix hadn’t begun to speak yet, and it was likely partially his fault.

Prometheus would likely never speak, but interacting with Bluey made Ryker realize that Phoenix was actually a bit slow in this regard for such a talented 8th Circle beast.

Part of it was certainly that he had pushed Phoenix to improve quite swiftly. After all, Phoenix was technically only a few months old now. This was part of why Ryker hadn’t considered it before.

But then he thought of something else…

Their three minds.

The usual path of the Two-Headed Serpent Phoenix was to fuse their minds together. Well, that was just the nice way of putting it. Usually, they would devour their sibling and leave one mind as the dominant.

For Phoenix, who had three heads, this was even more important than usual. But Ryker had taken them down a completely different path.

He couldn’t help but wonder if this was what was slowing down their progress.

Ryker shook his head, turning his attention back to Queen. Just now, he noticed that Queen had actually glided through the air. There should be no problem with Queen acting like a normal snake creature and slithering on the ground. But she had done something completely out of Ryker’s expectations.

She was actually able to use the water vapor in the air to increase her buoyancy. Even as an only recently mature 1st Enlightenment Realm Spirit Beast, she had already awakened her first talent.

In fact, despite her size, when she crashed into Ryker, she had felt as light as one of those leaves her scales portrayed.

Seeing this talent, Ryker was immediately inspired by the level of control, but he also quickly realized that in order for Queen to do this, she wasn’t just relying on changing the environment, but also her own body as well. She had several sacks within her body she could freely control the density of by changing the pressure. In fact, it was only because those sacks were all inflated with water vapor right now that she was so large.

If Ryker commanded her to release them…

Queen suddenly shrunk down from over two meters long to less than a meter. She struggled to stay in Ryker’s arms with her own strength, but Ryker picked her up and lay her around his neck.

Excited again, Queen licked his face.

“Ryker… this…”

Ryker laughed. “This is just a treasure I picked up. Nice, isn’t it?”

“It’s… I think it’s even better than a God Treasure… how is that possible?”

Ryker grinned. “Didn’t you already know before how amazing your husband was? Why are you acting so surprised?”

Jaana blushed and then pinched his arm.

“Don’t worry. I’ll tell you about my adventure. Come on.”

…

Ryker brought Jaana out of the prison to find that Bluey was still screeching bloody murder, but he still directly ignored the insufferable little guy.

He brought Queen over to the second egg and she actually bared her teeth.

“Oh?”

Ryker blinked in surprise. Queen seemed to have some inborn enmity with the bloodline of the beast in this egg. That was… interesting.

Spirit Beasts obviously had memories passed down through their blood, but this was the first time Ryker was seeing a memory that didn’t have anything to do with talents or cultivation.

It had to be quite a deep enmity for this to happen.

“Good. That makes things even easier.”

Ryker gave Queen a command and she lunged forward, opening her maw and biting into the eggshell. With a strong suction force, much of the nutrient liquid inside was sucked away and the egg dimmed.

That was all Ryker told Queen to do, but that was when something more shocking happened.

Queen’s scales pulsed, and the scales on the egg replied.

At that moment, the egg “shattered” much like Queen’s had, separating into several shell-shaped scales. And then, Queen’s body became illusory, taking those scales for herself. Ryker could sense Queen’s body growing more powerful, and though her cultivation remained the exact same, what was shocking was that her foundation grew deeper and steadier.

Then, in a beautiful display, a pair of water wings appeared on Queen’s back. She was only less than a meter long in her current form, and yet both wings were at least that long as well.

‘I see… The Cyprus Seaking Race should have some innate abilities right from birth. Queen awakened their pressurized air and flight ability, while this one awakened their water wing ability. After taking its scales, Queen now has both… Curious…’

Ryker didn’t know anything about the Cyprus Seakings, nor did he understand the meaning of these talents.

He didn’t actually think much about it because both just seemed like methods of flight.

However, that was when Queen’s “water wings” became a thin veil of water skin that coated her. Before, she was tired. But the moment this water skin touched her, the air was sucked of all its moisture and then her vitality seemed to return.

Ryker’s eyes opened wide.

This was definitely not a simple water wing ability. If he was correct, Queen had subconsciously formed them into wings because flight was her innate ability. But these so-called water wings should actually be far more profound than that.

‘Amazing.’

Ryker walked forward and picked up what remained of the Cyprus Seaking’s embryo. He knew that Jaana would likely not want to see such a thing, so he hurriedly walked to where Bluey was screaming and threw it into his mouth.

Bluey’s shouts froze for a moment before he unleashed bloody murder.

Ryker sighed with satisfaction. Indeed, torturing this little bastard did feel good.

“Let’s go Queen and Empress. I should probably go and see Gramps. I’m sure he’s got fire spitting out of his eyes by now.”