This was a wolf pup.
Exactly as Su Ping had expected.
The Heart of Wood specialized in breeding Forest Wolves as its primary Pet Beast.
However, Su Ping's brows quickly furrowed. At a single glance, he could tell that this pup was not an ordinary Forest Wolf.
Forest Wolves were a Pet Beast species with Elite-tier racial potential.
On Blue Star, the grading of Pet Beasts, Beast Tamers, and resources followed a unified system: Ordinary, Elite, Commander, Monarch, Emperor, Saint, Legend, Myth.
Each Pet Beast also had corresponding evolution paths and methods that had already been discovered by Beast Tamers.
Generally speaking, before evolution, the racial potential detected in a Pet Beast represented the highest ceiling it could naturally reach.
In other words, under normal circumstances—without the proper channels or resources to complete evolution—a Forest Wolf's natural growth limit was Elite-tier.
However, the world was vast, and anything could happen.
There were always rare exceptions.
That exception was known as bloodline mutation.
Under normal conditions, Forest Wolf pups had fur that was mostly grayish-yellow. Only after entering the growth stage or reaching adulthood would their coat gradually turn bluish-green, becoming a pale cyan color.
But the wolf pup lying beneath the automatic milk feeder was completely different.
Its entire body was emerald green. At first glance, it did not even look like a living creature, but rather a finely carved jade ornament.
Its round, pitch-black eyes stared at Su Ping outside the box, letting out soft ying-ying sounds.
Su Ping immediately laughed and directly called his father.
"Hello? Su Ping? You're home already?" His father Su An'yong's hearty voice came through the phone.
"Yeah. What's the deal with this wolf pup?"
Su Ping did not ask what his father had been thinking when he casually dumped the entire breeding base on him, nor did he question his sudden disappearance to go find him a stepmother.
After all these years, he was already used to his father's antics.
"Heh heh, do you think your old man would screw his own son over? This pup's bloodline mutated. Its wood-attribute bloodline has been refined, and it's developed a poison attribute.
"If you raise it in that direction, it might end up with dual attributes—wood and poison.
"Someone offered twelve million, and your dad still didn't sell it. How could I sell it to someone else?
"My good son just awakened as a Beast Tamer and happens to be missing his first contracted Pet Beast. How could a mere ten million buy a father's love and devotion…?"
Su Ping directly hung up the phone, but his eyes were already shining brightly.
A poison-attribute mutated Forest Wolf?
That was genuinely interesting.
While poison attributes were not as rare and precious as mental, spatial, or time attributes, they were still absolutely uncommon.
His unreliable father had actually come through for once.
With that thought, Su Ping did not hesitate.
By this point, most of his classmates from graduation had already contracted their first Pet Beasts. He was the only one who had been hesitating all this time.
Forest Wolves were creatures he had been familiar with since childhood. A mutated poison-attribute Forest Wolf was undoubtedly an excellent choice.
A soul contract slowly connected with the wolf pup before him.
The pup, clearly only recently born, showed no resistance whatsoever.
In less than ten minutes, Su Ping opened his eyes and looked at the little fellow.
At the same time, inside the constant-temperature box, separated by the glass cover, the pup also opened its eyes and looked back at him.
The instant their gazes met, an indescribable sense of closeness seemed to surge forth from deep within their souls.
A soul contract was, by nature, the closest bond of all.
And the moment Su Ping established the contract with the wolf pup, its body visibly grew a little sturdier.
This was the bond and connection between a Beast Tamer and their Pet Beast.
A Beast Tamer's mental power could feed back into a Pet Beast's growth and enhancement, while the Pet Beast's breakthroughs and advancements would, through the soul link, elevate the Beast Tamer's own realm as well.
The two truly complemented and supported each other.
Su Ping reached out and lifted the pup from the constant-temperature box. The emerald-green wolf body was extremely soft, yet it lacked the warmth of a living creature, carrying instead a faint coolness.
"Looking at you like this… I'll call you Xiao Qing."
Su Ping was not particularly good at naming things. To him, his Pet Beast was unique regardless, and a name was merely a label.
Clearly, the pup did not care about the name either. It opened its milk-scented mouth as if to respond to Su Ping's words:
"Ao… wuuu…"
The howl born of its bloodline sounded somewhat strange due to its still-undeveloped voice.
Su Ping smiled faintly.
However, at that very moment, he suddenly froze.
In his mind, the Myriad Spirits Codex—which had shown no changes since his awakening—opened on its own for the first time, without his control.
Amid the rustling sound of pages flipping, it quickly locked onto a specific entry.
The creature depicted there was none other than a fully grown, perfectly standard Forest Wolf.
At the same time, a line of text appeared before Su Ping's eyes within the Codex:
[Codex Entry "Forest Wolf" lit. Current Codex Level: 1. Origin Reward obtained: Eye of Truth.]
[Eye of Truth (Beast Tamer Ability): Allows the user to perceive a Pet Beast or ferocious beast's exact level, skills, and race through mental power.]
"Huh?!"
Before Su Ping could even react, he felt a stream of unfamiliar information directly pour into his mind from the Myriad Spirits Codex.
The next moment, a line of text appeared on Xiao Qing's body in his arms:
[Mutated Forest Wolf (Contracted)]
[Attributes: Wood, Poison]
[Current Level: Ordinary Rank, Stage 1]
[Racial Potential: Elite Rank, Stage 10]
[Skill: Sunlight Absorption (Beginner)]
The Eye of Truth?
Wasn't that an ability that could only be awakened as a Beast Tamer Talent?
But the problem was—every Beast Tamer only had one chance to awaken their innate talent!
His own talent was clearly Pet Beast Home, wasn't it?
Su Ping was not surprised that contracting the Forest Wolf had lit up its Codex entry.
But the reward granted after lighting it up left him completely stunned.
True, the Eye of Truth was not some heaven-defying Beast Tamer talent.
In fact, together with Mind Link and Rapid Recovery, it was considered one of the most common Beast Tamer talents—nearly fifty percent of all Beast Tamers awakened one of these three.
But no matter how common it was, this was still a free talent!
Beast Tamer talents were genuine abilities with no acquisition channels whatsoever.
Originally, Su Ping had imagined that the rewards from the Myriad Spirits Codex would at most be special resources, unique Pet Beast evolution paths, or something similar.
He truly had not expected that the very first reward from lighting up the Codex would give him such an enormous surprise.
Thinking of this, Su Ping stroked Xiao Qing in his arms while eagerly turning his gaze toward the now-lit Forest Wolf Codex entry.