After leaving Jiaoyang Cultivation Base, Li Qian didn't go home. He headed straight for the Pet Beast Market.
Pretty much every city had a Pet Beast Market like this; the only difference was their scale.
Pet Beast Eggs, Pet Beast Cubs, Pet Beast Materials, Pet Beast Potions... everything related to Pet Beasts could be traded here.
Together, the Pet Beast Market in each city and the Pet Beast Mall—jointly developed by the Beastmaster Association and the Federation Government—monopolized over ninety percent of all online and offline trading of Pet Beast resources.
It didn't take long for Li Qian, riding his bicycle, to arrive at Lingshui City's Pet Beast Market.
Without wasting time at other stores or stalls, he headed straight for a Pet Beast trading shop. He made his first stop at the largest one in the entire market: "Home of Famous Pets."
Home of Famous Pets was quite well-known within the Pet Beast Market. It occupied a vast area, taking up five floors of a ten-story office building.
To make it easier for customers to browse, Home of Famous Pets sorted its Pet Beasts by attribute.
"Water-type Pet Beasts are on the second floor." Following the directory, Li Qian went up to the second floor.
A single glance revealed a room filled with pools of various sizes.
The pools were enclosed by special glass, which was not only sturdy and durable but also made it easy for customers to observe and choose.
After all, Lingshui City was just a small-to-medium-sized city, so even in its Pet Beast Market, the quantity and variety of Pet Beasts were relatively limited.
And there were basically no truly famous or rare pets.
Most of the truly rare and valuable Pet Beasts were concentrated in the online Pet Beast Mall.
It was just that the prices were staggering.
Furthermore, some Pet Beasts with enormous potential or extremely rare resources couldn't be bought with just Federation Coins.
They required Federal Contribution Points.
And as far as Li Qian knew, the simplest way to obtain Federal Contribution Points was to accept tasks from the Beast Taming Center in any city.
Completing tasks would earn you Contribution Points.
Sweeping his gaze across the room, Li Qian couldn't help but feel the corner of his mouth twitch.
Perhaps because the value of Koi Carp was a bit low, out of the dozen or so pools in the Water-type Pet Beast section, there was only a single small one that contained Koi Carp.
And there were only a dozen or so of them.
Li Qian wasted no time. He walked up to the Koi Carp pool and activated his Eye of True Sight.
[Name: Koi Carp]
[Attribute: Water]
[Level: Tier Two]
[Potential: Tier Three]
[Skills: Fish Jump (Mastery)]
...
[Name: Koi Carp]
[Attribute: Water]
[Level: Tier Three]
[Potential: Tier Three]
[Skills: Fish Jump (Perfection)]
...
He scanned through all dozen-plus Koi Carp, but there were no surprises.
'Looks like Gao Yaxin was right. A wild Pet Beast Koi Carp that has mastered the Limit-Breaking Fish Jump Skill is basically nonexistent.'
'If I actually found one, the odds would probably be the same as winning the lottery.'
Li Qian didn't get discouraged. Even though he didn't find a Koi Carp with the Limit-Breaking Fish Jump Skill at Home of Famous Pets, he didn't leave right away. Instead, he began to watch them patiently.
'If I want to crack the code of a Koi Carp's evolution, spending more time with them can't be a bad thing.'
After spending about an hour observing every Koi Carp in the pool, Li Qian left Home of Famous Pets.
Seeing this, the sales staff at Home of Famous Pets didn't try to drive him away or show any disdain.
Kids Li Qian's age were mostly students from Beast Taming High Schools. If they weren't satisfied with the standard Pet Beast assigned to them upon graduation, they would likely come to the Beast Taming Market to pick a better one. Therefore, these kids were all potential customers.
So naturally, their attitude wouldn't be poor.
After leaving Home of Famous Pets, Li Qian went to other Pet Beast shops.
He had only one target: Koi Carp.
He went from pool to pool, observing one fish after another.
At noon, he ate a simple piece of bread and got back to the grind.
Around four in the afternoon, Li Qian prepared to leave the Pet Beast Market. He had scrutinized, if not all, then at least eighty percent of the Koi Carp in the entire market.
Unfortunately, after observing so many, not a single one gave him a surprise.
He didn't see even a shadow of the Limit-Breaking Fish Jump Skill.
But Li Qian wasn't disheartened.
Although he hadn't found a Koi Carp with the Limit-Breaking Fish Jump Skill, observing so many of them in person had deepened his understanding of the Pet Beast. In that sense, it wasn't a complete waste of time.
By the time he returned home from the Pet Beast Market, it was nearly dusk.
Li Qian checked the notifications on his phone.
There was an unread email, which had to be the helpful materials Gao Yaxin had mentioned.
Li Qian went straight to his room, opened his laptop, and downloaded all the files Gao Yaxin had sent.
He took a look. Besides the materials on Koi Carp evolution, there were also some basic books on cultivation, which would indeed be very helpful to him.
He silently committed this favor to memory.
Regardless of whether this was a trivial matter for Gao Yaxin, or whether she was making an early investment in him, the fact remained that she had given him tangible help.
Li Qian didn't look at the basic books right away.
Books like those were certainly useful to him, but they couldn't solve his immediate problem.
So, he immediately focused all his attention on the materials about Koi Carp evolution.
He began to read with intense concentration.
The documents and videos combined were nearly three gigabytes; there was no way he could finish them all in a short time, but Li Qian wasn't anxious.
It was a problem that had plagued the Cultivation Realm for ages. Even with his Golden Finger, he couldn't possibly crack it in a short period.
He was already prepared for a long haul.
Time flew by. He was only pulled out of his immersive reading when his mother, Han Yuqing, knocked on his door to call him for dinner.
He checked the time—it was already 6:30 PM.
He walked to the dining room and saw that the meal was already prepared. He filled a bowl with rice, sat down, and had just taken a single bite when his father, Li Chengyang's, voice rang out. "Now that you've awakened, have you had any thoughts about your Pet Beast?"
"That's right. For a Beast Master, the choice of their first Pet Beast directly affects their future achievements," his mother, Han Yuqing, added. "Your father and I had poor talent back then. We hadn't even awakened our Beast Taming Space by the time we graduated high school, so we lost the chance to study at a Beast Taming University. The Pet Beasts we contracted later were just common ones we bought from the Pet Beast Market. To this day, we're still only Intermediate Beastmasters. This is probably as far as we'll go in this lifetime. But, son, you're different. Your talent is far greater than ours."
"So, for this first Pet Beast, we hope you will be extremely cautious."
Li Chengyang nodded and continued the topic. "Over the years, your mother and I have saved up some money. If the Pet Beast the school assigns you is just average, we can buy you a better one."
Hearing this, Li Qian felt his nose tingle.
Parents always plan far ahead for their children's futures.
Clearly, they planned to buy him a better Pet Beast because they didn't want him to lose at the starting line. It was all for the sake of his future.
And they had their reasons for doing so.
Generally, the Pet Beasts that Beast Taming High Schools gave to graduates who had awakened their Beast Taming Space were considered educational resources allocated by the Beast Taming Association and the Federation. The Pet Beasts wouldn't be terrible, but they wouldn't be great either. There was a high probability they would be the common, well-established types.
"Dad, Mom, there's no need to rush," Li Qian said with a smile. "There are still three months until graduation and we get our Pet Beasts. There's no need to make plans this early."
"Besides, the Pet Beasts assigned by our Beast Taming High School are usually not too bad." He gave both Li Chengyang and Han Yuqing a reassuring look. "Our cultivation teacher, Teacher Zhu, also said it: there are no useless Pet Beasts, only useless Beast Masters."
"Theoretically, every Pet Beast has unlimited potential."
'It doesn't matter whether Teacher Zhu actually said that or not. At least it can put their minds at ease.'
'And finally, of course, there was his Golden Finger.'
With his Golden Finger, Li Qian was full of confidence about his future.
He had another thought, which he kept to himself.
'If the research project goes smoothly, my first Pet Beast could very well be a Koi Carp.'
'The one in my tank, Ah Fu, would be a good choice.'