"No, I would like to talk business now, Keith!"
As soon as Leylin's words fell, a heavy, eerie quiet settled over the office.
Keith's lighthearted demeanor vanished entirely. The facade of a kindly old grandfather melted away, replaced by a cold, calculating intensity.
He locked his fingers together, resting his elbows on the desk and propping his chin against his intertwined hands.
He gave a sharp nod, "Very well. I would appreciate that as well. I have secured the items you inquired about previously."
Leylin's eyes flashed, a faint smile touching his lips understanding why Keith had brought up the subject instead of immediately presenting the goods, he casually flicked his wrist.
A handful of dark, crystalline shards materialized out of thin air and settled onto the desk with a soft clack.
At the sight of the crystals, a brief, fanatical light glinted in Keith's eyes although he made a conscious effort to mask his reaction, but the sudden tension in his hands betrayed his craving for those crystals.
Noticing the old man's internal struggle, Leylin offered a loud sneer.
"Good! Excellent!" Keith said, realizing his attempt at composure had failed completely. Flushing slightly with mild embarrassment, he sought to salvage his dignity by waving a hand over the bronze ring on his finger as several sealed wooden boxes appeared on the table before them.
Leylin glanced briefly at Keith's bronze ring, a spatial storage artifact.
In the Beast World, spatial items were unusual but not entirely unattainable, anyone with sufficient political standing and wealthy connections could acquire one.
Having analyzed several of these spatial relics before, Leylin knew they were produced through ancient, forgotten crafting methods.
While their total numbers were high enough to satisfy the demands of the high nobility, their cost kept them out of reach for most. The artifacts themselves were categorized into distinct tiers, with Keith's bronze ring being a standard low-grade piece.
Leylin held little interest in such low-tier items; their dimensions were cramped and their spatial stability was far weaker than his own spatial pouch. Still, he also got a top-tier variant of spatial ring for himself.
Taking one of the wooden boxes, Leylin opened the latch and inspected the contents. "You call me resourceful? That sounds rather ironic coming from you. Procuring the intact hearts of a Hell Demon is no simple task."
Satisfied with the pristine state of the organs, Leylin closed the lid. 'With these final catalyst components, I can finally resume my potion research.'
"Haha! While they are certainly rare, anyone willing to spend a fortune in Aura Crystals and leverage high-level connections can manage it," Keith replied, his eyes remaining glued to the dark crystals as he pocketed them one by one. "On the other hand, Crystallized Dark-Energy Particles... now that is a true suprising. I cannot help but wonder where your benefactor managed to source them."
Aura Crystals served as the primary currency among the Beast Tamers of this world.
According to the research Leylin had already compiled via the A.I. Chip, these crystals were naturally mutated mana stones whose energy signatures aligned well with local beast-cultivation methods.
Leylin merely shrugged, offering no explanation.
The dark-energy crystals he had traded were concentrated dark-elemental crystals, standard resources used by Dark Magi to increase their elemental conversion rates.
To a Rank 3 Warlock whose elemental conversion was already fully realized, these raw stones were essentially superfluous trade stock. To Keith, however, they were an irreplaceable treasure.
Keith's primary innate beast was a rare Fiend Owl, and his personal cultivation technique was deeply aligned with dark-attribute energy. At his current bottleneck, these condensed dark-elemental particles were the exact catalyst he needed to force a breakthrough.
Within the territories of the Beast World, such condensed dark-elemental crystals were nearly extinct while the meager stockpiles that remained were hoarded exclusively by the Four Great Dynasties.
Keith had long given up hope of advancing his cultivation, resigned to slowly aging away in this academy but holding these dark crystals, the long-extinguished ambition within his heart blazed back to life.
Keith had clawed his way to the top through decades of bloodshed, sacrificing far too much along the way. With his combat experience and refined techniques, he was widely regarded as the strongest Lieutenant-Stage Beast Tamer in the entire Felineca Empire.
Yet the bitter reality of watching his lifespan drain away while trapped below the Captain Stage had been a constant, gnawing agony.
Seeing Leylin casually brush aside his inquiry, a flicker of irritation flared within Keith.
In a momentary lapse of judgment to assert his authority, he allowed a silent wave of his Spirit Aura to roll across the desk toward Leylin, a subtle exertion of force meant to serve as a quiet warning against disrespect.
He kept the intent non-lethal, well aware that "Lucian Alister" was a dangerous individual backed by an even more dangerous entity.
Leylin sensed the incoming atmospheric pressure instantly but rather than pushing back with his own crushing soul force, he simply opened his right hand.
A pale green, ghostly flame materialized, floating silently above his palm.
"Soul Fire!" Keith gasped, instantly retracting his Spirit Aura as his pupils contracted in shock.
"There is no need to bring out lethal instruments over a friendly bantar, Teacher Alister! Please, put it away!" Keith swallowed hard, staring at the unnatural flame dancing between Leylin's fingers.
His terror was palpable, yet beneath it lay an unmistakable, desperate glint of greed.
In the Beast World, Soul Fire also known as Wraith's Tear was an extraordinary, legendary item that has the ability to corrupt a Beast Tamer Spirit Aura and divided into seven distinct grades: Mortal, Earth, Iron, Astral, Spirit, Sky, and Divine Flame.
The exact methods required to forge the higher-tier variants were lost to history, but even the lowest Mortal-grade flame required the slaughter of a rare Wraith Wyvern under extremely specific conditions.
Obscure texts stored within the inner vaults of the Rose Petal Royal Academy translated from the ancient records of the nomadic Samar Tribes, detailed the gruesome ritual required to extract a base-level Soul Fire.
The process required the wailing, resentful soul of a pregnant Wraith Wyvern that had lived for precisely one hundred and ninety-nine years and ninety-nine days, carrying a clutch of nine unborn eggs. The beast had to be slain on the twenty-fourth day of the Crimson Moon under the Cedric Solar Alignment, using weapons carved exclusively from the fangs of a Giant Demon Tiger.
Wyverns themselves were formidable, dragon-blooded beasts. A mature adult could easily battle a Lieutenant-Stage Beast Tamer, while prime alphas reached the Captain Stage. Though solitary by nature, Wyverns gathered in protective swarms to defend nesting females.
Consequently, attempting to harvest a Soul Fire was a suicidal endeavor requiring an entire strike team of Lieutenant-Stage tamers led by multiple Captain-Stage powerhouses.
They had to hold off a furious Wyvern horde while specialized tracking-type tamers verified the exact age, gestation day, and egg count of the target.
The sheer expenditure of life and resources meant that only the Four Great Dynasties and the most powerful Empires possessed the capital to attempt the ritual.
Furthermore, a Soul Fire's offensive effectiveness dropped significantly against a Captain-Stage Beast Tamer whose Spirit Aura had fully materialized into a physical manifestation capable of resisting the corruption.
Below that, however it was a terrifying force of nature. A tamer wielding even a low-grade Soul Fire could single-handedly incinerate an entire squad of equal-ranked opponents.
Leylin had not forged this green flame himself. Months prior, while his strongest summons, the Vanguard of the Requiem and the Black Horrall Snake were clearing out the deep reaches of the Purple Mist Forest, they had been ambushed by a Giant Demon Tiger, the undisputed apex predator of that territory.
That Giant Demon Tiger was a Rank 2 entity (equivalent to the Captain Stage) that had somehow integrated a wild Soul Fire into its core, allowing it to hold off both of Leylin's Rank 2 summons alone.
Upon receiving the report, Leylin had personally stepped into the forest, leading his entire summon array into the beast's lair.
Against a Rank 3 Warlock, the encounter was an absolute slaughter. Leylin subdued the Giant Demon Tiger alive and recognizing that the wild Soul Fire had fused directly into the creature's soul core, Leylin spent months conducting experiments, finally flaying the green flame out of the beast's spirit.
The extraction process crippled the Giant Demon Tiger, shattering its aggressive spirit and reducing the mighty Captain-Stage beast into a docile, dim-witted husk.
Though "weakened" in Leylin's eyes, the subdued beast still maintained the peak Lieutenant-Stage strength. Having no use for a broken pet, Leylin had gifted the docile creature to the Patriarch of the Greg Family, allowing the him to contract a high-tier beast without facing the usual deadly resistance.
Leylin extinguished the green flame with a slight movement of his fingers, his cold gaze piercing right through the old man across the desk.
"Control your greed, Purgutary Lord," Leylin said, his voice dropping into a whisper, "Do not forget who we serve."
Keith froze, a sudden cold sweat breaking out across his back as fear completely suppressed his lingering avarice, "Y-Yes, of course! My loyalty to Lord Farlier is absolute! I... I assumed that flame was a personal gift bestowed upon you by His Highness."
"His Highness treats those who perform with generosity," Leylin replied smoothly, adjusting his sleeves. "Just as he bestowed Nirvana Awakening Elixir upon you. He harbors great expectations for your progress, do not allow brief surges of greed to cloud your judgment or derail your standing."
In truth, the field of alchemy within the Beast World was remarkably primitive compared to South Coast. What Keith viewed as a divine, lost potion granted by a legendary benefactor was merely a mid-tier Rank 1 restorative formula that Leylin had casually adapted from his A.I. Chip database to keep his local followers obedient.
Keith swallowed hard, bowing his head toward Leylin in genuine submission. "I understand, Teacher Alister. Please convey my deepest gratitude to Lord Farlier. The preparations are complete, and I will not disappoint him."
'Its always amusing playing with difficult followers like him.' Leylin internally laughed, whenever he is bored he would go to his followers in disguise of Lucian Alistair and talk to them cryptically and enjoy their fumbling.