With the mission successfully completed, Jiang Xing led the evolved dragon flock out of the Azure Dragon Secret Realm.
After returning to the research institute, a very serious problem immediately emerged.
The evolved Rainbow Dragon Hatchlings had become far too large!
Before, it had been a tiny dragon. Forget entering a room—it could even coil around Jiang Xing's neck and pretend to be a scarf.
Now, however, its body length exceeded fifteen meters. A single dragon was enough to fill an entire room, leaving Jiang Xing with nowhere to stand.
The moment it realized this, the little dragon's eyes filled with tears.
This was bad.
It couldn't go home anymore.
If it had known this would happen, it never would have evolved!
"Dragon Hatchling, you're going to have to learn from Dragon Uncle how to shrink yourself."
The Beast Taming World also possessed special moves such as Grow, Shrink, and Harden.
However, these moves couldn't alter size without limits. There was always a cap.
For example, even if Shrink was mastered to the extreme, it could at most reduce a creature's size to about one-quarter of its original volume. It wasn't possible to shrink a five-meter-tall giant beast down to five centimeters and carry it around in your pocket.
The same applied to Grow. At most, it could increase size by one or two times, granting a certain boost in strength. It couldn't turn a small lizard directly into Godzilla capable of crushing skyscrapers with a single step.
A size-changing ability on the level of the Azure Dragon was practically impossible.
It was probably closely related to Mythical-level power.
As a result, Jiang Xing wasn't expecting the little dragon to reach Dragon Uncle's level. As long as it could shrink to one-fifth of its size and not interfere with daily life, that would be enough.
For now, it could only endure.
At worst, Jiang Xing could take Inky and the others and spend a couple of nights camping in the forest with it.
...
After comforting the little dragon, Jiang Xing simply moved the testing equipment outside the institute and conducted detailed examinations.
[Name: Rainbow Dragon]
[Attributes: Light, Dragon]
[Talents: Fearless Heart / Unceasing Heart]
[Species Tier: Mid Monarch Tier]
[Species Moves: Dragon Tail Sweep, Sunny Day...]
[Description: A True Dragon-type Pet Beast that matures from a Rainbow Dragon Hatchling. Compared to its juvenile form, every aspect of its power has risen to a higher level.]
First came the Rainbow Dragon.
It was most likely a growth-type evolution. Whether in terms of attributes or talents, very little had changed.
However, in the eyes of some Beast Tamers, that might actually be an advantage.
Gaining additional attributes could allow a Pet Beast to learn more moves and broaden its offensive coverage.
But it could also introduce additional weaknesses, making the overall combination less effective than before evolution.
After all, the powers wielded by ordinary Pet Beasts were still far from the level of true authority. They merely expanded their methods of attack.
The Rainbow Dragon form not only retained its Light-Dragon attribute combination, but also gave certain dragon hatchlings with the Fearless Heart talent a chance to change their fate.
After all, Unceasing Heart really was the more overpowered talent.
Next came the Wood-Light Dragon.
However, Jiang Xing felt that name sounded rather awkward.
After some thought, he gave it a new name.
Azure Light Dragon.
As for why he didn't call it Azure Sun Dragon or Azure Radiance Dragon...
If Jiang Xing's speculation was correct and the Rainbow Dragon Hatchlings possessed even more evolutionary possibilities, then there would eventually be an entire Light Dragon family.
Naturally, the naming scheme should remain neat and consistent.
[Name: Azure Light Dragon]
[Attributes: Wood, Light, Dragon]
[Talents: Brilliant Sunshine — rapidly restores stamina under sunny conditions / Verdant Power — doubles the power of Wood-attribute moves.]
[Species Tier: Mid Monarch Tier]
[Species Moves: Blazing Sun Sky, Sunlight Everywhere...]
[Description: A True Dragon-type Pet Beast that matures from a Rainbow Dragon Hatchling. After obtaining Wood-attribute power, its vitality becomes extraordinarily vigorous. Vegetation around its habitat flourishes wherever it resides.]
The Azure Light Dragon's Species Tier was identical to the Rainbow Dragon's—both were Mid Monarch Tier.
This indirectly supported Jiang Xing's theory.
Perhaps the Rainbow Dragon itself had also been influenced by the Azure Dragon's power. Its Dragon-attribute strength had been enhanced, and its Species Tier limit had likewise increased.
However, this was extremely difficult to verify and could only remain a hypothesis for now.
As for the Azure Light Dragon itself...
Jiang Xing had only one comment.
It was sneaky as hell.
Granted, neither of the Azure Light Dragon's talents was particularly powerful on its own.
One was exclusive to sun-based teams—a durable tank that could rapidly recover stamina under sunny conditions. While its Wood- and Light-attribute combination gave it absurdly strong recovery abilities, that still wasn't considered overpowered in the Beast Taming World.
As for Verdant Power, it was actually a bit lacking.
Most Wood-attribute moves leaned toward recovery, defense, growth, and similar effects. There weren't many truly powerful offensive moves.
It was similar to the Flower Fairy Attendant's Flower Guardian talent.
A talent might be powerful in isolation, but it couldn't be evaluated on its own. You had to consider the Pet Beast's attributes and the battle environment before making an objective judgment.
Bug-type Fairy Beasts had poor resistances, and area-of-effect moves often hit two targets at once, effectively doubling the damage they suffered. That was what limited their overall strength.
The Azure Light Dragon, however, was different.
Its own talents might be average, but it was an evolution of the Rainbow Dragon Hatchling, and the Beast Taming World possessed an item known as the Inheritance Stone.
In other words, it could also possess the Unceasing Heart talent!
High HP, high defense, the incredible recovery provided by its Wood-Light attributes, and on top of that, the ability to keep getting back up after being knocked down...
It was basically a super healer dragon—a meat shield so tanky it made your head spin.
Go ahead and hit it.
One hit at a time, and you'll be the one left speechless.
Its only real weakness was probably its defensive resistances.
But that wasn't a problem.
The Azure Dragon had the same resistance profile.
The strong were always targeted. That was perfectly normal.
Finally, there was the little dragon itself.
When it came time to name it, Jiang Xing spent a long time thinking.
In the end, driven by a bit of personal bias, he added one extra word.
[Name: Aurora Dragon King]
[Attributes: Light, Dragon]
[Talent: Perfected Heart — possesses all effects of both Fearless Heart and Unceasing Heart.]
[Species Tier: High Monarch Tier]
[Species Moves: Dragon's Wrath, Dragon Breath...]
[Description: A True Dragon-type Pet Beast evolved from the Rainbow Dragon Hatchling with the strongest will. The aurora-like dragon wings upon its back are the symbol of its status as the King of all Light Dragons.]
Jiang Xing had only two words to describe it.
Absolutely insane.
What the hell did you mean, King of all Light Dragons?!
*Tactical lean-back.*
Not only did it inherit every advantage possessed by the Rainbow Dragon Hatchlings, becoming the perfect fusion of both evolutionary branches, but even its Species Tier had broken through, jumping directly to High Monarch Tier!
If it evolved one more time, the worst-case scenario would be Mid Overlord Tier.
With a somewhat better evolution, it would reach High Overlord Tier—
And if its full potential could be completely unearthed once again, it might even surpass the limits of High Overlord Tier and become a true Demi-God Tier species!
This was something unprecedented.
Although every nation and region possessed its own unique Demi-God Tier species, Dr. Ail's Bodhi Hatchling was a typical example—the base forms of those Demi-God species all started at High Commander Tier.
They were stronger from birth than even a three-stage evolution line like the Honey Attendant.
The Aurora Dragon King was different.
If it could truly evolve into a Demi-God species, it would become the first Demi-God species in history to originate from a Low Extraordinary Tier species!
From the weakest... to the strongest!
As for its talent, while Jiang Xing was stunned by it, he could completely understand why it existed.
The little dragon had always possessed these qualities.
And it had tempered every one of them to the absolute limit.
It had even overcome the Dragon's Wrath of the Mythical Azure Dragon. Even if it had only been an infinitesimally tiny trace of that power, it was still enough to prove its qualifications.
'However, achieving this evolutionary form will probably be extremely difficult...'
Putting everything else aside, the Mythical Dragon Pearl Jiang Xing had given the little dragon to strengthen its Dragon-attribute power had lost one-tenth of its energy immediately after the evolution.
And this was a Mythical-grade Dragon Pearl.
Not only was it incredibly valuable, but it was also non-renewable and existed in extremely limited quantities.
If evolving into an Aurora Dragon King required resources of a similar caliber—even if they weren't Mythical-grade—it would greatly restrict the birth of such dragons. There was no way they could become as widespread as Rainbow Dragon Hatchlings.
Not to mention that the birth of an Aurora Dragon King would almost certainly require additional conditions as well.