Chapter 37
The apprentice reluctantly served some dishes before leaving.
Lin Jin was too hungry to care about the food being cold. He called Xiao Huo over and had him use embers to heat up the soup in a metal pot and just ate the other dishes cold.
As he ate, Lin Jin recorded the remaining mutated eggs into the museum then flipped through Wang Ji and Gao Jiang’s evaluation report. He shook his head.
“What is all this?”
Lin Jin put both evaluation reports back.
While both reports were beautifully written, the contents were unsightly. Of course, Lin Jin had his reasons for saying so. Although the two reports were generally an appraisal of the beast species inside the mutated eggs, they were vaguely written. To put it bluntly, they were just playing with words without even stating the creature’s species, much less its bloodline.
Not only was there not confirmation, but this evaluation report even listed out several possibilities, saying it was sixty percent an insect-type beast, while forty percent a bird-type beast. They even provided a bunch of ‘evidence’ to support their hypothesis.
Anyway, no reader could tell specifically what the eggs were, only getting a vague idea.
Compared to Lin Jin’s clearly written reports, these two were poorly done.
After brief contemplation, Lin Jin wrote two more reports for these two eggs. Whether or not they would be used, Lin Jin couldn’t care less.
While Lin Jin was eating and writing the reports, unbeknownst to him, changes had begun to occur inside that strange room in the museum.
Of the three glowing wooden doors, the door labeled number five was slowly being pushed open.
Ten minutes earlier…
With the palace of Jade Dragon City, inside Jade Dragon Kingdom, the fourth princess, He Qing was sitting on the rooftop with her tiny feet kicking over the edge as she watched the dazzling lights outside the palace walls, yearning for Jade Dragon City.
Beside her was her pet beast, a tetra-winged butterfly dragon.
1
As a daughter of royalty, He Qing had a noble status, never having to worry about anything in life. Even her pet beast was meticulously picked out for her by the royal beast appraiser.
The tetra-winged butterfly dragon had wings like a butterfly, a lizard’s body, and a hidden bloodline. It was born as a level two with great potential. And the rarer the species, the longer time was required for the beast to stay with its owner so they could share their spiritual energies for the beast to gain an opportunity at evolution.
According to the royal beast appraiser, the tetra-winged butterfly dragon needed at least five more years before it could evolve.
He Qing was getting impatient because as per the royal family’s requirements, for a royal descendant to set up their living quarters outside, to be able to live alone, their pet beasts had to at least be at level three.
“I really want to escape this palace. Take a walk outside. Experience this exciting world,” He Qing mumbled. “I heard how there are many delicious treats outside, strange people, and peculiar events. What do you think, Xiao Die?”
3
She turned to her pet beast. Her side profile presented exquisite features as if they were painted by a master. Despite her young age, the girl was a rare beauty.
Having no ability to speak, her pet beast stayed quiet.
“What? Did you say you enjoy staying in the palace?” He Qing began talking to herself. “What’s so good about this awful place? We’ve been here for tens of years, aren’t you bored? If I could leave the palace, I must try delicious food, travel across the lands, and experience interesting events.”
Below the roof was several imperial guards looking helpless. Clearly, this wasn’t the princess’s first time pulling such a stunt. A handmaiden called out, “Seventh Princess, it’s very late now. Please come back down and be careful.”
“Tsk! I’m all too familiar with this roof so how could I fall?” The princess looked smug. Just then, she noticed glowing lights blinking around her tetra-winged butterfly dragon, and suddenly, a crack in space opened behind the creature, sucking in the princess and her pet beast.
3
The entire process happened without a sound so none of the guards or servants below noticed.
The brief sense of weightlessness made He Qing fearful. Thankfully she soon fell to the ground. In this endlessly dark place, standing right before her was a door.
Hanging on this door was a wooden sign, carved with the words ‘Visitor Number 5’.
Even with her pet beast by her side, He Qing couldn’t help but feel frightened.
Shocked and confused, the princess began to tear up.
After calming herself down, He Qing called her pet beast closer as she braced herself, taking down the wooden sign and slowly pushing the wooden door open.
Behind it was a hall.
Although it was equally strange, there was no possibility of monsters appearing from the darkness in this room so He Qing entered it. Then, the wooden door closed.
“Is anyone there?” He Qing held her hands to her chest defensively while her pet beast flew beside her.
There was no response.
Looking around, she noticed two rows of wooden doors in the room after coming out of her number five door. Each door had its own number.
Once she regained her composure, He Qing wondered if she had been abducted. As a daughter of royalty, many bad guys must be out to get her, just like how she read in those novels she secretly stashed away.
At the thought of this, her calmed heart was instantly riled up again.
“Xiao Die, if the bad guys show up later, you have to protect me.”
He Qing had just spoken when door number 7 across was pushed open. A tall man dressed completely in black entered the room.
He Qing immediately backed away, tensing up, looking cautious.
With his razor-sharp gaze, the black-clothed man glanced at He Qing and the latter froze up as if she was thrown into an ice pit. Even her tetra-winged butterfly lizard was trembling.
Sitting on the man’s shoulder was a crow. This crow had eyes like two blood-red rubies.
“What is this place?” The man asked. In his eyes, He Qing seemed excessively weak where both she and her pet beast were not worth his attention.
Hence, it was impossible that this lass abducted him here.
Black Crow. This man was an elite assassin with the blood of many lives on his hands. With his level four black falcon pet beast, the man could single-handedly destroy a small country.
The was the power of a level four beast. After all, some countries did not even have a level four beast to protect them.
The crow on his shoulder was a black falcon.
Before he was pulled into the crack by a fearsome power, Black Crow was exploring an ancient immortal’s cave with his comrades.
It was a cave where immortals resided before the earth’s spirit energy was exhausted. One could imagine how valuable it was. The interior of that cave had been huge. While it had lost the support of spiritual energy, rendering the traps and restrictive mechanisms of the cave ineffective, it was still unusually dangerous. The group had spent several days only to explore a few stone rooms, and that wasn’t even one-tenth of the place.
When he was resting, a crack suddenly appeared behind him, and then Black Crow was pulled into it by an invisible force. This incident startled him. Exactly what was this power that even his level four pet beast couldn’t counter?
Hence, he pushed the wooden door open and came in.
Although he was apprehensive and confused as well, Black Crow never feared danger. This was the key personality that brought him this far. In the past, countless enemies stronger than him had all died in his hands.
“I don’t care who they are. But those who toy with me this way have to bear consequences,” said Black Crow as he surveyed the environment.