Chapter 1733: Breeding Plan, Killing to Seize the Spirit

Feisu Chinese.

Normally, the Warp Beast should be a relatively common type of Ether Creature in the Ether Plane; even when brought to the Main Plane, it shouldn't have anything particularly special about it.

Yet now, its bones alone make it potentially a novel substitute material for Mithril, or rather, by studying the bones of the Warp Beast, Mages may find a cheaper way to craft Magic Items.

And if one adds the fact that its meat is delicious, the Warp Beast could very well become the most valuable economic species of the future; it is just that to farm them on a large scale at a low cost, one would need a special environment like this Ether Forward Base that can restrict their free Phase Warp.

Of course, if they could be domesticated, that would be even better; even if the initial investment is slightly higher, one could enjoy the dividends indefinitely afterward.

Thinking of this, Xia Duo immediately asked Bali, "Do you know which Adventurer teams here are particularly skilled at hunting Warp Beasts?"

"If it's just simple hunting, then most of the Adventurers who appear here are quite skilled at it. Once they enter the base's perimeter, Warp Beasts are not much different from ordinary beasts of the Main Plane; the key is how to lure them over."

Xia Duo then asked: "Then how do you lure them over?"

"That, I don't know."

Bali spread his hands and said with a wry smile: "Generally, every three to five days, the Mage lords of the Seven Towers will drive a batch of Ether Creatures, including Warp Beasts, into the base's perimeter from the outside. All Adventurers are free to hunt this portion of prey. Other than that, only a very small number of Adventurers can lure and capture them on their own, and most of these people also have backgrounds in the Seven Towers."

Is that so!

Xia Duo was lost in thought. Sure enough, only by walking around more can one discover that the shadow of the Seven Towers is truly everywhere. Although this Forward Base seems to be in the hands of the Arcane Union, the ones who actually benefit more are still the Seven Towers.

He had originally thought that if possible, it would be best to recruit an Adventurer team here to capture and domesticate Warp Beasts for him. Whether it was figuring out domestication techniques or breeding easily-raised varieties, both were good outcomes.

Now it seems that no matter what he wants to do, he is afraid he cannot bypass the Seven Towers.

However, setting aside the point that Warp Beast bones might become a substitute for Mithril, just for the sake of eating meat more conveniently, it is necessary to set up a small breeding farm here.

As for whether the Seven Towers will detect the breeding potential of the Warp Beasts, Xia Duo believes this is not a problem. If Warp Beast bones cannot become a substitute for Mithril, even if the Seven Towers also participate in the domestication and farming, it would just mean a few more meat processing plants.

And if Warp Beast bones truly have the potential to replace Mithril, having the Seven Towers participate can better ensure that Magic Items made with this new material can appear on the market normally in the future.

In layman's terms, the Seven Towers are powerful, and it is simply impossible for Xia Duo to bypass them to monopolize this new material of great strategic value—it is impossible in every sense.

Additionally, if this new material really can be realized, the pressure from the Elves will likely not be small, and there must be someone tall to stand in front.

Thinking this way, a plan vaguely formed in Xia Duo's mind.

Next, he asked about other items at Bali's stall, such as the skin of the Warp Beast, which rarely appeared at other stalls.

According to Bali, this skin is a natural protective material. Even without any special processing, just by making it into Leather Armor to wear on the body, or even draping it directly over the body, it can provide quite good protection.

Especially when facing Ether Creatures that use Mind Attack or Force Field Spells as their primary means of attack, it can be called "taking from them, using on them"!

At the current stage, there is very little Warp Beast skin for sale on the market; the vast majority is consumed internally by Adventurers. The Warp Beast skin here at Bali's is more of a display, or rather, an advertisement to attract people to stop and ask.

That was exactly how Xia Duo was attracted.

Besides Warp Beasts, Adventurers at this Ether Forward Base cannot stably hunt other Ether Creatures. On one hand, most of the Ether Creatures driven over by the people of the Seven Towers are flesh-and-blood types, and among them, Warp Beasts are the most numerous.

On the other hand, it is naturally because their strength is too weak. If one were to really let a group of ordinary people hunt Twisted Phantoms, they would have to be armed to the teeth!

First, an Amulet of the mind is essential; second, there are Mind Attack Spell Scrolls or other corresponding Magic Items.

And judging by the flexibility of ordinary people in operating Magic Items, unless they can kill in one hit, otherwise, once the Twisted Phantom reacts, no matter how many ordinary people there are or how good their equipment is, it won't be enough to kill.

According to Xia Duo's estimation, all the Adventurers in the Ether Forward Base combined right now probably couldn't kill a single Twisted Phantom.

Therefore, even though he could chat quite openly with the stall owner named Bali, he didn't ask the other party about the Twisted Phantom Core.

Generally speaking, except for Advanced Rank Mages who are prepared in advance, others have only one path to death when encountering a Twisted Phantom.

Xia Duo is also not prepared to let ordinary people use their lives to pile up one or two Twisted Phantom Cores.

However, a Twisted Phantom Core is Spirit Quality, but Spirit Quality is not necessarily a Twisted Phantom Core. It is only because a core is guaranteed to drop after killing a Twisted Phantom that it is easy for people to confuse the two.

Now that this Ether Forward Base has been open for a while, Xia Duo has long known about Spirit Quality materials other than the Twisted Phantom Core.

Any Ether Creature, including Warp Beasts, has the potential to drop Spirit Quality materials, and their forms mostly appear as multi-faceted Crystal Balls, similar to the Twisted Phantom Core, with the only difference being the number of facets.

However, for a Twisted Phantom Core, killing a Twisted Phantom is guaranteed to drop it, while obtaining Spirit Quality by killing a Warp Beast relies only on luck. If you are lucky, you might drop one after killing one or two; if you are unlucky, you might never encounter one in your entire life.

For the time being, although Xia Duo has heard of Spirit Quality materials obtained by killing Warp Beasts, he has not heard of any pattern to follow in this regard.

He speculates that it might be related to Wisdom; those with high Wisdom might have a higher drop rate, but this is only a speculation. Only when the breeding farm is established will there be an opportunity to systematically verify it.

He has a vaguely bad feeling in his heart; if it is verified to be true, it would mean that for every additional piece of Spirit Quality material, one sentient life will have passed away.

He could even imagine that some extreme Mages might, for the sake of obtaining Spirit Quality more conveniently, study how to kill to seize the spirit (not just humans, but also common and easily accessible sentient beings like Dwarves, Elves, and Gnomes).

Regarding these possible situations, Xia Duo mostly just feels helpless. He can only manage his own little plot of land, and even within his own Territory, he cannot guarantee that evil Mages will absolutely not appear.

Human nature has a noble and kind side, as well as a base and evil side. He cannot control the human heart, and even if he could, he would not do it.

All he can do is continuously promote Daxia Order, guide people's hearts toward kindness, and at the same time increase the intensity of the crackdown on illegal and criminal acts, especially targeting the criminal acts of Spellcasters, which is the top priority.