Chapter 540 — The Star River Stirs, the Star Sea Spirits Appear

Best of all to have a dragon maiden guarding him since childhood and sprites for company—only then would the transmigration have been worth it.

Unfortunately, transmigration, like being born, seemed to be a matter of skill.

He was still called Shi Jin, but his identity was no longer that of Earth's Shi Jin, the mythology scholar; now he was a thoroughly unremarkable intern beast-keeper at the Icefield City pet-beast breeding base.

Not a tamer... more like a hired hand for tamers.

This was a place devoted to raising pet-beasts... and he was here to learn the craft of keeping them.

His daily duties were to feed the pet-beast cubs, shovel their droppings, and clean up the mess.

A down-and-out laborer at the very bottom of society.

But at that, Shi Jin could finally make sense of those few books—so this was what he had been studying...

The reason his predecessor had worked so hard was, in truth, the hope of one day becoming a tamer; but reality being what it was... an orphan who could barely feed himself had no business talking about raising pet-beasts.

With Shi Ying's family circumstances, becoming a tamer was far too hard.

Shi Cen, though, was fortunate—a little talent and a little effort had at least tied his present trade to tamers, and the future held no small chance of his becoming one.

He had even made extensive preparations, resolved to take out a loan if need be to buy a fine pet-beast cub and become a tamer.

At such a young age, he had already decided to shoulder a pet-beast loan.

Shi Jin's composure cracked. Miserable it truly was.

Carrying a hefty mortgage and car loan himself, he felt a billion-to-one pang of sympathy—who would have thought he'd be saddled with debt even after transmigrating.

But that was wandering too far. For now, Shi Yu was nothing but a lowly working stiff.

And soon a task would be waiting for him—a 666 work schedule, and Shi Yun was strict.

Frankly, apart from his high-school years, it had been a long time since he had risen at six in the morning...

Shi Jin rubbed his head against the ache and walked over to a wall plastered with a work roster.

This was the weekly task list just handed out yesterday; as an intern at the breeding base, his daily duties were all prearranged.

Today's assignment was... Shi Jin looked at the contents listed beneath Monday.

Morning: Feed the Snow Wolf pack (solo task)... Haul feed (group task)...

Afternoon: Record growth data for the Green Cotton Worms (group task)...

Mm...

If his memory served him right... snow wolves were pack-dwelling, extremely fierce and savage carnivorous beasts, weren't they?

Such a dangerous-looking task... and they wanted him to do it solo? Were they serious?

Shi Jin sank into thought.

As a child he had been bitten by a dog, and he had harbored an instinctive fear of canines ever since. This task was, to put it mildly, poison for him.

"But it probably won't be a problem..."

Shi Jin suddenly recalled that he possessed the "Telepathy" talent, which let him communicate normally with any living creature. He felt that there probably wouldn't be any issues...

The reason he had been able to come here for his internship was not only that he ranked near the top of his school's theory courses, but also that he possessed a special beast-taming talent called "Telepathy."

When a human successfully opens a beast-taming space through meditation, an awakening of a beast-taming talent accompanies it.

Aside from not yet having contracted an initial pet beast, Shi Jin had already succeeded in opening his beast-taming space, and he had likewise awakened his talent without a hitch.

This was thanks to the fact that, in order to cultivate beast-taming talents, the nation had, upon entering the modern era, incorporated the meditation method for opening beast-taming spaces into Zhaoye education. It was during that stage that Shi Jin had been identified as possessing a beast-taming talent.

There were many kinds of beast-taming talents, but they fell chiefly into two categories: enhancement types and special types, awakening at a ratio of roughly 9:1.

Enhancement-type talents were things like Flame Enhancement. A beast tamer with such a talent would do best to seek out a pet beast with fire abilities to cultivate.

In battle, the tamer could then use his own beast-taming talent to strengthen the power of his pet beast's fire-type skills.

Compared with enhancement-type talents, special-type talents were exceedingly complex and followed no pattern; the ways in which different talents manifested their abilities varied enormously.

For example, the special-type talent "Sharing" let a beast tamer share one skill of a contracted pet beast, gaining an extraordinary ability for himself.

Tamers who possessed talents like Sharing were generally far superior to ordinary tamers in both self-preservation and combat strength.

There was also the special talent "Fusion," which allowed a beast tamer to briefly fuse with his pet beast into a new form. Perhaps beast-ear girls really did exist?

As for Jue's Telepathy talent, though it too was a special type, it was fairly common—one of the most frequently seen special-type talents at present.

A beast tamer with the Telepathy talent, once he had mastered the ability, could communicate with any sentient being without any language barrier.

Generally speaking, a beast tamer could only understand the thoughts of pet beasts contracted to himself. But a tamer with the Telepathy talent could communicate, at least to some degree, even with other people's pet beasts and with wild creatures.

In the development history of the beast-tamer profession, the Telepathy talent could not directly generate combat power, yet its standing was unshakable—it was indispensable.

After all, if one could communicate with other species, it was quite possible that an unnecessary great battle could be avoided outright.

In fields such as medical care, teaching, research, and animal husbandry within the beast-tamer profession, the core posts were basically filled by tamers with the Telepathy talent. It was a jack-of-all-trades talent.

With such a practical beast-taming talent of his own, by all reasoning, he ought to get along fairly easily with wild creatures...

At that thought, Shi Jin breathed a sigh of relief.

As for his use of "Telepathy," Shi Jin could not claim to be especially skilled at it, but he ought not to be too bad either.

Almost unconsciously, he tried to use his beast-taming talent, listening in all directions, intending to familiarize himself with the steps in advance so as not to fail spectacularly when the time came.

But just then, an unexpected change occurred...

As the beast-taming space Shi Jin had opened in his mental domain trembled once, his vision suddenly blurred, and in the next instant, a black stone-colored codex unexpectedly surfaced in his mind.

It seemed... he had awakened a second beast-taming talent!