With this mindset, Zhong Ling had indeed been dedicating herself to her team.

However, this would severely hinder her personal development.

As a Guardian Beast Master, Zhong Ling’s first responsibility was to herself.

Zhong Yi’s Soul-Controlling Flower could continuously produce Soul Taming Seeds, allowing him to constantly form Contracts with new Guardian Beasts.

If the team truly had any shortcomings, Zhong Yi could easily compensate by using Soul Taming Seeds to form a Contract with a new Guardian Beast.

Zhong Ling listened intently to Zhong Yi’s words, and afterward, she adjusted her personal goals.

From now on, her most important goal was to become stronger!

After lunch, Zhong Yi made a point of going to the warehouse to check on Hong Ji.

He saw Hong Ji in the warehouse, continuously absorbing the Demon Remains.

While absorbing the Demon Remains, she was also constantly adjusting the accessories on her red dress.

Now, Hong Ji’s red dress was much more gorgeous and exquisite than before, and its hem had also grown longer.

No matter how one looked at it, such an outfit would hinder combat, but on Hong Ji, the outfit itself was a deadly weapon.

Every part of Hong Ji’s body possessed considerable lethality.

Zhong Yi left the Demon Remains for Hong Ji, their Life and Soul Energy having already been absorbed by his Soul-Controlling Flower.

Hong Ji happily pounced on Zhong Yi and gave him a loving peck.

After leaving the warehouse and returning to his room, Zhong Yi began to take stock of the wealth-generating materials and Guardian Beasts he currently had on hand.

In truth, Zhong Yi didn’t have many wealth-generating Guardian Beasts at the moment.

He had the four Dragon Crystals of the Fairy Flashing Phosphorus Flood Dragon, which he’d gotten from the Celestial Destiny Treasure Vault. Once Zhao Kai brought back the four Dragon-Speaking Minks that evening, Zhong Yi could begin cultivating Dragon-Brewed Immortal Minks.

A material like Dragon Root Fruit was not uncommon. Zhong Yi didn’t need to go out of his way to cultivate a Dragon Root Tree; he could just buy high-quality Dragon Root Fruits on the market.

After eating a Dragon Root Fruit, a Dragon-Brewed Immortal Mink could increase the fruit’s price several thousand times over.

Besides these four potential Dragon-Brewed Immortal Minks, the only other wealth-generating Guardian Beast Zhong Yi had was the Blood Enchanting Bee Queen.

However, Zhong Yi would only sell a very small portion of the Insect Honey produced by the Blood Enchanting Bee to factions he was on good terms with.

He wouldn’t let the honey, which the bees brewed from Blood-Beauty Peony pollen, flow freely onto the market.

Actually, once the Gardener Worm evolved into a Florist Worm, the soil cultivated by the Florist Worm—which helps seeds germinate and shortens a plant’s growth cycle—could also be exchanged for a great deal of wealth.

However, Zhong Yi probably wouldn’t even have enough of this soil for his own use in the short term.

With these three types of Guardian Beasts, Zhong Yi couldn’t say for sure how many resources he could stockpile.

But it would be enough to cultivate himself, Zhong Ling, and Shen Xuan, and cover all the expenses of the Heaven’s Chosen Mansion.

Besides thinking about how to accumulate wealth, Zhong Yi also figured out which Guardian Beasts he needed to form a Contract with using Soul Taming Seeds.

Among them, the Illusion-tailed Fox, the Blood Enchanting Bee Queen, the Sunlight Thorn, and the Moon Eyes Bellflower all required him to use Soul Taming Seeds to form a Contract.

As for the Gardener Worm and the two Floating Cloud Steeds, for now, they only needed to be nurtured with Flowing Soul Soil.

Zhong Yi inspected the treasure he had obtained from the Celestial Destiny Society by exchanging Potential Points.

The Gardener Worm, which Zhong Yi had acquired by selling two Extraordinary Tier Bizarre corpses, revealed a new surprise under his All Things Exploration.

[Guardian Beast Name]: Gardener Worm

[Guardian Beast Species]: True Earthworm Species/True Earthworm Species

[Guardian Beast Level]: Extraordinary Level (3/10)

[Guardian Beast Type]: Earth Element

[Guardian Beast Quality]: Bronze Quality

Skills:

[Earthworm Oil Line]: Secretes a large amount of worm oil while crawling to accelerate its movement speed through soil.

[Earth Shield]: Condenses the Earth Element in the soil into a shield that can cover its body. Besides blocking external attacks, the Earth Shield also helps it build nests.

Exclusive Traits:

[Accelerated Split Body]: After absorbing enough Energy and growing to a sufficient length, it accelerates its body’s splitting speed and reduces the Energy loss after splitting.

Zhong Yi hadn’t expected that this Gardener Worm, which was already at the Extraordinary Third Tier and Bronze Quality when he traded for it, would have an Exclusive Trait like Accelerated Split Body.

Although the Gardener Worm was not a Combat-type Guardian Beast and possessed no real combat abilities, increasing its Tier and Quality still enhanced its functionality. Just like Combat-type Guardian Beasts, it would gain new Skills and Exclusive Traits as its Tier and Quality improved.

The Gardener Worm’s Basic Skill, Earthworm Oil Line, was a fixed innate skill.

Although the worm oil secreted by the Gardener Worm as it crawled wasn’t as beneficial to plants as the soil it produced with its digestive fluids, it could still help the soil generate large amounts of humus, which was excellent for nurturing plant roots.

The reason this Gardener Worm was put up for sale in the Celestial Destiny Society’s Treasure Vault was very likely related to its Extraordinary Tier Skill, Earth Shield.

As a mutated variety of the Farmer Earthworm, a Gardener Worm that might only appear once in tens of millions of Farmer Earthworms was extremely precious.

Even though a Gardener Worm could split itself to form a colony, once the parent body died, the other individuals would also die off quickly one after another.

This was a fundamental difference from the Farmer Earthworm. Therefore, no matter how a Gardener Worm split, its offspring could not be sold.

Otherwise, Gardener Worms wouldn’t be so rare!

This Gardener Worm’s Tier was Extraordinary, which meant it had been cultivated by someone before.

To cultivate a rare Gardener Worm to the Extraordinary Tier only to have it gain a Skill like Earth Shield was truly a stroke of terrible luck.

Earth Shield seemed to be just a Defense Type Skill. The condensed earth shield could not only defend against external attacks but also help the Gardener Worm build a nest.

But in the process of cultivating a Gardener Worm, one had to prevent it from building nests as much as possible.

Once a nest was discovered under construction, it had to be destroyed as soon as possible.

Only by leaving the Gardener Worm’s offspring without a nest would they continuously devour soil.

Once they had a nest, the Gardener Worms living in it would stop eating and transforming more soil after they finished devouring and modifying what was around them.

To put it bluntly, the Gardener Worm’s constant transformation of the soil was for the sole purpose of creating a good living environment for itself.

When a Gardener Worm hadn’t learned the Earth Shield Skill, one could just about manage by arranging for people to clear out its nests every day.

But once it learned Earth Shield, the Gardener Worm could use the Skill to quickly rebuild its nest after it was destroyed.

The Celestial Destiny Seeker who put this Gardener Worm up in the Celestial Destiny Society’s Treasure Vault most likely had a mental breakdown when they saw the Earth Shield Skill.

They must not have noticed the existence of the Exclusive Trait, Accelerated Split Body.

Accelerated Split Body could greatly increase the Gardener Worm’s splitting speed, allowing the colony that split off from a single worm to occupy more land.

To a certain extent, the Exclusive Trait Accelerated Split Body compensated for the negative effects of the Earth Shield Skill.

The Exclusive Trait Accelerated Split Body was far less easy to observe than the Skill Earth Shield.

Other people, not even Creators, possessed an ability like Zhong Yi’s All Things Exploration, which allowed them to inspect other things at will.

It presented all information about other things to Zhong Yi in the form of data.

Other people could only judge a Guardian Beast’s Skills and Exclusive Traits based on experience and the Guardian Beast’s performance.

Or, they had to become the Guardian Beast’s master, forming a Contract with it through their soul.

There was absolutely no other way!

If the Celestial Destiny Seeker who sold the Gardener Worm had known it possessed an Exclusive Trait like Accelerated Split Body, even if they still chose to sell it, the price of 200 Points would have at least doubled.

This was because the evolution of a Gardener Worm into a Florist Worm didn’t require any special inducement.

It only needed its bloodline to be activated, allowing it to continue evolving and improving along its original path.

Zhong Yi planned to use Flowing Soul Soil to help the Gardener Worm in his possession evolve.