“Beast-taming contract?”
“Spirit beast space?”
Director Qian and the others stared at Qin Sang in shock. After a long pause, a middle-aged man who clearly had high combat prowess spoke up directly: “Have you been playing too many games?”
The man recalled the games his son used to play before the apocalypse—some of which were about beast-tamer worlds—and immediately concluded that Qin Sang had gotten carried away by video games. Otherwise, how could she say something so unrealistic?
Qin Sang raised an eyebrow, ignoring the man. Instead, she swept her gaze across everyone present and said, “Whether this is just a game-induced delusion—take a look at the little ant in my hand.”
Everyone turned to look at the ant nestled in Qin Sang’s arms, acting spoiled. That was no “little” ant—what kind of ant was the size of a cat?
“So there you have it,” Qin Sang said, reading their expressions and shrugging. “This world is no longer scientific. The end of science is the metaphysical, and the metaphysical isn’t all that different from the fantastical. We already used a formation to summon a stone gate. The appearance of spirit beast spaces and beast-taming contracts isn’t that far-fetched either.”
The group, whose average age was over forty, thought: That is very far-fetched indeed!
But they also knew Qin Sang well. She’d been making a name for herself since the early days of the apocalypse. Normally low-key, she always charged to the forefront whenever a crisis arose.
Someone like that wouldn’t make up stories to fool them.
Director Qian cleared his throat, straightened his expression, and said, “Miss Qin, we were stuck in our old ways just now. Our apologies.”
Qin Sang waved it off. She wasn’t there to pick a fight. And these were the leaders of Huahuashan City—it was only natural that they’d struggle to grasp the concept of a beast-tamer world on first hearing.
She wasted no time and laid out the entire process of how she’d contracted with Little Gold.
Of course, she said nothing about Grandpa Goose or the Roasted Goose Space.
“So, it was this ant—er, this little ant—that initiated the contract with you? And the way it contracted was by biting you?”
Professor Su, who had been listening intently from the side, could no longer hold back.
Qin Sang had a decent impression of Professor Su. Although he’d raised a bad apple like Fang Ming, he himself was genuinely a good person. He’d contributed significantly to using mutant plants to combat mutant parasites. So when Professor Su asked a question, Qin Sang answered directly.
“Yes. As for the exact mechanics of how the contract is formed—only the spirit beast knows.”
“And what exactly is a spirit beast? Does it refer to this golden ant? What about all those other insects—the ones from outside, the ones from the Yellow Earth Secret Realm, the ones from the sky fissures—what are they?”
Seeing Professor Su’s burning, inquisitive gaze, Qin Sang faltered for a moment.
“Um… as for how to distinguish all these different types of insects, I’m actually not entirely sure either,” she admitted, spreading her hands.
Based on her observations, native insects that evolved by absorbing energy seemed to be heading toward becoming like the insects from the Yellow Earth Secret Realm. But native insects were highly aggressive toward humans, which set them apart from the Yellow Earth insects.
As for the interstellar Zerg—they were an entirely different race altogether.
Qin Sang laid out her views and concluded: “So, in my opinion, only the insects from the Yellow Earth Secret Realm can truly be called spirit beasts.”
This conclusion brought the murmuring crowd to another sudden silence.
They stared intently at Little Gold, all thinking the same thing: This ant is worth studying.
Qin Sang could read their thoughts but wasn’t the least bit worried. She said nothing more about that and continued describing the spirit beast space that appeared after contracting a spirit beast.
When they heard that contracting a spirit beast also manifested a spirit beast space, everyone was dumbfounded once again.
As for how the spirit beast space actually came into being—Qin Sang herself wasn’t clear on that. Only Grandpa Goose probably knew something about it. The inherited memories she’d received from Little Gold contained nothing on that subject.
“Th-then… what about your own storage space?” Professor Su had rushed right up to Qin Sang, his expression even more exaggerated than before.
Qin Sang: She couldn’t answer that question for now. And fortunately, she didn’t—because she would soon learn that for ordinary spatial ability users, the spirit beast space that appeared after contracting a spirit beast did not merge with their storage space; the two existed independently. Only her Roasted Goose Space could fuse with the spirit beast space.
But that was a story for later. For now, Qin Sang had shared everything she could—spirit beasts, beast-taming contracts, spirit beast spaces, her speculations about the insect races—and was ready to head home.
As expected, they wanted her to stay for some research. Qin Sang refused. Then they wanted her to leave Little Gold behind for some simple tests. She refused again.
“There are already so many insects coming out of the Yellow Earth Secret Realm. Humans can’t go in and out freely—but the insects from over there are already here. Why not seize the opportunity, go over there early, and form beast-taming contracts with them?”
Of course, figuring out how to get the insects to willingly contract with humans—that was a headache for the authorities to deal with.
—
“You really told them? Do they believe it?”
Back home, Qin Sang recounted the whole affair, and her parents were stunned. They too had initially thought the concept of a beast-tamer world was too fantastical—practically like a video game.
Qin Sang: “Whether they believe it or not, they have to.”
She pointed at the black fissures overhead.
“Who can explain how those cracks appeared? Can modern science fully account for them?”
Meanwhile, beast-taming contracts and spirit beast spaces could all be explained through energy. Weren’t today’s formations powered by energy cores to summon the stone gate?
At the end of the day, the foundation of this world was energy.
She looked up at the fissures, dark as abysses. Weren’t the invading interstellar Zerg also after Blue Star’s energy?
They ate humans—and supposedly, they targeted those with abundant energy. And the difference between energy-rich people and ordinary people was, ultimately, the level of energy they possessed.
So, at the end of the day, this was a battle about energy—about survival itself.
Humanity had no room to retreat.
—
Compared to Qin Sang’s composure, the management bureau had erupted into chaos the moment she left.
Everyone believed what she’d said. They had no choice—her reasoning was sound, and she had no motive to deceive them.
As absurd as the beast-tamer world concept seemed, when they looked up at the black fissures in the sky, it suddenly didn’t feel so absurd anymore. In fact, if everyone could contract a spirit beast, the threat of those fissures wouldn’t seem so overwhelming.
As for the insect classification Qin Sang had mentioned, Director Qian treasured a cigarette he’d pulled from his spatial realm and stuck it in his mouth. He couldn’t bear to light it—supplies were too scarce—but when faced with a thorny problem, he couldn’t focus without something clamped between his lips.
The information Qin Sang had provided was too critical.
If the insects from the black fissures were going to reappear, and if each subsequent wave would be even stronger, then humanity didn’t have much time left.
“Now, let’s vote—do we report today’s findings directly to the top?”
By “directly,” he meant without prior verification. According to standard procedure, important information had to be verified before being reported upward. But which of the things Qin Sang had mentioned could be verified immediately? Time was running out. Spending more time and effort on verification would be worse than simply letting everyone try contracting spirit beasts outright.
The moment Director Qian finished speaking, everyone in the conference room raised their hands in agreement.
None of them were fools—they all understood the gravity of the situation.
Soon, a document detailing the beast-tamer world, the interstellar Zerg, and the insects of the Yellow Earth Secret Realm was sent directly from Huahuashan City to the headquarters of the National Disaster Response Management Bureau.
Xu Lin, who personally encrypted the document, didn’t read its contents—but he’d already learned the full story from Qin Sang.
After the document was successfully transmitted, he leaned back in his chair. But his mind was elsewhere: How does one successfully contract a spirit beast?
The same question was forming in many people’s minds.
One hour after the encrypted document was received, a confidential national meeting of relevant officials was held. After the meeting, the same thought lingered in the minds of many attendees:
In the future, if they couldn’t secure a spirit beast, they would surely be left behind by this world.
—
The meeting concluded, and all five major safety zones mobilized simultaneously.
Countless energy cores were transported to the summoning formation site in Huahuashan City. Within a single day, the area had already been cordoned off with sturdy metal barriers.
Countless individuals with spatial storage abilities and relatively high energy cultivation levels were dispatched to Huahuashan City in batches.
Because that was where the most spirit beasts were concentrated.
After the stone gate had been summoned, countless insect-type spirit beasts had scattered in all directions, following the trail of the interstellar Zerg, eliminating them across the entire country.
So by now, insect-type spirit beasts could be found everywhere nationwide. But the highest concentration remained around the stone gate in Huahuashan City.
Each of the five major safety zones had sent elite teams there. Based on assessments, these individuals were deemed the most likely to successfully contract an insect-type spirit beast.
Qin Sang had heard about all this from Xu Lin in passing. Besides these elite teams, local officials in Huahuashan City who were in the know about the beast-tamer world had all headed to the stone gate to try their luck as well.
Xu Lin, however, didn’t make a special trip there—the place was too crowded. When he rested, he simply returned to the village to check on things there.
As for the beast-tamer contract, he’d find an opportunity later.
Whether Xu Lin was lucky or not, though, was up for debate. The moment he returned to the village, before he even made it upstairs, he witnessed a live, in-person beast-taming contract in the yard.
He wasn’t the lucky one, of course.
“This…”
It was already dusk when Xu Lin arrived, and there weren’t many people moving about outside. Most survivors had become cautious—nighttime brought mutant insects, and everyone valued their lives.
So besides Xu Lin, only Qin Sang’s family witnessed this particular contract.
That’s right—the one who was proactively contracted by a spirit beast this time was none other than Qin Sang’s father. And the spirit beast that contracted him was the mutant aloe vera at the front gate.
The story was remarkably simple.
After Qin Sang had saved the mutant aloe vera, she’d rarely paid it any attention. Instead, her father had taken to watering it regularly.
When the interstellar Zerg had attacked, the aloe vera had pierced the bug straight through and dragged the entire corpse underground.
Qin Sang had known about it at the time but hadn’t bothered with it.
Unexpectedly, the mutant aloe vera had spent days absorbing that corpse. And when her father went to water it as usual, the aloe vera proactively formed a contract with him.
After hearing the whole story, Qin Sang felt like she was reading some wish-fulfillment web novel.
“Dad, how do you feel after the contract?”
Qin’s father was still dazedly staring at his finger—there had been a cut there from the aloe vera, but it had vanished once the contract was successfully established.
“It’s like… I’m filled with power,” he said, closing his eyes to feel it.
Qin Sang could sense that the energy field emanating from her father had grown considerably stronger. Clearly, that mutant aloe vera had gained quite a lot from absorbing the interstellar Zerg’s corpse—otherwise, it wouldn’t have chosen to contract now when it hadn’t before.
“Dad, did a spirit beast space appear?”
Qin’s father nodded. “Yes. It’s a patch of land—not very big…”
Hearing this, Qin Sang recalled Professor Su’s question from the other day and asked directly: “Dad, what about your storage space?”
“Still there, as always,” he said.
These words caused a gleam to flash across Qin Sang’s eyes before quickly fading. So, for ordinary spatial ability users, their storage space and spirit beast space didn’t merge at all.
This discovery weighed heavily on Qin Sang’s mind.
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