Fiona was genuinely surprised. Amelia always looked weird and out of place, but what she said made sense. But Fiona stood by her opinion.

‘ My tiger is a powerful war beast, which means it must have a strong body build. Otherwise, it's primary function would be suppressed ’.

‘ You're right about that. However genes are main factors that control everything. They can determine qualities like power, speed etc. A war beast's genes determine it's strengths. That's not just something you can change by adjusting diet. If, however on the other hand, this war beast can change it's genes, then it would be something truly magnificent ’, Ana explained seriously. Her past as an authority in genetic engineering continued to influence her thoughts.

Fiona looked more and more surprised as she listened to Ana talking nonstop about her theory. She could not understand any of the terminology and was thoroughly perplexed.

‘ What determines a war beast's constitution is not meat; rather, it is the protein inside the meat that does the job. But beasts also need carbohydrates. Based on what I can see of your war beast, I recommend food with high concentration of starch like sweet potatoes. Not only will it reduce the extra fat from taking too much protein and keep it from being overweight, it will also improve it's physique ’, Ana decided to give her some understandable insights instead of explaining something too difficult and abstract, seeing how Fiona was having a hard time trying to make sense of what she said.

‘ You sound like you really know your stuff. Yet you selected a war beast less than one star ’, Fiona said dryly, glancing at the little beast in Ana's arms. She appeared rather in disbelief about the stuff Ana was spouting.

‘ Don't underestimate it. It's saliva is...’ Ana was going to show off the special healing power of her beast, but she changed her mind and decided to learn more about Fiona's war beast instead. ‘ Does your war beast have any special ability like spitting fire or water?’

‘ Only dragons and some special spiritual beasts can do those. Ordinary war beasts can only use thier physical power. There may be some war beasts also gifted with special abilities. Yet it is very rare, unless they are able to evolve spontaneously ’, Fiona explained .

‘ I see. Do any of the spiritual beasts have saliva secretions that heal wounds?’ Ana asked, trying to seem subtle. She braced herself for the answer.

‘ Saliva? You're kidding! I have never heard saliva from any spiritual beasts can heal wounds. However I once heard the secretion of a spiritual dragon could heal nearly anything, but they only existed hundreds of years ago. They went into extinction a very long time ago’, Fiona rolled her eyes at Ana. This was common knowledge, and yet this peculiar gurl apparently had no idea. Fiona once again felt very disdainful towards Ana. Maybe the previous talk about genes was just a bunch of nonsense.

‘ How can you be so sure about thier extinction?’ Ana faked a smile to cover the question in her mind.

‘ This war beast clearly is not a dragon, and it can't possibly have anything to do with spiritual dragon. However it's saliva has the same healing power as that of a spiritual dragon. Could it be a special war beast? If so, I definitely stumbled on something extraordinary!’

‘ Let me ask you, those war beasts at the stable, were they born out of a artificial mating?’ Ana asked, a light bulb going on in her head.

‘ There are many reproduction methods for war beasts. And there is no single method that could cover it all. Normally war beasts for the spirit manipulators are all captured at a very young age from some dangerous and mysterious place in the wild spirit land. They are then fed and trained until they mature enough to connect to a spirit manipulator. This method also goes for both spiritual beasts or dragons ’, Fiona explained a little exasperatedly .

‘ Dangerous and mysterious place? Where is that? Can I go? ’ Ana appeared really excited. She wondered if she could catch a couple of young war beasts to study thier genes and reproduction. She was still thinking about creating a new species. Perhaps, she could create a powerful war beast! She would then have her own place in the entire wild continent.

‘ You want to go there? I am sorry to tell you, but it would take spirit manipulator who is above the heavenly stage to enter places like beast slaughtering valley and cloud deity gully where many war beasts reside. Given your current strength, you will just become an afternoon snack for most of them’, Fiona laughed at Ana's ambition.

‘ What about dragons? Where can I find one of those?’ Ana was still feeling optimistic.

‘ You can forget about those! If you want to catch one, you will have to go to the hell of Dragon fang. It is a place where only the spirit manipulators above supernatural stage can go. If you do not have such strength, the only thing you will find there is death!’ Fiona grew solemn and warned Ana.

Ana looked dissapointed, and yet she continued questioning. ‘ How are these war beasts or spiritual beasts graded accordingly?

‘ That depends on the level of mutation demonstrated by each war beast. More stars indicated a higher level of mutation. Take my cloud tiger for instance. It's a two star beast, because it has two scorpion tails while other ordinary one star cloud tiger have only one tail. The head,wings and tail are the common places where mutation are easily spotted. And ofcourse there are some special mutations which occur inside thier bodies, like having multiple organs. Even thier bones can mutate sometimes’, Fiona gave a detailed explanation.

‘ I see. May I borrow your cloud tiger for some study?’ Ana looked at it, eyes shining with expectation. Compared to her own little beast, Fiona's cloud tiger looked more valuable for research.

‘ No. I am going to practice now. Do not disturb me!’ Fiona said bluntly. She had grown quiet bored of thier conversation. After feeding her war beast, Fiona sat down on her bed and began her own practice without taking to Ana .

‘ Little fella. Let's go for a walk!’ Ana said loudly just to annoy Fiona, who was clearly ignoring her. She then took her little beast and left the room as she needed to find a quiet place to study it's saliva first .

Ana exited with her war beast through a door at the courtyard. After crossing an opening, she saw a bamboo grove rustling under the moonlight.

Ana went into it and moved forward in the dark. Suddenly, she heard the sound of running water. She looked around and found the reflection of the moon shining on a water body to her left. She kept walking towards the depths of the grove where she came upon a cliff where water was dripping down into a pool below.

‘ This place is quite. No one will come and bother me here in the middle of the night ’, Ana sat on a rock by the pool, carring Ananta. She caressed it's head tenderly and muttered, ‘ This maybe a little uncomfortable. Please bear with me little one’, she opened it's mouth and checked it oral structure.

Ana soon discovered a small knob in it's upper teeth. She put two fingers on it and squeezed gently. Suddenly, it emitted a white light and then a droplet dripped down onto one of her fingers . Ana discovered that the droplet stuck to her finger like a pearl, staying completely intact.

‘ The healing powers of Ananta 's saliva. Does it have something to do with this droplet?’ Ana smelled the droplet on her finger and detected a light aroma. There was no foul smell. After several looks and a few moments of hesitation, she put her finger in her mouth and licked the droplet off. Instantly, she felt a clear stream spreading from her mouth to her throat and then rest of her body, which was extremely comfortable.

‘ This tastes so nice!’ Ana felt rather intoxicated by it.

At this moment, Ana felt her body twitch and her heart rate increase greatly to dozens of beats per second. It seemed to be just a beginning as she felt all of her blood began to rush at a crazy speed. All of her veins seemed to have expanded, squeezing her muscles as if they were going to burst right now. Within seconds, blue veins covered her entire body, including her face, forehead even her scalp. Her appearance became like that of a ferocious and frightful monster.

‘ What is happening to me?’ Ana widened her eyes with astonishment. They were blood shot and bugged out of her face like they were about to explode. Her body was now out of control and metabolising at an extraordinary speed . Before long her body was exhausted and thoroughly drenched with sweat. Along with the sweat, some black substance had come out. Ana felt extremely fatigued and she knew she was at her weakest.

Just as her body was about to crash, the dragon spirit mark on her left hand flickered. It was not very clear nor string yet the second it showed, she felt her inner spiritual energy moving according to the path depicted in the first grade of the mysterious dragon skill.

With the change of her physical condition, the moving of her spiritual energy was much faster than before. The full circulation of her spiritual power, which normally took an hour, now only took fifteen minutes. Such speed was extraordinary and Ana even felt a little scared.

Her weak spiritual power was being strengthened with each circulation. Although it was increased not by much with each circulation, given the extraordinary speed of her spiritual energy, it was still improving quickly. More importantly, with the continuing circulation of spiritual energy, the mutation of her body was slowing down.

When Ana finally finally regained consciousness, nightime had passed. She opened her eyes and saw sunlight entering through bamboo leaves. She could hear birds chirping and water babbling. Then her memory of last night flooded back to her mind, sending chills running down her spine.

‘ I thought I was going to die!’ Ana breathed with relief. She turned around and saw Ananta sleeping next to her. The little beast was sound asleep, as if it had no clue that it's master had almost died last night.

Ana thought about it and she believed that the mutation that had happened to her last night definitely had something to do with the droplet from Ananta . The source of the healing power of it's saliva might have come from this droplet, and her experience last showed her that the droplet was more capable than healing wounds. It could improve the quality of her body greatly.

‘ Damn! I've been knocked out here all night. Mia will definitely give me a hard time if she catches me’, Ana thought of Mia, and pretty as she was, she turned into a scary spirit in Ana's head. She picked up the still sleeping Ananta and jumped of the rock. The moment her feet touched ground, she was surprised to find that her body was very light.

It was like her entire system had improved significantly in one night. She was no longer weak and ill . In fact, she felt like she had unlimited power in her body.

Meanwhile she noticed that her spiritual power, which had been just a spark, had now turned into a ball of fire. Although it was still very small, it had progressed exponentially since the previous night!

A/n: Hey there beautiful stranger

There is a message for you...

I hope you are finding, what you are looking for in this story.