185: Hatching eggs

Soon, looking at the chilling smile hanging from the corner of its master's mouth, the Shadow Moon Wolf King knew exactly who was about to become the disgrace of all demon beasts.

"No way!" It stretched its four paws, wanting to flee, but Su Ze commanded it, forcing it to turn back around.

Its mouth let out a series of whimpering, tragic wolf howls: "Awoo— master, no, you can't do this!"

"I'm a male! If other demon beasts find out about this, I'll be a laughingstock for ten thousand years, and no little female wolves will ever look at me again!"

"It's fine. There are so many demon beast eggs here; any little female wolves that hatch will be handed over to you!"

The Shadow Moon Wolf King struggled, saying: "I have no interest in newly hatched female wolves!"

Su Ze replied: "What are you afraid of? You've only been hatched for less than a year yourself. It's a perfect match!"

He then ordered the Shadow Moon Wolf King to lie down and, without another word, took out over ten eggs and stuffed them under its belly.

Su Ze revealed a satisfied smile: "Alright, let's start with ten as a trial. If there are no problems, we'll continue!"

Sun Hao and the others nearby were dumbfounded. Many of them had witnessed the Shadow Moon Wolf King's majestic figure killing enemies on the battlefield, yet now it was being forced to hatch eggs here.

“Tsk tsk, our Captain really knows how to have fun!”

Seeing that Su Ze had finally used a mix of persuasion and coercion to make the Shadow Moon Wolf King submit, Chen Xin walked forward and began teaching it how to hatch the eggs.

After all, it was a male wolf; the concept of hatching eggs was far too foreign to it.

Under Chen Xin's guidance, however, it quickly entered the right state.

"How long will it take for the demon beasts to hatch?" Su Ze asked, looking at Chen Xin.

Chen Xin replied: "These demon beast eggs are of different species, so the hatching times will vary. Based on my judgment, the fast ones might hatch in about twenty days, while the slow ones could take six months to a year, or even decades to a century."

"Decades to a century?" Su Ze's mouth hung open in surprise.

Chen Xin nodded: "That's right. Why else do you think high-level demon beasts are so rare? Besides their naturally low reproductive capacity, the excessively long hatching time is also a reason."

"Once my artificial breeding is successful, it's very possible to skip the egg stage entirely and cultivate them directly from embryos, allowing them to rapidly grow into the juvenile stage ready for a Beast Tamer to form a contract."

Su Ze nodded; it seemed Chen Xin's research was indeed very promising.

But the problem to consider now was how to hatch this batch of eggs quickly, as he couldn't let the Shadow Moon Wolf King stay here hatching eggs forever.

Chen Xin also saw Su Ze's concern and said with a smile: "Although we haven't taken the critical step in artificial breeding yet, the discipline I study has already achieved many results. One of them is the Demon Beast Incubator."

"A Demon Beast Incubator? Can it replace a demon beast for hatching?"

Chen Xin nodded and said: "Yes. And unlike the traditional method where a demon beast can only hatch a small number of eggs at once, a Demon Beast Incubator can hatch hundreds or even thousands of demon beast eggs at a time!"

Su Ze's eyes lit up; he had also been considering the issue of hatching efficiency just now.

After all, these eighty-plus platinum-level demon beast eggs were already too many for the Shadow Moon Wolf King alone, and he still had several thousand gold-rank monster beast eggs.

Although he didn't think much of this rank anymore, they were still extremely rare demon beasts for others in the Great Xia Spirit Guards.

After all, even as a captain, Guo Linshan only had Gold-rank Demon Beasts in the past, so Su Ze didn't intend to let them go to waste.

The question of how to slowly hatch these thousands of demon beast eggs was a problem, and now Chen Xin had given him a solution.

"Teacher Chen Xin, why didn't you say so earlier?"

Su Ze looked at the Shadow Moon Wolf King, which had already entered a hatching state and was carefully pulling back an egg that had rolled away from under its body.

If Chen Xin had said so earlier, he wouldn't have had to force the Husky; looking at it now, it was clearly traumatized.

Chen Xin explained: "The price of a Demon Beast Incubator is extremely high. Aside from national institutions like the Spirit Guards, I'm afraid only great families can afford them."

"Moreover, to hatch demon beasts, the incubator needs corresponding monster beast crystal cores to simulate the aura of a demon beast."

"In other words, hatching dark-attribute demon beasts requires dark-attribute crystal cores, and fire-attribute demon beasts require fire-attribute crystal cores."

"While the demon beast eggs you have here are primarily dark-attribute, there are other attributes as well."

Chen Xin picked out about twenty from the eighty-plus platinum eggs.

"These eggs cannot be placed in the same incubator as the dark-attribute eggs; you'd have to wait for the first batch to finish before changing the crystal cores."

"Or you could buy several incubators to run them simultaneously, but the expense would be truly enormous!"

Su Ze said: "So you thought we couldn't afford the Demon Beast Incubators, which is why you didn't say anything at first?"

Chen Xin nodded.

After all, they were just a small Thirteenth Squad, and Demon Beast Incubators were equipment that only the five headquarters could deploy.

But Su Ze casually pointed at the eggs on the ground and said: "While we don't have money right now, I don't think Teacher Chen Xin is unaware of the value of these demon beast eggs?"

Chen Xin's eyes also lit up; she had almost overlooked that point.

If they wanted money, couldn't they just sell a few demon beast eggs?

As for the monster beast crystal cores consumed by the incubator, there was even less need to worry. As the pillars were being destroyed one after another, more and more demon beasts were becoming active.

And the Special Operations Team Su Ze was about to form was meant to hunt these demon beasts, so crystal cores wouldn't be a problem at all!

"So Teacher Chen Xin, roughly how much is an incubator? What fraction of these eggs do I need to sell?" Su Ze inquired.

Chen Xin shook her head and said: "No need, no need. It just so happens there's a large-scale auction coming up, organized by our Beishan City Beast Tamer Association. You can just take about ten gold-rank monster beast eggs to the auction then."

"A dozen or so gold eggs?" Su Ze frowned. This price... wasn't as expensive as he'd imagined; he even felt it was a bit too cheap.

But Su Ze had forgotten that just over half a year ago, Yu Shenghuo of the Beast Tamer Association had used a single gold-rank monster beast egg as the grand finale item for an auction.