This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Kain also continued his research pursuits during this time. Currently finding the next evolutionary form of the Gilded Serafin, the evolved form of the Lumifin, hasn't shown much progress, however another research idea Kain had had for a while has finally born fruit.

Kain held up a small brown pill capsule to examine and gently sniffed it. Gabriel, watching from the side recoiled in disgust at his action, while a multitude of bronze-quality River Wolf pups and several of its evolved form, the gold-quality Clear Spring Wolf, were noisily scampering about in the observation area separated from Kain by a glass wall.

The River Wolf was one of the three initial contract Bridge was considering binding due to its high-potential, however at the time it was too expensive for them to afford.

Therefore, despite being a relatively common species with excellent potential and would meet the requirements for many A, B, and C-grade affinities—water-type, wolf-type, or canine-type affinities are all not too uncommon—it is still not a popular choice since usually only wealthy civilians can afford to raise them.

As a result, most civilians are forced to bond with spiritual creatures of a lower potential that they may not be as satisfied with, and most River Wolf Pups go unclaimed every year.

Certain spiritual creatures need to be fed a special diet for a prolonged period in order to successfully evolve—the River Wolf is one such creature.

River Wolf pups need a constant supply of top-quality rare herbs located near rivers inhabited by spiritual creatures with at least orange-grade spiritual power. Making the cost of purchasing said herbs from mercenaries astronomically expensive.

Therefore, it wasn't a feasible option for the orphans Bridge and Kain.

However, not long after Kain realized the nature of his affinity, and his mind was still limited by poverty, he'd long thought about a potential solution to other spiritual creatures that would be costly for him and Bridge to raise.

He'd wondered, why exactly do certain spiritual creatures need to be consistently fed specific evolutionary materials for a prolonged period in order to evolve? What changes are occurring in its body, if any, that makes this prolonged duration necessary?

One of the first aspects Kain chose to start with, given the nature of his affinity, was the microbiome.

Kain, under the grossed out and judgemental gaze of Gabriel, collected the poop samples of the pups he'd ordered for his research over a period of time, and checked for changes in the bacteria present in the feces after being fed the specific diet required for the pups to evolve.

Thankfully, the Genetic Reconstructor provided by the system allowed him to also record the DNA he analyzed and extracted.

Therefore, Kain found that while eating those precious herbs, over time inside of the River Wolf, the population of the microbiome would greatly shift to favour the presence of certain bacterial species. Of the key ones in this population Kain decided to name Puribactis, Aquabactis, and Claribactis. Kain found that when these guys were alone they didn't have any impressive effects, however when their populations grew to be a specific ratio to one another they had the ability to purify and add slight healing properties to water.

This is why, when fed those spiritual plants, River Pups will exude water of greater and greater purity. Everyone took that purification to be due to the plants—but it's actually due to the bacteria that thrive in the presence of those plants.

In theory, what the River Wolf Pups needed more to evolve is those bacteria rather than the expensive spiritual plants.

Therefore, Kain tried to grow them in the lab, but unfortunately, they don't seem to grow well when not inside of the River Wolf Pup and in the presence of those expensive spiritual plants.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Next, Kain used the Genetic Reconstructor to alter their DNA and make them grow even without the need for those plants and at a much faster rate—which should, in theory, drastically cut down on the spiritual plants and time they'd need to evolve. However, it seems like the ratio of each bacteria is very specific to achieve the desired effect and after genetically modifying the ratio got messed up—what Kain needed was the ratio present in those that have successfully evolved into Clear Spring Wolves.

Thinking of this, Kain was reminded of a procedure done on Earth when you wanted the beneficial bacteria present in one individual to appear in another person—a Fecal Microbiota Transplant.

And facts proved that Kain's theory worked. He received one Clear Spring Wolf and several River Wolf Pups, one of which was only slightly away from evolving.

After performing the fecal microbiota transplants, one of the River Wolf Pups evolved immediately, while the purification of the others has been greatly sped up—they probably only need a third of the time to evolve now than they did previously if they are still fed those expensive spiritual plants every day. If a beast-tamer can't afford to feed them those spiritual plants every day, even if they feed it weekly, the pups can still evolve around 20% faster than one not fed this small brown pill.

Even more, if they can only afford to feed those spiritual plants once a month, the foundation of the pup won't be harmed and can still eventually evolve, it will just take slightly longer than when fed every day but not given the pill.

All around the income threshold for owning the River Pup has decreased several times over. And even those who can afford to raise this pup normally would still want this pill due to its ability to drastically reduce the time it would take to evolve.

When Kain had first introduced this concept to Gabriel, he looked at Kain as though he was a pervert playing with animal feces and even trying to feed said feces to others…

However, all of Kain's numerous attempts to explain that most of the 'dirty' parts will be removed to leave only the bacteria, were just met with a scornful eye.

'Sigh…the great minds of an era always must face the rejection of those too small-minded to understand their brilliance,' Kain thought as he gently placed the pill capsule back into its container, ignoring Gabriel's exaggerated gagging noises.