After riding for more than half an hour, Su Yi returned to his neighborhood.
Due to the large amount of living space being occupied by extraordinary creatures, urban housing was in short supply.
In a poor neighborhood like Su Yi's, there was no need to worry about greenery or light. Rows of buildings were close to each other. They were almost completely connected.
Dark and damp were the main themes here, especially the lower-level apartments. It was like living in a cave. There wasn't much light all day.
"Is this my home?"
Su Yi sniffed hard, and a smell mixed with mold and garbage hit him.
Miraculously, he didn't feel the least bit nauseated.
It was probably because this body had long been used to it.
Su Yi was not too surprised to see this old residential building that was at least thirty years old. After locking his bicycle, he climbed the stairs according to his memory.
The railing of the corridor was rusty. The putty on the wall was moldy and falling off. In the corner was a mass of thousand-legged worms that made one's scalp tingle.
"Mom, I'm home."
Su Yi took out his key and opened the door. Out of habit, he shouted into the house.
But the house was empty. No one responded to him.
"She probably doesn't have to work the late shift today. Did she fill in for another colleague?"
Su Yi shook his head.
In order to earn more money, his mother often took over for her colleagues, working for fifteen to sixteen hours in a row. Su Yi had advised her many times not to work so hard. It was not worth it to ruin her health, but it was useless.
Su Yi washed the rice, cooked the rice, and took out the ingredients from the fridge. He casually made two dishes and ate them.
Although his culinary skills were not good, the dishes he cooked were still edible.
After finishing his meal, Su Yi hung around the neighborhood for a while to help digest before returning to his room.
He took off his shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed, ready to begin his "first" meditation.
Meditation was not a cultivation method that the Beast Tamers had figured out themselves. It was discovered by the armies of the various countries in a mystic realm at the beginning of the disaster more than 40 years ago.
Meditation was not about blindly thinking with your eyes closed. Instead, you had to follow the pattern and empty your mind, immersing yourself in the world and resonating with the free spiritual energy.
When his mental strength reached a certain level, he could try to activate his spiritual energy and open up the Beast Taming Space.
The Beast Taming Space could store the contracted pets.
In the Beast Taming Space, pets could use the Beast Tamer's mental strength to speed up their cultivation.
Moreover, the higher the mental strength of a Beast Tamer, the greater the benefits for the pet.
Clearly, the Beast Tamer's Beast Taming Space was a spatial ability.
To this end, many experts in beast taming had concluded.
Humans were essentially no different from other extraordinary creatures. It was just that the racial talents of other extraordinary creatures were fire, ice, and earth, while human racial talents were spiritual and spatial.
Of course, although such comments had a certain market, there were still many flaws that couldn't be explained.
Most puzzling of all…
If humans were extraordinary creatures of the spiritual and spatial attributes, why couldn't they master other spiritual or spatial abilities on their own except for contracting pets and opening up the Beast Taming Space?
A mental-type extraordinary creature like the Little Shark had a series of skills such as hypnosis, charm, and hallucinations.
As for the Space-splitting Divine Phoenix, it had extremely powerful abilities such as spatial jump and spatial collapse.
None of these questions so far had a reasonable explanation.
"My mental strength seems to have really improved!"
As soon as he entered the meditative state, Su Yi realized that his mental strength was greater than before, and he could channel more spiritual energy.
However, he did not rush to open up his first Beast Taming Space. Instead, he entered deep meditation as usual.
He wanted to adjust his mental state to its best before attempting a breakthrough.
This way, the success rate would be higher!
He did not want to fail again. The backlash after failing to open up the Beast Taming Space was very painful. It was almost like staying up for two days and two nights without sleep.
After entering deep meditation, he could barely feel the passage of time.
After an unknown period of time, his mental strength was already full.
However, just as he was about to try to break through, there was a light knock on the door.
"Are you asleep, Xiao Yi?"
In an instant, Su Yi retreated from his meditative state.
"I'm not asleep."
He replied and hurried over to open the door.
He could naturally tell that this was his mother, Jiang Xiaoxiu's voice.
However, he felt a little strange. Why would his mother come knocking on his door at this time? Usually, in order not to disturb his meditation, Jiang Xiaoxiu would not even wear shoes after returning home from work!
"Why are you off work so early today?"
Su Yi glanced at the digital watch on his wrist and found it strange that it was not even nine o'clock.
"Did you just get up? I'm not working the late shift today."
Jiang Xiaoxiu flipped her hair and took out an exquisite rectangular wooden box from her bag. She smiled and said, "Here, this is for you."
"What is it?"
Su Yi took the wooden box and opened it curiously.
The next moment, his eyes simply froze.
It was actually filled with Concentration Grasses!
There were three Concentration Grasses!
Before he could speak, Jiang Xiaoxiu rubbed her hands that were slightly red from the cold and continued.
"Your Teacher Liu called me and said that you need this to assist in your cultivation. Why didn't you tell me earlier that you needed something for your studies? You can use these three stalks first. Tell me if they're not enough."
So she hadn't gone on the night shift. She'd gone to buy Concentration Grass…
"Mom…"
Looking at the nonchalant Jiang Xiaoxiu, Su Yi felt a lump in his throat.
He was very aware of the situation at home.
Just these three Concentration Grasses would most likely cost all the savings of the family. They might even have to go into debt.
Before he'd traveled through time, this little bit of money had been nothing in his eyes, but this same loving care had brought back many memories.
After joining the workforce, he rarely interacted with his mother. Occasionally, when he went home to stay for a few days, he would find her nagging…
Looking at his mother, who was far younger than he remembered, Su Yi suddenly realized that he had gradually forgotten many things before he transmigrated.
However, there seemed to be something wrong with this Concentration Grass!
"Mom, where did you buy the Concentration Grasses?"
Su Yi noticed something and frowned.
"I bought them at the Haitao Market opposite the Beast Tamer Department Store. There's a stall there that happens to be holding an event. If you buy three stalks, you'll get a 30% discount. Each stalk only costs 6,999 yuan. Why? Is there a problem? Haitao is one of the top ten companies in our country. They advertise every day. They shouldn't be selling fake goods, right?"
Seeing Su Yi like this, Jiang Xiaoxiu immediately became nervous.
This was something worth more than 20,000 yuan!
"It's not fake, but the quality is slightly inferior. The spiritual energy it contains is only about 90% of the standard Concentration Grass. However, it's not a loss if you bought it at a 30% discount."
Su Yi replied with a smile.
"Good. You scared the hell out of me. I thought I'd been tricked."
Jiang Xiaoxiu heaved a sigh of relief.
"You were lucky this time. You don't have to go alone to buy such things in the future. I'm half a Beast Tamer after all. I can sense the spiritual energy inside. I can tell at a glance if it has shrunk."
Su Yi said seriously.
"You can tell at a glance? So our Xiao Yi is already so powerful! Got it. I'll bring you along in the future."
Jiang Xiaoxiu smiled proudly and continued, "It's getting late. I won't disturb you anymore. Remember to sleep early."
"Yes. You should rest early too."
Su Yi watched her leave and gently closed the door.
The moment the door closed, his smile vanished.
He took another look at the Concentration Grass in his hand and felt a surge of anger.
"F*ck you, evil merchant!"