"Professor Asher..."
Compared to Asher, actually, quite a few veteran and higher-ranked pet beast professors had also arrived.
But the moment he thought about the recent online discussions surrounding Asher.
And the previous zero-casualty incident of the Fourth Legion.
Vincent's eyes suddenly lit up, as if he had seen a lifeline.
'A savior!'
"Professor Asher... Maybe Professor Asher really can discover something?"
Excitement flickered in Vincent's eyes. He clasped his hands together, muttering under his breath, "The miracles created by this Professor Asher are more than just one or two. Maybe this time too..."
"President, I think you should focus on solving the immediate problem first," Rosa said expressionlessly.
'Heh!'
'Counting on Asher?'
It wasn't that Rosa didn't believe in Asher.
As the secretary and assistant to President Vincent, Rosa kept an eye on online information.
And Asher's name had been appearing online at an absurd frequency for the past year. Especially recently, he practically dominated the trending searches, leaving entertainment industry figures fuming in silence.
But that didn't mean Asher was omnipotent.
People always had their own areas of expertise.
In Rosa's opinion, Professor Asher's strongest field was pet beast evolution research, with a side specialty in handling beasts.
Although she had heard that Professor Asher's dream was to become an outstanding Beast Tamer...
That wasn't really important.
The problem with the Red Soil Forbidden Zone wasn't a simple beast issue.
And the fever outbreak in Crimson City—there was no way to confirm if it was even related to beasts.
Counting on Professor Asher... The higher the expectation, the greater the disappointment. Rosa felt there was no need to deify him too much.
Vincent, drenched in cold water: "..."
"What you should focus on now is that these people are already on their way. Especially Mr. Peter and Ms. Henrietta, who will be arriving soon, along with several other seventh-rank Beast Tamers. As the president of the Red Soil City Beast Tamer Alliance, you must come up with a proper protocol."
Rosa continued her verbal assault, "Rumor has it that the Inspection Team has also sent people over."
Vincent: 'Over!'
This wasn't just about ruining him.
He was already ruined.
Vincent still had some self-awareness about what he had done.
Two Ace¹ level Beast Tamers, plus the Inspection Team... Vincent lay flat in surrender.
———
[Crimson City]
After bidding farewell to the Lightyear Dragon Cavalry, Asher entered Crimson City with his four pet beasts.
"This is really...", Looking at the empty streets and alleys, and at the long lines outside the pet beast center, crowds of people and tents everywhere, Asher felt a bit complicated.
The situation was visibly bad.
After some thought, Asher headed toward the nearest pet beast center.
The closer he got, the more he could hear the loudspeakers maintaining order. Fevered patients were entering the center one by one for treatment using specialized equipment.
Even if the fever couldn't be brought down immediately, at least their condition wouldn't worsen.
Out of habit, Asher activated his talent skill, originally expecting to see nothing—then, he froze.
'Huh?'
'This is...'
"Hello, sir?", Just as Asher was standing there dazed, a young girl's voice came from beside him.
Turning his head, he saw a girl with a bun hairstyle, wearing a pink nurse uniform. She was slightly shorter than Asher, looking up at him with serious amber eyes, her voice still carrying the breathlessness of running over in a hurry, "Are you a Beast Tamer here to help?"
"Mm," Asher figured he counted as one.
Seeing him nod, the nurse's face blossomed into a bright smile. "That's fantastic!"
"My name is Joy Sinclair. I'm a senior at Red Soil University's medical department, currently interning at the Crimson City Pet Beast Center. Here's my student ID."
As he watched the girl named Joy pull out her student ID, Asher was dumbfounded.
'Huh?'
'Huh? Huh? Huh?'
'Pulling out a student ID right away—what kind of routine is this?'
He had never seen this before.
After showing her identity to Asher and confirming he wasn't a threat, Joy quickly said, "The pet beast center is running out of medicine. Most of the supplies here are meant for pet beasts. If the city's hospitals weren't already overcrowded, we wouldn't be accepting human patients at all."
Asher: 'OK'
That answered one of his questions.
He thought so, 'There should be a difference between pet beast centers and human hospitals, right?'
'Although...'
'Hmm,' Asher's gaze swept over the fevered patients again.
"There are too many patients, and we're completely tied up here. Could you help us pick up some medicine from the central hospital?", As she finished speaking, Joy's voice carried a hint of embarrassment.
But the patients behind her and the responsibility she carried made her push through to the end.
She looked at Asher with amber eyes full of hope and sincere pleading.
"Alright," Asher didn't think much of it and agreed readily.
Hearing his response, Joy's face lit up with a bright smile, "Thank you so much, sir!"
"Here's the list of medicines we need. Please bring it to the central hospital, they'll prepare the necessary drugs."
With a slap, Joy placed a long prescription list into Asher's hand, waved at him, and dashed back toward the patients.
Asher: "..."
Watching her disappear among the tents, Asher suddenly had a suspicion—
'Have I just been scammed?'
'I mean, this list...'
'Isn't it way too long?'
Asher watched as the end of the list rolled onto the ground, over a meter long.
'Yeah... I am definitely scammed.'
"...Forget it, forget it. Given Crimson City's situation..."
'Needing this much medicine isn't really surprising.'
Besides, Asher had originally planned to visit the central hospital to check if the other patients had the same symptoms.
Before long—
Asher arrived at the central hospital.
Compared to the pet beast center's tent setup, the hospital's situation was just as overwhelming.
From inside to outside, every possible space that could hold a bed was filled.
With his talent skill active, Asher navigated through the dense crowd and finally reached the logistics department.
The staff member looked at the list Asher handed over, took a deep breath, and wore a hesitant expression—but still prepared everything without omission.
Asher fell silent, staring at the half-loaded cargo truck full of medicine.
'How am I supposed to deliver this back?'
"Alright, just give the list to the driver. They'll deliver it as fast as possible."
"On behalf of the patients at the pet beast center, thank you."
The staff spoke quickly, then rushed off, answering multiple calls at once like an octopus.
Asher caught bits of conversation—
People sending medicine, sending money, donating supplies... Oh, the last one got rejected outright.
Right now, Crimson City needed medicine the most, especially anti-inflammatory and fever-reducing drugs.
After handing the list to the driver, the medicine truck rumbled to life and departed immediately.
Standing in a corner of the hospital lobby, Asher scanned the patients and healthy individuals, a strange feeling stirring in his chest.
'This situation...'
It was his first time encountering something like this.
Asher was trying hard to summarize and identify a pattern.
'Why are some people running a high fever while others are completely fine?'
'Is it a distinction between Beast Tamers and non-Beast Tamers?'
'No, no.'
'There are also Beast Tamers who are in a high fever state.
'But the proportion of ordinary people is still higher.'
'Does the Beast Tamers who have fallen into this high fever state have something special about them?'
Asher's brows furrowed tighter and tighter.
"I wonder if the Crimson City Beast Tamer Alliance has records of all the Beast Tamers. I need to find a pattern."
———
Asher sat inside the Red Soil City Beast Tamer Alliance, surrounded by stacks upon stacks of documents on Crimson City's Beast Tamers. He was flipping through them rapidly while cross-referencing them with the Beast Tamers who had fallen into a high fever state.
Outside the door.
Rosa looked at Asher with a somewhat curious gaze.
"Inspector Jasmine, is looking through these records really useful?", Rosa's tone was full of uncertainty.
She turned to look at the woman who had prepared these documents for Asher, a tall and well-proportioned figure, an icy-cold demeanor, a delicate and beautiful face, and… the insignia of the Inspection Team on her body.
Someone who could make President Vincent step down in minutes.
"I don't know," Jasmine, who had taken the initiative to apply for this Inspection Team task and unexpectedly ran into Asher upon arrival, spoke in a calm tone.
As she spoke, she turned to glance at Asher in the room, whose expression was growing colder and more focused, "But he probably has his reasons, right?"
Rosa: "…"
Rosa looked at Jasmine, then at Asher in the room, her expression a little complicated.
'Wait a minute…?'
'Leaving aside age and all that.'
'These two, who are completely unrelated, actually seem to have quite a good relationship?'
Rosa suddenly recalled how President Vincent had previously looked all excited while calling Professor Asher his savior.
For a brief moment, Rosa's thoughts drifted off track.
'If that's the case… Forget it, forget it. Better not. That president is truly beyond saving.'
"Here, Inspector Jasmine, these are the little tricks President Vincent pulled behind the scenes. You can double-check them," As she spoke, Rosa handed a thick stack of documents to Jasmine.
Jasmine was not fazed by Rosa's actions. Her expression remained calm.
She flipped through the folded documents in her hands.
No major errors.
But it was clear that this President Vincent was a man eager for quick success. The overextraction and non-compliant exploration of the Red Soil Forbidden Zone—at other times, it might have been tolerable to turn a blind eye, but right now…
Jasmine nodded.
She would handle it as it should be handled.
At the very least, the position of president might need a new occupant.
Seeing Jasmine's expression, Rosa showed a satisfied smile. She was just about to say something when she heard the sound of a chair scraping against the floor from inside the room.
Rosa: "?"
Instinctively, Rosa turned her head toward the room and saw Asher standing up with a confident smile on his face.
"Asher, you…", Jasmine also looked toward Asher. When she saw the familiar expression on his face, she was momentarily stunned.
Then, Jasmine's eyes lit up.
"You discovered something, didn't you?"
Jasmine thought of the look Asher had during competitions.
Every time he was certain of victory, he would reveal this exact expression.
Brilliant.
So dazzling that it was impossible to look away.
"Mm," Asher nodded lightly, showing no intention of hiding anything.
"I found the pattern."
With that, Asher let out a sigh.
"Really?", Rosa, who was standing to the side, sounded surprised.
After the incident in Crimson City, they had also tried investigating whether there was any commonality among those who had fallen into a high fever, whether they had been in contact with the same thing… but all the common scenarios led to nothing.
It also couldn't simply be divided into Beast Tamers and ordinary people.
After all, both groups had been affected.
If all ordinary people had been affected and only a portion of them hadn't, they might have been able to analyze something from those unaffected Beast Tamers.
But there was still a small number of ordinary people who weren't affected.
Their numbers were few, but they couldn't be ignored.
From the start of the high fever incident until now, the time had been too short. There were too many problems to solve and handle. Without any leads, there was no time to conduct in-depth research.
Professor Asher had only arrived in Crimson City for how long?
Even including the time spent going through these records, it definitely hadn't been more than three hours in total.
And now Professor Asher was saying he had found a pattern?
Even though Rosa knew that Asher was truly extraordinary, she still found it hard to imagine that he could really do what he claimed.
Asher nodded.
The reason he had discovered the pattern wasn't anything else—it was because he had seen a [Fire Poison Buff (72 Hours)] on the heads of every single patient suffering from high fever.
Every single one.
As long as they had fallen into a high fever state, every person carried this buff.
Asher didn't know why his innate skill, which theoretically should only be able to inspect the state of beasts, allowed him to see this buff on humans.
Unfortunately…
He could see it, but he couldn't click on it to check the details.
Asher was also unsure whether this "72 Hours" meant the fever would naturally subside after that time or if something worse would happen.
Either way, it was best to resolve this within 72 hours.
At the very least, they needed to identify the source.
By comparing those who had a high fever with those who weren't affected and focusing on the term [Fire Poison], Asher quickly discovered a pattern.
First, the simplest one—among Beast Tamers.
Beast Tamers who had contracted fire-attribute or lightning-attribute pets had not fallen into a high fever state.
As for the small handful of unaffected ordinary people… Asher really couldn't figure out the pattern, so he sought help from Angel, letting Angel use the power of the internet and artificial intelligence to summarize and analyze.
Finally, the pattern was revealed.
Ordinary people whose direct relatives—parents or siblings—were Beast Tamers, and whose relatives specialized in fire-attribute or lightning-attribute pets, were also unaffected.
[1] Levels of Beasts and Beast Tamers: Tier 1-3: Ordinary Pet Beast/Beast Tamers, Tier 4-6: Advanced Pet Beasts/Beast Tamers, Tier 7: Elite Beasts/Beast Tamers, Tier 8: Ace Beasts/Beast Tamers, Tier 9: Lord Beasts/Beast Tamers]
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