29 Hatchlings

It was on the last day of the sixth week since Kael had gone into the cave. The eggs were brimming with life, shaking to and fro. This indicated that the creatures inside were about to hatch.

Kael watched every step of this hatching process with extreme anxiety. That was a given, considering how rare Black Line Drakes were. Furthermore, they were five of them. If they were given enough monster cores and proper Heaven and Earth treasures to nourish themselves, they could actually grow to be quite powerful. The draconic bloodline within them allowed the Drakes to continuously evolve, till they could become as powerful as the ancient dragons.

Of course, that had to depend on luck, favor and fortune. It depended on whether the Drakes had the fate to challenge the heavens and undergo tribulations to evolve into a higher being, transcending through the realms.

For now, they were still little babies that had yet to hatch, thus this was a far-fetched dream that Kael was having as he stared at the eggs. Kael was dreaming that these five Drakes would be there with him in the cataclysmic event, the Defense of the Ancients.

As he wondered until this point, suddenly there was a crack sound.

Kael focused his attention and realized that a crack had appeared on one of the eggs. That was good news. After a few more seconds, a second crack appeared on another egg. Within the span of a minute, hairline cracks had appeared on all five of the eggs.

With bated breath, Kael finally saw that one of the eggs had completely cracked open. A tiny, black creature climbed its way out of the gooey solution and out of the egg shells. It whimpered and gave off a soft croaked screech.

Kael knew that it was looking for its mother. This was the crucial moment. He stepped into the formation of the Spirit Array and approached the nest. The first live being that the Drake saw would be assumed to be its mother or father. Kael placed his head right in front of the Drake and stared at it.

The tiny Drake responded in kind by cooing. It seemed to be extremely excited to see its parent.

Kael then proceeded to use his finger imbued with spiritual energy to draw a mini Spirit Array on the tiny Drake. Next, he pricked his finger and allowed the blood oozing out to fall onto the Spirit Array on the Drake. The blood melded together with the Spirit Array to give off a bright red color. The Spirit Array flashed and then disappeared within the Drake.

That was spiritual branding, to form ownership of the creature such that it would automatically be subservient to the master and perform every bidding of his will. Kael could do it on this Drake because it was a newborn and had no resistance towards spiritual branding. It was a different story if it was a mature full grown Drake with its own will and thoughts.

One by one, the hatchlings came out of their egg shells and gooey solutions. They were all looking fervently for their parents while chirping. Kael would then approach each of them, letting the Drake identify him, before he proceeded with the spiritual branding.

Just like this, five Black Line Drakes which could become omnipotent creatures in the future were now under the control of Kael.

Kael was extremely satisfied and proud of himself. It would be an awe-inspiring sight to have five full grown Black Line Drakes flying across the skies and attacking enemies at his command. However, that was the future. Now, he had to solve two pressing problems now.

The first was to find a place of refuge for the Drakes. They were still young and susceptible to theft. To solve this problem, Kael took out five monster cores.

These monster cores belonged to monsters of the Commoner Rank Late Phase stage that Kael had hunted in the Inner Region when he met the Darram brothers. Kael had already extracted the spiritual essence in these monster cores and ingested it for his own cultivation. As such, these monster cores were empty shells.

Kael then muttered an incantation and touched one of the Drakes with an empty monster core. The Drake then turned into a ray of light before entering the monster core. The monster core then emitted a dark black light, reflecting the being that was residing inside of it.

This was a basic beast breeding technique. Cultivators from all across the Hundred Realms had creatures of all sorts as their reared beasts. Kael as the Invoker of the past had seen plenty of it as well. It was thus commonplace for him to pick up such a technique, which was conveniently used by many cultivators rearing beasts.

After putting all five Drakes into the empty monster cores, Kael kept them back in his item bag. A live being wasn't able to adjust to the spatial properties of an item bag. However, since the monster core was acting as the shell, the item bag didn't reject the Drakes inside the monster cores.

The second problem was to find food and cultivation resources for the Drakes.

Kael could find enough food for the Drakes. That was no problem, as long as he continued hunting demonic beasts in the Black Heart Forest to feed them. When they grew up and were big enough, they could hunt on their own as well.

However, cultivation resource was a problem. Kael didn't even have enough for himself. To breakthrough to the Commoner Rank Lower Phase, he had consumed massive amounts of monster cores. Now he had zero cultivation resources. He needed better quality cultivation resources, which was partly why he wanted to enroll into the Fledgling Myriad Institute.

He couldn't even feed himself with enough resources, and now he had to feed an additional five lives. If he was contented with having normal Herald Rank Black Line Drakes, it was fine not to provide them with any resources. They could just ingest the monster cores of low level demonic beasts. However, Kael wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted the Drakes to grow together with him, reaching new heights in cultivation.