According to Qilin statistics, roughly twenty percent of people in Huaxia possessed recessive transcendent bloodlines.
That was already quite close to a third, but among them, only about one in ten million could successfully activate the power of their bloodline and turn from an ordinary human into a Transcendent.
Among them, werewolf bloodlines were the most commonly awakened.
Transcendent bloodlines were divided into dominant and recessive. For example, Hu Weijie and Hu Tu'er's Nine-Tailed Fox bloodline was an extremely stable dominant bloodline; descendants were born with the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox.
However, many bloodlines were recessive. Individuals were born as ordinary people and required specific conditions to activate the power within their blood.
Werewolf bloodlines, for instance, were recessive.
Descendants of werewolves were not necessarily werewolves. If one failed to activate the bloodline by age eighteen, they could only remain an ordinary person for their entire life.
Furthermore, because the activation rate of recessive werewolf bloodlines was low, if several consecutive generations were ordinary people, many had no idea they carried werewolf blood at all.
The main reason werewolves had the highest number of awakenings was simply that they reproduced so prolifically.
Unlike vampires.
A werewolf could produce five or six pups in a single litter, making them famous among transcendent races for their fertility.
In fact, the reputation of werewolves being prolific breeders was so well-known that whenever an ordinary human gave birth to triplets or quadruplets, people often suspected werewolf ancestry.
Yu Xian didn't know if Li Cheng's mother had ever been suspected.
But he was one hundred percent certain that Li Cheng had a werewolf somewhere in his ancestry.
And from how completely Li Cheng considered himself an ordinary human, it had likely skipped many generations; his parents, grandparents, and perhaps even earlier ancestors had been completely unaware of the werewolf blood in their veins.
***
A few minutes later, Zhang Kai drove over in a hurry.
Seeing the unconscious Li Cheng, he said happily, "Good kid! He's massive right after awakening. How tall was he originally?"
"Old Li... ah, no... Li Cheng is about 1.85 meters, I think," Li Cheng's chubby classmate chimed in.
Zhang Kai nodded, then turned to Yu Xian. "I'm taking this kid with me. Don't go trying to snatch him for your side. Our unit is seriously understaffed right now."
Silver City didn't have many naturally awakened Transcendents.
Most Transcendents followed an established lineage—they either had Transcendent parents or a master. They wouldn't dream of joining the tactical police unit. Only if it were Qilin would they give it serious consideration.
Zhang Kai had his abacus clicking with calculations.
The tactical police unit was desperately short-handed right now. If he could recruit Li Cheng, the boy would surely become a trump card for the tactical police unit given time.
Although werewolves weren't considered a top-tier race, they were at least stronger than average combat police officers, and most importantly, werewolves could evolve.
A werewolf's first stage was the Night Wolf. Further evolution led to the Silver Wolf, and beyond that were the exceedingly rare War Wolf, Demon Wolf, and Wolf King. With each evolution, a werewolf's strength increased drastically.
As long as Li Cheng could evolve a few more times, the overall strength of Silver City's tactical police unit could definitely break into the nation's top ten.
"Captain Zhang, that's not up to me. Qilin is responsible for registering Transcendents. You won't be able to keep it hidden anyway," Yu Xian said with a faint smile, completely washing his hands of the matter.
"I don't care. This kid is mine!"
Zhang Kai shamelessly threw all pretenses aside, slinging Li Cheng onto his shoulder and carrying him straight to the car before driving off.
"Be careful on the road. Don't let him wake up," Yu Xian warned with a helpless shake of his head as he watched the excited Zhang Kai leave.
Normally, when ordinary humans awakened a werewolf bloodline, the surge in their blood brought about a twenty-four-hour atavistic phase. In simple terms, they were dominated by bestial instincts, reduced to wild beasts that attacked and destroyed everything in sight.
That was why Li Cheng had attacked Zhao Kang the moment he awakened—he was under the sway of pure animal instinct and had lost all reason.
Only when the bloodline surge subsided would Li Cheng gradually regain himself and slowly master his transcendent werewolf powers.
Yu Xian wasn't sure how long his knifehand strike would keep Li Cheng out. If Li Cheng woke up on Zhang Kai's drive back, there would be a good show to watch.
"He wants to recruit a werewolf? Can he even afford to keep one?" Nora asked Yu Xian in a low voice once Zhang Kai had driven away.
Yu Xian snorted with laughter. "Brother Zhang definitely can't afford it. If he really does recruit Li Cheng, he'll probably be crying poor every single day."
A werewolf's first evolution burned through an absurd amount of money.
For a Night Wolf to evolve into a Silver Wolf, it needed to consume vast quantities of silver.
A Silver Wolf's coat of silvery fur was packed with elemental silver, making them a powerful counter to vampires.
However, because the Blood Clan had driven the price of silver astronomically high, a werewolf trying to advance into a Silver Wolf had to spend mountains upon mountains of money. Naturally, werewolves utterly despised vampires.
Whenever given the chance to screw over a vampire, most werewolves would jump at it.
Afterward, Yu Xian and Nora lingered in the barbecue joint a bit longer, waiting until Zhao Kang and his friends paid their bill before settling their own and heading out.
***
A bright moon hung high, and the starry river glittered.
Washed clean by the rain, the sky shed a luminous glow, cloaking the earth in a gentle, warm silver veil—tender and serene.
Yu Xian and Nora walked slowly, but eventually reached Nora's front door. They shared a smile, and Nora said, "I'm heading inside. Be careful on your way home."
"Mm. Go on in, and get some sleep early," Yu Xian smiled and nodded.
He watched Nora walk through the door, then turned and took a step, instantly teleporting back to his villa.
After taking a shower, he sat in a chair on the balcony and took out his phone to open the photo album. He had secretly taken quite a few photos of Nora along the way.
Especially the last one, taken right when Nora caught him in the act—the way she blushed was simply too adorable.
He looked at the picture with a smile, but after a while, he let out a long sigh, set his phone on his lap, and gazed quietly at the night sky.
In truth, when Nora had mentioned her mother, the longing in her eyes had struck a deep chord in him.
He, too, had family he missed, but he would never see them again. That was why he wanted so badly to help Nora, so that mother and daughter could be reunited.
Back then, a powerful impulse had surged within him, yet deep down, he had hesitated and felt afraid.
He had even felt uneasy over that impulse.
Yu Xian felt like a sailor about to embark on his very first voyage, staring out at the boundless ocean, filled with anticipation and dread in equal measure.
From Silver City to Ice City, no one knew what lay in wait.
Countless dangers lurked in the wilderness; even ordinary people knew how perilous the wild was.
Yu Xian had no guide, no experience—only the burning passion of youth and a spark of impulse.
There were ten thousand reasons not to go.
And yet...
He wanted to go.
Yu Xian's gaze gradually hardened with resolve. He took a deep breath, and in the next moment, a bubble enveloped his body. In the blink of an eye, he teleported outside the city.
Sitting inside the bubble, he steered it toward Ice City while opening the Qilin navigation app on his phone, using satellite positioning to ensure he stayed on course.
The night was long, and the road ahead was vast.
A youth, setting out alone for the first time on a journey into the unknown...
Chapter 82