A certain year, a certain month, a certain day. The weather was clear, and my mood was wonderful. My intuition tells me today will surely be a day of great harvest.
It seems that I will obtain the inheritance of Myriad Beasts True Person today. For this day, I have made full preparations. I’ve brought along every poisonous insect and venomous creature I could carry.
Even a Nascent Soul Cultivator wouldn’t dare to touch me directly.
Setting off.
It’s a pity that my servants don’t understand why I want to keep a diary.
Truly ignorant.
Arriving at the edge of the cliff, I searched for a long time because I didn’t know the exact location. Finally, I found the entrance. It turns out that only those under thirty years old and at the Golden Core Stage can enter the Secret Realm.
My servants have all formed Poison Cores—even though they’re false cores, they barely count as Golden Core Stage, so they can enter as well. As I expected, today my luck is good. Three trials are needed to open the gate?
Hmph, can’t I just open it directly? That gate is very solid. It must be that Myriad Beasts True Person laid some kind of Formation there before he passed away.
Even a Spirit Transformation Cultivator wouldn’t be able to open it by brute force for a short time, let alone me with just a Golden Core cultivation base. The first trial tests affinity with spirit beasts.
How interesting.
I’ll give it a try. Indeed—after I poisoned the spirit beast, I sprinkled the antidote beside me. The beast came over itself and took the antidote.
It seems their instincts are very acute. The second trial requires defeating ten spirit beasts of the same level. Seems to be a test of combat strength.
Hmph, how can a group of brainless beasts ever defeat a Poison Cultivator like me?
Too careless.
These beasts have sharp instincts. They noticed my blood could detoxify their poison. After being poisoned, their attacks only grew fiercer.
If that’s the case, I can only use my deadliest venom. Damn it, these beasts have thick hides and tough flesh. Their final struggles before death left me quite seriously injured.
My servants with false cores are far too weak—they can’t even defeat a single Golden Core stage beast. Wait, how did A Liu pass the second trial?
What?
A Liu said he simply fed the beasts and they submitted? So this trial may not actually test combat strength but rather the understanding of spirit beasts! Whatever the case, I still passed the trial.
That’s two keys already. I only need one more to open the gate! The third trial asks one to reconcile several Nascent Soul stage beasts that are in conflict. …I suspect Myriad Beasts True Person was intentionally making fun of people.
Those Nascent Soul beasts don’t even possess real intelligence. How can we communicate with them, let alone understand why they’re in conflict or how to reconcile them? Still, it’s the final trial.
I must give it a try. Those Nascent Soul beasts are ferocious beyond compare. One claw almost smashed me to pieces.
Many of my poisonous insects were crushed beneath their claws. But perhaps I now know the reason for their quarrel. As I thought—my guess was right.
It truly was for that reason. I’ve guessed correctly. After being battered and wounded, exhausting all my poisons and insects, I’ve finally passed the trial and obtained the third key.
Myriad Beasts True Person’s inheritance is right before my eyes! … Poison Young Master closed his diary with satisfaction. Supported by A Liu, clutching the three keys tightly, he hobbled toward the massive stone gate at the far end of the Secret Realm.
After the three trials, only A Liu remained by his side.
“Master, look, a shooting star!”
A Liu suddenly pointed toward a streak of light flying toward the end of the realm.
Boom—!
A deafening explosion shook the entire Secret Realm. Spirit beasts fled in all directions in panic and confusion. Poison Young Master stared blankly at the stone gate that had just been shattered by a single punch.
His mouth opened and closed soundlessly like a fish out of water. His hands trembled uncontrollably, and even A Liu couldn’t hold him steady. … When Jiang Li broke open the stone gate, what he saw was a mess.
Several Spirit Treasures were flying wildly inside the stone chamber, and a coffin had been smashed into pieces. Inside were the bones of Myriad Beasts True Person and those of the beasts buried with him, all hacked to fragments by those Spirit Treasures.
“Someone’s finally opened the gate!”
“Kill him! Let’s leave this damned place!”
“I’m suffocating here!”
These Spirit Treasures had developed spiritual intelligence after Myriad Beasts True Person’s death, but were trapped inside the Secret Realm. No matter how hard they struck, they couldn’t open the gate. Out of frustration, they vented their rage on the coffin—shattering it and reducing the corpse of their former master as well as the beasts to splinters.
Now that the gate was open, their first thought was to slay whoever opened it and flee this cursed realm. But Jiang Li casually reached out and clenched his hand. Those arrogant Spirit Treasures were instantly crushed into heaps of scrap iron, motionless thereafter.
Luckily, Myriad Beasts True Person’s inheritance had been stored inside his Storage Ring and wasn’t destroyed. Seeing Jiang Li open the gate with one move, neither Red Dust Fairy nor Li Nian’er bothered to go through those cumbersome trials. They arrived soon after.
“The book you wanted, the Atlas of Immortal Beasts, should be in there. Go find it yourself,” Jiang Li said, gesturing with his chin toward the Storage Ring.
On the way, Jiang Li had already told Li Nian’er that this young lady named Hong was fond of immortal beasts and wanted to look at the Atlas of Immortal Beasts. After reading it, she would hand it back. Li Nian’er naturally believed him completely.
Red Dust Fairy found the Atlas of Immortal Beasts and opened it. From the first page, a projection of a white-headed, red-footed ape appeared, exuding awe-inspiring pressure. As she kept turning pages, more and more phantom images of immortal beasts emerged within the stone chamber.
Red Dust Fairy was delighted beyond measure. Jiang Li swept his Divine Sense over the other books and understood the contents of Myriad Beasts True Person’s legacy. As expected, that person did have some unique insights into the Dao of Beast Taming.
Jiang Li’s evaluation was: had he not died early, he might have become one of the great scourges of the Nine Provinces. Myriad Beasts True Person had proposed a theory—transforming the Dao of Beast Taming into the Dao of Human Taming. If one could tame beasts, why not tame humans?
“Can you cultivators stop coming up with such dangerous ideas?”
Jiang Li said helplessly. In the end, he decided to keep this inheritance to himself. Better not to let others see it.
The Storage Ring also contained some elixirs. Had Jiang Li arrived five hundred years earlier, their medicinal power would still have been intact. But now, they had deteriorated into useless residue.
He also looked through the cultivation methods left behind—it was an interesting system. One formed a life-and-death contract with spirit beasts: when the master grew stronger, the beasts grew stronger; when the beasts grew stronger, the master benefited as well. But if the beasts died, the master died too.
For Jiang Li, though, it was completely useless.
[Congratulations to Host for completing the mission, obtaining the inheritance of Myriad Beasts True Person.]
[Reward granted: one drop of fresh White Marsh Beast Blood (to maintain freshness, it will be temporarily stored within the System; the Host may withdraw at any time).]
“This might actually come in handy,” Jiang Li praised the System for once.
The technique that boosted explosive power was called Heaven Burning Sea Boiling Technique. When used, it made blood and qi surge, greatly increasing temporary combat strength to catch opponents off guard. Jiang Li tried it briefly and found that his vigorous blood qi slightly calmed down afterward.
As for the Great Rejuvenation Pill, it was useless to him. That pill could heal even Integration Stage cultivators, but past the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, one could regenerate from a drop of blood. Why would he need it to recover injuries?
Thanks to Huitong Sergeant, Zeng Weicangshui, Sesame Paste Green Bean Cake, Huang Shuaipeng, Xinyu, Long Linyu, orangefly, 20170310083223996, Mengyin Yaohun, and Reader Carrotlou for their monthly vote support.
(End of Chapter)