Meixiang's group's pace was indeed increased. They will settle late at night. Those who can cultivate will cultivate. Tian Ling will study prescriptions while Auntie Tian will cook dinner. Old Leng and Ping Lei on the other hand will stand as guards. After dinner they will directly sleep. The puppets will have their shifts to guard the camp while everyone is sleeping. The next day, they will start their journey early morning. When lunch time arrives, they will just sit and eat Auntie Tian's ready made lunch and if starved, there are unlimited supply of snacks prepared by Auntie Tian beforehand. These snacks was stored inside the sacred book to avoid spoilage.
While in journey, Old Leng, Mother Tian, and Tian Ling in pursuit of the cultivators barely survive all thanks to the medications and spiritual water from Meixiang.
Tian Feng, Ping Chunhua and Ping Lei on the other hand are not completely worry free.
Ping Lei's stamina and speed is great as he not only cultivate to become a master refiner but he also nourished and practiced his physical body in the past six months. Ping Chunhua on the other hand is weaker than his brother, adding she is a female so there is indeed a big gap in the first place. But if she is to compared to Tian Feng, she is undoubtedly much stronger.
Tian Feng's physical condition is not as great as the others. Same with the others, Meixiang already helped Tian Feng to solve his physical condition with the nourishment of the spiritual water from the sacred book and a medicinal bath, what Tian Feng lacks was the actual physical conditioning. Because cultivation devours most of Tian Feng's time, and even after cultivation he train with his combat partner using magic, standing and walking determinable counts of steps are his only exercises. In this case, Old Leng who isn't a cultivator and also very old is stronger than Tian Feng, a young man on his teens. This journey inside the White Forest will indeed help him a lot.
While the others are tired, martial artists are joining the walk while doing another part of their training. Bai Zihan is shooting arrows when he sees normal animals then Uncle Tian improves his speed by fetching these dead animals to give them to his wife. Xian Ji on the other hand is wearing his usual carefree smile, enjoying the nature watching every trees and weeds.
Meixiang who is both magician and martial artist, naturally have no problem with this. She just simply munch her snacks while observing the sorrounding.
On the fourth day of their journey, they finally encounter spiritual beasts but these are only with low levels of cultivation. Even so, they capture them and get their beast cores while their meats are to be save by Auntie Tian for their meals.
On the fifth day, Meixiang said to settle earlier so as they did. They continue their old routine while Xian Ji was brought by Meixiang outside the camp.
They walk from the camp to the east part of the forest. While walking, Meixiang is giving a brief introduction of becoming a beast tamer.
"Before you can perform the art of beast taming, you need to conquer them first. Spiritual beasts have a longer life span compared to human cultivators. That is why they didn't favor having a contract with humans. Cultivator and beasts often do master-slave contract. Human as the master and beast as the slave. Once the master died, his beast also dies. With this reason, spiritual beasts are against contracting with humans."
"The other kind of contract can a human and beast come into is a same-fate contract. Different from master-slave contract, once the other party died, the same-fate contract will let the other party lives and automatically the contract will end. But humans are against this contract with the reason of, once the other party died, their stage of cultivation will decline by one or two stages."
"This is different from ancient and divine beasts. They can only enter a same-fate contract unlike ordinary spiritual beasts. This same-fate contract entering with ancient and divine beast is also special with the reason of, when the ancient beast died, the human's cultivation wouldn't be affected vis versa. Also when the human dies before the beast, the ancient and divine beast have an option to retain the same-fate contract. Once the ancient and divine beast decided to retain the contract, the cultivator's soul can be save and reborn in the same world."
"The ancient and divine beasts have this privilege because they are ancient and divine beast. Ancient beasts are the first ever beast existed in the world that learns to cultivate and contributed a lot with the war of gods against demons. The heaven then bless ancient beast's next generation to be higher than the ordinary spiritual beast. Once born, they descend from heaven and inherit the power of their ancestors."
The ancient beast with the greatest contribution in war of gods and demons are the black warrior of the North with water element, azure dragon of the East with wood element, vermilion bird of the South with fire element, white tiger of the West with metal element, and yellow dragon of the Center with earth element.
"The ancient beast about to be born here six months later was unknown. We'll only know once it descend from the heaven.
In ancient times, cultivators can control fire, earth, water, metal, and wood, and so with the ancient beast.
These element correlated to one another. In the cycle of creation: Wood feeds Fire. Fire creates Earth (ash). Earth bears Metal. Metal collects Water. Water nourishes Wood. In the cycle of destruction: Wood parts Earth. Earth absorbs Water. Water extinguishes Fire. Fire melts Metal. Metal chops Wood. Generation comes and go, cultivators able to control fire, earth, water, wind, earth, light, and darkness.
After the war broke, centuries passed, the five elements that cultivators can control changed into seven elements. As for the reason of this changes, Meixiang haven't yet unlock this part of the library.
"Ancient beasts are rare and for us to have a chance to witness this phenomenon, we have to grab the opportunity to contract it."
Xian Ji shivered and noddes stiffly.
"You are too weak. For you to be able to tame those strong and arrogant spiritual beasts, you have to conquer them first. Thus, ancient beast is the best partner for you."
Still seeing Xian Ji's unsure face, Meixiang didn't think too much and continue her discussion.
"About the divine beasts, they are the pets of the gods so compared to ancient beasts, divine beasts are much stronger. Naturally, if they wanted to contract a human, that is only by same-fate contract."
"Now, we are out here so I can show you how to tame a beast." while discussing the particularity of beast taming, Meixiang lead the way to the nearest beast on the site.
A Snow Rain Fox came into sight. When Meixiang saw this scene, she can't help but raise her right eyebrow.
They only travelled for four days so they are still at the outer part of the forest. The beast with the highest cultivation they encounter so far is in third stage. This Snow Rain Fox they are seeing is on it's seventh stage of cultivation. Meixiang got more interested when she saw what the Snow Rain Fox was holding.
"Stay here." she ordered Xian Ji.
Meixiang hides her breath so the beast can't detect her presence. The Snow Rain Fox and Meixiang's cultivation have a big gap, but Meixiang can control six element and possess dou qi. Although her highest cultivation is in fifth stage of dou qi, too low compared to the Snow Rain Fox's seventh stage, Meixiang didn't decide to enter the White Forest unprepared.
She transfer her dou qi to her feet and combining with wind element, she run to the Snow White Fox's side in an incredible speed. The small white beast who is busy in looking at the metal in his hand was too late to feel the presence of Meixiang.
Once he felt the other party's presence, it able to put out ice spikes toward Meixiang only to be melted by Meixiang's fire. Meixiang grab the beast's small body. The Snow White Fox was about to make it's second attack using water magic when it notice the thunder attribute of Meixiang. He stopped fighting back not because of the thunder element of Meixiang which is a lot weaker than his element but because he can feel the danger with Meixiang's presence.
This little girl is not only fire magician but also a thunder magician. Although still weak, his always right instinct can say this little girl isn't this simple. He then just noticed that the hand grasping his small body have dou qi.
It squinted it's eyes toward Meixiang. Calculating of his next move, without no choice, the snow rain fox suddenly cried like calling for a help.
Meixiang just chuckled seeing this show. She look at Xian Ji and signal him to come over while the Snow Rain Fox was loudly crying for help.
Xian Ji walks toward Meixiang who is holding the small white animal on her right hand. He hesitately look at Meixiang and to the beast who is crying loudly for help.
Meixiang calmly said, "Snow Rain Fox. They are born as fifth stage water element and can only produce ice when they reach seventh stage. This Snow Rain Fox is a seventh stage middle level beast. Snow Rain Foxes are well known for being clever and cunning. Just like now, this little creature was pretending to call for a rescue like someone of it's kind will come."
The Snow Rain Fox, after hearing Meixiang, stops crying for help. When realize he was found out. He then tried to use another strategy and look pitiful at Meixiang.
Meixiang just smirk. "Snow Rain Foxes are sly creatures. They work alone and even dispise their own kind, least calling them for help. This fox had not yet contracted with someone else, good opportunity to practice your beast taming."
Xian Ji was about confirm what Meixiang said but swallowed this question. Yeah. He didn't misheard it. Their young miss really wanted to perform the Ancient Beast Taming Technique that she just introduce to him five minutes ago!
Meixiang turn the fox's body to face Xian Ji. "Now, connect your mental power to him. Look at it's eyes and draw your mental power towards his."
Xian Ji swallowed his hesitation and do what as he was told to.
"Draw the totem I showed you earlier using your mental power. Once the spell shines, you can withdraw your mental power."
Xian Ji's forehead was in sweat. Her young miss' instruction is quiet simple but that's not the case.
The Snow Rain Fox's mental power wanted to damage Xian Ji's mental power at first but under the glare of a certain someone, he just let the little boy do his thing.
But because of Xian Ji's first time doing this, even without the disturbance of the white rain fox, he still find drawing the totem with his mental power hard.
After the light appeared on the totem indicating it's success, Xian Ji withdraw his mental power. His mental power was exhausted thus his physical body follows. He caught his breath. His forehead was soak with sweat while he tried to stabilize his breath.
When the snow rain fox tried to get off Meixiang's grasp and run towards Xian Ji, Meixiang let go of it.
The snow white fox jump towards Xian Ji's embrace and act coquettishly. Xian Ji who's still gasping was surprise with this but still open his arms to accept the small white fur.
Meixiang raised her right eyebrow with this scene. She ignores it for a while and look at her Brother Ji's condition. When she made sure he is in good condition, she just nodded.
"How does it feel?"
"I---It is good. I just feel exhausted."
"Hmm. You must know that without my assistance, your mental power may be damage by that little beast. Your mental power is good but that fox didn't reach it's seventh stage for nothing. You are still in third stage of being a martial artist. Both cultivation and mental power, that fox is superior than you."
"Now even with the help of ancient beast, you can't make sure taming a beast will be successful. The ancient beast will only help you capture the beast. The beast taming process will depend with the mental power of the beast tamer. Drawing the totem with your mental strength is the most crucial point of beast taming. Once disturbed in the middle, you can damage your mental power and cultivation."
"Now let's talk about mental power. Summoners are chosen to be summoners because their mental power is high at the age of ten. Beast tamers on the other hand also requires a high mental power but not as high as the summoners. Do you see the similiraty of the two. Summoners can temporarily contract phantom creatures while beast tamers can have this temporary contract with spiritual beast. Both profession needs a high level of mental power."
At ancient times, people can only contract a single beast regardless of how many elements they can drive. Humans are greedy and curious in nature. Aside from summoners who can contract a spiritual beast and another type of creatures which are known as phantom creatures today, no one else can contract beasts more than once. They then tried to research about summoners and their similarities. They then discover that key to this question is their mental power. They then tried any means to have a temporary contract with spiritual beasts with this mental power. This is the creation of the profession of beast taming.
"Mental power is not the measurement of intelligence but the ability to think clearly and put all parts of a problem together. It was strengthen by enriching your experiences. I can say your mental strength is high and can tame a fifth stage beast with your own ability but the dream I wanted you to reach is far behind from this."
"While we're inside this forest, strengthen your cultivation and mental power. I will give you books of all the information of all the beasts existing in this realm and all things you need to know about them. In order to subdue them, you have to know them first. Just like your ignorance with this Snow White Fox."
Xian Ji's hand, who is lightly patting the small white animal's head, frozen.
"I just said earlier that this beast is clever and cunning. The moment it feels my immunity towards it's pitiful act then he surrendered his mental strength easily to you and now act coquettishly like it's an harmless little thing."
The Snow Rain Fox look at Xian Ji's eyes and shook his head like he's being wrongly accused.
Xian Ji just sigh with this. Ofcourse he believes his young miss' words but he can't help to pat the little fox's white fur.
Meixiang ignores this scene.
When she remember the thing on the fox's possession, an evil smile appeared on Meixiang's beautiful face as she look at the little white fur with her greedy eyes.
"Now now. Let's go back to the real business." Meixiang look at the terrified eyes of the little fox.
"Now bring that thing to me."
The little fox acts dumb.
Meixiang put out a small ball of thunder from her hand.
The little fox raise his head and look at Xian Ji and act like he's being bullied.
"Three."
"Two."
"Let me say the last number and we'll have a snow rain fox for dinner."
As fast as anything else, the fox gave up the sweat of his months of hardwork to Meixiang and jump back to Xian Ji's embrace, shivering of fear.
He wanted that a lot but he wanted his life more okay!
(A/N) The reads, votes, and adding this to your reading lists are well appreciated!