Divine Brilliance

Night time…

On the big wilderness road, a ball of indiscernible mist was travelling quickly.

Along with the surrounding area becoming illusionary, the colors were changing constantly, sometimes yellow, sometimes green. If one wasn’t close, one wouldn’t be able to notice what was inside.

And if one were close, one would see a twenty-foot tall male lion travelling swiftly.

Not only was there a mist surrounding its body, under the night sky it was sometimes visible and sometimes invisible.

Zong Shou sat on the lion’s wide back, his eyes closed as he laid down comfortably on it, bathing in the last bit of sunlight.

Apart from that, the giant lion was dragging two pieces of ropes behind his back.

At the end of one of the ropes, Chuxue was dragged on as she ran behind, her face flushing red. On the other end, Little Gold was bouncing and jumping. Most of the time it was flying in the air, its body round and circular, but it gave out a really pitiful and uncomfortable expression.

Chuxue’s eyes were shining like stars, looking towards Zong Shou with a begging expression, so close to opening her mouth and begging.

Looking at the back of the teen who was lying on the lion like he had already fallen asleep, she jumped up and stepped onto the tail of the Rising Moon Lion.

Before she was able to gain stable footing, she was struck by a white light. It was a stone, hitting the back of her foot, numbing her body to feel numb as she fell off the lion’s back once more. She nearly tumbled, taking a few awkward steps to regain her footing. She gave out a distressed cry, “Young Master, Xue’er has already run for half a day! Three hundred miles of road and I haven’t even stopped a single moment! I hadn’t even rested a single moment the whole of yesterday!”

Zong Shou sighed slightly, like he had woken up from a dream as he straightened his body and took a lazy stretch.

The exhaustion from the past night had greatly disappeared.

Before this, he felt that this lion wasn’t suitable to be his Protector Spirit Beast, but now he felt that to have such a beast to replace walking seemed like a good idea.

Based on what he knew, spirit masters mostly chose beast spirits to be their Protector Spirit Beasts, as they are easy to control and nurture. One only needed enough Yin energy and spirit stones, as well as enough materials, to be able to quickly raise its Grade.

There were very few people who chose a living beast as their Protector Spirit Beast.

Beasts had blood and bones, and it was inconvenient to bring them along. Because of their strong vital energy, they rejected controlling formations and it was easy for a spirit master to be harmed from by backlash instead. Spiritual connections used up a lot more spirit power from the spirit master, several times the amount needed for spirit beasts. Moreover, they couldn’t be sealed.

Raising their combat strengths a Grade was also really difficult.

The living beasts that were chosen to be Protector Spirit Beasts would often be less intelligent, or nurtured from a young age.

Little Gold was the former, and actually this fellow’s intelligence wasn’t weak. In the eyes of people, octopus didn’t have any brains.

If it was the latter, unless it was a high Grade when it was born, if not it wouldn’t be a good choice. To go from Grade One to Grade Nine without a few thousand years and heaping amounts of spiritual herbs was near impossible.

Like the black Flood Dragon that Lingyun Long Ruo rode that day, it was a rare sight. It was said that he went from a black python at the beginning to now where it was close to transforming into a Dragon, using up only twenty years.

Although this Rising Moon Lion was no different from legs, its comprehension was really good.

That day he used his soul to drive in the sword and used a Rising Moon intent once. That was picked up by this lion, mutating its bloodline and evolving to Grade Four.

The Rising Moon Lion was not only good at travelling swiftly, but also infiltration and silent movement. Its combat strength in the day was enough to go up against peak beasts of the same Grade. During the night, it would be the king of beasts.

Such a beast was good at laying in wait, travelling swiftly and one-shotting people. It was an assassin of the night and as a Protector Spirit Beast, it was even worse than Little Gold.

Using it as a mount was barely suitable. Although it couldn’t fly, it was more suitable sleeping on the lion than on a carriage.

Seemingly feeling Zong Shou’s thoughts, the Rising Moon Lion couldn’t help but give out a tragic roar, like it was feeling sad for his fate of becoming a mount.

Zong Shou didn’t care at all. Just as he was about to enter meditation, he felt really uncomfortable from the eyes behind him that were staring down, almost being able to chisel past his body.

Helplessly he said, “Stop staring, I am doing this for you. That Human Pinnacle Pill has a lot of medicinal powers and is the top foundation building pill for the Body Chakra level. This is a good chance for you. With this pill and my teachings, within three months you will be able to enter the Xiantian Realm.

“But the medicinal powers are difficult to dissolve and spread. The more you run, the better it will be for you. Little Gold’s situation is similar to yours. There’s a good saying: ‘the sharpness of the sword came from the grinding of the stone, the fragrance of the osmanthus flower came from the cold, if one doesn’t go through storms, how can one manage to see the rainbow’…”

Chuxue’s expression was one of fury, obviously unable to accept that. No matter how strong the Human Pinnacle Pill was, how could it be stronger than that Lightning Phoenix egg’s essence?

She only saw Zong Shou turned his head behind with what looked like a smile, “Of course, if you are willing to learn three sets of Energy Leading Techniques from me and memorize them all, you won’t need to run so tiringly.”

Chuxue’s face instantly squeezed into a ball, similar to that of a bitter gourd. Faced with his soft-looking, sleep-inducing Energy Leading Technique, she would rather walk.

Zong Shou smiled, sending his consciousness back into his soul ocean. Since he swallowed the essence energy of the Lightning Phoenix, this was the first time he had carefully observed his body.

As expected, it is because of the mental source of the Lightning Phoenix…

That the Thunderbolt Word was now hanging in the center of the whirlpool, turning into a Phoenix that was opening up its wings and soaring.

What was shocking was that beneath that Phoenix was actually a seven-tailed spiritual fox. Between the two, they were showing signs of merging together.

He didn’t dare to send his consciousness too close, as when the Phoenix tried to gather up lightning energy around it, there would be a slight glow.

“Seven-tail Sky Fox and Cloud Desolate Lightning Phoenix, illusion and lightning merging as one?”

Zong Shou gave out a bitter smile; the power of these two natures didn’t have any areas which were similar to one another.

He observed his entire soul ocean, which was tens of times bigger than a few days ago, starting to take shape. That whirlpool was even larger.

The hidden problems which didn’t appear before had finally shown themselves.

For some reason his soul was riddled with thousands of holes, only a thin layer protecting around it.

His current state was like a stitched-up balloon. The spiritual energy could swell up, but once it reached a certain level, it would start to leak all around.

There was also his own bloodline, the core of the soul ocean. Apart from the seven-tail Sky Fox, there was some bloodline mark. The bloodline had signs of merging with the mark of the Lightning Phoenix, and showed no signs of losing out.

“This human bloodline seems to be different on the surface and within…”

Zong Shou believed that this was one of the reasons that Lingyun Long Ruo had given up on him. His soul had an inborn risk of collapsing.

It was good if people like him didn’t cultivate. If they started cultivating, and their Spirit Cultivation stopped and didn’t improve, he would die in a short amount of time.

However…”A freak combination of factors; a Heaven Energy Swallowing Conversion Technique, and a Lightning Phoenix egg has already totally solved my problem. Should I say that this is luck, or that even the heavens want me to walk the path of a spirit master first?”