Chapter 4294 — The Spirit Beast Clan's Upheaval

"Indeed. And at the heart of our spirit beast clan's sacred ground, there is a formation specially designed to unearth one's racial talent. So long as one's foundation runs deep enough, one's strength can be raised swiftly. Both of ours had been stuck at a bottleneck for many years back in the mortal world—our foundations were more than sufficient. After the formation's stimulation, a complete transformation of strength in so short a time is only natural. But that formation can be used only once per spirit beast; after that, it has no further effect." The Great Fire Lion nodded in agreement from the side.

"So that's how it is." Wei Zhao nodded in sudden understanding. Human cultivators relied chiefly on acquired cultivation, while the spirit beast clan relied chiefly on racial talent—each approach had its own strengths and weaknesses.

Among human cultivators, even if there were slight disparities in talent between one and another, such gaps were never truly insurmountable. With diligent cultivation and sufficient fortuitous encounters, anything was ultimately possible, no matter what heights one reached.

The spirit beast clan, by contrast—racial talent did not decide everything, but it decided at least eighty percent of one's strength. However hard a poorly talented beast might strive, there would never be such a thing as a racial counterattack.

Take the Great Fire Lion and the Great Spider: to have reached the late Nascent Soul stage, their racial talents must already rank as quite outstanding. That was why, after the formation's stimulation, their strength had risen so swiftly—such was the advantage their racial talent conferred.

"Still, though racial talent may determine strength, daily cultivation remains indispensable to us. Otherwise, to lose to another would be far too galling." The Great Fire Lion chuckled with a grin, and cast a provoking glance at the Great Spider. The meaning was plain enough: ever since their days in the mortal world, the two had been sworn rivals, neither willing to yield to the other.

"Whoever's galling, whoever knows." The Great Spider gave a snort, then turned its head and went on speaking to Wei Zhao: "We two are newcomers—no territory of our own, no cultivation resources of our own. So our only choice is to go out and take missions to earn cultivation resources."

"So the two of you came to these ruins to carry out a mission?" Wei Zhao asked curiously.

"That's right. This time we were dispatched by the king of the spirit beast clan to guard these city ruins. Our mission is to intercept the star-ink milk that you human cultivators gather. The stuff's of little use to us spirit beasts, but to you human cultivators it's a priceless treasure beyond finding. So at regular intervals, spirit beast stewards come by to collect the star-ink milk we've intercepted and carry it off to the Eastern Continent in exchange for cultivation resources and spirit jade—and we take a share of those cultivation resources as our mission reward." The Great Spider nodded.

"Heh heh, and beyond the mission reward, we earn a little extra on the side doing this work." The Great Fire Lion winked and grimaced from the side with a grin.

Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao could not help but smile at that. The Great Fire Lion's so-called extra income was nothing other than that scene from moments ago. Star-ink milk's reputation preceded it, and there were always human cultivators eager to enter the ruins in search of treasure; the outcome went without saying—they were stripped clean by these two, naturally.

The Moon-Shadow Formation permitted entry but not exit; the only way out of the ruins was the teleportation formation. With the Great Fire Lion and the Great Spider standing guard here, no human cultivator who came in could dream of slipping past.

Especially since the two of them were mighty late Nascent Soul existences. The human experts that star-ink milk could draw hither were at most Nascent Soul experts, and basically no match for the pair; to save their lives they could only tamely submit, as Chang Daoping had done. Cultivation resources and spirit jade dropped right into their hands—this side income was, all things considered, earned easily and merrily enough.

"Oh, then why..." Wei Zhao was about to press on and ask why they did not gather the star-ink milk themselves instead of waiting for human cultivators to deliver it to their door—when suddenly a startled, doubtful voice sounded in his mind: "The spirit beast king? They've found the spirit beast king? Or have they set up some other spirit beast as king?"

At those words Wei Zhao's heart gave a violent lurch, and only then did he finally realize that he had nearly let slip such a crucial piece of information. This was an event that could reshape the entire configuration of Cloud-Tier Island.

"I heard that the spirit beast king of your spirit beast clan went missing many years ago—so how does a spirit beast king suddenly appear now?" Wei Zhao asked hastily. This was precisely what the ghost thing most urgently wished to know at this moment.

"The original spirit beast king did indeed go missing. However, among the four guardian elders of our spirit beast clan, the Vermilion Bird Elder found the bloodline the spirit beast king left behind, and so a new king was installed." The Great Spider answered truthfully: "But this king is still too young and does not yet understand the ways of the spirit beast clan, so the Vermilion Bird Elder now serves as regent elder—half teacher, half subject to the king—and her standing is at its zenith. In truth, every matter great and small in the spirit beast clan today is carried out under the Vermilion Bird Elder's authority."

"What? Isn't this plainly holding the emperor hostage to command the lords?" Hearing this, the ghost thing—despite being nothing but a primordial spirit—made his agitation so plain that Wei Zhao could clearly sense his disordered aura. "Where did they find the king's remnant bloodline? Of the whole spirit beast clan, I was the only one who truly set out for the mortal world—that bastard Vermilion Bird never went at all!"

Wei Zhao listened in secret alarm. This was nothing but a palace drama of the mortal world—who would have thought it would be reenacted among the spirit beast clan? Though only a few words had been spoken, the oddity shining through them was plain enough even to an outsider like himself.

"Could it be they just grabbed some puppet at random and, under the regent elder's name, seized the throne for itself? Yes, that must be it—such treasonous villainy is exactly what a reckless bastard like Vermilion Bird would dare to do!" The ghost thing was beside itself with fury, so enraged he wished he could leap out on the spot and go settle accounts with Vermilion Bird.

"Benefactor, what's wrong?" The Great Fire Lion and the Great Spider exchanged looks of blank astonishment. At this moment, an eerie, surging, immense aura radiated from Wei Zhao—so overwhelming that even two late Nascent Soul existences could not help but feel an impulse to submit. It was simply inconceivable.

Little did they know it was all the ghost thing's aura. Though the two of them were mighty in strength now, compared with the ghost thing, once a top-ranking elder of the spirit beast clan, their level was still far beneath it—after all, if the ghost thing could recover, its strength would by no means be inferior to that of the present regent elder, Vermilion Bird! (The recent chapters have been pretty good, eh? A little whisper: the next The Blossom Guardian is about to appear, awoo! Summoning monthly votes from mobile readers, heh heh~) (To be continued) R655