Chapter 4859 — Endless Benefits

"Looking back over the whole history of flying spirit beasts, only the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King was truly their royal line. But when the King of Spirit Beasts first appeared on the scene, the Ghost-Eyed Eagle Kings did not choose to submit right away, and so they were all but wiped out. They were never fully exterminated in the end, but every Ghost-Eyed Eagle King of any real strength was killed or wounded, leaving only the old, the weak, the sick, and the crippled," Ghost Thing said with a sigh in his voice.

"And now?" Wei Zhao could not help asking.

"Now? The Ghost-Eyed Eagle King clan has declined completely. Search the whole spirit beast race and you would be hard pressed to find even a few with pure bloodlines. The Ghost-Eyed Eagle Kings you can see today are mostly crosses between those old, weak remnants and Ghost-Eyed Golden Eagles. Their strength is nothing like the Ghost-Eyed Eagle Kings of old who could dominate a whole region," Ghost Thing said with a curl of his lip.

"If that is so, doesn't the value of these Ghost-Eyed Eagle King wings drop by a huge margin too?" Wei Zhao could not help feeling it was a pity.

"Obviously. A pure-blooded adult Ghost-Eyed Eagle King would be at least at the Land-Opening stage, maybe even stronger—strong enough to contend for one of the four Great Elders' seats. You think just anyone could get their hands on its wings?" Ghost Thing was instantly amused by Wei Zhao's wild fantasy.

"That strong?" Wei Zhao was startled. If they were truly existences of that caliber, then forget three hundred thousand spirit jade—even thirty million might not buy a single pair of these wings.

"These impure-blooded ones today are far inferior, of course. But even so, they are still one of the few royal clans among the spirit beasts—royal at least in the past—and they are extremely rare. To let you pick up a bargain like this at an auction—your luck, kid, is beyond words," Ghost Thing could not help marveling.

"That's because nobody here knows what it's worth. Senior, hurry up and tell me—what exactly are these wings good for?" Wei Zhao asked, unable to wait any longer. That whole introduction had thoroughly roused his curiosity. Since the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King had such a formidable pedigree, then what these wings could do was surely worth looking forward to.

"By the rules of the spirit beast race, I actually am not supposed to tell a human this," Ghost Thing said after a pause.

"Why not?" Wei Zhao was taken aback.

"The reason is simple. The royal clans of the spirit beast race can be counted on one hand—only a few of them. They are not like the King of Spirit Beasts, who commands all spirit beasts, but each of them rules its own domain. In your human terms, they are kings of other surnames. Out of a duty to protect them, any information that might harm them is top secret. Especially information like this, which concerns their very survival—if word got out, human cultivators would probably start hunting Ghost-Eyed Eagle Kings en masse," Ghost Thing said gravely.

"That makes sense." Wei Zhao agreed wholeheartedly. Right now no one knew what the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King wings were good for; everyone assumed they were only ornaments and could not be bothered to hunt them specifically, killing a few by chance at most. But once people learned these things were highly useful, the situation would be entirely different.

Never mind that the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King clan had long since declined—even in their prime, against endless waves of human experts they could only await their deaths. Unless they fled to the great stronghold in the Southern Continent and never came out, they would be exterminated in the blink of an eye.

"These royal clans are the backbone of every branch of the spirit beast race. If anything happens to them, the spirit beast race is bound to suffer a grave blow, so this is top secret." Ghost Thing paused, then his tone suddenly shifted. "That said, the Ghost-Eyed Eagle Kings are at best a pseudo-royal clan. All flying spirit beasts now follow the Vermilion Bird's lead. Whether they are wiped out or not hardly matters—the Vermilion Bird might even be pleased about it."

Wei Zhao was speechless. After that whole speech, he had thought Ghost Thing would guard the secret on principle. Apparently, in the end, he was still ready to sell the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King clan out. His integrity lay in shambles on the floor.

"We advance and retreat together; you, kid, hardly count as an outsider. There is no harm in telling you this, as long as you don't go around spreading it. Otherwise it would look as though I sold out the Ghost-Eyed Eagle Kings, and I might feel guilty," Ghost Thing went on.

If you really felt guilty, you wouldn't have rambled on this long! Wei Zhao was caught between laughter and tears, and could only say, "I have always been tight-lipped, Senior, you know that. Just tell me already."

"Heh heh. Do you want to be a birdman?" Ghost Thing asked instead of answering.

"A birdman? What does that mean?" Wei Zhao was stunned again. He glanced at the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King wings in his hand and then it hit him. "Senior, you can't mean for me to strap these things on my back? That would look way too flashy. But—can it fly?"

At the thought, Wei Zhao's heart burned. Flight was a dream shared by all humanity, and a fantasy almost impossible to attain. Even with his current formidable strength at the late Nascent Soul stage, Wei Zhao could only dream of it—at best he could use true qi propulsion to glide a short distance, and that did not count as flying at all. It was simply throwing himself forward, nothing more.

"Of course not." Ghost Thing's answer chilled Wei Zhao's heart, but the very next moment his eyes lit up again. "But it can raise your speed by a huge margin."

"Really?" Wei Zhao's spirits soared. Ever since he had developed the Super Butterfly Microstep and the Super Limit Butterfly Microstep, he had been quite satisfied with his speed, but last time he had been chased the whole way by a Western Mountain expert, and that had given him a fresh sense of crisis.

That Western Mountain expert was only at the late Mystic Ascension stage, and Wei Zhao still could not shake him off. If he ran into a Land-Opening stage titan like those of the old Western Mountain sect, would he not be crushed to death in an instant, just as before? What difference would that make?

Wei Zhao was fast to begin with. If he could become even faster, then perhaps he really could preserve his life with ease even against a Land-Opening stage titan. That would truly be heaven-defying speed!

Wei Zhao immediately could not wait to put on the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King wings, but after he strapped them on, they had not the slightest effect. Instead, the added drag slowed him down considerably. What kind of rip-off was this?

Ghost Thing watched the spectacle with great interest for quite a while. Only when Wei Zhao realized something was wrong did he finally speak up in a drawn-out voice: "Who ever told you these things work just by strapping them on? If it were that simple, everyone would know, and what kind of secret would it be then?"

"Uh…" Wei Zhao flushed red on the spot.

"You have to get an artificer to help with this. The Ghost-Eyed Eagle King wings cannot increase speed by themselves, but once they are forged into Ghostspeed Wings, they will transform your speed beyond recognition!" Ghost Thing explained, then added, "You should know that the Ghost-Eyed Eagle King's speed is the very pinnacle among all flying spirit beasts. Ghostspeed is one of their racial talents. Even these impure-blooded ones today have retained this most basic racial gift. As long as it can be successfully drawn out, you will benefit endlessly."