Chapter 4294 — The Spirit Beast Clan's Upheaval
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"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.