Five years passed.
Time within the Daoist Dojo seemed never to have flowed away.
Only the changes beneath the mountain and in the Immortal City to the north allowed one to sense the little shifts wrought by passing years.
At the foot of the mountain.
White Crane Boy was engaged in his grand Spirit Field enterprise.
After taking over this great undertaking from Lu Qing, White Crane Boy had managed the Spirit Fields with such vigor that they flourished spectacularly.
They brimmed with life.
"Ah, Boss is really too diligent."
Mountain Tiger's body was robust, and he had put on quite a bit of flesh.
Lying sprawled across a reclining stone, he watched the boy's figure fly through the heavens, lazily rolled over, and spoke.
These past years of cultivation here had been precisely the cultivation life Mountain Tiger had dreamed of.
He thought of how miserably he had once fought a great crowd of Spirit Beasts for the essence of sun and moon, only to snatch and scramble for a few drops in the end.
But now, things were different. There were Spirit Fruits every day, Spirit Water day after day, and condensed essence dew without fail.
Such a fine life—fortunately, he had not chosen to bash his head against the wall back then.
Looking at the other Spirit Beast farming companions nearby, who had steadily expanded their operations and worked with painstaking diligence, Mountain Tiger opened his eyes, lazily arched his back, then rose to his feet and let out a roar.
The tiger's roar shook the forest.
At once, a water dragon abruptly rose from the center of the enormous crescent-shaped Spirit Lake beside them. It burst from the surface, coiled through the air, and soon a drizzling rain from the Spirit Lake watered those Spirit Fields.