The Green Fox Cub

After killing the Green Fox, Liu Changxu cautiously approached its cave.

When he reached the entrance and peered inside, he discovered that although the opening was narrow enough to admit only one person, the cave wound deep into the mountain.

With a shield in one hand and a sword in the other, Liu Changxu entered the cave. After walking roughly a hundred meters, he found a palm-sized Green Fox cub lying on dry grass at the far end. Its eyes were already open, and it studied Liu Changxu curiously.

Understanding dawned on Liu Changxu. No wonder the Green Fox had been so weak! It had only recently given birth and was still recovering. That was why he had killed it so easily.

The sight of the Green Fox cub lifted Liu Changxu's spirits immensely!

He particularly envied the members of his Lineage who owned spirit beasts. His father, Liu Shihao, for instance, had a high-grade tier-one Silver-Eared Macaque.

His father treated the Silver-Eared Macaque like his own brother! It had accompanied him as he grew and was his most faithful companion on the path of cultivation, helping him survive dangerous ordeals on numerous occasions.

Liu Shihao required his wives, concubines, and children to treat it as family! When Liu Changxu was little, it had even helped him escape a fatal attack by a demonic beast! That incident had planted the desire in Liu Changxu to raise a spirit beast of his own someday.

For a demonic beast to acknowledge a master, it had to accept a cultivator imprinting a soul mark onto its soul, using blood as the medium. This would bring it closer to its master in spirit and allow them to communicate through their souls.

However, most adult demonic beasts were wild, difficult to tame, and possessed a strong will of their own, making them reluctant to accept cultivators as masters. Only young beasts or beast eggs could easily acknowledge a master.

The Green Fox cub Liu Changxu had found was newly born, making this the ideal time to bind it to him.

Delighted, Liu Changxu gathered the Green Fox cub into his arms and took a jade spirit peach from his storage bag. The cub quickly ate the peach.

After eating the spirit peach, the cub soon warmed to Liu Changxu, who named it Xiao Qing.

Liu Changxu set up a simple soul-binding formation on a patch of level ground.

Liu Changxu activated the formation and placed Xiao Qing upon it, then slit his wrist with his magic sword and dripped a few drops of blood essence onto Xiao Qing's forehead. Silently reciting an incantation and forming hand seals, he sent a thread of his soul through the blood essence into Xiao Qing's sea of consciousness, imprinting it onto the cub's soul.

Soon afterward, Liu Changxu received Xiao Qing's call within his soul. He told the cub that its name was Xiao Qing, and it accepted the name.

Xiao Qing contacted Liu Changxu through their soul bond. "Hungry! Hungry!"

Liu Changxu took a spirit rice cake from his storage bag and fed it to Xiao Qing. The cub quickly ate the cake and finally fell asleep, satisfied.

Besides Xiao Qing, Liu Changxu also discovered many demonic beast and human bones in the cave. Among them, he found two storage bags, which he suspected had belonged to low-level cultivators killed by the Green Fox.

Upon opening the storage bags, he found a total of seventy low-grade spirit stones of various attributes, two mid-grade yellow-rank cultivation methods—the Azure Water Art and the Thick Earth Method—one Middle-Grade First-Tier talisman brush, one manual on talisman crafting, one illustrated catalog of spirit plants, one Lower-Grade First-Tier magic artifact, the Dark Iron Sword, and one comprehensive collection of Qi Refining spells. The haul was not particularly large.

After searching further and finding no more valuable spiritual items, Liu Changxu left the cave with Xiao Qing in his arms.

He walked over to the spirit tea tree, picked its tender leaves, and packed them into a jade box, intending to make his own spirit tea once he returned.

Finally, he carefully dug up the spirit tea tree along with the surrounding spirit soil and placed it in a jade pot specially designed for transplanting spirit trees, intending to bring it back to the Lineage.

By then, it was nearly dark. Liu Changxu ended his Demon Hunting for the day and prepared to meet up with his fellow Lineage members to make camp.

The mountain forests were extremely dangerous at night, when many ferocious demonic beasts emerged to hunt. Since Demon Hunting at night put cultivators at a disadvantage, the Lineage's Demon Hunting Team would camp together for safety, making it easier to respond to unexpected situations!

After communicating with Seventh Grandfather Liu Baichuan through a Voice Transmission Talisman, Liu Changxu soon found the Lineage's Demon Hunting Team campsite.

The campsite had been set up halfway up a small mountain, protected by a high-grade tier-one Small Five Elements Maze Formation.

After arriving at the campsite and greeting Seventh Grandfather Liu Baichuan and the other Lineage cultivators, Liu Changxu briefly described the day's gains to Liu Baichuan.

Everyone also noticed Xiao Qing nestled in Liu Changxu's arms and was deeply envious of his good fortune!

Green Foxes were famously adept at finding natural spiritual treasures. With Xiao Qing, Liu Changxu's ability to locate such treasures would improve considerably.

Liu Changxu also asked whether anyone had a spare Spirit Beast Bag they could sell him. After all, he could hardly keep carrying Xiao Qing in his arms forever!

At that moment, Ninth Uncle Liu Shijia took out a Spirit Beast Bag and said, "This is the Spirit Beast Bag my former spirit beast, a Diamond Ape, used. During a battle with an evil cultivator, the Diamond Ape covered my escape and died at that cultivator's hands. I no longer have a spirit beast, so I'll sell this bag to you! Just give me three hundred low-grade spirit stones."

"Of course!" Liu Changxu replied happily.

As he spoke, he accepted the Spirit Beast Bag from his ninth uncle, then took three hundred spirit stones from his storage bag and handed them to Liu Shijia.

Once the Spirit Beast Bag was in his hands, Liu Changxu refined it with his spiritual sense and placed Xiao Qing inside.

After all the cultivators in the Demon Hunting Team had arrived, Liu Baichuan called everyone together for a brief meeting. He mainly outlined arrangements for that night's watch and the next day's Demon Hunting, while reiterating several precautions.

He stressed again that the farther they traveled from the Lineage, the more demonic beasts they would encounter while Demon Hunting, and the stronger and more dangerous those beasts would become. They therefore needed to exercise greater caution and avoid straying too far from their fellow Lineage members, lest help arrive too late if they encountered a powerful beast.

Finally, Liu Baichuan made specific assignments for the Lineage cultivators standing watch that night.

He divided the eight members of the Demon Hunting Team into two groups of four. Liu Changxu was assigned to the first half of the night.

After the meeting, Liu Changxu found an empty patch of ground in the campsite to serve as his resting place for the night. He released Xiao Qing from the Spirit Beast Bag and fed it a piece of Demon Serpent meat.

Liu Changxu was extremely pleased with the day's gains! To celebrate, he decided to roast some Demon Serpent meat from the one he had killed and treat himself!

He took a spiritwood table and chairs, jade plates, a grill, and numerous other utensils for his evening meal out of his storage bag!

Then he placed some spirit peach charcoal beneath the grill and formed a hand seal. A red flame appeared out of thin air, fell onto the charcoal, and immediately set it ablaze!

He took a large piece of demonic snake meat from his storage bag and sliced it thinly with a low-grade tier-one magic kitchen knife. He laid the slices on a spirit iron roasting tray, sprinkled them with salt and spiritual seasonings, and set the tray on the grill.

Before long, the aroma of roasting meat wafted into the air.