Everything Went Black

"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"

The White Rat Spirit trembled beneath Elder Black Bear's terrifying demonic power.

Hearing its cries, the Pineleaf Squirrel felt that it must be a distant relative and immediately found it terribly pitiful.

So it found a long, cooling bamboo leaf and tied it over its eyes as a blindfold. If it couldn't see the rat, it wouldn't feel sorry for it.

Over the past few days, the Pineleaf Squirrel had taken to cooling its eyes with bamboo leaves soaked in blue Spirit Bamboo water after using its eye technique. It felt much more comfortable that way.

"Eat it!" Elder Black Bear tossed the White Rat Spirit in front of the Purple Fire Dragon Fruit.

"If it turns out to be something good, you'll even come out ahead!"

"If you don't die after eating it, I'll let you go back to the mountain."

At a glance, the White Rat Spirit clearly wasn't a disciple of the Beast Taming Sect. Like the Demon Beasts on Fierce Tiger Peak, it had been deliberately captured by the sect and released on one of its peaks for disciples to hone their skills against.

But now... before it had even encountered a disciple, the Black Bear Monster had captured it to use as a lab rat.

"Whimper!" Utter despair on its face, the White Rat Spirit began gnawing on the Purple Fire Dragon Fruit, not daring to disobey. But after two bites, it discovered, to its surprise, that the thing was actually quite tasty. It didn't seem like poison.

It... might not have to die after all!

It ate faster and faster, and before long, the entire Mutant Dragonbone Flower was in its stomach.

Elder Black Bear and Lin Jing... watched the little white rat closely.

Once it finished eating, however, the White Rat Spirit suddenly felt a surge of scorching heat through its body.

The next instant...

Boom!

A terrifying aura suddenly rose from the little white rat, shooting straight into the clouds!

Purple demonic power rapidly streamed out around its body. The solidified power took shape in an instant, forming the skeleton of a terrifying dragonlike creature.

"Roar!!!"

The Bone Dragon's frame was immense. Its bony scales gleamed with a deep, mysterious red light, like the most dazzling strange star in the dark of night. Its head was held high, its eyes like two balls of burning purple flame, radiating an inviolable majesty.

Its claws were sharp as swords, glinting coldly as they slowly reached toward Elder Black Bear.

"What the hell is that?!" The little white rat's transformation gave Elder Black Bear a tremendous fright. Everything went black before its eyes, and every hair on its body stood on end. Faced with this terrifying dragonlike creature, it actually felt a trace of fear.

The purple Bone Dragon turned its enormous eyes toward Elder Black Bear. Elder Black Bear stepped back, sweating profusely as though facing a formidable enemy.

It panted heavily, but suddenly came to its senses. With a curse, it reached out a bear paw and prodded the Demon Dragon. Sure enough, it was only an illusion. Its supposed pressure was like water without a source, a tree without roots-utterly false.

The purple Dragonbone Flower's effect was actually to make whoever ate it appear to transform into a powerful Demon Beast, frightening others.

"Damn it, what kind of bizarre effects are you two synthesizing?!" Elder Black Bear flew into a rage out of humiliation, feeling deeply embarrassed that a little white rat had frightened it.

Had it known, it would have eaten the flower itself.

Between the previous incident and this one, Elder Black Bear felt that every scrap of its dignity had been lost in front of this Longevity Body and little squirrel.

It slapped the purple Bone Dragon, and the illusion immediately vanished, leaving only a little white rat trembling on the ground.

The little white rat's mouth was also smeared with purplish-red fruit juice, making it look quite bloody...

Lin Jing and the Pineleaf Squirrel, which had removed its bamboo leaf, both hesitated to speak. In the end, for the sake of the Storage Bag, they said nothing.

"Did it taste good?" After a moment's hesitation, Elder Black Bear asked the little white rat.

The Rat Demon nodded shakily and licked its mouth.

"All right, you can go." It blew out a gust of black wind, immediately sweeping the little white rat toward a mountain peak.

"Looks like there aren't any side effects." Acting as though nothing had happened, Elder Black Bear said, "Judging by what just happened, it'll probably be able to synthesize Dragonbone Flowers at the Qi Refining Seventh Layer-that is, late-stage Qi Refining. But I can't wait that long. I'll lend you the Daoist robe for a few days. Help me finish synthesizing the Dragonbone Flower then."

"Elder Black Bear..."

"What is it?"

"Ahem... could you give us some Dragonbone Flower seeds?" Lin Jing said. "I've found that the Mutant Dragonbone Flower's effect seems to have its merits too. Perhaps it could become one of our trump cards when we travel through the Cultivation World in the future."

An illusion capable of frightening a Demon Beast at the Demon Core Stage ought to be extremely useful out in the world!

"Got it." Elder Black Bear curled its lip, though inwardly it was equally astonished by the purple Dragonbone Flower's wondrous effect. If it hadn't known the whole story and witnessed the little white rat's transformation itself, it would certainly have been frightened off upon encountering it elsewhere.

Damn that illusion!

Just then.

A rainbow streak flashed across the sky.

A Blue-Robed Elder descended into the courtyard. It was Elder Yu.

He surveyed the entire courtyard in bewilderment before his gaze finally settled on the Black Bear Monster, Lin Jing, and the Pineleaf Squirrel.

"I just sensed a terrifying aura that vanished as swiftly as a night-blooming flower. It seemed as though a Nascent Soul demon king had appeared..."

"Black Bear, what are you doing here? Were you responsible for that commotion?"

Elder Black Bear didn't want to elaborate. "Let's say I was. I came to visit an outstanding disciple of the sect. Now that I've seen him, there's nothing else to do."

With that, it gave Lin Jing and the squirrel one final, meaningful look.

It seemed to say, I'll come back for you once I find a Storage Bag.

Or perhaps, If you dare tell anyone what just happened, you're finished.

Elder Black Bear didn't linger and left straightaway. Elder Yu looked toward Lin Jing and the others without pursuing the matter, his attention soon drawn to the Mechanism Construct in the courtyard.

"Hmm?"

The unfinished Mechanical Tortoises didn't catch his attention, since they were still only half-completed. Instead, a peculiar long-barreled mechanism drew his gaze.

As a Mechanist, he could naturally tell that, among the Mechanism Constructs scattered across the ground, this was the only one that could be considered provisionally complete.

"You've been quite efficient."

Elder Yu once again marveled at Lin Jing's ability to learn. So little time had passed, yet he had already completed a simple Mechanism Construct. He really had been studying diligently.

"What's this?" He picked up the Mechanism Bamboo Gun Lin Jing had made.

Without thinking, he aimed the Mechanism Bamboo Gun at the sky and pulled its trigger.

"Elder Yu, don't!" At the sight, everything went black before Lin Jing's eyes.

"Squeak!!!" Everything went black before the Pineleaf Squirrel's eyes as well-

The next moment.

The Mechanism Bamboo Gun sprang into operation. The Spirit Beans Bombs in its magazine were primed to fire, then swept out, wrapped in high-speed streams of water!

Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft!!!

Intermittent jets of blue water carried Spirit Beans Bombs straight into the air.

"Water arrows? No, there aren't any Water-Type Array Patterns inscribed inside. There seems to be something else in the water..." Elder Yu hadn't even finished speaking.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!

The Spirit Beans in midair exploded one after another. The rumbling chain of explosions set off powerful fluctuations of spiritual energy, its thunder echoing across the sky. It also whipped up fierce winds no weaker than a Wind-Attribute Spell, instantly uprooting trees within a certain radius of Lin Jing's courtyard and leaving the roadside in utter disarray.

"..."

As several leaves slapped Elder Yu in the face, he looked at the ruin-like surroundings and felt as though the Mechanism Bamboo Gun were burning his hands. Everything went black before his eyes as well... Are you two mighty immortals planning to take this thing into battle against Foundation Establishment Demon Beasts?