Beast Taming Sect

Biodata

Background / History

Foundation and Reform

The first Sect Master possessed a mortal physique but obtained a Beast Taming Cultivation Art originating from the Immortal Palace. Its contracts allowed him to control a beast’s life or death with a thought. By enslaving powerful demon beasts, he reached Spirit Transformation and brought the sect to its historical height, but ultimately died from spirit beast backlash 12.

The second Sect Master rejected compulsory enslavement. He encouraged disciples to grow alongside young beasts and regard them as fellow cultivators, brothers, and sisters. Even wild demon beasts had to genuinely accept their tamers rather than be forced into service. This reform remained a governing rule under later generations 12.

Guardians and Inherited Arts

Before his death, the second Sect Master reached an agreement with a nonhuman friend: the deity would protect the sect for ten thousand years and intervene during crises, while receiving Heavenly Capital Peak as a cultivation residence. This was not a beast-taming contract. The deity also brought the Pineleaf Squirrel clan into the sect and improved its bloodline after being moved by an ancestor’s determination to seek the Dao 42.

During the same Sect Master’s tenure, a Buddhist guest elder of the Demon-Slaying Bureau helped four regional cultivators seal a difficult-to-kill treasure beast beneath the Great Wilderness. The second Sect Master participated, and the Beast Taming Sect became responsible for one of the four connected Demon-Suppressing Pagodas. His friendship with the Buddhist cultivator also inspired the production of beast-taming spatial treasures shaped like Buddhist implements 47.

The third Sect Master improved and reinvented the original cultivation art, creating the three True Disciple secret arts, ten core enhancement arts, and most of the sect’s ordinary beast-taming spells 44 45.

Current Leadership

The current leader is the fifth Sect Master. He studied at Hidden Dragon Academy and served for ten years as a city lord in the Great Wilderness Region. He also became cultivation partners with a woman of the Skyfeather Crane Clan, taking the sect’s ideal of close human–beast bonds into family life 12 39.

Organization and Membership

Disciple Ranks

Recruitment and Preferential Training

• Mutual selection: A disciple must earn a prospective pet beast’s approval; choosing a beast is not a unilateral assignment 4.
• Starter-beast standard: Available beasts generally must reach Qi Refining third layer within a year of birth and understand human speech. The sect awakens their intelligence and supplies monthly Spirit Stones 4.
• Special constitutions: Specially recruited disciples may receive resources one rank above their formal standing, but still have to earn promotion through missions and contributions 3.
• Elder Mo’s recruitment program: Mo Wuyou obtained funding to seek disciples with special cultivation physiques, hoping their bloodline contracts would cause beast mutations. Lin Jing and the Pineleaf Squirrel became his first successful case after six earlier recruits failed to produce a mutated pet 18.
• Multiple beasts: Disciples may keep as many pet beasts as they can afford, even before developing another drop of blood for a formal contract 44.

Inner Gate Examination

• Eligibility: Either the disciple or their pet beast must be at Qi Refining seventh layer or higher 29.
• Survival Trial: Candidates spend three days on the outskirts of the Great Wilderness 29.
• Scoring: Hunting stronger demon beasts earns more points; eliminating rival candidates earns more than hunting; winning a wild beast’s willing allegiance earns the most 29.
• Selection: The top eight proceed to a talent assessment at their chosen inner peak 29.
• Rescue rule: Intervention by an elder to save a candidate risks elimination 30.

Demon Hunting Hall

• Purpose: Trains disciples through dangerous experience in the Wilds and Wasteland rather than relying solely on sheltered sect life 25 29.
• Leadership: Elder Li Hai advocates character development and practical hardship, criticizing excessive pampering of talented recruits 29.
• Internal tension: Returning Hall disciples display a harsher attitude than ordinary outer disciples. One severely injures He Yiming in an arena match, where serious harm is normally rare 24 25.

Power and Standing

• Nascent Soul leadership: The fifth Sect Master is the sect’s only human Nascent Soul cultivator. Its other Nascent Soul ancestors are long-lived pet beasts of the third and fourth Sect Masters 42.
• Independent guardian: The deity on Heavenly Capital Peak has never signed a beast-taming contract with a Nascent Soul cultivator. It remains secluded and, as of Ouyang Hao’s account, has never needed to act against a grave sect crisis 42.
• Limited national standing: Despite being a leading regional sect, it lacks some Foundation Establishment methods available at Hidden Dragon Academy, particularly methods that develop special acquired physiques 7 39.
• Reliance on beasts: Beast taming true qi excels at nurturing companions rather than direct combat. Beast tamers themselves are generally weaker fighters than comparable sword or body cultivators 35.
• Bloodline vulnerability: The Snowfield cultivator’s Myriad Beasts Body suppresses several disciples’ companions through its aura, reducing their fighting strength before combat begins 32.

Territory and Facilities

The sect occupies dozens of mist-shrouded peaks in the southern Great Wilderness. Outer and servant disciples live and work near the mountains’ feet, while inner disciples join specialized peaks 3 5 25.

• Training mountains: Several peaks confine vicious wild beasts and man-eating demon beasts for disciple practice 11.
• Transport: Horned Oxen move supplies between peaks, while Heavenly Feather Cranes carry passengers and deliveries by air 3 5 11.
• Inner-peak landmarks: Nine Dragons Waterfall and Purple Cloud Spring are among the sights Ouyang Hao shows Lin Jing 42.

Bonded Beasts

Five Basic Spirit Beasts

All five starter species possess spirit-level bloodlines and are suitable for Qi Refinement cultivators. They are selected for their strong chances of reaching Foundation Establishment, though forming a demon core is far less certain 3 41.

Other Beasts

• Heavenly Feather Cranes: Wind-element spirit beasts with exceptional status because the Sect Master has contracted one 11.
• Spirit and demon beasts: The sect raises both categories rather than limiting itself to gentle or herbivorous companions 3.
• Treasure beasts: Ordinary beasts can mutate through strange starlight or, with a small chance, through contracts with cultivators possessing special physiques 3 6.
• True dragons: The sect has none at the time of the Rising Dragon Festival; its contest uses a mechanical substitute 15.

Abilities and Cultivation Arts

Beast Taming Art

• Converts absorbed spiritual energy into beast taming true qi, which nourishes the cultivator and is especially effective at strengthening a pet’s root bones and bloodline 5 19.
• At Qi Refining first layer, produces special blood used to form a bloodline contract through the beast’s forehead 5.
• A contract links the pair’s minds and feeds a portion of the beast’s cultivation gains back to its tamer 2 5.
• At Qi Refining seventh layer, enables transfers of true qi, spiritual power, or demonic power between partners 5.
• The introductory version supports cultivation through Foundation Establishment; outer and inner disciples learn a stripped-down foundation rather than the complete inherited art 5 22.

Nurturing Spells

• Outer disciples commonly choose arts that nourish a companion’s mind, bloodline, root bones, or spiritual energy 7.
• Spirit-Nurturing Art relieves mental fatigue; Qi-Nurturing Art supports a pet’s qi 7 35.
• Ordinary human spells are often unsuitable for spirit beasts, which generally depend on racial abilities. More valuable beast-compatible spells are kept in the inner sect 7.

Wild-Beast Taming and Submission Art

• The sect prioritizes taming a wild demon beast over killing it when it has not harmed anyone, often allowing promising disciples to attempt the task 12.
• Ouyang Hao teaches that a tamer must first be stronger than the target, then defeat it in its own specialty while demonstrating common ground 13.
• His Submission Art, amplified by his primordial yang body, overwhelms the Tiger Demon through a superior roar and tiger-like presence 13.

Ten Core Beast-Taming Secret Arts

• Enhancement arts correspond to metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, ice, yin, and yang beasts 44.
• Inner disciples can apply to study them at the Inner Gate Scripture Pavilion 44.
• Proper mastery can temporarily raise a pet beast’s cultivation by one minor realm during battle 44.
• Their effectiveness depends on the tamer’s own cultivation; Lin Jing initially considers them inefficient because he is much weaker than his squirrel 45.

Fusion Secret Art

• Fuses a contracted beast with its tamer into a half-demon-like state, greatly increasing combat power 44.
• Requires Foundation Establishment through the Beast Taming Art and a suitable cultivator physique 44.

Undying Reincarnation

• Revives a slain pet beast if its blood contract remains intact 44.
• Each revival reduces the tamer’s cultivation by one major realm and the beast’s cultivation by even more; both suffer severe damage to their vitality 44.
• Requires substantial mental and soul strength from the tamer 44.

Beast Transformation Treasure

• Uses the tamer’s magical power to transform a pet into a living magical treasure, such as armor or a sword 44.
• Places exceptionally high demands on magical power and requires extensive tempering of beast taming true qi 44.

Resources and Equipment

• Monthly allowances: Ordinary outer disciples receive one low-grade Spirit Stone per month; inner disciples receive ten. Additional resources must be earned through missions such as mining, farming, and kitchen work 5.
• Introductory supplies: Lin Jing receives a Beast Taming Art jade slip, Sect Handbook, outer disciple robes, token, Spirit Stones, and spirit rice 5.
• Life-bound beast-taming spatial treasures: House contracted living beasts, provide storage, and support cultivation more effectively than the Inner Peak. They recognize their owners through blood, resist forcible seizure, and can improve somewhat with the owner’s cultivation 46.
• Restricted distribution: These spatial treasures are normally available only to true disciples with Golden Core masters. Lin Jing receives exceptional early access after Elder Mo secures approval 44 46.
• Spatial-material shortage: The sect has bought nearly all spatial materials in the Great Wilderness Region for life-bound treasures. Ordinary storage equipment is consequently scarce and allocated according to need 26.
• Alchemy supplies: The Pill Tower offers formulas including Beast Power Pills, Spirit-Replenishing Pills, and Soul-Ensnaring Pills. Beast Power Pills temporarily grant physical might useful to otherwise frail tamers and pets 40.
• Mechanism Art: Elder Yu learned mechanical-beast construction during his travels. It remains an uncommon craft in the sect, which lacks advanced cultivation methods tailored to it 15 20.

Notable Members

• Fifth Sect Master — Current leader and only human Nascent Soul cultivator; a former Hidden Dragon Academy student and city lord 39 42.
• Mo Wuyou — Golden Core elder responsible for recruiting special-constitution disciples; hopes to make the sect renowned through future Heavenly Origin Grand Gatherings 2 18 48.
• Elder Black Bear — Demon core cultivator and Mo Wuyou’s contracted beast; rescues Lin Jing and later assists his development 2 3 25 26.
• Elder Yu — Mechanism Art specialist who builds the festival dragon, tutors Lin Jing, and helps administer the Inner Gate Examination 15 30 38.
• Li Hai — Elder associated with the Demon Hunting Hall; emphasizes character and harsh practical training 29 30.
• Elder Shen — Arranges Lin Jing’s cave abode and introductory alchemy instruction at Cinnabar Glow Peak 39.
• Ouyang Hao — Outstanding inner disciple with a primordial yang body; infiltrates the Corpse Yin Sect and earns the Sect Master’s attention through his bond with Hong’er 2 5 12.
• Lin Jing — Specially recruited longevity-body cultivator whose treasure-beast companion and Mechanism Art bring the sect unexpected prominence 18 33 37.
• Qin Caixin, Senior Brother Ziran, and He Yiming — Outer disciples who support Lin Jing against rival cultivators in Bodhi Grotto-Heaven 33.
• Heavenly Capital Peak guardian — Independent nonhuman protector bound by a ten-thousand-year agreement rather than a beast-taming contract 42.

External Relationships

• Heavenly Origin Ancient Kingdom — Officially recognizes the sect as a righteous cultivation school 2.
• Demon-Slaying Bureau — Handles the fraudulent temple connected to Lin Jing’s abduction and cooperates with Elder Mo’s investigation of the Corpse Yin Sect. A Buddhist guest elder historically helped establish the regional demon seals 2 11 47.
• Corpse Yin Sect — Hostile demonic sect; the Beast Taming Sect destroys its outpost and shelters Lin Jing after his longevity body is reported to higher-ranking enemies 2 11.
• Hidden Dragon Academy — Compatible with continued sect membership. Its recruitment of Lin Jing is supported by Elder Mo, who offers to arrange Nascent Soul protection for his journey 39.
• Other Great Wilderness first-rate sects — Share responsibility for the four Demon-Suppressing Pagodas, with each sect guarding one 47.
• Heavenly Sword Sect and Pill Cauldron Sect — Their disciples compete with Lin Jing in Bodhi Grotto-Heaven; news of his success subsequently reaches their elders 33 37.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Rescue and Recruitment

• Ouyang Hao ends his undercover operation early to save Lin Jing, calling in sect assistance to destroy the Corpse Yin Sect stronghold 2.
• Elder Mo admits Lin Jing as an outer disciple with inner-disciple resources and provides a talisman to conceal his constitution 3 5.
• Once the Corpse Yin Sect’s knowledge of the longevity body is confirmed, Lin Jing is instructed to remain within the sect and avoid outside missions 11.

Rising Dragon Festival

• The annual festival gives inner and outer disciples opportunities to demonstrate their abilities through a Dragon-Beast Contest against Elder Yu’s mechanical dragon 15.
• Lin Jing and the Pineleaf Squirrel destroy the dragon’s internal mechanisms with Red Flying Leaves, establishing him in the disciples’ eyes as the new outer sect number one 21 22.

Bodhi Grotto-Heaven

• Eight sect disciples enter the grotto-heaven; seven are swept in by coincidence rather than selected independently 37.
• After Lin Jing defeats the Snowfield cultivator, his fellow disciples unite behind him and their beasts create a sixteen-against-three standoff with the remaining rivals 33.
• Lin Jing and the Pineleaf Squirrel secure the Golden and Silver Bodhi Trees. All sect participants return alive and intact, and Lin Jing’s achievements attract Hidden Dragon Academy’s attention 37 38 39.

Guardian Trials and Demon-Suppressing Pagoda

• The Pineleaf Squirrel repeatedly attempts the leap from Cloud-Tilling Peak to Heavenly Capital Peak, hoping to earn the guardian’s promised Dao instruction, but is repelled by oppressive pressure 42 44 48.
• Elder Mo permits Lin Jing and the squirrel to train in the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda after Lin Jing’s illusion withstands Golden Core pressure 48.
• Lin Jing inadvertently releases a sealed monk’s consciousness, causing the pagoda’s seals to weaken gradually. The monk nevertheless bestows Buddhist light on both companions 50.

Trivia

• “Bully Sect” is an angry nickname used by the female alchemist after the sect’s disciples and beasts unite against her three-person alliance in Bodhi Grotto-Heaven 33.
• Although casually called “immortal cranes,” the sect’s transport birds are Heavenly Feather Cranes, a species of wind-element spirit beast—not confirmed immortal beasts 3 11.
• A monk’s-staff-shaped spatial treasure remains in the treasury for years because few true disciples choose its unusual design, despite its historical connection to the second Sect Master 47.