Mu Family of Biyun Mountain

Misty Prefecture, Biyun Lake.

Biyun Lake was a famous lake in Misty Prefecture of the Jing Kingdom. Its waters were jade-green, its scenery picturesque, and it was a place many poets and scholars loved to visit.

On the western shore of Biyun Lake lay a stretch of rolling mountains known as Biyun Mountain.

One area within the mountains was shrouded in watery mist year-round. Travelers who wandered into it often needed several days to find their way out, and would invariably fall seriously ill afterward.

As time passed, no one dared enter it lightly anymore.

Naturally, those mortals did not know that the mist-shrouded area of Biyun Mountain was precisely the mountain gate of the Mu Family, a Cultivation Family of Misty Prefecture.

The Mu Family of Biyun Mountain traced its inheritance back to the Green Lotus Temple, a major sect of the Jing Kingdom. Their ancestor had been an outer disciple of the Green Lotus Temple, and throughout the generations, many of their clansmen had successfully entered the temple to cultivate.

The present Mu Family not only had three Foundation Establishment cultivators of their own, but also had two Foundation Establishment clansmen within the Green Lotus Temple. One of them was even a registered disciple of a certain Golden Core stage cultivator of the temple.

Thus, throughout Misty Prefecture, the Mu Family was considered a fairly renowned Cultivation Family.

But the Mu Family was, after all, a rising Lineage with a history of only a little over three hundred years. Though fortune had favored them with several successive Foundation Establishment cultivators, their accumulated foundations still could not compare to those old-established families that had produced high-level cultivators or endured for a thousand years.

The four great cultivation arts of Pill, Artifact, Talisman, and Formation were manageable enough. With the Mu Family's connections in the Green Lotus Temple, obtaining some basic inheritances was not difficult.

But when it came to beast taming, even the Green Lotus Temple possessed little inheritance in that field.

Moreover, this path was unlike the four arts of Pill, Artifact, Talisman, and Formation, where one could easily experiment with materials and grope one's way toward experience.

Therefore, when the Zhou Family came to their door and proposed helping them cultivate talents proficient in Beast Taming Arts in exchange for the Mu Family's friendship,

the Mu Family's several Foundation Establishment cultivators agreed to the matter after less than half a day of deliberation.

Five days after Zhou Chun accepted the assignment, he spent another five days making preparations on Precious Lingzhi Peak. Today, the Zhou Family Third Elder, Zhou Daoquan, personally rode a crane to deliver him to the Mu Family of Biyun Mountain.

"Daoist Zhou, this is the place our Mu Family has arranged for your cultivation. If you have any instructions or needs in the future, simply tell Ziying. She lives in that courtyard over there."

Within the scenic Biyun Mountain, outside a detached courtyard, Zhou Chun and two Mu Family cultivators stood at the gate, looking over the place where he would be living for the next three years.

At this point, the Zhou Family Third Elder, Zhou Daoquan, had long since departed. Zhou Chun had also met several of the Mu Family's Foundation Establishment cultivators and some Core Clansmen, so he had already shown his face within the Mu Family.

The Mu Family cultivator introducing the situation to him now was Mu Yunshan, one of the Mu Family's Core Clansmen.

Beside Mu Yunshan stood a beautiful young woman in a purple dress. She was the "Ziying" he had mentioned, and one of the Mu Family clansmen Zhou Chun was to teach Beast Taming Arts.

After looking around for a while, Zhou Chun nodded lightly at Mu Yunshan. "Thank you for the trouble, Fellow Daoist Mu. I am very satisfied with this place."

Mu Yunshan smiled slightly upon hearing this. "So long as Daoist Zhou is satisfied. Then the two of us shall not disturb your rest any longer. Farewell."

Then he left together with the Mu Family female cultivator, Mu Ziying.

Seeing this, Zhou Chun immediately entered the courtyard and shut its gate. Then he patted the Spirit Beast Pouch at his waist and released the Rock Earth Turtle sleeping inside.

"Stone, this will be your new home from now on. Remember not to run off beyond the gate, or spicy punishment awaits!"

Looking at the Rock Earth Turtle, which had just arrived somewhere unfamiliar and was timid and restrained, keeping its head tucked in and not daring to expose it fully, Zhou Chun first gave it a stern warning.

He had no choice but to do so. Back at the Zhou Family, this fellow had once bitten through his courtyard gate and run outside to frolic.

This was not the Zhou Family now. If the little fellow ran out and was discovered by Mu Family cultivators, it might be taken for a Demonic Beast and killed.

Sure enough, at the words "spicy punishment," the Rock Earth Turtle instantly shrank its head fully into its shell. It had clearly been frightened.

Though it could eat and digest anything, that did not mean certain special foods could not harm it.

A small fruit called the "Spicy Fruit," several times hotter than the hottest chili from Zhou Chun's previous life, had become Zhou Chun's finest tool for punishing and frightening the Rock Earth Turtle.

As long as he fed this little thing a few Spicy Fruits, it would be so overwhelmed by the heat that, despite disliking pools of water, it would plunge straight into one and gulp down water.

Thus, using this to warn it never failed.

And so, Zhou Chun quickly settled down in the Mu Family.

Compared to his time in the Zhou Family, he was actually much freer in the Mu Family.

Apart from teaching Mu Ziying and four other Mu Family cultivators for two hours each day, the rest of his time was his to arrange. He could even request a Mu Family cultivator to accompany him to the nearby mortal cities for a stroll.

Unfortunately, he could not enter the Mu Family's Book Repository. Otherwise, things would have been even better.

With more free time on his hands, Zhou Chun simply used his spare time after daily cultivation to practice spells.

There were countless spells in the Cultivation World, but most could not be separated from the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, along with the three unusual elements of wind, lightning, and ice.

Depending on one's cultivation realm, spiritual root attributes, cultivation method attributes, and comprehension, the speed at which one cultivated spells also varied enormously.

With his middle-stage Qi Refining cultivation, Zhou Chun was currently only suited to cultivating First-grade Low-tier spells and First-grade Mid-tier spells.

At the same time, because his spiritual root attributes leaned toward metal, earth, and wood, he found cultivating metal-element spells, Earth Element Spells, and wood-element spells easier than cultivating spells of other attributes, and their power would also be somewhat enhanced.

By now, Zhou Chun had mastered twenty or thirty spells in total, but the overwhelming majority were First-grade Low-tier spells with very weak power.

When he came to the Mu Family to assist with teaching this time, the patriarch Zhou Mingde had likely guessed that he would have a great deal of spare time. Before his departure, Zhou Mingde had specially given him a copied volume of First-Tier Spell Cultivation Insights.

It recorded the cultivation methods for over a hundred first rank spells, as well as the Experience and Insights of senior cultivators regarding the cultivation of those spells.

Now that Zhou Chun had free time on his hands, he naturally would not disappoint Patriarch Zhou Mingde's painstaking goodwill. He immediately selected several spells with considerable power and excellent practical combat effects from the book and devoted himself to cultivating them.

In the blink of an eye, Zhou Chun had spent half a year at the Mu Family of Biyun Mountain.

One day, Zhou Chun was diligently cultivating a First-grade Mid-tier spell called the Wood Armor Technique in the courtyard of his residence when the courtyard gate was suddenly pounded loudly from outside. At the same time, Mu Family female cultivator Mu Ziying's anxious cries rang out.

His heart jolted, and he hurriedly stopped cultivating, opened the gate, and let her in.

"This is terrible, truly terrible! Daoist Zhou, hurry and take a look! The Ink Scale Colts in the Beast Garden have suddenly all collapsed, and they're foaming blood from their mouths!"

The moment the gate opened, Mu Ziying seized Zhou Chun's arm with a face full of panic and dragged him outside at a run.

Zhou Chun frowned slightly at this, but said nothing. He merely followed her as she ran all the way toward the Mu Family's Beast Garden.

Compared with the Zhou Family's wide variety of Spirit Beasts, the Mu Family's Beast Garden housed very few, only a scant handful of species.

The Ink Scale Colts Mu Ziying spoke of were the most important type of Spirit Beast to the Mu Family.

These Ink Scale Colts were mount Spirit Beasts domesticated and improved from first-tier Demonic Beasts.

They had the bodies of horses and heads of donkeys, but were larger than any fine horse, measuring one zhang and six chi in length and standing over seven chi tall. Their legs were covered in black scales from the hooves upward, making them look incomparably tall and imposing.

Ink Scale Colts were fierce and alert by nature. They could eat meat as well as grass, climb mountains and cross ridges, ford rivers and wade through water, and travel a thousand li a day. Wolves, tigers, leopards, and other beasts all avoided them.

If they could be raised to first-grade high-tier, they could awaken the Wind Control talent. Then, as they galloped, wind would whirl around their four hooves, allowing them to travel three thousand li a day.

If cultivators traveled with such Spirit Beasts as mounts, they could move quickly without consuming their own spiritual power, and the beasts could even provide considerable warning.

The Zhou Family had originally raised twenty or thirty Ink Scale Colts as well. But when the Three Absolute Sect split apart, those Ink Scale Colts had all been taken away by the Spirit Beast Manor branch. Now, Zhou Family clansmen had to rely on their own two legs when traveling. It was quite ironic when one thought about it.

When Zhou Chun arrived at the Beast Garden with Mu Ziying, he saw all eight of the Mu Family's Ink Scale Colts collapsed within their stalls, their bodies constantly convulsing as bloody foam spilled endlessly from their mouths.

Several Mu Family Core Clansmen who had rushed over after hearing the news, along with the Mu Family clansmen responsible for tending the Ink Scale Colts, were as anxious as ants on a hot pan, sweating profusely.

After seeing Mu Ziying bring Zhou Chun over, Mu Yunshan, the Mu Family Core Clansman who had once received Zhou Chun, hurried forward and grabbed his shoulder. "Daoist Zhou, you have finally come! Your Zhou Family are experts in beast taming. Do you know what illness these Ink Scale Colts have contracted?"

"Fellow Daoist Mu, do not panic yet. Allow me to take a look first."

As Zhou Chun spoke, he pushed Mu Yunshan's arm aside and entered the stalls with a grave expression to examine them.