Three Years, Development by Leaps and Bounds!

Time passed like a white steed glimpsed through a crack. Leaves fluttered down, spring and autumn turned, and on the path of cultivation, years went uncounted amid rises and falls, each following its appointed course.

It was the third year of Shi Jian's secluded cultivation.

The boulder at the entrance to the back mountain's Spirit Vein had long since gathered a thick layer of dust. Deep within the Spirit Vein, Shi Jian slumbered in seclusion in an underground cavern.

A dense demonic glow surrounded him. He had completely refined the Second-Tier Superior-Grade Blood Bodhi that Zhao Qing had bestowed upon him.

The Blood Bodhi's medicinal power was potent and overbearing. An ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator would need at least five years or so to fully digest it, but Shi Jian was a Demon Beast, and his body was naturally the finest medicine-refining furnace.

Over three years, the medicinal power had seeped into his meridians, bones, flesh, and blood...

His cultivation realm, once somewhat unstable, had been firmly consolidated over the years and was now as steady as bedrock.

Shi Jian opened his eyes and exhaled a stream of turbid vapor. When it struck the cavern wall, it burned a fist-sized hole straight into the rock.

He looked at his bear paw and clenched it. His joints cracked, and his strength had increased again.

Shi Jian was a very ordinary bear demon, the most basic kind. He had no special bloodline, so naturally he had no bloodline Divine Abilities, nor could he use any of the five-element arts.

All he had was his own body, tempered to its limit.

Am I nearing the end...?

For a bear demon, reaching the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage meant nearing the end of the road.

Beyond this point, cultivation would only grow slower and slower, until he became stuck at the threshold of the Foundation Establishment Late Stage. If he wanted to break through then, he would have to find a way to improve his bloodline.

There were only a few ways to do that.

He could either devour the flesh and blood of a higher-level member of his kind or obtain some heavenly materials and earthly treasures.

That would allow him to undergo a transformation and then experience an ancestral reversion or mutation...

To put it plainly, Shi Jian was a blank slate. He needed a bloodline enhancement with some kind of five-element attribute, or else he needed to undergo an ancestral reversion.

He could also use the pure path of the physical body or the path of strength as a foundation to complete his transformation.

But such breakthroughs undoubtedly required a fortuitous opportunity.

Shi Jian couldn't dwell on such things now. He pushed himself up and stretched, his bones popping and cracking for a while.

He walked out along the Spirit Vein passage. As soon as he reached the exit, he saw Lord Rat dozing on a rock, his presence growing ever more profound.

"Old Ancestor! You've come out of seclusion?"

Lord Rat started so violently that he nearly tripped over his own tail.

"Mm. How are things outside?"

"Very good! Very good!"

Lord Rat rubbed his front paws together, his beady eyes shining. "Clan Leader Sun hasn't been idle these past three years. The market has expanded twofold again, and the clan has gained four new little cultivators."

"And those two little brats are even more remarkable!"

"Take your time."

Shi Jian strolled out of the Spirit Vein entrance, squinting against the sunlight outside.

The back mountain had changed considerably. Three spirit fruit orchards and a small medicinal herb garden now occupied the main mountain's once-bare slopes.

The Jade Heart Fruit trees were already bearing fruit, their branches laden with fist-sized green fruits.

A stone house had been built beside the herb garden, and a faint medicinal fragrance drifted from its chimney.

"Who's refining pills?"

Shi Jian sniffed and immediately identified the kind of pill by its fragrance, but the scent of the person refining it didn't belong to that old fellow Sun Changping.

"In answer to the Old Ancestor, it's that boy Sun Mao."

Lord Rat chuckled. "Right after you went into seclusion three years ago, Clan Leader Sun threw him into the Alchemy Chamber to learn pill refinement from Sun Changping."

"The boy mastered the basics in just two years. This year, he can already try his hand at refining pills, and now he's the clan's prospective second Alchemist."

Shi Jian stopped in his tracks.

Mastered the basics?

He remembered that Sun Changping had stumbled his way through twenty years of learning pill refinement. Although the former second branch had interfered, that still showed how difficult the discipline was.

Without a word, Shi Jian turned toward the stone house.

Its door stood half-open, and the crisp sound of tapping on a furnace came from inside.

Shi Jian peered in. A boy who looked about eight was crouched in front of a Pill Furnace, his face intent and his fingers forming a fire seal. The flames beneath the furnace contracted and swelled, controlled with extraordinary precision.

More than a dozen poor-quality pills lay on a low table beside him.

They weren't much to look at and were nearly ruined.

But they were edible and had some medicinal effect, though they contained quite a lot of pill toxins.

Sun Mao suddenly wrinkled his nose at a familiar scent. He turned his head and saw the enormous dark figure at the door.

"Old Ancestor!"

The boy jumped up and darted outside, only for Shi Jian to plant a paw on his head and push him back in.

"There are still pills in the furnace. Where are you running off to?"

Sun Mao rubbed his head, then hurried back to crouch in front of the furnace, watching the fire with a serious expression.

Shi Jian looked at the pills on the low table and swept his Divine Sense over them, slightly surprised.

Beast Essence Pills.

They weren't made from the original Second-Tier Beast Essence Pill formula, but from a modified First-Tier version.

"Who changed this formula?"

"Great-Uncle Sun Changping and I changed it together!" Sun Mao kept his eyes fixed on the fire without turning around. "The ingredients for Second-Tier Beast Essence Pills are too expensive. We can't afford to refine them."

"So we replaced the main ingredient, Demon Bone Marrow Essence, with condensed blood crystals from spirit rats, and swapped all the supplementary ingredients for ordinary First-Tier spirit herbs..."

"They're more than ninety percent less effective, but they're cheap and the yield is good. One batch produces four or five pills, and it only costs a dozen or so Spirit Stones."

"Feed a pseudo Spirit-Seeking Rat three to five of them, and within two years, it's guaranteed to advance from a pseudo-demon into the ranks of true level-one Demon Beasts."

"They barely qualify as First-Tier Mid-Grade pills. The clan named them Lesser Beast Essence Pills."

Shi Jian fell silent for a moment.

When he had bought the Beast Essence Pill formula at auction, he had only intended to save it for a future Second-Tier Alchemist. He hadn't expected this grandfather and grandson to be so inventive.

They had gone straight to modifying it for a lower tier, though their changes really weren't all that impressive.

But the pills were indeed quite good for raising pseudo-demons or level-one Demon Beasts. With more refined improvements in the future, they really could become a fine inheritance.

Of course, that would be no easy task.

Sun Changping had been able to conceive of it because of his experience.

Sun Mao had been able to do it because of his talent.

"Not bad."

Shi Jian spoke those two words as casually as if he were remarking that the weather was nice today, but Lord Rat saw it clearly from the side.

The tip of the Old Ancestor's tail had given a little upward twitch.

He was happy!

Shi Jian left the Alchemy Chamber and made his way down the mountain.

The Hongtian City market at the foot of the mountain had undergone a complete transformation.

Three years ago, it had covered two and a half streets. Now it had expanded to four streets with thirty-two shops, and the roads were paved with clean, tidy bluestone slabs.

A stone stele stood at the entrance, engraved with the large characters "Hongtian Market." The strokes were forceful and sharp, clearly carved by a cultivator using Sword Qi.

A First-Tier Superior-Grade grand formation had also been added, both to protect the market and to contain the Spiritual Qi drawn from the Spirit Vein.

Shi Jian didn't go in. Instead, he went to the western side of the mountain.

That was the peak the Lin Clan had once occupied. Now it served as the Sun Clan's training ground.

From a distance, he heard a clamor.

More than ten cultivators stood on the training ground, all of them Sun Clan children ranging in age from six or seven to eleven or twelve.

Each had a spirit beast perched on a shoulder, held in their arms, or following at their feet.

They were all spirit rats of various colors. Some were white as snow from head to tail, while others had glossy gray-black fur. They were two sizes bigger than Spirit-Seeking Rats, with bright, lively eyes.

There were also a few black dogs, descendants of that litter of Dao-Protecting Hounds from years ago. They too were wreathed in a trace of demonic Qi, their intelligence awakened.

It seemed that in just a few short years, the Sun Clan had gotten onto the right track in beast taming.

Sun Bo'an stood at the edge of the grounds. No longer pursuing the so-called Great Dao, he patiently and earnestly instructed the disciples in their cultivation:

"Sun Yao, your spirit rat has gone too far. Bring it back three zhang! The core of the Beast-Taming Instruction is 'shared perception,' not 'flying a kite'!"

A seven-year-old girl pouted and formed a hand seal. The white spirit rat on her shoulder immediately darted back to her feet and sat upright, its two front paws held neatly together. It was exceptionally cute.

Shi Jian swept his gaze across the grounds.

Thirteen cultivators, nine Spirit-Seeking Rats, and four spirit dogs.

A faint beastly fluctuation mingled with each person's presence, the mark of cultivating the modified Beast-Luring Instruction.

A fine thread of spiritual power, invisible to the naked eye, connected each person and beast.

When the beast moved, the person knew.

When the person commanded, the beast acted.

It wasn't enslavement, but symbiosis.

Shi Jian nodded to himself. The seed planted three years ago had now begun to sprout.

He walked and looked around, as though touring his territory.

The peak once occupied by the Ye Clan had now become the Sun Clan's Talisman Hall, where Sun Wanqing, a newly minted talisman master, was drawing new talismans.

Shi Jian glanced at it from a distance. The hall was piled high with all kinds of talisman-making materials.

Two youths of eight or nine were busy studying behind the counter, their wrists steady as they set brush to paper and their strokes smooth. They were apprentices trained by Sun Wanqing.

Sun Caiya's medicinal herb garden had also expanded threefold.

Her skill at cultivating Spirit Plants had improved considerably, and she could now reliably produce batches of First-Tier Mid-Grade and Low-Grade spirit herbs and medicines every year or two.

Everything was so peaceful and pleasant.