Shi Pan, Shi Mo, Shi Yin!
After the Qingshan operation ended, the Sun Clan returned to its former peace, making no enemies of other forces and staying out of their disputes.
Just like that, it recuperated in peace and quiet for over four months.
The bald patch on Shi Jian's back, scorched bare by the aftershock of a Golden Core, had finally grown back. His fur was sleek and black, even smoother than before.
The spirit salve Sun Wanqing had prepared really did work wonders. Shi Jian made a note of it: this female cultivator had good character and a good disposition...
In the future, she was worth entrusting with a thing or two.
Deep inside the cave abode, Shi Jian lay coiled above a Spirit Vein node, slowly circulating the Demon Power within him. The barrier to the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage remained thick and solid.
His bloodline was too ordinary. If he wanted to break through, he could only wear it down with patient effort.
But Shi Jian was in no hurry. He could take his time.
"Time to get down to business."
Shi Jian rose to all fours and followed a hidden passage through the cave abode toward a valley behind the main peak. He had specifically asked Sun Bo'an to fence it off.
Outsiders were told it was a "spirit beast pasture," but in truth, it was dedicated to raising and taming the bear cubs he had brought back from the Great Maple Mountain Range...
After four months of recuperation, the cubs were in much better spirits.
One hundred and twenty-three of them.
They were the cubs he had picked up one after another during the Qingshan operation. The vast majority were ordinary beasts with mixed, unremarkable bloodlines...
But among them were more than a dozen cubs that had developed a little spiritual awareness!
There were black bears, Iron-Backed Bears, and Grayback Bears. Their bloodlines were extremely mixed, but they were still promising candidates to become Demon Beasts.
If they grew up without mishap, every one of them had a chance to reach his current realm.
In the valley, the big cubs chased the little ones, while the little ones clung to jars of spirit milk, refusing to let go with their mouths. A few bold cubs were rolling around and pouncing on fish in the stream, splashing water everywhere.
Standing at the entrance to the valley, Shi Jian glanced over the cubs, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Filthy. Chaotic. Noisy.
They were no different from the wild bears he had seen near Mingqiu Mountain back then-a bunch of fools who knew nothing but eating, drinking, and relieving themselves.
But gold was always hidden among fools.
Shi Jian had long since sized them up. Of the hundred and twenty-three cubs, over a hundred were purely ordinary beasts that had failed to awaken spiritual intelligence.
They would spend their lives as ordinary black bears, live thirty to fifty years, and that would be that.
The remaining fourteen had varying degrees of Spiritual Qi fluctuations within them. They were quasi-Demon Beasts that had awakened spiritual intelligence and would naturally become Demon Beasts once fully grown. Most could cultivate to level 1 or even level 2...
And among those fourteen, three were especially unusual.
They were also Shi Jian's targets today!
Shi Jian walked into the valley, releasing a little Yao Qi...
In an instant, every bear cub stopped what it was doing.
The little ones flattened themselves and lay still. The bigger ones tucked in their necks and lowered their heads. Even those pouncing on fish in the stream obediently climbed ashore and squatted on rocks, shaking off droplets of water.
Bloodline suppression.
Before Shi Jian, these cubs had only one instinct: submit!
"Roar~!"
A roar tore through the valley and echoed back, making even the ground tremble slightly.
The bear cubs began gathering around Shi Jian. Among them, three were visibly a size larger than the other cubs their age!
The first was an Iron-Backed Bear cub, gray-black all over, with a layer of natural, iron-blue hard armor covering his back. The ground shook as he ran.
Only four months old, he was already nearly as big as an adult wild boar, with freakish strength.
When Sun Mao had fed him before, the cub had sent him flying with a swipe of his paw twice. His bloodline was a little better than Shi Jian's.
The second was a black bear. He wasn't the biggest, but his coat was unbelievably pure-black as ink, without a single hair of another color.
This one's bloodline was closest to Shi Jian's.
Both were the most primitive kind of black bear, with no special bloodline whatsoever. Yet his spiritual awareness was the strongest of all the bear cubs!
Shi Jian was all too familiar with this sort.
When he had first awakened his own spiritual intelligence, he had been just like that.
The third was the smallest, and also the strangest.
A Grayback Bear. By rights, Grayback Bears were the most ordinary subspecies, with thin bloodlines, but this cub had been born with a dark red callus on the pad of his forepaw...
It felt as hard as iron and stone, with Spiritual Qi contained within.
The first time Shi Jian had encountered him, he had sensed something amiss. He had examined him carefully with his Divine Sense and found that the cub's bloodline differed from an ordinary Grayback Bear's. Clearly, a bloodline mutation had occurred!
That Dark Gold Ape Zhao Qing had killed at the risk of her life...
Had been a variant that reverted to an ancestral form!
Shi Jian couldn't say whether this cub also had some ancient bloodline, but after a bloodline mutation, the upper limit of his growth would be far higher than that of others of his kind.
The three bear cubs ran up to the boulder and looked up at Shi Jian in unison.
The Iron-Backed Bear immediately came over and rubbed against him, nudging Shi Jian's foreleg with his head. He had no sense of his own strength, but he was very affectionate...
The black-furred one sat obediently, cocked his head, and watched him without a sound.
The smallest Grayback cub lay on the ground with his head resting on his front paws, eyes narrowed, looking for all the world as if to say, You called me, so I came, but I don't want to move.
As Shi Jian looked at the three of them, he was struck for a moment by the illusion that he was an old father looking at his children.
He hurriedly shook the thought away.
What old father? These are strategic assets!
"All right, you three it is."
Shi Jian closed his eyes.
His consciousness sank into his body, and the familiar screen of light appeared.
[Enlightenment]: 3 [Cultivation]: Foundation Establishment Middle Stage (level 3 Demon Beast)
He hadn't used it in three years and had saved up three uses. Today was the perfect time to spend them all at once, and he would have three more helpers of his own kind in the future.
With a thought, three invisible fluctuations arose within Shi Jian and poured into the minds of the three cubs...
A moment later.
The three cubs shook their heads. Their eyes had changed...
Seventy or eighty percent of their former muddled dullness had faded, replaced by a bewildered lucidity.
Like someone abruptly roused from a deep sleep, they knew they were awake but hadn't yet figured out what had happened...
Their sense of self gradually emerged, and their thoughts gradually grew more active!
Shi Jian was quite pleased to see this. He then taught them a breathing technique he had created over the years by drawing on human Cultivation Methods and combining them with the characteristics of bear demons: the Tyrant Bear Qi-Devouring Method.
It could devour the essence of the sun and moon, the spirit of the five elements, and all manner of turbid Qi!
It could strengthen the foundation and fortify the body.
"Iron-headed cub, from today onward, your name shall be Shi Pan."
"Pan as in solid rock, for steadfastness."
"Black-furred one, you shall be Shi Mo-Mo as in silence. Speaking little is a blessing."
Shi Jian then looked at the Grayback cub and pondered for a moment before speaking. "As for you... you were born unusual."
"You also have a special innate talent for concealing your presence, so I shall call you Shi Yin!"
"Yin as in concealment, so you can hide away from the world."
Three names, all bearing the surname Shi.
From today onward, these three cubs were his, Shi Jian's, juniors, the seeds of a future bear clan-not a reserve of spirit beasts for the Sun Clan.
They were to be the Sun Clan's masters, cultivating by commanding humans!
As for the other bear cubs, Shi Jian had plans for them too. The valley was large enough, with ample residual power from the Spirit Vein and abundant water and vegetation.
They could live and breed here in peace. In three to five years, a new batch of cubs would naturally be born.
Among the new cubs, there were bound to be a few more promising ones that awakened spiritual intelligence.
As for the other quasi-demon cubs that possessed spiritual intelligence but were relatively ordinary, they could also become tamed beasts for the Sun Clan's younger members in the future.
Their aptitude was ordinary, but if they could follow a good cultivator and use that cultivator's resources to cultivate, they would have room to advance further in the future. Naturally, that was a good path for them too...
A batch in ten years, a clan in a hundred.
What was the rush?
He, Shi Jian, had all the time in the world. He could afford to wait!