Beast Taming Is a Minor Art; in Our Yuyu Realm, We Directly Hold True Spirits in Our Grasp

A hundred days had passed in the Great Scarlet Realm, while only ten had gone by in the Yuyu Realm.

When Li Zhengjun returned to the household, Chongming Hall had taken on an entirely new appearance.

The once solemn and imposing place where the True Person cultivated had been completely remodeled, with partitions of Mysterious Spirit Wood dividing the hall into more than a dozen separate rooms.

Cultivators from the various offices bent over their paperwork inside. People came and went, but everything was orderly.

A desk stood prominently in the very center of the hall, with a map made of light, formed through immense Law Power, suspended above it. Its mountains and rivers looked lifelike. This was where everyone gathered to receive Li Zhengjun's orders.

As soon as he appeared, the map of light in the hall glimmered. The cultivators in charge of the various offices immediately put down their work and hurried to the central desk, where they stood at attention and awaited his orders.

Yuhong had also come out of seclusion. The injuries he had suffered at Crimson Firmament Mountain had improved considerably over the past few days.

Li Zhengjun first paid his respects, then presented Yuhong and Li Chenbin with the Jade Slips containing the intelligence gathered over the past hundred days in the Great Scarlet Realm, holding them out in both hands:

"Greetings, True Person."

Yuhong's gaze sharpened slightly, then he smiled.

"Zhengjun, you've formed the Jade Capital Wheel."

He had seen at a glance that Li Zhengjun had broken through, and was delighted. He continued:

"You nurtured the most difficult Jade Capital Wheel in half a month. Even those heaven's chosen couldn't catch up with the dust you leave behind."

At those words, every cultivator below the steps exclaimed in amazement.

Even though they had long known that time flowed at different rates in the two realms, hearing the news with their own ears still left them shaken.

This was far beyond leaving others in the dust. It was simply inconceivable.

The Jade Capital Wheel involved the transformation of Divine Sense and was widely acknowledged as the hardest heavenly chasm to cross in the Fetal Breath stage. It was common for ordinary cultivators to spend three to five years grinding away at this hurdle.

Li Chenbin knew the deeds of the True Persons in the surrounding area as well as his own family treasures. He said:

"As far as this old man knows, even Great True Person Duantian, whose might bears down on the Chu Kingdom, took a full three years to complete the six Fetal Breath wheels. And at the Jade Capital Wheel alone, even with the Great True Person's heaven-given talent, I'm afraid he was stuck for more than a year."

Li Zhengjun, however, did not grow arrogant. He smiled and said:

"It was entirely thanks to the difference in the flow of time between the two realms that I gained time to cultivate. I also received the Double Radiance Bright Yang Wheel-Nurturing Scripture directly from the True Person, and on top of that, I seized Daoist Lu's fate and fortune when I killed him. Only with all three together was I fortunate enough to cross this threshold. My own aptitude alone is far from worth mentioning."

Yuhong nodded, then had the Lineage elders in charge of the various offices present the previously drawn-up details for establishing the Lineage in the other realm. He also asked:

"Zhengjun, how is the matter of producing offspring going?"

Li Zhengjun told him about each person's situation in turn, then concluded:

"If nothing unexpected happens, good news should arrive in another month. At that point, our Li Household will have its first blood descendants in the other realm."

The hall fell silent for a moment, then a wave of complex sentiments spread through it.

Only one month would pass in the Yuyu Realm before new lives came crying into the world over in the Great Scarlet Realm.

By the time two years had passed here, those children would already have grown up, married, and had children of their own.

And what of the Lineage elders present in the Yuyu Realm? They might not even have gained a few more white hairs at their temples.

Those young men expanding the Li Household's territory in the Great Scarlet Realm would, in the end, grow old faster than these men of their fathers' generation.

With time flowing differently in the two realms, it all felt somewhat unreal.

But in the end, it was a good thing.

The difference in time had brought an opportunity: a chance for the Li Household to produce another True Person within a few decades.

After a brief discussion, Li Zhengjun wasted no more time. He gave Li Zhengchen the Storage Bag containing the Frozen Water spiritual materials, then said solemnly:

"True Person, the Frozen Water spiritual materials are being gathered in an orderly manner, and the yield is enough to supply the Lineage's needs. Besides that, I have two matters for which I must ask the True Person and the Lineage elders for help."

He paused, then said:

"The first concerns [Gold-Bearing Mountain]. A [Ginseng-Cloud Tiger] at Qi Refinement Perfection occupies the mountain. It is skilled at concealment and can use earth escape, making it extremely difficult to track. I implore the Lineage to prepare a high-grade Law Artifact specialized in detecting Demon Beasts for me. It must be able to lock onto its exact location without being fooled by its escape technique."

"Once Gold-Bearing Mountain has been taken, the spiritual fields on the mountain will need to be cultivated. Please select a group of Spirit Plant farmers skilled in the art of growing Spirit Plants from the Lineage to accompany me to the Great Scarlet Realm."

The Lineage elders from the various offices picked up their brushes and noted it down, not daring to be careless in the slightest.

Yuhong made the decision on the spot, his tone leaving no room for doubt:

"There's no need to wait. Now, each time you break through a level, you can take two more people with you. Since the number of places has increased, you should fill them immediately. There's no need to look back and forth when assigning people. The further our foundation in the Great Scarlet Realm spreads, the faster your cultivation will progress."

Li Zhengjun nodded in agreement, then said:

"There's one more matter concerning Gold-Bearing Mountain that I must report to the True Person. Just before I came, a group of cultivators from the surrounding area arrived on Jade Wave Island. They claimed to be a household under the Ten Thousand Spirits Sect, a Foundation Establishment immortal sect. They're discussing the matter with me now, hoping to set a date to go with our Li Household to Gold-Bearing Mountain and subdue that tiger demon, then take it back as a spirit pet for their young master."

Now that he possessed Divine Sense, he no longer relayed the information by word of mouth. Instead, he directly inscribed everything he knew about the Sun Household into a Jade Slip with his Spiritual Sense.

Where his thoughts reached, a thousand people and a thousand matters were recorded within. Yuhong and the Lineage elders sent their Divine Sense into it, and in only a few breaths, they took in the whole story from beginning to end.

After only a moment, a Lineage elder stepped forward.

He was bent with age, and his unusually long eyebrows hung below his cheekbones, rising and falling slightly with his expression as he spoke.

His name was Li Chenxiao. In his younger years, he had been responsible for managing the Lineage's affairs with other races, and was well versed in matters concerning Demon Beasts, nonhuman cultivators, and vassal races.

"May I ask, my lord, whether any of the Sun Household's spirit beasts you saw, or the Demon Beasts you encountered in the Great Scarlet Realm, could speak human words or transform into human form?"

Li Zhengjun thought for a moment, then shook his head.

"No. Let alone the Sun Household's few Qi Refinement spirit beasts-even when their lives hung by a thread, they only made whimpering beast sounds, no different from ordinary animals."

He paused, then added:

"It's not just the Sun Household's spirit beasts. From what I've observed on Jade Wave Island these past few days, the Demon Beasts of that realm seem to retain their original beast forms regardless of their cultivation, and none have ever spoken human words. The Ginseng-Cloud Tiger on Gold-Bearing Mountain is already at Qi Refinement Great Perfection. The Sun Household and the Devil Cultivator have both tracked it for more than ten years, yet neither has ever mentioned that this demon can transform."

At those words, quite a few people in the hall sensed something unusual.

A glint flashed in Li Chenxiao's eyes, and he nodded slightly.

"I'm afraid we've discovered another fundamental difference between the two realms."

"In our Yuyu Realm, once members of the Demon Race begin cultivating, they need only form the Brightness-Bearing Wheel to open their spiritual platform and develop intelligence. From that point on, they can speak, transform, understand reason, and recognize fortune and misfortune. For that very reason, beast taming is a minor art in the Yuyu Realm. We all use spirit-binding methods to hold Demon Beasts' true spirits directly in our grasp and make them submit absolutely."

"Of course, the shift from beast taming to spirit binding was actually something our Yuyu Realm had no choice but to make. Once a Demon Beast develops intelligence, it is no different from a cultivator, with thoughts and desires of its own. Forcibly subduing one is no different from asking a tiger for its skin. So in our Yuyu Realm, cultivators mostly use spirit-binding methods against Demon Beasts, directly holding their true spirits in their grasp and locking down their lifelines, leaving them no choice but to obey. Those bald-donkey Buddhist cultivators are particularly skilled at it."

When he mentioned Buddhist cultivators, a trace of coldness entered his voice.

"Those bald donkeys are especially fond of using so-called 'salvation' as a pretext to control true spirits and subdue mounts. It sounds nice, but in truth it's no different from enslavement."

He changed the subject, his voice tinged with excitement.

"The situation in the Great Scarlet Realm, however, is very different. From the intelligence you brought back, my lord, the Demon Beasts of the Great Scarlet Realm seem to follow an extremely ancient path of cultivation. They practice no Cultivation Methods and do not cultivate their intelligence, relying entirely on the instincts in their bloodlines to breathe in and absorb Spiritual Qi."

"As a result, their cultivation grows slowly, their degree of evolution is extremely low, and they are very slow to develop intelligence. Such circumstances were also recorded in ancient texts from the High Antiquity of our Yuyu Realm. The Demon Beasts of that time were the same, often having to reach an extremely high realm before they could develop intelligence, and only afterward did they have a chance to come into contact with true Cultivation Methods. Before that, they possessed nothing but brute strength and innate Divine Abilities, yet were as foolish as innocent children."

By this point, everyone had already guessed what the Lineage elder had in mind.

He intended to use the Yuyu Realm's spirit-binding methods to subdue the Demon Beasts of the Great Scarlet Realm.

Sure enough, Li Chenxuan looked intently at Li Zhengjun and said slowly:

"The Ginseng-Cloud Tiger on Gold-Bearing Mountain rose all the way from Early Qi Refining to Peak Qi Refinement in just over ten years. That's proof enough that its bloodline is extraordinary. Even more valuable is the fact that a Demon Beast of this rank has yet to develop intelligence. An ignorant spirit like this is the easiest to control."

Yuhong immediately nodded and agreed:

"Although it hasn't yet been tested in practice, the idea makes excellent sense, and the chances of success are high. We've already examined the Devil Cultivator's Cultivation Methods that Zhengjun sent back earlier. Those methods are extremely crude. They don't even focus on absorbing a particular kind of Spiritual Qi, but swallow Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi whole, like gulping down a date without tasting it, then forcibly refine it using blood food and external force."

"If that's true of humans, there's even less need to speak of Demon Beasts. Forget sophisticated cultivation methods—they can't even develop intelligence. In that case, we can certainly use spirit-binding methods to control the Demon Beasts of the Great Scarlet Realm!"