Chapter 10, The First Spirit Pet

Translator: Raznick

 

Nine Peaks, Ganoderma Peak.

 

After the Zhou Clan took control of the Nine Peaks, apart from the main peak, Pagoda Peak, where the Clan Leader and Grand Elder resided, each peak was assigned a Peak Head.

 

The Peak Head of Ganoderma Peak was Zhou He, a female cultivator from the Zhou Clan in the Twelfth Layer of Qi Refining Stage. She was sixty-seven years old.

 

Before Zhou Chun arrived at Ganoderma Peak, there were twelve Zhou Clan cultivators residing and cultivating on the peak, including Zhou Yong, who was not particularly close to him.

 

After returning from Pagoda Peak, Zhou Chun was led by Zhou Yong to pay his respects to Peak Head Zhou He on the mountain.

 

As an elder of the Zhou Clan, Zhou He was very pleased to learn that Zhou Chun, a capable and promising member of the clan, had returned to the clan and joined her command.

 

She even brought out the spiritual honey tea she usually couldn’t bear to drink herself, treating Zhou Chun to it.

 

Then she personally took Zhou Chun to an independent courtyard, arranging this mountain retreat as his living quarters.

 

Afterwards, she also took Zhou Chun to visit all the other Zhou Clan cultivators on the mountain, making everyone aware of the addition of Zhou Chun as a new member.

 

Such warm hospitality made Zhou Chun feel honored and even more warmly welcomed.

 

It wasn’t until late at night that he could return to his private courtyard, calmly sorting through the events of the day.

 

Without a doubt, today’s experiences fully proved the correctness of his decision to return to the Zhou Clan.

 

Returning to Zhou Clan, there would indeed be constraints from clan rules, and he would be inevitably be monitored and summoned by clan leaders and elders at their whims.

 

But overall, the benefits far outweighed the drawbacks.

 

From today’s experience and from the interactions with Zhou Fei and others over the past few days, it seemed that the atmosphere within the Zhou Clan was still quite harmonious.

 

Politics was inevitable, as was in any group, but it should have little to do with ordinary clansmen like himself.

 

Of course, he had only just returned to his clan. It was too quick to judged; further observation was needed.

 

After carefully going through today’s events, Zhou Chun suddenly slapped his storage bag and took out the Rock Turtle egg that Clan Leader Zhou Guyi had bestowed upon him.

 

He opened the jade box, and a massive gray-white egg took his entire vision.

 

This enormous egg was even larger than the ostrich eggs Zhou Chun had seen in his previous life and was the offspring of a lesser demon beast, the Rock Turtle.

 

In the cultivation world, demon beasts were graded according to cultivation into six grades. Additionally, based on the demon beast’s growth potential, they were classified into four levels: lesser, average, greater, and top.

 

In general, the growth potential upper limit of a lesser demon beast was first-grade.

 

Unless it encountered something special that triggered its bloodline to undergo evolution, lesser demon beasts generally had no chance of advancing to the second grade.

 

The same principle applied to other growth levels: average demon beasts were capped at second grade, greater demon beasts at third grade, and top demon beasts at fourth grade.

 

If someone were to obtain a top demon beast’s egg or a youngling, as long as they could survive until it  reaches maturity, they would end up with a fourth-grade demon as their spirit beast, one whose power was comparable to that of a Golden Core Stage cultivator.

 

Zhou Chun held the Rock Turtle egg in his hand. Though it was merely an offspring of a lesser demon beast, the Rock Turtle was quite powerful in its class. At least significantly stronger than the Shadow Wind Panther he had before.

 

This demon beast not only had incredibly strong defensive capabilities and tenacious life force, but also possessed formidable offensive abilities. Once it reached adulthood, it was equivalent to a superior first-grade demon beast, capable of challenging late Qi Refining cultivators.

 

To put it simply, the Rock Turtle egg, if sold on the market, would be worth at least three hundred spirit coins.

 

Therefore, Zhou Guyi’s reward for Zhou Chun’s return to the clan was certainly substantial.

 

Zhou Chun took a while to examine the egg of the Rock Turtle, then quickly pricked his finger to draw blood, drawing up a binding array on a flat stone.

 

As a renowned cultivating clan for their beast taming techniques, the Zhou Clan possessed various secret arts that allowed cultivators to establish contracts with demon beasts.

 

Zhou Chun’s currently employed Soul Controling Blood Array, among the most secure and dependable of binding arts.

 

But this method only worked for binding turtle eggs from Rock Turtles, which had not yet developed sentience. For hatchlings that had opened their eyes and adult demons, it was difficult to apply.

 

After roughly two hours, he meticulously engraved the array. Following that, with focused precision, he proceeded to inscribe related seals on the shell of the egg.

 

Once the surface of the light grayish-brown rock egg of the Rock Turtle was covered with various blood-colored seals, Zhou Chun placed it on a stone slab engraved with a binding array. Then, using blood as the medium, he formed hand seals and chanted incantations to activate the array.

 

As the binding array was activated and set into motion, the patterns carved on the stone slab with Zhou Yang’s blood instantly transformed, turning into a mist of blood that rose up and surged towards the center of the egg.

 

Soon, the entire Rock Turtle egg was enveloped in a dim red mist.

 

At this moment, the previously inactive Rock Turtle egg seemed to sense something and suddenly emitted a pull, absorbing the blood mist, transforming it into its own nourishment for growth.

 

As all the blood mist was completely absorbed, the Rock Turtle egg reverted to its original grayish-white color.

 

But at this moment, Zhou Chun had already established a mysterious connection with the egg, faintly sensing the suppressed lifeform within it that was growing rapidly.

 

Generally speaking, once a cultivator possessed a demon beast egg and was temporarily unable to find a suitable master for it, they would use their secret techniques to temporarily seal the spirit egg’s vitality, thereby greatly delaying its growth and incubation period.

 

Only after a master had formed a contract with the demon beast egg would the seal be broken, at which point the embryo would begin to incubate and hatch at an accelerated rate.

 

After observing the egg for about an hour, Zhou Chun concluded that it would hatch successfully in two to three days.

 

So he didn’t put it in his bag, but left it under the bed where it could hatch on its own.

 

After midnight, Zhou Chun only slept for a short while—less than two hours—before quickly getting up and rushing to the top of Ganoderma Peak.

 

He thought he had arrived early enough, before even dawn broke.

 

Only after arriving here did he discover that Zhou Yong and two other Zhou Clan cultivators from Ganoderma Peak were already waiting there.

 

“If there’s one thing this world doesn’t lack, that’s diligence!”

 

Zhou Chun sighed softly and also found a place to sit cross-legged.

 

When it was around seven, as the horizon gradually turned light, seven Zhou Clan cultivators had gathered on the cliff.

 

At this point, the seven individuals seated cross-legged on the cliffside swiftly forming hand seals and fell into a meditative state.

 

By the time dawn broke and the purple light of the morning sun appeared, the seven individuals had reached an optimal state, successfully gathering a thread of the morning sunlight’s purple Qi to refine into their bodies.

 

When Zhou Chun opened his eyes again and stood up after finishing his practice, it was already daylight, around nine.

 

At this point, three Zhou Clan cultivators had already finished their meditation and left. However, another three, including Zhou Yong, remained in meditation.

 

Upon seeing this, Zhou Chun also secretly left the cliff top and made his way directly to the communal dining hall on Ganoderma Peak for breakfast.

 

The Zhou Clan migrated from Feng Kingdom. The majority of the mortal clansmen remained in Feng Kingdom and couldn’t be brought here. Only a few senior cultivators at the Foundation Establishment Stage, including the elders and high-level practitioners, managed to bring their mortal relatives over to Jing Kingdom.

 

Now, with the Zhou Clan on the rise once more, even these ordinary individuals, despite being relatives of senior cultivators within the Zhou Clan, must contribute their own strength towards the Zhou Clan’s restoration and prosperity.

 

Therefore, places like the dining halls of each peak and the laundry rooms were all managed by these individuals.

 

These people, however, had grown accustomed to a life of luxury and ease in the past. Now that they take on these tasks, it was naturally unsatisfactory.

 

Zhou Chun took several meat buns for breakfast, only to find that two of them were undercooked. Since he hadn’t paid money, and, being new here, he didn’t go complaining.

 

Finally, he stormed off angrily, flung the buns, and left. He resolved to cook for himself from now on.

 

After randomly picking some edible wild berries in the mountains to fill his stomach, Zhou Chun rushed to the residence of Peak Head Zhou He.

 

[What’s the current situation in Zhou Clan?] Although Zhou Fei and others mentioned something earlier, they didn’t elaborate. Especially regarding all kinds of rules and regulations, they were not very clear about them.

 

He needed Zhou He to give a detailed explanation, so that he was fully informed.