After ensuring his daughter was soundly asleep and out of danger, Mingfeng finally got up and stretched. The surroundings looked like a disaster, but Yan Ping’s condition was worse than he feared. It was not an exaggeration when Gu Ying informed him that her cultivation base was now weakened to the Refined Core. Her energy pulse was so weak now that both teacher and student could be said to be of a similar cultivation level.
Gently calling out to the exhausted blind prophet, Mingfeng noticed how much she seemed to age in just two months. The Yan Ping he knew appeared like a young woman in her late twenties despite her snowy hair. However, the Yan Ping before him was now a wrinkled old woman who barely had any vitality.
"Senior, allow me to help," he grasped her hand lightly after waking her up to channel some energy into her weakened body.
At first, the Mystical Qilin Sect leader had no idea what Mingfeng was doing. However, after receiving treatment, she quickly stopped him. The backlash he suffered from helping to stabilise his youngest daughter was no joke. He shouldn’t have the time to help someone else when he was in an equally dangerous situation.
"Save it," she snapped crankily. "I’ll recover my cultivation progress naturally with enough rest and the right environment. Lend me your cultivation chambers. You must conserve and hide your present cultivation regression from everyone else until you can get an excuse to go into isolated training to recover."
Indeed, Zhao Mingfeng’s cultivation core temporarily regressed to its Radiant Core stage. If he had a few days, it might return to the Transcendent Core foundation stage. However, returning to the Divine Core level would still take him several years. With the threat looming in the murim world, he could not afford to let anyone else know about their vulnerabilities.
"I’ll escort you to the best cultivation chamber. There’s a pool full of dense spiritual energy that helps with recovery and healing. It would be best to stay there for a few months to recuperate. Someone will regularly send supplies. The sect has several good medicines for qi recovery. It should help you."
Nodding in thanks, too weak to reject help, Yan Ping tapped Mingfeng’s shoulder.
"Did you sense it, too? The foreign energy in your child."
It took Mingfeng a while to understand what she was talking about. Initially, he thought the rampant energy was a side effect of Anji’s core getting sealed for too long. However, he knew it wasn’t the case after witnessing the explosive power and how his daughter tampered with it to obey her. Yet, the energy did not bear malicious intents. Find the newest release on NoveI★Fire.net
"Do you happen to know what that was?" he asked.
If Yan Ping was right, Anji must have contacted a powerful spiritual beast. Several of her disciples have made contracts with spiritual beasts in the Mystical Qilin mountain.
Most spiritual beasts are low-level creatures that have lived in qi-dense areas for many years. Over the years, their bodies adapt to the energy, and they gain abilities similar to cultivators. However, they lack intelligence and often do not possess spirit pearls.
Strong spiritual beasts would occasionally be born with spiritual pearls inside them that give them a higher intelligence and an innate talent for advancing in cultivation. Often, these were the spiritual beasts that approached cultivators. Like the concept of a cultivation partner, the bond between a cultivator and a spiritual beast cannot be separated. In return for great affinity with nature through the spiritual beast, the cultivator would also share the same lifespan as their contracted partner. Unfortunately, that made the normally elusive spiritual beasts easy targets for cultivation pearl hunters who would kill the cultivator to harvest the precious spirit pearls. Many tragedies happened because of greed, and it was known to many that spiritual pearls can be refined into elixirs with many miraculous effects. The Mystical Qilin Mountain is a conservatory for these spiritual beasts. Many of her disciples, with a contracted beast partner, refuse to leave the mountain because of the risks.
Yet, it was unlikely that such a spiritual beast had approached Anji. The energy in her body was too refined as if the spiritual beast was of a higher cultivation plane. Spiritual beasts of this level must have cast away their bodies at some point and taken on an astral form. Many would deem these spiritual beasts as legendary creatures and mythical guardians at this stage. A good example was the Qilin, who approached her teacher many years ago. Although Yan Ping could not see the Qilin, she remembered how pure its energy was.
"Does your sect have a spirit beast guardian?" she asked out of curiosity.
Unlike the other martial sects, the Celestial Dragon Sect was fairly young despite their fame and power. The mountain had a great amount of energy for cultivation, but it wasn’t as amazing as the Heavenly Phoenix’s Volcano spring or the Black Tortoise Sect’s rejuvenating swamp.
Scratching his head, Zhao Mingfeng wondered what Yan Ping was talking about. Although they were known as the Celestial Dragon Sect, it was simply a name chosen by most people in the Rainbow Alliance. The initial concern that it conflicted with the Azure Dragon’s image was quickly shattered when Zhang Yi claimed he had never seen a dragon before, even as the leader of his sect. The name of the dragon was merely a fictitious image that people worshipped, thanks to the marketing gimmick of royalty. Thanks to his claims, Zhao Mingfeng agreed to settle upon this name.
Sensing how clueless Mingfeng was, Yan Ping sighed and gave up. Anji did not seem too concerned or aware that she had become a contracted target of a powerful spiritual beast that could possibly rival the Qilin that founded her teacher’s sect.
"It’s fine. Let me know as soon as something strange happens to Anji. The foreign energy should not harm her. I will recuperate for a few months before I return to my sect," she informed. "It’s best to return to the Radiant Core level before I leave."
Agreeing with her, the Celestial Dragon Sect Leader summoned Gu Ying to watch over his daughter while he escorted Yan Ping to the best recovery chamber in the deep recesses of his mountain.
The Manchurian bodyguard arrived promptly and stared at the remains of the hut. There was no way to fix this. They would have to rebuild it.
"Do I take the young miss back to the sect now?" she asked.
Carrying Yan Ping, who had her straw hat on to cover her aged appearance, Zhao Mingfeng shook his head.
"Wait for me to return. We will go down together. If Anji shows abnormal symptoms while I am away, use this teleportation talisman and find me."
Obeying instructions, Gu Ying watched as Mingfeng left. She stared at Anji and decided it was not good for the child to sleep in a wooden tub, even if it were dry. Rummaging through the remains of the broken hut, the hardworking bodyguard fashioned a poorly crafted tent from the remains and shielded Anji from the sun.