Immortality: Starting with the Fruit of Taiyin

"Bird-like monsters do indeed meet my requirements."

Wang Xuan silently pondered as he traced the roster with his finger.

"At lower and middle levels, birds of prey often do not have the same strong head-on fighting ability as tigers and leopards."

"But correspondingly, their escape speed is unparalleled in Tongji."

"If we trace their bloodline back to its source, their most distinguished bloodlines are all very famous, unlike some demonic beasts whose ancestors were at the bottom of the True Spirits."

"Kunpeng, Golden Crow, Heavenly Phoenix, Bifang... these are all top-tier ancient spirits, capable of roaming the void in their true forms, with strength approaching that of immortals."

"Not only that, but below them are the Quru, the Yellow Bird, the Qitu, and other slightly inferior true spirits, which are equally powerful and have countless legends."

"Moreover, like the true dragon, the Heavenly Phoenix is ​​internally differentiated into various species, such as the White Swan, the Phoenix, and the Yuanchu. They are all among the Five Phoenixes, but they are not named after the character 'phoenix'. They are all renowned beings in the world and once emerged as powerful figures who dominated a region in mythology. Even today, there are still people in the world who worship them."

"From this perspective, I have quite a wide range of choices..."

After a moment's thought, Wang Xuan compared the roster with his previous preparations. Without much deliberation, he quickly made a decision.

This is his first demon beast, but it may not be his only one.

All it needs to do is, while taking into account its growth potential, provide itself with combat power to get through the weakest period of the early stages of the Immortal Path.

"Let's choose this one."

Pointing to a name on the roster, Wang Xuan let out a soft breath.

The White Sparrow has a low-grade bloodline, ranking even at the bottom among low-grade bloodlines, and it doesn't possess any bloodline talent whatsoever.

However, tracing its origins, it is the offspring of the superior-grade bloodline demon beast, the Azure Shadow Sparrow, which finally stabilized after countless bloodline deteriorations. This kind of demon beast is exceptionally powerful, possessing two bloodline talents from birth, and has the potential to reach the late stage of the second tier upon adulthood, making it no match for ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators.

If we trace this bloodline further back, we can find that the ancestor of the Azure Shadow Sparrow can be traced back to a certain earth-grade bloodline demon beast.

Further tracing back to its origins, it is found that it comes from a certain celestial bloodline... and hundreds of millions of years ago, they shared a common ancestor.

An ancient spirit, one of the Five Phoenixes.

Its voice governs the east, brings forth spring from the trees, its sound is like heavenly music, and it purifies the body in the west.

It is suspected to be a descendant of the Azure Emperor and is known as the divine bird Azure Phoenix.

But as time goes by, like the sands of the Ganges... to this day, just as a wild boar eaten by an ordinary farmer might theoretically be a descendant of the true spirits Dang Kang and Bing Feng, such a meager connection has become meaningless.

Only Wang Xuan knew that this was not necessarily true.

Just as the ability to "extract" the Dao Fruit can be transformed into a method of enlightenment in his hands, even a commoner in the mortal world may not be without hope of becoming a true dragon.

……

"Thus, the money and goods are settled."

Without much delay, having made his choice, Wang Xuan decisively chose to pay the bill.

So the two went to the counter, and after waiting for a short while, the girl returned carrying a jade box.

"Guests, you have been waiting. As you can see, this is the egg of the low-grade bloodline demon beast, the White Sparrow."

"The beast eggs in Yu Qinxuan are all of superior quality. If they are carefully nurtured, they may well reach the late stage of the first rank."

Push the jade box forward and take away the spirit stones.

The girl's expression behind the veil was unclear, but Wang Xuan could only roughly discern from her eyes that she seemed to be in a good mood.

"In addition, if customers need to change their pets in the future, or purchase beast-taming techniques, special pills for cultivating beasts, or sell beasts, Tianfeng Merchant Guild can handle it for them."

"Yu Qinxuan has branches in all the major immortal cities and markets of Chen Kingdom. We also regularly purchase common pills of the finest quality and above, as well as pills and spiritual items of the genuine quality and above with effects such as breaking through ranks, purifying magic, and refining souls... If there is an opportunity in the future, fellow Daoist is welcome to come and cooperate."

"No problem."

Wang Xuan carefully put the jade box back into his storage bag and returned the greeting with a cupped hand.

Putting living creatures into the spatial artifacts looks quite sophisticated.

However, strictly speaking, the storage bags in the cultivation world are not spatial magic treasures.

In fact, it merely stretches the space to a limited extent, reducing the area occupied by the items.

Since the inside and outside are connected and there is no problem of isolation, even living things with weak spiritual energy fluctuations can survive... However, as a result, it is quite common for a rogue cultivator to be able to "smell" out a treasure that is actually possessed by a certain monster with a keen sense of smell.

As for storage artifacts that truly form their own space, only those at the Core Formation stage can afford to buy them; they are really not relevant to ordinary cultivators.

……

"call--"

Without lingering, he left the shop under the watchful eyes of the masked maid.

Wang Xuan bid farewell to the young man surnamed He who had followed him all the way, and then, without further delay, went straight back to the place outside the city where his flying mounts were stored.

Night has fallen, which may seem more dangerous, but in reality, day and night make little difference to cultivators. In fact, it is easier for low-level cultivators who are not good at hiding to expose their flying and artifact-controlling abilities.

Therefore, he had no intention of spending the night in the city. With a wave of his beast token, Wang Xuan mounted the Blue Feather Eagle and sent it heading directly towards White Cloud Mountain.

To prevent any accidents, I remained fully focused the whole way.

Fortunately, although I vaguely sensed a trace of spiritual sense sweeping through along the way, I don't know if it was because I was too poor or because of the conspicuous outer disciple token, but in the end nothing happened.

Relieved, Wang Xuan didn't feel anything was wrong; this was consistent with the actual situation.

After all, normally speaking, the accidental death rate of sect disciples outside is not high.

It's not just the sheer power that's the deterrent, but also the fact that many sects use "contributions" instead of spirit stones, which makes sect disciples indeed wealthier than independent cultivators. However, this extra wealth is often impossible to rob.

In this way, the risks and rewards are not proportional, and even from a purely profit-driven perspective, not many independent cultivators would be willing to take action against them.

In addition, since he was not a wealthy person to begin with, Wang Xuan believed that even the fleeting spiritual sense was mostly an accident.

"That's fine too."

"This is all in the past now. Next time I come, I won't have to worry about it anymore."

"If you encounter trouble, just solve it directly."

Wang Xuan felt a slight sense of relief; even the smallest risk was less important than having the ability to manage it. However, he really didn't want to entrust such a major matter as purchasing a Soul Contract Spirit Beast to others.

After leaving the immortal city, there were no more unexpected events along the way.

After returning safely to the Linzhang Lower Temple without informing anyone, Wang Xuan closed the door to the meditation room.

After burning incense and bathing, he took out the jade box containing the eggs of the 'White Tit' bird.

Upon opening the jade box, a white spirit egg the size of a baby's palm appeared before one's eyes.

The eggshell has a few brown lines, reminiscent of an ancient tree.

Although it doesn't look pure, it's some proof that it possesses the wood element.