Beast Taming Immortal Clan

The alchemy inheritance that Zhou Chun passed on to Luo Qingni contained such a wide range of knowledge that even an alchemy master like Luo Qingni could not possibly comprehend it in a short period of time.

Furthermore, once a master alchemist like her obtains such a profound inheritance that she has never explored before, she will easily gain insights from it, develop ideas that can be applied to other areas, and will be unable to resist setting up a furnace to refine pills to verify some of her own gains.

This will also take a lot of time.

So Zhou Chun waited in Tianyuan Immortal City for nearly three years before Luo Qingni sent him a message inviting him.

After receiving the message, he quickly went to visit "Qingni Residence".

After being welcomed into the cave by Luo Qingni, and exchanging pleasantries, Zhou Chun looked at Luo Qingni's expression and asked with a smile, "It's been three years since we last met. I wonder how your life has been?"

"The gains were naturally enormous!"

Luo Qingni sighed softly, lamenting, "I had already thoroughly mastered the alchemy techniques I learned shortly after I formed my core. There's nothing of practical use left for me to learn at the Grandmaster level!"

"Later, I received two precious pill formulas from Fellow Daoist Zhou, as well as the alchemy notes he had given me. With the help of exchanges with other alchemy masters and grandmasters, I finally gained some understanding of the later grandmaster realm and vaguely grasped a direction!"

At this point, she glanced at Zhou Chun before continuing, "Thanks to the trust and kindness of Fellow Daoist Zhou and his disciples, I have been bestowed with a profound alchemy inheritance that leads directly to the realm of Grandmaster. After careful study and verification, Qing Ni has finally found her own path to becoming a Grandmaster and understands where she fell short!"

"If nothing unexpected happens, Qingni only needs to refine a few more high-grade pills to test her newly learned and understood techniques, and she should be able to reach the Grandmaster level!"

In the end, her words revealed a strong sense of confidence.

As a master of rogue alchemy and a female cultivator in the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm, Luo Qingni also has her own pride.

Whether it's her spiritual root aptitude or her comprehension and talent in alchemy, she possesses extraordinary abilities.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to successfully form her core as a rogue cultivator without relying on any power, and then become a master alchemist even before she had successfully formed her core!

Her talent in alchemy is actually outstanding. If she had joined a sect earlier and received training from a powerful sect, she would probably be a renowned alchemy master by now!

This time, Zhou Chun gave her a complete set of alchemy inheritance, which made up for her shortcomings in alchemy inheritance. Her alchemy skills, which had been difficult to improve due to the limitations of inheritance, suddenly made leaps and bounds.

The realm of Grandmaster is practically within reach!

That's how it is with any craft; understanding and passing on the skills are more important than anything else.

If you have the aptitude, the knowledge to draw upon, and the opportunity to put theory into practice, then you will progress very quickly.

Conversely, if one lacks comprehension, even with a complete inheritance, it will be like reading a book written in a foreign language, and one will never be able to learn it!

The cultivation world is not lacking in geniuses, but it lacks geniuses with extraordinary comprehension!

A genius with exceptional comprehension can sometimes bring about tremendous changes to the entire cultivation world!

Zhou Chun had no doubts about Luo Qingni's words. He had always known that his friend was a true genius in alchemy.

Previously, they were simply limited by the constraints of inherited knowledge and were unable to fully discover their own talents.

Now that he has filled in the gaps in his abilities, it is only natural that he will reach the level of a master alchemist, given his talent in alchemy.

Therefore, he smiled and said, "Then I, Zhou, would like to congratulate Fellow Daoist Luo on his great progress in alchemy and wish him to reach the level of Grandmaster soon."

After saying that, he patted the storage bag at his waist, took out a piece of white paper with the names of several kinds of pills written on it, and handed it to Luo Qingni.

At the same time, he said, "I currently have the main ingredients and important auxiliary ingredients for all the pills on these, and the remaining auxiliary ingredients are not rare and easy to collect. If you, Fellow Daoist Luo, wish to break through to the Grandmaster realm, these pills should be an excellent opportunity for practice!"

"As for the [Four Spirits Breakthrough Pill], let's wait until Fellow Daoist Luo truly reaches the Grandmaster realm before we start refining it!"

Upon hearing this, Luo Qingni immediately reached out and took the white paper. She saw that the several kinds of pills on it were the pill formulas passed down by the [Master Xuanfeng].

She seemed to have expected this, and was not shocked at this moment.

She simply said calmly to Zhou Chun, "Since Fellow Daoist Zhou trusts Qingni so much, Qingni will naturally not let you down!"

Hearing her agree so readily, Zhou Chun felt relieved and also promised, "Fellow Daoist Luo, rest assured, after the pills on these are refined, I will share half of the pills that are beneficial to your cultivation with you. I will definitely not let you suffer any losses!"

But Luo Qingni shook her head and refused his offer: "There's no need for a 50/50 split. I've already received immense kindness from Fellow Daoist Zhou and his disciples, how could I possibly accept such a generous reward!"

"Furthermore, Qingni already promised Fellow Daoist Zhou that she would not charge him a single penny should he ever ask her to refine pills!"

Although she was a rogue cultivator, she still had her own principles and bottom line.

Zhou Chun gave her the alchemy inheritance, something she couldn't refuse. So even though she knew she would owe him a huge favor, she had no choice but to accept it for the sake of her own path to enlightenment.

However, things like pills that could improve one's cultivation level were not essential to her, and she naturally did not want to incur more favors or break her previous promises.

This is actually one of the main reasons why Zhou Chun admires her so much!

Zhou Chun himself is a person with strong principles and bottom lines, so he naturally has a better impression of cultivators who have the same qualities, and they appreciate each other.

Therefore, Luo Qingni's refusal at this time was not unexpected by Zhou Chun, and it only made him feel even more that he had not misjudged her.

Therefore, he immediately smiled and said, "Then consider it as me lending it to Fellow Daoist Luo first. Once Fellow Daoist Luo reaches the Grandmaster level of Alchemy and breaks through to the late stage of Alchemy, he will surely attract many fellow Daoists to come and ask for help in alchemy. At that time, you can repay me with other spiritual pills or herbs!"

Seeing that Luo Qingni seemed somewhat interested, he immediately waved his hand and said, "It's decided then. If Fellow Daoist Luo continues to be so polite, it would be treating me like an outsider!"

"Then Qingni will be unworthy of such praise!"

Luo Qingni opened her mouth, but in the end, she nodded slightly and agreed.

However, he felt no great joy; instead, he was worried, wondering how he would repay the ever-growing debt of gratitude he owed.

This is probably the trouble of happiness!

After handing over a set of alchemy materials to Luo Qingni, Zhou Chun bid farewell and left without disturbing her any further.

He would leave the remaining medicinal herbs with Zhou Daoyi, so that Luo Qingni could go and retrieve them whenever she needed to refine other pills.

Zhou Chun did not stay in Tianyuan Immortal City for long, and soon returned to his family in the Qinglian Mountains.

When Zhou Chun returned to Jingguo, the Su family patriarch had already passed away peacefully.

Upon learning of this, he rushed to the Su family's mountain gate to offer incense and mourn the deceased elder.

In the following months, Zhou Chun stayed at the Su family's mountain gate to accompany his Daoist partner, Su Yuzhen, and comfort his partner who was feeling down.

Fortunately, the Su family patriarch had passed away peacefully at the end of his life, and all arrangements had been made before his death, so the Su family did not experience any turmoil because of his passing.

Zhou Chun's high-profile appearance at the Su family's residence was also intended to allow the Su family to use her influence to intimidate both inside and outside the family.

He stayed at the Su family's residence for several months, fully demonstrating his stance, before returning to his cave in the Qinglian Mountains to cultivate in seclusion.

While Zhou Chun was cultivating in seclusion within the Qinglian Mountains, the Zhou family suddenly became lively because of the large amount of resources he brought back.

Besides the spiritual medicines Zhou Chun needed, Zhou Zhiying brought back some extraordinary fourth-tier and third-tier spiritual fruits from the secret cave, as well as many spiritual teas and medicines such as "Azure Wave Cleansing Tea".

He kept half of these items and distributed them to the Golden Core cultivators in the family. The other half was placed in the family treasury for those family members with cultivation levels below the Golden Core stage to exchange.

Upon discovering this, Zhou Xinyan quickly proposed that the Zhou family take out some fourth-tier and third-tier spiritual fruits, as well as other rare spiritual items, to hold a "Fruit Appreciation Ceremony" and invite all the forces under its command to participate.

At that time, the Zhou family cultivators will compete with these subordinate forces to determine the rankings. The top-ranked cultivators will be able to enjoy spiritual fruits of different grades and effects, depending on their ranking.

Such martial arts competitions serve several purposes: firstly, they help boost the cultivation enthusiasm of cultivators within the family; secondly, they provide an opportunity to observe the talent pool of the vassal forces under their command; and thirdly, they can unite the hearts and minds of the vassal forces. It can be said to be a win-win situation.

Therefore, Zhou Xinyan's suggestion was quickly approved by Zhou Mingde.

So, in just six months, elites from various cultivation families and independent cultivator strongholds in Lanzhou and Lingzhou gathered at the Qinglian Mountains.

On this day, when the "Fruit Appreciation Ceremony" officially began, Zhou Chun also made a personal appearance and delivered a speech.

Then, the various cultivators who had been preparing for half a year began to take the stage.

Unlike the martial arts competitions that the Zhou family usually holds, this time, because the spiritual fruits that Zhou Chun brought out were of such high quality, even some cultivators in the Purple Mansion stage signed up to participate in the competition.

Therefore, they had to be divided into three groups according to their cultivation level: one group of cultivators at the Purple Mansion stage, one group of cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage, and another group of cultivators at the Qi Refining stage.

The first to take the stage were naturally the Qi Refining stage cultivators.

"The reward for this Qi Refining group is [Foundation Building Fruit]. The first place winner will receive two [Foundation Building Fruits], the second to tenth place winners will each receive one [Foundation Building Fruit], and the tenth to thirtieth place winners will each receive one second-tier spirit jujube!"

As Zhou Xinyan loudly announced the rewards for this Qi Refining group, the hundreds of Qi Refining cultivators who had signed up began to take to the stage to compete.

For various reasons, only two-thirds of the Zhou family members were Qi Refining stage cultivators who participated in the martial arts competition.

However, when the results of the entire Qi Refining group competition were announced, the Zhou family cultivators swept the top ten spots, and there were only five Qi Refining stage cultivators from outside the Zhou family among the top thirty.

None of the cultivators who watched the martial arts contest were surprised by this result.

Because the Zhou family cultivators truly had a huge advantage!

Those Zhou family cultivators who won the rankings almost all had powerful and talented spirit pets by their side, and their magical artifacts were also of extremely high quality.

Even cultivators from other factions, even those who brought spirit pets, still found it difficult to compete with them.

The reason why three of the five Qi Refining cultivators outside the Zhou family were able to win was because they had also tamed dragon-born demon beast spirit pets produced by the Zhou family, and were themselves Foundation Establishment seeds cultivated by their own forces!

It should be noted that with both Lei Jiao Bai Bai and Qing Jiao Qing Qing breaking through to become fourth-tier demon beasts and building their nests in the Qinglian Mountains, the Zhou family has gained several more types of dragon-descended demon beasts.

For example, there's the [Thunder Dragon Carp] which has the Thunder and Water attributes, the [Wind and Fire Dragon Wolf] which has the Wind and Fire attributes, and the [Thunder Flame Ape] which has the Thunder and Fire attributes, etc.

It is almost certain that in the future, every Foundation Establishment cultivator in the Zhou family will have a second-tier demonic beast.

At that time, the "Zhou Family of Spirit Beasts" brand will truly become a unique feature of the entire Heavenly Spirit Realm.

Following the Qi Refining group was the Foundation Establishment group. Almost all the Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Zhou family who were still in Jingguo signed up to participate in this martial arts competition, even those who were in the early Foundation Establishment stage.

Even if they don't win a prize, they can still use this opportunity to see where they fall short of others, and incidentally, show off in front of Zhou Chun, Zhou Mingde, and other real high-ranking members of the family.

According to the latest statistics, the Zhou family now has as many as seventy-six Foundation Establishment stage cultivators, including some relatives of the family.

Apart from the seven or eight Foundation Establishment cultivators who were in the wilderness and did not come, and after removing some Foundation Establishment cultivators who left Jingguo to travel, the number of Foundation Establishment cultivators from the Zhou family present today exceeded fifty.

Zhou Chun also took a slightly interested look at these key members of the family.

"Next match: Zhou Yuanxin vs. Zhou Gaolong!"

As Zhou Xinyan, the elder of the Zhou family who was presiding over the Foundation Establishment cultivators' competition, spoke, the two Foundation Establishment cultivators from the Zhou family stepped onto the arena together.

Zhou Yuanxin was a white-robed youth who had recently succeeded in establishing his foundation, while Zhou Gaolong was a square-faced middle-aged man whose cultivation was close to the mid-stage of establishing his foundation.

After the two went on stage, Zhou Yuanxin, as the younger generation, immediately bowed to the square-faced middle-aged man and said, "This junior nephew greets his clan uncle. I hope that in the upcoming competition, his clan uncle will show mercy."

Upon seeing this, Zhou Gaolong immediately laughed and said, "Hahaha, Nephew Yuanxin, there's no need to be so polite. Just unleash all your skills. Our cultivation levels are the same, so you might even have a chance to surpass your uncle!"

From his words, it was clear that he did not regard Zhou Yuanxin as an opponent of the same level, and still believed that he, as the elder, would surely win.

But his expression changed when the two released their spirit pets.

Zhou Yuanxin patted the spirit beast pouch at his waist and released two spirit pets: a five-colored phoenix-tailed pheasant and a thunder lizard.

The reason why Zhou Gaolong's expression changed drastically was because of that five-colored phoenix-tailed pheasant.

Because this demonic bird was already at the cultivation level of a second-tier low-grade demonic beast!

"How is this possible! You've only been at Foundation Establishment for less than seven years, how could you have raised this spirit pet to the second tier so quickly!"

Zhou Gaolong was so shocked that he couldn't help but gasp, his relaxed expression completely gone.

Although he also had a second-tier low-grade spirit pet, it was a fire-winged wolf.

Although the Firewing Wolf is a decent race among intermediate-level demonic beasts, it is obviously no match for the Five-Colored Phoenix-Tailed Pheasant, which has awakened the Fire Phoenix bloodline. In fact, its fire-attribute magic is even countered by the Five-Colored Phoenix-Tailed Pheasant.

Sure enough, their subsequent encounter quickly confirmed his concerns.

The Firewing Wolf was completely overwhelmed in its battle against the Five-Colored Phoenix-Tailed Pheasant.

Neither the fire-attribute spells it possesses nor the demonic fire naturally emanating from its body pose much of a threat to the Five-Colored Phoenix-Tail Pheasant.

However, the Five-Colored Phoenix-Tailed Pheasant's fire phoenix bloodline makes its fire-attribute magic several times stronger than that of the Fire-Winged Wolf, and its five-colored demonic fire also has a trace of the power of the [Glazed Pure Fire].

What surprised Zhou Gaolong even more was that Zhou Yuanxin, who had achieved Foundation Establishment more than 20 years later than him, was not at a disadvantage in their one-on-one fight, and even made him quite flustered.

The reason for this is that the other party cultivates a top-level fire-attribute technique!

With both himself and his spirit pet at a disadvantage, the battle between the two lasted less than a quarter of an hour before ending in Zhou Yuanxin's victory.

"This five-colored phoenix-tailed pheasant looks quite good. Among the dragon-blooded demon beasts in the family, there are only a handful with this kind of strength!"

From the stands, Zhou Chun watched as the Five-Colored Phoenix-Tailed Pheasant completely suppressed the Fire-Winged Wolf in the battle, and nodded slightly, quite satisfied with the strength of this demonic beast.

Hearing his words, Zhou Mingde nodded in agreement, then gave a wry smile and said, "That's true, but breeding them is quite difficult. Now, decades later, the family's five-colored phoenix-tailed pheasants number less than two hands' worth!"

"There's nothing we can do about it. Phoenix Blood Beasts don't reproduce as fast as Dragon Blood Beasts to begin with, so we can only wait for them to slowly multiply and expand their population."

Zhou Chun shook his head slightly and said with some helplessness.

The more powerful a monster is, the slower it reproduces; this is the law of nature.

Otherwise, the world would have been teeming with dragons and phoenixes long ago!

While beast-taming families like the Zhou family have ways to accelerate the reproduction of low-level demonic beasts through medicine and secret techniques, their human intervention is not entirely ineffective against mid-level and high-level demonic beasts, though the effect is minimal.

Therefore, the only effective way is to prevent any accidental deaths among members of a certain monster race, and then increase the population by expanding its base.

About two days later, the results of the Foundation Establishment group's competition were also announced.

The top ten are still entirely occupied by Zhou family cultivators, and the number of non-Zhou family cultivators in the top twenty has been further reduced to only three!

The first place winner in the Foundation Establishment group will be awarded a fourth-grade spirit fruit, the top ten winners will be awarded a third-grade high-quality spirit fruit, and the tenth to twentieth place winners will be awarded a third-grade low-quality spirit fruit.

Compared to the large number of Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment groups, the number of Purple Mansion stage cultivators participating in the martial arts competition was very small, with only twelve in total, including Zhou Xinyan.

Only the top five will receive a fourth-tier spirit fruit as a reward; the rest will be able to enjoy a third-tier low-grade spirit fruit later.

Despite having the fewest members, the Purple Mansion Group's battles were the most exciting.

Especially Zhou Zhiqian, who had already cultivated to the mid-stage of the Purple Mansion realm.

He fought his way to the final round with only his sword and no spirit pets.

If Zhou Xinyan hadn't already cultivated his intermediate-level demonic beast, the Flaming Dragon Python, into a third-tier mid-grade demonic beast, the Flaming Horned Dragon Python, and if he himself hadn't already reached the late stage of the Purple Mansion realm, he probably wouldn't have been able to defeat him!

But even Zhou Xinyan didn't know that if it were a real life-or-death battle, Zhou Zhigan definitely had the strength to take him down with him!

For sword cultivators, truly powerful killing moves are often life-or-death techniques, where either the enemy dies or the cultivator perishes, making them unsuitable for arena combat.

Therefore, after the competition for first place in the Purple Mansion group ended, even Zhou Mingde couldn't help but exclaim, "If this child doesn't die prematurely, his chances of successfully forming his core are the highest among all the Purple Mansion stage cultivators in the family!"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Chun nodded and said, "Zhiqian's performance was indeed excellent. We can give him an extra fourth-tier spirit pear this time!"

The fourth-tier spirit pear he mentioned was the same type of spirit fruit as the fifth-tier spirit apricot he had consumed, and could be directly used to improve a cultivator's magical power.

This is what he takes; one pill can save him almost a year of cultivation time.

For cultivators at the Purple Mansion stage, one pill is equivalent to one or two decades of arduous cultivation!

Such spiritual fruits are extremely rare in the cultivation world. Generally, only those powerful forces with long-standing traditions possess them, and often, even before the spiritual fruits are ripe, the recipients of each fruit have already been chosen!

At the same time, the growth cycle of such spiritual fruits is often very long, sometimes taking hundreds of years!

According to the communication between the Wood Spirit and the Spirit Fruit Tree, it takes nearly a thousand years for that fifth-tier spirit apricot fruit to grow from flowering to fruit ripening!

However, the advantage of this kind of spiritual fruit tree is that even if the spiritual fruit is ripe, it can often remain on the tree for thousands of years as long as it is not picked!

With Zhou Chun presiding over the event, the "Fruit Appreciation Ceremony" organized by the Zhou family was a complete success.

After this grand event, Zhou Chun devoted himself once again to seclusion and intensive cultivation.

It wasn't until five years later, when the celestial phenomenon of Zhou Yuanlian successfully forming his core appeared, that he was allowed to leave his cave.

"Excellent! From this day forward, the Zhou family has gained another Golden Core cultivator!"

On Qinglian Peak, Zhou Chun watched as the celestial phenomenon of Core Formation above Zhou Yuanlian's secluded cave gradually dissipated, and a look of genuine joy appeared on his face.

This news quickly spread throughout the Zhou family and caused some discussion within the Jingguo region.

However, times have changed. Given the current size of the Zhou family, the emergence of a new Golden Core cultivator is not a novelty.

This only proves one thing: the Zhou family has the ability to continuously generate wealth for Golden Core cultivators, and in this respect, they have gradually moved beyond the scope of Golden Core families.

Perhaps Zhou Yuanlian's success inspired some people. Zhou Xinyan and Xu Fu and Zhou Yuanyuan, who were no longer young, also began to retreat into seclusion to form their inner cores within a year of her success.

The three of them went into seclusion, which consumed most of the Core Formation spiritual items that Zhou Chun had brought back, making it difficult for them to gather a complete set of Core Formation spiritual items.

Fortunately, among the entire Zhou family, only a few of them currently need spiritual objects for Core Formation to break through to the Golden Core stage, so Zhou Chun doesn't need to rush to find more spiritual objects for Core Formation.

Meanwhile, in the third year after Zhou Yuanlian formed her Golden Core, Zhou Chun, after consuming and refining the last [True Rebirth Pill], finally touched the barrier of the late Golden Core stage, reaching the peak of the mid-Golden Core stage.

He also tried to break through the barrier of the late Golden Core stage, but found that his current accumulation of knowledge was far from enough to shake that barrier.

Without the help of other spiritual beings, he might be stuck by this barrier for hundreds of years, or even a lifetime!

After all, his own aptitude wasn't actually that outstanding.

Fortunately, he had been mentally prepared for this. After realizing that he could not break through the barrier of his realm in a short time on his own, he immediately went to the Great Zhou Kingdom to find Luo Qingni to refine the [Four Spirits Barrier-Breaking Pill].

(End of this chapter)