Lin Xun woke up, feeling his cheek wet and warm.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a ball-like little creature licking his cheek cheerfully with its pink tongue.
"Chirp~"
When it saw Lin wake up, the little creature became happier and kept chirping.
Lin pulled away its soft body and wiped away its saliva on his cheeks like a drowned mouse, saying with a bitter smile, "The way of welcoming can't be more special."
"Humph, stop it. Were you other people, it wouldn't bother welcoming."
Young Man, standing aside, folded her snow-white arms over her plump chest, with her lip slightly curled and her beautiful face a mixture of sulk and gladness.
"How long have I slept?"
Lin stood up and felt his whole body at ease as never before.
"A day and a night."
While saying, Young Man handed Lin a plate, on which were rice made of spiritual grain and meat in soy sauce. In addition, there was a cup of orange spiritual juice. The perfect combination of color, aroma and taste just couldn't be more delicious!
Lin felt hungry at once and buried himself in the meal.
Chirps jumped merrily around Lin's feet, like a rubber ball. It even rubbed against Lin's shanks sometimes.
Young Man looked at this scene jealously and heaved a long sigh.
After Lin left, it was she who had been taking care of it all the time. But the little creature just couldn't allow her to touch it in the past three months. Once held in her arms, it would struggle fiercely, play dead or scream, making Young Man at a loss whether to cry or to laugh.
Seeing it give Lin such a high rank of welcome when he had just returned, Young Man couldn't help feeling envious, cursing it for its ungratefulness.
"Oh, I heard you won the first place in the assessment. Is that true?" Young Man suddenly asked.
"Yeah. It was only luck," Lin said ambiguously as he ate.
"Luck? I see. How can it not be luck that a second-level strong barbarian soldier ended up dead on your hands?" Young Man seemed to have something in mind.
Lin understood it immediately, and couldn't help but say helplessly, "Sister Man, you can directly ask me if you wanna know the truth. There's no need to beat about the bush."
Young Man pinched Lin's ear and snorted coldly, "Hey, do you think you've learnt to see through women's mind? How about you guessing what I want to do now?"
Her beautiful and amorous eyes gave Lin quite a start. Lin quickly said, "No need to guess, Sister Man. You has got a big breast that can accommodate the whole world. How can it be for a vulgarian like me to figure out?"
Young Man wore a half smile, bit her rosy lip and said, "Are you saying that I've got big breasts?"
Lin was instantly speechless, for she would discuss about the size of breasts so straightforwardly.
The key point was that he had really no idea how to answer her. It would sound inappropriate to say either 'big' or 'small'…
"Well, we'd better talk about the result of the assessment," Lin wisely shifted the topic immediately.
Young Man said with scorn, "Little brother, it would make women look down upon you once you admit defeat when flirting."
Lin hastened to nod and express his consent.
In an argument with women, admitting defeat equalled victory!
As expected, seeing Lin admit defeat on his own initiative, Young Man felt bored at once and said, "Then is there something you want to tell me now?"
Lin immediately said, "Yes. As for that barbarian soldier's death, I think it necessary to discuss with you."
Sitting on a chair on one side with a drowsy look, Young Man crossed her slender snow-white legs on the back of the chair and nodded with satisfaction.
Her posture was very seductive, especially her fair legs which glowed temptingly as ivory under the light.
Lin Xun was fourteen now. These years' experience had also made him more mature than his peers. Although he had already learned about Young Man's beauty, seeing this beauty lying sleepily on one side at this moment still made his heart pound.
He looked away and had a dry cough. Then he gave a detailed explanation of the process of killing Shriying.
He hid nothing from her. Young man had already known his knowledge about spiritual tattoos, so there was nothing to hide.
"So it isn't luck at all that you killed that guy this time, right?"
After she knew the whole story, a glimmer of light emerged in her eyes. She fixed her eyes on Lin, as if having found some treasure.
"Awesome! Who will believe that a lad at the ninth level of Martial Realm can refine a spiritual formation with a large pile of trashy spiritual materials?"
The more Young Man said, the more excited she got. "Wouldn't those imperial tattooists be ashamed to death if this matter spread? What would Old Mo think if he knew you succeeded at the first time you set out to refine a spiritual formation?" She jumped for joy like a little girl.
Young Man seemed even happier than Lin Xun. Her beautiful and attractive face was full of pride and excitement.
Though Lin thought Young Man a little overreacted to this, a touch of warmness hit him when he saw her feel so happy for him.
"My young tattooist, well done!"
Before Lin knew it, Young Man stood up and gave Lin a hard kiss on his cheek.
Of course, this didn't mean the love between a man and a woman.
But Lin was still a bit unaccustomed to such an intimate action. He couldn't help forcing a smile, "Sister Man, can we calm down?"
Young Man gave Lin a cold stare and said sulkily, "Stop play poor after getting the gain. Well, do you think whether Chief Shu should know of this?"
Lin Xun turned serious and said, "If Sister Man trusts Drillmaster Shu, there is no harm in telling him."
By saying so, Lin left the option to Young Man. He can trust her, but he didn't not learn much about Shu Sanqi.
Young Man nodded, "I got it."
At the moment, Lin suddenly remembered one thing. He took out the black beast tooth obtained from Shriying and said, "Sister Man, have you ever seen this thing?"
Whoosh!
Before Young Man made a response, an unexpected thing happened. Chirps, which was originally jumping around Lin's feet, jumped up all of a sudden as if smelling the most delicious food in this world, and directly swallowed the black beast tooth on Lin's palm.
It acted so swiftly that it even startled Lin. But now there was already no way to retrieve the situation.
After swallowing the black beast tooth, Chirps seemed drunken and staggered charmingly on the ground, with its round body glowing red.
It didn't take long before Chirps turned into a fire-like light which instantly pierced into Lin's palm and disappeared.
At the same time, in his palm emerged a flame-shaped pattern, like an extremely mysterious tattooed totem.
Lin felt there was something else in the flesh of his palm. But he didn't find anything abnormal; nor did he feel unwell.
Lin was stunned. What had happened?
"It takes in too much energy, and needs to sleep for a while to digest it."
Young Man was very calm this moment, "I met the same occasion several days ago when I fed Chirps on spiritual crystal. Chirps spent approximately three days to recover that time."
Lin breathed a sigh of relief and frowned, "But the beast tooth..."
Young Man shrugged, "Who knows what it is, but judging from Chirps' reaction, it should be a treasure more attractive for Chirps than spiritual crystal."
It meant compared with a spiritual crystal, the beast tooth must be more valuable. But as for how much it was worth, it was uncertain.
Although Lin was a bit unwilling, the thing had happened, so he could only accept it.
Suddenly on question came to his mind, "Sister Man, have you ever seen this kind of spiritual beast which can turn into a pattern and live in a practitioner's body?"
Stunned, Young Man said, "Never before."
Lin's look grew earnest. He frowned, "When I was young, I read a book called Pandect of Beasts, which recorded that the beasts in this world were classified into three big categories as the Earth-level and the Heaven-level and the Sacred in terms of blood, root bone, talent and strength..."
According to the introduction of Pandect of Beasts, the Human-level beast's power, like the human practitioner's, could increase along with cultivation. Such a beast was also the most common in the world. For instance, most of the spiritual beasts raised by the beast tamers belonged to this category.
Compared with the Earth-level beasts, the Heaven-level beasts were natural spiritual beasts and excelled in blood, talent and strength. Moreover, they had very high intelligence; they could not only evolve through cultivation but also master some specific fighting skills.
Such a beast was hard to be seen in the world. It was rare and precious even in the entire empire.
For example, the Purple-horn Rhinoceros which was guarding the imperial household was a Heaven-level beast. It had unimaginable power, which was enough to awe strong practitioners of Tao Insight Realm and deter them from attacking!
It was rumoured that the Purple-horn Rhinoceros could rank in the top 30 among the Heaven-level beasts!
As for the Sacred beasts, they were even rarer. Such a beast was generally born with fate. Sometimes it couldn't be seen for several hundreds of years.
In the historical records of the empire, there were only six or seven places speaking of the Sacred beast-but most of the relevant records were not detailed, thus almost no one knew what power a Sacred beast owned.
"What puzzles me is that there are some descriptions of spiritual beasts which can live in a practitioner's body in Pandect of Beasts. But to do this, it takes a very complex process to acknowledge the host. There's never one like Chirps that can make it without acknowledging its host," Lin expressed his doubts.
"All this can only prove that Chirps is not a descendant of Golden Flame Beast. Maybe its origin is much rarer and more mysterious than we expect."
There was thoughtfulness in Young Man's eyes. She said, "But you don't need to worry. Though it didn't experience the process of acknowledging its host, Chirps has obviously regarded you as its family member. It will presumably pose no harm to you."
Lin thought for a moment and nodded at last.
"You should make some preparations. New training will begin in three days. And it will decide whether you can enter the Gang-producing Lake in the end. You must pay a great deal of attention to it."
Young Man warned Lin when leaving Old Mo's warehouse, making Lin suddenly alert.