Bai Yunfei sighed as the boat left towards the skies. Though Yun Liantian not showing any hostility towards him, the pressure he felt was utterly uncomfortable.
“One of the five great wandering soul cultivators….wonder what he’s doing here in the Soulbeast Forest? If he’s looking for the Beast Taming School, does he have a grudge with them too?
“Doesn’t seem like it. Master said that Yun Liantian’s tends to travel without aligning himself with any group. Then….is he with the Beast Taming School?! Are they planning something?
“Master also said Yun Liantian likes to travel alone. So who was that other guy with him?”
Not even a few minutes were spared between Bai Yunfei and Yun Liantian, but he felt something was off about the man. “Eh, who cares who he is? I’ll only get a headache if I try to think about it….
“He’s one of the five great wandering soul cultivators, and a Soul King. Whatever he does isn’t my business. And if he says death awaits me further ahead, then I’ll just finish my business elsewhere!”
And with that, Bai Yunfei gave up thinking about the two men to finish his own meal. Then finding a large tree to sleep in, Bai Yunfei began to take a nap.
On the other side, the One Azure Leaf Boat was sailing through the air countless of kilometers away.
On the boat, Yun Liantian stood at the helm with a pensive look on his face. He was thinking about his meeting with Bai Yunfei.
“If that Bai Yunfei isn’t lying, then the Beast Taming School are still in the forest. But is it only that Xing Yuan? Or are there more? According to my information, there should be at least two of the elders here, not just that Xing Yuan. That man must’ve been a scout. Then….then that other piece of information must be true!!”
His eyes lit up with anticipation and his entire frame started to shake somewhat at the thought.
It had been many years since he felt so excited about something….
“But that Bai Yunfei is really something else!” Changing his line of thought, Yun Liantian sighed aloud in his comment about Bai Yunfei. “Quick to react and quick to think. He has those two qualities in spades over his peers of age. But most importantly, he was able to form a soul contract with a class six soulbeast despite being a late-stage Soul Ancestor only. And to think he’s traveling through this forest without anyone as his guardian, Zi Jin’s method of training a disciple is rather outrageous….”
He turned his head back to the black robed male behind him, “Gui Xiu, you’ve seen Bai Yunfei’s strength for yourself. You’re both of the same age almost, but he’s also a late-stage Soul Ancestor. You’ve always thought yourself to be peerless, so how do you feel now?”
The one now known as ‘Gui Xiu’ looked back at Yun Liantian.
“I will surpass him soon enough.” He stated.
It was a simple sentence, but in it held his conviction and determination.
“Haha, very good! This is what I expect from my disciple! You must remain proud and peerless!!” Yun Liantian barked with laughter, evidently satisfied with the response.
“Rest assured, I’m sure it’s because of that class six soulbeast that Bai Yunfei was able to get to the level he is now. We’re here in the Soulbeast Forest to find you a suitably strong soulbeast as well. When you form a contract, you’ll leap into the levels of the Soul Exalt realm soon enough!
“You might be a little late in becoming known like the others on that ‘top ten prodigies’, but in time, you’ll definitely outrstrip the entire list!!” Yun Liantian declared, “The disciple of Yun Liantian must be the strongest disciple of them all!!”
The next day.
Fully refreshed from his nightly sleep, Bai Yunfei climbed down the tree he had been in. Urging the blue-eyes wyrm, he continued his journey through the forest.
“I shouldn’t ignore Yun Liantian’s warning. The later half of the class six area is too dangerous for me anyways, if I stay there, I’ll definitely find danger.” Bai Yunfei thought to himself, “I’ll start heading perpendicular then! The middle part of the class six area is a great place to train. If I keep going west, I’ll be able to avoid whatever it is the Beast Taming School or that Yun Liantian is doing. And if I’m not, I’ll at least be far way enough to not matter.
“Then again, Na Lanyin said I should go northwest….”
Bai Yunfei’s eyebrows scrunched together, “Forget it! Safety’s more important than heading deeper in. The ‘fortune’ Na Lanyin talked about might’ve been about the events in the cave anyways. I don’t need to go northwest anymore.
“Alright, that settles things! I’ll go west!” Looking up to the sun, Bai Yunfei did his best to determine where west was. “Xiao Lan, go that way.” He pointed for the blue-eyes wyrm to see.
“Xiao Qi, we’re going….” He called out for the bird, but when he got no response, Bai Yunfei looked up in surprise, “Eh? Xiao Qi?”
Xiao Qi would’ve normally come chirping at him without him even needing to call out for it, but this time, Xiao Qi was nowhere to be seen.
By concentrating on his senses, Bai Yunfei could sense that Xiao Qi was nearby enough to hear him, but for some reason, it wasn’t coming out. But when he looked at where Xiao Qi was, Bai Yunfei did a double take in bafflement.
Fifty meters to his right was a very large tree. Near the top of the tree was a small three meter wide bird’s nest with six equally small gray-colored birds. They were all the size of a pigeon, and their beaks were wide open as they chirped incessantly as if waiting for food to be brought to them.
And in the middle of these birds was a clearly different bird colored like the rainbow. It was the same size as the other birds and extended its beak upward to cry out as well.
It was Xiao Qi.
Just as Bai Yunfei wa about to head on over to check up on Xiao Qi, a black shadow came dropping down over the nest. It was a bird with a wingspan of twenty meters, and a tail that was as long as its wings. Shrinking in size when it landed, the bird lurched over the nest with a bowl-like container in its mouth. In the container were all sorts of still squirming fishes.
This bird was the early-stage class six soulbeast, a phoenix-tailed eagle!
With its mother arriving back home, the birdlings began to cry out in earnest and wait eagerly for their food.
When the mother bird landed on the nest, its eyes landed firstly on the Xiao Qi that was disguising itself as one of her own. Pausing in disbelief at first, the bird then squawked twice from anger before tossing the small bird out from its nest.
But like a stubborn child, Xiao Qi came flying back to the nest to be fed almost as if it wasn’t thrown out in the first place.
“Haha! Xiao Qi, what are you doing?! Can you even pretend to be them like that? You’re the color of a rai—”
For a while, Bai Yunfei mistook Xiao Qi’s antics of that of a mischievous child and wasn’t worried that it’d get hurt with how preoccupied the mother bird was with her children.
But then when he saw the expression on Xiao Qi’s face, the smile on his lips and the words in his mouth died away.
Not only was Xiao Qi’s eyes broadcasting its emotions, but the emotional bond Bai Yunfei had with it was showing him an emotion from the bird he had never seen before….
The emotion of sorrow….