Chapter 323: Who Is the Master, and Who Is the Servant

“Old Bai, wanna come over? This world’s pretty interesting,” Jiang Li warmly invited Bai Hongtu. In this world, he was weak and had no backing—he needed a powerful Contract Beast to protect him.

“No thanks, I’ve got things to do,” Bai Hongtu resisted the temptation. Lately, he’d been working hard and had no desire to play around.

Not long ago, that b*stard Jiang Li had said that the grand spiritual plant formation Bai Hongtu spent painstaking effort to design posed no threat to him. Bai Hongtu had been furious.

This time, no matter what, he would find a way to threaten Jiang Li.

After shutting off the Remote Communication Talisman, Bai Hongtu grinned wickedly and pulled out a document titled Plan to Defeat Jiang Li. One of the entries was brutally simple:

Ban the sale of candied hawthorn in the Nine Provinces.

He was still working on the other strategies.

“Just you wait, Jiang Li!”

…

With Bai Hongtu refusing, Jiang Li couldn’t force him to come over.

So he had no choice but to give up on the idea of becoming a Beast Tamer.

The Lingxi World was a continental realm, where all people and beasts lived on one landmass. Jiang Li used his divine sense to scan the area and found that humans in the Lingxi World were doing fairly well—they were on even footing with the beasts.

The human side had six-star Contract Beasts, and the beast side had six-star spirit beasts too. Neither side was afraid of the other. It didn’t look like an imminent apocalypse at all.

Still, Jiang Li didn’t believe the Outer Realm Demons would leave this place alone.

The continent was split in half: humans occupied one side, beasts the other.

The human side was divided into six countries. The beast side was just a vast expanse of primeval forest. Through Jiang Li’s divine sense, the contrast felt jarring.

The six human nations had technology that was… decent.

But individual humans were laughably weak. No cultivation at all—they relied entirely on their Contract Beasts in battle. Even an ordinary martial artist from the Nine Provinces would be considered a master here.

Contract Beasts didn’t appear out of thin air either. They were transferred from the spirit beast forests. Once a contract was signed, they became a human’s friend and ally. Without a contract, they were enemies.

“Brother Jiang, was that caterpillar really what I summoned?” Now that Xia Chao knew Jiang Li had supernatural powers, he didn’t dare treat his words like a joke anymore.

“Do you seriously think you summoned me?” Jiang Li looked at him with a half-smile.

“But the caterpillar’s potential is zero-star. No matter how I train it, it won’t amount to anything.” Xia Chao was crushed. He’d been fantasizing about summoning a powerful beast, slicing through demons and monsters, and becoming humanity’s greatest hero.

But a silk-spitting caterpillar couldn’t achieve any of that.

Historically, only a handful of unlucky students had ever summoned caterpillars. The luckiest ones managed to awaken its potential and evolve it into a one-star flapping moth. The rest died with a zero-star worm.

He never imagined he’d make history as the newest unlucky guy.

Still, it was his summon. Having a Contract Beast was better than none at all. Xia Chao figured he’d go ahead and sign the contract—maybe he could evolve it into the flapping moth.

But Jiang Li stopped him.

“Don’t rush. Let me take a look at how your world works first.”

After Xia Chao fell asleep, Jiang Li spent the night studying the structure of the summoning array.

His conclusion:

“I’ll ask Bai Hongtu about this tomorrow.”

…

Outdoor class. Everyone was holding their Contract Beasts from yesterday, doting on them. If this weren’t a special world, Jiang Li would’ve thought he was in some kind of pet care class.

“Congratulations, everyone, on summoning your own Contract Beast.”

Several classmates kept sneaking glances toward Xia Chao and Jiang Li.

Everyone had summoned a beast. Why did Xia Chao summon a person? How was he going to fight in the future? Jiang Li looked like a normal guy—definitely not battle material.

Xia Chao forced himself to stay focused, ignoring the shame.

“In the coming days, I’ll teach you all how to become qualified Beast Tamers—from cultivation and feeding, to improving your beast’s affection and strength.”

“The most important thing for a Beast Tamer is to level up their Contract Beast. Today, we’ll start with that.”

“Everyone, close your eyes and carefully sense the unusual energies in the air. You should all be able to feel it.”

“After signing a soul contract with a beast, your senses will heighten. You’ll become more sensitive to the world around you.”

“Teacher, are you talking about the blue motes of light in the air?” A few minutes later, Qiu Shi—the student who summoned the Bonewing White Tiger—was the first to detect the anomaly.

“Yes. We call that ‘spiritual energy,’” the instructor confirmed, nodding knowingly. Contract Beasts and Tamers were interconnected. The more potential a beast had, the more sensitive the Tamer was to spiritual energy.

After Qiu Shi, many others excitedly said they could sense it too.

The instructor noticed Xia Chao hadn’t said anything and sighed inwardly.

Poor kid. Contracted with a human—no way he could sense spiritual energy.

Xia Chao, however, had a strange expression. Following the instructor’s method, he sensed the spiritual energy almost instantly—faster than Qiu Shi even.

But the textbook was clear: without a beast, you couldn’t sense spiritual energy.

He stole a glance at Jiang Li. Could this guy actually be his Contract Beast?

“Now everyone try to channel the blue motes—spiritual energy—into your bodies. I’ll demonstrate first. Eyes closed, please.”

In the students’ perception, the spiritual energy entered the instructor’s body, circulated inside him, and then transferred into his Contract Beast.

“We absorb the energy, then feed it to our Contract Beast to make them stronger. That’s how you level up your beast.”

“Excuse me, if you don’t form a contract, can you still sense spiritual energy?” Jiang Li raised his hand.

The instructor answered confidently, “Only a few rare individuals can. Very few. And even then, they can’t absorb it on their own. At best, it causes internal imbalance; at worst, death.”

“We’ve found that directly using spiritual energy like that is incorrect.”

“Only by transferring it through ourselves to our Contract Beast is it safe and proper.”

“Oh.”

So the humans of Lingxi World never continued researching how to directly absorb spiritual energy for cultivation—they focused solely on leveling up beasts.

After answering Jiang Li’s question, the instructor continued, “Now everyone, try it yourselves—feed your Contract Beast.”

“Brother Jiang, should I transfer the spiritual energy to you?” Xia Chao whispered.

Jiang Li gave him a side glance. “No need.”

With that, Jiang Li walked straight over to Qiu Shi. Xia Chao was confused and jogged after him.

At that moment, Qiu Shi was holding his tiger cub, channeling energy into its body.

The energy flowed from Qiu Shi’s palm to the back of the cub’s paw—the very spot where he’d made contact when forming the Master-Servant Contract.

Jiang Li squatted beside them, watching intently. Then he suddenly asked, “Between you and the tiger cub—who’s the master, and who’s the servant?”

Qiu Shi was puzzled, but still answered, “Of course I’m the master. The tiger is the servant.”

Jiang Li smiled, saying nothing more.