Chapter 99: Poison Young Master’s Diary

A certain year, a certain month, a certain day. The weather is clear, and my mood is pleasant.

My intuition tells me today will be a day of great harvest. It seems I will obtain the inheritance of the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts.

For this day, I have made full preparations. I brought along every poisonous insect and toxin I could carry—even a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator wouldn’t dare touch me directly.

Setting off.

It’s a pity my servants don’t understand why I keep a diary. Truly ignorant.

Arriving at the cliffside, I searched for a long time since I didn’t know the exact location. Finally, I found the entrance.

It turns out only Golden Core Stage cultivators under thirty years old can enter the mystic realm. My servants have all formed Poison Cores. Though they are false cores, they still barely count as Golden Core Stage, so they can enter.

I knew today was my lucky day.

Three trials must be passed to open the gate? Can’t I just force it open?

That gate is incredibly sturdy. The Master of Ten Thousand Beasts must have cast some formation on it before he died. Even a Soul Formation Stage cultivator wouldn’t be able to break it open quickly, let alone someone like me, who is only at the Golden Core Stage.

The first trial tests affinity with demonic beasts. Interesting, I can take on this challenge.

As expected, after poisoning the demonic beasts, I scattered the antidote near me. The beasts instinctively came over to take the antidote. Their instincts are remarkably sharp.

The second trial requires defeating ten demonic beasts of the same level. Seems like a test of combat ability. Hmph, a bunch of mindless beasts—how could they possibly defeat me, a poison cultivator?

I was careless. These beasts’ instincts are too sharp. They figured out that drinking my blood could detoxify them. After poisoning them, their attacks became even fiercer.

Since that’s the case, I’ll have to use lethal poison.

Damn it! These beasts have such thick hides. Before dying, they launched counterattacks that left me with many injuries.

My servants, with their false cores, are weaklings. They can’t even defeat a single Golden Core Stage demonic beast. Wait a minute… how did Ah Liu pass the second trial?

What? Ah Liu says he just fed the beasts until they surrendered? So this trial isn’t actually about combat ability but about knowledge of demonic beasts?

No matter. I passed the trial in the end and now have two keys. Just one more to open the gate!

The third trial requires resolving a conflict between several Nascent Soul Stage demonic beasts.

…I suspect the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts is messing with us. These Nascent Soul Stage beasts don’t even have intelligence! We can’t communicate with them—how are we supposed to know why they’re fighting, let alone resolve it?

This is the last trial. I have to try.

The Nascent Soul Stage beasts are terrifying. One almost crushed me with a single swipe of its claw. So many of my poisonous insects died beneath its claws. But I think I’ve figured out why they’re fighting.

As expected, I was right! My guess was correct. It was worth the injuries and using up all my poisonous creatures and toxins. I’m finally going to pass this trial and obtain the third key.

The inheritance of the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts is right before my eyes!

…

The Poison Young Master closed his diary with satisfaction.

Supported by Ah Liu, he clutched the three keys tightly and limped toward the great gate at the end of the mystic realm.

After the three trials, Ah Liu was the only servant left by his side.

“Master, look! A shooting star!” Ah Liu suddenly pointed at a streak of light shooting toward the end of the mystic realm.

Boom—

A loud explosion echoed throughout the mystic realm, sending demonic beasts fleeing in all directions in terror.

The Poison Young Master watched as the great gate was shattered by a single punch. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, his hands trembling uncontrollably. Ah Liu tried to hold him still, but he couldn’t.

…

As the stone gate opened, Jiang Li saw several spiritual treasures flying chaotically in the messy stone chamber. The coffin had been split into pieces, and inside were the remains of the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts, along with the corpses of the beasts buried with him. The spiritual treasures had hacked them all into a scattered mess.

“Finally! Someone opened the gate!”

“Kill him! Let’s get out of this damn place!”

“I was about to go crazy trapped in here!”

These spiritual treasures had gained sentience but were imprisoned in the mystic realm. They had exhausted all their strength trying to break the gate but failed. In frustration, they vented their fury by smashing apart the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts’ coffin and shredding his remains and those of the beasts buried with him.

Now that the gate was finally open, they planned to kill whoever had opened it and escape the mystic realm.

Jiang Li casually clenched his fist, and the arrogant spiritual treasures were crushed into a pile of useless scrap metal, never to move again.

Fortunately, the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts’ inheritance was stored in a storage ring and hadn’t been destroyed by the spiritual treasures.

Seeing that Jiang Li had directly opened the gate, Red Dust Fairy and Li Nian’er didn’t bother going through the trials one by one anymore. They joined him inside.

“There should be the Illustrated Compendium of Immortal Beasts you wanted in here. Go find it yourself,” Jiang Li said, motioning with his mouth toward the storage ring.

On the way here, Jiang Li had already told Li Nian’er that this woman, Red, loved immortal beasts and wanted to see the Illustrated Compendium of Immortal Beasts. After she was done, she’d hand it over.

Li Nian’er naturally trusted Jiang Li’s words.

Red Dust Fairy found the Illustrated Compendium of Immortal Beasts and opened it. On the first page, the phantom of a white-headed, red-footed ape appeared, its oppressive aura overwhelming.

As she flipped through the book, more and more immortal beast phantoms emerged in the stone chamber, and Red Dust Fairy was utterly engrossed.

Jiang Li scanned the other books with his divine sense and learned the contents of the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts’ inheritance. As expected, the man had unique insights into the path of beast taming.

Jiang Li’s assessment? If the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts hadn’t died early, he might have become a major scourge of the Nine Provinces.

He had proposed a theory—transforming the path of beast taming into the path of human taming.

If one could control beasts, why not control humans?

“Why do you cultivators always come up with these dangerous ideas?” Jiang Li muttered helplessly. He decided to keep this inheritance for himself and not share it with others.

The storage ring also contained some elixirs. Had Jiang Li arrived five hundred years earlier, they would still be potent. But now, they were nothing but useless medicinal residue.

He also examined the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts’ cultivation method—it was intriguing. By forming a life-and-death contract with demonic beasts, both master and beast would grow stronger together. If the master became stronger, the beast would too, and vice versa. But if the beast died, the master would perish as well.

For Jiang Li, however, this method was completely useless.

【Congratulations, Host, for completing the mission and obtaining the inheritance of the Master of Ten Thousand Beasts.】

【Reward issued: One drop of fresh Baize Blood (to ensure freshness, it is temporarily stored in the system and can be retrieved at any time).】

“Huh, that’s actually somewhat useful,” Jiang Li remarked, unexpectedly praising the system.

The technique for an instant burst of power was called Heaven-Scorching, Sea-Boiling Art. When activated, it caused blood energy to surge, increasing combat strength in an instant to catch an opponent off guard.

Jiang Li tried it briefly and found his vibrant blood energy calming slightly.

As for the Great Rejuvenation Pill, it was completely useless to him. It was only effective up to the Soul Formation Stage. After reaching the Tribulation Stage, one could regenerate from a single drop of blood—who would still need a pill to heal?