The Charm of Soul Pets (WN)

Chu Mu meditated for a night. The next morning, Chu Tianren also appeared while rubbing his eyes and yawning. They ate breakfast on the side of the streets.

Chu Mu found that three uncles were indeed true wanderers. If they didn’t release their soul remembrances or summoned soul pets, it would be very hard to detect the aura of a spirit emperor that brought reverence from deep within one’s heart.

The first thing Chu Mu did when he woke up was to feed his soul pets. His soul pets were all in rapidly growing phases, meaning their appetites were all great.

Mo Xie and White Nightmare also each ate one spirit.

The morning sun was above the mountaintops, Chu Tianren summoned his Ice Cloud Crane and flew high up into the skies of Wogu City before flying straight towards the great broken sting valley.

The great broken sting valley was right behind the mountain range that Wogu City resided against. The north mountain range was different from the south one. The south one was mainly made of hills, ridges, basins. Even the mountain range was boundless. The north mountain ranges instead were full of peaks that soared into the clouds, deep without a bottom, creating a very stark contrast.

The most famous killing grounds of Tianxia Realm. Great broken sting valley was right at the foot of these towering mountains. In every complicated valley, it may reside a large bug type species’ nest. If one accidentally fell into it, one had to face the tragic consequence of being eaten alive without any remains.

After countless years of humans and heavenly devil insects facing off, humans slowly understood the situation in great broken sting valley.

Humans split great broken sting valley into four valleys- ten valley, hundred valley, thousand valley, and ten thousand valley.

Thousand valley was already limited to only spirit master level humans that had soul pets averaging monarch rank and above. Even then, they usually required teams of careful coordination.

In reality, the thousand valley region was still the border between human and forbidden realm. Past the thousand valley was entering a true forbidden realm. In ten thousand valley, many bug type tribes inhabited the land. The land they covered was larger than all of the humans’ kingdoms added together. If one didn’t reach spirit emperor and brought multiple emperor ranks, it would be incredibly difficult to move around in ten thousand valley.

There were many spirit emperor experts in humans, but they didn’t often step into ten thousand valley because the death rate was way too high. Some scholars made statistical estimates before that, in the past couple hundred years, of the spirit emperor experts that entered, forty percent came back with souls injured, while only ten percent actually benefited from the journey.

With such a cruel ratio, which spirit emperor would dare risk themselves? One had to know that losing a soul pet had a huge impact on a spirit emperor’s position. They had entered spirit emperor’s realm, and had an emperor rank soul pet, earning one of the utmost honors. No one wanted to risk everything for a place like this.

“Past thousand valley, we can only walk amongst these mountains and bug-filled valleys.” Chu Tianren blew out a breath, pretty much sobered up and said to Chu Mu.

“En.” Chu Mu naturally understood the rule of no flying in forbidden realm.

“The Battle of the Realm nomination requirement is a heavenly devil insect innard crystal. We can kill a few extra and sell them. Probably many spirit emperors who want to show face but didn’t dare to risk their soul pets would be willing to pay to buy it, hehe.” Chu Tianren laughed and said.

“How much can one sell for?” Chu Mu raised an eyebrow.

Pseudo emperor rank innard crystals were around 500 spirits, pretty cheap already.

“2000 spirits can buy one. A pseudo emperor rank heavenly devil insect is often accompanies by a first rank tribe. Bug type reproduction abilities are insane. Their first rank tribes’ numbers were almost double those of a normal one. If one wanted to kill a pseudo emperor rank heavenly devil insect, without four or five pseudo emperor ranks, it’s almost impossible to do this. This is strictly for experienced spirit emperors who train in the wilderness as well. For spirit emperors that come from factions, even with a low class emperor rank and a couple pseudo emperor ranks, they may not kill a heavenly devil insect pseudo emperor rank.” Chu Tianren said.

“So third uncle was also looking out for news on great broken sting valley.” Chu Mu said.

“*cough*, how could I forget about the matter at hand? When I conversed with my old friends, we often asked about this, so I asked and found out.” Chu Tianren’s face went slightly red.

“Just killing a heavenly devil insect emperor, this revenue is quite appealing.” Chu Mu smiled.

One innard crystal is worth 2000 spirits. Killing five means creating one pseudo-emperor rank. The difficulty would just be much higher.

“Also, our soul power must be conserved. Even in a great battle, we have to maintain at least more than half our soul power as well as save an emperor rank soul pet. We’re deep in ten thousand valley. After large battles, we may have huge amounts of enemies chasing after us. If we don’t save a soul pet, we may get killed half way even with all our loot, so we have to select our soul pet formation well……” Chu Tianren said.

“En.” Chu Mu nodded.

The great broken sting valley wasn’t like barbarian mountain range, only having a panther species tribe. Chu Mu could constantly change soul pets to eliminate panther species until he eliminated the entire tribe. In this great broken sting valley, he had to conserve as much power as possible or else leaving will be an issue. This immediately added to the difficulty of killing the heavenly devil insect emperor. No wonder an innard crystal’s price would flip four times. Chu Mu even though four times was too cheap.

“We’re probably the first to enter great broken sting valley. After a while, there probably will be a bunch of spirit emperors that are either daring or want the nomination of realm throne. You said you can find spirit sources. We should hurry up in case someone finds us, and we lose all our efforts.” Chu Tianren said.

"Third uncle doesn’t have to worry about that.” Chu Mu said.

Old Li was the expert of spirit source searching of the entire last century. If he could’t find another spirit source like the panther species tribe one, Chu Mu would pull all of the old fellow’s whiskers out.

“I’ve gotten a lot of information. The regions around ten thousand valley are almost all saturated, and won’t have new spirit sources. Only deeper within, where no one dared to enter, would have a chance to yield a new spirit source. However, there, there may even be fourth rank tribes. They gave me a map and suggested me to visit a couple of places.” Chu Tianren said.

As they spoke, Chu Tianren pulled out an old great broken sting valley map.

This map is but the size of a palm. There were many small triangles and red lines, densely packed and headache inducing. According to the map legend, the small black triangles are mountains above 5000 meters tall. The red lines of different thicknesses that pierced through the countless little black triangles were the complicated mountain valley paths.

And above the red lines, there were many bug type tribe’s habitats labelled in different colors, within abysses, caves, valleys, and underground worlds…...

“This map caused me quite a few silvers to get. Its a great scholar’s compiled work after reading through hundreds of years of geographical information about great broken sting valley as well as hearing witnesses from countless spirit emperors who ventured inwards, before finally creating it himself. Though this isn’t the original, its accuracy is above ninety percent. The places he suggested we visit are here, here, here, and here…..” As Chu Tianren spoke, he pointed at a few locations marked with a different color.

Chu Mu went up to take a look, and found that Chu Tianren was pointing at a place the size of a grain of sand. If not for the difference in color, Chu Mu wouldn’t even have noticed it.

One could see from this that great broken sting valley truly was full of tens of thousands of landforms. Even with a map, one could get lost in this vast and boundless region.

“Let’s go to the nearest Wuling Cave. There is still an untouched land there. They say there's a tribe there. If there’s a spirit source, we can plan around it. If not, we can move onto the next place.” Chu Tianren said.

Since its a hidden spirit source, it naturally wouldn’t be wafting with scent for miles. More likely, the spirit finding experts would have to go personally and do some reconnaissance before having a result, so initially they would still have to run around like this…...

Wulin Cave was very far. If they couldn’t fly, they would have to constantly climb mountains and valleys to reach there in an indeterminate time frame.

Along the way, if they were obstructed by bug type troops, Chu Mu and Chu Tianren would send out their secondary soul pets to battle. For one, they could keep their main soul pets’ strengths. For another, they could train their secondary soul pets.

Since they were in bug valley, Chu Mu’s main training target was naturally Zhan Ye!

Zhan Ye was duo main type plus dark type. Finding a soul item to strengthen it to top tier monarch rank was difficult. As for finding a soul teacher to merge it, he would probably need a soul teacher at old soul teacher De’s level as well. Thus, Zhan Ye was still top tier monarch rank.

Old Li suggested that Chu Mu should use spirits to directly strengthen Zhan Ye.

Spirits used the cleanest energy without any type. Through special soul items and soul teachers’ combining, they could become emperor rank soul items. Normal first rank emperor rank soul items need 10,000 spirits, so the price of a pseudo emperor rank is 10,000 spirits.

Old Li meant that since Chu Mu has that many spirits, and since raising Zhan Ye’s strength was important, he should just use pure spirits to strengthen it. It would use around 2000 to 3000 spirits, which was perfect because Chu Mu got 3000 spirits when he killed kingdom master and Sun Qiming.

High class monarch rank to top tier monarch rank’s tenth rank soul item price is around 30 billion. Zhan Ye needed triple that amount, so it cost around 120 billion gold.

Even with the 1 spirit to 100 million gold conversion, it was only 1200 spirits. Taking 2000 to 3000 spirits to directly strengthen zhan ye from high class monarch to top tier monarch was too luxurious. It was twenty or thirty percent of a pseudo-emperor rank’s resources. Even with that much money, Chu Mu didn’t wish to spend it like this.

Chu Mu didn’t want to spend it. After a while, old soul teacher De would come to Wogu City. Chu Mu could just collect tenth rank bug type, beast type, and dark type soul crystals or some special soul items, and then go back to Wogu City to tell old soul teacher De to combine them.

In the past, when ranks were low, Chu Mu could rather easily find soul items that matched his soul pets. Now at higher ranks, it was clearly harder. In the future, strengthening his soul pets would probably all rely on soul teachers or soul items that could strengthen all types.

……

“We’re not far from Wuling Cave now. Let’s figure out what soul pet tribe it is first.” Chu Tianren stood atop a cloud ravelled peak, and looked down at a black cave hidden beneath a dozen mountains ahead.

Chu Mu strained his eyes. He had seen too many mountains and valley in the past, and was already numb. Now that he had finally reached his destination, his heart skipped a beat, and he quickly used his soul remembrance to tell Old Li to get ready to look for a spirit source.