Chapter 125

Although it was not easy for Lin Jing to leave this place, that did not mean he was unable to seek other opportunities!

He only needed to send one of his pet beasts over.

With the Pine-Needle Rat's strength, Lin Jing was not worried that it would suffer any losses.

And releasing the Pine-Needle Rat would not have much of an impact on his side; with Lin Jing's current cultivation base at the eleventh layer of Qi Refining for both him and the Ice Soul Gu, plus a group of mosquito beasts and the Dragon Palace crowd, he rarely had any rivals.

As Lin Jing patted the gourd hanging at his waist, a red light shot out from within, and a squirrel spirit flying on a leaf immediately attracted everyone's attention.

"This is..." Everyone looked at the Pine-Needle Rat, whose appearance had changed drastically after its bloodline evolution.

Most eye-catching was the broad tail behind it, with an end shaped like a maple leaf.

It clearly did not look like it was composed of flesh and blood, but rather a plant!

Furthermore, those red, tree-leaf-like ears confirmed that this rat was not right—very not right.

"Is this still that same squirrel?"

Seeing so many people watching it, the Pine-Needle Rat took a pristine white Daoist robe from its storage bag and draped it over its body; the feeling of an immortal air immediately covered up the previous sense of demonic strangeness.

"Foundation Establishment stage!" Three-Pupil Liu Yu was slightly startled. So Lin Jing had already broken through to the Foundation Establishment stage. As a beast-taming cultivator, a pet beast reaching Foundation Establishment was no different from the beast tamer reaching Foundation Establishment.

But what had he just heard?

Lin Jing actually intended to send this pet beast alone to compete for opportunities?

Observing the Pine-Needle Rat's drastically changed appearance, Liu Yu could guess that its bloodline grade must have received a significant boost, but at the thought of a squirrel spirit going alone to compete for opportunities against a group of heaven's pride experts, he still felt like laughing.

Was Lin Jing being a bit too naive?

"Squeak..." The Pine-Needle Rat's expression was calm. After receiving the order, it flew off directly on its leaf, quickly flashing past the members of the Pupil Alliance.

"Is he not afraid of his pet beast being killed in battle?"

Liu Yu was puzzled, but the group still followed. They had not taken a fancy to the dragon blood opportunity here and chose to go to another location to hunt instead.

After the Pine-Needle Rat left, Wang Xiao tried hard to soothe his King-Blood Battle Tiger. In the entire arena, only this King-Blood Battle Tiger, also a beast, vaguely sensed the terror of the Pine-Needle Rat's bloodline and kept growling uneasily.

Other monsters with insufficient bloodlines were just like mayflies seeing the blue sky; they could not sense the Pine-Needle Rat's terrifying bloodline at all.

"Just what are you..." Wang Xiao was once again horrified inside. He had originally thought Lin Jing had only subdued the mosquito beasts by coincidence, but now he was thoroughly convinced that it was no coincidence. During this time, although he had also cultivated a powerful battle pet, Lin Jing's Pine-Needle Rat had been cultivated by Lin Jing to be even more mysterious and unfathomable.

"You're just sending that squirrel? Is that okay?" Outside the Dragon-Transforming Blood Pool, Wang Xiao said, "Are you really not going to follow?"

"No need." Lin Jing closed his eyes again and continued to sit cross-legged in mid-air to cultivate. Seeing this, Wang Xiao gritted his teeth and rode his battle tiger to chase after Liu Yu and the others.

"This squirrel spirit..." At the same time, above the clouds, the various teachers were also observing the Pine-Needle Rat.

"Could it have consumed a Treant Pill, using the Treant Pill to remodel its bloodline?" The academy teachers were far more knowledgeable than the average student and quickly judged the Pine-Needle Rat's situation.

"It looks like an ordinary early Foundation Establishment, and its bloodline is also an ordinary squirrel spirit... It must be hiding its strength just like Lin Jing. Wang Xiao's battle tiger seems very afraid of it." The teachers were not wrong in their judgment; the techniques for hiding strength used by both the Pine-Needle Rat and Lin Jing originated from Shen Song.

It was an advanced application of the "Divine Wood Seal," achieving the effect of hiding one's cultivation and bloodline by falsely sealing away power. Unless one forcibly broke the seal to investigate using high-level spiritual sense, it was very difficult to detect.

The academy teachers naturally had no need to rush; excessive investigation was very impolite.

"It seems their target is that one..." Cao Ziwei spoke with a half-smile, and the other teachers also laughed, looking as if they were ready to watch a good show.

At the moment, a considerable number of academy geniuses were gathered at a mountain peak. The mountain was strange; the surrounding area was perfectly normal, but only this mountain was constantly shrouded in dense, heavy rain.

The rainwater was colorless, and when it fell to the ground, it looked no different from ordinary rain.

This rain mostly originated from a heaven-reaching plant within the mountain. Its leaves were broad and dark green, its inflorescence fresh and elegant, and it stood taller than ordinary ancient trees. Silver patterns spread across its body; it was the one constantly absorbing water vapor and spraying rain.

"It won't work." A genius probed with his spiritual sense, but immediately felt as if he had plunged his head into magma; his face flushed red, and his mind fell into chaos.

There were also geniuses who brought their own "chariots," riding flying boats that shielded them from wind and rain, trying to traverse the rain curtain, but halfway through, the flying boats lost their magic power support and plummeted from the sky.

Body-protecting true qi, protective magic treasures, and five-element escape techniques—the geniuses exhausted all their methods but could not break through the rain curtain, instead making themselves look very disheveled.

"It should be a fourth-rank fierce plant, the Rain-Falling Guanyin, a dangerous object from the Mist Forest." Chen Lingxi of the Divine Talisman Sect shook her head; her talisman paper was countered by this rainwater, making it difficult to break through at all.

"The Rain-Falling Guanyin's rainwater has the effect of corroding magic power and can even affect Core Formation cultivators..." Under normal circumstances, the dozens of geniuses gathered here did not want to clash head-on with this fierce plant; however, everyone could see the heaven-shaking treasure light emanating from within the mountain.

There must be a supreme treasure within the mountain!

"Can even Tang Yun not break through?" Everyone looked toward a white-haired youth. Ranked sixty-sixth on the Heaven's Pride List, Tang Yun possessed the Innate Cloud-Mist Body, a mutation of the Water Spirit Body, capable of refining clouds and mist into various powerful magic treasures and cloud beasts.

He was currently sitting cross-legged on a white cloud, with a long halberd inserted into the cloud, condensed from black storm clouds and flickering with lightning.

"This rainwater can even corrode my clouds. It's difficult to pass without reaching Golden Core. However, the Rain-Falling Guanyin's survival is extremely dependent on the surrounding environment. Once the surrounding water vapor is depleted, we can pass directly." The white-haired youth spoke indifferently.

"If we want to know what the treasure is as soon as possible, the most efficient way... is for everyone to work together to continuously cast fire spells in the vicinity to remove the water vapor."

"Don't even think about breaking through relying on one person alone."

No sooner had he finished speaking than people saw a red flash streak past their eyes. A strange squirrel flying on a leaf mingled among them, staring longingly at the heaven-shaking treasure light within the rain curtain.

"This is...!" As soon as the Pine-Needle Rat appeared, everyone was stunned. Only a very small number of people, such as Chen Lingxi of the Divine Talisman Sect, saw a familiar shadow in the Pine-Needle Rat after its bloodline evolution.

"Could it be another rare spirit beast captured from abroad by the academy teachers?" Some geniuses were eager to try; this squirrel looked delicious, and if put in a pot for a stir-fry, it would be a complete meal.

"How is that possible? Whose wild spirit beast wears a Daoist robe?!"

Boom!

Before the cultivators present could react further, they saw the direction the Pine-Needle Rat—which was flying while stepping on a red leaf—was staring. The rain was forcibly opened to create a rainless path, and it flew straight in, leaving everyone stunned.

The others came to their senses and just wanted to follow, but the rain came pouring down again.

"Don't even think about breaking through relying on one person alone... but it is not a person." Tang Yun added, "This Daoist-robed squirrel spirit... must have a method to counter the fierce plant!"