Rats and Cats - 316

Zhou Fan descended to the planet's surface. He floated a few feet above the ground and sent out his divine sense. He instantly got all of the information he needed.

'The most advanced lifeforms here are rat-like creatures.' He thought to himself.

This rat species usually had gray fur with spots of different colors. Some had red spots, while some had yellow spots, and others had green spots. There were also a few with rarer colors.

Zhou Fan guessed that it was related to their affinity, and upon examination, he was correct. Those with brown spots had an earth affinity. Those with blue spots had a water affinity, and so on. 

Some interesting ones that Zhou Fan found were two rats with space-like spots. The spots were deep blue with white dots. They had a space affinity.

Upon further examination, Zhou Fan found that the rats would only have one color or design no matter how many affinities they had. It seemed the most compatible affinity would show as a color.

The strongest rat was only at the earlier levels of the foundation establishment realm. In other words, it could be considered a mortal planet. 

Even earth when Zhou Fan was young was a stronger force in terms of overall combat ability thanks to weapons and higher intelligence.

It didn't take long for Zhou Fan to decide to make the rat race the greatest race of the planet. The other species would follow later. 

Zhou Fan's divine sense quickly checked the talent of all the rats on the planet and brought the most talented hundred to him. Unsurprisingly, the two rats with a space affinity were present.

There was no rat with a particularly high talent, but one had king rank meridians. It really wasn't much, but it would at least lay the foundation for the more talented ones to come after.

Although beasts didn't technically need a cultivation technique to cultivate, it was much more efficient if they had one.

Zhou Fan used the technique that he had specially created for beasts, supreme beasts, and other non-humanoid creatures, the technique that all beasts throughout the universe used to cultivate, much like the humanoid species used Zhou Fans technique.

The beast technique was just the counterpart to Zhou Fan's cultivation technique, so there was no difference in effectiveness.

Although there was once a surge of other cultivation techniques on the Zhou world, it was quickly realized how inferior they were in every possible way and they were no longer used.

Zhou Fan didn't need to directly impart the cultivation technique since all beings in his mortal dao would automatically have it in their minds, but he needed to temporarily give the rats higher intelligence so that they could actually use it.

Usually, they would have slowly evolved to be able to understand and use the technique, but Zhou Fan was skipping that step. Once they grew in power, their descendants would have higher intelligence. Soon, the entire rat-like race would naturally understand and be able to use the technique.

Zhou Fan raised the rats' intelligence and focused their thoughts to the technique in their minds rather than the world which they had previously unthinkingly lived in.

At about the same time, all of the rats understood the technique. Zhou Fan took away their intelligence and threw them in a man made cave he had quickly created.

In that cave, due to many arrays, the urge to cultivate overwhelmed them. Zhou Fan created a tunnel in the cave that led to the outside, but the rats would continue to non-stop cultivate until they reached at least the nascent soul realm. Only then would they have a good amount of intelligence, which they needed to grow as a species.

After creating the cave and the tunnel, Zhou Fan set off to look for another planet. The rats were set to grow at a much faster pace due to Zhou Fan's casual intervention. Doing any more for them would require personally sculpting their growth, and Zhou Fan had enough fun with the Zhou world and the Heaven galaxy.

Zhou Fan wandered around the galaxy cluster for a while before finding another planet similar to the rat world. Instead of rats being the most advanced lifeform, cats were.

'If they ever meet, will they be natural enemies?' Zhou Fan thought to himself as he landed on a mountain.

Below the mountain was the most dense group of cats. While the cats were much more intelligent than the rats, they were still in the stage of animal intelligence. Cultivating wasn't something they understood.

As a result, the strongest cat in the world was only in the middle levels of the foundation establishment realm. Like the strongest rat from before, it had naturally grown stronger by absorbing the Qi unconsciously. It was a feature that Zhou Fan was a little jealous of.

Of course, he could probably figure out a way to give himself that feature, but there were a few reasons he did not.

First, the human body was not naturally suitable for such a thing. Although Zhou Fan's body, mind, and soul had far surpassed what could be described as human, his foundation's blueprint was the same. His meridians were as well.

Secondly, it would be an annoying amount of work. He would have to mess with life concepts and creation techniques. It would probably take millions of years if he wanted to permanently alter his body so that he could absorb Qi naturally.

Finally, it would have a very tiny effect. The effectiveness of naturally absorbing Qi to absorbing Qi when cultivating was around 1 to 100. In other words, a hundred million years of floating around doing nothing would be equal to a million years of actual cultivation. There would also be no boost while cultivating.

Although small things could add up to help, it was ridiculously unnecessary. Zhou Fan rarely went a long time without cultivating anyway.

Zhou Fan stopped thinking about altering his body, which had remained fairly similar to how it was since he turned 100 or so, and focused on the cats.