Beast Core

Azure Dragon Mountain.

"Traceless outburst, Soaring Decimating Pierce." A crimson flash moved like a comet through the void, its features indistinguishable until it halted, revealing an extremely handsome teen wielding a crimson spear. The boy appeared below a giant four-legged purple spider and drilled his Blood-silver spear right below the chin of the monster.

A majestic crimson-bronze sheen covered the bloodthirsty spear as he pierced through the stone-like carcass of the giant spider, successfully stabbing deep into its head.

"Swsh." Sounds of flesh tearing erupted as the figure then split the giant monster spider with a swift overhead cutting motion from its head to its stomach.

"Splash." A steamy, pungent stream of dark green blood gushed out of the beast, and it collapsed soon after with a 'thud.'

The boy removed his spear from the dead monster and whipped the blood off his treasure spear with a fierce swing. A sizzling noise sounded as the blood fell on the ground, melting it.

"Hiya, how dangerous; this Iron-Skinned Purple Spider's blood is highly toxic, it would burn you from the inside. However, it was still quite easy to defeat, it took me less time to defeat than the Flame-Horned Rhinoceros and the Ice-winged Devil snake. Those two and this one were all at the peak of the Elemental Realm , I believe I'm going to begin facing Innate Spirit beasts soon. Though master warned me there were a few Elemental Grade beasts that would cause some trouble, I don't believe I've faced those yet. If they are much stronger than the previous monsters, it means I will face them later not sooner." Looking at the burning ground, shivers went through Kaelen's body. He cut through the stomach of the spider and took out a shiny green crystal core.

"The cores of Earth Grade beasts and above are known to be quite valuable and can even be used as elemental source crystals, since all of them have at least one elemental affinity. Of course, they can only compare to the lowest element crystals, but the higher the cultivation of the monster beast and the purer its bloodline, the higher the quality of its core. Some say that the cores of beasts with sacred bloodlines can even increase the talent of whoever consumes it. Then again, whoever would have to defeat one, which is much easier said than done. Not only are the parents highly protective, since they difficulty had babies, but sacred beasts are also all insanely powerful; the worst types are at the Innate Spirit realm at birth, while the strongest can even compare with Dao Finding strong cultivators, which is absurd."

Indeed, Sacred beasts were at the peak when it came to beast bloodlines and power. In fact, 'sacred' is another way to call stellar beasts, but they are extremely rare, so much that they become seen as sacred, noble creatures of high rarity: some human tribal clans even venerate them as their gods. Of course, there are different levels of sacred beast; amongst stellar beasts, there are unfathomable separations of strength. The Golden Crow in the sun core, for instance, was an extreme-grade stellar beast, of a much greater rarity than even the Azure Dragon, Vermillion Bird, Qilin, etc., and these beasts themselves are limited in number. The Three-legged Golden Crow and other mythical beasts of its level such as the Kun Peng and Golden-Winged Great Peng became exceedingly rare since immemorial times, and even then. At the peak of prosperity of the True-Martial Ancient Great World, there may not have been more than a dozen of them existing at the same time.

Their scarcity is but nature's way of balancing life; there can't be an equal number of sun crows as there are regular cats and dogs, for they would simply dominate all races. Actually, there wouldn't many other races, as even the presence of such monsters affects the world to a profound degree, changing survivable temperatures and environments into hostile hellish lands if they allow their energy to flow naturally.

"The sun crow senior said there was a difference between stellar races and bloodlines, I wonder if that's true for humans as much as beasts. There are humans with stellar bloodlines but they mostly don't descend from them; some get them from getting pure blood essence of some dead beast through luck, some get their bloodline from their human ancestors who reached extreme levels of cultivation, while some merge with an elemental spirit source, the highest grade of elemental crystals that gained sentience over tens of thousands of years. However, are there humans born divine like other races?" Kaelen thought to himself. He searched his memory for a clue to the answer, while he put the beast core into his storage ring.

"Right… the moon people could be different from regular humans; after all, they aren't born in the same environment and there's that hazy purple moon energy. Plus, that women definitely exuded something different from the regular person. There may actually be a moon race. There's also Innate Divine mights which confere a degree of divinity to the normal person who was lucky enough to be born with one; that persons divine might eventually becomes part of his bloodline too." Remembering the goldy woman on the moon, he couldn't help but associate her with a type of divine race.

"Whistle!" He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled upwards.

"Hey, big cat, where are you?" He yelled and looked around for signs of the Golden-eyed Shadow Leopard.

A big leopard then swiftly came to his side from wherever it was hiding.

"Good boy." He petted the giant cat; it cutely sat next to the body of the spider.

"If that spider was as cute as you, I might've spared it, but it's so ugly, don't you think?" he asked, a bright smile on his face.

The shadow leopard looked at the dead spider on the floor, it let out a disdainful sneer and smirked. It nodded swiftly.

"Ahaha. You can eat it, if you dare." Kaelen laughed at the comical beast.

However, the leopards head turned green as it shook it's head fervently. A look of reminiscence flashed in it's dazzling golden eyes.

"Lol, I see you've stolen a few bites before." Looking at it's unwilling expression, Kaelen guessed it had been naughty and consequently payed for it.

He smiled and sat on the ground, a few meters away from the body of the spider. "Protect me while I break through. I'm about to reach the last Extreme level of Xiantian." He told the beast and took a dozen high-grade source stones. He placed most on the ground and kept two, one on each hand.

"The last level of Xiantian… next is the last foundational realm. I'm progressing quite fast." Kaelen said to himself. He gazed at the moons in the sky and the great sun that was slowly going to rest. "My journey of cultivation is only beginning. I will become as powerful as I need to be of some help to old Dai, but I also wish to thoroughly enjoy this adventure. The Sun crow, the purple moon palace, and the moon goddess. All these fantastic mysteries that wait for me to explore when I become strong enough. Of course, there are also untold secrets here on the ground that are awaiting. Finally, I will need to find my parents and Rai's… if they are even still alive. Sigh, let's focus on the matter at hand- my breakthrough." As he prepared to break through, Kaelen thought of many things. He could only sigh heavily at the responsibilities that fell on his shoulders. He did not yet know what occurred with his family for them to be separated as they were- as they are, but he knew that whatever it was, it was not something he could worry about now when he had no power to fix or change anything.

"In any case, I know I may be exceptionally talented, perhaps even more so than my parents; I can't say for sure. However, one thing is for certain, I am not much more talented than they were, as I inherited everything from them; if they couldn't deal with whatever happened, I would have to be stronger than they were to fix everything. For that, I can't rely on just my talents- hard work and dedication. Yes…" His hands tightened into fists, blood pouring as the stones pierced into his flesh. "… and pushing myself to limits of what I can achieve, even transcending that…" A fierce look covered his face, his gem-bright eyes blazed with undying flames of courage and discipline. He closed his eyelids and began his cultivation.

Kaelen was like this. It was part of the reason Raizel did not enjoy fighting him; he always pushed himself more than he had to, more than others. Coupled with his outrageous talents, it is only right that he would be the worst nightmare of all other geniuses - the divine scion that outworked you- What a joke, often times it is said nature maintains balance in some way, shape, or form. Indeed, it may have in depriving the boy of great parents and peak fostering environment, which certainly makes a difference, usually allowing the well-reared, ordinary child to defeat the genius who had to figure everything on his own. Yet nature also rewards the brave who dare to challenge its constraints. Evolution is after all one of the fundamental necessities of survival, no it is the fundamental rule. As such, those lunatics who willingly refine themselves through never-ending challenges and hardships eventually come out as a completely different person. Kaelen was one such lunatic.

He was a pure martial artist at heart. He did not know when or why he began to feel this way, he just knew he enjoyed putting himself through the ringer. His young mind thirsted for knowledge and adventure, his blazing blood for epic battles and unsurmountable mountains to crush. His heart longed for more connections because he was deprived of the most essential ones at birth, so he was always warm to new people he met and approached those that picked his interest.

"To thread the path to the peak, one's heart must be true…" Kaelen mumbled the beginning lines of the True Heart Sutra, entering deep cultivation. A bronze light flashed in his left chest as his heart spirit awakened. He swallowed the surrounding heaven and earth Qi at terrifying speeds; a massive Qi cyclone formed right above his head, shaking the surrounding trees and land. The Qi transformed into surging streams of intense crimson blood Qi. The blood qi circulated through all his meridians, accumulating power and purity in the process. The bronze light surged from his heart and merged with the blood energy. After a few revolutions, he directed the crimson-bronze stream toward his brain for the last round of refinement.