Beasts and tests.

"Stop growling at me." There was a tinge of anger in Collins voice as he commanded the Blood Marsh Raptor. He was starting to get angry that his own demon beast was challenging its master.

Feeling the angry in its master through the mental bond, the raptor took its foot off the corpse and lowered its head, making sure it was lower than Collins head level.

Collin was feeling shocked at the actions of the raptor. He considered it to be a mindless beast only capable of death and destruction.

Like most cultivators Collin viewed tamed beasts as tools. If a tool is smart and useful then it is well taken care of, but if it isn't smart than it is a tool to be used till it breaks or needs to be thrown away.

The raptor started sniffing the headless body with a pleading look in its eyes. A few moments ago, this raptor was a blood thirsty monster growling at its master, and now it was like a puppy begging for a treat. For a few seconds Collin was too stunned at the sudden change to respond to the raptor.

"Fine, you can eat the bodies, but now here." Collin felt a sense of happiness coming from the raptor before it disappeared into the beast orb. The four bodies were placed into an empty bag of holding, before Collin left the area and blended into the crowd as he headed home.

After entering the gate of the villa Collin walked to the nearest garden be and released the solar boar from the beast orb. The little boar was now awake and looking around at the villa then towards its new master.

After looking at Collin for a few seconds it walked to the garden bed and began digging in the corner. Collin wasn't very happy to see a dozen plants he worked hard to grow being ripped up, but solar boars preferred to live in small caves under clusters of spirit herbs.

'Sacrifice a few, so the rest may thrive.'

Soon the little boar had created a hole deeper than it was tall and was starting to dig under the rest of the spirit herbs in the garden bed. It would sleep here tonight, tomorrow it would choose a new garden bed to sleep under. It would continue to do this till all the garden beds had small caves under them.

As long as a solar boar had sun light and clean water it would be happy to fertilize Collin's garden beds, increasing the plants growing speed and harvest yields. For most of the spirit herbs Collin was growing, this would show great results, but several of the herbs he was growing it would be as noticeable.

If Collin wanted to change this, he would have mix pills into boats water to stimulate its growth. He was already going to feed pills to his raptor and ape to increase their usefulness in combat, but solar boars were useless on battle. They were too cowardly to hold their ground and too weak for any attacks to matter. How long he would want to strengthen the little boar was what he would have to figure out. Feeding beasts pills to increase their strength to the peak of Qi Condensation would cost between one and three hundred spirit stones per beast. But since Collin was an alchemist and had already had plans to buy and raise demon beasts, he made many beast pills as alchemy practice, spending less than fifty spirit stones in materials.

Walking into the bathroom of the male servants' quarters Collin removed the four dead bodies from his bag and began to search them for anything of value.

The two followers had nothing of value, Jerald had some gold coins and thirty-four spirit stones in his bag of holding. The only thing of true worth on the guard was his sword and some manuals that were most likely bought at shops in the market. The manuals would be added to Collins library, they may not be the greatest techniques, but they were techniques that Collin didn't own.

After looting the bodies of anything of value, Collin removed their clothes before releasing his raptor. He had just exited the building when he heard the sound of bones being crunched. He decided to allow the male servants quarters to become the raptors territory, hoping that it would like sleeping in the tub as much as it did the swamps and marshes of its former homeland.

Now he only needed to find the ape a place to sleep, it wasn't like he could keep the ape in the beast orb forever. The only place in the villa that was similar to the ape's natural environment was past the servants' quarters, it had grass that hadn't been trimmed and some trees.

Standing in the waist high grass the silver bone titan ape looked at Collin with a disinterested look as it waited to be told what to do.

"Stay here, I'll buy, or I'll have a rain shelter built for you." Said Collin.

The ape let out a low grunt and headed to a cluster of trees near the back wall of the villa.

"Wait, eat this." Collin handed the ape a reddish colored beast pill.

The ape looked at the pill that was sitting in its large hand before sniffing it several times.

"Eat it, it will help you grow stronger." He said trying to sound convincing.

The ape looked at Collin for a few seconds before popping the pill into it mouth and swallowing it. It looked at Collin for a few seconds more before it began heading to the trees again. Collin watched as the ape laid down and closed its eyes as it yawned. It looked like the ape was going to sleep, but Collin knew better, he was connected to the beast and knew it was pretending to sleep so Collin would leave it alone.

Collin headed to the library shaking his head. Once in the library he began to place the manuals he got as loot with the others. One of the manuals was the: Heavenly Star Cultivation Technique, it could be considered one of the most popular cultivation techniques in the entire world, even if it was terrible. Almost every rogue cultivator used it, they would get a copy by spending one or two spirit stones from a shop or find a copy just lying around or on the dead bodies of cultivators.

While cultivators with backgrounds considered it worthless because its slow and limited Qi gathering ability, but to rogue cultivators who couldn't cultivate without it, it was a gift from the heavens. To Collin it was useless as a cultivation technique, but he valued it as a source of knowledge.

Placing the manuals on the shelves didn't take as long as Collin would have liked, because he would now have to do something he didn't want to do. Sitting on the desk in front of him was a cultivation testing array. The last time he was in front of one was the day of his 10th birthday, the day he was determined to have no talent for cultivation, the day he was cast out.

It looked like a wooden serving tray with four circular array patterns painted on it. Two of the circles were the size of a ten-year-old's hands, in between them was a circle slightly larger than a spirit stone, the finale circle was the sized of an adult human head. The largest circle was the one that indicated what spirit roots the one being tested had and their strength. The one Collin purchased today was the deluxe version, it tested the five standard roots plus rarer ones.

The reason he bought it was simple, he couldn't get the thought of how one could replace the territorial lord out of his head. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. It would be very hard to kill his father, but not impossible.

His father would sometimes have to leave the city, and an ambush could be set up. But as long as one of his children was capable of cultivating it would be pointless. They would have to make sure he had no heirs before they killed him, but assassinating the young masters of cultivator clans lead to clan warfare if even the slightest clue was left behind, and as the lord of the territory it also meant opposing the empire.

He was going to test himself to prove his theory was wrong.

Placing a spirit stone in its place and putting his hands where they needed to be, Collin felt the energy from the spirit stone enter his right hand and flow through his body before exiting his left hand and into the larger circle that would show his results.

Outside the villa was as peaceful as always, but inside the villa a long rageful could be heard, attracting the gazes of the three newest residents.