Chapter 167- Anima and Bonds

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They added some simple seasonings and rotated the wooden rack from time to time to make sure the elks were cooked evenly. After half an hour or so, a mouth-watering aroma wafted in the small clearing as five grilled elks were finally ready to be served.

Little White seemed already impatient after waiting all this time as a line of its saliva trickled out of its mouth while it was staring intensely at the row of delicious-looking grilled elks.

However, it understood that it couldn't lose control as it would greatly disappoint a certain someone.

Hence, the white tiger quickly turned to look at Liu Guanyi with the cutest expression it could make on its face as if it was begging for his permission to have a bite of those luscious treats.

Seeing the cute expression of the big tiger and how hard she had tried, Liu Guanyi smiled as Xin laughed loudly and smacked the ground to Little White's annoyance.

However, she steadfastly kept her cute expression as she even bowed her head to him, and to her joy, she was finally rewarded by Liu Guanyi in the form of two wooden racks with a fully grilled elk tied on each of them.

Without waiting any longer, she grabbed the grilled elk and gorged herself into it.

Indeed, Little White was a female white tiger. She was a Shinheuh that Liu Guanyi had used as a testing target for his special skill. What kind of inhumane and cruel, err… slightly unethical special skill that he had tested on the poor and cute animal?

Well, it wasn't inhumane and cruel at all, to be honest. It was a pretty normal action or could even be called positive or kind in fact, even kind-hearted people would likely agree with this.

What Liu Guanyi did was try to befriend a wild animal and try to create a special bond between them. This was merely his not important side project so when he had seen Little White some time ago, this idea just happened to cross his mind so he quickly decided to catch her to try his experiment on her.

Then, the question became how would Liu Guanyi be able to create a special bond between him and the tiger? Would he try a similar method like what the Lo Po Bia family or other Animas usually implement to get their own Shinheuh to be absolutely loyal to them?

No, although the result might look the same, the method and process were completely different.

The Lo Po Bia family's method to control their Shinheuh came from a special ability that they inherited from their patriarch and ancestor, Lo Po Bia Traumerei, the first Anima in the tower.

After him, more and more Animas started to appear in the tower. Hence, it was an ability that couldn't be learned and could only be determined from birth. This was the case for not just Lo Po Bia family members but also all Animas in the tower.

Their method to control the animals and Shinheuh was by force. Using the special ability that they were gifted with, they could project their will on the creatures they wanted to control, causing a battle of willpower between the Anima and the creature.

If the Anima managed to best the creature's willpower, they would finally be able to defeat and bend the creature to their control, completely enslaving its very soul to their heart's desire as they would be willing to do anything for its master, even by sacrificing its very own life, something that was against its natural instinct of survival.

What Liu Guanyi did, however, was merely approaching the creature and slowly befriending it.

It might seem like a chore since the process would be long and the result wouldn't come anything close to what an Anima could do, just like the limits of what people could do to befriend wild beasts. However, Liu Guanyi was different.

Inner energy was the life force itself.

Everything, be it humans, small animals, trees, and even inanimate objects like pebbles and rocks had it. With his vast experience and attainment on the Martial Way, Liu Guanyi understood it very well.

Because all parts of his body were already refined and restructured with the inner energy, he was practically enveloped and brimming with it, causing him to be able to interact very easily with nature, much easier than when he was an Initiate or Nascent Warrior.

Animals or even Shinheuh, the native animals found in the tower, were a part of nature and since Liu Guanyi was full of life force, he gave off an irresistible aura and was practically a living catnip or some sort to any animals if he controlled himself to do so.

What Liu Guanyi wanted to test was merely the ability of the inner energy itself. He wanted to know whether it would still work exactly the same or there would be some differences and the inner energy didn't have the same powers anymore.

Liu Guanyi was always vigilant and cautious, that was why he could long enough in his previous world to achieve the peak. He couldn't just assume things still work the same in the tower as in his previous world, that would be idiotic.

After all, the tower was a place blessed with shinsu.

In this magical place, Liu Guanyi could see many things worked differently, such as that air didn't exist and its function was replaced by shinsu, people could live much longer, flying ships and levitating castles, and so much more.

Just because the inner energy was something from his previous world and he was the only one who could control it in the tower, it didn't mean that there wouldn't be any changes or it wouldn't be influenced by the laws that governed the tower, shinsu.

After all, shinsu was something incredibly powerful and magical. Almost everything in the tower was based and operated on shinsu and was made possible only because of it.

Well, Liu Guanyi knew long ago that even the inner energy was influenced by shinsu since it had increased the quantity and quality of the inner energy that he was progressing on the Martial Way very quickly and easily.

But Liu Guanyi couldn't know for sure that shinsu wouldn't have any negative effects on the inner energy at all just because it had been all good and sunshine so far, right?

That was why he took the white tiger and tried on her. Fortunately, just after a few days after he had been trying to befriend her, the big tiger was acting all friendly and went all over him, giving him the assurance that his power was still all good, at least in the Great Completion realm.

After his test proved to be successful, Liu Guanyi was about to throw awa-, err… release the white tiger since she wasn't anything helpful in the team.

However, Xin seemed to have taken a liking to her due to her being quite intelligent.

So Liu Guanyi allowed Xin to have the white tiger as his pet, though she was anything but close to Xin and would always try to get away from him.

Being pretty happy for getting a nice pet, Xin quickly named her "Little White" for its "harmless" and "cute" behavior she always tried on him as she was annoyed with Xin's insistence for constantly trying to play with her and bothering her.