Crisis approaches

After she finished reading Imperial Beast Art, she realized that the methods were actually not difficult. She didn't know how they could have possibly gotten lost over time.

The book ended with one sentence, that the rank of beasts that could be tamed were dependent on her mental power. The higher the rank of the Spirit Beast, the stronger one's mental power would have to be. This was a point similar to alchemy.

"Sigh, looks like I have to increase my mental strength first!"

Sima You Yue sighed. Initially, she thought that cultivating Spiritual Qi was the most important, who would have thought that the art of Beast Taming and cultivating Spiritual Qi were just as important as each other.

She put down the Imperial Art of Beast Taming and came in front of the Secrets of Soul Cultivation and took down the book. The shining light that had suffused the book dissipated, letting her see the entirety of the book.

She gently flipped open to the first page. The first sentence on the front gave her heart a huge shock.

"The highest limit of Soul Cultivation allows a soul to remain even without a body." When Sima You Yue read this sentence, she thought of that transparent ethereal spirit, "So he practiced this art, allowing his spirit to remain in this world? Looks like this Soul Cultivation is of standard."

She continued reading and it wrote about some ranks of Soul Cultivation. It started out with Reveal, followed by Manifestation, then Refining Emptiness and, finally, Transcendence.

Furthermore, the degree of Soul Cultivation that would be demonstrated was dependent on one's mental powers.

Reveal was a range that any mental power would be able to reach and would allow one's perception to reach one kilometer.

Manifestation allowed one's mental power to condense concretely outside of the body.

Refining Emptiness allowed one's mental power to condense a second type of form.

Transcendence allowed one's Soul to remain independently.

Every single degree was separated from the other by a huge chasm. Crossing over each rank would reap huge rewards.

After the section of ranks, they had methods of cultivating one's Soul. Sima You Yue read it for a bit and initially thought it was relatively easy. Only a few chants were used to cultivate the soul, after that were some methods of increasing one's mental power.

"Looks like this Soul Cultivation and Mental Power are closely related and I can't lack a bit of either. No wonder Mo Sha said that my Mental Powers would increase after practicing Soul Cultivation." After complaining for a while, she left her sea of consciousness and began to practice while following the steps listed on that book.

Time flew while she was cultivating and by the time Sima You Yue had been awoken from her meditation, the sky was already bright.

She never thought that she would unknowingly cultivate the entire night and was completely energized. She didn't have the lethargy that came with a sleepless night at all.

"Looks like I'll be practicing this at night whenever I have nothing to do." She got down from the bed and tidied her clothes before placing the things in her tent into her interspatial ring along with the tent.

"Brother Sima, you're awake as well." Qing Wu Ya saw that Sima You Yue was keeping his things and smiled as he waved.

"Good morning, Big Brother Qing!" Sima You Yue smiled as she nodded to him. After that, she went to the small lake to wash up, coming back to take her cooking utensils to cook breakfast.

As she was cooking breakfast, Bei Gong Tang and the rest also woke up successively, packing their own things before waiting to eat.

"Brother Wei, we will be entering the mountain as well. You definitely have to remember the things that I told you all yesterday. Definitely don't go to those dangerous places." Qing Wu Ya told Wei Zi Qi after his own team had finished packing their stuff.

"Big Brother Qing will be entering the mountain so early?" Wei Zi Qi said when he saw that the team of mercenaries were already ready and waiting.

"Yep, the mission this time is relatively more difficult and time is more tight so we have a leave a bit earlier." Qing Wu Ya replied.

"I see. Then I hope Big Brother Qing will be able to finish the mission earlier." Wei Zi Qi said.

"Thanks, Brother Wei. Hope we meet again!"

"Hope we meet again."

Qing Wu Ya cupped his hands towards Sima You Yue and the rest before returning to his own team saying, "Let's go."

Fatty Qu watched as Qing Wu Ya and his team left, saying, "These mercenaries from Green Ridge are really not bad."

"Not bad. Much better than those we've met before."

"Let's eat." Sima You Yue placed the food on the table and beckoned to everyone.

Being different from the Green Ridge Mercenaries, they were not in a rush, so Sima You Yue and the gang ate their breakfast before heading into the mountains.

This time, they had to harvest quite a few different types of pill ingredients and each person had to also bring back one Spirit Beast body. Their mission was already quite difficult.

The mission of searching for Pill ingredients was much easier for Sima You Yue because she was well acquainted with pill ingredients and knew what kind of environment which pill ingredient would be growing in. As a result, the scope of her search was greatly reduced.

After one day, they found their first pill ingredient.

"You Yue, I never thought that you would be so familiar with pill ingredients." Wei ZI Qi looked at the pill ingredient that was lying in the basket and sighed.

"That's right, You Yue. How come we never knew you were so familiar with pill ingredients?" Fatty Qu said.

"It's not like you all are with me 24 hours a day, how would you know what I do or don't know?" Sima You glanced at Fatty Qu, directly avoiding answering their question.

"Now that we've found Earth's Core Grass, we still have to look for Fire Flame Grass and four other types of pill ingredients." Ouyang Fei said.

"I know about Fire Flame Grass, it grows facing the sun. However, there will be powerful Spirit Beasts living near the Fire Flame Grass."

"Yep, I propose leaving the search for Fire Flame Grass to the end. We should look for the other types of pill ingredients first." Wei Zi Qi suggested.

"Agreed." Sima You Yue nodded, "The Spirit Beasts on the periphery of the Pu Luo Mountain Range are not high in rank, if we meet them, we will be able to practice a bit of combat."

"Okay. Then let's continue to look." Wei Zi Qi said.

"Yup."

Not long after they left the valley, another group of people arrived at the place they were at.

"Boss, that group of people don't follow any pattern when they walk. We have no way of encountering them!" One of them said.

"Even if there's no way, we have to think of a way!" The black clothed man said, "She caused Nalan Lan to be expelled from school so we definitely have to avenge this on her behalf."

"Boss, we can't directly do something to her, so how should we go about it?" Yet another person asked.

The black clothed man thought about it for a while, saying, "Didn't they say that they wanted to look for Spirit Beasts to practice some combat? We can help them look for partners to practice with. If they are killed by the Spirit Beasts on Pu Luo Mountain Range, the school cannot place their deaths on our heads."

"But boss, I heard that the ranks of these few people are quite high. Aside from Sima You Yue, that waste, the others are not weaker than us. How can we do that would cause them to… by those Spirit Beasts…?"

"Of course I have an idea for that. Do you guys know where we can find Spirit Beasts and flock together?" The black clothed man said.

"Boss, I know! I heard a mercenary mention it just now."

"That's good, let's go, we will help them look for Spirit Beasts to practice combat…"

Sima You Yue and her five man team searched the mountain for an entire day but they had no harvests at all. However, while searching, they had encountered a Spirit Beast of the sixth rank. They managed to settle it very quickly by working together, letting Sima You Yue keep it. As for why she was the one to keep it, the reason was because her interspatial ring was the largest.

Just as they were resting, Sima You Yue suddenly felt a sense of danger and subconsciously stood up.

"You Yue, what's wrong?" Fatty Qu asked when he saw Sima You Yue panic.

"I hear something!' Sima You Yue said.

The others had yet to say anything when they heard the chaotic sound of footsteps. Following which, a pack of Fire Wolves appeared in front of them, running towards them with terrifying speed.

"So… so many Spirit Beasts." Fatty Qu could not help but gulp when he saw so many Fire Wolves.