Chapter 612: Xiao Lan's Apprenticeship
“Bz!!”
A cracking sound exploded into the air, the bright moonlight in the area shimmering visibly as if it was a reflection over a rippling body of water. Power like none other emanated from the old man to encapsulate everyone inside, stifling them at once.
This powerful aura was coming from Long Zhen!
In the moment he inspected the permafrost mastiff, his entire aura altered from that of a kindly old man to a soulbeast ready to let loose.
Sweat pooled over Bai Yunfei’s forehead as he cursed to himself. The fury Long Zhen was feeling was very noticeable to Bai Yunfei and so he quickly intervened. “Please don’t misunderstand, senior Long! This junior isn't from the Beast Taming School! This permafrost mastiff was a soulbeast puppet from an elder of the Beast Taming School. This junior killed that man and came into possession of this soulbeast!”
It was clear to Bai Yunfei what Long Zhen was thinking, so he immediately told the truth of the matter to him straight away. He knew what exactly the Beast Taming School meant to soulbeasts and why they would wish for their complete and utter destruction. So when Bai Yunfei explained the circumstances behind the permafrost mastiff, he didn’t hesitate to mention that he killed one of their elders.
Long Zhen’s head snapped to Bai Yunfei as he listened. The anger rising in him seem to subside a bit when he processed Bai Yunfei’s words before he blinked once. Continuing to stare coldly at Bai Yunfei, he spoke, “Do you speak the truth?”
Bai Yunfei felt like his soul was being stabbed the moment their eyes connected. But he knew that the look he was being given was a great deal less angrier than before, and that he was getting close to being ‘safe’. Unwilling to avert his eyes in fear of being labeled guilty, Bai Yunfei replied at once, “This junior’s words are true. This junior has a grudge with the Beast Taming School. They’ve already injured this one thrice before. This permafrost mastiff was obtained by me after I killed one of their elders, and because I have a soul armament that can control a soulbeast puppet, I took it with me. But I did it without the intentions like that of the Beast Taming School, I’ve treated the permafrost mastiff as I would any other soulbeast. This junior speaks the truth and without a single lie!”
The look of calmness and sincerity on Bai Yunfei’s face was taken into consideration by Long Zhen. Evaluating Bai Yunfei’s words, Long Zhen’s eyes began to warm up a bit.
“Grandfather, what are you doing! Yunfei isn’t from the Beast Taming School, he’s already killed many of their beast tamers! We really did come across the mastiff from someone in Beast Taming School when we left the Soulbeast Forest. He wanted to kill us, but we killed him instead and took the mastiff with us.”
Xiao Qi chirped up in a hurry to explain for Bai Yunfei.
Long Zhen looked at Xiao Qi first before turning his head to look at the blue-eyes wyrm. “I ask you, do they speak the truth?”
The blue-eyes wyrm didn’t respond for a moment, still stunned by what was happening. Then it nodded its head repeatedly and start to growl, its two claws waving in the air as if trying to describe the story.
“Oh? Is that right?” Long Zhen looked surprise, but it did seem that ultimately, he did believe in what the blue-eyes wyrm was saying. The hostile light in his eyes disappeared and returned to its normally gentle look. Even the normally stifling pressure was gone as if it never even existed in the first place.
Long Zhen smiled at Bai Yunfei with an apologetic look. “Haha….so that was the case. This old one was a little rash, please pay it no mind, youngster.”
“Whew….” Bai Yunfei let out a mental sigh of relief. “This junior understands. As long as senior believes in this junior’s words.”
“However, what a surprise it is that you killed a Soul King from the Beast Taming School….if the permafrost mastiff has been traveling with you for so long, then let him stay with you. I hope you treat him well.” Long Zhen mused after a while.
Generally speaking, the strongest members of the soulbeast world would want to ‘take’ back any of the soulbeast puppets from the Beast Taming School. Though they had no way to revert them back to normal soulbeasts, they just didn’t want to see their fellow kin suffer and be used as ‘tool’s by the beast tamers. But Bai Yunfei’s case was special, if Long Zhen tried to ‘take’ the permafrost mastiff, that would simply be a degrading his status. As it were, the permafrost mastiff wasn’t doing too badly with Bai Yunfei, so Long Zhen decided to let it be.
The area descended into a brief moment of silence as Bai Yunfei waited for Long Zhen to finish speaking. But after some time, he couldn’t help btu ask, “Senior Long, this junior still doesn’t understand what I am needed for….”
Long Zhen looked up with a smile, “Ah, haha….actually, I didn’t come for you.”
“.....”
Long Zhen pointed a finger to the nearby blue-eyes wyrm, “The one I came for is him….I just wasn’t sure if he was your contracted soulbeast and was going to discuss some matters with you, but since he is traveling ‘freely’, then I’ll simply ask him myself.”
“Xiao Lan?!” Bai Yunfei spoke in surprise—what was a person as strong as Long Zhen wanting with the blue-eyes wyrm?
As if to soliloquize to himself, Long Zhen slowly spoke, “The wyrm race is fading away. The blood of the dragons have long since become close to extinct, there’s only a few of them left. Even the variant wyrms are practically none. This old one has lived for a hundred years since I last saw a wyrm. This blue-eyes wyrm is especially special. It’s a peak late-stage class six, but if it makes a breakthrough, it may very well just awaken its dragon blood and become powerful.”
Bai Yunfei’s eyes flickered with the light of shock at Long Zhen’s words. From the way Long Zhen was speaking, he was going to…
Long Zhen turned and smiled at the blue-eyes wyrm next. “Young one, this old one wishes to take you in as my student and teach you the path to becoming strong. Will you accept?”
There it was!!
Bai Yunfei’s heart skipped a beat—Long Zhen was trying to take the blue-eyes wyrm in as a student!
“While you might not be too far away from becoming a class seven with how you’re currently progressing, you will see that time cut in half if you study under this old man. There is a special training method this old man has honed and perfected for several hundred years for we of the wyrm race. It will help your future cultivation and make you stronger than your peers. I have also noticed that there is a strange energy in you that you’ve yet to absorb. This is the reason behind your being a variant. It must be fate for us to meet here, this old man merely wishes to help you take that fate and put it to good use.”
Long Zhen allowed himself a break to let the wyrm take in everything. “Well then, young one. Do you accept?”
The blue-eyes wyrm just stood there on top of the mountain to stare gobsmacked at Long Zhen. Its eyes were wide open as if it was in shock.
Bai Yunfei felt worried—”This idiot!” Bai Yunfei screamed to himself. “This is an unbelievable cance right in front of you, what are you hesitating for? An extremely powerful person is knocking on your doorsteps to take you in, that’s your biggest miracle in a life time!”
Unable to help himself, Bai Yunfei activated the Charm Bracelet on his left hand to connect to the wyrm’s mind.
The connection jolted the blue-eyes wyrm right away. Its eyes focused with a great amount of joy, and without any further hesitation it knelt down onto the ground like a human would to bow its head to Long Zhen in acceptance of him as its teacher!
The sight of the wyrm doing that was slightly comical with how its claws were hardly able to press together in the formal bowing gesture, but its actions were being absolutely sincere. Even Long Zhen was surprised by it.
He hadn’t expected the blue-eyes wyrm to have as high of an intelligence it did, but he was pleased. Nodding and smiling, he laughed, “Haha, very good, very good. Rise up then. Now that you’ve agreed, you may come with me to the Training Forest and train. As your teacher, this one promises you you will soon step into the world of the strong.”
The blue-eyes wyrm rose to its feet excitedly before leaping up to stand behind Long Zhen.
Long Zhen gave a slight nod to Bai Yunfei, “We’ll be leaving now then.”
Hearing that it’d have to part ways with his ‘master’ made the blue-eyes wyrm reluctant. It gave a look to Bai Yunfei as if looking to him for permission.
Long Zhen looked surprised once again.
“Go with your master, Xiao Lan.” Bai Yunfei laughed, “Train hard and become a class seven. There’s no need to be sad, since you’re in the Training Forest, we can see each other as usual.”
Xiao Qi piped up next, “That’s right! Don’t worry. I’ll come for you to play like before.But you need to hurry up and train or else you’ll be left behind by us, hehe….”
The blue-eyes wyrm let loose a heavy snort of ‘disdain’. Several growls later, it was arguing with Xiao Qi.
“Che, you blowhard. Talk like that after you become a class seven! Hehe. The way I see it, you won’t be able to humanize even after you become a class seven!”
It seemed that being unable to humanize was a bit of a sore spot for Xiao Qi and so he was ‘cursing’ at the wyrm to try and worry it into sharing his concern.
Long Zhen took the blue-eyes wyrm away into the Training Forest. As they disappeared, a white streak of light flew back over to Bai Yunfei for him to catch into his hand.
At the same time, Long Zhen’s voice spoke out to him, “Young one, since you are from the Crafting School, allow this to be a welcoming gift from this old one to you.”