"Ye Chen, since this time's hunt, was sabotaged and you didn't manage to contract any beast, why don't you just pick one from the lot?" Elder Ming's eyes darted towards the beasts clinging on to the youth. "They are so close to you already anyway."
Upon hearing Elder Ming's words, the two beasts glued onto Ye Chen's body started to become lively again. The silver lynx opened its purple eyes and swayed its tail in excitement. The orange fox also started squirming in his arms. They were anticipating to be Ye Chen's contract beast.
Ye Chen pondered for a while before saying, "To be honest Shizun, it did cross my mind before… But I could never choose between any of them since they are all so lovable."
The ears of the silver lynx drooped down upon hearing that.
"Why is it that I can only have one, Shizun?" Ye Chen's gloomy voice became softer.
Elder Ming scratched his head and sighed at this familiar question.
Even before his only disciple turned fourteen, Elder Ming has been trying to sound out what kind of beast Ye Chen would want. After two years of hinting and probing, he finally realized that the youth has no plans to even contract a beast simply because he loves all types and couldn't bear to choose just one.
Going to the beast hunt was treated as an exploration mission by the youth. He just wanted to see if there's any new types that he had not seen before and there were no plans of contracting one.
Ye Chen's intention of not exclusively contracting a spiritual beast was not even told to his closest of friends, the Mu twins. If the Mu twins were to find out, they would be worried to death, as a GongCi cultivator not having a contract beast is equivalent to being half-crippled. Ye Chen can already imagine them nagging at him every day about this issue.
"There you go again with this question. Of course, you can only have one contract beast. A contract between a spiritual beast and their human is sacred and there are many benefits... Such as hiding your contract beast when not needed, a tracking/sensing function… and the benefit of levelling up faster when training together." Elder Ming shakes his head in disapproval as he feeds Pi Lu a sliced apple.
When contracted, a beast can hide in the core of its contracted cultivator. It will appear if it is summoned. Stronger beasts can appear at will when it senses their master in danger. As disciples are not allowed to flaunt their contracted beast in the Sect, those with a contract beast hides their beast most of the time, except when in battle. There is also the consideration that a beast may take up a lot of space depending on the type of beast, thus it will be chaotic if every disciple in GongCi walks around with their beast.
It is not known to many that Sea Peak is home to various beasts. Elder Ming has taken in injured and abandoned beasts over the years and allowed them to make Sea Peak their home.
To protect them from being hunted, Elder Ming put up a barrier in the backyard and training grounds that allows only himself and his direct disciple from entering. Even the Mu brothers do not know about these beasts despite visiting the Peak often.
This is one of the main reasons why Elder Ming is so selective when it comes to choosing a direct disciple. The secret that Sea Peak is a haven for spiritual beasts cannot be leaked.
"Guuuu…" The orange fox jumped down from Ye Chen's arms and hopped towards Elder Ming. Its eyes fixated on the sliced apples that the elder was feeding Pi Lu. While feeding Pi Lu, Elder Ming saw another pair of greedy bright eyes staring at him.
While he gave a sliced apple to the greedy little fox, he was reminded of the incident that happened four years ago when he first met Ye Chen and the fox. It was also the incident that he decided in his heart that he would take this youth as his direct disciple.
Elder Ming's eyes softened and a smile sprung upon his face as he recalled that situation.
"Ye Chen, I am glad you beat up that Shi-Xiong four years ago." He randomly added. If that didn't happen, he would never have found his adorable little disciple.
Ye Chen tilted his head in confusion but ignored the elder as he walked back into his training spot. He thought to himself that his master is talking crazy again.
"Yin Li, I want to continue training, I will play with you later." Ye Chen signalled for the furry pile on his shoulders to move away.
"Brrrrrrrr…..Brrrr" The Lynx purred as though it was unhappy and refused to come down.
"You can stay if you can withstand my movements." Ye Chen told the clingy beast in a teasing manner.
The next moment, the silver lynx shrunk itself to the size of a palm before it let out a big yawn, adjusted itself on the youth's shoulder and went back to sleep.
"Waaa, Yin Li, you can now change sizes? How come you advanced so fast in the one month I didn't see you ah???"
The lynx didn't respond or react, it continued sleeping.
Ye Chen saw the silver lynx's reaction and he was surprised that it decided to take on the challenge. Not wanting to hurt the beast, he started with some smaller movements and realized that the silver lynx was stuck onto its shoulders like glue, so he was more confident that he would not hurt the beast as he proceeded to resume his training as per normal. The lynx did not even flinch as it continued to sleep while accompanying its favourite person.
As the elder was feeding apples to the greedy beasts, a black messenger crow flew and perched onto Elder Ming's shoulder, calling out two times before it flew away.
Elder Ming stood up and looked towards the main building, "Ye Chen, you continue your training, I have something urgent to see to. Let's go Pi Lu." He hopped onto Pi Lu and both their figures disappeared.
The results of the blood found outside the cave during the hunt have been delivered.