As Xiao Lin walked away to go to his room, Zhang Feng went to meet Shou Wen and asked with anger in his eyes "How would a puny mortal beat you in battle? You just made him disgrace you, you fool"
"I am sorry, brother Feng. He was just too fast. He didn't even give me the chance to unleash any attack at him." Shou Wen answered, staring at the floor.
He didn't dare to meet Zhang Feng's gaze with his eyes.
"Shut up, you moron. How would a mortal be faster than a cultivator? You only brought disgrace to us all, Shou Wen" Zhang Feng said angrily.
Shou Wen exhaled.
He knew that Zhang Feng was right.
How would a mortal be faster than a cultivator?
That was a practically impossible thing to do.
But Xiao Lin did it. And he hit really hard like his hands and feet were made of metal. But Shou Wen wouldn't know that a wrath that couldn't be compared to any other was imbued into those parts of his body.
Even though Shou Wen could think that, he would still feel that he should have easily taken out Xiao Lin during their battle, since he was a cultivator.
He then looked at Zhang Feng and said "I am sorry, brother Feng"
Zhang Feng only nodded his head with an indifferent gaze in his eyes.
He then proceeded to ask a question that suddenly surfaced in his mind "But why did you approach that brat, Xiao Lin, in the first place? I thought we all agreed with each other that we weren't going to do anything to him till our Master was no longer around. Then we would have the chance to teach him a great lesson, humiliate him to the content of our hearts, eh? Why did you go against what we orchestrated?"
"I am sorry, brother Feng. I was only really pissed off by him because of the annoying things that he said to me. That boy really needs to be dealt with soon before he becomes so arrogant and prideful because of his victory against me and then start stupidly thinking that a mortal can actually face off against a cultivator in battle." Shou Wen said with anger and embarrassment radiating off of his voice.
"Hmm. Well, we would have our chance to do what we like to him very soon. I am sure of that" Zhang Feng said with a sinister gaze in his eyes while Shou Wen nodded his head with a wicked smile surfacing in his lips.
***
Xiao Lin at the moment had relieved himself of the intense pain that racked him due to the dislocation of the bones at the shoulder region.
And that he did by painfully smashing that dislocated shoulder hard against a wall of the room that he was in.
He however did that so many times with enlarged, red eyes and gnashed teeth to simply make the bone that had dislocated from the joint, key back into the socket that it came out from.
So, now seated in the cross-legged position to calm his mind as he immersed himself into a meditative state, he tried to focus inwardly to summon his Animal Spirit.
Then a few seconds later, a bright red light flashed with his wolf-like Animal Spirit appearing directly in front of him.
Immediately his Animal Spirit surfaced a few feet in front of him, Xiao Lin began to perform mystifying signs with his hands to make his Animal Spirit fuse with him.
He had been thought many varieties of Spirit Fusion Hand Gestures by Master Wu when he was training his strength in his room.
But to his utter shock and dismay, he discovered that his Spirit Animal couldn't merge with him. It was simply like there was an invisible boundary preventing the merge between him and his Animal Spirit from taking place.
"Ugh!" Xiao Lin uttered in a really sad tone and then shook his head.
The sadness that suddenly emanated from Xiao Lin's voice was because he knew that if his Animal Spirit didn't fuse with him to cause a shocking transformation to his body and grant him some level or degree of power, then he would become truly useless.
Earlier, he still had a burning hope in his heart that he would be able to go against cultivators if his Animal Spirit, which would grow stronger and more powerful over time, would merge with him and grant him some types or forms of marveling, formidable abilities.
But now that he felt such wasn't going to probably happen, since he couldn't fuse with his Animal Spirit, he then developed a thought in his mind that he should just forget about being a boundlessly powerful cultivator that will make his insanely powerful dad and the rest of the cultivation world tremble in extreme fear and veneration before him.
Once that particular dismaying thought surfaced in his mind, Xiao Lin shook his head as he simply refused to embrace it.
Then he quickly tightly shut his eyes in the next moment, and then focused harder on making his Animal Spirit fuse with his body.
But many hours later, after repeatedly trying to make his Animal Spirit blend with his body, nothing mystical or out of the ordinary happened.
Then an intensely soured expression instantly appeared in his face, contorting it to make him look ugly.
"This is bad" Xiao Lin opened his eyes and said with a palpable feeling of moroseness emitting from his voice.
He then suddenly developed another strong feeling in his mind that he and the wolf-like Animal Spirit that he evoked simply weren't compatible with each other.
"But what is happening? What will I do now to make my Animal Spirit merge with me? The platform for fusion is there, I can feel it like it's on my hand. But the Animal Spirit is refusing to fuse with me, like we aren't supposed be together. Ugh!" Xiao Lin said with a deeply perplexed look on his face.
He then said further with that intensely bewildered expression still in his face "Or is it because of my terribly damaged dantian that my Animal Spirit doesn't want to fuse with me? Probably it now sees me as someone that will never become a cultivator and so doesn't want to have anything to do with me."
"If that would be the case, that would be really bad and awful for me, for I would only be as good as useless." Xiao Lin said with immense sadness reeking off of his voice.
However, when he remembered that his loving mother was still probably held captive by his dad who could constantly be doing terrible and heinous things to her, then the light of resolution and determination in his eyes which was fluctuating and was gradually dimming, became stable once again and even grew much more stronger.
"No. I won't resign myself to such an appalling fate. Cultivator or not, I will become very powerful that the entire world will shake from the mighty power that will be endlessly rippling from me." Xiao Lin said with a great, unbreakable resolve in his tone.
He then looked at his Animal Spirit which was before him and said "I know that as an extremely powerful, primordial Battle Beast Spirit, you wouldn't want to fuse with someone as useless as me because of my irreparably damaged dantian, since I won't be able to make the world and every creature in it tremble in awe, dread and reverence from the shocking power that you possess."
"However, I won't give up on you by resigning myself to some horrendous fate. So, whether you are a legendary, deity-level Animal Spirit or not, since I summoned you, you are mine. And since you reside in my body, feeding off on the energy currents pulsing within my body, I possess every power and authority over you."
"You might not want to fuse with me now, but sometime in the future, you will surely fuse with me, when you see how astonishingly powerful that I will become. At that time, I will coerce you into merging with me. Just wait on it and see. Hmph!" Xiao Lin said to his Animal Spirit with rage and resolve in his heart like he was talking to a fellow human.
He then returned his Animal Spirit into his body with an indescribable gaze in his eyes.
Then as he started thinking of what to do from here, and now that had badly beaten a cultivator which would definitely create a strong degree of enmity between the both of them and probably many others at the temple, a strange thought unexpectedly flashed in his head.
"Master said that there were only nine extremely rare, primordial Animal Spirits with mine appearing in the world only once. While others have appeared a couple of times. But what if I could actually summon one or two of the other eight Animal Spirits and make them mine?" Xiao Lin asked inwardly with a unexplainable glow in his eyes.
Then he said further within himself 'If I can accomplish that, I could probably be the first to break the law of our cultivation world. Although I might be granted unmatched power, I will definitely be haunted all my life by exceedingly destructive tribulations that will seek me out during any breakthrough to a higher cultivation realm to totally annihilate me.'
'Anyways, devastating heavenly tribulations or not, I will do everything in my power to obtain greater power to rise above every other cultivator in the world and become a hegemon that would be dreaded and revered.' Xiao Lin said inwardly with a powerful brilliance of awe emitting from his eyes.
He then stood to his feet to go to his Master's room and ask if what he thought was actually possible to carry out, and if it has ever been carried out by anyone in their world in the far past.