Beast-Taming Cultivator from Two Realms

Chapter 20: Practical Combat Arts

Returning to the Cultivation Room, Chen Beiwu couldn’t help but gasp for breath.

The thrill of escaping death was truly exhilarating!

If not for the natural aura-concealing properties of the Spirit Lake Grand Formation, he would not have escaped the perception of the Cang Thunder Tiger, let alone used the power of the Gate of Ten Directions of Chaos to escape through space.

After calming his nerves, Chen Beiwu looked toward Iron Egg.

At this moment, it was crouching in front of him with its tail tucked between its legs, trembling uncontrollably.

Chen Beiwu reached out and patted the dog's head to comfort it, saying, “Relax, it’s over now.”

Iron Egg had indeed caused some trouble this time, but its loyalty was beyond doubt.

Faced with a Second Realm Lesser Beast, ordinary exotic beasts would have already fled in terror; the fact that Iron Egg stood in front of him proved it possessed an outstanding trait: loyalty!

Iron Egg whimpered, a trace of lingering fear flashing in its eyes.

It hadn’t expected that catching a snake would lead it straight into the territory of a Cang Thunder Tiger.

“Woof.” Iron Egg gave a low bark in explanation.

Chen Beiwu’s expression shifted. “You mean you didn’t go to the wrong place?”

“Woof!”

“The Verdant Scale Serpent is on the central island of Spirit Lake, and there are a lot of them?”

“Woof!” Iron Egg nodded.

“That’s troubling,” Chen Beiwu frowned.

Three parts of any herb were poisonous.

To prevent internal pill toxins from accumulating, weakening one’s foundation, and making it difficult to pass the three hurdles of Foundation Establishment, any cultivator within the Immortal Alliance with ambition would avoid taking too many pills during the Qi Refining stage. At most, they’d take one or two pills to break through a bottleneck and then slowly purge the toxins afterward.

This was why Chen Beiwu only sliced off a piece of the Black Gold Ginseng instead of eating the entire root.

However, cultivators from poor backgrounds didn’t have such concerns. If they had pills, they’d consume them aggressively, focusing solely on breakthroughs, even if they often ended up stuck at the Ninth Level of Qi Refining with no hope of Foundation Establishment.

The reason Chen Beiwu cared so much about the gallbladder of the Verdant Scale Serpent was because it was one of the few rare beast materials usable during the Qi Refining stage that wouldn’t harm the cultivator’s foundation and could even strengthen and nourish their essence.

Materials like the gallbladder of the Verdant Scale Serpent, which could calm the mind and temper the body without side effects, were usually only enjoyed by geniuses born into cultivation families.

But no matter how precious a treasure was, one still needed the fortune to enjoy it. The Cang Thunder Tiger was not an easy beast to deal with.

Unless Chen Beiwu advanced to Foundation Establishment, he absolutely wouldn’t approach Spirit Lake again, let alone try to catch snakes on its central island.

‘What a pity Grandfather passed away so early. Otherwise, that Spirit Lake would have been an excellent place to cultivate,’ Chen Beiwu thought with regret.

He couldn’t defeat the Cang Thunder Tiger, but in this world, strength wasn’t everything—background mattered too.

If his grandfather were still alive, slaying a Cang Thunder Tiger and claiming the lake would’ve been no problem.

Snuffing out the unrealistic thought, Chen Beiwu shook his head and turned to Iron Egg. “Aside from Spirit Lake, are there any other places with Verdant Scale Serpents?”

“Woof.”

Iron Egg blinked, indicating it could search, but the aura of a single serpent was too faint—especially when the snake was in hiding.

If it searched one by one, it was very likely to mistake the target.

“Alright then, go get some rest.”

He glanced at the faint sunlight streaming through the window. There was still an hour before class.

Chen Beiwu waved for Iron Egg to leave, then began his daily morning cultivation routine before heading off to school.

This morning’s class was Beast Mastery with homeroom teacher Wang Kui, and it happened to be the long-awaited practical combat session.

“Chen Beiwu, Xu Ziqing!”

As Wang Kui called their names, all the boys in the class immediately focused their attention on the combat platform.

Previously, when Chen Beiwu had yet to break through to the late stage of Qi Refining, he had always been suppressed by Xu Ziqing, who was at the Seventh Level.

Now that he had broken through to the Seventh Level himself, he would undoubtedly go all out to shed his long-standing second-place title.

Meanwhile, Xu Ziqing, in order to maintain her rank as number one in the grade, might even use her clan’s secret techniques from the Fallen Dragon Xu family.

This rare chance to witness such a duel was something none of them would miss!

After all, with most classmates stuck at the Fourth Level of Qi Refining, watching a battle between two Seventh Level cultivators was like watching two top experts. There was definitely much to learn from their techniques.

Noticing the eager gazes around him, Chen Beiwu muttered to himself, ‘What a hassle.’

Having experienced real life-and-death battles in another world, he found these child’s-play arts duels utterly dull.

Xu Ziqing stood among a group of girls, her gaze resting on Chen Beiwu.

With a tap of her toes and a graceful sway of her sleeves in the wind, she elegantly landed on the combat platform opposite Chen Beiwu.

“Go for it, Beiwu! Beat the number one, and you’ll be number one!”

Suddenly, a cheer came from the crowd.

Xu Ziqing’s expression changed, and her peripheral vision locked onto Xu Lingling, who stood beneath the stage with an upright demeanor.

Xu Lingling quickly feigned ignorance and looked away, her eyes drifting to either side.

“Silence.”

With that, Wang Kui strode to the center of the arena and looked at the two combatants. “Choose your positions. Since this is a arts combat practice, triggering the protective talisman will count as a loss.”

Chen Beiwu and Xu Ziqing both nodded.

“Begin!”

As soon as the homeroom teacher gave the signal, Xu Ziqing sprang into action.

Her fingers danced in the air, forming a hand seal. Instantly, a pillar of blazing fire erupted beneath Chen Beiwu’s feet. The searing heat caused some students in the front row to instinctively back away.

‘Too slow!’

Chen Beiwu activated the Wind Control technique. Without looking at the exploding flame behind him, he dashed toward Xu Ziqing with lightning speed and formed the hand seal for “Water Mist Art.”

In an instant, dense mist shrouded the entire platform, and Xu Ziqing’s vision turned a blinding white.

“Again with this move? Can’t you use something new?” Xu Ziqing slashed her right finger through the air, summoning three fierce fire serpents that tore through the surrounding mist, creating a full-circle barrier around her.

“The move may be old, but it works.” A deep male voice echoed from all directions within the fog.

The next moment, Chen Beiwu’s figure silently appeared behind Xu Ziqing.

Her pupils shrank, but as if she had eyes in the back of her head, her right-hand seal changed immediately.

“Blazing Flame Convergence!”

The three aggressive fire serpents suddenly merged into thirty-six pale orange fire threads, sealing off all escape routes around Chen Beiwu.

“Boom!”

With a deafening roar, Xu Ziqing let out a slow breath.

Though the explosion seemed powerful, its actual destructive force was minimal.

Because this was a practice duel, not a real battle, she had intentionally controlled the arts’s power—just enough to trigger the protective talisman on Chen Beiwu and secure a win.

However, in the next moment, to Xu Ziqing’s surprise, a faint golden barrier appeared—that was the protective talisman automatically activating to defend its wearer.

She turned to see a thin blade formed from compressed water suspended quietly two inches from her neck, blocked by the barrier.

At the same time, the two figures at the center of the platform suddenly turned to flowing water and vanished.

“The match is decided!” Homeroom teacher Wang Kui announced the result.

The students around the arena looked at each other, expressions of disbelief on their faces.

“Didn’t Beiwu just break through to the Seventh Level of Qi Refining recently? How did he already master a top-tier First-Tier exotic arts like Water Convergence Technique?”