Beast-Taming Cultivator from Two Realms

Chapter 21: Distinction of Lineage

"Chen Beiwu wins!" The homeroom teacher exclaimed in admiration.

Ignoring the applause from the students below the stage, Xu Ziqing looked straight at Chen Beiwu. "How did you do it?"

"What?" Chen Beiwu responded.

"Don't play dumb." Xu Ziqing rolled her eyes at him as she stepped off the stage. "Just Water Convergence Technique alone can’t fool my perception."

Chen Beiwu chuckled and replied bluntly, "Although Blazing Flame Convergence is tricky and has seven variations, each time you shifted, your mana would hesitate for half a moment when passing through the Shanzhong Acupoint. That’s when your perception weakened."

To be fair, if Xu Ziqing hadn't trusted her spiritual perception so completely, he wouldn’t have been able to secure such a swift victory.

"So you've even mastered Water Shadow Convergence?" Xu Ziqing paused mid-step, turning back in surprise.

Water Shadow Convergence was a first-tier peerless exotic technique, equivalent in grade to Blazing Flame Convergence, and an advanced variant of the high-grade Water Convergence Technique.

The water clones formed by Water Convergence Technique had one flaw—they couldn’t move.

But the water clones condensed by Water Shadow Convergence not only could move freely, making it hard to distinguish real from fake, but also obscured the caster’s presence while misleading the opponent’s perception.

She had only barely grasped Blazing Flame Convergence after half a month of reaching the Seventh Level of Qi Refining, yet Chen Beiwu had learned Water Shadow Convergence and applied it adeptly in actual combat just days after breaking through.

No wonder Teacher Wang Kui had publicly praised Chen Beiwu as a spell genius and considered him the student with the highest talent in spell arts at Shouhe No. 2 High School.

"That technique isn't hard. I just looked at it once and got it." Chen Beiwu cast her a puzzled glance, as if curious why she would even ask such a question.

Xu Ziqing’s eyelid twitched—she barely maintained the refined demeanor of a noble lady.

Was this a joke?

As the saying went: beyond seven steps, spell arts rule; within seven steps, spells were both fast and precise.

Before contracting a Companion Beast, cultivators at the Qi Refining stage typically relied on spell arts in battle.

Whoever was more proficient and flexible in their usage of spell arts usually secured victory.

However, spell arts were notoriously difficult to cultivate and difficult to harmonize with the Dao of Heaven and Earth.

Cultivators of the Immortal Alliance believed it was a waste of time to study spell arts for momentary victories, compared to delving into the path of cultivation through beast-taming.

After all, once a Companion Beast was contracted, a Qi Refining cultivator would naturally have means of self-protection.

Compared to attaining the Dao and immortality, mere spell arts were not worth mentioning.

But if every cultivator had Chen Beiwu’s talent in mastering spell arts quickly, most Qi Refining cultivators likely wouldn’t mind investing time in learning spell arts to add various buffs in combat for their Companion Beasts.

"Not hard, huh? Fine, fine, then master this Blazing Flame Convergence for me too." Xu Ziqing flicked her right hand backward. A spell jade slip instantly landed in Chen Beiwu’s palm.

Chen Beiwu: "???"

He wasn’t showing off. For Chen Beiwu, understanding spell arts truly wasn’t difficult.

Back then, in order to learn the Nine-Breath Chaos Divine Ability, he had endured five hundred years of dream sermons from a divine statue before barely reaching entry-level.

Although Chen Beiwu didn’t know the exact tier of the Nine-Breath Chaos Divine Ability, he was sure of one thing.

After receiving that transmission, first-tier peerless exotic techniques—considered difficult to grasp by Qi Refining cultivators—were as simple as basic arithmetic to him. Just a glance and he could roughly understand the principles behind casting.

As for the Nine-Breath Chaos Divine Ability itself, Chen Beiwu could use it, but he had no clue about the underlying principles, let alone the Dao embedded within it.

But he dared say: if the learning difficulty of a first-tier peerless exotic technique was akin to simple math, then understanding the Nine-Breath Chaos Divine Ability was like deciphering an abstruse mathematical tome.

"You’re really giving me this Blazing Flame Convergence?" Chen Beiwu asked in surprise.

The Immortal Alliance Official Website housed the knowledge of all sects under the heavens—even the legendary immortal arts from the Five Great Grotto-Heavens—but cultivators had to exchange Spirit Yuan to access them.

Ordinary cultivators needed to exchange Spirit Stones for Spirit Yuan at local Immortal Alliance banks at a 1:1 ratio—one low-grade Spirit Stone equaled one Spirit Yuan.

Blazing Flame Convergence was a first-tier peerless fire-type spell art, and its exchange price on the Immortal Alliance Official Website was a steep five hundred low-grade Spirit Stones per person.

That’s right. The authentic spell arts stored on the Immortal Alliance Official Website could only be learned by the purchaser. Private teaching was forbidden.

If the purchaser’s family wished to learn, they would also need to exchange Spirit Stones for official access.

Those harboring false hopes and violating the rules usually perished under the laws of the Immortal Alliance.

For this reason, even if the Immortal Alliance did nothing else each year, it still amassed vast quantities of Spirit Stones solely by sharing cultivation knowledge.

As the Immortal Alliance's rule lengthened, Spirit Yuan gradually replaced Spirit Stones as the most credible currency among cultivators.

Nevertheless, each year there were always a few rebellious cultivators—or rather, those ruined by Immortal Loan—who had nothing to lose. These cultivators brazenly resorted to Zero-Cost Acquisition instead of using Spirit Yuan.

Some extreme cases even descended into becoming Demonic Cultivators, causing havoc across the Sky Abyss Star, only to be suppressed by enforcers from the Law Enforcement Bureau.

Chen Beiwu definitely wouldn’t dare go for Zero-Cost Acquisition. All the first-tier spell arts he knew were learned at Shouhe No. 2 High School, with the school's spell teachers as witnesses.

As Teacher Wang Kui’s proud student, Chen Beiwu often got extra lessons, learning first-tier exotic techniques beyond what his classmates had access to—but only limited to water and wood elements, and those of low offensive power.

However, Blazing Flame Convergence was widely recognized as the most versatile and destructive first-tier peerless fire-type spell art.

Its advanced spiritual art, Blazing Dragon Shatter, was astonishingly powerful. When it hit directly, it could even break through the Flawless Defense of late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Even for someone from the Fallen Dragon Xu Family like Xu Ziqing, a single copy of Blazing Flame Convergence was an extremely valuable gift.

"Of course it’s real." Xu Ziqing’s eyes shimmered like water as she smiled sweetly at Chen Beiwu.

Chen Beiwu didn’t refuse and thanked her.

He wasn’t a fool. In daily interactions, he could clearly sense the goodwill of both Xu Ziqing and Xu Lingling.

If it were an ordinary person, encountering two beautiful girls with different charms and extraordinary backgrounds, they might fall into indecision, unsure of whom to choose.

But Chen Beiwu was different. His response was simple—he neither took initiative nor refused.

As long as he didn’t explicitly reject them, no girl would feel hurt, let alone become spiteful due to unrequited love.

The reason Chen Beiwu acted with such caution was purely because cultivator clans were not to be trifled with.

There were strong and weak among cultivation clans: three generations formed a lineage, five generations made a financial power, nine generations were Foundation Establishment families, and only after twenty generations could one be considered a Golden Core family (the Immortal Alliance counted a generation every hundred years).

A rogue Foundation Establishment cultivator’s lifespan ranged from three to five hundred years.

If a clan could produce another Foundation Establishment cultivator before the current one perished—within four or five generations—they could sustain their prosperity and be recognized as a Foundation Establishment family.

Golden Core families were even more formidable, requiring a Golden Core True Person to hold the fort and continuity across two thousand years. In a small place like Yuan‑Kong County, such a power was a colossus.

Though Xu Ziqing wasn’t a direct descendant of a Golden Core family, merely born of a concubine, she could still rely on the family’s name to compel many cultivators to risk their lives for her—and accomplish deeds unimaginable to ordinary folk.

For example, making a genius Qi Refining cultivator vanish without a trace.