To say Jun was spooked was an understatement. Imagine a scenario—a dastardly villain tries to kidnap Chen Hao because he takes a young master’s spot in a restaurant. The brat cleverly escapes, and now, the villain is enraged, coughing up blood on the spot. But oh, what’s this? Chen Hao has a dog. What’s a better way to get back at him than to catch his dog and wear it as a cloak?

Jun bet it was either that snake-loving freak or the mysterious Manager. The fact that the disciple could have gone missing unrelated to those two never even crossed his mind. Jun shuddered, looking suspiciously at everyone around them until they reached their quarters. Then, he realised this was the den of the enemy, someone who was invisible to his nose.

“Chen Hao, I’m telling you, we gotta move out. There’s danger everywhere,” he said.

“I can’t play with you right now. I’ve got a feeling I’m close to a breakthrough,” Chen Hao replied, sitting down in a lotus pose.

“And then you’ll do what? Spy on someone with your silly Water Mirror technique? Stupid.” Jun grumbled, but Chen Hao ignored him.

There wasn’t much for the golden retriever to do while he waited for Li Xia, so he spent a blissful afternoon just relaxing and sleeping. But as the evening grew darker, Jun saw the spiritual force being rapidly drawn towards the boy, who was wildly shivering. White mist emerged from his body, spreading rapidly across the room. Jun yelped as everything began to frost over, and as he began to move away, he found his body locked in place.

His mind was screaming for him to run, but his body would not obey him. Instead, he began to move closer and closer to Chen Hao. The first things that turned numb were his paws, and then it spread upwards.

‘Wait! Hold on! I apologise for everything I’ve ever said and done! It’s so cold...’ he tried to say, but only his thoughts echoed through his mind. The surroundings began to grow dim. The heartbeats slowed.

And then, everything suddenly stopped. Jun’s eyes were no longer fixed on Chen Hao, and before anything else could happen, he fled outside the room, bounding through the hallway. He would not be the first to die if some devil had suddenly possessed the boy.

He hid in the abandoned servant’s room for an hour, warming up his freezing body. Then, Jun slowly inched back towards their room. Some white-robed servants went back and forth through the hallway, and before long, he saw Chen Hao awkwardly standing in front of the door to their room.

Jun had known Chen Hao for five years, and during this time, he had come to accept the boy as his family. That was to say that he was incredibly familiar with how Chen Hao looked. Standing before him was the same boy, but different.

In terms of physical appearance, he had become much more handsome. Every blemish on his skin was gone, and even his bones had been slightly rearranged to be nearer to perfection. It was difficult to describe, but the presence, the aura the boy had was entirely different. A cold, devilish charm, so to speak.

Chen Hao turned to Jun, and for a moment, Jun didn’t recognize him. The same eyes that were filled with optimism seemed like they were hiding something more sinister behind a mask. Then, the sensation passed as the brat came running to Jun, tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he sniffled, running his hands through Jun’s fur and staining it with tears. “You must have been so scared. The room was completely frozen. I-I didn’t know that would happen.”

Jun secretly let out a sigh of relief. It didn’t feel like a stranger was impersonating the boy. Perhaps it was the previous experience in the room that made him paranoid. He wouldn’t know what to do if Chen Hao had truly changed.

“Sheesh. Give me a warning first,” Jun said.

“It’s strange, but I feel so... powerful. Like I could do anything I want to as long as I circulate my inner qi,” Chen Hao said as he lightly jumped up.

Jun stared in awe as the brat easily reached the ceiling. Then, he touched the wall, and a patch of frost appeared on it. A white-haired servant didn’t quite glare at him as servants didn’t have that right, but the look he gave made Chen Hao bashfully apologise regardless.

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“Congratulations, boy. You’re a cultivator now,” Jun sincerely praised him. At the same time, he was more excited than ever to begin cultivating himself.

It took a few more minutes for the servants to restore their room to order using various spiritual techniques. It was a good reminder that, despite being servants, they were more powerful than both him and Chen Hao. One mistake was all that stood between him and them.

The rest of the day proceeded as usual. Chen Hao started working towards the second stage of Qi Refinement, as well as starting to practice the Water Mirror Technique, which involved a huge basin of clear water. The technique required inner qi to execute and a clear, mental image of either the location or the person.

Naturally, the first person Chen Hao imagined was old man Wei, but the technique failed. All of the boy’s inner qi was depleted long before anything could happen. There was a distance limit, or perhaps the massive formation above the outer sect simply prevented the technique from taking effect.

The next person he imagined was Li Xia. The basin of water rippled, and the reflection changed to show a scene from above. A girl sat on a luscious carpet in the middle of the room. Her eyes were closed, and it was clear she was engrossed in cultivation.

Then, she abruptly opened her eyes and stared directly at the point they were looking from. Her hand rose, and from it emerged a bird made of fire. It rapidly approached the ‘other side’ of the water mirror, and both of the peepers flinched when it exploded mid-air. The basin of water shattered into a thousand different pieces, making Chen Hao spit out a mouthful of blood.

“Don’t spy on someone with higher cultivation than you. Got it,” he wryly said, wiping away the blood.

Jun just stared at Chen Hao with a weird expression. It was a very “unique” technique that he had right there. He was pretty sure the boy was pure enough not to use it how many other men would use it in his position, but who knew what would happen in a couple of years.

Three more days of daily visits to Li Xia passed. During this time, Jun was also attending every single free lesson from all four halls. Predictably, no one chased the dog away even if he came without Chen Hao. Although Jun wouldn’t be forging artifacts or making medicine anytime soon, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do with his spare time. Plus, it was interesting, or at least the parts that didn’t require learning about every plant and metal in existence were.

It was on the fourth day that good news arrived. During his daily visit, he saw that sitting on Li Xia’s desk was a book—a rarity here, where everyone used bamboo strips and jade slips. It was simply titled “Rearing Magical Beasts.” Jun was so excited that he practically snatched it with his teeth, trying his best to escape the torture chamber in the process. Unfortunately, Li Xia was faster. Still, playing with imaginary jade animals was a lot better when he knew that there was a tangential reward at the end of it.

When he finally made it out of the house, he took a shadowy route that avoided as many people as possible. He had planned it out days in advance—no one would get in the way of him and cultivation. Jun even circled the quarters a few times, relying on his sense of smell to not encounter any white-robed disciples when he came in. Then, he darted to his private servant’s room.

‘Please, please. I pray to every god in existence. Let there be something in this book that can help me.’ Jun held his head down in sincere prayer before carefully using his teeth to flip it open.

“My name is Zhang Jun, and I am an elder from the Divine Beast Alliance. My goal for writing this book is simple—I wish for every beast to gain enough intelligence to one day join our alliance.

“If you are someone rearing magical beasts, I implore you to teach them humanity before strength, intelligence before power, and if by any chance you are a magical beast, then you are more than welcome to join us. “

‘How strange,’ Jun thought to himself. ‘It’s a shame that I’m stuck here. I bet they would treat me like a dog emperor there.’

There wasn’t much to imply such a fact, but Jun got a feeling that these initial words implied a sort of resistance. To rebel against their masters and seek shelter with the alliance. Perhaps he was reading too much into it. He flipped to the next page.

“There exist two different types of magical beasts. Most belong to a category I will refer to as ‘spiritual beasts’. These are animals who accidentally consume pills or spiritual fruits, or are born in places with rich spirit veins. They might develop some special abilities, but most remain nothing more than beasts, bound by their animalistic desire. It takes luck, resources, and incredible amounts of time, but one day, they might even reach Nascent Soul and face heavenly tribulation, completing their transformation from beast to human. Only then can they be considered intelligent.”

‘Wait a minute. This is huge!’ Jun stopped reading and began to rapidly circle the book, practically shaking with excitement.

Qi Refining, Foundation Building, Core Foundation, Nascent Soul. The journey was often described in novels as taking hundreds, if not thousands of years. Yet these few words gave Jun a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dark and gloomy night. He had grown used to being a dog, but would any human willingly remain in this form? Perhaps some would, but not him.

Even if the journey might take a thousand years, if there was light at the end of the tunnel, he would firmly grasp it and move onwards. One day, he would reveal his brilliance to the world.