In the Beasts Pavilion, all disciples, beasts, and elders were staring strangely at an expressionless woman who had suddenly appeared there.
The woman was stunningly beautiful, with gray eyes and silver hair, a slender figure, and an aura of pride that seemed to emanate from her very bones.
[Illustrative Image]
Her emotionless eyes, like an eagle surveying its territory, swept across the massive cavern that served as the sect's beast lair, landing on the beasts, the elders, and finally the disciples. She evaluated everything with her hands behind her back, without showing any emotion.
The disciples felt uneasy. Although the woman was a complete stranger, the symbol of the Beasts Pavilion — a dragon's head — was embroidered on the shoulder of her blue robes, meaning she was probably from their pavilion, even though none of them had ever seen her before.
But the strangest thing of all was the elders' attitude toward her. They gathered and stood at attention like subordinates, waiting nervously for the woman's inspection.
This startled the disciples. Alarm bells began ringing in their minds, indicating that this woman held high status in the sect — or at least within the pavilion. After all, even before the sect leader, the elders weren't usually this tense.
However, while most could sense the heavy atmosphere, there were always those with a bit of water in place of a brain.
A young disciple, completely oblivious to the tension in the air, was utterly fascinated by the woman's breathtaking beauty.
Among the disciples — both men and women — there existed an informal beauty ranking. At that moment, the four great beauties of the sect were Liu Rihai from the Sword Pavilion, Jian Huiyin, an elder from the same pavilion, Xiao Ling from the Treasure Pavilion, and the new disciple Mu Luyin, also from the Sword Pavilion.
In fact, the Sword Pavilion had so many beauties that it was informally nicknamed the "Pavilion of Beauty" by the disciples.
There was also the "Beauty Seed List," featuring young girls still growing but already showing extraordinary potential, such as Lin Xiaoxue and Bai Jingjing. And beyond that, there was the golden list — the "Hundred Beauties of the Infinite Dao" — which ranked the other charming female disciples of the sect.
When Aotian first learned about the existence of these lists, he ground his teeth and seriously considered forcing the disciples to train harder — after all, they clearly had too much free time if they could make such things. Later, of course, he checked the list "for scientific purposes" and concluded that the rankings were, in fact, quite accurate.
He too discovered that there was a male version of the list secretly circulating among the female disciples, and, ahem… he spent several days puffing out his chest after discovering he held first place. After that, he pondered whether he should lighten the female disciples' workload — for some reason, he felt they were working too hard and deserved a good, relaxing break.
Setting aside the shamelessness and blatant bias of the true sect leader, the young disciple, whose brain seemed to have turned to water, remained dazed before the unknown, dazzling woman.
He swore she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Even Liu Rihai, the number one beauty of the sect, though equal in looks, paled in maturity, elegance, and presence.
Failing to notice the respect even the elders were showing, he nervously rubbed his hands together, gathered his courage, lifted a foot, and prepared to step forward — intending to ask if she needed help. Clearly, he just wanted to use the opportunity to strike up a conversation and get to know her better.
But before he could act, several powerful auras descended upon him, freezing him in place with his foot still raised.
Turning stiffly toward the source of those auras, he saw several elders glaring at him with dark expressions — eyes that promised death if he dared to take that step.
A friend of his, watching in disbelief at his stupidity, quickly stepped forward, grabbed him by the armpits, and dragged him back into the crowd.
The elders rolled their eyes at the two before turning back toward the woman. Finally, they moved and greeted her.
"Ancestor Zhen!" they shouted in unison, bowing respectfully.
But to everyone's surprise, the woman's indifferent face darkened upon hearing the greeting. Her gray eyes narrowed, and a heavy pressure fell upon the elders, who began to sweat coldly and glance at each other in distress.
Quickly, they corrected themselves and shouted again, helplessly:
"Big sister Zhen!"
"Good!" The previously indifferent Zhen Yinghua suddenly smiled, placed her hands on her hips, and puffed out her chest in satisfaction.
All the disciples — both men and women — were stunned and mesmerized by the dazzling beauty of her smile, and by the contrast to her earlier coldness.
Seeing so many dazzled stares fixed on her, the ancestor's mouth twitched slightly.
Aotian really wanted to say aloud: "Please, wipe the drool from your mouths, it's dripping…"
After more than a year leading a sect, he was already used to being the center of attention — but this time it was different. It wasn't admiration for his power or status, but rather for his female appearance.
He still wasn't used to that.
Fortunately, the disciples soon recovered, as an important word had come out of the elders' mouths, reigniting their brains and reminding them that they shouldn't treat this woman lightly. After all... she was an ancestor of the sect!
And an ancestor belonging to their very own pavilion.
The concept of ancestors wasn't common in the desert continents. With the cultivation limit there being the Golden Core realm, sects couldn't produce figures of such level — at most, they had great elders, whose power rivaled that of the sect leader.
Even so, it was easy for everyone to understand from the elders' reactions that an ancestor represented a status far above them.
Zhen Yinghua, seeing that everyone had finally refocused on what truly mattered, secretly let out a light sigh of relief and turned her attention back to the elders.
"Hey, you guys, where's Leopard? I heard that bastard transformed into a beast and changed his codename to Snake without my permission. Has he really forgotten the taste of this big sister's fist?!" she said through clenched teeth, glaring at them and raising her delicate white fist.
The elders shifted uncomfortably for a moment, exchanged glances, and then reached a silent agreement.
Suddenly, they stepped aside, opening a path and, without hesitation, pointed toward a little snake coiled on the ground among them, staring back in disbelief.
"Y-Y-You guys! I thought we were brothers!" the snake hissed, heartbroken, but before it could continue, a shadow fell over it, making it freeze in place, trembling slightly.
A delicate hand shot out like an arrow, and Snake couldn't escape — he was grabbed by the neck and lifted until he was face to face with the silver-haired woman, who smiled fiercely at him.
The disciples looked on in shock at the once-powerful Elder Snake, who now looked like a balloon being squeezed, his neck completely deformed.
They silently prayed for him in their hearts, while also feeling deeply impressed by the strength and presence of the ancestral Zhen.
The poor little snake struggled in the ancestor's grasp.
"Big sister, I was wrong! I was wrong!" he cried desperately, his voice coming out thin through his compressed throat.
"Humph! At least you know. Fine, your codename can be Snake, but don't change it without my permission next time." She narrowed her eyes but released him.
Her grip shifted from strangling to merely holding his neck.
"Thank you, big sister!" he sighed in relief, grateful to her.
"Hmm... this little snake form of yours seems rather poor in quality. We'll have to fix that." She waved at him dismissively, then murmured, while Aotian recalled Elder Snake's panel.
As an outer elder, Snake could use Observable Evolution on himself.
[Beast: Hornless Dragon
Cultivation: Peak Fifth-Level Beast
Age: —
Bloodline: Dragon (Diluted) - Human (Diluted)
Qualifications: Peak Fifth-Level Beast]
That wasn't the elder's system-created status, but the result of using the ability.
And there were two things Aotian found particularly interesting. The first was that the elder's age didn't appear. He didn't know why, though he had some theories — none certain.
When he asked the system, he only got the standard response that such information wasn't in the database.
The second thing was the fact that "Human" still appeared in Snake's status.
That gave him the idea of evolving his own human race, but upon checking his own status and that of other disciples, they all showed only pure human lineage, with no evolution options — not even something like High-Human or Human Alpha, as he'd expected. That disappointed him.
Snake's evolution options, however, were quite interesting.
Option 1:
[Bloodline: Flood Dragon
Qualifications: Peak Seventh-Level Beast]
[Requirements:
Required Cultivation: Peak Fifth-Level Beast
Pill: Void-Tier Bloodline Purification Pill — Recipe: …]
—-------------------------------------
Option 2 -
[Bloodline: Human
Qualifications: Limited to Spiritual Root quality]
[Requirements:
Required Cultivation: None
Pill: Void-Tier Bloodline Annihilation Pill — Recipe: …]
—-------------------------------------
Option 3 -
[Bloodline: Earth Dragon…]
—-------------------------------------
Option 5 -
[Bloodline: Green Dragon…]
—-------------------------------------
Option 9 -
[Bloodline: Demi-Human (Draconic Lineage)
Qualifications: Limited to Spiritual Root and Lineage quality]
[Requirements:
Required Cultivation: None
Pill: Immortal-Tier Lineage Fusion Pill — Recipe: …]
Of all of them, Aotian was most intrigued by Option 9. He didn't know how Demi-Humans worked in this world. He had never heard of their existence since arriving and wasn't sure why.
Perhaps it was simply because he hadn't explored enough, but even within the ancestral memories he had read, knowledge about them was nonexistent.
However, from the xianxias he had read before dying, Demi-Humans were always depicted as monstrously talented beings, inheriting the advantages of both races — the humans' limitless potential and the beasts' raw power.
Even so, what truly caught his attention was the pill's rank: Immortal-Tier, something truly terrifying.
He wasn't sure what such a tier represented but knew it was above Mahayana. He didn't know whether it was one realm higher or several. It also surprised him that becoming a Demi-Human required such a powerful pill, which made him feel there was something far greater involved.
In any case, he already knew that the best route for Elder Snake right now was that of a Flood Dragon, since something like an Immortal-Tier pill was still far beyond reach.
But he hadn't sent Zhen Yinghua there to ponder over what he already knew — he had sent her to test her abilities.
Holding Elder Snake in her hand, he decided to test the new ability: Ancestral Awakening.
The ancestor's roots became covered with mysterious patterns, and a powerful energy began channeling from the entire sect toward her. However, Aotian was prepared and had sent a ring full of spirit stones to the ancestor before she went to the Beasts Pavilion.
Releasing several small mountains of both elemental and spiritual stones, she quickly channeled the energy into Snake, who began to twist in her hand, seemingly wincing in pain.
As the energy acted under the influence of those mysterious patterns, Snake's scales thickened, the small bulge where his horns began to grow extended further, and the draconic aura around him became heavier.
Studying the changes from both the ancestor's and Snake's perspectives, Aotian quickly understood what was happening.
'Snake's draconic blood is becoming denser… as far as I know, dragons can purify their lineage as they grow, and with talent and luck, evolve toward true dragons. Although that's nearly impossible, it's still possible. But what Zhen Yinghua's ability is doing… is greatly increasing those chances…'
Aotian reflected, frowning slightly.
If that were all, it would be fine, but not too significant. With the outer elders' abilities, he could already discover evolution paths and achieve even better results.
'No, I feel it's not just that. She already has Observable Evolution, so the system wouldn't give her an identical ability. Even though this one is more practical — since it only needs spiritual and elemental energy — I feel there's something more…'
A thoughtful gleam appeared in the ancestor's eyes. Then, looking disinterested, she tossed Snake aside.
The poor elder Snake, who moments ago had seemed delighted with his power increase, now looked at her helplessly again.
Zhen Yinghua's eyes ignored him, slowly scanning the pavilion's beasts and disciples until they settled on one of the Alpha Misty Plume Cranes, who, like all the others before, immediately lowered her gaze when stared at.
A faint sparkle flickered in the woman's eyes, and she smiled, pointing at the crane.
"You, come here. Big sister will give you a gift…" she teased, though the command in her voice left no room for refusal.
The crane was startled, but remembering the earlier scene where Snake had grown stronger in the woman's hands, hope shone in her eyes. With her long legs, she hurriedly ran toward the ancestor, completely losing the grace and composure she usually had.
She looked less like a crane and more like an ostrich now.
But it was only natural. After seeing everyone grow stronger, the cranes had begun to feel envy and frustration. After all, they had already reached their full potential and couldn't grow further. So for a chance to become stronger — even if it only meant thickening her feathers a little — she wouldn't hesitate.
As she approached, she respectfully lowered her head and let out a gentle cry.
Zhen Yinghua stroked her soft feathers, smiling playfully.
"Hold still, it might hurt a little," she said softly.
Seeing the determined look in the crane's eyes, which already understood what she intended to do, Zhen Yinghua didn't hesitate any longer.
Slowly, the torrent of energy rose once more. As the crane before her transformed, inside the main body's cavern, Aotian's eyes — who had been meditating at that moment — suddenly opened in surprise.
"So that's how it is…"