During the previous 3 years his life had settled into a quiet, productive rhythm. Every two months, the blue communication stone from Elder Quan would grow warm, a silent summons. Li Yu would then make the ten-day journey to Sunken Treasure City, a trip that became a crucial pillar of his cultivation and influence.
On one such visit, he was brought to a deep, pressurized vault beneath the Golden Sea Guild's pavilion. Elder Quan stood before a massive, reinforced tank, his expression a mixture of awe and frustration. Inside was a new acquisition: a Rank 6 Hegemon Beast, an Abyssal Fin-Whale. It was a creature of immense power, its body a hundred feet of dark, armored blubber, its aura equivalent to a peak Qi Condensation expert.
"It is magnificent, is it not?" Elder Quan said, his voice a low rumble. "But it is starving itself. It has not eaten since we acquired it a month ago. We have offered it everything—Rank 5 Spirit Fish, precious deep-sea corals, even a portion of a sea serpent's corpse. It refuses it all."
Li Yu stood before the tank, his spiritual sense a gentle, probing current. He connected with the ancient, melancholic consciousness of the whale. He was met with a feeling not of sickness, but of a deep, profound homesickness. He could feel its memories: the crushing pressure of the true abyss, the taste of a specific, non-spiritual, phosphorescent krill that was its only food source, and the sound of its pod, a song of deep, resonant clicks and moans that echoed for a thousand miles.
"Elder Quan," Li Yu said after a long, thoughtful silence. "This creature does not hunger for spiritual energy. It hungers for home." He explained the whale's simple, primal needs. "Its diet is a specific, mortal krill that glows in the abyss. And more than that, it is a social creature. It is lonely. It misses the song of its pod."
The solution was both simple and complex. The guild dispatched its deep-sea vessels to harvest the specific krill. But the song… that was a problem Li Yu had to solve. He spent the next day in a quiet room, a series of resonating spirit-crystals before him. He closed his eyes, and through his profound connection with the whale, he began to hum, his voice a low, resonant drone. He was not a musician, but he was a perfect empath. He replicated the clicks, the moans, the deep, sorrowful notes of the whale's memory, recording the ancient song onto the crystals. Barely acceptable, but it was better than nothing.
When the glowing krill was presented to the whale, and the recorded song was played through formations that sent the vibrations deep into the water, the great beast finally ate. It let out a long, low, and deeply contented moan, a sound of a lonely soul finding a piece of home, making it feel just better enough to continue living.
The Golden Sea Guild's gratitude was immense. Elder Quan, true to his word, rewarded him handsomely. Li Yu never asked for spirit stones. Instead, he would request access to their vast, private library furthering his knowledge of the world, or a single, rare material he needed for his own research. And with each visit, he would spend a day wandering the Azure Pavilion district, his «Myriad Rivers Returning to the Sea Art» a silent, hungry ghost, drinking in the endless streams of Qi from the tens of thousands of aquatic beasts, his cultivation growing with every step.
His reputation was not confined to the powerful. On each trip to the city, he would dedicate two days to the Fisherman's Wharf. He set up a small, simple stall with a hand-painted sign: "The Quiet Physician. Consultations for Aquatic Companions." He never charged a fee.
At first, the fishermen were skeptical. But then Old Man Feng, a respected elder of the wharf, would tell the story of his Spirit-Eyed Cormorant. Soon, a line began to form. A young girl whose pet turtle had a strange shell fungus. A fisherman whose school of bait-fish were dying from an unknown ailment. A low-level cultivator whose battle-crab had lost a pincer and was refusing to regrow it.
Li Yu would listen patiently to each story. He would look at each beast, his spiritual sense instantly diagnosing the problem. For the turtle, he prescribed a simple paste of ground seashells and a common water-weed. For the bait-fish, he identified a parasite in their water source and told the fisherman to move his pens to a different canal. For the battle-crab, he felt the creature's deep-seated fear and trauma from its last battle; its spirit was too afraid to heal. He spent an hour in quiet, spiritual communion with the crab, his own calm, powerful aura soothing its fears. The next day, the pincer began to regrow.
He never asked for payment from the poor. If a wealthy merchant or a guild disciple came to him, he would always request the same specific items as payment—a rare herb, an obscure text, a piece of beast core. He was building his reputation as a benevolent, eccentric genius, a friend to the common man. But in reality, he was conducting research, using the endless variety of ailments as a living textbook, deepening his own understanding of demonic beast biology. And with every creature he helped, he would discreetly absorb a small, harmless thread of its Qi, a quiet, secret toll for his services.
This pattern of quiet growth and reputation-building continued within the sect as well. His fame as the "Beast Physician of Azure Cloud" was now firmly established. Disciples from every hall would come to the Azure Serpent Lake, seeking his aid. He became a nexus of favors owed, a quiet, unassuming figure with a web of connections that reached into every corner of the sect.
He knew the time was coming. His long, quiet autumn was drawing to a close.