Lin Yuan sat near a wide spreaded peach tree, feeding the sack of Green Spirit Grass to his turtle. Green Spirit Grass found near peach trees, in depths of mountains and forests.

The turtle chomped the grass sluggishly, darting his head in every direction. Turtle face seems to be lingering in joy, after gnawing the green spirit grass. Lin Yuan rubbed the turtle shell with his left hand, a soothing smile long-lasting on his face.

Crunch!

Lin Yuan folded his legs, crunching the dry leaves under his legs. He gently held the turtle with both hands, concentrating his mind into his aperture. Lin Yuan maintained his stillness, to get a perfect cultivation breakthrough.

Slightly, the turtle began to glow and glimmer along with his aperture. As the time went on the 1.5% beast essence slowly began to swirl around. Lin Yuan felt the percentage of beast essence started to increase slowly.

1.5% → 1.7% → 2.0%

The turtle glow flickered just before it became normal again. Lin Yuan commanded his turtle to ring again, and started to search for other materials to cultivate.

"My consciousness says today I will find good food for my turtle", Lin Yuan mumbled, walking into a forest in mid-cliff of Qing Feng Mountain.

As he got deep into the forest, walked thinking about the cultivation realms. His leg stuck onto a stone. Lin Yuan tumbled and fell flat on the ground.

"Pchttt... I didn’t see that stone." Lin Yuan groaned, placing his hands on the ground, putting force to get up. As he raised his head, in front there was a wild berries tree with many berries.

Lin Yuan jolted up in an instant, and rubbed his eyes with both hands. He saw again; the wild berries tree is real. Lin Yuan dusted his robes off and sprinted towards the tree. And slowly he climbed up onto the tree, trying to pluck as many berries as he could. He plucked one and dropped down. He plucked another handful of berries and dropped down. After he plucked 9-10 clusters of berries, he climbed down from the tree.

Lin Yuan scurried across the wild berries tree, picking up every berry he plucked and dropped. They are crushed, outer layers scrambled and pulpy parts splashed on the ground at some places. But some bunches of berries are good enough, so that the turtle can eat them. He gathered the berries into a single place; he sat in front of berries and held his hand straight, palm facing straight up to the sky. In an instant, the baby turtle manifested in his hand.

"Eat the berries, my treasure," Lin Yuan whispered, meticulously placing his hand down, in front of the berries.

The turtle crawled out from his hand, and started eating the berries down. As the turtle is bonded with Lin Yuan, he can feel the happiness of the turtle when it eats berries.

Crunch! THUD!

While the turtle was eating the berries, a cacophonous mixture of crunching leaves and footsteps came from the bushes aside. After a few seconds, a beast appeared. It was the fox, orange in color, thick, viscous saliva drooling from the jaws. The fox stared at the turtle, and darted its eyes towards Lin Yuan. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

With his instinct, he instantly called out the turtle, and it reacted by turning a ring back. The fox took two slow steps forward, and Lin Yuan slowly got up. The instant fox lunged towards Lin Yuan, he started sprinting backside as fast as he could.

"What should I do now?" Lin Yuan frowned, his voice panting as he was sprinting.

"Hell.. nah. Darn it. If I have a core beast, obviously the beast will have techniques to attack and guard, isn’t it?" Lin Yuan asked himself. "Think! Think!"

Then Lin Yuan got an idea. Lin Yuan didn’t have a chance to block the attack or enough to plan a strategy. In a blink of a second, Lin Yuan turned backward with a jerk to halt. The fox was rushing towards him, it was 5 paces away... 3 paces away... 2 paces away, and the fox jumped, claws stretching forward.

"Shell Strike", Lin Yuan yelled, stretching his right hand — which has the turtle ring, his palm facing forward.

Instantly, a green laser beam shot out from a single point at the center of the palm. It precisely pierced through the fox’ chest.

THUD!

The fox came to halt in mid-air, and fell to the ground with a loud sound. The geyser of blood sprayed out onto the ground from the wound created by ’Shell Strike.’

Lin Yuan fell to his knees, panting heavily as his beast essence decreased to 0.2% and it took some time to recover his essence back again. Shell Strike consumes the beast essence to launch. At the time, Lin Yuan was thinking, he got an idea like using the beast essence with the power of the turtle to attack. So instantly he concentrated the beast essence in his aperture resonating with the turtle to blast a laser beam. He has a similar idea to guard an incoming attack by accumulating the essence in front of him like a shield, but it may take the whole beast essence of Lin Yuan.

He unhurriedly rose up, walking towards the dead fox in dull footsteps. He crouched down, his left leg slightly up and his left hand rested on it. He placed his hand on the fox’ chest. He calmly regulated his breath and concentrated his mind.

After 2 minutes, the beast core of the fox was materialized at the side of the fox corpse. The shiny green beast core shimmering in reddish-green as it was bathed in beast blood on the floor. He slowly took the core up. The beast core ranks can be determined by the color. Rank 1 core is pale-white, Rank 2 core is green, Rank 3 core is blue, Rank 4 core is violet, Rank 5 core is crimson, Rank 6 core is black-gold.

’Fuck, if I am enough strong... I will try to tame this fox and check with my theory of cultivation using multiple beasts,’ Lin Yuan clicked his tongue in disappointment.

Lin Yuan fused the beast core into him. Every cultivator can fuse the beast cores or beasts into them with concentration, so that they don’t have the burden to carry them always. Lin Yuan got up and slowly walked towards the large circle shaped rock, and leaned his back on it. He took a deep, agonizing breath as his body aching in sheer pain.

’I killed a Rank 2 Beast, today. It’s a great find today. Yeah I wanted to test my theory but no worries, I just got a rank 2 beast’ core which will boost my cultivation more than food.’ Lin Yuan thought, his eyes pale.

"I need to feed the turtle with the beast core I obtained to make the beast core to help with my cultivation." Lin Yuan grumbled with sheer pain in his aperture. "But I don’t have any energy to concentrate enough now. I will do it tomorrow."

Lin Yuan blinked his eyes two to three times, before he fell asleep leaning on the rock. Lin Yuan didn’t flinch. He couldn’t because he was asleep due to exhaustion.

****

After 2 hours, the birds started chirping across the mountain as the sun began to crawl down to set.

Lin Yuan moved, spasming his eyeballs before he woke up. He gently opened his eyes, his hands sluggishly reached out to rub his eyes.

"It’s evening already. I slept long enough. But I am a bit better now compared to before," Lin Yuan muttered, his voice low as whisper.

And then he got up, walking down the path of Qing Feng mountain to his home.

As he walked, he saw the Soft Moss and small mushrooms on the way home, but Lin Yuan didn’t stop to pick them up. He was tired, as he was in Baby Beast Realm – Lower Stage, his aperture is too weak to bear the beast essence depletion.

The walk to his house took a long, agonizing hour. Lin Yuan reached his home, but he didn’t greet his elder brother like usual. Lin Yuan walked into his room and stripped his traditional robes off, and he wore the light layered robes. He sat on his bed for a second, and laid back on the bed.

"Damn Fox, I think I was dead today. Thanks to the turtle beast’s powers and my thinking—" Lin Yuan stopped in the middle, as he got another thought meddling in his mind.

"Wait!" Lin Yuan jolted up, his voice lingered with curiosity. "As I have my beast essence recovered, I will try to create a shield once."

Lin Yuan raised his hand, clenching his fist in front of his chest like holding a shield. He gently concentrated his mind into his aperture. The 2% beast essence is slowly swirled and shone. And after a second, a thick layer of hardened air formed in front of him like a shield. Lin Yuan tapped that air with his hand.

THUD!

"Damn... it is strong..." Lin Yuan was astonished, his eyes narrowing. "It can even stop my Shell Strike."

SNAP! CLUTCH!

Suddenly, the shield shattered. Lin Yuan frowned with confusion.

’W-What...? The beast essence is drained?’ Lin Yuan was shocked, his eyes frowned in disbelief. ’This defence takes my every ounce of beast essence.’

"This beast essence consumption is as bad as mana depletion..." Lin Yuan grunted, sluggishly laying on the bed, clutching his chest. He realised one thing that he should use that defence until he gets into higher stages.

"I see... I have one offensive attack — Shell Strike, and one defensive attack... Ummm.. I will name it ’Shell Guard’. These attacks are similar to magic attacks in my world — concentrating and attacking or defending," Lin Yuan analysed the attacks and their beast essence consumption, placing his left hand half-folded under his head. "Are the beast essence consumption and attacks same for all realms?"

It’s a dumb question. Lin Yuan also knew that, but he thought about that.

"Obviously no!! I guess, the potential of the attack and defence along with beast essence consumption will increase with cultivation stages." Lin Yuan smirked, arguing with himself.