My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting-Chapter 090 – Commanding Demonic Beasts - Part 2

Li Yuan and Tie Sha were still discussing this when a few dishes and the wine arrived.

Li Yuan poured a cup for Tie Sha, who took a taste, closed his eyes, and gave an appreciative smack of his lips. “Good stuff! Strong and fiery!”

Li Yuan poured a cup for himself as well. After a few rounds, the conversation grew more candid.

Tie Sha cut straight to the point. “I hear you’ve been raising a demonic beast?”

Li Yuan answered modestly, “I only know the basics...”

Tie Sha let out a short laugh. “If you can tame a blackrock mastiff, that’s far beyond just the basics. That’s a real skill.”

He closed his eyes as if recalling something. “Demonic beasts are extremely important to every major power. The Wei Family, for instance, had two seventh rank flame blaze leopards, one male and one female. They hoped the pair would produce offspring that could be raised from birth to obey the family. The Sun Family does the same, and so do we in the Blood Blade Sect.

“But taming demonic beasts is extraordinarily difficult. Without exceptional talent and luck, it’s basically impossible. So all we can do is keep these creatures caged. We can’t really train them.”

“I don’t understand,” Li Yuan said. “If taming them is impossible, why bother keeping them at all?”

Tie Sha gave a wry smile. “Because we can’t do it ourselves, but we know certain higher level factions can. So we keep hoping, maybe we’ll find a way.”

After a moment of thought, he suddenly raised his voice. “Li Yuan!”

“Yes, Sect Master,” Li Yuan answered.

“I’d like you not just to serve as an inspector but to become our beastmaster as well, someone who oversees all demonic beasts for the Blood Blade Sect. I want you to try to tame them and ultimately bring them under control. Will you do it?” Fire burned in Tie Sha’s eyes. “Once you command those demonic beasts, our Blood Blade Sect will be unassailable!”

Li Yuan’s smile was a little uneasy. “I’m not sure if I’m qualified...”

Seemingly prepared for that response, Tie Sha pulled out a small booklet. Its cover read Wilderness Demon Taming.

“This contains taming skills for eighth and seventh rank demonic beasts. Our sect stumbled on it by chance long ago and has kept it under lock and key ever since, hoping it could be useful one day. But we never found the right candidate. It’s been gathering dust...until now.

“Li Yuan, I want you to give it a try. Of course, this might cut into your own cultivation time, so the sect will see you’re properly compensated.”

Li Yuan stared blankly for a moment, but soon understood the gist of the situation.

Normally, mastering any skill or cultivation technique would take a great deal of time. Yet there was only so much a person could do on a given day. If he were to devote himself to learning this demonic beast taming skills, he’d have less time for his own training. In other words, he’d be making a personal sacrifice for the greater good of the Blood Blade Sect.

Li Yuan simply bowed and said, “To serve the sect is my duty. I’ll do everything I can to master these skills as quickly as possible.”

Tie Sha nodded in satisfaction, then burst into laughter. “Eat up, then I’ll take you to see the demonic beasts we keep! Once you master Wilderness Demon Taming, they’re all yours.”

They finished their meal. Tie Sha personally escorted Li Yuan to a small building at the northern edge of the inner district. This was where the sect’s demonic beasts were kept.

Inside, Li Yuan saw a central opening in the floor. Gazing down, he could make out a deep passage dimly lit by copper lamps etched with crimson patterns.

Tie Sha triggered some sort of mechanism, and the lamps began to glow with a dull yellow light.

“So these demonic beasts are kept underground,” Li Yuan murmured in understanding.

Tie Sha beckoned him. “Come!”

They descended the steps into what was effectively a subterranean palace, lined with row after row of sturdy metal cages. Massive shapes lay in the darkness, some big, some smaller, all bristling with a menacing aura.

Tie Sha explained, “Most demonic beasts don’t like bright light. They’ll just lie quietly in the dark. But if we need light, a torch will do just fine...”

Tie Sha pulled out two small torches he’d prepared earlier. He blew on them until they caught flame, then handed one to Li Yuan.

By its flickering light, Li Yuan finally saw what lay inside the cages.

In the murky darkness, pairs of eerie green eyes glowed like ghostly lanterns, all fixed on them. As those shapes shifted, it became clear they were enormous demon dogs. Each appeared different in size, shape, and even the combat power Li Yuan could sense.

Some had floating values of 20~60, while others were 40~140, and still others 60~260. Clearly, there were demon dogs of various ranks here—ninth, eighth, and seventh rank all among them.

Tie Sha pointed them out one by one. “These ordinary-looking ones are called blackrock mastiffs—seven of them in total. The one you’ve been training is that type. These smaller, swift ones here are oddstrider hounds—five in total—bloodthirsty and fond of raw flesh. And these huge ones, practically the size of a small hill, are the ebony marquises—we have three of them, all extremely vicious.”

Li Yuan silently observed the demon dogs. By his reckoning, some of these beasts had a far higher power ceiling than most humans at the same rank.

Take those ebony marquises, for example, one of them registered a peak power of 260, enough to overpower Tie Sha’s own 235.

If Li Yuan could truly tame these demon dogs, he’d have a terrifying force at his command, loyal beasts without human agendas.

“I’ll do my best to tame them,” Li Yuan said, gripping the Wilderness Demon Taming manual that Tie Sha had given him.

His background as a hunter was, in a strange way, coming full circle. Only this time, the dogs he’d be training weren’t your run-of-the-mill hunting dogs; they were demon dogs.

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When Li Yuan returned to the Ginger Tavern, he found quite a gathering waiting for him in the rear courtyard. One person immediately caught his attention—a burly, disheveled man. Above this stranger’s head floated an unusual 0~100, with a fainter 210~230 at peak condition.

That figure was perplexing. From what Li Yuan could tell, this man’s condition resembled that of Zhou Jia—like someone who had once been seventh rank but had fallen drastically in rank.

Yet beneath all that, he still retained the potential to rival top experts like Tie Sha or Yu Chaojin. The key difference was the man’s lower bound was 0, suggesting there were times when his strength could drop to practically nothing, leaving him utterly vulnerable.

The stranger was holding the hand of a little girl, both standing awkwardly in the courtyard.

Li Yuan glanced around, puzzled. “What’s going on?”

Xue Ning hurried over and whispered a quick explanation in his ear.

He nodded, then turned his attention to the man and the child. “Tang Qiu, what do you plan to do now?”

The little girl tensed, clutching her father’s hand as though she feared he might leave her behind.

Tang Qiu, hidden behind his grimy, unkempt hair, looked at her with softness in his eyes before meeting Li Yuan’s gaze. “Young Master Li, if you’ll have me, I’d like to watch over the estate for you.”

Li Yuan studied him for a moment. “Manager Wu, find him a place to stay in the guard quarters.”

A flash of gratitude showed in Tang Qiu’s eyes. He bowed and said, “Thank you, Young Master Li. I won’t betray your trust.”

“However,” Li Yuan went on, “you clearly possess considerable skill. If you want to stay here in good faith, hand over your weapons to me first. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but we really don’t know who you are or where you come from.”

He watched Tang Qiu carefully, waiting for a response.

Without hesitation, Tang Qiu closed his eyes, and a faint buzzing rang out as three iron butterflies slipped from his sleeves. They landed in his palm, wings folding back until they were just lumps of metal.

After another two fits of that same buzzing, he ended up with nine iron butterflies in total. He placed the nine metal lumps on a nearby chair.

“That’s all of them,” he said quietly.

This chapter is updat𝓮d by freēnovelkiss.com.

Li Yuan noticed that after losing the butterflies, Tang Qiu’s combat power dropped dramatically to 0~9, while his combat power at peak condition fell to 25~28.

Smiling, Li Yuan said, “Welcome aboard, Old Tang. Go get yourself cleaned up, and tonight you can come out with me for a look around.”

“Thank you, Young Master Li.” Tang Qiu bowed again, then turned to his daughter. “Nian Nian, I’m not leaving.”

The little girl pursed her lips, eyes still red, and lifted her chin. “And you’re not allowed to die!”

A broad, almost relieved grin appeared on Tang Qiu’s face. He looked genuinely happy for the first time. “Just now, I was only bluffing them. I’m not dying, sweetheart... I promise.”