Chapter 7: Black Bird Flame Hawk

  On Tianlei Mountain, Zhang Pa believed that the sect leader was the best. Although he didn't like to talk to himself and had put himself in charge of guarding the Cave of Ten Thousand Beasts, he was still the best person for himself.

  Because of his cowardice, he was not like a man and others despised him, wanting to drive him out of the mountain. Only the sect leader did not allow it. When practicing magic, the heavenly thunder technique had to be passed down orally, and the disciple who was supposed to teach him was unwilling to do so. The sect leader personally taught him and made an exception by allowing him to enter the scripture library to read books. Zhang Pa really thanked the sect leader very much, but unfortunately he didn't know that his transformation into a Taoist priest was also because of the sect leader.

  Zhang Po was delighted, but also a bit worried. He had been forced to go all out in his battle with Zhang Wuji's parents, which led to the events that followed. Although he won the duel back then, it created a karmic obstacle for him, and no matter how hard he practiced over the past decade or so, he made no progress. Everything has its cause and effect; his duel was the cause, and Zhang Wuji's parents' death and Zhang Wuji becoming a Taoist priest were the effects. If True Person wanted to advance another level in his cultivation, he had to eliminate the effects first, which is why he would favor Zhang Wuji. In short, he was trying to eliminate his own karmic obstacle.

  After Zhen left, Zhang Fei was still very excited. He ran back to the house, put all his trash into the storage bag, then took it out again, and continued to play with it. However, he didn't dare to put the snake eggs in, although he didn't know what would happen specifically, but the storage bag must be different from the beast-controlling bag, let's talk about it when we have the beast-controlling bag.

  The door-to-door service is indeed efficient, and in the afternoon, a disciple of Konting Hall came to deliver the beast bag. According to that disciple, this is one of the best beast bags, which can hold any living thing, and the storage capacity is very large. Zhang was a little worried and asked the disciple: "What if you put a small dog in it, will anyone know there's a small dog inside through the bag?" The Konting Hall disciple smiled and replied: "How could they? Unless you open the bag and use your spiritual sense to look inside, otherwise, even the owner won't know what's inside when the bag is closed."

  After the disciples of the Equal Control Spirit Hall left, Zhang took the snake eggs from the soft armor and put them one by one into the beast bag. After checking, there were exactly 128 snake eggs. He tied up the mouth of the bag and patted it with his hand, but the bag was flat as paper, and he really didn't know where the snake eggs had gone. Zhang stuck the bag to his chest and forehead, trying hard to detect with his spiritual sense, but the result was like stagnant water, without any signs of life, let alone any leakage of spiritual energy.

  It turns out that Zhang's luck was really good. The snake egg originally had a strong spiritual energy that could not be hidden, and ordinary people could feel the abnormality, let alone the black bird, which was its natural enemy. By coincidence, he unintentionally absorbed the spiritual energy, leaving the snake egg with only a weak life, so the black bird became complacent and did not pursue it further, otherwise the fate of these snake eggs would be predictable.

  Once discovered, not only would the snake egg's fate be unpredictable, but Zhang's situation would become even more dire. Without permission, he had taken it without reporting it, especially since it was a precious demonic beast egg. If discovered, he estimated that the lightest punishment would be to abolish his entire cultivation and expel him from the mountain gate. Just thinking about this made Zhang fearful and chilled to the bone. However, no matter how afraid he was or how much he wanted to get rid of the snake egg, it couldn't compare to that single tear. The great snake's resentful eyes, that crystal clear teardrop, always made Zhang feel heartache and sorrow. Perhaps in his subconscious, he also yearned for a mother.

  Having ventured to do what he shouldn't have done, of course, he was worried that things would be exposed. Just as he was worrying about the black bird coming and going, the leader sent over a beast-controlling bag. Now his problem became how to hide the beast-controlling bag. This was much simpler.

  He knew who the Black Bird was. At the main peak, the disciples under the gate would chatter every day about the gods in the sect, hoping that they could become gods one day. The disciples chattered, and Zhang Pa would hear it.

  The black bird's name was Yan Zong, a high-ranking fire-type demon beast. His master was Tieguan True Man, a legendary figure from Tianlei Mountain, said to have lived for over a thousand years and was a top-notch expert at the Yuanying level. Legend had it that Tieguan True Man was extremely intelligent and talented when he was young, entering the foundation-building period early on and defeating high-ranking demon beasts like Yan Zong multiple times with his foundation-building cultivation, forming an unbreakable bond with him. Later in his cultivation, he used a powerful divine ability to grant Yan Zong the power of speech.

  Generally speaking, the mature period of Yan Huo can be compared to a mid-term master in the Condensing Dan stage. However, it is said that with the help of Tie Guan Zhen Ren, Yan Huo has already reached the late-stage cultivation of the Condensing Dan. Not to mention mid-term or late-stage masters of the Condensing Dan, even early-stage cultivators are considered gods by the disciples. What kind of high cultivation is this? Furthermore, due to Tie Guan Zhen Ren's special identity, as a sign of respect, younger disciples all address Yan Huo as "Shi Shu" (Uncle Master), and among some newly-entered disciples, he is even revered as the "Saintly Bird of Tian Lei Mountain".

  Zhang was worried about where to hide the beast bag, thinking about which place would be better. After some thought, he still used the old method, sewing the beast bag flat into the interlayer of his clothes and wearing it on his body. The pearl tear, like an inanimate object, made people feel its existence, even if placed beside him, nothing happened, but Zhang was still putting it in the beast bag, with a fixed idea in mind, mom always wants to be with her child.

  After collecting all the items, I started to tidy up the storage bag. It's true that the storage bag carried by the sect leader is better than ordinary ones, although it can't be said, but Zhang Fei just felt that it was good, maybe it was sturdy? Maybe it had a large capacity?

  Zhang took out the broken armor he had just put away, stuffed it into the jade slip, his only so-called treasure. Then he tied it tightly around his waist, walked back and forth, jumping up and down, pretending to be a big shot wandering around. After more than ten years of hard training, he finally got the recognition of the sect leader, acknowledging him as a disciple of Tianlei Mountain. He thought he was very happy.

  The next morning, Zhang Pa was still in bed when Yan Lie appeared in the room. Last night, that mysterious aura that made him uneasy suddenly disappeared, which made Yan Lie very curious, and he immediately released his divine sense to search for Tian Lei Mountain, but unfortunately, he got nothing after a hard search all night. The question couldn't be answered, of course, he had to ask Zhang Pa clearly.

  Zhang's answers were all unclear, and he was unclear about what spiritual roots or abnormal conditions were.

  The snake's breath was extremely weak, so weak that it was hard to detect, and the Flame Bird took the initiative to help Zhang make up a reason. It thought that some kind of land-roaming spirit beast occasionally lived underground, and because it felt its own spiritual energy was strong, it escaped and left.

  Then Zhang was afraid of passing safely. Soon, Yan Ruo forgot about this too and flew all over the mountains again, looking for new fun and focus.

  These days, Zhang Pa has been working hard to cultivate his mind. He wants to enter the Purple Light Pavilion and gain more recognition from others. First, he must get rid of his timid nature.

  The Jing Xin Jue is a method of the category of stabilizing the mind and clarifying wisdom, with an extremely effective function of calming the mind and driving out demons. This technique was originally created by high-level Daoist practitioners in the Golden Elixir stage to break through their cultivation and enter the Yuan Ying stage, in order to avoid demonic invasion and prevent failure in forming the embryo. The effect is single-minded, learning is simple, but the level of cultivation is limited. The lower the level of cultivation, the smaller the achievement, and if the level of cultivation is too low, it cannot be cultivated at all.

  Zhang Pa was only in the Refining Qi stage, his cultivation was too low, and the effect of practicing the Quiet Mind Technique wasn't very great. He still feared thunder, but he could already force himself to endure it without shouting wildly.

  Such a result made him somewhat depressed, the static heart trick is just protection, just isolation, just sheltering all kinds of unpleasant scenes and ugly faces, but can't really make oneself not timid anymore. It seems that becoming bolder is indeed difficult.

  But for now, there is only one method of quieting the mind. To make this method more effective, one must practice diligently and cultivate their character.