The misty shadow kept twisting and turning, finally deciding on its shape after a full five minutes. In its place now stood a wolf-like figure, three meters tall.

"Why does it seem so familiar?"

There was something about it that rang some bells inside Herman's memory, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it just yet. Taking a look at its entire body, the feeling of knowing it was getting stronger and stronger by the second. First off, the Qiongqi was your normal three meters wolf with four limber legs and beautiful snowy-white fur. And that's where its similarity with a wolf would end. Its eyes were glowing golden with a shade of red, symbolizing the trace of madness for which it was imprisoned. Its paws were also coated in a golden armor of sorts, making it appear as if it was ready for a massacre at any time. Just its normal claws would be enough to rip through a person with ease, but once reinforced with the golden metal, their prowess more than doubled. If initially, one would think that it was somehow granted these golden 'boots' as a piece of armor, the golden horn of a similar color on its forehead would confuse even the most logical of persons. Its sharpness was a threat for Herman even if this avatar was only at the Qi Gathering Realm, so the horror of the original must be quite easy to imagine.

On the back of the beast, there was covering armor in the form of a saddle, going all the way from its neck to the tail. The beautiful golden armor protecting the very well known weak-spot of the animal (its fragile spine) was complemented by the delicate red saddle in the middle, pointing out that this was a tamed beast.

"Eh!? A tamed saint beast at the Golden Immortal realm? The heck? Why does it sound so familiar? A wolf pet going on a rampage... destroying half of the world... F*CK!!! Does this Qiongqi belong to Lin Fan!?"

It was in his previous life that he heard about this monster of a person. Nah... monster wouldn't cut it anymore. 'Demon' was more like it! Actually, even the demons themselves would probably keep away from that person.

If Herman was right, then this realm was the original Samsara world. It had its own cycle of reincarnation where after one died, it would move to the next of six realms with its memories sealed. The human realm, the asura realm, the demi-gods realm, the beast realm, the ghost realm, and the demon realm. Very rarely, one such reincarnated person can retain a portion of its memories belonging to its past life, ensuring that the specific soul would be much stronger in its current life. Two such souls managed to somehow find each other in the human realm. Lin Fan was one and the Qiongqi in front of Herman was the other.

"Oy! Don't just randomly attack while a person is reminiscing about you!!! This damned animal!"

With its pride further injured by being called an 'animal', the Qiongqi rushed at Herman with even higher intensity. Its claws swiped at its opponent and from time to time, its horn would try to impale the insolent brat in front of it.

Herman ignored it and analyzed its attacking patterns while trying to remember more. From what he could recall, Lin Fan had an abysmal amount of memories unsealed upon his reincarnation to the human realm. All he could remember was that he came here from the demon realm and that was sufficient to establish his bloodthirsty nature.
While young and weak at the beginning of his cultivation path, he used his wits and cautious nature to survive and forge a place for himself in a tier 4 sect at a relatively young age. But such sects are usually filled with arrogant nobility brats, people that disdained to be in the same sect as a poor pauper such as Lin Fan. The result of their mocking? The murder of 28 such disciples and after the sect master was pressured by the nobility, Lin Fan's expulsion from the sect.

There he began his life as a hunted dog. Or at least, that's what those 28 noble families thought... As a reincarnated person returning from hell, he had a very strict policy: kill those that dared to stand in his way. It took him 50 years filled with dedication, in which he massacred all 28 noble families that pursued him, earning himself the nickname of 'Blood Devil'.
What shocked the world was his means of fighting through which one couldn't tell for sure which party suffered more damage. His means of attack were reckless and ruthless to both himself and his opponents, forcing other enraged sects to stay out of it and not daring to piss off this deranged tyrant.

He was a person of his word though. During these 50 years of being pursued back and forth, a young girl offered him shelter and food while he recovered from his injuries. Unfortunately, the girl herself was sick and died a couple of months later. While taking cover in her modest cottage, she asked Lin Fan to take care of her pup in case she died. The mangy dog was skinny and looked like a gust of wind was sufficient to kill it in passing, but he kept his word and took it with him.
That's how Lin Fan and the Qiongqi met. Once the mangy dog reached maturity, it unlocked a portion of his memories from his past life on the Beast world and actually started cultivating at a dazzling fast pace. Surprised, Lin Fan poked the little white dog and was shocked to find out the 'dog' actually replying using the human tongue. From there on, an epic story began of the two traveling the world together and wreaking havoc wherever they passed.

It wasn't that Lin Fan would actively seek to cause such damage everywhere he went, it was simply that there were many arrogant trashes at every corner of the world and Lin Fan was much more arrogant than any of them. Fast-forwarding thousands of years later, one event caught the attention of the Immortal World.
Having enough of this ruthless tyrant, the entire human world decided to 'take care' of Lin Fan and its Qiongqi. They set up a trap, fought, and supposedly killed him while he was separated from his beast. The beast felt its soul connection with Lin Fan severed and went berserk at the realization that it lost its companion, forcing his soul and body to breakthrough to the Profound Immortal realm. Only after its rampage continued for thousands of years did the administration intervened and sealed it at Herman's current location.

The story was... okay to be told in a tavern while enjoying a good cup of wine, however, Herman didn't believe that such a powerful demon would've just rolled over and died at the drop of a hat. Also, the Qiongqi rampaging about for thousands of years in a row and not calming down is a bit too unbelievable.

"There's a strong possibility that the reckless fool might've broken through and sought a higher realm to go to. But would the greedy, selfish and jealous humans allow such a thing? Nope! That's why he must've asked the Qiongqi to cover for him. He probably reached a bottleneck in his cultivation and chose to reincarnate in a higher realm, most likely the asura or the demi-god world. With a much higher cultivation ceiling and many more resources, he had a bigger chance of going even higher. But from what I remember, there wasn't such an event where he freed his pet companion from this seal either in my past life, making the whole thing weird..."

"Oy! Is there a need to try this hard? This little bastard! Careful with that horn, would you!? What if you poke someone's eye?"

Unfortunately, no matter how much Herman taunted the beast, it wouldn't show all his cards once it realized that it couldn't kill the human in front of it. Herman knew that as well and decisively stabbed his Thundering Sword through the beast's chest and piercing its heart.
The System announced Herman's victory.

Grinning at the rewards and remembering how the Qiongqi held back some hidden cards, Herman pondered for a bit but in the end, decided to challenge the second level. The helpful System brought up the avatar's details.

"Looks good and all, but what are the Level 2 avatar's attributes like?"

The answer left a grim look on Herman's face. 5.000 points in Life Essence, 2.000 in Vitality, and 2.500 in Strength and Dexterity respectively. He didn't mind these stats since he could still win by a landslide.
The problem was the scaling of this sealed beast. If this was to continue, at level three it might even have 10.000 points in Life Essence and with some hidden trump cards of the Qiongqi, even he would be in danger.

Frowning, he accepted the challenge of the second level Golden Core beast and watched closely as the Qi mist formed into a nine-meter high white wolf. What made Herman click his tongue was the human-like sneer on its face as if it was looking at an idiot.

Obvious enough, as soon as it was completely formed, the Qiongqi pounced at him and tried ripping him into shreds. Herman evaded and parried some strikes with his sword, yet even with the difference in attribute points, just the difference in sizes was enough to compensate in the beast's case.

After fighting for about thirty minutes and getting used to the new pace set, Herman moved in for the kill and saw the beast squinting his eyes. A feeling of imminent peril pounded at Herman's heart and he forcibly used a technique he learned in the past from watching Peak's Light fights. The 'blink' technique was a footwork skill that forced a large amount of Primordial Qi in one's legs and enforcing them to their upper limit. In doing so, one's speed would ridiculously increase and at higher realms, it would appear is if one teleported to another location.

Therefore, the avid gamers that came to this world from Earth gave this technique the nickname 'blink' which was easily accepted. At his Golden Core realm and thanks to the 'Spirit into Body' that he purchased, Herman's attributes synchronized with his body and soul, allowing him to barely use this technique.
It didn't look like teleport in his case though, but more like afterimages were being dropped here and there, leaving the Qiongqi dumbstruck for a brief moment.

"Now then, what are you going to do little wolf?"

*ROOOOOOAR!!!*

With a bestial roar, the clouds above the mountain peaks darkened and lightning began striking the afterimages. One after the other, they disappeared with holes left in the ground but the actual human wasn't hurt. The Qiongqi was surprised at this agile monkey running around him.

The 'monkey' itself though was slightly sweating after seeing the lighting strikes.

"This crafty fox! Well... wolf. If I didn't purposely lower my attacking strength and made it believe I was weaker, it might've hidden this trump card until its third Level. I would be toast at that point even with 'blink'. Sure enough, its intelligence and fighting experience is nothing to scoff at. It probably won't show any other spells or skills at this point, so I should finish it off and take a breather."

Not even seconds later, his Thundering sword once more pierced through the heart of the beast and the System announced his victory.

The rewards were ignored directly by Herman and he watched and read carefully the underlying message of the System. The Level 1 and 2 were called avatars, but Level 3 didn't have that specification anymore? It's not like the System to make such a mistake even if its main processor was currently undergoing an upgrade.

So what did this mean? It meant that it would no longer be an avatar, but rather a portion of the beast's soul taking shape with the help of the array and the surrounding Qi of the world. Whatever limitations it had in its avatar form would vanish and it could use toned-down spells of its actual self.

With such a thing, the Qiognqi's battle prowess would jump through the roof for certain. Just its elemental lightning control was enough to threaten him at its second level. Who knows how many times more powerful did it become at the Nascent Soul realm and what other trump cards it had.

"System, can I see its attributes before challenging him?"

"Sure enough, now that I already increased its seal to 18 years instead of its original three left and it's facing another 50, it won't take such abuse while lying down. And with attributes like this... crap! Should I challenge its Level 3 or should I stick with another Level 2!?"

Herman wasn't reckless enough to challenge it if he had no chance of defeating it. That would put him in mortal danger and even more than that, if he fails to kill it, the sealing power gets decreased to 25% of its normal amount. The Qiongqi would be more than satisfied with only gaining one extra year and something to its sentence and killing the pest that it bothered it, since nobody else could challenge the array for a full year after his attempt.

On the other hand, if Herman wanted to keep up with those ridiculous bastards, he needed the Beast True Pills since they could be consumed at the same time as another Beast Int. Pill, making his weekly gain a full 100.000 Cultivation Base instead of just 20.000. Furthermore, if he could exchange for some Beast Gold Cores, he could gain 350.000 Cultivation Base per week.

"Tsk! For that, I need at least 5 more Beast Nucleus and I could gain them only through sealing saint beasts or if I'm lucky enough to draw them from Nochi Packs. Speaking of which... Nochi Packs, huh?"

That was a reward that the System would award someone based on completing certain tasks. For example, he gained one such thing after he went through the greeting ceremony with Feng Qian and he knew for a fact that he could get them again only after a year passed by undergoing a similar formal greeting ceremony. It didn't matter if it was the same sect master or not, the System would still award them.
As for other ways to gain them... he could gain them only from his own Dwelling and the Market at the moment, due to his low cultivation level. Once he reached Nascent Soul, he could also gain them from the Talisman Soul System interface, by upgrading his eight soul talismans through the use of those creepy soul stone fragments.

"So let me see... 1 Nochi Pack I got already from greeting Feng Qian, which means that I have another 5 that I can gain from the Dwelling and five more from the System's market. If I remember right, it should be one per each. The missions should be fairly easy to accomplish for the Treasure Hall, the Sutras Hall, the Spirit Jade Hall, and the Reputation Hall. However, is the Top Up interface up for a mission yet?"

Shaking his head and clearing the useless thoughts, he pondered about the missions from his Dwelling. He hasn't received any just yet strange enough, even if four months passed since he had the Dwelling itself. The mission button for the market's interface was missing as well, leaving behind a very perplexed Herman.

"I should ask Celeste for advice as soon as I get home... Anyway, this white bastard's attributes are really troublesome. I could easily die in one hit for f*ck's sake..."

He was worried about the Qiongqi having 10.000 Life Essence points and he almost fainted when he saw that it actually had 24.000. Its Vitality was at 9.600 points and his Strength and Dexterity had reached 12.000 each, making him by far, the strongest opponent Herman had to face ever since returning to the past. Also, unlike a certain young master/commentator, this beast has a crazy amount of fighting experience after following Lin Fan around for most of its lifetime.

"*Sigh* The things one does for candies... I want to challenge the Level 3 Nascent Soul Qiongqi!"

*ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!*

Instead of an answer from the System, a resounding beastly roar shook the skies and sent tremors through the earth. With cold sweat trickling down his back, Herman began second-guessing his choice of fighting such an opponent.