Lan Yun latched onto Yin Long the moment they left the Heaven's Secrets Company, wrapping her left arm around Yin Long's right arm and sticking close to him. The soft sensation wrapping around his arm and the slightly sweet scent that hit him made his brows furrow slightly, but Lan Yun stopped him from saying anything by waving the jade scroll containing the cultivation manual in front of his face.

"What, you want me to study this while walking around blindly? If you want me to go headfirst into the side of a building then you just have to tell me, it's a rather strange kink but I'm sure I can come to live with it, the resulting brain damage will certainly help. Or could it be that you bought it but didn't want me to read it right away? You want me to just keep it in my interspatial ring and not look at it until we have some resting time? That sounds like teasing and edging play, which again, I can come to live with if that's what you like."

Lan Yun pressed herself against Yin Long as she spoke, winking at him and causing him to roll his eyes. He sucked in a light breath and raised his free arm in surrender, he knew that Lan Yun would just drag him in circles like this if he tried to say anything. Lan Yun grinned and laughed victoriously, snuggling as close to Yin Long as possible while closing her eyes and sinking her mind into the jade scroll, leaving the guiding to Yin Long.

Of course, if he wanted to use her defencelessness right now to feel her up then she would more than welcome that. Sadly for her, Yin Long did not succumb to her charms and continued attempts at seduction, quietly leading her through the city while observing the surrounding sights alongside a bored-looking Jin Wang. As they were walking and occasionally taking a spatial array to get closer to the edge of the city, Yin Long would sometimes cast sideways glances at the silent Lan Yun.

It may have looked like he just haphazardly bought a cultivation manual for Lan Yun but he had actually given it a great deal of thought as they moved through the Heaven's Secrets Company. His senses had been stretched out at all times to check all the cultivation manuals around them, and he only chose the 9 Mountains Emperor manual upon being certain that it was a great fit for Lan Yun.

She already had some basis with the law of earth thanks to her old cultivation manual, her greataxe was excellently suited to the law of crushing, and the strength needed to wield an axe like that was perfect for the law of tearing. The cultivation manual would also help improve some of her weaknesses, which was another reason that Yin Long had chosen it.

The laws of crushing and tearing would greatly enhance her attacks, which could only be considered mediocre. And while she had decent defence thanks to her law of earth, her speed suffered as a result so she was still prone to having to tank hits. The law of wood would help her with this, filling her with enough vitality that she could heal rapidly even after she was forced to tank hits. Sure, the manual ended up being rather expensive, but as he was buying it for a friend he didn't see a need to care too much about the price.

Yin Long moved somewhat slowly so that Lan Yun could study the cultivation manual somewhat peacefully, reaching the edge of the city after moving for a little over half a day. There was an array at the edge of the city prepared for people who were planning on heading out, the guards around it simply telling Yin Long to lock-on to his targeted location with a bit of his Qi.

The array looked like a normal spatial array so he was somewhat curious about what they meant, but he instantly understood it when the array actually activated. The array teleported his group high into the sky and surrounded them in a bubble that kept them hovering high in the air. They were so high in the sky that they could see not just the entire city but also everything around it. This was his first time that Yin Long saw the surroundings of the city, and the sight left even him somewhat stunned.

They already knew that Starfall city was located within a crater, but they hadn't expected massive cracks to extend out from the crater, forming seven massive valleys that stretched away from the city. From the looks of it, a star, or rather a meteor, might actually have crashed here once long ago to turn the scenery into what it was. A large forest grew around the city and the seven valleys but the forest didn't extend into the dark valleys, making Yin Long slightly curious as to what exactly existed at the bottom of the valleys.

Yin Long did as the guards told him and focused his vision on a part of the forest located right next to one of the valleys, sending a bit of his Qi in that direction. The spot wasn't picked at random, the map they bought earlier told him that this section of the forest was close to an area called Four-Kings Valley. The bubble seemed to pick up on the direction that he sent his Qi in, suddenly launching itself in that direction so fast that the world blurred around them.

But despite clearly moving at an extreme speed, Yin Long wasn't able to feel the slightest movement from within the bubble, causing him to marvel a bit at how peculiar this array was. Wolfsoul City used only spatial arrays but that was mainly because of how large the territory of the Lang clan used to be in the past, it was simply easier to just put the same spatial array everywhere.

The bubble rushed through the air and brought Yin Long's group down into the part of the forest he had picked out, vanishing when it touched the ground. The place they landed was right next to one of the massive valleys, Yin Long only had to take a few steps forward before he could lean forward to look down into the depths of the valley.

But he couldn't see the bottom of the valley even while standing this close. He could see that there were some dimly-coloured flowers and faintly white grass growing at the sides of the valley, but a thick mist prevented him from seeing too deep into the valley. But while he couldn't see the bottom of the valley, he could feel a terrible cold rising up from the valley.

Most of the cold seemed to be gathering within the thick mist, so the cold that actually reached him wasn't too bad, it was like standing outside on a snowy winter day. But if the small part that reached him was this cold then he couldn't even imagine exactly how cold the mist itself was, nor could he imagine exactly what was causing such a chill.

He stepped back from the valley and moved a bit deeper into the forest while moving away from the valley, Jin Wang already in a vigilant state as he marched at Yin Long's side. The place where they had landed was a short distance away from the Four-Kings Valley that the peddler but the air here was already tinged with the faint scent of blood, telling Yin Long that the clashes happening within Four-Kings Valley were just as bad as the peddler had warned him.

Yin Long didn't head straight for Four-Kings Valley, he cut down a tree so that he had a stump to sit on while he waited for Lan Yun to finish studying the cultivation manual. But he encountered a problem when he was going to sit down, Lan Yun refused to let go of him, stubbornly sticking close to him.

He thought about freeing himself from her vice-like clutches through force but eventually decided that since he had already indulged her this far that he might as well indulge her a bit more. He sat down on the stump and placed Lan Yun sideways on his lap, an act that he could swear caused the corners of her lips to curl up despite the fact that she should be fully immersed in the cultivation manual.

Jin Wang stood guard at Yin Long's side like a loyal guard dog, constantly sniffing the air and surveying the area. Both Jin Wang and Yin Long's heads turned towards the right after they had waited for a bit over an hour, Yin Long's eyes narrowing for a split second before he looked at Jin Wang with a faint smirk.

"You were getting hungry, weren't you? Well, you've got plenty of meat now, let's see if you've gotten rusty."

Yin Long could already see the first Demonic beast silhouette through the trees as he finished his words, amber eyes with a tint of red gleaming at them from the darkness. The faint scent of blood shrouding the entire forest probably agitated the Demonic beasts living in it, and now that they had caught Yin Long's scent they were eager for a good meal. But sadly for them, Yin Long also had someone on his side who was eager for a good meal.

Jin Wang's lips curved up excitedly as he stepped forward, his sharp fangs glinting with a slight light. It was just like Yin Long always said, he was a wild beast that wasn't suited for the city, his home was amidst the bloody battlefield of beasts. Of course, what Yin Long had never realized whenever he said those words was that they also worked for him, a fact everyone but he had been able to see.

The beasts revealed themselves, all manner of monsters with different traits making their way through the trees. Some of the beasts had still-bleeding wounds scattered around their bodies, obvious marks from claws and fangs. They were probably all engaged in battle just a short while ago and only stopped when they detected the scent of cultivators, the greatest tonic to Demonic beasts.

Yin Long didn't move from his seat and Lan Yun didn't stop her immersion into the cultivation manual, remaining snuggly pressed up against Yin Long's chest while sitting on his lap. The strongest beast present had only reached strength equivalent of the 9th Mortal Door, Jin Wang alone was enough to feast on all these tasty morsels.

Jin Wang crouched down slightly and then shot forward before the first beast even had the chance to roar, turning into a dim yellow blur that reached the closest beast in only a split-second. Jin Wang raised one of his front paws and brought it down on the head of the two-metre-long dog-like beast, smashing its head against the ground and crushing its skull.

He immediately moved again after crushing the first skull, opening his mouth into what was practically a 90-degree angle and chomping down on the waist of another dog-like beast. His sharp fangs tore through the flesh and bone of the beast, practically severing its lower half with a single bite. And as the monster fell to the ground, Jin Wang raised his paw and stomped down on its head, crushing another skull.

A snake-like beast with small barbs covering its back reached Jin Wang's back just as he stomped down on the skull of the second dog, lunging for his hind-leg with an open maw. But Jin Wang had clearly already noticed the snake, raising his hind-leg just as the snake was about to reach him. He brought down the hind-leg on top of the snake's skull, his sharp claws piercing through the skull of the snake and eviscerating its brain.

But while the snake failed to hit Jin Wang, it forced him to attack with his hind-leg so that he couldn't immediately move away again. The other beasts could swarm him as a result, surrounding him so that he couldn't escape in any direction. But it was in this surrounded state that the other beasts learned exactly what the meaning of violence was.

If Yin Long's fighting style could be called fluid and graceful then Jin Wang's fighting style could only be described using the words ferocious and brutal. His every move crushed bones, his bloody fangs eagerly chomping down on everything he could find and tearing out large chunks of flesh and bone, organs and blood spilling forth.

What was once a group of nearly 15 Demonic beasts was reduced to mere bloody chunks in less than two minutes, only a single beast remaining alive once the two-minute mark passed. No matter how blood-drunk the remaining ape-like beast was, there was no way it could remain unaffected after experiencing such a brutal massacre.

Its dark orange hairs were standing on end and its long limbs were shivering incessantly, its expressions drooping as it slowly distanced itself from the bloody Jin Wang. The ape took a few steps back and then turned around to flee at full speed, Jin Wang's gaze following it with slightly narrowed eyes. And then, as the ape was getting further and further away, Jin Wang did something Yin Long had never seen him done before.

He once again opened his mouth at a 90-degree angle, his gullet seemingly leading into a bottomless hole. He pointed his opened maw at the fleeing ape and then sucked in a breath, the ape's movements suddenly slowing down drastically. The ape got slower and slower, as if it was getting harder for it to move forward, and then it was suddenly flung backwards as if something had hooked onto it.

It was dragged all the way into Jin Wang's open maw, allowing him to bite down on and crush its skull. The body of the ape slumped down lifelessly, Jin Wang greedily chomping down the rest of its body. Jin Wang then went from body to bode and ate them all, his one-metre long body not expanding in the slightest despite the sheer amount of mass he was swallowing.

Once he gorged on all the bodies he had piled up, he walked over to Yin Long with a satisfied expression, blood still dripping from his fur. Yin Long was already used to the strange nature of Jin Wang's belly, but he couldn't help but look at him somewhat suspiciously after seeing the strange ability he had just displayed.

"I didn't know you could do something like that, were you holding back in all the sparring matches we had in the past?"

An ability like that would be extremely useful in combat, especially if you could use it to catch your opponent off-guard. Jin Wang had never used it against Yin Long despite all the times Yin Long had won against him so he couldn't help but be somewhat suspicious, were all those victories actually false?

Jin Wang could understand human language and seemed to guess at what Yin Long was thinking, shaking his head and spraying a few drops of blood through the air. He used a claw to draw a small line in the dirt, gesturing towards the line for a second before drawing a slightly longer one and then gesturing towards it. It was a bit crude, but it was enough for Yin Long to understand what Jin Wang was getting at.

"So you're still growing? Makes sense, can't say I've heard about a lot of Demonic beast races that look like overgrown cats their entire lives. But if that's an ability you gained from growing then you're only making me more curious as to what sort of race brought forth a little kitty like you."

Jin Wang raised his head with apparent pride, completely ignoring Yin Long calling him a kitty. Yin Long had yet to figure out what sort of race of Demonic beast Jin Wang came from, there were simply too many different races of Demonic beasts, he might even be nothing more than a cat that mutated thanks to a massive influx of Qi.

But what he knew was that he was looking forward to seeing just what Jin Wang ended up as once he grew up. After all, looking at how much he ate it was clear that he needed a massive amount of energy to actually grow so it was likely that he wasn't just some weak Demonic beast.

Yin Long took out two waterskins from his interspatial ring and tossed them to Jin Wang, allowing him to clean himself while they continued waiting for Lan Yun to finish immersing herself in the cultivation manual. The manual was clearly more than just a bit in-depth, Lan Yun had to spend another four hours before she finally opened her eyes again and put away the jade scroll.

She immediately noticed what sort of position she was in and grinned excitedly, moving to wrap her arms around Yin Long's neck. But now that she had woken up there was no longer a need to guide her so Yin Long placed a finger against her forehead and pushed her away before she could snuggle even closer. He stood up from the wooden log, Lan Yun correcting her position before she fell off his lap and puffing her cheeks in a seductive pout that Yin Long ignored as casually as always.

"If you're done then we can head out again, we're not far from Four-Kings Valley. I'll be leaving some of the testing fights to you so that you can immediately practice what you've read in the manual."

Lan Yun continued to pout sheepishly but still made sure to stay close to Yin Long as he started to head deeper into the forest, making sure that he could see her pout at all times. Her actions left Yin Long completely exasperated but he made sure to ignore her as he always did, it was finally time to actually have a nice sparring session with the disciples of some of the organizations in the area.