Now, looking at it, the battle of master-recruiting between the Empress and the Eldest Young Master's master was most likely a last resort for the Empress after conventional methods failed.
Then...
The Eldest Young Master's master was stronger than the Empress?
Hiss!
Jing Zian fell silent, his inner excitement steadily mounting.
At this moment, he finally believed that forging the world's number one cultivation family was an inevitable certainty.
A quarter of an hour later.
Su Muchan, having traversed the void, arrived outside a small world. After a careful sensing session, a joyful smile bloomed on her pretty face.
"That's right! This small world has my disciple's aura."
Boom!
Unlike her previous restraint, this sound was extremely loud, resembling a turbulent, overwhelming force.
A breach was blasted open in the Myriad Beasts Small World. Su Muchan transformed into an ice-blue beam of light and swiftly entered, finally landing gracefully on a lush cliffside.
Without the slightest hesitation, she continued to sense, and quickly pinpointed Jing Mingxuan's exact location.
"Hehe! Disciple, I've found you!"
Whoosh!
The graceful figure vanished, reappearing in a forest filled with towering trees and flourishing flowers and grass.
Before Su Muchan could even recover her wits, a large hand grasped her small hand, and a gentle voice said: "Master! You've had a hard time!"
"Not at all! Traversing the void is quite easy for me." Su Muchan's smile was utterly pure, without a trace of pretense.
Jing Mingxuan frowned slightly, his eyes full of incomprehension, so he asked with burning curiosity: "Master, can you tell me why?"
"My body has already been tempered to be extremely strong; even the spatial storms within the void cannot harm me." Su Muchan explained with a serious expression.
Jing Mingxuan's mouth twitched.
Extremely strong?
Master's body was so soft and tender, it felt as fragile as a block of soft tofu.
Yet looking at Master's expression, she certainly wasn't lying to him.
Indeed, the world of cultivation truly had everything!
"Master, sense the imperial beasts; I need to find the immortal beast egg from my dream through them."
Su Muchan nodded slightly. Though she still found the idea of an immortal beast egg being here quite incredible, none of her disciple's dreams had ever been wrong before. Besides, she was also very curious, so she immediately released her divine sense.
A split second later, her divine sense covered the entire Myriad Beasts Small World.
After sensing carefully, she still couldn't sense the existence of the immortal beast egg.
Either it could evade her perception, or her disciple's dream hadn't come true.
Regardless, she locked onto the imperial beast closest to their location.
"Disciple, let's go!"
With those words, Su Muchan and Jing Mingxuan vanished from the forest, reappearing in a boundless, desolate desert.
Jing Mingxuan looked around but couldn't find a single trace of an imperial beast in the vicinity.
Could Master's sensing have been wrong?
He instantly dismissed that thought; Master was the number one combat power in the cultivation world, how could her perception possibly be wrong?
"Eh! Why did its aura instantly move so far away from us?" Su Muchan slightly furrowed her delicate brows, her eyes filled with puzzlement.
After pondering for a moment, Jing Mingxuan's eyes glazed over slightly, and he murmured: "Master! It seems we've encountered a Taiqing Jade Rabbit, which can use spatial teleportation at will even in its infancy."
"So it's this imperial beast; no wonder it ran the moment we arrived!" Su Muchan uttered a coquettish huff, looking quite cute.
Jing Mingxuan smiled faintly, "Master! This Taiqing Jade Rabbit is very hard to catch, let's switch to another one..."
"No need! It's just an imperial beast, it won't escape the palm of my hand." Su Muchan interrupted, furrowing her brow slightly with a stubborn, dead-serious expression.
Jing Mingxuan's mouth twitched slightly.
Then he realized that this Taiqing Jade Rabbit was making a fool of his master!
And the most important thing was that it was making a fool of her right in front of him.
Master surely felt that if she didn't save face here, she would have no dignity left in front of him.
Hehe!
Such a master was truly adorable.
Following that, a game of cat-and-mouse utilizing spatial teleportation was staged across the Myriad Beasts Small World.
After more than a thousand times, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily.
It felt utterly exhausted, its entire body aching as if it had fallen apart, and its magical power was on the verge of depletion.
Just what kind of sacred monsters were the people chasing it?
At first, it thought it was just a coincidence, but as the occurrences multiplied, it realized the ones pursuing it were the exact same pair.
It was just that, to avoid being caught, it immediately triggered spatial teleportation every time those two landed.
It had thought the pursuers would give up after a while, because that was how it always went when powerful cultivators chased it in the past.
But this time was different; the pursuers simply didn't give up and kept chasing.
They chased until it couldn't use spatial teleportation anymore, and couldn't even move a single step.
This was simply too crazy!
The next instant, a complacent, heavenly voice rang out.
"Disciple! It's not running anymore!"
Jing Mingxuan's mouth twitched slightly, and he gave a soft "Mn."
This Taiqing Jade Rabbit was suffering from eight lifetimes of bad luck to have run into such a obsessive-compulsive master.
If it were him, he wouldn't chase over a thousand times; at most he'd chase five hundred times before directly resorting to other methods.
For instance, spatial imprisonment.
Because he certainly didn't have the pleasant mood to keep playing a game of cat-and-mouse.
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit forced its tired eyes open, making out that the newcomers were an attractive young man and woman.
Of course, that wasn't the main point; the main point was that neither of them showed the slightest look of fatigue.
Holy crap!
This time it had truly run into the super experts the Immortal Beast Lord had spoken of!
"What do you want?"
Jing Mingxuan curved the corners of his lips into a shallow arc. "Relax! We're not here to subdue you."
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit shivered violently. Could it be that these two intended to eat it?
"My meat stinks, it's not delicious at all."
Jing Mingxuan was left speechless. He hadn't even mentioned eating it! How did it jump to that conclusion?
Su Muchan simply asked, "Disciple, is the Taiqing Jade Rabbit's meat really stinky?"
At this moment, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit's chubby little body shivered lightly, its trembling little tail looking quite cute.
"Yes! My meat stinks."
Su Muchan's gaze turned cold. Glaring at it, she said harshly: "The Empress didn't ask you to answer."
A terrifying and domineering aura forced the Taiqing Jade Rabbit to cover its mouth, terrified of continuing to anger this seemingly beautiful yet actually ruthless woman.
"Whether its meat stinks or not, I wouldn't know," Jing Mingxuan said, seeing the Taiqing Jade Rabbit stop trembling and seemingly feel reassured, before immediately shifting his tone, "However! Every rabbit dish I'm familiar with is wildly fragrant."
"Wildly fragrant?" Su Muchan murmured, her eyes filled with puzzlement.
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit immediately clamped its tail between its legs, its body shaking violently as it began to curse inwardly.
You damned youth, I have no grudges with you from the past and no enmity today, why are you trying to harm me?!
"That's right! Especially spicy rabbit heads; just sucking on the broth inside leaves a lingering aftertaste, making you feel as happy and carefree as an immortal!" Jing Mingxuan said with a slight curl of his lips and an air of keen interest.
Especially the sight of the Taiqing Jade Rabbit burying its head into its own belly directly cracked him up.
"Wow! When you put it like that, just imagining it makes it sound so delicious."
A large amount of saliva secreted in Su Muchan's mouth. If she hadn't cared about maintaining her image in front of Jing Mingxuan, she would certainly have started drooling.
Jing Mingxuan nodded slightly, continuing to paint a vivid picture: "Spicy rabbit legs are also peerless!"
"Why is that?" Su Muchan asked with considerable curiosity.
Jing Mingxuan glanced at the Taiqing Jade Rabbit again; by now it was flustered and panicked, running around in a headless chicken manner, looking utterly comical.
"Just think about it! Rabbits push off with their hind legs, so their hind legs are quite robust with very little fat. You can feel the tenderness even eating them raw, let alone cooking them with fine spices."
With a thud, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit collapsed onto the ground, the entire rabbit radiating a vibe of being completely finished.
It pleaded weakly with its mouth, "Please don't kill me, I'm very useful, I'll listen to you about everything."
Jing Mingxuan hooked the corners of his lips into a shallow smile. He understood that the Taiqing Jade Rabbit had reached its limit, which meant he could now do whatever he pleased with it.
"Really?"
Hearing this, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit grabbed onto it like a straw to clutch at, hurriedly saying, "Truer than real gold!"
"Fine! As long as you can lead us to the immortal beast, we won't eat you," Jing Mingxuan said in a rather cold tone.
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit froze on the spot.
Matters concerning the Immortal Beast Lord were known only to it and the other seven imperial beasts.
Yet this youth was able to speak of the immortal beast, and even wore a look of utter confidence.
Without hesitating further, it asked with considerable curiosity: "How do you know about the Immortal Beast Lord?"
As for claiming there was no immortal beast here, a rabbit without utility value would simply be waiting to be made into spicy rabbit head, spicy rabbit legs, and other dishes.
"I dreamed it!" Jing Mingxuan said indifferently.
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit's mouth twitched.
Dreamed it?
How could such a thing actually exist?
If these two weren't standing right in front of it, it would definitely have popped off or questioned it.
Instantly, the might of the Immortal Beast Lord surfaced in its mind.
Oh, Immortal Beast Lord!
I really, really don't want to lead the way for these two, but I am very useful to you, and you are so powerful, you will surely be able to suppress these two bad guys.
With that thought, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit made a decision to betray the Immortal Beast Lord.
"Fine! I'll take you there."
Jing Mingxuan revealed a trace of delight, turning his head slightly to look at Su Muchan.
Just as he opened his mouth, he heard Su Muchan drooling as she muttered to herself, "Spicy rabbit heads, spicy rabbit legs..."
Uh...
Jing Mingxuan truly hadn't expected that his cold and peerlessly stunning master was actually a foodie.
"Master! Once we return, I'll cook for you myself."
Su Muchan snapped back to reality instantly and shouted excitedly, "That would be wonderful!"
Following that, she realized her unseemly appearance, hurriedly used her magical power to wipe away her drool, and offered an awkward, slight smile.
Jing Mingxuan felt very happy inside.
This showed that Su Muchan relied on him even more; otherwise, she wouldn't have shown such a humiliating side.
Moreover, in his eyes, a drooling Su Muchan was extremely cute.
"However, you just drained me dry, so I need to rest for a while," the Taiqing Jade Rabbit said weakly, clearly having been genuinely exhausted.
Jing Mingxuan frowned slightly.
It wasn't that he was unwilling to give the Taiqing Jade Rabbit rest time to recover its stamina, but rather that every second that passed now meant varying degrees of change in the future.
Therefore, they had to cut through the Gordian knot and see the immortal beast egg early to prevent any unexpected occurrences.
Seeing this, Su Muchan flicked her delicate hand, and a pale cyan pill appeared before the Taiqing Jade Rabbit's unfocused eyes.
Before the Taiqing Jade Rabbit could ask what it was, a terrifying force it couldn't resist forced its small mouth open, and the pill shot right down its throat.
It's over! It's over!
This woman intended to control it through a pill.
Still, that was fine; once it saw the Immortal Beast Lord later, it would at least have an excuse.
"This is an Origin Sage Tier pill—Taixuan Spirit Pill. It can restore the magical power and stamina of your Seventh Layer of Origin Sage Realm cultivation," Su Muchan said indifferently.
In the blink of an eye, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit felt the exhaustion vanish from its entire body, and the magical power within its core recovered quite a bit.
It realized what Su Muchan said was true, while also sensing that these two seemed in a great rush.
In that case, could it buy some time by leading them on a detour?
Thinking of this, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit felt a sharp pain in its stomach, rolling back and forth on the ground while howling miserably.
Su Muchan's lips curved upward slightly. "On top of that, I added a little something extra. As long as you harbor thoughts of doing anything unfavorable to me and my disciple, your stomach will hurt!"
Jing Mingxuan was rather startled, his eyes glazing over.
Why had his master learned to be bad too?
Still, this version of his master added an exotic kind of aesthetic beauty.
He didn't reject this at all; of course, the premise to all of this was his absolute certainty that Master would never treat him that way.
Soon, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit returned to normal, gazing at Su Muchan with eyes full of fear.
Previously it had thought the other party was just a goofy foodie coupled with a powerful cultivator, never expecting her to be so full of tricks.
"Lead the way! Otherwise..."
Su Muchan's seductive red pupils radiated a succession of glows, looking thoroughly murderous and quite terrifying.
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit didn't hesitate any longer, stammering, "Y-y-y-you guys follow!"
The next instant, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit vanished.
Sensing the Taiqing Jade Rabbit's aura, Su Muchan instantly triggered spatial teleportation.
A blink of an eye later, Jing Mingxuan found himself standing within a lush, vibrant, and dense forest.
A slight sensing session revealed that the spiritual energy here was far denser than any place they had visited previously.
Which was only natural.
An immortal beast egg required a sufficiently high grade of spiritual energy to survive.
"From here on, we can only walk! Because the Immortal Beast Lord has set up a spatial Daoist seal." The Taiqing Jade Rabbit braced itself and explained.
Su Muchan sensed it instantly, and just as she was about to shatter this fragile spatial Daoist seal, she heard Jing Mingxuan's crisp, magnetic voice by her ear.
"Master! No need to break it; doing so would scare them, and we also need to show our sincerity in coming here."
After a brief moment of thought, Su Muchan nodded lightly, feeling that Jing Mingxuan made complete sense.
Then, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit led the way in front, while Jing Mingxuan and Su Muchan walked hand-in-hand behind them at a leisurely pace, looking just like a pair of celestial lovers.
After a moment, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit felt the sense of oppression vanish and figured it could pull its weight again, so it asked: "Say, what are you guys looking for the Immortal Beast Lord for?"
"To hatch the immortal beast egg!" Jing Mingxuan's voice was very calm.
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit stopped dead in its tracks, its eyes freezing, its face plastered with astonishment as the entire rabbit was struck dumb with shock.
The fact that the Immortal Beast Lord was still an egg was something only it knew among the eight imperial beasts.
Didn't this mean the youth's dream was real?
And even more, it meant the youth was in all probability the Immortal Beast Lord's beast master; otherwise, he could never have acquired so much information about the Immortal Beast Lord.
In an instant, the Taiqing Jade Rabbit's hostility toward Jing Mingxuan and even Su Muchan vanished completely.
The steps it took anew were incomparably light.
In its view, since the Immortal Beast Lord's beast master had arrived, there was a high likelihood that the problem of the Immortal Beast Lord still being an egg could be resolved.
Of course, Jing Mingxuan's previous words also played a part.
Hehe!
It was finally going to see the true face of the Immortal Beast Lord!
Jing Mingxuan didn't quite understand what was going on, but as time passed, he guessed that the Taiqing Jade Rabbit must have regarded him as one of its own.
As for why it considered him one of its own, he couldn't quite figure that out just yet.
Two minutes later.
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit came to a halt.
Scanning the area ahead, it found the place in complete ruins, entirely lacking its former neatness, cleanliness, and splendor.
What on earth had happened here?
Could the Immortal Beast Lord have been discovered by other cultivators?
No!
The Immortal Beast Lord's beast master had already rushed here, so why would they still let the Immortal Beast Lord suffer such hardship?
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit's eye sockets crystallized as giant teardrops fell.
It was all its fault!
If it hadn't fled, the Immortal Beast Lord's beast master could have met the Immortal Beast Lord in time.
At that moment, a neutral voice that the Taiqing Jade Rabbit found both familiar and condescending rang out.
"Xiao Qing, without this immortal's summons, why have you come?"
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit was momentarily stunned, then cried out with considerable excitement: "Immortal Beast Lord, you're all right! I thought you'd been captured by those detestable cultivators!"
The immortal beast egg fell into silence; it hadn't expected the Taiqing Jade Rabbit to care about it so much.
Yet upon thinking of that powerhouse who had forcefully blasted through the spatial barriers of the Myriad Beasts Small World, a deep terror welled up inside it.
"Immortal Beast Lord, why has this place become like this?" the Taiqing Jade Rabbit asked with considerable puzzlement.
The immortal beast egg fell into silence, unable to stop itself from recalling the spatial tearing it had sensed not long ago.
In a flash, the immensely powerful spatial barriers of the Myriad Beasts Small World had been smashed to pieces.
A cultivator possessing such power was definitely not something its current self could contend with.
Yet it wasn't so easy for it to leave this place either, seeing as it needed a sufficiently high grade of spiritual energy to survive.
Left with no choice, it could only harvest the heavenly materials and earthly treasures that refined spiritual energy.
And all these items had been driven by it deep underground, which explained the current scene of devastation.
However, the effect was remarkable; it had already acquired all the spiritual-energy-refining treasures it could, and next it only needed to deploy spatial spells to leave this place.
At that point, it could roam freely like a dragon entering the sea!
"Xiao Qing, an extremely formidable expert has descended into this realm, so I must leave this realm quickly."
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit was slightly stunned, then tilted its head slightly to look at Jing Mingxuan and Su Muchan behind it, murmuring, "I think they've probably arrived!"
"Arrived?"
Instantly, the entire ground shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck.
Jing Mingxuan couldn't stand steadily at all, even when exerting magical power.
Fortunately, Su Muchan reacted quickly, deploying her power to steady Jing Mingxuan in the flick of a finger.
The immortal beast egg sensed rapidly, yet sensed nothing at all, asking in puzzlement: "This immortal senses no presence here other than you."
The Taiqing Jade Rabbit's body trembled, its gaze glazing over slightly.
At that moment, it realized the woman's strength was above that of the Immortal Beast Lord.
Coupled with the fact that the youth was the Immortal Beast Lord's beast master, it had even less intention of playing tricks.
"Immortal Beast Lord, they are right behind me."
The immortal beast egg shuddered violently once more, causing the ground to shake heavily yet again.
Only this time, sheltered by Su Muchan's power, it had no impact on Jing Mingxuan whatsoever.
Su Muchan's knife-like delicate brows furrowed slightly. "Disciple! I sense fluctuations of spatial Daoist arts ahead."
Jing Mingxuan thought for a brief moment, instantly waking up to the situation, and yelled loudly: "Stop them quickly! This is a signal that the immortal beast intends to slip away."
Su Muchan didn't dwell on it further. Trusting Jing Mingxuan's judgment completely, a single thought flashed through her mind as her entire body's magical power surged wildly.
The next instant, this space was completely sealed off, rendering all spatial spells ineffective.