chapter 78

78. A Method to Change Shape\n   

The little snake slowly climbed out of the eggshell; the eggshell swayed and then overturned. He tumbled over before Shu Shu and then flicked his snake tongue out in Shu Shu’s direction again.\n   \nShu Shu had a feeling of wanting to cry yet having no tears.\n   \nAs an old hamster who had lived for a few hundred years, he always wanted children. But, what he wanted were soft, warm little hamsters and absolutely not icy cold snakes.\n   \nMoreover, his newborn son was already as thick as a beastman’s thumb. With this size, he now could already swallow Shu Shu’s original form in one gulp!\n   \nThe little snake was not able to talk and just crawled toward Shu Shu. Shu Shu, watching the snake, suddenly recalled the time when he was on earth and a certain owner of his had read all kinds of educational books.\n   \nThat female owner of his had a child, and she paid attention to parenting articles all day long. In the end, he also read them. Basically, all parenting required the parents to love their children and not to ignore them.\n   \nEven if this was a snake, it was also his own child. If he ignored him, he would surely feel deeply hurt!\n   \nIf the child felt deeply hurt, he would have a psychological shadow. And if he had a psychological shadow, he might have problems . . . .\n   \nShu Shu gritted his teeth and extended his hand toward the little snake. At the same time, he mentally brainwashed himself, "This isn’t a snake. This isn’t a snake. This isn’t a snake but a noble mythological animal with dragon bloodline who’s incomparably powerful and can call the wind and summon the rain and definitely don’t eat hamsters!"\n \nThinking so, Shu Shu's expression finally became a little natural, and he showed a smile to the little snake.\n   \nThe little snake was completely unaware of the mixed up feelings about him in Shu Shu’s heart. He felt very familiar with Shu Shu, and when he saw Shu Shu extending a hand, he coiled around Shu Shu’s hand and clambered up along Shu Shu’s arm.\n   \nThe slippery snake scales felt so terrible coming across Shu Shu’s skin. He felt like he had to restrain himself from having goose bumps and flinging the snake away. Still, this was his own child! Shu Shu endured.\n \nEyes closed, Shu Shu also got a sniff of the little snake’s scent and kiss him on the head. As a result, he had just finished this action and was at once scared stiff by the feel of a snake tongue touching his nose.\n   \nFortunately, he did not need to stay stiff for too long because the little snake was quickly swept away by Edgar’s tail.\n   \nThe child in his hands was suddenly carried away. Shu Shu promptly opened his eyes and saw Edgar’s tail sweep the little snake up, and at this moment, the little snake had already coiled his own body around Edgar’s tail. Shu Shu breathed a sigh of relief and yet was still a bit uneasy, "Edgar, be careful! Don't hurt the child!" Edgar’s strength was so big; it was unknown whether the newborn little snake would get hurt by him or not.\n   \nThis was a beastman, not a sub-beastman baby. What were you worried about?! Shu Shu was still afraid of him, but he actually went and kissed this child’s snake form. It was simply unbearable! Edgar’s heart was gloomy, and his tail loosened, not coiling around his own child. The little snake was unconcerned though. He crawled along Edgar's body and went to Edgar's head—he was also very familiar with Edgar’s scent and knew that this too was one of his closest people.\n   \nEdgar had been very indulgent toward the egg, but now that it was a little beastman . . . . He, automatically, was going to use his tail to pull the little snake down from his body—only his own sub-beastman or his own little sub-beastman child was allowed to ride roughshod over his body; others had better forget about it.\n \n"That’s it! Edgar, you must accompany him well and hug him often." Shu Shu stated when Edgar was going to throw the child away.\n   \nEdgar's tail stiffened in midair while Shu Shu spoke again, "You must make the child feel that their parents love him, that parents will never harm their children and must care about and cherish their children . . . ." He talked and talked, spitting out all the theories he had read in unceasing torrent.\n \nWhen the child just came out, it was the best time to make him feel safe and content. Shu Shu was a little afraid that he would not be able to take care of the child and let the child down, so Edgar definitely had to treat the child better!\n   \nWhat Shu Shu said should be the ways to take care of a sub-beastman baby, right? Edgar felt a bit strange, but since it was his sub-beastman’s say-so, he naturally couldn't refute.\n   \nMoreover, it was better to let the little snake stick to himself than to let the little snake stick to his own sub-beastman.\n   \nEdgar put up with the little snake, letting him climb onto his head, and then he stared at Shu Shu while carrying the little snake on his head . . . .\n   \nBeing stared at by two predators should make people feel very scared, yet being stared like this by a big snake and a little snake in front of him seemed to make him feel that it was a little cute?\n   \nShu Shu, looking at these two snakes, suddenly had an urge to take pictures.\n   \nThe fallen beasts also began to communicate with each other using the beast language.\n   \n"What a cute little snake. He looks exactly the same as his father. If I have a child, he must look like me too. At that time, I’ll carry him on the top of my head and take him to go playing."\n   \n"I don't want a little beastman; I want a sub-beastman baby. Soft sub-beastman’s the cutest."\n   \n"I don't want to have children. You who have children, give them to me to play with!"\n   \n"Get lost! As if I’ll give you!\n   \n"I already have four children before I came here . . . . I miss them very much.”\n       \n. . . . . .

The fallen beasts’ chats were in full swing. Bruno saw Jesse staring at the little snake and immediately felt unsatisfied somewhat. “What’re you thinking foolishly? Don't forget that we’re just beasts now!”\n   \nAll the fallen beasts instantly quietened down, and at the same time, there were some fallen beasts who turned toward Reynolds—Shu Shu previously had called Reynolds over and said that he was going to help him restore the beast core; how was Reynolds now?\n   \n"I feel great." Reynolds said. The spiritual power in his body had already disappeared, but his internal injuries were much better, and he also felt that he was much younger.\n   \nThis sub-beastman's natural ability and skill should be healing? Maybe he really had a way to cure them, allowing them to have the beast cores again . . . . Thinking so, Reynolds turned toward Shu Shu excitedly.\n   \nShu Shu had put all his thoughts on the newborn little snake before. Now, after Reynolds’ gaze fell on him, he finally remembered that he still had unfinished business—he did not even have any rough idea about how to help Reynolds restore his beast core!\n   \nIf he told Reynolds that his beast core would take several decades to recover, he did not know whether Reynolds would go crazy or not . . . . You had to know that although Jones still looked young now, but after a few more decades, he would certainly be real old!\n   \nShu Shu’s mood immediately plummeted, and because his face could not conceal anything, others saw it at a glance. Upon seeing this, Reynolds’ heart suddenly gave a “thud”. . . . Could it be that this treatment was still unstable?\n   \nIf, from the beginning, Reynolds had not known about restoring the beast core, he would not have had any notion about it. But now he already had some hope, and if this hope did not exist . . . . Reynolds' heart was in his mouth as he wrote on the ground, “What's going on? Has something happened?"\n \n"Nothing. It’s just that it’ll take a very, very long time to restore your beast core." Shu Shu said.\n   \n“How long will it take?” Reynolds wrote again.\n   \n"It may take several decades." Shu Shu honestly answered, looking at Reynolds apologetically. He was full of regret as well as guilt now. He regretted speaking about this matter when they had just met, and he felt guilty for being unable to bring it to completion . . . .\n   \nSeveral decades? Reynolds immediately stiffened. He had been waiting for thirty years. If he had to wait for several more decades, he would be really old, wouldn’t he?\n   \nThe surrounding fallen beasts also became restless. They had to wait for several decades? Their life spans as fallen beasts were shorter than the beastmen’s. After becoming fallen beasts, there were not many of them who could live for thirty years like Reynolds!\n   \n“Is there any other way?” Reynolds wrote on the ground.\n   \nShu Shu did not know, so he could only ask the red bead, looking for answers from inside the red bead, so to speak.\n   \nThere was a very large amount of knowledge involving all aspects of cultivation inside this red bead. Shu Shu looked for a while and found a few methods to make the daemon beasts reach the jīndān period by force.\n   \nSuch as devouring the nèidān of other daemon beasts or the dān medicine to advance in rank. There were also a variety of back door methods, for example, one kind of method was the collection of beast servants, which could make the beasts change shape in advance.\n   \nThese kinds of methods basically had shortcomings or simply unusable—let’s say swallowing the dān medicine, where could they get the dān medicine, ah?\n   \nShu Shu looked high and low and finally decided that the collection of beast servants method was usable. A powerful cultivator could insert his own cultivation into the beasts and make the beasts change shape. If the cultivator himself was not powerful enough, he could also combine his cultivation with some treasures of heaven and earth and then make the beasts change shape.\n   \nAnd, speaking of the treasures of heaven and earth, anything with dragon bloodline, like every part of the jiāolóng’s body, could be called the treasures of heaven and earth!\n   \nShu Shu glanced aside at the big snake and the little snake.

Of course, this kind of method also had some flaws.\n   \nThe beast servants’ transformations were hastened by force, so their strength simply couldn’t compare with the strength of those who had cultivated into the jīndān period. At the same time, they also could not have the lifespan of the typical jīndān period cultivator.\n   \nUnder such circumstances, unless someone was willing to feed them all kinds of elixirs to make them reach the yuányīng period in a short few hundred years, they would die early.\n   \nThe beast servant was merely a way thought up by some people who wanted to give themselves servants. For those beasts who had opened their spiritual wisdom and wished to cultivate, this method was in fact a path with absolutely no return to their immortal cultivation.\n   \n"I thought of a method, but this method has shortcomings." Shu Shu said.\n   \n"What are the shortcomings?" Jones promptly asked.\n   \n"The life span will become shorter." Shu Shu somewhat had a guilty conscience.\n   \n“How short will it become?” Jones asked again.\n   \n"Like Reynolds, it’s estimated that he can only live for a hundred years afterwards." Shu Shu replied. If it was the typical jīndān period cultivators, they could live for a very, very long time.\n   \n"One hundred years of life span is called short? This guy may not be able to live for another hundred years in the first place." Jones couldn't help but say.\n   \n“Eh?” Shu Shu thought carefully and realized that it was indeed the case.\n   \nThese fallen beasts originally weren’t anything like the conventional jīndān period daemons, and they did not have to become jīndān period daemons in the future either. It was fine as long as they could become humans!\n   \nAs for using the beast servant "magic transformation" method to make these people become humans, wouldn’t it be alright as long as he did not tell them that this was a method some people did to give themselves servants?\n   \n"Is this method really useful?" Reynolds wrote on the ground. He already began to slowly age now, and he had to say that for him, still being able to live for another hundred years was a good thing instead of something bad!\n   \n"You can try." Shu Shu said.\n   \nReynolds gave a bark, and his wolf claws scratched out a few words on the ground, "I’ll give it a try. Go ahead and do it!" If he could not turn into a human, he might as well regard it as dying. What was being an experiment?\n   \nShu Shu’s heart loosened up, and he turned his head to look at the two “treasures of heaven and earth” that he now possessed. Then he saw that the little snake had climbed down from Edgar’s head and was crunching the eggshell.\n   \nThe eggshell was very, very hard, but he was munching on it in an extremely effortless way and had already eaten up half of the eggshell.\n   \n"Hold on, don't eat it!" Shu Shu shouted. He stepped forward to grab the remaining half of the little snake's eggshell and then asked Ian, "Mother, where are the scales that fell off of Edgar after he’s injured?"\n   \nAlthough Edgar and his child were the treasures of heaven and earth, but he was reluctant to make them cut their flesh and bleed themselves. Therefore, just use the eggshell and the shed scales!\n \nSeeing the little snake still staring at the eggshell impatiently, Shu Shu picked him up and put him beside Edgar. "Cultivate well, and you’ll find that this eggshell is nothing." Beastmen generally would not eat their eggshells. The little snake would eat his eggshell because it contained spiritual power, but this spiritual power was actually not much. Rather than eating the eggshell, the little snake was better off staying beside Edgar and cultivate well.\n \n"What are you going to do with the scales?" Ian was rather puzzled, but he swiftly took the scales out. Chris had once used his shed scales to make jewelry for him. He too did not throw Edgar's scales away because he thought of using them to make something for Shu Shu after they were back at the capital star.\n   \n"I have use of them." Shu Shu said. He was going to feed them to Reynolds.\n   \nBut, having to feed them to Reynolds . . . . Thinking about it, Shu Shu’s heart suddenly felt a little uncomfortable. Edgar was his, and now that he had to feed Edgar’s scales to others, he was really unwilling to do it.\n   \nPutting both the scales and the eggshell away, Shu Shu said to Reynolds, "Wait for tomorrow. I’ll give you another try."\n   \nWhy did the trial have to wait until tomorrow? Reynolds glanced curiously at the scales in Shu Shu's hand. It was unlikely that the sub-beastman would feed him this thing, right? He had certainly never heard of someone who could restore the beast core by eating other beastmen’s scales.\n   \nShu Shu obviously didn’t know Reynolds' thoughts. After he got the course of action, he went into the dugout to study.\n   \nEdgar was a mythological animal, and he had also been struck by lightning so many times. Although he currently had no nèidān, but his body was still a treasure, and so were his scales. If an ordinary beast could eat this treasure, it was naturally possible that his cultivation rank would advance greatly. The scales were absolutely enough as auxiliary materials used to make the beast servant, but his spiritual power might actually be insufficient.\n   \nForget about it! Try it first and talk again later! Shu Shu began to cultivate.\n\n\n