Meanwhile, at Mount Zoroku, Little Five had almost recovered completely from her injuries. Under Lin Jin’s care, it was only natural for her recovery process to be so smooth.
Ever since regaining consciousness, Little Five never spoke nor turned into her human form. It was obvious that she was too badly hurt. Not just physically, but mentally as well.
Little Five wouldn’t respond when Shang’er spoke to her.
Lin Jin didn’t know what to do about this either. Thankfully the crisis was over. Their only problem now was the threat of war from Snake Country. Their state preceptor was probably egging on the leader of their nation to declare war on the Jade Dragon Kingdom.
A conflict of this scale would no doubt result in many unnecessary deaths. Lin Jin wasn’t planning to see it happen. Although Ye Yuzhou had requested Black Crow and Ghost Child’s help, what if the plan failed?
In any case, Lin Jin had to prepare a backup plan.
When the time comes, he would have to subdue Snake Country himself.
And how would he do that?
Through sheer strength of course.
Lin Jin didn’t know how powerful Snake Country was but he knew that it was an intermediate country. In other words, they did not have Rank 5 beasts in their arsenal. On the other hand, he already had two Rank 4s on his side.
Shang’er and Xiao Huo.
Also, neither of them were average Rank 4 beasts. Shang’er was a monster who had mastered several powerful spells. If allowed to go on a rampage, she could easily take on two or three Rank 4 Grassy Continent beasts on her own.
And Xiao Huo who grew with perfect evolution was no pushover either. He could handle two average Rank 4 beasts too.
In addition to that, Lin Jin wanted to help Goldy and the white ape evolve too.
His reasoning was simple. These rare beasts have great potential and the bravery displayed by Goldy in battle had shocked even Lin Jin.
If Goldy could evolve up to Rank 4, Snake Country would have a tough time making a dent on their enemy.
As for the rest, Little Five had yet to make a full recovery while the shadow wolf just had a perfect evolution. He hadn’t completely mastered control over his powers yet so he wasn’t suited to evolve either.
For the next few days, Lin Jin kept himself busy by helping Goldy and the white ape evolve.
There were many evolution methods provided in the museum for both rare beasts but none of them were easy paths. To evolve two rare beasts up to Rank 4 in such a short amount of time was impossible, even for Lin Jin. And he knew that.
But if he were to only pick one method, he might be able to pull it off if he tried really hard.
That way, he would have more fighters. If Snake Country insisted on war, they would go right up to their doorstep to challenge them.
But before all that, Lin Jin had another important thing to take care of.
And that was the Friar Association’s disciple tournament.
The prize was the lesser dragon blood pill and Lin Jin had to get his hands on it. The museum had already stated that it was a key item for pet beasts to be able to evolve into Rank 5.
It was even more so for Xiao Huo.
Xiao Huo was just an average fire wolf so being able to evolve up to Rank 4 was enough of a miracle.
This was primarily thanks to the museum’s help. Without it, a breed like Xiao Huo’s would usually stop advancing after achieving Rank 2.
Since Xiao Huo was his pet beast, Lin Jin would obviously want to raise the little guy’s potential.
This is when the dragon blood pill would come in handy.
There was only one day left until the disciple’s tournament. Lin Jin had to go home. He left Shang’er some instructions and left both Goldy and the shadow wolf at Mount Zoroku in case the Grassy Continent locals came for a sneak attack.
Shang’er was reluctant to see Lin Jin leave.
She knew about the disciple’s tournament as well. Initially, she had wanted to enter Maple City to watch the tournament, but given the present circumstances, it would not be prudent of her to do so.
Lin Jin got onto Xiao Huo and hurried back to Maple City. After freshening up and changing into a new set of clothes, he went to the Beast Appraisal Association.
He had to report his return to Tan Lin.
However, Tan Lin’s gaze at him seemed oddly peculiar this time.
“Chief Tan, is something the matter?” Lin Jin asked quietly, feeling goosebumps all over his body.
Tan Lin shook her head. Sensing something was off, she asked him another question, “Lin Jin, you don’t know?”
Lin Jin was baffled. “Know what?”
“Just remember to treat me to a meal after you’ve struck gold.” Tan Lin stared at him as if she knew he was putting up an act.
It was after a round of persistent questions that Lin Jin finally understood what she was saying.
“Who knew that you, Appraiser Lin, would have such profound a background that you even know the prescription to the nine water floating cloud pill. The Shi family has made a huge comeback and it seems like they’ll be raking in huge profits this time. You’ll obviously get rich too.” Tan Lin was now very curious about Lin Jin. Although her perception of him changed after he passed the Rank 2 beast appraiser exam, his more recent achievements awed her even more.
Each variant of pill Lin Jin let the Shi family sell was exceptionally valuable. Even Tan Lin bought a few for herself.
She had also used this opportunity to pass the Beast Appraisal Association’s business back to the Shi family. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to buy the new pills.
Lin Jin hadn’t been around lately so he didn’t know about the recent developments in the feud between the Shi and Chen families. However, he expected such an outcome so Lin Jin wasn’t the least bit surprised.
“Right, since you have the prescription for the nine water floating cloud pill, why didn’t you use the pill to break my beast soul curse instead back then?”
After a thought, Lin Jin said, “Because jabbing it was faster.”
Tan Lin: “…”
Back at his consultation hall, Zhao Ying, Lu Xiaoyun, Han Dong, and Jia Qian immediately came out to greet him.
As he expected, the apprentices began firing away, telling him about the feud between the two largest medicine hall businesses that happened over the last few days. Four mouths obviously told the story more animatedly than Tan Lin had alone. Although Lin Jin didn’t witness it himself, he felt as if he was there just by hearing their descriptions.
Suddenly, Lu Xiaoyun unleashed a bigger piece of information.
It was about Chen Yuanyuan and Chen Cheng’s forbidden relationship.
Common folks loved this sort of gossip. Once it happened and was exposed, they would spread it throughout the entire city until everyone knew about it.
Looking back, it wasn’t surprising that Chen Yuanyuan would do something so indecent due to how vile her personality was. Thankfully, she no longer had anything to do with Lin Jin now so the latter could just listen to it for fun.
Looks like the Chen family won’t be recovering soon and as a woman, Chen Yuanyuan’s reputation was completely ruined by the scandal.
As for Chen Cheng, Lu Xiaoyun received word that his teacher, Ye Yuzhou, was so furious when he found out about the scandal that he kicked Chen Cheng out of the Friar Association.
Lin Jin shook his head at this. Chen Cheng was somewhat of a prospective individual but it was now ruined because of a woman.
“Right, there’s one more big news.” Lu Xiaoyun recalled something and leaned in to say, “My brother says that Yang Jie’s pet beast has evolved up to Rank 4.”
News of Yang Jie’s pet beast came as a surprise to Lin Jin.
The entire Maple City aside, at least everyone in the Friar Association now knew about Yang Jie’s pet beast attaining a Rank 4 status. The man was already the number one disciple, so now that his pet beast had evolved, he was practically invincible.
Some even said that there wasn’t a need to host the disciple tournament and it would make more sense to just crown Yang Jie as champion.
Of course, that was just said for fun. Rules were rules, but it at least proved how much more famous Yang Jie grew following the evolution of his pet beast.
This was definitely not good news for Lin Jin. After all, Lin Jin’s main opponent in the disciple tournament was Yang Jie.
But he wasn’t afraid either.
So what if Yang Jie’s pet beast was Rank 4?
Having undergone a perfect evolution, Xiao Huo was at the peak of Rank 4 where no creatures of the same level could top. If they truly were to face each other in the ring, Yang Jie’s pet beast would still be no match to his.
