Chapter 45: Conception

Meng Fan actually had different plans for the six exotic beasts currently under his command.

First was Silver Dollar, intended to be molded in the direction of the-masked-marten-like spirit beast. This was already a predetermined path to be walked step by step.

Next was Treasure, because it was a white-haired slender hound, Meng Fan envisioned it corresponding to the mythical Swallowing-Sun Divine Lord, namely the Celestial Hound serving under Erlang Shen.

"The immortal hound cultivated to possess a slender waist, shaped like a white elephant and fierce as an owl; its bronze head and iron neck are hard to parry, and when facing a lethal blade, even its bones dissolve."

Among the descriptions concerning the Celestial Hound, there was also the notion of it being shaped like a white elephant.

In The Investiture of the Gods, Erlang Shen killed the marten spirit and transformed into it as an undercover agent. During this period undercover, it was highly likely that he acquired the residual inheritance of the beast-taming masters, so it was hardly surprising that the Celestial Hound under his command possessed the form of a white elephant.

Just as the Monkey King stole peaches and elixir, Erlang Shen might have done the same thing. In other words, the white elephant's genes might equally apply to Treasure.

After that came Fortune. Fortune was the first pet Meng Fan subdued, and its inherent strength was not formidable. Meng Fan subdued it back then largely to help himself understand the physical structure of a tiger, drawing a tiger according to the cat, and cultivating the tiger's form and intent.

The Tiger-Palm Mountain-Crushing technique developed by Meng Fan derived its inspiration from Fortune's muscle structure.

After fusing with the tardigrade gene, along with Yellow Wind, it seemed to have become an inseparable pair of comical adversaries—truly a pair of rivals who could not avoid each other, a real-life version of Tom and Jerry.

They frequently turned the bunker upside down, staging a continuous cat-and-mouse game.

Even though Liao Zhong had seized these two pets and given them a severe beating, whether it was sticks or anything else, landing blows on them had zero effect whatsoever.

They remained completely unfazed!

The prevailing attitude was: you can discipline me all you want, but I stubbornly refuse to change.

Meng Fan temporarily had no grand ideas for them; surely he couldn't turn one into a Tiger Pioneer?

If one day he happened to wander into the Marvel Universe, the Flerken there might be worth playing around with.

Then there was Blessing. This crow was originally just picked up by Meng Fan on a whim to use. Because its spiritual intelligence was higher than that of ordinary crows, he kept it by his side.

Its ability could perhaps be developed in the direction of curses and hexes, or perhaps illusions. After all, Meng Fan had tested it; Blessing was exceptionally clever with remarkably high spiritual attributes.

If one day he managed to hook it up with a pair of Sharingan, it would undoubtedly be absolute perfection—a radiant avenue straight to the heavens laid right before its eyes.

If one were even more ambitious, it could march down the path of the Golden Crow!

Next was Yellow Wind the rat. As the name suggested, Meng Fan's expectation for it was the Great Sage Yellow Wind from Journey to the West.

However, currently Yellow Wind, much like Fortune, lacked a further directional plan for gene-splicing. Meng Fan had merely adjusted and provided Yellow Wind with some of the genetic makeup of the lightning marten Silver Dollar.

After all, Yellow Wind served as Silver Dollar's reference control. Every experiment needed to be tested on Yellow Wind first, and only after being confirmed completely safe would it be applied to Silver Dollar.

Furthermore, being yellow-haired martens, and with martens belonging to the same family, introducing Silver Dollar's genes into Yellow Wind naturally elongated its body slightly, leaning toward a marten-weasel mutation that better matched the image of the yellow-haired marten.

The legendary Great Sage Yellow Wind wielded a three-pronged steel pitchfork, possessed formidable martial arts, boundless divine powers, and limitless magic. The yellow wind blown from its mouth was utterly invincible.

The Samadhi Divine Wind in its breath could darken the heavens and earth, adept at causing ghosts and deities to mourn.

There was a description in the original text:
"The waves of the Yellow River splashed down to its muddy depths, the waters of the Xiang River surged and rolled over. The azure heavens shook the Palace of Douniu, nearly blowing over the Hall of Yama.
Five hundred Arhats clamored to the skies, the eight Vajras shouted in chaos. Manjushri lost his blue-haired lion, and Samantabhadra's white elephant was nowhere to be found.
Whoosh, the cosmos was on the verge of shattering apart, trembling across ten thousand miles of rivers and mountains!"

From such a description, its divine powers were evident.

As for nature, which creature could skillfully blow wind and manipulate Qi?
Only those that had truly transformed into sprites and spirits could wield one or two supernatural arts.

The pets currently under Meng Fan's command had not yet truly broken away from the stage of mortal beasts—meaning they had not yet touched upon Xiantian Qi (Innate Qi).

Although all living creatures possessed the gateway to cultivation, achieving the Dao often depended on serendipitous encounters: when fortune comes, heaven and earth lend their strength; when fortune departs, heroes are powerless.

Making beasts attain the Dao was not so simple. First, due to the difference between the meridians of beasts and humans, the cultivation methods of Outcasts were unsuitable for them.

Over the past two years, Meng Fan had also been somewhat baffled, trying various methods, yet unable to let these pets master their own Xiantian Qi.

Even though they possessed intelligence surpassing ordinary animals, they ultimately could not understand those profound principles of cultivation like humans could.

Today, Liao Zhong bringing up the Five Immortals of the Northeast opened up a new line of thinking for Meng Fan. Perhaps he could take a trip to the Northeast and consult those immortal entities.

Finally, there was Longevity the Manggu Zhuha (Scarlet Toad).

Longevity and Chen Duo had reached a state of being inseparable; Chen Duo was now Longevity's feeder and keeper.

In the beginning, Meng Fan only dared to feed Longevity tiny amounts of primitive Gu, but eventually, Longevity treated Gu creatures like regular meals. Over the past two years, the current Manggu Zhuha should probably be renamed the Manggu Zihua (Purple Toad).

Its entire body had turned a reddish-purple, resembling a piece of fine jade, and the toxicity within it grew increasingly intense. Paired with Meng Fan's Xiantian Qi to assist its evolution, it was faintly showing the tendency to become a Gu King.

With just another year or two of feeding, once Longevity could completely suppress the Gu creatures inside Chen Duo's body, they could proceed to the next step.

Of course, Meng Fan had not been idle these past two years either. Utilizing the art of beast-taming along with the company's resources, he had acquired a significant amount of titanium alloy and other rare metals.

Combining the characteristics of metallic hardness, toughness, wear-resistance, and memory, he tempered the bones, claws, fangs, and fur of all six pets from top to bottom.

Calling them forged of steel and iron now would hardly be an exaggeration.

Overall, the six pets were somewhat like unkillable little powerhouses. Average Outcasts pitted against them simply stood no chance of winning, and even those relatively powerful Outcasts, capable of winning, would be worn to death by their tenacious vitality.

What Meng Fan needed to do next was to trigger a cliff-like surge in their strength, rapidly elevating it. That was to fuse the white elephant's genes into them, granting them the ability to freely alter their size at will.

However, this was not suitable for all pets.

This time, Meng Fan would only synthesize the white elephant's genes into Fortune, Treasure, and Silver Dollar, allowing them to break through the restrictions of physical size.

As for the others, he would wait and see; what if something even better came along? Besides, being too large wasn't always a good thing.

Once the body size grew larger, it meant a bigger target; one shouldn't put all their eggs in one basket.

In Meng Fan's vision, his six pets should function as a tank, a mage, a support, an assassin, and a warrior. Their utility needed to be as diversified as possible to enrich his own tactical options.

The three of them were quite enough!