Beast Taming: I Have an Immortal Mansion

Fang Qingyuan nodded in satisfaction after his disciples swept the battlefield, collecting over a hundred storage bags and several hundred Magical Artifacts.

These spoils of war were enough to compensate for the disciples who were injured or killed. Their value was even comparable to the supplies from their recent trade.

Excluding the battle between the Spirit Wood Alliance and the Pill Alliance, the deaths of over a hundred White Mountain People was definitely the most shocking news in the Southern White Mountain Land Realm in recent years.

After instructing his disciples to store all the spoils and prepare the bodies of the fallen for burial, the group followed the procession of Humpback Rays and once again began to fly leisurely forward.

This time, no foolish White Mountain Tribulation Cultivators dared to follow. The Tribulation Cultivators for hundreds of miles around had just been scared witless by the slaughter. They now wished for nothing more than to get far away from this vortex, so how could they possibly linger?

As the twenty Humpback Rays, connected head to tail, slowly flew away, the fresh corpses of over a hundred Cultivators lay deep underground, silently telling the tale of what had transpired that day.

Fang Qingyuan chose not to collect all these Cultivator corpses and send them into his Immortal Mansion. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but that he couldn’t.

Intentionally collecting the corpses of dead Cultivators, no matter how one looked at it, seemed like the practice of some evil technique. Even though the White Mountain People were known for their ferocity, none of them would dare to get ideas about these corpses.

This was because any Cultivator who had previously gotten ideas about using corpses had long since been completely wiped out in the Great Zhou Academy’s purges over the past millennium.

Therefore, Fang Qingyuan simply buried the bodies on the spot, considering it a way of granting his opponents a dignified end. After all, he saw himself as a member of the righteous path and couldn’t bring himself to commit such a classless act as leaving their bodies exposed in the wilderness.

In truth, Fang Qingyuan had a clear understanding of these matters of reputation. ’It’s just a name, with no discernible short-term benefits,’ he thought.

But if he wanted the Qingyuan Sect to grow and strengthen, matters of reputation could not be neglected.

A sect’s style, tone, and character were all revealed through such details. Handled well, they could increase the disciples’ sense of belonging; handled poorly, they would lead to discord and alienation.

This was the tangible effect of a good name.

Placing the hundred-odd Cultivator corpses into the Immortal Mansion would only serve to slightly increase the Spiritual Qi within it. But to do so at the cost of arousing the suspicion of the Great Zhou Academy and confusing his own disciples was simply not worth it.

However, just because Fang Qingyuan had no use for these corpses didn’t mean there weren’t certain creatures who would happily enjoy this gift he had left behind.

...

In the fresh underground burial pit, a newly carved tunnel now stretched from deep within the earth. As the final layer of soil crumbled away, a pitch-black spider quietly poked its head out.

A glint of intelligence flickered in the spider’s eight compound eyes. It spat out a thread of silk condensed from ghostly qi, wrapped up the Cultivators’ bodies, and dragged them down the newly carved tunnel into the depths of the earth.

Deep underground, there was a temporary, carved-out stone chamber. Inside, a young Male Cultivator was meditating.

When the man saw the Cultivator corpses the Ghost Spider dragged in, he immediately went over to help. After meticulously patting them down, he couldn’t help but complain:

"This batch is terrible. I don’t know who did the job, but I can’t find a single useful material. The victorious Cultivators were way too cheap."

In response to the young man’s complaint, the Ghost Spider simply gave a sinister chuckle. It proceeded to place the freshly dead Cultivators into an Array it had set up. As the Array activated, wisps of pure corpse qi began to seep from the bodies.

The Ghost Spider happily absorbed the corpse qi and then advised:

"Don’t be so anxious. The future is long. I predict White Mountain will see its share of major battles. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to scavenge."

The young Male Cultivator sat dejectedly to one side. Watching the large black spider revel in the corpse qi, he said helplessly:

"How can I compare to you? You can get by just fine on this bit of corpse qi, but I need all sorts of resources for my cultivation. If we keep scavenging scraps like this, when will I ever be able to break through to the next realm?"

The large black spider didn’t say much in response to its companion’s muttering, only consoling him not to be impatient.

But this consolation had little effect. The young Male Cultivator looked at the corpses of the White Mountain Tribulation Cultivators, picked clean by the Qingyuan Sect, and couldn’t help but suggest:

"Why don’t we take this opportunity to go out and pull a few jobs? With our combined strength, who in this part of the White Mountain Land Realm could possibly stop us? Then you could enjoy all the fresh corpse qi you want, and I could gather plenty of resources. Wouldn’t that be much better than going out to pick up trash every day?"

The black Ghost Spider shook its head and said seriously:

"We should not kill indiscriminately. I think this way is fine. These people’s deaths have nothing to do with us. I am merely taking those who were destined to return to dust and using them to aid my cultivation."

"I feel like anyone else could say that, but for a Ghost Cultivator to say ’don’t kill indiscriminately’... isn’t that a bit absurd?"

A mysterious light flickered in the Ghost Spider’s compound eyes, as if it were recalling something from its past.

"Unless they pose a threat to me, other living beings are meaningless."

For a moment, both of them fell into an odd silence. Then, seeing its companion’s low spirits, the Ghost Spider explained further:

"It’s just a habit, and I think it’s a good one. At the very least, it saves me a lot of trouble... If I were to kill just for corpse qi, I would quickly draw unwanted attention, which would interfere with my cultivation."