Chapter 570: Feeding
“Yiya! Yiya! Yiya…!”
The three miraculous ent.i.ties, which Qin Lie now realized were tiny versions of the fire, wood, and thunder spirits, were glued to Qin Lie’s face as they shook their heads in excitement and joy.
A grimace took over Qin Lie’s face. He had no idea what was going on.
These three tiny beings basically looked the same as the Fire Qilin, the Thunder Crystal Beast, and the wood spirit. Only the little person with skin that resembled the bark of a tree didn’t look exactly like the wood spirit. Instead, it looked similar to a member of the Wood Race.
The auras of these tiny beings, however, were completely different from those of the Fire Qilin, the Thunder Crystal Beast, and the wood spirit.
These three tiny ent.i.ties constantly underwent wondrous changes. They would seem tangible one moment, but when Qin Lie looked at them again, they’d be intangible souls that, if he reached out to touch them, would feel like empty s.p.a.ce.
This was what Qin Lie found extremely difficult to believe.
A being that could transition between a physical body and a soul form? One that could easily switch between the two at will?
Qin Lie just couldn’t comprehend it.
Once the three little ent.i.ties appeared, they incessantly bothered him as though they were playing around. This prevented him from focusing on refining the essences of the remaining spirits, leaving him frustrated.
The insulation diagram of the cultivation room could block sound. However, it wasn’t good enough to properly block power fluctuations. Once the tiny ent.i.ties had been out for a while, Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, and Xue Moyan sensed them. They left the rooms they were in and headed for Qin Lie in the cultivation room.
Upon entering the cultivation room, Song Tingyu was the first to shriek in delight.
“What adorable little guys!” she exclaimed, reaching out to grab them without thinking.
As soon as she did, the three tiny beings immediately went intangible. Song Tingyu grasped at them, but realized she didn’t touch anything.
It was almost as if she were trying to touch a ghost.
“Dead souls?” Song Tingyu asked in shock. “Are these dead souls?”
“No!” Xie Jingxuan exclaimed, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with astonis.h.i.+ng light. “They possess strong life forces and biomagnetic fields! They definitely aren’t souls of the dead!”
“Such potent soul fluctuations! These pure, clean souls… these are characteristics unique to a Pure Soul Spring!” Xue Moyan said, going pale.
“What are these tiny beings, Qin Lie?” Song Tingyu asked, a strange expression on her face. “Are they children of the fire, wood, and thunder spirits?”
“I don’t know what they are.” Qin Lie grimaced. He thought for a moment, then explained, “The blood essences I refined from those three spirits mixed with three of the Pure Soul Springs. They were the ones to drain me of my soul energy and blood. It’s as if they were forged within my body like spirit artifacts…”
His words astounded the three women.
“Are they completely new ent.i.ties separate from the spirits?” Xue Moyan asked warily.
“They probably would qualify as new ent.i.ties.” Qin Lie nodded.
This statement left Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, and Xue Moyan even more amazed. They stared at Qin Lie with gazes that seemed capable of spitting fire.
“Yiya! Yiya!”
At that moment, the tiny ent.i.ty shaped like a Fire Qilin became tangible again, landed on Qin Lie’s shoulder, and sat back on its hind legs. It patted its stomach with its two front hooves.
“It… it seems to hungry,” Xie Jingxuan said in astonishment.
The tiny being’s movements clearly indicated that it was hungry and asking Qin Lie for something to eat.
“Yiya, yiya…”
The two other tiny ent.i.ties mirrored the first, patting their stomachs as if demanding food.
“They look pitiful!” Song Tingyu said, hurriedly taking some dried meat and fruit to give to them.
Xie Jingxuan and Xue Moyan also took out food for them to eat.
However, the three tiny beings didn’t even look at the fruit and meat they took out.
They just stared at Qin Lie, continuing to pat their stomachs and cry out in discontent.
“Why don’t you try giving them food?” Song Tingyu asked.
Somewhat surprised, Qin Lie took out fruit and meat from his own spatial ring and handed them to the three little ones.
The tiny beings didn’t even look at the food. They wore anxious expressions that made it seem as if they were extremely hungry.
“They aren’t like us,” Xie Jingxuan said in realization. “They must not eat things like meat or fruit. Try something else.”
“Something else?” Qin Lie frowned.
After a moment of thought, he pulled out everything he had in his spatial ring.
A variety of things including Heavenly Flame Crystals, the Astral Thunder Hammer, the wooden sculpture, spirit stones, an a.s.sortment of pills, and materials for forging Terminator Profound Bombs spilled out of spatial ring and onto the floor of the cultivation room.
“Woo~ooh!”
The three tiny beings immediately cried out in excitement, leaping onto the spirit materials and gorging themselves.
The ent.i.ty shaped like a Fire Qilin grabbed the a Heavenly Flame Crystal Qin Lie got from the Forbidden Land of Fire and began crunching mouthfuls of it as though it were chewing up a bone. Once it broke the Heavenly Flame Crystal into pieces, it happily swallowed them up.
The tiny being that resembled a Thunder Crystal Beast targeted the spirit materials meant for forging Terminator Profound Bombs. It devoured many of the beast cores that contained the power of thunder and lightning and even some of the Thunderblitz wood Qin Lie had taken from the thunder lagoon.
The small person with skin that looked like tree bark circled the pile of materials on the floor. It initially didn’t find anything to eat.
However, it suddenly locked on to one of the wooden sculptures, the one that Xie Jingxuan had obtained from the Forbidden Land of Wood. Without warning, it moved to that sculpture and bit off a piece of it, happily munching away.
Qin Lie, Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, and Xue Moyan collectively gasped.
“d.a.m.n it!” Qin Lie screamed after a moment of shock.
He then wrenched the wooden sculpture from the tiny person’s mouth, immediately putting it and the wooden sculpture his grandfather had left him back into the spatial ring.
These two wooden sculptures were crucial to Qin Lie’s quest to find his grandfather. If this little person ate them, he’d lose important clues.
“Ah ah ah! Yiya!”
The bark-skinned little person shouted miserably at Qin Lie, clearly dismayed by him taking the wooden sculpture away.
It seemed to be blaming him for treating it unfairly.
Of the other two tiny ent.i.ties, one was eating a Heavenly Flame Crystal, and the other was eating the main material needed to make Terminator Profound Bombs. Since it was the only one that didn’t have anything to eat, it naturally became unhappy.
“Just as I suspected,” Xie Jingxuan said, taking a few tree branches out of her spatial ring and gently placing them on the floor. “They don’t eat the same things we do.”
Upon smelling something good to eat, the little humanoid ent.i.ty that had been crying at Qin Lie immediately abandoned him.
It picked up the tree branches and started eating happily.
As it ate, it looked up at Xie Jingxuan, delight showing in its tiny eyes.
“Jingxuan, it feels comfortable with you since you received the inheritance of the Wood Race!” Song Tingyu exclaimed in realization.
Xie Jingxuan focused on the tiny person, a genuine smile appearing on her usually cold face.
“Eat slower,” she said softly. “I have a lot more where that came from.”
Seeing her smile, Qin Lie momentarily lost himself and said, “You look beautiful when you smile.”
The moment he said that, Xie Jingxuan’s smile disappeared and a frown replaced it.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said with a snort.
Qin Lie awkwardly rubbed his nose, then changed the topic saying, “These three little guys are going to be trouble.”
“Trouble?” Song Tingyu said, her curiosity piqued. “I can raise them if you don’t want to. They’re adorable!”
“They may not accept you.” Xue Moyan shook her head. “Their auras are very similar to Qin Lie’s. I feel like they’ll only accept Qin Lie.”
By the time she said this, the tiny being shaped like a Fire Qilin had eaten many Heavenly Flame Crystals.
After playing and satisfying its hunger, it seemed as though it wanted to sleep.
Everyone watched in a daze as it stretched in a lazy, content manner, flew up to the Soul Suppressing Orb in the s.p.a.ce between Qin Lie’s eyebrows, and disappeared within.
Soon after that, the other two tiny beings quickly satisfied their hunger. They lazily flew up to the Soul Suppressing Orb and slipped into it as well.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to adopt them, Sister Tingyu,” Xie Jingxuan said calmly.
Her eyes held a hint of disappointment.
The small being with bark for skin had given her a wondrous feeling. She felt strangely close to it and wanted to get even closer.
It was a pity that the little guy clearly trusted Qin Lie alone. After satisfying its hunger, it immediately returned to Qin Lie’s body.
She couldn’t do anything about that.
“Uh… about those tree branches…” Qin Lie said after a moment of shock. “Could you give me some? I don’t have any of that kind of spirit material. If these little guys get hungry again and come out, I’m afraid that one will continue to try eating my wooden sculptures.”
Xie Jingxuan rolled her eyes at him and took out some tree branches.
“Pay attention,” she said as she gave them to him. “That tiny being probably eats only spirit materials that contain wood energy.”
“Mn,” Qin Lie exclaimed, haphazardly storing all of the spirit materials. “I can see that.”