The night wind brushed against his face.
Tang Wen darted through the mountain forests, swiftly heading toward the location he sensed—the male Water Sprite.
As a Transcendent, he had been suppressing himself for too long.
Now, with his speed fully unleashed, he felt an extraordinary sense of relief.
Using the Shadow Phantom Step, his landings were completely silent.
From a distance, he looked like a black streak of light, darting and weaving through the mountains.
The distance of dozens of miles flew by in an instant.
Tang Wen came to a halt.
The distance between him and the male Water Sprite had significantly narrowed, and their connection had grown much stronger.
It had elevated by an entire level.
If the connection he felt in the city was like a thread, now it was as thick as a rope.
He sat on a rock.
The distance between them was still dozens of miles.
At such a great distance, borrowing the vision of his tamed beast would consume a considerable amount of mental energy.
But the advantage was absolute safety.
When the Blackwater Gang operated, they would inevitably clear the area and have people monitoring the surroundings.
But no matter how thorough their clearing or surveillance, they wouldn't extend it to dozens of miles away, would they?
Tang Wen switched his vision to the male Water Sprite.
The newly evolved Superior Exotic Beast, now in humanoid form, strode confidently toward the heart of the mountain range.
This was a canyon.
The dense forest blocked out the sky, and looking up, one could only catch glimpses of the fragmented sky through the thick foliage.
The male Water Sprite led the way, like a boss guiding his subordinates, as the Mutated Beasts scurried through the forest.
An open area appeared before them.
It was strange.
Despite the same soil and ground, taking one step back led to lush, verdant forest, while taking one step forward revealed hard, barren ground without a single blade of grass.
The male Water Sprite stopped in its tracks.
An inexplicable sense of unease washed over it.
Tang Wen couldn't feel its emotions or hear any sounds.
He didn't know why it had stopped.
At such a great distance, Tang Wen couldn't convey any effective commands to the Water Sprite.
In other words, he could only observe.
He couldn't do anything else.
He switched his vision back.
Tang Wen was filled with confusion. Wasn't this supposed to be about salvaging a sunken ship?
Why were they heading into the mountains?
Was there a landslide lake in the mountains?
Or perhaps an underground river?
He stood up, still puzzled, and continued forward.
After running another seven or eight miles, he stopped again.
He turned his head to the right, focusing on a shadow on a tree branch.
To a normal person, it would just look like a shadow.
Even upon closer inspection, it would at most appear as an unusual shadow.
"A Brown-tailed Crow?"
Tang Wen recognized the extraordinary nature of the shadow.
The Brown-tailed Crow was a variant of the common crow.
Slightly larger than an ordinary crow, its tail had a hint of black.
It was akin to the king of ordinary crows.
Ordinary crows weren't Mutated Beasts.
A child with a slingshot could kill one.
And generally, the king of ordinary animal or bird groups, like a sparrow king, would at most be a low-level Mutated Beast.
But the Brown-tailed Crow was different.
Or rather, crow groups were different.
These birds were highly intelligent.
Whenever a crow king, or Brown-tailed Crow, emerged in a crow group, it would often leap an entire level in strength.
Directly becoming a Mid-level Exotic Beast.
Tang Wen's interest was immediately piqued.
Aside from the rarity of the Brown-tailed Crow, he recalled a conversation he had during Old Crow's lecture back at Flame Camp.
He had asked Old Crow about the origin of his nickname.
Why go by "Old Crow" instead of his real name?
The response had been a scolding, accusing him of being ignorant.
It turned out that during Old Crow's time wandering abroad, his most famous tamed beast was a crow.
It was a flock of mutated crows.
There were over a hundred of them, each possessing the strength of a low-level Mutated Beast.
Don't underestimate these mutated crows just because they are low-level Mutated Beasts.
They possess a sound-based skill called "Screech."
The call of an ordinary crow is coarse and unpleasant.
At most, it might make an ordinary person frown and curse their bad luck.
But after becoming mutated crows, the lethality of their calls skyrocketed.
Compared to ordinary crows, it was not just a tenfold increase but dozens of times more.
If ten low-level mutated crows gathered together,
even mid-level raptor Mutated Beasts would avoid provoking them.
After all, for birds, a few seconds of dizziness or disorientation from a soundwave attack could often be fatal.
If fifty low-level mutated crows gathered,
then truly, no one below the Transcendent level would dare to mess with them.
It's not that high-level Mutated Beasts couldn't defeat them.
But even if they won, it would be a pyrrhic victory.
What's the point of killing dozens of low-level mutated crows?
They are small in size and yield little meat.
Risking death to kill dozens of them wouldn't even be as rewarding as hunting a single Mutated Beast goat.
The risk of death in such a fight simply wasn't worth it.
However, such crow flocks are extremely rare.
Even rarer than Transcendent Beasts.
Thus, few people know about them.
Beast Tamers can raise low-level mutated crows.
But there's a prerequisite for raising them.
There must be a Crow King, specifically a Brown-tailed Crow.
And Brown-tailed Crows are exceedingly rare.
Only with the right timing, location, and a stroke of luck can one encounter them.
When Old Crow was young, he encountered one.
And it was even an injured Brown-tailed Crow.
From then on, he slowly cultivated a massive crow flock. At its peak, the flock consisted of thousands of ordinary crows.
When they took flight, they blotted out the sky.
Among them, there were also over a hundred low-level mutated crows.
It was through this that he gained some renown.
Later,
the Brown-tailed Crow died of old age.
The flock scattered.
Yet, people still respectfully referred to him as Old Crow.
Tang Wen stared in the direction of the Brown-tailed Crow, his Aura Concealment Art operating at full capacity. A faint darkness, like a cloak, draped over him, shielding him from the light.
He crept closer,
fearing that the Brown-tailed Crow might fly away.
With the Blood Raven absent, if the crow took flight, he would have no way to catch it.
Flying Mutated Beasts are easy to kill but difficult to capture alive.
Tang Wen entered the forest, casually picking up a hard clod of dirt.
He controlled his strength, ensuring that hitting the Brown-tailed Crow wouldn't be fatal.
He reached the base of the tree and suddenly leaped up.
With this movement, he could no longer conceal his presence.
Sensing the malice, the Brown-tailed Crow was startled but not panicked. It lowered its head and let out a sharp cry.
Bark fell from the tree in pieces.
It spread its wings and took to the air.
However, its tried-and-true escape tactic,
which had always worked in the past,
failed this time.
It realized that the figure leaping high into the air was completely unaffected by the soundwave.
The figure's speed remained unchanged as it reached out to grab the crow.
Whether it was a mental attack or a soundwave assault,
for Tang Wen, who had stepped through the door of the Transcendent realm, it was nothing more than a biting cold wind.
It couldn't harm him.
It just made him feel a little chilly.
Flap, flap.
The crow's wings flailed wildly, and its beak pecked aimlessly.
The Brown-tailed Crow landed in Tang Wen's grasp.
In the past, Tang Wen would have locked it in a cage and starved it for a few days.
Then he would have caught some other crows.
Any that disobeyed would have their necks twisted in front of it.
Or he would torment them and feed them to the Sand Wolves.
He would let the Sand Wolves devour them in front of the Brown-tailed Crow.
Crows are the smartest of birds.
After a few rounds of this, he would offer some meatballs made from Transcendent Beast meat.
Surely, the Brown-tailed Crow would have submitted.
But now, there was no time, and it wasn't necessary to go through all that trouble.
He immediately applied several rounds of Mental Soothing and then took out the Blood Essence of a Mutated Beast for it to sniff.
The brown-tailed crow, which had just calmed down, became excited again.
Although it didn't know what it was, it could smell something that could help it advance.
"Caw, caw, caw!"
Tang Wen tentatively released its wings.
At such close range, even if the brown-tailed crow could fly, it couldn't escape his grasp.
The brown-tailed crow hopped onto his shoulder, its small head affectionately nuzzling against his shoulder.
"You're quite sensible," Tang Wen chuckled. Old Crow wasn't wrong—the intelligence of the brown-tailed crow was indeed high.
Just these two actions alone were something a Mid-level Exotic Beast couldn't do.
He took out a small pellet the size of a mung bean from the Blood Essence Elixir and fed it to the crow.
The brown-tailed crow eagerly devoured it, its small eyes gleaming with excitement.
"Lead the way!"
"Caw, caw!"
The brown-tailed crow took flight.
Tang Wen continued on his journey.
After running another twenty miles or so, he stopped again.
Considering the importance the Blackwater Gang placed on this salvage operation, there were undoubtedly experts patrolling the perimeter.
Staying twenty miles away might be the only way to ensure safety.
He found a spot to rest and switched his vision to the Water Sprite.
The scene shifted.
The male Water Sprite was still on the barren, lifeless ground.
In front of it were two teams of Blackwater Gang experts Tang Wen had never seen before.
His curiosity was piqued once again.
Why was there a forest over there, while this place was completely barren?
After watching for a few seconds and seeing no change in the scene, he immediately disconnected his vision.
He needed to conserve his mental energy.
Who knew how long this mission would take?
He had to be frugal with his mental energy.
"Caw!"
The sentry brown-tailed crow flew back to warn him.
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