Before I descended into the mortal realm, I had to collect my soul beast from the Jade Palace. He was in the palace for training. There was a beast master who ensured both my and my mother’s soul beasts were the best in their cultivation, so they may be able to protect us without any worries. Thus, because of him, both our beasts were now able to take up human forms and wield weapons if they wished.

When I was a child, I had thought my beast was a female, and inadvertently named her Coco. When I found out he was male, I quickly changed his name to Seiran, with my excuse being that it took me a long time to find a name better suited for him. He seemed to accept this with a little bit of resentment.

Seiran was a white fox I had found in the Golden Forest. I was 5,000 years old at that time, and I loved exploring Heaven and flying on my golden leaf.

He was a baby when I found him, and he had been lying beside his dead mother, sorrowfully pawing at her corpse. It was snowing, and both mother and child blended into the background. If not for my keen eyes, and the splash of red by the mother’s chest, I would not have been able to find them.

It seemed like someone shot the mother, but why would anyone want to kill a divine beast? I hopped down my leaf, and walked closer. Seiran was surprised, and then he growled viciously at me.

“Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” I looked at the corpse and sniffed. “I think it’s best to bury your mother. Don’t you want her to have a proper grave?”

Divine beasts were not able to talk unless they cultivated up to the 8th stage of the Nascent realm. If they reached the 12th stage and broke into the Xian profound realm, they were then able to take the physical form of humans, which would be their turning point of cultivation. If they wanted to obtain more power, the last stage was the Empyrean realm, which had another 12 stages of cultivation.

The little fox retracted its teeth, and whimpered.

“Alright, then.” I smiled gently at him. Although I was only 5,000 years old, I was quite efficient in magic. The only thing I needed to raise was my stamina, otherwise, simple things were easy for me to accomplish.

I melted the snow until the green grass beneath showed. I dug into the ground until I made a rectangular hole which was five feet in height.

“Will this suffice?” I looked at the fox that had been trailing behind me. He looked into the hole and slowly nodded his head.

I lifted the carcass in the air, and slowly moved her down the hole until she reached the bottom.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. I looked at the fox and said, “There needs to be some sort of marker here. We’ll need to pay respects in the future, so the bigger marker, the better it would be for us.”

The fox only looked at me with his jewel-like eyes.

“I actually have a branch here of my favorite plum blossom tree. Do you mind if I use it on your mother’s grave? Once it grows, it will become extremely beautiful. I’m sure she would like to be remembered that way.”

For the first time, I saw a hint of happiness in his blue eyes.

After covering the hole with the upturned soil, I placed the branch on top of the finished mound. I took the ribbon I had used to tie my hair with, and casted a simple fertility spell on it as I wrapped it delicately around the vertical branch.

“There.” I smiled at my work of art. “All done.”

I stroked the fox’s head, and he nudged lovingly against my hand in gratitude. Suddenly, without warning, he bared his fangs and bit my arm.

Because a deity’s sense of pain was diminished, the pain was tolerable. However, I was too stunned to move. “What the—!!”

Before I could retaliate, he started to lick the blood that had slowly trickled down to my hand. The fox, in turn, nipped his own paw. Blood oozed from the wound, and he pressed it against the flesh where he had bitten me.

When I felt something warm flow inside of me, I knew what he had done. He actually made a soul contract with me! I was dumbfounded. At that moment, as our souls merged together, both of our wounds closed up almost instantaneously, and I felt a rush of energy that strengthened my meridians.