"How long did I sleep?" Zhen Len wondered as he saw he was inside the burrow, his body feeling completely renewed and at full capacity unlike how terrible he had felt before fainting from exhaustion.
He felt a bit uncomfortable noticing that, having grown in size, his head almost touched the ceiling. He had now reached the height of his parents, which wasn't much, but that was mainly because foxes are naturally much smaller than wolves or tigers.
"I should remodel this place, but first I need to examine the changes in my body."
When he left the burrow, he saw his siblings dragging a red-hoofed gazelle.
He found it strange. He was sure he had given his siblings enough corpses to feed them for two or three weeks. He had hunted them to regain some energy during evolution, and since they were 10-year cultivation soul beasts, they decomposed slower than uncultivated soul beasts. He had also seared them a bit to make them last even longer.
After thinking about it, he felt his forehead sweating… even though it actually wasn't. Being in a weakened state for two or three weeks could have put him in danger. If another soul beast like the 500-years lone wolf had tried to take advantage of him and his siblings, no one would have stopped it. Also, being unconscious, he wouldn't have been able to mark his territory regularly, so a soul beast might think this area was abandoned and intrude where it shouldn't.
But after the initial panic, Zhen Len stopped worrying about it. Next time he crosses the 1000-year threshold, he'll make preparations to avoid being in such a dangerous situation again. Although it was mostly his fault for doing something so reckless while being poor and without cultivation resources besides cultivation techniques.
Because if he had resources like medicinal baths, he probably would have awakened in a day or two, and the benefits of the evolution would have been greater.
He stopped being immersed in his thoughts when he noticed that his siblings were reacting differently than usual. They seemed very happy to see him awake. Unlike their usual cautious behavior, except for the second sister, who was the only one that didn't attack when they planned a rebellion due to a fishbone, she often came close to nibble him gently and happily circle around him. Not knowing how to react, he simply let her do whatever she wanted while he kept cultivating. Apart from her, his other siblings always avoided bothering him or getting too involved, rarely taking the initiative to seek him out.
Unless a soul beast with more than 100 years of cultivation approached, then they always accompanied him as if watching a show, and once it ended, they cheerfully helped carry the corpse, each keeping a body part as a reward. That didn't bother him because they usually hunted on their own, and seeing them like that reminded him of the cat and dog from his first life, who only sought him out when they were hungry.
So it felt strange that not only did they seem to seek him out, but they even brought him the corpse they had just hunted. But Zhen Len didn't think too much of it. Maybe they just wanted to show their gratitude for being able to eat abundantly during the two or three weeks he was unconscious.
He started biting into the corpse, and once he ate half of it, he left the rest for his siblings to eat. They looked like they were drooling, and he felt bad eating in front of someone who was hungry.
When they saw that Zhen Len had finished eating and left much of the meat, they became happy and began devouring the corpse quickly. Meanwhile, Zhen Len approached the crystal-clear water puddle. If he had been in one of his human bodies, he would have hesitated to drink water in a closed space, but he had always drunk from this puddle and nothing had ever happened. So, he drank without worry, and when he finished, he began to look at his reflection.
He looked much more majestic than before, but he paid no attention to superficial changes. Instead, he approached the rock he always used to cultivate and examined his claws, which had taken on a milky jade tone. He lightly swiped his paw at the rock and, to his surprise, it was like cutting butter with a hot knife, there was no resistance, and it pierced the stone effortlessly, despite not having used the Mysterious Jade Hands technique to reinforce his claws.
This excited him. This couldn't be achieved merely through his bloodline evolution and advancing to 100 years of cultivation. It meant his body had undergone other internal and external mutations, most likely thanks to the Body Refinement technique, which forced his body to become much stronger to withstand the damage it received.
And he might have become much stronger than if he had practiced Body Perforation at any other time that wasn't during a breakthrough. His smile widened as he noticed the significant changes in his physical strength.
Once his physical strength was confirmed, he tried cultivating the Mysterious Heaven Skill. He began to feel his meridians, which had expanded, and the circulation of his soul power was much smoother. Additionally, he could feel that his soul power had become purer. Although he didn't know what benefits that brought for a soul beast, unlike a soul master, who gains many advantages from high-purity soul power, the best known being smoother cultivation with fewer bottlenecks from rank 40 onward, progress would be much faster than for other soul masters.
Soon after, Zhen Len noticed the blood essence core. Upon examining it closely, he discovered something surprising and quite strange. It seemed to be coated with a very thin layer of fire, like gold-plated jewelry.
He found this very odd. He didn't believe it was possible for a blood core to mutate, so the only reasonable explanation was that by using the Elemental Fire Meditation technique during his breakthrough, it had combined with the Body Refinement technique. Or maybe Elemental Fire Meditation had effects he didn't know about.
After all, he only created it as a way to improve his control and elemental fire power. And since it was based on the Mysterious Heaven Skill, it must have other side effects, similar to poison resistance and resistance to external pressure. Besides, it was only a cultivation technique, he hadn't developed any techniques that used it as a base.
Thinking about all the implications of those changes, Zhen Len frowned slightly and emptied his mind for a moment… until he noticed something peculiar. When actively using the Mysterious Heaven Skill, his cultivation speed didn't increase.
That panicked him for a moment… until he discovered that this was the normal advancement speed when practicing it actively. And that led him to uncover the greatest benefit. He had unlocked the passive cultivation method for Mysterious Heaven Skill, just like Huo Yuhao.
Something that, since the Tang Sect's resurgence, only a handful of people had achieved. And generally, those who did couldn't explain how they managed it, giving only a vague explanation about a "fortunate encounter."
This thrilled him deeply. Because the thing that took up the most of his time each day was cultivating using Mysterious Heaven Skill. Now he could focus on other activities, especially cultivating the Elemental Fire Meditation technique, which, despite having been successfully created, he hadn't cultivated much yet as it was still experimental. He also hadn't spent time creating techniques that used it as a base, similar to how Tang Sect techniques used the Mysterious Heaven Skill as a core.
Just gaining a significant amount of free time made Zhen Len want to conduct more experiments… but he calmed down, as he still needed to complete the changes to his spirit power and elemental power.
He first started by observing the horizon, and immediately noticed that his vision had greatly improved. He could see with more clarity and detail than before. He could even make out the legs and backside of a tiny ant that seemed to be 800 meters away.
He hadn't noticed it earlier because he was already able to see with detail from close distances. After confirming the changes, he activated the Purple Demon Eye technique and felt his perception of the world shift.
He could still see the fire particles in the air, and his vision improved tremendously compared to before. Previously, activating the "eye of truth" using Purple Demon Eye doubled his vision. But now it seemed to increase it by threefold.
It may not seem like a big improvement, but with his base vision being much greater than before, the Purple Demon Eye improved his sight exponentially. Moreover, it seemed to have acquired other traits.
If he increased the spiritual power used with the Purple Demon Eye, time seemed to slow down, making everything move slightly in slow motion. For now, he could only make everything feel 10% slower, but it could improve in the future.
He also noticed another oddity. When he turned to look at his siblings, all he could see was a faint white light emanating from every part of their bodies. Curious, he jumped onto the thickest branch of a tree and began observing his surroundings.
Almost no soul beast within a 10-kilometer radius could escape his sight. Not even those behind obstacles like rocks or trees. When he looked at soul beasts, he saw white lights like those of his siblings, but also many with yellow lights, including trees or plants.
Although he couldn't see through things, except for the glow emitted by soul beasts, it was like using a videogame cheat that let you see enemies and allies through walls in co-op games.
He even spotted some soul beasts between 100 and 1000 years, which were more common in a specific direction, and decided not to explore that area for a long time.
Now excited by those changes in the eye of truth, he jumped down from the tree and started using his fire elemental power. His teeth and fangs began to emit fire, an innate skill of fire spirit foxes, but now, his claws also seemed to be covered in flames, which scorched the ground as he walked.
He raised one of his front right paws while sitting on his hind legs, and when he swung an attack into the air, the fire claws expanded exponentially until all four reached about 20 centimeters.
As if Zhen Len had found a toy, he began swinging them around excitedly several times, until he stopped and dispersed the claws. Then he summoned a fireball in front of his face. The fireball was almost the size of his head and suddenly began changing shape slowly, first into a flower, then a square, and it kept morphing.
But as he did, Zhen Len began to feel his spiritual power draining rapidly. That meant he still didn't have absolute control over the fire element, and controlling it by force consumed much more spiritual power.
Having now thoroughly examined the changes in his body except for his physical strength, speed, physical attack, and spiritual attack using the eye of truth, he decided to leave those for later.
He should first get used to all these major changes before deciding what his next short-term goals would be.