After finding Ning Maner, the Wupan Continent didn’t have much left for Chu Mu to stay for.
Following the same route back, he kept training at the forefront of his mind.
This time, the Messiah Tree seed event caused Chu Mu to realize that his strength indeed was undefeated in certain areas, but in the grand scheme of the entire Wupan Continent or other larger territories, he was still lacking.
Ning Maner’s lost powers were back. Because her mind and body still needed some time to recover, she didn’t immediately nurture Chu Mu’s soul pets.
She wanted to store the powers in her body and create an immortal aura to try to help Night breakthrough dominator rank and step into immortal rank territory.
Of Chu Mu’s soul pets, Night was the closest to immortal rank. If it had chosen to wear the Demon Drown last time in the Demon Burial Mound, it would already be immortal rank.
Since Night chose to continue its life with him, Chu Mu naturally didn’t want to disappoint it and not have it improve its rank.
Ning Maner’s rank wasn’t very high right now; nurturing dominator rank organisms wasn’t a big issue, but creating immortal ranks was rather hard, and likely would fail.
Luckily, losing her powers and regaining them this time allowed her mental powers to increase beyond when she had in the Wupan Palace. If she tried, she might be able to bring Night to immortal rank.
Ning Maner herself estimated that she needed around four months to gather enough immortal aura. Then, if she injected it into Night, and it also completed enough training to reach immortal rank, then a new immortal rank Night would be born!
The five-year pact with the old raccoon in Demon Burial Mound wasn’t forgotten by Chu Mu. For a long time following that, Night would be leading the way for the rest of his soul pets to slowly get stronger and step into immortal rank.
As his soul pets neared top tier and paragon dominator rank, Chu Mu looked for more resources and slowly put his sight on immortal items.
Immortal items were something Chu Mu hadn’t even seen before in the past nor even heard of. The only immortal item he had obtained was an immortal rank organism’s soul core.
Chu Mu had Ning Maner beside him now. Ning Maner was, in reality, a sprouting Messiah Tree. Her existence indeed could give Chu Mu a chance to bring his soul pets into immortal rank. However, Chu Mu couldn’t always put his hopes on Ning Maner. After all, compared to the real Messiah Tree, she was but a small sapling. She could only provide a certain amount of immortal aura, unless her strength had a great increase.
Furthermore, the Messiah Tree’s power mainly laid in its ability to nurture. However, that was a slow process. Telling Ning Maner to gather all the power to strengthen a soul pet was still a waste of the value of the power.
Before, when they were still traveling with Ye Qingzi and Ning Maner, Chu Mu noticed that putting Ning Maner and Ye Qingzi together would make the perfect spirit item creator. Chu Mu felt that her powers should be mainly put on xuan items and immortal items. Adding Ye Qingzi’s xuan art and immortal arts, the ability to gain resources was much higher than Ning Maner nurturing a soul pet by herself.
Chu Mu’s next destination was Zhenming Main City. Although it had been a few years. Chu Mu had always kept Ye Qingzi on his mind. This time, he could even bring Ning Maner as a surprise for her.
……
To go to Zhenming Continent, Chu Mu obviously didn’t dare pass over the roof of the world (TL: massive mountain splitting the two continents).
It was said that Zhenming Continent and Wupan Continent had a few transportation hubs that could avoid this natural barrier. However, having just stepped into Wupan Continent, he couldn’t possibly know these locations.
Going back the way he came, he could also get some training but there wouldn’t be much suitable training anymore.
When he got to the Guan City harbor, Chu Mu found the harbor now had a sprinkle of ships with New Moon Ground flags. Not only was there the New Moon Navy, there were also New Moon merchant ships, passenger ships, and adventurer groups.
From this scene, he could tell that New Moon Ground’s connection with Guan City was slowly being established.
To save time, Chu Mu and the others didn’t ride the boat but instead flew straight over the Dark Sky Ocean World.
With his current strength, crossing Dark Sky Ocean World didn’t need too much time.
Where the dark ocean met the surface, there was a swiftly traveling dark comet. This was Chu Mu’s wing type soul pet Dead Dream.
The flying Dead Dream didn’t actually flap its wings often when it flew. Every light flap could propel it very far.
Ning Maner was taken away before Chu Mu went to the Phoenix Ancestral Lands. This was the first time she had seen Dead Dream.
Initially, when Dead Dream was still resting in the box, Ning Maner had already fallen in love with it, occasionally pulling it out of its box to use her weak aura to nurture it.
Now that Dead Dream signed a soul pact with Chu Mu and had a slight mental connection with her, Ning Maner couldn’t just let it go.
From Quiet Forest back to Guan City was a long journey. Ning Maner either hugged little Mo Xie or Dead Dream the entire journey. The result? Halfway through, Dead Dream, who was missing the most xuan items, suddenly went from middle class dominator rank to high class dominator rank.
Dead Dream’s itemless advancement caused Ye Wansheng, Chao Lengchuan, and Pang Yue’s jaws to all drop.
The chance a soul pet improved by itself was extremely slim. Ye Wansheng and the other two spent ages collecting every resource and xuan item in their training process to finally push one of their main soul pets into high class dominator rank. Yet, Chu Mu’s soul pet did something worthy of anyone’s jealousy - it had an automatic promotion!
There was nothing more jaw-dropping!
This caused Ye Wansheng and Prince Chao to be gloomy for a long time. They stared at their soul pets all day in hopes that someday they could also automatically promote themselves, saving them the trouble of getting xuan items.
“Yi? Chu Mu, why is your Dead Dream letting out a strange glow?” In the sky, Pang Yue also sitting on Dead Dream’s back said.
Chu Mu was meditating. In reality, he already felt his soul elevating, meaning that one of his soul pets must have gained rank.
When Chu Mu opened his eyes, he glanced at the light starlight that appeared on Dead Dream’s body and showed a smile torn between helplessness and joy.
“Heavens!! Chu…. Chu Mu…. What is your Dead Dream doing!!” Ye Wansheng started shouting as he flew aside them!
Half a beat later, Prince Chao turned around and saw Chu Mu’s Dead Dream glowing in a special way. His mouth was so wide a fist could fit in it!
“Brother, little Dead Dream is gaining a rank again!” Ning Maner’s chime-like laugh sounded.
Indeed, the flying Dead Dream’s feathers started revolving around the glow, like dark ancient glyphs.
Darkness and thunder shrouded the entire ocean and sky in black when Dead Dream was promoted!
Arcs of dark purple Dead Lightning flashed through the sky, creating a stunning landscape!
“Chu Mu, you must be the son of some fortune goddess.” In the dark, Ye Wansheng’s sour voice came through.
His Empress Heavenly Thunder Snake grew up at the same time as Chu Mu’s Dead Dream. It was Ye Wansheng’s main soul pet now, and had finally surpassed Chu Mu’s Dead Dream by two ranks.
Yet, on this trip back to Lin City, Dead Dream automatically promoted, closing the gap a little.
The first time, Ye Wansheng comforted himself. Dead Dream has been around low and middle class dominator rank for a while now. An automatic promotion was bound to happen with its high species rank.
Yet, what was this continuous automatic promotion!
Had anyone heard of a soul pet going to top tier dominator rank from middle class without any xuan items at all?
When all the darkness and thunder disappeared, Ye Wansheng, Prince Chao, and Pang Yue stared at Chu Mu as if he were a monster!
This was dominator rank, not servant rank, or commander rank. How could two automatic promotions happen?
“Doing two automatic promotions, how dare you do such an abominable thing!” Ye Wansheng quickly followed.
Chu Mu felt like he was innocent. He did nothing. It was just that when Dead Dream stepped into high class dominator rank, it was focused on training. The first time it self promoted, though Chu Mu was surprised, he could guess the reason.
However, this second promotion truly scared Chu Mu.
Jumping from middle class to top tier dominator rank in such a short time, with Dream’s special attributes, meant that its strength increased far more than just double.
Chu Mu glanced at the laughing Ning Maner.
Dead Dream jumping straight to top tier dominator rank showed just how insane a soul pet’s strength would increase if Ning Maner liked it.
“Chu Mu, why doesn’t your Dead Dream just have a species mutation!” Pang Yue said angrily. Prince Chao remained silent, choosing not to comment.
“Species mutation, en….” Ning Maner’s beautiful eyes blinked.
She put a finger on her lips and started thinking about this challenge.
Phoenix species were the only species that could use their own strength and opportunities to recreate themselves and reincarnate. These reincarnations were very similar to species mutation, but they just didn't increase power as much.
Pang Yue’s words reminded Ning Maner. Instead of letting Dead Dream promote itself like this, why not give Dead Dream a chance to reincarnate.
Maybe, Dead Dream would accidentally step into immortal rank that way!