Shandian

Shu Wei, meanwhile, simply spent the night cultivating. He actually wanted to fully stabilize his Qi foundations in the Sage realm so he spent a lot of time cultivating.

On the other hand, Qai was now ready to form a soul contract with the black-colored tiger cub.

He thus took a dagger from his ring and made a cut into his thumb. He also made a smaller cut in the black tiger cub's paws. Then the two joined their wounds together and when the their blood suddenly got mixed up, they automatically sensed that their souls were instantly linked with one another.

At that point, Qai felt the need to finally name his demonic beast brother. So he grabbed the black tiger cub and looked into its silver eyes.

"From now on..," Qai said with a smile, "you're name will be 'Shandian."

'Growl.'

The black tiger's sudden growl seemed to him that the demonic beast liked its name.

After few moments, the tiger leapt out from Qai's arms and showed signs of sudden evolution.

Immediately thereafter, a lightning aura suddenly circled around the newly contracted demonic beast's body. And the aura looked painful although the black tiger cub simply gritted its teeth.

Qai watched in agony but he was unable to do anything trusting that the evolution was all part of the process.

Instead, Qai just closed his eyes and started cultivating himself.

After an hour, the aura around the tiger gradually dissipated.

But when Qai opened his eyes to see the result, he found the tiger exuding the initial Sky stage of Expert realm aura. And that the tiger suddenly grew in size as it evidently stood a meter tall.

All of a sudden, Shandian just simply stopped being a cub!

Qai then realized that the idea that contracted demonic beast's level was dependent upon the the level of the 'master' was true after all.

So he went close to check the black tiger. And right after confirming its state, he hugged Shandian and rubbed its head.

***************

The following morning, Shu Wei was at first shocked to the sudden changes in the black tiger's appearance when he saw an adult-sized demonic beast following his son but he immediately understood that it must be because of the effects of the 'Beast Taming' skill.

And so after the 'trio' had their breakfast they prepared to set off towards Jiang City.

That time, they had to prepare for possible attacks—both from beasts and bandits—that was so because the distance between Moon Village and Jiang City was five times farther so much so that they would have to camp at least once in the night.

***************

In their travel, Qai and Shandian found time to practice their rythm in their new 'team' attack. Qai obviously took the role of inflicting the long ranged attack with his archery while Shandian served as the vanguard.

So far in their trip, they only met occasional demonic beasts in the Expert realm. And Shu Wei eventually let his son and his contracted black tiger do all the fighting. He only joined the fight everytime a heaven Stage expert demonic beast would appear.

In those fights, Shandian had revealed its rare class skill, 'Lightning Claw—a mid range lightning attack thrown by the demonic beast's front paws which could cut the target deep with a visible fourfold X-marked thunderous slashes.

The father and son instantly realized upon watching the skill when activated that the counterpart 'Wind Claw' would be the best skill suited for Shu Liang which would effectively compliment her needles.

And so, as the day drew to a close, Shu Wei told his son that it was finally time to set for a camp.

The father and son duo thus together with Shandian looked for a nice place to settle for the night.