Yin'er's New Ability

As Jin Shu was staring at Su Bing, wondering what kind of monster he had created, he heard a shout come from behind him. Turning around, he saw Yin'er flying out of the forest, followed by a bunch of little animals. There were little horned squirrels, carnivorous rabbits, various birds, and even a large boar.

"Daddy! Look, Yin'er found friends!" Yin'er shouted as she flew out of the forest with the little creatures close behind.

Yin'er soon made it to Jin Shu and landed on his shoulder. The little creatures following her stopped and stared at her as if they were loyal soldiers awaiting their queen's command.

"Uh...? Yin'er? Why are these animals following you around?" Jin Shu asked in equal parts shock and curiosity.

"Yin'er was chasing those little squirrels. When Yin'er tried to use Daddy's fire hand to knock them over, Yin'er's head glowed gold, and then the little squirrels stopped running. Yin'er knocked them over, but they still didn't move, so Yin'er asked them to move, and then they did. Yin'er tried it again on the other animals, and they all became Yin'er's friends!" Yin'er gave a strange recount of how she got the animals to follow her.

"So, you tried to use the Phoenix Claw Technique, and your head released a golden glow that caused the animals to follow your commands? Is that what you're saying?" Jin Shu tried clarifying what Yin'er had said.

"Yup, yup!" Yin'er nodded her head vigorously in agreement.

"Yin'er, can you try to control your Qi and make it flow into your forehead?" Jin Shu asked, as he believed that it was the King symbol on Yin'er's forehead that gave her the ability to seemingly control small creatures.

"Sure!" Yin'er agreed. She closed her eyes and started to control the Qi in her core, making it flow from her dantian upwards toward her head. When the Qi reached her forehead, the King symbol lit up. A golden glow spread in a circular radius around her. When it touched the small animals, they looked as if they woke up in a daze, looked around, and then hurriedly scurried off in all directions.

Yin'er opened her eyes and didn't see her new friends anymore. "Where did Yin'er's friends go?"

"Yin'er, you seem to have the ability to control small animals. Maybe you can even control Demonic Beasts." Jin Shu told Yin'er.

"So, Yin'er can have lots of friends?" she asked hopefully.

"Yeah, you can have lots of friends." said Jin Shu as he petted Yin'er's head.

"Can we use those little creatures for my training?" Su Bing asked while sipping her tea.

"Sure, that's a good idea. If you can evade the forest animals, you should be able to avoid most humans in the forests." Jin Shu agreed readily.

---

Su Bing trained in the forest and mountains, evading the small animals and Jin Shu for a few more days, achieving a state of near-perfect stealth in the forest and mountains. Her training here was complete; now it was time to get back on their journey to the Eastern Region.

Jin Shu and Su Bing were walking side by side, and a sad little tiger was following slowly behind. Yin'er was sad because she had to leave the small animals in the mountain forest.

"Yin'er, cheer up. You can find more animals to play with when we make camp later." Su Bing tried to cheer Yin'er up.

"Wuu! What if Yin'er can't find any more friends? What if they don't want to play with Yin'er?" She made a sad, crying noise as she lamented.

"Yin'er, if you stop pouting, I'll make you a special meal for lunch." Jin Shu said.

"What kind of special meal?" Yin'er asked in anticipation.

"It's a surprise." Jin Shu responded.

Yin'er stopped pouting and flew up to Jin Shu's shoulder. "Yin'er doesn't want a surprise; Yin'er wants to know what it is now." she said with a slight hint of displeasure in her voice.

"I'll let you know when it gets to be lunchtime." Jin Shu said, keeping it a surprise. In reality, he actually just didn't know what he was going to make for lunch later. Normally, they just eat some bread and jerky for lunch, but now that he promised Yin'er, he had to figure out something special.

Yin'er scrunched her brows and was going to continue arguing when a loud noise came from in front of them. It sounded like the stomping of hooves.

All three looked ahead at where the noise was coming from. In the distance, they saw a herd of what looked like horses, except instead of normal manes of hair like horses usually have, these horses had what looked like manes made of flames.

"Hmm... these rapidly dashing horses remind me of something, but I can't quite put my finger on it." Jin Shu commented when he saw the rapidly approaching horses.

"That's not a herd of Demonic Beasts, is it?" Su Bing asked doubtfully.

"Oh! That's right! I remember now; those are the demonic evolution of Red-Maned Plains Runners—the Flame-Maned Plains Runners!" Jin Shu exclaimed as he remembered what those horses were.

"So those are Demonic Beasts!?" Su Bing shouted fearfully.

"This is a perfect opportunity to test out Yin'er's new ability. If her ability can control these Demonic Beasts, then we could get some useful mounts and speed our journey up." Jin Shu said in excitement, ready to experiment with Yin'er's new ability.

"Yin'er, when I tell you to, use your ability on those horses, okay?" Jin Shu asked.

"Okie!" Yin'er shouted happily. She wanted these horses as friends.

The three stepped off to the side of the road so that they wouldn't be in the direct path of the dashing horses. The horses were running so fast that they made it from about a mile away to less than two hundred feet away in about a minute.

When they were a hundred feet away, Jin Shu shouted, "Now!"

The King symbol on Yin'er's forehead glowed, releasing a sphere of golden light. The horses all came to a halt when the light hit them. Only the biggest horse at the head of the herd slowed slightly but still kept running for a few seconds before coming to a halt as well.

"Yay! New friends!" Yin'er shouted happily and flew around the horses.

There were ten horses in the herd. Based on the aura they were exuding, it seemed that four of them were in the lower stages of the Qi Gathering Realm, four were in the middle stages, and two were at the upper stages. The leader might have reached the peak of the Qi Gathering Realm and was on the verge of a breakthrough to the Core Forging Realm.

"Let's take the two strongest horses as our mounts." Jin Shu said to Su Bing.

"Yin'er wants this one!" Yin'er was standing on the back of the smallest horse in the herd. It was only four feet tall and seemed to be a foal. When the two biggest horses saw Yin'er on the foal's back, they struggled slightly as if they were trying to break free from their dazed state.

Jin Shu placed his hand on the largest horse's muzzle. "Shh... calm down, she won't hurt your baby." Jin Shu whispered to the horse in an attempt to calm it down.

The large horse stopped resisting when it heard Jin Shu's whisper; however, it still stared uneasily at Yin'er on the foal's back.

"Yin'er, come over here!" Jin Shu shouted for Yin'er.

"I wanna play with the horsies more!" Yin'er shouted reluctantly, but still flew over to Jin Shu.

"Let's just take these three with us and let the other ones go." Jin Shu pointed at the two largest horses and the little foal.

"Yin'er can't take them all?" Yin'er asked indignantly.

"No, we can't take care of all of them." Jin Shu stated matter-of-factly.

"Ugh!" Yin'er sighed grumpily.

"Me and Su Bing will have these two to ride, and you can play with the baby horse, okay?" Jin Shu appeased her.

Snort!

The biggest horse snorted anxiously when it heard that its child was going to become the little tiger's plaything.

"I feel bad forcing them to be our mounts against their will." Su Bing spoke up.

"Hmm... you're right, we shouldn't force them. I wasn't thinking about that." Jin Shu admitted, realizing he hadn't considered how Yin'er's ability was forcing those affected by it against their wills. He wouldn't mind taming these horses; however, it didn't feel right to use a type of mind control on them, as Flame-Maned Plains Runners were a more docile breed of Demonic Beasts. If they were hostile Demonic Beasts, he wouldn't mind as much.

"Haa, let them go, Yin'er." Jin Shu sighed because he knew that Yin'er wasn't going to be happy about having to let all of the horses go, especially after he had just promised her that she could have a new playmate.

"What!? Yin'er doesn't want to let them go! They are Yin'er's friends now!" Yin'er shouted angrily.

Snort! Stomp! Stomp!

The horses, seemingly affected by Yin'er's mood, started to snort and stomp the ground anxiously.

"Yin'er! Let them go!" Jin Shu shouted, getting a little angry.

"NO!!" Yin'er shouted and turned to fly away.

"Yin'er!! Get back here!" Jin Shu shouted as Yin'er flew away, and he quickly chased after her.

Snort!

The horses followed behind Yin'er as she flew away, except for the largest horse. He shook his head, snorting angrily as if waking from a daze. When he came out of his dazed state, he noticed the other horses following Yin'er and started to chase after them. As he passed Jin Shu, Jin Shu jumped on his back to use him to get closer to Yin'er. The horse bucked as Jin Shu climbed on its back. "Whoa! Calm down, just let me use your speed for a moment." Jin Shu told the horse.

The horse didn't calm down; instead, it sped up while continuing to try to buck Jin Shu off. Jin Shu had to grab the horse around its neck to stay on; however, its flaming mane burned his hands. Normal fire wouldn't be able to burn Jin Shu due to his cultivation, but the flame of this horse's mane was made from the horse's Qi. Jin Shu channeled his Phoenix Claw Technique to stop the flame from burning his hand.

As Jin Shu and the large horse chased after Yin'er and the other horses, Su Bing was standing back where they were originally, too stunned to know what to do. "What is happening?" she asked no one in particular, as she began running to catch up to Jin Shu and Yin'er.

---

A few minutes had passed, and Yin'er and the horse herd had gotten further away. The large horse hadn't been able to catch up as it was busy trying to buck Jin Shu off. "If you don't stop bucking, we are going to lose them," Jin Shu tried explaining to the bucking horse. It seemed to work as the horse snorted angrily but stopped bucking and began speeding up.

The large horse and Jin Shu quickly caught up with Yin'er. "Yin'er!! Stop!!" Jin Shu shouted at Yin'er.

"No! Daddy's going to take Yin'er's friends away!" Yin'er shouted back.

"Get closer to her." Jin Shu told the horse he was riding. It snorted in annoyance but still complied by speeding up and getting closer to Yin'er.

"Yin'er, please stop. Daddy promises that he won't take your friends away." Jin Shu tried to appease her.

"Daddy's lying! Yin'er knows that you are going to take them away!" Yin'er wouldn't fall for his appeasement.

"Damn it!" Jin Shu shouted and jumped off the horse to catch Yin'er. He grabbed her out of the air; however, after catching her, he noticed a large boulder on the side of the road. They were going to crash into it, so he covered Yin'er in his chest and twisted in the air so that his back was facing the boulder.

Crash!

"Ack!" Jin Shu coughed as his back slammed into the boulder, shortly followed by the back of his head violently smashing into it, causing him to lose consciousness.

Jin Shu's hands fell to his sides as he passed out, and Yin'er fell from his embrace. She quickly started to fly away again; however, when she didn't hear Jin Shu say anything as she flew away, she curiously turned back around to see why he wasn't calling out for her.

"Daddy? Why aren't you following Yin'er anymore? Do you not want Yin'er anymore? Yin'er is sorry. Yin'er doesn't want to leave now. Why isn't Daddy saying anything? Daddy? Daddy!? Waaa! Daddy doesn't love Yin'er anymore!! Waaa!! Yin'er won't be bad anymore, so please don't hate Yin'er!! Waa!" Yin'er didn't realize that Jin Shu was unconscious, and she thought he was ignoring her because she was being bad, so she began crying.

As she cried, the horses who had been following her regained their ability to control themselves, and they turned and approached the largest horse who Jin Shu was riding on, all except the small foal who approached Yin'er and leaned over to lick her head in an attempt to stop her crying.

"Waa! Leave Yin'er alone! Yin'er doesn't want friends anymore! Waa! Yin'er just wants Daddy to love her again!" she shouted at the foal as it tried to cheer her up.

Whinny!

The foal neighed to draw Yin'er's attention.

"What?" Yin'er asked the foal in confusion.

Whinny!

The foal neighed again.

"What!? Daddy is hurt!?" It seemed that Yin'er could understand what the foal was saying with its neighs, and it was trying to tell her that Jin Shu was injured.