Chapter 13

When Ran Deng arrived at the western coast, he looked around to see if there were any aquatic beasts around.

Surprisingly, there were none.

"It is said the west is the deepest sea, only large water beasts live here. Even in later stories, the western sea is rather ignored and even the dragon palace only controls the upper half, while the lower half is the unofficial territory of deepwater beasts."

After thinking so, he didn't wait longer and dived into the water with his bald head ahead.

…

Thousands of kilometres below the water there live the deep sea animals. Even though there is an upper half of the western sea, it is generally very empty and dark, called the sea of death by some, coming from its emptiness. There are no corals or other living spaces for the smaller aquatic animals, which is why the western sea is called the deep sea, while the rather flat southern sea is known as the myriad fish sea.

Below a certain point, light seems to disappear fully, with only a few light sources around. This is the territory of three groups of animals: the fanged fish, eels and octopi.

"Fanged fish are too aggressive and unsuitable for buddhist teachings, it is not worth it to convert them. Eels are reclusive and don't interact much with other animals, they are only suitable for my path, but I there is no need to walk all this way to take a disciple.

Finally, there are only octopi. They… well, the number eight is very good, I will make use of you then! It fits our teachings and they are also overlords on their own and aren't as reclusive as the other deep-sea aquatic beasts."

After thinking so, he used the mind law he cultivated to scan the surroundings. Other methods would have it difficult, as the depths here have very concentrated water, gravity and other laws, but the mind law relies solely on living beings.

So long there is a living being, it will be seen, and with this as a bridge, all other living beings the creature knows in the surroundings will be connected together, creating a mind link which they don't see nor feel.

It took some time until Ran Deng finally detected an octopus. When he did so, it was also very easy for him to detect the territory of the octopi.

He quickly willed the spiritual power to carry him. Everything is slower deep in the waters, but he managed to arrive in a short hundred years. That is not to say the sea is small, it's just that the octopi territory isn't far from the shore. It seems even they would rather stay away from the deepest grounds.

'In my memories, it should be creatures similar to shrimps and worms that live in the deep grounds. They feed on bones that fell down, and the few plants that can survive there. Well, if they can survive on bones, then piercing through flesh shouldn't be a problem for them. Fortunately, their body is constructed by the pressure, when they come to higher places of the water, they will implode on their own.'

His arrival alerted the octopi. They saw him, looking at him like they saw a long-lost family member who was injured badly. One octopus came forward, and a muffled sound came from him "Oh you, youngling, were you born outside? Did those smelly fish eat your tentacles?"

Ran Deng was speechless 'They- they think I'm an octopus who lost four tentacles?'

He was greatly shocked and couldn't understand their guess… until he saw the octopus. Its tentacles were orderly and neatly, not moving much, acting a bit like limbs truly. Their skin was purple, similar to his own cassock, while they also had patterns.

If one only looked at the two from afar, the difference would truly not be large, the octopi hadn't seen a human before anyways. The largest reason they felt compatible is… naturally they are both bald, bald people feel closer together, is the difference between human and octopus that large?

It took Ran Deng a moment to collect his thoughts, before he said "I am Ran Deng, I would like to… talk with the clan leader."

He didn't deign to explain – for no other reason than to use this situation to directly talk with the clan leader instead of wasting time discussing useless things. Fortunately, in this early stage, every clan generally only had a few members, so talking to the clan leader was like visiting the grandparents.

You would just go there, they weren't planning anything on usual days anyways, so what was the harm?

The octopus agreed, thinking this injured young octopus must be seeking help. It felt compassionate – they were all born not long ago, and generally close to this habitat as the same race would always be born close to each other. But it seemed this fledgling was born too far away, walking here at great cost.

They swam together until they arrived at a small cave, it wasn't decorated much besides some shells, though Ran Deng felt they were still alive, only using this cave as a living space rather than being decorations here.

When they walked inside, he saw a giant octopus. If he didn't have bones, he wouldn't be able to understand how this octopus that was larger than the entrance could enter and leave easily. Naturally there was also the option of transforming into taoist form… but they wouldn't usually do that here.

The land and air beasts are closer to other creatures and admire the strong. These are usually people such as Ran Deng who was born naturally with an innate taoist body, this taoist body was Pangu's eighty-first transformation before his death, which is why the human race late on had such great potential – they simply rode the bus of Pangu!

Besides this, Pangu had 71 beast transformations and 9 innate transformations. The nine transformations are the four holy beasts, three world tribes and two yin-yang beast, which are the Kunpeng and Dragon-Serpent clan, where there is the yang of dragons and the yin of serpents, they have dragon or serpent bodies and innate taoist (human) heads.

The former refers directly to Kunpeng, while the latter refers to Nuwa and Fuxi, the two innate beings transformed on mount Buzhou.

The 71 beast transformations are 71 beast lineages, such as ursids (bears), canines (wolfs, foxes, etc.), felines (lions, tigers, etc.), and so one. The beasts are supposed to keep their own bodies, transforming is of benefit if they want to learn different things, but their bloodline contains often the path that is closest to them.

So, transforming into taoist form has become a social thing above the ground.

But here in the waters, there is no such tradition, so people just say in their true form.

Both things are basically the same, later on, humans would think they are the most supreme because of their own appearance, but in fact, the innate taoist body is only good when you have the respective origin that can support it, such as innate divine beings, which Ran Deng is part of.

Even though Zhunti and Jieyin are of the same grade of origin, they themselves are plant spirits, the only category that is neither beast nor innate divine. They are as unique as some later creatures transformed from stones… the origin they have to transform is later large enough, so they are just counted as innate divine.

The rest… well, it will just hinder them. This is why the origin of humans would continuously drop and only rise again with cultivation, while beasts themselves are born strong as long as they have enough spiritual power.

Perhaps only the great potential of humans can compensate for their weakness in the initial stages, but the human race in later stories didn't even have the time to reach the stage of any of the three tribes, or even the beast heaven clan that was weaker.