The Rat Cultivator

Chapter 105: Familiar Demon

Initially, Wu Yuan had found the new, chaotic Bloodline Spirit Rune completely incomprehensible. He could only trace its convoluted lines by rote, failing time and again to grasp its underlying logic.

His breakthrough came through sheer, gruesome frustration.

During an anatomical study of a deceased rat, Wu Yuan had attempted to extract the creature’s entire circulatory system intact. When the delicate veins tore, he angrily crumpled the wet mass of vessels into a tight ball. As he stared at the bloody tangle in his claws, a sudden spark of inspiration illuminated his mind.

The twisted, web-like structure of the new Spirit Rune… it’s a circulatory system.

With this morbid but brilliant realization, Wu Yuan began to dissect the rune with surgical precision. He started at the “aortic” trunk, tracing the flow of spiritual logic out to the finest capillary branches. His theory held up.

Yet, the rune was so labyrinthine that even with the blueprint in mind, it took a grueling three months of continuous, secluded meditation to finally etch it into his bloodline.

The results, however, were nothing short of miraculous.

He clenched his paw. Instantly, a dense network of thick, pulsing blood vessels bulged beneath his skin. New veins actually sprouted and wove themselves into his musculature at a speed visible to the naked eye. The network spread like a living spiderweb, infiltrating every pore and muscle fiber of his body.

When the transformation settled, Wu Yuan’s total capacity for Blood Qi had doubled. The power now coursed through his body with terrifying speed, surging right to the very tips of his fur.

“Bibo! Come here. I need a test subject.”

Wu Yuan summoned the elder beaver. Within the cavern, only Bibo matched him at the mid-stage of Qi Condensation, making him the only viable candidate to withstand the experiment.

“Great King!” Bibo entered the treehouse respectfully, bowing his head and waiting for instructions.

Wu Yuan slowly closed his eyes and ignited his Blood Qi.

In a heartbeat, a thick, suffocating aura exploded outward, enveloping Bibo. This invisible sphere of pure, dense vitality acted like a physical barrier, violently repelling the ambient Spiritual Qi in the room.

Bibo’s face drained of color. He gasped, feeling the Demon Power and Blood Qi within his own body suddenly turn sluggish and dormant, crushed under the weight of an overwhelming external force.

“Great King… this is a Blood Qi Field!” Bibo stammered, his eyes wide with shock.

Wu Yuan opened his eyes and shook his head slightly. “It’s merely a prototype. It can only be considered an ‘aura field’ for now.”

The Winged Tiger had once mentioned that a true Blood Qi Field was the hallmark of a late-stage Body Refinement expert. Yet here was Wu Yuan, manifesting a functional prototype through a single Bloodline Spirit Rune.

“This field can instantly suppress roughly twenty percent of a nearby demon beast’s Demon Power or Blood Qi,” Wu Yuan analyzed, his voice cool and detached.

Twenty percent might sound trivial to a layman, but in a life-or-death struggle, it was a catastrophic debuff. If an enemy attempted to cast a technique within this field, the sudden drop in internal power could cause the technique to collapse and violently backfire. Furthermore, the fact that it suppressed physical Blood Qi as well made it an epic-level counter to almost any demon beast.

Wu Yuan stretched, his joints popping with the sharp cracks of a whip. “Three months. It’s time to see what Little Green Mountain has been up to while I was away.”

He stepped outside, and the sight that greeted him was a testament to his vision.

The geography of Little Green Mountain had been aggressively terraformed. Radiating outward from the central Green Stone Peak, the land had been carved into orderly, functional sectors. The rats had flattened uneven ridges, turning jagged slopes into smooth, manageable plains separated by deep, lush valleys.

Each peak was a bustling metropolis of green canopy and floral scent. The rat demons had established massive surface colonies. They were no longer confined to the dark; they had the choice to live under the sun. Dozens of these resource hubs dotted the landscape, some housing over a million rats, all working with industrial efficiency.

A complex vascular system of tunnels and manicured surface roads connected the hubs. Countless rats scurried along the paths, their sharp teeth acting as shears to constantly prune back the aggressive, Qi-fueled weeds that would otherwise reclaim the roads overnight.

Above, Spirit Bees flew in disciplined patrols, acting as a real-time aerial radar network, while massive, muscular rat demons guarded the ground.

Not far from the central peak lay a vast pasture carpeted in low-grade Leaf Grass. Here, herds of docile herbivorous demon beasts—goats, water buffalo, rabbits—grazed peacefully. Wu Yuan’s swarm had covertly abducted these herds from across the Azure Spirit Mountain Range.

Under the safety of Wu Yuan’s protection and the abundant resources, the herds had multiplied rapidly. Wu Yuan had implanted Spirit Controlling Seals in the minds of the alpha beasts, ensuring absolute obedience. The rats that managed these pastures had become specialized ranchers over the generations, some even Awakening techniques specifically for animal husbandry.

The intelligence of an Awakened rat was not inferior to a human’s. Freed from the desperate, instinctual struggle for survival, they had begun to think, to learn, and to optimize.

Little Green Mountain was an anomaly in the demon world. Elsewhere, the wilds were a slaughterhouse where high-grade beasts butchered the weak for sport and resources. But here, Wu Yuan viewed every single rat as his personal property, a tiny gear in his vast wealth-generating machine.

He strictly forbade infighting. Unnatural death was a waste of resources, and Wu Yuan hated waste.

He was the sovereign of the Spirit-Gathering Rats. His will was etched into their very bloodlines; no rat could defy him, just as a river cannot flow backward.

In truth, his swarm barely resembled a demon tribe anymore. They were far too orderly, utilizing resources with a ruthless, calculated efficiency that put human sects to shame. They lacked the infighting of a human family and possessed a scale and unity no Sect could ever dream of holding. It was a perfect fusion of Wu Yuan’s past-life human intellect and his current-life demonic biology.

Yet, Wu Yuan remained pragmatically grateful. He knew this utopia was only possible because Little Green Mountain was both incredibly rich and remarkably isolated. He still found it suspicious that no flying scout or wandering predator from the main peaks had discovered this paradise yet. He could only assume the Azure Radiance Grotto-Heaven was actively hiding them from prying eyes.

As Wu Yuan basked in the sight of his empire, his ears twitched. He suddenly raised his head, his gaze piercing the distance.

A familiar scent rode the wind. It was an aura he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

A familiar demon.