174: Chapter 174 A New Look for the Spirit Rat Lineage!

...

Foundation Establishment Early Stage.

Compared to before the seclusion, his Realm had dropped by a minor stage.

But there was not a hint of dejection on Elder Rat's face; being able to recover his cultivation so quickly was all thanks to the assistance of a large number of beast origin pills.

Calculating it, a full five years had passed; it truly was in the blink of an eye, gone in a hurry...

"Boss!"

Rat Two, leading over a dozen rat demons, was waiting outside the door. Seeing him come out, they all rushed over together, each with a different expression.

"Boss, you're finally out!"

"Four years, you've been in seclusion for four years! I've been worried sick every day..."

"Shut up, move aside."

Elder Rat pushed away the clansmen who had swarmed forward and took a deep breath of the outside air.

Wind.

He could feel the wind!

It wasn't the wind felt by the skin, but a perception of the wind from the depths of his Bloodline and Soul.

Every trace of airflow in the valley and the trajectory of every wisp of spiritual wind were clearly reflected in his Divine Sense...

Elder Rat raised his right claw.

A wisp of transparent wind blade condensed at the tip of his claw, thin as a cicada's wing.

He casually flicked it toward a rock ten yards away. That wind blade sliced through the air silently, and the rock was instantly split in two, revealing a mirror-like cut inside.

The cut was as smooth as a mirror, without a single trace of cracking on the cross-section.

Rat Two's mouth hung wide open.

"Boss, this..."

"It's just a wind blade. What do you think of a wind blade at the Foundation Establishment Early Stage?" Elder Rat retracted his claw and stretched his limbs.

Rat Two was speechless, just staring fixedly at that cut.

Previously, Elder Rat had a cultivation of the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage, and his direct combat strength was roughly equivalent to some weaker Human Race Cultivators.

There was no helping it; although the Blood Fiend Power was fierce, it was extremely uncoordinated with the rat body, and he could only exert sixty to seventy percent of it in actual combat.

And now?

Although he was at the Foundation Establishment Early Stage, the power of this single claw was about fifty percent stronger than before at the same Realm, and his direct combat capability was greatly enhanced.

The compatibility between wind spiritual power and the rat Bloodline, while not the absolute best, was among the most fitting attributes.

Elder Rat calmly tested his concealment ability.

He restrained his aura and shrank into the shadows.

Rat Two watched with wide eyes as Elder Rat actually vanished before him.

It wasn't earth escape, nor was it hiding in a hole.

He just stood there, and as soon as he withdrew his aura, his entire figure merged into the air, with his Demonic Qi and spiritual power fluctuations all vanishing completely.

He was standing right there, but when Rat Two's Divine Sense swept over, he couldn't feel anything, as if he were a wisp of wind, gone with the breeze...

"Boss?"

Rat Two's voice carried a bit of panic. Elder Rat reappeared, his whiskers curling up in a proud arc.

"From now on, this will be the path for the Spirit Rat Lineage!"

...

Over the next two or three years, the changes in the Spirit Rat Lineage were visible to the naked eye.

Elder Rat did not keep the results to himself.

He organized his insights from switching to the Wind Path into a set of Cultivation Techniques, named the "Wind-Hiding Formula," and promoted it within the clan.

This technique was not complicated; its core was only one point: using wind Spiritual Qi to saturate the concealment talent in the Bloodline, making the two merge and resonate.

The effect varied from rat to rat.

Rat demons with good talent showed significant improvement after two or three months of cultivation.

Their concealment ability improved by a notch, and they could condense extremely weak wind blades at their claw tips. Although they couldn't kill anyone, they could at least cut open the flesh of prey.

Rat demons with average talent could also make progress within half a year.

They might not be able to condense wind blades, but the improvement in concealment was substantial.

The newly born pups in the clan didn't need to practice the technique at all; they had lived near the Wind Path Blessed Land since birth, soaked in wind Spiritual Qi day and night.

Their Bloodline had already been subtly changing over generations.

The first batch of pups born in the wind Spiritual Qi...

When they reached a full month, they displayed characteristics different from ordinary rats, such as a bluish fur color, spiritual light at the tip of their tails, and running almost silently.

These pups were named "Wind Rats" by Elder Rat.

Although they were far from being called powerful, with the highest cultivation only at the second or third layer of Qi Refining, they represented a possibility.

A possibility for the Spirit Rat Lineage to undergo a complete transformation.

Rat Two was among the first batch of adult rat demons to switch to the "Wind-Hiding Formula." He was a Treasure-Seeking Spirit Mouse himself, with a talent for keen perception of Spiritual Qi in his Bloodline.

Of course, although his Treasure-Seeking Mouse name was such, in reality, he was far from a true Treasure-Seeking Mouse.

At most, he could only be considered to have a mutated Bloodline with a slight connection to the Treasure-Seeking Mouse.

After being saturated by wind spiritual power, this perception did not decrease but instead increased, allowing him to follow the wind and sniff out the location of treasure Qi!

"Boss, I can now sense the direction of Spiritual Veins within fifty yards underground."

Rat Two excitedly drilled out of the soil, with rock fragments stuck to the tip of his nose: "Before, I could only probe twenty yards at most; now it's more than doubled!"

"Progress is progress, but that's all the ambition you have."

Elder Rat mocked him verbally, but secretly nodded in his heart.

The investigative talent of the Treasure-Seeking Spirit Mouse combined with the sensory enhancement of the Wind Path—the value of this combination was immense. In the future, for any task involving treasure hunting in the wild, the Spirit Rat Lineage would be the first choice.

"Don't be happy too soon."

Elder Rat slapped the back of Rat Two's head: "With your Foundation Establishment Early Stage cultivation, hurry up and push forward for me."

"With a Wind Path foundation, it's easier for you to achieve a Breakthrough than before."

"I know, I know."

In the following months, the atmosphere within the two spiritual mountains of the Spirit Rat Lineage completely changed.

The prototype of the Wind Path Blessed Land in the valley was the core.

The two spiritual mountains were the periphery.

Elder Rat planted a large number of wind Spiritual Plants transplanted from Nine Winds Valley on the two mountains. Although their rank was not high, they could improve the local Spiritual Qi environment, allowing the concentration of Wind Path Spiritual Qi to slowly increase.

The entrances to the rats' caves were also adjusted.

Previously, they were haphazardly dug tunnels, but now they were all changed into long corridors that ran through the valley.

The monsoon blew in from the valley entrance, accelerating as it passed through these corridors, turning every cave into a small Wind Path cultivation field.

Crude, but practical.

Clearly, the changes over these years were enough to cause an explosive growth in the Spirit Rat Lineage. Perhaps in a few more years, catching up to the Black Dog Clan would not be impossible to achieve.

And Elder Rat stood atop the mountain peak. After many years of bending his back, he could finally stand tall today!

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