Upgrade Specialist in Another World

“Master Jing, what’s….going on here?” Ye Ting asked in confusion as he took in the situation in front of him.

Jing Mingfeng hadn’t even bothered to turn his head around to answer Ye Ting and instead spoke with narrowed eyes, “I’m not too sure. But it seems that ol’Bai is forming a soul contract with the Fifth-class Thunderbird.”

“What? A Fifth-class Thunderbird!” Ye Ting spoke in astonishment. He knew that Bai Yunfei had killed the men from the Beast Taming School, but whatever soulbeasts he had consequently captured was unknown to the man. Furthermore, he had not once thought that it would be possible for him to form a soul contract with a soulbeast puppet.

Ye Ting and the others hadn’t asked any more of Jing Mingfeng when they saw the anxious look on his face. Instead, they cast their eyes towards the center of attraction where the red and purple light were still shining brightly.

“It really is a Thunderbird!” Ye Ting had cried out to himself internally. To him, it was an absolute shock that a Fifth-class soulbeast would suddenly appear out of nowhere. “A Fifth-class soulbeast! For the sake of a Fifth-class soulbeast, the Zhao swore allegiance to the Beast Taming School. And now Bai Yunfei used some sort of secret to form a soul contract with one that’s far stronger than him. What….what type of human is he?”

“Boom!”

An explosion had rocked the place simultaneous to Ye Ting’s thoughts. Bai Yunfei’s soulforce had stretched out briefly and then receded back into himself once more so that the two lights would be divided as well. When Bai Yunfei leapt back several meters, the red light around him dissipated and seemed to start examining the Thunderbird right in front of him.

When the human and soulbeast were split apart from one another, the red and purple light had disappeared from sight. The Thunderbird looked as if it had grown motionless, but to Bai Yunfei’s sharp eyes, he could see that in the eyes of the bird, there was a small sliver of life to them.

“What’s….what’s going on?” Ye Ting cried out in alarm. He could clearly tell that the soul contract had reached a conclusion, but the actions of Bai Yunfei looked like he was giving up. Such a reaction like this had confused him terribly.

Swiftly, Jing Mingfeng ran to Bai Yunfei with narrowed eyes at the Thunderbird. “Ol’Bai, what’s happening here? Is this….that Thunderbird? How did you form a soul contract with it? And what happened to that anyways?”

“I’m not too sure either. But I can see that this change in the Thunderbird has to do when it failed to self-destruct earlier. I’m not sure of the specifics, but I can at least sense that it regained some of its sentience.” Bai Yunfei shook his head as if to clear his head. “Up until now, I didn’t even know that it wanted to form a soul contract with me. Good thing I was fast enough to decline.”

“What! You actually gave up the chance to form a soul contract with a Fifth-class soulbeast?!” Jing Mingfeng cried out with wide eyes of shock towards Bai Yunfei.

“Yea. I’m not familiar with it after all.” Bai Yunfei nodded.

“Not familiar….” Jing Mingfeng’s lips twitched slightly as if he was thinking to himself, “It’s a good thing I know just what type of person you are, or else I’d say you’re a pretentious prick.”

“Ah, the Thunderbird won’t go back into the space rings from the Beast Taming School, what should we do about it?” Bai Yunfei whispered to Jing Mingfeng as they watched the Thunderbird.

Jing Mingfeng shrugged his shoulders, “How should I know? You’re the one that started it, you figure it out.”

“Then how about this. Why don’t you form a soul contract with it? Now that it’s starting to regain sentience, it’s not too out of the question. You and it can form a soul contract, that should kick start it back to full sentience.” Bai Yunfei proposed to him.

“……”

“……”

Jing Mingfeng had been speechless. Similarly, the other people who had heard him like Ye Ting had been utterly at a loss.

Imagine that–giving away the chance to form a soul contract with a Fifth-class soulbeast just like that!

Ever since he had laid eyes on Bai Yunfei, Ye Ting had been forever shocked by every move and action Bai Yunfei did. Even now, Ye Ting felt as if his heart was constantly being stabbed. When he looked at Jing Mingfeng, he could not help but feel jealous.

But then who would have imagined that Jing Mingfeng would recover first from his silence to shake his head and say, “Forget it. I may want a soulbeast partner, I want it to be of the wind affinity. The thunder affinity doesn’t suit me. I’ll look for another one later.”

It was not as if it one would be incapable of forming a soul contract with a soulbeast of a different affinity. But many people were more favorable to the idea of forming a soul contract with one that did since it would complement them beautifully.

Ye Ting was left practically unable to breathe. His eyes looked to Jing Mingfeng with a queer light– he had never once really paid attention to the one that had appeared out of nowhere with Bai Yunfei. But he knew now that this person was unpredictable too!

The next few words of Bai Yunfei had once more raised the bar of what Ye Ting could possibly endure.

“Oh, then….forget it.” Bai Yunfei nodded. But then his eyebrows flew up as if he had been hit by an epiphany. Turning to look at Ye Ting with a smile, he spoke, “Lord Ye, if I recall correctly, you’re a soul cultivator with the thunder affinity, correct? Why not have you form a soul contract with it?”

Not a single breath of air was left in Ye Ting’s mouth to gasp out. Staggering backwards a single step, he had to have Ye Quan support him from behind. Finally being able to take in two gasping breaths, he spoke with a quavering voice, “Lo-lord Bai….what are you saying?”

“I’ll give you this Thunderbird.” Came the response.

“……”

“Brother Bai, are you being serious?” Are you really going to give such an amazing soulbeast to my father?” After a period of silence, the first to respond was Tianming. He was a pure-hearted child and didn’t understand the underlying implications of Bai Yunfei’s actions. He had only thought that it would be rather cool for his father to have a soulbeast companion.

“Yea, that way, lord Ye should be able to make the breakthrough to become a Soul Ancestor. In the upcoming battle with the Zhao, this should be enough to clinch victory.” Bai Yunfei nodded once before warning, “But it’d be best if you don’t let anyone else know about the Thunderbird. Let it recover its sentience completely and see if there’s any other abnormalities before you reveal it.”

He was not planning to be the one to tell them that this soulbeast was taken from the Beast Taming School.

It was with this that Ye Ting snapped back to awareness. Giving a glance at Ye Quan, he tried to quell his emotions before facing Bai Yunfei with some hesitation. “Lord Bai, do you truly plan to give me this Thunderbird?”

“What? Don’t tell me lord Ye doesn’t want a soulbeast partner?” Bai Yunfei smiled.

“No no, that’s not it…” Ye Ting shook his hands awkwardly. “If you say so then….I offer you my thanks, lord Bai. You have done the house of Ye a great deal of kindness. Even if all of our teeth fall out from old age, not a single member of my house will forget your kind deeds. If there is anything we can offer or help you with, you may only need to ask and we will not refuse it!”

“Lord Ye is far too kind. This Thunderbird still hasn’t regained full clarity, so it’d be best if lord Ye moves closer. Send your soulforce into its body and you should be able to establish a contract with it. But please promise me this, lord Ye, do not mistreat this soulbeast. I only hope that you will not treat it as a slave or tool of war.”

Ye Ting nodded, “That goes without saying. Lord Bai, you may rest assured I will not treat it as such.”

And so Ye Ting prepared to make contact with the Thunderbird and form a contract with it. Jing Mingfeng and Tianming stayed behind to watch the ‘fun’ while Bai Yunfei returned to his own room to rest.

Seated back on his bed, Bai Yunfei blinked once before raising his right hand in front of him. Staring at it hard, he watched as a flash of red light sparked to life on his palm before turning into a small fire that danced across his palmtop.

But the curious thing about this was that hidden within the crimson fire was a slight sliver of purple light.

Looking at the fire on his hand, Bai Yunfei muttered, “And who would have thought that I’d gain something from that….”