I established the Eternal Immortal Clan by taming beasts.

Within the Azure Mystery Realm.

The canopy of the Misty Heart-Clearing Tea tree in the center of the island in the lake is even more lush than it was twenty years ago, with layers upon layers of branches and leaves, like a giant open umbrella, enveloping the entire cultivation platform in a warm and lush green shade.

Sunlight filters through the gaps between the leaves, casting dappled patterns of light on the ground. These patterns sway gently in the breeze, like flowing golden fragments that slowly move across the bluestone surface and then gradually rearrange themselves.

The air was filled with the unique, refreshing aroma of spiritual tea, mixed with the moisture of the lake and the subtle sweetness of the distant flowers and trees. Every breath carried the spiritual essence that had been refined over twenty years into the lungs.

Lin Che sat under the tree, holding a newly delivered jade slip containing clan affairs in his hand.

The spiritual light on the surface of the jade slip flickered at a steady frequency, and every few breaths a new text would appear, like a scroll of paper being slowly unfurled.

Although he has devoted most of his energy to cultivation over the past twenty years, he would still take time out to meet with Ling Su, Qing Xue and the others.

This clan affairs jade slip is what we receive from them each time.

Although we don't concern ourselves with specific matters, it's still important to know the development of the family; we can't be completely clueless, can we?

However, while he can stay idle, Qingxue and the others cannot.

Before the beast tide, in order to give them enough time to cultivate, Lin Che stopped the work they were originally responsible for and handed over all the clan affairs to Xuan Qi and the others.

More than ten years ago, the three of them broke through to the Golden Core stage, but the Nascent Soul stage was still a long way off. So they took the initiative to continue to help the family.

The Lin family then entrusted them with the task of managing the household affairs.

The Lin family's population is increasing year by year, making management a major issue.

Whose child is about to start school? Whose child needs to have their spiritual root tested? Whose child needs to form a contract with their natal spirit beast? And then there are weddings, funerals...

A series of problems arose, and Xuanqi and the others simply didn't have the energy to deal with them, so these tasks were handed over to Lingsu and the other two.

They are doing a great job now, and the work is being managed very well.

A breeze blew from the lake, passing through the gaps in the tree canopy and brushing the fallen leaves off his shoulders.

The withered leaf spun in the air after leaving his shoulder, landing on the edge of the jade slip on his lap, where he gently brushed it away.

He took another sip of the Misty Retreat Tea. The tea had cooled down a bit, but the refreshing sweetness still lingered on his tongue.

Just as he put down the jade slip and was about to get up, he suddenly heard a series of deliberately heavy footsteps beside him.

The footsteps were deliberately placed on the bluestone ground, each step slightly heavier than normal, as if afraid he wouldn't hear them.

Without turning around, Lin Che smiled slightly: "You woke up at just the right time."

"That's right, I calculated the exact time." A clear female voice came from behind, carrying a hint of self-righteous pride.

Lin Che then turned around.

The newcomer was not tall, about up to Lin Che's shoulder. She wore a long, crimson-gold dress with intricate flame patterns embroidered on the hem. As she moved, the patterns seemed to flow slightly, lighting up from the hem of the dress towards her waist, and then slowly fading away when she came to a stop.

Her hair was tied up in a bun with a red feather hairpin, revealing her smooth forehead, and her eyes and brows exuded a liveliness and flamboyance that was beyond her years.

The face looked no more than seventeen or eighteen years old, with round cheeks that still retained some childishness.

But deep within those crimson-gold pupils, flames seemed to flicker silently, each flash slightly heating the surrounding air and creating an almost imperceptible temperature gradient within a few steps away from her.

The Heavenly Sacred Sparrow.

Or rather, sparrow.

Eight years ago, the Burning Heaven Sacred Sparrow broke through to the Nascent Soul stage, and the following year it completed its transformation in the secret realm.

That day, the sky above the island in the middle of the lake was filled with a crimson-gold glow that lasted for almost the time it takes to burn an incense stick, dyeing the entire secret realm in warm hues, and even the sky reflected in the lake water turned into a flowing golden-red.

As the afterglow faded, the little fellow that had once stood on the branch of the Misty Hidden Heart Tea Tree had transformed into the figure standing before Lin Che.

Lin Che looked at her, his gaze filled with the emotion of watching his own child grow up, and also with the relaxed feeling of reuniting with an old friend: "After all these years in human form, are you still unsteady on your feet? Why did you make such a commotion?"

"That's called presence." The Burning Heaven Sacred Sparrow walked confidently to the opposite side of the stone table and sat down. Its movements were swift and its crimson-gold dress spread out as it sat down, like a flower that had closed and then bloomed again.

She first glanced down at the cold teacup, wrinkled her nose, then skillfully took out a jade teapot from the spirit ring on her little finger and poured herself a steaming cup of spiritual tea. "I'm a Nascent Soul cultivator, after all. What kind of person would I be if I went out without making a sound?"

The tea is poured into the cup, its color a clear blue-green, its aroma wafting through the air, a refreshing fragrance that blends seamlessly with the unique scent of the Misty Heart Tea wafting from the tree canopy.

"Your tea-brewing skills are getting better and better." Lin Che glanced at the tea she poured out. From the color to the aroma, it was clear that she had a very good grasp of the brewing time. The heat, water temperature, and the degree to which the tea leaves unfurled were all just right.

"Of course, don't you know who I am?" She picked up her teacup, took a small sip, and her eyes showed a hint of unconcealed smugness. Her reddish-gold pupils narrowed slightly in the steam of the tea.

She tilted her head slightly as she spoke, a gesture that made Lin Che chuckle.

Because the angle of her head tilt is exactly the same as the angle of her head tilt when she was squatting on a branch preening her feathers back then.

The Heavenly Sacred Sparrow immediately caught the hint of a smile and glared at him somewhat unhappily: "Tsk, what are you laughing at, you wretched fellow!"

As he said this, he habitually tilted his head, and by the time he realized it, it was too late. The expression of the Burning Heaven Sacred Sparrow immediately froze.

Lin Che couldn't help but laugh again.

After laughing, his gaze fell on her, scrutinizing her with a serious look.

Her bloodline has now been upgraded, breaking through to the fifth-tier top grade.

This was unimaginable before, as the spiritual item required for Que'er to break through the upper limit of her bloodline was of too high a grade, and there was no way to do so.

But things are different now.

After opening up trade routes on the eastern front and gaining control of the developed areas, the Lin family finally understood why the Fang family had been so generous back then.

Because that amount of military spending is just a drop in the ocean for them.

The clan affairs jade slip just now contained the latest income statistics: this year's total income is approximately 1.06 million spirit stones.

The largest portion of the income comes from the spirit stone mine.

Within this 6,000-mile-long exploration area, the Lin family has identified 27 spirit stone veins, classified into three grades: low-grade, medium-grade, and high-grade. There is also an extremely rare top-grade associated vein, which is being mined in the ordinary manner. This year, the family has earned approximately 56 million.

The second item is commercial tax. In order to promote trade, the Lin family controls commercial tax at around three percent, which is expected to contribute 4500 million spirit stones this year.

Since the war has not yet started and there have been no large-scale rewards, most of the spiritual fields and spiritual veins are still in the hands of the Lin family. The tax revenue from this area is not high, and with other miscellaneous items, it is about 500 million per year.

Then there's the Aoki Merchant Guild, which earns about 900 million spirit stones every year due to its stockpiling and acquisition of goods.

This is just for this year. Including the surplus from the previous twenty years, the Lin family's current assets in spirit stones alone exceed one billion.

The materials needed for a mere Burning Heaven Sacred Sparrow's bloodline breakthrough are nothing to them.

Lin Che's gaze drifted to the distant lake surface, where a huge, dark golden figure could be vaguely seen swimming slowly at the bottom of the lake, occasionally stirring up a huge splash of water that reflected a brief golden halo in the sunlight, like churned liquid metal.

That big guy was Yazi.

Because the secret realm has the power to accelerate progress, and he has hardly fought in recent years, he has cultivated for about forty years since breaking through to the Golden Core stage, which translates to eighty years in the secret realm. He broke through to the Nascent Soul stage many years ago.

Although he has also transformed into human form, he still prefers this form and usually maintains the appearance of a spirit beast. Of course, it's also possible that his wife hasn't transformed into human form yet.

Lin Che continued to look towards the sky above the secret realm.

The Azure Profound Realm Spirit hovered in the void above the dome, its silvery-white radiance like threads formed from moonlight, spreading, contracting, and spreading outwards at a fixed frequency.

Its atmosphere is completely different from what it was twenty years ago.

The power originating from the fifth-tier secret realm was now being released from its body in a peaceful and stable pulse, like a breathing heart, each beat pushing the spiritual energy concentration of the entire secret realm up an inch.

The process of replicating the mount cultivation secret realm's fifth-tier spiritual vein twenty years ago not only allowed the total amount of spiritual energy in the Azure Profound Secret Realm to achieve a qualitative leap, but also enabled it to break through to the Nascent Soul stage.

But that wasn't all. During the process of replicating the insights, the Azure Profound Realm Spirit's own bloodline actually broke through from the fourth to the fifth rank.

This made Lin Che sigh again. Kong Yin Sang truly lived up to its reputation as a divine tree. He never expected that the Qingxuan Realm Spirit, which resided in Kong Yin Sang, would gain such heaven-defying abilities.

Now, Lin Che's only two natal spirit beasts are the Mountain-Bearing Dragon Turtle and the Azure-Scaled Flood Dragon, both of which are still hovering around the Golden Core Perfection stage.

Setting down his teacup, Lin Che's gaze fell upon the reflections of the trees on the lake's surface: "How are the spirit beast populations in the secret realm developing?"

The Burning Heaven Sacred Sparrow was extremely familiar with this secret realm.

She has lived in the secret realm longer than Lin Che, spending most of her time traveling between different areas, or rather, inspecting her own territory.

After all, Lin Che's men aren't hers, so it's necessary to understand the strength of her subordinates.

She started counting on her fingers, her tone carrying a sense of "I know this stuff well":

"Let's talk about those top-grade bloodlines that you're most concerned about first. After breeding, the population of the Mount Tai Dragon Turtle has exceeded three thousand. Among them, there are more than twenty Golden Core stage cultivators, about two thousand Foundation Establishment stage cultivators, and the rest are still in the Qi Refining stage. Three of them have reached the Golden Core Perfection stage and have begun preparations for breaking through."

She picked up her teacup, took another sip to moisten her throat, and continued, "There are more Azure Scaled Flood Dragons than Old Tortoises, and their population has exceeded five thousand. There are about thirty Golden Core stage cultivators, with the majority at the Foundation Establishment stage, and five reaching the peak of the Golden Core stage. The number of Golden Lion Beasts is growing even faster because their juvenile period is much shorter than that of Dragon Tortoises and Flood Dragons. There are now about eight thousand of them, with more than forty at the Golden Core stage, including eight at the peak of the third rank."

She paused, as if recalling something, the teacup turning slightly between her fingers: "Then there are the Crimson Scaled Dragon Carp—their living environment is special, they have always bred in volcanic areas, and have become a self-contained system, with a population of more than 5,000. Most of them are at the Foundation Establishment stage, and there are more than 30 at the Golden Core stage. Among them, only the new clan leader is about to break through to the Nascent Soul stage."

"The population of Qingpu Mingchan Toads is relatively small, since most of them migrated to Qingze back then. There are currently about two thousand of them, but not many are at the Golden Core stage, probably only eighteen. However, the little clan leader you chose back then is quite promising, and he is about to break through to the Nascent Soul stage."

"As for the Sky-Gazing Chant and the Prison-Suppressing Black Tiger, their numbers have not yet reached a thousand. After all, their population base is too small. It is already quite an effort that they have been able to reproduce to this extent."

She finished speaking in one breath, picked up her teacup, took a sip, and then put it down, as if waiting for Lin Che's evaluation.

Lin Che listened quietly, his gaze slowly moving across the lake, mentally organizing the numbers one by one.

After Qingze was established, he moved all the lower-bloodline groups there and turned them into family spirit beasts, leaving only the top-quality bloodlines in the secret realm to continue to be cultivated.

Now it can be said that the initial results are promising.

These are all spirit beasts with top-grade bloodlines. They can easily take on ten opponents at once, making them a trump card that can turn the tide of battle.

"How are those edible spirit beasts doing?"

"Edible spirit beasts?" She tilted her head, raising an eyebrow slightly, as if she had just remembered that such a type of creature existed. "You mean those Golden Spike Spirit Chickens, Cloud Dream Spirit Ducks, Bright Moon Jade Rabbits, and Earth Mother Spirit Pigs? Yes, they are all trying their best to survive."

She obviously didn't pay much attention, after all, who cares whether their food looks good or not?

Having received this answer, Lin Che smiled and didn't ask any more questions.

The Lin family no longer needs him to cultivate new varieties.

As a family specializing in beast taming, at least most of the clan members, if not every one of them, understand the methods of raising spirit beasts.

Every year, the Lin family breeds new varieties of spirit beasts, including both combat and edible types.

He no longer needs to painstakingly upgrade the bloodline of each animal and monitor their breeding; these are now matters for Xin Yao and the others to worry about.

As for the carnivorous spirit beast species within the secret realm... Lin Che upgrades a batch of their species every year and creates an environment that promotes bloodline enhancement for them.

Survival of the fittest, whether they can break through the shackles of bloodline depends on their fate.

After finishing his last cup of tea, Lin Che stood up, his robes fluttering slightly as he moved, gently lifting the jade slip on the table that he had already finished reading. "Alright, you can continue your cultivation. I'm going out to take a look; there seems to be some good news lately..."