"Split it evenly with you all?" The moment those words left his mouth, the dark expression on Ji Yin's face twitched slightly, as though the suggestion held some appeal.
For Ji Yin, so long as he secured Han Li's share — the nominal disciple's portion — no matter how the treasures were divided, his cut would never be too small.
But before Ji Yin could weigh whether the idea was even feasible, Man Hu who stood at the very front threw his head back and let out a boisterous, unrestrained laugh.
"Split the Void Sky Cauldron evenly? Wan Tianming, you certainly dream big! If you want to snatch food from my mouth, let's first see whether your claws are tough enough!"
The words had barely left his lips when Man Hu gave a sharp whistle without another thought. The giant leopard that had been lying prostrate before him suddenly surged to its feet, letting out a low growl. The third beast-eye on its forehead snapped wide open and shot a beam of earthen-yellow light straight at Wan Tianming across from him.
"You beast, you're courting death!" Wan Tianming roared in fury.
He hadn't expected Man Hu to dismiss his proposal so completely, striking the instant the mood shifted. After all, no matter how you looked at it, his side had the Cold Jiao and the Turtle of Separation backing them up — they held a clear edge in strength.
Caught slightly off guard, Wan Tianming hastily released a streak of purple light to intercept the yellow beam head-on.
The instant the purple light and the yellow beam collided, the yellow radiance exploded outward.
Then came a sharp metallic clang. The purple light vanished without a trace, and from midair something white plummeted downward. Before anyone could get a clear look at it, the object smashed to pieces on the ground.
Only then did the others focus their gaze and see — it was nothing more than an ordinary broken stone. Most of the onlookers froze, momentarily baffled.
But the moment Wan Tianming saw this, his expression shifted several times in rapid succession. The sharp light in his eyes contracted, and he said with undisguised disbelief: "Aberration Art — your three-eyed leopard is a mutant spirit beast!"
The moment the words "mutant spirit beast" echoed through the air, both the righteous and demonic factions present betrayed looks of shock.
Mutant spirit beasts sounded remarkably similar to Ancient Strain beasts at first hearing, but in reality the two were worlds apart.
"Ancient Strain" referred to certain rare spirit beasts from the primordial era that, over the passage of countless ages and for any number of reasons, had altered their habits and appearance, eventually forming a new lineage that retained certain characteristics of the ancient beasts yet was entirely distinct from them.
Such spirit beasts were exceedingly rare, and their numbers were never great, making them incredibly difficult to find.
Mutant spirit beasts, however, were something else entirely. Every single one was a unique existence.
They were spirit beasts that, during some advancement or evolution, underwent an unpredictable and unforeseeable mutation due to causes no one could pinpoint, fundamentally transforming their abilities.
Whether such a mutation proved beneficial or detrimental varied wildly, but among them, certain post-mutation abilities were utterly unique and devastatingly powerful — capable of feats that no ordinary magical art could replicate.
The ability to transmute most magical instruments and treasures into stone was precisely one such power, and among the more famous ones at that.
This ability was so formidable that a single Jie Dan stage cultivator had once used his mutant spirit beast's power to annihilate three or four cultivators of equal rank in one overwhelming sweep, shaking the entire Chaotic Star Sea.
From that point on, the cultivation world took to calling these bizarre abilities of mutant spirit beasts "Aberration Arts," to distinguish them from ordinary magical techniques.
Man Hu's three-eyed leopard had originally been capable only of launching fire-attributed attacks from its third eye. But what it had just fired was a beam that turned Wan Tianming's unidentified magical instrument or treasure into stone — something that could only have occurred after the beast had undergone a mutation.
This revelation stunned everyone present.
A mutant spirit beast's appearance was a once-in-ten-thousand event, and it occurred only among spirit beasts of the fourth tier or higher.
Since the cultivation world had first learned of spirit beast mutations, only around a dozen relatively famous mutant spirit beasts had ever been documented in the entire Chaotic Star Sea. And of those, only a small fraction possessed abilities that were genuinely useful.
This made mutant spirit beasts all the more precious.
The last mutant spirit beast to appear had been over a thousand years ago in the Chaotic Star Sea. That meant practically no cultivator who raised spirit beasts harbored any real hope — let alone delusions — that their beast might mutate upon advancement.
Now, with both the demonic and righteous factions staring at this three-eyed leopard, the expressions on their faces grew varied indeed!
Only now did Wan Tianming finally understand why Man Hu had rejected his proposal to split the treasure without so much as a second thought — this was his trump card.
That mutated three-eyed leopard alone might very well be enough to offset the combined strength of his Cold Jiao and Turtle of Separation.
Realizing this, Wan Tianming's expression grew solemn. He raised his head and looked toward Ji Yin and the elder in Confucian robes.
The two of them wore looks of surprise and elation on their faces — clearly, they had already abandoned any notion of splitting the Void Sky Cauldron with Wan Tianming's group.