To be honest, if
Because the sharp, oppressive aura concealed within this place was truly deeply uncomfortable.
Even Jiang Chen felt restless and on edge after lingering here for too long, as though a blade were pressed against his back.
"I think I finally understand why the Yan Family holds this attitude toward Cloud Camel Mountain. Forget about developing it — even just maintaining a normal garrison here would be an exhausting ordeal."
Jiang Chen walked on for a while longer, and the deeper he went, the more his scalp tingled with unease.
Logically, a place so saturated with killing intent should be crawling with malevolent creatures — perhaps even terrifying beings nesting within.
Yet as Jiang Chen made his way through, he hadn't encountered a single living creature.
Not one. Not so much as an ordinary rabbit or squirrel.
Everything here — every plant, every blade of grass — seemed to carry an indescribable quality.
To put it bluntly, it was killing intent.
It wasn't that the plants themselves possessed any lethal killing intent, but rather that every plant, every element of this place, seemed to share one and the same temperament.
This temperament, combined with the terrain and everything around it, had fused into something utterly unique.
Suddenly, Jiang Chen felt something stirring restlessly beside him.
It was the White
Back when
Still, Jiang Chen harbored no worries whatsoever about the white tiger's cultivation progress.
In the ancient era, the cultivation of the Four Great Divine Beast bloodlines had been the most ferocious and unstoppable of all.
He had only picked up this White Tiger of Grand Fortune a handful of years ago, and it had already advanced from a cub to the threshold of the Heavenly Realm.
For the bloodlines of the Four Great Divine Beasts, the Heavenly Realm was merely one stepping stone on their path of cultivation. They were born with silver spoons in their mouths.
Now, the sudden liveliness of the White Tiger of Grand Fortune took Jiang Chen somewhat by surprise.
The white tiger possessed a Transformation Divine Ability and had always been shrunk down to a minuscule size, clinging to Jiang Chen's body.
But now, with a flicker of its dharma body, the White Tiger of Grand Fortune revealed its true form. After so many years of growth, it was no longer the fluffy little cub it had once been.
With its body fully grown, the white tiger now exuded an increasingly regal bearing — powerful, wild, and commanding. The dominating aura of the King of Beasts was becoming more and more pronounced.
"Whitey, you must have been cooped up for ages." Jiang Chen greeted with a smile, speaking in the ancient Beast Language.
"Chen Shao, what is this place? It feels so familiar!" Whitey stretched out in a long, languid yawn, and what it said was nothing short of startling.
"Familiar?" Jiang Chen was utterly bewildered. "Whitey, you're saying this place feels familiar?"
"Yep." Though Whitey's appearance had begun to mature, its actual age was still very, very young, and so its mind remained quite childlike. It hadn't picked up on the unusual note in Jiang Chen's tone.
"Whitey, you really do find this place familiar?" Jiang Chen asked, curiosity piqued.
Whitey struck a dramatically exaggerated pose, its nose twitching with obvious relish as though savoring everything about this place.
"Extremely familiar! The air here, the plants here, everything here! Chen Shao, I've heard that you humans have something called a 'hometown.' Could this place… be my hometown?" Whitey's words left Jiang Chen completely speechless.
His hometown?
A jolt shot through Jiang Chen's heart as a sudden realization struck him.
"Whitey is of the White Tiger of Grand Fortune bloodline. The White Tiger of Grand Fortune belongs to the element of Western Metal and rules over slaughter and war. Cloud Luo Mountain here is drenched in killing intent — no wonder it feels so familiar to Whitey."
With that thought, everything fell into place.
Once a White Tiger of Grand Fortune reached adulthood and awakened all its inherited memories, it became the most lethal and bloodthirsty among the Four Great Divine Beasts.
A mature White Tiger of Grand Fortune radiated killing intent so overpowering it could scare an ordinary person unconscious on the spot.
Understanding this, Jiang Chen slapped his forehead and laughed. "Whitey, what a fortunate coincidence! Who knows — this place really might be your fated treasure ground."
Though Jiang Chen couldn't be certain yet, Whitey's words had given him an important clue. Cloud Luo Mountain might very well be a domain that ruled over slaughter and war.
Usually, such places were either ancient battlefields or home to vast mineral deposits hidden within the mountains — and those deposits would invariably be of a metallic nature aligned with killing.
"Could it be that Cloud Luo Mountain truly possesses mineral veins?" Jiang Chen's heart surged with excitement at the thought.
"Whitey, sense it again — really focus this time."
Whitey nodded with a look of bliss on its face. "Chen Shao, can I wander around a bit?"
Jiang Chen chuckled. "Sure, but don't go too far, and don't run into any human experts. They won't bother asking questions — they'll just grab first and sort things out later."