Chapter 404 – Instinct, temptations, self discipline

Fire Palace.

Facing the treasure in the Fire Palace, the enormous ‘Earth Fire Magic Sphere’ that was so big that ordinary men wouldn’t be able to wrap their arms around it, the Spirit of Earth Fire’s first instinct was to absorb the Fire Ability inside.

It was due to the presence of the Earth Fire Magic Sphere that two King-ranked Guardians could be born in the Fire Palace.

It was also the reason why there were so many fire monsters here, and why the Fire Demons born here were much stronger.

All these stemmed from the powers of the Earth Fire Magic Sphere. If the Spirit of Earth Fire could absorb all of its Fire Ability, she could level up by a whole new rank, or even higher. The Spirit of Earth Fire that lacked intelligence and acted solely out of instinct was facing a challenge. This challenge was secretly put in place by Yue Yang, who discovered the treasures in the Fire Palace but did not keep them like he would normally. Yue Yang left the Fire Palace even before the battle ended as if he had never seen the treasures… After the battle ended, Hui Tai Lang devoured the Magic Crystal of the Purgatory Flame King before the Spirit of Earth Fire could, leaving her with very little Fire Ability to absorb. Thus, this caused her to feel disadvantaged with her limited intelligence.

Hence, right now, when she found the treasure of the Fire Palace – Earth Fire Magic Sphere, her instinct was to devour it immediately.

But Hui Tai Lang wouldn’t do so.

It knew that absorbing treasures recklessly without the permission of its master was a taboo, and that its master hated it the most.

Yue Yang had allowed Hui Tai Lang to compete with the Spirit of Earth Fire for the Magic Crystals of the Purgatory Flame King as a reward of the battle. The rule was simple, each of them would absorb the strength of one of the two King-ranked opponents they were facing together!

However, with regards to treasures, Hui Tai Lang would seek for the permission of its master before it devour those treasures, even if it was something that could help it level up… Otherwise, Yue Yang would definitely be angry! Hui Tai Lang was more intelligent and had higher self-discipline, hence it tried to communicate with the Spirit of Earth Fire who was absorbing the Fire Ability, in various animal languages like wolf howling, cat meowing, dog barking and dragon roaring.

“…” The Spirit of Earth Fire could neither speak, nor could she understand what Hui Tai Lang was talking about.

But she was able to comprehend the meaning behind Hui Tai Lang’s words vaguely.

Hui Tai Lang was trying to say that the Earth Fire Magic Sphere cannot be absorbed!

She couldn’t understand why because she did not have sufficient intelligence for that. All she could do was to succumb to her inherent instinct because to her, the Earth Fire Magic Sphere was like sweet candies to a child.

This was Yue Yang’s challenge to her.

A challenge to test her on her intelligence and self discipline.

Human possessed both IQ and EQ. IQ determined whether a person is smart or not, the higher the better; EQ determined a person’s fate and career path, because the most difficult thing about it was self discipline. If one had low EQ with little self discipline, then he might be led wayward if he had a high IQ. For example, some intelligent people who were academically sound would commit suicide after encountering a failed relationship; some others holding high positions made regrettable decisions due to the temptations of power and money, and in the end, they became lost and sunk even deeper.

All these were results of low EQ and little self discipline .

Even if one had high IQ and was an all-rounder, with low self discipline, he wouldn’t be able to stand the test of time.

It could be said that the greatest difference between man and animal was the superiority in terms of IQ and EQ. More often than not, IQ and EQ were interconnected. Those with high EQ would have high IQ most of the time, and this kind of people would be knowledgeable with sound moral principles. When facing problems, they exercise strong self discipline and won’t succumb to temptations easily; But on the other hand, having a high IQ won’t guarantee a high EQ.

Animals possessed nearly zero EQ, apart from those that interacted with men such as the loyal guard dogs, the war horses that fought battles with their masters and trained falcons… These animals would grow out of their inherent ability and achieve things that no other animals can due to the establishment of long term relationship. For example, not hurting their master even when they are hungry, not abandoning their master in dangerous situations, and fighting off opponents with their masters even if they were afraid.

Because of EQ, they were able to forge a closer bond with their master and could become a good assistant for their master.

The Holy Beasts of the Soaring Dragon Continent’s goal in evolving to become more human-like (personification) wasn’t to attain a human form, but rather, they aimed to become a complex living form like the human beings, and become wiser, more self-disciplined and more capable to take in knowledge.

(Shiro: Will henceforth call the term 化人 – Personification (evolving to become more human-like))

Human beings possessed unique virtues and this is the result of self discipline acting as the invisible hand, because after all virtues are extreme forms of self discipline.

Without virtues, one would solely act according to their instinct and would possess little self discipline. These people would have low EQ and they would act differently from the common men.

A phrase that was used frequently, ‘worse than a beast’, would be an apt description of these people.

Animals don’t possess virtues. They are not self disciplined, and the things that they do throughout their whole lives would be purely out of instinct with very few other exceptions.

This was more directly exemplified in the Soaring Dragon Continent and the Tong Tian Tower.

If a beast wished to evolve to become a Holy Beast, then one important thing was that it had to approach human beings.

They had to obtain intellectual capacity, the ability to differentiate right from wrong and possess EQ and self discipline… Only with all these as basis would the Beasts then be able to continue to learn and develop sensitivity, replacing their skills with instinct, replacing their beastly character with virtues and replacing confusion with organised thoughts. And if they could go on further, they would become like human, where they would be able to learn higher skills and be able to comprehend things better, for example, contracting Beasts or Grimoires, and then proceed to lifelong learning.

Yue Yang deliberately left the tempting Earth Fire Magic Sphere as a test and a challenge.

He didn’t care about the treasure, but cared more about the improvement of the Spirit of Earth Fire.

In the past, the Spirit of Earth Fire would definitely not be able to resist her instinct and would absorb the treasure completely.

But after her evolution from the Spirit of Flame and Smoke to the Spirit of Earth Fire, she had developed sensitivity, although very faintly, Yue Yang felt that it was still worth a try. Through rigorous trainings, Beasts would be able to expand their sensitivity, just like how Yue Yang trained Hui Tai Lang in the past. He had guided Hui Tai Lang to slowly to develop self discipline and change it’s instinct with determination … Yue Yang succeeded as Hui Tai Lang became very self disciplined and had rapidly developed intellectual ability. Although it was not yet as smart as human beings, it’s self discipline had surpassed many men and Holy Beasts already. Therefore it was able to successfully contract a Grimoire with Yue Yang’s help.

Bloody Queen Red and Golden Crown Thorny Flower Queen Duo Duo were smarter than Hui Tai Lang, undeniably. They were also more similar to human beings. But they were only Holy Beasts now and not yet Divine Beasts.

There could be a lot of reasons for that, but it wouldn’t be due to Yue Yang not contracting them with Grimoire as of now.

More importantly, it was because their self discipline wasn’t near perfect yet… Of course Hui Tai Lang wasn’t perfectly self disciplined too as it would turn into a glutton and lazybum sometimes, but it would prioritise what its master wanted it to do and act accordingly. This was why Yue Yang could make it a Divine Beast so fast.

To put it more directly, it had greater affinity with Yue Yang and they think alone the same line, so Yue Yang could make a greater impact on it!

This was Hui Tai Lang’s strength!

Similar to Hui Tai Lang was the Barbarian Cow Shadow Ah Man, but her intellectual capacity was far behind Hui Tai Lang who was smart beyond words.

The Spirit of Earth Fire stopped absorbing the treasure and looked at Hui Tai Lang…

“Awoooo! “ Hui Tai Lang wanted to tell her very much that she had to present the treasure to their master. She could only absorb it if Yue Yang was pleased and gave the treasure to her, otherwise Yue Yang would be angry. What she was doing was very foolish. Hui Tai Lang talked for a long time, but the Spirit of Earth Fire couldn’t understand as her intelligence was still not there yet.

“…” The Spirit of Earth Fire now was behaving like a child who had seen candies. Without the supervision of adults, how would she not eat the candies?

And this was Yue Yang’s challenge to her.

If the Spirit of Earth Fire could really control herself, even if she just tried to, that would be considered an improvement.

If she did not realise that her action is wrong at all, then she would be just following her instinct and her IQ and EQ wouldn’t improve.

The Wisdom Fruit had the ability to make a Beast more sensitive and more intelligent for sure.

However, why did some Beasts, who ate hundreds of Wisdom Fruits and possessed high IQs and skills, unable to level up to become a Holy Beast? The reason behind that was simple, these Beasts only had high IQs but weren’t self disciplined. They always succumbed to their instincts, hence they would remain as perpetual wild animals that would never level up to become living form of higher status.

“Woof! “ On seeing that the Spirit of Earth Fire continued to lie on the Earth Fire Magic Sphere to absorb it, Hui Tai Lang exclaimed in disappointment.

Hui Tai Lang had thought of attacking and snatching the Earth Fire Magic Sphere away from her to prevent her from doing so.

But it’s high EQ stopped it from doing so.

It slowly morphed into a deep sense of disappointment, a complex feeling that only human beings and a few other living form of high status would feel. Of course, the self discipline that stopped it from attacking was an excellent sign of growth. Hui Tai Lang improved unknowingly, not in terms of power, but in terms of intellectual capacity.

It wasn’t shown on the surface but Hui Tai Lang was actually closer to becoming more human-like.

Through many instances of such improvements, Hui Tai Lang would become smarter and stronger…

The Spirit of Earth Fire turned to look again, she saw that Hui Tai Lang was wearing a grievous expression looking unhappy, and it made her confused.

It was especially confused when she saw that Hui Tai Lang ignored her and left slowly, causing her to experience a weird feeling due to her fledgling intelligence. It was unknown why, maybe it was out of instinct or maybe it was due to her intelligence, but she cupped the Earth Fire Magic Sphere in her hands like a precious treasure and chased after Hui Tai Lang like a little kid who wanted to share candies with her fellow friend. Although she wanted to eat most of it, she was still willing to share.

“ Meow~” Hui Tai Lang shook its head, indicating that it doesn’t need it and still proceeded to leave.

“?” The Spirit of Earth Fire was very puzzled, she was unsure why someone would reject such a good stuff.

“Woof woof woof, awoooo!“ Hui Tai Lang wanted to tell her very much that she had to give it to their master, but when it saw her laying on the Earth Fire Magic Sphere to absorb it, Hui Tai Lang knew that doing that would just be a waste of it’s effort. She is an idiot… Hui Tai Lang left disappointedly as it felt that the Barbarian Cow who knew how to fight for treasures with him was smarter than this idiot.

The Spirit of Earth Fire who was absorbing Fire Ability uncontrollably turned her head to look at Hui Tai Lang.

Her comrade’s actions made her very puzzled, why did her Hui Tai Lang leave? Why didn’t Hui Tai Lang want to share the treasure with her, she couldn’t understand why!

Out of unknown intentions, the Spirit of Earth Fire decided to follow Hui Tai Lang, of course she wasn’t willing to relinquish the Earth Fire Magic Sphere, so hugging it, she followed behind Hui Tai Lang, absorbing the Earth Fire Magic Sphere at the same time for the entire journey…

When Hui Tai Lang saw a teleportation gate, it hurriedly brought her to see Yue Yang immediately.

Although she was very foolish, her stupidity wasn’t yet incurable, maybe Yue Yang would have some ways.

And so the two Beast embarked on a journey to look for their master. What they didn’t know was that this was the outcome Yue Yang hoped for the most. This kind of training would be the best kind for their future evolution. Due to a single change that happened in this place, their lives would come to a turning point.

Their beasts’ instincts would take a turn here and slant towards being more rational.

Which was what only human beings would possess.

Once a Beast possessed this rationality, it wouldn’t be far from becoming a Holy Beast; similarly, if a man lost his rationality, he would then become a beast!