Chen Guan stood perfectly still, letting those red and white particles seep into his body. Not only was there no fear on his face, but he even looked pleasantly surprised.
This phenomenon after a Secret Spirit dies has only one possible explanation: Secret Spirit Petification.
It's just like a guard dog turning into a Secret Spirit Pet after death—some Secret Spirits will undergo petification when they die, their bodies transforming into particles and merging into the cultivator's body, becoming a pet for the cultivator.
Not all Secret Spirits will be petified after death; only a minority undergo petification, and the chances are unknown—a matter of fate.
A Secret Spirit that has turned into a pet remains the same as it was in life, except it must rely on a cultivator to survive. It no longer has vitality itself and needs to share life force with its host.
The Secret Spirit only chooses the cultivator who killed it to complete petification. This is rooted in a Secret Spirit's belief that strength reigns supreme: whoever can kill it is naturally a stronger existence, and thus someone it acknowledges as powerful.
If a Secret Spirit Pet kills a Secret Spirit, then the petified Secret Spirit will choose to attach to the body of the Pet's master to finish petification.
When the last red and white particle seeped into Chen Guan's body, the corpse of the Evil Adorable Rabbit and the pig-killing saber both disappeared, not even a trace of the blood spattered on the ground remained. Instead, information appeared in Chen Guan's mind.
Bloody Evil Adorable Rabbit (Unique): Level 1 Spirit Pet.
Primordial Energy: 1.
Growth Rate: 1.91.
Lifebound Talent: Bloody Resurgence (Unique).
Secret Technique: Level 1 Blood-sucking Technique (Unique).
Secret Skill: Level 1 Blood-sucking Saber Technique (Unique).
Secret Treasure: Level 1 Bloodsucking Saber (Unique).
"No wonder this Evil Adorable Rabbit was so terrifying—it's actually unique in quality. I've never heard of an Evil Adorable Rabbit of such high quality." Chen Guan was deeply surprised. He'd originally assumed the Evil Adorable Rabbit was just high-level, but in reality it was only level 1, and its overwhelming strength came solely from its extremely rare quality.
And it's even more rare that this Evil Adorable Rabbit's lifebound talent, secret technique, secret skill, and secret treasure are all of unique quality.
Just because a Secret Spirit itself is unique quality doesn't mean all its talents and abilities are unique. In reality, most Secret Spirits have talents and abilities weaker than their own quality; only a small number of exceptional ones have matching quality. Talents and abilities stronger than their own quality do exist, but the chances are even slimmer than winning the lottery.
In fact, many pets don't have any talents, secret techniques, secret skills, or secret treasures at all. Among these, secret treasures are the rarest: the vast majority of Secret Spirits have none, and only a few possess them.
Ordinary Evil Adorable Rabbits don't even have secret skills, let alone secret treasures. Some Evil Adorable Rabbits might have a talent or a secret technique, but both tend to be much weaker than this one's, with truly incomparable quality.
Unique quality means that there may only be a single entity of its kind—the Bloody Evil Adorable Rabbit should be utterly one-of-a-kind.
Quality stands for talent. Growth rate is about potential—the higher the growth rate, the faster a pet levels up, and the greater the improvement from leveling.
The Evil Adorable Rabbit has a growth rate of 1.91, which is already extremely high. If a Spirit Pet's growth rate exceeds 1.5, that's considered very good.
Take the Self-red Chow Chow Warring State, for example—its growth rate is only 1.14. It has no secret treasure, no secret skill, and its secret technique is just the ordinary quality Longevity Skill that it learned from Chen Guan. Its only talent is loyalty, which doesn't help in combat—a bottom-tier Spirit Pet.
Whenever the Evil Adorable Rabbit levels up, its Primordial Energy cap increases by 1.91 points, while the Warring State only increases by 1.14. Other enhancements, like power, speed, constitution, intelligence, and so on, are also improved more—but those hidden attributes can't be shown in data because they're unpredictable and can't be precisely calculated. The Spirit of the Cheerleaders boosts these hidden attributes, namely, potential.
A secret technique is a method for absorbing Primordial Energy and leveling up. For example, the Longevity Skill involves movement and breathing to draw Primordial Energy into the body—this is slow, so leveling up is also slow. At high levels, you need loads of Primordial Energy to advance, so the Longevity Skill becomes feebler and it's hard to get stronger. After all, it's just a common quality secret technique.
The Evil Adorable Rabbit's Blood-sucking Technique, however, can directly absorb Primordial Energy from blood. The higher a Secret Spirit's level, the more Primordial Energy is contained in its blood—far faster than absorbing free Primordial Energy from the world, and with much greater potential.
The Longevity Skill may eventually become useless for raising a cultivator's level, but as long as there's high-level Secret Spirit blood available, the Blood-sucking Technique has almost no limitations.
Fortunately, secret techniques are just methods—human cultivators can master all sorts of secret techniques, while Secret Spirits find it difficult to swap out their lifebound talents and secret techniques.
However, secret techniques impact humans greatly—after an upgrade, the increase in Primordial Energy cap and the enhancement from leveling are equivalent to a Spirit Pet's growth rate.
The higher the quality of the cultivated secret technique, the greater the increase in Primordial Energy cap after leveling. That means Chen Guan really needs a high-quality secret technique now; if he keeps practicing Longevity Skill, reaching greatness will be tough.
Getting secret techniques is actually straightforward—kill a Secret Spirit and there's a chance to inherit its secret technique. All human secret techniques originate from Secret Spirits.
Right now, Chen Guan's priority is surviving, then hunting Secret Spirits to acquire a high-quality secret technique.
Previously, Chen Guan's plan was to find a rarely seen secret technique, level up a bit, then hunt for an even higher quality technique.
This way, he'd take a hit up front, but it's safer—Secret Spirits at a low level are unlikely to have good secret techniques, while hunting high-level Secret Spirits without sufficient strength is dangerous.
But now, with the Evil Adorable Rabbit and the Spirit of the Cheerleaders, everything's changed.
The Warring State, empowered by the Spirit of the Cheerleaders, could go toe to toe with the unique Evil Adorable Rabbit. If the Evil Adorable Rabbit got the same boost, it'd be even more powerful.
First he should level up the Evil Adorable Rabbit; then getting a top-quality secret technique will be a breeze.
Chen Guan felt his future was bright—now all he needed was to grab an unparalleled secret technique. But those things are almost impossible to find; only a select few unparalleled quality Secret Spirits possess them, and even if you track down such a spirit, getting the secret technique to drop is another issue.
He summoned the injured Warring State back home, letting it rest and recover inside his own body, then called forth his newly petified Bloody Evil Adorable Rabbit.
The Evil Adorable Rabbit, with a polar bear's size but the look of a cute anime mascot, stood upright before Chen Guan. Its left paw gripped the pig-killing saber-shaped Bloodsucking Saber—it's a lefty, and looked both bizarre and adorable.
"This look is so eye-catching. If anyone saw it, it'd definitely draw a crowd. If only the Bloodsucking Saber could be hidden," Chen Guan muttered as he sized up the Evil Adorable Rabbit.
It seemed the Evil Adorable Rabbit understood him; with a flick of its paw, the Bloodsucking Saber spun a few times between its claws and then vanished from sight. No one knew where it had hidden it.
"It can even conceal its secret treasure? What an awesome pet!" Chen Guan was overjoyed. The Evil Adorable Rabbit now looked about the same as a rare-quality Evil Adorable Rabbit—just a bit bigger. While still a little attention-grabbing, it wasn't as outrageous as before.