“I told you to shut up!”

Ren Bo activated the array with a sneer, electrocuting the beast sealed inside. The squeals of pain it let out was soothing to his soul, and he wasn’t afraid to show it as he gave it a toothy grin.

He had no idea what this spirit beast was called, but it had to be one of the ugliest things he had seen. Then again, it wasn’t like he had seen many live spirit beasts before, with most being rendered into ingredients for alchemy.

That was the main reason he bothered to keep the thing alive. It certainly wasn’t because he wanted to keep it as a pet.

Ren Bo shuddered in disgust at that image. His elegant self with his beautiful concubines surrounding him, but having this ugly beast ruining the atmosphere in the background. It was a hideous thing with red fur, a yellow scaled underbelly, and little black marks that resembled immature horns pocked on its body.

He sneered again before increasing the pain the array would inflict on the beast in anger at its audacity to ruin such a beautiful thought by existing.

“That’s right, scream!” Ren Bo snarled before the roars of the beast suddenly stopped. It had fainted. Again.

He rolled his eyes and retook his seat, the chair being one of the few things that survived the trip through the vortex. It was hard to keep himself in check when he remembered how much wealth he had lost when his storage pouch failed to survive the vortex.

Elder Zhiqing often repeated his warnings of trusting his storage pouch too much, of how it was too unstable to hold anything of actual value, but Ren Bo had always dismissed that. He had bought his storage pouch from the best maker in the Tianxia Empire. None of the pouches the maker had created failed within ten years.

Of course, Ren Bo assumed that the maker didn’t think someone with a storage pouch would need protection against dimensional travel. Such travel was nearly unheard of for Qi Gathering cultivators, which was understandable.

Unfortunately, he was brought into one of the few that allowed cultivators of his level.

He recognized this secret realm. Or, at least, he could match it with the rumors he had heard. Princess Jin's confidence as she entered the vortex was another massive clue that helped him identify this place.

It was one of the Shards the Imperial family used to train their elites.

Ren Bo had been dropped in the middle of some ruins, and he had no intention of wandering out of it. He wouldn’t gamble his life hoping that this was one of the few Shards that a Qi Gathering Realm cultivator like him could survive. And even if that was the case, he was not a fighter.

However, since he was not a fighter, the sect gave him plenty of defensive items for protection. Unfortunately, the vortex destroyed most of those, leaving him with the minimal things he always had on his person.

That was why he had his formerly pristine robes in tatters, with them barely protecting his modesty while scars marred his exposed skin. Many pests had bothered him right from the start. Still, he couldn’t afford the distraction of taking a Vitality Restoration Pill. He would have gotten devoured by some low-level spirit beast as he tried to heal himself.

The need for constant awareness had changed a few days ago when this big dumb beast had wandered in. Ren Bo had almost died at the hands of this stupid thing, giving him a special hatred for it. He had never come so close to death before, and he intended to make it regret living for the rest of its short life until it was processed into ingredients.

His fingers twitched. The thought of how it almost split him in half made him want to torture the beast even while unconscious. But that might be going too far. Killing it would be counterproductive.

The pests that frequently attacked him from the start had all but disappeared once Ren Bo captured this enormous beast. He was still able to see them in the distance at the edge of the ruins, right before the tree line, but they never came closer with the captured beast as a deterrent.

It was convenient, though he didn’t have to like it. Ren Bo sneered at the unconscious beast again as he traced the long scar across his chest. Such signs of struggle might be attractive to women in sects that focused on combat, but the Jade Healing Sect was very much the opposite. Alchemists from his sect had perfect bodies, and it would take help from an Elder to erase these scars.

Unless a higher-up in the sect took pity on him, they would not be healed. And that was unlikely since he was already in an unfavorable position. He shuddered as the image of Elder Yu came to the front of his mind.

Ren Bo was many things, but unaware he was not. He knew that he had a problem around beautiful women. He knew he was more proficient in pushing them away than attracting them. However, just like the negatives of Goddess Li Xinyue’s constitution, he had little control over his own.

While Li Xinyue had mortals often making fools of themselves and frequently getting killed by going too far, Ren Bo had the same problem with women stronger than him. It had never been so severe to the point of salivating after every beautiful cultivator he had seen, but the presence of Brother Liang changed that.

He liked Wei Liang, he really did, but something about him caused Ren Bo to lose his inhibitions the longer they spent time together. The most disastrous was when he spoke with far too much familiarity to Elder Yu.

Ren Bo still cowered in fear when he thought of his actions with the terrifying Elder. If he had spoken to any other Nascent Soul Realm cultivator in such a way, even if it was within his own clan, there was little doubt all that would be left of him was a smear on the ground.

Elder Yu seemed to understand his predicament when she pulled him aside for a ‘talk,’ but he wasn’t naive to what was demanded of him. It wasn’t told directly, but Ren Bo was to be the keeper of Wei Liang.

He couldn’t understand the logic behind that decision. A sentinel would have been a better choice unless this was some sort of mutual training Elder Yu had planned.

Wei Liang seemed a little dense to him. A typical meathead with little knowledge of what made alchemy special. While the sentinels of the Jade Healing Sect weren’t expected to be skilled in alchemy, they were supposed to know the basics. He could easily teach that, and the future sentinel's strange effect on him was a bonus.

Ren Bo would gain control over his loss of inhibition, and Wei Liang would become more competent.

Too bad Wei Liang was probably dead by now. Unless Princess Jin was alive and somehow saved him, which was a possibility.

Ren Bo couldn’t stop the scowl from forming on his face. Wei Liang was generally likable, but one thing that was grating on his nerves was the future sentinel’s ability to surround himself with Goddess-level cultivators.

“He’s probably dead,” Ren Bo said out loud, reminding himself Wei Liang’s annoying ability was the least of his concerns. He didn’t know what punishment awaited him if he survived the Shard.

Even if it was out of Ren Bo’s control, having the person he was supposed to protect die almost immediately after being assigned was not a good look. He was confident it wouldn’t be too severe since he was a talent that the sect was nurturing, but so was Wei Liang, who was the only prospective sentinel in the entire sect.

Ren Bo’s worries were halted when the world started to shake. Violently.

The chair he was sitting in toppled over, but right before it did, he jumped out of it. The unconscious beast blinked awake as it let out soft growls of confusion at what was happening, but Ren Bo was focused on the faint roars heard in the distance.

He couldn’t see what was making that sound, but he could tell it was almost impossibly far away. He was glad it wasn’t near him. His instincts told him that it would mean death.

“Oh, will you shut up!” Ren Bo looked away from the horizon to the struggling beast when it started to growl loudly. He happily activated the array to punish it. Strangely, it continued to fight and became more frantic as it glanced up.

He followed the beast’s gaze and smiled.

A vortex was forming above him. It was time to go home.