Chapter 441: Strange Language

"You want to see these books?"

Hall Master Xie Jiuchen and Elder Wei Yuqing exchanged glances, both completely bewildered.

Ancient beast language sounds impressive, but without specialized transmission, the chances of learning it just by reading books are almost zero. Even if the syllables marked in the books are correct, it would be futile without direct, hands-on instruction.

Most crucially, the method of vocalizing ancient beast language is completely different from the human throat. Without a special method of true qi circulation, speaking it is utterly delusional. Countless predecessors at the Beast Hall had tried, and none succeeded. Yet this guy is asking to read books—could he be so infatuated as to think he can learn this?

"Yes!" Zhang Xuan nodded.

"This..." Hall Master Xie Jiuchen hesitated, his words carrying a hint of advice: "Learning ancient beast language isn't something that happens overnight. Without a teacher, attempting to learn it forcefully, I fear you might end up seriously injured..."

"I'll just take a look. If by any chance I succeed, perhaps I can tame this guy!" Zhang Xuan smiled calmly.

Seeing his insistence, Hall Master Xie Jiuchen frowned, a slight displeasure on his face.

This guy seemed quite intelligent; he cleared the Ten Beast Cages, and his talent and strength were top-notch. So why was his mind so stubborn when he was confused? Was ancient beast language something you could just learn by casually reading books? If that were the case, there wouldn't be so few beast tamers who could speak it. And "if by any chance I succeed"... If it were possible to succeed, would they be in such a dilemma? What a joke!

"The books in the Beast Hall are open for viewing. Elder Wei, please take him there. Also, he cannot continue to challenge the Ten Beast Cages!" Hall Master Xie Jiuchen said, suppressing his displeasure.

"Alright!" Zhang Xuan nodded.

Even if the Beast Hall had many savage beasts, it would probably be difficult to gather enough for him to challenge. Challenging twenty times consecutively was definitely impossible. His persistence just now was a tactic to advance by retreating, to force the other party to offer a better solution.

After staying in front of the Azure Nightmare Beast for a while longer and realizing there was no better method, Zhang Xuan followed Elder Wei Yuqing to the library.

"The books on ancient beast language are quite disorganized; you'll have to find them yourself!" Elder Wei waved his hand upon reaching the entrance.

He shared Hall Master Xie Jiuchen's view: wanting to learn ancient beast language just by reading books... what a pipe dream! If it were that easy, beast tamers who could speak it wouldn't be so valuable.

Seeing him leave with a speechless expression, Zhang Xuan was quite content with the free time and walked inside. The library of the Xuanyuan Kingdom Beast Hall was clearly much larger than that of the Xuanluo Mountain Range. Countless books stood within. Since he was already there, he was too lazy to search them one by one. He swiped his finger again, and began rapidly "reading" them.

"It seems he's still young, accomplished too early, and therefore impatient!" Back in the courtyard, Wei Yuqing shook his head.

"Becoming a two-star beast tamer before twenty, and possessing methods to fight supreme-level savage beasts in their early stages—some arrogance is normal. However, wanting to learn beast language just by casually reading books means he views beast taming too simplistically!" Hall Master Xie Jiuchen said indifferently.

Originally, he had held great hopes for this emerging young man, but... after hearing the method proposed by the other party, his good impression vanished without a trace. Knocking out the Azure Nightmare Beast... what a joke! To tame a savage beast, one needs to understand its habits and study its preferences. Forcibly knocking it out would only cause aversion. This beast was already proud and difficult to tame; if they really did that, the possibility of successful taming in the future would likely become zero.

"Indeed!" Elder Wei Yuqing nodded.

"Let's not talk about him anymore. How's the situation with people challenging the Ten Beast Cages outside?" Xie Jiuchen looked over.

While they were here studying how to tame the Azure Nightmare Beast, the Ten Beast Cages were also busy. Many geniuses visiting the Xuanyuan Kingdom for the first time, seeing someone pass easily, became highly interested and insisted on trying to challenge it.

"I took a look when I came over, and the results... aren't very good!" Elder Wei Yuqing smiled wryly. After seeing Zhang Xuan off to the library, he specifically went to observe and couldn't help but smile bitterly.

Seeing that Beast Tamer Zhang had easily passed the trial by beating up a Gale Wolf, even causing the pack of wolves to worship him, several geniuses who went first also charged forward aggressively. Then... they were thrown out by the wolves, beaten black and blue like pig heads, and two even nearly died from bites.

The most powerful among these geniuses managed to pass the Gale Wolf stage and reached the Tiger-Head Beast. Mimicking Zhang Xuan, he also punched the beast in the stomach, but as a result, his arm was instantly fractured, and he was nearly crushed to death by the Tiger-Head Beast that pinned him down.

In less than half an hour, no fewer than ten geniuses had been defeated, almost all of them failing the first stage and lying on the ground. Even well-known figures like Jiang Nanping, Fang Jin, and Luo Tang attempted it. Some of them were even stronger than Zhang Xuan, yet they also failed to pass the first stage and were injured.

In front of Zhang Xuan, they were as docile as pugs, making it seem like they weren't much. But nobody expected that when facing these other challengers, they would become ferociously violent, as if they wanted to devour people.

"If the Ten Beast Cages were so easy to pass, there wouldn't have been no good news for a thousand years!" Xie Jiuchen shook his head. He knew the difficulty of the Ten Beast Cages very well and didn't underestimate it just because Zhang Xuan passed easily.

"Indeed!" Elder Wei Yuqing nodded, then suddenly remembered something and said, "Oh, right, Beast Tamer Zhang caused too much of a stir by challenging the Ten Beast Cages. I fear... even if we hold our upcoming Beast Taming Competition, it won't have much meaning!"

"Oh?" Xie Jiuchen was startled.

"You mean... everyone will see Beast Tamer Zhang as the benchmark for challenges? Even if the Beast Taming Competition is held later and someone wins the championship, they won't be recognized unless they can complete the Ten Beast Cage challenge?" Xie Jiuchen reacted. If the jade in front is too dazzling, no one will look at the pebbles behind it. Beast Tamer Zhang was clearly that kind of dazzling jade.

Passing all Ten Beast Cages in one go, breaking a thousand-year record—if no one could match that, then no matter who won the Beast Taming Competition later, their achievement would surely be overshadowed and lack any luster.

"That's right!" Wei Yuqing nodded.

"This..." Xie Jiuchen smiled wryly. It wasn't really his oversight; when that guy arrived, he immediately wanted to challenge the Ten Beast Cages, and no one expected him to succeed, let alone so easily!

"How about this: issue an order now stating that... the content of this Beast Taming Competition is to challenge the Ten Beast Cages, and whoever passes will be the champion!" After a moment of hesitation, Xie Jiuchen instructed, then added, "Also, go find out which branch this Beast Tamer Zhang belongs to. If no one else passes... then he is the champion!"

"Okay!" Wei Yuqing nodded.

It could only be this way. Of course, if Zhang Xuan knew that by challenging the Ten Beast Cages for spirit beast blood, he might also win a Beast Taming Competition championship, who knows what he would think. However, he had no time for such thoughts. He was currently frowning deeply, looking helpless.

After a day, he finally collected all the books from the Beast Hall's library into his own. Once inside his library, finding books on ancient beast language became simple. However... only after reading them did he understand why Xie Jiuchen thought it was impossible to succeed.

The predecessors had indeed left behind many books on ancient beast language, and many syllables were marked. Unfortunately... after searching through his library, fewer than ten words were actually correct! How could a language be formed with fewer than ten correct words? Hundreds of books on beast language, yet fewer than ten words were correct... No wonder countless people failed; with such an accuracy rate, it would be a miracle to succeed.

"It seems learning ancient beast language is impossible..." He shook his head, filled with disappointment. He had thought that by doing this, he could learn a new skill and make future beast taming much easier. Now it seemed he had underestimated it too much.

Ancient beast language was created by Master Kong. If it were that easy to learn, it wouldn't have stumped countless beast tamers.

"Hmm? There's also a book about language..." He sighed, just about to leave the library to find a way to persuade Xie Jiuchen and figure out how to knock out the Azure Nightmare Beast, when his eyes suddenly fell on a corner of the room. In that corner lay a thick book, with only the ancient characters for "Language" written on it, and not many other words. Because of its obscure placement, he hadn't noticed it before.

He took two steps forward and casually pulled it out. The book was about ten fingers thick, covered in dust, and its pages were yellowed, appearing extremely ancient and worn, as if it had been stored for countless years without anyone ever taking it out.

"Flaws!" Too lazy to open it, he simply willed it, and an identical copy of the book appeared on his library's shelf.

"Huh? This isn't ancient beast language?" He casually opened it, took a look, and froze in place.

The book was densely filled with pronunciations and introductions of a special language, but it was completely different from the ancient beast language he had seen before. It didn't explicitly state what language it was, nor did his library identify it.

"There are a total of three correct syllables!" He quickly scanned through the book. The ten-finger-thick book detailed thousands of phonetic symbols, but according to his library, only three were correct.

"Correct!" With a thought, the methods for true qi circulation during pronunciation coalesced into a brand new book.

"Let's try these three syllables..." With the correct method, Zhang Xuan took a deep breath, and the true qi within his body circulated according to the method summarized by his library.

As the sound left his mouth, a violent tremor shook his body uncontrollably, and his vision momentarily blurred. "This... what language is this? Why is it so powerful?" Gasping for breath, Zhang Xuan nearly fainted.

Just pronouncing one phonetic symbol almost completely depleted his true qi. Furthermore, he had a feeling that if his Heavenly Dao True Qi hadn't been incredibly pure, he wouldn't have been able to make the sound even with the correct method.

From studying ancient beast language for most of the day, he knew it was difficult to vocalize. However, once the correct true qi circulation method was found, speaking it fluently was still quite simple. But the sound he had just made, just one phonetic symbol, almost killed him. Wasn't that too terrifying?!

"It's said that the more powerful a language, the harder it is to speak, and the higher the demand for true qi purity. Could it be that this phonetic symbol is very powerful?" His eyes lit up. Though strange, he was extremely excited.

From reading books, he knew that the Master Teacher Continent was not inhabited by only humans. Many races coexisted, each with its own language. The more powerful the race, the stronger its language, and the higher the demand for true qi purity. Heavenly Dao True Qi was definitely the peak of the top three grades of true qi. Even so, speaking this was so taxing. What language were these three syllables, to be so powerful?

After half a day of study, he found that the author of this ancient secret manual didn't know what language it was, and couldn't even vocalize it. He then shook his head and gave up.

"Ancient beast language is definitely out of the question..." After struggling for most of the day, he had thought he could learn ancient beast language and return fruitful. Instead, he only learned fewer than ten phonetic symbols, and could only pronounce them without even knowing their meaning. It was quite exasperating.

"I'll go check in a bit to see if I can trick that Azure Nightmare Beast with these few words. If it works, it'll be simple. If not, I'll have to resort to other methods!" He stretched, walked out of the library, and strode towards the Azure Nightmare Beast's courtyard.

Although he hadn't learned many words, having his library allowed him to confirm that these were indeed ancient beast language pronunciations, without any error. At worst, he would go and see if he could trick the beast. If he succeeded, it would mean twenty drops of spirit beast blood were his. If he failed, wasn't there still the option of knocking it out?

"Beast Tamer Zhang!" Not long after arriving at the courtyard, before he even entered, he saw that the previously quiet courtyard was now bustling with people, like a marketplace. Many beast tamers he had seen at the Ten Beast Cages arena had actually come here.

"What's going on?" He walked in, full of questions, and surprisingly saw two familiar figures in the crowd.

"Beast Tamer Zhang!" They also saw him and came to greet him.

"Hall Master Feng, Beast Tamer Wang, why are you here?" Zhang Xuan's face was full of surprise. These two were indeed Hall Master Feng and others from the Xuanluo Mountain Range.

"Why are we here?" Hall Master Feng and Beast Tamer Wang coughed. "The Beast Taming Competition was moved up, and since we couldn't reach you, we came ahead of time!"

"The Beast Taming Competition moved up?" Zhang Xuan blinked. If they hadn't mentioned it, he would have completely forgotten about it.

As soon as he arrived from Tianwu Kingdom, he had rushed into the Ten Beast Cages, then the library, and therefore didn't know about the competition being moved up. Besides, he hadn't explicitly agreed to participate back then, so even if he missed it, it wouldn't be a big deal.

"You don't know?" Seeing his confused expression, both beast tamers were stunned.

"No!" Zhang Xuan shook his head.

"But... you're the champion of this competition!" Both beast tamers scratched their heads. Was he kidding? Just now... Hall Master Xie Jiuchen had already announced that Zhang Xuan was the champion of this Beast Taming Competition? They had even been specifically sought out and congratulated... He had already won the championship, yet he didn't even know when the competition was held... Could he be any more clueless?

"Champion? What champion?" Not only were the two stunned, but Zhang Xuan was also completely bewildered. He didn't even know when the competition was held, so how did he become a champion?

"The content of this Beast Taming Competition was to challenge the Ten Beast Cages, and currently, within the entire Xuanyuan Kingdom, you are the only one who succeeded... Therefore, it was only natural that you became the champion!" Seeing that he truly knew nothing, Hall Master Feng could only explain, speechless.

To be a champion like him was truly speechless. Every time their Xuanluo Mountain Range held a grand competition, they would scout everywhere, hoping to achieve a good ranking, but they had never succeeded... Now, he had won the championship, and didn't even know it himself. What kind of situation was this?

"So that's how it is... Is there a reward for the champion?" Hearing that he could become champion just by challenging the Ten Beast Cages, Zhang Xuan was somewhat speechless, but then his eyes lit up, and he couldn't help but look over. Being a champion or not was irrelevant to him; the most important thing was the reward!

If the reward was twenty or thirty drops of spirit beast blood, then he wouldn't have to go through so much trouble.

"The reward is five spirit stones. I've already collected them for you; please check!" With that, Hall Master Feng took out a slender jade box. Opening it, five spirit stones were neatly arranged inside.

"That's it?" He had thought winning a championship would yield a substantial reward, but only five spirit stones—this Beast Hall was really stingy. However, for him, even a mosquito was meat, so there was no reason to refuse it.

Casually putting the spirit stones into his storage ring, he couldn't help but look around: "What's going on? Why are there so many people here?" When he came yesterday, this place was still protected by a formation, preventing people from entering freely. Why had it changed so much today?

"The Beast Hall captured a Half-Transcendent realm savage beast and wants to tame it, but unfortunately, they haven't found a suitable method. The purpose of holding the Beast Taming Competition early was for this very reason. Now that the competition is over, all the hall masters, elders, and geniuses from every branch have been summoned here to pool their wisdom and see who can come up with a method to tame the Azure Nightmare Beast!" Hall Master Feng explained.

The Beast Taming Competition was held early specifically for this savage beast. Now that the champion was determined, there was no need to continue the competition. Hall Master Xie Jiuchen gathered all the beast tamers who had come to the Beast Hall this time to research together. This led to the grand scene, with people everywhere.

"Oh!" Zhang Xuan understood. It seemed they didn't have much hope for his research into ancient beast language. It was understandable; even with his library as a guide, he only learned a few syllables, and others didn't even know if they were correct or not. It would be strange if they could learn it.

"Has anyone succeeded?" He couldn't help but ask.

"Not yet. A Half-Transcendent realm savage beast is too strong; it's impossible to succeed..." Hall Master Feng sighed and shook his head.

Even a three-star beast tamer like Hall Master Xie Jiuchen was at a loss, so what methods could they have? Many people did offer suggestions, but they were all rejected one by one.

"Look quickly, Genius Wei Youdao is going to try!"

"Wei Youdao? The genius who reached the third stage of the Ten Beast Cages yesterday?"

"That's him..."

As the three were talking, they heard a commotion from the crowd. Zhang Xuan turned to look and saw a young man striding towards the Azure Nightmare Beast in front of the iron cage. In front of the iron cage, Hall Master Xie Jiuchen, Elder Wei Yuqing, and others stood, their expressions not optimistic. It seemed they also knew it would be difficult to succeed and were preparing for the worst.