Chapter 435: Tianpeng Bird

What appeared before everyone was a huge stone platform. Standing on it was a giant bird, the very reason why Lin Dong and the others were utterly amazed.
Standing about twenty-seven to twenty-eight meters tall, its feathers were golden yellow, exuding an overwhelming sense of pressure, as if it were an emperor sitting in meditation, proud and majestic.
This wasn’t just a bird—it was a colossal one.
Although Lin Dong had been somewhat prepared after hearing Feng Yue’s report, seeing the Tianpeng Bird mentioned by Yun Lan still nearly made him jump in shock. It was simply too huge. If its head could be hollowed out, Lin Dong had no doubt the space inside would be no smaller than a spacious room.
“So big!” Qiao Tianhao couldn’t help but exclaim again. “If we need to deal with such a huge creature, why use just one eagle beast bird per person?”
Lin Dong’s mind snapped into focus, and he finally understood why the name Tianpeng Bird seemed familiar. He remembered that back in Qiufeng City, he had considered using a batch of bird-shaped aircraft as transportation to solve the problem of the inn not being able to serve all guests in the city, as well as the long distances required to open branches. It was then that Yun Lan had mentioned the Tianpeng Bird.
This was excellent news—so good that Lin Dong was momentarily at a loss for words.
“Elder Feng, we’ll need your help later,” Yun Lan said. “With our strength, we can only assist from the side.”
Feng Yue nodded slowly. Since reaching the ranks of peak warriors, he hadn’t truly tested his strength yet. With such a terrifyingly large bird, he could sense the aura of a ninth-tier spiritual bird—perfect for practicing.
Lin Dong came back to his senses and quickly asked, “Yun Lan, can you tell if this Tianpeng Bird is male or female?”
“The gender of a Tianpeng Bird can be determined by its head and tail feathers. This one has a slightly round head and pointed tail feathers, so it’s likely a female,” Yun Lan explained.
Lin Dong was overjoyed. In Lingnan City, he had once captured a seventh-tier Hundred-Wing Bird. He still used a third-tier eagle beast bird as his mount because that Hundred-Wing Bird was male, and whenever it went out to find females, it returned empty-handed.
Females were much easier—after finding mates outside, they could just return to the inn to lay eggs.
If the Tianpeng Bird was female and there were many of them outside, after a few attempts, they could reproduce in large numbers.
“What about the person down there?” Yun Lan asked.

“What’s down there…” Following Yun Lan’s gaze, Lin Dong finally noticed that there were quite a few low trees ahead, each bearing what the scarred youth called longevity fruits. Next to these trees lay a spotted spiritual snake as thick as a bucket.

About ten meters ahead of everyone, the scarred youth was frantically shooting arrows at a spiritual snake. Around him were various medicinal herbs, clearly used to keep the snake at bay.

Lin Dong hesitated for a moment before saying, “Although he’s a swindler, he’s still done me a huge favor. We can just knock him out and leave him.”

“First, we should ask how he plans to get up there,” Yun Lan said with a smile.

Lin Dong was stunned for a second before realizing it. Jumping off the cliff and landing on the thick layer of dead leaves below would ensure no harm even to an ordinary person. But climbing back up, even with a rope thousands of meters long leading to the top, was beyond an ordinary person’s ability.

Undoubtedly, the scarred youth must have a way to leave.

With their current strength, climbing the cliff wasn’t difficult as long as they had a foothold. But this time, they also needed to bring the Tianpeng Bird. Given its size and weight, it was manageable on flat ground, but climbing such a high cliff could even pose a danger to Feng Yue.

Lin Dong suddenly frowned.

The Tianpeng Bird was too large. If they tried to take it back to the inn, they’d have to raise the back courtyard wall by thirty to fifty meters—or else it couldn’t be hidden. But raising the wall that high would surely attract countless warriors to investigate.

Until their strength improved, the existence of the Tianpeng Bird at the Lin’s Inn would undoubtedly draw numerous sects to claim it.

“Are you worried the Tianpeng Bird is too big?” Yun Lan asked.

Lin Dong nodded with a wry smile. “In three or five years, it won’t be a problem, but right now…”

Yun Lan frowned slightly and asked, “Can’t the spiritual array be moved out of the inn?”

Lin Dong nodded. “The spiritual array must stay inside the inn.”

“Then…” Yun Lan pressed on, “Can’t the inn be built in the wilderness?”

Lin Dong was stunned for a moment before slapping his own head.

“Stupid me!”

Since the inn couldn’t serve all the wealthy customers in the city, Lin Dong had once tried opening a branch by buying a dilapidated inn in the south of Lingnan City. But after sitting at the counter, the system prompt for opening a branch never appeared. As expected, there was a distance limit—maybe a hundred miles or even a thousand—so as not to prevent opening a branch in every county. Lin Dong hadn’t delved deeper into it.

Not being able to open branches within a certain distance doesn’t mean branches can’t be opened in the wilderness. Lin Dong worked hard to open branches in order to have enough silver to buy spirit stones to cover the expenses of his guard team’s training. At first, he thought about opening a few inns in areas with many sects, using the training benefits to attract disciples from various sects to the inns, but this idea was quickly dismissed—Lin’s Inns simply didn’t have enough strength to ensure they wouldn’t be attacked and seized by those sects. Since then, he hadn’t considered such things again. In a county town, having three or five inns was already the maximum, but within its jurisdiction, there were definitely thirty to fifty or more. The reason was that the guests of these inns were merchants traveling from various places, and opening them in the wilderness also brought business. As long as they were far enough from other branches, there was no reason Lin’s Inns couldn’t open branches in the wilderness. Lin Dong glanced around—it was a long canyon, about two hundred meters wide. The Tianpeng Bird hadn’t been detected here, and the entrance and exit of this canyon were undoubtedly extremely hidden; perhaps the only way in was by jumping off the cliff. Otherwise, the scarred youth wouldn’t have chosen to jump. If an inn were built in this canyon, not to mention just one Tianpeng Bird, even a hundred or a thousand wouldn’t be easily detected. After all, the Tianpeng Bird was a ninth-tier spirit bird, its presence alone was enough to prevent other spirit birds from descending. The fact that eagle beasts and birds dared not come down from the cliffs was the best proof, and the Tianpeng Bird going unnoticed was surely one of the reasons. This meant that unless someone was desperate or accidentally jumped off the cliff, basically no one could enter the canyon. As long as a few high-tier spirit arrays were set up below and people were knocked out and taken away, it would be no problem. Of course, peak-level experts might also be curious enough to come down and see what was beneath this canyon, which wasn’t particularly unusual in the mountains. Even if such an expert came, Lin’s Inns could immediately send Old Ding and Feng Yue over to capture them and lock them up—maybe they could even earn an extra peak-level expert as a guest. After thinking this through, Lin Dong finally breathed a sigh of relief. As long as they could catch the Tianpeng Bird, the bird-shaped plane would be 80% successful.

“Qiao Tianhao, Cheng Bao, take them far away and find out how to leave here.” Lin Dong raised his eyebrows at the two of them. The Tianpeng Bird was a ninth-tier spiritual bird, while Qiao Tianhao and Cheng Bao were at the eighth and ninth stages of the Mind Realm respectively. In front of the Tianpeng Bird, even Cheng Bao’s resistance to attacks would likely only allow him to be killed instantly. Therefore, leaving them here would put them at great risk.

Cheng Bao said nothing. He leaped forward, approaching the scarred youth who was still focused on shooting arrows from his crossbow. With a single strike of his hand, he knocked the youth out, then flew back. Qiao Tianhao rubbed his fists excitedly and followed closely behind.

Glancing at the Tianpeng Bird, which still had its eyes closed and appeared towering and fearsome like an emperor, Lin Dong turned to Feng Yue beside him and asked, “Senior Feng, what’s your confidence level?”

Feng Yue opened his palm, and a ninth-tier spiritual sword chosen by Lin Dong appeared instantly in his hand. He replied calmly, “I’m 90% confident in defeating it, but less than 50% confident in keeping it alive. With you two, we might just reach 50%.”

“Only 50%?” Lin Dong was astonished.

“Senior Feng might be wrong. With us included…” Yun Lan smiled and said, “We should be 100% confident.”

“100% confident?” Feng Yue looked at Yun Lan in surprise. One was at the fourth stage of the Mind Reversal Realm, and the other at the sixth stage. Even though they both had ninth-tier spiritual weapons and skills, they could barely fight the Tianpeng Bird for a few rounds. At most, they could try to slow down the bird’s escape speed—there was no way this could add 50% to their chances of winning.

“Senior Feng, don’t forget—I’m a high-tier spiritual array master,” Yun Lan said nonchalantly.

Feng Yue was stunned for a moment before realizing it. The Tianpeng Bird seemed to be sleeping. And the scarred youth dared to slowly outlast the spiritual snake, surely because he knew the bird slept for long periods.

As long as they made no excessive noise, with Yun Lan’s abilities, she could set up a high-tier spiritual array before the bird woke up.

A high-tier spiritual array to trap the Tianpeng Bird might hold it for at most half an hour, but if the array could be replenished with spiritual stones at any time and contained a peak warrior stronger than the Tianpeng Bird, trapping it for ten or eight years wouldn’t be difficult.

Soon, the three of them agreed on a plan to capture the Tianpeng Bird. Feng Yue and Lin Dong retreated about a hundred meters, while Yun Lan fluttered around the bird like a delicate butterfly, about twenty meters away.

Vague patterns of spiritual powder formed as Yun Lan’s Blue Dawn Sword kept spinning. Once the framework of the spiritual array was set up, Lin Dong and Feng Yue suppressed their auras as much as possible and flew forward to complete the patterns using the spiritual powder, following Yun Lan’s instructions.

At the very center, the Tianpeng Bird stood silently like a sculpture carved from a mountain of gold, oblivious to the three people below.