This pain represented the successive transformations and leaps of its Bloodline—a boon other Guardian Beasts could never hope to obtain, no matter how much they pleaded.

Zhong Yi took out the Ice Coffin, which had been crafted from Sealed Ice Crystal, then prompted the Soul-Controlling Flower to extend its filaments.

The Soul-Controlling Flower reluctantly probed the Illusion-tailed Fox’s mouth with its filaments. Pitch-black Flowing Soul Soil then streamed along them and into the fox’s mouth.

Even though the Illusion-tailed Fox was just a newborn, its interest in the Flowing Soul Soil was clearly far greater than its interest in Beast Milk.

All living things have an instinct to pursue benefits and avoid harm. The Illusion-tailed Fox could sense how beneficial the Flowing Soul Soil was for it.

After the Illusion-tailed Fox swallowed some of the Flowing Soul Soil, Zhong Yi placed it inside the Ice Coffin.

The overbearing Ice Element contained within the Sealed Ice Crystal immediately invaded the body of the attribute-less Illusion-tailed Fox.

Had it not drunk the Flowing Soul Soil beforehand, the Illusion-tailed Fox would have been frozen into an Ice Sculpture the moment it entered the Ice Coffin.

Standing before the Ice Coffin, Zhong Yi could feel a bone-chilling cold relentlessly invading his body, trying to destroy it.

Zhong Yi didn’t back away. Instead, he summoned the Resurrection Celestial Lord and had it implant a Core of Resurgence into his own body.

Zhong Yi needed to stay by the Illusion-tailed Fox’s side throughout its Bloodline transformation. The moment the Flowing Soul Soil in its body was fully digested, he would have to immediately feed it more to help it absorb the special Ice Element within the Sealed Ice Crystal.

The Illusion-tailed Fox was doing its utmost to endure, but the bone-chilling cold still made it let out a series of soft, pitiful wails.

It looked at Zhong Yi with a pathetic gaze, like a small, sobbing beast on the verge of death.

His heart aching for the creature, Zhong Yi reached into the Ice Coffin and gently laid his hand on the Illusion-tailed Fox’s forehead.

"Just endure it a little longer, little one. It’ll be over soon. I’ll be right here with you."

As Zhong Yi spoke, the Flowing Soul Soil the Illusion-tailed Fox had swallowed was already taking effect.

The Illusion-tailed Fox resembled a kitten with large ears, except its snout was a little longer and more pointed than a cat’s.

Having been born only recently, its body was still covered in baby fur—white with a hint of light gray.

In less than a minute, the Illusion-tailed Fox’s body had already stretched to nearly twice its original length.

As its body elongated, its ears grew, becoming larger in proportion to its body.

The baby fur on its body—white with a hint of light gray—sloughed off rapidly, revealing tender, pink skin underneath.

However, unlike Lan Po, new fur didn’t immediately grow back after the Illusion-tailed Fox’s original coat fell out.

After its fur fell out, lines of blood began to erupt one after another from its tender, pink skin.

Blood sprayed from every pore, only it wasn’t bright red.

It was a greasy, dark red and carried a thick, rancid stench.

At this point, the Illusion-tailed Fox could only passively endure its body’s transformation; it no longer even had the strength to cry out in pain.

Through it all, Zhong Yi never took his hand off the Illusion-tailed Fox. He continued to stroke it gently, murmuring words of encouragement.

Zhong Yi’s hand had long gone stiff from the cold. However, because the Core of Resurgence was constantly repairing his body, his hand didn’t suffer from necrosis. He only felt a mix of pain, heat, numbness, and itchiness.

Even so, Zhong Yi didn’t pull his hand away, for he could hear the sounds of the Illusion-tailed Fox’s bones shattering and reforming inside its body.

After nearly twenty minutes, a bony protrusion bulged from the rear of the Illusion-tailed Fox, whose body had now stretched to a meter in length.

The appearance of this protrusion signified the success of the Illusion-tailed Fox’s Bloodline transformation.

The three-meter-long Ice Coffin had already begun to melt. The Ice Elemental Energy within it was being drawn out by the Illusion-tailed Fox’s Bloodline and pulled into its body.

By this point, Zhong Yi had already replenished the Flowing Soul Soil for the Illusion-tailed Fox three times. He knew perfectly well that this was the most opportune moment to use a Soul Taming Seed to form a Contract with it.

Now that the Illusion-tailed Fox’s Bloodline had transformed, the Soul Taming Seed could help it achieve another leap forward during its Evolution.

Since the Illusion-tailed Fox could no longer swallow or chew, Zhong Yi left the task of delivering the Soul Taming Seed into its body to the Soul-Controlling Flower.

After coiling around the Soul Taming Seed, the Soul-Controlling Flower’s filaments didn’t deliver it directly into the Illusion-tailed Fox’s throat.

Instead, it took an unconventional approach, inserting the Soul Taming Seed into the Illusion-tailed Fox’s body from the base of the new tail-like protrusion.

Zhong Yi’s brow twitched uncontrollably as he watched. ’You can use a Soul Taming Seed to form a Contract with a Guardian Beast like *that*?’

’Learned something new!’

The sounds from within the Illusion-tailed Fox’s body—bones shattering, fascia tearing, muscles restructuring—grew even more intense.

The Illusion-tailed Fox struggled to rest its head in Zhong Yi’s palm, as if that was the one thing anchoring it through all the pain.

Zhong Yi lost track of time. Eventually, after the Illusion-tailed Fox sprouted two tailbones nearly three times the length of its body, fur finally began to grow on its skin.

The Illusion-tailed Fox’s new fur was fine, dense, and exceptionally soft.

Its texture was so soft and plush that words could hardly do it justice.

Zhong Yi had touched pelts made from the hide of a Dragon-Speaking Mink.

The blankets on the sofas at the Celestial Destiny Society were supposedly made from the softest fur on a Brocade Rabbit’s flanks.

Brocade Rabbit fur was more expensive than that of a Dragon-Speaking Mink.

Yet whether it was the fur of a Dragon-Speaking Mink or the fur from a Brocade Rabbit’s flanks, neither could hold a candle to the feel of the Illusion-tailed Fox, which had undergone at least two Bloodline transformations.