I arrived at the spirit beast slum just before sunset. ‘Have you finished your lessons Xiao?’ I asked him telepathically.

  ‘Yes, papa.’ he said, a bit quieter than normal but still understandable.

  ‘Papa?’ I asked, a bit surprised that he called me that.

  ‘Yes.’ he responded, at a proper volume. ‘My other papa and mama were killed by hyenas, but you killed them and adopted me.’

  ‘I didn’t realize you remembered that.’ I responded. ‘You were still really little and not yet smart then.’

  ‘I remember lots of things from before I was smart, but sometimes I see them in my dreams.’ he said. ‘Last night I had a nightmare of them being eaten. When I woke up you were meditating, so I didn’t want to disturb you, but I sat beside you for an hour.’

  I reached up to my shoulder and petted his head. “Well, if that happens again, feel free to send me a telepathic message. I can stop meditating if I’m not at a critical point so I can pet you.”

  ‘Well, you were also getting hit by lightning, so I didn’t want to get too close.’

  I smiled. “Yeah, that’s one of the times I can’t stop what I was doing. I was in the middle of Rebirth.” I said. “But if you want I can get you something else to help when the nightmares wake you up. Would you like a toy?”

  He shook his head. ‘It’s okay. I’ll just go ask mama to pet me instead.’

  ‘You mean Jiang?’ I asked telepathically, for privacy. ‘Jiang isn’t your mama, she’s just a friend of papa’s. I’ll introduce you to your mama in a week, when we get back to my homeland.’

  ‘But she’s snakey’s mama.’ he responded.

  ‘The flood dragon, or the rainbow snake? She’s just watching the flood dragon for me, the way her kids are watching the puppy and lion cub for me. The rainbow snake is hers, though she won’t be smart until she’s level three.’

  ‘No, not draggy. Baby snakey.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, she’s snakey’s mama.’ I said.

  One of the residents of the place walked up to me, an alligator of some type. He tried to walk on his hind legs, but was struggling to do so, being forced to support himself with a cane made of level three wood. I could tell that he was early level four. “Why have you come here, human?” it asked in a gruff, accented voice. “You aren’t here to bully us, are you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m a talismonger. I came here to talk to you, and hopefully to buy some of your blood if you are willing to sell any.”

  He gave me a strange look. “To make beast blood ink? At least you ask us first, and don’t attack us like some humans. As long as you pay well enough, many of us will sell to you.”

  I shook my head. “No, not for ink, though if I have some left over I might use it for that. I’m actually helping to research a cure for the parasite that’s been plaguing the town. I was hoping to test the blood of different spirit beasts, to see if they might have a natural resistance in their blood that we can use to make medicine to fight the parasites. While I might have to test the blood of level one and two spirit beasts, and maybe some mortal beasts if I don’t find anything here, I thought that the blood of stronger spirit beasts would likely work best.”

  He looked a bit sad. “And what if they do? Are you going to force them to ‘donate’ so much that they are hurt by it?”

  I shook my head. “Of course not. I don’t treat spirit beasts like that. You are intelligent people, so I will offer you money for it.”

  “And if they refuse to sell?”

  I shrugged. “Then I’ll have to find another source, and they will lose out on several stones, possibly hundreds of stones, they can use to improve their lives.”

  He stared at me for a few seconds, and Xiao jumped. ‘No.’ he said, so that everyone could hear him. ‘My papa isn’t like that. He’s friends with smart rats and a big bird, and…’ He couldn’t think of any more examples, so he stopped speaking.

  “And I negotiated with solar lions to take their unwanted tribe members with me so that we could give them a better home, instead of fighting them. And I talked with the puppy’s mom, who let me take him with me so I could give him a better life. I tried to talk with the coyotes, but they only wanted to fight so I had to kill them, but it was because they were acting like bandits, not because they were spirit beasts.”

  The alligator looked at me again, as if he was trying to figure out if I could be trusted to talk with his people. I assume he was some sort of village elder in this community. “Who is the big bird he mentioned?” the alligator asked. “Does he have a name?”

  “Oh, that would be Golden Sky Lord. He’s the beast companion of one of my friends, the leader of the White Tiger sect.”

  The alligator smiled and nodded. “Golden Sky Lord, you say?” he nodded. “I met him once. He is one of the kings of the Beast Plains north of here. He used to protect my people, before the hunters came and captured us while he was away. Some of us managed to escape and eventually resettle somewhere else with his help, but I had to stay and help the ones here. Most of them don’t know how to function without a master, so we have to teach them how to live in human society.” He looked over at a nearby building and motioned with his head. “I’m too old to guide you around town. I was already getting old before I became intelligent twelve years ago. Such is the fate of us half-bloods. I can’t even take a different form any more, as I’m infected with the parasite and barely have enough qi to use simple spells any more. If it gets any worse, I will have to let my throat return to normal and use telepathy to speak with outsiders.”

  “Have you thought about lowering your cultivation to level two, then returning to level four a few days later?” I asked, and he chuckled.

  “That’s definitely human thinking.” he said. “That isn’t an option for any of us but the few stone monkeys. We would lose our intelligence, and might not remember that we needed to return to higher levels.”

  I nodded. “In that case,” I said, “I have created a talisman that might help with the symptoms, but I’m not sure if it will cure you.” I pulled out a piece of leather and quickly made a copy of the talisman for trapping the parasites. “This can isolate the parasites in a barrier that doesn’t let qi flow into it. That should eventually kill them, but it might take days. Until then, at least they can’t drain your qi.”

  The alligator nodded as I handed him the talisman and I noticed that there was a wolf man behind him. He looked like a hairy human, but with the head of a wolf. His fur was red and black, and his hands had claws. Judging by how the manager of the tea shop passed as human despite also being a wolf, this man either wasn’t very good with the shifting technique, wasn’t strong enough to use it, or was being weakened too much by the parasites to do so. I suspected that it was a combination of all three. “Then I thank you for the gift and will try it at once.” the old man said. “My name is Gator Gitan, by the way, but you can just call me Old Gitan, like the young ones do. This if Flame Li. He can guide you around the town.”

  “Li Kev.” I said. “And this is my son Maque Xiao. It means ‘little sparrow’ in one of the languages of my homeland. He goes by Xiao, and you can call me Kev.”

  “Your son?” asked Li.

  Xiao nodded. ‘Mama and papa were killed by hyenas and he healed me and adopted me.’

  Li nodded. “In that case, you must be a special boy, to be able to speak at your level.”

  Xiao nodded. ‘Yep, I don’t think papa wants me to say why, though.’

  He nodded, and I was certain that he knew Xiao must have a legendary bloodline.. “Then please, follow me.” he said, and lead us towards the center of the town. “So,” he said after a minute or so. “How exactly is our blood supposed to help you cure this parasite infection? Obviously we aren’t immune, since all of us have caught it already.”

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  “Really?” I asked. “Do your people drink a lot of tea?”

  He looked confused. “Only a few of us drink it, and then only the richer ones or during special occasions. Why?”

  “Because the only place I know of that humans were getting infected was a tea shop. I assumed someone had just bought leaves there and shared them. Has anyone had a party where they shared tea in the last week or two?” He shook his head. “Then there must be another source out there.” I finished, then thought for a few seconds. Hopefully the guard inspections would turn something up. Maybe a grocer was also infected. “To answer your question, though, I was hoping one of you were resistant to it in some way. While it obviously isn’t a strong enough resistance to make you immune, it’s possible some races have something in their blood that makes the eggs not hatch as often, or weakens the parasites. We might even get lucky and find that only half of the eggs that hatch in a specific race actually grow up. If I can find any trait that helps, I can give the samples to the alchemists I work with, and they can find a way to amplify the effect and hopefully kill off the parasites.”

  He nodded. “While that sounds nice, I hope you realize that we’ll be the last ones to see any cure. Medicine usually goes to the richest people first, and we are some of the poorest. Most of us are even worse off than human slaves, since they at least have guaranteed housing and food as long as they do their job. And that doesn’t cover the fact that once they figure out that one particular race’s blood can treat the problem, the race will basically have a death flag hanging over them.”

  “Actually, I have an idea for how to protect against that last part. I’ll give every participant a number, and will be the only one that knows who has which number or which races the different numbers are. At most others will know that participants three, seven, and thirteen all have a resistance. Only I will be able to find those participants, and we can figure out a way for those people and others of their race to secretly sell us the blood. Maybe I can tell Old Gitan which numbers I want to buy more blood from, and he can act as a middle man.”

  Li nodded. “Well, he is the second strongest one here. He might be able to resist anyone that came to hurt us.”

  We reached the town square and he stood on what was probably a water fountain at one point, but was now an algae filled cistern. People of dozens of races stood around five meters from him. While a few of them still had some human-like features, most were in their native forms. The only ones that still seemed capable of walking upright were the Stone monkey family, two mice, a raccoon, an opossum, and a middle level two fox woman with two tails. As only she and the youngest stone monkey were level two, they were likely the only ones with semi-legendary bloodlines.

  The fact that she had two tails likely meant that she was a descendant of the mythical nine-tails race and was therefore intelligent already. This was one of the few spirit beast traits that had been found on Earth so far. Biologists in Japan, Vietnam, and China had all reported seeing foxes with two tails, though they hadn’t reported human-like intelligence in such creatures and none had special traits outside of fur coloration, meaning they were on par with weak-bloods at best. From what I read when preparing to come to this world, the ninetails race were foxes that were naturally gifted with illusion powers. Unlike most spirit beasts, they were mind cultivators, not body cultivators. The most distinguishing trait of their race was that they grew an extra tail for every major cultivation level they gained. The name of their race came from their ancient ancestor who managed to reach level nine before being killed in a conflict between gods. Since then, none have been able to reach that point and only a few have reached the eight level. Still, compared to the stone monkeys, who’s progenitor only reached level six, it is quite impressive.

  “Hello everyone.” said Flame Li, and they looked at him. “This human is Li Kev. The sparrow on his shoulder is his adopted son Maque Xiao. Li Kev is a talisman maker that is helping research the cure for the parasites. He has come here to buy blood samples. He thinks that one of us might have some special trait in their blood that weakens or harms the parasites in some way, and wants to test the idea. While that’s a noble cause, I suspect that most of you are more interested in the fact that he is offering to pay a stone for a one dose bottle of blood.” This caused the people to look up and pay attention. A one dose bottle was one twentieth of a gin, or 25 milliliters. This was more than enough for the testing I wanted to do, but would only make enough beast blood ink for three or four talismans, which is why most talisman makers that buy blood in this manner buy it a gin at a time. That much, about half a liter, isn’t enough to effect humans, but for the smaller beasts it is enough to kill some of them. As a result, only the largest types of spirit beasts usually sell their blood. Because I am only buying a dose bottle, the smaller ones can now participate. It is also worth twice as much as usual, as the usual sell price for a gin of level three beast blood is ten stones, and only one for level two.

  I stepped up to the Fountain. “It seems Flame Li has already explained everything, so I’m not sure what I should say. If you are willing to sell me some blood for my tests, just come over and tell me. I know some of you might be worried, and think that you might be targeted if they find out your blood can help treat this, but I won’t be telling anyone which race the blood comes from until it’s cured, in order to prevent that. After it’s cured, it’s only needed in case there is another outbreak, and the alchemists can pay honest prices for the blood when preparing for that.” Some of them scoffed at the idea of receiving an honest price for something they sold, as they were usually ripped off if the shops could get away with it. I suspected that there were a few humans in the town that earned a living buying things here and selling them at the shops in town for actual honest prices, and that the people here preferred to sell to them because they paid more. If I was a low level cultivator in this city I would certainly consider doing that, as both sides benefit and only the racist shop owners suffer.

  The people nodded at my statement and started discussing among themselves. Seeing that he wasn’t needed as an interpreter or aid, Xiao flew over to the fox woman and landed nearby. “Are you a nine-tails, miss?” He sparked a bit from the excitement. “Mama used to tell me stories about them before I grew up and got smart. She said that they were one of the first races to live with humans. Of course, I didn’t know what humans were at the time.”

  She nodded. “I have a nine-tails bloodline, the same way they have a stone monkey bloodline and you have a roc bloodline.” she said, motioning with her head towards the family of stone monkeys that were approaching me. “I suppose we were one of the first to do so. Because of our illusions, humans are more comfortable around us. Even if we can’t shape shift good enough, we can hide behind an illusion. That wasn’t always a good thing, though.” Some of the other children gathered around, and she switched to using concepts to speak as she started telling them how many groups of humans feared the nine-tails, and made up stories about them sneaking into towns to hurt and steal from the humans. It reminded me of the ancient asian stories where foxes would pretend to be women and seduce and marry human men. Of course, with children listening she was avoiding those kinds of stories.

  The first people to approach me were the stone monkeys. “Are you still willing to pay a stone per blood sample, even if the person isn’t level three yet?” the father asked.

  I nodded. “Sure. I’ll need to test different levels to know if the treatment can be made with lower grade blood, as that’s usually cheaper. It’s also possible that as you reach a higher level you refine out something that makes you more resistant.”

  “You mean like how the first distillation produces a poisonous alcohol?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “Exactly. If the parasites are weak to that blinding alcohol, and it is distilled from your blood when you advance to level three, then I would miss it by only testing level three spirit beasts. I take it you brew wine?”

  The father nodded. “I wasn’t taken from my village by hunters until I was level two and already an apprentice wine maker. Now I make the best monkey wine in the city.” Monkey wine covered a wide variety of wines made by traditional means, including things like sake, fruit wines, and even whiskey. The thing they all had in common was that they were made from ingredients that were all edible to some degree, so they are very safe to drink. Many people prefer them to pills for that exact reason. Some pills, especially high level ones, can only be taken so often. Because pills use many materials that aren’t safe to consume in their base form, the pills can contain toxins that the body needed to filter out. Usually the liver and kidneys can remove the toxins within a day or two, but for level three toxins you may need to use Rebirth to purge them, and for level four and above toxins even more complex or difficult means may be needed to fully purge them. On the other hand, monkey wine will never contain poisons which do more damage than the alcohol itself, assuming that it was made correctly.

  The origin of monkey wine is simple to understand. Most spirit plants and many spirit beast parts can temporarily boost the performance of a part of the human body or mind. This is why many people believe that the livers or bile of bears and snakes can improve your constitution or willpower. Spirit wheat boosts digestion, for example, and spirit rice boosts the immune system. The amount a small amount of the material can help is only a few percent, however, so you need to consume a large amount of it to get a noticeable improvement.

  In ancient times, cultivators would consume massive amounts of materials, even cultivating techniques so that their stomach functions like a storage bag, much like some spirit beast stomachs, and then practice whatever training method they had that would work on that part. This would speed up their training in that part, and they could cultivate more quickly. Some humans, however, soon invented body tempering pills, as well as recovery pills, and they became the main way for people to cultivate.

  Among spirit beasts, however, they lacked the materials and tools for alchemy, partly because they often didn’t become intelligent until the were too old to start learning alchemy. So they continued to use the old methods, teaching their children to do so even before the children were intelligent. The stone monkeys and other stone apes, however, because they often became intelligent in young adulthood, were able to develop an alternative to alchemy, fermentation. This helped to concentrate and preserve the effects for use year round, and when they discovered distillation they were able to concentrate it even more. This resulted to monkey wine being highly valued in modern times for it’s cultivation benefits and lack of toxins.

  After taking blood from the three stone monkeys, simple sticking a needle in their inner elbow and draining it into a bottle, as I didn’t have a proper blood draw kit, I gave them one stone each and ordered one hundred stones of monkey wine from the father, over two hundred gin. If nothing else I could keep it at home and share it with friends, but I suspected that it might become a valuable business on Earth.