As Bu Bian fell from the heavens, his soul full of golden light, he left behind the brilliant trail of a descending comet! Always before, his reincarnations had been quite quiet, and messy in the usual human way, but now - Bu Bian laughed aloud!

This wasn’t a measly human reincarnation! He had been raised a step on the great chain of being. This was rebirth as a higher order of being, as a fearsome spirit beast, perhaps even a terrifying Primordial Fiend!

Feeling his body beginning to form, Bu Bian threw his ghostly arms out wide, praying for wings. To become a roc, no, better yet, a dragon! Yes, to be reborn as a ferocious golden dragon would be best of all.

Closing his eyes and flapping his arms, Bu Bian concentrated intently on the desire surging in his heart. The desire to become a dragon!

So, he was quite surprised when he struck the earth face-first.

It hurt! Although Bu Bian was incorporeal and unharmed by the collision, moving through something as a ghost hurt about as much as bashing your head against it as a human! With a cry of “YEEAUGH!” Bu Bian hurtled back up from the earth, his bright green eyes snapping open.

“A bat?! I was reincarnated as- as a lousy bat?” Yes, he had been reborn not as a mighty dragon, but a bat the size of a small dog, with an incorporeal form and golden-brown fur, scales gleaming on his long tail which ended in translucent streamers like the fins of a koi. The whole of his body appeared to be made of soft golden mist that radiated the beautiful light of a star, distant and noble.

Of course, up close, Bu Bian was anything but noble!

“Aaaugh!” He cried, and filled the mountain valley he had landed in with curses. He didn’t even have hands to tear at his hair with, or a corporeal head to beat against the ground. All he could do was curse the heavens!

All this occurred in a mountain range known as the Waveroad Mountains for their beautiful colors, blue stone and green moss coming together to create the coloration of the stormy seas. On a dark night, it would look as if the mountains below were the frozen waves of an austere sea.

Above this sea flew a small boat made of yellow papers, dispatched from the heart of the Waveroad Province, the vast city of Shanjue. Three brave young men in simple furs stood at the prow, their eyes blazing with azure fire as they surveyed the mountains.

These were Fiendhunters, at least in name, although none of them had ever encountered a true Primordial Fiend or even slain a Fiendspawn with their own two hands.

Naturally, their Blazing Phoenix Eyes had allowed them to see the spiritual comet descending into the valley, and all of them had gone pale in the face. “That spiritual power…” Their leader, a dark-skinned youth named Feng Yu who bound his hair back with a crown of river-smoothed wood, was in awe.

As they heard the terrible howl of the beast emerge from the valley, they all shuddered. When a terrible curse against the heaven echoed through the mountain peaks, Feng Yu and his closest friend, Xiu Tian, had to catch the third Fiendhunter by the shoulders to keep him from trying to flee. This sloppily dressed youth’s name was Wu Zhang, and this was his very first mission outside of Shanjue’s walls.

Neither of the other two bothered to scold him for his cowardice. Both of them had been afraid when they took their first mission, and if such an unfortunate thing as the birth of a Primordial Fiend had interrupted the hunt, they couldn’t say they wouldn’t have tried to run.

“Hold steady, junior brother.” Feng Yu said, shaking his head thoughtfully. “That beast will pay no attention to us, not while it still needs to establish a territory. No, really, this is a stroke of good fortune for us to have witnessed this. Such a beast always creates a large quantity of spiritual jade when it’s born, and gains power by nesting among the stones. If we inform our elders of the location of this hoard we’ll surely be rewarded.”

“Then, we can turn back?” Zhang asked hopefully. His heart was pounding and sweat was forming on his brow. The sight of that golden comet falling towards earth… comets were often an auspicious omen, but this one was surely a sign of confusion and destruction descending on the Waveroad Province. That was what his intuition told him.

Xiu Tian scowled. “No. We were sent out to hunt the Jade Solehorn Toad and we cannot return without its head. What kind are Fiendhunters we, if we cannot handle a lowly beast?”

Even though his handsome face had gone deathly pale, and his hands trembled, Xiu Tian curled those hands into fists and spoke bravely, shaming his junior brother greatly. Leaping to his feet, Wu Zhang nodded and cupped his hands to bow. “My apologies, elder brothers. You two are always an inspiration!”

Feng Yu smiled at the two of them, but in his heart he could only sigh. If they did encounter the newborn Fiend, their courage, their friendship, these things would be destroyed. No, it would not come to that. Already he was determined! If they encountered the Fiend, he would give his own life to allow his brothers to escape!

“Spiritual jade, spiritual jade! I’ve just been born and I’m already rich!” Already, Bu Bian had begun to forget his old life as his mind filled with the instincts of his new form. Of course, this only meant that he was forgetting the greed of a merchant to learn the greed of a beast, and Bu Bian’s character was not improved in the least.

Quickly learning how his wings would allow him to glide and spiral up on the rising thermal winds from the hot springs below, Bu Bian swooped down wherever he saw a glimmer among the grass and seized ahold of countless pieces of precious green spirit jade of the highest quality, jade that radiated insight into the secrets of the earth.

When a mortal died, their soul would return to the paths of reincarnation without its memories, and often these cast-off memories would dissipate like smoke in the winds of time. But sometimes, when a great master passed on, their wisdom would be too powerful to dissipate, and instead would condense into many fragments of precious spirit jade.

Green spirit jade contained the truths of the mortal world, while white jade contained insight into the heavens. Complete stones, formed from complete truths, were as rare quillin horns - but his descent had caused this whole valley to be littered with perfectly formed stones!

“I must have been a true saint in a past life. I can’t imagine why, but the rewards of heaven are truly something!” By focusing his energy into the tips of the claws at the end of his wings, Bu Bian found he could make them solid, allowing him to roll spirit jade stones across the earth and pile them into a nest. While he concentrating on this, so much of his past life had slipped away that he could only just remember his own name.

“Bu Bian! I am the mighty Bu Bian, and the mountains shall tremble before me!” He squeaked, curling up in his nest of glowing stones. The light against his skin was truly soothing, the stones themselves smooth and warm, and as he let his eyes slip closed, the insights of the sage from which Bu Bian had inherited this fortune filled his daydreams.

This was the bounty of a newly born Primordial Fiend! This was why Fiendhunters, despite the terrible ferocity of their prey, were ceaseless in hunting them down.

Indeed, Bu Bian had the instinctual knowledge that quite a few creatures would be eager to catch him. He was a Goldmist Celestial Bat, a creature of pure spiritual energy, and ghosts and other Fiends could grow their own strength by devouring him whole. Worse, being devoured that way would destroy not his body but his soul.

Fiendhunters would seek his treasure trove, cultivators might wish to trap him as a spiritual battery, ghosts and beasts alike would regard him as a living pill to increase their cultivation. “Ah, it's a hard life.” Bu Bian mumbled as he reclined in a bed of incredible wealth.

A streak of jade light shot from peak to peak among the mountains, shaking the earth each time it landed. This was the Jade Solehorn Toad’s mighty escaping technique, and each tremendous leap tore a crater in the mountaintop forests where it landed, full of crushed trees and splattered yellowish blood.

The beast’s left leg had been cut away!

The majestic creature had the appearance of a toad made entirely of craggy white marble, with a single jade horn jutting from its brow like a blade above huge yellow eyes. Its legs could generate a force sufficient to crack the very mountains! It’s croak contained such killing pressure that its prey would be paralyzed!

Even so, it was only a beast, not a Fiend. While it had been born at the Six-Seal Warrior stage, its talent for cultivation was weak compared to its innate strengths and it stood little chance of ever gaining power. On the cosmic scale a lowly beast like this could only be considered a pawn in the struggles of the Waveroad Province; Fiendhunters would chase it away from the cities, true Fiends would claim the mountain caves and sacred springs where natural energy could be absorbed.

There was only one hope for it to survive and prosper.

“The comet!” The great toad croaked, chuckling to itself despite the pain of its severed leg. “Imagine how truly unlikely this kind of luck is! For a Fiend to be born in the moments before these Fiendhunter brats could chase me down…”

Flexing its single remaining leg, it shot forward, and the mountains below blurred as it rose into the air with great speed. Ancient forests became nothing but carpets of green leaves flying past beneath it. With a crash, it landed in a crystal clear lake, and kicked off again, the waters exploding and coming down in a false rain across the valley.

In the distance the yellow paper boat had transformed into a stream of light to chase after the toad, but it was too late.

With that final leap, the Jade Solehorn Toad had landed within Bu Bian’s valley! It smashed open the earth and sent clods of dirt flying in all directions, the whole mountain rumbling as the toad skidded to a halt, fumbling due to its severed leg.

A small golden bat peaked its head over a nest of fallen stones. Its green eyes went wide as it saw the tremendous shadow of the toad looming overhead, its stone face scarred, blood raining from a ferocious wound.

It must be understood, a bat’s eyes were quite wide to begin with, and now they were as large as spirit jades!

And they got bigger still as the great beast kowtowed, bashing its enormous head against the ground. “Great and mighty Primordial! This student begs you to spare his wretched life, but he was given no choice but to enter your domain! The ones at fault are them! I’ll serve you body and soul but please, have mercy on this old fool.”

Overhead, a streak of yellow light materialized into a boat, floating among the clouds…

And Bu Bian thought to himself, “Is it against the heavens that I be allowed to relax? I’ve only just been born today!”