"ShadowGod Butterfly?" Keng got a little confused. "I'm afraid I have never heard of it, teacher Ning."
"Don't listen to him, Senior Keng, he is just spewing crap to not lose this com—"
Keng put up his hands to stop Gonez from speaking. "Please, tell me more about this beast, teacher Ning."
Ning nodded. "Do you know about the massive war that engulfed the planet ten thousand years ago, senior Keng?" he asked.
"War… I don't think so. Although, I have heard about some beasts going extinct around that time frame," Keng said.
"Ten thousand years ago, when cultivators were few and far in between, the world was ruled by the beasts. Strong beasts that were descendants of dragons, phoenixes, and other legendary beasts were the true masters of this planet."
"Then one day a monster was born from those legendary beasts, a beast that contained the bloodline of 4 different legendary beasts. Somehow, their bloodline didn't interfere with each other, and instead improved that beast's talent," Ning said.
Everyone quietly listened to Ning explain the past.
"The beast had great potential, and in just two centuries, reached the highest peak of cultivation it could on this planet, he famed pseudo-Spirit Transformation realm. However, it wasn't satisfied with that. So, to reach a higher realm, it started killing other beasts and devouring it to gain more Qi."
"When the beasts at the time learned about this, they started a war against this single beast."
"Alone, the beast killed the majority of the strong beasts at the time and single-handedly wiped nearly all of the beast population. This was why humanity managed to flourish so much today."
"The ShadowGod Butterfly was a beast with the bloodline of a legendary beast known as the Abyssborn Butterfly. They had the powers of charm and hypnotism as well as direct mental attacks at the time. Due to its powers, they were ones of the first ones the lone beast hunted down."
"However," Ning said as he turned towards the butterfly in Maeve's hand. "It seems not all of them died that day. A small number of those butterflies must have survived and are hidden somewhere steadily increasing their numbers. This little one must have accidentally escaped."
"Senior Keng, can you tell me where you found him?" Ning asked.
"Uh, it was inside a tomb near the Grime Oasis of the Sun Empire," Keng said. "I found him there during our last Deccenial Student Exchange that was held in the Sun Empire's Burning Spirit Academy."
"I see. You were extremely lucky there wasn't an adult butterfly nearby, or you would not have left the tomb safely at all," Ning said.
Keng started to sweat when he heard that. "Is-Is it really that bad?" he asked.
"It's a legendary beast, teacher Keng. I shouldn't have to explain to you how lucky you were," Ning said.
"Y-Yes, you are right," Keng said. "By the way, teacher Ning. You said there were beasts with the bloodline of the legendary beasts. What about the legendary beasts themselves? Did they not exist during the battle?"
"Uh, I too am unsure about that, teacher Keng. From what I know, they really did exist, but then they stopped existing suddenly. There must have been some event that happened even before this, during a time so far away that the bloodline of theirs got muddled to the point that their memories don't exist anymore," Ning said.
"I see, that does make sense," Keng said.
"Wait, you are believing him? He could be spouting nonsense for all you know. He didn't even say anything about the butterfly itself," Gonez said.
"ShadowGod butterfly has irregular, asymmetrical patterns on their body. They can use charms and hypnotism just by unfurling their wings. Adult ones can even make the opponent hallucinate the battle. Their wings are strong, but not strong enough to withstand anything stronger than a level 4 body cultivator. They have 8 eyes but only use 4 of their eyes to see. The remaining 4 they use to see the mental state of their opponent directly…."
Ning continued for a while explaining in detail every single fact he could remember about the ShadowGod Butterflies. It wasn't until Keng asked Ning to stop that Ning halted his information dump.
Gonez looked with wide eyes at the sheer amount of knowledge Ning knew about the beast. 'What the F*ck?! How the F*ck does an alchemist know these things?" Gonez couldn't comprehend what was happening.
"I… think that means teacher Ning wins this round, right?" Maeve asked as if she was looking for approval from Keng. Keng too was unsure what to think.
"That can't be," Gonez interfered. "I was given the wrong beast to speak about. If it was any other beast, I wouldn't have made such a mistake. Even Senior Keng didn't know about it."
Keng felt some truth in what Gonez said and was about to ask Maeve to redo the 3rd round when Ning walked forward.
"Teacher Ning?" he spoke, but Ning did nothing. "Miss Maeve, can you open this cage for me please?"
"Uh, the toucan's cage? Sure" Maeve said and walked forward to the Indigold Toucan. She then opened the cage and the nervous toucan walked into the midst of the hundreds of cultivators and started to get scared.
"Don't worry. We are not going to hurt you," Ning said to the toucan. The toucan got a little less scared when he heard Ning speak.
Ning then pulled out two objects from his storage. Keng and Maeve got a little confused at first, but when they saw the objects they understood.
Ning placed the first object on the right and then the second object on the left. "Choose!" he said.
The toucan looked to the left and it started getting happy when it saw the Firegrapes. However, just as it was about to move, it smelled something, and as if it had fallen onto a trance, it started salivating and moving towards the black fruit.
It didn't hesitate a moment before it devoured the whole thing. After it was finished, it moved back towards Ning instead of the Firegrapes to ask for more.
Ning smiled and gave him another black fruit which it ate slowly this time.
"This proves it right?" Ning asked.
"Y-Yes," Maeve said with a daze. She couldn't believe that Keng's book was wrong. Keng too looked apologetic.
"Teacher Gonez, if you can come up with a fact for the toucan, I might consider making the 2nd round a draw," Maeve said.
"Yes! Yes, I will say it," Gonez said and started to furiously rack his head. However, there was no way he could. His last answer was the best he could come up with after so many other facts.
"Uh…" he tried to stall for time but Maeve saw through it quite easily. She waited for a few seconds more, but after understanding he didn't have an answer, she decided to call it.
"It seems you couldn't continue teacher Gonez, so the 2nd round goes to teacher Ning. Since he won the first 2 rounds, the 3rd round is unnecessary. Thus, this duel has been won by teacher Ning."
"As per the agreement, you will now stop interacting with the disciple as per teacher Ning's bet. That's all."
As soon as Gonez heard it, he fell on his knees, unbelieving of his loss.
