Devouring Immortal Herbs, His Physique Soared
Only after watching Dugu Bo lead Dugu Yan and Ye Lingling into the poisonous miasma surrounding the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, their figures disappearing from sight, did Gan Lin slowly withdraw his gaze. He turned to look at the secret realm behind him, a place he knew so well, shrouded in mingling vapors of ice and fire.
The spring of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well still churned, one half blazing crimson, the other covered in luminous white frost mist. The two currents intertwined and collided in the air, forming a haze half red and half white, yet it felt pleasantly warm and cool against his skin.
After tempering himself by testing medicines on his own body, his physique, immune to both ice and fire, could already disregard the extreme temperatures here. He did not even need to activate protective Soul Power.
The strange Immortal Herbs he had tasted before were all ones the original story had never recorded. Though his gains had been astonishing, danger had lurked at every step. A moment's carelessness might have sent him straight into another reincarnation.
Now, however, he was going to use Immortal Herbs whose effects had already been established in the original Douluo Continent story. Their medicinal properties, effects, and methods of absorption were all perfectly clear. As long as he refined them step by step, he could reliably maximize his gains.
Gan Lin first walked toward the fire spring. The closer he got, the hotter the air grew, and even the rocks on the ground glowed a faint, dark red. A small tree, crimson from root to crown, grew in a crack between the stones. Hanging from its branches was a fruit that looked as though it had been formed from flames, its skin rippling with fine golden patterns. This was the Infernal Delicate Apricot. He carefully picked the fruit with a tool. It was scorching hot in his hand but did him no harm. Then he sat cross-legged and put it in his mouth.
The Infernal Delicate Apricot melted as soon as it entered his mouth, turning into a rich, searing torrent of fire essence that swept down his throat and through his limbs and bones. Unlike the violent Immortal Herbs he had taken before, its fire-attribute power was balanced and enduring, with an exceptionally strong tempering effect. Wherever the medicinal power passed, his once-slender meridians widened and strengthened bit by bit. Their walls grew tough and elastic, and the sluggishness he usually felt when circulating Soul Power vanished completely. Fire essence seeped into his bones and internal organs, tempering his skeletal structure until it grew denser and nourishing his organs until they teemed with renewed vitality.
In his dantian, the quality of his Soul Power rose at a rate visible to the naked eye. If not for the Soul Ring bottleneck, he would probably have broken through several bottlenecks in succession by now.
His Vision Martial Soul also emerged on its own. A fiery red halo suffused its blue-gold Geo patterns, making them seem even more substantial; its emerald Anemo patterns were infused with the essence of fire, adding a touch of explosive force to their nimbleness.
The benefits of the Infernal Delicate Apricot were plain to feel: first, it had thoroughly remade his body, widened his meridians, strengthened his bones and organs, and raised his affinity for fire to its maximum; second, his Soul Power Level had risen by several levels, laying an exceptionally solid foundation for the fire attribute; third, it had advanced his ice-and-fire-immune physique from "unharmed" to "control." If he encountered a fire-attribute Soul Master in the future, their flames would not only be unable to hurt him, but he could even turn them to his own use.
Once the Pyro had fully merged with his body, Gan Lin forced himself to his feet and walked toward the ice spring. Beside the spring, amid curling frost mist, an Immortal Herb shaped like an octagon and glowing white all over floated in the cold air. Ice crystals that would never melt clung to the edges of its leaves. It was the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass. He picked the herb and swallowed it whole. A burst of supremely crisp, icy cold exploded inside him, yet it did not sting in the slightest. Instead, it brought a sweet coolness.
The ice-attribute power met the Pyro from before in his meridians. Rather than clashing and exploding, they began to circulate together through his body. His meridians, already tempered by the Pyro, were honed and contracted by the icy power, becoming ever denser and tighter. With ice and fire taking turns to forge his bones, their density rose another level; ordinary blades could scarcely damage them.
The Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and the Infernal Delicate Apricot, one forceful and one gentle, pushed his physical strength to several times that of Soul Masters at the same level. An ordinary Soul Grandmaster's attack would probably struggle even to break his skin. At the same time, his ice affinity had reached its maximum, forming a perfect balance with his fire affinity.
After absorbing the medicinal power of the two Immortal Herbs, Gan Lin leaped straight into the center of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well's spring. Boiling hot water and icy spring water cold enough to pierce his marrow washed over him from every direction. He guided the power of ice and fire to scour every last corner of his body. Every remaining impurity was forced out of his meridians, and his Soul Power was compressed until it grew ever denser. As his bones were repeatedly forged by ice and fire, they took on a faint luster like gold and jade. Even his Sea of Consciousness was nourished by the twin vapors of ice and fire, becoming clear and lucid.
His Vision Martial Soul slowly unfurled behind him, its blue-gold, emerald, fiery red, and luminous white lights shining together. The weight of Geo, the nimbleness of Anemo, the explosiveness of fire, and the biting chill of ice—the four qualities merged perfectly in his Martial Soul.
The Vision, which had originally possessed only two attributes, now showed faint signs of encompassing all forms under the infusion of ice and fire. This round of taking their power into his body and tempering it had fully digested the medicinal power of the two Immortal Herbs. His physical strength climbed to a new height, his Soul Power's density far surpassed that of others at his level, his Martial Soul Origin had been deeply nourished, and his potential for future growth had greatly increased.
When Gan Lin leaped out of the spring, a flash of light swept over his body, evaporating every drop of water. He walked to the stone wall beside the Yin Yang Well, where a luminous white Immortal Herb grew, looking as though it had formed from condensed dewdrops—the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew, a top-grade Immortal Herb that enhanced spiritual power.
In the original story, Tang San's Purple Demon Eye had even evolved after he took it.
He carefully picked the herb, tipped his head back, and swallowed it. Rather than flowing into his meridians, a medicinal power of supreme coolness rushed straight into the Sea of Consciousness between his brows. Gan Lin heard a hum in his mind, as though a barrier had been pierced in an instant. The space of his consciousness expanded wildly, and his once-thin spiritual power surged like a tide before quickly settling and condensing into a liquid Sea of Consciousness.
The next moment, his Vision Martial Soul blazed with light. Without any deliberate effort on his part, every blade of grass and every tree within a hundred meters, even the crawling of insects, registered clearly in his perception. He could make out every fine line on a leaf and every speck of dust in the air.
The Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew had improved him in every way: his spiritual power had multiplied, the range of his perception had expanded enormously, and his powers of observation had soared. His control over Soul Power had grown more precise, so his Soul Skills would cost less and strike more accurately in the future. His Sea of Consciousness was as solid as a boulder, immune to the impact of most spiritual Soul Skills.
When the last trace of medicinal power had been fully absorbed, Gan Lin slowly opened his eyes. A glimmer of intermingled ice and fire flashed through them, then faded as they returned to calm. Feeling the earth-shaking changes within his body, he raised the corners of his mouth slightly.
His Vision had developed the Anemo attribute from its former single Geo attribute, becoming a dual-attribute Martial Soul. Now, with the added benefits of three top-grade Immortal Herbs, he estimated that his Soul Power was close to the level-thirty bottleneck and that his physical strength was probably even more outrageous than that of a defense-type Beast Martial Soul. His spiritual power had also multiplied several times over, and his Martial Soul's potential had been fully unlocked.
Gan Lin raised a hand, and a wisp of emerald wind coiled around his fingertip. On closer inspection, tiny ice blossoms and sparks were wrapped within it.
Gan Lin looked toward the depths of the Sunset Forest. Once Dugu Bo and the other two returned from Soul Hunting, he would begin obtaining Soul Rings as well. He would see whether he could reach level thirty directly after absorbing the Geo Hypostasis's Second Soul Ring.