First Spirit Ring

The First Spirit Ring Dai Yao had shouted "Guard Captain" not at random. Since this guard had appeared here, there was no way the Guard Captain could be unaware of it.

He had called out to test him. If the Guard Captain really appeared, that meant the Guard Captain was also one of the Empress's people, and coming here to hunt soul beasts in the future would be dangerous.

But to his surprise, the guard actually turned his head in a panic.

"What a chance!"

Dai Yao seized the instant the guard looked back and channeled the half-tenth of Qi he had just recovered into his feet. With a bang, the frozen earth beneath his feet shattered into a spiderweb pattern, and his body shot toward the guard like a cannonball.

Before the guard could turn his head back, he felt a chill pass through his neck. Immediately after, the world in his vision began to spin, and finally his head fell to the ground.

Drip—drip—

A few drops of Fresh Blood slowly dripped down the blade.

Dai Yao panted heavily, gripping the blade in his less injured left hand. His body had already been overdrawn, especially his right hand. After he had poured forty percent of his Qi into using Eight Extremes Collapse, his entire right arm had lost all feeling.

Luckily, he had used Eight Extremes Collapse while in the state of Martial Soul Possession before. Otherwise, his entire right hand would have been ruined.

With that, he truly had not the slightest bit of strength left. That last attack had not even left him the strength for Martial Soul Possession.

Imperial succession, engagement, duel—he thought of none of it. He just wanted to rest for a little while.

Two hours later.

Dai Yao's condition had recovered somewhat. Once again rejoicing that he was still alive, the hatred he felt toward the Empress deepened even further. "Damned Empress. Not only did you refuse to send soul masters to hunt soul beasts for me, you even sent people into the Beast Taming Garden to murder me. Just you wait. Everything that happened today, I'll pay back double."

Thinking of the technique of pouring Qi into both feet and then erupting with extreme speed, he came up with a name for it. "Since there's already Eight Extremes Collapse, I'll call this technique Explosive Step."

Eight Extremes Collapse was a fighting skill Xiao Yan had tempered through countless trials. Aside from Eight Extremes Collapse, Yao Lao had also trained Xiao Yan in fighting skills such as Explosive Step and Suction Palm.

Dai Yao looked toward the Mystic Water Turtle's corpse. That yellow spirit ring with a trace of purple had begun to shine, appearing and disappearing between illusion and reality. If he did not absorb it soon, it would vanish.

"What a pity. A seven-hundred-year spirit ring exceeds the limit of the First Spirit Ring by far too much. There's no way I can absorb it. I can only let it go to waste."

However, just as Dai Yao was about to pack up and leave, the green lotus in his spiritual world began to radiate light. Drawn by that radiance, the yellow spirit ring gradually flew to Dai Yao's side.

"What the hell? Why is this spirit ring so close to me?" Dai Yao was still shocked when the spirit ring entered his body directly.

"Don't tell me I'm absorbing this spirit ring right now!"

A wave of intense pain struck him. He hurriedly sat down cross-legged and began absorbing the spirit ring. The absorption of a spirit ring could not be stopped. Either he succeeded, or the spirit ring's powerful energy would make him explode.

"Damn it, what exactly is this green lotus? How did it draw this spirit ring over? Absorbing a limit spirit ring is already a narrow escape from death, let alone one that exceeds the limit by more than three hundred years. And right now my body is in a weakened state. Absorbing this spirit ring means certain death!"

But things had already come to this, and he had no other choice. He regulated his breathing and calmed his surging heart. In the face of danger, only composure and calm could solve the problem.

A scorching energy rampaged through his body. In an instant, his internal organs felt as if they were being burned, and his entire body seemed to be soaking in magma.

That scorching aura entered his Dantian. As the Dantian rotated, the originally empty Dantian filled up again. Under the effect of the Green Lotus Phantom within his Dantian, this "Qi" gradually turned into "water."

Immediately after, the scorching aura rushed into his mind, transforming into a blazing ring of fire within his spiritual world.

The ring of fire first circled once through his spiritual world. After seeing the green lotus, it seemed to have seen some terrifying existence and fled at high speed.

It found the Sacred White Tiger not far away. The ring of fire immediately locked around the Sacred White Tiger, turning into a sea of fire around the white tiger.

The white tiger was scorched by the flames and let out a pained roar. Dai Yao in the real world also cried out in agony. His bones felt as if they were being smashed apart, and his flesh and blood were burning.

Dai Yao's face turned crimson. Immediately after, his entire body reddened. His body temperature rose sharply, and water vapor evaporated from his body. He was enveloped in hazy steam, as if he were inside a steamer.

He was about to be burst apart by the powerful energy!

At that critical moment, the green lotus in his spiritual world sprinkled down a green radiance, and the process of his body exploding was immediately stopped.

The meridians in his body were burst apart by the powerful energy, but as the green light fell, the damaged meridians began to recover at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Yet before they had fully recovered, they were torn open again by the energy. The meridians throughout his body shifted back and forth between damage and recovery, and that energy was gradually absorbed by his body through this cycle.

Waves of pain like flesh being carved away came again and again, but the green light made him incomparably clear-headed, leaving him unable to faint. Later, he even became somewhat numb to the pain.

After an unknown length of time, the restored meridians no longer broke apart, and the energy that had been surging through his body vanished without a trace.

The Sacred White Tiger in his spiritual world seemed to have been reborn from the flames. Its pair of eyes, as large as copper bells, shone with vigor, and its white fur grew increasingly profound. The flames became smaller and smaller, finally turning into a yellow spirit ring that circled the Sacred White Tiger.

When the yellow spirit ring shone, a white barrier appeared around the white tiger.

First Spirit Skill—White Tiger Body Barrier!

Dai Yao struggled to open his eyes. He discovered that he had grown even thinner, and he gave a bitter smile. "This time, I really am skin and bones."

However, the final result was astonishing.

His First Spirit Ring had reached seven hundred years! In the history of Douluo Continent, this was unprecedented! Of course, there would be successors later, and plenty of them would be even more absurd than him.

Moreover, his physical strength had also increased greatly, several times more than before. On one hand, the spirit ring had given him a great boost. On the other, under the green lotus's effect, his body, which had been repeatedly torn apart and restored, had become even more solid. Originally, without injuring himself, he could at most withstand twenty percent of his Qi. Now, he could already withstand forty percent of his Qi without injury. If he accepted a certain degree of injury, even withstanding sixty percent of his Qi would be no problem.

When he looked inward at his own Dantian, he discovered a strange sight. After absorbing the spirit ring's energy, the abundant Qi in his Dantian—no, it should be called abundant gaseous soul power—had begun slowly transforming into liquid form around the Green Lotus Phantom.

He could sense that the energy contained in this Liquid Soul Power was more than several times that of gaseous soul power.

As for people without the green lotus, their soul power was still gaseous. In other words, when Dai Yao was at the same level, his soul power would be several times that of an ordinary soul master.

However, Dai Yao suddenly realized, "Doesn't that mean the time I need to cultivate will be several times longer than others?"

The advantages of Liquid Soul Power were foreseeable, but it dragged down Dai Yao's cultivation speed, greatly delaying the time when he could obtain spirit rings.

As a prince, the most important thing for him was cultivation speed. If his cultivation speed was not fast, he would be at an even greater disadvantage in the competition for the throne. However, the green lotus could accelerate his cultivation speed. As long as it could offset the side effects of Liquid Soul Power, then the effect on him would not be too great.