Gifts and Seals

In a dense forest somewhere in the Magical Beast Mountain Range.

"Rise!"

With a light shout, the alchemy cauldron opened wide, and a thick aura of deathly stillness was released from within. The surrounding plants, once tainted by that aura, slowly lost their vitality.

Lin Yuan waved his hand, and several black "pills" emitting an ominous aura flew out of the alchemy cauldron and landed in his hand.

Lin Yuan looked at the "pills" in his hand and nodded in satisfaction.

"Looks like my talent for poison refining isn't low either. In this way, the 'gift' for Queen Medusa is ready."

Suddenly, the Purple Jade Scale Snake on his hand stirred. Lin Yuan's brows relaxed into a smile. "It's been so many days. Finally found a fifth-tier snake-type magical beast? In District Seventeen. That's not far."

Lin Yuan spread his wings and flew northwest.

"Bang, bang, bang!!!"

With three sounds of fists striking flesh, a figure about a dozen zhang long collapsed.

"Done! It really could hide." As he spoke, Lin Yuan condensed a large hand of dou qi, grabbed the fifth-tier magical beast, the Black Rock Demon Snake, and flew toward the valley.

After returning to the valley, Lin Yuan gave the magical beast two more punches to make sure it was unconscious, then waved his hand at Qing Lin, who was already a Six-Star Dou Practitioner.

"Qing'er, come try. Try your Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils and see if you can subdue this guy."

When Qing Lin heard him, she ran over and began activating her Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils, making the attempt.

A short while later.

"Young Master, I've already subdued this big guy, but subduing one more of this level would be my limit. If I want to subdue more, stronger magical beasts, I'll have to wait until my cultivation rises a little." Qing Lin looked at Lin Yuan, her eyes showing a faint weariness as she spoke cautiously.

"Really? I originally thought Qing'er wouldn't be able to subdue even this one. I didn't expect you could still subdue another. My Qing'er is really amazing. In this way, when I enter seclusion in the future, I'll feel at ease with you protecting me." Lin Yuan looked happily at Qing Lin and stroked her head, a hint of pleasant surprise in his words.

"Hehe, Young Master is the amazing one. If it had been awake, it definitely wouldn't have gone so smoothly. Qing'er is going to cultivate now and strive to control even stronger magical beasts in the future." Hearing Lin Yuan's straightforward praise and expectations, Qing Lin became happy. She was deeply intoxicated by this feeling of being valued and expected by Lin Yuan.

Watching Qing Lin sit cross-legged to cultivate again, Lin Yuan looked at her back and sank into thought.

"As expected, even the Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils have limits. The most important influencing factor is undoubtedly the user's strength. Next should be the specific techniques for using the Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils. I'll need to think of some ways in this regard."

"The founder of the Heavenly Snake Mansion was a holder of the Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils, so their inheritance must be useful to Qing'er. Looks like I'll need to think of a way to obtain their inheritance related to the Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils."

As for sending Qing Lin to the Heavenly Snake Mansion for training, Lin Yuan had no such idea. Leaving aside the fact that the Sky Dome Network, with Qing Lin at its core, was extremely important to Lin Yuan, the Heavenly Snake Mansion's training standards were also fairly limited. In the original timeline, Qing Lin took ten years to grow to the Dou Venerate level. Lin Yuan was confident that Qing Lin, by his side, would only need a few years to become a Dou Venerate.

"Then let the Heavenly Snake Mansion become resources for Qing'er's progress."

"There isn't much time left before the date agreed on with Hai Bodong either. It's time to help him deal with the seal. I happened to have a decent idea about sealing techniques recently, so I can use the Snake Curse Seal on him to test it."

Several days later, Desert City.

In the desert, Hai Bodong sat cross-legged. Lin Yuan stood behind him, his right hand flashing with deep cyan light as it pressed against Hai Bodong's back.

"Begin!" Lin Yuan instructed Hai Bodong.

When Hai Bodong heard him, he followed Lin Yuan's earlier instructions and began circulating his dou qi at full force. His aura kept rising, charging straight to the Peak Dou Spirit level.

Suddenly, eerie dark-cyan energy rapidly condensed. In mere moments, it formed strange, fine dark-cyan snake markings on Hai Bodong's forehead. It was precisely the Snake Curse Seal set up by Queen Medusa. The snake markings coiled above his head, like a small lock, tightly locking down Hai Bodong's cultivation. Hai Bodong's rising aura also came to an abrupt halt, stagnating at the Peak Dou Spirit level.

"Maintain this state. Do not resist my dou qi." Sensing that the Snake Curse Seal had been activated, Lin Yuan gave an instruction. Then the hand pressed against Hai Bodong's back released wisps of extremely pure dou qi that seeped into Hai Bodong's body. Under Lin Yuan's control, the extremely pure dou qi split into tiny threads of dou qi. Lin Yuan deftly manipulated these fine threads of dou qi to surge toward the snake markings.

After reaching the vicinity of the snake markings, Lin Yuan did not control his dou qi to directly collide with the energy of the snake markings. Instead, relying on his superb dou qi control, he constantly adjusted his own dou qi so it could blend with part of the snake-marking energy. Then, bit by bit, he extracted and refined that blended portion of energy.

As Lin Yuan extracted and refined part of the snake-marking energy bit by bit, the dark-cyan snake markings on Hai Bodong's head also faded somewhat.

"Is this as far as it goes?"

After half an hour, the remaining snake-marking energy consisted only of the seal's purest energy. This snake-marking energy repelled other energies to an extreme degree; even the dou qi Lin Yuan manipulated could no longer mix with it.

Realizing he could no longer extract it, Lin Yuan decisively stopped continuing the motions of mixing and extracting energy. Immediately after, the hand seal in his hand changed.

"Seal and suppress."

The dou qi injected into Hai Bodong's body transformed into an exquisite seal, sealing off with extreme precision the energy channel between the Snake Curse Seal and Hai Bodong's body, preventing it from drawing energy from within Hai Bodong to maintain the seal's strength.

As Lin Yuan finished sealing and suppressing the Snake Curse Seal, Hai Bodong's tightly shut eyes suddenly opened. A fierce aura surged out like a waking lion. The aura that had been restricted at the Peak Dou Spirit level began to rise in a straight line. Before long, it broke through the boundary of Dou Wang and continued climbing until it finally stopped at Three-Star Dou Wang.

A burst of powerful, icy dou qi swirled around him, causing even the surrounding air to condense, as if a snowstorm were about to arrive.

Hai Bodong shot into the sky, and a pair of ice wings suddenly spread in the air. He flew freely, his tone filled with exhilaration. "Haha, that damned seal! This old man can finally fly into the sky again and enjoy the feeling of freedom. This feeling is truly long time no see."

Lin Yuan did not pay attention to Hai Bodong's wild joy. He pondered the results of his own experiment.

"As expected, the vast majority of strange methods ultimately come down to a contest of the quality and quantity of dou qi. As a Dou Wang, because I cultivate an Earth Tier High-Grade Cultivation Method and possess Heavenly Flames, the 'quality' of my dou qi surpasses the 'quality' of Medusa's dou qi. That's why I can erode the Snake Curse Seal she set, and can even seal the seal she placed inside Hai Bodong's body."

"No wonder Nihility Devouring Flame can approach the point of devouring almost anything. Aside from its devouring trait, it itself is close to the peak of 'quality,' and its Nine-Star Dou Saint cultivation lets it approach the peak in quantity as well. Naturally, it can display its devouring trait to the extreme."

"Looks like in future cultivation, I'll have to think of ways to improve both the 'quality' and 'quantity' of my dou qi."

Thank you all for your votes, tips, collections, continued reading support. It's the critical moment of the recommendation PK phase, so please keep reading. This concerns promotion to the next recommendation slot. I'll have to trouble everyone to lend a hand.