Hunting II

After waving goodbye to Tang Wulin and Xie Xie, Lin Xingyu once again set off on his hunting journey, one filled with his signature "sneaky bastard" style. He had not been weaving through the mysterious forest of the Spirit Ascension Platform for long when he keenly picked up the trace of a special prey.

The Life Magnetic Fields there were extremely similar. Judging from experience, it was most likely the territory of a gregarious Soul Beast species. He used the magnetic fields to sense carefully several times and discovered that those Soul Beasts showed no sign of moving at all. Lin Xingyu's heart leaped with joy, and he guessed that this was very likely the habitat of Plant-type Soul Beasts.

"Let's do it!" Lin Xingyu muttered under his breath, his eyes flashing with excitement. If he ran into animal-type Soul Beasts, he would still have to weigh things up and consider whether it was worth risking an attack. But if they were Plant-type Soul Beasts, there was nothing to hesitate over. The strongest beings in the Elementary Spirit Ascension Platform were only Thousand-Year Soul Beasts, and thousand-year plant-type Soul Beasts could not move. In his eyes, they were perfect "soft persimmons" to squeeze.

Against Plant-type Soul Beasts, the safety factor was extremely high. After all, even if he could not beat them, with his skills, withdrawing unscathed would hardly be difficult. He was purely relying on the fact that they could not move to "bully" them.

Lin Xingyu carefully approached the Soul Beast gathering place. Before long, he saw more than a dozen eyes split open on a large tree. He immediately recognized it as a gregarious and carnivorous Plant-type Soul Beast—the Crimson Demon Tree. No wonder there were no traces of other Soul Beasts nearby.

He circulated his Soul Power, and elemental power surged and gathered around him. In the blink of an eye, Glazed Fireballs condensed at his side. With a thought, the fireballs smashed precisely into the Crimson Demon Trees. A violent explosion erupted instantly, the impact shaking the air, while flames scattered in all directions like wild beasts.

Sparks splashed onto the nearby trees, and the fire spread rapidly. In the blink of an eye, a sea of flames raged, thick smoke billowed, and the pungent stench of burning filled the air.

The commotion woke the surrounding Crimson Demon Trees. They opened their blood-red eyes one after another, their gazes cold and sinister. Immediately after, beams shot out at high speed from their eyes, completely enveloping the area around Lin Xingyu.

Lin Xingyu laughed inwardly. His figure moved like lightning as he instantly retreated backward. In the blink of an eye, he had broken free from the area covered by the Crimson Demon Trees' beams, pulling away from these Soul Beasts and beginning to kite them.

The Glazed True Fire was like nimble and deadly fire snakes. The moment it touched the Crimson Demon Trees' rough bark, it spread madly with the force of a prairie fire. Everyone knew that among the five elements, fire countered wood, and the Glazed True Fire Lin Xingyu controlled was the best of the best among flames, absolutely incomparable to ordinary fire.

This Glazed True Fire was tyrannical and powerful. Once it stuck to a target, it was like a maggot in the bone that could not be shaken off, its adhesiveness beyond imagination. Even more terrifying was that it could turn the opponent's vitality into fuel for burning. The raging flames burned brighter and stronger, forcing the Crimson Demon Trees into a dead end.

The Crimson Demon Trees wildly twisted their branches and trunks, trying in vain to shake off the Glazed True Fire's entanglement, but all of it was wasted effort. The flames seemed to possess a will of their own, clinging tightly to the trunks and frantically devouring the trees' life force. In the blink of an eye, the bark was burned into charcoal and peeled away in large sheets, while the thick stench of scorching and rolling smoke swiftly filled the entire space.

Fortunately, the rules of the Spirit Ascension Platform only lay in protecting the environment and would not stop the flames from burning on the Crimson Demon Trees themselves. That allowed Lin Xingyu's plan to "set the mountain on fire" to be completed smoothly.

When the flames gradually went out, of the originally dense cluster of Crimson Demon Trees, only three survivors with fairly high ages remained. Though fire countering wood was common sense, the gap in Soul Power could not be ignored either. Lin Xingyu naturally would not let these last "fish that slipped through the net" go. He strode forward, condensed several fireballs, and hurled them precisely at those three Crimson Demon Trees. After two rounds of kiting attacks, the Crimson Demon Trees in this area were finally successfully wiped out by him.

As the Crimson Demon Trees fell, streaks of light drifted out from their corpses and rapidly gathered toward Lin Xingyu. In the blink of an eye, all these lights had merged into Aya's body.

Looking back on this battle, Lin Xingyu felt utterly refreshed. This fight could be called the easiest one since he had entered the Spirit Ascension Platform. He had barely spent any effort throughout the whole process, yet his gains far surpassed before. It was truly an unexpected delight.

After half an hour of rest ended, Lin Xingyu set his sights on a small Soul Beast pack. This time, his target was a common gregarious Soul Beast in the Spirit Ascension Platform—the Golden-backed Spirit Wolf. A single Golden-backed Spirit Wolf only had thirty to forty years of cultivation, but they often moved in packs of more than thirty.

The reason Lin Xingyu specifically chose these kinds of gregarious Soul Beasts was because he had discovered that, with his abilities, fighting them was both convenient and safe, with high returns and low energy consumption.

He raised his hand and unleashed a wave of firepower coverage, instantly blasting the Soul Beast pack into disarray, then directly charged in to finish them off. These low-level Soul Beasts found it utterly difficult to break through Lin Xingyu's defenses. With armor covering his body, he felt full of security. Now he finally understood why ancient dynasties made privately hoarding armor a capital crime.

Often, once a battle ended, aside from Soul Power consumption, Lin Xingyu would not even have the slightest injury on him...

The battle between Lin Xingyu and the Golden-backed Spirit Wolf pack could only be called a one-sided crush. His abilities were practically the natural counter to this pack of wolves, and fighting them felt incredibly satisfying.

In just five short minutes, the wolf pack made up of twenty-three Golden-backed Spirit Wolves was completely slaughtered by him. When the battle ended, Lin Xingyu did not have even a scratch on him, while the Soul Spirit energy he gained was actually close to two-thirds of what he would get from hunting a Thousand-Year Soul Beast. This trip was truly worth it!

Once a Soul Beast reached a thousand years, it was like a Soul Master breaking through to Soul Elder; an all-around qualitative change would occur, with its abilities greatly enhanced, making it extremely difficult to deal with. Soul Masters underwent qualitative changes at levels ten, thirty, fifty, seventy, and ninety, while Soul Beasts transformed at Thousand Years, Ten Thousand Years, Fifty Thousand Years, and Hundred Thousand Years. This made it easy to understand why Xie Xie had sounded somewhat proud when he mentioned taking down the Thousand-Year Crystal Bear.

After the battle ended, Lin Xingyu began reviewing it. He carefully recalled the details of the fight and precisely calculated his Soul Power consumption, discovering that he could have used less Soul Power to make the Glazed True Fire cover more Soul Beasts and cause even greater damage.

Inside the Spirit Ascension Platform, Lin Xingyu activated frantic hunting mode. On average, he experienced one battle every half hour, and all of them were quick fights settled fast. Every battle brought him spiritual power, making him more and more addicted the more he killed.

Nearly four hours after entering the Spirit Ascension Platform, he had gained a total of about five hundred years of spiritual power. As a Two-Ring Great Soul Master, his first Soul Spirit had two Soul Rings and could add roughly two hundred and fifty years to the Soul Spirit's age.

The results of these short four hours were something many Soul Masters would not dare dream of. When ordinary Soul Masters entered the Spirit Ascension Platform, even finding Soul Beasts was difficult, let alone hunting them. Most would instead be chased down by Soul Beasts.

Only when great clans brought their juniors to grind Soul Ring age would they have his level of efficiency. For example, in the original work, when Wu Changkong brought Tang Wulin into the Intermediate Spirit Ascension Platform, he raised Tang Wulin's Soul Ring to the thousand-year level in a short time. Now, Lin Xingyu could clearly feel the improvement of his Soul Spirit Aya, and the performance of his Glazed True Fire was also gradually strengthening. Continuous battle was simply too satisfying!