Dugu Yan: Man, You Have Aroused My Curiosity (?)

Dugu Yan: Man, You Have Aroused My Curiosity (?)

Humiliation! Utter humiliation! A towering humiliation!

Poison System Soul Masters naturally possessed considerable resistance to poison, but unless there was an enormous gap between the poison and one's Soul Power, it should not have been completely ignored. Dugu Yan had only ever seen poison utterly disregarded like this by her grandfather, Dugu Bo.

Chen Ming walked past Dugu Yan, then turned around as if provoking her. He paced back and forth before her several times before continuing onward.

Seeing this, Dugu Yan stopped pretending to cultivate and sprang up from the ground. Her legs had transformed into a tail, which rapidly swished across the floor as she leaned toward Chen Ming and reached out to touch him. Yet just as her fingers were about to make contact, Chen Ming's tail smacked her hand away.

"Are we that close? You're getting handsy the moment we meet. Keep this up, and I'll accuse you of molestation!"

"You obviously know what I mean."

Though she was both angry and anxious, Dugu Yan was still an unmarried young woman. After hearing Chen Ming's words, she did not dare keep touching him. Instead, she circled around him incessantly, reaching out to probe the poisonous mist around him.

"How strange. Jade Scorpions don't have methods for concealing themselves or attacking with poisonous mist, yet the quality of your poison mist is exceptionally high."

"If this was a trait gained by absorbing a Soul Ring from a soul beast... no, that's not right. You're a Jade Scorpion King. What kind of Soul Ring could bring such a massive change to your Martial Soul? Your First Soul Ring is a hundred-year ring, and your Second Soul Ring is a thousand-year ring. Could it be the Second Soul Ring..."

"No, that's not right either..."

At that moment, Dugu Yan was like someone facing a math exam. No matter how hard she tried, she still could not understand what incomprehensible script was written on the paper.

Everywhere she looked seemed like something her teacher—her grandfather—had taught her. Yet when she examined it closely, everything felt unfamiliar.

She was somewhat confused. Had all those years of studying beside her grandfather, the world-renowned Poison Douluo, been for nothing?

Why was it that, when facing a mere two-ring Soul Grandmaster, she could not understand this or that, and even the poison she took such pride in was utterly useless?

Could it be that Grandpa had always been comforting her? Could it be that her talent was actually ordinary, and that she was not very bright either?

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

Dugu Yan followed behind Chen Ming like an obsessed girl, keeping her eyes fixed on every move he made. From time to time, she lowered her head to inspect where he had walked. Occasionally, she even brought her face close to him and took a deep breath. She looked so suspicious that it made one want to call the authorities.

Although Chen Ming had intended to tease Dugu Yan and draw closer to her, eventually setting his sights on Dugu Bo's Immortal Herbs, her behavior still made his skin crawl.

"Men and women should not touch so casually."

Chen Ming quickened his pace by two steps, turned around, and spoke to Dugu Yan with righteous severity.

"Hmph..." Realizing what she had just done, Dugu Yan's face reddened slightly. She snorted, turned away, stopped looking into Chen Ming's eyes, and found a place to cultivate by herself with her eyes closed.

Chen Ming shrugged. He wandered around the simulated environment for a few more laps, then found a spot he liked, sat down, and began his daily cultivation.

The place Dugu Yan chose was not too far from Chen Ming. It was a fairly good location for a Poison System Soul Master.

At the start of her cultivation, Dugu Yan could not enter the right state due to all sorts of distracting thoughts. By the time she had finally cleared some of the emotions from her mind and gradually found her rhythm, she suddenly felt an unfamiliar sense of pressure.

The pressure was not severe. It was roughly like the tightness of a winter sweater constricting one's chest, but it thoroughly disrupted Dugu Yan's rhythm. Irritated, she stopped cultivating just as she had begun to find her rhythm and opened her eyes to look at Chen Ming.

As Chen Ming cultivated, his Jade Scorpion King Martial Soul began to stir, and its pressure emerged. Though it had not reached the level of an Emperor, the Jade Scorpion King itself could be considered a powerful poison king. It exerted pressure not only on ordinary scorpion-type soul beasts and Soul Masters, but also on other Poison Attribute Soul Masters.

Although Dugu Bo's Martial Soul was the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor, it had only evolved through a fortunate coincidence when he broke through to become a Titled Douluo. When he fathered Dugu Yan's father, his Martial Soul had only been at the level of a serpent king, still far from a serpent emperor.

Dugu Yan's father had decent talent, but his Soul Power Level was not high when Dugu Yan was born. His Martial Soul was only close to the level of a serpent king. By the time it reached Dugu Yan, her Martial Soul was simply a relatively powerful Jade Phosphorous Serpent, somewhat short of a serpent king and still a great distance from a serpent emperor.

Having stayed by Dugu Bo's side year-round, Dugu Yan had somewhat adapted to the pressure of a superior being. But Chen Ming was not Dugu Bo, and his Martial Soul differed from Dugu Bo's Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor, so she was somewhat uncomfortable with it at first.

Dugu Yan wanted to move farther away, but she felt that would make it seem like she was afraid of Chen Ming. She wanted to leave, but she truly detested the swarm of flies outside. With nothing else to do, she took out the notes her grandfather Dugu Bo had given her and began reading in the dim environment.

Dugu Yan opened to the description of the Bilin Scorpion among the Bilin Five Poisons and began comparing it to Chen Ming's Martial Soul. She then looked through the illustrations of those top-tier Poison Attribute soul beasts, trying to figure out which soul beast's Soul Ring Chen Ming had absorbed to gain such traits.

However, before she could focus for long, Dugu Yan gave up. She decided that when her grandfather Dugu Bo returned after some time, she would just directly ask her omnipotent grandfather.

To save face, Dugu Yan cultivated under the pressure of the aura Chen Ming gave off. Under the pressure of Chen Ming's unconsciously released aura and her own unwillingness to yield, Dugu Yan entered a more effective meditation than usual.

As her meditation deepened bit by bit, Dugu Yan seemed to sense that the Poison Attribute Soul Power in the cave, which usually remained indifferent to her, was consciously gathering toward Chen Ming, forming a circle of Soul Power centered around him.

In Dugu Yan's understanding, this was a very strange phenomenon. When high-level Soul Masters absorbed Soul Power, such a phenomenon could also form, but that was essentially because their absorption speed was too fast, causing Soul Power to gather.

Yet although Chen Ming's absorption speed was fast, it clearly had not reached such an exaggerated level. Rather than saying he was actively absorbing Soul Power, it was more accurate to say that Soul Power was actively gathering toward him, wanting to be absorbed by him.

Within this circle of Soul Power surrounding Chen Ming, even her cultivation speed was pulled along, becoming roughly ten to twenty percent faster than usual. This was an extraordinarily unbelievable matter. Even when cultivating beside her grandfather Dugu Bo, Dugu Yan had never encountered anything like it.

And without her noticing, her body had already begun slowly moving toward Chen Ming, subconsciously seeking more Soul Power. It was merely because the distance between them was not that close that it had not yet become apparent.