Four Molts (Please Support)

Scenes surfaced in his mind.

Dahuangluo Land, Zhaoyang Country.

Spring, Year Thirty-Six.

A great drought ravaged the land; not a single grain was harvested.

Giant Rats ran rampant across the wilderness. Some were as large as oxen, mutated into demons, and injured hundreds of people.

One Giant Rat had sneaked into the city granaries and stolen the people's life-saving food. It was discovered by Monks from Dragon-Raising Temple passing through the area and slain on the spot.

Yet from the information Su Qingqiu had obtained, he saw that this demonic Giant Rat had been secretly controlled by the city prefect all along!

"What a fine Giant Rat! Truth and falsehood—so it was nothing more than this. You great rat are rather pitiful too. The true Giant Rat hides behind the scenes and still roams free to this day, while your Spiritual Light has scattered, turbid qi coils around you, and you have fallen into the ranks of evil demons and monstrosities."

Su Qingqiu sighed. The filth of the human world was something even evil creatures like Giant Rats could never compare to.

"Still, from this rat's remaining memories, it seems it fled here with the rat tide from another region. Yanfeng Nation, Kundun Region... Ten Nations and Twelve Veins..."

Su Qingqiu pondered the information he had just received. Though these memories were simple and crude, one could glimpse the leopard through a tube; they were enough to give him some understanding of the outside world.

A few minutes later, Exorcism and Blessing was complete!

[Obtained 15 years of Daoism Cultivation. Obtained Eyes of the Spiritual Snake. Obtained 2 Flesh and Blood Pills.]

What bountiful gains!

Eyes of the Spiritual Snake: Could observe heaven and earth, mountains and rivers; could observe the sun and moon, rivers and lakes; could observe fortune and misfortune, blessings and calamities.

Spiritual Eyes emerged on their own and fused into his Serpent Eyes. Su Qingqiu circulated his Spiritual Light, rapidly consuming it. The true state of Snake Abyss appeared before his eyes.

He saw an enormous stream of Pure Spiritual Qi rising into the void above and connecting to Profound Netherworld below. A colossal serpent seemed to coil within it, dead yet unyielding, raising its head to howl at the heavens.

Beyond that, countless wisps of Pure Spiritual Qi mingled amid the overwhelming Five Turbid Qi, frail yet steadfast.

"Is that Dragon Bone Spiritual Light, along with the Spiritual Light of countless Spiritual Serpents?"

"And the turbid qi belongs to those demonic and evil things? To think that even the first level has so many of them."

Through his Spiritual Eyes, Su Qingqiu actually saw through rock and darkness, taking in the general situation on the first level of Snake Abyss.

Not only that, when he looked in certain directions, faint, peculiar emotions arose within him.

Sometimes unease, sometimes delight, sometimes hesitation, and more.

It seemed to be the Spiritual Eyes' power to seek fortune and avoid disaster.

"What excellent Spiritual Eyes. With this ability, my safety has greater protection."

Su Qingqiu was exhilarated. The emergence of the Spiritual Eyes had solved his most pressing problem. In the future, when he went out, he would no longer have to rely on blind luck like a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse.

After familiarizing himself with the Eyes of the Spiritual Snake for a while longer and consuming quite a bit of Spiritual Light, he refined the Flesh and Blood Pills and converted Daoism Cultivation into Spiritual Light.

The following days passed in constant training.

Only when Su Qingqiu's stomach was empty and he began to feel hungry did he suddenly realize that the Giant Rat head he had swallowed had somehow been completely digested.

His cultivation had also come to a full stop.

He examined himself now.

His Spiritual Light had increased to twenty wisps, most of it converted from Daoism Cultivation, with a small portion growing naturally. Spiritual Light could drive the Spiritual Eyes, resist the effects of Five Turbid Evil Qi, and was even tied to his own evolution. It had many uses, so naturally, the more the better.

Yet this thing could only be obtained by resisting evil qi or converting Daoism Cultivation. Increasing it quickly was difficult.

Setting Spiritual Light aside, under the effects of the Flesh and Blood Pills and Protecting the Residence, Su Qingqiu had shed his skin once more.

In just a single week, he had completed two molts. Other Spiritual Serpents needed at least two years to accomplish the same.

At this moment, he had begun to resemble a great snake. Though he was still some distance from becoming a Boa, it was no longer an unreachable dream.

At the same time, under Su Qingqiu's deliberate guidance, after two molts, the divine ability Protecting the Residence had partially quantified the basic condition of his body.

Name: Su Qingqiu

Species: Guardian Snake

Level: Level 1 Spiritual Snake

Talents: Protecting the Residence, Exorcism and Blessing

Physical Attributes: 2.5 (including strength, agility, flexibility, reaction speed, and so on)

Physical Defense: 3.1 (including snake scale strength, Spiritual Light protection, muscle strength, sinew, bone, and bloodline strength, and so on)

Basic Data: 1.58 meters, 105 jin

Molts: 2

Spiritual Light: 20

Overall Assessment: 10

All the figures used his pre-molt self as their baseline. In other words, he could now fight ten of his former selves.

"After two molts, my physical attributes and physical defense should logically both be at 2. Yet they have exceeded that by so much. Sure enough, under Protecting the Residence, persistent training still brings tremendous improvement."

Su Qingqiu pondered this.

The basic information granted by Dragon-Raising Temple mentioned that once Spiritual Light surpassed one hundred wisps and Spiritual Patterns were condensed, one could advance to a Level 2 Great Spiritual Serpent.

From Small Spiritual Snake to Great Spiritual Snake, those with outstanding aptitude shed their skin three to five times. Ordinary ones only molted once, when they advanced.

For snakes, every molt was an evolution from the soul to the deepest depths of life itself. Thus, even Spiritual Serpents of the same level could differ vastly in their upper and lower limits.

A Small Spiritual Snake that had molted nine times was naturally worlds apart from one that had molted only once.

Su Qingqiu was still some way from having over a hundred wisps of Spiritual Light, yet he had already molted twice. Though it was mostly due to the medicinal effects of the pills, it was still no small feat.

"In myth and legend, an eel grows into a snake; a snake grows into a Boa; a Boa grows into a Python; a Python grows into a Hui; after five hundred years, a Hui becomes a Qiu Dragon; after another five hundred years, a Qiu Dragon grows into a Jiao; after a thousand years, a Jiao becomes a dragon; a dragon becomes a Horned Dragon after five hundred years, and an Yinglong after a thousand!"

"Only upon reaching the level of a Qiu Dragon can one be considered a little dragon. Perhaps by then, one would have at least tens of thousands of wisps of Spiritual Light, with heavenly phenomena following every movement. Converted into Daoism Cultivation, that would be over ten thousand years... I really am still too weak. I need to stay obediently in Snake Abyss and cannot afford to be reckless!"

Su Qingqiu measured his own Spiritual Light and Daoism Cultivation. The tiny trace of complacency that had just arisen vanished without a trace.

Over the next several months, Su Qingqiu thoroughly mastered the use of his Spiritual Eyes. Relying on their power, he avoided danger and sought out evil and strange remains he could devour at his current stage.

His harvest was plentiful.

He devoured the leg bone of a Spider Demon and obtained seven Flesh and Blood Pills and seventeen years of Daoism Cultivation.

He devoured a remnant branch from a mutated Willow Tree and obtained two Spirit Essence Pills and twenty-three years of Daoism Cultivation.

He devoured a fist-sized eyeball and obtained three Eye-Brightening Pills.

Furthermore, he discovered a set of Demon Armor. It had likely formed when ordinary armor was eroded over countless years by the Evil Qi of Snake Abyss.

This thing was powerful, and its abilities were even stranger. Su Qingqiu could not defeat it at all. However, while the Demon Armor battled a great snake, he took the chance to steal several fragments that had fallen from its edges. After devouring them, he found that he could digest them as well, and obtained one Scale Armor Pill that tempered his scales.

The rewards gained from devouring evil and strange remains through Exorcism and Blessing were completely unpredictable. All manner of bizarre and peculiar rewards could be found among them.

The only regret was that he never again encountered complete and powerful Evil Remains like the Giant Rat. The items rewarded were also far inferior to the Eyes of the Spiritual Snake he had received before.

Still, Su Qingqiu was patient. Snake Abyss lacked everything, except evil and strange remains—those were absolutely abundant.

As long as he became strong enough, if he lay low in Snake Abyss, sooner or later he would obtain rewards even more precious than the Eyes of the Spiritual Snake.

During this period, he pushed the divine abilities Protecting the Residence and Exorcism and Blessing to their utmost limits. Even the Eyes of the Spiritual Snake, through long-term use, faintly showed signs of advancing.

By now, he had completed four full molts.

His body was over three meters long and weighed up to a thousand jin. Every inch of his skin was like steel reinforcement cast in place. Not only had both his physical attributes and physical defense broken past ten, but his Spiritual Light had long since surpassed one hundred wisps and now reached the level of 999 wisps.

At this level, no matter how Su Qingqiu converted Daoism Cultivation, his Spiritual Light could advance no further.

He had reached the limit a Small Spiritual Snake could attain!