The Star Dou Great Forest was one of the largest and most dangerous Spirit Beast habitats on the Douluo Continent.
Towering ancient trees blotted out the sky, vines coiled like giant pythons, and the air carried an unpolluted freshness.
"This is the legendary Star Dou Great Forest—pretty nice."
Bai Mu stretched lazily. The moment he arrived, he felt as though his mind had cleared up considerably.
With a cry, Zygarde in its Core Form jumped down from Bai Mu's shoulder and transformed back into a Dragon Dog, its eyes gleaming as it swept its gaze across the surroundings.
Upon arriving here, it felt every cell in its body come alive.
"Xiao Ruan, clear the way."
"Woof!" Zygarde used Extreme Speed, easily smashing through the weeds and branches blocking the path and opening up a shaded trail through the forest.
"Let's see just how deep the waters of the Star Dou Great Forest run."
Bai Mu smiled confidently and strode inside.
Not long after entering, he could feel several covetous gazes falling upon him from all around.
But he paid them no mind and continued forward in great strides.
Suddenly, dozens of green lights appeared deep within the forest.
The next moment, a pack of large wolves, each around 1.6 meters long and covered in iron-gray fur, slowly emerged.
Those ghostly green lights were their eyes.
"A pack of Nether Wolves that are only a few hundred years old?"
Bai Mu smiled faintly, his steps never slowing, as if he had not seen them at all.
"Awwooo!"
With a wolf howl, the entire pack charged out like a flowing mass of shadows!
"Xiao Ruan, Stomp!"
"Roar!"
Zygarde, which had been clearing the way elsewhere, immediately returned to Bai Mu's side.
It stomped down hard, unleashing a terrifying shockwave that swept in every direction.
Buzz—boom!
The charging wolves instantly felt agonizing pain in all four limbs, and their bodies went numb.
As their speed plummeted, they felt a dreadful pressure descend over them.
"Aw?!"
In their eyes, Zygarde was no longer an ordinary Dragon Dog. It had transformed into a terrifying giant dragon!
"Awawaw!"
In an instant, the Nether Wolf pack scattered in panic.
"Good job—"
"Whoosh!"
Before Bai Mu could finish praising it, a Thousand-Year Shadow Leopard suddenly pounced from the shadows without warning.
It was incredibly fast, its shadow-wreathed claws shooting straight for Bai Mu's throat.
Bai Mu merely glanced at it, his expression unchanged as he kept walking.
He softly uttered two words: "Extreme Speed."
"Whoosh!"
A green-and-white streak flashed past. Before the Shadow Leopard's attack could land, it was sent flying with a direct collision. Bang!
Only after smashing through a large tree did the Shadow Leopard fall to the ground, twitching as it coughed up blood.
"Tsk, tsk. I haven't even gone that deep yet, and a Thousand-Year Spirit Beast is already here to welcome me. I really am popular."
Bai Mu gave the Shadow Leopard an indifferent glance and stopped paying it any further attention.
"What a pity its cultivation is too low. Otherwise, I could have considered absorbing its Spirit Ring Resonance for a Ghost Type move."
According to Bai Mu's current plan, his Third Spirit Ring would be a Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Ring!
After all, even his Second Spirit Ring was already five thousand years old. Unless he encountered a Spirit Beast capable of resonating with a Special Move, or one that could provide an External Soul Bone, he had no intention of lowering himself to absorb a low-year Spirit Ring.
As for which Spirit Beast to hunt and which move to resonate with—
Since he had yet to decide, he chose to leave it to fate.
The only thing that worried him was—
"I wonder whether I can withstand the soul shock of a Ten Thousand Year Spirit Beast now."
Bai Mu was not entirely confident about that.
In terms of physical quality alone, he felt he was more than capable, but as for Spiritual Power—that was harder to say.
"Whatever. I'll practice controlling my Substitute to train my Spiritual Power. If I keep at it, I'll grow stronger."
Bai Mu decisively created a Substitute and headed deeper into the forest while training.
He did not deliberately search for any particular Spirit Beast. Whatever he encountered, he fought, treating every battle as training.
If the enemy was high-level, Zygarde went first.
If it was low-level, the Substitutes of man and dog swarmed it together.
During the day, they hunted Spirit Beasts and honed their combat skills. At night, they cultivated through Calm Mind and consolidated their Soul Power.
Unknowingly, one person and one dog both grew rapidly through real combat, and their use of Spirit Skills and moves became increasingly natural.
Time quietly passed.
Bai Mu's level remained steadily at 30. His Soul Power was dense and solid, while Zygarde had consumed more of the Immortal Herb's medicinal power and condensed another Z-Cell.
One afternoon, Bai Mu was resting beside a stream, preparing to continue searching for a target.
Suddenly, Zygarde issued a warning. "I sense an abnormal fluctuation appearing two kilometers ahead."
"Something abnormal? Let's take a look."
Bai Mu immediately concealed his presence and approached while invisible alongside Zygarde.
After passing through an area thick with vines, the sight before them made their pupils contract sharply. A massive bear-type Spirit Beast corpse lay silently ahead.
Its thick fur held traces of silver, and there was a hole the size of a basin running through its chest. Judging by the corpse, the bear had stood at least eight meters tall in life.
"A Ten Thousand Year Iron-Back Grizzly Bear?"
Bai Mu stepped forward to inspect it closely and barely recognized this powerful Spirit Beast known for both offense and defense.
Although the bear was already dead, his expression remained grave.
Its corpse was shriveled like dead wood, its fur dull and dry, as though it had been air-dried for decades.
But the problem was that bloodstains covered the surrounding ground. The earth was torn up, and many trees had been snapped apart. It was obvious that a fierce battle had taken place not long ago!
What was more—
"The forest is damp. Fine, the corpse hasn't decayed despite being this shriveled, but why hasn't another Spirit Beast eaten it?"
Bai Mu crouched down and examined it carefully.
The corpse's bones had become extremely brittle and shattered at the slightest touch. Its teeth were aged and falling out, and it exuded a rotten aura—
This was absolutely not the state of a normal death!
"It's like the corpse had been dried out over several decades."
Bai Mu muttered to himself.
He suddenly recalled a rumor Shui Yunxin had mentioned back in Skywater City. Legend had it that there was a Special Spirit Beast with enormous tusks that fed on the time of other Spirit Beasts it hunted.
It could use the power of time to attack and strengthen itself by plundering the time of badly wounded Spirit Beasts. The corpses of Spirit Beasts it hunted would rapidly dry up, as though they had been air-dried for a long time.
This Spirit Beast was known as the Tusked Time Hunter.
"Hunting time, the power of time... I didn't expect a Spirit Beast like that to really exist."
Bai Mu's eyes lit up, and his thoughts immediately became active.
"There aren't many Spirit Beasts with time attributes. Could I obtain a precious Spirit Skill, or resonate with a Special Move?"
Thinking of this, Bai Mu grabbed Zygarde's dog head and vigorously rubbed it. "Xiao Ruan, see if you can track that Spirit Beast's aura."
"In my senses, this aura appears and disappears unpredictably. It is difficult to follow."
Zygarde was uncertain as well, but it had confidence in itself.
"As long as it uses a similar ability again, I should be able to sense it successfully from farther away this time."
"That's enough. We'll use it as the center and send out Substitutes to search from different directions!"
With a target in sight, Bai Mu was full of motivation.
"I can release Cells to monitor the area!"
Zygarde said.
"Good! Let's do it!"
Bai Mu smiled.
A day later, he discovered a second dried corpse five kilometers away—a six-thousand-year Gale Demon Wolf.
Three days later, there was a third dried corpse—a nine-thousand-year Steel-Armored Rhino.
These corpses were scattered across different areas, and every one of them bore a piercing wound.
On the evening of the seventh day, as the afterglow of the setting sun shone through the gaps in the forest, Bai Mu finally found his target.
Before you continue