Extreme North Core Region, Hunting the Ice Qilin!

The wind cut across the vast land like knives.

As Du Busi's jade-green glow faded, Liu Yuan's feet finally touched the thick snow.

Led at full speed by a Level 98 Super Douluo, a journey that once spanned half the continent had taken only seven days.

Before Liu Yuan lay a silver world of absolute purity and absolute cruelty.

The outskirts of the Extreme North.

As far as the eye could see, the rolling mountains in the distance were clad in silver. Under the faint sunlight, glaciers reflected a mirror-like chill.

The temperature here had already fallen to around minus forty degrees. Every breath felt like swallowing ice shards, and his lungs ached faintly.

Liu Yuan instinctively tightened his clothes. Even with a body tempered by the Body Secret Technique, he still felt bone-piercing cold before such extreme natural power.

"Don't look at me. Use your own Soul Power to resist it."

Du Busi stood in the wind and snow with his hands behind his back. Not a trace of Soul Power fluctuated around him, yet the freezing wind capable of stiffening a Soul Grandmaster silently dispersed when it came within three inches of him.

He cast Liu Yuan a sidelong glance, his tone calm yet stern beyond question.

"This is also cultivation. If you can't even withstand the cold at the outskirts, your Martial Soul will freeze and crack once you enter the core region."

Hearing this, Liu Yuan immediately steadied his mind.

He took a deep breath. His Double Pupil narrowed slightly as Soul Power circulated through his body like a rushing stream. A faint red glow covered his skin, forcefully driving the invading cold from his body.

Master and disciple continued onward one before the other, neither hurried nor slow, trudging north through snow that reached their knees.

As the altitude rose and they traveled farther north, the environment grew increasingly harsh.

The howling gale whipped up snow so thick that visibility dropped below ten meters, while the temperature plummeted to a level that even Soul Masters found despairing.

When Liu Yuan felt thick ice crystals hanging from his brows and lashes, and the circulation of his Soul Power beginning to slow, Du Busi finally stopped.

"That's enough. Any farther, and your little body won't be able to take it."

With a wave of his right hand, Du Busi instantly deployed an incomparably condensed jade-green Soul Power barrier around Liu Yuan.

In an instant, all wind, snow, and cold were shut out. Inside the barrier, it was warm as spring.

"Thank you, Master." Liu Yuan let out a long breath and hurriedly adjusted his breathing.

"The real battle starts now. The Ice Qilin is an auspicious beast and the proud king of these polar lands. Finding it will depend on luck."

Half a month quietly passed within this desolate forbidden zone of ice and snow.

The process of searching for the Ice Qilin was far more tedious and difficult than Liu Yuan had imagined.

They crossed ice fields that never melted year-round, climbed the perilous Great Snow Mountain, and even passed by several Ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts at the edge of the Extreme North Core Region.

Yet the ice-blue figure recorded in the Secret Codex never appeared.

"Master, could that thing really have gone extinct?" Liu Yuan sat atop an icy boulder, his Double Pupil sweeping the distance as his vision was pushed to its limit.

"If such remnants of divine beasts were easy to find, they wouldn't be called qilin." Though Du Busi said so, a trace of impatience had appeared in his eyes.

Just as they were preparing to search from another direction, Liu Yuan's body suddenly shook. The two pupils within his Double Pupil instantly overlapped as he stared fixedly at an ice valley a thousand meters away.

"Master! Look!"

At the valley entrance obscured by blizzard snow, a dreamlike ice-blue streak flashed past.

The creature resembled a divine deer, yet was more agile and majestic than any deer. A crystalline horn grew from its forehead, and its entire body was covered in ice-blue dragon scales as exquisite as artwork.

With every step it took, an ice lotus condensed from frigid mist appeared beneath its feet, sacred and proud.

The Ice Qilin!

"You actually managed to wait it out, kid!" Du Busi's eyes lit up. Then his brows lifted slightly as his divine sense swept out like a tide.

At the same time, Liu Yuan made his own judgment through the Insight of his Double Pupil. His voice carried undisguised regret.

"Judging by the color of its scales and the density of its Soul Power fluctuations... this Ice Qilin's cultivation is probably around twenty thousand years."

Twenty thousand years.

By the common knowledge of the Soul Master world, the usual limit for a Third Spirit Ring was around two thousand years.

Even with the advantages of Liu Yuan's Body Martial Soul, allowing him to absorb something of a higher age, absorbing a twenty-thousand-year one... was practically suicide.

"What a pity. Its age is too high." Liu Yuan sighed.

"What the hell are you pitying?"

Du Busi suddenly turned around and gave Liu Yuan an annoyed smack on the head, his voice brimming with wild arrogance.

"Do you think all that high-level Soul Beast meat I fed you these past months, all those secret medicines I had you soak in, and all those Qiangti Pills I gave you were for feeding dogs?"

"Do you think you practiced the Body Secret Technique every day just to follow the same orderly path as ordinary Soul Masters?"

Liu Yuan froze.

Du Busi stood with his hands behind his back, an insane yet confident gleam flashing in his eyes. "Liu Yuan, listen carefully."

"Your Double Pupil is already a top-grade spiritual type, and your Spirit Power has long since reached the Soul King level."

"After nearly half a year of tempering in my Body Sect, your physical strength has improved tremendously!"

"If I were only bringing you here to obtain a Spirit Ring of a few thousand years, why would I have made this trip myself?"

"In my plan, your Third Spirit Ring must start at ten thousand years! This twenty-thousand-year Ice Qilin is—just right!"

Twenty thousand years, just right?

Liu Yuan was stunned at first, then an overwhelming surge of joy and ambition rose within him.

If his master, this Level 98 Body Douluo, said he could do it, then he definitely could!

"Go find a sheltered spot behind us and wait. Watch how I catch this beast for you!"

The moment Du Busi finished speaking, he vanished from where he stood.

The next second, an earth-shaking beast roar erupted from the distant ice valley.

The Ice Qilin sensed an unprecedented threat. It threw back its head and howled as its ice-blue scales instantly lit up. Extreme cold transformed into a blizzard, trying to block that green streak of light.

Though this Ice Qilin had only twenty thousand years of cultivation, just as the Secret Codex recorded, its body was terrifyingly powerful under the blessing of its formidable bloodline. Its combat strength was enough to crush ordinary Soul Beasts of thirty or forty thousand years.

But before Du Busi, such resistance seemed somewhat futile.

"Body—Suppression!"

Du Busi's voice exploded across the polar land like thunder.

From afar, Liu Yuan saw that his master had not even unleashed his Martial Soul. Relying solely on his tyrannical Body Soul Power, one palm strike shattered the glaciers across several hundred meters.

No matter how the Ice Qilin charged and roared, before that towering Super Douluo, it could only have its strength gradually worn away.

"When will I become this powerful too?"

Watching Du Busi's almost brutal style of battle, Liu Yuan felt an unprecedented longing rise in his heart.

This was a true Body Soul Master! This was a true powerhouse!

One force broke ten thousand techniques. No matter what divine beast bloodline you possessed, before me, you had to bow your head!

A moment later, Du Busi returned to Liu Yuan, carrying the barely breathing Ice Qilin like a kitten. More than half its bones had been shattered.

"Finish it off. The rest is up to you." Du Busi patted his hands together, looking as relaxed as though he had merely returned from a stroll.

Liu Yuan did not hesitate. He drew his dagger, aimed at the Ice Qilin's exposed throat, and stabbed down fiercely.

Buzz—!

A deep, tranquil black Soul Ring radiating endless pressure slowly emerged from the Ice Qilin's sacred glow, pulsing ceaselessly around Liu Yuan's body.

A Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring!

Liu Yuan took a deep breath and sat down cross-legged. Crimson and profound darkness erupted from his Double Pupil at once.

"Whether I succeed or not depends on this!"

The absorption to come would be the final hurdle determining whether he could truly undergo a complete transformation.