Douluo: Martial Soul Ah Yin, Exposing Tang San's True Colors

Considering the safety of Su Yun and the other two students, Teacher Xiong decided to set up camp and rest right where they were.

With the campfire and Teacher Xiong's protection, the three of them spent a very peaceful night.

The next day.

In the early morning, the group of four made their way through the Soul Hunting Forest, heading toward the depths.

Most of the soul beasts within the Soul Hunting Forest are captive-bred, so they are basically ten-year or hundred-year level soul beasts; thousand-year level soul beasts are extremely rare.

After all, it was night yesterday, and considering safety, Teacher Xiong had not continued deeper.

But now it was daytime, and visibility was good.

With his strength as a two-ring Soul Grand Master, unless he encountered a siege by multiple hundred-year soul beasts, he had no fear of other individual soul beasts.

"Su Yun, are you really going to look for a Lazy Tree as your first soul ring?"

Teacher Xiong's voice came from the front of the group: "I've heard that the Lazy Tree is not only a rare plant-type soul beast, but as a soul ring, it also has very strong side effects for a soul master."

"I advise you to hunt a different soul beast instead, like a Lone Bamboo; I think that kind of soul beast would be quite suitable for your Blue Silver Grass martial soul."

When Teacher Xiong learned that the soul beast Su Yun wanted was actually a Lazy Tree, he was shocked.

As someone who had once formed a team in the Soul Hunting Forest, Teacher Xiong naturally understood what kind of soul beast a Lazy Tree was.

The Lazy Tree grows extremely slowly.

A hundred-year level Lazy Tree is only about one meter tall.

That's right, only one meter tall.

And after reaching one hundred years, for every additional century of age, the height of the Lazy Tree only increases by ten centimeters.

It is very bizarre.

This is also the reason why it was named the Lazy Tree.

As a soul beast, the Lazy Tree has only one form of attack.

That is its leaves.

Although the Lazy Tree grows extremely slowly in vertical height, its leaves are replaced extremely quickly.

On average, the area of leaves dropped by a single Lazy Tree every day is enough to cover a radius of two meters.

Over time, due to the terrain and the wind, the leaves of the Lazy Tree effectively form a surrounding circle, protecting the tree itself.

Because they emit a fragrance, the leaves of the Lazy Tree often become food for some soul beasts.

However, once these soul beasts follow the scent and step onto the leaves, the soul power remaining within the leaves immediately takes effect.

Slow!

That's right, upon contact with the leaves of the Lazy Tree, anything will immediately be slowed by thirty percent for a duration of 3 seconds.

The target that is slowed will also have the fragrance of the Lazy Tree leaves remain on them for 3 minutes.

If the leaves of the Lazy Tree are eaten, the duration of the slow remains the same, but the duration of the fragrance is extended to 10 minutes.

Being covered in fragrance is equivalent to revealing one's position on the map to other soul beasts in the forest for those who are not good at hiding.

Once contaminated, one can only wait to be discovered by natural predators.

Relying on this method, many weak soul beasts dare not approach the Lazy Tree.

Of course, not all soul beasts are afraid to get close to the Lazy Tree.

Because the Lazy Tree is rare, finding a mature one in a small forest like the Soul Hunting Forest is quite difficult.

Therefore, some powerful soul beasts, after finding a Lazy Tree, usually keep it in captivity, using it as their granary.

The reason Teacher Xiong advised Su Yun not to use the Lazy Tree as his first soul ring was also because he had seen some soul masters obtain their first soul rings from Lazy Trees.

However, the results were unsatisfactory.

Not only did they fail to inherit the advantages of the Lazy Tree, but they also inherited its disadvantages.

For example, the first soul skill might cause one's own body to emit a fragrance, or directly cause oneself to slow down.

There were others with tree-type martial souls whose trees could indeed grow leaves, but those leaves had to be manually plucked by the soul master.

What was unexpected was that those leaves would actually take effect on the soul master themselves.

It could only be said that the soul skills granted by the Lazy Tree soul ring were very bizarre, or even garbage.

Su Yun naturally knew this information.

Ah Yin had already told him about this, and told him not to worry.

As the Blue Silver Emperor, Su Yun believed that with Ah Yin's methods, manipulating the traits of a soul ring during absorption should be a piece of cake.

Perhaps, relying on the traits of the Blue Silver Emperor, he might even be able to evolve the Lazy Tree's skill when the time came.

The group searched in the forest for a long time, but they had yet to see a single Lazy Tree.

This was to be expected.

The Lazy Tree was not very tall, making it difficult to spot in a forest dense with vegetation.

Coupled with its inherent rarity, unless one could catch its scent, finding a Lazy Tree was, to say the least, quite difficult.

"Hey, is that a scent?" Twin Brother Older suddenly sniffed the air and shouted with excitement.

"Hmm? It does seem to be the scent of a Lazy Tree." Teacher Xiong also caught the smell and confirmed.

Su Yun, walking at the back of the group, caught the scent as well.

Hmm... the aroma of malt.

A memory of an ancient advertisement couldn't help but surface in Su Yun's mind.

"Very well, since you have your own ideas, Su Yun, I won't stop you. We'll head over there directly."

"However, you must all be careful."

"At this moment, there is likely a powerful spirit beast guarding the Lazy Tree."

"Such spirit beasts usually treat the Lazy Tree as their private property, so we must tread lightly later. Remember, do not touch the leaves of the Lazy Tree."

The leaves of the Lazy Tree sometimes drift with the wind, and spirit masters walking through the forest could easily brush against them by accident, making themselves the target of many spirit beasts or even ill-intentioned spirit masters.

Leading the way, Teacher Xiong warned, "If we encounter a thousand-year-level spirit beast later, we will leave immediately."

Su Yun nodded, offering no objection.

A thousand-year spirit beast was something even Tang San could only barely kill by relying on his Hidden Weapon and the Clear Sky Hammer.

Right now, the strongest combatant on their side was only Teacher Xiong.

Including Su Yun, the three of them had a combat effectiveness against a thousand-year spirit beast that could only be described as five.

They were almost useless.

Furthermore, once caught in a chaotic battle, the slowing effect of the Lazy Tree's leaves would become a critical factor restricting their movements.

Therefore, leaving was the best choice.

Following the unique fragrance of the Lazy Tree, Su Yun and the others followed Teacher Xiong through several patches of forest.

Along the way, they even spotted some of the Lazy Tree's leaves.

Under Teacher Xiong's guidance, Su Yun naturally took note of the appearance of the Lazy Tree's leaves.

The emerald green leaves did not look large, being only about half the size of an infant's palm.

Thin as cicada wings, the green leaves drifted in the wind; as sunlight passed through them from above, it revealed a texture like jade.

No wonder spirit beasts love to eat it; the appearance alone is worth a five-star review, Su Yun silently praised in his heart.

"We're here!" Teacher Xiong's voice suddenly rang out.

However, he kept his volume slightly lowered to avoid startling the spirit beast guarding the Lazy Tree.

The three of them hurried to catch up and stood beside Teacher Xiong.

Looking in the direction Teacher Xiong was pointing, about fifty meters away, a tree that looked entirely like jade was quietly rooted in the ground.

Judging by sight alone, its height was likely around 1.3 meters.

"About four hundred years?" Su Yun muttered to himself.

A spirit ring of this age was just right for him at the moment.

In Su Yun's view, given that Tang San had practiced the Mysterious Heaven Skill since childhood and possessed his level of physical fitness, absorbing a spirit ring of over five hundred years shouldn't have been difficult.

If he had been able to start cultivating earlier, perhaps the spirit ring he could hunt today would have been of a higher age.

After all, the higher the age of the spirit ring, the greater the strength of the spirit skill it provided.

I can only hope that when I absorb my second spirit ring, my physical fitness will have seen a qualitative improvement.

Su Yun silently reminded himself while scanning the area around the Lazy Tree.