Azure Dragon Claw Probe!

The deep yellow soul ring slowly sank into Qing Mufeng's body.

Qing Zhengyue's grip on his blade tightened slightly, his eyes fixed on his grandson's face.

An eight-hundred-year soul ring.

He had read in ancient records that some people could absorb a soul ring of that age as their first ring.

But those had only been written accounts. He had never witnessed it himself.

Today, he had.

Liu Yunlan crouched beside her grandson, one hand resting on Qing Mufeng's wrist. The old woman's fingers trembled slightly, but her expression remained fairly composed.

"His pulse is steady," she said softly. "His Soul Power is rising steadily. There are no signs of disorder."

Qing Zhengyue nodded, but he did not lower his guard.

Absorbing a soul ring was not something that could be done in one step.

The ring entering the body was only the first step. The true test was the fusion between the soul ring and the martial soul.

During this process, the slightest mistake could lead to rampaging Soul Power, ruptured meridians, or a backlash from the martial soul. Any one of those could be fatal.

Time passed second by second.

The forest was silent, save for the rustling of wind through the canopy.

Qing Zhengyue and Liu Yunlan stood guard on either side of their grandson like two statues.

After roughly the time it took to burn an incense stick, Qing Mufeng's body trembled slightly.

He opened his eyes.

His pupils, once pitch-black, now glimmered with a faint golden light.

The glow lasted only an instant before fading, but Qing Zhengyue saw it clearly.

"How do you feel?" the old man asked in a low voice.

Qing Mufeng lowered his head to look at his hands, then clenched them into fists.

"Very good," he said, his voice more composed than usual. "My Soul Power has stabilized, and my martial soul... seems to have changed a little."

With a thought, the phantom of the Azure Snake martial soul emerged behind him.

The Azure Snake was another size larger than it had been during his awakening. Its scales were denser, and faint patterns could vaguely be seen upon them.

They were not patterns found on snake scales, but something more intricate, like the cloud motifs carved into ancient artifacts.

Qing Zhengyue stared at those patterns, his pupils shrinking slightly.

Those were not markings a snake should possess.

"The evolution of a martial soul takes time." The old man suppressed the turmoil in his heart and spoke calmly. "The first ring is only the beginning. What level is your Soul Power now?"

Qing Mufeng closed his eyes and looked inward for a moment.

"Level twenty," he said. "The same as before I absorbed it."

Qing Zhengyue was not surprised.

Innate level twenty meant that Mu Feng's body had already stored the Soul Power of a level-twenty soul master.

The first soul ring had merely opened the first valve; it had not increased the bottle's capacity.

Only after the second soul ring was absorbed, when both valves opened at once, would his Soul Power truly begin to grow.

"Try your first soul skill," Qing Zhengyue said. "Let's see what an eight-hundred-year soul ring has given you."

Qing Mufeng nodded and rose to his feet.

He took a deep breath, and the Soul Power within him began to circulate.

First soul ring.

The deep yellow soul ring lit up, and an unusual force surged from it into his right arm.

Qing Mufeng extended his right hand.

His entire arm changed in an instant.

Azure scales emerged across his skin. His fingers lengthened and thickened, his nails turned into sharp claws, and his whole arm swelled by a size. Defined muscles rippled beneath it, brimming with explosive power.

That was not a human arm.

It was the embryonic form of a dragon claw.

Qing Zhengyue's pupils contracted sharply.

Liu Yunlan covered her mouth.

"This..." The old woman's voice trembled. "This isn't an arm transformed from a snake..."

Qing Mufeng clenched his draconic right claw, sensing the power surging from the depths of his marrow.

He raised his hand toward a small tree as thick as a bowl three zhang away and slashed fiercely.

Five streaks of azure claw light shot from his fingertips, tearing through the air and striking the trunk with a piercing shriek.

Crack!!!

The small tree snapped in response, its break so clean it looked as though it had been cut by a sharp blade.

Azure light seeped into the wood at the break. The bark withered rapidly, as if it were being corroded by some force.

Qing Zhengyue strode quickly to the broken tree, crouching to inspect the cross-section carefully.

The azure light continued to spread, seeping deeper along the grain of the wood.

He pried away the bark with the tip of his blade and discovered that the wood beneath had already become soft and loose, as if it had been corroded for years.

"Wood-attribute corrosion." The old man muttered, a sharp glint flashing through his eyes. "It isn't merely a physical attack. The soul skill also carries the corrosive force of the wood attribute. Anyone struck by it will have their wound continuously eroded by wood-attribute power, making it difficult to heal."

He rose and looked at his grandson, his gaze now carrying a trace of shock.

"What is this soul skill called?"

Qing Mufeng looked down at his right arm as it slowly returned to normal. Information from his inherited memories surfaced in his mind.

"Azure Dragon Claw Probe," he said.

Qing Zhengyue and Liu Yunlan froze at the same time.

"What did you say?" Qing Zhengyue's voice tightened slightly.

"Azure Dragon Claw Probe," Qing Mufeng repeated calmly. "That is the name of the soul skill."

Not Azure Snake Claw Probe.

Azure Dragon Claw Probe.

Qing Zhengyue and Liu Yunlan exchanged a glance. They both saw the same emotion in each other's eyes.

This child knew.

He knew he was not an Azure Snake.

Qing Zhengyue took a deep breath, suppressing the raging waves in his heart. Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly sensed an unusual Soul Power fluctuation radiating from his grandson.

Qing Mufeng's gaze changed.

The golden glow reappeared in his eyes, richer than before.

At some point, his pupils had become vertical slits.

They were not a snake's vertical pupils, but the eyes of some higher existence.

Qing Zhengyue instinctively took half a step back.

Not out of fear.

But because a pressure rising from the depths of his bloodline had made his body react on instinct.

A level-sixty-six Soul Emperor had been forced half a step back by the pressure of a six-year-old child's martial soul.

No one would believe it if they heard it.

Qing Mufeng did not notice his grandfather's reaction.

His attention was entirely focused within his body.

At the moment the first soul ring fused with his martial soul, another force besides the soul skill had awakened in the depths of his martial soul.

That force surged from the deepest reaches of the Azure Dragon bloodline, like a door sealed for hundreds of millions of years being pushed open by a crack.

A strand of light shone through that crack.

A faint glow began to emerge across Qing Mufeng's body.

The light gathered at a visible speed, condensing into a suit of armor over his body.

The armor was primarily azure, bearing a woody texture and covered in dense scale-like patterns.

At the center of the breastplate was the form of a coiling Azure Snake.

But on closer inspection, the snake's head already faintly resembled that of a dragon.

The shoulder guards were shaped like snake heads. Snake-scale armor covered his arms and legs, while soft woody fibers connected the joints.

The helmet covered only half his head, protecting his forehead and cheeks, with two small horn-like protrusions on top.

They resembled both snake horns and the beginnings of dragon horns.

The entire suit clung tightly to his body without the slightest gap, as though it had grown from his skin.