Hearing Xue Yao's casual rhetorical question, the air in the great hall suddenly fell silent.
Xue Lang froze. His mind seemed unable to catch up.
"You didn't come back to hunt for your Second Soul Ring?" Xue Lang's brow furrowed even deeper, and his voice trembled with disbelief. "Yao'er, you... you're not telling me you still haven't reached level twenty after two years, are you?"
Gao Nianzhen, standing nearby, grew tense as well.
She hurried forward and grabbed Xue Yao's wrist. "Yao'er, it's all right. The Farack royal family can afford to support you. At worst, you can give up on being some kind of genius..."
Hearing his parents' increasingly wild guesses, Xue Yao couldn't help raising a hand to his forehead.
He sighed and stood up from his chair.
Xue Yao walked a few steps toward the center of the hall, putting some distance between them. "Dad, Mom, you'd better prepare yourselves first. Don't say I didn't warn you."
The lazy expression vanished from Xue Yao's face as he immediately urged the Soul Power within him into motion.
"Caw—!" A clear, piercing eagle's cry suddenly erupted through the great hall.
Brilliant golden-green light burst from Xue Yao.
A huge silhouette quickly coalesced behind him, taking the shape of a magnificent Royal Griffin.
Compared to two years ago, this spirit avatar was a whole size larger.
Its wings spread nearly two meters wide. Its feathers gleamed like finely honed blue-green blades, their cold metallic sheen shifting in the light.
Its lion's body was powerful and sturdy, its eagle head held high with pride, and its sharp eyes glimmered with intelligence.
As the Royal Griffin appeared, a fierce, overwhelming gust swept through the entire hall.
But that was only the beginning.
Xue Yao stood in the center of the hall, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
He lifted his right foot slightly and tapped it gently against the floor.
"Vmmm—" The First Soul Ring rose from beneath his feet.
It was a remarkably pure bright yellow, its light solid and without a trace of impurity.
The Hundred-Year Soul Ring of a 420-year-old Mutated Green Wind Falcon!
Xue Lang and Gao Nianzhen showed little reaction at the sight of the Yellow Soul Ring. After all, they had watched their son absorb it with their own eyes two years ago.
Then, another ripple spread beneath Xue Yao's feet.
Along with it came a terrifying pressure far beyond that of a hundred-year Soul Beast.
"Vmmm—!"
The Second Soul Ring burst up from beneath Xue Yao like a purple sun!
It was deep and mysterious, brimming with explosive power.
It was a purple Soul Ring! A Thousand-Year Soul Ring!
With the appearance of the purple Soul Ring, Xue Yao released all the Soul Power within his body without reservation.
This wasn't level twenty Soul Power. This was the level thirty Soul Power of someone who had reached a bottleneck!
The great hall fell as silent as a grave, broken only by the faint sound of the Griffin slowly beating its wings.
Xue Lang's eyes widened until they looked ready to fall from their sockets.
Gao Nianzhen drew in a sharp breath. She instinctively covered her mouth, her beautiful eyes filled with shock.
The minds of the husband and wife had completely short-circuited.
It took a full half-minute for Xue Lang to stiffly turn his head and look at his wife.
"Nian... Nianzhen... have I been working through memorials so much lately that I'm seeing things?" Xue Lang swallowed, his voice trembling. "Slap me and see. No, pinch me."
Gao Nianzhen ignored her husband's delirious babbling.
She stared at the purple Soul Ring rising and falling beneath Xue Yao's feet, her voice turning shrill with shock.
"P-Purple! How can your Second Soul Ring be purple?!" Gao Nianzhen felt as if everything she knew had been turned upside down.
The ironclad rule of the Soul Master World on Douluo Continent was that the First Soul Ring could withstand four hundred years, and the Second Soul Ring, seven hundred.
That was the limit of what the body could bear, established through the blood and tears of countless predecessors!
Who would dare absorb a Soul Ring from a Soul Beast over a thousand years old as their Second Soul Ring? They'd explode and die!
Yet here was a living, breathing example right in front of her.
Not only was her son's Second Soul Ring purple, he looked full of vigor and healthier than ever!
"A-And there's more..." Xue Lang finally came back to his senses and pointed at Xue Yao. "This Soul Power... level thirty! That's level thirty!"
"Eight years old! My heavens! A level thirty quasi-Soul Elder at eight?!"
Xue Lang felt his heart pounding wildly.
Level thirty at eight!
That was level thirty!
What had the most outstanding geniuses on the entire continent been doing at eight? The so-called Golden Generation from Spirit Hall had probably still been congratulating themselves on breaking through level twenty!
Yet his own son had reached the realm of a level thirty quasi-Soul Elder at just eight years old!
"Genius" couldn't begin to describe this.
This damn kid was a monster who had broken the rules of the continent!
Watching his parents' entire worldview crumble, Xue Yao smiled faintly.
With a thought, he put away his Soul Rings and Martial Soul.
"Do you understand now? I haven't been slacking off these past two years. I just felt there was no point in coming back before I reached level thirty, so I stayed at the academy."
Xue Lang rushed forward in a single stride and grabbed Xue Yao by the shoulders.
"Yao'er! What's going on with your Second Soul Ring? How dare you absorb a Thousand-Year Soul Ring? Do you know how dangerous that is?" Xue Lang was both excited and terrified in retrospect.
Xue Yao patted his father's hand reassuringly. "Dad, don't worry. My Martial Soul is the Royal Griffin. A divine-grade Martial Soul transforms the body far more than an ordinary one does. On top of that, I've been doing extremely rigorous, targeted limit training in Heaven Dou City."
"My physical strength surpassed that so-called theoretical limit long ago. Absorbing a 1,200-year Soul Ring was well within what I could handle."
Xue Yao's explanation was only half true.
His physical strength really was exceptional, but his ability to absorb a Soul Ring that surpassed the limit without injury was mainly thanks to the physical enhancement he received when the system awakened, along with his unmatched control over Soul Power.
Gao Nianzhen stepped forward and pulled Xue Yao into her arms, her eyes nearly brimming with tears.
"You little rascal, you're far too reckless! Don't you dare take a risk like that again. Do you hear me?"
"All right, all right. I'll listen to you." Xue Yao smiled and slipped out of his mother's embrace. "So, Dad, Mom, I really didn't come back to Farack for my Second Soul Ring."
"I came to hunt for my Third Soul Ring."
At the words "Third Soul Ring," Xue Lang immediately composed himself.
He took a deep breath, suppressing his excitement. The more terrifying his son's talent, the more exacting the resources needed to match it.
"What age Soul Beast do you need?" Xue Lang asked solemnly.
"Between three and five thousand years." Xue Yao gave the number without hesitation. Since his Second Soul Ring had already broken through the thousand-year barrier, he naturally wanted to push this crucial Third Soul Ring right up to the absorption limit for the Soul Ancestor level!
"Hiss—" Xue Lang drew in another sharp breath. A level thirty Soul Master absorbing a five-thousand-year Soul Ring. This kid really never failed to say something astonishing.
"Good!" Xue Lang slapped his thigh hard. "As long as your body can take it, five thousand years it is! Even if we have to pour the full strength of the Farack Kingdom into it, we'll get you one!"
But then he furrowed his brow, puzzled.
"But Yao'er, even if you need a five-thousand-year Soul Beast, couldn't you have asked Xue Ye to send a few Royal Knights from Heaven Dou City to capture one alive and bring it to you? Why come all this way back here yourself?" That was how they had captured the Azure Wind Falcon for Xue Yao to absorb two years ago.
Xue Yao shook his head, his expression turning serious.
"Dad, hundred-year Soul Beasts and thousand-year Soul Beasts are completely different things." Xue Yao patiently explained, "A hundred-year Soul Beast is just a beast acting on instinct. Knock it out, put it in a cage, and transport it however you like."
"But once a Soul Beast crosses the thousand-year mark, its intelligence increases dramatically. This is especially true of flying Soul Beasts with wind attributes, which are exceptionally proud by nature."
Xue Yao walked over to the sand table in the great hall and pointed to Star Dou Forest, along the border of the Farack Kingdom.
"If you send people to capture a high-level wind-type Soul Beast that's lived for five thousand years, it'll feel deeply humiliated in the process."
"To protect its dignity, most thousand-year Soul Beasts will choose to self-destruct their Soul Power or bite through their tongues and starve themselves to death. There's no way you could get one to Heaven Dou City."
"Even if you somehow managed to transport it there, the resentment it felt before dying would fill its Soul Ring with violent, muddled thoughts and might even cause it to retaliate."
Xue Yao turned and looked at his parents.
"So, if you want the highest-quality, best-matched Soul Ring from a Soul Beast over a thousand years old..."
"The only way is to lead a team there yourself, to its habitat."
"Defeat it fairly in the wild, kill it on the spot, and absorb the Soul Ring right there."
After hearing Xue Yao's explanation, Xue Lang and Gao Nianzhen exchanged a look, shock flashing in their eyes.
They weren't astonished by his knowledge of Soul Beasts, but by how meticulous and mature their eight-year-old son's thinking was!
"Good lad. You really are your father's son!"
Xue Lang laughed heartily, his face flushed with excitement.
"First thing tomorrow morning! I'll gather the elite of the Farack Royal Knights and bring along two Soul Saints from the Offering Hall! The three of us will go to Star Dou Forest ourselves!"
"I want to see what kind of wind-type Soul Beast deserves to be matched with my peerless, eight-year-old, level-thirty genius son!"
Before you continue