Level Fifty, Ninety-Thousand-Year External Soul Bone: Ice and Fire Demon Pupils

A moment later.

The canyon stopped shaking.

Before long.

Dugu Bo emerged from the canyon's poisonous mist, his clothes and hair singed, dragging the enormous bodies of two spirit beasts behind him.

Ye Qing's eyes lit up with wild delight at the sight, and he immediately hurried over.

"Senior! Did it work?!"

Ye Qing's voice trembled with barely suppressed excitement, but his gaze was already firmly locked onto the two spirit beasts.

A seventy-thousand-year Crimson Flame Ancient Tree!

A ninety-thousand-year Ice and Fire Demon Wolf King!

Both would become his future Soul Rings!

Dugu Bo's eyelids twitched twice.

Seeing Ye Qing staring so fixedly at the spirit beasts.

Old Poison's face darkened.

"Brat, can't you see the state I'm in?"

Only then did Ye Qing come back to his senses.

With difficulty, he tore his gaze away from the spirit beasts and looked at Dugu Bo's aged face, which practically screamed, "This grandson-in-law is no good."

"Ahem, Senior, you've worked hard! Senior, you're mighty! Senior, you're invincible beneath the heavens!"

Ye Qing's flattery flowed as smoothly as water.

His tone was so sincere that his earlier neglect seemed like nothing more than an illusion.

"That operation was a textbook-level spirit beast hunt. This junior admires you beyond measure! When we return, I'll set up a longevity tablet for you and offer three sticks of incense every day!"

"...That won't be necessary."

Dugu Bo's mouth twitched. He wanted to curse.

But the flattery felt rather good, so he simply could not bring himself to curse.

He waved a hand, and some of his usual aloofness returned to his voice. "Enough. Stop talking nonsense."

"These two spirit beasts are about to die. Hurry up and finish them."

Ye Qing did not hesitate. He immediately summoned Chaos Green Flame.

Green flames leaped from his palm, splitting into two streams in midair and precisely entering the bodies of the barely alive Ice and Fire Demon Wolf King and Crimson Flame Ancient Tree.

The two dying spirit beasts did not even have time to struggle before completely losing their lives beneath the dual assault of extreme cold and extreme heat from Chaos Green Flame.

Two black Soul Rings slowly rose from their bodies.

The Crimson Flame Ancient Tree's Soul Ring was pitch-black as ink.

Yet the Ice and Fire Demon Wolf King's Soul Ring faintly gave off a dark red glow within its blackness.

That was the sign of a spirit beast nearing one hundred thousand years.

Ye Qing's Adam's apple bobbed.

A ninety-thousand-year Soul Ring, black with a hint of red.

How tempting!

"Brat."

Dugu Bo's voice came from behind him, carrying an unusual solemnity.

"Are you really confident you can absorb both of these Soul Rings?"

"Your foundation may be good, but..."

"Don't worry, Senior."

Ye Qing turned around and flashed a grin, revealing two rows of gleaming white teeth.

"I know my limits."

"And besides, don't I have you here to protect me?"

Dugu Bo snorted at that casual flattery and did not try to dissuade him further.

He turned around and sat cross-legged ten paces away from Ye Qing.

Jade-green Soul Power slowly spread out, forming a protective barrier.

"Begin. I'll stand guard for you."

Ye Qing did not waste words either.

He took a deep breath and sat cross-legged on the ground. The phantom of a Chaos Green Lotus slowly bloomed behind him.

Fifty-four green lotus petals shimmered beneath the sunlight with a deep, chaotic radiance.

With a wave of his hand, the seventy-thousand-year Crimson Flame Ancient Tree Soul Ring fell into his palm first and merged into the Chaos Green Lotus.

A scorching wave exploded inside his body.

Ye Qing let out a muffled groan and clenched his teeth.

The impact of a seventy-thousand-year Soul Ring far exceeded any he had faced before. That violent fire-attributed Soul Power seemed determined to burn his meridians to ashes.

But he endured it.

His body, tempered by immortal herbs, displayed resilience far beyond that of an ordinary soul master.

The Chaos Green Lotus slowly rotated behind him.

It stripped away, broke down, and assimilated the incoming fire-element Soul Power strand by strand.

Half an hour later.

The second Soul Ring—the black-and-red ninety-thousand-year Soul Ring of the Ice and Fire Demon Wolf King—began merging into his body as well.

This time was even more difficult than before.

The remnant soul of the ninety-thousand-year spirit beast struggled madly within the Soul Ring, while two extreme forces of ice and fire alternately battered his meridians.

Veins bulged across Ye Qing's forehead, and his complexion shifted repeatedly between crimson red and pale blue-white.

Yet he remained as steady as a rock.

Another full two hours passed.

As the sun slanted down from overhead toward the western mountains.

Ye Qing suddenly opened his eyes.

"Hm?"

Dugu Bo noticed the change in his aura and looked over.

But in that instant, he saw Ye Qing's pupils undergo a strange transformation.

His left eye turned crimson red, while his right became icy blue.

Ice-and-fire patterns resembling yin-yang fish slowly revolved in the depths of his pupils, radiating a soul-stirring light.

The change lasted only an instant.

The Chaos Green Lotus Martial Soul behind Ye Qing fully bloomed.

Its petals surged from fifty-four to seventy-two.

The green petals glowed with a sacred radiance beneath the sunlight.

Seven Soul Rings rose from beneath his feet in sequence.

Purple, purple, purple, black, black, black, black!

His Soul Power Level soared from level forty all the way to the level fifty bottleneck before finally stopping.

"Brat."

Dugu Bo's voice came from behind him, carrying unconcealed surprise.

"What was that change in your eyes just now?"

"My eyes?"

The corners of Ye Qing's lips curled up slightly.

He stood and stretched his muscles.

He did not answer immediately.

Instead, he turned to look at a thick ancient tree in the distance.

He focused his mind.

His left eye turned crimson!

His right eye turned icy blue!

The Ice and Fire Dual Pupils appeared once more!

The next instant, two intertwined ice-and-fire lasers shot violently from his pupils.

"Sizzle!!!"

The red and blue beams twisted together in midair, precisely piercing through the trunks of every ancient tree within fifty meters.

The ancient trees were cleanly penetrated.

A round hole remained in the center of each, smooth-edged, half charred black and half covered in frost.

As Ye Qing shifted his gaze, the rays from his eyes directly severed every tree they swept across.

"Rumble!"

Rows of ancient trees crashed to the ground.

Dugu Bo's pupils abruptly shrank, and he instinctively retreated half a step.

"What kind of soul skill is that?"

Ye Qing blinked, withdrew his pupils, and turned toward Dugu Bo.

The ice-and-fire patterns in his black eyes slowly faded, but the curve of his lips did not lessen in the slightest.

"This isn't a soul skill. It's a soul bone skill."

"It came from the Soul Bone of the ninety-thousand-year Ice and Fire Demon Wolf King."

"And..."

He deliberately paused, his smile growing even brighter. "It's an External Soul Bone!"

"What?!"

Dugu Bo was stunned.

An External Soul Bone!

An External Soul Bone even rarer than a Hundred-Thousand-Year Spirit Ring!

Dugu Bo had only heard that a very small number of genius soul masters could obtain External Soul Bones through extraordinary luck.

Such things were so rare that an entire century might pass without one appearing anywhere on the continent.

This brat had casually absorbed a Soul Ring and gotten one?

His lips moved, but in the end, he only said, "Brat, did you step in dog shit luck?"

Ye Qing grinned. "Maybe I'm just a good person."

Dugu Bo was speechless.

He was afraid he would not be able to stop himself from strangling this lucky grandson-in-law.

"Fine, fine, stop showing off."

"Tell me what abilities this Soul Bone has."

Ye Qing put away his smile and grew serious.

"This External Soul Bone is located in my eyes, so I call it the Ice and Fire Demon Pupils."

"Its basic effects are a one-hundred-percent increase in spiritual power and a fifty-percent increase in the power of ice-and-fire elemental attacks."

"The rays I just fired are called Bipolar Ray. They attack with intertwined ice-and-fire energy and possess extremely powerful penetration."

"Besides that, it also has abilities called Dual-Phase Vision and Phase Tracking."

"Dual-Phase Vision: expands my field of vision threefold, while also granting thermal imaging and cold-source perception. It can see through obstacles and detect living beings through temperature differences."

"Phase Tracking: ice-and-fire elemental attacks can automatically lock onto and track targets. As long as I've marked them, they basically can't escape."

"And External Soul Bones can evolve."

"..."

Dugu Bo fell completely silent.

He looked at Ye Qing's spirited young face, his heart churning with envy.

The abilities of this Soul Bone had already surpassed the boosts granted by ordinary Ten Thousand Year Soul Bones.

Not to mention that it was an External Soul Bone.

It would continue evolving alongside Ye Qing's growth in the future.

Suddenly, Ye Qing thought of the other spirit beast corpse.

"Oh, right, Senior. Did you check whether the Crimson Flame Ancient Tree's corpse produced a Soul Bone?"

Dugu Bo rolled his eyes. "Do you think Soul Bones grow like cabbages?"

Though he said that, he still walked toward the Crimson Flame Ancient Tree's remains.

After crouching down and searching for a while, Dugu Bo let out a low cry of surprise.

"Hiss—!"

"What is it?"

Ye Qing moved closer curiously.

Dugu Bo turned around, holding a crystal-like object in his hand. It was crimson all over, with faint firelight flowing across its surface.

He stared at the crystal for a long moment.

Then he looked at Ye Qing, his expression as complicated as if he had eaten shit.

"Brat, did you use up all the luck of your life today?"

"The Crimson Flame Ancient Tree Torso Bone—a seventy-thousand-year plant-type torso Soul Bone."

"There really is one?!"

Ye Qing froze on the spot.

He strode up to Dugu Bo and took the crimson Soul Bone.

It was scorching hot to the touch, as if flames were flowing within it.

A Torso Bone!

Seventy thousand years!

"Damn..."

Ye Qing stared at the Soul Bone in his hand and muttered, "This haul was an absolute steal."