First Spirit Skill: Crimson Flame Soul Slash

After hearing Shen Long's words, Shen Lian was delighted. This was the first step of his journey on the Douluo Continent.

Over the following days, under Shen Long's guidance, Shen Lian practiced the Shen family's Dragon-Slaying Blade Technique during the day, a blade art passed down through countless generations of the Shen family.

At night, he cultivated Soul Power using the advanced meditation method Shen Long had taught him.

Seven days passed.

The Martial Arts Arena was still shrouded in morning mist, thick with the scent of rust and blood. When Shen Lian sheathed his blade and stood still, the frost clinging to its edge melted into droplets beneath the first rays of sunlight.

For seven days, he had swung his blade three thousand times each day. The calluses on his palms had barely scabbed over before being split open by the shock again. Hearing his grandfather summon him now, he staggered toward the center of the Martial Arts Arena before even returning his wooden blade to his waist.

Then he saw the thirty-foot-tall Mystic Iron cage gleaming coldly in the morning light. The massive creature lurking in its shadows made even the air tremble.

The Red-Armored Violent Bear inside was as large as an ordinary house. Black blood had dried upon its dark brown fur, while smoke still rose from the wound in its left forepaw, where the Blazing Flame Spear had pierced it.

Most terrifying was the diamond-shaped red mark on its forehead, like a red-hot branding iron embedded between its Bone Armor. Whenever it growled, the mark glimmered with flowing light.

This was the "Red Dragon Subspecies Bloodline" Shen Long had spoken of.

The half-foot-long claws on the bear's paws dug deeply into the bottom of the cage. Every breath it took carried a red mist, making it clear that Lin Song's Blazing Flame Spear had severely wounded it.

"Come here!"

Shen Long's voice came amid the clanking of chains.

The old marshal stood before the cage, leaning on the hilt of the Dragon-Slaying Blade. His black cloak snapped in the morning wind as he said to Shen Lian:

"Do you see the blood crystal between its brows? That is the energy core it condensed. It can strengthen the Dragon-Slaying Blade's armor-piercing properties."

Shen Long tapped the cage wall with the flat of his blade. The Red-Armored Violent Bear slammed into the iron bars, making the bluestone bricks across the entire Martial Arts Arena quiver.

Shen Lian's heartbeat abruptly quickened.

The palm pressed against the cage wall gradually grew hot. Soul Power surged out involuntarily, and a trace of wariness flashed through the beast's murky eyes.

Shen Long suddenly shouted:

"Lin Song, release the Soul Beast!"

The instant the chains clattered to the ground, the Red-Armored Violent Bear lunged forward with a heaven-shaking roar.

Shen Lian felt a foul wind rush at his face. Before his eyes were nothing but waving claws and flashing red markings.

He instinctively drew the wooden blade from his waist, only to freeze when it was three inches out of its sheath. The Red-Armored Violent Bear had already been immobilized by his grandfather's Soul Power.

Then Shen Long said to Shen Lian:

"Lian, now is the time. Take your weapon and end its life."

Hearing Shen Long's words, Shen Lian took out a dagger and stabbed it through the Red-Armored Violent Bear's eye, ending its life.

Suppressing the urge to vomit, Shen Lian sat cross-legged on the ground. To his surprise, the phantom of the Purple Imperial Heaven-Extinguishing Dragon appeared uncontrollably behind him, forming a strange resonance with the Dragon-Slaying Blade Martial Soul.

"Steady your mind!"

Shen Long's voice exploded beside his ears like a great bell.

Shen Lian felt as though his soul had been violently yanked. The dying savagery of the Red-Armored Violent Bear, the arrogance of the Red Dragon bloodline, and the vast energy of its eight hundred years of cultivation all surged into his Consciousness Sea at once, as if they would tear his spiritual sea apart.

At that moment, the Whale Rubber took effect.

Shen Lian felt countless tiny warm currents enter his meridians, gradually wrapping, crushing, and reshaping the violent Spirit Ring energy.

He saw his Soul Power transform into golden chains that bound the mass of crimson and jet-black energy layer by layer. Behind him, the phantom of the Purple Imperial Heaven-Extinguishing Dragon opened its enormous jaws and swallowed the overflowing fragments of energy one by one.

"It worked!"

Shen Meng suddenly cried out.

The first Spirit Ring rose around Shen Lian. Its color was not the usual yellow, but a yellow tinged with purple, while fine crimson-gold patterns wound around its surface.

Even more astonishingly, at the instant the Spirit Ring fully formed, a layer of dragon-scale-like red light appeared along the edge of the phantom Dragon-Slaying Blade in Shen Lian's hand.

Shen Long's hand, which had been stroking his beard, suddenly tightened, his knuckles turning white.

He had seen countless geniuses awaken Spirit Rings, yet he had never seen a first Spirit Ring cause a Martial Soul mutation.

Meanwhile, Xiaoxue, the maid who had been secretly watching from a corner of the Martial Arts Arena, stared blankly at the empty jade bowl in her hands.

She had seen it: when Shen Lian absorbed the Spirit Ring, a nearly invisible phantom of a red dragon rose from the corpse of the heavily wounded Red-Armored Violent Bear and slowly merged into the Purple Imperial Heaven-Extinguishing Dragon phantom behind the youth.

Another half hour passed in the Martial Arts Arena. The crimson-gold Spirit Ring around Shen Lian suddenly contracted, and as it sank into his body, it sent out a visible ripple.

Shen Lian slowly opened his eyes. Crimson lightning lingered in the depths of his pupils like shooting stars, while the Soul Power churning in his palm scorched spiderweb-like cracks into the bluestone floor. He could feel that his Soul Power had reached level thirteen.

"Level thirteen!"

Shen Meng clenched his golden-threaded armor until it creaked. He remembered reaching only level eleven after absorbing his first Spirit Ring. Even his father Shen Long, despite his extraordinary talent, had reached only level twelve back then.

Veins bulged on the back of Shen Long's hand as he gripped the Dragon-Slaying Blade, and the blade suddenly let out a clear resonance.

This was not a Martial Soul reaction, but joy from deep within his bloodline.

He looked at the drops of blood still wet at his grandson's temples, the price of expanded meridians from absorbing a high-level Spirit Ring. Yet under the lingering medicinal effects of the Whale Rubber, they were healing at a visible rate, revealing newly formed pale golden skin.

"Hurry and try your Spirit Skill!"

Shen Meng's voice carried an almost imperceptible tremble.

Shen Long summoned the Dragon-Slaying Blade. The instant he grasped it, the dragon patterns on its blade began to move as though they had come alive.

"First Spirit Skill: Crimson Flame Soul Slash!"

As Shen Lian spoke in a low voice, a crimson whirlwind suddenly swept through the Martial Arts Arena.

The path of his blade was not the Shen family's inherited Mountain-Splitting Style, but a mysterious arc. Amid the explosive roar of the blade tearing through the air, a three-foot crimson-gold blade light shot forth and severed a bluestone target pillar thirty yards away at its middle.

Most astonishing of all, when the broken pillar fell, its cross-section gleamed like molten metal, with countless tiny sparks still hissing across it.

"Strength Boost... at least thirty percent!"

Shen Long's pupils contracted sharply. Sparks from his pipe fell onto his python-patterned robe, burning black marks into it.

After absorbing his first Spirit Ring, he had tested his own First Spirit Skill. It had only provided a twenty percent boost.

Shen Meng rushed forward and grabbed his son's wrist. The instant his Soul Power entered Shen Lian's meridians through his fingertips, his expression turned exceedingly strange.

"No... there is dragon might within this power!"

Xu Ningxin suddenly pointed at the target blade in Shen Lian's hand and cried out.

Only then did everyone notice that the already exquisite blade of the Dragon-Slaying Blade was now covered in fine dragon-scale-like patterns. The places where the blade light had passed were glowing faintly red.

Even Shen Lian was stunned.

"Wait..."

Shen Long suddenly bent down, picked up a fragment from the broken target pillar, and held it beneath his nose for a sniff before continuing:

"This isn't merely an armor-piercing effect... this is the corrosion of dragon-attributed energy!"

Unprecedented shock filled the old man's voice as he continued to Shen Lian:

"Lian, when you swung your blade just now, did you feel a resonance between your Martial Souls?"

Shen Lian closed his eyes and recalled the red dragon aura that had entered the phantom of the Purple Imperial Heaven-Extinguishing Dragon while he absorbed the Spirit Ring.

Then Shen Lian instinctively circulated his Soul Power again. The phantom of the Purple Imperial Heaven-Extinguishing Dragon behind him truly extended a dragon claw and brushed it across the Dragon-Slaying Blade's light—at that instant, a pale purple halo appeared around the edge of the originally crimson blade light, and the fragments of the shattered target pillar turned to powder within that halo.