Variant Medusa

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

The Heaven Dou Empire, a hundred miles east of Heaven Dou City, in Sunset Forest.

The sky was clear and bright. Afternoon sunlight streamed through gaps in the canopy, casting dappled shadows across the ground.

The forest was lush and green, its trees tall and dense. Now and then, birds and beasts darted between the branches, calling out a few clear notes before their cries were swallowed by the rustle of leaves in the wind.

Jiang Ci'an's figure was concealed among the branches of a great tree.

At that moment, the field of Indifference enveloped his entire body, concealing his presence completely.

At the same time, a concealment spell cast with divine sense by Electrolux covered him. Gray-white energy patterns flowed faintly like ripples, hiding his aura, body heat, and even the sound of his breathing.

With both effects bolstering him, Jiang Ci'an was like a ghost drifting through the forest, unseen and undetected.

He kept his eyes closed. The Eye of Life opened between his brows, glowing with a faint golden radiance as he used Perspective to survey everything around him.

From his point of view, countless living auras were scattered throughout this seemingly peaceful forest. Each one formed a clear outline before his eyes, each occupying its own territory in orderly fashion, without trespassing on the others.

Sunset Forest was not very large, nowhere near as vast as the Star Dou Great Forest. As a result, the Soul Beasts here generally had lower cultivation levels, with most common Soul Beasts hovering around the thousand-year mark.

Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts were rare here, and relatively few species could be found.

For that reason, Sunset Forest had always been a popular place for Soul Masters below Soul King rank to obtain their first four Soul Rings.

After watching for a while, Jiang Ci'an slowly closed the Eye of Life between his brows.

He opened his eyes, took a map from his robes, and laid it on a branch. Then he drew an X over one of the areas he had circled.

He was searching systematically.

The Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect's internal Soul Beast compendium contained detailed records of countless Soul Beasts, neatly categorized by their various attributes and Soul Skill types.

It was an inheritance accumulated by the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect over ten thousand years. Although the edition Jiang Ci'an had bought wasn't the complete version, but rather one of the more detailed editions sold to outsiders...

The information it contained was already thorough enough to far surpass the ordinary compendiums available on the market, making it well worth consulting.

The section on the attribute of "time" took up only a handful of pages, far fewer than those devoted to ordinary elemental attributes. There were even considerably more records of space-attribute Soul Beasts than time-attribute ones.

What was more, most of the time-attribute Soul Beasts listed in those few pages had already gone extinct.

Only one species still remained.

That was... Medusa.

Of course, not ordinary Medusa.

According to the records, ordinary Medusa possessed the abilities to petrify and paralyze, leaving their prey unable to fight back before devouring them.

Certain Variant Medusa, however, could wield the power to freeze time.

Legend had it that Poison Douluo Dugu Bo, who had lived ten thousand years ago, had obtained his Eighth Soul Ring from a mutated ten-thousand-year Medusa Empress. It had granted him a powerful Soul Skill called Time Stasis, which could freeze time within a certain area. It was exceedingly powerful.

This Variant Medusa was his primary target on this trip.

Over the past month, based on information he had gathered himself, he had traveled to several possible Medusa nesting grounds and found three groups.

Unfortunately, none of them included the Variant he was looking for.

Jiang Ci'an rose from the branches, his gaze calm.

He knew the odds of finding a Variant were low, so he had no intention of stubbornly pressing on. He had prepared a backup plan.

If he couldn't find a Variant Medusa, he would head to Evil Demon Forest to search for a time-attribute Evil Eye.

And if he couldn't find a time-attribute Evil Eye either, he would settle for a space-attribute Soul Beast, which would be easier to find.

Over the past month, Elder Yi had already calibrated the spatial coordinates of Evil Demon Forest and could open a portal there at any time.

If he still couldn't find the Variant Medusa he wanted within ten days, he would change course and go to Evil Demon Forest.

Of course, if he had a choice, he didn't want to go to Evil Demon Forest.

A rare species like the time-attribute Evil Eye would surely be found in the forest's core region.

There would undoubtedly be plenty of ten-thousand-year Evil Eyes there, perhaps even hundred-thousand-year ones. And he was only level twenty.

By comparison, Sunset Forest was much safer. Aside from the forbidden zone around the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well, there weren't many ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts even in its core region.

With the assistance of Indifference and Elder Yi's concealment spell, he could basically come and go as he pleased throughout Sunset Forest.

After glancing at the map and confirming the location of the next Medusa nesting ground, Jiang Ci'an flashed off the branch and landed silently. With Perspective activated, he darted into the distance.

He soon arrived at the location.

Jiang Ci'an hid behind a great tree, closed his eyes, and let the Eye of Life between his brows glow with golden radiance. His vision easily pierced the layers of trees and branches ahead, settling beneath a huge boulder in the shade some distance away.

A group of Medusa had gathered there.

Though Medusa had humanoid upper bodies and serpentine tails, making them half-human and half-snake, they were still serpents by nature. They preferred cool, shady places and hated the heat.

At a glance, dozens of Medusa were gathered in the boulder's shadow, both male and female. Their faces were pale, gray-black scales patterned their skin, and the snake-like hair atop their heads writhed slowly, making them a terrifying sight.

Jiang Ci'an's gaze swept over the group, distinguishing them one by one.

At one point, his eyes paused.

He had noticed a Medusa unlike the others.

At first glance, its scales looked just as dark and dull as the rest. But through the Eye of Life, faint silver glimmers shimmered across them.

Its pale face was framed by longer, softer snakes of hair. Compared to the other Medusa, it looked almost malnourished, so easy to overlook at a glance.

Jiang Ci'an's gaze lingered as he confirmed it.

This was the Variant Medusa!

Jiang Ci'an didn't act rashly. His eyes settled on the Medusa's tail as he continued to estimate its age.

A Medusa's age was determined primarily by the length and thickness of its tail. For every thousand years of cultivation, its tail grew one meter longer.

This one's serpentine body was long, but its tail tapered to a slender point. Judging by sight, it was a little over four meters long.

In other words, this was a four-thousand-year Variant Medusa.

Jiang Ci'an paused, thinking quickly.

More than four thousand years was a little high for him right now.

However, he was level twenty, and with the help of the Body Tempering Method, he could absorb an ordinary thousand-year Soul Ring without any difficulty.

Then there was the increased capacity of his body after fusing with Gold of Life and forming a Spirit Aperture, as well as the several chunks of premium Whale Rubber he had eaten before fusing with Gold of Life, which had raised the number of years he could bear...

It was slightly beyond his limits, but still within what he could endure.

The powerful vitality brought by Gold of Life was enough to let him absorb a Soul Ring beyond the usual limit to a certain extent. At worst, the process would hurt a little more.

And a Variant Medusa like this was an opportunity that might never come again.

Since that was the case, there was no need to hesitate.