It took Duan Fan less than four hours to absorb the six-thousand-three-hundred-year-old Three-Eyed Griffin soul ring.
The process was dangerous but uneventful, though Duan Fan's Soul Power had fluctuated violently once during the absorption.
Ghost Leopard Douluo had been ready to intervene, but Duan Fan quickly stabilized.
At that moment, Duan Fan stood before Ghost Leopard Douluo, showing off his newly acquired Third Soul Ring.
Compared to his fifteen-hundred-year-old Second Soul Ring, this six-thousand-three-hundred-year-old Third Soul Ring was much darker in color, deep enough to be considered dark purple.
Ghost Leopard Douluo looked Duan Fan up and down, sensing the Soul Power fluctuations emanating from him. Smiling, he said, "You're quite something, kid. You should be at level thirty-four now. Every time you break through and absorb a soul ring, you make a huge leap."
"But then again, a six-thousand-three-hundred-year-old soul ring already exceeds the limit of what an ordinary Soul Master can absorb as a Fourth Soul Ring. It's only natural that absorbing one gave you such a huge boost."
"If anyone else tried to absorb a soul ring over six thousand years old as their Third Soul Ring, they'd probably explode and die before they'd even absorbed much of it."
Hearing this, Duan Fan felt the plentiful Soul Power within him and murmured, "Level thirty-four Soul Power?"
Ghost Leopard Douluo raised an eyebrow. "What? You've improved so much, and you're still not satisfied?"
"Level thirty is a major hurdle for Soul Masters. Many never manage to break through in their entire lives. And even after reaching the Soul Elder level, advancing further gets harder and harder."
"The boost you got from absorbing that soul ring is enough to save most Soul Elders several years of hard work."
Duan Fan gave an awkward smile. "It's not that I'm dissatisfied. I'm very satisfied!"
Level thirty-four was exactly what Duan Fan had expected.
In the book, Tang San had exceeded the limit to absorb a two-thousand-year-old Man Faced Demon Spider as his Third Soul Ring, raising his Soul Power to level thirty-two.
It was only natural for Duan Fan to reach level thirty-four after absorbing a soul ring over six thousand years old as his Third Soul Ring.
If advancing each level hadn't become harder after reaching the Soul Elder rank, the boost from a soul ring over six thousand years old would probably have taken him past level thirty-four.
Ghost Leopard Douluo's gaze fell on Duan Fan's Third Soul Ring. "All right, show me your Third Soul Skill."
Duan Fan immediately dropped his playful expression and nodded. "Yes, Grandpa Ghost Leopard!"
The next moment, the Third Soul Ring around Duan Fan blazed with deep purple light. He gripped the Fantasy Pen and raised his arm, sweeping it through the air.
Blue lines flowed from the tip of the pen, spreading through the air like water.
He drew three eyes first. Then his strokes quickened, and the griffin's outline gradually took shape. Steel-blue feathers spread layer by layer, its wings unfurled, its talons curled, and its obsidian beak took on a sharp curve.
In the space of a few moments, a complete Three-Eyed Griffin appeared in midair. Its ink-wash lines shimmered with a faint blue light, giving it a remarkably lifelike quality.
Then the light drew in, and the Three-Eyed Griffin came fully to life. It beat its wings and landed on the ground.
This Three-Eyed Griffin was even larger than the one they had hunted before.
It was over five meters long, with a wingspan of nearly twelve meters. Its steel-blue feathers were individually distinct, gleaming with a metallic sheen.
The third eye on its forehead was closed, but the energy contained within felt extraordinarily rich—far beyond what one would expect of a six-thousand-year-old soul beast. It was at least around nine thousand years old.
Duan Fan pointed to a row of trees in the distance.
The third eye on the Three-Eyed Griffin's forehead snapped open. Purple-gold light gathered into a beam and shot out with a fierce burst.
The beam pierced the trunk of the first tree, leaving a hole as large as a washbasin. Without stopping, it went through the second tree, then the third, and kept going until it finally dissipated at the fourteenth.
Every trunk had an identical round hole, its edges charred and the tunnel running straight through, so that one could see right through it.
Next, the Three-Eyed Griffin beat its wings and soared into the air. It traced an arc overhead at tremendous speed, and the wind pressure it stirred flattened the grass around it.
It swooped down and swung its right claw. Several translucent Wind Blades formed in the air before its talons and swept silently across the ground, slicing into several nearby trees. The bark burst open, exposing fresh wood beneath. The cuts were so smooth they looked as if they'd been made with a knife.
Ghost Leopard Douluo looked at the marks left by the Wind Blades and nodded slightly.
"Very strong. If we judged the Three-Eyed Griffin you drew by the age of a soul beast, it would be at least nine thousand years old. It would fear no Five-Ring Soul King, and it could even fight a Soul Emperor."
"How many can you draw?"
"Four," Duan Fan replied.
Ghost Leopard Douluo laughed in surprise. "Four again?"
"If I remember correctly, you drew four Black Flame Demon Foxes when you used your Second Soul Ring to draw one that was over two thousand years old."
"Given enough time, when you can draw Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts, will you still only be able to draw four?"
Duan Fan smiled. "Who knows?"
"I should be able to draw more than ten Black Flame Demon Foxes now, and the ones I draw should be a little stronger, too."
"Would you like me to show you, Grandpa Ghost Leopard?"
Ghost Leopard Douluo smiled and shook his head. "No need. Seeing you draw a nine-thousand-year-old Three-Eyed Griffin is more than enough. You can study your other Soul Skills on your own, little by little."
"We should head back."
"All right." Duan Fan nodded.
After Duan Fan returned to Spirit Hall Academy with his Third Soul Ring, it wasn't long before the academy was thrown into an uproar. The students' discussions aside, the teachers couldn't stop talking about it, and even the dean of Spirit Hall Academy was roused.
But Duan Fan was, after all, a disciple of the Second Worship of the Worship Hall. No one dared disturb him.
The commotion continued for two months before gradually dying down. Duan Fan's life was hardly affected at all, which made it clear that the people at the top had stepped in.
In the blink of an eye, more than two years passed.
Duan Fan reached the Soul Ancestor level at the age of eight. His Fourth Soul Ring came from a twenty-three-thousand-year-old Golden Armored Earth Dragon.
Now nine years old, he had reached level forty-seven in Soul Power.
The further a Soul Master progressed, the harder it became to advance. The twenty-three-thousand-year-old soul ring had only raised Duan Fan's Soul Power by three levels.
It took him a whole year of cultivation to gain the four levels after that.
At nine years old, a level-forty-seven Soul Ancestor with yellow, purple, purple, and black soul rings had already become a legend at Spirit Hall Academy.
Even throughout the whole Spirit Hall, he was unquestionably a peerless genius.
One day, after finishing his usual cultivation, Duan Fan didn't hurry to leave his training ground. Instead, he checked on Tang San's current situation.
Lines of text appeared before Duan Fan's eyes. He skimmed past a few trivial matters, then spotted the information he was looking for in the final few lines.
After three years, Tang San's Soul Power had finally risen from its initial level of eleven to level twenty.
That meant Tang San was finally going to obtain his Second Soul Ring.
The chance to control Tang San's fate had arrived as well.
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