Anti-Magic Ninja Training! Medusa!

Jiang Ce wanted to restore all their cultivation years as quickly as possible while honing Ye Yingling's combat instincts.

So he had Liu Erlong take her to the outskirts of Sunset Forest for round-the-clock hunting.

They also took the opportunity to complete the several missions they had previously accepted from the Mercenary Guild.

At first, Ye Yingling was excited. In her Symbiote state, she could call upon dozens, even hundreds, of combat skills at will and become whatever kind of Soul Master she wanted.

But it wasn't long before she stopped smiling. Jiang Ce's Phantom Dragon Impact always struck without warning at the very moment she was most focused.

It made her stumble, nearly pitching her straight into a Soul Beast's jaws.

Several times, she had already locked onto her target, only for the impact to knock her fist half an inch off course. The Soul Beast would counterattack and send her tumbling across the forest floor.

Jiang Ce not only refused to help her, he even told her to disable all the defenses of her Black Latex Suit.

Once he withdrew its defenses, the black latex suit—which was usually as tough as steel—really did become nothing more than an ordinary bodysuit. It couldn't even stop the claws of a Hundred-Year Soul Beast.

He wanted her to feel the force of every attack and let her bones remember the pain of taking a hit.

After all, with him and the Nine-Heart Begonia's Super Healing, even a grievous wound that brought her to the brink of death could be healed on the spot.

Ye Yingling had been nothing more than a healing support Soul Master before, after all. Compared to Liu Erlong, her combat instincts were a hundred thousand miles behind.

She had to be properly tempered.

Besides, he still had to carry out his Anti-Magic Ninja plan.

A squad of Anti-Magic Ninjas that belonged to him alone!

Ye Yingling gritted her teeth and held on. Jiang Ce could heal her, but getting hit really hurt. The recoil from her fist slamming into a scaly hide traveled from her knuckles all the way to her shoulder, making her internal organs tremble.

All she could do was concentrate with all her might, fighting the urge to roll her eyes as she controlled her breathing and kept pace with the rhythm of her movements.

"Teacher... slow down!" She sent a six-thousand-year Soul Beast flying with a punch, her voice trembling.

"Awesome! I actually punched an eight-thousand-year Soul Beast flying!" She straddled an earth dragon's back and pounded away, sending scales flying in every direction.

"This skill is terrifying—it grabs the opponent and slams them into the ground. They can't move at all!" Her eyes lit up the first time she used the Blazing Dragon-Capturing Slam.

"Teacher, teacher, I can't take it anymore—" She had just smashed through two Soul Beasts when the Phantom Dragon inside her suddenly bucked again, nearly dropping her to her knees.

"This skill's defense is so strong, and it even reflects damage! It bit me and broke its own teeth!" She rubbed the arm covered in Golden Flame Scale Armor, her face beaming.

"There are so many Gold Soul Coins in this dragon's lair—this is a fortune!" She emerged from the cave with a handful of glittering coins, her eyes curving into crescents.

After several days of this, Jiang Ce had had the time of his life. He had worked the once-wealthy young lady Ye Yingling over in two completely opposite ways, alternating between them.

On one side was the most brutal combat, every blow landing with solid impact.

On the other was torment that cut to the bone, with her forced to endure the near-breaking impact even as she fought.

Even Liu Erlong felt a little sorry for her. For once, she silently mourned the poor girl for a few seconds.

Ye Yingling had once been a pure support healer who wouldn't even have dipped her fingers in spring water.

Now she not only had to charge straight into battle and trade blows with Soul Beasts, she also had to endure Jiang Ce's endless variety of "combat training" at the same time.

But watching a proper, gentle young lady shriek with excitement in battle, only to roll her eyes from Phantom Dragon Impact moments later, made for quite a contrast.

There was no one else in these woods, and that scoundrel was enjoying himself to no end.

Liu Erlong had kept busy too. These past few days, Jiang Ce's consciousness had been switching back and forth between two bodies. The more time he spent tormenting Ye Yingling, the less he spent tormenting her.

And so the Soul Beasts on the outskirts of Sunset Forest met their strictest mother yet.

Her punches landed with solid impact, making the Soul Beasts on the outskirts howl in pain. The dragon-type Soul Beasts would dive into their caves as soon as they heard her footsteps.

Jiang Ce had split off two more Fission Bodies, bringing the total to four. All four bodies had dropped to six thousand years, and they had to start all over again.

As a result, they spent several more days in Sunset Forest, killing from dawn to midnight and working their way from the outskirts into the depths.

By the seventh day, the cultivation years of all four clones had finally climbed back to thirty thousand.

The frenzied hunt over the past few days had also transformed Ye Yingling from a rookie who could only take a beating—

—into a capable fighter who could maintain her battle stance through Phantom Dragon Impact and knock a Soul Beast flying with one punch.

Of course, that was all thanks to Jiang Ce's day-and-night "whipping"—both in the combat sense and in another sense.

After these few days of being developed in two different ways, Ye Yingling's whole presence had changed. The shy, girlish softness she had once possessed had been replaced by a faint, mature allure.

Her figure had grown fuller and more voluptuous too, and the curves beneath her Black Latex Suit were even more striking than they had been seven days ago.

The difference in bearing between a well-developed young woman and an inexperienced girl was impossible to hide.

Jiang Ce was extremely pleased. Naturally, the woman he had trained himself was the one who suited his tastes best.

A pat on the backside, and she already knew which pose to strike.

On the morning of the seventh day, Liu Erlong brought Ye Yingling to the entrance of a valley shrouded in dense miasma.

Another person stood beside them now: a tall, powerfully built man with strikingly handsome features and a commanding presence.

This was the complete human form Jiang Ce had condensed from one of his bodies. Even if a Super Douluo stood right in front of him, they wouldn't be able to see through his true identity.

Liu Erlong looked at the valley entrance, wreathed in layers of poisonous miasma, and furrowed her brow. Even a wisp of the emerald-green haze brushing fallen leaves at the edge was enough to rot them into black sludge.

"Relax. My poison resistance is already maxed out. Besides, we have the Nine-Heart Begonia's healing skills. What are you worried about?"

Jiang Ce spoke casually.

The two women followed behind him, one on either side, and stepped straight into the poisonous miasma. Layers of haze churned around them, but none of it could seep into their bodies.

They passed through the last dense bank of miasma, and the view suddenly opened up.

At the very center of the valley floor lay two adjoining pools, one icy blue and the other fiery red. Their extreme forces of cold and heat converged, yet remained sharply distinct.

The ground below the valley was thick with all kinds of flowers and herbs, every plant radiating spiritual energy far beyond that of ordinary medicinal herbs.

Ye Yingling covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide. These were the Heavenly Treasures capable of changing a Soul Master's fate from the roots up.

The key to lifting the curse on her Ye Clan's Nine Heart Begonia Martial Soul grew right here in this soil.

Liu Erlong kept her expression calm, but the muscles at the corners of her eyes twitched. The Immortal Herb that could evolve her Fire Dragon Martial Soul once more was here too.

Jiang Ce swept his gaze across the valley and raised an eyebrow. Besides the Immortal Herbs he knew about, many other varieties grew here—plants that had never appeared in the original story.

Ye Yingling's fingers trembled with excitement, and Liu Erlong's breathing had grown noticeably quicker as well.

Just then, a piercing hiss exploded from the direction of the valley wall, and a massive figure shot out of a cave.

Her upper body was that of a woman of breathtaking, icy beauty. Her dark green hair stirred behind her in the windless air, while her lower body was a long, thick serpent's tail.

On closer inspection, her hair was actually made up of tiny living snakes, all hissing at the three of them—

A thirty-thousand-year Soul Beast, Medusa.

"Humans, leave at once. This is no place for you."

Medusa coiled her tail around a rock and looked down at the three uninvited guests.

"Finish it quickly," Jiang Ce said calmly.

Before his words had even faded, Liu Erlong and Ye Yingling vanished from where they stood, flanking Medusa from the left and right like two bolts of lightning.

Layer upon layer of buffing skills lit up across Ye Yingling's body, making her shine like a walking ball of light.

Medusa swept her tail across. Her thick serpent's tail struck Ye Yingling, sending ripples across her shield.

Ye Yingling caught the tail with her free hand and used it to pull herself closer, then slammed her right fist down, wrapped in dark golden flames.

Medusa was sent flying. She had only just regained her footing when Liu Erlong attacked from the other direction.

Her Dragon Arm-enhanced fists rained down like a storm on Medusa's weakest point, her waist and abdomen, each blow driving deep into her muscles.

Medusa let out a piercing hiss, and her eyes suddenly blazed with green light—but the two women gave her no chance to lock on.

In barely a moment, the thirty-thousand-year Medusa had been hammered off the rock wall and onto the ground by two humans. She lay trembling among the rubble.

If Jiang Ce hadn't explicitly ordered them not to kill her, this Medusa would already have been pounded into snake mince.

Jiang Ce had his own plans. First, he would have Ye Yingling absorb the Immortal Herb, completely eliminate the flaw in her Martial Soul, temper her body to its utmost limit, transform her Mental Power, and evolve her Martial Soul. Then she could absorb Medusa's Soul Ring directly as her Second Soul Ring.

But after getting a good look at Medusa's face from up close, he had another idea.

Her upper body looked like that of an exceptionally beautiful, icy woman. Soul Beasts could transform into humans after cultivating for a hundred thousand years, and Medusa already had the foundation for it.

He would keep her here to guard this treasured land. This place would be his garden from now on.

After all, it was the finest flower garden of Immortal Herbs.

A year of growing medicinal herbs here was equal to a hundred years outside.

As for Medusa's skills, he could simply parasitize her and copy them all. There was no need to kill her.

He didn't care about losing out on a Soul Bone or two.

If he wanted to do it, he would. A mass of black liquid suddenly welled up from Ye Yingling's chest and rushed straight toward Medusa, who was sprawled on the ground.

"Ah! What is this thing—so slimy and sticky! Get it off me!" Medusa could only watch as the black liquid crawled over her serpent's tail, spread up across her waist and abdomen, and covered half her face.

"Not bad, little Medusa. You've got quite a few skills," Jiang Ce's voice rang out in her consciousness.

Venomous Snake Constriction, Medusa Miasma, Purple Venomous Snake Light, Petrification Beam, Snake Spirit Wings, Etherealization, Snake Scale Armor Defense, Venom Devour—a long list of skills appeared, clear as day.

"Who are you, really?!" Medusa screamed in her consciousness.

"I'm your master."

"You're my pet now,"