Testing His Abilities

Not that he was afraid. Honestly, with his current strength, a single Silencing Talisman from the Heaven-Piercing Talisman could render everyone within a hundred meters mute until dawn. But he did not do that.

The moral education from nine years of compulsory schooling in the twenty-first century had at least left him with a basic sense of public decency.

Yang Xing pursed his lips, suppressing the remaining excitement in his throat. He switched to whispering breaths as he silently performed a set of combination punches in the darkness. The frustration of getting a new toy but being forbidden to shout about it felt like being a monkey locked in a cage.

No.

He needed to find somewhere deserted and test his strength while he was at it.

His gaze shifted upward.

That hole was still there. It was the handiwork left by the wind blades he had cut out in bird form that afternoon. Moonlight now poured through the opening, spilling over him.

Yang Xing kicked off with both legs.

His body shot soundlessly through the hole like an arrow launched from a bowstring.

The night wind rushed into his robes.

The full view of Soto City rapidly shrank beneath his feet. The dimly lit streets, the neatly packed rooftops, and the torches in the hands of soldiers patrolling the city walls all became tiny specks of light.

Yang Xing did not stop.

He continued rising. One hundred meters, three hundred meters, five hundred meters, one thousand meters.

Until the entire Soto City became a palm-sized chessboard beneath his feet, until Soul Hunting Forest outside the city—a dark expanse stretching to the end of his vision—spread fully before his eyes.

Yang Xing hovered a thousand meters above the ground.

Moonlight shone upon him, and the night wind stirred the hem of his robes. Beneath him was empty sky; above him, a river of stars.

For eighteen years, he had always looked up at the sky.

Now, the sky was beneath his feet.

He took a deep breath, leaned forward, and flew at top speed toward Soul Hunting Forest.

Wind Empress Qimen's control over space allowed him to fly far beyond the limits of Soul Masters of the same rank. Diving down from a thousand meters, the sealed perimeter wall around the forest was no more than a thin line in his eyes. Within a few breaths, the wall flashed beneath his feet, and he had already penetrated deep into the heart of the forest.

He landed.

The instant his feet touched the ground, Yang Xing did not hesitate.

He swept out his right hand.

"Whoosh!"

A visible crescent wind blade swept out from him in all directions. Wherever it passed, ancient trees as thick as a man's waist were sliced off at their roots by an invisible giant blade and crashed down. A crimson tide of flames followed close behind, instantly burning the fallen trees to ash.

In two breaths, everything within two hundred meters had been cleared into an open space. The ground was as smooth as a mirror, with not even grass roots left behind.

Yang Xing stood in the center and rolled his neck.

"Alright. The venue is big enough."

The first thing he tested was Qi Body Origin Stream.

This ability, slotted in his first soul ring position, was the foundation of all his abilities. If there were a limit to the soul power it supplied, everything that followed would be castles in the air.

Yang Xing began releasing soul power.

Not in a trickling stream.

He opened every floodgate and poured it out without restraint.

With both palms facing the sky, two pillars of energy mixed with wind, fire, lightning, and ice shot upward, exploding into a rain of light across the night sky. The glow illuminated the forest canopy for hundreds of kilometers around, continuously tearing the night apart into daylight.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Five minutes.

With such nonstop soul power expenditure, any Soul Master of the same rank would have run dry long ago.

Yet the reserves of soul power within Yang Xing remained utterly unchanged. Qi Body Origin Stream devoured the spiritual energy of heaven and earth with terrifying efficiency, converting it, replenishing him, and circulating it.

Endless.

It was as if his body had been connected to an invisible ocean. No matter how much he drew from it, the sea level would not drop in the slightest.

Yang Xing lowered his hands and nodded in satisfaction.

Infinite mana bar. Confirmed.

Next came Qi Body Origin Stream's other core ability: deconstruction.

He was in no hurry to find a soul beast.

He first sensed the fluctuations of the surrounding auras, locking onto a powerful soul power fluctuation roughly three kilometers to the northeast.

Thousand-year level. A bird of prey.

Yang Xing's figure flashed, and Wind Empress Qimen's spatial displacement delivered him directly before his target.

It was a giant black eagle, its wingspan reaching seven or eight meters. It was perched atop one of the remaining ancient trees. Yang Xing's sudden appearance instantly put it on guard. A fierce glint flashed through its sharp eagle eyes as it opened its beak and let out a piercing shriek.

The next instant, black wind blades shot out with a flap of its wings, carrying razor-sharp soul power capable of cutting steel as they flew straight at Yang Xing's face.

Yang Xing stood still.

The moment the wind blades touched the surface of his body, they were like drops of ink falling into clear water.

The black wind blades began to break apart the instant they made contact. Visibly, rapidly. Their condensed offensive soul power was stripped away layer by layer, reverting into the most basic, completely non-threatening dissipated soul power, like a breeze brushing across his cheek.

They did not even stir the hem of his robes.

The film of soul power from Qi Body Origin Stream that constantly covered his entire body would automatically deconstruct any energy-based attack that came into contact with it at its most fundamental level, returning it to its original state.

The black eagle unleashed seven or eight wind blades in succession, every one of them silently dispersing an inch before Yang Xing.

Yang Xing stretched lazily.

"Alright, alright. Go home and sleep."

He casually waved a hand, and the spiritual suppression of Spirit Binding and Command enveloped the black eagle. Under that pressure, the soul of the thousand-year soul beast instantly lost all will to resist. It let out a miserable cry, beat its wings, and fled in panic.

Yang Xing did not pursue it. His goal had been achieved.

The next two hours were the most exhilarating two hours of Yang Xing's eighteen-year life.

Using Spirit Binding and Command, he pulled the remnant soul from the soul ring of a thousand-year soul beast he had just killed. Under the control of his will, that wisp of remnant soul condensed into a translucent spirit wolf that lay at his feet, as docile as a dog.

He used Twin Complete Hands to slash open his left arm, exposing the bone.

Then he placed his right hand over it. A pale golden flash appeared, and flesh and bone visibly grew back and healed. Two seconds later, his arm was completely restored.

He even cut off his entire left hand.

He did not panic in the slightest as blood sprayed out. The light of Twin Complete Hands enveloped the severed stump, and a new hand grew from the cross-section. Muscles, bones, blood vessels, skin—layer by layer, they regenerated. It took no more than five seconds.

Reviving the dead, regrowing white bones. In the literal sense.

As long as he was not obliterated in a single blow until not even scraps remained, the endless soul power supplied by Qi Body Origin Stream would allow him to use Twin Complete Hands for almost limitless self-healing.

There was even less need to mention the offensive tests for Wind Empress Qimen and the Heaven-Piercing Talisman.

A sea of flames burned through the forest, lightning split the earth, space tore apart, and time was minutely adjusted.

He even tried using Wind Empress Qimen's power over time to reverse a tree he had burned into returning to a state of growth.

The sight of tender shoots emerging from the ashes left even Yang Xing staring blankly for half a second.

He also tested the physical body strengthened by Six Treasury Immortal Thief.

One punch slammed into the ground, directly shattering and collapsing the earth within ten meters. That sheer physical force made his fists feel as though they were wrapped in steel.

And Six Treasury Immortal Thief also gave him a clear perception.

He could feel that the moment he obtained this ability, his life force had practically been locked in place. The rate at which his cells aged had slowed to an almost imperceptible degree, and his body had nearly ceased to deteriorate.

An immaculate, long-lived body.

Barring any surprises, even if he did not become a god, he could still live for thousands, even tens of thousands, of years.

What did that mean?

Yang Xing's mind suddenly turned to a crucial question.

In the worldview of Douluo Continent, gods could not directly descend into the lower realm.

True gods had to pay an enormous price to interfere with the mortal world, and their strength would also be affected. They would not be as powerful as they were in the God Realm, and they might even suffer backlash from the rules of the God Realm.

In other words, if he simply gave up on becoming a god and stayed on Douluo Continent...

There would be nothing on the entire continent capable of threatening him.

The moment that thought surfaced, the corners of Yang Xing's mouth curled upward uncontrollably.

Last was Great Luo Insight.

Before his transmigration, this had always been the ability he was most curious about.

In the original work, Gu Jiting used it to alter his own karmic line and evade pursuit, but its precise principles had always been vaguely explained.

Now that he possessed it himself, Yang Xing finally understood its essence.

Dimensional observation and interference.