Testing Abilities

He wasn't afraid. Honestly, with his current strength, a single Silence Talisman from the Heaven-Piercing Talisman could make 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 given him a basic sense of public decency.

Yang Xing pursed his lips, suppressing the remaining excitement in his throat. He switched to whispering as he silently pantomimed a set of combination punches in the darkness. The frustration of getting a new toy but not being allowed to shout about it made him feel like 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 overhead.

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

Yang Xing kicked off with both legs.

His body shot silently through the hole like an arrow released from a bowstring.

The night wind rushed into his robes.

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

Yang Xing did not stop.

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

Until Suotuo City became a chessboard the size of his palm beneath him, until the dark Soul Hunting Forest beyond the city, stretching to the edge of his vision, spread fully before his eyes.

Yang Xing hovered a thousand meters in the air.

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

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 toward the Soul Hunting Forest at top speed.

Wind Empress Qimen's control over space allowed him to fly far beyond the limits of Soul Masters of the same rank. Diving from a thousand meters up, 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 outward with him at its center. Ancient trees as thick as a man's waist were sheared off at their roots as if cut by an invisible giant blade, crashing to the ground. A crimson tide of flames followed immediately after, reducing the fallen trees to ash in an instant.

Within two breaths, the area within two hundred meters had been cleared into an open space. The ground was smooth as a mirror, with not even blades of grass left behind.

Yang Xing stood in the center and rolled his neck.

"Good. This is enough space."

The first thing he tested was the Qi Body Origin Stream.

This ability, placed in his first Soul Ring slot, was the foundation of all his abilities. If its Soul Power supply had a limit, everything that followed would be nothing but a castle in the air.

Yang Xing began releasing Soul Power.

Not a trickling stream of output. He opened every gate and poured it out without holding anything back.

With both palms raised to the sky, two pillars of energy mixed with wind, fire, lightning, and ice surged upward, exploding into a rain of light across the night sky. The radiance illuminated the forest canopy for hundreds of miles around, continuously tearing the night apart and turning it into day.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Five minutes.

If any Soul Master of the same rank had kept pouring out Soul Power like this, they would have long since run dry.

Yet the amount of Soul Power within Yang Xing's body did not decrease in the slightest. The Qi Body Origin Stream devoured the spiritual energy between heaven and earth with terrifying efficiency, converting it, replenishing him, and cycling it through his body.

Endless.

It was as though his body was connected to an invisible ocean. No matter how much he drew from it, the sea level never fell.

Yang Xing withdrew his hands and nodded in satisfaction.

Unlimited mana. Confirmed.

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

He was in no hurry to seek out Soul Beasts.

He first sensed the fluctuations in the surrounding auras and locked onto a powerful wave of Soul Power roughly three kilometers to the northeast.

A thousand-year level. Avian type.

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

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

The next instant, black wind blades shot out with the beat of its wings, carrying sharp Soul Power capable of slicing through steel as they flew straight for Yang Xing's face.

Yang Xing stood still.

The moment the wind blade touched the surface of his body, it was like a drop of ink falling into clear water.

The black wind blade began to break down the instant it touched him. A visible, rapid disintegration. The condensed offensive Soul Power was stripped away layer by layer and restored to its most basic form—scattered Soul Power with no offensive force whatsoever—as a breeze brushed across his cheek.

It did not even lift the hem of his robe.

The thin film of Soul Power from the Qi Body Origin Stream, constantly covering his entire body, automatically deconstructed any energy-based attack that came into contact with it at the fundamental level, returning it to its most primitive state.

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

Yang Xing stretched lazily.

"Alright, alright. Go home and sleep."

With a casual wave, he cast a spiritual suppression from Spirit Binding and Command over the black eagle. Under that pressure, the soul of the thousand-year Soul Beast instantly lost all will to resist. It gave a miserable cry, flapped its wings, and fled in panic.

Yang Xing did not pursue it. Achieving his goal was enough.

The following two hours were the most exhilarating two hours of Yang Xing's eighteen years of 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 his will, that fragment of a soul condensed into a translucent wolf spirit, which lay at his feet as obediently as a dog.

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

Then he placed his right hand over it. A pale golden light flashed, and flesh and bone grew and healed at a visible rate. Two seconds later, his arm was completely restored.

He even cut off his entire left hand.

There was not a trace of panic when blood sprayed out. The light of Twin Complete Hands enveloped the stump, and a new hand grew from the cross-section. Muscles, bones, blood vessels, skin—each layer regenerated. The entire process took no more than five seconds.

Reviving the dead and regrowing flesh from bone. In the literal sense.

As long as he was not obliterated in a single blow until not even scraps remained, he could achieve nearly limitless self-repair through Twin Complete Hands, backed by the endless Soul Power supplied by the Qi Body Origin Stream.

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

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

He even attempted to use Wind Empress Qimen's time ability to reverse a tree he had burned into a growing state.

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

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

One punch struck the ground, directly shattering and collapsing the surface within ten meters. That pure physical power made him feel as though his fists were wrapped in steel.

Moreover, the Six Treasury Immortal Thief gave him a clear perception.

He could sense that the moment he acquired this ability, his vitality had been almost completely locked in place. His cells aged so slowly it was nearly imperceptible, and his body hardly deteriorated at all.

An immaculate, eternal body.

Barring accidents, even if he never became a god, he could still live for thousands or tens of thousands of years.

What did that mean?

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

In the worldview of Douluo Continent, gods could not directly descend to 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 were not as powerful as they were in the Divine Realm and might even suffer backlash from its rules.

In other words, if he chose to slack off and not become a god, if he simply stayed in Douluo Continent and refused to leave...

Then no existence on the entire continent could threaten him.

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

Last was Great Luo Insight.

This was the ability he had been most curious about before his transmigration.

In the original work, Gu Jiting had used it to alter his own karmic thread and evade pursuit, but its precise principles had always remained vague.

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

Dimensional observation and interference.