Absorbing a Thousand-Year Soul Ring, Yu Xiaogang's Fury!

On the heavenly screen, Qian Yuhan sheathed her sword. The golden radiance of the two wings behind her drew inward, and her whole body transformed into a straight beam of light. It sliced through the dense miasma ahead, leaving behind a vacuum that lingered for a long while.

She did not even leave behind a needless word of explanation. She had come swiftly, and departed even more decisively.

Inside the Offering Hall, Qian Daoliu knelt on the cold stone floor, his knees utterly motionless. His head remained pressed to the ground, not rising for a long time.

"Ancestor... she's leaving just like that?" Golden Crocodile Douluo's throat was dry, and his fingers trembled.

They had only seen her once. They had not even received a single word of instruction. The six great offerings stared fixedly at the heavenly screen, their eyes filled with regret.

Before leaving, Qian Yuhan casually tossed down a parchment booklet.

Tang Potian caught it with one hand and tossed it to Ning Wuqian.

"A guide to hunting soul beasts for support-system soul masters. A basic edition the Master compiled in her early years." Tang Potian stood with his arms folded and his chin slightly raised. "Open it and pick one. As long as it's listed in there and has a thousand years of cultivation, I can smash it flat with one hammer."

This was not merely an illustrated guide, but a practical manual of battle distilled from years of slaughter. Her evaluations of every soul beast were all rooted in actual combat, without a single wasted word.

His gaze swept quickly over the pages before finally stopping on an illustration.

"Black Jade Little Qilin." Ning Wuqian looked up. "Earth attribute. Focused on strength and attack enhancement. This one."

Tang Potian did not even raise his eyelids. "Wait here."

The moment his words fell, the red glow of Tang Potian's ninth soul ring flared brilliantly beneath his feet.

The Clear Sky Hammer flew from his hand, expanding against the wind as dark-red lightning coiled around its head.

He shot into the air, leaping straight over the defensive barrier and plunging headfirst into the outer forest.

Thunder roared.

The earth shook and the mountains trembled. Towering ancient trees snapped in swathes, while soil mixed with a bloody gale whirled into the sky. A deep trench was plowed through the ground. Birds took flight in panic, and every beast in the forest cowered. An ear-splitting beastly roar came from ahead as a massive creature three meters long burst through the brush. Its entire body was covered in dark-green scales, a single horn grew from its head, and its four claws were as thick as pillars. Every step it took made the earth quiver.

A Black Jade Little Qilin.

Tang Potian neither dodged nor evaded.

He gripped the Clear Sky Hammer's handle with both hands, twisted at the waist, and drove the force through every muscle in his body. Then he brought the hammer down.

Dark-red lightning collided with an earthy-yellow pillar of light. There was no suspense whatsoever. The light pillar shattered inch by inch. Carrying crushing force, the Clear Sky Hammer smashed solidly into the little qilin's forehead. Its tough scales did not even last a second before shattering outright. The little qilin's massive body was hammered brutally into the ground, creating a huge crater.

In less than half an incense stick's time.

Tang Potian strode back into the barrier, dragging a thick tail in one hand.

At the other end of that tail was a strange beast, black from head to toe, its scales gleaming with a ghostly sheen.

All four limbs of the Black Jade Little Qilin were broken. Most of its ribs had collapsed. Dark-golden beast blood spilled across the ground. It had only one breath left, weak whimpers emerging from its throat.

Twelve hundred years of cultivation.

With a casual flick, Tang Potian slammed the heavily wounded soul beast down at Ning Wuqian's feet.

"Absorb it. Stop dawdling."

Outside the heavenly screen, the chat group instantly erupted.

[Shrek Academy Yu Xiaogang: Nonsense! This is practically suicide!]

Yu Xiaogang sprang up from the ground, his hair in disarray as he pointed at the heavenly screen and cursed loudly.

"Absorbing a thousand-year soul ring as the first soul ring? The human body's meridians simply cannot withstand the energy impact of a thousand-year soul ring! That boy will explode and die at once, without even scraps left behind!"

Spittle flew from his mouth, and the muscles on his face twitched wildly with agitation. The Shrek Seven Devils around him exchanged glances, but none dared speak. Flender pushed up his glasses, wanting to persuade him but not knowing where to begin.

"Look carefully! Four hundred and twenty-three years! This is the first soul ring limit I derived after countless deductions! Exceed that number, and the meridians will inevitably rupture! And he picked a twelve-hundred-year subdragon species! Suicide! Utter suicide!"

Inside the main hall of the Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect.

Ning Fengzhi's expression darkened. He slapped the armrest, and the rosewood arm of his chair cracked apart.

"Yu Xiaogang, shut your mouth!"

Ning Fengzhi stood up, his chest heaving as his voice turned icy.

"You worthless trash who can't even break through Rank 30 dares comment on the ancestor of my Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect? Your pathetic theories aren't even worthy of carrying the ancestor's shoes!"

[Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect Ning Fengzhi: Empty talk ruins nations! Actual combat slaps you in the face! Other than stubbornly running your mouth, what else can you do?]

[Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect Master Yu Yuanzhen: Sect Master Ning is right. The Fire Domain on the heavenly screen had long since reforged that boy's physique. Your little rigid rules should have been thrown into a latrine long ago.]

Yu Xiaogang's face turned the color of pig liver. His fingers shook as he typed.

[Shrek Academy Yu Xiaogang: What do you people know?! Theory is truth! The soul power rampage of a thousand-year soul ring is not something a mortal body can endure! Just watch. Within ten breaths, he will die!]

Yu Xiaogang stared fixedly at the heavenly screen. He could not be wrong. If even the age limit of the first soul ring was overturned, then the so-called truths he had spent half his life researching would become a complete joke.

Within the heavenly screen.

Ning Wuqian could not hear the clamor of later generations at all.

He exhaled a breath of turbid air and sat cross-legged. Drawing a dagger from his boot, he stabbed it cleanly into the Black Jade Little Qilin's vital point, ending the soul beast's suffering.

A purple soul ring floated up from the beast's corpse.

Purple.

It represented a thousand years.

The instant the soul ring descended, violent earth-attributed energy, mixed with the roar of the beast's soul, charged straight toward Ning Wuqian's crown. This energy was immensely heavy, carrying the oppressive feeling of the earth as it tried to assimilate his internal organs into mud and stone.

Ning Wuqian frowned slightly.

It hurt.

His meridians were forcibly stretched open, and soul power rampaged through his limbs and bones. Fine beads of blood seeped from the surface of his skin as a layer of earthy-yellow radiance emerged. It was a sign that his body was about to petrify. The Black Jade Little Qilin's dying resentment became an illusory black beast, frantically biting and tearing through his spiritual sea.

But within his body, the pure white soul power tempered by the Ten-thousand-year Whale Glue and the Fire Domain immediately surged back.

White light flowed.

This power was extraordinarily tyrannical. The thousand-year resentment collided with the white light and instantly collapsed. It was crushed, purified, and devoured. The medicinal power of the Ten-thousand-year Whale Glue completely took effect, protecting his heart meridians and repairing his damaged channels. The memory of the Fire Domain's blazing heat had made his bones as hard as stone, allowing him to forcibly withstand the crushing pressure of the earth-attributed energy. Not only did his meridians not rupture, they instead became broader and tougher under the wash of this massive energy.

One breath.

Three breaths.

Five breaths.

The purple soul ring settled firmly beneath Ning Wuqian's feet. Its glow drew inward, and its aura became deep and steady.

The absorption was complete.

Ning Wuqian opened his eyes and clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking explosively.

"It worked."

Outside the heavenly screen, there was dead silence.

The sneer on Yu Xiaogang's face froze. His eyes bulged, and strange clicking sounds came from his throat.

"N-No... impossible..."

His legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground once more. His fingernails clawed into the bluestone slabs, leaving behind five bloody streaks.

"Ten breaths... no, he absorbed it in five breaths? Where was the resentment backlash? Where were the ruptured meridians? My theory... how could my theory be wrong?!"

The ten core competencies he had been so proud of shattered before absolute power, leaving not even a trace behind. The materials he had cited and the cases of useless martial souls he had collected by visiting the major sects had all become a joke.

The chat group exploded completely.

[Yan: Holy shit! He really absorbed it?! His first ring is a thousand-year purple ring?!]

[Feng Xiaotian: Awesome! Yu Xiaogang's face has been slapped swollen! Ten core competencies? Core my ass!]

[Star Luo Emperor Dai Tianli: What an eye-opener. The Seven Treasures Glazed Tower's first ring is a thousand-year one. If this happened today, it would scare every support-system soul master on the continent to death.]

[Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect Ning Fengzhi: The ancestor is mighty! Everyone in the Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect thanks the ancestor for defying fate and changing our destiny!]

Ning Fengzhi's entire body trembled. He directly lifted his robe and dropped to one knee in the direction of the heavenly screen.

Sword Douluo and Bone Douluo immediately followed. The entire hall fell to its knees.

Ning Fengzhi's eyes were red-rimmed.

Within the heavenly screen, Ning Wuqian rose to his feet. The purple soul ring beneath him glimmered faintly.

He raised a hand toward a massive boulder as tall as three men beside him.

"First soul skill, Black Jade Amplification."

A dark-golden glow covered his entire body. His muscles bulged, and his aura rose another level. A seven-tiered little tower rested in his palm, its body flowing with heavy earthy-yellow light.

He threw a punch.

The boulder shattered into powder. Stone fragments scattered more than ten meters away, while the force of his punch carved a shallow trench into the ground.

Tang Potian raised an eyebrow. "How much does it enhance?"

"Forty percent." Ning Wuqian withdrew his fist, his tone calm. "A pure forty percent increase in attack power. It can stack. It can also be cast on teammates."