A Brand-New Change

The thunderclouds in the sky completely dispersed.

Xu Linjiu slowly descended from midair. Beneath his feet, five soul rings were arranged in sequence: two yellow, two purple, and lastly, a platinum-white one unlike any known soul ring color.

A million-year soul ring.

Seeing that soul ring, Xu Linjiu could not help but rub his forehead and sigh.

That damn Skydream Iceworm!

For something as important as a lightning tribulation, it had judged everything purely by instinct. It did not even know whether it had experienced a lightning tribulation before.

Fortunately, he had long since worked out the details of the sacrifice with Skydream Iceworm.

And fortunately, while that million-year-old fat grub was unreliable with its words, it had not disappointed him when it truly mattered.

"Still, this soul ring feels pretty good."

Xu Linjiu clenched his fist and sensed the surging soul power within his body.

Level fifty was a minor threshold on the path of a soul master. Countless ordinary soul masters were trapped at this stage for life, unable to advance another step.

Yet this time, Skydream Iceworm had directly used the natural energy it had accumulated to crush through that threshold for him, saving him quite a bit of effort.

Having broken through to the Soul King realm, the soul power within him had surged by thirty percent, and even his spiritual power had improved considerably.

Xu Linjiu sat cross-legged and summoned his Pokédex Martial Soul.

The Pokédex screen lit up, automatically displaying his personal information.

[Xu Linjiu (Named)]

[Level: Lv.53]

[Ability: Inner Focus, Protean]

[Skills: Psychic, Light Screen, Reflect, Calm Mind, Hypnosis, Substitute, Gravity, Shadow Ball, Ice Beam, Misty Terrain, Rain Dance]

The number in the level column had jumped to fifty-three. A three-level leap was within his expectations.

The power from Skydream Iceworm's sacrifice was simply too immense. His body could not withstand receiving it all at once, so most of the energy had transformed into those ten golden rings and entered his sea of consciousness for temporary storage, to be refined slowly in the future.

Otherwise, with its million years of cultivation alone, it could have forcibly pushed him to the threshold of Titled Douluo.

Of course, by then, his body probably would have been unable to endure that power and turned into a puddle of mush.

The true qualitative change lay in the ability column.

Beside his original single ability, a new one had appeared: [Protean].

This new ability originated from Skydream Iceworm's innate ability as a member of the Iceworm clan: [Simulation].

When this talent had fallen into Huo Yuhao's hands, it had become the second soul skill of his Spirit Eyes Martial Soul, allowing him to use spiritual power to simulate the forms of all things.

But when the Iceworm clan's innate ability, Simulation, had fallen upon Xu Linjiu, it had been redefined by the system and transformed into an entirely new ability.

[Protean]: The user's attribute changes according to the move used.

Simply put, when he released Ice Beam, his body would temporarily transform into a pure Ice type, receiving all the boosts of ice-element power while also gaining the resistances of the Ice type.

When he used Rain Dance, he would switch to the Water type and fight with entirely different resistances and offensive capabilities.

This ability to shift attributes along with his moves meant that as long as his move pool was deep enough, he would never suffer a disadvantage from type matchups.

Only after the turbulent soul power within his body gradually settled did Xu Linjiu turn his attention back to the platinum-white soul ring beneath his feet.

By convention, a million-year soul ring should come with at least four soul skills. Yet after Xu Linjiu calmed himself and examined it, he discovered that his situation was somewhat special.

His Pokédex Martial Soul had always possessed a contract slot, and that slot had occupied the position of one soul skill within his martial soul from the very beginning.

In other words, he could actually use only three soul skills.

Still, the remaining three did not disappoint him.

The first and second soul skills were the same as Huo Yuhao's: Psychic Detection and Psychic Sharing.

These two soul skills had effects identical to the soul skill Huo Yuhao obtained ten thousand years later, but their specific methods of use differed subtly due to the difference in their martial souls.

Huo Yuhao's Spirit Eyes Martial Soul released detection through his eyes, and wherever his gaze reached was within his detection range.

Xu Linjiu's Pokédex Martial Soul had no eyes. Its detection method instead scanned through the Pokédex itself.

When the soul skill was activated, the Pokédex screen automatically lit up. With him as the center, an invisible spiritual wave spread outward, and every object within its range was displayed on the Pokédex screen as a three-dimensional image.

If Psychic Sharing was activated at the same time, the images on the Pokédex screen would automatically be shared in his teammates' minds.

"This is more convenient than Spirit Eyes."

Xu Linjiu tried expanding the detection range, and the three-dimensional map on the Pokédex screen continued extending outward.

With his current level-fifty-three soul power, one thousand meters was the limit of Psychic Detection.

Once he broke through to Soul Emperor and Soul Sage, this range would continue expanding.

As for the third soul skill, it was Psychic Seal.

The mechanism of Psychic Seal was straightforward. Once cast on a target, it randomly sealed one of the opponent's soul skills. Each target could only have one soul skill sealed at a time while the seal remained active.

The duration of the seal was directly related to the gap in strength between the two sides. The smaller the gap, the shorter the sealing time; the greater the gap, the longer it lasted.

Imagine someone who had been building up an offensive soul skill for a long time, only for it to suddenly be sealed. That feeling of being stopped right at the edge would be unbearably frustrating.

Meanwhile, deep within Xu Linjiu's soul, the once tranquil sea of consciousness was undergoing earth-shaking changes.

Ten golden halos hung high above the sea like ten blazing suns, continuously radiating scorching brilliance and stimulating the sea of consciousness to expand outward.

A plump flesh worm fell from the sky and splashed into the sea, sending up towering waves.

"Whew, good thing it worked! That was seriously dangerous just now!"

The flesh worm let out a long breath and patted its chest with its tiny hands. Then, with a flip, it flew out of the sea of consciousness.

This flesh worm was none other than Skydream Iceworm, which had just sacrificed itself to Xu Linjiu.

Skydream Iceworm wriggled as it floated above the sea of consciousness, looking around in every direction.

"Hehe, so this is that brat's sea of consciousness? It looks pretty decent!"

Skydream Iceworm suddenly plunged headfirst into the sea of consciousness. Bathed in the nourishment of pure spiritual power, it comfortably closed its eyes. "So comfy~! From now on, this is big brother's territory!"

"Right!"

Skydream Iceworm, which had been enjoying the nourishment of spiritual power, suddenly straightened its upper body, opened its eyes, and began surveying its surroundings.

"Hehe, let me see where he hid his memories!"

"That brat acts all mysterious every day. Who knows where he learned so many things? He even managed to find big brother's hiding place!"

"Where is it? Where is it?"

Skydream Iceworm burrowed around inside the sea of consciousness, trying to find Xu Linjiu's memory fragments.

"Ha! Here they are!"

Ahead, countless memory fragments floated in the air like glowing beads.

Skydream Iceworm pounced on them excitedly.

"Found them, found them! Let big brother see what secrets you brat has been hiding!"

It stretched out a tiny claw toward the memory fragments.

Then its claw stopped in midair.

There was clearly nothing in front of Skydream Iceworm, yet its claw simply could not reach any farther.

"Huh?"

Unwilling to accept this, Skydream Iceworm changed directions and tried again.

Skydream Iceworm floated in the air, staring in disbelief at those memory fragments that were so close yet impossible to touch.

Ahead was clearly the aura of that brat's memories!

"That can't be! Big brother is inside your sea of consciousness now, so how can there still be something big brother can't touch?"

It tried several more times, but every attempt ended the same way. All were blocked by that invisible barrier.

Just as Skydream Iceworm was spinning in anxious circles, a figure silently condensed behind it.

"What are you looking for?"