Heavenly Saint Spirit Light Shield, Hunting a Spirit Ring

The sun gradually rose. A pale strip of dawn quietly appeared on the eastern horizon, followed by beautiful morning clouds. The first ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds like a sharp sword, cleaving apart the darkness of night.

Xu Tianchen had gotten dressed early, finished breakfast, and waited in his room for Kong Deming to arrive.

Before long, a knock sounded by Xu Tianchen's ear. Xu Tianchen dashed to the door and immediately opened it.

Sure enough, Kong Deming stood outside. The moment Xu Tianchen saw him, he greeted him at once. "Morning."

"Morning. Have you eaten breakfast?"

Kong Deming smiled as well, his tone relaxed.

"I have." Xu Tianchen nodded in reply.

"Good. Since you have, come with your grandfather. I'll first take you to test your physical strength. This is something your grandfather specifically developed. It can accurately measure all of the subject's statistics, even spiritual power. If it weren't so expensive to produce, I'd have wanted to promote it across the entire country."

As Kong Deming spoke to Xu Tianchen, he took his hand and led him toward a laboratory within the prince's residence.

Before long, the grandfather and grandson arrived at the residence's laboratory.

Looking at the sophisticated device before him, Xu Tianchen could not help but sigh in admiration.

"Wow. Grandfather, you're incredible."

"Not bad, right? Go stand in the middle of the machine."

There was a note of pride in Kong Deming's voice. Once he saw Xu Tianchen obediently stand in the center of the machine, he walked to the side and activated it.

White light emerged and scanned Xu Tianchen's body from head to toe. A few seconds later—

With a beep, the machine began reporting its results.

"Soul power: Rank 10."

"Physical strength: Rank 25."

"Physical resilience: Rank 28."

"Spiritual strength: Rank 46."

"No Soul Bone enhancements."

The air instantly froze. It was so quiet. Kong Deming had expected Xu Tianchen's physical strength to be high—after all, all those medicinal baths had not been for nothing—but he had never expected his spiritual power to be so high as well.

"I don't understand. How is your spiritual power so high? Neither of your martial souls has anything to do with the spiritual attribute."

Kong Deming could not make sense of it no matter how much he thought about it, while Xu Tianchen merely spread his hands to indicate that he did not know.

After all, he could not tell Kong Deming that it was a side effect of the Plane Spirit helping him open up his Sea of Spirit.

"Forget it. Stronger spiritual power is a good thing. But given your current condition, attaching a nine-hundred-year Spirit Ring should be about right." Kong Deming gave up trying to figure out the reason.

"Would a Millennium Spirit Ring not work?"

Xu Tianchen thought of those transmigrator seniors, who had practically all begun with purple Millennium Spirit Rings. Would he not seem a little weak with a yellow hundred-year Spirit Ring?

"A Millennium Spirit Ring? That would be difficult. There's no need to blindly pursue higher cultivation years. The first few Spirit Rings will be useless by the later stages anyway, and you have a second martial soul. What matters most for you now is stability."

Kong Deming understood a child's desire to pursue a higher-year Spirit Ring, but he still did not recommend obtaining a Millennium Spirit Ring.

"Mm, I understand." Xu Tianchen nodded in agreement.

Kong Deming nodded as well. The boy could be taught.

"Alright, are you packed? If you are, we'll go hunt your first Spirit Ring."

"Where are we going to hunt? The Star Dou Forest? Or the Jingyang Mountain Range?"

"Neither. The Evil Demon Forest." Kong Deming shook his head as he answered Xu Tianchen.

"The Evil Demon Forest?"

Xu Tianchen was puzzled. Although the Evil Demon Forest could be considered the Sun Moon Empire's Spirit Beast forest with the richest resources, and it even contained the Evil Eye Tyrant Ruler, the Evil Emperor, who ranked second on the list of fierce beasts with 790,000 years of cultivation, it was precisely because of the Evil Emperor that the Evil Demon Forest was practically full of Evil Eyes and their variants. There were other Spirit Beasts too, but they were nowhere near as diverse as those in other Spirit Beast forests.

"That's right, the Evil Demon Forest. Our people investigated it before and found that one of its variants had mutated to develop the destruction attribute. That Spirit Beast is our target this time."

Kong Deming explained it to Xu Tianchen.

"Oh, right. These two are for you."

Kong Deming took two items from his storage ring and handed them to Xu Tianchen. One was a storage ring made from starlight sapphire, while the other was a diamond-shaped small shield no larger than an adult's palm.

"This storage soul tool can hold both dead and living things. The space inside is roughly eighty-one cubic meters. I also inscribed it with the teleportation function of an Instant Movement Ring, so keep it safe. I've already placed some commonly used items inside."

Xu Tianchen accepted the ring from Kong Deming and put it on. The moment it touched his hand, it resized itself to fit his finger.

"And this, the Heavenly Saint Spirit Light Shield." Kong Deming raised the other item in his hand. "This is a Rank 9 defensive triggered soul tool that I previously made using a ninety-thousand-year incomplete Soul Bone. After a small modification last night, I added an energy storage formation. It contains soul power that I infused into it, allowing it to block three attacks from a Title Douluo. When it is nearly out of charges, remember to notify me so I can recharge it for you."

"You only need to place it against your chest, and it will automatically adhere to your body. Oh, and because that Soul Bone seems to have come from a spiritual-type Spirit Beast, although it is somewhat incomplete, this soul tool can still withstand spiritual attacks at the Soul Sage level."

Xu Tianchen accepted the item made from a ninety-thousand-year incomplete Soul Bone. By now, he was almost numb. Was this the benefit of starting with a top-tier family background? A Rank 9 triggered defensive soul tool right from the beginning.

Who else could receive treatment like this?

It had not only physical defense, but spiritual defense too.

Just who else had that?

Kong Deming looked at the still-dazed Xu Tianchen and patted him on the shoulder.

"Alright, stop spacing out. Aside from the Silver Moon Divine Light Shield, this is one of my proudest creations. Hurry up and absorb it. Then see if there's anything else you need to bring, get some rest, and we'll set off shortly."

Xu Tianchen came back to himself, placed the Heavenly Saint Spirit Light Shield against his chest, and infused it with soul power. A flash of white light passed, and the shield vanished from his hand.

Still, whether it was an illusion or because of the shield, he immediately felt his sense of security skyrocket.

Before long, the packed Xu Tianchen was taken by Kong Deming as they flew into the Sun Moon Empire's famous Spirit Beast gathering ground—the Evil Demon Forest.

With Kong Deming taking him along, Xu Tianchen naturally did not need to trudge there miserably on foot. Moreover, the Evil Demon Forest was not far from Mingdu, so the two arrived quickly.

The vegetation in the Evil Demon Forest was tall and dense, blocking out most of the light and making visibility lower than outside. The deeper one went into the forest, the darker it became. It was said that the core region even possessed a spiritual field, and remaining there for too long would throw a Spirit Master's mind into disorder.

"This is the Evil Demon Forest. You don't have any Spirit Rings yet, so there's no need for you to undergo any training here. Actually, if this Spirit Beast were easier to capture alive, I would have wanted to bring it back and let you absorb it in the prince's residence. Once you reach Soul King and can skillfully use all kinds of soul tools, then you can travel across the continent to broaden your horizons and gain combat experience."

Kong Deming spoke to Xu Tianchen.

What he meant was obvious. For these first few Spirit Ring hunts, Xu Tianchen could rest assured—he would help hunt the Spirit Beasts and would not let Xu Tianchen make a move himself. If it had not been difficult to capture the target alive, he would have brought it back for him.

As for training, that could wait until Xu Tianchen had the ability to protect himself.

Xu Tianchen strongly agreed with Kong Deming's words.

When he thought of the transmigrators from his previous life's novels, who would casually spend years living in Spirit Beast forests starting from the Spirit Scholar stage—

All he could say was that they were amazing and capable. Of course, that did not include those transmigrator seniors with powerful Spirit Beast backers.

This time, they had a clear target and even a general area where it lived. By all logic, they should have found it quickly.

Yet for some reason, the grandfather and grandson had searched this area for quite some time without finding it.

"Forget it, we'll stop here for today. It'll be dark soon. Let's rest up and search again tomorrow. Don't rush. Spirit Ring hunting is like this; it consumes most of the time."

Xu Tianchen had not even shown any impatience when Kong Deming began comforting him.

"Look, isn't that our target?"

Just as Kong Deming was preparing to rest where they stood, Xu Tianchen suddenly spoke.

Kong Deming froze, then looked in the direction Xu Tianchen was pointing and cried out in surprise.

"That's it!"