Star Dou Great Forest

This was a primeval forest, where low shrubs were seldom seen. All around stood ancient trees tens of thousands of years old, towering into the clouds. Their branches crisscrossed and spread in every direction, their lush foliage like emerald clouds that blotted out the blue sky completely.

Silence was the forest's prevailing note. Sunlight spilled down from above, slipping through gaps in the leaves to form a few dappled shafts of light.

Sixth Soul Skill: Golden Stamen Flowing Rosy Clouds

Suddenly, golden flowers bloomed across the surrounding trees. A chrysanthemum with the texture of metal and stone shattered the forest's tranquility. Immense soul power gathered in the chrysanthemum and shot out with its petals, which became a meteor shower that sealed off a golden python's escape.

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud!

Amid a continuous series of impacts, ninety percent of the petals struck the golden python. Their force and sharpness were considerable, pinning the python to the ground like nails.

The blond man with a chrysanthemum hovering over his hand slowly landed and planted a foot on the golden python's head. A smug smile curved his lips as he addressed the six- or seven-year-old boy approaching alongside a black-haired man, his tone oddly mocking. "Su Chen, this golden python is forty-three meters long-a forty-three-thousand-year-old soul beast. Do you have the nerve to absorb its soul ring?"

Su Chen walked over to the golden python. Beads of sweat were faintly visible on Chrysanthemum Douluo's forehead; bringing down this python had clearly cost him considerable effort. Su Chen's first soul ring was exactly ten thousand years old, and acquiring it had increased his physical attributes by ten thousand points.

According to soul masters' understanding of soul rings, a fifth soul ring could be under twelve thousand years old, a sixth under twenty thousand, and a seventh under fifty thousand. But nothing was absolute. With a sufficiently powerful body, one could break those limits entirely. For instance, when Tang San obtained his fourth soul ring, he should only have been able to absorb one under five thousand years old, yet he surpassed that limit and absorbed the soul ring of a ten-thousand-year-old Cave Demon Spider.

Su Chen smiled faintly and looked at Chrysanthemum Douluo. When they had first entered the outer reaches of the Star Dou Great Forest, Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo had only intervened when Su Chen was in danger. Chrysanthemum Douluo already knew that Su Chen possessed innate prodigious strength: even without using his martial soul, his body was strong enough to fight a five-thousand-year-old Six-Armed Ape hand to hand. Naturally, he dared ask this because he thought highly of Su Chen and believed the boy could work a miracle, exceeding his level to absorb this golden python's soul ring.

"Uncle Yue Guan has already helped me bring it down. If I didn't have the nerve to absorb its soul ring, wouldn't I be letting all your painstaking efforts go to waste?" Su Chen smiled, took out a dagger, walked up to the golden python, and ended its life.

Then Su Chen formed a seal with his hands, and black wisps surged from the golden python's body. Finally, they condensed into a black soul ring above its corpse.

This soul ring differed from Su Chen's first. Four black markings ran through it, indicating that its age had reached forty thousand years.

On the way here, Su Chen had already asked Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo about absorbing soul rings. Now he sat cross-legged and began absorbing it.

"Old Ghost, do you think he can succeed?" Chrysanthemum Douluo asked uncertainly.

"His chances are good. His martial soul is a golden sacred dragon, and this soul ring comes from a beast-type soul beast, a golden python. The golden sacred dragon and golden python are both beasts, and their forms are very similar. The soul ring's rejection of him will therefore be reduced to a minimum," Ghost Douluo analyzed.

"But this is still a forty-three-thousand-year-old soul ring." Once his impulsiveness had passed, Chrysanthemum Douluo could not help feeling uneasy as he stared at Su Chen, shrouded in black energy.

For ordinary soul masters, a seven-hundred-and-sixty-year-old soul ring was the limit of what they could absorb. Yet Su Chen was absorbing one forty-three thousand years old-more than fifty times that age!

"If he cannot stand apart from ordinary people, then he does not deserve to become her student, or the future Supreme Pontiff of Spirit Hall!" Ghost Douluo's words were cold, without a trace of emotion, yet his eyes remained fixed on the little boy before him. When they left the junior Soul Master Academy, Qian Renxue had made herself perfectly clear: if anything happened to Su Chen, she would hold the two of them accountable!

"Ngh!"

In the midst of cultivating, Su Chen suddenly let out a low, muffled groan of pain. At the sound, Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo both frowned. Su Chen's features had already begun contorting in agony.

Hum!

Suddenly, the surrounding energy fluctuated violently.

"Something's happening!"

Chrysanthemum Douluo scanned the surroundings as though facing a formidable enemy, but found no sign of any powerful soul beast. The weak ten-year-old and hundred-year-old soul beasts nearby slowly raised their heads, one after another, and looked in their direction.

Just as Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo thought a battle was about to erupt, these ten-year-old and hundred-year-old soul beasts made no further move to attack. Instead, every one of them prostrated itself toward them. More precisely, they were prostrating themselves toward Su Chen, like subjects bowing before their sovereign.

It was not only the soul beasts in this area. Even in the forbidden grounds at the heart of the Star Dou Great Forest, soul beasts aged one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, and even eight hundred thousand years all raised their heads in unison, gazing solemnly toward Su Chen.

When the fluctuating energy of heaven and earth gathered around Su Chen, it strangely turned silver-a pure, luminous silver without the slightest flaw.

"Old Ghost, can you tell what's going on?" Chrysanthemum Douluo asked Ghost Douluo beside him, his expression exceedingly grave.

"It may be connected to his divine trial!" Ghost Douluo replied.

The scene before them was truly beyond comprehension. To Ghost Douluo, perhaps only the divine trial, a realm he had never ventured into, could explain everything unfolding before his eyes.

Su Chen's eyes were closed, his consciousness immersed in a black ocean. Surging soul power seeped into every opening, gathering throughout his limbs and body. Just as everything was proceeding smoothly, and Xiao Han seemed about to obtain his second soul ring, a strange fluctuation arose around him. Then, under its influence, all the energy from the soul ring that had already entered his body bizarrely surged back out. It was precisely this sensation of having his strength stripped away that twisted Su Chen's features in such agony.

What's going on?

As Su Chen struggled to make sense of it, a speck of silver light began seeping into his consciousness. The silver light was dazzling, forcibly carving out an energy vacuum within the black ocean. Radiant and beautiful, it began to writhe as though possessed of life.

An unbelievable word welled up in Su Chen's heart: Dragon!