"The black dude was still the same old black dude."
After pressing his gun against Wang Shaojie's head and blasting it apart, Lin Qing-the man who most despised apologies offered after the damage was done-put away the Dragon Devourer and continued restoring his soul power with a Milk Bottle.
During their half-year-plus of study in the Hongchen Class, Wang Shaojie had dutifully kept his negative emotions in check. Lin Qing had thought the black dude finally understood that a wise man knew when to bend with the times. Yet mountains and rivers were easier to change than a person's nature; a little pressure, and he self-destructed.
A Level 5 Milk Bottle could not fully replenish an ultimate martial soul's immense soul power. Like a silver black hole, the machine element devoured the inexhaustible gold element, accelerating its master's recovery.
The Jingyang Mountain Range was a paradise for metal-attribute soul beasts, and a domain where ultimate metal was like a fish in water. With the disturbances in the mountains tonight, the gold element was even denser than usual.
Moreover, a faint, lustrous indigo glow shone beneath the clothing over Lin Qing's chest. The Level 9 Soul Tool Azure Sky Jade Moon was racing against time to absorb moonlight.
More than half the night had passed. There was no time for the Jade Moon Shield to recover its full-moon form; Lin Qing would thank Yue Shen for her gift if it so much as reached a half-moon.
Lin Qing gave the Azure Sky Jade Moon's defenses a glowing five-star review. The Jade Moon Shield was as impregnable as a fortress with walls of metal and a moat of boiling water, steadily blocking the all-out bombardment of every Silver Lion summoned by the Silver Lion Leader.
The subsequent blast from the Dragon Gland Thermonuclear Cannon had inflicted devastating casualties on the Silver Lions, giving everyone a chance to activate their Flying Soul Tools and escape with their lives.
Now, the Silver Lions skilled in ranged attacks had suffered heavy losses, while the Golden Lions were merely a bunch of meatheads specializing in close combat. The pride could no longer organize a powerful ground-to-air bombardment.
As long as Zheng Zhan kept the hundred-thousand-year Golden Sword Lion King occupied, leaving the Jingyang Mountain Range would be easy for Lin Qing. He would not need to trouble Electrolux.
Ju Zi and Keke were two clever girls who understood that they needed to rack their brains to escape the Jingyang Mountain Range. Lin Qing set down the nearly depleted Level 5 Milk Bottle, his soul power fully restored. After cleaning up every trace, he unfolded the Flying Soul Tool on his back and flew low, following the flow of the gold element.
The gold element would never stir without cause. Across the entire Jingyang Mountain Range, it was gathering frantically toward one spot, like countless winding streams converging on the same destination.
The Golden Sword Lion King had condescended to lead its pride from Jingyang Peak in the central region to a subsidiary range. Surely, some supreme treasure of immense benefit to it had appeared.
They were both metal-attributed. A supreme treasure that made the Golden Sword Lion King drool was something Lin Qing coveted as well.
With the Unbreakable Douluo holding the Golden Sword Lion King back, he could boldly take the risk. While the metal-attribute treasure had only just emerged and had yet to attract powerful metal-attribute soul beasts from afar, he would snatch food straight from a beast's jaws!
Lin Qing remained as steady as an old dog. If he could win, he would fight; if he could not, he would run. If he could not outrun it either, he would spread his hands, stand there like a student being punished, and shout, "Elder Yi, save me!"
On the Douluo Continent, no one surpassed ultimate metal's sensitivity to metal. Following that familiar cold, hard scent of the metal attribute, a silver-white streak darted through forests and past rock faces. Soul beasts occasionally cried out along the way, but none could catch its wind-swift passage.
"Roar!"
Roars echoed from the platinum jade crystal vein. These wholly natural, untainted crystals contained many kinds of metallic energy and were a rare metal favored by numerous metal-attribute soul beasts.
Consuming platinum jade crystals over many years could accelerate cultivation. Soul beasts also had a tiny chance of mutating and gaining a special ability called Jade Transformation.
Gold Tigers, Gold Pythons, Golden Bears-soul beasts of all shapes stood there as soul rings rose and drifted above them, signifying that they had already lost their lives. Yet their bodies had taken on the oily luster of jade, frozen in the attacking postures they had held before death.
The thirty-thousand-year Jade Wolf King raised a paw and smashed a jade-transformed Golden Lion. Obvious anxiety rippled through its eyes. The platinum jade crystal mine had entered its final energy-gathering phase; in just a few hours, the metal source would emerge.
Every few tens of thousands of years, the Jingyang Mountain Range's rich mineral veins nurtured a metal source. Most appeared on Jingyang Peak, rarely finding their way into the subsidiary ranges.
For metal-attribute soul beasts, a metal source possessed the miraculous power to cleanse their sinews and marrow. It could also become the first soul core they needed to break through to a hundred thousand years.
The soul beasts living in the Jingyang Mountain Range were of limited caliber. A hundred-thousand-year soul beast was powerful enough to reign supreme.
Legend had it that the Golden Sword Lion King had once absorbed a metal source. Only then had its bloodline transformed, producing the signature pair of saber teeth at the corners of its mouth, before it smoothly broke through the hundred-thousand-year bottleneck!
The Golden Lions were scouts the pride had sent to search for the metal source. The Jade Wolf King knew perfectly well that the Golden Sword Lion King must be galloping here already. Nevertheless, it had resolutely chosen to kill the Golden Lions to buy time, leading its pack in a battle-ready formation.
The Jade Wolf King admitted it was taking a gamble. That was the charm of going all in.
The pack was betting that the metal source would arrive before the Golden Sword Lion King. Then, the Jade Wolf King would possess the potential to reach a hundred thousand years of cultivation. At worst, it could leave the Jingyang Mountain Range for a time and avoid its enemy's sharp edge.
Thirty thousand years south of the mountain, thirty thousand years north. Once it evolved into a hundred-thousand-year Platinum Jade Wolf Emperor, it would lead the wolves back in glory. The Platinum Jade Wolf Emperor would shatter the Golden Sword Lion King's proud lion heart, and the wolves would replace the lions as the Jingyang Mountain Range's new overlords!
All that glory would begin with this metal source, a treasure encountered only once in ten thousand years!
The Jade Wolf King stared with burning eyes at the brilliant mass of light gestating deep within the vein. Its Gold Wolves and Silver Wolves held their breath in concentration, awaiting the moment the metal source burst into the world alongside their leader!
"Boom!"
As though sensing the wolves' earnest prayers, the platinum jade crystal mine began to rumble violently.
The mineral vein's energy poured into the metal source like a hundred rivers returning to the sea. A brilliant orb suffused with platinum light broke through the earth. Its exquisite jade radiance swayed in the wind, stirring the soul beneath the dawn sky!
The metal source: the Platinum Jade Crystal Essence.
The wolves raised their heads and howled excitedly. Their wise king had won its gamble! The Golden Sword Lion King had not come to seize the Platinum Jade Crystal Essence. Once a hundred-thousand-year Platinum Jade Wolf Emperor ruled the pack, the lions' supremacy would hang by a thread!
The Jade Wolf King trembled all over with excitement. The hundred-thousand-year realm it had dreamed of day and night was no longer an illusion. Once it swallowed the Platinum Jade Crystal Essence, it would only need to cultivate step by step, practically reclining its way into becoming a hundred-thousand-year soul beast!
Opening its blood-filled maw, the Jade Wolf King unleashed powerful suction from deep within its throat. Yet matters did not proceed as smoothly as it had expected. The Platinum Jade Crystal Essence seemed to have developed a spirit of its own, wobbling as it resisted the wolf king.
The next second, a strand of silver-white element formed a large hand and reached over. The Platinum Jade Crystal Essence became remarkably docile, willingly settling into its palm and nuzzling against it with a childlike affection.
"Awooo?!"
Its anguished howl tore at the heart. The Jade Wolf King's eyes reflected the silver-white hand and the Platinum Jade Crystal Essence nestling affectionately together. It felt as though the Golden Lion King Shattering Claw had viciously pierced its heart ten thousand times.
The wolves were the masters of the platinum jade crystal mine. Generations of the Jade Wolf King's ancestors had fed on its crystals. After finally waiting long enough for the Platinum Jade Crystal Essence to appear, the treasure had abandoned the wolves in a choice between two parties and picked a complete stranger!
"Better to arrive at the right moment than to arrive early."
The machine element enveloped the Platinum Jade Crystal Essence. As the sovereign of metal, Lin Qing clearly sensed the metal source's delight. Neither the Golden Sword Lion King nor the Jade Wolf King was the partner the Platinum Jade Crystal Essence had hoped for. Merging with ultimate metal was its true destiny!
The cooked duck had flown away. Following in the Silver Lion Leader's footsteps, the Jade Wolf King's blood pressure instantly soared, and it flushed so red that it became a blood wolf king.
The pack roared furiously at Lin Qing. Silver Wolves with abilities similar to the Silver Lions fired six-element missiles. So what if the metal source refused to submit to the Jade Wolf King? They would force it!
Glaring at Lin Qing as he maneuvered his Flying Soul Tool left and right, the Jade Wolf King nearly burst its lungs with rage. The humiliation of a human meddling was worse than the Golden Sword Lion King relying on its strength to seize the treasure by force. Soul masters were bastards a thousand times more wicked than lions!
Its four limbs stamped heavily against the earth, and an explosive shock wave shattered the jade-transformed metal-attribute soul beasts. The Jade Wolf King took flight in a fury. Thanks to its mutated bloodline, it was the only member of the pack capable of flying. It spewed out a full-powered Jade Crystal Vortex, determined to give Lin Qing the same fate as the Golden Lions!
The Steel Machinery Domain enveloped the sky. At its core, the Jade Wolf King was still a metal-attribute soul beast, unable to escape ultimate metal's superior suppression.
The Jade Crystal Vortex lost almost half its power. Suddenly, the Jade Wolf King saw a gray longsword in Lin Qing's right hand, its crossguard flickering with an eerie, icy gleam.
Martial soul switch: Nether Emperor Sword.
The Nether Emperor Sword slashed down vertically. Its sword energy became a fleeting gray line, sweeping through the twisting Jade Crystal Vortex. Jade Transformation vanished completely in an instant, and a magnificent, frigid gray crystal flower bloomed high in the newborn dawn.
Still trapped under the machine element's superior suppression, the Jade Wolf King now faced the lethal sword energy of a divine weapon from the Netherworld. This mighty wolf king looked just like a helpless husky, its whimpers seeming to confess its sins and beg for mercy. But the gray sword energy possessed no pity, and death crystals began covering its body!
Death Grant!
The lord of the Netherworld bestowed death. The Nether Emperor Sword devoured the thirty-thousand-year Jade Wolf King's life, taking another step toward honing its edge.
With their king slain, the wolves scattered in a sudden rush, terrified of becoming food for the Nether Emperor Sword. Lin Qing could not be bothered to pursue a pack whose strongest members had barely exceeded ten thousand years of cultivation. Instead, he began merging with the Platinum Jade Crystal Essence.
The metal source harbored not the slightest will to resist. It slipped smoothly into Lin Qing's body and settled in the middle dantian in his chest, slowly revolving as it quietly nourished his limbs, bones, blood vessels, and meridians.
"A soul core prototype..." Lin Qing murmured.
A soul core was a prerequisite for becoming a Titled Douluo. Condensing a soul core prototype at Level 49 was unprecedented throughout history. The Platinum Jade Crystal Essence had cleared most of the hurdles toward his ultimate metal soul core. He was only one final step away from condensing a true first soul core!
Condensing his first soul core early had advantages and disadvantages. The downside was that before breaking through to Level 90 and becoming a Titled Douluo, Lin Qing would need to develop a second soul core-a challenge normally attempted only by Limit Douluos. The upside was faster cultivation.
As everyone knew, an ultimate martial soul's cultivation speed crawled like a tortoise between Levels 30 and 70. Though Lin Qing had nearly passed the first twenty-level hurdle, the difficulty of cultivating from Level 50 to Level 70 was on an entirely different scale from the earlier stretch.
In the past, even with Shrek Academy's full support, ultimate soul masters had needed ten and twenty long years respectively to clear those two hurdles. Huo Yuhao had crossed both within just a few years only through the combined benefits of the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Jade Marrow Bed, the Extreme Cold Ice Spring, and the sacrifice of the Emperor Auspicious Beast, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion, among other things.
Ultimate metal enjoyed no such heaven-blessed treatment. Although the Metal World and Gold-Eating Beast helped Lin Qing save cultivation time, Levels 50 to 70 remained a vast chasm. The benefits of condensing his first soul core outweighed the drawbacks. Getting through his growth period took priority over everything else.
The wolves scattered like birds and beasts. Seeing that no one remained nearby to disturb him, Lin Qing swung the Nether Emperor Sword and extracted a huge mass of platinum jade crystal, filling his Storage Soul Tool.
This rare metal was extremely valuable, an excellent raw material for both crafting soul tools and cultivation.
Little Meng had told him that Jing Hongchen, an old Mingdu native, enjoyed rolling metal walnuts in his hands. Now he had just the gift for his first visit to the Hongchen Family's Ancestral Home: a pair of platinum jade crystal walnuts enhanced by ultimate metal!
"About time to leave. Hopefully, the Unbreakable Douluo can hold off the Golden Sword Lion King, and Ju Zi and Keke can get out of the Jingyang Mountain Range safely..."
On the outskirts of the Jingyang Mountain Range.
Lions searched the mountains in groups of three or five, hunting for the human soul masters. As impassioned roars rang out in every direction, the pride received the message and began gathering.
Ju Zi and Keke stood on a mountain cliff, with Golden Lion corpses strewn haphazardly before them.
Both girls were in a sorry state. Ju Zi's delicate face, so tender it seemed a breath could break its skin, was covered in dust as she gripped an orange-shaped high-explosive soul tool bomb. Keke knelt on one knee, clutching her lower abdomen and gasping sharply through ragged breaths.
During their escape, a Silver Lion had unfortunately shot down their Flying Soul Tool. After crashing, they had been left with no choice but to fight with their backs to the water. Their defeat was already certain. Their soul power kept dwindling, while lions poured in endlessly from every direction.
"Ju Zi, do you think we can escape the Jingyang Mountain Range?" Keke struggled to hoist a Wind-Thunder Heavy Cannon.
"That might be difficult." Ju Zi lightly pressed her lips together.
"If we get out of this alive, we can admire those ten thousand rivers and thousand mountains together later. First, I'm going to blast that bastard Wang Shaojie into slag. How dare he screw us over!"
Keke swore furiously. The petite, adorable girl had practically turned into a mischievous thunder bomb from sheer anger!
"Careful. The lions are coming."
Ju Zi had barely finished her warning when two groups of lions entered their sight, one from the left and one from the right.
Both girls abruptly tensed. The newcomers were not just ordinary Golden Lions and Silver Lions. Leading them were two saber-toothed lions-a ten-thousand-year Purple-Gold Sword Lion and a ten-thousand-year Silver Sword Lion!
Saber teeth symbolized the evolution of the Golden Sword Lion King's bloodline. These two lions had clearly inherited the Lion King's blood!
The Purple-Gold Sword Lion and Silver Sword Lion lowered their bodies and led more than a dozen Golden Lions and Silver Lions into a semicircle around the girls. At the end of their rope, the two quasi-soul kings gritted their teeth, their beautiful eyes involuntarily turning toward the cliff.
Ju Zi clenched the bright yellow high-explosive bomb. A trace of regret flashed in her eyes at leaving her great vengeance unfinished. She had failed to kill the White Tiger Duke and wash away her hatred.
Fortunately, tonight she had tasted her mother's cooking again after so long-awful, yet still full of warmth. She prayed that the fellow whose cooking matched her mother's was already safe.
The two ten-thousand-year saber-toothed lions gradually lost their restraint over their bloodlust, scarlet tongues licking their fangs. The girls stood back-to-back, ready to detonate their soul tools. Even if they died, they would blow up a few lions with them!
"Boom!"
A deafening sonic boom suddenly thundered from the clouds high above. The lions and the two girls instinctively looked up.
A silver meteor plunged straight down. Burning machine element turned into brilliant molten gold, resembling a flowing golden spring in the morning light. Ju Zi and Keke could not help holding their breath, overwhelming joy surging onto their lovely faces!
A king descended from the heavens-salvation falling straight down!
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