Su Yuan already knew a little about everything Wang Xian'er had told him.
The rouge dragon was a martial soul that had appeared in the original story, and it was quite powerful. Although, in her battle against Huo Yuhao, Nan Qiuqiu had ended up the mischievous child being toyed with by an old master.
Still, the fact that she could stand on that stage already spoke volumes.
If Su Yuan remembered correctly, Nan Qiuqiu's soul skills included Annihilation Light, Annihilation Chain Explosion, Annihilation Hand, and Annihilation Star.
They were all offensive soul skills imbued with potent annihilation properties.
Even if a four-thousand-seven-hundred-year-old rouge dragon did not give him a ranged attack soul skill, it would surely yield a powerful soul skill with annihilation properties.
Before coming to the Far North, Su Yuan had prepared himself to adapt to whatever came his way, even drawing up backup plans for superior substitutes or inferior alternatives that could fill the gap.
The rouge dragon was undoubtedly one of those superior substitutes.
"Then I'll choose this rouge dragon for my third soul ring!" Su Yuan gathered his soul power and struck the dying rouge dragon on the head with a Heaven-Frost Palm.
The blow killed the rouge dragon on the spot, and a purple soul ring radiating powerful soul power fluctuations gradually condensed above its corpse.
With Wang Xian'er and the others guarding him, Su Yuan did not even need to worry about his surroundings. He could simply sit down where he was, draw the soul ring toward him, and absorb it.
While he absorbed the soul ring, the other three took the same positions they had when he absorbed his soul bone earlier. Wang Xian'er guarded him at his side, while Luo Shan and Mo Yunxing kept watch farther out.
Having already experienced absorbing the Ice Bear left palm bone, Su Yuan actually found absorbing the rouge dragon's soul ring much easier this time.
When the soul ring first settled onto him, the initial surge of immense soul power into his body did cause a swelling pain, as though his body were about to burst.
His meridians were also pushed almost to the limit of what they could withstand.
But Su Yuan held on. The soul ring's energy did not exceed his limits, and the Ice Bear left palm bone lent him a hand as well, absorbing some of that energy to increase its age and ease the pressure on him.
Once the first surge ended, Su Yuan's meridians, swollen to their limits, gradually contracted, digesting the soul power within his body and making it part of his own.
The first surge was always the most dangerous part of absorbing a soul ring.
As long as someone withstood that initial onslaught of soul ring energy without their body being injured or even collapsing, the rest of the absorption was essentially a smooth ride, with no further danger.
Gradually finding his rhythm, Su Yuan mechanically circulated the soul ring's energy through his meridians along the route prescribed by his meditation method, digesting and mastering that power as he broke through the bottleneck to Soul Elder.
He simply ignored the pain caused by the soul ring energy battering his meridians and violently expanding them in its destructive wake.
This was a good thing! There was no danger or lingering harm anyway, just a little insignificant pain at most.
And so, enduring the constant pain coming from every part of his body as he absorbed the soul ring, he circulated his meditation method over and over, digesting the ring's soul power and using it to assault his bottleneck.
The night slipped away in cultivation.
Absorbing a soul ring beyond the usual age limit took considerable time. By the next morning, Su Yuan still had not finished. Only at noon did the soul power fluctuations radiating from him gradually stabilize.
At the very moment Su Yuan completely digested the soul ring's energy, the purple ring circling and pulsing at his chest merged into his body.
Breakthrough successful!
Su Yuan's eyes snapped open, a gleam flashing through his ice-blue pupils as his aura surged three times in succession.
Thirty-one, thirty-two...
Thirty-three!
Immediately after breaking through to Soul Elder, he had gained another two levels, reaching level thirty-three.
Su Yuan felt that reaching this cultivation level had to be the result of a three-pronged effort: his traits, Wang Xian'er's nurturing, and absorbing a soul ring beyond the usual age limit.
Even before his breakthrough, the soul power levels supplied by his traits had continued accumulating. The food Wang Xian'er gave him was hardly cheap fare either, not to mention his four-thousand-seven-hundred-year-old third soul ring.
As for the external soul bone?
He would be lucky if that thing did not secretly siphon off his soul power. He could forget expecting it to raise his level.
Hadn't Tang San only reached level thirty-one after absorbing a two-thousand-two-hundred-year-old Man Faced Demon Spider soul ring and an external soul bone? Su Yuan's six-hundred-year-old external soul bone was even less worth mentioning.
As for absorbing soul rings beyond the usual age limit, Tang San was still the example: even with a ten-thousand-year fourth ring, he had still been level forty-one, without so much as an extra half-level.
Thinking about it this way, Su Yuan even felt that his consecutive breakthroughs had nothing whatsoever to do with his over-age soul ring or external soul bone. His traits were simply hard-carrying him.
Anyway, a breakthrough is a good thing. My soul power comes from system-added points, so it's as steady as Mount Tai. The higher, the better! In high spirits, Su Yuan stood up and stretched.
His bones crackled throughout his body as he stretched, and the clothes that had previously fit him comfortably now felt tight and ill-fitting.
After breaking through to Soul Elder, Su Yuan had grown taller again. As a soul master with a dragon martial soul, he had never been short. Now that he had absorbed his third soul ring, he was nearly one hundred and eighty centimeters tall despite being under twelve.
No wonder people said that twelve counted as adulthood on the Douluo Continent. Soul rings and soul bones truly did a great deal to promote physical development.
That was true even for ordinary people, let alone soul masters.
Even Su Yuan himself felt that he could already be considered an adult now.
"Sister Xian'er, this soul ring really suits me!" After examining his third soul ring, Su Yuan turned toward Wang Xian'er, who stood smiling beside him.
"What soul skill did you get?" Wang Xian'er was curious as well.
"Seeing is believing. Let me demonstrate, and you'll know." The corners of Su Yuan's mouth lifted as three soul rings rose one after another from beneath his feet. The lustrous purple ring blazed with light.
Third soul skill-
Ice Dragon Annihilation Breath!
A pink gleam flashed through Su Yuan's ice-blue pupils. He opened his mouth, a majestic dragon's roar rising from his throat, and sprayed an ice-blue breath that struck a pine tree before him.
The pine tree was already covered in frost and snow. After the Ice Dragon Annihilation Breath struck it, layers of ice rapidly spread over the entire tree.
Seeing this, Su Yuan stopped releasing his breath.
Then, under Wang Xian'er's gaze, he slowly walked up to the pine tree, raised his right hand, and flicked a finger against it.
That insignificant force instantly cracked the pine tree, more than ten meters tall, inch by inch. At a speed visible to the naked eye, it melted away like ice and snow, turning into a pile of pale frost.
"Third soul skill, Ice Dragon Annihilation Breath! A ranged breath-type soul skill that combines the properties of ice and annihilation!" Su Yuan explained with a smile.
"Not only does it possess the basic freezing ability of an ice-attribute breath, it can also imbue the cold with annihilation properties. When an enemy is hit by the breath, they're frozen by the cold, and as that cold enters their body, annihilation enters with it."
"They either use more soul power to counteract the cold and the annihilation, or they end up like this pine tree-frozen by the cold while the power of annihilation breaks them down from the inside out!"
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