Spirit-Pattern Soul Beasts were the best match for the Nine-Petal Immortal Lotus martial soul. When Yue Guan spotted the spirit patterns, delight stirred in his heart. This girl really did have good luck.
"Little darling, let me knock it out for you!"
Guang Ling had sulked along the way until he finally stopped being angry on his own. Now, he came forward to make his presence felt.
He summoned the Light Feather Divine Bow, but Azure Luan immediately reached out to stop him. "Fifth Brother, this is only a hundred-year soul beast. If you shoot it, there's no way it'll survive."
"...Oh, I suppose you're right." Guang Ling scratched his head and put away the Light Feather Divine Bow. "Then I'll settle it with my fists!"
With that, he leaped forward and punched the Ice Scorpion in the head. It instantly lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground, motionless.
"Come on, girl. Here you go!"
Guang Ling took a dagger out of his soul tool and tossed it to Tang Yue. She caught it and instinctively examined its sharp, smooth blade. Suddenly, she noticed that a Nine-Petal Immortal Lotus was engraved on the side of the hilt.
"..."
Tang Yue gently lifted her eyes. Could this guy have feelings for me?
"Why are you looking at me like that? It's a gift for you to defend yourself with-a meeting gift. The lotus on the side of the hilt is a mark, so don't lose it," Guang Ling explained, concealing the shimmering light in his eyes. His expression remained so composed that she could discern nothing.
A meeting gift?
Tang Yue gave him a suspicious look, but when she could glean nothing from his face, she dismissed the thought again.
"Yueyue, just stab it in the neck."
Qian Daoliu reminded her, paying no mind to Guang Ling's earlier actions.
Tang Yue nodded to show she understood.
She raised the dagger and stabbed the Ice Scorpion in the neck. Specks of yellow starlight then swirled around her before sinking into her right hand. Warmth spread through her body, as though it had been poured into the meridians of all four limbs. She sat upright on the ground, formed orchid-finger gestures with her index and ring fingers, and aligned her hands one above the other before her chest. Soon, she began absorbing the soul ring released by the Ice Scorpion.
An hour passed before Tang Yue slowly opened her eyes. As she absorbed the soul ring, she had felt the warm current flowing into her body gradually turn into her own power. Her fatigue had been swept away, and her body seemed to have grown stronger. "Grandpas, I did it!"
Overjoyed at absorbing her first soul ring, Tang Yue stood up. A yellow soul ring slowly rose from beneath her feet. It radiated an icy aura, and a faint pink seemed to flicker within its glow.
"Hmm? She absorbed it that quickly?" Yue Guan, who was standing in a tree and checking the forest for other suitable soul beasts, was rather surprised.
Ordinary soul masters generally took anywhere from three to six hours to absorb a soul ring. How had this girl finished in just one?
Could it be because it was such a perfect match?
Yue Guan was not the only one surprised. Qian Daoliu and Azure Luan exchanged glances, both somewhat astonished. After communicating with their eyes, Qian Daoliu walked over to Tang Yue and asked with a smile, "Yueyue, what's your first soul skill? Come on! Show Grandpa!"
"Mm-hmm, all right, Grandpa!"
"My first soul skill is an ice skill, Thousand Absolute Ice Prisms. It summons ice prisms to attack enemies, and the prisms carry poison. As my soul power level increases, I'll be able to summon more of them. There's no limit to their number, but this soul skill consumes a huge amount of soul power. At my current soul power level, I can only summon three at once."
From Tang Yue's description, the poison in her soul skill was something the three Titled Douluos had already expected. What astonished them was that the number of ice prisms would change according to her soul power, with no upper limit.
Before they could speak, Tang Yue summoned her martial soul. One petal of the Nine-Petal Immortal Lotus turned ice blue. She reached out and plucked it, and it transformed in her palm into three pale blue, transparent ice prisms. Though the prisms glowed blue, a ring of red surrounded them, seemingly serving as a protective barrier. Tang Yue launched the ice prisms in an attack. Red light flashed, and the prisms embedded themselves in a tree trunk a hundred meters away. Scorpion venom seeped from their pointed tips, but it did no damage to the trunk.
The attack had a range of a hundred meters, but its destructive power was not particularly high. It seemed this skill was mainly intended to deliver poison.
However...
Qian Daoliu looked at Tang Yue. "Yueyue, what effect does your soul skill's poison have?"
"Paralysis!" Tang Yue lifted her little face. "But it isn't ordinary paralytic poison! It can paralyze not only a person's body, but their nerves too!"
His little granddaughter looked immensely pleased with herself. Qian Daoliu chuckled softly and obligingly applauded her. "Excellent! Yueyue, your first soul skill may not seem very powerful offensively, but its main purpose is to deliver poison. And with a range of a hundred meters, it can easily catch an opponent off guard!"
"Hehe!" After so many years, Tang Yue finally felt the encouragement of "family." She had never known that being encouraged could feel so special. In the modern world, she had been an orphan, bullied throughout her childhood. After growing up, she had finally managed to attend a university she liked, only to kick the bucket overnight and transmigrate to the Douluo Continent. Transmigrating here was one thing, but this body's original owner had also endured constant bullying. Having suffered the same fate, she could feel that pain as her own, and she would never forgive those who had hurt her.
Perhaps this transmigration was not such a bad thing. Tang Yue had gained Qian Daoliu's care and Guang Ling's favoritism, things she had never dared hope for.
"Eldest Brother, I found a nine-hundred-year-old Light Butterfly over there!"
Guang Ling, who had gone out to scout the forest, returned just then. He descended from the sky, his Ice Wings bringing a cool breeze. Seeing that Tang Yue had finished absorbing her soul ring, he immediately swaggered over and asked curiously, "Little Yue, what's your first soul skill? Hurry and let me see!"
Since she had absorbed the soul ring of an ice-attribute soul beast, Guang Ling figured there was an eighty-percent chance that Tang Yue's first soul skill involved ice. His own martial soul happened to possess the ultimate ice attribute, as well as the light attribute. No matter how he looked at it, he and Tang Yue were highly compatible.
If possible, perhaps the two of them could even develop a martial soul fusion skill.
Under Guang Ling's eager gaze, Tang Yue rather reluctantly summoned her martial soul. "First soul skill, Thousand Absolute Ice Prisms!"
This time, she did not fire at a tree trunk. She aimed straight at Guang Ling instead.
Whoosh-
A faint sound sliced through the air. Guang Ling failed to react in time, and when the ice prisms struck him, his mind seemed to short-circuit. A moment later, however, his clarity returned.
Looking at the three ice prisms that had struck his body, Guang Ling had a flash of realization. He could not help clapping in approval. "Little Yue, this is a fine soul skill! It can actually paralyze someone's nerves. What a great skill!"
Of course it was a great skill. Just look at the soul beast that had yielded her soul ring.
Up in the tree, Yue Guan watched them with resentment written all over his face.
To be honest, he was sour with envy.
But what could he do? He was just a working man. Serving the boss over there was not enough; the boss here had to order him around too. Having to juggle both sides was truly far too hard!
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