A Soul Bone Drop!

Bei Bei watched Chen Ping stand there holding his Martial Soul without doing anything for quite some time, unsure what was going on.

"Brother Bei Bei, I think we'll have to wait until Senior Xiaoya finishes absorbing her Soul Ring before I can give you a full demonstration of this Soul Skill."

As soon as he finished speaking, Chen Ping's first Soul Ring flashed faintly. Two entirely different, pale glows had already appeared on the ends of the Willow Wood Staff in his hands: light purple on one end, light green on the other.

The next instant, Chen Ping lunged forward, gripping the Willow Wood Staff in one hand and thrusting it straight down his centerline toward the Lesser Touch Dragon King's insect body. The thrust flipped the carcass over, leaving a pale green mark on it.

Immediately afterward, Chen Ping withdrew and stepped back, pivoting on his right foot to turn around.

The Willow Wood Staff slid rapidly through his right palm, its head becoming its tail and its tail becoming its head as he drove his right elbow sharply backward.

Without even looking, he struck backward with another thrust, hitting the insect carcass with pinpoint accuracy and leaving a pale purple mark.

A sizzling sound of corrosion immediately rose from that pale purple mark. Chen Ping understood: he must have randomly rolled a corrosive toxin.

"What splendid staff work!"

Bei Bei sprang to his feet and cried out in excitement, keeping his voice low.

Chen Ping felt rather embarrassed by the praise. He did not remember much of the original owner's family staff techniques clearly. The forward-and-reverse turning strike he had just performed was one of the few moves he had only begun practicing intensively after awakening the system.

It worked well enough against a stationary target, but he would not be nearly so deft using it against a person.

Now the colors at the two ends of Chen Ping's Willow Wood Staff changed again. One end turned a deep, unsettling green, while the other became a frightening blackish brown.

Raising his left hand to rub his chin, Chen Ping studied his Willow Wood Staff thoughtfully.

This Soul Skill was not simple to use. If he wanted to stack five poison marks and detonate them, he would need to prepare some specific combinations.

For instance, he could catch an enemy off guard and unleash a flurry of staff strikes when he first rushed into close range. Even if he could not stack all five marks, getting three or four would be best.

He explained the effects of his First Soul Skill to Bei Bei, particularly the detonation triggered after stacking five poison marks.

Bei Bei glanced at Tang Ya, who was sitting cross-legged nearby, still absorbing her Soul Ring, and understood why Chen Ping had said he needed to wait until she finished before demonstrating the skill fully.

Stacking poison, detonating poison...

Such an unusual Soul Skill really was a rare sight. Presumably, only a Soul Ring produced by a high-quality Soul Beast like the Touch Dragon King could grant a skill like this.

Bei Bei crouched down and carefully examined the Lesser Touch Dragon King's insect carcass, which had been marked with both green and purple poison.

He lightly touched the green poison mark with a finger, and a tingling numbness immediately spread through it. When he pressed his thumb against the index finger smeared with green poison, he could feel nothing at all in that finger.

"Not bad. It even has Paralyzing Toxin."

Bei Bei nodded approvingly. Although Chen Ping could not control the effects of the poison marks that appeared at either end of his staff each time, in a sense, this one skill could do the work of several other people's Soul Skills.

After carefully assessing the paralyzing venom's effects and examining the purple poison mark slowly corroding the Lesser Touch Dragon King's body, Bei Bei offered his evaluation.

"When used individually, the poison marks-whether they cause paralysis, corrosion, or something else-probably aren't as potent as a specialized venom of the same level."

"For example, Xiaoya obtained her second Soul Ring from a Ghost Vine over seven hundred years old. The Soul Skill it granted was Parasitism, and the paralyzing effect on her Blue Silver Grass was only an additional benefit."

"Even so, its potency is already about the same as the paralyzing effect of your green poison mark."

"So I suspect the real strength of your Soul Skill lies in the explosion after you stack all five poison marks."

Bei Bei's analysis was quite comprehensive.

Even Chen Ping nodded repeatedly as he listened, inwardly noting that Bei Bei's conclusions matched his own exactly. Shrek's theory classes really did provide a solid grounding.

At present, Bei Bei was still only a second-year student, yet he could already deliver such a clear, orderly analysis. That was truly impressive.

"Hey, Chen Ping, am I seeing things? Why does it look like something just flashed?"

Suddenly, Bei Bei pointed at the spot on the Lesser Touch Dragon King that was still being corroded.

He thought he had just seen a faint glimmer there.

Chen Ping froze at those words, an unlikely possibility rising in his mind.

"No way..."

Chen Ping scratched his head.

But soon, he too saw the thing Bei Bei had mentioned. It looked like a small piece of bone giving off a pale golden glow.

"Oh, no. It really is a Soul Bone."

Chen Ping clutched his chest in anguish, his face full of distress.

Bei Bei, who had been feeling happy for Chen Ping, was startled by his reaction.

"You got a Soul Bone drop, and you're unhappy?"

Bei Bei hurried over instinctively to support Chen Ping, afraid he might fall.

Chen Ping merely sighed. He knew exactly what his luck was like.

He never won a free bottle when buying a drink, and his game draws only ever gave him the guaranteed rewards.

He was the unlucky bastard who got trapped in a malfunctioning elevator on his way home while suffering a bout of explosive diarrhea, and who could go out for a stroll only to get slammed straight into the Douluo Continent by a hundred-ton overloaded truck.

Had he paid for this Soul Bone with his lifespan?

Even if he hadn't, now that this Soul Bone had dropped, would he never have anything to do with another Soul Bone for the rest of his life?

At that thought, Chen Ping felt so sorrowful he nearly shed tears.

"You don't understand, Bei Bei. You don't understand. Now that this Soul Bone has dropped, with my luck, I might never see a second one in my entire life..."

Bei Bei could not help laughing at his words. What a thing to say-he had never even expected his own luck to get him a single Soul Bone drop.

Bei Bei knew perfectly well how low the drop rate for Soul Bones was.

Getting even one Soul Bone was already good fortune for Chen Ping. He ought to be secretly celebrating.

Did he really expect to collect all six major Soul Bones through drops?

Dream on!

There were countless titled powerhouses in the world. Out of a hundred Titled Douluo, how many could obtain a full set of six Soul Bones, and how many had six ten-thousand-year Soul Bones?

Absorbing a hundred-year Soul Bone like this would be something of a waste of a Soul Bone slot.

But if he sold it, it would fetch at least several tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins. With good luck, even a price in the high tens of thousands was possible.

That was essentially how Bei Bei tried to console Chen Ping.

The moment Chen Ping heard that it could sell for tens of thousands, or even high tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins, he perked right up.

A hundred-year Soul Bone was worth that much?

He could set aside the matter of overdrawing his luck for now. He was already having the system make Might Pills at the cost of his potential, so why worry about overdrawing his luck?

Besides, Chen Ping had now begun to suspect why he had gotten a Soul Bone drop. It might genuinely have nothing to do with luck, but rather with the rules governing how Soul Bones were produced.