Insect Staff - Touch Dragon

"Huh?"

The Touch Dragon King's right arm bone snapped onto the Willow Wood Staff as though someone had fitted it with a magnet.

Never mind Chen Ping-Bei Bei had never seen anything like this either.

The two stared at each other, dumbfounded for several seconds, unable to squeeze out a single word.

Fortunately, Bei Bei finally broke the deadlock. He pointed at Chen Ping's Willow Wood Staff, his face full of shock.

"Hey, hey... Chen Ping, your Soul Bone is melting!"

"Melting?"

At those words, Chen Ping felt his heart fucking skip a beat. What did he mean, the Soul Bone was melting?

He whipped his head around to look at his Martial Soul and the Soul Bone stuck to it.

The right arm bone had originally been perfectly intact, its faint golden radiance restrained, yet its powerful energy fluctuations had been enough to strike fear into any fledgling Soul Master.

Now, it had slumped limply over the Willow Wood Staff like a melting clay sculpture.

This utterly bizarre development left Chen Ping at a loss. He had never fucking heard of Soul Bones melting. Never mind the "Five-Three" practice books he had worked through-even the original novel hadn't...

Wait, the original novel actually did mention something similar. Wasn't it when Xiao Xiao absorbed the Dark Gold Dreadclaw right palm bone?

That right palm bone had not only nearly melted Xiao Xiao's palm, but had later been taken over by Huo Gua.

It had turned into a mass of golden liquid Soul Bone, which Huo Gua had successfully absorbed, making it an External Soul Bone on his body.

But what the hell was this Soul Bone doing melting onto my Martial Soul?

In the mere second or two he spent hesitating, the Touch Dragon King's right arm bone had melted completely. Unless he took a shovel to it, gathering it back up would be a tall order.

He exchanged a glance with Bei Bei. Neither knew whether to laugh or cry at this sudden turn of events, but as time passed, subtle changes began appearing in Chen Ping's Martial Soul.

It seemed to be devouring the puddle of liquefied Soul Bone. In just a few breaths, the liquid clinging to the Willow Wood Staff visibly diminished by roughly a tenth.

Meanwhile, the Willow Wood Staff's grain, once uneven and covered in armor-like scales even where it wasn't cracked, actually began to grow smooth and orderly.

The shaft had originally been rough and uneven, with an awful grip and overlapping layers like fish scales. Now, it actually felt somewhat smoother to the touch.

Previously, Chen Ping's Martial Soul had looked like a shoddy stick casually snapped off a willow tree to beat children with-the kind you broke up for firewood once the beating was done.

Now, at the very least, his Willow Wood Staff was the straightest, smoothest, best-feeling Willow Wood Staff that an entire village's children could have painstakingly picked out.

It was still a Willow Wood Staff, but if Chen Ping's Martial Soul had originally been bottom-of-the-barrel among low-grade Martial Souls, its looks had now reached the average for that tier.

Simply put, it was an unremarkable Martial Soul with a tiny bit of weak Soul Power-not ugly, but not exactly attractive either.

He tightened his grip slightly, and the change in how the Willow Wood Staff felt told Chen Ping something almost instantly.

His Willow Wood Staff had improved considerably over its former self, both in resilience and in its other basic attributes.

If he used his current Willow Wood Staff to lever that Greater Touch Dragon King over again, Chen Ping was confident he could flip it clean onto its back.

He would no longer merely tip it onto its side and need Tang Ya's help to finally haul it over.

And this was only the beginning.

As he watched the Willow Wood Staff give off a very faint, pale golden sheen after devouring all the liquefied Soul Bone, Chen Ping suddenly understood something.

No wonder a complete assessment of his Martial Soul would cost over ten thousand academic genius points outright.

His Martial Soul really was the same type as Yu Xiaogang's: incomplete evolution had made it look utterly useless, but a fully evolved version would be formidable.

Perhaps because of some innate deficiency or any number of other reasons, all that had ultimately emerged was a stunted version, like Luo Sanpao or his own shoddy Willow Wood Staff.

But why did my Martial Soul have to devour Soul Bones just to become less useless?

Couldn't you hold out a little longer and let me find you an immortal herb once I reached the Hot Pot?

Chen Ping clutched his chest in heartache. That had been a hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins, all for this tiny improvement in his Martial Soul's quality?

Sure, I didn't know which immortal herb at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well could upgrade the Willow Wood Staff, but we could have tried first.

Even if we eventually discovered that this Martial Soul couldn't evolve like the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda, it wouldn't have been too late to eat a Soul Bone then, would it?

Just as Chen Ping was composing funeral tributes in his heart for the hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins that had taken wing and vanished-

With titles like "A Tribute to a Windfall" and "A Lament for One Hundred Thousand Gold Coins," further changes appeared in the Willow Wood Staff in his hand.

Segments resembling the Touch Dragon's pale golden chitinous shell were not illusions; they physically "grew" out of the wooden staff.

They overlapped like scales and fitted together ring by ring, tightly interlocking. Each segment gleamed like metal, both hard and supple.

These segments gradually encased the entire Willow Wood Staff, transforming it from a simple wooden weapon into a new weapon brimming with vitality.

Even Bei Bei was startled by this sudden change, and he hurried over to feel Chen Ping's staff.

It felt cool beneath his outstretched hand, somewhat like the sensation of striking the Touch Dragon King with his Thunder Dragon Claw earlier.

Seventy-two pale golden carapace segments, alternating between long and short, completely encased the Willow Wood Staff.

The pale golden Touch Dragon Carapace glittered in the light, resembling a lifelike miniature Touch Dragon.

In appearance alone, it was more than one tier above the Willow Wood Staff from moments before.

And that was far from the end. Before long, the Willow Wood Staff, now covered in a thick layer of carapace, actually began trembling slightly.

Clang! Clang!

The two sounds rang out almost simultaneously, nearly merging into one.

At either end of the Willow Wood Staff, the pair of Mandibles that had originally grown beside the Touch Dragon King's mouthful of jagged teeth forced their way out.

The stark white Mandibles grew from the staff's two ends, one on each side, one facing forward and the other backward, adding a vicious edge to its appearance.

Though it was clearly just a long staff, it somehow carried a trace of an insect king's ferocity.

Right, that wasn't its name anymore!

Chen Ping carefully sensed the information his Martial Soul was conveying to him and soon learned its new name.

Insect Staff - Touch Dragon!

He casually twirled the staff, and the next moment, rushing swishes sounded beside Chen Ping's and Bei Bei's ears.

Alongside them came two fainter, sharp ripping sounds-the noise of the exceptionally keen Mandibles at either end of the staff tearing through the air.

Just hearing that weighty sound was enough to tell how badly it would hurt if the Touch Dragon staff swung around and slammed into someone!

Compared with the feeble swishes of the Willow Wood Staff, the Touch Dragon staff sounded far more powerful as it cut through the air.

If Chen Ping's Martial Soul had still been in the same league as Tang Ya's Blue Silver Grass a few minutes earlier-

Then, judging by the striking power the Touch Dragon staff now displayed and its other excellent base stats, it could at least share a table with mid-grade Martial Souls like Ghost Vine.