Inside the manor, in a room resembling an ancestral hall.
Du Busi stood before a memorial tablet without a word.
There were two reasons he had held himself back today and not dealt a killing blow to Yan Shaozhe and the other two. The first was Su Yu's safety.
Yan Shaozhe was indeed weak. In Du Busi's hands, he had no power to resist.
But all he needed to do was unleash his martial soul at full strength, and crimson-gold flames would sweep across the entire street and its surroundings like a sea of fire. Su Yu would suffer as well.
The second was an inexplicable premonition.
When his killing intent truly erupted, Du Busi had sensed an elusive threat.
It was as though something capable of threatening him was somewhere nearby.
If he truly tried to kill Yan Shaozhe and the other two, that threatening power would erupt as well.
"Aotian, Vina, and little Su-as long as those three can grow up safely, our Body Sect will surely reach new heights."
"All I want is to live to see that day."
"Not long ago, I was still thinking that my rank-98 soul power should be enough to protect them all the way to the end."
"Today, I suddenly began to doubt that."
Du Busi murmured to himself, as though confiding in the predecessors enshrined in the ancestral hall.
Few powers could pose a threat to him.
And a power that could threaten him without revealing itself had to be at least at the Limit level.
In other words, there was a Limit Douluo on this continent, and he was close to Shrek.
It might very well even be Mu En himself.
The thought weighed heavily on Du Busi's heart.
"But I've been stuck at rank 98 for so many years. It isn't that I don't want to break through."
He gave a bitter laugh, utterly helpless.
"Just a little longer. A few more years. Once their martial souls undergo their second awakening, I'll enter seclusion one last time. I won't come out unless I break through."
Su Yu knew nothing of Du Busi's mood at that moment.
He, for one, was in high spirits.
After beating Bei Bei up, he felt refreshed in both body and mind.
Once he entered the Inner Landscape, his excavation of his bloodline went quite smoothly as well.
He named the substance belonging to the Golden Giant Ape bloodline "Golden Giant Ape bloodline source essence."
Just after absorbing his soul ring, he had casually named it "golden substance," following the way he referred to the red and blue substances.
Only after making another breakthrough in his exploration of the Inner Landscape did he correct that naming.
That was because he had discovered a third mysterious substance in his Inner Landscape besides the red and blue ones: a golden substance.
It, too, gleamed gold and existed in the form of balls of light, yet the feeling it gave him was entirely different.
Thus, Su Yu distinguished the special substance from the Golden Giant Ape's soul ring from the mysterious golden substance that had belonged to him all along.
"Golden substance governs bursts of power!"
Unlike the red substance's nourishment and the blue substance's purification, the golden substance produced bursts of power.
"Interesting. I explored for three months before and never found any golden substance. Yet near this bloodline source essence, I keep finding more of it. It seems this bloodline source essence didn't break into my Inner Landscape and enter the depths of my body's hidden reserves at random."
The ability the Golden Giant Ape's soul ring had granted Su Yu was akin to a burst of power.
Thus, its bloodline had found its way to the vicinity of the mysterious substance within his body associated with such bursts.
Perhaps the golden substance was scattered throughout the Inner Landscape, but the area where it was most concentrated might be this very region chosen by the Golden Giant Ape bloodline source essence.
"For ordinary soul masters, it probably comes down entirely to luck. If the part of a soul ring governing bursts of power enters the body's hidden reserves and happens to activate some golden substance, the soul skill granted by that ring might have a stronger burst effect."
Early the next morning, Su Yu withdrew his consciousness from the Inner Landscape.
As he unearthed more blue substance, swollen meridians rarely limited Su Yu's cultivation anymore.
Whenever soul masters circulated soul power, meditated, or cultivated, they placed a burden on their meridians, limiting how long they could cultivate each day.
The poorer their aptitude, the shorter that time and the lower their efficiency.
Su Yu had faced this problem at first as well.
But the blue substance could purge pain and injuries from his meridians, allowing him to cultivate around the clock, twenty-four hours a day.
For precisely that reason, although Su Yu had begun cultivating more than three months ago, he had never entertained the thought of dabbling in soul tool technology.
Soul tools were an absolute pitfall.
Ten thousand years later, it might have been another story. But with soul tools in this era, he couldn't say they weren't powerful, yet he couldn't pin his hopes of growing stronger on learning to make them either.
Yes, the upper limits of soul tools had already reached the Limit realm, even allowing Limit Douluos to unleash still more terrifying power.
But ultimately, there were only two examples.
One was the Death God Tower, which brute-forced its way to power through sheer numbers. Every activation required tens of thousands of souls, and it couldn't fire instantly, imposing numerous restrictions.
The other was a life-bound soul tool, which consumed countless hours of a soul engineer's painstaking effort and energy and would inevitably delay their cultivation as a soul master.
These were also the only two pinnacles of the soul tool field at present.
Was that something he could afford to study?
Su Yu's ambitions were lofty. He was unwilling to remain on the Douluo Continent; he wanted to become a god and set foot in the Divine Realm. He had no time to waste on soul tools.
So, from the very beginning, Su Yu had never considered studying soul tools.
Even if he had ten times as much time, he wouldn't squander it on that.
Although he had finished absorbing his first soul ring, nourishing foods remained an essential part of his three daily meals.
Rather than decreasing, the portions had actually grown.
Early that morning, Du Busi brought back a piece of five-thousand-year whale rubber.
"The issue now is your spiritual power. If you can improve your spiritual cultivation somewhat, you'll have a chance to aim for a ten-thousand-year second ring," Du Busi said.
Su Yu nodded silently.
Aiming for a ten-thousand-year second ring wasn't just Du Busi's idea. Su Yu wanted to try it himself.
The older a soul ring was, the greater the benefits it conferred.
That was a solid foundation.
If he could reach for greater heights, he naturally ought to do so.
As for the difficulty of obtaining his later soul rings, that was a problem to solve in the future.
Even in the worst case, the Douluo Continent had ten great ferocious beasts. Killing all of them would yield at least ten ferocious beast soul rings.
Across the various soul beast habitats, the number of hundred-thousand-year soul beasts was definitely greater than that.
If he truly hardened his heart, he would find soul rings one way or another.
Of course, returning to the matter at hand, attempting a ten-thousand-year second ring required improving his spiritual power.
Even with two lifetimes behind him, Su Yu wasn't confident he could manage it.
After all, Tang San had also lived two lives, and he had cultivated the Purple Demon Eye before managing to absorb a ten thousand year soul ring beyond his normal limit as his fourth soul ring.
Although he hadn't seemed to struggle, that didn't mean he had felt no pressure whatsoever.
Su Yu could think of only one solution: raid the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and find the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew.
Among his three dantians was a Sea of Consciousness, meaning he possessed a mental attribute.
If he could obtain the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew, he could use it to greatly enhance his spiritual power.
However, forcing his way into the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well would certainly carry enormous risks. Su Yu wanted to see whether Du Busi had any ideas first.
"Your senior brother and senior sister will both be coming here in a couple of days to nourish their bodies alongside you."
"You can practice the secret art with them while you're at it and undergo your martial soul's second awakening early."
Before you continue