At eight, Nan Zhuliu, already a two-ring Soul Grandmaster cultivating both soul power and Qi and blood, was struck by inspiration and entered deep meditation, spending three months in enlightenment. Upon awakening, he created the preliminary form of his own soul skill: Dragon Transformation.
The Golden Dragon King offered a pointed assessment: this move had tremendous potential, but at present it was only an initial embryonic form. Even its outline had yet to be fully drawn, and it lacked spirit all the more. He would still need to keep shaping and refining it.
Still, for Nan Zhuliu to create such a move with his current cultivation and insights, provided he did not go astray in the future, he had essentially laid the foundation for becoming the strongest beneath godhood in his era.
Hearing this assessment, Nan Zhuliu was undoubtedly wild with joy.
But he did not spend vast amounts of time further refining Dragon Transformation in a rush to prove himself.
First, he was currently in his golden period of cultivation. Naturally, cultivating soul power and improving himself as much as possible had to take priority.
Second, Nan Zhuliu felt that refining Dragon Transformation with his current shallow knowledge and insights would only amount to "forcing sorrow upon himself to compose a new verse."
It was like how a person's character was shaped by their family, education, living environment, and experiences growing up, while every stage of life had its own splendor.
Such was life, and creating one's own soul skills ought to be the same.
Holding to this belief, Nan Zhuliu did not deliberately refine Dragon Transformation. Instead, he would naturally improve it little by little only when the water flowed and the channel formed.
After awakening his Martial Soul, Nan Zhuliu often sparred with his parents to hone his combat skills.
In the past, because of the immense gap between their cultivation levels, Nan Zhou and Jiang Jingyan had thought little of it. From beginning to end, they had approached these bouts with the intention of guiding Nan Zhuliu.
But after Nan Zhuliu awakened from his deep meditation, although his soul power had only risen by one rank, they, despite being Soul Kings, suddenly felt unprecedented pressure.
Nan Zhuliu was clearly still a tender eight-year-old child, yet his every move resembled a terrifying giant beast furiously swiping its claws, biting, and lashing its tail...
Every move forced Nan Zhou and Jiang Jingyan, under tremendous pressure, to muster their utmost concentration, regard their own child as an opponent, and face him seriously in combat.
Although the bouts still ended in Nan Zhuliu's defeat, he had also used them to prove his extraordinary potential.
Time flew, and Nan Zhuliu's cultivation reached the first bottleneck that determined a Soul Master's future achievements-
Rank thirty.
At this point, Nan Zhuliu still had some time to go before his eleventh birthday.
Rank thirty at eleven. His talent needed no further words.
Having witnessed his terrifying talent, Nan Zhou and his wife often secretly regretted holding Nan Zhuliu's talent back by failing to provide him with ample family resources.
Had Nan Zhuliu been born into a distinguished clan, he probably would have been beyond rank thirty by now.
Unable to remedy this shortcoming, Nan Zhou and Jiang Jingyan could only redouble their cultivation efforts and improve their own strength, putting their remaining warmth to use to pave the last stretch of his path before Nan Zhuliu could truly stand on his own.
Star Dou Great Forest, Mixed Zone.
Nan Zhuliu sat cross-legged on the ground, a pitch-black halo encircling him. Beside him stood his mother, Jiang Jingyan, looking somewhat bedraggled, along with a blue-purple scaled beast as large as a small hill, already utterly lifeless.
After Nan Zhuliu broke through to rank thirty, Nan Zhou and his wife immediately brought him to Star Dou Great Forest to obtain a suitable third soul ring.
Without question, Nan Zhuliu's ten-thousand-year third soul ring came from the enormous blue-purple beast beside him.
The blue-purple beast was called a Cang Thunder Beast, with around fifteen thousand years of cultivation. It earned its name because unleashing its innate soul skill plunged its surroundings into a vast sea of thunder. It was powerful, and its numbers were exceedingly scarce.
But its unique quality lay not in this, but in how each of its attacks grew more powerful than the last as time passed. It could also restore its condition through the sea of thunder.
Nan Zhuliu had happened to see it use this move against another soul beast during a fight. Delighted at the sight of such a prize, he had chosen it for his third soul ring.
Taking advantage of its mental and physical exhaustion and immense expenditure after fighting its opponent, the three of them combined their efforts with the Golden Dragon King bloodline's suppression of soul beasts. Only after considerable effort did they barely manage to kill it.
Nan Zhuliu absorbed the soul ring while Jiang Jingyan guarded him nearby. Nan Zhou patrolled the surroundings continuously, driving away soul beasts that wandered in their direction.
One hour,
Two hours,
Three hours...
At the very instant Nan Zhuliu's soul power broke through the rank-thirty bottleneck and reached rank thirty-one, a torrent of golden-red bloodline power suddenly emerged from somewhere unknown, crazily surging out of control into his blood vessels, flesh, bones, and dantian.
Nan Zhuliu's body felt as though it had caught fire. Not only was his blood boiling, but his body temperature also abruptly soared, and his skin took on a ghastly blood-red hue.
Jiang Jingyan was badly startled by the sight, but when she sensed that Nan Zhuliu's presence had only become chaotic for a moment before quickly settling down, she knew this was still within what he could endure and made no move.
Still, she remained utterly vigilant. The moment Nan Zhuliu showed even the slightest sign of being unable to endure it, she would intervene and interrupt him immediately.
Although Nan Zhuliu's cultivation was only at three rings, his application of power far surpassed that of many four- and five-ring Soul Masters. Thus, the instant the bloodline power clashed and collided with the soul power in the Cang Thunder Beast's soul ring, he quickly stabilized them.
Sensing that the bloodline power, which previously only slowly strengthened his Golden Dragon King bloodline, was now also gradually fostering the growth of his soul power, Nan Zhuliu was somewhat surprised.
He had always believed that he had cultivated this bloodline power himself, but after what had just happened, he could essentially confirm that he had not.
Since he had not cultivated it himself, where had this bloodline power come from?
Almost instantly, Nan Zhuliu thought of the Golden Dragon King's true body, far away in the God-Forsaken Land.
At the thought of this possibility, he was immediately startled by his own frightening idea.
Surely that couldn't be?
Yet this had indeed only appeared after Nan Zhuliu obtained the opportunity the Golden Dragon King had given him.
But from Nan Zhuliu's understanding of the Golden Dragon King, purifying his bloodline a little would already have been the absolute limit of its generosity. How could it possibly keep supplying him with power to strengthen and purify his bloodline, and now even foster the growth of his soul power?
After all, in the original story, to accelerate its recovery and increase its strength, the Golden Dragon King had monopolized all the immortal spirit Qi in the God-Forsaken Land, leaving not even a scrap for the other divine beasts.
Only now did Nan Zhuliu belatedly realize: could this be his true golden finger?
Although the various events of the past few years tormented him inwardly, Nan Zhuliu had always preferred to betray the world rather than let the world betray him.
This was his most firmly held principle of survival, both as an orphan in his previous life and after being reborn in this world where the strong devoured the weak.
In the end, the soul power of the fifteen-thousand-year Cang Thunder Beast soul ring, together with the Golden Dragon King's bloodline power, pushed Nan Zhuliu's soul power from rank thirty straight to rank thirty-three. At the same time, he obtained a new soul skill: Annihilation.