Second Ring · Ghost-Faced Spider King
On the night of Nan Feng's fifth day in Gengxin City, his Soul Power broke through to level twenty.
He sat cross-legged on his bed, circulating the Primordial World Qi Refining Art. On its third circuit, his Soul Power suddenly contracted, drawing what had scattered throughout his meridians back into his dantian. It compressed, condensed, then compressed again.
The mass of Qi shrank into a tightly packed bead. His Soul Power's density rose by thirty percent.
The walls of his meridians swelled under the pressure. The Power of Mountain Suppression surged out and wrapped around them, easing the pain within a few breaths.
His Soul Power had broken through to level twenty.
Nan Feng opened his eyes. The deep yellow glow tinged with purple beneath the Soul Ring in his palm was twice as bright, and the purple within the yellow had grown deeper. His first ring was 920 years old, yellow tinged with purple.
His Soul Power circulated fifty percent more smoothly than it had at level eighteen. But when it reached the bottom of his dantian, it struck a wall. No matter how hard it charged, it bounced back.
Old Huai's voice came from the crack. "Level twenty. If you don't absorb a Soul Ring, you'll be stuck here forever. You need a Second Soul Ring."
Nan Feng nodded. The glow beneath the ring in his palm pulsed against his skin.
Before dawn the next day, Nan Feng left Gengxin City alone through the south gate. He followed a secluded path for two hours and found the spot deep inside an abandoned quarry.
Dead vines covered the rock face, water seeped from its cracks, and the air smelled of minerals.
A crack at the base of the rock face led six or seven meters inward to a cave. Webs covered the ceiling, their strands as thick as chopsticks. A giant spider lay coiled at the back of the cave.
The Ghost-Faced Spider King.
It was three times larger than the Bloodthirsty Demon Wolf at Nuoding. Its eight long legs braced against the ground like pillars of black iron, their barbed tips glinting with a dark red, venomous light. Eight eyes on its head formed a ghostly face, and venom dripped from two rows of fangs beside its mouthparts, eating small pits into the rubble below.
Old Huai said, "Two thousand one hundred years. More than twice the age of your first ring. Its venom can corrode Soul Power shields, and its eight legs are barbed. Be careful up close. You're level twenty now, and the first-floor door is fully open. The Power of Mountain Suppression you can output is more than twice what it was before."
"Use the tower to suppress its speed. Don't take it on head-on; you don't have enough Soul Power to outlast it."
Nan Feng crouched outside the crack and watched for the time it took an incense stick to burn. The Spider King was motionless most of the time. But its eight legs moved in rapid alternation, taking it from a standstill to a charge in a single breath. He couldn't withstand a frontal charge.
Nan Feng retreated to open ground and took out thick vines and rubble. Using the Compression Method, he buried Soul Power bombs in several places to restrict the Spider King's mobility.
Once he finished, Nan Feng returned to the entrance of the crack and sent a pillar of Tower Suppression light into its depths.
Azure light flooded into the crack and exploded, the Power of Mountain Suppression covering half the cave floor. The Spider King kicked off with all eight legs and shot out, leaving only a purple-black afterimage. Its eight eyes locked onto Nan Feng, and it sprayed venom at him.
Nan Feng twisted aside. The venom grazed his shoulder and struck the rock face, eating a fist-sized hole into it and sending up white smoke.
The Spider King kicked off with all eight legs and pounced through the air, its barbs aimed at Nan Feng's chest.
While it was still airborne, Nan Feng activated Tower Suppression. The azure silhouette of a tower spread out beneath his feet, covering a three-meter area.
The Spider King charged into Tower Suppression, and its eight legs sank. It wasn't completely pinned down. Its legs scrabbled within the halo, forcibly dragging its body sixty centimeters forward. Its brute strength was a level above the Iron-Spined Bear's.
Sixty centimeters was enough. Nan Feng ducked beneath its abdomen and thrust his short staff upward into a gap between its abdominal plates.
The tip sank in a few centimeters and stuck. Its abdominal muscles contracted, clamping the staff tight.
Nan Feng let go and abandoned the staff, then drew his iron hammer and smashed it at a leg joint on the spider's side. The hammer struck the hard shell, leaving a hairline crack. The Spider King shrieked in pain and sprang, knocking Nan Feng flying. His back slammed into a pile of rubble, and a mouthful of metallic sweetness rose in his throat.
He climbed to his feet. The Spider King turned to face him, purple light blazing brighter in its eight eyes as venom gathered. Nan Feng didn't retreat. He poured all his Soul Power into his meridians, compressed the Soul Power in his dantian to its limit, and released it all at once.
The azure tower silhouette solidified above his head into a tangible phantom tower, then crashed base-first onto the spider's back armor. A muffled boom shook the quarry. All eight legs buckled, its abdomen hit the ground, and venom squeezed out between its fangs.
Nan Feng rushed forward and planted a foot on one of its bent forelegs. With his right hand, he seized the short staff and drove it into the gap between its eight eyes.
Half the staff sank in. The shriek cut off. Its eight legs twitched a few times, then went still. The dark golden markings on its abdomen flashed once after it died, then dimmed.
A purple Soul Ring rose from the corpse. It was much darker than the Bloodthirsty Demon Wolf's, a deep, heavy purple with a dark golden glow along its edge.
Thousand-Year Soul Rings were purple. At 2,100 years, this one was above the midpoint of the thousand-year range and nearly twice as substantial as an ordinary Thousand-Year Soul Ring.
He sat cross-legged and guided the Soul Ring toward himself.
When the Soul Ring touched his body, its energy flooded into his meridians like an enraged river. The energy of 2,100 years far exceeded the limit of a level-twenty Soul Master.
His meridian walls stretched to their maximum width. His skin pulled taut and shiny, and veins bulged beneath it. His bones creaked in rapid succession. The old injuries in his left shoulder and left ribs split open at the same time, and blood seeped out.
"Use Tower Suppression to suppress the soul. Open the first floor completely." Old Huai's voice cut through from the depths of his soul.
The door on the tower's first floor swung fully open. Azure light poured from the crack and covered Nan Feng's entire body. Like a giant hand, the light seized the berserk Soul Power rushing into his meridians and pressed it back.
Nan Feng's consciousness drifted in and out amid the agony. His meridian walls split inch by inch in the azure light, then healed inch by inch. They split and healed, healed and split.
The Power of Mountain Suppression's output had nearly doubled. The azure curtain of light wrapped tightly around his meridians, and bit by bit, the out-of-control energy was tamed, compressed, and absorbed into his dantian.
Three days and three nights.
Pain scattered his consciousness and drew it together again. The only thing he never let go of was his guidance of the Soul Ring. The tower helped him suppress it in wave after wave, but in the end, he was the one who tamed it.
He lay facedown in the rubble, soaked through with blood and sweat. His old wounds split and closed, closed and split, forming thicker scabs.
The Soul Ring stabilized, and Nan Feng rolled onto his back on the rubble. Soul Power settled in his dantian, forty percent more substantial than before. Level twenty-four.
A deep purple Soul Ring rose from beneath his feet and circled his body. A dark golden glow shone beneath the purple, a trace left by the power of suppression seeping into the ring.
He activated his Second Soul Skill, Tower Suppression: Spirit Binding: short-range web Entanglement, with corrosive toxins and Spiritual Power Devouring. An azure web shot from his palm, covering the area five paces in front of him and hissing as it landed on the rubble.
A faint layer of azure light revolved at the center of the web. It was the Power of Devouring drawing in the surrounding Spiritual Power, converting loose Soul Power into energy and feeding it back into his meridians.
The real prize was on the corpse. Directly beneath the dark golden markings on its abdomen, Nan Feng found an External Soul Bone for the hand.
The Soul Bone was embedded where the abdominal armor met the flesh. It looked like a curled-up claw and was dark purple all over. Its age matched the Ghost-Faced Spider King itself: 2,100 years.
Old Huai's voice held satisfaction. "A hand External Soul Bone. The chance of a Ghost-Faced Spider King dropping one is less than ten percent. It has two Soul Bone Skills: the offensive Tiger Claw · Star Shattering and the agility-attack skill Space Rending."
"Your first External Soul Bone is much stronger than an ordinary one. It's 2,100 years old, and the quality of External Soul Bones is a grade higher to begin with. It'll be enough to serve you until level forty."
Nan Feng pressed the Soul Bone against the back of his hand and activated the tower's power of Return to Origin, covering his entire body.
Like a living thing, the bone burrowed into the back of his hand and fused with his hand and finger bones. Each bone it replaced brought a piercing, tingling ache. He gritted his teeth and endured for two hours until the Soul Bone had completely fused into his right hand.
Five dark purple claw shadows sprang from his fingers. He raked them across the rubble, slicing through it like tofu. Space Rending was a short-range dash that carried him five paces in an instant.
After fusing with the External Soul Bone, Nan Feng spent another three days absorbing the Left Arm Soul Bone. It was also 2,100 years old, and absorbing it was easier than absorbing the External Soul Bone. Its Soul Bone Skill, Bone Spike, fused with the one he already had, becoming thicker and sharper and shooting out twice as fast.
After absorbing both Soul Bones, his Soul Power rose another level. Level twenty-five.
He stood on the rubble, flexing his right hand. His five fingers spread and closed, and dark purple claw shadows flashed at their tips. The deep purple glow in his palm pulsed against his skin, rising and falling in response to the azure light in the crack at the tower's base.
After the first floor opened, thirty percent of the bronze corrosion had flaked away. A dark golden glow showed where the verdigris had fallen off, and the tower's outline was clearer than before. The Gravity Field had doubled in strength. Even standing still, he could feel it wrapping around his body, pressing on his bones and muscles.
Old Huai said, "Level twenty-five. At every multiple of ten, you'll be stuck unless you absorb a Soul Ring. Next time it'll be level thirty, when you'll need a Third Soul Ring. Your third ring must be at least ten thousand years old."
"With the support of the Gravity Field and two Soul Bones, your physical foundation is twice as substantial as that of a Soul Master at the same level. With the first floor fully open, the Power of Mountain Suppression is enough to suppress a Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring. But rings ten thousand years or older aren't easy to hunt. You'll need to prepare."
Nan Feng nodded. He dealt with the Spider King's corpse, made sure he hadn't missed any other Soul Bones, and left the quarry.
By the time he was on his way back to Gengxin City, the sky had darkened. The moon rose, shining on the fields along both sides of the main road.
He looked down at his right hand. The dark purple markings on its back glimmered in the moonlight, a trace left by the fusion with the External Soul Bone.
His Soul Power was level twenty-five. The tower's first-floor door was fully open. His first External Soul Bone was in hand. He clenched his fist and walked along the main road toward Gengxin City.