Chapter 197: Three Major Spirit Abilities! Long Aotian's Gratitude
In a shattered clearing within the Star Dou Great Forest, the miniature, translucent form of the Earth-Splitting Rhino Soul Spirit hovered in the air. It affectionately nuzzled Long Aotian's neck, emitting soft, rumbling purrs.
Du Busi stood a few paces away. His emerald-green eyes remained locked onto the ethereal little creature. His chest rose and fell in heavy, uneven rhythms as he processed the impossible sight before him.
"Combing spirit power..." Busi muttered, his voice barely rising above a whisper. "It can actually actively assist its host in regulating and refining spirit power?"
He stepped closer, his gaze sharpening. "Aotian, you mentioned feeling its thoughts. Does this mean that in the heat of battle, it functions as an extension of your own limbs? You do not even need to divide your attention to command it?"
Aotian nodded heavily. A fierce, uncontainable joy burned in his eyes. "Yes, Master. The sensation is entirely unmatched." He raised a hand, watching the little rhino spirit swirl around his wrist. "It resides within my Sea of Consciousness. I can sense its absolute reliance on me., its natural instinct for manipulating earth-attribute energy has flawlessly integrated into my own subconscious reflexes."
Busi inhaled a long, slow breath, forcing his surging emotions down. His expression shifted into one of absolute solemnity. "Setting aside these auxiliary benefits, what caliber of skills has this ten-thousand-year Earth-Splitting Rhino actually granted you? According to the ironclad laws of spirit rings, a twenty-eight-thousand-year Spirit Beast should only yield a single sixth Spirit Ability."
Aotian closed his eyes. His brow furrowed slightly as his consciousness sank inward, communicating with the ethereal entity dwelling in his mind. When his eyelids fluttered open moments later, his pupils dilated. His voice carried a tremor of disbelief, as if he found his own words utterly absurd. "Master... it granted me a total of three Spirit Abilities."
"What?!" Busi's voice cracked like thunder across the clearing. The terrifying pressure of a Level 98 Super Douluo erupted from his frame for a fraction of a second, flattening the surrounding grass and cracking the earth beneath his boots before he forcefully reined it in.
"Three Spirit Abilities? Preposterous!" The Sect Master paced forward, his hands gripping the air. "The foundational laws of the Spirit Master world dictate that a ten-thousand-year ring provides but one skill. Only a legendary hundred-thousand-year spirit ring can bestow two! This is merely a twenty-thousand-year entity. How could it possibly yield three?"
Sitting atop a fallen log nearby, Liu Yuan finally rose to his feet. He casually brushed a few stray grass clippings from his pristine robes. His demeanor remained perfectly tranquil, a stark contrast to the older men's agitation. "Master, this is the fundamental divergence between the Soul Spirit system and the archaic spirit ring system."
He clasped his hands behind his back, his purple-gold double pupils reflecting a cold, analytical light. "Traditional spirit rings are nothing more than the rigid solidification of residual energy left behind after a Spirit Beast is slaughtered. Because its soul and intelligence are violently extinguished, the resulting extracted ability is naturally singular and inflexible. A Soul Spirit, however, is a living, breathing spiritual entity. It perfectly preserves the Spirit Beast's Origin from when it was alive. Based on my calculations and theoretical models, the number of Spirit Abilities a Soul Spirit provides directly correlates with its cultivation age."
Yuan paced slowly across the crushed foliage. "Ten-year and hundred-year Spirit Beasts can provide up to two. Thousand-year beasts can provide up to three. And Spirit Beasts at the ten-thousand-year threshold and beyond can directly grant their host a maximum of four distinct Spirit Abilities."
"A ten-thousand-year Spirit Beast... yielding up to four?" Busi stared at his young disciple. The ancient, unshakeable worldview he had held for nearly a century shattered into dust with every word Yuan spoke.
Yuan nodded, his expression turning serious. "There is a restriction, however. Attempting to fuse with multiple high-quality Soul Spirits places an astronomical burden on a Spirit Master's mental force. If an ordinary cultivator lacking sufficient mental fortitude attempts a forced fusion, the sheer spiritual pressure will instantly detonate their Sea of Consciousness."
He gestured toward the towering youth. "But Senior Brother need not rush. He can simply wait until he ascends to the rank of Titled Douluo before absorbing another. Given his current foundation, the sheer combat augmentation provided by this single Earth-Splitting Rhino Soul Spirit will guarantee his smooth, unobstructed progression all the way to the Titled realm."
Busi and Aotian exchanged a long, heavy look. The forest grew deathly quiet save for the rustling of the canopy above.
"Let me calculate..." Busi raised a weathered hand, ticking off his fingers one by one. The emerald light in his eyes flared brighter with each digit. "Aotian is currently a six-ring Spirit Emperor. A standard Spirit Emperor possesses exactly six Spirit Abilities. Aotian previously held five. Now, this single Soul Spirit has bestowed three more upon him. In other words, despite sitting at the six-ring stage, the total number of Spirit Abilities at his disposal has reached eight?"
"Precisely." A faint, pragmatic smile touched Yuan's lips. ", because these three new abilities are autonomously regulated by the Soul Spirit itself, their activation speed is virtually instantaneous. The spirit power consumption is drastically lower than a traditional skill. If a Spirit Master of the exact same rank encounters Senior Brother, before they can even finish channeling their own attacks, they will be ripped to shreds by his overwhelming barrage of extra abilities."
"Monstrous... this system is utterly monstrous," Busi breathed out, shaking his head in sheer awe. He pivoted toward his chief disciple, his blood beginning to boil with anticipation. "Quickly, Aotian! Enough theory. Show me the exact nature of these three skills!"
Aotian threw his head back and let out a booming, hearty laugh. The muscles in his legs coiled tightly before he launched himself backward, soaring dozens of meters through the air to land squarely in the center of the devastated clearing.
"Master, watch closely!" he roared. "First Spirit Ability: Vajra's Wrath!"
A deep, guttural growl tore from Aotian's throat. The translucent Earth-Splitting Rhino hovering behind him erupted with a blinding, earthen brilliance. Instantly, Aotian's already massive physique swelled further. Thick, dark-gold geometric patterns crawled up from his collarbone, mapping across his bulging muscles. A terrifyingly violent torrent of blood and Qi exploded outward, whipping the surrounding dust into a localized hurricane.
"This technique instantly amplifies my overall physical strength and movement speed by a full fifty percent!" Aotian shouted over the roaring wind. "And the best part? Zero backlash!"
He kicked off the ground. The earth cratered beneath his boots. He flashed across the clearing in a jagged zigzag, moving with such explosive velocity that a trail of dark-gold afterimages lingered in his wake.
Without losing a fraction of his forward momentum, he pivoted sharply on his heel and violently swept his left arm through the air.
"Second Spirit Ability: Earth-Splitting Horn!"
Violent shockwaves of spirit power distorted the air. A horrific, ear-piercing grinding noise screeched from his forearms. Right beneath his dark-gold skin, massive, spiral-shaped bone-white drills violently tore through the flesh. Each drill was as thick as a grown man's thigh, gleaming with a lethal, metallic coldness. They spun at a frantic, terrifying speed, shredding the very air around them.
Aotian drove a devastating punch directly into a massive boulder towering beside him. It was a slab of solid Black Cloud Rock—a material renowned for withstanding the full-force bombardment of a Spirit King.
The moment the spinning bone-drills made contact, the boulder did not just crack. It instantly vaporized into a cloud of fine, powdery dust, utterly annihilated by the churning rotation.
"And finally..." Aotian pulled his arm back, the bone drills retracting smoothly into his flesh. "The mutated ability generated from its complete fusion with my physique. Third Spirit Ability: Martial Soul Avatar!"
He slammed his palms together. A dazzling pillar of dark-gold light swallowed him whole. Within the blinding glow, his silhouette violently expanded. His already towering frame shot upward, breaching the five-meter mark in mere seconds. Thick, greenish-black armor plating, identical to the hide of the Earth-Splitting Rhino, rapidly crystallized over his skin. He transformed into a towering, bipedal war beast forged from solid dark gold, radiating an aura of absolute destruction.
"In this state, my base strength and physical defense are multiplied by three!" Aotian's voice boomed from high above, echoing like thunderclaps that violently shook the surrounding forest canopy. ", every single strike I deliver carries an innate shattering property!"
Busi stared blankly as Aotian concluded his demonstration, the dark-gold light fading as the giant youth gradually shrank back down to his normal human proportions. The Sect Master's jaw remained slack for a long, quiet moment. Finally, he let out a long, deeply emotional sigh.
"Eight Spirit Abilities... Flawless integration of offense and defense, absolute physical augmentation, and a full-body transformation. Aotian, you have truly been reborn!"
Aotian completely retracted his surging spirit power. He strode across the clearing, stopping directly in front of Yuan. The Chief Disciple of the Body Sect stared down at the younger boy. His eyes no longer held just the standard respect for a peer; they burned with a deep, inexpressible gratitude.
"Junior Brother," Aotian began, his voice thick with absolute sincerity. "I, Long Aotian, will engrave this favor of rebirth into my very bones. From this day forward, across the entirety of the Douluo Continent, if any blind fool dares to cross you, I will personally ensure they taste the absolute terror of my eight Spirit Abilities!" He took a step back and solemnly cupped his fists, bowing deeply toward Yuan.
Yuan smiled faintly, reaching out to firmly support Aotian's forearms, preventing him from bowing any further. "Senior Brother, you exaggerate the debt. We are blood of the same Sect; mutual elevation is our duty. Besides, this is merely the opening act. Once we bring this completed system back to the sect grounds, the Body Sect will inevitably become the sole, absolute truth governing this continent."
Releasing his grip, Yuan shifted his gaze past the treeline, peering into the suffocating shadows of the deeper forest. His purple-gold double pupils flickered with a cold, sharp light, betraying a rare flash of intense anticipation.
"However... Senior Brother's Soul Spirit is secured. Now, it is my turn."
Busi threw his head back and roared with laughter. A massive tide of emerald-green spirit power erupted from his core, instantly enveloping both youths and lifting them off the ground.
"Excellent! Since the absolute superiority of the Soul Spirit system has been proven, even if I have to rip this Star Dou Great Forest apart by its roots today, I will drag that Hidden-Breaking Beast out of the mud for you! Let us move!"
With a deafening sonic boom, three brilliant streaks of light shot into the sky, tearing through the canopy and rocketing straight toward the perilous, pitch-black core of the Star Dou Great Forest.
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