One year later.
Two figures, one tall and one short, walked through the Hunter Soul Forest, four hundred li northeast of Nuoding City.
Three years after his Spirit Awakening, Chu Chengzhou, now nine years old, finally raised his Innate Rank 0.5 Soul Power to Rank 10, becoming a prospective Spirit Master.
Chu Chengzhou: Three years, then another three years, and another three years…
I can finally become a Spirit Master!
[attribute panel]
[Host: Chu Chengzhou]
[Soul Power: Rank 10 Spirit Scholar]
[Spirit: True Spirit Flag]
[Skills: Meditation (Purple), Body Refining (Yellow), Spirit Refining (Yellow)]
Another year had passed, and the Spirit that had been occupying one of the only two AFK slots finally upgraded to top-tier quality.
As a top-tier quality Spirit without flaws, the original restriction of the Elemental Summoning Flag—which could only hold a maximum of six spirit rings—had disappeared.
As long as he could break through his Bottlenecks, Chu Chengzhou could Cultivate all the way to the Nine-ring Titled Douluo Realm.
Furthermore, after the Spirit’s metamorphosis, the Summoned Spirit Bloodline, which was originally suppressed below top-tier quality, also rose to just below Divine-Grade.
In addition, after the Spirit’s metamorphosis, the Summoned Spirits would possess intelligence.
As a primate, Chu Chengzhou was well aware of the importance of intelligence.
If the Summoned Spirits lacked intelligence, Chu Chengzhou would have a very serious weakness.
That is, if he were controlled by a Spirit-type Spirit Master, the Summoned Spirits—lacking his command and having no intelligence of their own—would turn into beasts with only strength and no brains.
Once this situation occurred, they would inevitably be defeated one by one by the opponent.
However, if the Summoned Spirits possessed intelligence, such a situation would naturally be impossible.
Intelligent Summoned Spirits, with training, could even defeat more powerful enemies by working together like a well-coordinated Spirit Master team, even without Chu Chengzhou’s direct command, rather than fighting individually.
It was precisely because the Summoned Spirits would possess intelligence that Chu Chengzhou named the metamorphosed Spirit the True Spirit Flag.
Of course, that wasn’t the most important part; the most important thing was that after the Spirit metamorphosed into the True Spirit Flag, his Soul Power Cultivation speed increased again!
If the Cultivation speed of a common-quality Summoning Flag was 1, then the speed of an Advanced-quality Elemental Summoning Flag was 2, and the speed of the top-tier quality True Spirit Flag Spirit could reach 3.
Although the increase in Cultivation speed wasn’t a doubling of the current base, Chu Chengzhou was still satisfied.
With a top-tier quality Spirit combined with his current Purple-level Meditation skill, his Soul Power Cultivation speed wouldn’t be too far off from a normal Innate Full Soul Power, even if it didn’t quite match it.
The returns from letting his Spirit level up AFK were very high, and Chu Chengzhou had originally planned to keep it going.
However, when he saw that upgrading the True Spirit Flag Spirit to Divine-Grade quality would take ten times longer—a full ten thousand days—Chu Chengzhou immediately abandoned the idea.
Was this a joke?
Ten thousand days was more than twenty-seven years; he clearly couldn’t afford to wait that long.
However, according to his calculations, the subsequent AFK efficiency should increase significantly, so he decided to leave the Divine-Grade Spirit for later.
In any case, among the younger generation of Spirit Masters on the continent, in terms of Spirit grade alone, only Qian Renxue could suppress him.
It just so happened that he was finding the effects of his Yellow-level Body Refining skill increasingly inadequate, so he decisively removed his Spirit from the first AFK slot and put the Body Refining skill in its place.
“Little Chengzhou, have you decided to choose the Sky Azure Tree for your first spirit ring?”
In the forest, Su Nan asked Chu Chengzhou.
“Mm, but it’s not absolute.
A six or seven-hundred-year-old healing-type Spirit Beast would also work.”
Chu Chengzhou first nodded, then shook his head.
His Spirit was different from many Spirit Masters on the continent; it had no specific bias, and spirit rings from any Spirit Beast in the world could be attached to it.
However, considering his own Cultivation needs, Chu Chengzhou chose a healing-type Spirit Beast for his first Summoned Spirit.
In the Spirit Master’s world, if one were to Rank healing-type Spirits, the Nine Heart Begonia would definitely be at the top of the list.
In the Spirit Beast world, aside from a few super species that were so rare they couldn’t even be classified as a clan, the Emerald Swan was the top healing-type Spirit Beast.
But healing-type Spirit Beasts were relatively rare in the Soul Beast Forests, let alone the top-ranked Emerald Swan.
Furthermore, the Soul Beast Forest he was in was just a Hunter Soul Forest artificially enclosed by the Heaven Dou Empire; the Spirit species within were far fewer than those in the Star Dou Great Forest, so he didn’t even need to think about such top-tier Spirit Beasts.
On the other hand, plant-type healing Spirit Beasts like the Sky Azure Tree, which were more widely distributed, could be found in basically every Hunter Soul Forest on the continent.
Although the Sky Azure Tree wasn’t famous in the Spirit Beast world and its Bloodline wasn’t considered powerful—in fact, no Spirit Master had ever seen a ten-thousand-year Sky Azure Tree—the Bloodline level of the target Spirit Beast, while having some influence, wasn’t the key factor for Chu Chengzhou.
A Spirit Master’s Spirit and a Spirit Beast’s Bloodline can both undergo metamorphosis as their cultivation level increases.
Even if one initially possesses only a common-quality Spirit, as long as the Spirit Master Cultivates their Soul Power to Rank 90 or above, the quality of their Spirit will not be lower than top-tier.
Spirit Beasts are similar; any hundred-thousand-year Spirit Beast will have its Bloodline reach the top-tier.
Take the Blue Silver Emperor, which metamorphosed from Blue Silver Grass, for example.
It was originally a famous trash Spirit or garbage Spirit Beast on the continent, but after metamorphosing into the Blue Silver Emperor, it became a top-tier Spirit or a Spirit Beast with a top-tier Bloodline.
It just so happened that Chu Chengzhou had a cheat that allowed him to increase the years of his spirit rings via AFK.
This way, even if the target Sky Azure Tree’s Bloodline level wasn’t great, as long as he AFK-ed it to the ten-thousand-year mark, its Bloodline would not be lower than Advanced.
If it reached the hundred-thousand-year mark, it would upgrade to a top-tier Spirit Beast, and if it even reached the million-year mark through AFK, it would likely metamorphose into a Divine Beast.
Of course, a Sky Azure Tree whose Bloodline had been upgraded could no longer be called a Sky Azure Tree.
Just as a flood dragon is called a Dragon once it transforms, not a flood dragon or a snake.
“Six or seven hundred years?”
Hearing this age, Su Nan raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t object.
He had personally tried his grandson’s Body Refining method of unknown origin.
Although for a four-ring Spirit Ancestor like him, the effect was practically negligible.
But for a child who had not yet become an official Spirit Master, it could definitely be considered a legendary ‘Divine Skill’ on the continent.
A six or seven-hundred-year-old spirit ring was enough to be the ideal second spirit ring for the vast majority of Spirit Masters.
Even in some major factions, Core Disciples whose Spirits were not Beast Spirits would have second spirit rings of about that age.
But for Chu Chengzhou, whose physical strength far exceeded his peers and Spirit Masters of the same Rank, asking for a six or seven-hundred-year spirit ring as his first was truly not asking too much.
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