"Hm?"
Luo Fanchen made a puzzled sound. Empty space in every direction — nothing at all.
"Look DOWN, little Senior Brother~" Bai Yingyue chimed.
He looked down — and his heart gave a lurch.
He was hanging a thousand meters up, held aloft by some invisible strength, and everything below to the edge of sight was green.
A primeval forest without end spread beneath his feet.
Bai Yingyue explained:
"Little Senior Brother, this is the Eastern Oasis — the largest gathering of soul beasts on the whole continent."
"It's where I took my fourth soul ring just days ago. Now it's your turn."
Luo Fanchen drew a long breath, awe flashing in his eyes.
Jungle on this scale was called an OASIS? By coverage alone it looked broader than an entire country from his last life.
"Whoosh!"
Di Weiyang carried them both downward. Yingyue went on, "Teacher's taking us hunting in the Oasis's outer ring."
"Inner ring, outer ring — there's a system to it?" he asked, interested.
She explained patiently. "The outer circle is where the weak soul beasts live. The deeper in you go, the denser the spiritual qi, and the stronger the beasts."
"The outer ring is basically hundred-year and thousand-year beasts. The inner ring's WEAKEST are ten-thousand-year."
"The very center of the inner ring is called the core region — an absolute forbidden zone for humans."
She paused, real wariness crossing her lovely eyes.
"Because the eight great Soul Beast Emperors dwell there. Every one of them a transcendent fierce-beast far beyond a hundred thousand years."
"Which Emperors are they?" Luo Fanchen asked.
She laughed lightly. "Beings on that level are FAR too distant from where we stand. Don't even think about them~"
Luo Fanchen answered silently, inwardly:
Distant, is it?
I've kissed one. The remaining distance is measured in negatives.
...No, wait. His own Empress treasure wasn't from the Oasis. Though her strength was presumably around that class.
Di Weiyang spoke abruptly. "It should be SEVEN Soul Beast Emperors now. The eighth — the Fiend Emperor — vanished without a trace more than a decade ago."
"The human upper echelons suspect the Fiend Emperor has already perished."
Bai Yingyue's red lips fell open, shocked. "Wasn't that three-headed demon dragon a four-hundred-THOUSAND-year great fierce-beast?"
"Who under heaven has ability enough to slaughter the Fiend Emperor without a sound? Their cultivation must scrape the very sky!"
Something odd flickered at the bottom of Luo Fanchen's eyes as he mused:
No way.
Surely not the giant sucker I flattened on arrival?
...No, that's exactly who it is. That sky-scraping hidden master you speak of...
is none other than yours truly.
Di Weiyang's willow brows drew tight, her voice grave:
"With the Fiend Emperor dead, the four-hundred-thousand-year soul bone and soul ring he left behind are supreme treasures of the highest order. Absorbed by a level-ninety soul master, they would forge a terrifying Ninth Order Transcendent of boundless potential."
"And should an EVIL soul master absorb them — rivers of blood would follow."
Bai Yingyue's sunny smile vanished on the spot, her face going serious.
Luo Fanchen's expression turned strange.
Only now, reading the two women, did he grasp that the ring and bone lying in his pendant were a hundred times more precious than he'd imagined.
He didn't doubt for a second: pull the Fiend Emperor's soul bone out right now, and both women would jump out of their skins.
But that little fantasy could stay in his skull where it belonged. Actually producing it wouldn't be flexing — it would be terminal stupidity. A bigger sucker than the Fiend Emperor himself.
Bai Yingyue naturally caught the shift on his face — and thought nothing whatsoever of it.
The Fiend Emperor's tier was stratospheric. Her little Senior Brother had walked out of a dirt-poor mountain village yesterday; what special intelligence could HE possibly have?
"Little Senior Brother, I bet you don't really know what soul rings and soul bones ARE yet. Let me explain..."
Ancient trees vaulted overhead, blotting out the sun.
Luo Fanchen followed Di Weiyang through the Oasis's outer ring, brush rustling underfoot.
After Yingyue's lecture, rings and bones were no longer a half-understood blur.
Past level ten of every order, a soul master MUST absorb a soul ring to break through.
And a soul beast's death always yields a ring.
A hundred years: yellow. A thousand: purple. Ten thousand: black. A hundred thousand: red.
What color lay past a hundred thousand, Yingyue didn't know — too rare — and the Pontiff apparently deemed that tier too remote for him to bother mentioning.
But Luo Fanchen had already guessed.
Orange-red.
Because the Fiend Emperor's ring WAS orange-red.
Which meant the fox beauty must have been a hundred-thousand-year beast — hers was the red one.
Per Yingyue, though, absorption also hinged on strength and constitution: each level of soul master could only withstand rings up to a certain age.
Rings past a hundred thousand years demanded a level-ninety physique.
A low-level soul master who gulped one anyway met exactly one end.
POP!
Body burst. Dead.
Luo Fanchen finally understood the full weight of Su Jiu'er's care — WHY she had sealed the Fiend Emperor's bone and ring away.
Beyond enabling breakthroughs, a ring granted one more gift: a usable skill, adding directly to a soul master's arsenal.
And the skill wasn't random — it derived from the beast's own innate talent in life.
Hence soul masters chose their prey with extreme care, hunting beasts whose nature matched their martial soul's attributes.
Nor could the age run too high — the body wouldn't bear it.
Too low, and the skill came out feeble. Wasted talent.
So now Di Weiyang led him deeper, searching out a beast that suited him.
As for soul bones — when those had come up, Yingyue's eyes had positively glittered.
Calling the soul bone the continent's supreme treasure wasn't an overstatement. A soul master could absorb one and fuse it into their own skeleton.
Massive gains to physical strength and soul power — plus one more bundled soul skill.
But unlike rings, though bones also condensed from dead beasts, the crucial point was: bones dropped at RANDOM!!!
From hundred- and thousand-year beasts, the odds were as good as zero. One in ten thousand.
Ten-thousand-year beasts ran a little better. One in a thousand.
Past fifty thousand years: one in a hundred.
And uniquely — a hundred-thousand-year beast dropped a bone EVERY time, and one far mightier than the common article.
Luo Fanchen followed the economics perfectly: bones were priceless because the strong beasts were nearly unkillable and the weak ones barely dropped. It all came down to trying your luck.
And speaking of LUCK...
His expression went a little unnatural. Oh, if we're talking about THAT, I'm suddenly wide awake.
Innate Fortune versus a loot table? That's not gambling — that's professional placement.
At that moment, a certified emperor of luck couldn't help breaking out his handsomest smile.
"HOWL—"
A savage shriek snapped him out of it.
"SWISH!"
A black shape burst from the brush.
"An Iron-Backed Gray Wolf?"
Bai Yingyue's voice came from beside him, and Luo Fanchen focused ahead.
A vicious wolf barred the path, green eyes glinting with eerie light, drool dripping between its fangs and hissing where it struck the ground. Steel-needle gray fur bristled over its body — but its back was the strange part: iron-lead in color, glinting hard and dark.
The wolf hadn't tasted human in a long, long while. Sensing three weak human soul auras, it had tracked them at once.
"Fanchen. Go," said Di Weiyang.
"All right."
He agreed so briskly — without one flicker of fear — that both women were taken slightly aback.
Yingyue couldn't help herself. "Little Senior Brother — that Iron-Backed Gray Wolf's aura says a full two hundred years of cultivation. That's peak soul apprentice. Aren't you scared?"
He set down the chief's two bundles and walked forward, rolling up his sleeves and smiling as he went.
"If Teacher sends me up, there's a reason to be sent. Besides, I hunted these mountains for years — I'm well used to it."
Yingyue's expression froze. Her little Senior Brother had been THIS feral since childhood?
She called after him urgently:
"Don't get careless! That's not some ordinary village beast — it's a two-hundred-year soul beast with cultivated soul power!!!"
"WHOOSH!"
Luo Fanchen was already charging. The wolf had never imagined this weak-aura'd human would not only not flee but attack FIRST —
It roared and lunged to meet him.
Yingyue said, "Teacher, sending little Senior Brother straight at a two-hundred-year beast — isn't that rushing things?"
"And... he's charging in SO recklessly. He's going to get hurt."
Di Weiyang's phoenix eyes turned to her, cool as ever:
"Victory is not required. The wolf is a plumb line — to sound his foundations and find where his limit lies."
"With me standing here — something will happen to him?"
The unspoken clause being: are you teaching ME how to do things? Yingyue stuck out her tongue and turned back to the fight.
One look — and the look floored her.
The wolf sprang high, jaws driving for the throat. Luo Fanchen's eyes went knife-sharp — and he SLID.
Skidding clean under the airborne wolf, he drove a fist straight up, all mass and sink behind it.
It hammered into the wolf's soft belly.
"THUMP!"
The wolf shrieked and crashed to earth.
Luo Fanchen was on it before it bounced — one hand shoving the jaw away, the other piston-punching the throat.
"Teacher... he... this is absurd."
At a distance, Bai Yingyue covered her small mouth, eyes wide.
Killing a two-hundred-year beast was trivial FOR HER. For a rookie one day past awakening, it was supposed to be fantasy.
Instead Luo Fanchen was face-slapping her on the spot with a live demonstration of what 'technique' meant.
Crude technique, granted — no formal art to any of it, pure country brawling. But fast, vicious, precise. Ruthlessly practical.
No — it wasn't just raw ability, either.
His EYE is vicious too, Yingyue realized. Every strike deliberately avoided the wolf's hardest parts — skull and iron back.
Ignore the armor. Hit only the soft.
She glanced at her teacher — and caught the Pontiff's cold gaze in a moment of genuine arrest.
Plainly surprised as well.
Soon enough, Luo Fanchen came walking back dragging the Iron-Backed Gray Wolf one-handed by a leg, the savage old beast now barely breathing.
"Done, Teacher."
"Junior Sister was right — this animal was genuinely harder to deal with than the ones back home."
Watching him shake his head and sigh about it, Bai Yingyue wanted to hit him.
Brother. You just beat a two-hundred-year soul beast ONE DAY after awakening!
That monstrous, and STILL not satisfied?
She couldn't hold it in:
"You call that 'harder to deal with'? There isn't a single scratch on you!"
Luo Fanchen shook his head. "Back home I dropped my prey in one hit. That was far too much work."
Her eyes bulged. So by 'too much work'... you mean 'failed to one-shot it'?
WHAT KIND OF DERANGED LOGIC—
Di Weiyang's phoenix eyes glimmered. She spoke:
"Your foundation is very solid."
"And you've banked real combat experience. If you had even a shred of formal technique, I would suspect someone strong had been training you in secret."
"Most people neglect body tempering before the awakening — they think soul power is everything. You, though, must have reached tempering's peak."
"That is good. In time you will learn what continued body refinement buys you."
Luo Fanchen's heart thumped. A Pontiff for a reason — that eye of hers went straight to the bone, first strike true.
He even suspected she declined to dig further only out of respect for his secrets. Broad-minded indeed.
Di Weiyang continued:
"What Yingyue told you earlier lacked precision."
"A soul master's FIRST ring has an absorption ceiling of four hundred years. Past that age, the body risks bursting."
"How is the ceiling determined?" he asked.
"Through combat. Unaided by external items — however strong a beast you can defeat, that strong a ring you can absorb."
"I meant this wolf to sound your depths. Had the foundation been loose, we would have spent time grinding it firm before any breakthrough."
"MY disciple's first ring must be a four-hundred-year ring. Nothing less will lay the strongest foundation."
Luo Fanchen probed, "Is it possible for a first ring to EXCEED four hundred years?"
"It is." The Pontiff nodded. "The world never lacks geniuses of singular fortune — monsters among the geniuses, who break the ceiling itself."
"Since records began, the highest first ring in history: something over six hundred years."
"That's only two hundred more. Not such a huge margin," Luo Fanchen muttered, half to himself.
The Pontiff's face didn't move. Beside her, Bai Yingyue bared her little fangs in outrage:
"Do you HEAR yourself? Two hundred isn't much? That's HALF AGAIN the ceiling!!"
"It's like sprinting past your absolute limit — every extra breath held is its own private hell. Every single year past the ring ceiling loads the body the same way."
The key of it snapped into place for Luo Fanchen.
"And that's just the FIRST ring at half-again. If every later ring also beats the ceiling by half, the compounding on total strength becomes monstrous."
"Because later rings run to thousands and tens of thousands of years — half-again on THOSE is an enormous absolute lead."
"Ooh, quick on the uptake." Yingyue nodded. "Exactly so."
"Take level ninety — nine rings. By then the early rings are basically support; what you truly lean on is the ninth."
"If yours is a hundred-thousand-year and his is a hundred and fifty — the gap in power is beyond terrifying."
Luo Fanchen followed the thread. "By that logic — early rings aged too low also drag down the ceiling of every ring after?"
"Right." Yingyue nodded. "Ten-year beasts exist — white rings. Take a white one as your first ring, and you can forget ever breaking level twenty in this lifetime."
He pressed on:
"Then what if I camp at level ten a while and pour everything into body refinement — until I can beat seven- or eight-hundred-year beasts — and absorb a ring THAT far past the limit?"
The question knocked Bai Yingyue clean off her script.
She'd only ever cultivated exactly as Teacher prescribed. Who ASKS these things?!
Di Weiyang answered:
"Fill a bottle with water, and it holds no more."
"The body is the bottle. Either a rare fortune enlarges the bottle, or you break into the next realm. Its capacity will not grow simply because you strain — so when it is time to break through, you break through."
"The naturally gifted are born with larger bottles. A three-hundred-year first ring marks you a genius in the top powers; four hundred is Yingyue's tier — the Holy Maiden's tier."
"Judging by your cultivation speed and the body you showed in that fight: I believe you can challenge the ceiling. Reaching five hundred would be remarkable. Six hundred would write history. Seven or eight hundred?"
The Pontiff simply shook her head. Meaning clear enough.
High praise from the Pontiff — and Yingyue found herself agreeing completely.
This handsome little Senior Brother out of a dirt village kept springing surprise after surprise.
She said:
"Little Senior Brother, your problem is that your FIRST exposure was me and Teacher — the absolute summit — so everything looks unremarkable to you. Wait till you meet ordinary soul masters; then you'll know how special you are."
"Out in most soul master academies, a two-hundred-something-year first ring already gets a genius carried around on shoulders."
"Even Teacher and I are startled by your talent. When you truly leave the mountain, you'll shake the world — and scare a great many people white."
Am I really that deviant?
Luo Fanchen thought it over honestly. He'd never been flexing on purpose — he'd simply met too few soul masters to have any scale for strength or talent.
When everyone around you is a Demon Empress, an Enshrined Elder, a Pontiff... you tend to feel rather feeble.
He was already looking forward to the day he left the mountain.
"Whoosh!"
A pale-yellow soul ring condensed over the Iron-Backed Gray Wolf's hide — the three of them had talked too long, and the old wolf had finally breathed its last.
"We move," said Di Weiyang.
Luo Fanchen nodded and bent for the bundles on the ground — and both martial souls inside him stirred at almost the same instant, excitement pulsing through the bond.
The little loach soul didn't wait — it surfaced on its own.
Since devouring the Grudge Dragon Poison it had grown from palm-length to forearm-length, scales sheathing it — less a loach now, more a small serpent.
It shot straight to the dead wolf, jaws parting — and suction bloomed from nothing.
"SWISH-SWISH!"
The wolf's carcass shuddered. Red blood-essence poured out — and together with that yellow soul ring, streamed down the little loach's throat...