Before Dugu Feng hovered two Emerald Dragon Serpents. Their appearance hadn't changed much, but their scales gleamed finer and brighter.
Their age had grown to thirteen thousand years.
"Master, we found it, we found it! Its age is close to fifteen thousand years…"
"We found one, Master. Our rings aren't suitable for you. Absorbing us would waste your talent!"
Two voices echoed in Dugu Feng's mind.
Both serpents had a formidable will to live.
Dugu Feng smiled. Finally they had found one!
He leapt up and landed on one serpent's back. " Lets go. Take me there."
For a full month, the two Emerald Dragon Serpents had combed the Sunset Forest for a beast worthy of his fourth ring.
His target was crystal clear: The Scarlet-Eyed Ice Toad.
It was one of the Five Poisons as well.
Among toad-type spirit beasts, the Ice Toad already stood at the top.
Their clan even had Spirit Masters with Ice Toad martial souls.
But the Scarlet-Eyed Ice Toad was an aberration among toads. Its body was a toxic ice-attribute spirit beast, imbued with cold poison refined from heaven and earth's extreme chill.
Yet its pair of eyes were fire-attribute!
Ice and fire alternated within its body, producing a uniquely vicious cold poison.
It was highly similar to the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and Infernal Delicate Apricot of the Yin Yang Well.
What made him choose the Scarlet-Eyed Ice Toad was that his recent refinement of cold poison had gone smoothly.
it was very successful but not fast.
He was still a long way from subduing the entire Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass.
If he absorbed a cold-poison ring, his grasp over cold poison would soar.
His father judged that once he mastered cold poison, he could form a domain similar to the Ice Grass.
Within ten meters of that herb, its cold poison assaults any who approach. It's practically a domain already!
Naturally, Dugu Feng wished to conquer the immortal herb as soon as possible.
As they traveled, he grew eager.
The serpents bore him to the foot of a mountain.
A low, sunken marsh spread out ahead.
The climate here was no different from elsewhere—nothing suggested a Scarlet-Eyed Ice Toad lurked within.
Such toads preferred frigid places, and wherever they lived, the ground was soaked in poison and other beasts wouldn't come near.
"The marsh's depths lie very close to the Yin Yang Well, opposite the cold spring side," the serpents explained, sensing his doubt.
They'd scoured the entire Sunset Forest without finding one, and only by narrowing it to every swamp and probing the depths had they finally located this Scarlet-Eyed Ice Toad.
"Good! Begin."
Dugu Feng jumped down to a treetop and waited.
Two Emerald Dragon Serpents versus one toad. There would be no suspense.
His spirit power and physique were primed for a ten-thousand-year ring.
He'd reached level 40 a month ago, peaking perfectly.
A fifteen-thousand-year spirit beast would let his accumulated foundation erupt in one stroke, widening the gap with his peers completely.
Roughly half a stick of incense later—A white frost crusted over the marsh, and the depths rumbled violently.
The next instant—
A form glowing with cold blue light burst forth: the Scarlet-Eyed Ice Toad.Its body looked carved from pure ice, its skin semi-transparent; its two scarlet eyes burned like fire, a stark contrast to the frigid aura shrouding it.
The warts along its back were arrayed neatly, each glinting with biting chill.
It struggled furiously.
The two Emerald Dragon Serpents were coiled around it.
"Gwaa—gwaa!"
Its sharp croaks were filled with sorrow.
In Dugu Feng's mind, the serpents' intent arrived. It was time for him to deliver the final blow.
Purple light flashed from his back as the Eight Spider Lances burst forth.
Eight legs stabbed into the trunk, then launched him like a spring.
With a hiss like steel through silk—
Mid-air, the foremost pair of lances shot forward, piercing straight into the toad's eyes.
It was a killing strike!
The fire in the toad's scarlet eyes went out at once, and its body, skewered on the spider lances, dropped onto the serpents' backs.
One serpent in front, one behind, they vaulted through the forest, ascended the mountain of the Yin Yang Well, and finally descended into the valley.
Absorbing a ring required safety.
Nowhere was safer than within the Well itself.
Dugu Feng set the Scarlet-Eyed Ice Toad down.
A faint black glow began to rise from it, gathering above his body.
The power of the spirit ring emerged.
That jet-black light. It was a sign of a ten-thousand-year ring.
Dugu Feng sat cross-legged, entered Spirit Possession, and let the scorpion pincers protrude.
The silver sheen across the fore-limbs was like solid ice, radiating piercing cold.
With two external spirit bones, he was fully confident.
He extended both hands; violet spirit power called to the Ice Toad's energy.
A torrent of black light surged into him like a dam bursting.
In that instant, thunder boomed within; his seated body skidded several meters across the ground under the force.
The energy was too fierce. It was a ring normally absorbed at the Spirit Emperor realm. Yet he was merely a Spirit Ancestor.
Physically, he was no weaker than a Spirit Emperor, but the quantity of spirit power within him lagged far behind.
The sudden load left his channels reeling.
That was when the Eight Spider Lances, scorpion pincers, and the Blue Silver Emperor right leg bone moved as one.
The three spirit bones became three sea-fixing pillars, gradually stabilizing the ring's power.
The immense torrent was diverted.
Like levees in a great river, the bones filtered and channeled the energy so his meridians and bones could absorb it slowly.
Crackling sounds rang out.
His bones popped and sang; a layer of silver ice crystals fused into them—the ice attribute strengthening his skeleton.
"Energy from a spirit ring truly permeates everything—this is a full-dimensional evolution of the body. Amazing!"
There was pain, of course, but he'd lived with pain since childhood.
His will was iron.
Even the Ice Toad's unwilling spiritual ripple barely stirred his sea of spirit.
Thus Dugu Feng sank into deeper comprehension.
Absorbing a ring, on one hand, meant drawing the beast's energy to temper the body, raising one's level.
On the other, it meant assimilating the beast's bloodline power—this portion condensed into the ring itself and became a soul skill.