Time flew by, and another three years passed.
In the central part of Tianhui Canyon, in a secluded grassy area.
A refined middle-aged man and a stunning girl of eleven or twelve were cautiously scanning their surroundings. Behind them was a handsome boy of eleven or twelve, currently sitting cross-legged on the ground. In front of him lay the corpse of a white horse with a single horn, and a purple spirit ring floated from the white horse's body towards the boy.
These three were none other than Zhu Changhe, and Zhu Ziyang and Jiang Nannan, who had just turned eleven a little over a month ago!
Currently, Zhu Ziyang was absorbing his third spirit ring.
As observed, Zhu Ziyang had already reached the Spirit Elder realm. A Spirit Elder at only eleven years old was an absolute prodigy, a rarity even across the entire Douluo Continent, let alone in a frontier town like Anyang City!
Upon hearing this news, City Lord Hong Zhen was so excited he nearly went mad. His attitude towards Zhu Ziyang was even more affectionate than towards his own son, if he had one.
The Spirit Beast corpse in front of Zhu Ziyang was a 4,500-year-old Sacred Light White Horse. This type of Spirit Beast possessed a very pure Light Attribute, and its power of light had a strong purifying effect, making it Zhu Ziyang's carefully considered choice.
There were two reasons: firstly, the Sacred Light White Horse's Light Attribute was extremely powerful, which would undoubtedly provide a significant boost to his Radiant Scythe; secondly, Zhu Ziyang needed a Light Attribute offensive Spirit Ability, and the Sacred Light White Horse's formidable strength could definitely provide him with a powerful offensive Spirit Ability.
Over three years, Zhu Ziyang's improvement was not just in spirit power, but all-encompassing. This could be seen from his choice of the Sacred Light White Horse; a 4,500-year-old spirit ring already far exceeded the average age for a third spirit ring in the Spirit Master's world. And because Zhu Ziyang cultivated the Great Bright Art and consciously trained his body daily, his physical strength was long capable of withstanding a spirit ring of around 6,000 years. If it weren't for the fact that no higher-aged Sacred Light White Horses could be found in Tianhui Canyon, he would absolutely not have chosen this particular Sacred Light White Horse.
Having already had two experiences absorbing spirit rings, this time, Zhu Ziyang's refining speed was very quick. After about half an hour, under the watchful eyes of Zhu Changhe and Jiang Nannan, the purple spirit ring completely merged into Zhu Ziyang's body, becoming a part of him.
Zhu Ziyang opened his eyes, immediately sprang up from the ground, and a beautiful war scythe, entirely silver-white with golden patterns inscribed on it, appeared in his hand. This was his first Spirit, the Radiant Scythe.
Compared to when his Spirit awakened, the Radiant Scythe's changes were significant. The initially incomplete patterns on the scythe handle were almost fully restored with Zhu Ziyang's increase in strength, which was also related to the Radiant Scythe's Light Attribute intensity. Zhu Ziyang's light element affinity had already exceeded seventy, so the Radiant Scythe was just one complete transformation away from becoming a top-tier Spirit!
After the Radiant Scythe Spirit appeared, one yellow and two purple spirit rings immediately floated behind him. Anyone who saw them couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at such a prodigy.
"How is it? Did you get the Spirit Ability you wanted?" Zhu Changhe quickly stepped forward and asked.
Watching his son gradually catch up to, and even on the verge of surpassing him, Zhu Changhe felt both gratified and a little sad. Although his cultivation had reached Level 37 in recent years due to him switching to cultivate the Zhu Clan Meditation Method created by Zhu Ziyang, he knew that with his son's cultivation speed, he would probably surpass him in less than three years.
"Yes!" Zhu Ziyang put away his Spirit, a confident smile on his lips, and said, "Light Expelling Evil Slash, which gathers powerful light energy and uses immense destructive power to purify all evil and darkness. It's a powerful offensive Spirit Ability."
As Zhu Ziyang spoke, his third spirit ring lit up, and the Radiant Scythe in his hand instantly shimmered with pure white light. Then, with Zhu Ziyang's swing, it directly struck a giant rock beside him, five people tall and three people wide. The giant rock shattered with a crash, and the fragments were dotted with specks of white light.
"That's great!" Jiang Nannan exclaimed, clapping her hands, seeing that the Light Expelling Evil Slash possessed such power. She said, "With this, Yang-ge's combat power has increased by a large margin!"
Jiang Nannan was also just eleven years old. Also due to Zhu Ziyang, despite having only an ordinary Soft Bones Rabbit Spirit, she was already a Level 25 Spirit Grandmaster. This level of achievement was definitely that of a top-tier genius on the Douluo Continent.
"This way, your success rate of getting into Shrek Academy has increased by a large margin!" Zhu Changhe said, his face filled with excitement.
Shrek Academy, this could be said to be the obsession of several generations of Spirit Masters in Anyang City. No, it should be said that Spirit Masters on the original Douluo Continent all had an almost fanatical reverence and obsession for Shrek Academy. Students who came out of Shrek Academy would undoubtedly receive the highest respect in any city.
"Yes! We definitely will." Zhu Ziyang nodded faintly in response.
Zhu Changhe was unaware of Shrek Academy's enrollment rules, but he was very clear on them. To enter Shrek Academy's Outer Courtyard, three conditions needed to be met: first, a recommendation letter from the City Lord of any main city of the Three Great Empires; second, an age not exceeding 12; and third, spirit power not lower than Level 15.
For Zhu Ziyang and Jiang Nannan, only the first of these three conditions presented a difficulty. Anyang City was only a secondary city, and Hong Zhen was not qualified to recommend students to Shrek Academy. However, fortunately, Anyang City's superior main city was Dragon City, and the Dragon City City Lord would send two of his recommendation letters to the city lords of subordinate cities each year to display his benevolence. These two recommendation letters were perfectly suited for Zhu Ziyang and Jiang Nannan, one each.
Zhu Ziyang and Zhu Changhe inspected the Sacred Light White Horse's corpse and found no Spirit Bone. They had no choice but to cut off the single horn on the white horse's head, which was the most valuable part of the Sacred Light White Horse.
The three left Tianhui Canyon and returned to Anyang City in one day.
Zhu Ziyang and Jiang Nannan had long stopped attending Anyang Academy. They stopped going after they both reached Level 20, because their strength had long surpassed the graduation standards by too much.
They were now just waiting for next month to set off and participate in Shrek Academy's entrance examination.
---
Beihe Village, back mountain forest.
Zhu Ziyang, who had been back for three days, was currently practicing his Spirit in this exclusive territory of his.
Over several years, he had long achieved the goals he initially set.
Spirit control: he was able to use his Spirit without displaying spirit rings by the age of nine.
And now, he was able to release his Spirit without generating any spirit power fluctuations, which not only meant his control over his Spirit had reached a masterful level, but also that his application and control of spirit power had reached an extremely high standard.
At this moment, the gap between Zhu Ziyang's level of Spirit control and a Spirit Saint's True Spirit Body, was probably only the massive amplification that a True Spirit Body provided. Zhu Ziyang was confident that when only using his Spirit and not his spirit rings, he might not be invincible, but he would at least have few rivals!
After his Spirit control reached a very high level, Zhu Ziyang began to research self-created Spirit Abilities.
Self-created Spirit Abilities were the hallmark of peerless prodigies.