Chapter 58: The Beasts of Plague and Desolation
"Teacher, how many years of a spirit ring do you think would be suitable for me to absorb now?"
Zhang Peng looked Chen Ming up and down, recalling his tenacious vitality, tough Meridians, and the comprehensive physical enhancement he had gained after opening 2 extraordinary meridians. Only then did he make his judgment.
"Based on your current physical quality, after consuming the whale glue and opening your Meridians, you already surpass a quasi Spirit Elder who has not yet acquired a third ring, though you are still slightly inferior to a quasi Spirit Ancestor who has not yet acquired a fourth ring. In the most extreme case, absorbing a 4,000 year spirit ring should be possible, but that would be too risky."
"Furthermore, I want to find you a spirit ring of high quality, and spirit rings of that caliber usually place more pressure on the user than ordinary spirit rings of the same age. So let us subtract 500 years as a safety margin. Around 3,500 years should be appropriate."
"Logically speaking, your spirit power is actually still insufficient to contend with a normal 3,000 or 4,000 year spirit ring. However, the Holy Spirit Cult has special secret medicines that assist in spirit ring absorption. They can protect the heart Meridians and suppress the chaotic spirit power inside the spirit ring. Their effect is excellent below the Ten Thousand Year level. That is why I dare to let you attempt something like this."
"If your carrying limit were only around 1,000 years, I would absolutely not let you try absorbing a 900 year spirit ring. After all, spirit rings undergo a qualitative transformation at the thresholds of 100 years, 1,000 years, 10,000 years, and 100,000 years."
"Spirit rings emphasize age, while Spirit Bones emphasize quality. In the vast majority of cases, a thousand year spirit ring is better than a hundred year spirit ring. But with your current carrying capacity already in the 3,000 to 4,000 year range, a difference of a few hundred years is no longer that significant."
"Oh right, what kind of Spirit Ability do you want?"
Zhang Peng continued, "Although your Abomination Martial Soul is rarely seen in the history of the Holy Spirit Cult, based on the records and deductions preserved within the Cult, we can still roughly determine what types of Spirit Abilities you are likely to obtain from certain Spirit Beasts in your first few rings."
"I cannot guarantee it with absolute certainty, but I can at least guarantee an 80 percent or higher chance of obtaining the type you want."
"My 2nd Spirit Ability?" Chen Ming thought for a moment, then answered, "I have already decided. I want something that can both control and attack. My current defense is not lacking, and my endurance is already strong enough. What I lack most right now is attack power and control."
"All my attacks still rely on close combat. Although I can transmit toxins into an enemy's body through direct contact, I do not have enough acceleration or control of my own. If someone keeps kiting me, it will be extremely troublesome. So I want a skill with both offensive and controlling properties."
After thinking it over, Chen Ming nodded to himself.
Strictly speaking, an enhancement type skill would naturally be ideal. The problem was that such skills were extremely difficult to acquire, and their effects were often unstable.
Top tier enhancement type skills, like the White Tiger Family's White Tiger Vajra Transformation, which could rival an ordinary ten thousand year Spirit Ability with only a thousand year ring, were exceedingly rare on the Douluo Continent. Those that could even be stably inherited from generation to generation were rarer still.
Strictly speaking, the only stable enhancement type Spirit Ability comparable to White Tiger Vajra Transformation was Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon's Fury of Thunder.
Yet in reality, because once released it caused spirit power to run wild and could not be canceled until all spirit power was exhausted, Fury of Thunder, despite enhancing lightning attributes by 100 percent and spirit power by 50 percent, was still somewhat inferior to White Tiger Vajra Transformation.
Since there were too many uncertainties, it was better to leave enhancement type Spirit Abilities for the 3rd or 4th ring, when he would be absorbing top grade Ten Thousand Year Spirit Beasts. For the 2nd ring, it was wiser to first patch up his weaknesses. After all, if he could not survive the early stages, no matter how great his late stage potential was, it would all be meaningless.
"Good." Zhang Peng nodded. "I will search the Cult for information on suitable Spirit Beasts, so that you can obtain your 2nd spirit ring as soon as possible. After that, once you finish the matters within the Cult, I will take you out for some real training. The environment inside the Holy Spirit Cult is not very suitable for you. You need a large number of Spirit Beasts as materials, and the Evil Demon Forest is too restrictive for that."
Spirit Beasts below the thousand year level were insignificant. Even the Evil Emperor would pretend not to notice them. But Ten Thousand Year Spirit Beasts could not be slaughtered at will inside the Evil Demon Forest. If one or 2 died occasionally, it was fine, but if too many died, even a Titled Douluo would run into trouble.
Since they were not incapable of hunting Ten Thousand Year Spirit Beasts, there was no reason to remain trapped in the Evil Demon Forest. Finding a smaller Spirit Beast forest and using thousand year and Ten Thousand Year Spirit Beasts to aid cultivation was clearly far better than remaining limited to hundred year and thousand year Spirit Beasts.
After leaving Chen Ming behind to cultivate, Zhang Peng began using his status as a Grandmaster of the Holy Spirit Cult to gather information on suitable Spirit Beasts.
Although the Holy Spirit Cult's reputation on the continent was not especially famous, throughout its several thousand years of existence, it had slowly extended its tentacles across many regions of the continent. Both the Sun Moon Continent and the Douluo Continent had strongholds and informants belonging to the Holy Spirit Cult, though the strength of those branches varied greatly.
These branch headquarters not only provided resources and various talents to the main headquarters, but also collected intelligence on the distribution of Spirit Beasts in different regions, making it easier for Holy Spirit Cult Spirit Masters to hunt for spirit rings.
After selecting from a pile of intelligence reports, Zhang Peng finally found a target that suited Chen Ming perfectly.
Its quality was top tier, its age was suitable, and the Spirit Ability gained after absorption would most likely possess both offensive and controlling properties. More importantly, in a certain sense, this target even had a major karmic link with Chen Ming.
"Locust Fish King? Teacher, is this real?" Looking at the Spirit Beast recorded in the intelligence report, Chen Ming's eyes nearly bulged out. A deep, almost unresolvable killing intent and malice surged through his gaze.
Although almost a year had passed, Chen Ming still sometimes dreamed of that scene, where countless locusts blotted out the sky and devoured everything they encountered.
Admittedly, the Locust Fish and the locusts transformed from them were not the sole culprits behind that disaster, but they were definitely one of Chen Ming's mortal enemies.
"The Locust Fish that caused chaos back then were stimulated by the Vicious Beast, the Fearsome Beast. Those individuals were inherently stronger and possessed greater innate talent than normal ones. With a base number that large, the probability of special variants appearing naturally became much higher."
"Especially after the leading Vicious Beast, the Fearsome Beast, disappeared, and with no Beast King level Vicious Beast left to suppress them, some of the outstanding variants that emerged from the vast swarm began evolving toward a higher level."
"This one is a Locust Fish King that reached over 3,000 years during its mutation. It already commands a small swarm of Locust Fish. Although it currently only has around 3,000 years of cultivation, give it another 2,000 years at most, and this Spirit Beast will definitely step into the Ten Thousand Year level."
.....
[Check Out My Patreon For Advance Chapters On All My Fanfics!]
[[email protected]/Eldryx]