Chapter 301: Dragon Soul Manifests! A Brand-New Form

As that mysterious Ancient Bell was swallowed by the ink-black giant dragon, it instantly melted and vanished into the surface of the Ancient Bell.

Baichuan finally felt that a true mysterious connection had formed between himself and the Ancient Bell — a connection unlike the previous permission, for now, so long as he wished, he could completely retract it into his body within the range of his spiritual power.

Of course, although he could retract it, he currently did not dare to do so.

Once this Faba left this place and was put away, not to mention anything else, the barrier built upon the Faba, as well as all the powerful beings above the Divine Realm of the entire Spirit Qi cultivation system, would all collapse in an instant, and what awaited him would be this planet returning once more to the Xingkong.

If unlucky, he might not yet be prepared before being discovered by the "Luo" civilization.

Admittedly, he had already made his inner preparations for clashing with them, but that did not mean he had to face them now.

Everything still had to wait until he had made sufficient preparations before returning to the Xingkong.

For now, he would first try to replenish the Spirit Power for this Ancient Bell that was about to lose its energy maintenance.

Thinking of this, Baichuan directly channeled all the Spirit Power within his body, through the connection with the Star-Devouring Worm sub-body, into this vast Spirit Sea Pool.

In an instant, the Spirit Sea, which had been utterly calm under the suppression of the Ancient Bell, abruptly stirred up a single wavelet.

Yet that was all it was.

This bit of Spirit Power might be a lot to him personally, but facing this enormous Spirit Sea Pool, it was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

To replenish this Spirit Sea required the joint efforts of all living beings, after all, his Spirit Power cultivation was merely at Zhenren Peak.

Therefore, after channeling half his Spirit Power, Baichuan stopped the channeling.

Should he learn from that Heavenly Sovereign of the Conferring Gods system, accept the other's legacy and begin harvesting on his own?

Treat the entire Dongfang Quyu as a fruit, squeezing out endless Spirit Power to replenish the Spirit Sea Pool?

Such a wicked thought flashed through Baichuan's mind, and he immediately shook his head, casting aside this notion.

Although he was no longer human, he was not some chaotic, disordered, refined egoist either; without the slightest conflict, he could not bring himself to slaughter countless lives for his own selfish gain.

After pondering for a while, he decided to first fully absorb, digest, and inscribe upon himself all the abilities from that Star-Devouring Worm sub-body; now that all the aftereffects had been resolved, he did not need to worry too much.

It was time to push his main body's Spirit Power cultivation to break through to the realm above Zhenren.

Transforming his own consciousness into a soul might bring tremendous benefits to himself, providing great help to his weak point of spiritual power.

As for the requirements for the breakthrough, his Spirit Power cultivation needed to be kept in optimal condition, and within the coverage range of the Heavenly Dao, he could resonate with heaven and earth at the final moment.

This was not a problem,

because the reason the entire Ice Plains could not replenish its own Spirit Power, like a magicless zone, was solely because in that era, Tangboshi had specially adjusted the Faba's barrier to prevent other lifeforms from approaching the starship at will.

To change this, for Baichuan, who had now initially refined the Ancient Bell, was merely a task easy as turning over his hand.

With a single thought, Baichuan sensed the vast invisible barrier spreading out from the Ancient Bell in his mind, and immediately, under the guidance of his spiritual power, a portion of the entire boundless barrier began to adjust on its own.

A quarter of an hour later, Baichuan felt Spirit Power begin to recover spontaneously within his body, and at the same time, his spiritual power faintly sensed a rhythm obscure and unclear—

that was the true Heavenly Dao rhythm of this heaven and earth, not the rhythm simulated within the barrier by Canglan's Rhythm Fruit.

He had not only lifted the Ancient Bell Barrier's restriction on the Heavenly Dao, but also severed the false rhythm within the Ancient Bell Barrier, facing directly the original essential rhythm of heaven and earth.

Under this obscure and unclear rhythm, if anyone could comprehend the rhythm within and break through, they would become a true Zhenjun, like the gods of that earliest era who possessed the mighty power of heaven and earth, rather than a false Zhenjun who broke through via that permission, needing to rely on the existence of the Faba barrier and the Canglan Fruit.

But now, almost all the rhythms within this heaven and earth had long been comprehended by living beings and transformed into owned things; not only were they hard to comprehend, but comprehending them might also alert the masters of these rhythms, drawing their pursuit and killing.

Fortunately, Baichuan did not need to worry about these things,

pursuit and killing by those who owned them?

In the current world, the only ones who had comprehended the true rhythm were Tianyuan Zunzhe, who had become a divine corpse, and his original Dao Fruit — preserved within the Ancient Bell.

Even if sensed by him, given his condition, he would not dare to come.

The rhythm was obscure and unclear, hard to comprehend.

Baichuan could, through his connection with the Ancient Bell, easily and at close range comprehend the rhythm fluctuations of that mysterious Heavenly Dao.

Now everything was ready, only awaiting his breakthrough!

Thinking of this, he slowly closed his eyes, sinking into a stretch of darkness; this was his very first breakthrough, and he could not afford to be careless.

The Star-Devouring Worm sub-body began to silently merge into his own body,

"Dong!"

A sound, as if the Ancient Bell were tolling, rang out from within his body, and immediately, within his dragon body, a mysterious organ began to throb slowly — that was the Star Bag throbbing!

The Star-Devouring Worm, which in the past had a hard exterior radiating a hard metallic luster, at this moment, facing the devouring throb of the Star Bag, seemed to have lost all its hard outer layer, utterly soft and weak, and in just a few moments was completely crushed, turning into a pool of mysterious liquid,

within the liquid flowed countless tiny specks of light, which, before one could see them clearly, completely vanished into the flesh layer of the Star Bag, like water meeting paper towel, gone in an instant.

The disappearance of the mysterious liquid transformed into an unknown substance that flowed everywhere within Baichuan's slender dragon body, and along the way, layer upon layer of delicate flesh and blood tissue radiating tiny specks of light was continuously born, gathered, and shaped.

Time did not know how long had passed.

In the boundless, endless darkness, Baichuan only felt his body constantly trembling, twitching, deforming, and immediately felt that within the darkness, a faint light abruptly lit up,

within the light, a scene of myriad colors flashed past.

In that instant, a sense of sudden realization flashed through Baichuan's heart — that was the scene of the outside world!

A cool sensation began to emerge, just like a person not yet awake being abruptly transported from the sticky, sweltering summer heat to the dry, crisp depths of winter on a great snow-capped mountain, and having a bucket of ice water poured over their entire body from head to toe,

in an instant, Baichuan gave a start, as if he had woken up.

It was as if he had never truly woken before, his mind and consciousness having always been in a muddled state, but now he had been awakened by ice water, and under the cold stinging pain, his spirit directly contracted.

The consciousness that had previously been somewhat scattered like loose sand, at this moment gathered together—

A soul is born!

Boundless light emerged from within the darkness, slowly gathering under an unknown force, and immediately transformed into a small dragon with a translucent quality,

although the small dragon had a translucent quality, its entire body was incredibly rich in detail: majestic dragon horns soaring into the sky, dragon scales layered densely, dragon whiskers floating and swaying without wind, and sharp Dragon Claws covered in fine scales slightly grasping.

This was Baichuan's soul, or it could be called a Dragon Soul!

This place was the deepest part of Baichuan's sea of consciousness; now, under the action of Spirit Power, his consciousness had finally given birth to his own Dragon Soul.

As the Dragon Soul appeared, boundless spiritual power, like darkness, began to madly surge over, pouring into that small, translucent Dragon Soul, painting upon it a touch of bright, gorgeous color.

As the ocean-like spiritual power vanished, the darkness gradually dissipated, and what came with it was that the translucent little dragon became increasingly vivid, no longer translucent!

Time did not know how long it had passed; this boundless dark place completely vanished, and what it brought was a pale space, within which a small dragon, as if alive, lay coiled solemnly and majestically, guarding this realm.

At this moment, the small dragon radiated endless light, seeming to encroach upon the farther darkness, and also seeming to solidify and magnify its own existence.

Intuition told Baichuan that his state was full, that all the conditions before breakthrough were in place — it was time to break through!

The next instant, the connection with the Ancient Bell was quietly stirred, and immediately the surrounding environment rapidly shifted; that small dragon appeared, as if teleported, beside a sphere of light emitting a dazzling radiance—

This is the mysterious stance as seen from the perspective of the spiritual domain.

An immensely vast sphere of light stood motionless, radiating a powerful sense of existence; no matter where one looked, this sphere of light could be seen with absolute clarity, pulsing like the heart of a living thing — pulse, pulse, and pulse again!

As the sphere of light pulsed, ring after ring of complex and resplendent halos spontaneously spread outward—

That is the rhythm of the stance!

All the changes upon this planet, this tremendous volume of information, was contained within these ring upon ring of halos.

A flash of realization crossed Baichuan's heart — so-called breakthrough meant selecting, from within this endless sea of information halos, that which suited him best, inscribing it into his own Spirit, and as the rhythms accumulated, transforming into a crystal—

Namely, the Rhythm Fruit (Dao Fruit)!

Having understood the specific situation, Baichuan did not even need to think before knowing which rhythm suited him best at present — Fire!

He did not choose to inscribe all the rhythms at once; he still understood the principle that greed leads to indigestion, and besides, this planet and this stance were right here — what did he need to worry about?

And as a living being whose entire body had always been amidst blazing flames, what rhythm could be more familiar to him than flame, for the first breakthrough he chose through his own ability?

……

Time drifted by leisurely; in the blink of an eye, more than half a year had passed.

On this day, the colossal creature sprawled upon the ground slowly opened its eyes, and what appeared before its gaze was a pair of eyes unlike those of any living being—

Within them, pupils of black-purple and golden flame slowly revolved!

"Boom!"

A cluster of sparks ignited!

Its dense, solid muscles bulged, driving the scales to constantly clatter and deform; two pairs of thick, powerful, sharp Dragon Claws wreathed in black-and-gold flames propped up the True Dragon's massive body,

The next instant, a flash of high temperature appeared,

Immediately after, a dragon-shaped flame of black-and-gold appeared in place!

This was the ability similar to 【Energy Materialization】 he obtained after truly breaking through to the Zhenjun Realm; unlike the standard 【Energy Materialization】 ability he had previously obtained from others, his ability, due to his own special nature—

His body had always been in a state of high temperature.

Therefore, at the moment of breakthrough, it mutated into 【Flame Treading LV4 (Limit)】!

This was truly his very first high-level ability, belonging solely to him!

Of course, in this world it is better called a Heavenly Divine Ability.

【Flame Treading: Draws upon the fires of the world, drawing them into oneself to settle as one's own power; can transform the body into a boundless flame-body, manifesting according to the nature of the drawn fires; the more varied the flames drawn in, the greater the might!】

This is an ability possessed only by beings who have truly broken through to the Divine Realm — not something those pseudo-Divine-Realm beings of the current era, who broke through by borrowing permissions, could possess.

This kind of Heavenly Divine Ability — in the projections, every being of the Divine Realm from that era who had truly comprehended the rhythm of heaven and earth and broken through possessed their own Heavenly Divine Ability; it was as if this ability was something those beings, after crossing a certain threshold, had their own certain characteristic metamorphosed and ascended into.

Baichuan even suspected that the special LV4 ability upon those Heavenly Venerables and Main Gods was a power born after the original owners of the bloodlines broke through a certain threshold.

It was no wonder he thought this way — whether it was this newly born ability of his, or those special abilities of the Heavenly Venerables and Main Gods, they all appeared at the level of LV4 (Limit).

And the function of the abilities was all related to the power manifested by their own bodies — Baichuan's high temperature, the golden flames upon the Radiant Lord's true body, the treasure qi exhaled by the Treasure-Swallowing Golden Toad, the life vines of the Pseudo-Serpent Vine… all were like this.

If it truly was so, then perhaps the bloodlines of those Heavenly Venerables, and the source behind them, were no simple matter either.

One must know that those several mysterious clumps of blood had already had most of their own divine strangeness extracted by those researchers and transformed into barrier permissions, and had been crudely cultivated by an unfamiliar mountain behemoth under the creation of technology.

Yet even after being weakened layer upon layer like this, they still possessed terrifying might!

Perhaps in the future, he might truly encounter these beings in their fully grown, prime states — one could not say for certain.

Thinking thus, Baichuan also slowly retracted his first born Heavenly Divine Ability,

Along with the disappearance of the flames, the scorching high temperature also gradually vanished under the ship's circulatory system; what appeared in place was a mysterious Dragon Species with black-and-gold firelight flickering upon its four claws.

This was his brand-new posture after breakthrough; the high-temperature heat throughout his body no longer required him to spare extra effort to control and suppress it, but instead, with the help of this Heavenly Divine Ability, all of his high-temperature heat was contained within it.

His own high-temperature heat, as well as the Spirit power consumed through daily activity, would all spontaneously gather into the black-and-gold flames flickering upon his four claws, augmenting their might; when needed, they would Burst forth with earth-shattering, terrifying power!

Now, his appearance was finally not only different in color from the plain, unremarkable look of other dragon-types, but also in outward appearance.

Even placed among all dragon-types, he could probably be called a handsome dragon now — hmm, if 【Dragon Blood LV3】 could be considered worthy of being called a dragon…

Perhaps it was time to give his current appearance, this special Dragon Species, an exclusive name.

After all, no matter how one put it, he could be considered a dragon, even if the purity of this Dragon Blood might not necessarily be high.

Baichuan slowly pondered; he looked at the flames carried upon his Dragon Claws, and under some inexplicable inspiration, could not help but blurt out: "How about calling it 【Flame-Treading Blaze Dragon】!"

Blaze Dragon represents what his current strongest power is, as well as the most obvious first impression he gives,

And Flame Treading is his first high-level ability, belonging solely to him, born from a certain metamorphosis of his own life tier.

……

(End of this chapter)