As the condensation of the fossil soul bone entered its final stage, Xiao Lin gradually realized a problem.
A fossil soul bone was still a soul bone—but could a fossil truly fuse into a soul master's body?
Unable to help himself, Xiao Lin asked the two Dragon Kings.
"Xiao Lin, the soul bone you asked us to condense using the residual soul of the soul beast and the soul power within the fossil—its essence is soul power, not fossil matter."
The Fire Dragon King replied calmly.
Hearing this, Xiao Lin nodded. That made sense—given the Ice Dragon King's abilities, there was no way he'd fail at something so trivial.
However, at this moment, Yu Tianheng and the others were standing more than twenty meters away, staring at him in shock.
If he directly condensed a soul bone, wouldn't that risk exposing himself?
Xiao Lin told the Ice Dragon King his concerns, and the Ice Dragon King immediately reassured him that others wouldn't be able to tell.
After all, soul bones didn't really look like actual bones.
Their shapes were irregular. As long as he made a fossil soul bone that wasn't a standard type, it would be fine.
For example—finger bones.
The soul power contained within the Xuanming Stone was pitifully small. Even for the Ice Dragon King, it was impossible to use Xiao Lin's soul power to turn it into something like a hundred-year soul bone.
In that case, if it was only a ten-year soul bone, then making it smaller would do.
Under the Ice Dragon King's deliberate control, the soul power vortex atop Xiao Lin's Xuanming Stone condensed even further.
In the end, it became no bigger than a mung bean.
Such a tiny soul core.
Xiao Lin couldn't help but complain inwardly—this kind of soul core would have no practical value even if turned into a soul bone.
It could only be used for research.
At the same time, under the Ice Dragon King's compression, the influence of Extreme Ice was greatly reduced.
Yu Tianheng and the others could no longer even feel the cold.
If not for the frost covering the grass beneath their feet, they would have suspected that the extreme chill from earlier had been an illusion.
"Xiao Lin's control is incredible."
Dugu Yan narrowed her eyes, leaning against Yu Tianheng's shoulder as she spoke softly.
"Indeed. So this is actually soul power control training."
Yu Tianheng nodded. He finally understood what kind of training Xiao Lin was doing.
Previously, Xiao Lin's body would condense two rotating soul power cores, but anyone could see that even Xiao Lin himself couldn't perfectly withstand the pressure from them.
Now, seeing what Xiao Lin was doing, how could Yu Tianheng not understand?
"I used to think Xiao Lin was already incredibly strong. I thought when he was busy researching, that was our chance to catch up to him. But I never expected that he'd still train this hard."
Yu Tianheng frowned—not out of jealousy, but out of anger at his own laxness.
What right did he have to feel complacent?
"He's basically a superhuman."
Hearing the conversation between the couple, Yu Tianheng and Dugu Yan, Shi Mo pursed his lips, shook his head, and sighed.
"A hardworking superhuman."
Shi Mo fully agreed.
"The achievements Xiao Lin and the others have today didn't come from luck. They must have undergone extremely intense training from a very young age."
Yu Tianheng had already begun imagining how hard Xiao Lin and the others must have trained right after awakening their martial souls.
By comparison, his own childhood training had been task-oriented.
Though that kind of training was already far harsher than what ordinary people endured, there had still been time to rest, time to play.
At this moment, Yu Tianheng completely acknowledged Xiao Lin.
When someone more talented than you is also more hardworking, the only option left is to work even harder.
For the next stage, he decided to double the intensity of his dragon transformation training.
Meanwhile, the expressions of the Shi brothers—Shi Mo and Shi Mo—also grew heavy.
The Xuanming Stone was a treasured heirloom of their family. Although there were quite a few in storage, they were meant to help clan soul masters awaken their martial souls.
Using one for cultivation meant permanently losing one.
If not for the evolution of their martial souls, even they would have had difficulty obtaining a Xuanming Stone.
Now that the Xuanming Stone seemed to be assisting Xiao Lin's cultivation, it became even more impossible for them to catch up to him.
"This won't do. I'm going home."
Shi Mo suddenly spoke, startling the other three.
"Shi Mo, what's wrong with you…?"
The three looked at him—his brows tightly furrowed, fists clenched, clearly hesitating.
Before long, Shi Mo's twin brother Shi Mo understood what he was thinking.
"You're planning to go to that secret realm?"
"Are you crazy?! That place is a secret realm where even Soul Kings have a nine-out-of-ten chance of dying!"
Shi Mo suddenly realized what he meant and shouted loudly—he didn't want his brother to die like that.
That secret realm was a rocky cavern within their family's territory, filled with bone-piercing cold and endless killing intent.
If Shi Mo made even the slightest mistake, he could be frozen to death—or driven insane by the killing intent.
Nine deaths out of ten—the nine being death, and the one chance of survival meaning becoming insane.
So far, only their astonishingly talented ancestor had survived it and passed down the Black Tortoise martial soul.
"Shi Mo, I'm not crazy. Everyone is getting stronger so fast—what's our purpose then?"
"If defensive-type battle soul masters can't protect our teammates, what use are we?"
It wasn't that Shi Mo couldn't protect others, but with people like Xiao Lin and Yu Tianheng around, his protection simply wasn't needed anymore.
Shi Mo didn't want to be someone useless to the team.
So he decided to take the risk and enter that secret realm, to make himself stronger.
"Alright then. I'll go with you—but you have to promise me we won't go until we reach Soul King."
After thinking it through, Shi Mo felt that Shi Mo's reasoning made sense.
But sense aside, one thing had to be guaranteed—they had to come out alive.
Only after becoming Soul Kings would they have a sufficient chance of surviving.
Listening to their exchange, Yu Tianheng and Dugu Yan also understood what the brothers were planning.
And at that very moment, Xiao Lin's fossil soul bone was about to fully condense.
Suddenly, massive amounts of spiritual energy were drawn toward Xiao Lin, quickly catching the attention of Yu Tianheng and the others.
Then, before their incredulous eyes—
A blue orb, about the size of a marble, gradually formed in Xiao Lin's hand.
"What is that? Is it one of Xiao Lin's self-created soul skills?"
Under the shocked gazes of the four, Xiao Lin clenched his fist, and the blue marble vanished.
However, they could clearly see that Xiao Lin's complexion was terrible.
"Xiao Lin!"
The four rushed to his side, faces full of concern.
"Did you get injured by backlash?"
Dugu Yan asked anxiously.
At this moment, Xiao Lin looked exactly like she had back when she'd been poisoned and weakened.
"It's nothing—I just used too much soul power."
Xiao Lin pretended to be weak. Although his face looked as bad as if he'd used some life-draining ultimate technique, his body was perfectly fine.
He could easily fight all four of them at once.
The reason for this act was simple—Xiao Lin didn't want the fact that he could create soul bones to be exposed.
The fewer people who knew, the better.
Still, Xiao Lin was also curious about what kind of soul bone the Ice Dragon King had created.
It didn't feel like part of the basic soul bone set—rather, it seemed more like an external soul bone.
Was he about to gain a new external soul bone?
(End of Chapter)