"My Spirit Souls all have a bright future. I will show them the path, point them in the direction of godhood, and urge them towards it," Su Ming said with a serious expression.
Although Su Ming's words sounded sincere, her intuition as an Auspicious Beast made the Three-Eyed Golden Lion take a step back.
She looked at Su Ming and cautiously asked, "But this Star Tree has been with you for a long time, right? And it's still only at the thousand-year level?"
When she sacrificed herself earlier, she had seen Su Ming's Spirit Rings.
Yellow, Purple, Black, Black, Orange-red. The orange-red one belonged to the kindly-looking old man, the Blue Silver Emperor. The aura of the two black Spirit Rings clearly didn't match the Star Tree's, but the purple thousand-year Spirit Ring's aura was similar to the Star Tree's.
A thousand years... is that really a bright future?
Su Ming looked at the Three-Eyed Golden Lion with a smile, not answering directly.
"Can't you sense it yourself?"
Su Ming's counter-question made the Three-Eyed Golden Lion freeze in place.
She turned to look at the Star Tree Spirit Soul again and had to admit she couldn't perceive its realm at all. Her judgment of the Star Tree Spirit Soul's age was based solely on the correlation between Su Ming's Spirit Ring and the Star Tree's aura.
"I told you, every Spirit Soul has their own path to godhood. Xingchen's cultivation is still in the accumulation phase. When the time is right, his cultivation will skyrocket even faster than yours."
Su Ming didn't elaborate further on the Star Tree's cultivation direction.
"Since you've joined us, you should have a name. You are the Three-Eyed Golden Lion, so from now on, I'll call you Xiao Rui."
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness; she almost thought Su Ming would call her Xiao San.
"Can I be called Di Rui?"
She wanted to share Di Tian's family name.
Su Ming glanced at her but did not reject her suggestion.
He wouldn't coddle the Spirit Beast race. If Di Rui, as a member of that race, wanted to help them, he wouldn't stop her.
After all, strictly speaking, he just refused to be morally blackmailed; it wasn't as if he had no connection to the Spirit Beast race at all. All his Spirit Souls, except for the Light Sphere, were Spirit Beasts.
"You are connected to the fate of the Spirit Beast race, but you are also trapped by it. At fifteen thousand years, you would have suffered the backlash of fate. Now, I have borne that karma for you. Continue your cultivation from now on. I will stabilize a strand of the power of Fate within the Sea of Consciousness; you should focus on comprehending it."
The so-called karma actually referred to bearing the pressure from Tang San.
Regarding this, Su Ming felt that since he already had so many debts, one more didn't matter.
His grievances with Tang San were already numerous; this little bit extra made no difference.
After settling Di Rui, Su Ming began to examine his gains.
"The Auspicious Beast's sacrifice gave me not only a golden Spirit Ring but also two Spirit Skills: Fate's Sorrow, which nullifies all non-spirit power defenses; and Soul Severance, which causes all mental defenses to lose their effect."
Both major Spirit Skills bore the mark of Fate attributes and were geared towards dismantling enemy defenses—one targeting the physical, the other the spiritual.
Additionally, Di Rui provided him with a Fate Head Bone. This skull bone contained the power of Fate and possessed evolvable characteristics. Since Su Ming himself mastered the power of Fate, fusing with this head bone directly triggered its first evolution.
The head bone possessed its own defensive ability, a mental defense that could temporarily grant immunity to five mental-attribute Spirit Skills. This effect had a cooldown period of one day.
Furthermore, it came with two Spirit Skills: one was a pure mental-attribute Spirit Skill—Soul Shockwave, which caused the opponent's soul to tremble, dealing severe damage from the inside out. The other was Fate's Judgment, which allowed him to mobilize the power of Fate in the capacity of an arbiter, bringing misfortune upon an enemy while converting it into good fortune for another person.
Luck remained constant; it was merely transferred from one person to another.
If Su Ming remembered correctly, in the original work, Huo Yuhao could only cause enemies to be plagued by misfortune without being able to control where the transferred luck went.
Now, he could perform luck transference.
"My method is actually more scientific. It doesn't cause chaos in fate, as it only involves two parties, rather than randomly discarding luck into the world, leading to disorder in fate."
After Su Ming finished sorting out the abilities of his Spirit Ring and Spirit Bone, Du Busi finally stepped forward.
"You really managed to get it for free, kid. Di Tian actually compromised."
He looked utterly amazed.
"Teacher, everything has its pros and cons. Losing the Auspicious Beast is certainly a loss for the Spirit Beasts, but they did gain something from it as well."
Du Busi waved his hand.
"Enough of that. You're going to talk about the godhood matter again, aren't you?"
His expectations for Su Ming achieving godhood had always been high, but he remained clear-headed.
A hundred-thousand-year fifth Spirit Ring was powerful, exceptional. In the eyes of all Spirit Masters, such talent suggested the potential to become a god.
But, a hundred-thousand-year seventh Spirit Ring?
A hundred-thousand-year seventh ring on a single Martial Spirit—did that suggest the potential to become a god?
Was the difference really that great?
Over the years, Du Busi had pondered this deeply. He recalled the Sea God's ascension ten thousand years ago, consulted records, but simply couldn't find where Tang San's configuration was better than Su Ming's.
Even considering Twin Martial Spirits, Tang San still couldn't compare to Su Ming.
But he still ascended.
Over ten thousand years, how many Spirit Masters with configurations superior to Tang San's had failed to ascend?
What made Du Busi most sober was Su Ming's Spirit Power.
"Little Ming, your spirit power..."
"The boost from Di Rui isn't huge. After all, she's only fifteen thousand years old; it only raised me to level sixty-two."
Strictly speaking, a fifteen-thousand-year Spirit Ring wasn't even considered high for a fifth ring.
"Xiao Rui's cultivation is still too low; she needs to cultivate fiercely for a while."
The four Spirit Skills she provided were already very powerful. If she could advance to the hundred-thousand-year level, these Spirit Skills would undoubtedly undergo a transformation.
"Level sixty-two, and one of those levels came from my own cultivation over the past three months." Su Ming sighed. "One level in three months... that speed is so slow."
The corner of Du Busi's mouth twitched.
He really wanted to cover his ears.
Was Su Ming even speaking human language?
Spirit Emperor, one level in three months? In the Spirit Master world, that was a breakthrough speed only achievable through great opportunity, and you think maintaining that as your normal pace isn't enough?
Noticing Du Busi's expression, Su Ming felt it was impossible to explain to his teacher.
Three months per level seemed fast, but it was actually slow.
Doing the math carefully, four levels a year meant only twelve levels in three years!
And he was only at level sixty-two!
He still needed thirty-eight levels to reach one hundred, which would take at least three of those three-year periods—nine years!
He had just turned sixteen. In nine years, he would be twenty-five.
"Rather than your leveling speed, I think you should focus more on your next Spirit Core," Du Busi said, exasperated. "Although the condensation of your second Spirit Core was smooth and uneventful, the resources it consumed were not insignificant."
There was the Spirit Core Battle Armor, plus the fusion of two hundred-thousand-year torso bones.
How was he supposed to condense the third Spirit Core?
Su Ming couldn't help but sigh as well.
"Don't worry, Teacher. I have some ideas about the third Spirit Core. Worst case scenario, I'll just use Soul Refined metal to forge myself a top-tier set of Spirit Core Battle Armor."
Du Busi shook his head.
"What I'm worried about is what comes after."
If the goal was truly to reach level one hundred and become a god, how does one cultivate after the third Spirit Core?
Can three Spirit cores support cultivation all the way to level one hundred?
Ugh, ended up updating late in the evening again today. Can't keep this up. Tomorrow, I'll post at least one chapter in the morning and finish the rest in the afternoon.
Two more chapters coming later.
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