Dugu Bo was dragging the tail of a massive dragon-type soul beast, pulling the enormous body of the soul beast forward. With the help of his eyes modified by the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew, Chen Ming could see that the dragon-type soul beast had a body length of roughly nine meters.
Its neck was relatively short, only about one meter, but its tail was very long, approximately three meters. Its entire body was covered in earthy yellow scales, except for the area at the center of its forehead, where the scales were a pure golden color.
The size of this soul beast was immense. Even with Dugu Bo's strength as a Title Douluo, dragging such a massive soul beast significantly slowed him down.
Moreover, to keep the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well from being discovered, Dugu Bo had to occasionally erase the traces left by dragging the dragon along the ground.
The soul beast was already dead, but the soul power accumulated within it remained incredibly abundant, even more so than a living ten-thousand-year soul beast of average quality. Because it had just died, its vigorous blood and energy were still active.
Chen Ming's gaze focused on the soul beast's limbs, which were extraordinarily thick and appeared to possess unimaginable strength.
Its scales were as tough as golden iron, and its bones and muscles were incredibly dense as if they were not made of flesh and blood but some rare metal.
Dugu Bo slowly dragged the soul beast into his poison field. To prevent the poison from damaging the soul beast's flesh, Dugu Bo was extremely cautious.
When Dugu Bo saw Chen Ming waiting for him at the edge of the poison field, he excitedly approached him and took out a piece of soul bone radiating golden light from the Wishful Hundred Treasure Pouch at his waist.
The soul bone was fresh and brimming with soul power, filled with vitality and spiritual energy. It was clear that this soul bone had been obtained recently and had never been refined by anyone before.
"Xiao Ming, take this soul bone and keep it safe. I originally just wanted to find some dinner, but I didn't expect this soul beast's bloodline to be even higher than I imagined."
"I initially thought it was just an earth dragon with a trace of Golden Dragon bloodline. But to my surprise, its bloodline was already close to the level of a Golden Earth Dragon. Given another ten thousand years or so, it could have truly become a Golden Earth Dragon."
Dugu Bo then described the process of dealing with this soul beast.
When Dugu Bo first arrived, he found the soul beast lying in its lair, seemingly not long after a hearty meal.
Upon seeing an intruder, the earth dragon went berserk.
At first, Dugu Bo didn't take it seriously. He simply circulated his soul power, intending to crush the earth dragon's brain with a single blow from within.
However, when his slap, which was enough to kill a ten-thousand-year soul beast, landed on the earth dragon's head, it only paused briefly and was otherwise unharmed.
During its resistance, the earth dragon activated the Golden Dragon bloodline within its body, causing its strength to surge. This gave Dugu Bo, who didn't want to use poison, a small surprise—it almost managed to injure him.
After some thought, Dugu Bo used his eighth soul skill, Time Freeze, to restrain the earth dragon. Then, he quickly circulated his soul power to attack the back of its head, throat, and chest, killing it outright.
Considering that the earth dragon's quality was higher than expected and that he was in a good mood, Dugu Bo decided to thoroughly inspect the earth dragon's body for soul bones.
Dugu Bo didn't think he'd find anything at first, but when he touched the spine, he unexpectedly unearthed a torso bone emitting a golden glow from the dragon's flesh.
This discovery even startled Dugu Bo himself—after all, it was like casually drawing a daily pull and hitting the jackpot with an SSR item.
Originally, Dugu Bo just wanted to carve out some good meat and leave the rest outside for other soul beasts to deal with. But now, he had no choice but to drag the earth dragon's massive body bit by bit to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. Killing the earth dragon didn't take much effort; he only consumed some soul power. However, dragging this giant beast back and cleaning up the traces took quite a bit of energy.
Although the ten-thousand-year-grade torso bone was of excellent quality and Dugu Bo himself didn't have a torso bone yet, he still wanted to give this high-quality soul bone to Chen Ming for absorption.
After hearing Dugu Bo's words, Chen Ming fell silent for a moment.
Could it be that Dugu Bo's luck truly turned around? Even a casual hunt for dinner resulted in a soul bone?
Although the torso bone in his hand seemed to be of great quality, Chen Ming had no intention of absorbing it.
Unlike external soul bones, which could grow over time, standard soul bones could only have their age increased through specialized methods. Even tens of thousands of years into the future, such methods would remain secret techniques and incredibly difficult to achieve.
Absorbing this soul bone now would indeed bring significant benefits, but when the time came to hunt higher-age, higher-quality soul beasts, this less-than-twenty-thousand-year-old torso bone could become a hindrance.
If it were a left leg bone, Chen Ming might have absorbed it. But as for torso bones and head bones, which were highly important, Chen Ming would never settle unless necessary.
After some thought, Chen Ming pushed the torso bone back into Dugu Bo's hands.
"This torso bone should be absorbed by you, Grandpa. This wasn't my gain to begin with."
"Xiao Ming…" Dugu Bo thought Chen Ming didn't understand the value of a soul bone and tried to explain. But before he could finish, Chen Ming turned and approached the dead earth dragon, ignoring Dugu Bo.
Seeing Chen Ming's attitude, Dugu Bo couldn't help but chuckle. He sat cross-legged and began absorbing the soul bone.
Absorbing a soul bone was similar to absorbing a soul ring; it was the most vulnerable moment for a soul master. If someone launched a sneak attack during this time, even an ordinary person without soul power could potentially kill a lofty Title Douluo.
Dugu Bo's action to absorb the soul bone in Chen Ming's presence was a testament to his trust in him.
Chen Ming activated his still-unnamed eye technique, carefully observing Dugu Bo's state and recording the changes in his body as he absorbed the soul bone.
The life force within the soul bone merged into Dugu Bo's body, enhancing his life essence and slightly repairing his aging body. The soul bone's inherent power was absorbed and transformed into a part of Dugu Bo himself, and the soul power it contained was gradually refined.
When Dugu Bo had recently broken through to level 92, thanks to Chen Ming helping to neutralize some of his poison, his progress toward level 93 was about 60% complete. While the soul power within this soul bone wasn't enough to allow a Title Douluo to level up, it was sufficient to fill the remaining 40%.
As the soul bone was refined, Dugu Bo's state improved significantly, and his soul power level jumped to 93. Within just one day, he achieved the continent-shaking feat of a two-level leap for a Title Douluo.