However, all the effort was worth it. Decades and hundreds of thousands of gold soul coins successfully cultivated an Emerald Scorpion with nine tail segments, just as it broke through the thousand-year mark. Its essence was several times richer than that of an ordinary Emerald Scorpion of the same age, making it a rare and valuable treasure.
If this scorpion were put up for auction, its value would not fall short of that of an average-quality thousand-year soul bone.
When Chen Shijie advanced to the Soul Elder rank, he couldn't bring himself to use this Emerald Scorpion. Similarly, when Chen Tianyun reached the same stage, the family still refrained from using this precious resource. But now, as Chen Ming was about to advance to the rank of Soul Grandmaster, the decades-old gold-eating beast was finally ready to serve its purpose.
Chen Ming activated his martial soul, and with a slight twitch of the scorpion tail behind him, the entire tail penetrated the Emerald Scorpion's head. With a gentle release of soul power, the scorpion trembled briefly before a purple soul ring rose from its body.
"What incredible penetration! You pierced this mutated Emerald Scorpion's head without even using any poison. If this were a human below level 30, even a defensive-type Soul Master without top-tier beast martial souls like the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon or Diamond Mammoth would be completely penetrated despite using two soul skills," Chen Tianyun exclaimed, clapping in admiration at the display.
"It's probably because of my strong physique and the high quality of my martial soul," Chen Ming replied casually, his eyes fixed on the purple soul ring.
This Emerald Scorpion, artificially raised into a unique variant, was exceedingly valuable. Even after its death, its remains could serve numerous purposes, easily recovering tens of thousands of gold soul coins in value.
While Chen Ming no longer lacked money in this life, he wasn't yet so wealthy as to waste resources frivolously. Thus, during the process of killing the scorpion, he refrained from using poison to avoid contaminating the valuable materials. He even consciously suppressed the toxic properties of his martial soul, ensuring the resources remained intact.
The moment Chen Ming saw the soul ring, he felt his martial soul surge with hunger as if absorbing this ring would perfectly complete it.
Without hesitation, Chen Ming steadied his breath, adjusted his state, and sat cross-legged before the scorpion, using his soul power to guide the soul ring.
The purple soul ring quivered slightly before transforming into a streak of light and entering Chen Ming's body. As the fusion began, a fiery alien soul power surged through his meridians.
This fiery soul power was of exceedingly high quality. Most level 30 Soul Masters would struggle immensely to absorb it, but they encountered Chen Ming instead. Both in quality and quantity, the Emerald Scorpion's soul power fell significantly short compared to Chen Ming's soul power.
The innate dominance of a Scorpion King-level martial soul suppressed the Emerald Scorpion's soul power activity, while Chen Ming's abundant soul power and spiritual power firmly bound the energy, allowing it to flow smoothly through his wide meridians.
After several cycles, the Emerald Scorpion's soul ring began to resist less and less. The once-unified soul power gradually split into strands, which Chen Ming's soul power meticulously broke down and crushed.
After over a dozen cycles, the Emerald Scorpion's soul power and essence were entirely absorbed by Chen Ming, merging into his body. At this point, Chen Ming felt his consciousness elevate to another level.
Because the Emerald Scorpion's traits perfectly matched his martial soul, even though its quality was lower than the Jade Phosphorous Flower of the Seven Absolutes, the number of soul skills available for Chen Ming to choose from was significantly greater.
From enhancement to attack to control, the array of soul skills was vast, though their strength varied greatly. Many were unimpressive, mere fillers with subpar effects, which Chen Ming quickly dismissed. Instead, he focused on functional soul skills.
What he found astonished him—among the Emerald Scorpion's inherited laws was a unique skill that was so exceptional, that it could only be described as overpowered, if not entirely beyond the norm.
The user of this skill, ten thousand years later, was once a mere Soul King but managed to heavily wound and kill several high-level Soul Kings from Shrek Academy with ease. They even toyed with a Super Douluo who had a soul power level of 98. If not for encountering the world's protagonist—a child of destiny—who summoned the remnant soul of a god-level expert from another world to attack, they might have escaped unscathed.
Yes, the user of this skill was none other than the Grim Reaper Envoy of ten thousand years later, the strongest Soul King in the history of Douluo (without exception).
However, due to the differences in martial souls, the Emerald Scorpion's skill that Chen Ming observed was not a Corpse Explosion technique. Instead, it was a Poison Explosion technique, which operates on the same principles but manifests differently. The power is the same, but the range of applications is broader, and it's more convenient to use.
Poison Explosion, as the name suggests, is a soul skill that triggers an explosion of poison-attribute soul power. The brilliance of this skill lies in the fact that a single unit of soul power can exert tenfold or even twentyfold power at the moment of explosion. Moreover, the power has no upper limit—the more poison, the higher the intensity, and the more astonishing the explosion's force and range.
While Corpse Explosion requires both a corpse and potent poison, Poison Explosion only has one requirement: the presence of poison. Whether it's a corpse, a living person, or even a rock, Chen Ming can transform it into a bomb using this skill.
To put it bluntly, although this soul ring is merely a thousand-year-level one, and the skill is also of a thousand-year level, even someone like Dugu Bo might consider removing his ninth soul ring just to gain this ability.
Not poisoned? No problem—you're already marked by my poison-attribute soul power! I'll just detonate it directly. If the poison doesn't kill you, the explosion will!
If Dugu Bo had this skill, he wouldn't be known as the weakest Titled Douluo; instead, he'd be the strongest burst-damage Titled Douluo.
The only drawback of this soul skill is similar to the Ice Explosion technique of the Ice Jade Scorpion clan: it requires the user's poison-attribute soul power to trigger the explosion. To harm an enemy, a medium imbued with their poison-attribute soul power must approach the target or the target must be poisoned outright.
In general situations, this limitation can be awkward. After all, if the enemy is already poisoned, using this skill might seem redundant. If the poison cannot infiltrate the target's body, the intent might become obvious, allowing the enemy to evade part of the effect.
However, for Chen Ming, this limitation is minimal, if not negligible.
After all, Chen Ming's first soul skill is the Poison Cloud Technique, which creates a massive poisonous cloud...
Despite being in a peculiar mental state, Chen Ming could not suppress his excitement. He meticulously examined every law within the Emerald Scorpion's bloodline that could transform into a soul skill. After finding none comparable to Poison Explosion, he decisively etched the law into his second soul ring, forming the skill.
At the same time, Chen Ming's manifested martial soul began trembling slightly, seemingly stimulated by the fusion of the Emerald Scorpion's essence. He could feel his martial soul transforming—not significantly stronger, but undeniably more complete.
If Chen Ming's Emerald Scorpion martial soul at the time of awakening was akin to a large, leaky water bucket, then after obtaining the soul ring of the Jade Phosphorous Flower of the Seven Absolutes, the leaks had been patched, though the bucket remained only half full. Now, with the Emerald Scorpion soul ring, the bucket hadn't expanded much, but it had been filled to its theoretical capacity.
From now on, Chen Ming's innate soul power could no longer be measured as a mere level five—it should be recognized as a truly innate full soul power.
The method prescribed by Qian Daoliu had indeed perfectly resolved the problem that had plagued their family for centuries.