Chapter 108: Bones, Skeletons, and Soul Bones
The middle-aged Soul Emperor was startled when he saw a token that symbolized the identity and status of an elder of the Spirit Hall appear before his eyes.
"So you are a disciple of a certain elder. I am truly sorry. I did not come here to disturb your practice."
As he spoke, the middle-aged Soul Emperor glanced at the corpse of the soul master in his hand and explained, "The Death Canyon is extremely dangerous. Some foreign soul masters enter the canyon to obtain the soul rings they desire, but they don't understand the conditions in the canyon. They can easily be attacked by soul beasts and die."
"Although it's a bit inappropriate to say this. But the only thing our Spirit Hall can do for those foreign spirit masters is to collect their bodies. This body today is relatively intact, and only the lower half was eaten by a spirit beast."
After hearing this, Xia Liang took the elder's order, put his hands behind his back, and said confidently, "I want to use this place as a training ground. I will be in seclusion here for a long time. I don't want to be disturbed like today."
"Understood. I will report your request to Bishop Sachs as soon as I return, sir. Excuse me, which elder issued the elder's order you are holding? If the higher-ups ask, I will be able to answer you."
Xia Liang handed over the back of the Elder's Order.
Seeing the words "blood-piercing" engraved on the back of the elder's order with special material, the middle-aged Soul Emperor put aside his suspicion. He simply buried the corpse in the soil and left immediately without disturbing it again.
Xia Liang didn't expect the Elder's Order to be so effective. After this incident, no more deacons from the Spirit Hall would come to this cemetery to bury the dead.
One month later.
Death Canyon, outer area.
In the valley forest.
Xia Liang sat cross-legged in the middle of a 300-meter-wide cemetery, meditating. Five balls of black and purple ghost fire were circling around his body. Combined with the surrounding cemetery environment, it really gave people a weird and terrifying feeling.
A faint black aura burst out from his body. Xia Liang ended his meditation and used his perspective to measure the thickness of his soul power.
About the same time as expected.
After practicing in the Death Canyon for a month, his soul power finally broke through from level 48 to level 49.
Next, one only needs to convert the energy of several pieces of ten thousand year old cold marrow into one's own soul power, which can save most of the training time and directly break through to the bottleneck of level 50.
It's also time to consider how to obtain the fifth soul ring.
Half a month ago, the black and purple will-o'-the-wisp found the trace of the Shadow Lord.
This kind of soul beast indeed lives in the Death Canyon.
And it is hidden in the core area of Death Canyon.
Since the Shadow Lord will release a large amount of dark energy to cover the place where it lives and turn it into its own territory, the black and purple will-o'-the-wisp can only be viewed from afar by Haunter and cannot be approached at all.
The only thing that is certain at the moment is that the Shadow Lord hidden in the core area of the Death Canyon must have cultivated for more than ten thousand years. Otherwise, no matter how good his bloodline is, it would be difficult for him to occupy a place in the core area if his cultivation level does not reach ten thousand years.
With his current physical strength and mental power, he should be able to absorb a fifth soul ring with a history of more than 40,000 years.
Xia Liang only hoped that the cultivation level of the Shadow Lord in the core area would not be too low.
In order to avoid being overtaken by others, you still need to act as soon as possible.
Suddenly, a strange sound attracted Xia Liang's attention.
The rustling sound was like someone changing clothes, or the rubbing of leaves. With his alert heart, Xia Liang immediately stood up, turned on his perspective and looked carefully in the direction of the sound.
Then he saw the person who made the sound.
What appeared in the field of vision was a giant spider with a main body diameter of more than three meters. Its entire body was covered with a shiny black and purple shell, and its long legs had slender tips. Every step forward pierced the ground silently, showing how sharp they were.
Xia Liang spotted it, and it seemed to have spotted Xia Liang, too. Its eight long legs moved rapidly, creating a series of phantoms, and in the blink of an eye it had arrived in front of Xia Liang. Two of its front legs instantly lifted up and stabbed directly at Xia Liang's head.
The lifting of its front legs inevitably caused the body to rise as well, allowing Xia Liang to see its abdomen.
A layer of fluffy green hair covers the abdomen, and there is a disgusting mucus, which is a highly corrosive death poison.
The giant spider that suddenly attacked was not a human-faced demon spider, but a death demon spider.
It seemed that this Death Demon Spider had fought with other soul master. An arrow had shot through one of the fluffy green hairs on its abdomen, and the golden arrow in energy form was still stuck under the abdomen of the Death Demon Spider.
The golden energy arrow that injured the Death Demon Spider should be a soul skill, which means that it has fought with a soul master with a bow and arrow type martial spirit before.
Seeing the Death Spider raising its front paws to stab at him, Xia Liang activated his third soul skill, Bone Dragon Transformation, without hesitation, gaining the right to use the space attribute for half an hour.
Relying on the ability to jump in space within a radius of ten meters, he dodged the long legs of the Death Spider and instantly appeared behind the Death Spider's body.
As the Undead Skeleton Martial Spirit was released, the black and purple ribs covering Xia Liang's body quickly grew a skeleton right arm, and the huge skeleton metacarpal bone slammed down towards the back of the Death Spider.
At this moment, the Death Demon Spider spit spider silk towards a large tree in front of it. When the spider silk wrapped around the tree trunk, it quickly left the spot as if being pulled away by the spider silk, thus avoiding the slap of the skeleton metacarpal bone.
Judging from the series of operations just now, this Death Demon Spider obviously has a certain ability to think. For a soul beast without spiritual attributes, it can think like a human. It is most likely a ten thousand-year-old soul beast that has become intelligent.
This is indeed the case. Xia Liang saw through his X-ray vision that the soul power flowing in the body of this death spider was black, and its cultivation had been at least over 20,000 years.
Just when the Death Spider cleverly used spider silk to avoid the blow of the skeleton's metacarpal bones, its entire body suddenly changed from flesh and blood to a spider-shaped skeleton in Xia Liang's eyes.
The white spider skeleton, including the seven spider legs, all the bones are white, except for the left front leg which is black-purple.
Today's perspective effect has reached the level of bone viewing, and one can dissect the flesh, meridians and skeleton of a living creature with one's mind.
Just now in Xia Liang's eyes, the Death Spider changed from a flesh and blood body into a skeleton, which was caused by the bone-viewing effect of the perspective power.
The skeleton shape of this Death Spider, the bone color of its left front leg is different from that of other spider legs, and it is very likely the prototype of the soul bone.
Why did Xia Liang have such a guess?
Because during the one month of training in the Death Canyon, he had observed the skeletons of countless soul beasts. Even soul beasts with more than 30,000 years of cultivation had white skeletons.
The overall skeleton of this Death Spider is also white, but its left front leg is a separate black-purple color.
Therefore, Xia Liang quickly thought of this strange-colored bone part. It might be the prototype of a soul bone. When the energy after death gathers with the prototype of the soul bone, a real soul bone will be born.
The original novel said that a hundred thousand year old soul beast would definitely give the killer a soul bone that it did not have.
In other words, the generation of soul bones is random and comes with a certain completion mechanism.
If the black and purple left front leg of the Death Demon Spider's skeleton form is really the prototype of the soul bone, doesn't that mean that the soul bone was produced before the soul beast died?
This obviously contradicts the setting of the soul bone in the original work.
An idea suddenly appeared in Xia Liang's mind. The skeletons of ordinary soul beasts are white. Would the skeletons of 100,000-year soul beasts be all different colors?
For example, the soul bones of Xiao Wu were pink.
Then after she changes from a flesh and blood body into a skeleton form, all her bones will appear pink, which means that all her bones are the prototypes of soul bones. It depends on which part of the soul bone the killer lacks.
Xia Liang regretted that when he first met Xiao Wu, his clairvoyance had not yet awakened to the bone-viewing realm, so he could not see the specific color of Xiao Wu's skeleton.
However, if you kill the Death Spider in front of you and get the left leg bone as you wish, it can actually prove indirectly that the different-colored bones in the shape of a skeleton are the prototype of the soul bone.