Xiao Wu was someone who could never sit still.
Even though she'd become much more composed over the past two years following Nangong Lingyun's cultivation guidance, and her strength was already vastly superior to the version of her from the same time period in the original story, today was a rare day off. Her excitement made her revert a bit to her original nature the moment she hopped into the carriage.
She had a huge pile of carrots in her arms, munching away crunch crunch while chattering nonstop, asking all sorts of questions. Her eyes never rested for a second, full of curiosity as they darted around at everything.
After leaving the city, the scenery outside became repetitive, so she grabbed onto Jerry and "interrogated" him:
"Little Ruirui, do you have any plans for your soul rings?"
"Grandpa told me to listen to Brother Ayun."
"But this is a major life decision! It affects your future development! Don't you have any thoughts of your own?"
"Brother Ayun knows more than I do."
Jerry had a rather shy personality and spoke in a muffled voice. Once Xiao Wu pressed him with questions, his cheeks turned red.
Nangong Lingyun quickly took over the conversation.
"Little Jerry's spirit is the mutated Blood-Marked Blue Silver Grass. In addition to its original life and plant attributes, it also gained some blood-qi attributes.
This new trait allows for many more developmental directions than the average Blue Silver Grass.
In my opinion, there are four main paths he could take:
First is utilizing the life and blood-qi properties for healing and recovery. If he picks plant-type soul beasts with corresponding attributes, the martial spirit itself can also gain some minor control capabilities.
Possible soul rings include Rose, Begonia, Snow Lotus, Blood-Replenishing Grass, and so on.
Second, Blue Silver Grass has a hidden trait called Devour.
If you heavily focus on strengthening this ability and combine it with life and blood-qi attributes, it can become a rare debuff-type control and support spirit.
For this route, you should go for beasts like Bloodthirsty Vine, Hollow Demon Willow, or Killer Bramble.
Third is the classic plant-type flow—half control, half attack.
Ideal soul beasts here would be Skygreen Vine, Ground-Binding Grass, Devil's Thorn—those with great tenacity or plant-based attack abilities.
Then there's the fourth, which is what I mentioned earlier: using the Blue Silver Grass as an amplifier and attaching only self-enhancement or augmentation-type soul rings.
If it only had the life attribute, developing the Blue Silver Grass this way would be extremely risky,
Because it would require absorbing many animal-type soul rings. In that case, neither the Devour trait nor the core plant abilities would evolve effectively, leaving control, attack, and support all very weak.
No matter how strong the amplification is, it'd be like a rootless weed—no foundation.
However, with the addition of the blood-qi attribute, the situation completely changes.
You have to understand, blood-qi and power-type abilities are practically siblings—so close they're almost indistinguishable.
Many soul masters even mix the two up entirely.
At that point, you'd only need to add a decent weapon-type soul skill, and you could transform the Blue Silver Grass into a weapon and use your own power to wield considerable strength."
As Nangong Lingyun spoke, Jerry's expression grew extremely serious.
Even though he tried to suppress his emotions, the excitement in his eyes betrayed him.
Just as Xiao Wu had said—this was a big deal about his own future. How could he not care?
But before Jerry could respond,
a certain rabbit beat him to it:
"Obviously go with the fourth one! What's so great about healing?Little Ruirui, listen to Sister Xiao Wu—attack types can beat people up, support types just get beat up!"
Her words were animated, her face lively—she was more invested than the actual person involved.
Nangong Lingyun flicked her forehead.
"Don't go throwing out random suggestions. Let Little Rui think it through properly."
Jerry hesitated, then raised his head, eyes full of longing.
"Brother Ayun, can I ask a question?"
"Ask whatever you want."
"I want to know... what are the pros and cons of each path?"
Nangong Lingyun responded without pause.
"The Blue Silver Grass's core ability—and its strongest trait—is life.If you go the support route, the martial spirit's potential can be maximized, and you might have a longer and more stable path ahead. This is especially important for soul masters without high innate soul power.
However, as Xiao Wu said, it would only provide minor control effects and virtually no offensive capability.
The second route has the highest overall strength—because all three attributes and both special traits of the Blood-Marked Blue Silver Grass can be developed and utilized.
But the Devour trait of normal Blue Silver Grass isn't that prominent, so it needs multiple rounds of enhancement. You'd have to reach the Soul Sage level to fully unlock its potential.
The plant-based route is the opposite. It offers decent power early on through a balance of offense and control,
But the deeper you go, the more mediocre it becomes. Too many things counter it: ice can shatter it, fire can burn it, sharp weapons can cut it.
As for the last one, yes, the combat strength is the highest, but it demands too much from the soul master themselves.
This kind of pure amplification path can work wonders in the hands of a select few, but most people never figure it out.
It's like stringing a bunch of zeros—without a '1' in front, they're still just zero. One's in the sky, the other's underground."
The carriage suddenly fell silent.
Even Xiao Wu became unusually quiet in that moment.
A woman fears marrying the wrong man, and a man fears choosing the wrong path. Choosing a soul spirit development path—especially when the options are so drastically different—was an extremely difficult decision.
These four routes were almost like choosing between higher future soul power, future combat ability, current combat ability, or some unpredictable mix that could go either very high or very low.
Moments later, Nangong Lingyun's expression subtly shifted.
In his heart, A Yin's voice suddenly rang out.
"Master, maybe Little Jerry has a fifth path to choose from."
The Beast Taming Space wasn't completely sealed off from the outside world. If the master allowed it, the pet beast inside could observe the outside.
A Yin was too lonely in there by herself, so whenever it wasn't a big deal, Nangong Lingyun would loosen the restrictions a bit.
Especially recently—after her main body's cultivation had been restored to the ten-thousand-year level and her soul could manifest independently—this had happened more and more often.
As a result, her affection meter had risen steadily as well.
In fact, the Beast Taming Space originally only offered a 20x growth speed for thousand-year soul beasts—only about 10x before reaching rank 20.
But the Longevity Art that Nangong Lingyun practiced happened to perfectly match A Yin's energy attributes.
With his intentional nurturing, her cultivation recovery progressed astonishingly fast—faster even than the already rapid pace from martial spirit amplification and the ten-thousand-year beast rebirth process.
In just two years, she'd gone from 300 years to 10,000 years, and now even her soul could manifest independently.
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