So, my next goal is to use my limited daily imprinting attempts to acquire as many practical skills as possible from thousand-year soul beasts. From now on, the soul rings I choose should primarily serve to maximize my spiritual power. Only with strong enough spiritual power can I imprint more skills, and later comprehend and master them more easily."
"Besides, spiritual power is closely tied to perception. The stronger it is, the greater the edge in real combat."
"As for bloodline and physical strength enhancements, I've got my cultivation techniques and Xiao Bai devouring rare herbs to provide feedback boosts. At least in the early stages, this approach is more than enough."
At this thought, an inexplicable sense of clarity filled Zhu Wu—his life suddenly seemed to have direction.
Smiling, he continued organizing his gains.
In addition to the Imprint skill, Xiao Bai had inherited another innate talent from the Silver Shadow Beast—Bloodlust.
This was a rather peculiar ability. It allowed the user to stimulate their own blood energy to enhance physical attributes. The boost in power depended on the intensity of the blood energy triggered. A light activation enhanced overall basic attributes and greatly increased the sense of smell, especially the detection of blood. But a deeper activation—burning blood energy—would provide a massive power boost, essentially entering a life-or-death state.
Of course, if Xiao Bai used it while not fused with Zhu Wu, it would burn soul power instead of blood, leading to rapid energy consumption.
"Good thing I threw all those bombs at once and hit vital spots."
If the Silver Shadow Beast had managed to use Bloodlust to escape, he wasn't confident he could have caught it. Worse, without his unique soul bone flying ability, he could've been hunted down and killed instead.
"Ah Yin's soul bone is amazing!"
"My soul power increased by two levels—not bad, but not too impressive either." He muttered, patting off the dirt and standing up.
He turned and kicked the Silver Shadow Beast's corpse aside. It tumbled away.
"No soul bone… I guess I really am cursed with bad luck." He shook his head and summoned Xiao Bai.
"As expected, evolving through cultivating under the sun and moon and consuming rare herbs is the proper way." Staring at Xiao Bai—who hadn't changed much—Zhu Wu sighed inwardly. While the quality of the Silver Shadow Beast's thousand-year ring was high and it strengthened his body, it didn't do much for improving Xiao Bai's bloodline.
It was like using a toothpick to empty a massive vat—there wasn't much movement.
"Xiao Bai, Possess!" Zhu Wu's tone turned serious.
Seven-colored light flashed from the scale on his forehead, and the chubby Xiao Bai instantly merged into his palm.
In the next moment, Zhu Wu felt his muscles contract, bulge, and harden. His vision turned red, his fingers tensed up, and something emerged behind his ears.
A tremendous surge of power coursed through him!
Soon, the transformation settled. Zhu Wu stared in disbelief.
"This sense of power… at least double my base strength! Savage!"
He looked down at his hand—now covered in silver scales and ending in sharp claws instead of fingernails. He touched the sides of his head—horns. His hair had turned white and grown longer, and his shoes had burst apart—his whole frame had grown significantly.
"This is the difference between a tanky warrior and a glass-cannon mage, huh?" He finally understood.
With a thought, white light flashed over him, and he morphed into a massive armored silver wolf—four meters long and two meters tall.
"Damn! Another 30% strength increase!"
Wasting no time, Zhu Wu sprinted forward, moving with impressive agility. In seconds, he had dashed several hundred meters.
With a powerful leap, he swiped a paw at a half-meter-thick tree, smashing it to bits.
Boom boom boom—he charged straight ahead, scraping bark off giant trees as he passed. His scaled armor was rock-solid.
"This strength is already comparable to high-tier power-type soul beasts of the same level. And in terms of speed, I'm top-class among agility-types. Plus, these scales offer crazy defense. Too strong—almost no weaknesses. Could it be a hybrid with dragon blood?" Other than dragons, Zhu Wu couldn't think of any other bloodline that could grant such strength and durability. After all, Silver Shadow Beasts were supposed to be mental-type and agile.
"Good. I should be able to walk sideways across the outer thousand-year beast zone now."
"It's time to look for new opponents." His beast-like red eyes gleamed, and he dashed deeper into the forest.
…Then promptly ran out of soul power.
Zhu Wu had no choice but to end his transformation and sit down to recover.
Fifteen minutes later, soul power replenished, he didn't re-enter beast form. Instead, he flew using his soul bone skill, with Xiao Bai—disguised as a small bird—by his side. That ten-thousand-year soul bone really was top-notch: high specs, low cost, and long duration.
"Greenwind Wolf!"
Soon, he spotted his first target—a lone thousand-year Greenwind Wolf.
Zhu Wu quickly landed and engaged the beast in close combat with only his base strength.
He knew wolves well and had ample experience fighting them. Even without possession, he could hold his own.
Before long, the Greenwind Wolf, clearly losing, howled to summon its kin and activated a skill. A pale green glow surrounded its body, fur rising with energy. Its right paw gathered wind energy and unleashed a sharp wind blade.
"Chirp!" Xiao Bai's cry came from overhead, signaling that the skill had been successfully imprinted.
Zhu Wu believed basic skills had greater development potential and were easier to learn.
"Later!" He kicked off the ground and vanished into the sky with Xiao Bai.
"…?" The Greenwind Wolf was left confused—why had the human suddenly left when he had the upper hand?
Zhu Wu didn't look back. He continued seeking one-on-one duels to hone his skills while completing his daily imprinting quota.
"Three-Tailed Fox—skills: Foxfire, Tail Needle, Sleep Mist. The Three-Eyed Demon Fox is also a fox, could be a good match."
"Lightning Rabbit! It can teleport—must get that skill."
"…Thunder Roar? That's an incredible skill."
"Xiao Bai, transform into a Silver Shadow Beast and test it first!"
"Good thing I didn't go in myself—way too dangerous. Got the skill, time to run! What a rush!"
Zhu Wu stuck to his strategy: fight when he could win, send in Xiao Bai and run if it was dangerous or unfamiliar.
Time flew by—three months passed.
"This has kind of slowed down my cultivation," Zhu Wu sighed, sitting cross-legged in a giant tree.
Only leveling up once in three months felt a bit slow to him. Focused cultivation would've been faster.
But there was no helping it.
Searching for soul beasts in a place like the Star Dou Forest was time-consuming and risky. Every battle drained energy, and after each one, he had to recover immediately to be ready for surprise attacks—especially from flying beasts. Even his morning and evening training had to be done cautiously.
All this naturally delayed his cultivation.
Still, he had no regrets—because what he gained far outweighed mere soul power.
Mind Shock—from the Three-Eyed Demon Ape.
Hypnosis and Illusion Weaving—from the Phantom Fox.
Though he'd only managed to imprint three mental-type skills, each one had been a struggle. But he was satisfied—mental-type soul beasts were rare. Meeting two in three months felt like incredible luck.
As for other skills—he had dozens.
Fire breath, fireballs, earth spikes, hardened armor, wind balls, dark mist, binding vines… mostly basic techniques.
Truthfully, most soul beasts had very few innate talents. Their skills were instinctive and basic. Just like humans, not every soul beast was born gifted—true talent was always rare. And only those with over ten thousand years of cultivation developed real intelligence. So low-level beasts rarely had premium skills.
That's why later on, Zhu Wu mainly imprinted skills just to train his spiritual power.
Why? Because he realized that while in Silver Shadow Beast form, using the Imprint skill rapidly depleted his spiritual power, leading to mental fatigue. But after meditating, his spirit would recover—and even grow slightly stronger.
Once or twice was nothing. But over time, the gains became noticeable.
Reading really does make you smarter.
Even better, Zhu Wu had finally learned Mind Shock. It was simply compressing and projecting spiritual energy through willpower—relatively easy to understand. After imprinting the skill, he practiced it repeatedly while possessed and eventually grasped it.
As for Hypnosis, Illusion Weaving, and Charm… those remained elusive. He still had to study them.
"Step by step," he murmured, looking up at the sky. "Time flies… another year older."
"After spending so much time dueling soul beasts, I wonder how my close-combat skills now compare to others out there. How would I fare against Tang San?"
"But this phase ends here."
"Time to change things up. From now on, I'll focus on mastering the beast form."
(End of chapter )
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