"How much longer?"
"Three to five days at the shortest, ten days to half a month at the longest."
"Come with me."
Zhu Jiuyang directly led Su Ming away from Gengxin City.
"Teacher, where are we going?"
"To the Meteorite Iron Mine. Your Soul Spirit originally cultivated in that environment, so it's better for it to evolve back there. Besides, evolving into a Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear will likely require a lot of gold-attribute power, which is very difficult for you as a Spirit Master to provide."
Zhu Jiuyang said, checking his storage spirit tool.
"I still have two Earth Essence Fruits here. They are the most suitable heavenly treasures to replenish spirit power. If a wild Spirit Beast takes one for evolution, as long as it's not over ten thousand years old, the evolution process will be very smooth and won't be troubled by energy."
...
Three days later.
Meteorite Iron Mine.
"We're here."
The master and disciple arrived at the Meteorite Iron Mine area.
The meteorite here had been mined for two and a half years, and most of it had been extracted, but the gold-attribute elements had not dissipated.
Xiaojin returned to its old home, feeling very familiar, and directly woke up from its slumber.
"Roar!"
Scenes from its bear life flashed by, then turned into a loud roar.
Its body began to grow larger.
On its hands, there was a very distinct set of dark gold claw gauntlets, perfectly fitting its dark gold claws that grew from its fingertips.
Zhu Jiuyang's gaze locked onto Xiaojin's hands.
"Did you create these for it using spirit tool methods?"
"Yes, and I also used Thousand Forging metal."
After Su Ming completed Thousand Refinements with Spirituality, he secretly shared it with Zhu Jiuyang, who was also very envious, so he had not hunted for his eighth spirit ring.
He wanted to try to get a Soul Spirit too.
But a ten-thousand-year Soul Spirit was not that easy to obtain.
Ten-thousand-year Spirit Beasts already possessed intelligence. If they resisted forcefully, it could easily lead to the breaking of the contract.
So Zhu Jiuyang needed time and was patiently waiting for a suitable ten-thousand-year Spirit Beast to become a Soul Spirit.
"Roar!"
Xiaojin's roar attracted Su Ming's attention back.
He looked at Xiaojin.
At this moment, Xiaojin's body had expanded to a full five meters tall, and its dark gold fur flickered, sometimes brilliant gold, sometimes dimming.
Su Ming could see that with each flicker, its fur was becoming thicker, and the skin and flesh beneath the fur were undergoing astonishing transformations.
Through the contract, Su Ming also received feedback: the surrounding metal-attribute vital energy surged wildly into his body, refining his body.
Hiss~
Su Ming couldn't help but gasp, it was truly too painful.
"Roar!"
Xiaojin was still roaring.
Su Ming now knew that it was a roar of pain, and he too began to roar uncontrollably.
Zhu Jiuyang watched Su Ming and Xiaojin roar in pain simultaneously, and could only take out the Earth Essence Fruits and throw them to the man and the bear.
After eating the Earth Essence Fruits, abundant vital energy flowed through his body, alleviating Su Ming's pain.
Xiaojin's pain, however, continued.
Its bear paws became incredibly wide, and its dark gold claws gradually sharpened.
Each change was equivalent to it regrowing a pair of dark gold claws.
Streaks of sharp, gold-attribute aura began to appear, and the claw gauntlets perfectly adapted to its brand new Dark Gold Terrorclaws.
"Roar!"
Xiaojin roared to the sky, directly swinging its bear claws forward.
Its right claw directly carved five claw marks in mid-air, and the five claw marks scraped across the ground, leaving five gullies.
Evolution, Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear!
Su Ming gasped for air, his entire body drenched in sweat.
With Xiaojin's evolution, he also benefited, his entire being undergoing a complete refinement.
Ten months ago, Su Ming merged with Xiaojin, breaking through to level 23. Upon reaching Spirit Grandmaster, his cultivation speed slowed down again. Two and a half months were not enough for him to break through; it took a full three months to advance one level. So, he had broken through to level 26 a month ago.
This time, with Xiaojin's evolution, Su Ming absorbed the surrounding metal-attribute vital energy and digested the Earth Essence Fruit, directly breaking through two levels, reaching level 28.
"Exceeding douluo continent ii."
The Su Ming of douluo continent ii directly broke through to level 25 when he condensed his Soul Core, and only advanced two levels in half a year, reaching level 27.
"Innate spirit power cannot represent everything."
Su Ming was still slightly proud at this moment.
Surpassing others brought no pleasure; the cultivation speed of Spirit Masters in this era was generally too slow, so he could only surpass himself, surpass his two future selves.
Of course, achieving such a transcendence was actually due to multiple factors.
The Su Ming of dou one, although also dabbling in auxiliary professions, mainly focused on forging, while he, relying on his Spirit advantage, cultivated during the forging process, basically without delaying his own cultivation.
On the other hand, the Su Ming of douluo continent ii and douluo continent iii truly had to learn knowledge and practice, which genuinely could not be done in parallel with spirit power cultivation.
"Xiaojin, how do you feel?"
Su Ming turned to look at Xiaojin, only to find that Xiaojin had grown even larger, standing a full seven meters tall!
"Roar!"
Xiaojin let out a deep, powerful roar.
Its pair of bear claws were particularly striking; those huge bear paws and dark gold terrorclaws gave one a sense of mental tearing just by looking at them.
"How's your cultivation?" Zhu Jiuyang asked.
He was very concerned about this point.
Su Ming could actually feel the changes in his spirit ring, but he still looked at Xiaojin.
"Roar!" (Increased by three thousand years!)
"Three thousand years."
Zhu Jiuyang gasped.
A bit exaggerated.
"Actually, it's fine. If the energy of the two Earth Essence Fruits were truly all converted into spirit power, it would probably be seven or eight levels. I only increased by two levels; the rest were absorbed by Xiaojin, and a lot of the metal-attribute vital energy here was also absorbed by me and Xiaojin," Su Ming said.
"It's not an energy issue, but the magnitude of improvement brought by this evolution," Zhu Jiuyang said. "One thousand years directly becoming four thousand years."
"Otherwise, why would it be called evolution?" Su Ming said with a smile.
If it were the Soul Spirit evolution of the Douluo 3 Era, there really wouldn't be such an exaggerated, cliff-like increase, because the Soul Spirit evolutions of that era obtained spiritual power from the Spirit Ascension Platform for improvement, which was converted into cultivation in real-time. The transformation from a hundred years to a thousand years also wouldn't have a cliff-like change, but rather a very gradual increase.
Now is the dou one era; there is no Spirit Ascension Platform.
In the past half year, Xiaojin has made significant progress with Su Ming. Its pair of dark gold claws have been greatly enhanced by the tearing properties of Thousand Forging Sinking Silver, and it has continuously absorbed the spirituality from metals through forging.
The accumulation during this period was also indispensable for Xiaojin's three-thousand-year cultivation increase this time.
"Your second ring is four thousand years; that's comparable to many Spirit Masters' fourth spirit rings," Zhu Jiuyang said. "Next, for your third ring, you're not going to try to absorb a ten-thousand-year spirit ring, are you?"
Su Ming shook his head.
Seeing Su Ming shake his head, Zhu Jiuyang breathed a sigh of relief.
However, Su Ming's next words shocked the relieved Zhu Jiuyang once again.
"I don't need to hunt for the third ring. I can feel that Xiaojin should be able to provide me with another spirit ring."
"Roar?" (Huh?)